Campaign to Stop Funding Hate
17362 Boston Road, Hayward, CA 94541 hsctruthout@gmail.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Campus Hindu Organization Conclusively Linked to the Sangh Parivar
in North America and India
"Desi-American Students Deceived by the Hindu Student Council"
says New Report
For More Info call 512 786 1862 or 917 232 8437 or email:
hsctruthout@gmail.com
New York , Friday, April 13, 2007: The Campaign to Stop Funding
Hate (CSFH) will release a new report, Lying Religiously: The
Hindu Students Council and the Politics of Deception, on Sunday,
April 15, 2007. The report brings together evidence from multiple
sources to demonstrate a web of connections between the Hindu Students
Council (HSC) and the violent, hindu ultra-right Sangh Parivar,
and exposes the deliberate efforts of the HSC leadership to
conceal its links with the Sangh Parivar in order to deceive Hindu-
American college students. The report provides the first
comprehensive documentation of the origins, methods and practices
of the HSC.
Similar to " The Foreign Exchange of Hate," the 2003
report documenting the flow of money from the United States into
the coffers of the Sangh Parivar in India, almost all of the
documentation used to construct the current report comes from the
archives of the HSC itself and from the publications of the Sangh
Parivar in North America and elsewhere. Starting with the origin
of the HSC in 1991, when Ajay Shah, the first president of the
HSC, proudly declared that the HSC was part of the VHP of America,
the report documents the rise of early HSC leaders into the ranks
of Sangh Parivar leadership in North America, the detailed family
connections between a significant section of the HSC leadership
and the Sangh Parivar, and the central role played by the HSC in
the creation and maintenance of the Sangh Parivar's internet
infrastructure, including the web infrastructure of the Sangh
Parivar's parent organization, the RSS.
"Most of the young desi Americans who join the HSC have
no clue as to the connections between the HSC and the militant
and violent Hindu right wing in India" says Samip Mallick, one of
the campaign coordinators for CSFH. "We fully support the creation
and existence of Hindu student organizations on college campuses,
but we are unable to condone the Hindu Student Council's continued
misleading of college students regarding its ties to the Sangh Parivar,"
he continued. With the launch of the report, CSFH announces its six-month "
Truth Out on HSCs" information campaign aimed at informing every
desi American student of the two-faced methods of the HSC and the
Sangh Parivar.
The report will be released on Sunday, April
15 at 3:30 PM at a press conference hosted by the Youth Solidarity
Summer at 451 West Street (@ Bank), New York, NY 10014. For more
information on the press conference write to: hsctruthout@gmail.com or call
917 232 8437. Summary and full versions of the report will be available
at the press conference. The report will also be available online
at www.stopfundinghate.org after 3 PM on Sunday April 15, 2007.
|
Showing posts with label All India Muslim Tyohar Committee. Show all posts
Showing posts with label All India Muslim Tyohar Committee. Show all posts
April 15, 2007
opposition to an inter-religious marriage is just plain feudal
IBN Blogs > Head to Haid-ar
Keeping the Faith
by Suhasini Haidar
Sunday , April 15, 2007
"I wish to inform you that your daughter is registered to marry a Muslim" said the postcard addressed to my father, "If you are aware of it, please accept my congratulations. If you aren't please take necessary action." Other letters we received in the run-up to my wedding weren't as polite.
It's a well known fact that the moment an inter-religious (read Hindu-Muslim) couple registers an intention to marry under the special marriages act at the local court- and their names go up on the board, a series of organizations go into action. United in the belief that an inter-religious marriage is about much more than the couple involved, and a destruction of religion itself, they find ways of contacting and intimidating the bride and groom to be, their families, and anyone else they can find.
We were lucky to get just letters of intent- a cameraman friend of mine and his wife faced goons at their own house on the day of their wedding.
So Priyanka and Umar's case was predictable in everything but the fact that they conducted a Hindu ceremony after the civil wedding- a fact that ensured they upset the Majlis-e-shoora of the All India Muslim Tyohar Committee (AIMTC) as well as the Hindu Kanya Suraksha Samiti, the Sindhi Panchayat, and the local chapters of the RSS-VHP-Bajrang Dal.
The act spurred violent agitations from the saffron brigade- and spurred the Sindhi Panchayat into a new code of conduct for Sindhi girls- no driving two wheelers, no covering your face, no using cell phones (not far from the Saudi no driving cars, enforcing the hijab, and barring the use of many other things by women).
And despite a Bombay High Court order protecting them from police harassment (funny that it should even be required), it is the young couple and siblings who are on the run, especially after the detention of Umar's brother Shakeel by police in Bhopal. Clearly all the men in uniform working very hard on protecting the religion. All of them great repositories of faith.
It was on my first out of town assignment exactly twelve years ago,though, that I figured out what it was really all about. I was covering angry reactions to the film 'Bombay', Mani Ratnam's hindu-muslim love story, a film that had been previewed and censored by Bal Thackeray- and was now under fire from Muslim groups. The film's release had been put off several times already by threats of violence. And as I interviewed a Bohra leader on a rooftop several floors above the narrow and bustling alleyways near Mohammed Ali Road, I waited to hear what I thought would be his reasons for being offended by the Manisha Koirala- Arvind Swamy starrer. That Muslims are shown starting the 1992 riots, that Koirala's Muslim character stereotypically has a butcher for a father, even that the Holy text is seen being flung in the air. But here it was. "We would not object," he said, "If the film showed a Hindu girl marrying a Muslim boy- why must it always be the other way around?"
And that's all it ever comes down to- it's why the letters to came to my family not to my husband's, or the clampdown on covering your face is effected by the Sindhi panchayat on Sindhi girls.
The outrage over faith is more about control and domination of the female. It isn't about the religion being subsumed- anyone can tell you they learn their concept of ethics, honour, and yes religion from their mother.
It's about keeping women in their place- as immovable as property- leased or sold only by those that own her. Its one more excuse to keep the girl child from getting an education (or as the case may be, a two-wheeler and a cell phone). And it's about keeping status quo- with men firmly on top.
It isn't a question of faith after all- the opposition to an inter-religious marriage is just plain feudal.
Keeping the Faith
by Suhasini Haidar
Sunday , April 15, 2007
"I wish to inform you that your daughter is registered to marry a Muslim" said the postcard addressed to my father, "If you are aware of it, please accept my congratulations. If you aren't please take necessary action." Other letters we received in the run-up to my wedding weren't as polite.
It's a well known fact that the moment an inter-religious (read Hindu-Muslim) couple registers an intention to marry under the special marriages act at the local court- and their names go up on the board, a series of organizations go into action. United in the belief that an inter-religious marriage is about much more than the couple involved, and a destruction of religion itself, they find ways of contacting and intimidating the bride and groom to be, their families, and anyone else they can find.
We were lucky to get just letters of intent- a cameraman friend of mine and his wife faced goons at their own house on the day of their wedding.
So Priyanka and Umar's case was predictable in everything but the fact that they conducted a Hindu ceremony after the civil wedding- a fact that ensured they upset the Majlis-e-shoora of the All India Muslim Tyohar Committee (AIMTC) as well as the Hindu Kanya Suraksha Samiti, the Sindhi Panchayat, and the local chapters of the RSS-VHP-Bajrang Dal.
The act spurred violent agitations from the saffron brigade- and spurred the Sindhi Panchayat into a new code of conduct for Sindhi girls- no driving two wheelers, no covering your face, no using cell phones (not far from the Saudi no driving cars, enforcing the hijab, and barring the use of many other things by women).
And despite a Bombay High Court order protecting them from police harassment (funny that it should even be required), it is the young couple and siblings who are on the run, especially after the detention of Umar's brother Shakeel by police in Bhopal. Clearly all the men in uniform working very hard on protecting the religion. All of them great repositories of faith.
It was on my first out of town assignment exactly twelve years ago,though, that I figured out what it was really all about. I was covering angry reactions to the film 'Bombay', Mani Ratnam's hindu-muslim love story, a film that had been previewed and censored by Bal Thackeray- and was now under fire from Muslim groups. The film's release had been put off several times already by threats of violence. And as I interviewed a Bohra leader on a rooftop several floors above the narrow and bustling alleyways near Mohammed Ali Road, I waited to hear what I thought would be his reasons for being offended by the Manisha Koirala- Arvind Swamy starrer. That Muslims are shown starting the 1992 riots, that Koirala's Muslim character stereotypically has a butcher for a father, even that the Holy text is seen being flung in the air. But here it was. "We would not object," he said, "If the film showed a Hindu girl marrying a Muslim boy- why must it always be the other way around?"
And that's all it ever comes down to- it's why the letters to came to my family not to my husband's, or the clampdown on covering your face is effected by the Sindhi panchayat on Sindhi girls.
The outrage over faith is more about control and domination of the female. It isn't about the religion being subsumed- anyone can tell you they learn their concept of ethics, honour, and yes religion from their mother.
It's about keeping women in their place- as immovable as property- leased or sold only by those that own her. Its one more excuse to keep the girl child from getting an education (or as the case may be, a two-wheeler and a cell phone). And it's about keeping status quo- with men firmly on top.
It isn't a question of faith after all- the opposition to an inter-religious marriage is just plain feudal.
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