RSS the 'banyan tree' of India's culture, says PM

Prime Minister Narendra Modi described the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) as the "vatvruksh", or banyan tree, of India's culture on Sunday in Nagpur.

- Press Trust of India

NAGPUR:

India today is surging ahead by discarding the "slave mentality" and symbols of slavery, Modi said after laying the foundation stone of Madhav Netralaya Premium Centre, a new extension building of Madhav Netralaya Eye Institute & Research Centre in Nagpur.

"We discarded the penal code which was made with a slave mentality and implemented the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. Our mantra of vasudhaiva kutumbakam (the world is one family) is reaching all corners of the globe," he said.

The RSS volunteers are working selflessly in various spheres in different parts of the country, the PM said.

"The Sangh is the 'banyan tree' of India's immortal culture and modernisation," Modi said. "This large vatvruksh is not an ordinary one," he said, adding the RSS is synonymous to service. Madhav Netralaya was founded in 2014 in memory of late RSS chief Madhavrao Sadashivrao Golwalkar.