NEW DELHI: A day after telling a New York audience that a Hindu who wanted Muslims excluded from India could not remain a Hindu, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat Monday used his first visit to Canada to cast Hindus as builders of an “exemplary society” worldwide and India as a “vishwaguru” serving humanity, not a “mahashakti” seeking dominance.The speeches shared themes of oneness, but differed in emphasis. In New York, amid protests and criticism of RSS, Bhagwat addressed concerns about exclusion; in Toronto, he explained how Hindu society should organise and lead internationally without imposing its beliefs.“The word Hindu cannot be defined by any specific language, through any specific worship or through any living style,” he said. The dais reflected that wider outreach: former Alberta premier and federal cabinet minister Jason Kenney and Kashmir Singh Dhaliwal of the Khalsa Diwan Society joined Bhagwat, placing a senior Canadian political figure and a representative of a Sikh institution alongside the RSS chief at a gathering opposed by sections of the South Asian community.“We have to build our society in every country, all over the world, which is an exemplary society for the world,” Bhagwat said at the “Hindu Vishwa Bandhu — Embrace the World in Friendship” event. The programme in Vaughan, in the Greater Toronto Area, was organised by Canadian Hindus for Outreach, Relations and Dialogue.Presenting India’s global role as one based on service rather than power, Bhagwat said: “It became ‘vishwaguru’, not ‘mahashakti’.” Whenever help had been sought during an international crisis, he said, India had not refused. “This is the tradition. This is the DNA of Bharat.”Bhagwat said the RSS organised Hindus “exactly for this purpose — and nothing else”, describing the purpose as developing individuals who would dedicate themselves to serving humanity.The RSS chief coupled the call for organisation with a message on civic responsibility. People connected with India but settled elsewhere, he said, “have to be honest, contributing citizens of that country”. At the same time, they should take to the world an outlook in which individuals, society and the environment could progress without harming one another.
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He said this should be done through conduct rather than imposition. “We don’t force,” Bhagwat said. “We are the leaders who lead from within and lead by example.” He added: “Hindus respect all. Hindus accept all.”Going beyond the familiar expression “unity in diversity”, Bhagwat said Hindu tradition also recognised “diversities of unity”. Different identities, he argued, were expressions of an underlying oneness. “Diversity is never a problem for unity,” he said. “All the diversities are expressions of unity.”Bhagwat’s visit came despite demands from New Democratic Party and civil-society groups that he be denied entry to Canada. The venue was disclosed shortly before the programme amid security concerns.