While the right-wing group called Hindu Sena (Hindu Army) was busy celebrating Donald Trump’s 72nd birthday in New Delhi — with a “havan”, cake and selfies alongside a larger-than-life poster of the US President — two other notorious Hindu-right groups, the Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), have been classified as “militant religious organisations” by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), a civilian foreign intelligence service of the United States federal government.
According to a new report in The Print, as per latest updates made to the “World Factbook”, an annual encyclopaedic publication of the CIA that “provides information on the history, people, government, economy, energy, geography, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues for 267 world entities,” the two organisations have been named as “militant religious outfits” under the tag “Political pressure groups and leaders”.
Meet the Bajrang Dal. (Not quite Bajrangi Bhaijaans). [Photo: Reuters]
They are not the only ones, however, that have received such earnest recognition.
The All Parties Hurriyat Conference led by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq in Kashmir has been labelled as a “separatist group”. The former Rajya Sabha MP Moulana Mehmood Madani-led Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind has been labelled as a “religious organisation”. And the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has been tagged as a “nationalist organisation”.
And while the RSS’s categorisation can be debated (extensively), the Bajrang Dal and the VHP being called “militant” is a welcome step in identifying the menace hardline right-wing groups like them create in India. Of course, neither of them is particularly happy about this classification. Speaking to The Print, Manoj Verma, the national convenor of the Bajrang Dal said: “This came to our notice a few days ago….
