NEW DELHI: With the objective of bringing together Hindus at a time “when the community is beset by very serious challenges and is standing at a critical crossroad”, a three-day conference will kick off on Friday with the blessings of the Sangh Parivar.
Called World Hindu Congress (WHC), the event will have RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and Dalai Lama as part of the inaugural ceremony, while BJP president Amit Shah, Union ministers Smriti Irani, Nitin Gadkari and Nirmala Sitharaman will be key speakers among others.
According to the organizers, the event is expected to have 2,000 delegates from over 50 countries. This will include politicians from Mauritius, the Caribbean, Malaysia and Sri Lanka, where the Hindu population is significant. There will be 45 sessions during the three-day conference focusing on seven different topics of youth, education, women, organization, economics, politics and media.
Organizers say the necessity for the event was felt because Hindus were not only being persecuted in countries such as Malaysia, Mauritius and Bangladesh, they were also discriminated against in their own country.
“World over, Christians and Muslims and even Jews have organized themselves and have global platforms to address their issues. We are one billion strong, but we don’t have such a platform. The result is Hindus are discriminated against everywhere,” WHC coordinator Sushil Pandit said.
Elaborating, he added, “In Mauritius, a Hindu PM is dethroned unceremoniously, in Malaysia, Tamil Hindus are harassed regularly and treated as second class citizens, in Fiji, Hindus, despite being a majority, are forced to flee. In our own country, being a Hindu has become a disqualification. All sops are for minorities. A former PM says minorities have the first right to resources. Aren’t Hindus poor and disadvantaged? But no one raises a voice. Look at Jews, they exert influence far superior to their numerical strength.”
Pandit said it was time the elite and the intellectuals among Hindus came together and introspected on the challenges facing the community and found a solution irrespective of the government. “We have realized, governments have political compulsions. It can only do as much,” Pandit said, not overly excited about a right-wing government at the helm.
The event, which began four years ago as standalone conferences in places like Hong Kong, Thailand and Bangalore, however, aims to transform into a pressure group that can influence government policy in the interest of Hindus whenever needed.
“Society needs revamped education that is not aping the west blindly, it needs impetus to business, market access, women’s empowerment. That’s what this conference aims to do by bringing together CEOs, engineers, doctors, politicians and economists on one platform,” Pandit said.