AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF VEDIC STUDIES
                David Frawley (Vamadeva Shastri), Director

July 27, 1993

Coalition for Communal Harmony
ASFSCSA
Cambridge MA

Dear Coalition Members,

       I received your letter and other information of July 12 in which you tryto discredit the World Vision 2000 conference in Washington DC this August. As
 one who has studied the Hindu spiritual tradition for over twenty years and
has visited India many times - I find your information to be one-sided and
distorted. It reflects an anti-Hindu bias that will not solve the real problemsin India or the world.

       You state that "the dominant movement in India seeks to institutionalize
a single, uniform version of Hinduism as the basis of an Indian community and polity and to force minorities to conform to this version of Hinduism's
standards." Such a statement reflects a lack of understanding of Hinduism.
There is no monolithic religion called Hinduism with One God, one
savior, one Bible, condemning those of other beliefs to hell as pagans or Kafirs, and pursuing a policy of world domination. Hinduism is not a religion like Islam or Christianity which can be made into such a uniform belief system, but is probably the mos
t diverse and multi-sided religion in the world. It has many names and forms for God, many saints and sages, numerous scriptures, and no
standard doctrine that all Hindus must follow. It is much more of a culture
than an ideology. What is this institutionalized Hinduism which you claim is
being promoted? Is it Shaivism, Vaishnavaism, Shaktism, Brahmanism, Arya Samaj,
Ramakrishna-Vivekananda? What is its standard ideology, holy book, leader and practices?

       You speak of South Asia and give the appearance that Hinduism is the
real threat to communal harmony in the region, when it is fundamentalist
Islam, on one hand, and leftist forces, particularly communism, which have
been the main sources of violence, political agitation, and religious
disharmony in the region.

       The corruption 'of the government of India - which has been dominated by
leftist political policies and has generally allied itself with communist
countries like the Soviet Union - is also an important cause of the social
unrest in India. Now that communism has fallen throughout the world, India is
also turning to the right. This has been manifest by a new resurgence of
political groups based upon the principles taught in the Hindu religion, which
have strong spiritual roots. Leftist groups in India, fearing the loss of
power, have turned to discrediting such parties as communal in order to
maintain their own fading influence. This is rather ironic as these leftist
groups have generally supported regimes like the Soviet Union, China and even
Iraq, which are hardly models of either communal harmony or non-violence.
       As for the Babri Masjid issue, your so-called sixteenth century mosque,
has been a disputed site through the centuries. The Hindus (including Sikhs
like Guru Gobind Singh, who also sent an army to Ayodhya) have tried to
reclaim the site for the last four hundred years, since it was built by Babar,
a ruthless Turkish-Islamic invader from Central Asia. No Islamic worship has
been done at the site for over fifty years, while regular Hindu worship,
allowed by the government, goes on there even today. The demolished site
revealed Hindu artifacts and inscriptions proving that it was originally a Hindu temple.

       However there is no dispute that there are mosques on the birthplace of Krishna in Mathura and the famous Kashi Vishwanath Shiva temple in Benares,
where the great Mogul tyrant Aurangzeb built them in the eighteenth century
after destroying the temples which had existed there, as the records of his
life clearly indicate.

       There is also no doubt that Muslim invaders destroyed tens of thousands of temples in India, through the centuries of their attacks, which often resulted in the massive genocide of hundreds of thousands of Hindus, including women
and children, who if not killed were often turned into slaves. None of the
great number of temples that Chinese travelers spoke of seeing in the sixth
century in India appear to have endured this destruction. Why can't Hindus
take back a few of these so-called mosques, which were really victory
monuments placed on the Hindus most sacred sites to humiliate them by foreign
rulers?

       While one may criticize various Hindu groups with excesses of different
sorts, they can never be compared to Islamic terrorism - as your information
implies - which is not only a real threat to India but to the entire world,
including the United States, as the World Trade Center Bombing in New York
reveals.
       Islam, at least in the form that it has taken in the world today, has
not produced a singlereally democratic state or a single state in which
religious minorities, particularly Hindus, have been protected. Saudi Arabia,
for example, a so-called moderate Islamic country, makes the practice of all
other religions illegal within its territory and allows no non-Islamic
religious structures to be built. Why shouldn't Hindus view Islam,
particularly of the fundamentalist type, with caution? How would American
feels if people like Sadaam Hussein were in their own backyard? Being cautious
about Islamic fundamentalism is not oppressing Muslim minorities. After all,
India already partitioned itself once in the favor of Muslim minorities who
themselves claimed that they  could not live in harmony with a Hindu majority.

       The record of Pakistan and Bangladesh in this regard is appalling,
where the Hindus who remained there have already been subject to a massive
ethnic cleansing policy since partition. Where are the Hindu temples, the
Hindu political parties and freedom for Hindus in these countries? Dozens of
Hindu temples were destroyed in these countries following the Babri Masjid
incident last December. In fact, Sikh, Jain, Christian and Jewish places of
worship were also attacked in Pakistan in retaliation for Ayodhya.

       Whatever so-called Hindu fundamentalism there may be in India is
largely only a reaction to the Islamic fundamentalism that is attacking India
from all sides, as well as from within, as the recent bombings in Bombay
clearly show, in which over three hundred Hindus died.

       Muslim groups attacked Hindu temples all over the world after the Babri
Masjid incident, including a few in Great Britain. Yet you make it appear that
Hindus are responsible for all this destruction by their demolition of one
disputed structure in Ayodhya. Aren't Muslims, like all people, responsible
for their actions when they cause violence, whatever the provocation? If the
majority killed in such riots in India were Muslims, it was because the
majority rioting were Muslims. Nor did you mention the fact that the
Muslims started most of the actual riots, as is the usual case in India. This
is not to justify any violence, whether done by Muslims or Hindus, but to look
for the real causes of it, in which the hostility of Islam toward other
religions far outweighs any bias among the Hindus, who are among the most
tolerant people in the world.

       Hindus have been in a similar situation in the world like the Native
Americans. They were subject to massive conquest, conversion and extermination
efforts by colonial and missionary forces; in their case first the Muslims,
who came in repeated waves during a period of over a thousand years, and then
the Christians (Portuguese, French and British). The Hindus have survived this
onslaught a little better than the American Indians because their populations
were greater. Like the Native Americans they do feel that they have a right to
reassert their older traditions, which may involve reclaiming some of the
sacred sites which were literally stolen from them. They are seeking some
historical justice, which does belong to them. They are also still struggling
against misrepresentations of their culture and religion by the same colonial
and missionary forces, whose views are still operating at least in the news
media.

       You should note that all the four Shankaracharyas of India, perhaps the
most respected Hindu religious leaders, recently met and emphasized the need
to build the Ram temple in Ayodhya, but did not endorse rebuilding the mosque.
Why don't you mention that most religious Hindus support a Hindu revival in
India, which usually includes the rebuilding of the Ramtemple in Ayodhya?

        You state that you would like to see a new world order shaped not by
"military aggression." None of the Hindu groups you complain about have armies.
What military aggression therefore have they done? You complain of a Hindu
"demand for conformity." You have not defined this Hindu conformity because it does not exist. Are such groups asking for Hindu women to wear veils, for only
the Hindu Bible is the basis for education in the schools, that those who
criticize Hindu Gods or leaders be punished or killed? These are issues of
Islamic fundamentalism which your letter does not even mention. It appears
that you are trying to cast the shadow of Islamic fundamentalism on Hindus,
which is rather ironic as Hindus have been one of the main targets for Islamic
fundamentalists. I suggest that you reexamine your views, which are not
promoting understanding but furthering anti-Hindu attitudes.

      For myself I am proud to be a speaker at World Vision 2000. Your letter
only makes me feel that it is necessary to speak out on these issues, to
counter such campaigns of disinformation.

       Best Wishes,