04-20-2006, 05:53 AM
xposting from BR..
<!--QuoteBegin-"Sudhir"+-->QUOTE("Sudhir")<!--QuoteEBegin-->Attacks in the United States on Indian Temples and discrimination against opening/expanding Hindu temples are more common that one would think. Its not popularly known due to our tendency to burry things under the carpet and not make an issue - The noticeable difference is that Hindus in the US don't ask the UN or some foreign NGO / Government to assist them against discrimination as is the "victimization" tendency of Christians in India. Its not their fault but due to no good folks like Dayal and his cohorts who work with Southern Baptist and other evangelical Christian sects in the US against India.
For example:
1) The Missouri temple has been vandalized <b>thrice </b> in the last 3 years (2 times fire bombed with Movtov cocktails)
2) The Bridgewater, NJ temple (that area is home to many Pharma/Biotech/Hitech companies and hence Indians) has been denied to expand its small temple on the grounds of too much traffic. If you drive in that area you will find about a dozen churches and a small temple that serves probably a several thousand families. If you think this is something from the distant past, the Bridgewater Township ruled against it in Nov 2005. They even limited the number of priests that could be at the temple.
Take this Bridgewater example and apply to nearly a dozen other proposed temple locations in the US that are being held up in a discriminatory manner (probally the best known example is the BAPS temple in Chino Hills, California)
3) Take the California action on correcting the portrayal of Hinduism in the California textbooks. As someone who grew up in the US, I can say first hand that the US school texts on India / Hinduism are mere excuses to teach stereotypes and bigotry.
There are numerous more examples... here are some news clips of recent incidents:
<!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->
Hindu Temple Firebombed
By GEORGE JOSEPH
Rediff.com, New York, Mar. 1, 2003
"The police and F.B.I. are at a loss why a fire bomb was thrown at the Hindu temple in St. Louis, Missouri, on the night of Feb. 22. 'It seemed to be a crude bomb or Molotov cocktail, which set fire to the front door of the temple,' Krishna Reddy, president of the temple trustee board, said. The police have registered a hate crime case, officials said. The fire quickly burned itself out, charring a four-foot section of the door. The attack happened after midnight, Reddy thinks. Temple officials discovered the attack when they arrived to open the shrine the next morning. 'There are four priests living in the compound a little behind the temple. They did not hear anything that night,' Reddy said. 'We are getting a lot of support from the police, F.B.I. and other officials. There is no panic in the community,' Jiwan Singla, chairman of the temple building committee, said. 'Everything is normal, but we are increasing security,' he said."
---
"There was no threat to the temple, police said. The temple has no dispute with anyone, Reddy noted. There was an attack on statues in front of the temple two years ago, he said. Vandals cut parts of the statues, which were replaced later. After that incident, security cameras were installed inside the temple. 'Now we are installing security cameras outside the temple,' Reddy said. Established 13 years ago, it is one of the largest temples in the U.S. serving more than 8,000 families. Lord Venkatesa is the principal deity. 'Maybe it's just kids, I don't know, but what they did is serious and it could have been worse,' Reddy said. 'We certainly hope they don't come back.' Maha Shivratri celebrations are scheduled for Mar. 1. 'The attack has not changed anything,' Singla noted. All the activities will go on as scheduled, he said."
---
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Another attack on temple in Missouri
George Joseph | March 05, 2003 03:06 IST
A second firebomb attack on the temple at St Louis in Missouri has made the Indian community jittery.
On February 28, someone first threw a brick through a window followed by a container filled with flammable liquid, police said.
The liquid started a fire at 3:45 am and set off the alarm system in the temple, which alerted the priests living nearby.
"A major fire was averted with only a part of a carpet inside the temple catching fire," Jiwan Singla, past president and building committee chairman of the 13-year-old temple, said.
Police found foot marks of two people outside, which they traced to a field.
<b>After the first attack on February 22, the temple had installed video cameras outside in addition to the ones inside, installed after an earlier attack two years ago.</b>
One such camera captured the container being thrown through the window and the resulting fire. But the camera could not capture the culprits on the videotape, sources said.
"There's no indication this is a hate crime, but you never know," St Louis County police officer Mason Keller was quoted in the media. "But with two incidents in two weeks, there's a good chance it might be. It's certainly very coincidental."
The FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms are also involved in the investigation.
"We are worried about the safety of the community members," Singla said.
The temple officials are looking into additional security measures, including hiring a security guard and installing perimeter fencing, motion-detector lights and more cameras.
In the February 22 incident the fire quickly burned itself out, charring a 4-foot section of the door. Officials came to know of the attack the next morning only when they came to open the temple, located at 725, Weidman Road in west St Louis County.
There is no threat to the temple or of acts of graffiti at the temple, police insist.
The temple, with Lord Venkatesa as the principal deity, is one of the largest in the US serving more than 8,000 families.
There is a community center named after Mahatma Gandhi in front of the temple and a mosque a furlong away.
Krishna Reddy, president of the trustee board, pointed out the temple has no dispute with anybody, but said there was an attack on the statues in front of the temple two years ago. Vandals had cut parts of the statues, which were later replaced.
In spite of the attack on February 28, the Maha Shivratri celebrations in the temple went on with the usual festivities. The celebrations had begun at 7 am on March 1.
Incidentally, on the same night as the first firebombing on February 22, someone broke the glass front door on the Hindu Temple and Cultural Center of Kansas City in Shawnee, Kansas, causing damage estimated at about $700.
An FBI spokesman in Kansas City told the St Louis Post Dispatch that the incident was not being investigated as a hate crime.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--> Hindu Temple Officials Wait For Their Day In Court
E-Mail this report to a friend
Arthur J Pais
Mahesh Dixit is clearly tired of the controversy that has bogged down the plans for a $ 2 million project to build a cultural center adjacent to a temple in Berlin Borough, about an hour's drive from New York.
"We have been working on it for many years, and when we were able to start the construction work, the town changes its zoning laws," he says with a heavy sigh. The cultural center was to be built on a seven acre land near the Hindu temple housed since 1982 in a former Baptist church.
Dixit, an engineer with Simon & Webster in the nearby Cherry Hill town, is one of the pillars of the Indian Temple Associates Cultural Center that manages the temple. He has officiated as a priest at the temple since its inception.
The Center bought the land for $ 20,000 and has spent about $ 100,000 in engineering and traffic studies and sent notices -- as per the law -- to property owners within 200 feet of the site in November about the proposed cultural center. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->"Hindu Temple to Challenge State Judge on Religious Grounds"
by Robert F. Worth ("The New York Times," August 4, 2004)
A prominent Hindu temple in Queens plans to file a motion in federal court today accusing a state judge of violating the separation of church and state by intervening in the temple's affairs.
The motion is the latest step in a growing legal struggle at the Hindu Temple Society of North America that is now being followed by Hindus throughout the country.
The motion, to be filed in Federal District Court in Brooklyn, seeks to stop the state courts from forcing the temple to hold elections for its board of trustees. A state appellate panel ordered the elections a year ago, a bitter defeat for the temple's current 11-member board and a victory for the group of six disaffected members who had filed suit to demand the elections.
"We're trying to prevent the court from imposing a non-Hindu form of control on the largest Hindu temple in America," said Roman Storzer, a lawyer with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a nonprofit law firm based in Washington that is representing the board of trustees.
Temple elections are unheard of in India, but they have become common in this country. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->On November 27, 2003 Metro West reported that an Ashland, Massachusetts teenager defaced a Hindu temple in Ashland on Halloween. Anthony Picciolo, 17, was convicted of spray painting hate messages. Police said Piccioli spray painted 'Sand N------ beware,' and 'head,' on a rock near the Hindu temple. Police said 'head' was short for 'towel head.' On June 25, 2003 in Boston, an Indian graduate student named Saurabh Bhalerao, who was working part time as a pizza deliveryman, was the target of deplorable abuse. He was robbed, beaten, burned with cigarettes, stuffed in a trunk and stabbed twice before finally being dumped along a road. Police suspect that the attackers mistook the Hindu man for a Muslim. As they were beating him, the attackers supposedly taunted, "go back to Iraq." <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Introduction
In Chino Hills, California, Hindus are fighting for the construction of a 20-acre Swaminarayan Temple and Cultural Center that would liven the freeway area, increase city revenue, and provide a religious space for Hindus and an amazing cultural resource for the entire community.
The controversy surrounding the construction of the BAPS Chino Hills Hindu Religious and Cultural Center serves as a good example of the sorts of problems Hindu temples face in the US and how factors like zoning laws, school curricula, city priorities, and level of support for immigrant communities affect the general opinion of and attitude towards a proposed project such as this.
....
Other community members feel uncomfortable with such an obvious minority presence. In particular, Larry Blugrind, a Chino Hills resident, vocalized this concern in two letters. The first, dated June 5, 2003, reads: "Should this temple be allowed to be built, you are opening the door to Pandora's box. What will then happen is, for example, Chinese, Arabic, and other nationalities will want to build buildings in Chino Hills with THEIR third world architecture, and part of Chino Hills will look like a third world country." (21) saying in a later letter, dated June 21, 2003, he writes, referring to "that horrible Hindu temple," saying, "For one, it will RUIN, i.e., NOT FIT INTO the RURAL ATMOSPHERE of Chino Hills!!!"
<b>One letter expressed concern because most Chino Hills residents are Judeo-Christian, and Hinduism, which the letter incorrectly defined as a polytheistic religion, goes against the beliefs of the majority of the residents. (22)</b>
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
These are the issues that Indians in the US face just to open a few dozen Temples. Compare and contrast this with the tens of thousands of Churches and Madrassas that are propping up all over India in the past few years, primarily due to funding from foreign fundamentalist groups. Look at what has happened in Andhra Pradesh.... :evil:<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-"Sudhir"+-->QUOTE("Sudhir")<!--QuoteEBegin-->Attacks in the United States on Indian Temples and discrimination against opening/expanding Hindu temples are more common that one would think. Its not popularly known due to our tendency to burry things under the carpet and not make an issue - The noticeable difference is that Hindus in the US don't ask the UN or some foreign NGO / Government to assist them against discrimination as is the "victimization" tendency of Christians in India. Its not their fault but due to no good folks like Dayal and his cohorts who work with Southern Baptist and other evangelical Christian sects in the US against India.
For example:
1) The Missouri temple has been vandalized <b>thrice </b> in the last 3 years (2 times fire bombed with Movtov cocktails)
2) The Bridgewater, NJ temple (that area is home to many Pharma/Biotech/Hitech companies and hence Indians) has been denied to expand its small temple on the grounds of too much traffic. If you drive in that area you will find about a dozen churches and a small temple that serves probably a several thousand families. If you think this is something from the distant past, the Bridgewater Township ruled against it in Nov 2005. They even limited the number of priests that could be at the temple.
Take this Bridgewater example and apply to nearly a dozen other proposed temple locations in the US that are being held up in a discriminatory manner (probally the best known example is the BAPS temple in Chino Hills, California)
3) Take the California action on correcting the portrayal of Hinduism in the California textbooks. As someone who grew up in the US, I can say first hand that the US school texts on India / Hinduism are mere excuses to teach stereotypes and bigotry.
There are numerous more examples... here are some news clips of recent incidents:
<!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->
Hindu Temple Firebombed
By GEORGE JOSEPH
Rediff.com, New York, Mar. 1, 2003
"The police and F.B.I. are at a loss why a fire bomb was thrown at the Hindu temple in St. Louis, Missouri, on the night of Feb. 22. 'It seemed to be a crude bomb or Molotov cocktail, which set fire to the front door of the temple,' Krishna Reddy, president of the temple trustee board, said. The police have registered a hate crime case, officials said. The fire quickly burned itself out, charring a four-foot section of the door. The attack happened after midnight, Reddy thinks. Temple officials discovered the attack when they arrived to open the shrine the next morning. 'There are four priests living in the compound a little behind the temple. They did not hear anything that night,' Reddy said. 'We are getting a lot of support from the police, F.B.I. and other officials. There is no panic in the community,' Jiwan Singla, chairman of the temple building committee, said. 'Everything is normal, but we are increasing security,' he said."
---
"There was no threat to the temple, police said. The temple has no dispute with anyone, Reddy noted. There was an attack on statues in front of the temple two years ago, he said. Vandals cut parts of the statues, which were replaced later. After that incident, security cameras were installed inside the temple. 'Now we are installing security cameras outside the temple,' Reddy said. Established 13 years ago, it is one of the largest temples in the U.S. serving more than 8,000 families. Lord Venkatesa is the principal deity. 'Maybe it's just kids, I don't know, but what they did is serious and it could have been worse,' Reddy said. 'We certainly hope they don't come back.' Maha Shivratri celebrations are scheduled for Mar. 1. 'The attack has not changed anything,' Singla noted. All the activities will go on as scheduled, he said."
---
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Another attack on temple in Missouri
George Joseph | March 05, 2003 03:06 IST
A second firebomb attack on the temple at St Louis in Missouri has made the Indian community jittery.
On February 28, someone first threw a brick through a window followed by a container filled with flammable liquid, police said.
The liquid started a fire at 3:45 am and set off the alarm system in the temple, which alerted the priests living nearby.
"A major fire was averted with only a part of a carpet inside the temple catching fire," Jiwan Singla, past president and building committee chairman of the 13-year-old temple, said.
Police found foot marks of two people outside, which they traced to a field.
<b>After the first attack on February 22, the temple had installed video cameras outside in addition to the ones inside, installed after an earlier attack two years ago.</b>
One such camera captured the container being thrown through the window and the resulting fire. But the camera could not capture the culprits on the videotape, sources said.
"There's no indication this is a hate crime, but you never know," St Louis County police officer Mason Keller was quoted in the media. "But with two incidents in two weeks, there's a good chance it might be. It's certainly very coincidental."
The FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms are also involved in the investigation.
"We are worried about the safety of the community members," Singla said.
The temple officials are looking into additional security measures, including hiring a security guard and installing perimeter fencing, motion-detector lights and more cameras.
In the February 22 incident the fire quickly burned itself out, charring a 4-foot section of the door. Officials came to know of the attack the next morning only when they came to open the temple, located at 725, Weidman Road in west St Louis County.
There is no threat to the temple or of acts of graffiti at the temple, police insist.
The temple, with Lord Venkatesa as the principal deity, is one of the largest in the US serving more than 8,000 families.
There is a community center named after Mahatma Gandhi in front of the temple and a mosque a furlong away.
Krishna Reddy, president of the trustee board, pointed out the temple has no dispute with anybody, but said there was an attack on the statues in front of the temple two years ago. Vandals had cut parts of the statues, which were later replaced.
In spite of the attack on February 28, the Maha Shivratri celebrations in the temple went on with the usual festivities. The celebrations had begun at 7 am on March 1.
Incidentally, on the same night as the first firebombing on February 22, someone broke the glass front door on the Hindu Temple and Cultural Center of Kansas City in Shawnee, Kansas, causing damage estimated at about $700.
An FBI spokesman in Kansas City told the St Louis Post Dispatch that the incident was not being investigated as a hate crime.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--> Hindu Temple Officials Wait For Their Day In Court
E-Mail this report to a friend
Arthur J Pais
Mahesh Dixit is clearly tired of the controversy that has bogged down the plans for a $ 2 million project to build a cultural center adjacent to a temple in Berlin Borough, about an hour's drive from New York.
"We have been working on it for many years, and when we were able to start the construction work, the town changes its zoning laws," he says with a heavy sigh. The cultural center was to be built on a seven acre land near the Hindu temple housed since 1982 in a former Baptist church.
Dixit, an engineer with Simon & Webster in the nearby Cherry Hill town, is one of the pillars of the Indian Temple Associates Cultural Center that manages the temple. He has officiated as a priest at the temple since its inception.
The Center bought the land for $ 20,000 and has spent about $ 100,000 in engineering and traffic studies and sent notices -- as per the law -- to property owners within 200 feet of the site in November about the proposed cultural center. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->"Hindu Temple to Challenge State Judge on Religious Grounds"
by Robert F. Worth ("The New York Times," August 4, 2004)
A prominent Hindu temple in Queens plans to file a motion in federal court today accusing a state judge of violating the separation of church and state by intervening in the temple's affairs.
The motion is the latest step in a growing legal struggle at the Hindu Temple Society of North America that is now being followed by Hindus throughout the country.
The motion, to be filed in Federal District Court in Brooklyn, seeks to stop the state courts from forcing the temple to hold elections for its board of trustees. A state appellate panel ordered the elections a year ago, a bitter defeat for the temple's current 11-member board and a victory for the group of six disaffected members who had filed suit to demand the elections.
"We're trying to prevent the court from imposing a non-Hindu form of control on the largest Hindu temple in America," said Roman Storzer, a lawyer with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a nonprofit law firm based in Washington that is representing the board of trustees.
Temple elections are unheard of in India, but they have become common in this country. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->On November 27, 2003 Metro West reported that an Ashland, Massachusetts teenager defaced a Hindu temple in Ashland on Halloween. Anthony Picciolo, 17, was convicted of spray painting hate messages. Police said Piccioli spray painted 'Sand N------ beware,' and 'head,' on a rock near the Hindu temple. Police said 'head' was short for 'towel head.' On June 25, 2003 in Boston, an Indian graduate student named Saurabh Bhalerao, who was working part time as a pizza deliveryman, was the target of deplorable abuse. He was robbed, beaten, burned with cigarettes, stuffed in a trunk and stabbed twice before finally being dumped along a road. Police suspect that the attackers mistook the Hindu man for a Muslim. As they were beating him, the attackers supposedly taunted, "go back to Iraq." <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Introduction
In Chino Hills, California, Hindus are fighting for the construction of a 20-acre Swaminarayan Temple and Cultural Center that would liven the freeway area, increase city revenue, and provide a religious space for Hindus and an amazing cultural resource for the entire community.
The controversy surrounding the construction of the BAPS Chino Hills Hindu Religious and Cultural Center serves as a good example of the sorts of problems Hindu temples face in the US and how factors like zoning laws, school curricula, city priorities, and level of support for immigrant communities affect the general opinion of and attitude towards a proposed project such as this.
....
Other community members feel uncomfortable with such an obvious minority presence. In particular, Larry Blugrind, a Chino Hills resident, vocalized this concern in two letters. The first, dated June 5, 2003, reads: "Should this temple be allowed to be built, you are opening the door to Pandora's box. What will then happen is, for example, Chinese, Arabic, and other nationalities will want to build buildings in Chino Hills with THEIR third world architecture, and part of Chino Hills will look like a third world country." (21) saying in a later letter, dated June 21, 2003, he writes, referring to "that horrible Hindu temple," saying, "For one, it will RUIN, i.e., NOT FIT INTO the RURAL ATMOSPHERE of Chino Hills!!!"
<b>One letter expressed concern because most Chino Hills residents are Judeo-Christian, and Hinduism, which the letter incorrectly defined as a polytheistic religion, goes against the beliefs of the majority of the residents. (22)</b>
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
These are the issues that Indians in the US face just to open a few dozen Temples. Compare and contrast this with the tens of thousands of Churches and Madrassas that are propping up all over India in the past few years, primarily due to funding from foreign fundamentalist groups. Look at what has happened in Andhra Pradesh.... :evil:<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->