NAGPUR: A group of diplomats from China last month visited Nagpur’s Smruti Mandir of the RSS, which regards Beijing as an ideological adversary and criticises its “expansionist” policy. This was possibly the first visit by Chinese diplomats of any level to the Hindutva fountainhead. Smruti Mandir houses a memorial to RSS founder Keshav Baliram Hedgewar.
An RSS functionary confirmed the early December visit. The unlikely guests were mostly middle-ranking officials from the Delhi and Mumbai consulates of China. They could not meet RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, who was away at the time. They were received by a RSS senior functionary, who took them around the campus. The Chinese team had also visited Wardha’s Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashitriya Hindi Vishwavidyalaya, the Hindi university that also runs courses in Chinese.
In his 2020 Vijaya Dashami speech, Bhagwat had referred to the Galwan clash and stressed the need for India to increase its power to counter China.