FRIGHTENING EXPANSION OF RSS NETWORK IN AMERICA
Daya Varma
The report “Unmistakably Sangh: the National HSC (Hindu Student Council) and its Hindutva agenda” released by the Campaign to Stop Funding Hate (CSFH) reveals frightening the expansion of Hindutva influence in the second generation Indian in America. (www.stopfundinghate.org.)
The report “Unmistakably Sangh: the National HSC (Hindu Student Council) and its Hindutva agenda” released by Bala Murli N, Biju Mathew and others (hsctruthout@stopfundinghate.org) of the Campaign to Stop Funding Hate (CSFH) reveals the expansion of Hindutva influence in North America and its clear link with heinous activities of VHP (Vishwa Hindu Parishad) and other outfits of Sangh Parivar in India. The report lays bare the denial by HSC of its role in funding hate in India. The report uses documents from Sangh sources – VHPA (Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America) 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 the 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 HSCs [3] Campaign aimed at educating Indian-Americans on the Sangh Parivar and its operations in the US. A summary and full version of the report is available online at www.stopfundinghate.org.
These are frightening developments. In the meantime, many secular organizations which came into being in the aftermath of the demolition of the Babri Masjid have gone in a state of somnolence. Others are busy intellectualizing on issues of no relevance to India or progressive movement anywhere else.