Dalitstan

Dalitstan.org was a website that was claimed to be run by The Dalitstan Organization, an otherwise unknown group advocating the secession of the Republic of India into several separate nations from India including a Dalit homeland.

The website claimed to represent a "Human Rights Organization" working for the upliftment of Dalits (also called "Sudra"s), the "Black Untouchables of India". According to the organization, they formed one of the most oppressed ethnic groups in the world, enduring the so-called "2000-year "Sudra Holocaust".

The organization's website was labelled as a hate site by several Hindu advocacy groups, such as the Hindu conference of Canada in a letter of complaint written to the editor of Outlook Magazine [http://www.kanchi-sathya.org/yousaidit.htm] , on the grounds of containing severe anti-Hindu and anti-Brahmanical rhetoric and hate-speech, and the organization is not recognized by any government or international body. In addition, it is listed in the "hate directory" of the Web Based Public Safety Information Access System [ [http://www.bcpl.net/~rfrankli/hatedir.pdf Hate Directory - Public Safety Information Access System] ] .

History

The website was registered in May 1999 on the name of Helen Heklund, at P.O. Box 2427, Granbury, TX 76048-7427 [http://network-tools.com/default.asp?prog=whois&host=dalitstan.org whois query for dalitstan.org] [http://groups.google.com/group/soc.culture.indian/msg/57cf9241aa9389d4?dmode=source&hl=en] . As of 2007, the domain remains registered, but the website itself was taken down in May 2006 [http://web.archive.org/web/*/dalitstan.org] . Helen Eklund was the secretary for the Multicultural Affairs office at Tarleton State University [ [http://www.tarleton.edu/~multserv/contact%20us.htm Tarleton State University - Division of Student Services ] ]

In December 2000, Nedumaran, who served as an emissary to forest brigand Veerappan to obtain the release of the Kannada actor Mr. Rajkumar, [http://www.hindu.com/2000/12/14/stories/02140008.htmNedumaran condemns 'hue and cry' over website] denied that TNLA is associated with the web-site.

Alleged "Sudra Holocaust"

The "Sudra Holocaust" is described by the organization as follows:

"The concept of a Sudra Holocaust is generally denied by the Brahmanist Government. It does not require the knowledge of an archaeologist, however, to grasp the historicity of the Sudra Holocaust. ... However, at the present day, Shaivism is confined to the Dalits and Adivasis, who form 25% of the population. There are also very few Shiva temples, and Brahmanism (Vedism and Vaishnavism) are the predominant religions of North India. Shaivism, meanwhile, continues to flourish in south India, with Tamil Nadu as its prime locus. This fact once again can only be explained by invoking the Sudra Holocaust, with the Shiva temples and Shaivite civilization which was built up by the indigenous Sudroids being wiped out by the Vaishnava Aryans."

None of these claims or ideas are supported or endorsed by any reputable historians, archaeologists or scholars on South Asian studies. As an example, Shaivism, contrary to the claims made by Dalitstan, is widely practiced in many sections of Hindu society of many Castes, such as in Kashmir in North India and among Tamils [http://www.shaivam.org/about.htm] , [http://shaivism.net/] . In addition Shaivism and Vaishnavism are movements within Hinduism that occurred several centuries after the splitting of Proto-Indo-Iranian.

Background and History

According to the Organizations' sources, it was launched in 1999. The organization employed a number of "authors" for several years to develop articles for the Dalitstan website. The web-site was widely promoted using web groups. Several web-sites were created to mirror the selected contents of Dalitstan. However, as late as 6 September, 2006, major sources of information on the Dalitstan website were obtained primarily from the Google search engine cache.

The causes promoted by the Dalistan Organization include these independent nations [http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:nlU69bApUUsJ:indianterrorism.bravepages.com/itplinks.htm+dalitstan+dravidistan&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=8] :
# Sakastan: The Jat homeland [http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:pwb6ZpQq9IUJ:www.dalitstan.org/books/gandasa/gandasa8.html+dalitstan+khalistan&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=2]
# Dalitstan: The Dalit homeland. The Dalits are distributed throughout India, but the Dalitstan map suggests that it will include the Jharkhand, Orissa, Chattisgarh (with significant Maoist activity), with Vidarbha, the central of Ambedkarite movement.
# Mughalstan: The Muslim homeland [http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:TVw-lLO2Te8J:www.angelfire.com/ns/brahmin/+dalitstan+khalistan&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=8]
# Khalistan: The Sikh homeland
# Dravidistan: Tamil homeland [http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:nlU69bApUUsJ:indianterrorism.bravepages.com/itplinks.htm+dalitstan+dravidistan&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=8]
# Nagand

However, no figures claiming popular support of this movement or for any of the hypothetical countries are tendered. The organization does not provide details on whether it has the backing of any major political leader, and does not specify what means are at its disposal, what future it sees for "Dalits", and how it wishes to pursue creating these countries. In light of the fact that there is a paucity of concrete details, the efficacy of such a movement is debatable. Further, since one of the "proposed homelands," Mughalstan encompasses several South Asian nations apart from India, such as Pakistan and Bangladesh, how the state is envisaged as being created from India alone (as is the mission of the Organization) is not verifiable.

Government Ban

The official portal of this organisation was among seventeen that were blocked in India by the Ministry of Telecommunications of the Government of India on July 13, 2006. ( [http://groups.google.com/group/BloggersCollective/browse_thread/thread/be0ca9dc849f0b14/f2062d8562838e23#f2062d8562838e23 List of banned sites] ) in a bid to check terror and hate messages on the Internet following the 11 July 2006 Mumbai train bombings [http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=49390] . The ban was discussed in the press ( [http://www.indiapost.com/members/story.php?story_id=5425] ). It is not clear if the servers hosting the website were located in India, or what effect the ban would have "de facto" on the functioning of the Organization.

Alleged Involvement in USA Legislations

The Dalitstan website included a draft letter that they claimed that they would send to congressmen in USA at [http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:PEq1D9m7LCcJ:www.dalitstan.org/sol/congress.html+Helen+Heklund+%3Cpresident%40dalitstan.org%3E&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1 http://www.dalitstan.org/sol/congress.html] (Google's cache). The letter requests US Congressmen to provide support in "promoting legislation that accounts for the adversities facing minority groups in India". However, the letter fails to specify what kind of support is sought, or even to consider whether such legislation in India, is within the ambit of the United States Congress. No member of the United states Congress has ever claimed receiving this letter, nor is there any evidence to suggest that such a letter even exists outside of the Dalitstan organization.

Writings promoted by Dalitstan

The Dalitstan organization wrote or sponsored a number of works published and circulated by the organization itself in "The Dalitstan Journal". Many of them were made available on their website [http://web.archive.org/web/20030604092549/http://dalitstan.org/books/] as a part of "Ambedkar Library". The works generally claim that a fundamental racial divide exists in South Asia between the so-called "Sudroids" and "Brahmins". They frequently make allegations of "Brahmanist Occupied Governments" in India and contain anti-Brahmanical, anti-Sanskrit and anti-Hindu dialectic. They also allege the prevalence of "Hindu Imperialism" and allegations of the "Genocide of women", as well as claims of "exposing the truth about Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi", one of the principal founding fathers of independent India.

Apparent contradictions have also been noted. For example "Uthaya Naidu" writes in one paragraph "The advent of the Mughal Caliphate of Delhi in Mughalstan (Indus-Ganges Valley) meant the end of the apartheid varna system in the north". The next line is "Here the Aryan Brahmins collaborated with the Aryan Islamic invaders from Central Asia and maintained the apartheid varna system".

On November 19, 2006, copies of "Oh you Hindu Awake" were distributed in a missionary programme called Jungle Camp at G. Udayagiri township under Kandhamal district. A person Amit Roul was arrested under section 153 (A) (promoting enmity between classes) of the Indian Penal Code [ [http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=157&page=16 Organiser - Content ] ] .

United Christian Forum Documents

Dalitstan published a large collection of United Christian Forum (UCF) documents. These included what was alleged as "what will become the Largest Collection of Articles on Persecution of Christians in the Indian Union" [http://web.archive.org/web/20030621141142/www.dalitstan.org/christian/] . The alleged documents include

# UCF Press Releases [http://web.archive.org/web/20030213022914/http://dalitstan.org/christian/releases/index.html]
# John Dayal Archive [http://web.archive.org/web/20030624170232/www.dalitstan.org/christian/dayal/index.html]
# Christian Genocide in the Indian Union [http://web.archive.org/web/20030213021138/http://dalitstan.org/christian/killings/killings.html]
# Hindutva's War against Christianity [http://web.archive.org/web/20030621061026/www.dalitstan.org/journal/genocide/christians/christians.html]

ee also

*Hate group
*anti-Hindu
*anti-Brahmanism
*Khalistan
*Dravidistan

External links

* [http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0003&L=INDOLOGY&P=R8814&I=-3 "Dalitstan"] Indology Listserver
* [http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0010&L=INDOLOGY&P=R3527&I=-3 Indology archive] Samar Abbas

References