US Hindu Organization Accuses India’s VHP of Casteism

March 6, 2005

Source: Hindustan Times

Wire Service: IANS

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1268776,00050001.htm

On March 6, 2005 the Indo-Asian News Service reported, "A US-based Hindu organisation has accused the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) of 'casteist practices' at a mass conversion campaign in Etah in Uttar Pradesh last month. Navya Shastra, the organisation which boasts of scholars and priests 'dedicated to fostering the spiritual equality of all Hindus' among its followers, said the VHP, which claimed to have converted 5,000 Christians to Hinduism at Etah, had classified them as Dalits in their new religion. 'While we applaud all efforts to spread the Hindu religion through peaceful and legitimate means, we are utterly baffled that the VHP would insist that the new converts be labelled as untouchables,' a statement said... Organisations like the VHP, which envisions a caste-free society, should follow their own advice, it maintained."