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The February issue of the
monthly magazine Siliconeer carried a
cover story on the Hindu community’s efforts to
California textbooks issue. The story outrageously accused
the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) of being a front organization
for the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in the US. HAF wrote
the following letter to Siliconeer in response.
February 23, 2006
Dear Editor
The Hindu American Foundation (HAF) takes
strong exception to Sunaina Maira and Raja Swamy’s assertion
that HAF was founded by front organizations of the Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) (“History Hungama”, February
2006 issue of the Siliconeer). I am a proud, non-Hindutva
Hindu and as part of HAF’s leadership, I am determined
to keep HAF that way as well. The authors did not contact
HAF to confirm or deny the chart that they present in the
article. None of HAF’s founders or leaders is a member
of any nationalist organization. The reference to an article
ostensibly written by Dr. Mihir Meghani, fifteen years ago
as a teenager, in no way reflects HAF’s current guiding
philosophy and is a tired attempt to deflect attention from
the real issues that affect practicing Hindu Americans. Furthermore,
referring to HAF as a “Hindu supremacist” organization
is simply baseless. HAF has pro-actively worked with Buddhist,
Christian, Jain, Jewish, Muslim and Wiccan organizations through
legal cases and interfaith seminars. HAF’s track record
in promoting tolerance and pluralism speaks for itself.
With regard to the California textbook issue,
we are entirely independent of the Hindu Education Foundation
(HEF) and the Vedic Foundation (VF). While we are certainly
of the opinion that the textbooks require changes, we take
no position on the individual edits suggested by HEF or VF.
HAF needed to get involved only because the process being
followed for the textbook adoption has not met the requirements
of the Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act, specially the several
private communications and closed-door meetings that the California
State Board of Education (SBE) and their staff have had with
advocates opposing the Hindu participants, while denying Hindu
groups notice or access. These actions have subverted the
public process and deny all notions of fairness.
HAF emphatically does not seek to ‘whitewash’
the history of Hinduism. Women and people of lower castes
did indeed suffer discrimination in India historically. However,
the relevant fact for the textbook adoption process is that
Hindus are merely seeking parity with other religions in sixth-grade
textbooks, where social problems of other religions are not
given the same prominence, a fact the authors conveniently
ignored. The article, and the textbooks, also fail to mention
that most Hindu scriptures were written by people from a variety
of castes/jatis, including the lowest of them. The textbooks
also overlook the concept of shakti or feminine divinity and
the historical existence of women and low caste saints in
Hinduism.
By continually labeling every organization
that stands up for Hindus as ‘Hindutva-inspired’,
groups such as Friends of South Asia and Coalition Against
Communalism are in effect equating all Hindus with Hindutva,
and that is neither fair nor accurate. Ironically, it will
defeat their own claim that only a tiny sliver of Hindus support
Hindutva. Articles such as “History Hungama” will
only sow the seeds of further discord and impede the public’s
understanding of this matter.
Swaminathan Venkataraman
Member, Executive Council
Hindu American Foundation
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