Dalitstan.org

Dalitstan.org was a Dalit advocacy website run advocating for a Dalit homeland and the breakup of India into several separate nations. According to its website, "The Dalitstan Organization is a Human Rights Organization working for the Upliftment of Dalits, the Black Untouchables of India. These form one of the most oppressed ethnic groups in the World, enduring the 2000-year Sudra Holocaust."^[1]

The organization's website was labeled as a hate site by several Hindu advocacy groups, such as the Hindu conference of Canada.^[2] Critics^{[by whom?]} complained about the website's severe anti-Hindu and anti-Brahmanical rhetoric and hate-speech. The website was listed as a hate site by Surfwatch Patrol^[2]; a list of "Brahmin" jokes on the Dalitstan website is listed in the Hate Directory.^[3]

Background

According to the organization, it was launched in 1999, with the domain registered by Helen Heklund, with an address in Granbury, Texas.^[4] A number of authors wrote articles for several years for Dalitstan.org, which was widely promoted using web groups. While several websites had been created to mirror contents from the Dalitstan.org website. The website was taken down sometime after May 2006.^[5] The domain registration lapsed, and was subsequently purchased by an unrelated party.

In December 2000, Nedumaran, who served as an emissary to forest brigand Veerappan to obtain the release of the Kannada actor Mr. Rajkumar,^[6] denied that TNLA is associated with the website.

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^[7][8]. In addition Shaivism and Vaishnavism are movements within Hinduism that occurred several centuries after the splitting of Proto-Indo-Iranian.

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.^[9] in a bid to check terror and hate messages on the Internet following the 11 July 2006 Mumbai train bombings^[10] The ban was discussed in the press^[11]. It is not clear whether 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://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.

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" [4]. The alleged documents include

1. UCF Press Releases [5]
2. John Dayal Archive [6]
3. Christian Genocide in the Indian Union [7]
4. Hindutva's War against Christianity [8]

External links

• Dalistan.org (archived copy from 2006)
• "Dalitstan" Indology Listserver
• Indology archive Samar Abbas

References

1. ^ "Dalitstan Organization Homepage". Dalitstan.org. Dalitstan Organization. Archived from the original on 2006-05-10. http://web.archive.org/web/20060510134217/http://www.dalitstan.org/. 
2. ^ ^{a b} Banerjee, Ron (2005). "FORMAL COMPLAINT BY THE HINDU CONFERENCE OF CANADA TO THE EDITOR OF OUTLOOK MAGAZINE". kanchi-sathya.org. http://www.kanchi-sathya.org/yousaidit.htm. Retrieved 18 December 2010. 
3. ^ Franklin, Raymond A. (1). "The Hate Directory" (PDF). p. 23. http://www.hatedirectory.com/hatedir.pdf. Retrieved 18 December 2010. 
4. ^ Jai Maharaj (November 6, 2005). "Re: Oman kicks out Pakistanis". soc.culture.indian. (Web link). Retrieved 2010-12-17. 
5. ^ "Archived Results from Jan 01, 1996 - latest for http://dalitstan.org". Internet Archive Wayback Machine. http://web.archive.org/web/*/dalitstan.org. 
6. ^ "Nedumaran condemns 'hue and cry' over website"
7. ^ [1]
8. ^ ://shaivism.net/]
9. ^ List of banned sites
10. ^ [2].
11. ^ [3]