Comment by Riaz Haq on September 3, 2022 at 7:28am

MENENDEZ, BOOKER STAFF MEET WITH IAMC, CAIR-NJ AND INDIAN-AMERICAN GROUPS FOLLOWING INDIA DAY PARADE INCIDENT
WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Senators Bob Menendez and Cory Booker (both D-N.J.) today released the following statement condemning the use of a bulldozer at the India Day Parade in Edison last month:

https://www.menendez.senate.gov/newsroom/press/menendez-booker-staf...

“This week, our offices met with leaders and members of New Jersey’s South Asian community who were angered and deeply hurt by the inclusion of a bulldozer in the India Day Parade in Edison last month. The bulldozer has come to be a symbol of intimidation against Muslims and other religious minorities in India, and its inclusion in this event was wrong. New Jersey is proudly home to some of the most diverse communities in the nation, including one of the largest South Asian communities, and all ethnic and religious groups have a right to live without intimidation or fear.”

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 9, 2022 at 7:15pm

'Go Back To India': Indian-Origin US Lawmaker Gets Threat Messages In all the messages, the male caller is heard threatening the lawmaker with dire consequences and in one instance she is being asked to go back to her country of origin, India. https://www.ndtv.com/indians-abroad/indian-origin-us-lawmaker-prami... Indian-American Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal has been receiving abusive and hate messages over the phone from a male caller who even asked her to go back to India. On Thursday, Chennai-born Jayapal posted a collection of five such audio messages. In all the messages, portions of which have been redacted because of obscene and abusive content, the male caller is heard threatening her with dire consequences and in one instance she is being asked to go back to her country of origin, India. https://twitter.com/RepJayapal/status/1567943349763559426?s=20&...

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 10, 2022 at 5:25pm

Hindu nationalism in India ratchets up tensions among immigrants in the U.S.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-09-06/hindu-nationali...

In a park in Anaheim last month, hundreds gathered to celebrate Indian Independence Day.

They bought Indian food from booths and settled on the grass to watch traditional song and dance performances. The holiday had special significance this year: Aug. 15 was the 75th anniversary of the end of British rule.

Then, about a dozen people, most of whom were Indian American, marched silently past the crowd, carrying signs that read “Abolish caste” and “Protect India’s Muslim lives.”

A few men from the independence celebration charged at the protesters, grabbing the signs, breaking them and throwing them into trash cans. Some shouted obscenities in Hindi-Urdu. They called the protesters “stupid Muslims” and yelled at them to “get out of here.”

Through a microphone, an announcer led a chant: “Bharat Mata ki jai” — “Victory for Mother India.”

“We are Indian,” Rita Kaur, a protester who is Sikh and was born and raised in Southern California, said later. “We are simply speaking for Indians who are harmed relentlessly.”

Indian Independence Day means vastly different things to different people in a country shaped by religious and ethnic conflicts, as well as caste discrimination.

For many of the majority Hindu religion, the day represents the end of colonialism and the birth of India as an independent nation that became the world’s largest democracy.

For many Muslims and other minorities, it represents the bloody partition of the former British colony into India and Pakistan and the persecution of non-Hindus and lower castes.

Since Narendra Modi became prime minister of India in 2014, his naked appeals to patriotism and his party’s frequent scapegoating of minorities, especially Muslims, have resonated with some who believe he has made the country stronger and safer. Meanwhile, religious minorities, especially Muslims, have faced mob attacks from Hindu vigilante groups.

Those conflicts have sometimes spilled over into Indian communities in the United States.

An Indian Independence Day parade last month in Edison, N.J., featured a bulldozer with a photo of Modi — a provocative symbol when local officials in India have used bulldozers to demolish the homes of Muslims. Parade organizers later apologized.

In Silicon Valley, discrimination against people from the Dalit caste surfaced in a lawsuit filed in 2020 by California officials on behalf of an engineer at Cisco Systems who alleged that higher-caste supervisors gave him lower pay and fewer opportunities. At Google this year, a talk about caste equity was canceled after some employees accused the speaker of being anti-Hindu.

“This poison of sectarian hatred has been getting more widespread,” said Rohit Chopra, a communications professor at Santa Clara University who has long been critical of Modi and his supporters for promoting Hindu nationalism. “That same pattern of increasing aggression and impunity seems to have replicated itself in the diaspora.”

Organizers of the Anaheim Independence Day celebration did not respond to requests for comment. In a statement to NBC Asian America, organizer Manoj Agrawal said the event was “not religion-biased” and included many Muslim vendors.

Agrawal said the protesters intended “to create trouble and then record something which can help them to showcase something.”

The Hindu American Foundation, a nonprofit advocacy group, defended the Independence Day organizers. The protesters were seeking to “disrupt children performing on stage inside the event,” the group’s managing director, Samir Kalra, said in a statement.

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 18, 2022 at 5:05pm

Videos of hundreds of people taking to the streets in Britain's East Leicester were circulated on social media, which showed pro-Hindutva crowds raising "Jai Shri Ram" slogans and marching past Muslim localities on Sunday, 18 September.

https://www.thequint.com/news/world/series-of-nationalistic-and-rel...

The demonstration led to clashes in the area, reported BBC, with the police and the area's community leaders calling for peace.

A police spokesperson told the BBC that they were investigating "several incidents of violence damage" that were reported to the police, taking cognisance of a video being circulated, which shows a man "pulling down a flag outside a religious building" on Melton Road, Leicester.

In its latest statement issued on 18 September, the Leicester Police said that its officers attempted to engage with the crowds to maintain control.


The spate of violence is said to have begun after the India versus Pakistan cricket match held on 28 August, as a part of the 2022 Asia Cup tournament.

Home News World Tensions in Britain's Leicester After Pro-Hindutva Rallies in Muslim Localities

Tensions in Britain's Leicester After Pro-Hindutva Rallies in Muslim Localities
The police and community leaders called for peace after a series of clashes broke out across East Leicester.


Videos of hundreds of people taking to the streets in Britain's East Leicester were circulated on social media, which showed pro-Hindutva crowds raising "Jai Shri Ram" slogans and marching past Muslim localities on Sunday, 18 September.


The demonstration led to clashes in the area, reported BBC, with the police and the area's community leaders calling for peace.

A police spokesperson told the BBC that they were investigating "several incidents of violence damage" that were reported to the police, taking cognisance of a video being circulated, which shows a man "pulling down a flag outside a religious building" on Melton Road, Leicester.

In its latest statement issued on 18 September, the Leicester Police said that its officers attempted to engage with the crowds to maintain control.


The statement gave an update on the situation in East Leicester.


"Two arrests were made – one man on suspicion of conspiracy to commit violent disorder and one man on suspicion of possession of a bladed article. They remain in police custody," the statement reads.
The spate of violence is said to have begun after the India versus Pakistan cricket match held on 28 August, as a part of the 2022 Asia Cup tournament.

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 21, 2022 at 4:06pm

Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: From Leicester to New Jersey, the diaspora is reflecting the divisions of Indian politics
A Vishwaguru wearing a robe of Hindutva cannot but export all the fault lines that come with it


https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/pratap-bhanu-meht...

It should not be a matter of surprise that so much of the playbook and fault lines of Indian politics are being reproduced among the Indian diaspora. Perhaps what people are surprised by is the fact that these fault lines are no longer at the level of just the coarsening of discourse or cultural fissures, but are taking overtly confrontational forms. In some ways, this is not surprising. Long-distance diasporic nationalisms have always been a feature of global politics. Culturally, these have often been more intractable than the politics in home countries for a variety of reasons. Diasporic nationalisms and identities are often more abstract, eschewing all complexity, and able to indulge in those abstractions because there is no skin in the game. They often do not have to face the consequences of the violence and dislocations of that identity-mongering. But in some ways, we may be entering a new phase of the ways in which these nationalisms play out. The recent clashes in Leicester in the United Kingdom, and the building polarisation in New Jersey are two recent instances of how diasporic politics, especially on the Hindu-Muslim axis, is taking a new and deeper turn.

That the cultural tensions of South Asia spill over or are even magnified abroad is not news. The proximate cause of the Leicester clashes was ostensibly tensions after an India-Pakistan match. This is ironic. I remember older veterans of what used to be called “race relations” in Britain telling us when we were students in the Eighties that there apparently used to be separate collection drives and mobilisation during the India-Pakistan wars but it never spilt over into conflict between the two communities. In the late Eighties, there was a lot of British Sikh anger against the Indian state, but it was seldom publicly, as far as anyone can remember, directed against other non-Sikhs. If anything, intra-Sikh jostling was far more pronounced over matters of doctrine and institutional control.

The decisive change came in the wake of two developments. The first was the violence in the aftermath of the demolition of the Babari Masjid in India. That moment in Indian politics saw widespread violence in Britain especially in Bradford, Sheffield, Leeds, with temples attacked and a petrol bomb thrown at a Mosque. Many of the current Hindu leaders of the diaspora came out of that moment. The second was the increasing focus on Islamic fundamentalism. The idea of using Britain as a launch pad for jihadi ideology was present in some groups. That in turn licensed full-blown Islamophobia amongst many non-Muslim communities. In this context, the Hindu-Muslim fault line became far more visible, and began to define the contours of diaspora politics more visibly. The clashes in Leicester are not unprecedented.

But there are three things that make this moment in diaspora fractures more distinctive both in the US and the UK. In the Eighties, after clashes broke out, there will still an attempt across communities to see their respective states, or mainstream politicians in those countries, as a relatively neutral arbiter; in fact, the whole point was not to draw politicians in the UK or US in accusations of partisanship in India’s communal conflicts. We are still awaiting a full, authoritative account of the events at Leicester. But in the discourse, at least, one is struck by the fact that the narrative of “Hindu victimhood” is even pointing fingers at the local state, as if it was somehow partisan in failing to protect Hindus.

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 21, 2022 at 4:08pm

Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: From Leicester to New Jersey, the diaspora is reflecting the divisions of Indian politics
A Vishwaguru wearing a robe of Hindutva cannot but export all the fault lines that come with it


https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/pratap-bhanu-meht...

In the US, Hindu-Muslim politics is spilling into the inner core of the Democratic party. The Teaneck Democratic Municipal Committee may be a small entity. But it has called for investigation of “domestic branches of foreign hate groups,” especially those aligned with Hindu Nationalism. Hindu nationalists now openly loathe the so-called “Left Wing” of the Democratic Party. Some of these narratives may be self-serving. But increasingly, you will find diaspora politics accusing the politicians of their adopted country of communal bias, in a conflict that has little to do with them. Imagine the situation of New Jersey or Leicester politician who now has to be judged on whether they are, in an Indian context pro-Hindu or pro-Muslim, whether they take Hindu phobia or Islamaphobia more seriously. This is unchartered territory in many ways.

The second big change is the explicit involvement of the Indian state. The Indian state’s statement condemned “the violence perpetrated against the Indian community in Leicester and the vandalisation of premises and symbols of Hindu religion”. Notice no appeal to Hindus not to take out intimidating marches, or the acknowledgement that marches chanting Jai Shri Ram might be adding to the tension. While the statement begins with violence perpetrated against the Indian community (not clear who the “non-Indians” are who perpetrated it), the purpose of the statement was to subtly signal out the Indian state as a protector of Hindus. In short, the Indian state itself is now going to intervene in a partisan manner in these conflicts. It will not be a party of peace but of more polarisation. After all, a Vishwaguru wearing a robe of Hindutva cannot but export all the divisions that come with it.

We need to await verified and authoritative accounts of what happened in Leicester, and which groups were involved; there may also be Islamic organisations fishing in troubled waters created by Hindutva. The playbook seems familiar to anyone who knows Indian riots: The use of rumours, groups from outside the local community, and marches to create polarisation in otherwise peaceful communities.

The locals may have an investment in peace. But the third big change is that their global ideological patrons of conflict will have an investment in politically milking these incidents, in a context where all inhibitions on ethnic nationalism are gone. Now, we are not in the realm of long-distance nationalism, but in a global political market that is looking to construct narratives of victimhood that can be used in any global context. The surveys by Milan Vaishnav, Devesh Kapur and Sumitra Badrinathan, of Indian diasporas in the Anglophone world, paint a complex picture. But there is no doubt that cultural polarisation is growing. There is also no doubt that Hindutva is not about the defence of Hinduism or Hindu interests, but a global ideology of hate and asserting cultural dominance. It is bizarre to think you can have this much dissemination of hate without it having violent political consequences. Now that inhibitions have been broken, brace for more conflict.

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 26, 2022 at 8:45pm

Hindu nationalists now pose a global problem
The recent UK violence should serve as a wake-up call. Hindu nationalism is no longer a worry just in India.

By Somdeep Sen

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/9/26/violent-hindu-extremis...

India’s Hindu right wing has long advocated for its vision across the world. Overseas offshoots of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have helped in this, as have allied groups like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad or World Hindu Council.

Now, recent events in Leicester in the United Kingdom suggest that their dream of propagating Hindutva, their political philosophy, is coming true in new ways – violently, on the streets of cities far from India.

On September 17, young Hindu men marched through the streets of Leicester, chanting “Jai Sri Ram” – now a Hindu nationalist war cry – and attacking Muslims. This is the muscular brand of Hindu pride and chauvinism that Hindu nationalists have always aspired to.

These tensions have been in the offing. In May, a Muslim teenager in Leicester had to be hospitalised after an unprovoked attack by a Hindu crowd. In August after India’s win against Pakistan in a cricket match, a Hindu group walked through the streets chanting “Death to Pakistan” before attacking a Sikh man. There were similar reports after a second cricket match between the two countries that India lost. In response, groups of Muslim men have also held protests – in one instance, a man pulled down a flag from outside a Hindu religious centre.

There is, of course, a long history of Hindu nationalist and Conservative Party collaboration in the UK. In the lead-up to the 2016 London mayoral elections, Conservative candidate Zac Goldsmith sent anti-Muslim campaign literature to Hindus and Sikhs to bring down his Muslim opponent, Sadiq Khan, of the Labour Party. On the eve of the 2019 UK general elections, there were reports that Hindu nationalist groups in the country were actively campaigning for Conservative candidates, since Labour’s then-leader, Jeremy Corbyn, had criticised the Modi government’s 2019 crackdown in Indian-administered Kashmir. Many of these groups have direct links to the BJP and their actions represented attempts at influencing an overseas election.

However, this is not just a UK problem. The scourge of Hindu nationalism has gone global.

‘True friend in the White House’
Like in the UK, Hindu nationalists have actively campaigned for right-wing, Islamophobic candidates in the United States. This was apparent during the 2016 presidential elections when Hindu groups went all out in their efforts to mobilise Hindu Americans for Republican candidates.

In 2015 an Indian American lobby, the Republican Hindu Coalition (RHC), was launched by Chicago-based businessman Shalabh Kumar, who has had close ties to Modi. Its members donated to former US President Donald Trump’s campaign and the RHC supported him as he ran for the presidency. At an event with the group ahead of the vote, Trump declared: “The Indian and Hindu community will have a true friend in the White House.” He also praised Modi, calling him a “great man,” and released a campaign video wooing Hindu Americans.

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 26, 2022 at 8:46pm

Ahead of the 2020 US presidential election, Modi acted almost as a campaigner for Trump, holding two joint rallies with the realtor-turned-politician – one in


Hindu nationalists now pose a global problem
The recent UK violence should serve as a wake-up call. Hindu nationalism is no longer a worry just in India.

By Somdeep Sen

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/9/26/violent-hindu-extremis...

Ahead of the 2020 US presidential election, Modi acted almost as a campaigner for Trump, holding two joint rallies with the realtor-turned-politician – one in Ahmedabad, India, and the other in Houston, Texas. In the latter event, Modi seemed to give tacit backing to Trump’s re-election campaign, even uttering the phrase “Ab ki baar, Trump sarkar (This time, it’s going to be a Trump government)”.

However, like in the UK, the Hindu right in the US has now moved from electoral influence to demonstrations of street might. In August this year, bulldozers adorned with posters of Modi and the BJP chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Yogi Adityanath, appeared at an Indian Independence Day parade in Edison, New Jersey, apparently celebrating the disturbing trend of local governments demolishing the homes of Muslim activists in India. Following criticism, the organiser – the Indian Business Association – apologised for the incident.

Open threats
In Canada too, Hindu nationalists have been making waves. In December last year anti-Sikh slogans and the Hindu swastika appeared outside a Sikh school. Canadian academics have been harassed and faced death and rape threats from diaspora Hindutva supporters for criticising the Modi government in India.

In June, Ron Banerjee, a Canadian Hindu nationalist openly called for the genocide of Muslims and Sikhs. “It is awesome what Modi is doing,” Banerjee said, in an interview to a YouTube channel. “I support the killing of Muslims and Sikhs in the Republic of India because they deserve to die.”

Australia too is witnessing an uptick in hate crimes committed by Hindus against Muslims and Sikhs. One such attacker, Vishal Sood, was eventually arrested for a series of attacks on Sikhs, and was convicted and deported since his visa had expired. When he got back to India, he received a hero’s welcome.

Attempts have also been made by Indian authorities in Australia to silence critics of Modi and his Hindu nationalist policies. Thirteen academic fellows resigned from the Australia India Institute at the University of Melbourne citing interference from the Indian High Commission and attempts to censor research and writing that presented an “unflattering” image of India.


Why has Hindutva gone global?
Undoubtedly, the rise of Hindu nationalism globally has much to do with the rise of Modi.

Since becoming prime minister in 2014, he has overseen a highly controversial citizenship reform that discriminates against Muslim asylum seekers, scrapped the constitutionally guaranteed autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir and built a temple at the location of a historic mosque demolished by Hindu hardliners in 1992. All while going after opposition leaders, activists and critics.

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 26, 2022 at 8:47pm

Ahead of the 2020 US presidential election, Modi acted almost as a campaigner for Trump, holding two joint rallies with the realtor-turned-politician – one in


Hindu nationalists now pose a global problem
The recent UK violence should serve as a wake-up call. Hindu nationalism is no longer a worry just in India.

By Somdeep Sen

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/9/26/violent-hindu-extremis...



Modi’s success in delivering on Hindutva’s promises at home has inspired his supporters in the diaspora to exude a sense of chauvinistic pride abroad.

However, world leaders are guilty too, of legitimising Modi, giving this subsection of Hindu expatriates the conviction that their bigoted vision has some global cache. From Trump to former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and from former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, multiple right-wing politicians have presented themselves as “friends” of Modi.

Even those Western leaders who do not have a particularly pronounced right-wing agenda have been keen to establish and develop their economic and strategic ties with India while turning a blind eye to the Modi government’s dismal human rights record.

What is next?
Islamophobia now appears to be a matter of public and foreign policy for India. The Indian High Commission in the UK responded to the events in Leicester by specifically referring only to the worries of the Hindu community there.

However, Leicester should serve as a wake-up call: Hindu nationalism cannot be ignored any more as a domestic, Indian issue. The movement has gone international – and is taking an increasingly violent form in other countries too. It is now a threat to democratic principles, equality and human rights everywhere. India under Modi will not address it. The world must.

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 29, 2022 at 10:30am

In the UK, local Muslim groups and elected officials sought to ban her entry into the country. Sadhvi Rithambara was denied entry even to transit through London airport on her way back to India from the U.S. She was not allowed to board the London-bound flight at the Los Angeles airport, though her visit to U.K. destinations had been canceled and she was to board a connecting flight at the London airport. The next day, she went to New York and took a direct flight to India.

https://fbindependent.com/i-was-attacked-online-for-a-gig-p15599-89...

Muslim groups in the U.S. launched a campaign against the visit of a Hindu woman religious leader from India and called for the cancellation of her scheduled discourses. Sadhvi Rithambara was the target of protest by Indian American Muslim Council, Hindus for Human Rights, and other organizations.

Hindu groups and organizers hosted the event as scheduled in Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, New Jersey, Los Angeles.

In Atlanta, the meeting was held and Muslim groups protested outside the venue. In Houston, there was no protest. Authorities at the Old Paramus Reformed Church in Ridgewood, New Jersey, withdrew permission for the fundraising event following protest calls and the event was moved to a local Sheraton hotel.

In the UK, local Muslim groups and elected officials sought to ban her entry into the country. Sadhvi Rithambara was denied entry even to transit through London airport on her way back to India from the U.S. She was not allowed to board the London-bound flight at the Los Angeles airport, though her visit to U.K. destinations had been canceled and she was to board a connecting flight at the London airport. The next day, she went to New York and took a direct flight to India.

Here is an article by Rajiv Satyal, a well known American comedian, who was attacked for his appearance at Sadhvi Rithambara’s event as an emcee.

By RAJIV SATYAL

This past Saturday, 17 September 2022, I emceed a program for the Param Shakti Peeth of America Foundation, as one does. I got the opportunity through Anil Parekh, a man here in LA who’d been trying to book me at an event for years; we finally connected on this one.

I started doing some digging when I received this email on 12 September, five days before the event:

Dear Rajiv

“I’ve followed your comedy and am surprised and disappointed that you’ve chosen to perform at an event that has invited the highly polarising and bigoted figure of Sadhvi Rithambara from India. You have spoken up for diversity, multiculturalism and religious freedoms several times in your acts and that’s why your association with the Sadhvi is so problematic.

“As a public figure who values social justice and civil liberties and who believes in equality and freedom for all, I hope you are aware of the campaign against minorities and democratic values that is being waged in India by the very organizations that Sadhvi Rithambara represents.

“Some information for your consideration:

“Rithambara’s hateful speeches have been described as “the single most powerful instrument for whipping up anti-Muslim violence in various Indian states.

In 1992, during the run-up to the demolition of the historic Babri Mosque in India, her speeches calling for a Hindu war against Muslims were made into audio cassettes and sold across the country, played a major role in the destruction of the Babri Masjid. The riots that followed the mosque’s demolition saw 2,000 killed, mostly Muslims.

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