Author: Ramesh N. Rao
Publication: www.sulekha.com
Date: June 15, 2002
URL: http://www.sulekha.com/column.asp?cid=210562
In a well thought out and carefully
coordinated pincer movement, the Left and 'pseudo-secular' forces in India
and the U.S. are about to crush all Sangh affiliate activities in the U.S.
The major and decisive tactical deployment of their forces happened at
the USCIRF hearings on Monday, May 10, in Washington D.C (http://www.uscirf.gov/
index.php3?scale=800&SID=86f3e49ca77dd6c0f47db9a914d4da2b). The Commission
sent out a press release on May 6th that set the stage for carrying out
the 'decimate the RSS' goal of India's Red-Green-Pseudo- secular brigade.
I quote the May 6th press statement verbatim. The headline New Evidence
on Mass Killings in India Prompts Commission to Hold Hearing is revealing
by itself:
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Commission
on International Religious Freedom, a federal agency advising the Administration
and Congress, today announced that it will hold a hearing to examine evidence
suggesting that recent communal violence in the Indian state of Gujarat,
which has killed at least 1,000 Muslims, was carefully planned and involved
the state government's officials and police. This hearing will assist the
Commission in developing further recommendations for U.S. policy. The hearing
will take place at 9:00 a.m. June 10 in the Longworth House Office Building,
Room 1302, Washington, D.C. A witness list will be released shortly.
"The extremist violence in Gujarat,
a state located on the border with Pakistan, threatens to exacerbate the
already inflamed tensions between India and Pakistan," said Commission
Chair Michael K. Young. "The Commission is very concerned that the United
States government has not spoken out forcefully against the attacks on
Muslims in Gujarat."
In a press release dated March 12,
2002, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom expressed
its alarm over the recent violence and killings in Gujarat. After the killing
of approximately 60 Hindu activists in the town of Godhra, retaliatory
violence against Muslims left at least 1,000 people dead. Reports cite
numerous persons shot, stabbed, raped, mutilated, and/or burned to death.
Hundreds of mosques and Muslim-owned businesses were looted or destroyed.
More than 100,000 persons have fled their homes and now are in makeshift
refugee camps. The violence has yet to be contained.
In announcing the hearing, the Commission,
referencing its previous recommendations, calls upon the U.S. government
to press the government of India to provide security for those people who
remain under threat of attack, including Muslims and Hindus who may be
subject to retaliation, and to see that those responsible for violent acts
targeting members of religious groups are held accountable. In its May
2001 Annual Report, the Commission identified the need for India's government
to do more to protect religious minorities and to bring those responsible
for violence to account. The Commission further stated its serious concern
about the association of increased violence against religious minorities
and the rise in power of Hindu nationalist groups in India. Recent violence
underscores the need, expressed previously by the Commission, for the U.S.
government "to urge the government of India to speak and act in ways that
make clear its lack of. support for religious intolerance and persecution."
Recent reports implicate the government
of Gujarat and some members of the police force in the recent violence
in that state. According to India's National Human Rights Commission (NHRC),
an official body, the events leading up to the Godhra tragedy and the killings
and destruction that followed were marked by a "serious failure of intelligence
and inaction by the [Gujarat] State government." The NHRC noted that there
are "media reports attributing certain statements to the Police Commissioner
and even the Chief Minister which, if true, raise serious questions.."
The NHRC also noted "widespread reports and allegations of well-organized
persons, armed with mobile telephones and addresses, singling out certain
homes and properties for death and destruction in certain districts - sometimes
within view of police stations and personnel," suggesting the attacks may
have been planned in advance.
Officials have publicly reported
that 443 "major communal incidents" have occurred in Gujarat since 1970.
Given the region's history, the number of deaths and other reported abuses,
the reported impunity of perpetrators of such violence poses a continuing
threat of recurrence.
In 2001, the Commission noted that
although reports do not implicate the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led
government in organizing or carrying out violence against Christian and
Muslim religious minorities (which has grown since the BJP-led government
came into office nationally), there is serious concern that the central
government is not doing all that it could to pursue and punish the perpetrators
of the attacks and to counteract the prevailing climate of hostility, in
some quarters in India, against these minority groups.
The preliminary report by India's
National Human Rights Commission contains several recommendations to the
government of India, including the restoration of the "integrity of the
process" of police investigations; the establishment of "Special Courts"
to try these cases under judges handpicked by the Chief Justice of the
High Court of Gujarat; the prompt restoration of destroyed places of worship;
and the immediate implementation of reforms of the police.
On June 10, the U.S. Commission
on International Religious Freedom will hold a public hearing to examine
the information about the situation further, look into new evidence of
possible involvement of local officials and police in the incidents in
Gujarat, and consider the NCHR recommendations and other measures that
could be effective in response to the communal violence.
Note what the Commission says about
the Godhra victims: they were all "activists"! All 58 women, men and children
charred to death in the train compartment had branded on their foreheads
a vermilion mark that surely indicated to the world that they were dreaded
Hindu 'activists'. It is the same cussed label used in the Human Rights
Watch report, by the New York Times editors, and by the editors and grandstanders
at the Times of India. The Godhra carnage, the prime cause for the burning
of Gujarat, is not just relegated to the background, but the Commission,
loaded with fundamentalist Christians, and of the proselytizing variety,
and whose previous chairman (Elliot Abrams) was known to have perjured
himself during the Iran-Contra hearings, has now become the vehicle for
accomplishing the dream of the Indian Left: to wipe out the RSS. The Left,
we all know, will sleep with anyone to accomplish its goals. That its latest
mistress is the Christian Right should make us all chuckle if not for the
deviousness of its scheme: working for a ban on all RSS affiliate activity
in the U.S., including the shutting down of the India Development and Relief
Fund.
Too many Hindu-Americans have been
too sanguine about the efforts by known BJP/RSS baiters here in the U.S.
There has been a flurry of activity in major U.S. cities since Gujarat
began burning. I have come across by accident emails by young Indian-American
activists who have in the past two months claimed that they have been extremely
busy working on the Gujarat issue. Aseem Shukla's analysis in Sulekha of
the HRW report (http:// www.sulekha.com/articledesc.asp?cid=199895) made
me more suspicious of the plans of these activists. Later, I got an email
from a friend which informed me of the 'Save India Campaign' launched by
two business professors in Atlanta. In a 'Dear All' letter signed by Rajesh
Chakrabarti, a business professor at Dupree College, the group says the
following:
"Appalled by the horrors of the
recent communal massacre in Gujarat, and concerned at the rising level
of inter-religious hatred in India in the recent years, we at 'Save India
Campaign' (www.saveindiacampaign.org), a group based in Atlanta, USA, have
launched a long-term worldwide movement aimed at improving inter- religious
understanding and amity in India and opposing all efforts to vitiate the
atmosphere of inter-faith harmony.
Consisting of individuals and organizations
around the world, resident Indians, NRIs and friends of India, the Campaign
holds the increasing Hindu right-wing propaganda in recent years in India
responsible for the Gujarat carnage and believes that unless countered
immediately such propaganda and their sponsors are likely to cause repetitions
of such 'ethnic cleansing' all over India. While the campaign opposes terrorism
stemming from any religious group, it views that from the majority community
particularly dangerous since it can easily degenerate into state sponsored
genocide as Gujarat has so amply proven.
The campaign therefore opposes and
counters all efforts and propaganda of the Hindu right-wing organizations
of the 'Sangh Parivar' that have been instrumental in fostering and executing
the massacre in Gujarat. It will oppose all fund-raising endeavors of these
organizations around the world and work towards getting them banned in
India and declared "terrorist organizations" in other countries.
Save India Campaign invites all
individuals regardless of their nationality or religion to join them in
its struggle for inter-faith harmony in India. It is eager to work with
other like-minded groups and organizations in building a strong coalition
for achieving these goals."
Strange is it not that these 'activists'
are nowhere to be seen when hundreds of thousands of Hindus are ethnically
cleansed from Kashmir, and hundreds raped and murdered and thousands driven
out of their homes in Bangladesh? Strange is it not that these moral grandstanders
have not the courage to take on the jihadis who have vowed to make India
Muslim? Strange is it not that these puerile hate-mongers do not have any
thing to say about the terrorism in the Northeastern Indian states? Strange
is it not that these activists do not mind sleeping with the enemy -- the
conservative, Christian right wing forces in the U.S., to achieve their
dastardly ends? And strange is it not that these homegrown, white-collar
jihadis do not have the patience to wait for the report by the Commission
set up by the Gujarat government? Even more strange is it not that they
continue to ignore all the contrary evidence that is coming out of Gujarat,
and not just being published by the RSS mouthpiece Organiser but by magazines
like India Today?
When I first got information about
the USCIRF hearings last week, and when I came to know that Tunku Varadarajan
mentioned in his post 'Riot' readings that people should beware who they
send their monies to, my suspicions were raised. And when I saw the photographs
accompanying that report in India Abroad, May 31, 2002 (one of which shows
a placard reading "Narain Kataria, IDRF Raise $ here for VHP rapists in
Gujarat"), and when I read Shabana Azmi's interview in India Post the same
week where she also charges that the VHP is raising money in the U.S. to
carry out violent activities in India, I realized that a well thought out
pincer movement to crush the Sangh affiliates in the U.S. has been planned
and carried out through some very careful coordination. I don't know who
the leaders and captains of this plot are, but I think we can all guess
that leaders of FOIL, and other known RSS baiters are behind this. Add
to that mix the crop of 'Wagah border candle holder' types who have mushroomed
all over American campuses and whose only target are the Hindu organizations.
The unstated goal of Rajesh Chakrabarti
and his ilk is to first shut down IDRF. But do we know how much money IDRF
has raised and for what purpose? See their website for details (http://www.idrf.org/),
and find out for yourself if those monies have gone to train gun-toting,
throat-slitting Hindu jihadis. I contribute to IDRF every month, and I
would not if there was even the slightest suspicion that the monies were
being used to raise and fund a Hindu vigilante group. Chakrabarti and his
cohorts have no evidence too. What they have is this fact: that the IDRF
is a successful volunteer group that has raised millions for Indian causes,
and that most of the money has gone to support Hindu institutions. I said,
see for yourself. You don't want to? Ok, here is the IDRF 2000-2001 report:
Total money distributed: $1,858,335.
Developmental Projects Total Grants = $1,203,935 of which major recipients
were: Sewa Bharati Madhyakshetra, Bhopal, MP -- $105,665; Yog Satsang Samiti,
Allahabad, U.P. -- $88,000; VAK Trust, Pondicherry, TN (for Auroville land)
-- $72,470; Educate the Children-India, Mumbai -- $49,050; Sri Ram Gram
Vikas Samiti Nagauri, District Meerut, UP (for the High School) -- $48,515;
Akhil Bharatiya Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram, Jashpurnagar, District Jashpur,
Chhattisgarh -- $40,270; Om Prakash Soni Charitable Trust, Jagraon, District
Ludhiana, Punjab -- $34,950; Jeevan Dhara Rakt Foundation, Meerut, UP --
$32,930; Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Vaidyakiya Pratishthan, Aurangabhad, MS
-- $32,320; Bharath Cultural Trust, Trichirappalli, TN -- $30,880; Hindu
Society of Ottawa-Carleton Inc, Kanata, Canada -- $29,200; Sewa International
Bharat, New Delhi (for rehab; Kargil and Bihar floods) -- $28,330; Vikas
Bharati Bishnupur, District Gumla, Chhattisgarh -- $34,885; Jnana Prabodhini-Solapur,
Maharashtra $22,935; Sewa-in-Action, Bangalore, Karnataka -- $21,930; Vanavasi
Kalyan Kendra, Mumbai (for Talasari Project, District Thane) -- $21,780;
Uttaranchal Daivi Apada Peedit Sahayata Samiti, Uttarkashi, Uttaranchal
-- $21,420; Birsa Seva Prakalp Bihar, Hazaribag, Jhharkhand -- $16,140;
Sanjeevani Sharda Kendra, Bohri, Jammu , J&K -- $14,440; Bharatiya
Kushta Niwarak Sangh, Champa, Distrtict Janjgir, MP -- $14,240 ; Shiksha
Bharati, Hapur, UP -- $13,040; Swami Vivekananda Medical Mission, Nagpur,
Maharashtra -- $11,550; Bharatiya Cattle Research and Development Foundation,
New Delhi -- $11,345; Samskrit Bharati, New Delhi -- $11,335; Bhaurao Deoras
Rashtriya Seva Nyas, New Delhi -- $11,180; Bharat Kalyan Pratishthan,New
Delhi (for Uttar Purbanchal Samiti, Haflong, Assam) -- $10,870; Bhartiya
Jan Sewa Pratishan, Raati Taali, District Banswara, Rajasthan -- $10,870;
Grama Bharathi, Hyderabad, AP -- $9,080; Dr. Ghasi Ram Verma Samaj Seva
Samiti, Chirawa, District Jhunjhunu, Rajasthan -- $9,005; Jan Kalyan Nyas,
Dharamsala, HP -- $8,090; Vivekananda Kendra, Kanyakumari, TN (for Arun
Jyoti Project in Arunachal Pradesh) -- $8,040; Sri Chennakeshava Trikutachala,
Bangalore, Karnataka -- $7,730; Medi-Send International, Dallas TX, USA
-- $7,500.
IDRF raised $ 510,375 for Gujarat
Earthquake Relief and Rehabilitation, and the major recipients were Sewa
Bharati Gujarat, Ahmedabad (for two villages and several schools) -- $360,000;
Shree 5 Navtanpuri Dham, Jamnagar, Gujarat (for reconstruction of schools)
-- $31,580; Anoopam Mission, Morgi, Dist. Anand, Gujarat (for rehabilitation
of orphans and widows) -- $25,530; Sadhu Vaswani Mission, Pune (for reconstruction
of houses) -- $25,265; Saath Charitable Trust, Ahmedabad -- $10,000; BAPS
Swaminarayan Gujarat -- $10,000; JanPath/JanVikas, Ahmedabad -- $10,000;
Shri Ramakrishna Ashrama, Rajkot, Gujarat -- $10,000; Sheth Vakhtawarmal
Deopural Charitable Trust, Gujarat -- $10,000.
IDRF also raised money to help the
Orissa cyclone victims. Their total grants amounted to $144,025. The major
recipients were: SOOKRUTI, Bhubaneswar -- $72,750; Shri Shri Abhiram Anandashram
Seva Sangh, Bhubaneswar -- $18,640; Kasturba Gandhi National Memorial Trust,
Satyabhamapur, District Cuttack -- $13,950; Sri Aurobindo Progress Trust,
Bhubaneshwar -- $8,460; Vanavasi Seva Prakalpa, Kalahandi -- $7,025; ANANYA,
Rourkela -- $6,900; Uchabali High School, Bhubanaswar -- $5,000.
Yes, you are right. These beneficiaries
are all vigilante groups that train Hindu youth to slash the throats of
Muslim men, and rape Muslim women, and burn Christian priests. The self-righteous
pip-squeaks who have collaborated with the USCIRF, including some from
India (whose appearance before a foreign government's commission borders
on the traitorous) want us all to think that somehow because the IDRF is
affiliated with Sangh organizations it is automatically suspect. These
are the same kind of men and women who oppose the nomination of Abdul Kalam
for President of India because he has been nominated by the BJP and is
supported by the RSS and VHP! No doubt they don't like a Muslim who says
his ambition is to play Saint Tyagaraja's Enduro mahaanubhaavulu on the
veena! They don't like Hindus contributing to Hindu causes. They don't
like anything to do with Hinduism except baldly claim that the RSS folks
don't know what Hinduism is all about.
So, what can you do to stop these
Left/secular goon brigade masquerading as humanists? Write your Congressmen
and Senators. Tell them what the IDRF is all about. Include the URL to
the IDRF website. Write letters to every Indian-American newspaper pointing
out the nefarious activities of the jihadi white-collar anti-Hindu activists.
Call the USCIRF and send them email, and ask them that they give the VHPA,
HSS, OFBJP and the IDRF equal time to present their case to the Commission.
Most importantly, show your support to Hindu causes by sending your philanthropic
contributions to IDRF. And for heaven's sake ask the Sangh organizations
to rope in their hotheads like Narain Kataria who do more harm than good
to the Hindu cause. But in case you think Kataria was boorish and stupid
in calling Shabana Azmi a communist and Shashi Tharoor a Hindu-hater, just
look at what the Left/lunatic brigade had to say about the RSS and VHP:
the placards that they carried in front of the theater where the fashionable
quartet blathered said among other things -- "VHP/RSS - How many Muslim
women did you kill today?" Of course, those who reported for India Abroad
had nothing to say about the vulgarity of these placards. All their ire
and energies was focused on making Narain Kataria notorious. The RSS and
its affiliates have for long been suspicious of the 'literati' and the
'chatterati'. Judge for yourself if the RSS leaders are justified in believing
there is a vast conspiracy to destroy it.
