Vishva Hindu Parishad is a Hindu religious organization based in India.
(VHP) Modern Hindu religious group connected with the
Rashtriya Svayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a conservative Hindu organization whose
avowed mission is to produce the leadership cadre for a rejuvenated Hindu
India.
When RSS leader Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar met with a group
of Hindu religious leaders in Bombay in 1964, the VHP was created.
Their immediate concern was Pope Paul VI's planned visit to
India, which they saw as a covert effort to convert Hindus to Christianity,
which they intended to combat by founding an organization committed to Hinduism
propagation.
With little fanfare and little influence on public
perception, the VHP concentrated its concentration for the next fifteen years
on opposing Christian missionary operations in northeastern India.
The conversion of some untouchables to Islam in the Tamil
Nadu hamlet of Minakshipuram in 1982 was a watershed moment in the VHP's public
image.
The VHP seized on this widely reported incident as proof
that Hindu identity was in jeopardy, and responded by undertaking a series of inventive
public activities, first in Tamil Nadu and then throughout the country.
The VHP's resurgence coincided with the RSS's shift toward
activism, as well as the BJP's decision to adopt a more militantly Hindu
character.
Many of the VHP's national campaigns coincided with national
or state elections, and many of them were concentrated on the effort to erect a
temple to the deity Rama in the city of Ayodhya, at the alleged birthplace of
Rama.
The intended temple location was occupied by the Babri Masjid,
a Muslim mosque erected after the ancient Rama temple was demolished, according
to the VHP.
As a result, the temple campaign evoked strong memories of
historical persecution as well as the boldness of a resurgent Hindu identity.
The VHP's political involvement has helped the BJP become
the dominant political party in most of northern India.
Throughout India, the VHP's advocacy has evoked a wide range
of feelings.
Proponents refer to the organization's long history of
charitable work and its role in strengthening and defining modern Hindu
identity.
Detractors object to the RSS's disdain for legal
formalities, as was shown by the destruction of the Babri Masjid in December
1992, as well as its sometimes caustic anti-Muslim rhetoric and, despite its
unique institutional identity, its ultimate control by the RSS.
Others have chastised the VHP for seeking to define and
regulate the character of "Hinduism" by declaring some
"necessary" Hindu practices as antithetical to Hindu heritage.
Other opponents reject the VHP's claim to speak for all
Hindus, pointing out that its genuine authority resides in the hands of
brahmins and other privileged castes; these critics perceive the VHP as an
organization meant to hide its true objective, which is to maintain upper-class
power and privilege.
For more information, see Walter K. Andersen and Shridhar D. Damle's The Brotherhood in Saffron (1987); James Warner Björkman's Fundamentalism, Revivalists, and Violence in South Asia (1988); Tapan Basu et alKhaki .'s Shorts and Saffron Flags (1993); Lise McKean's Divine Enterprise (1996); and Christophe Jaffrelot's The Hindu Nationalist Movement in India (1996).
You may also want to read more about Hinduism here.
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