FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
SIX WEEKS LATER: NATIONAL HSC STILL UNABLE TO REFUTE EVIDENCE
AMASSED IN
"
LYING RELIGIOUSLY"
For More Information Contact: Ashwini Rao (akrao_nyc@yahoo.com,
Samip Mallick (samipkmallick@gmail.com)
Saturday, May 26, 2007: Six weeks after the CSFH
report -- "Lying
Religiously" (LyR) -- was published with conclusive evidence
that the
National HSC was part of the RSS family of organizations (Sangh
Parivar), the National HSC has failed to refute even a single
piece of
evidence in our report. Far from providing any substantive counter evidence or argument, officers of the National HSC have resorted
to
ad-hominems against the CSFH collective.
This strategy is not new. It is typical of the
Sangh Parivar. The
Campaign to Stop Funding Hate has done investigative work on
the Sangh
since 2002. In our first report, "The
Foreign Exchange of Hate", which
exposed the flow of dollars from the US to the RSS in India,
we used a
similar structure of evidence as the current report on the HSCs
-- a
majority of the evidentiary documents were drawn from the Sangh
itself.
In response, the Sangh Parivar attacked the collective and NOT
the
report, just like the National HSC leadership has done now. Our
response
from 2003, entitled "Deceit as a Core Value: The RSS
Method",
is
archived at: http://stopfundinghate.org/actions/press/012803.htm.
We
urge all HSC members and the Indian-American community at large
to take
careful note of this pattern -- when completely unable to deal
with the
evidence against it, the Sangh resorts to ad-hominem attacks
against its
opponents.
In our two earlier press releases, we pulled out
evidence from our
report and framed it in a simple and easy to understand format
and
challenged the national HSC to refute the evidence. They have
failed to
do so in both their press releases. Do we take the national HSC's
silence on the issue as its inability to deny its close links
with the Sangh Parivar?
In our effort to keep the focus on the substantive
evidence presented in
the LyR report, CSFH will in the next 12 weeks send out one question
every week to the national HSC leadership with a single issue
or piece
of evidence for them to respond to. Our reason for this is simple:
we
want to make absolutely clear to every reader –- and especially,
every
HSC member past and present -- that the National HSC has been
deceptive
about its connections with the RSS family and its only strategy
is to
distract from the evidence presented in the report.
Week #1: Why did the National HSC build the Sangh
Parivar's Global
Internet infrastructure and why does it continue to maintain it?
In our report, we have documented how the National
HSC has built and
continues to maintain the Sangh's Global Internet infrastructure.
The
evidentiary source for the IP Map is a neutral site, DomainTools.
The IP
Map (available at http://hsctruthout.stopfundinghate.org/ch3.html#1)
is
probably the most damning piece of evidence against the National
HSC
that establishes deep, systematic and undeniable links to the
rest of
the Sangh Parivar. It is not an incidental set of connections,
but a
deliberate and carefully built infrastructure. The National HSC
has of
course remained silent on this. However, some concerned HSC chapter
members have written to us directly asking questions. The most
often
repeated question is whether the IP map shows anything more than
some
electronic links, and this needs further explanation.
Allow us
to explain in some detail: Every machine on the Internet has
a
unique IP address that reads something like: 206.251.242.160,
that is,
four numbers separated by periods. Each set of numbers in an
IP address
that is separated by periods is called an octet (because it is
represented in the binary form by a set of eight zeros and ones).
Thus
an IP address is made up of four octets. For brevity, we will
represent
an IP address as A.B.C.D where A,B,C and D represent numerical
values
and are each an octet. How the octet pattern is arranged says
a lot
about the organization that is using an IP address. For instance,
a
large network like AT& T will typically have an octet structure
where
every single machine that it owns on the internet will share
the exact
same value in the first octet. That is, all of AT&T's computers
on the
internet share the same first octet. Such addresses with a common
first octet are called Class A addresses.
So also, a large to medium size business could
ask for a Class B address
where the first two octets (in our scheme, A and B of the A.B.C.D
structure) are common for every machine it has on the internet
anywhere
in the world. Many MNCs have Class B addresses. Finally, smaller
organizations could seek and be allotted a Class C address where
the
first three octets – A, B and C are fixed. Every machine
they have on
the internet will then have the first three octets repeated and
the last
octet will change. This is the case for most of the Sangh Parivar organizations hosted by the HSC -- they share the first three
octets and
have CONTIGUOUS fourth octet (as in, say 206.251.242.160 and
206.251.242.161). Furthermore, most of these websites, including
those
of the RSS (206.251.242.221), HSS (206.251.242.229), VHP (206.251.242.217), VHP-America (206.251.242.195), IDRF (206.251.242.226),
Sewa International (206.251.242.203), Organiser (206.251.242.182) and Akhil
Bharthiya Vidyarthi Parishad (206.251.242.198) list "Hindunet. Inc" as the "Admin
Organization" and/or Ajay Shah (the first
president of the HSC) as the "Admin
Name".
And the copyright notice on Hindunet says: Please note that entire
collection of GHEN websites is copyrighted 1989-1999, Global
Hindu
Electronic Networks, Hindu Students Council.
In short, the HSC supports the electronic infrastructure
of the Sangh
Parivar. There is no way for all this to be an accident or a
coincidence. In other words, there is no other explanation for
this
phenomenon but the fact that the national HSC, under the leadership
of
Ajay Shah, was given this task by the Sangh which they executed
faithfully. (For a brief organizational overview of the Sangh
Parivar,
see
http://hsctruthout.stopfundinghate.org/images/Sangh_Parivar_OrgChart1.jpg).
CSFH continues to urge all concerned individuals
and groups to engage in
a substantive public discussion on the issues we have raised
in our LyR report. Such open discussions are important
within the South Asian
community, especially among Indian-American youth, who have been
deceived by the National HSC leadership. It is incumbent upon
all HSC
chapters to begin sorting out the truth from the lies by asking
the
National HSC leadership to respond to the concrete challenge
we have
raised above and not produce random distractions.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The Deception Continues: HSC Fails to Deny CSFH Charges
Report
is "Spot on" say
report writers
For
Info: Samip Mallick–514 274-6184•Murli
Natarajan 973 570 3391 •
hsctruthout@stopfundinghate.org
New York, Monday, April 23, 2007: On Sunday, April 15, 2007,
the Campaign to Stop Funding Hate (CSFH) released a 65-page new
report titled "Lying Religiously: The Hindu Students
Council and the Politics of Deception," (LyR) that
comprehensively documented the links between the North American
campus based
organization, the Hindu Student Council (HSC) and the ultra-right,
violent, Hindu chauvinist network of organizations in India-the
Sangh Parivar. The report was released at the "2007 Organizing
Youth (OY!) Conference" held in NYC from April 13-15 and
was enthusiastically received by South Asian American youth at
the OY conference.
In its response
to the report, the HSC press release of April 20, 2007 characterizes
the CSFH
report as a "smear campaign" that
is "based on inaccuracies" and "outdated information." Beyond
these assertions the press release only repeats banal platitudes
about itself and its vision without denying even one item of
evidence presented in the LyR report.
The first charge
is curious since almost all information presented in the CSFH
report are drawn
directly from official HSC or Sangh
Parivar sources. This leaves no room for claiming that the sources
are invalid or the representation is "inaccurate" since
these are all the HSC's own statements about itself, and various
Sangh organizations' official statements about the HSC (See our
first press release and a summary power point presentation at hsctruthout.stopfundinghate.org for details of the report). The
methodological emphasis on sources internal to the Sangh family
is to ensure that the evidentiary basis of the conclusions drawn
is of the highest standards. Given this, we can only conclude
that the HSC leadership is in denial.
Nevertheless, CSFH would like to highlight a few pieces of the
evidence that the National HSC leadership has chosen to avoid
and invite the HSC to publicly comment on the same.
a. The CSFH report documents that HSC maintains and hosts numerous
Sangh websites (RSS, VHP, VHPS, ABVP, and others), thus playing
the role of a mature partner in the Sangh family or parivar.
This information is documented in detail with IP addresses in
section
2.4.3, and Appendix
A of the CSFH report. Does the HSC
deny this?
b. In
1993, the HSC claimed that it became fully independent of
the Sangh.
Yet, in December 1995, the HSC was an invited
participant at the Vishva Sangh Shibir (Global Sangh Training
Camp). According
to the press release of the organizers of that camp, "all
its delegates were from several affiliated organizations of RSS
[Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh], which operate abroad as Hindu
Swayamsevak Sangh, Sewa International, Vishwa Hindu Parishad,
Hindu Students Council, Friends of India Society International,
etc.," and the camp was "conducted on RSS ideology
for NRI [non-resident Indians] workers." CSFH challenges
the National HSC leadership to comment on how it gained access
to the sanctum sanctorum of an RSS shibir without being a member
of the Sangh?
c. Despite
all disavowals by the HSC leadership about their relationship
to the Sangh, the VHP of America, has repeatedly,
and most recently in 2003, said that the HSC was its project.
Here is an extract from an archived VHPA page from 2003: "The
programs and projects are defined by the local community needs
within the broad framework of the Parishad mission. The ongoing
projects are: Hindu Student Council: It is the youth wing of
VHP-A functioning in 50 universities and colleges in the USA." Given
the official HSC position that it severed all links with VHPA
in 1993, this amounts to a minimum of ten years of deception. Does the HSC deny that this link existed at least until
2003 officially? The VHP-A website still lists the
HSC as an "Organizational
Component" that it "facilitates and promotes". Is
the VHP-A website also "based on inaccuracies" and "outdated
information"?
There are many
more such examples in our report. The fact is that M/s Bhutada
and Trivedi of
the HSC National (who issued
the HSC's press release) are still trying to hide the connections
between the HSC and Sangh. "The National HSC's inability
to contest even a single piece of evidence outlined in the report
is nothing but an attempt to cover up with a hope that the chapters
will not ask too many questions" said Ashwini Rao, a CSFH
coordinator. "The report" he continued, "is spot
on!" The HSC National leadership does not owe the Campaign
to Stop Funding Hate any explanation. It owes its members in
all the universities across North America an explanation as to
why these affiliations were not revealed to them and why their
futures were being endangered by associating them with an extremist
group of organizations. We would urge members of every HSC chapter
across the US and Canada who was not aware of these links to
demand an explanation of the National HSC. The members of HSC
who were not told about these connections were certainly duped.
One other matter
raised in the HSC press release deserves comment. The HSC National
leadership
accuses CSFH of insensitivity in
launching such a campaign at a moment when they are busy offering
solidarity to the Virginia Tech HSC chapter after the tragic
events of April 16. We find this diversionary tactic most hypocritical,
for the HSC has stood by in stony silence after each riot carried
out by its sister organizations in India. In 1993, the HSC rationalized
and celebrated the destruction of the Babri mosque (and the anti-Muslim
violence that followed) as "the beginning of the new age
of Hindu Renaissance, a new Hindu Revolution". Again, after
the 2002 Gujarat pogrom, the National HSC promptly (and rightly)
called for apprehending the perpetrators of the Godhra carnage,
but was understandably silent about justice for the families
of the more than 2000 Muslims massacred in what was probably
the worst carnage since 1947. In fact, in the post-genocide days,
the National HSC was busy oiling the machinery of the Sangh's
global propaganda network (by maintaining the electronic infrastructure
of the Sangh). Is the National HSC not complicit in the cover
up that has ensued since 2002?
CSFH urges a public debate and discussion on this within the
South Asian community, especially among Hindu-American youth,
whose trust has been betrayed by the National HSC leadership.
There could be no better starting point for a collective sorting
out of the truth from the lies than with the HSC national leadership
answering the challenges to the three very concrete and specific
points we have raised above. The LyR report is replete with such
evidence and if needed CSFH will break this down release-by-release
for the benefit of the Indian-American community.
CAMPAIGN TO STOP FUNDING HATE
Press
Release
Campaign to Stop Funding Hate
17362 Boston Road, Hayward
CA 94541
hsctruthout@gmail.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Campus Hindu Organization Conclusively Linked to the Sangh Parivar
in North America and India
"Desi-American Students Deceived by the Hindu Student
Council" says New Report
For More Info call 512 786 1862 or 917 232 8437 or email: hsctruthout@gmail.com
New York , Friday, April 13, 2007: The Campaign
to Stop Funding Hate (CSFH) will release a new report, Lying
Religiously: The
Hindu Students Council and the Politics of Deception, on
Sunday,
April 15, 2007. The report brings together evidence from multiple
sources to demonstrate a web of connections between the Hindu Students
Council (HSC) and the violent, hindu ultra-right Sangh Parivar,
and exposes the deliberate efforts of the HSC leadership to
conceal its links with the Sangh Parivar in order to deceive Hindu-
American college students. The report provides the first
comprehensive documentation of the origins, methods and practices
of the HSC.
Similar to "The
Foreign Exchange of Hate," the
2003
report documenting the flow of money from the United States into
the coffers of the Sangh Parivar in India, almost all of the
documentation used to construct the current report comes from the
archives of the HSC itself and from the publications of the Sangh
Parivar in North America and elsewhere. Starting with the origin
of the HSC in 1991, when Ajay Shah, the first president of the
HSC, proudly declared that the HSC was part of the VHP of America,
the report documents the rise of early HSC leaders into the ranks
of Sangh Parivar leadership in North America, the detailed family
connections between a significant section of the HSC leadership
and the Sangh Parivar, and the central role played by the HSC in
the creation and maintenance of the Sangh Parivar's internet
infrastructure, including the web infrastructure of the Sangh
Parivar's parent organization, the RSS.
"Most of the young desi Americans who join the HSC have
no clue as to the connections between the HSC and the militant
and violent Hindu right wing in India" says Samip Mallick, one of
the campaign coordinators for CSFH. "We fully support the creation
and existence of Hindu student organizations on college campuses,
but we are unable to condone the Hindu Student Council's continued
misleading of college students regarding its ties to the Sangh Parivar," he
continued. With the launch of the report, CSFH announces its six-month "Truth
Out on HSCs" information campaign aimed at informing every
desi American student of the two-faced methods of the HSC and the
Sangh Parivar.
The report will be released on Sunday, April
15 at 3:30 PM at a press conference hosted by the Youth Solidarity
Summer at 451 West Street (@ Bank), New York, NY 10014.
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