Former Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora on Friday told the members of the RSS’ student wing, the ABVP, that their weakness was to get emotional quickly and then act in a manner that they should not have.
Mr. Arora was speaking at the launch of a book about the organisation.
The former CEC, who retired in April 2021, began his address by saying when he was approached by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) Delhi president, Abhishek Tandon, to attend the event and asked if he had any contact with the “sangh”, he had replied that he had not. Mr. Arora said he perhaps he should not have been invited. “This is a learning platform. It’s not for people like us…This is a temple of learning, virtually.”
Speaking of a “SWOT [strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats] analysis” of Indian students, Mr. Arora said CEOs of some of the top global companies had emerged from Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs). He said in any emergency or time of trouble, the country became one and that this should go on. “But, the country shouldn’t just become united in times of trouble, it has to be united always.”
“So far we have spoken of strengths. Your weakness is that you become emotional very quickly and then end up doing many things that you should not have,” Mr. Arora said.
On opportunities, he said India was becoming the world’s biggest exporter and if the spirit of “atmanirbhar” or self-reliance was taken forward, especially in defence, then there was no shortage of opportunities.
On threats, Mr Arora said internal threats were as dangerous as eternal ones and the students today would have to face them.
Mr. Arora, a retired IAS officer, said the civil services had been at the receiving end of abuse from the public and not without reason each time. He said that after the 2019 Lok Sabha elections the Election Commission had received a letter signed by 100 retired bureaucrats who had termed the polls “the least fair and impartial elections in the history of democracy”.
“Is there anything more shameful that this,” he asked. He said he had drafted a response when he spoke to a former CEC M.S. Gill, who advised him against it. “He said ‘if you reply, they will again go to India International Centre and write another letter,” Mr. Arora said.
The EC had faced criticism during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections for not acting against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and then-BJP president Amit Shah for alleged violations of the model code of conduct.
Later, RSS general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale spoke about the importance of the book, Dhyey Yatra published by Prabhat Prakashan, documenting the seven-decade history of the ABVP. Mr. Hosabale said books and articles chronicling students’ movements had not done justice to the ABVP. “No other students’ organisation in the world has thought of conducting constructive programmes. It is not student politics, it is student activism,” he said.
