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RSS climbs down on 'swadeshi'
church demand: PTI

Stung by widespread criticism of its demand for a swadeshi church, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, in a climb-down on Saturday, said Christians should at least accept that there can be salvation outside the church too.

Criticising a recent Vatican document which stated that there can be no salvation outside the Catholic Church, RSS spokesman M G Vaidya said, "Such intolerance breeds social tension. The idea of the swadeshi church was only to bring the people closer. They (Christians) should at least accept that there can be salvation outside the church too."

RSS chief Kuppahalli Sitaramiah Sudershan had triggered a major controversy by demanding the establishment of a swadeshi church in his Vijayadashami address at Nagpur on October 7.

He had called on Christians to free themselves from the stranglehold of foreign domination, a demand which was criticised by Christian groups and political parties as an attack on freedom of religion.

The 36-page Vatican document came in response to a resolution passed last month by the millennium conference of religions at New York, which said that all religions were equal.

On whether the RSS was no more particular about the establishment of a swadeshi church, Vaidya, formerly a teacher with a college run by the Scottish Church, told PTI, "If they (the Indian church) accepts the idea, it will be welcomed by most Christians, but if they do not, they should at least accept that there are many paths to salvation."

On Sudershan's demand for Indianisation of Islam, Vaidya claimed, "Even in Islamic countries, people revere Ram and Krishna as their ancestors."

On the performance of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance Government, Vaidya said while the RSS was happy over its handling of the Kargil war, the successful Pokhran nuclear tests and improvement in relations with the US and Russia, the organisation had reservations about the way the government dealt with the hijacking of the Indian Airlines flight to Kandahar in Afghanistan last December and the unbridled foreign investments in the country."

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