[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 61 (Tuesday, May 14, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E796-E797]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     BBC EXPOSES MILITANT HINDU VHP

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. DAN BURTON

                               of indiana

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, May 14, 2002

  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, the British Broadcasting Company 
recently ran an expose of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), a 
fundamentalist, militant Hindu nationalist organization. The VHP is an 
organization, which operates under the umbrella of the pro-Facist 
Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS). The RSS is the parent organization 
of the ruling BJP.
  The BBC notes that the VHP has promoted Hindu supremacy and has 
engaged in violent acts against minorities. These acts include the 
murder of missionary Graham Staines and his two young sons while they 
slept in their jeep.
  The report states that the VHP, which it identifies as ``a hardline 
Hindu outfit,'' rarely makes a ``distinction between fellow (Muslim) 
citizens of the present and (Muslim `marauders' of the past.'' It 
further reports that ``the ambition of establishing a resurgent 
Hinduism by inculcating what some historians call a carefully 
constructed common `Hindu spirit' is very much central to the VHP.'' 
Moreover, it exposes the VHP's support for a militant Hindus' project 
to build a Hindu temple on the site of the most revered mosque in 
India, which was destroyed by the BJP.
  Since the BJP is also part of the RSS umbrella, it is critical to 
help ensure the rights of minorities in India. Tens of thousands of 
Sikhs and other minorities have been held in illegal custody as 
political prisoners for many years. Tens of thousands of minorities 
have been

[[Page E797]]

killed by the Indian governments regardless of the political party in 
power. It is time to stop American aid to India and to support self-
determination for all the people of South Asia in the form of a 
plebiscite on independence so that their rights are not subject to the 
whims of militant Hindu nationalists.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to place the text of the BBC report into 
the Record at this time.

              [The British Broadcasting Co., Mar. 8, 2002]

                   Profile: The Vishwa Hindu Parishad

                           (By Rajyasri Rao)

       The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) was founded in 1964 by a 
     group of senior leaders from a hard-line Hindu organisation, 
     the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), to give Hindus what 
     they believed would be a clearly defined sense of religious 
     identity and political purpose.


                 Hindu hardliners have grown more vocal

       Its founders felt the need to present Hinduism in a 
     rigorous though simplified form which would be comparable to 
     most other world religions.
       The superiority of other faiths was believed to stem from 
     their being far less diffuse and more uniform than Hinduism.
       But its critics call the VHP a hardline Hindu outfit with 
     unmistakably close ties to its parent organisation, the 
     extremist RSS, whose objective to `Hinduise' the Indian 
     nation, it shares.
       Central to the RSS ideology has been the belief that real 
     national unity and progress will come only when India is 
     `purged' of non-Hindus, or, when members of other communities 
     subordinate themselves `willingly' to `Hindu superiority.'


                             Linked groups

       The VHP has tended to tone down the rhetoric of Hindu 
     supremacy and even make an occasional distinction between 
     fellow (Muslim) citizens of the present and (Muslim) 
     `marauders' of the past.
       But the ambition of establishing a resurgent Hinduism by 
     inculcating what some historians call a carefully constructed 
     common `Hindu spirit' is very much central to the VHP.


               The temple project enjoys a lot of support

       This is also something it shares with the Bharatiya Janata 
     Party (BJP), which currently leads the Indian Government at 
     the centre.
       Earlier known as the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS), the BJP 
     was established in 1951 as a political wing of the RSS to 
     counter rising public revulsion after the revered 
     independence figure Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated by a 
     former RSS member.
       Some commentators say the party came close to obliteration 
     in the 1960s with the Congress led by the charismatic and 
     secular Jawaharlal Nehru, leaving little room for hardline 
     communal politics.
       But a political emergency announced by Nehru's daughter, 
     Indira Gandhi, in 1975 enabled the BJS leaders, Atal Behari 
     Vajpayee and LK Advani among them, to gain near stardom after 
     serving brief prison sentences. Many women have joined the 
     hardliners' campaign.
       But it didn't really emerge as a political presence until 
     the early 1980s.
       A series of events in that decade including the mass 
     conversion of lower-cast Hindus to Islam pushed the BJP's 
     close affiliate, the VHP, to the forefront.
       Historians say the VHP-led Hindu right considered the mass 
     conversion of ``dalits'' or lower-caste Hindus to Islam to be 
     an unforgivable insult.
       The dalits, for centuries beholden to the upper castes, 
     outraged Hindu hardliners by daring to convert at all, and 
     moreover, convert to Islam.
       The VHP saw this as a serious threat to its notion of 
     Hinduism.
       It proceeded to whip up Hindu support for a re-defined 
     communal force, organising a series of religious meetings, 
     cross-country marches and processions through the 1980s.
       This phase coincided with the launch of an electoral 
     strategy by the BJP to corner and hold on to the ``Hindu'' 
     vote.


                           Temple controversy

       Following the success of their campaign, senior VHP leaders 
     announced at a religious meeting in 1984 their programme to 
     ``liberate'' a site in Ayodhya from an ancient mosque to make 
     way for a temple to the Hindu god Ram.


             Some `moderate' Hindu leaders support the VHP

       Analysts say this announcement heralded a turning point in 
     the history of the Hindu nationalist movement.
       The VHP has since then claimed that the site belongs 
     rightfully to Hindu worshippers who believe that the mosque 
     stood on the birthplace of the god, Lord Ram. Although the 
     claim does not stand up to substantial archaeological or 
     historical scrutiny, the VHP and BJP are seen to have made 
     possible the creation of a shared Hindu symbol that cuts 
     through most divisions in Hindu society.

     

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