Frequently Asked Questions

The Vishva Hindu Parishad, commonly known as VHP, is a social, Dharmic and cultural organisation that works to organise, strengthen and serve Hindu society in Bharat and across the world.

Its work includes social service, cultural awareness, social harmony, engagement with Dharmacharyas, protection of temples and sacred traditions, support for vulnerable Hindu communities and coordination among different Hindu traditions and institutions.

“Vishva Hindu Parishad” may be translated as the “World Hindu Council.”

The name reflects the organisation’s objective of creating communication, cooperation and a sense of shared responsibility among Hindus living in different regions and countries.

VHP was founded on 29 August 1964, on the occasion of Shri Krishna Janmashtami.

Its formation was guided and blessed by respected saints and spiritual leaders representing different Hindu traditions.

VHP was established to strengthen Hindu society, protect and promote Hindu values in the context of changing times, and build stronger connections with Hindu communities around the world.

Its founders recognised that Hindu society was extraordinarily diverse but lacked a common platform through which its different traditions, communities and institutions could communicate and act together.

VHP is both Dharmic and social in its orientation.

It works on matters concerning Hindu Dharma, temples, traditions and religious rights, while also undertaking activities in education, healthcare, social harmony, relief, community development and public awareness.

No. VHP is not a political party and does not contest elections.

It is a social, cultural and Dharmic organisation. It may, however, express views on laws, public policies and national developments that affect Hindu society, temples, religious freedom, cultural heritage or national life.

VHP evaluates issues from the standpoint of Hindu society and national interest rather than functioning as an electoral organisation.

It may support a policy that it considers beneficial and oppose a policy that it considers harmful, irrespective of the party or government responsible for it.

VHP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh are distinct organisations with their own structures and areas of work.

They share a broad civilisational concern for Hindu society and Bharat, and their volunteers may cooperate on matters of common interest.

The central office of VHP is located at Sankat Mochan Hanuman Mandir Ashram, R.K. Puram, New Delhi. VHP also has regional and provincial structures across Bharat.

Yes. One of VHP’s founding objectives is to establish contact with and support Hindus living outside Bharat.

Its broader international work seeks to connect Hindu communities, institutions and spiritual traditions across countries while helping the diaspora preserve its cultural and Dharmic identity.

VHP’s principal objective is to organise and consolidate Hindu society and to serve and protect Hindu Dharma.

This includes cultivating unity, self-confidence, social responsibility and greater cooperation among Hindu communities and institutions.

For VHP, Hindu society includes the diverse communities, traditions, sects and schools of thought that have emerged from Bharat’s civilisational heritage.

Hindu unity does not require uniformity. It means recognising a deeper civilisational relationship while respecting differences in language, region, customs, deities, philosophies and modes of worship.

VHP understands Hindu identity in a broad civilisational sense.

It encompasses people and traditions rooted in Bharat’s Dharmic civilisation and connected through values such as Dharma, spiritual freedom, reverence for life, duty, family, social responsibility and respect for multiple paths of worship and realisation.

No.

Hindu Dharma has never depended upon a single prophet, institution, scripture, ritual or compulsory form of worship. VHP seeks unity and cooperation among Hindu traditions, not the elimination of their diversity.

Hindu unity means that differences of caste, community, region, language, sect or economic position should not prevent Hindus from recognising their shared civilisational interests and responsibilities.

It is unity based on mutual respect, not enforced sameness.

Dharma is broader than the English word “religion.”

It refers to the principles, duties, values and ways of living that sustain the individual, family, society, nature and the larger moral order.

For VHP, protecting Dharma means protecting the values and institutions that enable a just, responsible and harmonious society.

It means: “Dharma protects those who protect Dharma.”

The idea is that when individuals and societies uphold truth, duty, justice, restraint, compassion and righteousness, these principles in turn protect social order and human dignity.

No.

VHP does not see a contradiction between technological, scientific and economic progress and civilisational rootedness. Its concern is that modernisation should not require a society to become culturally rootless or ashamed of its inheritance.

The objective is to engage confidently with the modern world while preserving enduring values.

VHP believes that Hindu Dharma offers profound and enduring insights into human existence, spiritual freedom, social responsibility and harmony with nature.

At the same time, Hindu thought has traditionally recognised that individuals may follow different paths in their search for truth. Civilisational confidence need not require contempt for others.

VHP envisions a Bharat that is civilisationally confident, socially united, spiritually rooted and materially prosperous.

It seeks a society in which development and Dharma reinforce each other, social discrimination is overcome, cultural institutions flourish and every community can live with dignity and security.

VHP opposes untouchability and caste-based discrimination.

It believes that practices which humiliate, exclude or divide members of Hindu society contradict the fundamental spirit of Hindu unity and must be eliminated through social awakening, shared worship, community participation, service and personal conduct.

Samajik Samrasta means social harmony based on equality, fraternity, dignity and mutual belonging.

It is not merely the absence of conflict. It requires Hindus from different communities to eat together, worship together, serve together, participate in one another’s lives and reject discriminatory conduct.

Yes.

VHP’s social-harmony and service initiatives seek to work across caste and community boundaries. Its stated objective is to remove untouchability, strengthen dignity and create a deeper sense of unity within Hindu society.

Yes.

VHP works in many Janjati and geographically remote areas through education, healthcare, community development, cultural programmes, religious activities and local institution-building.

VHP regards Janjati communities as an integral part of Hindu civilisation, not as communities detached from it.

VHP considers untouchability a social evil that must be completely eradicated.

No Hindu should be denied dignity, temple entry, community participation, access to water, education, religious rites or social respect because of birth.

Women are central to the preservation, transmission and renewal of civilisation.

VHP supports greater participation by women in social service, cultural education, family strengthening, public leadership and the defence of religious and social rights.

VHP seeks to help young Hindus understand their civilisation, develop leadership, participate in service and respond intelligently to contemporary social and cultural questions.

Youth engagement may include study, physical development, volunteering, community initiatives, digital communication, temple activities, environmental work and public awareness.

Yes.

VHP is a national and international organisation. Hindu traditions expressed in Tamil, Bengali, Marathi, Kannada, Gujarati, Telugu, Malayalam, Assamese, Hindi and other languages are all part of Bharat’s shared civilisational heritage.

No one language, region or local custom defines the entirety of Hindu society.

Seva means selfless service performed with a sense of responsibility and kinship.

VHP views service not merely as charity from one group to another, but as an expression of the fundamental unity of society. Its official material describes Seva as a central feature of Bharatiya social thought and of the organisation’s work.

VHP-associated service activity has included education, healthcare, medical camps, ambulances, hostels, community development, self-reliance programmes, relief work, support for economically weaker families and initiatives in rural and Janjati areas.

Yes.

Educational work may include schools, informal learning centres, student hostels, value education, scholarships, learning support and programmes in underserved communities.

The broader objective is not only literacy, but also confidence, character, self-reliance and cultural awareness.

Yes.

Its official descriptions include dispensaries, mobile medical services, hospitals, ambulances, medical check-ups and village-level health support among its areas of work.

VHP volunteers and associated organisations have participated in relief and rehabilitation during natural disasters, public-health emergencies and other crises.

Such work may include food distribution, medical assistance, temporary shelter, transportation, cremation assistance and support for affected families.

Seva is guided by human need and the Dharmic spirit of compassion.

At the same time, VHP has a particular institutional responsibility toward disadvantaged, neglected or threatened sections of Hindu society, especially where their cultural and social needs have historically received inadequate attention.

Material deprivation and cultural disconnection often reinforce one another.

A community becomes genuinely empowered when it has education, health, livelihood, dignity, social confidence and a meaningful connection with its heritage. VHP therefore sees service and cultural renewal as complementary responsibilities.

A Hindu temple is not merely a place for individual prayer.

Traditionally, temples have served as centres of worship, learning, arts, festivals, charity, community organisation and local economic life. VHP therefore sees their protection, proper administration and spiritual vitality as matters of civilisational importance.

VHP believes Hindu temples should enjoy fair and accountable autonomy.

It questions arrangements under which governments exercise extensive control over Hindu religious institutions while institutions belonging to other religious communities enjoy greater freedom in managing their internal affairs.

VHP supports transparent administration, protection of temple property and the use of temple resources for legitimate Dharmic and community purposes.

Yes.

VHP’s commitment to social harmony is incompatible with denying temple entry or religious participation to a Hindu on the basis of caste or social background.

Temples should bring Hindu society together.

VHP played a major role in mobilising public awareness, religious leadership and community participation in the movement for the construction of a temple at Shri Ram Janmabhoomi in Ayodhya.

The movement became one of the most prominent cultural and religious campaigns in modern India.

No.

Ram Janmabhoomi has been an important part of VHP’s history, but its work is much broader. It includes service, social harmony, temple matters, cultural education, protection of sacred places, engagement with saints, support for Hindu communities and participation in national debates affecting Dharma.

Yes.

VHP encourages communities and families to understand and celebrate Hindu festivals, rituals, samskaras, pilgrimages, sacred texts and local traditions in ways that preserve their meaning rather than reducing them to empty formality.

VHP regards the diversity of Hindu sampradayas as a civilisational strength.

Shaiva, Vaishnava, Shakta, Smarta, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist, folk, tribal and other Dharmic streams have developed distinctive philosophies and practices while participating in Bharat’s wider cultural and spiritual life.

VHP seeks dialogue and cooperation among these traditions.

No.

VHP supports every individual’s freedom of conscience and the right to follow, practise and study a faith according to genuine personal conviction.

Its objection is to conversion obtained through force, fraud, coercion, deception, exploitation of vulnerability or material inducement.

VHP distinguishes between a genuine personal change of faith and organised conversion achieved by exploiting poverty, illness, social vulnerability, inadequate religious knowledge or unequal institutional power.

It believes religious choice should be informed and voluntary, not engineered through pressure, misrepresentation or inducement.

VHP does not deny an adult’s freedom to make a genuine, informed and voluntary personal decision.

It supports legal and social safeguards against conversion through force, fraud, coercion or inducement, and advocates transparency where organised conversion activity is involved.

Ghar Wapsi means “homecoming.”

It refers to individuals or families reconnecting with the Hindu or ancestral tradition from which they or their forebears had previously separated. VHP views this as civilisational reconnection rather than the expansion of an exclusivist religious system.

A person may participate through volunteering, Seva, cultural education, temple-related activities, youth engagement, professional expertise, research, digital communication, donations or local community initiatives.

Those interested can contact the relevant VHP regional unit or the central office through the official contact channels.

Participation does not always require full-time involvement. A teacher can teach, a doctor can support a health camp, a lawyer can assist with legal awareness, a writer can contribute ideas, a technologist can strengthen digital outreach and any citizen can serve the community in accordance with personal ability.