RSS puts its foot in mouth with a letter

NEW DELHI: In its anxiety to defenditself against allegations made by HRD minister Arjun Singh that the RSS was notinvolved in the assassination of Gandhi, the organisation appears to have damnedits hero, Veer Savarkar, currently also under attack from petroleum ministerMani Shankar Aiyar.The RSS on Tuesday released a letter written bySardar Vallabhbhai Patel to Jawaharlal Nehru on February 27, 1948, extractedfrom a book entitled "Sardar Patel''s correspondence", to prove that RSS hadnothing to do with the assassination. In the letter, which dealswith the investigations going on at that time, Patel writes: "It also clearlyemerges from these statements that the RSS was not involved in it (Gandhi''sassassination) at all." But the very next sentence of Patel''s letterreads: "It was a fanatical wing of the Hindu Mahasabha directly under Savarkarthat (hatched) conspiracy (to assassinate Gandhi) and saw it through."