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BJP has links with 'Hindu extremist groups', says US report

T V Parasuram in Washington

In a discordant note on the eve of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's visit, the United States state department Tuesday said Bharatiya Janata Party has links with "Hindu extremist groups" that have been implicated in alleged acts of violence against Christians and Muslims but held that the government does not favour any particular group.

The department in its second annual report on religious freedom world-wide submitted to the Congress also lists attacks on Hindus by Christian tribals in Tripura and blames "Muslim separatists dressed in army unifroms" for the mass killing of Sikhs in Chattisinghpura in Jammu and Kashmir in March during President Bill Clinton's visit to India.

The report says though India is a secular state and government does not favour any religious group, the BJP is "a Hindu nationalist political party with links with Hindu extremist groups that have been implicated in violent acts against Christians and Muslims," the department says.

The report also points a finger at the Hizbul Mujahideen for some of the killings.

BJP at its Nagpur session recently made it clear that as party in governance it is committed to the agenda of the National Democratic Alliance which does not subscribe to the original pro-Hindu agenda of BJP.

The department says that the government policy does not favour any religious group but "tensions between Muslims and Hindus, increasingly, between Hindus and Christians, continue to pose a challenge to the concept of secularism, tolerance and diversity on which the state was founded."

The report says "the BJP, which has led two coalition national governments since March 1998, is one of a number of offshoots of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, an organisation that espouses a return to Hindu values and cultural norms."

Besides, it says Vajpayee and Home Minister L K Advani are also RSS members as are the chief ministers of Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh where BJP is in power.

Noting the plight of Kashmiri Pandits, the report says that attacks by Muslim separatists and continued political violence drove most Hindus in the Kashmir valley to seek refuge in camps in Jammu and with relatives in New Delhi or elsewhere.

Militants carried out several execution styled mass killings of Hindu villagers and targetted Pandits for violence in Jammu and Kashmir, it says.

The report says the BJP's traditional cultural agenda included construction of a temple in Ayodhya, repeal of Article 370 of the Constitution granting special rights to Jammu and Kashmir and for enactment of a uniform civil code, adding all these proposals are opposed strongly by some minority religious groups.

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