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BANGALORE, INDIA, Sept. 18, 2001: Nineteen-year-old Vinod Shastry, a second-generation Indian American, on his second visit to India, at the Jana Seva Vidya Kendra, a residential boys school 20 kilometers from Bangalore, is reciting from Tulsidas’s epic “Ram Charitra Manas.” Sixteen-year-old Mihir Pitodia, a Kenyan citizen of Indian origin on his first visit here, is attempting a yoga asana. Shastry and Pitodia are among over 90 foreigners of Indian origin who flew into India nearly a month ago to attend a 21-day Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) camp that aims to put them in touch with the Hindu in them — something they can’t really do in their own countries. “We are giving them grounding in Hinduism, imparting very basic knowledge about their country and culture. They should build upon it,” says V. Nagaraj, one of the organizers of the camp who also facilitates the “intellectual” component at the camp.

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