RSS chife K S Sudarshan said on Sunday that current challenges like poverty, communal hatred, population imbalance and domination of the the English language would last till 2011 after which India had a bright future ahead of it. He was delivering a lecture on ‘‘Contemporary Challenges Facing India’’ as part of the birth anniversary celebrations of his organisation’s second sarsanghchalak, Guru Golwalkar.

He maintained that reverting to Indian values would ease out these problems. ‘‘Dwindling self-respect of people and their failure to uphold glorious Indian traditions are the root cause of challenges like poverty, unemployment, communal conflicts, Muslim and Christian appeasement, western influence on traditions and onslaught of multinational companies,’’ Sudarshan said.

The RSS chief was of the opinion that the country faced a bright future after 2011, but would face challenges posed by ‘‘jehadi terrorism and a growing network of churches’’. He warned that Islamist terrorism could even cause a nuclear war that could take up to 400 crore lives.

He also said the western model of development was of no use in India as it was centralised, provided employment to few and was focused on cities.

In a free-wheeling talk lasting for nearly two hours, Sudarshan also mocked at beauty pageants and boxing competitions and defended the caste hierarchy—which he claimed had ensured only 10-12 per cent of Indians converted to Islam when conversion in states annexed by Islamic invaders was much higher. The English, he said, had found this phenomenon interesting and had come up with a divide-and-rule policy as an answer to the dormant Hindutva that bound the society together.

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