a simple anwer will be on 'humanitarian grounds'.
and a complex? one will be hindus are always harmless, humble and open-minded, - even though some of them go to extremes, after all they"originally belonged"to them hindus. :)
Seriously, who with a normal mind, would want to see innocent/ordinary people dying fora hidden agenda, or a business/financial plan of some people behind the scene?
From: Saurav Pathak <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: AssamNet <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Assam] anyone has an explanation?
Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2003 12:14:17 -0500
why should rss/vhp not like the iraq war? they are anti-muslim, and
are a conservative lot, after all. and definitely not pacifist. how
come their position is so close to that of pakistan's?
saurav
--
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63533-2003Mar31.html
In New Delhi, Hindus Take A Dim View of America
By John Lancaster
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, April 1, 2003; Page C01
First in a series on how people around the world are perceiving the
war in Iraq through their local media.
NEW DELHI, March 31 -- On the flickering television set in the
corner, a BBC announcer was describing how British troops in
southern Iraq had seized a cache of Iraqi chemical-weapons gear.
Images of protective suits, gas masks and antidote injectors filled
the screen. A British officer then described the equipment as clear
evidence that Iraq possesses chemical weapons, even if none has yet
been found.
But Jagat Jha, 37, offered another interpretation. "Maybe before
bringing in the press they planted all these things," he said.
Ajay Bharti, 40, suggested that the gear had indeed been stockpiled
for use in a chemical attack -- by the United States and Britain.
"Had there been a chemical attack on Iraq, then [Iraqis] would have
used these things" to protect themselves, he said knowingly.
Bharti and Jha were among a half-dozen Indians interviewed today at
the media center of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) -- Hindi
for National Volunteer Corps -- the right-wing Hindu nationalist
group whose several offspring include India's ruling Bharatiya
Janata Party.
Several work full time for the group. Others are supporters -- a
government bureaucrat (Bharti), a newspaper ad salesman (Jha) and a
paper-products salesman -- who stopped by to chew over the latest
news with Ram Madhav, a garrulous, Palm Pilot-toting former
engineering student who serves as the RSS chief spokesman.
Sitting around on plastic deck chairs in the cramped second-floor
office, dressed for the most part in Western-style slacks and
button-down shirts, they were unanimous in their condemnation of the
war and especially of President Bush, whom they accused of
fabricating evidence against Baghdad in pursuit of Middle East oil.
Such views, while hardly unusual in the current climate, might seem
surprising coming from the RSS. Founded in 1925, the group drew
partial inspiration from the Fascist movements of prewar Europe and
promotes the primacy of Hindu culture and religion in India. The
organization's core ideology, called Hindutva, has often been blamed
-- its members say unfairly -- for promoting discrimination and
sometimes violence against India's minority Muslim population.
At least one prominent figure associated with the movement has
expressed support for the American-led invasion. In February, Pravin
Togadia, general secretary of the World Hindu Council -- another
offshoot of the RSS -- told an audience that it was in India's
interest to support an attack on Iraq that, he said, could weaken
the forces of radical Islam.
But the RSS leadership quickly disavowed Togadia's remarks. And the
government -- while fairly mild in its criticism of the Bush
administration -- has said the matter should have been left to the
U.N. Security Council.
In that regard, the Hindutva movement is reflecting Indian public
opinion, which is overwhelmingly hostile to the U.S. and British
invasion. In a survey published this week, Outlook magazine found
that 86 percent of Indians opposed the war and 69 percent regard
President Bush as a "warmonger." On Sunday, more than 150,000 people
marched against the invasion in Calcutta. Some burned effigies of
Bush to shouts of "Down with America!"
The people at the RSS media center today, with access to cable
television and the Internet, were perhaps better informed about the
conflict than the typical citizen in the street. But most began
their day in the manner of countless Indians, with a newspaper,
filtering its content through the prism of already well-formed
views.
Arun Arora, 35, scanned the war news in Punjab Kesari, a widely
circulated Hindi paper whose front page was dominated by the banner
headline "Hope of Reaching Baghdad Has Vanished and [coalition
forces] Are Besieged by the Fear of Death." A second story was
headlined "American Forces May Stop the
