The United Nations Economic and Social Council has been urged to reject an application for consultative status by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad.
In a briefing note to the UN committee on NGOs recently, the South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre said the VHP's activities violated the UN Charter.

The note claimed the VHP "espoused and encouraged" communal and anti-foreign sentiments and had been implicated in violence against minority groups in India. Such activities ran counter to the UN's stated aim of promoting "universal respect" for human rights and fundamental freedoms.

The VHP applied for general consultative status with the council in 1998. The decision on the plea has been deferred on three occasions.

According to the note, the VHP's application is again up for consideration at the UN committee on NGO's regular session in May 2002.

The noted said the VHP's social welfare work was designed to promote the VHP's "exclusivist and intolerant form of Hinduism".

If the VHP gets consultative status on the committee it would be able to make submissions that would be "published and circulated as UN documents" and influence the agenda of the UN council, warns the note.