The Hindu : National : U.S. student council “has not snapped ties with Sangh Parivar”

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U.S. student council “has not snapped ties with Sangh Parivar”

Special Correspondent

15-year study conducted by Campaign to Stop Funding Hate

Organisation becoming popular among Indian-American students
Study is to expose Sangh Parivar’s “real agenda”

NEW DELHI: A new study conducted by the U.S.-based Campaign to Stop Funding Hate (CSFH) has sought to expose the “duplicity” of the Hindu Students Council (HSC) — an organisation that is gaining currency among Indian-American college students across American campuses.

Briefing mediapersons here, Biju Mathew of the CSFH said while the HSC claimed to have severed its ties with the Sangh Parivar after the demolition of the Babri Masjid, “there is a long and dense trail” of connections that establishes a continuing relationship. The trail included tax returns of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America (VHPA), filing with the U.S. Patents Office and Internet domain registry information.

According to Mr. Mathew, the websites of practically every key Sangh Parivar organisation — the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the VHP and the Seva Bharati included — goes to the same cluster of servers located in California: the Global Hindu Electronics Network of the HSC, “making it the basis of the Sangh’s electronic infrastructure.” Also, till 2001, the VHPA was listing the HSC as its project eight years after the students’ organisation had declared itself an independent entity. The current top brass of the Sangh Parivar in the U.S. were from the HSC which was founded as a VHPA project in 1990.

Explaining the rationale of this study conducted over 15 years, Mr. Mathew said: “For some reason, the Indian diaspora like people here in India do not understand the duplicity of the Sangh Parivar. They pay lip service to secularism. We want to make students aware of their real agenda.”

He said the HSC was growing in the United States because of that country’s policy of multiculturalism meant to protect minority communities such as Indian-Americans.

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