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New Delhi: RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat Thursday said families should ideally have three children, calling it necessary for balance in society and future stability. Speaking on the final day of the ‘100 Years Journey of RSS: New Horizons’ series, Bhagwat said demographic changes always have serious social and political effects, emphasising that both extraordinary rise and dips in birth rates can have problems. “All scriptures say that societies with very few children gradually disappear. So, this balance must be maintained. Having three children is the right thing. Not less than three, not much more either,” the RSS chief said.He also quoted doctors to say that three children, their births rightly spaced, are good for families as well as for their younger members as growing up with siblings helps in tempering egos.”To keep a civilisation alive, India’s population policy suggests 2.1 (average number of children), which basically means three children. But resources have to be managed too, so we must restrict it to three,” he said during a question-answer session on the last day of the RSS centenary lecture series.He said while Sangh is not leading an Ayodhya-kind movement for the “reclamation” of sites like Varanasi’s Gyanvapi mosque and Mathura’s Shahi Idgah, its members were free to join agitation for restoring the places to Hindus.Stressing India’s Muslims are citizens who deserve livelihood and respect, Bhagwat added that people must value their mother tongues while also using English as a language of communication. Responding to a question, Bhagwat asserted that religion is by individual choice and there should be no allurement or force in this matter. “Religion is an individual’s own choice. No one should be forcefully converted. We have to stop it. The second issue is infiltration. Every country has their own rules and regulations, limited resources. So, infiltration should be stopped and the govt is making efforts to stop this… We should give jobs to our own people, including Muslims,” he said. On the issue of changing names of roads and towns bearing Muslim names, he said his insistence was that roads or towns should not be named after invaders.
