Campaign to Stop Funding Hate
17362 Boston Road, Hayward, CA 94541 hsctruthout@gmail.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Uncovering the Global Sangh
New Report Points To Growing Sangh Student Network in the US
For Info: Bala Murli N. or Biju Mathew–9848470907 hsctruthout@stopfundinghate.org
New Delhi, Thursday, Jan 17, 2008 : The Campaign to Stop Funding Hate (CSFH) will release its latest report “UNMISTAKABLY SANGH: THE NATIONAL HSC AND ITS HINDUTVA AGENDA” on the growth of the Sangh Parivar’s student wing in the USA – the Hindu Students Council (HSC). The press conference and report release are scheduled at the Press Club, Raisina Road, at 3 PM today. The report documents a long and dense trail of connections between the HSC and the Sangh from 1990 to the present. Ironically, the HSC exists on US American university campuses because of the liberal policy of multiculturalism that allows for diversity of cultures and tolerance. Yet HSC has promoted divisive and sectarian speakers such as Ashok Singhal and Sadhvi Rithambara. Indian American youth many times join the HSC without an awareness of the “invisible” connections between HSC and the Sangh.
The HSC was founded in 1990 as a project of the VHP of America. In 1993, Ashok Singhal, the then General Secretary of the VHP declared, "Now, the first project we have in mind is strengthening the Hindu Student Council".1 The report Unmistakably Sangh, provides the first comprehensive documentation of the origins, methods and practices of the HSC and directly counters the claims of the HSC that it "has been independently run since 1993".2 The report uses documents from Sangh sources – VHPA tax returns, filings with US Patents Office, Internet domain registry information, archives of the HSC, and publications of the Sangh Parivar in North America and elsewhere, to establish that the HSC was and remains an arm of the global Sangh Parivar.
Between 2002 and 2004, two reports, “The Foreign Exchange of Hate", and “In Bad faith” exposed the siphoning of funds by the Sangh in the US and UK respectively. This new report establishes that the Sangh’s interests and activities in the US go far beyond funding, and that the HSC represents a grooming space for young Sangh leadership and the entry of the Sangh ideology into second generation Indian American spaces. “The Hindu Students Council claims to be an independent organization with no links to any Hindutva organization or movement. This is patently unfair because most of those who join HSC do not know of the strong ties between HSC and the Sangh,” says Ashwini Rao, a campaign coordinator for CSFH. Several of the HSC’s early recruits on American campuses are leaders in the Global Sangh operations today. “How important the HSC is to the Sangh can be seen from the fact that the HSC built and operated a significant part of the Sangh’s electronic infrastructure out of a server cluster in California” Raja Swamy, another CSFH coordinator pointed out. This runs counter to the policy of multiculturalism that allows organizations such as HSC on American campuses.
The latest report is part of CSFH’s Truth Out on HSCs3 Campaign aimed at educating Indian-Americans on the Sangh Parivar and its operations in the US. For more information on the press conference write to: hsctruthout@gmail.com or call +91-9848470907. Summary and full versions of the report will be available at the press conference and online at www.stopfundinghate.org after 3:00 PM IST on January 17.
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