Campaign
Campaign Documents
against militarisation
of Indian Civil Society
Demand Action Against the VHP, BD and the Shiv Sena!
Stop These Arms Training Camps!
Join this campaign and articulate your protests. Write letters to the
President of India, the Prime Minister of India, the Chief Justice of India,
the chief minister of your state, local and national newspapers and organize
protests against these moves.
H.E.
K.R. Narayanan, The President of India
Rashtrapati Bhavan New Delhi 110004
Fax 91-011-3017290
Mr. Atal Behari
Vajpayee, Prime Minister of India
7, Safdarjung Road,
New Delhi 110001.
Fax: +91 (11) 301 6857
/ 301 9545
The Chief Justice of India,
The Supreme Court of India,
Tilak Marg,New Delhi 110001.
Over the past two years, major national dailies have frequently reported,
with photographs, brazen attempts
tempts by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Bajrang Dal (BD) to form
private Hindu armies. Arms training camps have been organised by them in
different parts of the country, where young men and women are trained in the
use of guns as well as trishuls, sword and other martial arts.
Under the Indian Constitution, private militias arming themselves represent
a threat to law and order and the peace and tranquility that the State is
bound to preserve.
The
Arms Act, 1959 expressly prohibits the possession of arms by private parties
without license. The only exception made is for security agencies. The
possession of a license before a firearm is owned is a legal
requirement. Such licenses are given or granted only if there is reasonable
apprehension of aggression.
The
Bombay Police Act is similarly stringent on the question of possession of
arms by citizens. The police are empowered to demand production of a license
(section 19 of the Arms Act), arrest persons conveying arms etc under
suspicious circumstances (section 20), confiscation of arms etc on
possession of unlicensed arms (section 20).
In
the section on fundamental rights, the Indian Constitution guarantees the
freedom of expression, faith, belief and worship (Article 25) and equality
before the law (Article 14). Taken together, these articles of the Indian
Constitution guarantee the Indian State’s secular and democratic nature.
By
their numerous statements and actions, the VHP, Bajrang Dal, RSS and the
Shiv Sena are guilty of violating the Indian Constitution, the Arms Act and
the Indian Penal Code. Are these criminal antecedents not ground enough to
impel the Indian state into putting an immediate stop to these blatantly
illegal and provocative camps, seizing the illegally held arms, and if
necessary, arresting the chief agent provocateurs — the leaders of the
Bajrang Dal, VHP and the Shiv Sena?
By
their statements and actions, the criminal antecedents of the VHP, Bajrang
Dal, RSS and the Shiv Sena indict them for being violators of both the
Indian Constitution, the Arms Act and the Indian Penal Code. Are these
criminal antecedents and their defiance of the Arms Act not ground enough to
impel the Indian state to put an immediate stop to these blatantly illegal
and provocative camps, seize the arms that they have stored and if
necessary, arrest the chief agent provocateurs, the leaders of the SS, BD
and VHP?
So far, only the CPI (M) and the Congress have demanded a curb on these
activities. Last year, through an ordinance enacted on January 21, 2000, the
Left Front government in Kerala had imposed strict restrictions on the kind
of martial training imparted to shakha goers at RSS shakhas all over
the country. The ordinance had made compulsory any organisation that wants
to give martial arts training, the acquisition of a license. It also
empowers police to inspect such training centres. (CC February 000).
June 29, 2001
Desi Mossad is getting ready at Bajrang Dal’s
Ayodhya camp
India Abroad News Service
AYODHYA, JUNE 29: “I, as a member of Bajrang Dal, swear in the name of Lord
Hanuman to always remain prepared to protect my country, religion and
culture,’’ 150 young men, between 15 and 21 years of age, recite in unison.
After practising target shooting with air guns at Karsevakpuram for the past
one week, the group is attending the convocation function presided over by
the national co-convenor of the Dal, Prakash Sharma. The training camp ended
last evening amid loud chants of ‘Jai Sriram’ and ‘Jai Bajrangbali’.
“We are empowering a cadre of Hindus so that no one, not even the Prime
Minister, should bow before the Pope to apologise for false attacks on
Christians in India,’’ Sharma told The Indian Express.
Asked what he did at the camp, an activist whispers, “I am from the secret
service of Bajrang Dal. Israel’s Mossad is my inspiration. I can’t tell you
more.’’ Dal leaders claim this is not the first time that they were
imparting arms training to their workers. ``We are training them in handling
firearms since 1996. Ayodhya is only one of the 25 such camps planned
between May 10 (in Karnataka) and July 30 (at Guwahati),’’
The
camp at Karsewakpuram, which is being supervised by Sachan, is not the first
to be conducted in Uttar Pradesh. “Similar Camps have been held in Varanasi,
Mathura and Meerut. Some residents of Ayodhya suspect that the groups are
clandestinely training their cadres to fire more sophisticated weapons.
June 19, 2001
Bajrang Dal held arms training camps in Bengal too
The
Times of India
KOLKATA: While the country looked awe-struck at the recent Bajrang Dal camp
in Lucknow where its activists were imparted arms training, two similar
camps were silently organised in West Bengal recently where 114 activists of
the Bajrang Dal and the Durga Vahini were also trained in the use of guns.
The first camp was held at the Kamalpur High School in Chakdah in Nadia
between May 26 and June 9. Fifty-two young men, aged between 15 and 25, were
imparted training there. Apart from yoga, karate and the use of lathis, the
Dal activists were trained to use rifles… The second camp, organised by the
Durga Vahini, the women’s wing of the VHP, was held at Kashimbazar in
Murshidabad from May 30 to June 7. In all, 62 women participated in the camp
where they obtained similar military training as their male counterparts.
Admitting that the camps were indeed held, state general secretary of the
VHP, Ajoy Kumar Nandi, said on Monday that such training camps were being
regularly held in the state for the last 10 years.
June 13, 2001
Bajrang Dal activists take up arms
The
Times of India
LUCKNOW: Guns boom periodically at Sarojini Nagar here. Bajrang Dal workers,
about 100 of them, are being given firearms training. These sessions,
according to Bajrang Dal and VHP leaders, are for galvanising the public for
construction of the Ram temple.
“We
are preparing these able-bodied persons to fight any eventuality. With the
ISI spreading its tentacles, these people are being trained to challenge the
anti-Hindu forces,’’ said Ved Prakash Sachchan, joint convener of the state
unit of the Bajrang Dal.
Majority of trainees camping in Lucknow for the last three days are
students between 20 and 25. They have been drawn from 22 districts of Uttar
Pradesh. Their instructor is Sardar Bhupendra Singh of Kanpur.
These camps, which have almost become a routine affair, were first held in
Ayodhya last June. Women will be trained in firearms by the Durga Vahini, an
offshoot of the VHP, in Kanpur from June 24. Meanwhile, the Bajrang Dal has
chalked out an elaborate training programme for Hindu youth. In August,
about 50,000 Bajrang Dal workers, drawn from all over the state, will be
taught trishul warfare. “We have a target of enrolling over two lakh Hindus
as members by the end of next June,’’ says Sachchan.
September 29, 2000
Of guns and a Hindu ‘rashtra’
The
Times of India
SITAPUR: Rat-a-tat-tat. The deafening sound of gun shots disturbs the serene
surroundings with uncanny regularity. Tracing the source through overgrown
shrubs and grass, one comes across 15 men in the 22-30 age-group lying on
their stomach with firearms in their hands. They are practising on different
targets comprising chiefly glass bottles… Their dictum is simple: tooth for
a tooth and eye for an eye. ‘Hindu’ power flows from the barrel of the gun
for them. They are members of the newly-floated Hindu Rashtriya Mukti Army,
an offshoot of the Shiv Sena, and are attending an arms training camp over
the past 15 days at a destination about 90 km from the state capital… Says
Jai Dev Verma, a Shiv Sainik and a participant at the camp: “The outfit is
month-old and we are acting on directions of Bal Thackeray. Hindu pride has
to be restored and arms training is a step in this direction.”
April 2000
VHP, Bajrang Dal set up private army
Communalism Combat
International
general secretary of the VHP stated at a press conference in Lucknow on
March 26, 2000 that the VHP and BD have decided to set up private armies by
deploying activists in the villages along the country’s borders in the
north, north-east, Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat. These volunteers of the
Prateyak Suraksha Samiti (People’s Defence Committee) will ostensibly
help people in their fight against ISI-spawned terrorism. These volunteers
were being trained in Brindaban (the same place that kar sevaks who
demolished the Babri Masjid were trained).
The
Union government – defence and home ministries — has reacted in alarm at
this attempt to raise a private army. A defence ministry spokesman told a
correspondent of The Asian Age: “Once a Hindu army is allowed to come
up, what is there to stop a Muslim army from being raised. This has
dangerous and sinister implications.” | 
