New Zealand Prime Minister at Hindutva conference in Auckland

Turmoil over Hindu conference in Auckland
By MICHAEL FIELD - Fairfax Media | Thursday, 24 May 2007

Prime Minister Helen Clark is causing turmoil in the Indian community after she lent support to a Hindu fundamentalist group with strong anti-Muslim views and linked to extremism in India.

She opened the Hindu Conference in Auckland earlier this month where delegates heard condemnation of Muslims, according to a filmmaker, Sapna Samant, who attended. The conference received taxpayer Asia New Zealand Foundation funding of $2,500 and support from Manukau Mayor Sir Barry Curtis and various government agencies.

In an email circulated on an ethnic network and in an interview Dr Samant questioned how Ms Clark could have been involved.

"It says a lot about New Zealand's knowledge of India, they are just not aware of these things," Dr Samant told Fairfax Media.

"I am surprised that she actually went... I would give her the full benefit of the doubt because I don't think she knows the difference."

The conference was organised by the Hindu Council of New Zealand which says on its website it is affiliated to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP or World Hindu Council) which was founded in 1964 by a group of senior leaders from a hard-line Hindu organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

Critics in India say VHP is a hardline extremist group committed to a Hinduise India and stress Hindu supremacy.

A BBC backgrounder on the group said historians say the VHP-led Hindu right considered the mass conversion of "dalits" or lower-caste Hindus to Islam to be an unforgivable insult.

At the Auckland conference one delegate claimed "women were treated well in India before Islam came there" while another said "I will not talk about the troublesome period of Islam in India".

VHP was behind the 1992 destruction of an ancient Babri Masjid mosque at Ayodhya.

They claimed it sat on an older temple to the Hindu god Ram.

At the Auckland conference one of the moderators used the chant by militant Hindus at the demolition.

Hindu Conference of New Zealand head Vinod Kumar, Fiji born, denied they were linked to the extremists.

"We are morally linked (to the VHP), but not physically linked.

" He denied they were anti-Muslim: "My best friends are Muslims."

A spokesperson for the Prime Minister said she attended a number of ethnic and faith community functions weekly.

"She expresses no preference or endorsements of any faith, but always brings a message of the need for understanding, tolerance, and inclusion."

She noted the Prime Minister was accompanied to the Hindu conference by Muslim MP Ashraf Choudhary, who is Muslim, and observed representatives of many faith and ethnic communities, including Sikh, Maori, and Pasifika."

Dr Samant said in her email that delegates were vetted to avoid troublemakers attending.

She said she did not have an argument with Hindus but claimed that the tone and backing of the conference, on "the contribution of Hindu community to the national life of New Zealand" was afraid of the implications that "other" Indians were not Indians at all.

She said she missed the prime minister's speech but was told she had used the word Indian only once, the rest of the time calling organisers and delegates Hindu.

The projection of a single Hindu Indian identity in New Zealand was harmful to the community here, she said.

"And politicians either don't seem to understand or prefer to fudge contexts. Sir Barry Curtis called Manukau City the 'Hindu capital of New Zealand' at the opening ceremony. What did he mean by that?" Dr Samant said.

"Did the Prime Minister mix up the 'Hindoos', the old Indian immigrants with the fundamentalist Hindus or was it deliberate to please Labour constituents? No wonder the stereotypes keep perpetuating."

Indian New Zealanders include Sikhs, Muslims, Jains, Parsis and Christians although the majority are Hindu with the 2006 Census showing that nearly 66,000 people identified themselves as Hindu.