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New Delhi: Kuppahalli Sitaramayya Sudarshan, the fifth Sarsanghchalak of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), will always be remembered in the Sangh fraternity for laying ideological foundations of at least three key issues whose journey ultimately culminated decades later in the form of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), Atmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India) and renewed focus on the Northeast by the Narendra Modi government ever since it came to power in 2014.

On his 119th anniversary, which falls on 6 June, it is interesting to take a look at his legacy as it seems to be getting manifested in many crucial decisions of the current government at the Centre. (Although Sudarshan was born on 18 June, 1931, according to the Gregorian calendar, the RSS adheres to the Bharatiya calendar, according to which his birth anniversary falls on 6 June this year.)

It was during Sudrashans stint first as the sarkaryavah (general Secretary) from 1990 onwards and then as the sarsanghchalak from 2000-2012 that the RSS-backed Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM) often hit the headlines for challenging successive governments over key economic decisions such as allowing Foreign Direct Investment in non-priority areas and succumbing to pressures of World Trade Organisation, especially on the issue of reducing subsidies for agriculture, and facing pressure from a more stringent patent regime.

Along with senior RSS pracharak Dattopant Thengadi, a co-founder of the SJM, it was Sudarshan who clearly put forward the swadeshi model of economics that favoured a self-reliant India, which is being reflected today in Modi governments ambitious plan of making India atmanirbhar.

Sudarshan was a strong opponent of the western model of economic development and favoured a self-reliant India.

He had said, The root cause of poverty and unemployment in India is this specific Western model of development as it is centralised, high energy-consuming, urban-centric, capital-intensive, promoting unemployment and destroying nature. We need to replace this model with an economy, which is decentralised and based on rural India.

Instead of walking into the trap of globalisation and foreign debt, it would be better if we promote rural development with the resources we have at our disposal. It should consume least energy and it should be less capital-intensive while creating more jobs and conserving the environment, he had stressed.

According to Devendra Swaroop, an RSS ideologue who worked very closely with Sudarshan since 1950s, When Rajju Bhayya (the fourth sarsanghchalak) handed over the charge of the sarsanghchalak to Sudarshanji because of the formers frail health, the latter himself studied swadeshi science and technology very closely in every part of the country. He used to explain them with very minute details.

Also read: Hindu Samrajya Diwas why and how RSS is reviving a forgotten chapter of history

During his tenure in the Northeast as an RSS pracharak, which began in 1977, Sudarshan played an important role in identifying several key issues such as illegal migration from Bangladesh and mass conversion of tribals into Christianity.

The current government has passed the Citizenship Amendment Act and taken up the development of Northeastern states as top priority since 2014, spelling it out openly.

The BJP, an ideological mentee of the RSS, has also become a strong force to reckon with in the Northeast as it has scored significant electoral victories there.

The bugle for the need of many of these initiatives, which are being initiated by the Modi government, was first sounded by Sudarshan who spent considerable time in the Northeast as a pracharak.

Former national president of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and ex-Union minister Murli Manohar Joshi puts it aptly: I was in-charge of the Northeast when Sudarshanji was working there. I was deeply impressed by his in-depth study and thought process At that time, we prepared several programmes, which were executed in future. The agitation on illegal migrants was one such issue. Sudarshanji had prepared an intellectual and emotional ground for this agitation much before it was launched.

Within the RSS also, Sudarshan was one of the first ones to flag the issue of illegal migration of Bangladeshi Muslims to Northeast, specially Assam. He considered illegal migration to be an attack from across the border. He travelled extensively to states like Tripura, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, among others, to study the issue of illegal immigration and its impact. He prepared a detailed plan to counter this influx and resolve the issue.

Ashok Singhal, another senior RSS pracharak, who passed away in 2015 and was a key figure in the Ram Temple movement, had worked and interacted closely with Sudarshan.

He remembered Sudarshan fondly in one of his articles.

As a pracharak (whole-timer) in the Northeast, first he learned Bengali and Assamese. He could deliver lectures fluently in both these languages. He studied in-depth the activities of the Church and exposed them Later, he sent a number of pracharaks from all over the country to work there in view of the gravity of the problem.

Singhal further added: He studied the tribes in the Northeast in detail He suggested ways and means to protect tribes from the influence of Christian Missionaries. Several schools and hostels for students were set up. The Bangladeshi Muslims were migrating illegally to Assam, West Bengal and Bihar in a planned way; simultaneously, the Hindus from Bangladesh, unable to protect themselves, were also migrating.

At that time, it was Sudarshanji who told the countrymen and especially the Assamese people, that while the Muslims coming from Bangladesh were illegal immigrants, the Hindus coming from there were refugees. So, the latter should be sheltered by the Hindus in the rest of India. Meanwhile, the illegal Muslim immigrants who have settled in West Bengal, Bihar and Assam should be deported back to Bangladesh. The six Northeastern states gradually understood his argument, Singhal said.

Kolkata-based senior journalist Asim Kumar Mitra, who attended the third year training camp of the RSS at Nagpur in 1959 along with Sudarshan, had the opportunity to watch him from close quarters when the latter was given the responsibility of Purvanchal region in late 1970s.

Under the Sanghs organisational structure, Purvanchal was quite a big region covering Northeast as well as Bihar, West Bengal and Odisha. Prior to him, RSS stalwarts like Rajju Bhayya and Bhaurao Deoras had been appointed at this position.

It was a region that faced many complex socio-economic issues and it was a formidable challenge to spread the RSS work there.

Mitra underlined the fact that Sudarshan played a key role in ensuring that the movement started by Asom Gana Parishad against illegal immigrants from Bangladesh did not turn against Bengali Hindus.

The Muslims in Assam tried to make it an anti-Bengali agitation but Sudarshan could not only see through this conspiracy, he also realised the long-term adverse impact of an anti-Bengali movement. This would have affected Hindus severely while skirting the real problem, he added.

Also read: Gandhi admired Hindutva icon Savarkar as lover of truth, addressed him as bhai

Born in Raipur, (now in Chhattisgarh), Sudarshan had his early studies in Raipur, Damoh and Mandla.

In 1953, Sudarshan finished his four-year degree course in telecom engineering. One of the long-lasting influences on him was of senior RSS pracharak Eknath Ranade, who was a regular visitor to his hostel during his intermediate days.

He inspired Sudarshan to take up RSS work full-time. After taking his final examination of the engineering course, he finished his four-month practical training and instead of picking up a coveted and well-paid job, chose to become an RSS pracharak. He was formally appointed as an RSS pracharak on 23 June, 1954 in Raigarh district as a tehsil pracharak looking after three tehsils Champa, Janjgir and Bilaspur.

He worked there for a little less than two years and was then appointed as the Nagar (town/city) Pracharak in-charge of Sagar in 1956. He was elevated to the post of Zila (district) Pracharak. From 1957-64, he looked after Vindhya Vibhag as a Vibhag Pracharak. He was given the responsibility of Prant Pracharak of Madhya Prant in 1964 and was based in Indore.

He played an instrumental role in the launch of daily newspaper Swadesh in which he wrote extensively. While he was the Prant Pracharak of Madhya Prant, he was also given the responsibility of Akhil Bharatiya Sharirik Pramukh (All-India in-charge of the physical activities in the RSS).

When former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared emergency in June 1975, Sudarshan was arrested and he was in Indore jail for 19 months.

After the emergency was lifted and he came out of jail, Sudarshan was made the in-charge of Purvanchal (East India). Thus, apart from Hindi, Marathi, Kannada, Tamil and English, he also developed fluency in Assamese, Bengali and Odia.

While holding the charge of Purvanchal, he was given the additional responsibility of Akhil Bharatiya Bauddhik Pramukh (All India in-charge of the intellectual activities of the RSS).

In 1990, he was given the responsibility of Sahsarkaryawah and in 2000, he donned the mantle of the RSS Sarsanghchalak.

It was Sudarshan himself who handed over the mantle to the current RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, nine years later. He passed away in Raipur on 15 September 2012.

(All the quotes used in the article have been taken from the book Hamare Sudarshan ji edited by Baldev Bhai Sharma.)

The writer is CEO of Indraprastha Vishwa Samvad Kendra, an RSS affiliate, and author of two books on the RSS.

Also read: Pro-Hindutva groups see larger conspiracy in Palghar killings, want CBI probe

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CAA, Atmanirbhar Bharat, focus on Northeast were first propagated by this former RSS chief - ThePrint

New York City officials and law enforcement will no longer be able to use the terms "alien" and "illegal immigrant" to refer to undocumented immigrants.

The NYC Council voted Thursday to ban the "dehumanizing and offensive" words in local laws, rules and documents, said Speaker Corey Johnson. The term that officials will use going forward will be "noncitizen."

These words are outdated and loaded words used to dehumanize the people they describe. Its time to retire them," Council Member Francisco Moya said ahead of the vote. "Words matter. The language we choose to use has power and consequences."

Last year, the city's Commission on Human Rights issued a guidance that made it illegal to use the terms illegal alien" or "illegals" with "intent to demean, humiliate or harass a person."

The guidance also made it illegal to harass or discriminate against "someone for their use of another language or their limited English proficiency, andthreatening to call Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on a person based on a discriminatory motive.

Original post:
NYC Council Votes to Ban the Terms Alien and Illegal Immigrant on Official Docs - NBC New York

Vandals targeting ICE agents stepped over the line when they desecrated the units flag outside the agencys Burlington field office, a top immigration official told the Herald.

The federal Department of Homeland Security flag at the site was altered to read ICE KILLS and Free Them All.

Unfortunately, this is typical of those who think they can overturn the rule of law by criminal acts, said Todd M. Lyons, acting field office director of enforcement and removal operations for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Boston.

A crisis is no time to stop enforcing the law, Lyons said Thursday.

ICE agents have worked during the pandemic targeting illegal immigrant drug dealers and murderers from other countries, officials said. But theyve been doing so while the country is locked in a debate over incarceration during the coronavirus outbreak.

Prisons both in Massachusetts and across the nation have struggled to deal with close quarters in lockups while trying not to set dangerous criminals free.

The vandalism of the units flag was circulated on social media by groups who have been targeting ICE officers and calling for jails to let detainees go.

Spotted today at ICEs Boston Field Office to kick off our #FreeThemAll National Day of Action. Done anonymously, the new flag reads: ICE Kills. Free Them All. #FreeThemAll, tweeted one supporter.

Lyons said keeping city streets safe, from Boston to Lawrence and all over New England, has to come first.

Our ICE officers, who are first responders who have never stopped doing their work of protecting our communities from violent criminal aliens during this pandemic, will not be intimidated or dissuaded from protecting the communities of the commonwealth, Lyons said.

As to their message, were already seeing on our streets, especially in Boston, the dangerous impacts that come from the idea of taking advantage of a health crisis by letting everyone out of all detention centers, he added.

Boston Police Commissioner William Gross Thursday lashed out at gunplay in the city by a few criminals and gang members.

Violent offenders should not be released to the neighborhoods. Theyre coming back without a re-entry program, Gross said.

Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson, who houses some illegal immigrant detainees at the Bristol County House of Correction, said setting offenders free is backfiring. He said detainees released by a federal judge over coronavirus concerns are flouting house arrest orders by leaving their homes.

Read more:
ICE flag vandalism sparks outrage from top federal immigration agent - Boston Herald

The vandals who desecrated the federal Department of Homeland Security flag outside the ICE field office in Burlington had to have put some planning into their juvenile effort, but clearly, very little thought.

Spotted today at ICEs Boston Field Office to kick off our #FreeThemAll National Day of Action. Done anonymously, the new flag reads: ICE Kills. Free Them All. #FreeThemAll, one supporter tweeted as the vandalized flag was circulated on social media by groups that have been calling for jails to let detainees go.

Heres what kills: fentanyl and heroin, two drugs at the heart of the opioid crisis sweeping Massachusetts and the country. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 69,029 people died of drug overdose deaths in the U.S. between 2018-2019.

Heres what the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency does: bust drug traffickers and take their poison off the streets.

Last August, ICE arrested 19 people throughout the state during a four-day operation, targeting illegal immigrants convicted or charged with fentanyl, heroin and other drug trafficking crimes. Many of them had been released from local law enforcement custody into local communities with no notification to ICE.

That was just one of several sweeps netting lethal drugs headed for sale in the region.

One must ask these social justice warriors espousing free them all are deaths from fentanyl and heroin trafficked by illegal immigrants collateral damage in the culture war for open borders?

The blame for the puerile prank doesnt rest only with the flag defacers. It must be shared by the virtue-signalling sanctuary cities, who broadcast the notion that its OK to break the law. In doing so, they imperil their own communities, and the men and women who work to keep them safe.

Unfortunately, this is typical of those who think they can overturn the rule of law by criminal acts, said Todd M. Lyons, acting field office director of enforcement and removal operations for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Boston.

During the coronavirus pandemic, ICE agents continue to go after drug dealers and murderers from other countries, officials said.

They deserve our gratitude for doing so.

But the progressive set has called for detainee releases in the name of coronavirus safety amid crowded lockup conditions.

Were already seeing on our streets, especially in Boston, the dangerous impacts that come from the idea of taking advantage of a health crisis by letting everyone out of all detention centers, Lyons said.

Boston Police Commissioner William Gross has spoken out at the increase in gunplay in the city.

Violent offenders should not be released to the neighborhoods. Theyre coming back without a re-entry program, Gross said.

But the free them all proponents dont think about the end result what happens should drug traffickers, rapists, murders, gang members and domestic abusers be let back into the community.

The move to release offenders to keep them safe from the coronavirus is backfiring, according to Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson, He said detainees from the Bristol County House of Correction who were released by a federal judge over coronavirus concerns are ignoring house arrest orders.

The flag defacers may think theyve scored some victory they havent but if they paused to think about the crucial role ICE plays in their own safety, they should feel ashamed.

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Flag defacers bite hand that protects them - Boston Herald

My colleagues and I have written extensively about the immigration restrictions that the president has implemented in response to the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic and in particular in response to the massive shutdown of the economy that the states and federal government have imposed in response to the disease as well as the steps he could yet take. An underlying point that all of these actions and proposals underscore is the fact that, as my colleague Steven Camarota stated on Thursday: "Immigration is fundamentally a labor issue."

This is not a new idea, but it is one that gets lost in debates over immigration, which generally focus on slightly more lofty and intangible themes like the idea that the United States is a "nation of immigrants", the immigrant experiences of the narrators' (and their opponents') forebears, and citations to the poem attached to the Statue of Liberty. Generally, these points are raised to cover the true agenda of those who want more immigration (political gain or cheaper labor, depending on the source), and are all really little more than sophistic and fallacious tu quoque talking points.

For those of you not familiar with the tu quoque (which literally means "you too" in Latin, but is more properly defined as "but what about you?") fallacy, ThoughtCo describes it as: "An ad hominem argument in which the accused becomes the accuser."

Think that immigrants who come to the United States should be able to support themselves, without government handouts? Expect a response along the lines of "but we are a nation of immigrants", or "your (or my) ancestors came to America with nothing and look at how successful you (or I) am" or "what about 'Give me your tired, your poor'?" The original policy is sound and logical, so the opponent has to turn to questionable visceral appeals in response.

But what proof do I have that immigration to the United States is fundamentally about labor? Well, appeal to authority for one. Professor Vernon Briggs, Jr. of Cornell University, in testimony before the House Judiciary Committee in 2006, quoted "America's most influential labor leader, Samuel Gompers" first president of the American Federation of Labor (the forerunner to the AFL-CIO) who "observed in his autobiography: Immigration is, in all of its fundamental aspects ... a labor problem."

And history, for another. Long before there was a Department of Homeland Security (and long before the Department of Justice had authority over immigration adjudications and enforcement), the responsibility for immigration enforcement rested with the then-Department of Commerce and Labor (beginning in February 1903). As U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has explained, the reason why that department handled immigration was "[b]ecause most immigration laws of the time sought to protect American workers and wages." Significantly, when the Department of Labor was founded in 1913, the responsibility for control of immigration enforcement went with it.

"Most immigration laws" still seek to protect American workers and wages. For example, section 212(a)(5)(A)(i) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) explicitly states:

Any alien who seeks to enter the United States for the purpose of performing skilled or unskilled labor is inadmissible, unless the Secretary of Labor has determined and certified to the Secretary of State and the Attorney General that-

(I) there are not sufficient workers who are able, willing, qualified (or equally qualified in the case of an alien described in clause (ii)) and available at the time of application for a visa and admission to the United States and at the place where the alien is to perform such skilled or unskilled labor, and

(II) the employment of such alien will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of workers in the United States similarly employed. [Emphasis added.]

That provision is bolstered by sections 212(a)(6) ("Illegal Entrants and Immigration Violators") and 212(a)(7) ("Documentation Requirements") of the INA.

This bedrock principle was undermined, to some degree, by the Immigration Act of 1965, which repealed the irrational national-origins quotas that had been in the law for decades (good) but also replaced it with, in the words of the Migration Policy Institute, "a preference system based on immigrants' family relationships with U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents and, to a lesser degree, their skills" (not so good). As the Center explained in 1995: "For the first time, [the 1965 Immigration Act] gave higher preference to the relatives of American citizens and permanent resident aliens than to applicants with special job skills." One's familial ties, not the skills that the newcomer could offer to grow the American economy and provide jobs to other Americans, were now paramount.

The House of Representatives has noted: "The law capped the number of annual visas at 290,000, which included a restriction of 20,000 visas per country per year. But policymakers had vastly underestimated the number of immigrants who would take advantage of the family reunification clause." And how. In FY 2018, 1,096,611 aliens obtained lawful permanent resident status, which even then was actually well below the 1,826,595 aliens who received green cards in FY 1991 (the 200-year highpoint).

It is no wonder that Barbara Jordan, civil rights icon and then-Chairwoman of President Clinton's Commission on Immigration Reform, almost 25 years ago recommended a core admissions level of 550,000 per year and changes to the family-based immigration system to eliminate visas for all except the minor children, dependent children, spouses, and parents of U.S. citizens and the spouses, minor children, and dependent children of lawful permanent residents. As she stated:

Unless there is a compelling national interest to do otherwise, immigrants should be chosen on the basis of the skills they contribute to the U.S. economy. The Commission believes that admission of nuclear family members and refugees provide such a compelling national interest, even if they are low-skilled. Reunification of adult children and siblings of adult citizens solely because of their family relationship is not as compelling. [Emphasis added.]

While those reforms never came to pass, President Trump proposed a similar reordering of the U.S. immigration system to focus on skills-based immigration last year, explaining:

About 70 percent of immigrants who come to the United States today are admitted based on family relationships or through a random visa lottery a system that favors random chance over the skills our economy needs. Through a point-based merit system, the President's plan increases the number of legal immigrants selected based on skill or merit from 12 percent to 57 percent.

That proposal has gone nowhere, either, but the massive increase in the number of unemployed Americans resulting from Wuhan coronavirus shutdowns (Fortune estimates the real jobless rate at more like 23.9 percent) bolsters the president's position. There is no reason to be importing unskilled distant relatives into the American economy today.

Of course, none of the immigration numbers above include nonimmigrant (i.e., temporary) employment-based visas. In FY 2018, USCIS approved 332,358 H-1B (skilled worker) petitions, and in FY 2019, the Department of State issued 97,431 H-2B (temporary non-skilled) visas. It is beyond cavil that petitions were approved months ago for foreign nationals waiting to come into the United States to take a job for which there are scores of willing American workers today.

Again, as Jordan testified almost a quarter century ago: "Immigration policy must protect U.S. workers against unfair competition from foreign workers, with an appropriately higher level of protection to the most vulnerable in our society." That was true then, and even truer now because "the most vulnerable in our society" now include those who three months ago were able to provide for themselves and their families in workplaces that are now shuttered, many of which will never reopen (one estimate states that "42 percent of recent layoffs will result in permanent job loss").

I am not talking about the local restaurant or gym, either. In early May, CNN reported: "General Electric ... said Monday that it is cutting as many as 13,000 jobs in its jet engine business for good." That is one company in one industry. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects that, even if the unemployment rate drops to 9.5 percent by the end of 2021 (a big "if"), "the labor force would have about 6 million fewer people" than under its earlier January 2020 forecast. Immigration policymakers must recognize that times have changed, for the worse.

I believe in immigration, and in the vibrancy and diversity that new populations add to our country. But at the end of the day, immigration has to first and foremost serve the American people. As Jordan stated:

If we cannot control illegal immigration, we cannot sustain our national interest in legal immigration. Those who come here illegally, and those who hire them, will destroy the credibility of our immigration policies and their implementation. In the course of that, I fear, they will destroy our commitment to immigration itself.

The same could be said today of legal immigration. But there are powerful forces who, for example, do not want the president to cut temporary guestworker visas, in order to protect short-term business interests. They may be successful, in the short run. In the long run, however, they will likely damage Americans' "commitment to immigration itself". We all lose then.

For the good of the millions of unemployed Americans, for the continued good of our legal immigration system, and for the good of their own reelection prospects, our leaders need to recognize the simple fact: "Immigration is fundamentally a labor issue." And act accordingly.

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Immigration and Labor, One and Inseparable - Immigration Blog