US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has classified two Hindu groups — Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal — as “militant religious outfits” and called Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) a nationalist organisation.
The entries in the latest update of the CIA World Factbook stirred widespread protests in India where protesters also claimed that a map posted with the changes also shows a section of the India-held Kashmir and the entire Azad Jammu and Kashmir as part of Pakistan.
They claimed that such changes “exposed the CIA’s anti-India” stance.
In statements published in the Indian media, militant Hindu groups also claimed that CIA itself was a terrorist organisation, which “spreads terror across the world for the benefit of America”.
An entry in the CIA Factbook notes that India has dozens of national and regional political parties’ pressure groups and leaders, including All Parties Hurriyat Conference, which was described as “a separatist group in the Kashmir Valley”. This too annoyed protesters in India who insisted that Hurriyat should have been classified as a terrorist or a militant group.
The demonstrators noted that the CIA was also lenient to another Muslim group, Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind, which is led by Maulana Mahmood Madani simply as a religious organisation while listing similar Hindu groups as militants.
