[dipu]

After RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat's controversial statement that rapes happen in India and not in Bharat, Vishwa Hindu Parishad international president Ashok Singhal on Saturday said the increasing incidents of crimes against women were due to the growing influence of western culture.

Talking to reporters here at a congregation of saints and sadhus of Tamil Nadu, Singhal described the trend of youngsters in the country imbibing western culture from the US as "alarming". "We have lost all the values we had in cities," he said, demanding that India be renamed Bharat. "Let the real name of the country, Bharat, remain. When we call Bharat, it has the culture of thousands of years of this sacred land," he said

On live-in relationships, Singhal said it was a western model. "Virginity was preserved (before the British era), but purity has been totally disturbed by these models." Singhal, however, said he disagreed with the remarks of Madhya Pradesh minister Kailash Vijayvargiya that women should not cross the Lakshman Rekha or else they would get into trouble.

Singhal demanded that states come up with stringent laws against conversion as large-scale conversions were taking place in states like Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha.

The congregation adopted resolutions demanding handing over the entire temple site in Ayodhya to the Shri Ram Janma Bhoomi Trust to facilitate the creation of a grand Ram temple, enactment of laws to prevent cow slaughter, protection of holy rivers, including Cauvery, and propagating brotherhood among Hindus to check caste conflicts.

Singhal demanded that states come up with stringent laws against conversion as large-scale conversions were taking place in states like Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.