The RSS Plan For Minorities

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/bantherss/

This is from the RSS's own site in which they out line their plan for the future

Extention of article 25 of the Hindu Indian constitution,a legislation which is intolerant of minorities,and helps the RSS in extending their fascist agenda

http://www.rss.org:8080/New_RSS/Mission_Vision/RSS_on_Minorities.jsp

Mission & Vision RSS & Minorities

R.S.S. believes in the plural structure of society. Therefore, it recognizes that there is bound to be a majority-minority syndrome, and hence each group, whether in the majority or minority, will have a distinct identity and distinct character. Hindu philosophy, to which R.S.S. is committed, accepts and appreciates diversities. Even nature abhors uniformity. Basis of Minority Character
But the majority-minority distinctions must be restricted to the bases on which the minority character is sought to be claimed. For example, we can have religion as a basis for being a minority; so also we can have language as another basis for being a minority. Our constitution recognizes both these types of minorities. (see Article 30.) Every minority, whether based on religion or language, will have a distinct identity, special problems and special aspirations. These specialities must be recognized and, subject to moral order and general law, must be protected.
The problem arises when a particular minority transgresses the basis of its minority character and assumes a political one. What is true of a linguist minority is equally true of a religious minority. According to our thinking there is no political minority, because every individual has a vote of equal value. No minority-member's vote has less value than that of a majority - member. So all laws that govern the behaviour of citizens must be the same for all.
RSS Stand on Sikhs
We regard the Sikh religion as a separate religion, but we regard the Sikh people as belonging to our Samaj. When we say that they are a part of the one great Hindu Samaj, we do not deny the existence of their separate religion and separate beliefs. Hindu Samaj is a commonwealth of many religions. It includes idol worshippers as well as those that are against idol worship. It includes those who accept the authority of the Vedas as well as those who do not. They are all included in the wider Hindu conceptualization.

No RSS Invention
This is not an R.S.S. invention. It has been there for centuries. This is recognized also by our constitution. Explanation II given under Article 25 says, "In sub-clause (b) of clause (2) the reference to Hindus shall be construed as including a reference to persons professing the Sikh, Jain or Buddhist religion, and the reference to Hindu religious institutions shall be construed accordingly." It should be noted that the Hindu Code Bill, though it contains the word 'Hindu', is applicable to Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists. We desire that it should be applicable to all, including the Christians and the Muslims, as is envisaged in Article 44 of our constitution.
The basic postulate is that 'Hindu' is not a religion but a way of life, or more precisely a certain value-system or culture. One of the basic tenets of this value system is to accept the validity of all faiths and religions. If we deny this plurality, we will cease to be Hindus. Many Sikhs attend the R.S.S. Shakhas, but nobody is asked to remove his beard or his pugree. R.S.S. will never try to obliterate the identity of the Sikhs. That will be against the very grain of the R.S.S.
Pope's Discordant Note
As for Christianity or Islam, we desire that they too should fall in line of accepting the validity of other religions. The Millennium Peace Summit, which was held in New York in August 1999, adopted a declaration that they consider all religions equal. We want that the Christian and Islam religions give their approval to this declaration, which is signed by about one thousand religious leaders of various denominations. Surprisingly His Holiness the Pope struck a discordant note and declared that the Roman Catholic Church cannot accept other religions as equal. We wonder whether this is in consonance with the fundamentals of our constitution.
RSS against Mass Conversions
R.S.S. is against mass conversion, which is carried on by various churches by means both fair and foul. To allow a tolerant person to embrace an exclusionist belief is to turn him into an intolerant person. For this reason R.S.S. is against the proselytizing activities of Christians churches.
RSS not against any religion, but some religions are extremely intolerant of other religions. Why could 5% Hindus not live with dignity and honour in the Kashmir valley? Why do Riangs have to flee from their homes in Mizoram? We wonder whether there is any commission to look into their grievances.

The RSS & Its Funding From The UK

The RSS gets large amounts of Capital from across the World to further it's Nazi agenda within India ,and the Worldover.Several groups including Awaaz South Asia Watch-Human Rights have made detailed reports on how they get funding and how it is spent.Inevitably if looked at properly this is funding of terrorism and terrorist activities,which is banned by UK law.

See here for a full detailed report/dossier on The RSS & It's UK Funding

http://www.awaazsaw.org/ibf/index.htm

RSS Attack & Force Christians To Accept Hindu Culture

The RSS attacked local Christians in Chattisgarh India for not celebrating a Hindu Festival ,one of many millions of attacks on Christians and Minorities everyday.

see link for more info:
http://www.persecution.org/suffering/ICCnews/newsdetail.php?newscode=6462&title=extremists-in-india-pressure-christians-to-adopt-hindu-culture

Christians and Muslims under attack in Panjab By The RSS

BELOW IS AN STATEMENT FROM SIMRANJIT SINGH MANN - HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST IN PANJB CALLING FOR DEMOCRATIC NATIONS TO BAN THE RSS AS A TERROR GROUP



''.... I would also advocate to governments of the Western democracies and America to place the list of extremist, ultra nationalist Hindu organizations like RSS, Bajrang Dal, Vishav Hindu Parishad, Shi Sena etc. on the terrorist list to be banned world over as they have committed the genocide of the minorities in the Indian Hindu state and revoke the visas of their political leaders Mr. A.B. Vajpayee, Mr. L.K. Advani, Mr. Rajnath Singh of the BJP and Sudarshan Babu, the Chief of the RSS, the Guru and fountain head of all Hindu terrorist activity in India and abroad, besides not allow RAW agents to be posted as heads of Indian consulates in their respective countries as these intelligence agency officers strike terror into Sikhs settled abroad, using the stick and carrot policy of denying and allowing visas to those Sikh's abroad who become informers on their fellow Sikhs, thus denying them the glow of freedom for which they have fled abroad to escape Hindu terror, perpetrated through the legislature, the judiciary, press, the executive and Hindu ultra armed organizations mentioned in this report.''

Full report at http://www.panthic.org/news/125/ARTICLE/3693/2007-11-21.html

National Conference On Banning The RSS Hindu Terorist Group

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/bantherss/

London, November 7: A Human Rights conference was held on the October 27 in Southall, London. The main aim of the conference was to put a united front of communities against Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) the Hindu terrorist group. Leaders from all communities belonging to Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Janis and Sikhs participated in the event that include:

• Lord Nazir Ahmed

• Avtar Singh Sanghra(Babbar)

• Tarsaem singh (British Sikh council)

• Gurcharan singh (Dal Khalsa )

• Manmohan singh khalsa (world Muslim Sikh federation)

• Nazar lodhi (world Muslim Sikh federation)

• Sonil (Buddhist community India)

• Dr Mokel Hazaraka (Assam watch) Hindu community leader

• Amdad husain (Star News)

• Adran chada (British Muslim youth federation uk)

• Sukhwinder Singh (Akash Radio)

• Ranjeet Singh Sarai (Council Of Khalistan)

All the community leaders supported the ban on the RSS and there was consensus on the issue to impose ban on such type of organisations in U.K.

The leaders unanimously adopted a resolution urging the UK government to declare RSS as the terrorist organisation.

A paper was also distributed in the conference in which the community leaders gave the reasons for banning the RSS in the UK.

Text of the Paper is as:

In light of the increased activities of the RSS in the United Kingdom in gathering funds, Political backing and spreading of their hate ideology. The

World Muslim Sikh Federation have created a Petition to urge Prime Minister Gordon Brown to ban the group, freeze it assets and its funding.

*The RSS is an Extremist Hindu Organisation, which believes that only Hindus should reside within India.

*They wish to create a Hindu Super State of Hinduvta, Hindu, Hindi and Hindustan.There is no place for minorities.

*The RSS had a major hand in the Muslim Genocide in Gujarat,one of the main

RSS leaders Narendra Modi was banned from entering the USA.

*The RSS have actively been trying to distort Sikh History, through modifying Sikh History and Books, they claim all who reside in India are

Part of the Hindu 'Family'.

*The RSS also had a hand in the Sikh Genocide of 1984,and actively supported the killing, rape, looting and attacking of Sikhs within India.

*In order to tackle the RSS from one of its roots, their funding has to be banned, and assets frozen within the United Kingdom.

The RSS was founded in 1925 by Dr.K.B. Hedgewar. The RSS is active throughout India and as well as abroad. It became a mass organisation under the leadership of M.S Golwalker. M.S Golwalker is seen as the spiritual master of this organisation and is referred to as Guru, he is worshipped and presumed as a god. Golwalker was a sympathiser of Hitler and said that

Hindus can learn a lesson from Hitller and his pure race ideology. In support of this Golwalker said violence should be used a surgeon’s knife to

kill society. Even he goes on to say that the one who do not accept Hindutva as the main religion and culture of India is merely a disease which need treatment. To kill them is merely like using medicine to cure a disease.Now we are talking about a person who thinks that humans with different beliefs should be wiped out, he takes this logic directly from Hitler. He goes on to state

the main idea of the RSS that only Hindus should reside within India.When scholars have gone on to research Golwalker’s work it is easily understood that he is not preaching Hinduism, but it is a different religion named as Hindutva. The RSS has many wings such as Vidya Bharti, Shiv sena, Bajrang Dal and other splinter groups. They also have links within the political parties of India of all sorts, the main being the BJP. The BJP is so heavily influenced by the RSS that it is

referred to as the political wing of the RSS.

The RSS also influences policies of every single political party in India, may it be Congress BJP and so on. The main preaching point which the RSS propagates is that there is only one true ideology in this world, and that is Hindutva and that humanity only has one religion and one culture i.e., Hinduism.

It sees Christianity as merely a branch of Hinduism, it refers to Christians as a part of the Hindu faith, through the alteration of historical books, which are taught in schools across India as a compulsory curriculum in which it is taught that Jesus was an incarnation of Hindu gods. He was merely there to give direction to society and the west.

They further go on to say similar things about Islam that all Muslims are Hindus which believe in Prophet Mohammed. It describes Muslims as

Mohammediya Hindus. It is preached in the state schools of India, through the Divya Bharti on a compulsive basis.

Buddhism is also opposed in a similar manner, as Buddhists see themselves as a separate religion, the RSS and its sister groups claim that real Buddhism is Hinduism.

The RSS sees Sikhism as the biggest threat to its ideology and Hindutva. Guru Nanak condemned the caste system and the unfair treatment of lower castes, and discrimination to women, he was born into a family which is regarded as a slave caste, within the RSS ideology. It is like a revolution from within to them and they have tried their utmost to destroy and to finish Sikhism off by all means necessary socially, politically and

Economically. They claim all Sikh Gurus were Hindus; they have tried to alter all Sikh scriptures to match their views of Hindutva.The British Govt

Recognises the Sikh faith as a distinct religion ad a separate race, in opposition to this the RSS continue to maintain Sikhs are Hindus. The human

Rights abuses committed by RSS are nothing short of a holocaust within India, and the world has just overlooked it. The main reason for this is because of the sheer amount of propaganda the RSS is propagating RSS has carried out riots in the last 60 years in so called Independent India. The events of every single massacre have formed a very similar pattern. From Sikhs in Delhi 1984 to Muslims in Gujarat 2002 massacre. This is how it takes place.

• Events are created or used to carry out the ethnic cleaning of minorities.

• Media black-out was setup all around India

• Mobs was organised and arms and weapons were issue to them. Including small fire arms, hang guns and small machine guns, swords, metal rods, petrol etc.

• Transport was arranged for the mobs and they were driven to their destinations.

• Sikh Shops were attacked, looted and burnt.

• Men were killed

• Women were gang raped and some died as result of the shock.

• Some were shot dead

• Others were stabbed with knife and swords to death

• Others were beaten to death

• As the mobs found Sikhs they beat them into submission, tyre was put

around their neck and then they were set alight.

• Attack were also organised at hospitals to kill all the new born Sikh

infants. They hacked into peaces or drown to death.

• Others were hacked to death

All this is overlooked by politicians which have been bought by the RSS as well as local law enforcement agencies. The RSS through propaganda and spreading of rumours likes to create communal tensions between different

communities. Once the tensions rise they use this to forward their own agenda. The RSS should not be funded from the UK, it is gathering funds from

all areas of the UK through its sister groups.

The RSS has recently increased its activities within the UK against Sikhs and Muslims. By creating tension between Sikhs and Muslims for no apparent reason. They have also tried to divide these two communities from within by causing internal conflict within theses two communities. As citizens of the UK we all have the right to live peacefully and worship in whatever way we choose fit. We cannot have a group like the

RSS which takes its direct inspiration .The UK prides itself on Human rights and equality. The responsibility to all of us here to get this group banned under the Home office auspices and to get its funding stopped.

These are Videos of the conference

News Coverage:

http://news.google.co.uk/news/url?sa=t&ct=uk/0-0&fp=47491a244b87bd2b&ei=aApJR_vuJIGmoAPSroDLAQ&url=http%3A//www.kashmirwatch.com/showexclusives.php%3Fsubaction%3Dshowfull%26id%3D1194472278%26archive%3D%26start_from%3D%26ucat%3D15%26var1news%3Dvalue1news&cid=0
http://worldsikhnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1138&Itemid=29
http://www.panthic.org/news/138/ARTICLE/3597/2007-10-03.html

BBC ON HINDU TERORIST RSS

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/bantherss/

Analysis: RSS aims for a Hindu nation

1 news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/655722.stm

Analysis: RSS aims for a Hindu nation

The RSS has millions of members across India

The Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has laid out its stand on several issues expected to dominate Indian politics in the run-up to general elections due next year.

The RSS is the ideological fountainhead of various Hindu groups including India's governing Bharatiya Janata Party.

Following a three-day conclave, it came out in strong support for the construction of a Hindu temple at Ayodhya, on the ruins of the demolished Babri mosque.

It also passed a resolution on the controversial issue of Bangladeshi infiltration - like the BJP, the RSS believes that illegal Bengali Muslim migrants from across the border should be sent back.

The RSS came into existence in 1925 in the western Indian city of Nagpur with an avowed objective to make India a Hindu nation.

Today the organisation has around 4.5 million active members across India and over 100 affiliate bodies.

Some RSS members take part in military drills and exercises - a guiding principle of the organisation is that India should be Hinduised and militarised.

Critics of the organisation say that its hardline ideology is based on intolerance towards religious minorities.

Ideological framework

RSS founder KS Hegdewar gave the organisation an ideological framework and developed it into a sizeable network throughout India.

RSS members take part in military drills and exercises

However, during his 15-year stewardship he consciously kept the organisation from having a direct affiliation with any of the political organisations then fighting British rule.

The RSS grew in size when MS Golwarkar was nominated as successor to Mr Hedgewar in 1940.

He steered the organisation through a difficult time, and remained in charge for 33 years.

Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated in 1948 by a militant Hindu who had once been an RSS member.

This incident, coupled with a subsequent ban on the organisation imposed by the government, undoubtedly blighted its image.

Up until Mahatma Gandhi's murder, the RSS capitalised on the departure of millions of Muslims to the newly created Pakistan at the time of partition.

Hindu nation

The organisation used this mass Muslim migration as an opportunity to intensify its campaign for India to become a Hindu nation.

The movement wants to see India Hinduised

The ban on the RSS was lifted in 1950 when it gave an undertaking that it would work under its own written constitution.

Its drive to be at the centre of right-wing Hindu thinking was enhanced when its members played a key role in the launch of a new right-wing Hindu party, Janasangh, in October 1950.

The new party mainly drew its support from Hindu refugees who had come from Pakistan.

The majority party in India's current governing coalition, the BJP, was formed by many who were in the Janasangh party before it was disbanded.

The BJP itself is considered a political off-shoot of the RSS.

Ban

The RSS has been banned on two other occasions since 1948.

Once in 1975, when Indira Gandhi was prime minister, and in 1993 because of its perceived role in the demolition of the 464-year-old mosque in the northern town of Ayodhya.

Although the RSS claims to be a socio-cultural organisation without a political agenda, this has often been debated and challenged.

The organisation was at the centre of the controversy that brought down the first ever non-Congress coalition government.

Some constituents of the coalition accused the Hindu nationalist Jan Sangh of acting under orders of the RSS rather than in consultation with its coalition partners.

Critics of the RSS maintain that India's current BJP-led government is also unduly influenced by the organisation.

2 news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/south_asia/609196.stm

Congress steps up RSS row

Members of hardline groups were banned until recently

By Jyotsna Singh in Delhi

India's main opposition Congress Party has threatened to launch national protests over a decision by the Gujarat state government to allow civil servants to join what they say is an umbrella organisation for Hindu extremists.

Recently, the state's BJP-led government said that public sector employees could join the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh or RSS.

They say that the decision to lift a 13-year-old ban on RSS members having government jobs sets a dangerous precedent.

Non-political

But the Gujarat Home Minister Harin Pandya says the RSS is a non-political, nationalist organisation engaged in the character building of youth and social services in remote areas.

He said that a previous ban imposed by the Congress Party government on the RSS was imposed with the wrong intention.

Ultimatum

On Monday, a three-member Congress delegation met President Narayanan seeking his immediate intervention.

Sonia Gandhi: Sent letter to the president

The delegation also handed him a letter by the party president Sonia Gandhi in which she had said that the decision will seriously jeopardise the secular character of the Gujarat government.

The party has given Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee 12 days in which to order the Gujarat government to revoke the order.

He said if the government fails to seek the withdrawal, Congress will launch a nationwide protest march which will include a demonstration outside the prime minister's house on 30 January - the anniversary of the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi at the hands of a Hindu extremist.

3 news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/971707.stm

Hindu activist attacks 'divisive Christianity'

Khaki shorts and white shirts make up the RSS uniform

By BBC's correspondent Jill McGivering in Agra

In India, the head of the influential nationalist Hindu organisation, the RSS, has accused foreign governments of using Christianity as a political weapon to divide the Indian nation.

He was speaking at the third and final day of a mass RSS rally in the city of Agra, where 75,000 followers have gathered.

He also repeated his call for India Christians to set up their own national church separate from those in other countries.

Organisers of this three-day rally say their aim has been to make followers aware of the threats they perceive to India's stability.

They cite Pakistan as a major security threat, but they also include aspects of Islam and Christianity, which they describe as tools of hostile foreign influences.

Religious politics

RSS leader, K S Sudershan, told reporters that today Christianity is less a religion and more about politics, politics which must be opposed because its detrimental to India's interests.

He described the Church as part of the western arsenal.

Western governments, he said, were deliberately using the spread of Christianity as a way of segregating regions of India and damaging the country's unity.

Communal violence in Bihar: Some say the RSS incites tensions

Many Christians didn't support these moves, he said, and he called on them to cut their links with foreign Churches and start their own Indian Church.

Muslims in India weren't obliged to recognise Hindu gods as deities, he added, but they should acknowledge them as their forefathers.

Mr Sudashan's call for a national Indian Church, similar to the model established by China, has caused concern amongst many Christian leaders here.

They say any such move would be unconstitutional and go against India's secular traditions. Christian groups have blamed the RSS for a recent series of violent attacks on Christians and churches, but the RSS denies involvement.

4 news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/south_asia/1131305.stm

BBC News Online: World: South Asia

---

Monday, 22 January, 2001, 17:36 GMT

Controversy over Hindu weekly

By Sanjeev Srivastava in Bombay

A row has broken out in the western Indian state of Gujarat over a move ordering schools to subscribe to an allegedly right-wing Hindu magazine.

Authorities in the western Indian state of Gujarat have rejected demands by Christian and Muslim groups to withdraw the controversial order.

Minority community leaders say the weekly, Sadhana, is a mouthpiece of the Hindu nationalist organisation, RSS.

The RSS is seen by many as the ideological parent organisation of India's governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which is also the ruling party in Gujarat.

Christian missionaries and other activists have described the Gujarat Government's decision to introduce the Hindu weekly in state-run schools as unconstitutional.

They have also decided to move the court if the government failed to reverse its decision soon.

Hindu ideology

The convenor of the United Christian Forum for Human Rights and a Jesuit priest, Cedric Prakash, told the BBC that the directive was an attempt to impose Hindu ideology on students of different religions.

He also took exception to the government asking school authorities to use official aid and grant money to pay for the subscription costs.

But Gujarat Education Minister Anandiben Patel denied there was any attempt to force non-Hindu students to read the weekly which she described as a "social magazine".

This is not the first stand-off between the BJP government in Gujarat and minority groups.

Christian groups had charged the state administration with being soft on some militant Hindu groups during widespread anti-Christian violence nearly two years ago.

The Gujarat Government also provoked a row last year when it allowed government employees to take part in the activities of the RSS.

5 news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2525555.stm

The BJP's stake in Gujarat

Chief Minister Modi has been the target of criticism

By Rajeev Khanna BBC reporter in Gujarat

Winning the legislative assembly elections in western Gujarat state is crucial for India's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which leads the coalition government in Delhi.

The BJP has been in power in the state for most of the last 10 years.

And it is under pressure to retain power in Gujarat because there are only two other Indian states which it still holds.

In assembly elections held earlier this year in Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Manipur and Jammu and Kashmir, the party fared badly.

It is facing an uphill task in Himachal Pradesh, which goes to the polls in February next year.

Personal prestige

Retaining Gujarat is also a matter of honour for the party since some of its most senior leaders represent the state in central politics.

Gujarat is seen as a testing ground for Hindu ideologues

These include the hawkish Deputy Prime Minister, LK Advani, who is a member of parliament from the state capital, Gandhinagar, former Law Minister Arun Jaitly, who is a member of the upper house from the state, Textiles Minister Kanshiram Rana and Minister of State for Defence Hiren Pathak.

With the state witnessing total political and religious polarisation, the BJP and its ideological affiliates are pitted against a strong secular front under the Congress.

The Left is supporting the Congress, and the Lok Janshakti Party has announced that it will refrain from contesting the election so that the secular vote is not divided.

Other political parties like the Samajwadi Party or the Nationalist Congress Party - which are reportedly going it alone - do not have much political clout in the state.

Gujarat has also been a testing ground for the BJP.

Mr Advani's campaign in 1990 for construction of a HIndu temple at Ayodhya in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh started from Somnath in Gujarat.

The Hindu nationalist movement's confrontation with the Christian minority also started in Gujarat in 1998 before it went on to spread to other states.

Troublesome coalition

Apart from its ideological attachment to Gujarat, the BJP also has to take into account coalition politics in Delhi.

Following the Hindu-Muslim clashes which swept the state earlier this year, Chandrababu Naidu, the leader of the Telugu Desam Party, a key partner in the ruling national alliance, expressed his reservations about Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi continuing in office.

But the BJP ignored such concerns, and Mr Modi stayed put.

Another coalition partner, the DMK, is also estranged from the BJP - but for different reasons.

The party is a major regional player in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, and is reportedly unhappy with the growing closeness between its rival in the state, the AIADMK, and the BJP.

Another of the BJP allies at the centre, the Samata Party, has refused to join forces with the BJP for the Gujarat elections.

Its president, George Fernandes, is the defence minister in the union government and the convenor of the National Democratic Alliance.

The party regards itself as secular and does not want to be associated with the BJP's agressively Hindu nationalist platform in the Gujarat polls.

A clear victory in the Gujarat elections will enable the BJP to assert itself in the coalition with renewed confidence.

A less than resounding victory could seriously weaken the BJP's standing in the alliance at a time when its electoral fortunes have already taken a dip.

6 news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/south_asia/655129.stm

BBC News Online: World: South Asia

---

Thursday, 24 February, 2000, 13:03 GMT

Parliament row over Hindu hardliners

The Indian parliament has adjourned in chaos after opposition MPs protested against what they say is the growing political influence of the Hindu nationalist organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

Opposition members chanted anti-government slogans in protest at a decision to allow civil servants in the states of Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh to join the RSS.
"Remove the RSS, save the country," the opposition deputies shouted.

Earlier, the opposition, led by Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi, held a sit-in in the parliament compound to protest against the RSS.

'Hidden agenda'

The opposition expressed fears that the RSS would penetrate all levels of government and the civil service.

"It is regrettable that they (BJP-led government) are pursuing the hidden agenda. We will fight to the last," Sonia Gandhi said.

The RSS has links with the Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and opponents allege that it influencess the government's political agenda.

Its critics say it is an umbrella organisation for Hindu extremists seeking to alter India's secular society.

---

---

We will fight to the last
Sonia Gandhi

---

The RSS says it is a social and cultural organisation and not a political one.

But the opposition accuses the organisation of promoting intolerance against Muslims and Christians - a charge the RSS denies.

Controversy

The RSS issue became even more controversial when Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani hinted earlier this month that the federal government would also consider allowing its workers to join the organisation.

However, Mr Vajpayee's announced last week that there was no move to lift the ban on federal civil servants joining a political organisation.

7 news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/179541.stm

World: South Asia

Christian nuns raped in India

The attack caused fear and outrage among India's Christians

The authorities in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh have increased security around religious buildings and homes of the Christian community in two districts, following attacks and sexual assaults on a group of nuns on Wednesday.

The incident happened in the village of Nawapada, at the convent of the Foreign Missionary Sisters, who provide medical help in rural areas.

The attack

In the early hours of the morning a group of armed men, brandishing swords and canes, broke open the grilled gates of the convent, after pleading with the sisters to accompany them to a patient in the area.

The sisters had refused to go, asking the men to bring a letter from the local priest.

The men then dragged four nuns to a farm field, and raped two of them.

The identities of the nuns were not revealed, but they were all under 35, and came from the southern coastal state of Tamil Nadu, the All India Catholic Union said.

The motive

Habans Singh, the state's home minister said 18 people were being sought by police in connection with the attack, and a judicial inquiry had also been announced.

A reward of 50,000 rupees (US$1,190) was offered for information about the attackers, who also ransacked the convent, the minister said.

Mr Singh said the motive for the attack had apparently been robbery, and the rape of the nuns was not premeditated. A local official said the suspects were members of a local criminal gang.

But our correspondent says that the Christian community thinks otherwise.

Christian fears

Christians believe that they are being targeted by Hindu militant groups in remote and rural parts of the country, where Christians are generally poor and powerless.

Other attacks on Christians have taken place earlier in neighbouring districts, but Christian suspicions that they were connected have not been proved.

Institutions run by Christian missionary groups in the state of Madhya Pradesh are reported to have remained closed on Thursday in protest.

Madhya Pradesh is currently in the midst of an assembly election. The opposition Hindu nationalist BJP has condemned the attack, and blamed it on what it described as the breakdown of law and order in the state.

A party spokesman said the authorities were trying to play down the seriousness of the incident.

8news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/world/south_asia/227273.stm

Thursday, December 3, 1998 Published at 16:39 GMT

Hindu militants stage lesbian film attacks

Hindu militants stage lesbian film attacks
Hindu extremists in India have continued their attacks on cinemas showing a controversial film centred on a lesbian relationship.

The Shiv Sena organisation - which is allied to the governing Hindu nationalist BJP - tipped-off the media before about a dozen of its members rampaged through the lobby of a Delhi cinema on Tuesday.

Windows and mirrors were smashed as protestors outside shouted slogans and tore down posters for the film, Fire.

A restaurant was also damaged, but nobody was hurt and the vandals did not get into the auditorium, where the internationally-acclaimed movie was showing to a full house.

Film 'attacks Hindu culture'

The day before two cinemas in Bombay had suffered similar attacks.

Shiv Sena says the film is anti-Hindu because of a scene showing the two main female characters having sex.

The group's president, Jaibhagwan Goyal, said: "This scene is a direct attack on our Hindu culture and civilisation.

"We do all these things according to our social system - where it is done between a man and a woman after marriage - but the film is trying to show something that deviates from this line and it will send a wrong message to the society."

Fire tells the story of two sisters-in-law trapped in loveless marriages who develop an emotional - and eventually physical relationship.

The film had already been showing in India for three weeks before the wave of violent protests began.

'Cultural terrorism'

Police in Delhi say they have begun making arrests and that they will prevent further attacks.

But some cinema owners are not taking any chances and have stopped showing the film for fear of further trouble.

Film-makers in Bombay, India's cinema capital, have condemned what they called "cultural terrorism" and called for protection from the authorities.

The movie's Canadian-based director Deepa Mehta, has defended the public's right to see her work without fear of intimidation.

"Fire has gone through the Indian censors without one cut," she said.

"So, you know, I think that let's not under-estimate the Indian audience. I didn't make the film to shock people. I made the film because I wanted to make the film."

Destruction of Babri Masjid complex in December 6, 1992

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/bantherss/

'One group of karsevaks blocked all entry points into Ayodhya to keep out central security forces, while another began to loot and burn Muslim homes'

Did the leaders know beforehand what was going to happen that afternoon? There can be no final answer to that question. Perhaps some did, others did not. Certainly one answer seems to emerge from our narrative, another from the likes of editor Chandan Mitra. Not that the leadership of the parivar comes off any better from Mitra's graphic description of their behaviour during that crucial period when the attack on the mosque was mounted -- the giggling political sanyasins, Uma Bharati and Ritambhara; Joshi overcome by the size of the mammoth crowd; Singhal, convinced that the karseva would go along expected lines and giving precise orders, to a crowd that could not care less, about how to wipe and clean the site of the projected temple; the moment of reckoning when the crowd goes berserk on seeing two karsevaks on the top of the domes of the mosque while the high command sat, 'tense', 'sombre-faced', 'hopelessly sullen', with faces like 'grim death'; the lament of Rajendra Singh, the de facto supremo of the RSS, 'the ministry is gone'; and finally the pathetic and belated attempts to calm down the crowd by the leaders taking turn in appealing to the karsevaks, while others like Acharya Dharmendra tried to interest an uninterested crowd in a bhajan.

The high command recovered soon enough, but for Advani who, perhaps sensing the long-term implications of what was happening, wore a 'worried, faraway expression on his face'.

At about 12.30 pm some half an hour after the mosque had been stormed, water began to be pumped into a small, crude, tank-like, brick-and-mud structure a little distance away from the mosque, just below Manas Bhavan. This was to mix the cement that was later used to build the platform and wall of the temple on the rubble of the mosque. VHP ambulances stood ready in all the nearby lanes to cart away injured karsevaks to the civil hospital in Faizabad where the former health minister in the BJP government in UP, Harish Chandra Shrivastava, was said to be in command.

Soon after the karsevaks started tearing the mosque down, journalists and cameramen covering the events came under a well-orchestrated attack. It was not difficult to single them out for this purpose, since all media persons present wore prominent pink identity badges issued to them by the VHP the day before. Most cameramen and photographers had their equipment smashed to pieces. Journalists were beaten up, in some cases seriously, their notebooks were torn and tape recorders broken. At least in one instance, there was an attempt to kill a young woman journalist.

One group of karsevaks blocked all entry points into Ayodhya to keep out central security forces, while another began to loot and burn the homes of the Muslims of the city and destroy Masjids and idgahs.

The low, continuous chant of Jai Shri Ram, coming over the loudspeakers since dawn, suddenly became more aggressive in both tone and content:

Jai Shri Ram, bolo Jai Shri Ram,

Jinnah bolo Jai Shri Ram,

Gandhi bolo Jai Shri Ram,

Mullah bolo Jai Shri Ram...

Initially, there were some hurried, panicky pleas to the karsevaks over the public address system to maintain discipline. These were followed by expressions of concern for their safety, as the 500- year-old mosque began to come apart slowly. After a while the karsevaks received only guidance and encouragement from the BJP leaders and the sants of the VHP's Marg Darshak Mandal assembled at the Ram Katha Kunj. Singhal grandly announced that the dawn of Hindu rebellion had arrived, while Vijaya Raje Scindia declared that she could now die without any regret, for she had seen her dream come true.

It was, however, the triumvirate of Uma Bharati, Ritambhara and Dharmendra who dominated the 'show'. Bharati in her several turns at the microphone gave the crowds two slogans, 'Ram nam satya hai, Babri Masjid dhvasth hai,' (True is the name of Ram; the Babri Masjid has been demolished) and 'Ek dhakka aur do, Babri masjid tod do' (Give one more push, and break the Babri Masjid). Both, along with the old favourite 'Jai Shri Ram', rent the air for hours afterwards. She also introduced to the crowd one Shiv Kumari Prachchanya of Meerut as 'the first woman ever to have climbed the dome of that structure,' and the parents of Sharad and Ram Kumar Kothari, two brothers killed in police firing on November 2, 1990, while trying to attack the mosque. 'There were tears in the eyes of their mother', Bharati told her audience, 'as she for the first time felt that her sons had not sacrificed their lives in vain, and that their murder at the hands of those nar pishachs (blood-sucking monsters), Mulayam and V P Singh, had been avenged.'

By the time the last of the domes of the Babri Masjid came crashing down at 5.45 pm, scattered spirals of smoke could be seen at a distance. Realising that Muslim houses in the city were being attacked by the karsevaks Ritambhara quickly began to urge the authorities on the public address system to stop the 'Mussalmans from burning their own homes'. She was joined by Dharmendra, who shouted that some 'outlaws' were setting fire to their own huts to make a fast buck and give the innocent karsevaks a bad name. Later, he changed his tune and said to the press that this was the only way in which Ayodhya could become a Vatican for the Hindus.

The Rediff Special-Excerpted from Creating a Nationality, by Ashis Nandy, Shikha Trivedy, Shail Mayaram and Achyut Yagnik, Oxford University Press, 1995

The Followers of Godse

The Aftermath of The Babri Masjid Demolition in Ayodhya

The BJP-RSS-VHP combine has for long tried to justify its Ram Mandir campaign with the argument that the Hindu psyche had been wounded by demolition of temples by various Muslim rulers and invaders and by reclaming the supposed janamsthan of Ram, they were only righting a historical wrong done to Hindus. However, the planned pogroms against Muslims in Ayodhya and other parts of the country after the Babri Masiid had been demolished prove that the campaign for Ram Mandir was not at all motivated by religious sentiments. It was essentially a murderous anti-Muslim campaign.

Shikha Trivedy, who has been documenting the events in Ayodhya for the last three years, describes the mayhem that followed in Ayodhya after the demolition. -Ed.

In Ayodhya's hour of madness on December 6-7, when a few sane voices pleaded with Acharya Dharmendra of the VHP's Marg Darshak Mandal to stop murderous gangs of kar sevaks from attacking the Muslims of the town and burning and looting their houses and shops, he is quoted in the press as having said, I will never stop them. This is the only way in which Ayodhya can become like the Vatican." Today, the flamboyant Acharya Dharmendra and his fellow rabble-rousers no doubt look back with some pride at the attempt made by the hoodlums they commanded to realise their twisted, pathetic vision. Between nightfall on December 6 and mid-afternoon the next day, these kar sevaks killed and then burnt 13 men and children. While nearly all the Muslims had left their homes before the week-end for safer spots, the rest fled on hearing the news that the Babri Masjid had fallen. Those who died obviously could not escape in time.

The rule of the Centre was imposed in UP at 6 p.m. on December 6. The rioting began seriously only at about 4 a.m. the next morning and continued for nearly 12 hours, with mobs of several hundreds roaming the streets of. this temple town, shouting 'Jai Shri Ram' and plundering and torching each and every Muslim home - 134 in all - and business establishments in broad daylight. First they looted all the valuables and currency they could lay their hands on. Then they smashed topieces everything that was inside the houses. What couldn't be broken, whether it was a motorcycle or some cattle or clothes and books, went into huge bonfires and. was reduced to ashes. After this the houses were set on fire, but not if they were too close to Hindu homes, lest those Loo got damaged, Any other mosque they could find was an added bonus. As a result, barring two, all the masjids and idgahs of Ayodhya were either destroyed or damaged.

This was not just some mindless and wanton destruction of human life and property by the kar sevaks in order to sustain the high they had achieved only a few hours ago by razing the Babri Masjid to the ground. On the contrary, they worked to a carefully crafted plan. But all their zeal and commitment would have come a cropper if some of the Hindus of Ayodhya and the UP policeand theprovincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) posted there had not pitched in. The locals helped the strategists by identifying Muslim property well before December 6, and the police force provided the final touches by either actively participating in the 'lootmaar' or turning Nelson's eye to what was happening around them. For instance, on the morning of December 7, as I was walking through the heavily policed Ramkot area, not even a stone's throw away from the disputed site, some kar sevaks were setting fire to the shop of 'Lala Tailors' which was owned by a Muslim. Instead of stopping the miscreants, the PAC men on duty were urging them to quickly throw out the odd pieces of wooden furniture inside, which they then used for making a fire to ward off the winter chill right in the middle of the road.

Ten days later, mohallah after mohallah still bore the scars of the victory march of the vandals who invaded Ayodbya and, unlike in 1990, celebratedthedemolitionofthemasjid not by burning candles, but human beingsand therooves over their beads. Everything had been left as it was, the 24 hour curfew still in force making it impossible forthose who hacirun away to come back. Less than a handful of Muslims could be found in Ayodhya; those who had stayed had either been saved by their neighbours or had successfuly hidden themselves from the kar sevaks.

Fifty-year-old Beechu was one of them. His house, overlooking a rather beautiful garden, is in the basti of Mirapur Bulandi, which lies on a stretch of road called Rajghat. It was attacked by about a hundred men at 11 a.m on December 7, and within half an hour the -remaining seven houses belonging to the Muslimsof thetwhallah met the same fate. There were no casualties, because most of the families had left Ayodbya well in advance. Beechu, who owns a cycle shop, was literally snatched from the jaws of death by two of his Hindu neighbours, Sarju Yadav and Subhash who tied a Bajrang Dal band on his head and passed him off as a kar sevak. "It was very difficult," says Yaday, "because the men who came here did not speak any Hindi, only Telugu. I somehow managed to convince them in the little English I know. " Subhash did not think that any Hindu from their basti, was involved in the attack, but on the other hand, he was also convinced that the kar sevaks had prior knowledge about the location of Muslim households there. And where was the police at thetime? Without any hesitation, both Yadav and Subhash reply "We only saw one man in PAC uniform and he was leading the kar sevaks."

At around the same time that Mirapur Bulandi was being overrun, the neighbouring mohallah of Machwana situated on KaushalyaGhat, was under seige. An embittered Abdul Sattar points to what used to be his house. "I am a very poor man and so also had very little. But now even that has gone." He has not yet lodged an FIR with the police, preferring to wait for some local Muslim leader to accompany him to the thana. "The police is pressurisinng us to sign on statements they have prepared.. I am not educated. Who knows what they have written'?" he asks quietly. Once again, all the seven or eight Muslim dwellings in Machwana and a similar number in adjoining Shikwana are now little more than burnt out shells. Sattar, who was hiding in a flower bed nearby when the karsevaks were doing their job, swears that he saw Hindus from his own basti as well as some from neighbouring ones egging the outsiders on. The inhabitants of Shikwana second this. They allege that the kai sevaks were brought back to their mohallah three times to break down the house of their zamidar, Nawab Tahir Husain Sahib. They succeeded in their last attempt and reduced to ashes everything in the house, including the 75-year-old Husain Sahib. He was torched at his front door - a few bones was all that was found of the zamindar whose family has lived in Ayodhya for more than 300 years now.

Stepping inside the ruins of what must once have been quite a grand house, I saw a frail, tiny woman of more than 70 years standing with her hands folded and tears rolling down her cheeks in front of two policemen. The widow, Aliva Begurn, was plead- ing with them to let her testify as one of the witnesses to the murder of her husband. The policemen flatly refused. She was not present inside the house when the kar-sevaks descended on it, and as far as they were concerned, she was of no use to them. "It is true that I didn't see anything, but I could bear them shouting, 'maro, kato, looto, phoonk do-phoonk do' as I hid in the bushes under the window at the back of the house. I also heard Husan Sahib begging the kar sevaks to spare his life," she added. The policemen, unmoved, wandered off to round up other witnesses for the inquiry. "I will swear on anything you want," she called after them, "the Koran, the Ramayatt." She had no takers.

Standing alone and helpless in the courtyard of her house, surrounded by spilt grain. broken crockery, burnt wood, torn photographs and bits and pieces of other personal belongings, Aliya Begum awaited the return of her sons, their wives and children who managed to get out and away in time.

Meanwhile outside, the two policemen were busy with their investigations. Why had they waited for 10 days before starting them, I asked? "We only heard about what had happened here yesterday said one of them, slightly affronted. I did not think it would serve any purpose to point out to them, that the Katra police chowki to which they were attached was a five minute walk from the house of the late Nawab Tahir Husain.

A neighbour, Ali Ramjan's cycle shop was also located on the same 'chauraha' as the Katra police chowki. "When a mob began destroying my shop, the police encouraged them by shouting, 'loot lo, loot lo'. And now they want me to lodge an FIR with them..." he trails off bitterly. Ramjan, however, is not complaining too much. After all, his six-year-old son Zubair Ahmed is still alive. Zubair was trying to slip out of the back of his house, when he was caught by the kar sevaks attacking it, who then tried to throw him into the bonfire they had made of the things looted from his house. Zubair was saved by a Hindu friend of his father's, who claimed Zubair was his son.

Furtherdown the road, across from Asharfi Bhawan are the mohallahs of Mughalpura and Begumpura. Once again, no house here has survived the wrath of the kar sevaks nor have any of the masjids. According to Mohammed Amin and Abdul Hafiz of Mughalp ura, it was around 8 a.m on December 7, minutes after the PAC guard posted in their bash went off duty, that an army of kar sevaks overran their quarters. While Amin hid in some tall grass behind his house, Hafiz slipped into a freshly dug grave. Too scared to go back to their homes even after a couple of hours had passed, Amin, Hafiz and the others who had fled with them, decided to seek refuge at the police chowki in Katra. "They refused to let us in," says Amin in a matter-of-fact way, as if he had not expected otherwise. So they went running to a PAC camp at a nearby school. "The situation there was even worse," continued Amin. "The police accused us of being murderers. They said we must have knifed some people and were running away from being caught and that in order to hide our crime we were dragging in the story about the kar sevaks. They threatened to kill u s. Had their commanding officer not turned up, we don't know what would have happened to us."Exceptfor the wife of their zamindar, known as 'thakurain' who came out of her house and shouted at the kar sevaks to leave, no other neighbour came to help them in their hour of distress.

"Many of us were also terrified," says Sheetal Who is in his mid-20s and lives in Begumpura, "because, if we pleaded with the mob to stop the burning and looting they were quite ready to turn on us." Despite this Sheetal personally saved the lives of many people of his nwhallah, and was dubbed a 'gaddar' for his efforts by his Hindu friends.

Unlike other towns and cities, there are no Muslim ghettos in Ayodhya. Muslim and Hindu houses stand side by side in most mohallahs. But there were a few, very small, predominantly Muslim pockets like Alamganj Katra and Society which were still totally deserted, their silence broken only by the whining of hungry dogs and the painful cries of starving monkeys. These neighbourhoods had been completely destroyed, specially Society mohallah with its 20-odd houses reduced to rubble and the minars of its tiny masjid, strewn about on the grass. Most of the bricks from the houses were dated 1924.

But perhaps the most gruesome act of violence was commited in the Tedhi Bazar mohallah, just behind the disputed site, and adjacent to a vacant plot of land where many of the kar sevaks had camped during their stay in Ayodhya. Thirteen-year-old Tony and his father Shaukat, a school teacher, were cut to pieces by sword wielding kar sevaks and then burnt on the 'chabutra' of their house. Shreds of their bloodstained clothing were still lying at the spot where, they had been lynched. The Muslims of the basti had not yet returned and it was, their Hindu neighbours, three women, who narrated to me the events of December 7. Tedhi Bazar was amongst the first mohallah to be attacked at around 4 a.m by a mob comprising hundreds of men carrying guns and swords. The 10-12 Muslim houses were ransacked and set on fire. Apart from Shaukat and his son, two brothers, Salim and Nadir, were also killed. "There were more than a hundred Muslim men, women and children here when the kar sevaks came. Some we hid in our houses for three days, the others took refuge in the Ram janmabhoomi police station", said one of the women. At this juncture, a few men from the basti collected and made it quite clear that there was nothing more to be said. The women, who had begun to show some signs of nervousness, quickly scurried away.

Tedhi Bazar is the mohallah from where the rioting in Ayodhya really began, and all the Hindus of the town to one man, accuse Haji Mehboob, the local head of the Babri Masjid Action Committee, for it. Haji Mehboob's house is located on the outskirts of the basti overlooking one of the main roads leading upto the disputed site, which was constantly used by the kar sevaks. According to those who hold him reponsible for starting the violence, which includes everyone from the local journalists, to the mahants and shopkeepers, Haji Mchboob fired a round of bullets/threw a bomb on a procession of kar sevaks on the evening of December 6, killing one five of them. So enraged were the kar-sevaks that that night they swore to take revenge. And the result of Haji Mahboob's folly was there for all to see. On this point, the two most, prominent mahants of Ayodhya, Ramdas Paramhans and Nritya Gopal Das, of course, disagree with everyone else. They insist that the Muslims, taking advantage of the prevailing situation, set fire to their own homes to claim compensation from the government.

The Muslims are reluctant to accept the more popular theory, although they don't deny it outright either. "I don't know whether he fired the shot," says one of their local leaders, "but if he did, it must have been in self-defence. Only a fool could afford to be aggressive at that point in time, with lakhs of kar sevaks milling around the place. And Haji Mehboob was no fool." One of the Hindu women I spoke to in the Tedhi Bazar mohallah had also murmured something similar under her breath. "Apni jaan bhi to bachani thi." This does appear to be the more plausible explanation. After all there is no reason why Haji Mahboob should unnecessarily want to risk his life by firing at the sevaks.

Apart from this, Muslims also cite the curious behaviour of the station house officer of the ramjanmabhoomi police station, Shukla, on that day to strengthen their argument. Shukla, it was well known, intensely disliked Haji Mehboob, who is regarded as a somewhat notorious character. In fact, just a few week's earlier, Shukla had put him behind bars on what many think was a trumped up charge. Yet not only did Shukla save the lives of Mehboob and his family by locking them up in jail till the danger was over, but also let Mehboob go scot-free afterwards. The Muslims argue that considering the strong enmity between the two, Shukla would not have even let Haji Mehbo6b out of his sight if there was any truth in what is being said: that it was Mehboob who had first provoked the kar sevaks by attacking them.

And lastly, but surely, the fact that every Muslim, his home and other property was systematically singled out for attack as if the kar sevaks had gone around with a voter's list in their hands, puts the last nail in thecoffin of the revenge theory. There was nothing spontaneous abouk the violence, just as there was nothing spontaneous about the assault on the Babri Masjid. Both were planned to the last detail.

Consequently, for the first time now the divide between the Hindus and Muslims of Ayodhya is absolute. Earlier on both communities used to hold the'outsiders' responsible for the happenings in Ayodhya, and always insisted that they would survive kar seva after kar seva together. Both sides would talk of how the Muslims of the town supplied all the wood used to build the temples of the Hindus and grew flowers and strung them for the necks of the gods and goddesses. This time there was no such talk. The. Muslims see the incidents of December 6-7 as the beginning of their end, a continuing process. They are afraid and angry, but above all they feel let down by the police, the administration, the courts and the Congress government. But nothing has hurt them more than the betrayal of the Hindus of Ayodhya, their own neighbours in many cases, who they are convinced were equal and willing partners in the atrocities committed against them. Abdul Sattar has made up his mind to go to Bombay and so has Abdul Hafiz. They were only waiting for the curfew, to lift and the others to return before they made their move. It would appear that Acharya Dharmendra's dream might well come true, because not a single Muslim 1 spoke to wants to live in Ayodhya now.

As I left Ayodhya I remembered a conversation I had in 1990 with Haji Abdul Ghafoor, who used to lead the namaz in the Babri Masjid before it was converted into a temple overnight. When I asked him what he would do if ever the Babri Masjid was demolished, the Haji, well into his 90s, replied without any trace of emotion, "hamne to abhi se apna kafan kharid liya hai." The tragedy is that the rest of the Muslims of Ayodhya are now preparing to do the same.

• In Ayodhya on the day of the demolition, VHP general secretary Ashok Singhal with sants associated with the temple movement.

• December 6, 1992: Foot-soldiers of the Hindutva army rush to raze down the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. The ghosts of the dark deed have come to haunt the Bharatiya Janata Party.

• The makeshift temple at the now highly-fortified site of the demolished Babri Masjid, a 1998 picture.
• In Faizabad, prefabrication work under way in 1998 for a temple for Ram.