India’s foreign policy must take inspiration from ideals of Deendayal Upadhyaya: Swaraj

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Monday introduced RSS ideologue and a Bharatiya Jana Sangh founder Deendayal Upadhyaya into India’s foreign policy, saying that his philosophy of “integral humanism” must be leveraged by New Delhi to expand its cultural footprint in other countries.

“Maintaining a national culture could lead to economic and political progress and foster respect for our country in the world. He (Deendayal Upadhyaya) accepted culture as a soft power,” said Swaraj, quoting Upadhyaya, while delivering the inaugural Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya Memorial International lecture, Soft Power Diplomacy: Strength of India, in New Delhi. The address was organised by the Indian Council of Cultural Relations (ICCR), New Delhi’s external cultural agency.

“Upadhyaya believed that if one wanted to understand the soul of India, one has to understand it through the prism of culture, and not politics or economics,” added Swaraj.

Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) parliamentarian in Rajya Sabha and the head of the ICCR, hailed Upadhyaya as a “philosopher-politician” who had envisioned the role of culture in shaping India’s foreign relations.

“Through this oration, we are commemorating Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya, who was a philosopher-politician in early post-Independent India. A proponent of integral humanism, he envisioned the centrality of cultural relationship in the process of shaping vibrant diplomatic strategic and economic relationship across the countries,” said Sahasrabuddhe, who is also one of BJP’s vice-presidents.

“He, as one of the founding father of the Bharatiya Jan Sangh, provided the party with a sound ideological base which was completely indigenous,” he said.

The induction of Upadhyaya into the hallowed circles of India’s foreign policy is part of an ongoing push by the BJP-led government to bring his contributions to public limelight. A deeply divisive figure in Indian politics, biographical accounts of Upadhyaya note his abhorrence of Muslims. Upadhyaya was said to be of the view that Hindu-Muslim unity was tantamount to “Muslim appeasement.”

During his stint as editor of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s (RSS) mouthpiece Rashtra Dharma, he reportedly remarked that “a person turns an enemy of the nation after becoming a Muslim.”

However, his criticism in political quarters hasn’t bothered the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which in 2016 announced the constitution of two committees to commemorate his birth anniversary. PM Modi and Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh were appointed as respective heads of the committees.

During her Monday’s speech, Swaraj also labelled yoga, classical music, Bollywood, food and Information Technology (IT), besides culture, as “treasures” of India’s soft power.