As you might remember, there was a bit of a hubbub recently about exactly how the Hindu Students Council is affiliated with the Hindu Right (RSS, VHP, VHP-America, etc.).
The issue was that Campaign to Stop Funding Hate, an anti-Hindutva group, says that they're the youth arm of the Hindu Right in the United States, as discussed previously by vivek and others on PTR. Meanwhile HSC says they operate independently now and in a decentralized way. In their own words:
When HSC was started in 1990 by few students, they got very little support from adults in the Indian-American community. There was no national Indian/Hindu organization that could provide HSC with resources like intellectual speakers/Swamijis, books, etc. The only non-sectarian Indian organization with a pan-American presence that offered to help them was the VHP-America (VHPA). The leaders and members of the VHPA offered to support HSC as a project, helping HSC with resources like speakers/swamijis, books, etc. Once HSC was started up, it become an independently run organization within 3 years, in 1993
Here's the wikipedia entry on VHP, which was involved in sparking massive violence in South Asia by destroying Babri Masjid over a decade ago, involved in the anti-Muslim genoicdal campaign in Gujarat in 2002, etc., which gives some context on why people outside of HSC might be concerned with any ties between the student group(s) and VHP and other Hindu nationalist groups.
As the massive press coverage around Wikiscanner the last few days reminded me, every once in a while, it's fun to trawl for interesting data. In that light, I did a little digging in the United States government's trademark database (click on "Search TM database").
Here's what I found under the mark for "HSC KNOWLEDGE UNITY PROGRESS DHARMA":
Yes, it's the Hindu Students Council's mark, still used on their website, as you can see from the clipped version of the banner headlining the site:
As far as I can make out, the trademark was filed May 16, 2003 by "Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION NOT PROVIDED 2 Ventnor Drive Edison NEW JERSEY 08820" and abandoned in May 2004. The purpose of the trademark is listed as "promoting the interests of the Hindu culture and heritage, through various activities, events and projects; promoting public awareness of the Hindu culture and heritage."
A little more searching shows in another entry that VHP-America also owned the typed rendering of "Hindu Student Council" during the same dates (do a search for "Vishwa" in the trademark database TESS and you'll find both of these entries).
What does this mean? Shit if I know. It's certainly not that earth-shattering in and of itself, given what else is being talked about on this topic right now.
But I'm curious: did Hindu Students Council actually allow VHP-America to trademark their logo and service mark for them, in 2003, after the genocidal campaign in Gujarat? And if so, what are we, who are willing to take criticisms of students with a grain of salt, to make of HSC's claims about independence and whatnot?
Of course, it's possible that HSC didn't have any involvement in this--you know how uncles are, maybe VHPA went ahead and trademarked beta's logo and name without asking--but I'd certainly want to hear from someone at HSC (hint, hint) as to what was going on.
Or I guess we could look up the lawyer listed as having filed the two trademarks, Carmen M. Fitzgerald, and ask him/her ;)
Wow! Excellent find, "dr. anonymous".
I don't know much about this, but I assume both. Someone who's more informed can offer more detail, but I've noticed that generally desi immigrant efforts that I've seen--of all kinds, not just Hindu Right--tend to have some kind of "youth" program that extends to people up to 40 years old at this point :) Also, note that remittances from American arms of the Hindu Right movement are an important funding source.
You should check out campaign to stop funding hate for more critique of the role that these American groups play in India and elsewhere.
An excellent primer on the RSS and its progeny is Khaki Shorts and Saffron Flags.
Heh, thanks Dr. A. I'm definitely taking her with a grain of salt... she's clearly something of a fan of the Congress Party (though she acknowledges its faults, she treats it like a lot of people here treat the Democrats) and seems to accept left-liberal Indian secular nationalism. I have a feeling it'll probably end up being a good exposé but with iffy conclusions, but who knows? :) She does give a lot of history and background on the founding of the RSS/VHP/BJP and where that line of thought comes from, which is useful for someone new to the topic. The whole book is sort of framed on the lines of "You Americans are spending too much time worrying about political Islam and are completely ignoring political Hinduism, so let me school you."
I've heard of this book, but i'm skeptical. western liberals tend to frame gujarat in their own way and it doesn't necessarily have anythign to do with the reality of communal tensions in India. In any case, I wouldn't say "don't read it," but iw ould say, take it with a grain of salt. Generally, aatish knows more ;)
-Dr. a
Nice sleuthing, Dr Anonymous! :)
A question, if anybody can elaborate: what's the target audience of these groups? Are they trying to recruit (if I may use Sepia Mutiny parlance) DBDs who are attending college in the US in order to strengthen their position in India, or are they focusing on winning ABDs to the politics of Hindutva, in the hopes of gaining a foothold among the immigrant community here? And if it's the latter and they succeed, what would be their goals?
Thanks.
Thanks, Dr. A! By the way, I'm reading Martha Nussbaum's "The Clash Within" right now... I'm not sure how useful it is if you're already quite familiar with the topic, but it's a really useful introduction to the history and politics of the Hindu right, using the Gujarat pogroms as a starting point. She hasn't gotten much into their activities in the US, though, as of chapter 5.
"A question, if anybody can elaborate: what’s the target audience of these groups?"
The target is anyone who wants to learn about hinduism. usually that happens to be ABD's on american campuses, DBDs are usually grad students and only care about grades, very few will do any extracurricular activities let alone learn about hinduism.
The DBDs that are undergrads at american universities usually hail from rich families, and they don't give a shit about Hinduism either, in fact many of them are using their money to buy cars fancy clothes and hire escort services.
Thanks all.
Well, I did in the post, but I'm not going to write them an e-mail about it. Truth be told, who owns what copyright is a fairly minor part of all this and I would rather not get enmeshed. What I'm actually more curious about are the dates--HSC says that they stopped being affiliated with VHP-America in 2003, but this was registered in 2003. Granted, at some point between when it was registered and when it was abandoned (by non-response, so it could have been whenever after May 2003), they could have ended their affiliation. Or they might have their dates wrong.
Well investigated, Dr A. - why dont you solicit an actual response from HSC Nat'l? I think the experience of the CSFH report has shown that stealthy broadsides dont encourage dialogue or middle ground; I'd like to hear HSC's response on this before I judge them for it.
I don't think anyone, members included, believes that the VHP-A's only association with HSC has been resource-lends ("Hey, listen, I really need to borrow your guys' swamiji this weekend, I promise you'll have him back by Monday,") and that much, at least, was indicated past doubt in the CSFH report.
Another good short primer on the RSS-VHP combine is AG Noorani's "The RSS and the BJP."
dr. anonymous,
HSC has claimed that it "has been independently run since 1993", 2003 is when it "obtained a tax-exempt, non-profit status from the IRS" [http://www.hscnet.org/fact.php].
ravi
Point being? I was asking about potential discrepancies between their account of when they disaffiliated (from their website) and also calling into question the timing of this stuff (Gujarat blah blah blah).
oh sorry ravi--i misinterepreted what you were saying. i thought you were coming at it from the other side. you're totally right--thanks for the catch. Here's a longer entry from the same page:
wow....
yeah.
wow.
THERE WAS NO PICTURES U LIARS
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