Combat Law
8 June, 2007
SANGH SPREADS ITS CLOAK IN AMERICAN CAMPUS
by Girish Agrawal
That the sangh parivar, the ‘family’ of organisations spawned and controlled by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), has an extensive overseas presence is no secret. That the overseas arms of the sangh, just like the parent body RSS, have Hindutva as their guiding ideology, take direction from the RSS, and could not care less about the social, constitutional or political integrity of India, has also never been in doubt. But the depths to which the sangh will sink to spread its ideology of hate and recruit foot-soldiers has only now been exposed by the Campaign to Stop Funding Hate (CSFH) in its recently released report called Lying Religiously: The Hindu Students Council and the Politics of Deception. (The report is available at: http://hsctruthout.stopfundinghate.org/).
This report reveals that the sangh has spread its web of hatred in universities across North America to ensnare young Indian-Americans through the Hindu Students Council (HSC), an organisation based in North America, which “publicly claims to provide a space to learn about Hindu heritage and culture and draws it membership primarily from the Indian-American student community.”
The CSFH, of which the writer is a member, is a voluntary organisation based in the US. The organisation tracks the activities of the sangh parivar in the US and in the wake of the anti-Muslim pogroms in Gujarat, was instrumental in researching and releasing a report documenting the fund-raising activities of the sangh in the U.S. (see The Foreign Exchange of Hate: IDRF and the American Funding of Hindutva, available at http://stopfundinghate.org/sacw/index.html). Having watched with growing worry as the sangh spread its message of hate among young people in North America, CSFH decided to publish some of its research into the sangh’s activities among youth in the hope that exposing these activities to the light of day will stop, or at least slow the spread of the Hindutva poision.
The Hindu Students Council (HSC) was formed in 1990 by a group of sangh parivar activists. They claimed that the organisation was being formed to assist Hindu students who struggle with the “loss and isolation” due to their “upbringing in a dual culture Hindu and Judeo-Christian?” The HSC targeted the so-called second and third generations, that is, the children and grandchildren of Indians who had migrated to the US in waves starting in the 1960s.
Even though the HSC wrapped itself in a cloak of ‘culture,’ the goal was not simply indoctrination of young people in Hindutva ideology, but also to plant the seed of a new generation of sangh leadership.
As Vijay Prashad notes in a recent article in ZMag (“Multicultu-ralism Kills Me”), “the HSC was never simply about the identity struggles of those whom it called Hindu Americans. It was also the youthful fingers of the long-arm of Hindutva-supremacy in India.”
The report by CSFH, hereafter shortened to Lying Religiously, points out that even though HSC was started as a project by the VHP of America, and had no independent legal existence until just after the Gujarat violence of 2002, when it registered as a non-profit, tax-exempt organisation in the U.S., separate from the VHP of America, perhaps in an attempt to put some legal distance between itself and other sangh parivar entities responsible for the brutal, terrorist violence unleashed against Muslims in Gujarat.
Ordinary HSC members are largely unaware of the ideological and organisational links with the VHP and the larger sangh parivar. The authors of Lying Religiously further make the point that this lack of awareness is not accidental, the sangh has followed a deliberate strategy of hiding intimate connections between HSC and various parts of the sangh parivar. This practice of deception, of hiding its true hate-filled nature behind a mask of “heritage and culture,” is of course not unique to the HSC, but is how the sangh parivar always operates when it does not hold the reins of power.
Ordinary HSC members are largely unaware of the ideological and organisational links with the VHP and the larger sangh parivar
Lying Religiously challenges the claims by HSC of being a non-partisan, non-political, cultural and spiritual/religious organisation. It “documents the history, organisation, and political links of HSC and demonstrates that it is part of the sangh parivar. These findings sharply contradict the public face HSC presents in the US as a spiritual and religious body. The information presented in this report locates and documents the origins and institutional links of HSC, and throws light on the concealed purposes behind the creation of such an organisation. This report shows that HSC has deep-rooted connections—institutional, personal, and political—with the sangh parivar.”
HSC was molded through the sangh’s vision to woo American youth to Hindutva, and as such, the vision for the organisation is created not by students who join a chapter of this seemingly liberal organisation on their campus today, but was established almost 15 years ago by the VHP. In 1993, months after the destruction of the 500-year-old historic Babri Masjid by its goons, the sangh organised a sort of victory celebration worldwide, part of which was the World Vision 2000 conference held in Washinton, DC. Ashok Singhal, the leader of the VHP in India, attended the conference, and singled out HSC for attention:
“Now, the first project we have in mind is strengthening the Hindu Students Council … . This is the generation which is going to throw up the [sangh] leadership of the future. We therefore feel that they should be the focus of our attention.”
Lying Religiously points out that although HSC has an extensive web presence, nowhere does it clearly identify its roots and connections, or its agenda. “No connection or affiliation with the RSS, the VHP, the Bajrang Dal, the BJP or any other part of the sangh parivar is acknowledged. And all HSC chapters are careful not to openly articulate a sectarian agenda.”
The report details the history of the HSC as a project of the sangh parivar, started and controlled by the VHP of America, and how, at the beginning, it not just acknowledged its links with the sangh, but declared them proudly. But as it grew and matured, HSC made a “deliberate effort to disguise, often disown, this connection” with the sangh. The strategy appears to be aimed at attracting a wider membership to HSC who would not join if they knew that “HSC was an offshoot of an extremist organisation with a record of directing violence against minority groups in India.”
In the wake of the release of ‘Lying Religiously’, the Hindu Students Council claimed in a press release that it is not hiding anything, on the contrary, it is “open about its activities,” and does such things as “hosting speakers, performing community service, holding poojas, celebrating festivals, and participating in interfaith discussions.” The last claim, of interfaith amity, articulated by the national HSC on its website as “Sarve Api Sukhina Santu Sarve Santu Niramayah” (Let everybody be happy, healthy, and blessed), is particularly cruel given the sangh’s anti-Muslim politics. As noted in Lying Religiously, “[t]he rhetoric of HSC’s self-presentation flows easily into the North American framework of ‘liberal multiculturism’ where each cultural group (mostly ‘ethnic’ minorities and religious groups) has, in principle, its own separate, unique space to perform its identity.” As Vijay Prashad notes in his ZMag article [referenced above], “Multiculturalism in the US provided cover for the cruel, cultural chauvinism in India.”
The report presents a lot of specific information in making its argument that the strength of the denial by HSC of its connections with the sangh gets suppressed “at moments of crisis, planning and celebration in the sangh family. … At … politically significant moments, HSC is present along with other members of the sangh family.”
In addition to all the evidence about the façade of independence and liberalism presented by HSC being underlain by deep connections to the sangh parivar, a final bit of evidence presented in ‘Lying Religiously’, about the electronic connection between HSC and the sangh parivar, is extremely interesting.
“HSC, as the most technologically savvy segment of the sangh, is in charge of the electronic infrastructure of almost the entire sangh parivar. Not only are core and flagship institutions of the sangh – the RSS itself, the VHP in India, the VHP of America, Seva Bharati in India and the IDRF in the US – all located on [a] network based in San Diego and run by HSC, but even small and minor Sangh institutions such as collegegrading.com (an ABVP front), balagokulam.org (an HSS outfit), and indiafriends.org (an HSS front) reside on the same cluster.” (emphasis added.)
The network referred to in the above quote from Lying Religiously is the Global Hindu Electronic Network, or GHEN, maintained and run by HSC. A copyright notice for GHEN says: “Please note that entire collection of GHEN websites is copyrighted 1998-1999, Global Hindu Electronic Networks, Hindu Students Council.” A map of the Class C IP addresses of the various websites shows that they all reside on the same server or cluster of servers based in San Diego in the U.S., controlled and run by one of the founders of HSC. No more evidence is required to demonstrate the true strength of the ‘family’ connection between the Hindu Students Council and the sangh parivar in India and elsewhere.
The writer is a US-based human rights activist
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