Dattatreya Hosabale


Dattatreya Hosabale is an Indian activist. He became the Sah-Sarakaryavaah of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh. During the period of Indian Emergency from 1975 to 1977 he was arrested under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act and imprisoned for 16 months. He also served as the general secretary for the student organization, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad for 15 years.

Early life

Dattatreya Hosabale was born in Sorab in Shimoga, Karnataka. Hailing from a family of RSS activists, he is the founding trustee of India Policy Foundation, a non-profit policy research organization.

Association with RSS

He is a post graduate in English literature. He joined RSS in 1968 and then ABVP in 1972. He became a full-time organizer in 1978. He played an active role in setting up the Youth Development Centre in Guwahati, Assam.
He was the founding editor of Aseema, a Kannada monthly. He became Sah-Baudhik Pramukh in 2004. He is fluent in Kannada, Hindi, English, Tamil and Sanskrit.
He has voiced his opinion on Indian Secularism being anti-Hindu, saying "When it comes to the Idea of India, there is no dispute as such; the point is that there can be a variety of ideas and each must be permitted its space. It’s not necessary that they should be at loggerheads or contradictory to each other"

Views

He termed football as symbol of global oneness.
Football has been a great unifier having admirers, fans, adherents and adepts across civilisations, continents & borders. It has been so since ages – in ancient India, as in ancient Greece the game of tackling the ball and hitting it around with the foot was a hugely popular sport enjoyed by the vast majority – ruler as well as the commoner.