Dismantling IAMC’s Fabricated Smear Campaign Against VHPA (Part 3 of 8) – Guilt by Association

The next allegation in Ahmed’s article shifts focus from VHPA’s actual work to a historical and ideological lineage. Instead of examining its five-decade record as an American nonprofit, it links the organization to selective interpretations of 1930s writings and figures. Here’s the verbatim quote from his article:

“It [VHPA] does not deny that the VHPA was founded in 1970 on the instructions of M.S. Golwalkar, the then leader of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the 100-year-old Indian paramilitary. Golwalkar is on record having praised Nazi Germany as a model for how to treat religious minorities.”

There is no question of denying that the Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America was established in 1970 with the encouragement and blessings of Ma. M. S. Golwalkar, as part of a broader effort to support Hindu immigrants in preserving religious practice, cultural continuity, and community identity abroad. During a period when Indian diaspora communities in North America were still small and institutionally fragmented, VHPA was formed to help organize temples, language education, youth engagement, festivals, and charitable initiatives. Its legal structure, governance, and activities have operated within the framework of an independent American 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to cultural education, disaster relief, community service, and Hindu religious life.

However, VHPA’s critics, intent on constructing a narrative of ideological guilt by association, obsessively return to a single controversial passage from We or Our Nationhood Defined[1], a 1939 text written by M. S. Golwalkar during his early intellectual years, long before the full scale of the Holocaust had entered global understanding. They conveniently skip over the fact that the text was never formally adopted or republished by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) as an institutional doctrine[2], and Golwalkar himself later distanced himself from that early book as RSS ideology matured. Crucially, VHPA has never endorsed, promoted, or operated on any such views.

The critics also ignore the broader historical context of the 1930s, when strong assimilationist and nationalist ideas were mainstream across the globe:

• The United States ran aggressive “Americanization” campaigns, forcing immigrants to shed their old identities.
• France suppressed minority languages and cultures under its strict republican model.
• Turkey under Atatürk brutally imposed Turkish identity[3] on Kurds, Armenians, and Greeks.
• Several Eastern European nations declared that minorities must assimilate or accept second-class status[4].

This historical context matters because critics routinely isolate one passage from a pre-war text while ignoring how widespread nationalist and assimilationist thinking was during that period. Yet their selective outrage becomes even more jarring when compared with the relative silence surrounding contemporary rhetoric that carries unmistakably supremacist or authoritarian themes.

• Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan called Adolf Hitler “a very great man”[5] in 1984 and has promoted Nazi-style antisemitic conspiracy theories, labeling Jews as “termites” and accusing them of societal control.
• Prominent Brooklyn imam Siraj Wahhaj urged raising a Muslim “army of 10,000 men in New York City” to fight in Allah’s way[6] and declared “Islam is better than democracy,” framing politics as a weapon to establish Islamic governance.
• Other U.S. imams have preached Muslim supremacy (“You are the best of nations”) and glorified jihad and martyrdom against non-Muslims[7], including praise for groups like Hamas.

If the standard of permanently damning people and organizations for views expressed in a different era were applied consistently, many of America’s own venerated Founding Fathers would be tarred and feathered today for their openly racist ideologies, slave ownership, and supremacist beliefs.

Equating a respected 56-year-old non-profit U.S. organization running language classes, youth camps, and humanitarian projects with 1930s European fascism is a malicious, intellectually bankrupt smear rooted in selective historical distortion.

Such a dishonest tactic deserves nothing but outright contempt.

Read Part 2: Manufactured Victimhood Strategy

Read Part 4: Asymmetrical Accounting Standard

Citations

[1] “We or Our Nationhood Defined” published in 1939 by a young M.S. Golwalkar. https://sanjeev.sabhlokcity.com/Misc/We-or-Our-Nationhood-Defined-Shri-M-S-Golwalkar.pdf

[2] RSS officially disowns the book (does not represent RSS views or mature Golwalkar thought). https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/rss-officially-disowns-golwalkars-book/articleshow/1443606.cms

[3] Atatürk’s Turkification policies, including language reform, population exchanges, and suppression of minority identities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkification (well-referenced academic overview)

[4] Policies in Poland, Hungary, Romania, etc., toward Jews, Germans, Ukrainians, and other minorities (e.g., Polonization, Magyarization). https://www.britannica.com/topic/history-of-Europe/The-interwar-years-1918-39#ref396099

[5] Farrakhan, Louis. “Speech/Radio Broadcast.” Chicago, IL, March 11, 1984. Quoted in “The Minister for Hate.” Policy Archive, 1998. https://www.policyarchive.org/download/13695

[6] Wahhaj, Siraj. “Sermon on Jihad and Community Issues.” Masjid at-Taqwa, Brooklyn, NY, ca. 2000–2002. Quoted in “Mamdani’s Terror-Linked Imam Pal,” New York Post, October 18, 2025. https://nypost.com/2025/10/18/us-news/mamdanis-brooklyn-imam-pal-once-urged-jihad-on-nyc-with-army-of-10000-men/

[7] Unnamed New Jersey Islamic cleric. Sermon/video, ca. 2025–early 2026. Quoted in Why Political Islam & Sharia Law Are Incompatible with the U.S. Constitution, House Judiciary Committee Hearing, February 10, 2026. https://www.congress.gov/119/chrg/CHRG-119hhrg62813/CHRG-119hhrg62813.pdf