Pew Research: Two-thirds of Hindus Say Only Hindus "Truly Indian"

[Riaz Haq]

A recent Pew survey in India has found that 64% of Hindus see their religious identity and Indian national identity as closely intertwined. Most Hindus (59%) also link Indian identity with being able to speak Hindi language. The survey was conducted over two years in 2019 and 2020 by Pew Research Center. It included 29,000 Indians.  

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu Nationalist BJP party's appeal is the greatest among Hindus who closely associate their religious identity and the Hindi language with being “truly Indian.” The Pew survey found that less than half of Indians (46%) favored democracy as best suited to solve the country’s problems. Two percent more (48%) preferred a strong leader. 

Most Hindus Link Hindu Religion and Hindi Language With Indian Nati...

The majority of Hindus see themselves as very different from Muslims (66%), and most Muslims return the sentiment, saying they are very different from Hindus (64%). Most Muslims across the country (65%), along with an identical share of Hindus (65%), see communal violence in India as a very big national problem. Like Hindus, Muslims prefer to live religiously segregated lives – not just when it comes to marriage and friendships, but also in some elements of public life. In particular, three-quarters of Muslims in India (74%) support having access to the existing system of Islamic courts, which handle family disputes (such as inheritance or divorce cases), in addition to the secular court system.     

Most Hindus (59%) also link Indian identity with being able to speak Hindi – one of dozens of languages that are widely spoken in India. And these two dimensions of national identity – being able to speak Hindi and being a Hindu – are closely connected. Among Hindus who say it is very important to be Hindu to be truly Indian, fully 80% also say it is very important to speak Hindi to be truly Indian.    

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu Nationalist BJP party's appeal is the greatest among Hindus who closely associate their religious identity and the Hindi language with being “truly Indian.” In the 2019 national elections, 60% of Hindu voters who think it is very important to be Hindu and to speak Hindi to be truly Indian cast their vote for the BJP, compared with only a third among Hindu voters who feel less strongly about both these aspects of national identity.

The findings of this Pew survey confirm how prescient Pakistan's founder Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Jinnah was. He saw the coming of Modi's Hindu Rashtra as far back as mid-1930s. It arose from the majoritarian tyranny of the Hindu-dominated Indian National Congress after 1937 elections in India. Speaking in Lucknow in October 1937, Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah said the following: 

"The present leadership of the Congress, especially during the last ten years, has been responsible for alienating the Musalmans of lndia more and more, by pursuing a policy which is exclusively Hindu; and since they have formed the Governments in six provinces where they are in a majority they have by their words, deeds, and programme shown more and more that the Musalmans cannot expect any justice or fair play at their hands. Whenever they are in majority and wherever it suited them, they refused to co-operate with the Muslim League Parties and demanded unconditional surrender and signing of their pledges."

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[Riaz Haq]

From Modi to #Yogi: The #Militant Monk Who Could Lead #India to #HinduRashtra. https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/.premium-modi-to-yogi-the-milita...




Yogi Adityanath has singlehandedly brought the term "love jihad" into both common use and has even criminalized it in Uttar Pradesh (a move several other BJP-ruled states then followed). "Love jihad" is a baseless conspiracy theory attacking interfaith relationships by accusing Muslim men of seducing and Hindu women and then forcing them to convert to Islam.

He has closed down slaughterhouses and abattoirs using cows which were mainly run by poor Muslims and Dalits, and has banned the sale of beef: killing a cow or its progeny now incurs a ten-year jail sentence.



If this legislative agenda wasn’t bad enough, Yogi Adityanath routinely incites against Muslims and other non-Hindus. He declares his state government is focusing on building (Hindu) temples while non-Hindus are focused on filling burial grounds. In the run up to the UP elections he has oddly promised a "surgical strike" against the Taliban. He once launched series of attacks on Mother Teresa, accusing her of being part of a conspiracy to Christianize India.

He has compared Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan to the Pakistani arch-terrorist Hafiz Sayeed, mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 civilians, and after Khan spoke about growing intolerance in India, proposed he go live in Pakistan. He told Indian Muslims suspicious of increasingly coercive efforts to institute yoga in schools they should either leave the country or drown themselves in the sea.

Women are not spared Yogi Adityanath’s Stone Age views. On his website, the monk writes that, "Women always need to be protected lest their energy go waste." He adds that the patriarchal protection accorded to a woman by her father, husband and brother is only to "channel" her energy and her power – for the good of perfect procreation.

It is only a "controlled woman" who will give birth to mahapurush (great men). Yogi Adityanath warns that women who acquire "masculine traits" turn into demons and need to controlled for the good of society.



He once sat silent on the stage during an election rally when a fellow speaker called for Muslim women’s bodies to be dragged out of their graves and raped. Yogi did not utter a word of condemnation.

Yogi’s government routinely files cases against journalists for simply doing their job under a terror law called the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act and the Sedition Act. In one case, the journalist Siddique Kappan was on his way to report a rape case and was booked before he even filed a single report. Because of the stringent provisions of the Act, Kappan is still in jail for an imaginary crime.

The idea is to sufficiently intimate the independent press that they give up trying to cover his tenure as chief minister, and any future national-level campaigns, leaving the field to obedient pro-Hindutva shills.



Parts of India’s cheerleader media love to gush about Yogi Adityanath’s love for animals. The dairy he maintains, his loving dogs and pet monkeys, are all parts of a deliberate makeover to present India with an image of a kindler, gentler Yogi.

Soft-focus snaps of him sitting with his monkey on his lap are duly circulated in the mainstream media, but in that same media safe space, no one dares question his divisive and bigoted takes.

Despite lethal missteps in the handling of the vicious second wave of COVID which saw bodies floating on the sacred Ganges river, Yogi Adityanath has nonetheless managed to move political debate in UP back to the usual polarizing issues of Hindus versus Muslims, where he is most comfortable. A lacklustre opposition has not been able to pin down his terrible governance record.

[Riaz Haq]

Power will be more concentrated in #India’s Hindi belt where #Modi is popular. “The large, poor tracts that line the northern Ganges River continue to show high fertility rates”. Already, 69% of #Indians say only #Hindi speaking #Hindu are truly Indian

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/11/25/india-birth-rate-re...

India’s population growth is losing steam as the average number of children born crossed below a key threshold, according to newly released data from a government survey.

India’s most recent National Family Health Survey, which is conducted every five years by the Health Ministry, was released Wednesday and showed the total fertility rate (TFR) across India dropping to 2.0 in 2019-2021, compared with 2.2 in 2015-2016. A country with a TFR of 2.1, known as the replacement rate, would maintain a stable population over time; a lower TFR means the population would decrease in the absence of other factors, such as immigration.

The figures were hailed as a heartening signal by government officials and researchers in a country that is expected to overtake China to become the world’s most populous sometime this decade. Since the mid-20th century, Indian leaders have tried to curb high birthrates, which are often reversely correlated with women’s welfare metrics and economic progress. A burgeoning population is seen, in the longer term, as a hurdle to development and a driver of environmental degradation and greenhouse gas emissions.

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Heartland misery: Four states hosting 30% of Lok Sabha seats are among the poorest. That’s a message for India

The South appears better placed. In 1991, on economic reform-eve, Bihar and Tamil Nadu were nearly at par in per capita GDP. Three decades later, TN has whittled down its multidimensionally poor to 4.9% of population while Bihar languishes at 51.9%. Jharkhand follows with 42%, UP 38% and MP 37%. The cruel governance irony of these numbers is that the four laggard states cumulatively account for 30% of seats in Lok Sabha and their electoral outcomes play a decisive role in national government formation. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/toi-editorials/heartland-...


The heavy poverty burden, despite tremendous political heft and massive welfare funding, indicts heartland netas. Poor states cannot afford their enduring obsession with identity politics, but a shift in discourse towards economic development looks unlikely. Meanwhile, farm laws’ reversal makes poverty eradication in villages harder. Accounting for nearly 5 crore of India’s 12.5 crore unviable agricultural land holdings under 2 hectares, the failure of these four states to call out the subsidised big farmers and lead the clarion call for agri-reforms was another missed opportunity for their political economy.

The multidimensional poverty index constructed on health, education, and standard of living indicators like nutrition, years of schooling, and amenities like cooking fuel, electricity, pucca housing, sanitation, household assets etc, claims to better the erstwhile methodology of pegging a poverty baseline in monetary terms. Performance here depends to an extent on India’s sprawling welfare state, which has admittedly gained more mastery in delivering household amenities to the poor. But NFHS-5 findings of 60% women and young children facing malnutrition uncovers the limitations of welfarism, and conversely, the importance of economic growth to create enough jobs. Over to Nitish, Soren, Yogi, Shivraj, Akhilesh, Tejashwi and Kamal Nath.

[Riaz Haq]

‘Modi’s India: Hindu Nationalism and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy’ review: The collapse of democracy

https://www.thehindu.com/books/books-reviews/modis-india-hindu-nati...

Christophe Jaffrelot, who has caught every wave in India, says the country has changed, perhaps irreversibly, from a liberal secular polity a decade ago to a majoritarian ‘ethnic democracy’ today

Jaffrelot tracks the continually expanding catalogue of body blows that have assailed the founding ideals of the Indian republic from the time Modi announced his candidature in the fall of 2013. Those of us who have lived through the lynching of Muslims and Dalits, the assassination of rationalist intellectuals, the trolling of scholars, the detention of activists, the harassment of movie stars, the evisceration of the media, universities and courts, the decimation of the opposition, the destruction of the economy, the persecution of the minorities, the erosion of fundamental rights, the gutting of the public sector, the targeting of NGOs, the silencing of civil society, the distortion of history, the usurpation of social media by hate speech, fake news and propaganda, the defiance and denigration of Parliamentary procedure by the ruling party, the demonisation of dissent, the encouragement of vigilantism, the garrisoning of the Kashmir Valley, the battering of the Constitution, and the forsaking of truth — having borne witness, we understand why compiling this gruesome list requires nearly 700 pages.

But the book is not just an act of meticulous, unsparing documentation, though it is that too. It will prove an invaluable record of our time when future generations struggle to explain the swift collapse of Indian democracy. Once the world’s largest, liveliest and most interesting experiment in equal citizenship, universal adult franchise, regular elections, representative government, minority protection, a free press, and popular self-rule, India always had problematic enclaves of exception like Kashmir and the Northeast. But before Modi, its basic commitment to diversity and pluralism seemed genuine.

Jaffrelot doesn’t just remind us of what has been happening to unravel the liberal consensus in the past 7-8 years. He also brings to bear on these data an enormous scholarly literature and theoretical toolkit about ethnic democracy, populist strongmen, rightwing nationalism, charismatic leadership, the deinstitutionalisation of the state, creeping authoritarianism that appears electorally mandated, the relentless reduction of minorities to second-class citizenship, and the mobilisation of identities in new patterns of conflict, domination and exclusion, jettisoning tolerance, equality and inclusion.

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He examines how Yogi Adityanath communalises governance, runs a militia State, and makes Islamophobia an item of official policy. Campaigns of “gauraksha”, “love jihad” and “gharwapsi” make for a deadly cocktail of privileged caste orthopraxy and social conservatism, reinforce patriarchy, and continually bully, shame and terrorise Muslims and Christians. The cow belt and Hindi heartland, including Rajasthan, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh along with Uttar Pradesh, spilling south into Karnataka and east into Assam, are now thoroughly saffronised.

[Riaz Haq]

Hindu bigots are openly urging Indians to murder Muslims
And the ruling party does nothing to stop them

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2022/01/15/hindu-bigots-are-openl...


“All Hindus must pick up weapons and conduct a cleanliness drive,” bellowed a Hindu priest at a three-day “religious parliament” in north India last month. Another speaker fired up the large crowd even more crudely: “If a hundred of us become soldiers and kill two million of them, we will be victorious.” By “them”, she meant India’s 200m Muslims.

Those priests baying for blood are not isolated bigots. Under the Hindu-nationalist government of Narendra Modi, the world’s most populous democracy has seen a growing wave of intolerance. In Gurgaon, a satellite city of Delhi, Muslims have been denied the use of open space to pray because it “offends sentiments”. They have also been denied permission to build mosques. Elsewhere Muslims accused of transporting cattle for slaughter, or of being in possession of beef, are sometimes lynched. Muslim businesses are boycotted. In recent months young Hindu radicals have persecuted high-profile Muslim women by creating apps to “auction” them off.

Muslims are not the only target of Hindu chauvinism. In Varanasi, a Hindu temple town, posters warn non-Hindus to stay away. Attacks on Christians, a tiny minority, have risen in recent years. Last week, after Mr Modi, the prime minister, was briefly delayed on an overpass in Sikh-majority Punjab, people associated with his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (bjp) warned darkly of a repeat of 1984, when thousands of Sikhs were killed in pogroms after the assassination of Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards. In an index of societal discrimination against minorities compiled by Bar Ilan University in Israel, India scores worse than Saudi Arabia and no better than Iran. It is impossible to know the number of hate crimes in the country: independent trackers were shut down in 2017 and 2019, and the government stopped collecting data in 2017.

Another reason to worry is the silence of the government. From the prime minister downwards, no senior figure has condemned the drumbeat of incitement. When asked about it by the bbc, one bjp politician ripped off his microphone and stomped off. Academics, bureaucrats and retired army officers have sent anxious pleas to Mr Modi to appeal for calm. Yet only one unimportant official—the vice-president—has spoken up.

With big elections due next month, the mood could grow even more fissile. Senior bjp officials stop short of urging people to kill minorities, but they do incite hatred. Yogi Adityanath, the Hindu-nationalist chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, India’s biggest state, declared that the vote was about the 80% against the 20%—that is, Hindus against Muslims.

Some pundits fear the bjp is resorting to divisive rhetoric because it can no longer rely on divisive promises, such as stripping the Muslim-majority former state of Jammu and Kashmir of its special status and starting work on a temple where a mosque once stood in the holy city of Ayodhya. Having honoured those commitments, it needs something new. And with the economy battered by the pandemic, a hostile China poking at the border and slim prospects for the millions who join the labour force every year, it is succumbing to its worst instincts.

[Riaz Haq]

Hindu bigots are openly urging Indians to murder Muslims
And the ruling party does nothing to stop them

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2022/01/15/hindu-bigots-are-openl...

The Indian government should realise that by pumping up the ridiculous notion that India’s 300m or so non-Hindus represent a threat to the 1.1bn majority, it is unleashing forces that may become uncontrollable. Sectarian bloodshed can generate a momentum of its own. India has suffered enough in the past for the risks to be obvious: hundreds of thousands died during its post-colonial partition, possibly more. Subsequent decades have seen episodic pogroms. But until recently, although rogue politicians often stirred up hatred for electoral advantage, the secular state mostly acted as a restraint. No longer.

The West, distracted by Russia and China, has paid little attention. Yet a stable, democratic India would be a counterweight to authoritarian China. A Hindu chauvinist India would not only be nastier for its inhabitants; it could also spread instability, prone to even worse relations with its Muslim neighbours. India’s friends, starting with America, should use their influence to persuade Mr Modi and his acolytes to check the spread of hate before it explodes into widespread violence. Mr Modi should want to prevent such a calamity, too. Does he? ■

[Riaz Haq]

"People of different states should communicate with each other in Hindi". Amit Shah’s ‘shocking’ statement on #Hindi will split, not unite, #India: #TamilNadu leaders. #AmitShah #Modi #Hindutva #BJP https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/chennai/amit-shah-hindi-st...


S Ramadoss, chief of the NDA ally Pattali Makkal Katchi, says English should remain as the link language and all the 22 languages in the Constitution’s eighth schedule should be declared official languages.


Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s statement that people of different states should communicate with each other in Hindi was strongly condemned by political parties in Tamil Nadu on Friday. DMK MP Kanimozhi and S Ramadoss, founder of the NDA ally Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), were among those who took exception to the BJP leader’s remark.


At the 37th meeting of the Committee of Parliament on Official Language on Thursday, Shah said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had decided that the medium of running the government should be the official language, and that this would increase the importance of Hindi. “Now the time has come to make the official language an important part of the unity of the country. When citizens of states who speak other languages communicate with each other, it should be in the language of India,” Shah was quoted by the Ministry of Home Affairs as having said.

Reacting to Shah’s statement, Kanimozhi, Lok Sabha MP from Thoothukudi, said, “Bringing the idea of one language will not help unite the nation but to split it. The Union government and ministers should be aware of the history of anti-Hindi agitations and the sacrifices made for that,” she said.

PMK leader Ramadoss said Shah’s statement was “shocking.” “It means nothing but Hindi imposition,” Ramadoss said. “Even as Hindi may be the language of majority states, Jawaharlal Nehru accepted the demands of the non-Hindi speaking states and allowed English to continue as the link language.”

If an Indian language should be the country’s official language, Tamil may be qualified for that position as it is the oldest language, he said. “However, Tamils do not believe in the imposition of one language, so political parties here demand all languages listed under the eighth schedule of the Constitution be declared official languages,” Ramadoss said. “English should remain as the link language, 22 languages including Tamil should be declared official languages, and people speaking different languages and their sentiments should be respected,” he said.

[Riaz Haq]

The Indian economy is being rewired. The opportunity is immense And so are the stakes

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2022/05/13/the-indian-economy-is-...

Who deserves the credit? Chance has played a big role: India did not create the Sino-American split or the cloud, but benefits from both. So has the steady accumulation of piecemeal reform over many governments. The digital-identity scheme and new national tax system were dreamed up a decade or more ago.

Mr Modi’s government has also got a lot right. It has backed the tech stack and direct welfare, and persevered with the painful task of shrinking the informal economy. It has found pragmatic fixes. Central-government purchases of solar power have kick-started renewables. Financial reforms have made it easier to float young firms and bankrupt bad ones. Mr Modi’s electoral prowess provides economic continuity. Even the opposition expects him to be in power well after the election in 2024.

The danger is that over the next decade this dominance hardens into autocracy. One risk is the bjp’s abhorrent hostility towards Muslims, which it uses to rally its political base. Companies tend to shrug this off, judging that Mr Modi can keep tensions under control and that capital flight will be limited. Yet violence and deteriorating human rights could lead to stigma that impairs India’s access to Western markets. The bjp’s desire for religious and linguistic conformity in a huge, diverse country could be destabilising. Were the party to impose Hindi as the national language, secessionist pressures would grow in some wealthy states that pay much of the taxes.

The quality of decision-making could also deteriorate. Prickly and vindictive, the government has co-opted the bureaucracy to bully the press and the courts. A botched decision to abolish bank notes in 2016 showed Mr Modi’s impulsive side. A strongman lacking checks and balances can eventually endanger not just demo cracy, but also the economy: think of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey, whose bizarre views on inflation have caused a currency crisis. And, given the bjp’s ambivalence towards foreign capital, the campaign for national renewal risks regressing into protectionism. The party loves blank cheques from Silicon Valley but is wary of foreign firms competing in India. Today’s targeted subsidies could degenerate into autarky and cronyism—the tendencies that have long held India back.

Seizing the moment
For India to grow at 7% or 8% for years to come would be momentous. It would lift huge numbers of people out of poverty. It would generate a vast new market and manufacturing base for global business, and it would change the global balance of power by creating a bigger counterweight to China in Asia. Fate, inheritance and pragmatic decisions have created a new opportunity in the next decade. It is India’s and Mr Modi’s to squander. ■

[Riaz Haq]

'This ain't India': #Sikh man seen verbally attacking, spitting on #Indian man in a #Fremont #California Taco Bell.“Walking around with your f*cking toes out. B*tch, this ain’t India,” the man says. “You f*cked India up. You’re f*cking America up.” #Hindu https://news.yahoo.com/aint-india-man-recorded-verbally-211057773.h...

A Hindu man was verbally attacked in a hate incident by another man at a Taco Bell in Fremont, California.

Krishnan Jayaraman was waiting to pick up his order at a Fremont Taco Bell on Grimmer Boulevard when another customer began to verbally attack him on Aug. 21.

In an 8-minute video recorded by Jayaraman, the man can be heard spewing anti-Hindu speech.

“Walking around with your f*cking toes out. B*tch, this ain’t India,” the man says. “You f*cked India up. You’re f*cking America up.”

The man also repeatedly calls Jayaraman “disgusting” and “nasty,” telling him to not come out in public. At one point, the man also spits at Jayaraman.

In an interview with ABC7 News, Jayaraman recalled the man stating, “You’re a Hindu who bathes in cow urine.”

Jayaraman did not engage with the man.

“I was scared to be honest with you. I was infuriated on the one hand, but I was scared that what if this guy becomes too belligerent and then comes after me?’” Jayaraman told NBC Bay Area.

“I didn’t see a point of me trying to engage somebody who’s hell-bent on picking up a fight and wanting me to engage,” he told ABC7 News. “He was so close to my face. He was throwing his dollars on my face. He was spitting everywhere.”

Jayaraman was surprised to hear the man pronouncing Hindi words and speaking Punjabi towards the end of the video. He believes that the attacker is also of Indian descent but aligns with an independence movement in northern India.

“That group, the Khalistan group was deemed a terrorist organization in India,” Jayaraman said. “At that point, it dawned upon me that he may be somebody who has an ulterior motive to do all these things.”

Taco Bell employees did not intervene to deescalate the situation, according to Jayaraman. The fast-food restaurant company has not commented on the incident.

The Fremont Police Department is actively investigating the incident. There are currently no reports on whether the attacker will face charges.

“We take hate incidents and hate crimes seriously, and understand the significant impact they have on our community. These incidents are despicable,” Police Chief Sean Washington wrote. “We are here to protect all community members, regardless of their gender, race, nationality, religion, and other differences. We would like to urge the community to be respectful of each other and to immediately report any circumstances such as this that, upon investigation, may rise to the level of a crime.”

“In the event of a hate crime, we will devote all available resources to follow up and investigate,” he added. “Fremont is one of the nation’s most diverse communities, and we are thankful for the contributions of community members from different cultures and backgrounds.”

[Riaz Haq]

Hindu nationalist group, known for intolerant rhetoric, hosted a fundraiser in Frisco

By Nikhil Mandalaparthy and Tara Roy, Hindus for Human Rights

They wrote this column for The Dallas Morning News.

https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2022/12/13/hindu-nati...

“Christian pastors are like leeches.”

“Hindus are going to be condemned to hellish agony and persistent terror by Muslims.”

“The Christians in India … have no moral conscience.”


These hateful and provocative statements would shock anyone. But what’s even more shocking is that they come from a nonprofit organization based here in the Dallas area.

The Global Hindu Heritage Foundation is a Frisco-based nonprofit that just hosted its end-of-the-year gala dinner Nov. 27.

The dinner’s agenda items included seemingly innocuous-sounding items like food distribution and COVID-19 relief, alongside more alarming topics: demolition of “illegal” churches in India and the conversion of Indian Christians and Muslims to Hinduism.

The GHHF isn’t a new organization — it has been operating out of Frisco for 15 years, with a long track record of spewing hatred against Christians and Muslims along the way.

The fact that the GHHF has been able to operate for so long without drawing attention to its incendiary rhetoric tells us a lot about the growth of Hindu nationalism in America.

It’s time for all of us to take note and stand up to this hate in our community.Last week, Indian American activists from different faith backgrounds attended a Frisco City Council meeting demanding action against GHHF.Our organization, Hindus for Human Rights, reached out to GHHF for a comment but did not receive any responses.GHHF and rising Hindu nationalism in AmericaGHHF was founded in 2006 by a group of Hindu Americans from the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana with the goal of advocating for various policies in India that advance the political ideology of Hindu nationalism. Hindu nationalism is an ideology that aims to transform India from a secular democracy to a Hindu nation. In recent years, under the rule of a Hindu nationalist party, India has seen a rise in attacks on religious and cultural minorities, including Christians, Muslims and Dalits, according to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.Just like white nationalists raise fears that racial minorities are “taking over” America —also known as Replacement Theory — Hindu nationalists argue that Muslims and Christians are plotting to take over India and convert India’s Hindu majority to Islam and/or Christianity. This is contradicted by survey data, which shows that religious conversion is extremely rare in India, and in fact Hindus gain as many people as they lose.

Another tenet of Hindu nationalism is the idea that Muslims and Christians cannot be “truly” Indian. Many Hindu nationalist groups engage in efforts to convert Indian Muslims and Christians “back” to Hinduism, an effort known as Ghar Wapsi (homecoming) in Hindi. GHHF has a team of 26 full-time staff in India who try to convert Christians and Muslims “back” to Hinduism, and their fundraising emails call on donors to sponsor a pracharak (missionary) for the cost of $3,000 per year.

GHHF’s missionary activities are accompanied by aggressive speech against Christians and Muslims. The organization has previously called Jesus an “angry, cruel, hateful and jealous God” and has said that “Christianity made many people illogical, irrational, and less objective.

[Riaz Haq]

Hindu nationalist group, known for intolerant rhetoric, hosted a fundraiser in Frisco

By Nikhil Mandalaparthy and Tara Roy, Hindus for Human Rights

They wrote this column for The Dallas Morning News.

https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2022/12/13/hindu-nati...


”The GHHF believes in the “othering” of Muslims and Christians and has said: “All religions are different, Hinduism is inclusive and other two major religions — Christianity and Islam — are exclusive. It is all about “We and THEY”.“If they [Christians] are coming to convert our Hindus, we should drive them away. We should not even allow them to talk about their religion,” according to a GHHF blog.

Hate has no place in Dallas. Given GHHF’s track record of discriminatory rhetoric, it’s alarming to see that it has had success raising funds here in the Dallas area, which was named America’s fourth most diverse city in 2021, according to Wallet Hub. And yet, across the country, we are seeing Hindu nationalist groups like GHHF spread hate in local communities.

In August, the annual India Day parade in Edison, N.J., featured posters of Hindu nationalist politicians along with a bulldozer, which has become a divisive symbol of hate against Indian Muslims. A month later, in September, Hindu nationalist organizations invited Hindu extremist leader Sadhvi Rithambara to deliver lectures across the country.

GHHF’s Frisco fundraiser is another grim reminder of how discriminatory attacks have become commonplace in the United States.

In September, Frisco saw a group of Indian American women verbally attacked and threatened — an incident the community is still reeling from, KTVT reported.

Beyond the Indian American community, anti-Semitic and anti-Asian hate crimes also continue to be on the rise in Dallas. While we speak out against these various forms of hate, we must also be vigilant against the rise of another violent ideology in our communities: Hindu nationalism.

Nikhil Mandalaparthy is the deputy executive director at Hindus for Human Rights where Tara Roy is the communication director. They wrote this column for The Dallas Morning News.