Booklet by MEA on Deendayal Upadhyaya stirs row

New Delhi: A booklet brought out on Saffron ideologue of yesteryears Deendayal Upadhyaya by the ministry of external affairs (MEA) has stirred a hornet’s nest, a move that is bound to attract criticism from the Opposition that the Government is using the MEA to propagate the views of the saffron ideologue in Indian missions abroad. The booklet was brought out in September and also has a note in which external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj has congratulated MEA officials for the hardwork put in while compiling the book which contains the views of the ideologue on “integral humanism and cultural nationalism”.

Controversially, the book also  says that “only the party BJP developed by him became the political alternative”. It further  says, “The childhood of Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya was spent in very difficult circumstances, even then he always excelled as a brilliant student. When India’s struggle for freedom was covered under the shadow of two-nation theory, at that time in 1942 he stated his public life through Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. He engaged himself in Sangh-work as an excellent organiser, writer, journalist and orator.”

The book says that Upadhyaya was the general secretary of the Bharatiya Jan Sangh (the ideological precursor to the BJP) from 1951 to 1967 and that he was “murdered” after he became BJS president in 1968.

The booklet was brought out to mark the 101st birth anniversary of Upadhyaya and completion of the celebration of his 100th birth anniversary year-long celebrations that began on September 25 last year. He was born on September 25, 1916.