Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh

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Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS, literally translated into English as Hindu Voluntary Organization) is a right wing Hindutva organization[1] operating in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada.

Its UK branch, the HSS UK, runs approximately 70 weekly physical and ideological training camps across the UK. HSS is modelled on the the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and shares the aim of the RSS i.e. turning India into a Hindu nation.[2]

In 2004, Awaaz – South Asia Watch Ltd, a London-based secular organization, published a 80-page report entitled "In Bad Faith? British Charity and Hindu Extremism". This report reveals millions of pounds collected by the Sewa International U.K. (SIUK), the fund-rasing arm of the HSS UK, went to front organizations of the RSS in India. SIUK was an unregistered charity, so it was using HSS's registration number.[3][2]

In 2015, ITV Network released an undercover documentary titled Exposure - Charities Behaving Badly. This documentary covered three organizationa: the Steadfast Trust, Global Aid Trust and the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh.

This documentary uncovered young Hindus being radicalised in an HSS camp. Youth were shown being taught sectarian ideology, religious intolerance and the dislike of particular ethnic and religious groups.

In this documentary, an undercover reporter named Ravi goes into a HSS camp. Some teachings and conversations in the HSS annual leadership camp at a school in Hertfordshire, as shown in the documentary:[4]

  • When a pupil asked, "Do you think Muslims are the biggest problem in Britain?", the teacher replies "For everybody, for everybody."
  • When a pupil says "You can't unify with Muslims. Doesn't work." The teacher replies, "Nowhere! Nowhere does it work, not in America, not in Germany, not in India, not in Bangladesh, nowhere! But there are some good Muslims, but they can be counted on fingers."
  • Undercover reporter Ravi conversed with a pupil in the camp who knows about the origin of HSS and shakha (HSS branch).
    • Pupil: "Shakha is known as a right wing movement, complete right wing — nationalist — and we're equated as like, Hitler's Youth [sic]."
    • Ravi: "So it's completely right wing and nationalist?"
    • Unnamed pupil: "It's completely right wing and nationalist, yeah. It's going back to Hitler's Youth, when Hitler's youth army... "
    • Unnamed pupil: "Yeah."

Chetan Bhatt, professor of sociology at the London School of Economics, summarized his thoughts on the undercover footage:[4]

You have a charity here promoting hate-driven ideas, ideas that have caused considerable violence in India, to British youngsters — and doing that under charitable purposes. What you see here is an environment being created in which hate speech like this is completely acceptable. And if you have that inculcated into young children, what do you expect apart from this kind of hate speech? You're seeing the promotion of sectarianism and hatred, and hatred towards other religions. And you have to see that in the context of Britain and living in Britain, and living with different groups and communities.

After the release of the documentary, the Charity Commission of the UK started an investigation on the HSS.[5][6]

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[edit] Footnotes

Articles on RationalWiki about Hindu nationalism
  Bharatiya Janata Party  -  David Frawley  -  Hindu University of America  -  Hindutva  -  Indigenous Aryans theory  -  Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh  -  Sanskrit  -  Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America  
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