Posted on Fri, Jan. 17, 2003
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/4966007.htm Hindu nationalists tap immigrant guilt in U.S.
The "Hindutva" movement opposes India's secular
system. Its leaders are raising funds in America.
By Gaiutra Bahadur
Inquirer Staff Writer
Ten years ago, in a small town in north India, Ashok
Singhal spearheaded the destruction of a 16th-century
mosque, sparking the worst religious riots since the
country won independence.
His supporters tore down the Babri Masjid brick by
brick.
A week ago, in a basement in suburban New Jersey,
Singhal courted the hearts and pocketbooks of Hindu
immigrants to the United States.
This American visit and dozens before it, critics say,
are part of a campaign to tear down India's secular
political structure - not brick by brick, but dollar
by dollar.
The movement Singhal belongs to - Hindu nationalism,
or Hindutva - is rising in India. And some say it has
risen with the sometimes unwitting help of Indian
Americans who have contributed millions to charities
in their native country, particularly schools in
tribal areas that the Hindu right views as key to its
agenda.
Singhal's visit coincided with the end of an
unprecedented government-sponsored conference in New
Delhi of prominent Indians living abroad. The country
is trying to tap into the guilt, nostalgia and
financial resources of its diaspora.
That strategy explains the unlikely spectacle of the
silver-haired leader of the World Hindu Council
holding forth in the basement of a Voorhees physician
last Friday night. Sixty people listened to a man one
called "a saint in street clothes."
Two police officers stood sentinel, since there are
some for whom Singhal, whose group has reshaped Indian
politics in the last decade, conjures Hitler more than
he does a saint.
The 77-year-old - an ally of Indian Prime Minister
Atal Bihari Vajpayee - spoke of the ongoing effort to
build a temple over the ruins of the Babri mosque,
where Hindus believe the warrior god Ram was born.
"We need the Hindus to unite throughout the world,"
Singhal said in an interview, "... because there is a
cultural onslaught against the Hindus."
"People can understand more because of Sept. 11," he
said. "America has suffered the first onslaught by the
jihadis. We have been suffering this onslaught for the
last 1,000 years."
According to Human Rights Watch, Singhal's group
helped stoke religious riots in Gujurat state last
spring that claimed 2,000 lives, as well as attacks on
Christians in 1998 and 1999.
After Singhal's speech, his host, gynecologist Veena
Gandhi, made a pitch: "$365 a year for one school. A
dollar a day, for which we can't even buy a Coke in
New York. Talk to your friends. This is our debt to
our country where we were born."
Gandhi is a leader in the U.S. offshoot of the World
Hindu Council and a coordinator for a group devoted to
starting tribal schools, the Houston-based Ekal
Vidyalaya Foundation of USA.
Since the group began, Indians in the Northeast have
raised about $500,000 for 1,400 schools, most of it
from the Philadelphia region, said Sanjeev Jindal, a
coordinator and a Merck scientist from Lansdale.
He says the schools' main purpose is to combat
illiteracy. Critics say more is at stake.
"The schools... help to create a cadre of foot
soldiers to fight against the constructed enemies of
Hindutva, in this case Muslims and Christians," said
Smita Narula, a senior researcher at Human Rights
Watch.
She said more tribal people took part in last year's
Gujurat riots than ever before in the state's history
of religious tensions - a fact viewed by many as a
sign of Hindutva's success in areas where Christian
missionaries once held sway.
Gandhi dismissed critics of the schools, saying, "They
find this an obstacle to the spreading of their own
religion."
She said the Hindutva agenda was not meant to exclude
Muslims, Christians, or other religious minorities:
"Hindus have always taken a beating because we are
supposed to forgive... . You cannot be tolerant to the
point of being a coward."
A report last year by a group of activists - the
Foreign Exchange of Hate - revealed that the bulk of
$5 million raised by one U.S.-based charity for relief
and development projects in India went to a network of
Hindu nationalist groups - including the Ekal
Vidyalaya schools.
It came largely from unsuspecting workers with origins
in India and from U.S. employers providing matching
funds.
Just as many contributors did not realize how their
dollars were being used, members of Hindutva groups
here seem to join for reasons different from their
counterparts in India.
"There's a whole generation of people who emigrated
out - sort of 'brain drain' types - who feel guilty
for having left India," said Gautam Ghosh, an
assistant professor of anthropology at the University
of Pennsylvania.
The dozens gathered in Gandhi's basement are battling
cultural loss in a nation where they are a minority.
The World Hindu Council hooks them on heritage, with
14 U.S. chapters that run summer camps, cultural
centers and temples.
That was how Jindal, the Merck employee, got involved.
"I thought it was a neat project, and I wanted to
volunteer my time," he said. "It would be a shock to
me that these kids are being taught to hate Muslims or
Christians - and to the extent that they should go and
become soldiers. Nothing would shock me more if that
would be the case."
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