On Vijayadashami 1981 (8 October 1981), Balasaheb Deoras gave the annual address at the gathering in Nagpur. This page summarises what was reported about it.
The day
- Date: 8 October 1981
- Place: Nagpur
- Address by: Balasaheb Deoras
What the address covered
Noorani reports that on 8 October 1981, Vijayadashami that year, Deoras warned that if Hindus were reduced to a minority, the country's face and culture would change. He pointed to the mass conversion of Harijans to Islam in the south (the Meenakshipuram conversions) as a danger to national integrity, and called Hindu culture the backbone of democratic and secular values. A press bibliography lists an Indian Express report of 9 October 1981 headlined 'Deoras warning on threat to Hindu culture'.
As reported
backbone of democratic and secular values
Context
The speech came months after the February 1981 Meenakshipuram conversions.
How sure is this?
This account rests mainly on one source, listed below; details may be incomplete.
In the archive
Sources & copyright status
- A.G. Noorani, The RSS: A Menace to India (LeftWord, 2019), digitised text on Internet Archive
- Religion in Society (newspaper-clipping bibliography), entry 'Deoras warning on threat to Hindu culture', Indian Express, 9 Oct 1981 (Internet Archive search snippet)
- Historical facts: not subject to copyright. Quotations are short extracts as reported in the sources cited; speeches are summarised in our own words.
- Commentary and translations on this page: original to The Hindu Book. © The Hindu Book, all rights reserved.
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