Giriraj Kishore

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Acharya Giriraj Kishore is an Indian activist and politician. He serves as the senior vice-president of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the militant, international wing of the Hindu nationalist Sangh Parivar.

Kishore is from state of Madhya Pradesh. As a schoolteacher in the town of Morena, he came to the attention of Vijayaraje Scindia, a prominent leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party from the region. Mrs. Scindia, whose sympathies lay with the VHP, gave him a start in that organisation in the Ram Janmabhoomi agitation^[1], with which he came to be closely associated.

He has since taken a hard line on the construction of a temple at the disputed site in Ayodhya, having admitted to "inflammatory and provocative speeches" on the day of the demolition justifying the Babri Masjid in 1992, subsequently stating that a "450-year-old stigma on the face of India has finally been removed". He has since then periodically demanded the erection of a temple at the site, even going as far as leading a charge on the disputed site that had to be repelled on the orders of the Bharatiya Janata Party government^[1].

Charges were laid against him for 'incitement' regarding the demolition, but he has responded to them by stressing that he did not feel he had committed a crime; and, that if the law chose to suppose he had, he would willingly accept any punishment^[2]. He has refused to speculate on the details of how he intends to ensure its construction; the British essayist Ian Buruma records Kishore's response when he was asked that question: "He closed his eyes and remained silent for a while. Then, all of a sudden, he said something astonishing: 'The solution to the Muslim problem is simple. The white men, the Hindus, and the Israelis must get together, and we will take care of the Muslim problem once and for all.'"^[3]

He has, indeed, something of a reputation as bombastic: his injudicious remarks have caused controversy on numerous occasions. Before the Durban Conference on racism, he wrote an op-ed for the Deccan Chronicle entitled arguing that the abolition of caste would be a human rights violation", which caused some consternation among Dalit activists. The Acharya supported his statement by pointing out that caste was based on "what profession man has adopted" and a part of "ancient customs and system"; abolition would be an impingement on traditional freedoms, especially as the existence of caste alone "does not say to anybody to discriminate against each other"^[4]. Following the murder of five Dalits in Jhajjar who had been apprehended skinning a cow^[5], he justified the VHP's defence of the accused murders and celebratory parade by indicating that the shastras say that the life of a cow was "more precious than that of a human being"^[6], and following reports that the VHP had not permitted the registering of an FIR, had said that it was "more important to ascertain if the men had actually killed the cow or were skinning a cow that was already dead".^[7]

He has also defended the practice of sati, saying that "there is nothing wrong if a woman who cannot bear the separation from her husband opts to join him in his funeral pyre", and that the revival of sati would "not be out of tune with the VHP’s ideology of establishing a Hindu Rashtra"^[1].

More recently, following terrorist attacks on temples, he has demanded that priests at Hindu temples be armed, that the new President of the BJP be someone "Hindu-minded" and that war be declared on Pakistan.

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