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South Asian American Organizations urge US State Department to cancel meeting with Ram Madhav Groups deplore the meeting will grant legitimacy to RSS and its militant ideology

Several South Asian American organizations have expressed astonishment and registered protest at the reported impending meeting between State Department officials and Ram Madhav, the official spokesperson of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Deploring the fact that the US Department of State is granting unprecedented legitimacy to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its militant ideology by providing a forum for its spokesman, Ram Madhav, it is asking the State Department to refuse such a meeting.

RSS is an organization inspired and modeled on the Italian fascists and the Nazis [1], that has been responsible since its inception in 1925 for propagating a politics of hate and violence against non-Hindu minorities (mostly Muslims and Christians) [2], most recently evident in the massacre of 2,000 Muslims in Gujarat [3,4,5], and historically implicated in the assassination of Gandhi in 1950 [6]. Founded with the sole purpose of establishing a theocratic Hindu state, RSS advocates for the forced assimilation of minorities and non-Hindu groups into adopting a Hindu culture and the annihilation of those who resist. As an organization, the RSS is elusive and shadowy: it is fully open only to upper caste Hindu males; it maintains no membership records (thus resisting criminal charges more than once); it has no bank accounts and pays no income tax. Golwalkar, an early political visionary who shaped the RSS, explicitly endorsed Hitler's campaign against the Jews in Germany by calling it a form of "race pride" India should emulate. As a hardened RSS ideologue, Mr. Madhav is on record as a key representative of RSS positions. For instance, his recent warning of the "very grave threat" posed by the rising Muslim population and similar scaremongering against Muslims by his colleagues is very reminiscent of the Nazi-era witch-hunt of Jews [9].

The US State Department is well aware of RSS's history, that RSS along with its sister organizations in the Sangh Parivar like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Bajrang Dal, has been responsible for the most reprehensible forms of communal violence and political manipulations seen in India. All of the State Departments annual International Religious Freedom Reports since 2001 [7] and almost all of its annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices since 1999 [8] have cited RSS for violence against Muslims and Christians and/or condemned RSSs public stand curbing religious freedom for minorities in India.

Given this background, the coalition fails to understand how the US State Department officials may benefit by meeting Mr. Madhav. Just as the State Department would not lend legitimacy to spokespersons for US racist/supremacist organizations, it should not to be legitimizing the RSS and its functionaries by holding this meeting.

In this context, we urge the US State Department to not meet Ram Madhav and avoid legitimizing the RSS in any way.

Many of the organizations currently protesting Ram Madhav's meeting with US State Department officials had come together last year to form the Coalition Against Genocide, a group of over 40 organizations that launched
a concerted campaign to protest Mr. Modi's scheduled visit to the US in 2005 [10]. The coalition welcomed the US State Department's denial of Modi's diplomatic visa as well as the revocation of his existing tourist/ business visa under the Immigration and Nationality Act. Section 212 (a) (2) (g) which makes any foreign government official who was responsible for or directly carried out, at any time, particularly severe violations of religious freedom" ineligible for a visa to the United States [11].

The coalition is relieved to hear that the State Department has denied visas to a number of BJP party functionaries to attend a recent conference in the U.S. and has continued to stand by its decision to deny Narendra Modi's visa to the U.S. The BJP in conjunction with the RSS orchestrated the violence against the Muslim minority in Gujarat in 2002. We are therefore puzzled as to why the State Department would choose to meet with the official representative of such an extremist organization.

Two years ago, there were strong protests from professors as well as students to Ram Madhav's invitation to talk at two US universities in the Fall of 2004 [12,13].

List of endorsing organizations:

Alliance of South Asians Taking Action (ASATA)
Association of Indian Muslims of America ( AIM )
Building Bridges of Understanding Coalition (BB)
Coalition for a Secular and Democratic India (CSDI)
Dalit Freedom Network (DFN)
Federation of Indian American Christian Organizations of North America
(FIACONA)
Friends Of South Asia (FOSA)
India Foundation
Indian Muslim Council-USA ( IMC - USA )
Indian Muslim Relief & Charities (IMRC)
International Service Society, Lansing , MI
Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights
Muslim Youth Awareness Alliance (MYAA)
Non Resident Indians For Secular & Democratic India ( NRI -SAHI)
Organizing Youth! (OY)
Policy Institute For Religion And State (PIFRAS)
South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy (SANSAD, Canada )
Supporters of Human Rights in India (SHRI)
Vaishnava Center for Enlightenment
Vedanta Society of East Lansing , MI

References:

See http://www.sacw. net/DC/Communali smCollection/ ArticlesArchive/
casolari. pdf

"Members of the BJP, the RSS, and other affiliated organizations
(collectively known as the Sangh Parivar) have been implicated in
incidents of violence and discrimination against Christians and Muslims."
(See http://www.state. gov/g/drl/ rls/hrrpt/ 2002/18311. htm)

See http://www.sabrang. com/srikrish/ hinrole.htm

"The Hindu organizations most responsible for violence against Christians are the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council, VHP), the Bajrang Dal, and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (National Volunteer Corps, RSS). According to a former RSS member, these groups cannot be divorced from the ruling BJP party: "There is no difference between the BJP and RSS. BJP is the body. RSS is the soul, and the Bajrang Dal is the hands for beating." (See Human Rights Watch Report at http://www.hrw. org/press/ 1999/sep/ christians. htm)

The groups most directly involved in the violence against Muslims include the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council, VHP), the Bajrang Dal, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
that heads the Gujarat state government. Collectively, they are known as the sangh parivar, or family of Hindu nationalist organizations. " (See Human Rights Watch Report at http://www.hrw. org/press/ 2002/04/gujarat.
htm)

RSS & Mahatma Gandhi's Assassination (See http://www.sabrang.
com/cc/archive/ 2004/aug04/ cover3.html )

US Department of State International Religious Freedom Reports (India):

IRF 2005 http://www.state. gov/g/drl/ rls/irf/2005/
51618.htm
IRF 2004 http://www.state. gov/g/drl/ rls/irf/2004/
35516.htm
IRF 2003 http://www.state. gov/g/drl/ rls/irf/2003/
24470.htm
IRF 2002 http://www.state. gov/g/drl/ rls/irf/2002/
14023.htm
IRF 2001 http://www.state. gov/g/drl/ rls/irf/2001/
5685.htm

US Department of State Country Report on Human Rights Practices (India):

HR 2005 http://www.state. gov/g/drl/ rls/hrrpt/
2005/61707. htm
HR 2003 http://www.state. gov/g/drl/ rls/hrrpt/
2003/27947. htm
HR 2002 http://www.state. gov/g/drl/ rls/hrrpt/
2002/18311. htm
HR 2001 http://www.state. gov/g/drl/ rls/hrrpt/
2001/sa/8230. htm
HR 2000 http://www.state. gov/g/drl/ rls/hrrpt/
2000/sa/717. htm
HR 1999 http://www.state. gov/g/drl/ rls/hrrpt/
1999/438. htm

Venkaiah Naidu, the President of the Bharatiya Janata Party (political
wing of the RSS) said, "It is disturbing that Muslims now form 12.4% of
the population" and that this was "a cause of grave concern for all those
who think of India's unity and integrity in the long run." (See
http://www.atimes. com/atimes/ South_Asia/ FI15Df02. html)

Issue of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi's Visa Status, Statement
by David C. Mulford, U.S . Ambassador to India, New Delhi, India, March 21,
2005 (See http://www.state. gov/p/sca/ rls/rm/2005/ 43701.htm)

Hindu speaker creates controversy on campus (Oct 5, 2004, Daily Penn)
(See http://www.dailypen nsylvanian. com/vnews/ display.v/ ART/416241940878
4)

Concerned academics protest Ram Madhav's talk at the University of
Pennsylvania, (See http://www.awaazsaw .org/weblog/ 2004_09_26_
awaazlogarc. html#11047502790 0649777 )