The Indian family system is in crisis today, said RSS sarkaryawah Suresh 'Bhaiyyaji' Joshi during an interaction with reporters in Bengaluru on Monday.
Claiming that Indian family system is unique in the world, he said there is a need to protect it.
Sharing the RSS's blueprint for its various activities for the upcoming year (from April), Joshi said, "Kutumba prabodhan (family counselling) is one of many social projects identified by the organisation to train volunteers. A survey of the families affiliated to the Sangh over the last 95 years has helped us build a database of 15 lakh volunteers (aged 18 to 35 years) who will be trained to work for social transformation."
"Our effort will be to keep the families together as we believe a family is not a constituent but a natural development. In fact, the registration of marriages came into being with the British invasion. Children imbibe values and culture from parents and it is important the family stays together to take care of its next generation," said Joshi, who also elaborated on the idea of a "united family".
"A united family is not necessarily one that lives under the same roof, but the one that stays together," he added.
While the RSS has identified 1,000 villages for the project, it has already started its projects on environment and social harmony in 300-odd villages.
"Our rural development initiative focuses on education, health, agriculture, social harmony and self reliance. The environment project follows three formulas—paani bachao, ped badhao and plastic hatao (save water, grow trees, boycott plastic)," said Joshi, who also gave an account of the expanding network of RSS.
"Our activities are spread across 70,000 villages and towns in India. The daily shakhas are 39,000 (an increase of 3,000 compared to last year) and periodical shakhas are 62,500 (an increase of 4,000). Our volunteers are divided into two groups—5-40 years and 40-65 years, and we have conducted nearly 15,000 sangh shiksha varg (long training programmes) last year," added Joshi.
Responding to a query on Congress leader Digvijay Singh's recent remarks on the RSS's "consistency" in pushing for a Hindu Rashtra, Joshi said, "We are not saying anything new. We are a society with a rich culture and traditions. But unfortunately, due to many reasons like our education system, we are forgetting our roots. We must follow our culture. There is some confusion over what is modernisation and Westernisation. In the name of modernisation, we are accepting Westernisation and this is a great challenge facing our society," said Joshi.
