Hindu Radicals Pose Terrorist Challenge to the Sub-Continent
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Hindu extremists' reward to kill Christians, as Britain refuses to bar members
Extremist Hindu groups offered money, food and alcohol to mobs to kill Christians and destroy their homes, according to Christian aid workers in the eastern state of Orissa.
The allegations follow the British Governments refusal to prevent members of two radical groups linked to the worst antiChristian violence in India since Partition entering Britain.
The US-based head of a Christian organisation that runs several orphanages in Orissa one of Indias poorest regions claims that Christian leaders are being targeted by Hindu militants and carry a price on their heads. The going price to kill a pastor is $250 (£170), Faiz Rahman, the chairman of Good News India, said.
A spokesman for the All-India Christian Council said: People are being offered rewards to kill, and to destroy churches and Christian properties. They are being offered foreign liquor, chicken, mutton and weapons. They are given petrol and kerosene.
Ram Madhav, a spokesman for the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the largest hardline Hindu group, denied the claims. The accusation is absolutely false, he said.
Orissa has suffered a series of murders and arson attacks in recent months, with at least 67 Christians killed, according to the Roman Catholic Church. Several thousand homes have been razed and hundreds of places of worship destroyed, and crops are now wasting in the fields.
In recent weeks the violence has subsided but at least 11,000 Christian refugees remain in camps in Kandhamal, the district worst affected. They are too scared to go home. They know that if they return to their villages they will be forced to convert to Hinduism, Father Manoj, who is based at the Archbishops office in Bhubaneshwar, the state capital, said.
The violence was triggered in August by the murder of Swami Lakshmanananda Saraswati, a senior figure in the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), a hardline Hindu group, who had campaigned against the alleged forced conversions of poor Hindus by foreign-backed Christian missionaries.
Maoist militants claimed responsibility for the killing, but the VHP blamed Christians and called for revenge. This week extremists said that if Mr Lakshmananandas killers were not caught by December 15 they would begin a day of violence on December 25.
A group of Catholic bishops from Orissa believe that the attacks have a sinister objective.
In a letter to the states chief minister they wrote: This conflict is a calculated and preplanned masterplan to wipe out Christianity from Kandhamal in order to realise the hidden agenda . . . of establishing a Hindu nation.
This month Lord Malloch-Brown, Minister of State for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, turned down a plea for members of the RSS and the Bajrang Dal, the youth wing of the VHP, to be barred from entering Britain.
Neither organisation is proscribed in the United Kingdom or in India, nor do the Indian Government classify either as a terrorist organisation, Lord Malloch-Brown said, in reply to a question from Lord Patten of Barnes. There have been calls from members of Indias ruling government coalition for the RSS and Bajrang Dal to be banned but analysts say the Government is unlikely to act for fear of alienating Hindu voters in the run-up to general elections in the spring.
The RSS has been outlawed temporarily three times; the first in 1948, after a former member assassinated Mahatma Gandhi.
Hindu extremists' reward to kill Christians, as Britain refuses to bar members - Times Online
Extremist Hindu groups offered money, food and alcohol to mobs to kill Christians and destroy their homes, according to Christian aid workers in the eastern state of Orissa.
The allegations follow the British Governments refusal to prevent members of two radical groups linked to the worst antiChristian violence in India since Partition entering Britain.
The US-based head of a Christian organisation that runs several orphanages in Orissa one of Indias poorest regions claims that Christian leaders are being targeted by Hindu militants and carry a price on their heads. The going price to kill a pastor is $250 (£170), Faiz Rahman, the chairman of Good News India, said.
A spokesman for the All-India Christian Council said: People are being offered rewards to kill, and to destroy churches and Christian properties. They are being offered foreign liquor, chicken, mutton and weapons. They are given petrol and kerosene.
Ram Madhav, a spokesman for the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the largest hardline Hindu group, denied the claims. The accusation is absolutely false, he said.
Orissa has suffered a series of murders and arson attacks in recent months, with at least 67 Christians killed, according to the Roman Catholic Church. Several thousand homes have been razed and hundreds of places of worship destroyed, and crops are now wasting in the fields.
In recent weeks the violence has subsided but at least 11,000 Christian refugees remain in camps in Kandhamal, the district worst affected. They are too scared to go home. They know that if they return to their villages they will be forced to convert to Hinduism, Father Manoj, who is based at the Archbishops office in Bhubaneshwar, the state capital, said.
The violence was triggered in August by the murder of Swami Lakshmanananda Saraswati, a senior figure in the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), a hardline Hindu group, who had campaigned against the alleged forced conversions of poor Hindus by foreign-backed Christian missionaries.
Maoist militants claimed responsibility for the killing, but the VHP blamed Christians and called for revenge. This week extremists said that if Mr Lakshmananandas killers were not caught by December 15 they would begin a day of violence on December 25.
A group of Catholic bishops from Orissa believe that the attacks have a sinister objective.
In a letter to the states chief minister they wrote: This conflict is a calculated and preplanned masterplan to wipe out Christianity from Kandhamal in order to realise the hidden agenda . . . of establishing a Hindu nation.
This month Lord Malloch-Brown, Minister of State for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, turned down a plea for members of the RSS and the Bajrang Dal, the youth wing of the VHP, to be barred from entering Britain.
Neither organisation is proscribed in the United Kingdom or in India, nor do the Indian Government classify either as a terrorist organisation, Lord Malloch-Brown said, in reply to a question from Lord Patten of Barnes. There have been calls from members of Indias ruling government coalition for the RSS and Bajrang Dal to be banned but analysts say the Government is unlikely to act for fear of alienating Hindu voters in the run-up to general elections in the spring.
The RSS has been outlawed temporarily three times; the first in 1948, after a former member assassinated Mahatma Gandhi.
Hindu extremists' reward to kill Christians, as Britain refuses to bar members - Times Online
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India: Hindu extremists attack a Christian gathering
by Nirmala Carvalho
Jodhpur (AsiaNews) – A group of Hindu fundamentalists attacked a Christian meeting in the palace of Parameshwari in Jodhpur on Saturday 25 June. Jodhpur is a district of Rajasthan (a north-west state of India). More than 60 people were present, gathered under the leadership of Pastor Paul Matthew to "search for peace and spirituality".
Krishna Yadav, one of the participants, told AsiaNews: "I cam here from a nearby village to search for a bit of peace and to find a way to live more happily." The man pointed out that "there was no conversion under way" and that he had been a Christian since "my father converted to Christianity a long time ago". "I paid 150 rupees (around 2.80Euros) to participate in the meeting," he added.
Most of the activists who attacked the gathering – more than 60 of them – belong to Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and to Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), both extremist Hindu paramilitary groups. They flooded the hall where the meeting was under way and forced all the participants out. According to local police, one person was seriously wounded. Ravi Mehada, superintendent of public security for Jodhpur district, said: "We are investigating the matter. I cannot say more."
Mgr Ignatius Menezes, bishop of the Ajemr-Jodhpur diocese, told AsiaNews: "We have lived with these fanatics for many years now. The government, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) [a party which backs a fundamentalist Hindu vision ndr] does not have any control over them and it supports them indirectly. The VHP, RSS and similar groups are now here to stay."
The prelate said these groups "have gained a high level of popularity precisely thanks to these attacks against Christians, because they portray themselves as champions of Hindu purity, defenders of Indian culture and traditions".
He added: "Even if there are no conversions at the meetings, each time these groups are suspicious and they generate suspicion among people. In this State, the question of conversions is a delicate matter about which there are strong feelings, but no one appointed them guardians of the law."
About the attack on Jodhpur, Mgr Menezes said: "This was a Pentecostal meeting led by pastors. In some cases, these people also organise bible studies. Whatever the case, they do not harm anyone; they do not threaten the stability of any group, much less the Hindu majority. The meetings are largely attended by tribals and adivasis or by classes marginalised by the Hindus."
Mgr Menezes ended by talking about the Anti-conversion decree, a bill of law which forbids conversions which are not to Hinduism: "This law is only government propaganda. I have written to the prime minister and the governor so they may do something now while the bill is not yet in force."
INDIA India: Hindu extremists attack a Christian gathering - Asia News
by Nirmala Carvalho
Jodhpur (AsiaNews) – A group of Hindu fundamentalists attacked a Christian meeting in the palace of Parameshwari in Jodhpur on Saturday 25 June. Jodhpur is a district of Rajasthan (a north-west state of India). More than 60 people were present, gathered under the leadership of Pastor Paul Matthew to "search for peace and spirituality".
Krishna Yadav, one of the participants, told AsiaNews: "I cam here from a nearby village to search for a bit of peace and to find a way to live more happily." The man pointed out that "there was no conversion under way" and that he had been a Christian since "my father converted to Christianity a long time ago". "I paid 150 rupees (around 2.80Euros) to participate in the meeting," he added.
Most of the activists who attacked the gathering – more than 60 of them – belong to Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and to Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), both extremist Hindu paramilitary groups. They flooded the hall where the meeting was under way and forced all the participants out. According to local police, one person was seriously wounded. Ravi Mehada, superintendent of public security for Jodhpur district, said: "We are investigating the matter. I cannot say more."
Mgr Ignatius Menezes, bishop of the Ajemr-Jodhpur diocese, told AsiaNews: "We have lived with these fanatics for many years now. The government, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) [a party which backs a fundamentalist Hindu vision ndr] does not have any control over them and it supports them indirectly. The VHP, RSS and similar groups are now here to stay."
The prelate said these groups "have gained a high level of popularity precisely thanks to these attacks against Christians, because they portray themselves as champions of Hindu purity, defenders of Indian culture and traditions".
He added: "Even if there are no conversions at the meetings, each time these groups are suspicious and they generate suspicion among people. In this State, the question of conversions is a delicate matter about which there are strong feelings, but no one appointed them guardians of the law."
About the attack on Jodhpur, Mgr Menezes said: "This was a Pentecostal meeting led by pastors. In some cases, these people also organise bible studies. Whatever the case, they do not harm anyone; they do not threaten the stability of any group, much less the Hindu majority. The meetings are largely attended by tribals and adivasis or by classes marginalised by the Hindus."
Mgr Menezes ended by talking about the Anti-conversion decree, a bill of law which forbids conversions which are not to Hinduism: "This law is only government propaganda. I have written to the prime minister and the governor so they may do something now while the bill is not yet in force."
INDIA India: Hindu extremists attack a Christian gathering - Asia News
Hindu extremists held over deadly bombings Blasts during Ramadan killed six Muslims
Blasts during Ramadan killed six Muslims
Police link three arrested to opposition youth wing
Randeep Ramesh in Delhi
The Guardian, Saturday 25 October 2008
[A nun said she had been raped by a Hindu mob. Photograph: Vijay Mathur/Reuters]
Three people said to be Hindu activists were arrested yesterday in connection with bombings that killed six Muslims during Ramadan last month in the west of the country.
Police in Maharashtra state investigating the two attacks on September 29 said the three were part of a group of extremist Hindus with links to the youth wing of the nationalist Bharatiya Janata party, India's main opposition party.
Five people died in one of the explosions, in a crowded market near a mosque in Malegaon, 175 miles north-east of Mumbai, while a teenager lost his life in Modasa, in neighbouring Gujarat, when a bomb exploded in a predominantly Muslim area.
Both came after a wave of deadly bombings apparently directed at middle-class Hindus in Indian cities and claimed by Islamists.
The government had considered banning some extremist Hindu groups for inciting violence but backed off after groups of men armed with guns took to the streets of big cities in protest.
"These blasts do not fit into the pattern of Muslim terror groups. And in most cases we have credible evidence to link it to Hindu groups. But the question is, how pro-actively are we willing to investigate?" one unnamed officer told local media.
The news comes after an upsurge in violence that has seen Hindu mobs rampage through Christian villages in the eastern Indian state of Orissa, leaving more than 40 people dead.
More than 20,000 Christians in the district of Kandhamal fled their homes for state-run camps.
Christians who have lost their homes have been told they can return only if they convert to Hinduism.
At a press conference in the Indian capital yesterday a nun said she had been raped and paraded naked in Orissa by a rampaging mob of Hindus in August.
"The police failed to protect me. They were friendly with the attackers and tried to prevent me from filing [a charge]). They abandoned me," said the nun, who was swaddled in scarves to remain anonymous.
She called for the central government's investigating arm to launch an inquiry into the attacks, defying an order from the country's top judges to cooperate with local police.
"I have no faith in the [state] government or the police," she said.
The anti-Christian violence this summer spread across four states, including Karnataka, the capital of which is Bangalore, India's information technology capital.
This month Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president and current European Union president, said he had serious concerns over the "massacres of Christians".
Kancha Ilaiah, professor of political science at Hyderabad's Osmania University, said the violence was part of a disturbing trend.
"The Hindu fundamentalists have a long history of trying to play politics with religion in India," he said. "They claim Muslims are terrorists but the Hindu groups openly distribute weapons in India."
Hindu extremists held over deadly bombings | World news | The Guardian
Blasts during Ramadan killed six Muslims
Police link three arrested to opposition youth wing
Randeep Ramesh in Delhi
The Guardian, Saturday 25 October 2008
[A nun said she had been raped by a Hindu mob. Photograph: Vijay Mathur/Reuters]
Three people said to be Hindu activists were arrested yesterday in connection with bombings that killed six Muslims during Ramadan last month in the west of the country.
Police in Maharashtra state investigating the two attacks on September 29 said the three were part of a group of extremist Hindus with links to the youth wing of the nationalist Bharatiya Janata party, India's main opposition party.
Five people died in one of the explosions, in a crowded market near a mosque in Malegaon, 175 miles north-east of Mumbai, while a teenager lost his life in Modasa, in neighbouring Gujarat, when a bomb exploded in a predominantly Muslim area.
Both came after a wave of deadly bombings apparently directed at middle-class Hindus in Indian cities and claimed by Islamists.
The government had considered banning some extremist Hindu groups for inciting violence but backed off after groups of men armed with guns took to the streets of big cities in protest.
"These blasts do not fit into the pattern of Muslim terror groups. And in most cases we have credible evidence to link it to Hindu groups. But the question is, how pro-actively are we willing to investigate?" one unnamed officer told local media.
The news comes after an upsurge in violence that has seen Hindu mobs rampage through Christian villages in the eastern Indian state of Orissa, leaving more than 40 people dead.
More than 20,000 Christians in the district of Kandhamal fled their homes for state-run camps.
Christians who have lost their homes have been told they can return only if they convert to Hinduism.
At a press conference in the Indian capital yesterday a nun said she had been raped and paraded naked in Orissa by a rampaging mob of Hindus in August.
"The police failed to protect me. They were friendly with the attackers and tried to prevent me from filing [a charge]). They abandoned me," said the nun, who was swaddled in scarves to remain anonymous.
She called for the central government's investigating arm to launch an inquiry into the attacks, defying an order from the country's top judges to cooperate with local police.
"I have no faith in the [state] government or the police," she said.
The anti-Christian violence this summer spread across four states, including Karnataka, the capital of which is Bangalore, India's information technology capital.
This month Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president and current European Union president, said he had serious concerns over the "massacres of Christians".
Kancha Ilaiah, professor of political science at Hyderabad's Osmania University, said the violence was part of a disturbing trend.
"The Hindu fundamentalists have a long history of trying to play politics with religion in India," he said. "They claim Muslims are terrorists but the Hindu groups openly distribute weapons in India."
Hindu extremists held over deadly bombings | World news | The Guardian
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Well thats a sweeping statement, agreed this article was about growing Hindu terrorism. But it never said that the problem is not islamists. However i am happy that these guys was nabbed early from before they could make more damages.
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As I mentioned earlier if you take the Hindu terrorist problem away then you will no longer have a Islamic terrorist problem. It has been because of Hindu oppression and discrimination that India was partitioned but still some injustices remain such as Kashmir and the Seven Sisters. This is caused by the Hindu expansionist mentality adopted by the State of India as a guiding principle of Statecraft.
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Indian diaspora funding Hindu extremism
By Angana Chatterji
"In the United States, where substantial funds are raised for Hindu extremist agendas, the U.S. Government must act to ensure that organizations that broker terror should not continue to enjoy their non-profit status within the USA."
It is now no secret that the Sangh Parivar, the collective name given to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the Bajrang Dal and other Hindu extremist organizations, is exploiting religion (Hindutva) to foment communal violence in India. To this end they are organizing the ultra-right, non-secular and undemocratic forces in India. What is less known is how these forces of injustice and bigotry are funded, especially by the Indian-Hindu communities living abroad.
These organizations receive substantial contributions from Hindus in the United States and elsewhere. The Indian magazine, "Outlook," in its July 22, 2002, issue published an article by A. K. Sen, titled, 'Deflections to the Right'. The piece highlighted a component of the chain of funding that sustains Hindu extremism. The article states that the India Development and Relief Fund (IDRF) is one of the more conspicuous charity organizations that raises funds in the United States to support the RSS battalions in India. IDRF lists Sewa International as its counterpart in India. Sewa International and the various organizations it oversees receive over two-thirds of the IDRF funding. Incidentally, Sewa International, in its mission to transform India, states on its website in a section on 'Experiments and Results' with 'Social Harmony' that social consolidation can be achieved through social cohesion. Among other things, the website quotes Manya H. V. Sehadarji, Sarkaryawah of the RSS, as saying: "The ultimate object of all these endeavours is Hindu Sangathan-consolidation and strengthening of the Hindu society."
Hindu extremism, like other xenophobic movements, functions through carefully fashioned exclusionary principles whereby all non-Hindus and dissenting Hindus, identified as Hindu traitors, become second-class citizens. In addition, justification of caste inequities, subordination of Dalits ('lower' caste communities), women, adivasis (tribal) and other minorities, and the consolidation of a cohesive middle-class base are critical to its momentum.
In the United States, where substantial funds are raised for Hindu extremist agendas, the U.S. Government must act to ensure that organizations that broker terror should not continue to enjoy their non-profit status within the USA. It is interesting that in 1999, the VHP failed to gain recognition at the United Nations as 'a cultural organization' because of its philosophical underpinnings. However, the VHP of America is an independent charity registered in the United States in the 1970s, where it has, and continues to, receive funds from a variety of individuals and organizations.
Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) and Americans of Indian descent must examine the politics of hate encouraged by extremist Hindu organizations in the name of charity and social work. Indians, one of the most financially successful groups in the United States, must take seriously their moral obligation to ensure that their dollars are not funding malice and scrutinize the organizations that are on the receiving end in India. The issue is not whether these organizations are undertaking charitable work, but whether they are doing so to promote separatist and non-secular ideals. Param Vaibhav Ke Path Par (On The Road To Great Glory), written by Sadanand Damodar Sapre, and published in 1997 by Suruchi Prakashan, Jhandewalan, New Delhi, the central publication house of the RSS, lists the 40-plus organizations maintained by the RSS in India for its multivariate programs.
In addition, the VHP and other Parivar outfits aim at the communalization of education through the 'Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram' and 'Ekal Vidyalas' (schools). One strategy is to Hinduize adivasi communities, exploit divisions among the marginalized and indoctrinate the youth, in order to both turn them against one another and use them as foot soldiers in the larger cause of religious nationalism. Such inculcation has had serious repercussions in Gujarat, India, this year where tribals were manipulated into attacking Muslims during the carnage in February and March 2002.
While Hindu fundamentalists do not have a monopoly on religious intolerance in India, their actions are holding the country hostage. Well-organized, widespread and acting in the name of [Hinduism] the majority religion in India, Hindu extremism is positioned to silence diversity through force and terror, the rhetoric of Hindu supremacy and the positioning of minority groups as depraved enemies who must be punished.
Indians at home and abroad must oppose the deep infiltration of the Hindutva brigade into the press, as well as other institutions -- political, military, bureaucratic, civic, business, educational and law and order -- of India. Such infiltration is creating a nation where religious fundamentalists violate the Constitution of India and the state tolerates such violation. While the present BJP regime at the center has overt and close links to organizations within the Sangh Parivar, citizens are assured that secularism and democracy are sacred and secure. The reality is different. The Indian government's handling of communal violence and sanctioning of communal discourse is clear to the observers and threatens to jeopardize India's capacity to function as a nation.
The VHP, in its meeting with Muslim leaders in New Delhi on July 15, 2002, stated that if Muslims agreed to resettle Hindus in Jammu and Kashmir, Muslims in Gujarat would be rehabilitated. The Hindus must understand that issues connected to the democratization of Pakistan, ethical resolutions to Kashmir, or gender reforms within Islam are separate from India's commitment to upholding the rights of minorities or to reforms within Hinduism.
Hindu extremism against Muslims and other minorities in India collapses distinctions that must be made to honour human rights in India. Also, Hindutva's discourse of history posits Hindus and Hinduism as being under siege and preposterously asserts the idea of India as a Hindu Nation. Such revisionist history strategically and hideously poses that a vengeful justice can be found for the crimes of history committed by non-Hindu rulers. Retribution is sought by attacking contemporary Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and others in India.
Hinduism is critical to the fabric of India, as are all the other cultures and religions that inhabit it and frame the imagination of the Indian nations. It will require considerable effort on the part of progressive Indians to conceive a secular nation where religion is indeed separate from the integrity of the state and where pluralism guarantees rights and respect to the religious and non-religious alike. Every Hindu, and every citizen, must denounce that to be Indian is to be Hindu, challenge assertions that a secular Constitution is anti-Hindu and refute the call for a Hindu Nation in India as anti-national. Patriotism and nationalism demand that all social, political and religious groups work for an India free of disenfranchisement, institutionalized violence, corruption and rampant inequities. The Indians cannot permit India's secular and democratic fabric to be irreparably compromised. q
Angana Chatterji is a professor of social
and cultural anthropology at the California Institute of Integral Studies.
Indian diaspora funding Hindu extremism, The Milli Gazette, Vol.3 No.16, MG62 (16-31 Aug 02)
By Angana Chatterji
"In the United States, where substantial funds are raised for Hindu extremist agendas, the U.S. Government must act to ensure that organizations that broker terror should not continue to enjoy their non-profit status within the USA."
It is now no secret that the Sangh Parivar, the collective name given to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the Bajrang Dal and other Hindu extremist organizations, is exploiting religion (Hindutva) to foment communal violence in India. To this end they are organizing the ultra-right, non-secular and undemocratic forces in India. What is less known is how these forces of injustice and bigotry are funded, especially by the Indian-Hindu communities living abroad.
These organizations receive substantial contributions from Hindus in the United States and elsewhere. The Indian magazine, "Outlook," in its July 22, 2002, issue published an article by A. K. Sen, titled, 'Deflections to the Right'. The piece highlighted a component of the chain of funding that sustains Hindu extremism. The article states that the India Development and Relief Fund (IDRF) is one of the more conspicuous charity organizations that raises funds in the United States to support the RSS battalions in India. IDRF lists Sewa International as its counterpart in India. Sewa International and the various organizations it oversees receive over two-thirds of the IDRF funding. Incidentally, Sewa International, in its mission to transform India, states on its website in a section on 'Experiments and Results' with 'Social Harmony' that social consolidation can be achieved through social cohesion. Among other things, the website quotes Manya H. V. Sehadarji, Sarkaryawah of the RSS, as saying: "The ultimate object of all these endeavours is Hindu Sangathan-consolidation and strengthening of the Hindu society."
Hindu extremism, like other xenophobic movements, functions through carefully fashioned exclusionary principles whereby all non-Hindus and dissenting Hindus, identified as Hindu traitors, become second-class citizens. In addition, justification of caste inequities, subordination of Dalits ('lower' caste communities), women, adivasis (tribal) and other minorities, and the consolidation of a cohesive middle-class base are critical to its momentum.
In the United States, where substantial funds are raised for Hindu extremist agendas, the U.S. Government must act to ensure that organizations that broker terror should not continue to enjoy their non-profit status within the USA. It is interesting that in 1999, the VHP failed to gain recognition at the United Nations as 'a cultural organization' because of its philosophical underpinnings. However, the VHP of America is an independent charity registered in the United States in the 1970s, where it has, and continues to, receive funds from a variety of individuals and organizations.
Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) and Americans of Indian descent must examine the politics of hate encouraged by extremist Hindu organizations in the name of charity and social work. Indians, one of the most financially successful groups in the United States, must take seriously their moral obligation to ensure that their dollars are not funding malice and scrutinize the organizations that are on the receiving end in India. The issue is not whether these organizations are undertaking charitable work, but whether they are doing so to promote separatist and non-secular ideals. Param Vaibhav Ke Path Par (On The Road To Great Glory), written by Sadanand Damodar Sapre, and published in 1997 by Suruchi Prakashan, Jhandewalan, New Delhi, the central publication house of the RSS, lists the 40-plus organizations maintained by the RSS in India for its multivariate programs.
In addition, the VHP and other Parivar outfits aim at the communalization of education through the 'Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram' and 'Ekal Vidyalas' (schools). One strategy is to Hinduize adivasi communities, exploit divisions among the marginalized and indoctrinate the youth, in order to both turn them against one another and use them as foot soldiers in the larger cause of religious nationalism. Such inculcation has had serious repercussions in Gujarat, India, this year where tribals were manipulated into attacking Muslims during the carnage in February and March 2002.
While Hindu fundamentalists do not have a monopoly on religious intolerance in India, their actions are holding the country hostage. Well-organized, widespread and acting in the name of [Hinduism] the majority religion in India, Hindu extremism is positioned to silence diversity through force and terror, the rhetoric of Hindu supremacy and the positioning of minority groups as depraved enemies who must be punished.
Indians at home and abroad must oppose the deep infiltration of the Hindutva brigade into the press, as well as other institutions -- political, military, bureaucratic, civic, business, educational and law and order -- of India. Such infiltration is creating a nation where religious fundamentalists violate the Constitution of India and the state tolerates such violation. While the present BJP regime at the center has overt and close links to organizations within the Sangh Parivar, citizens are assured that secularism and democracy are sacred and secure. The reality is different. The Indian government's handling of communal violence and sanctioning of communal discourse is clear to the observers and threatens to jeopardize India's capacity to function as a nation.
The VHP, in its meeting with Muslim leaders in New Delhi on July 15, 2002, stated that if Muslims agreed to resettle Hindus in Jammu and Kashmir, Muslims in Gujarat would be rehabilitated. The Hindus must understand that issues connected to the democratization of Pakistan, ethical resolutions to Kashmir, or gender reforms within Islam are separate from India's commitment to upholding the rights of minorities or to reforms within Hinduism.
Hindu extremism against Muslims and other minorities in India collapses distinctions that must be made to honour human rights in India. Also, Hindutva's discourse of history posits Hindus and Hinduism as being under siege and preposterously asserts the idea of India as a Hindu Nation. Such revisionist history strategically and hideously poses that a vengeful justice can be found for the crimes of history committed by non-Hindu rulers. Retribution is sought by attacking contemporary Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and others in India.
Hinduism is critical to the fabric of India, as are all the other cultures and religions that inhabit it and frame the imagination of the Indian nations. It will require considerable effort on the part of progressive Indians to conceive a secular nation where religion is indeed separate from the integrity of the state and where pluralism guarantees rights and respect to the religious and non-religious alike. Every Hindu, and every citizen, must denounce that to be Indian is to be Hindu, challenge assertions that a secular Constitution is anti-Hindu and refute the call for a Hindu Nation in India as anti-national. Patriotism and nationalism demand that all social, political and religious groups work for an India free of disenfranchisement, institutionalized violence, corruption and rampant inequities. The Indians cannot permit India's secular and democratic fabric to be irreparably compromised. q
Angana Chatterji is a professor of social
and cultural anthropology at the California Institute of Integral Studies.
Indian diaspora funding Hindu extremism, The Milli Gazette, Vol.3 No.16, MG62 (16-31 Aug 02)
Hindu Extremists Seek Ties With Israel and Its U.S. Lobby
By Faisal Kutty
The Hindutva movement appears to be gaining momentum throughout India, and spilling over its borders. Like a contagious disease, this form of religious fanaticism is spreading even among expatriate Hindus, who increasingly are putting their financial power at the service of Hindutva forces.
This includes a segmenta minority so farof America's estimated 800,000 Hindus. Organizations such as the Overseas Friends of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the U.S. chapter of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America (VHPWorld Hindu Council), and the Friends of India Society International (FISI) are lobbying in and around Capitol Hill in support of ideas considered both fanatical and fascistic by many supporters of secular government in India.
Shekhar Tiwari, in charge of congressional relations activity for the FISI, told the Washington Report that his and allied groups are latecomers on the lobbying scene. Nevertheless, the BJP-RSS-VHP public relations skills were evident during the visit of former BJP President Murli Manohar Joshi.
According to India Abroad, during Joshi's August visit American supporters arranged a meeting with State Department, Pentagon and Indian Embassy officials, as well as analysts from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Studies, and the Institute of National Strategic Studies. The meeting, which was closed to the media at the request of Joshi's supporters, was intended to dispel the "myth" that the BJP was a right-wing Hindu fascist party.
The radicals are attempting to overcome their late entry into the influence game in Washington by developing ties with its most experienced and powerful advocates of foreign aid and a foreign country, the Israel lobby. This follows a number of incidents over the past few years linking Israel or its American supporters to developments in India which have given impetus to the conclusion by Hindu extremists that Israel is the key to the Washington door.
One such development was the report of alleged Israeli intelligence agents being spotted in war-torn Kashmir. Israel denied the charges and said the Israelis temporarily detained in Kashmir by Indian authorities were tourists or adventurers.
In the summer of 1992, while I was in Kerala on India's southwestern coast, there were reports from credible sources that Israelis were seen in the state meeting with BJP and RSS officials. This was immediately before the worst communal riots in the state since the Moplah rebellion of 1921 (a Muslim-led farm workers rebellion against upper caste Hindu, Christian and Muslim landowners).
Prior to the 1992 clashes, Kerala had been a model of communal harmony, even though it is one of the most religiously diverse Indian states with a population that is 60 percent Hindu, 20 percent Muslim and 20 percent Christian. Kerala's former thriving Jewish community has emigrated en masse, largely to Israel, and now numbers only 22 persons.
Early last year, the Federation of Assemblies of Muslim Youth of Sri Lanka wrote a letter to Indian Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao linking the rise in anti-Muslim sentiments in India with the resumption of relations with Israel. The letter stated that in Sri Lanka "the first major communal clash between the [island nation's] Muslims and Tamils occurred within a year" of the opening of an Israeli interests section in the U.S. Embassy in Colombo. The section was subsequently ordered closed by the late President Ranasinghe Premadasa. The Federation urged Rao to take the same action in regard to Israeli representation in India.
All this may be the result of nothing more than conjecture. But reports indicate that BJP-RSS-VHP supporters in the U.S. would like to see a Zionist-Hindu alliance and are striving hard to develop it. The extremist leaders seem to have intensified their new courtship right after India established full diplomatic relations with Israel in January 1992.
The Hindu-chauvinist BJP, RSS, VHP and the Shiv Sena (Army of Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction) are the main groups which orchestrated the destruction of the Babri Masjid (Ayodhya Mosque) and the subsequent massacres of Muslims in Bombay and elsewhere in India. The same groups also welcomed and celebrated Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres' visit to India on May 17, 1993, and the closer ties with Israel which ensued. The Peres group was the highest-ranking Israeli delegation ever to visit India.
Among leading Indian media reporting attempts by BJP-RSS-VHP leaders to get closer both to Israel and to the Zionist lobby in Washington is The Times of India. A Washington, DC report in its Aug. 1, 1993 edition noted that although the extent of such efforts cannot be documented, "what nevertheless remains a fact is the persistent lobbying by Sangh Parivar supporters here."
Such efforts by the Hindu fascists are ironic. The leading mind and former chair of the Hindu extremist RSS, the late Guru M.S. Golwalkar, in his now-famous work Our Nationhood, wrote of his admiration for Adolf Hitler and suggested that the "race purification" carried out by Hitler was a perfect example to be followed by Hindu nationalists in dealing with India's claimed 150 million Muslims as well as its Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and other minorities, all of whom should be denied even basic citizens' rights.
Access to U.S. Policymakers
The BJP-RSS-VHP supporters in the U.S., whom many believe are providing a significant percentage of the financing required by the fascists in India, now have undertaken another task on behalf of those extremists. This is to obtain access to U.S. policymakers in order to ensure that they do not undermine the campaign of Hindu chauvinists to come to power in New Delhi.
The latest attempt to gain legitimacy was through the Global Vision 2000 conference held last Aug. 6 to 8 in Washington, DC. The aim was to gain acceptance of the World Hindu Council (VHP) in North America, even though it is banned in India.
The Washington effort was unsuccessful in appealing to the broader Hindu and non-Hindu Indian community in the U.S. (which numbers more than one million), according to Thomas Abraham, founder and former president of the New York based National Federation of Indian Associations. "They used the name of Swami Vivekan and, who has broad appeal, but the conference catered to the membership of the BJP-RSS-VHP," he told the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.
Prominent leaders from India who took part included VHP President Ashok Singhal, RSS leader K.C. Sudarshan, Murli Manohar Joshi and Uma Bharati, a fiery female leader. Singhal was quoted in the Aug. 31, 1993 issue of India Today as predicting that "America will realize with this program that Hindutva has asserted itself and now there is no force that can stop it.''
The BJP-RSS-VHP leaders in the U.S. make no secret of their admiration for the influential position enjoyed by Israel's supporters in the United States and their desires to make use of it. "The Jewish lobby has a great understanding of the political process in the U.S.," according to Tiwari, of the Denver-based FISI, which supports the radical groups in India. "They have been very favorable to India's interests."
FISI evolved from the Indians for Democracy Movement (IDM), formed in response to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's emergency rule in 1975. Tiwari told the Washington Report that "our efforts at lobbying are new and weak so we seek guidance from the Jewish lobby and they have helped us whenever they can."
In its Aug. 1 article, The Times of India reported that Hindutva leaders also have met both with Clinton administration officials and with Zionist leaders to bring about a favorable attitude toward the rising Hindutva tide in India. ''It is a known practice that whenever senior BJP leaders visit the U.S.," The Times of India reported, "meetings are scheduled with Jewish groups . . . experts from prestigious think tanks such as the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and, if possible, State Department officials."
The Hindutva supporters probably also were encouraged by Shimon Peres' statement during his May visit that Israel supports India on the Kashmir issue and that it would support any moves by the U.S. to declare Pakistan a terrorist state. In return, Peres said, he expects India to vote differently in the international arena on issues affecting Israel. This latter statement was in reference to the fact that India has been a consistent supporter of many Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) positions in various international arenas.
Israel and its supporters obviously view the extremists' attempts to befriend them positively, since this is a shift from the position generally held by Indians since the days of Mohandas K. Gandhi. Gandhi said that "Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English.
"Gandhi on Zionism
He stated unequivocally that it was "wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs. What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct." Gandhi bluntly described the idea of handing over Palestine to the Jews as a "crime against humanity." The champion of nonviolence also stated that "according to the accepted canons of right and wrong, nothing can be said against the Arab resistance in the face of overwhelming odds."
Much of this seems forgotten by Hindu extremists in their rush to capitalize on Israeli influence in Washington by promising Israel economic and military as well as political benefits if they come to power in New Delhi. The Indian media is full of statements by BJP officials questioning why India is sacrificing a "beneficial relationship with Israel for fear of a few Arab despots."
Some analysts note that such Hindu extremists believe that they can make such statements with impunity because no matter how close India gets to Israel, there will be no reaction from most Arab and Muslim states. The Indian government realizes, however, that India benefits far more from its present broad ties with the Muslim world than it can ever benefit from supporting Israel.
There are hundreds of thousands of Indians working in the Middle East and providing India with billions of dollars in direct remittances. Their acceptance as trusted employees at all levels in Middle East states also eases the dismal employment situation at home.
According to the Institute of Development Studies in Trivandrum, the capital of Kerala, the direct benefit to Kerala alone from its more than 150,000 workers in the Gulf amounts to 25 percent of its GDP. The Muslim world also has provided an open market for Indian exportsfrom agricultural produce to manufactured goods.
Commenting on the increased media attention focused on their lobbying initiatives, Tiwari says that "Our efforts are only attracting attention because of the growing perception that the BJP will come to power in the next election."
Such attention, however, appears to be well deserved. Many India-watchers believe that if the BJP came to power at the national level, the pluralistic society of India as it exists today would soon be relegated to the realm of vanished "golden ages" in the subcontinent's long and colorful past.
Faisal Kutty is a free-lance writer presently living in Ottawa.
Hindu Extremists Seek Ties With Israel and Its U.S. Lobby
By Faisal Kutty
The Hindutva movement appears to be gaining momentum throughout India, and spilling over its borders. Like a contagious disease, this form of religious fanaticism is spreading even among expatriate Hindus, who increasingly are putting their financial power at the service of Hindutva forces.
This includes a segmenta minority so farof America's estimated 800,000 Hindus. Organizations such as the Overseas Friends of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the U.S. chapter of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America (VHPWorld Hindu Council), and the Friends of India Society International (FISI) are lobbying in and around Capitol Hill in support of ideas considered both fanatical and fascistic by many supporters of secular government in India.
Shekhar Tiwari, in charge of congressional relations activity for the FISI, told the Washington Report that his and allied groups are latecomers on the lobbying scene. Nevertheless, the BJP-RSS-VHP public relations skills were evident during the visit of former BJP President Murli Manohar Joshi.
According to India Abroad, during Joshi's August visit American supporters arranged a meeting with State Department, Pentagon and Indian Embassy officials, as well as analysts from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Studies, and the Institute of National Strategic Studies. The meeting, which was closed to the media at the request of Joshi's supporters, was intended to dispel the "myth" that the BJP was a right-wing Hindu fascist party.
The radicals are attempting to overcome their late entry into the influence game in Washington by developing ties with its most experienced and powerful advocates of foreign aid and a foreign country, the Israel lobby. This follows a number of incidents over the past few years linking Israel or its American supporters to developments in India which have given impetus to the conclusion by Hindu extremists that Israel is the key to the Washington door.
One such development was the report of alleged Israeli intelligence agents being spotted in war-torn Kashmir. Israel denied the charges and said the Israelis temporarily detained in Kashmir by Indian authorities were tourists or adventurers.
In the summer of 1992, while I was in Kerala on India's southwestern coast, there were reports from credible sources that Israelis were seen in the state meeting with BJP and RSS officials. This was immediately before the worst communal riots in the state since the Moplah rebellion of 1921 (a Muslim-led farm workers rebellion against upper caste Hindu, Christian and Muslim landowners).
Prior to the 1992 clashes, Kerala had been a model of communal harmony, even though it is one of the most religiously diverse Indian states with a population that is 60 percent Hindu, 20 percent Muslim and 20 percent Christian. Kerala's former thriving Jewish community has emigrated en masse, largely to Israel, and now numbers only 22 persons.
Early last year, the Federation of Assemblies of Muslim Youth of Sri Lanka wrote a letter to Indian Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao linking the rise in anti-Muslim sentiments in India with the resumption of relations with Israel. The letter stated that in Sri Lanka "the first major communal clash between the [island nation's] Muslims and Tamils occurred within a year" of the opening of an Israeli interests section in the U.S. Embassy in Colombo. The section was subsequently ordered closed by the late President Ranasinghe Premadasa. The Federation urged Rao to take the same action in regard to Israeli representation in India.
All this may be the result of nothing more than conjecture. But reports indicate that BJP-RSS-VHP supporters in the U.S. would like to see a Zionist-Hindu alliance and are striving hard to develop it. The extremist leaders seem to have intensified their new courtship right after India established full diplomatic relations with Israel in January 1992.
The Hindu-chauvinist BJP, RSS, VHP and the Shiv Sena (Army of Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction) are the main groups which orchestrated the destruction of the Babri Masjid (Ayodhya Mosque) and the subsequent massacres of Muslims in Bombay and elsewhere in India. The same groups also welcomed and celebrated Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres' visit to India on May 17, 1993, and the closer ties with Israel which ensued. The Peres group was the highest-ranking Israeli delegation ever to visit India.
Among leading Indian media reporting attempts by BJP-RSS-VHP leaders to get closer both to Israel and to the Zionist lobby in Washington is The Times of India. A Washington, DC report in its Aug. 1, 1993 edition noted that although the extent of such efforts cannot be documented, "what nevertheless remains a fact is the persistent lobbying by Sangh Parivar supporters here."
Such efforts by the Hindu fascists are ironic. The leading mind and former chair of the Hindu extremist RSS, the late Guru M.S. Golwalkar, in his now-famous work Our Nationhood, wrote of his admiration for Adolf Hitler and suggested that the "race purification" carried out by Hitler was a perfect example to be followed by Hindu nationalists in dealing with India's claimed 150 million Muslims as well as its Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and other minorities, all of whom should be denied even basic citizens' rights.
Access to U.S. Policymakers
The BJP-RSS-VHP supporters in the U.S., whom many believe are providing a significant percentage of the financing required by the fascists in India, now have undertaken another task on behalf of those extremists. This is to obtain access to U.S. policymakers in order to ensure that they do not undermine the campaign of Hindu chauvinists to come to power in New Delhi.
The latest attempt to gain legitimacy was through the Global Vision 2000 conference held last Aug. 6 to 8 in Washington, DC. The aim was to gain acceptance of the World Hindu Council (VHP) in North America, even though it is banned in India.
The Washington effort was unsuccessful in appealing to the broader Hindu and non-Hindu Indian community in the U.S. (which numbers more than one million), according to Thomas Abraham, founder and former president of the New York based National Federation of Indian Associations. "They used the name of Swami Vivekan and, who has broad appeal, but the conference catered to the membership of the BJP-RSS-VHP," he told the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.
Prominent leaders from India who took part included VHP President Ashok Singhal, RSS leader K.C. Sudarshan, Murli Manohar Joshi and Uma Bharati, a fiery female leader. Singhal was quoted in the Aug. 31, 1993 issue of India Today as predicting that "America will realize with this program that Hindutva has asserted itself and now there is no force that can stop it.''
The BJP-RSS-VHP leaders in the U.S. make no secret of their admiration for the influential position enjoyed by Israel's supporters in the United States and their desires to make use of it. "The Jewish lobby has a great understanding of the political process in the U.S.," according to Tiwari, of the Denver-based FISI, which supports the radical groups in India. "They have been very favorable to India's interests."
FISI evolved from the Indians for Democracy Movement (IDM), formed in response to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's emergency rule in 1975. Tiwari told the Washington Report that "our efforts at lobbying are new and weak so we seek guidance from the Jewish lobby and they have helped us whenever they can."
In its Aug. 1 article, The Times of India reported that Hindutva leaders also have met both with Clinton administration officials and with Zionist leaders to bring about a favorable attitude toward the rising Hindutva tide in India. ''It is a known practice that whenever senior BJP leaders visit the U.S.," The Times of India reported, "meetings are scheduled with Jewish groups . . . experts from prestigious think tanks such as the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and, if possible, State Department officials."
The Hindutva supporters probably also were encouraged by Shimon Peres' statement during his May visit that Israel supports India on the Kashmir issue and that it would support any moves by the U.S. to declare Pakistan a terrorist state. In return, Peres said, he expects India to vote differently in the international arena on issues affecting Israel. This latter statement was in reference to the fact that India has been a consistent supporter of many Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) positions in various international arenas.
Israel and its supporters obviously view the extremists' attempts to befriend them positively, since this is a shift from the position generally held by Indians since the days of Mohandas K. Gandhi. Gandhi said that "Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English.
"Gandhi on Zionism
He stated unequivocally that it was "wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs. What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct." Gandhi bluntly described the idea of handing over Palestine to the Jews as a "crime against humanity." The champion of nonviolence also stated that "according to the accepted canons of right and wrong, nothing can be said against the Arab resistance in the face of overwhelming odds."
Much of this seems forgotten by Hindu extremists in their rush to capitalize on Israeli influence in Washington by promising Israel economic and military as well as political benefits if they come to power in New Delhi. The Indian media is full of statements by BJP officials questioning why India is sacrificing a "beneficial relationship with Israel for fear of a few Arab despots."
Some analysts note that such Hindu extremists believe that they can make such statements with impunity because no matter how close India gets to Israel, there will be no reaction from most Arab and Muslim states. The Indian government realizes, however, that India benefits far more from its present broad ties with the Muslim world than it can ever benefit from supporting Israel.
There are hundreds of thousands of Indians working in the Middle East and providing India with billions of dollars in direct remittances. Their acceptance as trusted employees at all levels in Middle East states also eases the dismal employment situation at home.
According to the Institute of Development Studies in Trivandrum, the capital of Kerala, the direct benefit to Kerala alone from its more than 150,000 workers in the Gulf amounts to 25 percent of its GDP. The Muslim world also has provided an open market for Indian exportsfrom agricultural produce to manufactured goods.
Commenting on the increased media attention focused on their lobbying initiatives, Tiwari says that "Our efforts are only attracting attention because of the growing perception that the BJP will come to power in the next election."
Such attention, however, appears to be well deserved. Many India-watchers believe that if the BJP came to power at the national level, the pluralistic society of India as it exists today would soon be relegated to the realm of vanished "golden ages" in the subcontinent's long and colorful past.
Faisal Kutty is a free-lance writer presently living in Ottawa.
Hindu Extremists Seek Ties With Israel and Its U.S. Lobby
Hindu extremists attack Pentecostal church in Mumbai
by Nirmala Carvalho
Clergyman is pushed and shoved, beaten and left unconscious in the street. Hindu radicals accuse the Christian community of involvement in conversions. Monsignor Fernandes, bishop of Bombay, says these actions are terrorism and endanger Indian democracy.
Mumbai (AsiaNews) A group of radical Hindus attacked a Pentecostal church in Bhayander (Mumbai), destroying furniture and equipment, beating its clergyman and worshipers and launching accusations that they are involved in converting people to Christianity.
Last Friday around 12.30 pm a group of 20 from the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), a Hindu fundamentalist organisation, stormed the Church of God in Bhayander, close to the Navghar police station.
According to eyewitness accounts, the hoodlums forced their way into the church shouting slogans like Jai Hind; Jai Maharashtra; Jai Bajrang Bali.
After claiming to be from the VHP they said they had information that conversions took place in that church. They then shouted vulgarities and insults and began beating those present. They manhandled the churchs pastor, Rev Felix Fernandes, shoving and pushing him around, stripped and beat him senseless, leaving him unconscious in the street.
Abraham Mathai, deputy chairman of the State Minorities Commission, said the church that was attacked opened 20 years ago.
These attacks, he told AsiaNews, will continue as long as police do not really track the culprits. These Fascist groups are turning our secular democracy into a mobocracy.
For Mgr Percival Fernandes, auxiliary bishop of Bombay and former secretary general of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India, this uncalled for attack was a terrorist act.
These actions have only one purpose, i.e. create and maintain fear and anxiety in the people and communities attacked, he said. Terrorism is rooted in ideas and is nurtured by hate propaganda. We who want peace must stop them by all means at our disposal. Let us hope that politicians will not use these violent means to get votes.
This is the first time that a church is attacked in Mumbai since last August when a wave of violence hit Christians, first in the state of Orissa and then other Indian states (Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisghar, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala).
Rev Lovson Kurien, 40, member of the Pentecostal Church, saw the latest attack.
The group of attackers fled when police arrived, he said. Eventually they took poor Reverend Felix to hospital. There were around 40,000 rupees (about US$ 10,000) worth in damages to the church.
Police arrested about 20 people in connection with the attack, including a woman, from the radical Hindu group Shiv Sena, and launched and an investigation into the affair.
INDIA Hindu extremists attack Pentecostal church in Mumbai - Asia News
by Nirmala Carvalho
Clergyman is pushed and shoved, beaten and left unconscious in the street. Hindu radicals accuse the Christian community of involvement in conversions. Monsignor Fernandes, bishop of Bombay, says these actions are terrorism and endanger Indian democracy.
Mumbai (AsiaNews) A group of radical Hindus attacked a Pentecostal church in Bhayander (Mumbai), destroying furniture and equipment, beating its clergyman and worshipers and launching accusations that they are involved in converting people to Christianity.
Last Friday around 12.30 pm a group of 20 from the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), a Hindu fundamentalist organisation, stormed the Church of God in Bhayander, close to the Navghar police station.
According to eyewitness accounts, the hoodlums forced their way into the church shouting slogans like Jai Hind; Jai Maharashtra; Jai Bajrang Bali.
After claiming to be from the VHP they said they had information that conversions took place in that church. They then shouted vulgarities and insults and began beating those present. They manhandled the churchs pastor, Rev Felix Fernandes, shoving and pushing him around, stripped and beat him senseless, leaving him unconscious in the street.
Abraham Mathai, deputy chairman of the State Minorities Commission, said the church that was attacked opened 20 years ago.
These attacks, he told AsiaNews, will continue as long as police do not really track the culprits. These Fascist groups are turning our secular democracy into a mobocracy.
For Mgr Percival Fernandes, auxiliary bishop of Bombay and former secretary general of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India, this uncalled for attack was a terrorist act.
These actions have only one purpose, i.e. create and maintain fear and anxiety in the people and communities attacked, he said. Terrorism is rooted in ideas and is nurtured by hate propaganda. We who want peace must stop them by all means at our disposal. Let us hope that politicians will not use these violent means to get votes.
This is the first time that a church is attacked in Mumbai since last August when a wave of violence hit Christians, first in the state of Orissa and then other Indian states (Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisghar, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala).
Rev Lovson Kurien, 40, member of the Pentecostal Church, saw the latest attack.
The group of attackers fled when police arrived, he said. Eventually they took poor Reverend Felix to hospital. There were around 40,000 rupees (about US$ 10,000) worth in damages to the church.
Police arrested about 20 people in connection with the attack, including a woman, from the radical Hindu group Shiv Sena, and launched and an investigation into the affair.
INDIA Hindu extremists attack Pentecostal church in Mumbai - Asia News
Video documentary by UK channel 4 - How Hindu terrorist get fund from UK.
British Channel 4 investigates Hindu extremist organization | Clipmarks
British Channel 4 investigates Hindu extremist organization | Clipmarks
SurvivoR
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stop hiding behind Pakistani flag. Pretending to be a Pakistani speaking for India and against Pakistan and Islam proves your arguments do not hold much grounds.
If you can not listen to anything against your country then first muster some courage to honour your own INDIAN flag.
BanglaBhoot
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I find it strange that he actually thought this trick would work and no one here would figure it out.
Energon
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So what you're basically saying is that until these highly trained and experienced professionals with virtually limitless resources at their disposal wisen up to your paranoid delusions, you will keep misrepresenting information and make all attempts to fool people into believing that there is credible literature that supports your machinations. Give me a break.
Jihad
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How about you give us a break with your pro-Hindu/Indian posts all the time.
Everything or ANYTHING that might reveal a slight part or piece of the truth regarding India's negative involvements in South East Asia, and you immediately jump on the defensive line without even knowing if India really is innocent or not.
You're the type that would rather blame Islamic militants all the time for all the problems in our region, whilst the Hindu militant problem is most certainly there, and is continuing to grow as seen in the latest news and the articles we've seen so far, it will continue to grow and we have to keep an eye out for it, now you can go along and continue with blaming the terrorists from the Islamic side, we however, have accepted that and are fightning this problem, but at the sime time, we're also recognizing and undergoing serious problems with these Hindu fanatics.
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