15,000 strong Hindu Swabhiman Sena Getting Readied In Western UP, Reports TOI

By Countercurrents.org

20 January, 2016
Countercurrents.org

Photo Credit: Times Of India

Fuelled by the ideology of a self-styled god man Swami Narsinghanand Saraswati a 15,000 strong Hindu Swabhiman Sena is getting readied in Western Uttar Pradesh (UP) to wage war against the so-called Islamic State (ISIS), which it believes will occupy western UP by 2020 reports Times of India (TOI) in an exclusive investigative report. TOI reporters Sandeep Rai & Uday Singh Rana trecked through the region and report that about 50 training camps are giving training men and women, boys and girls. The report says "its leaders claim there are already 15,000 "soldiers" who are ready to die to safeguard their faith." The report also says "the outfit has even enlisted child soldiers, some of them as young as eight years old. All were being taught to use swords and firearms. Of the 50 known training camps, some are clandestine and others, like those at Bamheta and Rori, are openly teaching men and women, boys and girls, to be ready "for when the enemy strikes". There are three known training camps in Meerut city and five in Muzaffarnagar district alone. Kamlesh Tiwari, the Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha leader whose controversial remarks triggered riots in West Bengal's Malda, is a follower of Saraswati.

TOI further reports:

Hindu Swabhiman's leaders, Chetna Sharma, who is also a member of the VHP's Durga Vahini, told TOI : "Our motto is simple — catch them young. We have over 50 training centres all over western UP. Our students are from ages eight to 30. We don't give guns and swords to children straight away. For the first six months, we train them mentally. We teach them verses from the Gita. Hindus must not be afraid of death because we are reborn. The children here are fearless." Seema Kumari (name changed), 8, said, "I am learning to fight because our mothers and elder sisters are threatened. I have to protect them as well as myself."

Swami Narsinghanand Saraswati, the Hindu ascetic whose ideology fuels the outfit's work, stays in the temple where a board proclaims, "Yeh teerth Hinduon ka pavitra sthal hai. Musalmanon ka pravesh varjit hai. Aadesh Mahant Baba Narsinghanand Saraswati." (This temple is a holy place of Hindus. Entry of Muslims is prohibited. By order of head priest Baba Narsinghanand Saraswati). Once known as Deepak Tyagi, Saraswati was a member of the Samajwadi Party till 1995 and was a "huge fan" of Mulayam Singh Yadav. Twenty years ago, after a woman from his community committed suicide over a sex racket, he changed his allegiance and became an ascetic.

Today, his hero is Veer Savarkar, who coined the term "Hindutva" in 1923. Kamlesh Tiwari, the Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha leader whose controversial remarks triggered riots in West Bengal's Malda, was a student of Saraswati's. Saraswati believes that the Darul Uloom in Deoband, UP, is the ideological fountainhead of the ISIS and "war has already begun".

So intense is his hatred for the ISIS that Saraswati has no qualms in stating, "I think an extremist outfit, like the ISIS, should exist for the Hindus. The only answer to the ISIS is an HS — a Hindu State. We want to match their level of extremism and fight fire with fire. I don't have the means to build an organization of that scale but with the help of Hindus, who believe in my cause, I will achieve it soon. We have pistols and they have rocket launchers. We need better weapons so that our army can be trained. That is how the ISIS got so big. Local business leaders helped them. Hindus from all over the country will help us too."

Saraswati says they have started a mass contact programme. "We have been addressing two panchayats per month, on average. At the panchayats, I ask my Hindu lions to be brave and make sure they keep weapons with them at all times. During the Muzaffarnagar riots, we went to the ground and asked people to be armed. All these politicians, who claim credit for saving Hindus, are lying."

He points to a slogan on the wall and reads, "Hindu Sheron, shaan se jeena hai toh shaan se marna seekho. (Hindu lions, if you want to live with pride then learn to die with pride). I am preparing my people for civil war. Neither the state government nor Narendra Modi can stop the civil war from coming. It is better to die fighting to protect our loved ones."

All of this is happening under the nose of the administration. But IG Meerut Zone, Alok Sharma, confessed he had no idea of the operation. "We do not have any report on such activity taking place. I will certainly look into the matter," he told TOI on Monday.

Anil Yadav, a former professional wrestler and martial artist who runs an akhara in Ghaziabad's Bamheta village, said the "work" will not stop now, come what may.

"We run most of these camps as akharas and it is not illegal to do so. However, we prefer to run some camps in secret. We don't want the police to shut them down. My students follow a strict regime and are trained in the martial arts. They are also trained in the use of firearms. Even if a child wants to learn how to use a gun, we teach them. Within six months, a student can branch out and start a training camp on his own. Within two years, we have trained 15,000 kids. Imagine what we can achieve in five."