RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat today said India needs a policy for population control "equally applicable to all", and cited "religion-based imbalance" and "forced conversions" to raise the spectre of the country breaking apart. He cited East Timor, Kosovo and South Sudan as examples of "new countries that emerged because of religious community-based imbalances".
He was speaking at the annual Dussehra rally of the RSS, the mentor body of the ruling BJP.
"Along with population control, balance on religious basis is also a matter of importance which cannot be ignored," he stressed in his speech, just weeks after he met some Muslim leaders in what was seen as an outreach by the Hindutva organisation.
"Population require resource, or it becomes a burden," he added, "There is a view that population can be an asset. We need to work on a policy keeping both aspects in mind."
He said women's health must be "certainly kept in mind" in any policy on childbearing. Today's Dussehra rally also happened to be the first time the RSS invited a woman as chief guest — mountaineer Santosh Yadav — for its annual event.
Essentially reiterating a key agenda of the RSS and its affiliates, he said, "Birth rate is one reason; conversions by force, lure or greed, and infiltration are also big reasons."
The BJP's central government, however, does not seem to agree with the idea of a population control law, even though it is proposed repeatedly by party members and RSS leaders.
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