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Groups name on federal authorities to review development of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh Network in Canada
Canada should not enable a motion out of India that “disseminates hate” and victimizes spiritual minority teams to entrench itself on this nation, based on a report released Wednesday by the National Council of Canadian Muslims and the World Sikh Organization of Canada.
The report, referred to as Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) Network in Canada, paperwork the roots of the RSS motion in India and its in depth world attain, selling far proper views in numerous methods.
“It’s one of the most influential organizations in the world,” mentioned Steven Zhou, a spokesperson for the National Council of Canadian Muslims.
The council and the World Sikh Organization of Canada try to attract consideration to what lecturers, together with some in Canada, say they’ve witnessed for years — an rising affect and menace from a motion carefully linked to the federal government in New Delhi that they are saying promotes discrimination towards minority spiritual teams at house and overseas.
“[The RSS] poses a major challenge to Canadian commitments to human rights, to tolerance and multiculturalism,” mentioned Zhou.
According to the report, the RSS is on the core of a community of teams “seeking to remake India into a country run by and for Hindus first at the expense of the country’s dizzying slew of minority groups.”
“It’s … vital to keep in mind that the ideal nationalism projected by the RSS network victimizes not just ethno-religious minorities like Muslims, Sikhs and Christians, but also members of India’s lower caste Hindus.”
“It has domestic and international organs that seize political power, perpetuate its supremacist ideologies and actively participate in communal violence,” the report mentioned.
CBC News reached out to RSS’s department in Canada however didn’t obtain a response.
On its web site, the group quotes its founder, Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, saying it’s “the duty of every Hindu to do his best to consolidate the Hindu society” and that its mission is to attempt for “national reconstruction.”
On the Canadian web site, it says it’s a “voluntary, non-profit, social and cultural organization” and “aims to organize the Hindu community in order to preserve, practise and promote Hindu ideals and values.”
Researchers say the ideology espoused by RSS is usually often known as Hindutva.
The Indian state has not at all times supported the RSS and Hindutva, banning it thrice since its inception in 1925 as a paramilitary volunteer group.
In an interview with CBC News in April 2022, Franco-Indian journalist Ingrid Therwath mentioned the RSS community was based on the ideas of Italian facism, is ideologically much like Nazism and was exported overseas by some within the Indian diaspora, mentioned Therwath, who has been researching Hindu extremism for greater than 20 years.
Therwath, who has been researching Hindu extremism for greater than 20 years, mentioned the primary Canadian department of the RSS’s worldwide group was established in Toronto within the Nineteen Seventies.
Zhou, a former researcher with the Canadian Anti-Hate Network who has chronicled far proper actions inside diaspora teams, told CBC in a earlier interview Hindutva is a superficial politicization of Hinduism and has led to discrimination and sectarian violence towards minority teams in India like Muslims and Christians.
Human Rights Watch has additionally attributed religious and ethnic violence to teams that espouse the Hindutva ideology.
In December 2021, within the northern Indian metropolis of Haridwar, Hindu spiritual leaders openly called for a genocide towards Muslims at an occasion organized by right-wing and Hindutva-following leaders.
Violence towards different minority teams like Sikhs and Dalits has elevated in India lately, say lecturers. Dalits are members of a caste who don’t belong to the social order, based on the caste system.
“There’s been an increase in different kinds of hate crimes,” mentioned Shivaji Mukherjee, an assistant professor specializing in South Asian political violence on the University of Toronto-Mississauga. He mentioned these crimes are rising at a time when the present authorities — with in depth hyperlinks to the RSS — is having fun with an awesome majority.
“Now that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has come to power, it’s easier for these groups to increase violence, to fulfil their political and social agendas.”
‘This is just not a fringe ideology’
While the RSS has existed for many years, Mukherjee mentioned it has been emboldened to take violent motion primarily based on its ideology lately by the election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP with a majority in 2014.
According to a number of media shops, the RSS has an estimated membership of greater than 5 million worldwide, together with Modi and nearly all of ministers in his authorities.
“This is not a fringe ideology. This is the state ideology, ” mentioned Jaskaran Sandhu, a board member with the World Sikh Organization of Canada.
Academics have documented and seen an elevated try to problem and silence criticism by supporters of the BJP and the RSS and Hindutva motion for the reason that get together got here into energy.
In December 2021, Sanjay Ruparelia, an affiliate professor of politics and Jarislowsky Democracy Chair at Toronto Metropolitan University, organized a chat by outstanding Indian politics researcher Christophe Jaffrelot hosted by the Toronto Public Library.
Ruparelia mentioned he obtained a whole lot of emails from people urging organizers to name it off and for the library to ban the occasion as a result of it was “anti-Hindu.” Academics say this type of motion may be attributed to those that help the views of the RSS.
“It’s an attempt to silence them, to undermine their legitimacy,” Ruparelia mentioned, stating anybody participating in debate in regards to the Indian authorities or its views is routinely labelled by these supporters as “anti-Hindu” or “Hinduphobic.”
Ruparelia mentioned he is aware of of many lecturers who’ve been harassed and intimidated on-line by these folks primarily based on articles they’re writing and occasions they’re organizing.
“It’s trying to shut down debate. It’s trying to curtail freedom of expression.”
RSS operations in Canada
The report on RSS highlights how the motion is working in Canada, together with by means of political lobbying and thru seemingly benign cultural organizations which have charitable standing.
In India, the report says, the RSS operates an India-based NGO referred to as Seva Bharati, which operates health-care items, catastrophe reduction efforts and schooling within the nation’s underserved areas.
Overseas, Sewa International supplies these companies and fundraises for these companies all over the world, based on the report.
It additionally says RSS operates abroad by means of a corporation referred to as Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS) that perpetuates Hindutva ideologies within the Indian diaspora, together with in Canada, the U.S. and Europe. The report says HSS has held occasions on Hinduism in some Ontario public colleges.
Through the report, the National Council of Canadian Muslims and the World Sikh Organization of Canada are urging the federal authorities to “carefully study and track the growth of a movement that disseminates hate here in Canada.”
The report additionally requires motion from the Canadian authorities.
“Canadian leaders cannot allow individuals and [organizations] that push a Hindutva vision of India — a supremacist vision that discriminates against minorities and has led to mass bloodshed — [to] entrench themselves in this country, perpetuate their supremacist ideologies and radicalize relations between large faith-based communities,” the report’s authors wrote.
However, critics say Ottawa has stayed largely silent and complacent because it makes an attempt to foster an financial relationship with India as a part of its Indo-Pacific strategy, launched in November 2022 to boost commerce and engagement in that area.
“They’re valuing trade deals and strategic relationships … rather than actually upholding values that are important to Canadians,” mentioned Sandhu, with the World Sikh Organization of Canada.
Several lecturers use Nepean MP Chandra Arya elevating what seems to be the RSS flag on Parliament Hill throughout Hindu Heritage Month final November for example of why they’re involved.
The occasion prompted professors from several Quebec universities to pen a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau explaining why the flag was problematic. A separate letter was sent by community and cultural groups like Hindus for Human Rights and the Canadian Council of Muslim Women.
In an emailed assertion to CBC News on Wednesday, Arya mentioned the flag raised on Parliament Hill “represents the Hindu faith and does not represent, or indicate support for, any political organization or ideology.”
“This auspicious symbol belongs to all Hindus, and no country or organization or individual can claim ownership or exclusivity to it,” he mentioned.
As India is projected by the United Nations to be probably the most populous nation on this planet this 12 months, and the quickest rising economic system within the subsequent 20 years, the world wants to concentrate to its human rights file, mentioned Ruparelia.
“What happens in India has a great impact in the world,” he mentioned. “[That’s why] the erosion of democracy that we’ve seen in India is deeply concerning.”
In a press release, a spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada instructed CBC News “promoting human rights has always been at the core of our foreign policy” particularly as India is ready to host the G20 in September.
“Canada will continue to engage with India on issues related to security, democracy, pluralism and human rights.”
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