India Patronize Hindu terrorism

[GLOBAL HAWK]

Goa blast: The role of a minister's wife

OHH!! gosh looking by the title I felt like the poor minister's wife has slept with the terrorist .

 

[idune]

Hindu Nationalism’s History and Tactics

A. The Rise of Hindu Nationalism in India and Abroad

Source: Overlooked Danger: The Security and Rights Implications of Hindu Nationalism in India published in Harvard Human Rights Journal

The RSS was founded in the city of Nagpur in 1925 by Keshav Baliram Hedgewar with the mission of creating a Hindu state. Since its founding, it has promulgated a militant form of Hindu nationalism as the sole basis for national identity in India. According to the RSS, both the leaders of India’s nationalist movement and those of post-independence India failed to create a nation based on Hindu culture:[2]
While efforts to hasten political independence were being pursued in various forms, there were few or no sustained efforts for restoration of the Hindu psyche to its pristine form. Indeed, it is the latter which should constitute the content or core of freedom. Such was the backdrop for envisioning a country wide movement such as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.[3]
The ideology of Hindutva, or a movement for Hindu awakening, is a political strategy rooted in the teachings of the founders of the RSS. To be clear, Hindutva is not Hinduism, nor can its proponents legitimately claim adherence to Hinduism’s principles of nonviolence and tolerance. To the contrary, the RSS ideologue, M. S. Golwalkar, based much of his teachings on the race theories of Nazi Germany. A now infamous passage from his book We, or Our Nationhood Defined, published in 1939, states:
German national pride has now become the topic of the day. To keep up the purity of the nation and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the semitic races—the Jews. National pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also shown how well-nigh impossible it is for races and cultures, having differences going to the [root], to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindustan to learn and profit by.[4]

More than fifty-five years after independence, the RSS still sees itself as the antidote to what it considers the dangerous tendencies of modern-day India:

The erosion of the nation’s integrity in the name of secularism, economic and moral bankruptcy, incessant conversions from the Hindu fold through money-power, ever-increasing trends of secession, thought patterns and education dissonant with the native character of the people, and State-sponsored denigration of anything that goes by the name of Hindu or Hindutwa.[5]
The RSS wanted “the entire gamut of social life” to be designed “on the rock-bed of Hindu nationalism,”[6] a goal that inspired the creation of the RSS political, social, and educational wings, a family of organizations that is now referred to collectively as the sangh parivar.[7] What began as a fringe movement has become a formidable force whose members are well represented in the wide spectrum of Indian political, social, and cultural life, both within the country and among Indians abroad.
The BJP is the political wing of the sangh parivar.[8] It heads a coalition government at the national level and, in January 2003, controlled the state legislatures of Gujarat, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, and was part of the ruling coalition of the government of Uttar Pradesh. Many of the activities of sangh groups have aimed to consolidate a Hindu vote bank to support the BJP’s bid for political power at the state and federal level.
The Vishwa Hindu Parishad was formed in 1964 to cover the social aspects of the RSS activities.[9] The VHP organizes and communicates the RSS message to Hindus living outside India and holds conferences for Hindu religious leaders from across the country. It is actively involved in Sanskrit education, the organization of Hindu rites and rituals, and converting Christians, Muslims and tribals (animists) to Hinduism.[10]
The Bajrang Dal is the militant youth wing of the VHP. It was formed in 1984, during the Babri Masjid conflict,[11] in order to mobilize youth for the Ram temple campaign.[12] A young women’s association, the Durga Vahini, was also founded at this time.[13] With its loose organizational structure, the Bajrang Dal initially operated under different names in different states. Bajrang Dal activists have been involved in many acts of violence carried out by Hindutva organizations, including the spate of attacks against the Christian community in India since 1998 and the communal violence in Gujarat in 2002.[14]
The Vidya Bharati (or the Vidya Bharati Akhil Bharatiya Siksha Sansthan) was established in 1978 with the objective of organizing the RSS activities in education. Similar organizations at the state and regional levels have existed since the 1940s. The Vidya Bharati reportedly runs over 20,000 schools in India, serving 2.4 million children, many with recognition and funding from the state. Over 1000 schools have been added each year in the last decade.[15]
The sangh parivar has successfully expanded its operations overseas, inviting influential and affluent Indian expatriate communities into its fold. The RSS Web site proudly boasts that “similar work is going on in over 100 countries where volunteers are busy organizing Hindus under different organizations.”[16] In addition to forming an ideological bridge across continents, sangh-affiliated organizations in countries such as the United States also provide financial support for RSS activities in India. A November 2002 report, The Foreign Exchange of Hate: IDRF and the American Funding of Hindutva, documents the financial ties between the Indian Development and Relief Fund (“IDRF&#8221, a U.S.-based charity, and Hindu nationalist groups in India that have been linked to attacks against Muslims and Christians, forcible conversions of tribals to Hinduism, and other atrocities.[17] The study found that less than 20 percent of the funds sent to India by IDRF go to organizations that are not openly non-sectarian and/or affiliated with the Sangh. More than 50 percent of the funds disbursed by the IDRF are sent to Sangh related organizations whose primary work is religious ‘conversion’ and ‘Hinduization’ in poor and remote tribal and rural areas of India. Another sixth is given to Hindu religious organizations for purely religious use. Only about a fifth of the funds go for disaster relief and welfare-most of it because the donors specifically designated it so. However, there is considerable documentation indicating that even the relief and welfare organizations that IDRF funds, use the moneys in a sectarian way. In summary, in excess of 80 percent of IDRF’s funding is allocated for work that is clearly sectarian in nature.[18]
IDRF has rejected the allegations contained in the report and has asserted that it “does not subscribe to any religious, political, or sectarian agendas.”[19] Many who donate to IDRF and other such groups do so for charitable and humanitarian purposes and are arguably unaware of some of the uses of their funding.
An increasingly influential Indian lobby in the United States has also thwarted attempts by the U.S. Congress to raise concerns over human rights violations in India. The Indian American community effectively blocked, for example, a congressional resolution expressing concern about the violence against Muslims in Gujarat. According to an article in the Far Eastern Economic Review,
As word of the pending resolution spread, Indian-American groups inundated Senate offices with e-mails and phone calls opposing the resolution. ‘We did not move on this because we were buried’ [by messages], says a congressional aide. Senators had hoped to pass the resolution ahead of Secretary of State Colin Powell’s visit to India in late July [2002].[20]

Overlooked Danger: The Security and Rights Implications of Hindu Nationalism in India

 

[Goodperson]

Please do not respond to Idune's flamer posts.

 

[idune]

Hindu Nationalism’s History and Tactics

B. Communal Violence as a Political Strategy

Source: Overlooked Danger: The Security and Rights Implications of Hindu Nationalism in India, published in Harvard Human Rights Journal

As Hindu nationalism gains legitimacy abroad, recent electoral wins by the BJP have emboldened its sangh parivar affiliates to continue to pursue their communally divisive strategies at home. In December 2002, the BJP won a decisive victory in state-assembly elections in Gujarat, handing the political party its only conclusive win in recent years. Employing a hardline Hindutva platform, the BJP gained the most seats in areas that were affected by communal violence in February and March 2002, and in which members of the BJP were implicated. The elections were considered critical to the political future of the party that had suffered a series of election losses in key states.

Soon after the Gujarat win, VHP International General Secretary Praveen Togadia asserted that the experiment of the “Hindutva lab” would be repeated elsewhere in the country, raising concerns that violence would again be deployed as a political strategy. Togadia went on to state that “[a] Hindu Rashtra [state] can be expected in the next two years . . . . We will change India’s history and Pakistan’s geography by then.”[21] Nine states were set to go to the polls in 2003, followed by national elections in 2004 in which the BJP hopes to gain enough seats to rule outside the constraints of a coalition government.

While Gujarat could be the harbinger of things to come, it is also the end result of years of grassroots rabble-rousing by the sangh parivar. The centerpiece of its strategy is a campaign to build a temple to the Hindu God Ram at the site of the destroyed sixteenth-century Babri Masjid (mosque) in the city of Ayodhya in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. The temple campaign, the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, is led by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. The VHP claims that the site of the mosque was actually the birthplace of Ram and that a temple at that site had been destroyed in order to build the mosque.[22]
On December 6, 1992, the mosque was destroyed. In the months preceding the demolition, the BJP, the RSS, the VHP, and the Shiv Sena[23] had called for the construction of a temple on the site of the mosque as integral to their struggle to achieve Hindu rule in India. Over 150,000 supporters converged on Ayodhya, and, using hammers and pick-axes, reduced the mosque to rubble. The police did not intervene. The incident sparked violence across the country in which at least 1700 people were killed, thousands were injured, and an unknown number of women and girls were raped. The majority of the victims were Muslim. The focal point of the violence was the city of Bombay, the capital of Maharashtra state. For the ten days following December 6, much of the violence took place between the police and Muslims protesting the destruction of the mosque. Police fired on demonstrators, entered and burned Muslim homes, and fired on their residents. Hindus marching in support of the destruction of the mosque were left alone. In the latter days of the violence, members of the Shiv Sena attacked Muslim households alongside the police.[24]

The Srikrishna Commission was established in response to the violence in Bombay. The Commission’s report, presented to the government of Maharashtra in February 1998, more than five years after the violence took place, determined that the attacks were the result of a deliberate and systematic effort to incite violence against Muslims. It singled out Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray and Chief Minister Manohar Joshi as responsible. The Shiv Sena-BJP-led government refused to adopt the Commission’s recommendations, and instead labeled the report “anti-Hindu.”[25] The campaign to build the Ram temple is ongoing and continues to raise the specter of further violence in the country. The recent revival of the campaign in 2002, corresponding to BJP election losses in key states, centered on the March 15, 2002 deadline set by the VHP to bring stone pillars to the site in order to initiate the temple’s construction.[26] In the weeks preceding the violence in Gujarat, Hindu activists had been traveling to and from Ayodhya on the Sabarmati Express train. On February 27, 2002, following weeks of rising tensions between Hindu activists and Muslim vendors at the train station, a Muslim mob attacked Hindu activists riding in a train car of the Sabarmati Express. Two train cars were set on fire, killing at least fifty-eight people, including women and children.

Between February 28 and March 2, 2002, a three-day retaliatory killing spree by Hindus left hundreds of Muslims dead and tens of thousands homeless and dispossessed throughout Gujarat, marking the country’s worst religious bloodletting since the Bombay riots a decade earlier. The looting and burning of Muslim homes, shops, restaurants, and places of worship was also widespread. Tragically consistent with a longstanding pattern of attacks on minorities, tribals, and Dalits in India, and with previous episodes of large-scale communal violence, scores of Muslim girls and women were brutally raped before being mutilated and burnt to death.
Numerous Indian and international human rights organizations, as well as the Indian media, reported that the attacks were planned well in advance of the Godhra incident, with extensive support from state officials. A report released by Human Rights Watch in April 2002 stated that the Hindu mobs were guided by computer printouts listing the addresses of Muslim families and their properties, information obtained from the Ahmedabad municipal corporation among other sources, and em-barked on a murderous rampage confident that the police was with them. In many cases, the police led the charge, using gunfire to kill Muslims who got in the mobs’ way. A key BJP state minister is reported to have taken over police control rooms in Ahmedabad on the first day of the carnage, issuing orders to disregard pleas for assistance from Muslims. Portions of the Gujarati language press meanwhile printed fabricated stories and statements openly calling on Hindus to avenge the Godhra attacks.[27]

The police and various state officials were implicated in many of the attacks, in some cases as passive observers and in others as participants in the burning and looting of shops and homes and the killing of Muslims. In many cases the police came ahead of the mobs, aiming and firing at Muslim youth that got in the way.[28] In July 2002, results of an official investigation by the Ahmedabad-based Forensic Science Laboratory stated that the fire on the Sabarmati Express in Godhra could not have been set by the mob from the outside as had been alleged; the fire, it claimed, was set from inside the train.[29] Allegations have also emerged that the Godhra victims may not have all been Hindu activists, whose deaths were allegedly avenged in the retaliatory killing of Muslims. Railway authorities have also consistently refused to publish the list of passenger names.[30] These and other reports have cast a shadow on the events of February 27. Investigations into the attack were ongoing at this writing.

In the aftermath of the violence, Muslim victims have been denied equal protection of the law and equal treatment in the disbursement of relief and rehabilitation services. An estimated 100,000 people, a majority of them Muslim, were internally displaced in the state following the massacres. For months they lived in makeshift relief camps throughout Gujarat. The state failed to provide them with adequate security or relief. The burden of providing much needed food and medical supplies rested largely with Muslim charities and nongovernmental organizations.[31] By October 2002, most of the camps had been closed, forcing Muslims to return to what was left of their homes or seek shelter elsewhere, fearing ongoing violence at home.[32]

Perpetrators continue to enjoy ongoing impunity for the attacks. The Human Rights Watch report adds:Eyewitnesses filed numerous police First Information Reports (FIRs), the initial reports of a crime recorded by the police, that named local VHP, BJP, and Bajrang Dal leaders as instigators or participants in the attacks. Few if any of these leaders have been arrested as the police, reportedly under instructions from the state, face continuous pressure not to arrest them or to reduce the severity of the charges filed. In many instances, the police have also refused to include in FIRs the names of perpetrators identified by the victims. Police have, however, filed false charges against Muslim youth arbitrarily detained during combing operations in Muslim neighborhoods that have been largely destroyed. The state government has entrusted a criminal probe into the deadliest of attacks in Ahmedabad, in the Naroda Patia and Gulmarg Society neighborhoods, to an officer handpicked by the VHP, the organization implicated in organizing and perpetrating these massacres.[33]

By February 2003, almost a year since the violence began, not a single trial related to the events had resulted in a conviction. Lawyers representing Muslim victims were losing faith that justice could be served in a state where the BJP was in power. Eyewitnesses, still under continuous threat, had bartered their security and the security of their loved ones in exchange for turning “hostile” as witnesses, or simply not showing up when the case went to trial. Even when witnesses would take the stand, the public prosecutor and the judge, in league with the defendants, ensured that the cases ended in acquittal.[34] The justice machinery has, in effect, been stacked against Muslims, a process that began years before the massacres.

The BJP first came to power in Gujarat in 1995. The state has since been dubbed a Hindutva “laboratory.” Through years of intense political, social, and even educational activity, the BJP has sought to infiltrate the state’s law enforcement, civil, and judicial administration with those sympathetic to the Hindutva cause. A ten-day spate of violence against Christians in Dangs district, Gujarat, between December 25, 1998 and January 3, 1999, gave some indication of the extent of this infiltration. Members of the RSS, the VHP, the Bajrang Dal, and the Hindu Jagran Manch (“HJM&#8221[35] were responsible for the attacks. Local police refused to register complaints by Christian victims.[36]

Christian leaders, individuals, and institutions nationwide came under attack in India soon after the BJP came to power at the federal level in March 1998. While a majority of the reported incidents that year occurred in Gujarat, attacks were also reported in Maharashtra, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Manipur, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, and New Delhi. Attacks included the killing of priests and missionaries and the raping of nuns. Christian institutions, including schools, churches, colleges, and cemeteries, were also destroyed.[37] The intensity and frequency of attacks increased in September and October 1999, just before national parliamentary elections. Corresponding closely to particular electoral contests in which Hindu nationalist groups pursued major strategic goals, the attacks also continued in the periods following electoral victory. Years later, these attacks are still ongoing.[38]
In part, Christian institutions and individuals have been targeted for their role in promoting health, literacy, and economic independence among Dalit and tribal community members. With upper-caste Hindu economic privilege at stake, keeping Dalits and tribals in a state of economic dependency is a motivating factor in anti-Christian violence and propaganda. As a result, the sangh parivar has also accused Christians of converting Dalits and tribals by coercion or force. Many tribals and Dalits have converted to Christianity in an effort to escape their impoverished state and abusive treatment under India’s caste system.[39] India’s National Commission for Minorities has found no evidence to back up the charges that Dalits and tribals are being converted by force.[40] Animists or spirit worshippers by nature, many tribals do not practice Hinduism. Much like Dalits, they traditionally fall outside the Hindu fold and are the prime targets of the VHP’s “reconversion” campaigns.[4gislation in all other states.[42] Moves to ban religious conversions, the increased recruiting of Dalits and tribals into the RSS fold, and the “reconversion” of Dalits and tribals to Hinduism are parts of a broader strategy to recast these traditionally marginalized groups into a Hindu identity and deploy them in anti-Christian and anti-Muslim violence. They have succeeded in part: Dalit and tribal groups were also implicated in some of the attacks against Muslims in Gujarat. Politically, the vilification of Christians and Muslims is also a synthesizing feature of Hindutva that helps to consolidate the Hindu vote bank while stemming the tide of defecting Dalit and tribal voters to opposition parties. The vilification is also seeping into mainstream discourse—most powerfully, through the medium of education.

 

[idune]

Hindu Nationalism’s History and Tactics

C.Teaching Hate

Source: Overlooked Danger: The Security and Rights Implications of Hindu Nationalism in India punlished in Harvard Human Rights Journal

The violence in Gujarat, while large in scale and methodical in its organization, was also barbaric in its execution. Young children, the elderly, and even the handicapped were not spared. Several eyewitnesses recounted incidents in which pregnant women’s bellies were cut open. The fetuses were pulled out and hacked before mother and child were burned. Muslim women and girls were brutally gang raped in front of their male relatives and, once killed, their bodies were burnt and charred beyond recognition.[43]
For such inhuman acts of violence to become routine, the demonization of entire communities must first take place. In India this has been effectively achieved through the medium of education that is increasingly being entrusted by the state to the sangh parivar. The Indian government supports, through official recognition and financial assistance, a large network of private schools run by Hindu nationalist organizations that effectively attempt to indoctrinate children in religious intolerance. When seen in the context of ongoing communal violence, the work of these private schools amounts to not only a denial of a child’s fundamental right to education, as described below, but also an incendiary tactic that ensures the spawning of a future generation of haters, perhaps even killers, mobilized as patriots and equipped with extensive military and ideological training.

According to a 1996 assessment by India’s National Council for Educational Research and Training, textbooks used by the Vidya Bharati, the edu-cational wing of the RSS, were “designed to promote bigotry and religious fanaticism in the name of inculcating knowledge of culture in the young generation.”[44] Children in these schools are indoctrinated in religious intolerance, the inferiority of non-Hindus, and the collective blame of Muslims and Christians for wrongs against Hindus at various points in Indian history, as interpreted by Hindu nationalists.[45] Western thought and civilization are perceived and propagated as enemies of Hindu culture. Religions such as Islam and Christianity are depicted as alien to India, as they are the religions of foreign invaders—the Mughals and the British.[46] Both Islam and Christianity were in fact introduced to India long before Mughal and British rule.

The historical reconstruction of Muslim and Christian atrocities and their projection onto the present as a threat to the integrity and security of India are powerful weapons in legitimizing ongoing violence against Christians and Muslims. Stated differently,
If the motif of infinite, elastic revenge unifies past, present and future, then the production of an appropriate historical memory is crucial for the generation of the new political culture. History teaching, textbooks and historical scholarship have been special targets of Sangh attacks. They need to assert their monopoly over historical truth, for there is a strange symmetry between their historical allegations and their present violence. They assert that Muslims broke temples, and then they demolish mosques. They allege forced conversion, and then they command victims to utter the name of Ram or to convert. Legends of rapes of Hindu women abound, and Muslim women are then raped freely.[47]

The influence of the sangh parivar’s takeover of India’s secular educational space has been greatly augmented since the BJP reached national power in 1998. Of particular concern is the passing of control over state schools to sangh parivar organizations in states where the BJP is in power, such as Goa and Gujarat, and, at the national level, the increasing involvement of members of these groups in the redrafting of India’s national curriculum. In 2002, the national BJP-led government released a new national curriculum largely drafted by members of the RSS and seen by many as a means of injecting religious instruction into education.[48]

The RSS also reportedly runs upwards of 300,000 shakhas—local cells organized on the principle that only a militant and powerful Hindu movement can counter threats from so-called outsiders. Shakhas recruit young boys and men, fifty to one hundred for each cell, providing them with extensive physical training and indoctrinating them with the Hindutva ideology.[49] An article in The Hindu, a respected English daily in India, states:
The RSS shakhas started functioning in 1925. Every day, they have ‘boudhik’ sessions that train members in imagined “histories” of outrage against Hindus. A documentary on shakhas for infants depicts a favourite game that enacts the “reconquest” of Kashmir through battles. We were proudly told by the headmaster of an RSS-run school in Delhi that he held forth on the Babri mosque saga at the assembly everyday: five-year-olds would clench their fists in fury and swear vengeance under the influence of his oratory. Night schools and sanskar kendras [cultural centers] take these messages beyond regular schooltime. The RSS itself is acknowledged to be the classroom for all its affiliates and sub-affiliates: BJP, VHP, Bajrang Dal and hand-picked cadres, trained in daily shakhas over years, come to these fronts to teach RSS values and intentions. Pedagogy is an essential tool for the Sangh Parivar.[50]

Hate propaganda is also disseminated by Hindutva’s foot soldiers through the powerful medium of the local-language media and the distribution of hate literature on village and city streets. Anti-Christian and anti-Islamic propaganda has become commonplace in states such as Gujarat. A week and a half before the Hindu rally in Ahwa town, Gujarat that precipitated ten days of violence against Christians in December 1998, pamphlets promoting the rally and containing anti-Christian propaganda were distributed in Ahwa and neighboring villages. The English translation of a Gujarati pamphlet distributed by Hindu Jagran Manch read in part:

The priests of the Christian religion are scared of the awakening of patriotic Hindus and have begun insulting holy people and volunteers of the “Hindu Jagran Manch” through daily papers. This is an insult to the whole of Hindu society. It is indeed the sacred duty (dharmanu kaam) of the Hindu religion to teach the bold Christian priests a lesson and to put them in their place. The conspiracy of converting gullible tribals by giving money, goods, black magic and also through threats is unearthed now. Hence, the “Hindu Jagran Manch” is determined to stop the conversions and curb all activities of Christian priests.[51]

Leaflets depicting Muslims as terrorists intent on destroying the Hindu community were also in circulation years before the 2002 attacks. RSS and HJM fliers circulated in August 1998 proclaimed: “India is a country of Hindus . . . . Our religion of Rama and Krishna is pious. To convert [or] leave it is a sin.” Another flier by the VHP in Bardoli, Gujarat, warned, “Caution Hindus! Beware of inhuman deeds of Muslims . . . . Muslims are destroying Hindu Community by slaughter houses, slaughtering cows and making Hindu girls elope. Crime, drugs, terrorism are Muslim’s empire.”[52]
Leaflets calling for an economic boycott of Muslims surfaced in 2002, financially crippling Gujarat’s Muslim community. One such leaflet distributed by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad read:

WAKE UP! ARISE! THINK! ENFORCE!
SAVE THE COUNTRY! SAVE THE RELIGION!

Economic boycott is the only solution! The anti-national elements use the money earned from the Hindus to destroy us! They buy arms! They molest our sisters and daughters! The way to break the back-bone of these elements is: An economic non-cooperation movement.[53] The local language media also played a role in fanning the flames of communal violence in Gujarat. In April 2002, the People’s Union for Civil Liberties and Shanti Abhiyan, both nongovernmental organizations, issued a report analyzing the role of the vernacular press, including the Vadodara city edition of Sandesh, a Gujarati-language newspaper. The report concluded that articles carried by Sandesh fed on “the prevalent anti-Muslim prejudices of its Hindu readership and provoke[d] it further by sensationalizing, twisting, mangling and distorting news or what passes for it.”[54] On February 28, 2002, for example, a day after the attack on Hindus in Godhra, a Sandesh front-page report read: “AVENGE BLOOD WITH BLOOD.”[55]

 

[idune]

Hindu Nationalism’s History and Tactics

D. Patriot or “Anti-Hindu”: Creating a False Dichotomy


Source: Overlooked Danger: The Security and Rights Implications of Hindu Nationalism in India punlished in Harvard Human Rights Journal

The dissemination and consumption of hate literature and slanted inflammatory news articles are indicative of the increasing popularity of a sentiment systematically honed by the sangh parivar over the last several decades: that India is a country for Hindus. Perhaps the greatest achievement of the Hindu right has been to recast the Indian identity as one exclusively reserved for its Hindu citizens. Muslims, Christians, and others are tolerated minorities whose best interests lie in toeing the majority line.[56] These are the religions of foreign invaders whose current followers must pay for the alleged and often constructed sins of their forefathers and whose allegiance, it is claimed, rests with governments in foreign lands.[57]

The Gandhian ethic of nonviolence, the cornerstone of the Indian independence struggle, has lost its legitimacy. In its place is an increasingly class-cutting movement where even large-scale massacre is justified as a patriotic act. Then–Vishwa Hindu Parishad Secretary B. L. Sharma characterized the gang rape of four nuns in the state of Madhya Pradesh in September 1998 as the “anger of patriotic Hindu youth against the anti-national forces.” The nuns were accused of trying to convert local Hindus to Christianity.[58] On March 1, 2002, at the height of the violence in the state, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, an RSS propagandist, declared that he would control the “riots resulting from the natural and justified anger of the people.”[59]

Referring to Newton’s laws of physics while discussing the Godhra massacre, Modi told reporters: “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.” Further, Modi remarked, “the . . . people of Gujarat have shown remarkable restraint under grave provocation.”[60]
As in the United States, where since September 11 political dissenters have been labeled as unpatriotic, in India, patriotism has also been seamlessly co-opted by the right. Activists, journalists, and citizens of any faith who publicly criticize the divisive policies of the sangh parivar or expose atrocities against religious minorities and Dalits are deemed anti-Hindu and, hence, anti-national.The critique is insidiously recast as an assault on Hinduism, which in turn is an assault on the nation. Lost in the debate is the notion that religion itself has been co-opted by political forces claiming to represent its ideals and its followers.

To demand equal protection of the law for all or to protest when the government kills its own citizens is deemed a threat to the integrity of the nation and an attempt to defile India in the eyes of the international community. Conversely, outright murder or rape in the name of avenging past and present attacks on Hindus (whether fact or fiction), or constructing a Hindu temple where a Muslim mosque once stood, are all patriotic acts in the service of one’s country.

In the governmental arena, patriotism cloaks itself in the garb of national security. In an age in which even extrajudicial state action is condoned in the name of fighting terror and in which terrorism has become the involuntary monopoly of the non-state (and often Islamic) actor, political opponents and religious minorities become easy targets. The Indian government continues to exploit rhetoric surrounding the global “war against terrorism” in order to target religious minorities and political opponents. Most notably, the long debated anti-terrorism legislation, the Prevention of Terrorism Act (“POTA&#8221, was pushed through parliament in March 2002. Its close resemblance to the much misused and now lapsed Terrorists and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act of 1985 (amended 1987) foreshadowed a return to the widespread and systematic curtailment of civil liberties.

The POTA creates an overly broad definition of terrorism, while expanding the state’s investigative and procedural powers. Moreover, under the POTA, suspects can be detained for up to three months without charge, and up to three months more with permission by a special judge.As of January 2003, the government had already selectively used the POTA against political dissenters in Kashmir and Tamil Nadu, yet not against members of the sangh parivar, including those in Gujarat.

Muslims arrested following the killing of Hindus in Godhra, Gujarat were quickly charged under the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance that preceded the Prevention of Terrorism Act. Those arrested for the ensuing attacks against Muslims did not face the same charges.

Conversely, economic boycotts, widespread violence, and gang rape of Muslims in the name of avenging Hindu deaths are deemed the spontaneous and even justified acts of patriotic Indians reacting to a terrorist threat.

 

[Free Tibet]

Hindu terrorism?????? India is most secular country in the whole world. There is BJP/RSS/VHP they have not got complete majority even for a single time to rule india. Not because there are so many muslims/christians/jews etc.. but because the Hindus are not radical people they help and welcome everybody. Like i am living in India, a very decent life got good education and job only thing i miss in life is my country Tibet.

More over there are good, bad and ugly people in all communities but they are least in Hindus. And remember the people you are labeling terrorists are not proved in the court of law. One can not believe what the police say there is political angel also. In all bomb blast police says it is the work of Pakistan or muslims radicalized by Wahabis and trained and financed by Pakistan do you believe that??

Let the law take its own cource guilty will be punished, amen.

 

[destiny]

Please do not respond to Idune's flamer posts.

well no one is

 

[idune]

US Money for Hindu Extremism

By Ibrahim Sajid Malik, New York and Arif Azad, London
translated by Zulfiqar Ahmad

BBCUrdu.com, December 4, 2002 original story here

Photo: RSS has been accused of spreading religious violence

According to NGOs and independent political workers, many relief organizations working in India are using funds collected in America and Europe to support extremist Hindu parties.

According to a report published by two NGOs associated with India - South Asia Citizen Web and Subrang Communications - India Development and Relief Fund (IDRF), which is registered in Maryland, USA, as a tax-exempt organization, gives 80 percent of its funds to organizations advocating Hindutva ,while only 20 percent is given to actual relief organizations.

The report entitled "Foreign Exchange of Hatred" has alleged that this organization which collects money for relief, welfare and development work is not secular; rather, it fans communalism and extremism and, towards that end, it has so far provided about 5 million (50 Lakh) dollars.

BOX: "We have arrived at the conclusion that this money gets into the hands of extremists." Harsh Kapoor

One of the compilers of the report, Harsh Kapoor, told the BCC Urdu.com that this report is the result of extensive research. "Our research was spread over three continents. We considered it necessary to investigate the money collected for relief work from well intentioned people in the US. We came to the conclusion that this money is going into the hands of right wing extremist organizations."

Among those benefiting from IDRF's generosity was the RSS, and organizations related to it, that have been involved in violent activities.

However, IDRF has claimed that it is involved in rural development, social welfare, and the elimination of poverty in cities. A statement issued by this organization states that it has no connection with the RSS and such charges against it have been leveled by left wing sympathizers.

BOX: "We have no connection with the RSS and such charges have been leveled by left wing sympathizers." IDRF

Over 150 forms of documentary evidence, of which income tax forms are the most important, were collected to compile the report. The compilers of the report referred to IDRF's tax forms to say that the nine organizations supported (by IDRF) are related to the RSS and that the founder of the IDRF also has had connections with the RSS.
According to the report, not only had IDRF received $70,000 from Cisco Systems in 1999 (matching funds?), but it has also been collecting money from American companies in the name of promoting secular ideology. The companies contributing to the IDRF include Cisco System, Sun Microsystems, Oracle, and Hewlett Packard. In 1999 alone, Sun Microsystems gave $70,000 to the IDRF. It should be noted that a large number of Indians work at Sun Microsystems.

Political workers have mailed letters along with this report to ten international companies asking them to stop supporting IDRF immediately.

Harsh Kapoor says that he is "hopeful that as a result of our report, a similar movement will start in Britain because right wing Hindu organizations have a lot of influence in Britain." "A movement to stop money going from the US to Extremist groups in India has started in the US, I hope a similar movement will start in Britain." "Muslim and Christian extremist organizations are also involved in similar activities in Britain and Europe."

[there is some formatting error here; what should have been a box is made part of the text Z.A.]

Since September 11th, the American government has banned many Muslim charities accused of providing funds to terrorist forces.

The report also states that "documentary evidence shows that IDRF has provided money to extremist groups in at least three states. In Gujarat, IDRF provided funds to Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram. This organization was involved in killing of and attacks against about 2000 Christians in 1998. The same organization has been involved in the recent massacre of Muslims in Gujarat.

BOX: "Sewa International is thought to be connected with extreme right wing organizations in India." Irfan Mustafa.

Commenting on the report, the spokesman for the British Indian Muslim Federation, Irfan Mustafa, states that he has written a letter expressing his concern about funding activities of extremist Hindu organizations. He says that because of this movement, Lord Patel has resigned from the board of an organization named Sewa International.

"Sewa International is thought to be related to Indian right wing extremist organizations and is believed to send money, collected in foreign countries, to groups promoting communalism and sectarianism in India. We have received a reply from the Foreign Office assuring us that serious consideration will be given to our concerns."

 

[tingumaster]

Hub Of terrorism

Bangladesh is one of the poorest countries on earth, on the brink of being a failed state, and that makes it a perfect target for Al-Qaeda and its ever-expanding network of Islamic extremist organisations. Virtually unnoticed by the world at large, Bangladesh is being dragged into the global war on terrorists by becoming a sanctuary for them.

US officials say they are "looking closely" at Bangladesh as Islamic organisations proliferate amid political violence that has flared since bitterly contested parliamentary elections in October 2001. These were won by a four-party coalition headed by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). It includes three religious extremist parties, which are staunch supporters of Islamic fundamentalism.

Neighbouring India, which has had turbulent relations with Bangladesh since it gained independence from Pakistan in 1971, alleges that there are 195 camps in Bangladesh where guerrillas seeking autonomy or independent statehood in north-eastern India are being trained.

Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's government in Bangladesh has repeatedly denied it supports anti-Indian militants or allows Islamic organisations, some of them linked to Al-Qaeda, to flourish. Given the BNP's reliance on its Islamic partners, that position is to be expected. The US and its Western allies are gradually waking up to the potentially explosive situation developing in Bangladesh, which former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, leader of the Awami League, the main opposition party, calls the "Talibanisation" of Bangladeshi society.

 

[ek_indian]

@all Indians:

I wonder if we are replying to these posts. I have stopped myself responding after having learnt that Indian truck driver are the prime cause of AIDS.

We should not get to the levels other are at. We understand the frustation and jealousy of few ones as India is getting improved day by day in all spheres.
Hope I made myself clear.

 

[idune]

British Public Is Funding Hindutva Extremism
By Awaaz - Soth Asia Watch

27 February, 2004

A UK report launched at the House of Lords on February 26 presents alarming new evidence that under the cloak of humanitarian charity, massive donations from the British public were used to fund sangh parivar organisations. The report is launched just before the second anniversary of the horrific 2002 Gujarat carnage.


Prepared by Awaaz - South Asia Watch Ltd, a London-based secular network, the report "In Bad Faith? British Charity and Hindu Extremism", says RSS branches in the UK have been raising large amounts of money in the name of charity for natural disasters like the Gujarat earthquake
and the Orissa supercyclone. Virtually all the money raised went to sangh parivar groups, including groups that have incited anti-minority violence.


"We do not think it is a coincidence that the two Indian states where Hindutva networks, violence and hatred have grown phenomenally in recent years both had natural and human tragedies (the Gujarat earthquake 2001, the Orissa cyclone 1999) followed by massive amounts of funding to Hindutva organisations from overseas under the guise of humanitarian charity", says the report. "It is ironic that the sangh parivar have attacked foreign
funding of minority groups when they themselves use such funding to expand their own influence", Awaaz says.


The report, which will be available on February 26, demonstrates that the UK-based Sewa International sent £2 million raised for Gujarat earthquake relief to its Indian counterpart Sewa Bharati. Sewa Bharati is a part of the sangh parivar and proudly proclaims its association with the RSS and its desire to expand Hindutva networks. Much of the earthquake money was spent on building RSS schools that indoctrinate children into Hindutva and promote anti-minority hatred. Money from the UK was also given to other sangh parivar organisations (such as the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram) that are involved
or implicated in serious, large scale anti-minority violence.


"Most British donors would be horrified if they knew the nature, history and ideas of the RSS. British individuals raised funds and donated in good faith to Sewa International's Gujarat earthquake appeals but would not have done so had they known that the organisation raising the money was closely linked to the Fascist-inspired and extremist RSS," says Awaaz.


Sewa International is not registered as a British charity, but is the fundraising arm of the registered charity Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS), the UK branch of the RSS. The report exposes the connections of the HSS, Sewa
International and the Kalyan Ashram Trust (another UK registered charity) to sangh parivar violence or extremism in India.


"Sewa International has tried to dupe politicians, donors and the general public. Its main purpose is to fund, expand and glorify hate-driven RSS organizations, several of which have been at the forefront of large scale violence, pogroms or hate campaigns in India. Its claim to be a non-sectarian, non-political, non-religious humanitarian charity is a sham," said Awaaz spokesperson Suresh Grover.


In the thoroughly documented report, Awaaz clearly establishes the strong ties between Sewa International and major Hindutva organisations in India. It has called for the Charity Commissioner to withdraw the charity status of three British charities: Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS) UK, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) UK, and the Kalyan Ashram Trust. The HSS and Sewa International are currently under formal investigation by the UK Charity Commission.


SUMMARY & RECOMMENDATIONS


Violent hate politics against Muslim and Christian minorities has grown massively in India in recent years. This resulted in the death of 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, and the displacement of 200,000 more in the state of Gujarat in 2002. Victims included British citizens. The ideology behind this hate-driven politics is called ‘Hindutva.’ The organization at the core of Hindutva activities is the extremist, paramilitary, Fascist-inspired Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The RSS is dedicated to turning India from a secular democratic multi-religious society into an authoritarian anti-minority ‘Hindu nation’. Gandhi’s murderer was an RSS activist. The RSS and its family of closely-allied organizations have been repeatedly indicted over several decades by international and Indian human rights organizations, judicial commissions and official bodies for their role in large scale violence and hatred against minority groups, including the Gujarat pogroms in 2002. The report demonstrates that

The extremist RSS’s front organizations have received millions of pounds raised from the British public. These funds were collected by the Leicester-based registered charity, Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS) and its fundraising arm Sewa International.


HSS and Sewa International are UK branches of the RSS and the main purpose of their fundraising is to channel money to extremist RSS fronts in India, despite their claim to be non-sectarian, non-religious, non-political and purely humanitarian organizations.


Sewa International’s deep connections with the extremist RSS were not made known to donors and the British public who gave funds in good faith for Indian humanitarian causes. These connections were also unknown to patrons of Sewa International appeals.


The overwhelming bulk of funds HSS and Sewa International collected from the British public in the name of charity, including for humanitarian relief after the Gujarat earthquake in 2001 and the Orissa cyclone in 1999, were given to extremist RSS fronts in India.


RSS allies funded from UK public donations include groups directly involved in large scale violence and the promotion of hatred (see Box 3). Funds from the UK intended for disaster relief were used to expand and glorify the hate-driven RSS’s networks in India.


The report recommends that

The charitable status of HSS and other associated charities should be withdrawn and public sector funding and political patronage of these organizations should end



HINDU SWAYAMSEVAK SANGH (HSS) IS THE UK BRANCH OF THE RSS
MAIN PURPOSE OF SEWA INTERNATIONAL IS TO RAISE FUNDS FOR RSS PROJECTS EXTENT OF DEEP RSS CONNECTION NOT MADE PUBLIC

The Leicester-based HSS, a registered charity, is a branch of the Indian RSS. It runs about 70 weekly physical and ideological training cells in the UK. The HSS is modelled on the RSS, actively promotes RSS ideology and shares the RSS aim of turning India into an exclusive ‘Hindu nation’. The RSS in India considers the HSS to be its UK branch. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad UK and the Kalyan Ashram Trust UK, both registered charities, are also branches of the RSS family operating in the UK. The full report details numerous, extensive, deep and active connections between the HSS and the RSS.
Sewa International is the fundraising arm of the HSS. The main purpose of Sewa International is to raise funds from the British public for RSS projects in India. Sewa International and the HSS have misled donors, the public and patrons about their long-standing, deep and committed relationship with the Indian RSS. Neither Sewa International nor the HSS informed donors and the public that their donations were used almost exclusively to support RSS front organizations, and that the main purpose of HSS and Sewa International fundraising is to channel money to these RSS fronts.


Funds raised by Sewa International from British donors and the public have run into millions of pounds. The overwhelming bulk of these funds have been channelled to RSS front organizations.


Sewa International is not a registered charity. It uses the charity registration number of the HSS to raise funds from the British public.



EARTHQUAKE FUNDS FROM BRITISH PUBLIC USED TO EXPAND RSS NETWORKS & GLORIFY THE RSS VAST BULK OF PUBLIC FUNDS WERE GIVEN BY SEWA INTERNATIONAL TO RSS FRONTS

An alarming chain links unsuspecting British donors to the active political promotion and glorification of the RSS. Charitable funds raised by Sewa International from the British public have been directly used to expand RSS institutions and networks in India, to further the aims, objectives and activities of RSS organizations, and to glorify the RSS and its leaders. Sewa International’s activities around both the Gujarat earthquake (2001) and the Orissa cyclone (1999) demonstrate a pattern in which a natural, human tragedy is used to enable the dramatic expansion of RSS institutions through the use of overseas funds. Gujarat earthquake 2001


In key Gujarat earthquake fundraising appeals, Sewa International did not disclose its associations with the HSS or the RSS and it did not state that it was fundraising exclusively for RSS affiliates. This misled British donors and public, most of whom would have been horrified by the RSS’s history, ideology and activities.


All £2 million raised from the British public by Sewa International for Gujarat earthquake reconstruction and rehabilitation from 2001 was for a major RSS affiliate, Sewa Bharati. Sewa Bharati is dedicated to creating an exclusive Hindu nation. Sewa Bharati’s reconstruction work was directly related to furthering the RSS’s political agenda, including through the organization of RSS cells. A key pattern found was that Sewa International funded Sewa Bharati for rebuilding work, but it was the RSS that conducted ceremonies for the start of rebuilding work or handed over the completed village to residents.
One rebuilt village (Chapredi) included an important dedication plaque glorifying the RSS, its founder and a key RSS affiliate. A Hindu temple topped with saffron flags was built in the village. No evidence was found of Sewa International funding the building of mosques or churches, though many of these were destroyed in the earthquake.


The RSS supreme leader K. S. Sudarshan undertook the foundation stone laying ceremony for one village (Mithapasvaria). The new village was handed over to residents by senior RSS leaders. The RSS supreme leader K. S. Sudarshan undertook the opening ceremony for another village (Rapar) during which he urged residents to expand the RSS network in the area. Funds were raised for this village through a multicultural event in the UK. RSS physical and ideological training cells were started by Sewa Bharati during the rebuilding and rehabilitation period for another village (Badanpur).
Sewa International claimed to fund the reconstruction of anywhere from 10 to 25 villages. It also claimed to have totally funded the reconstruction of 10 villages. Six villages were found in which Sewa International funds were used for reconstruction and rehabilitation. Other fundraising
A large proportion of the £260,000 raised by Sewa International for Orissa cyclone relief (1999) went to enable the expansion of major RSS affiliates. Funds were used for building RSS schools. The RSS and its leaders were glorified. The HSS said Orissa cyclone funds would be channelled through RSS volunteers and given to organizations which get their workforce from the RSS.


The extremely close involvement of the RSS, its supreme leader and its senior figures, as well as the blatant promotion and glorification of the RSS in both the Gujarat earthquake and Orissa cyclone work, is sufficient to raise questions regarding Indian legal regulations that prohibit the RSS from receiving overseas funds.


The main education projects for which Sewa International raises funds from the British public are RSS and VHP-run. These extremist education projects have a political purpose for the RSS and the VHP, a fact not disclosed by Sewa International to donors or the public. Funds raised by Sewa International’s ‘education aid’ wing are significant, running into hundreds of thousands of pounds.


Each of the ‘supported projects’ for which Sewa International raises funds from the British public is an RSS project or is linked to the RSS. Sewa International raises funds from the British public for ‘one-teacher schools’. These are extremist political projects run by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, Sewa Bharati, Vidya Bharati and other RSS / VHP affiliates.Over a three year period, we found mentioned in HSS UK literature a small amount of a few thousand pounds donated by Sewa International to non-Indian causes.



SEWA INTERNATIONAL FUNDS ORGANIZATIONS INVOLVED OR IMPLICATED IN VIOLENCE SEWA INTERNATIONAL FUNDS ORGANIZATIONS INVOLVED IN HATRED

Funds raised by Sewa International have been given to RSS organizations in India whose members and followers have been involved or implicated in large scale anti-minority violence or religious hatred, despite Sewa International’s denials.


Sewa International and the Kalyan Ashram Trust UK (a registered charity) raise funds for the RSS arm, Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram (VKA), which has been responsible for considerable violence and hatred against Christian and Muslim groups, including during the Gujarat carnage in 2002.


Sewa Bharati, the key recipient of Sewa International Gujarat earthquake funds had its license to operate in Madhya Pradesh revoked by the state government because of alleged violence against Christians. Allegations of violence against Christians by Sewa Bharati in Madhya Pradesh continue.
Some Gujarat earthquake appeal funds collected by Sewa International from the British public were for the RSS-allied Lok Kalyan Samiti in Chanasma village, which has been implicated in the violent ‘cleansing’ of all Muslims from the village and the illegal occupation of premises and land previously under the charge of the statutory Muslim waqf board.


Some Gujarat earthquake appeal funds collected by Sewa International from the British public were for the RSS’s Border Jankalyan Samiti in Gujarat. The Jankalyan Samiti’s Maharashtra branch was responsible for attacks on Christian organizations.


Sewa International also raises funds for projects, such as ‘one-teacher schools’, that involve the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), an Indian organization at the forefront of anti-minority violence and hatred in India. The purpose of these schools is to oppose Christians and what the RSS calls ‘subversion’ and ‘anti-national’ tendencies.


Almost a quarter of Sewa International earthquake funds raised from the British public were for building sectarian, highly controversial RSS schools. These schools are mainly run by the RSS’s Vidya Bharati, whose teaching material has been condemned by India’s statutory National Council for Educational Research and Training as blatantly promoting bigotry, fanaticism and hatred.


There are serious allegations that the RSS discriminated against Muslims and dalits in earthquake relief, and that the RSS and its allies attacked and intimidated secular NGOs undertaking relief work. Earthquake relief work by RSS allies was accompanied by violence and hatred against Christians.
Despite their repeated claims to be non-sectarian and non-discriminatory, Sewa International, the HSS or the VHP UK did not launch any humanitarian appeal following the Gujarat carnage in 2002 carried out by Hindutva supremacist groups in which 2,000 people died, mostly Muslims, and over 200,000 citizens of India were displaced.



RECOMMENDATIONS

Because of their role in funding, promoting or glorifying RSS organizations that have been directly responsible for or implicated in serious, large scale sectarian violence, hatred or violation of human rights in India:

The charitable status of Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh UK, Vishwa Hindu Parishad UK and Kalyan Ashram Trust UK (all branches of the extremist RSS family) be withdrawn by the UK Charity Commission.


The Charity Commission take appropriate action against the trustees of HSS. HSS / Sewa International fundraising appeals for Indian causes were not transparent and did not disclose to the public that funds were being raised for and sent to extremist and sectarian RSS organizations.
Donors and the public refuse to give funds to the HSS, Sewa International, the VHP UK and their allied organizations.


Politicians, public and voluntary sector organizations, religious and community groups publicly dissociate from the HSS, the VHP UK and their allied organizations.

 

[Khajur]

India is hindu majority country...so what kind of terrorist its gonna patronize jewish or Ai-queda??

Obviously its gonna promote its own terrorists and patronize Hindu terrorism or whatever .

Jai Hind!

 

[Red Dwarf]

India is hindu majority country...so what kind of terrorist its gonna patronize jewish or Ai-queda??

Obviously its gonna promote its own terrorists and patronize Hindu terrorism or whatever .

Jai Hind!

I still don't understand why the Hindu terrorists are staying in India. Ask them to go to Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Its a real shame for us that these Hindu terrorists are operating in India only. We must want to globalize it.

 

[ssheppard]

I still don't understand why the Hindu terrorists are staying in India. Ask them to go to Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Its a real shame for us that these Hindu terrorists are operating in India only. We must want to globalize it.

Those Exported hindu terrorists equipped with ...Swords...and Sticks would be a great threat to the world....just like Muslim Terrorists are with AK47.... And all those innocent Al Quedas and HUM...and JEM..and LETs...would run for cover when they see ...a Hindu terrorist wielding his well oiled stick.....

The Mulla Omars and Bin ladens ( the great innocent Muslim Fighters)...would pee in their pants when they see a bare foot Hindu terrorist coming towards them with a 5 feet bamboo ......coupled with a sward in their hand....