Sangh Parivar raising money for violence: UK group

Rediff.com, PTI, March 4, 2003 original post a comment on Rediff

Supporters of the South Asia Solidarity, campaigning against last years riots in Gujarat, held a candlelight vigil outside the Charity Commission in London on Monday evening demanding stripping of the charity status given to the Sewa International and the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh.

The group said, "Hindu supremacist organisations like Sewa International, the HSS, which is the international wing of the RSS [Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh], and the VHP [Vishwa Hindu Parishad] enjoy the status of registered charities in the UK, enabling them to raise funds that go into spreading hatred and violence against minorities in India."

In a memorandum to the commission, the group said, "Not a single member of Gujarat's BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] government, which collaborated in, and sometimes orchestrated, these attacks, or of the allied killer gangs of the VHP, RSS and Bajrang Dal, was brought to justice despite calls to do so from all over India.

"Instead, in an election held barely 10 months after these genocidal attacks, the same government has been returned to power."

In Britain, it said, a network of organisations belonging to the Sangh Parivar -- the VHP, HSS and others -- stand accused of diverting funds collected in the name of welfare to wage a campaign of hatred and violence against minority communities in India.

"At the same time, through branches all over Britain, these organisations are instigating communal conflict among the Asian communities in this country, a process that has been facilitated and intensified by the policies of the British state."

A statement issued by the group claimed that the Sewa International increased its gross income from £748,355 in 2000 to £2,175,971 this year and the HSS, a sister charity under whose name it is registered, were exposed in a Channel 4 television report on December 12.

"Extensive evidence collected by independent human rights organisations as well as the British high commission in India and the international media has confirmed that the massacres in Gujarat were planned and carried out by a network of Hindu supremacist organisations, the VHP, RSS and others.

"These groups have subsequently stated their intention of repeating the Gujarat 'experiment' elsewhere in India."