Despite attacks on Sangh workers, highest shakhas held in Kerala daily: Senior RSS leader

Despite continuous attacks and killings of Sangh workers in Left-ruled Kerala, the highest 4,500 shakhas are held in the state daily, RSS Joint General Secretary Krishna Gopal said on Sunday.

A shakha, a congregation of Sangh workers, is the smallest unit of the saffron organisation and its backbone as well.

Speaking at a prayer meeting for the late P Parameswaran in Delhi, Gopal said the veteran Sangh worker took up the challenge to stand up against the Communists in the 1950s when they were at their peak.

The Communist ideology was on rise in Russia, China and Cuba and it also got a foothold in Kerala, Gopal said adding that thereafter more than 500 Sangh workers were killed and 1,000 were handicapped.

"Despite killings of Sangh workers, Parameswaranji stood up to the challenge, continued to work and showed that Hindutva's philosophy is of inclusiveness, unlike Communism which targets those who are opposed to its ideology," he said.

Gopal said Kerala now is a state where 4,500 shakhas are held daily, the highest in the country.

Speaking at the prayer meeting, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said Parameswaran always thought about country, society and the organisation before him.

Shah said though he never got a chance to work with Parameswaran, he met the veteran RSS worker several times and every time he learned something from him.