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{{Short description|American Hindu advocacy organization}} | |||
The '''Hindu American Foundation''' (HAF, founded ], ]) is an ] ] human rights group advocating on behalf of the ]. | |||
{{EngvarB|date=August 2014}} | |||
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2022}} | |||
{{Infobox organization | |||
According to its website, "HAF interacts with and educates government, media, think tanks, academia and public fora about Hinduism and issues of concern to Hindus locally and globally. Promoting the Hindu and American ideals of understanding, tolerance and pluralism, HAF stands strong against hate, discrimination, defamation and terror. The Hindu American Foundation is not affiliated with any religious or political organizations or entities. HAF seeks to serve Hindu Americans across all sampradayas (Hindu religious traditions)." | |||
| name = Hindu American Foundation | |||
| full_name = | |||
| image = HAF_Logo_2019_color.svg | |||
| size = | |||
| purpose = ] advocacy | |||
| abbreviation = HAF | |||
| formation = {{start date and age|2003|09|22}} | |||
| founders = Sanjay Garg, Nikhil Joshi, Mihir Meghani, Nagendra Rao, ] | |||
| headquarters = 910 17th St NW ] | |||
| location = | |||
| location_country = | |||
| region_served = ] | |||
| status = ] ] | |||
| tax_id = 68-0551525<ref name="guidestar">{{cite web |title=Hindu American Foundation Guidestar Profile |url=https://www.guidestar.org/profile/68-0551525 |website=] |access-date=6 January 2019 }}</ref> | |||
| language = ] | |||
| leader_title = Executive Director | |||
| leader_name = Suhag Shukla | |||
| website = {{URL|https://www.hinduamerican.org|Official website}} | |||
}} | |||
The '''Hindu American Foundation''' ({{Small|abbr.}} {{Abbr|'''HAF'''|Hindu American Foundation}}) is an American ] non-profit ] founded in 2003. The organisation has its roots in the ] organisation ] and its student wing ]. | |||
The Hindu American foundation has been praised by several well-established human rights groups and advocacy groups such as the ] for their publications on the Human Rights condition of minority Hindus. | |||
HAF's areas of activism include protecting Hindu rights in the United States, highlighting ] in other countries, pushing back against the cultural appropriation of ], and opposition to legislation of anti-caste discrimination laws. Scholars argue that HAF's activism aligns with ] and impinges on academic freedom. | |||
The Hindu American Foundation has also worked with organizations like the ] to counter biases against Hindus and Jews in college campuses like ]. Programs initiated by both groups have revealed numerous cases of academic hostility against both minorities<ref>,''Stanford Daily''</ref>. | |||
==Establishment== | |||
The Hindu American Foundation, released a report in 2005 on the status of the human rights of Hindus, mainly in ], ], and the ] valley. The report attempts to increase awareness of ] views propagated and used to justify violations of the human rights of many Hindus in the region. The report introduces as: | |||
The Hindu American Foundation (HAF) was founded in September 2003 by Mihir Meghani, an emergency care physician; ], an associate professor in urologic surgery; his wife, Suhag Shukla, an attorney;<ref>{{Cite tweet |number=1525144565749108739 |user=aseemrshukla |title=Aww, thanks @SuhagAShukla! Married a law student 27 years ago, but didn’t know I married Wonder Woman! |first=Suhag |last=Shukla |date=13 May 2022}}</ref> Nikhil Joshi, a labor law attorney; and his wife, Adeeti Joshi, a speech therapist.<ref> | |||
{{cite news |author=Melwani |first=Lavina |date=April 2009 |title=Meet the Young Hindu American Foundation |url=https://www.hinduismtoday.com/magazine/april-may-june-2009/2009-04-meet-the-young-hindu-american-foundation/ |newspaper=]}}</ref> Describing itself as a human rights and advocacy group, it emphasized upon the "Hindu and American ideals of understanding, tolerance and ]."{{sfn|Prema Kurien|2007|p=159}} ], a professor of South Asian history at ] noted that the organization appeared to have banked on the enormous goodwill created by ] in the West.{{sfn|Vinay Lal|2012|p=123}} | |||
=== Hindu nationalist origins === | |||
{{cquote| | |||
In 1991, Meghani had founded the ]'s chapter of the ] (HSC), a nationwide network of student societies affiliated with the ] (VHPA).{{sfn|Prema Kurien|2007|pp=145-146}} He went on to serve on the governing council of VHPA and authored an essay for the ] (BJP){{Efn|Meghani critiqued the "denigrations of Hindu traditions" and "pseudi-secularism" practiced by Indian National Congress and went on to warn Muslims about the need of adjusting to a Hindutva-ised Bharat. Meghani claims to have changed his views on the subject in the years since publication - the essay was, apparently, a part of his academic coursework (as a history-major at UMich) and he professes ignorance about how it came to BJP.<ref>{{Cite web |last=McDermott |first=Mat |date=2021-05-27 |title=Letter to the Editor of India Abroad from Mihir Meghani, April 2006 |url=https://www.hinduamerican.org/blog/letter-to-editor-india-abroad-mihir-meghani-april-2006 |website=Hindu American Foundation }}</ref>}} comparing Hindus — a religious majority in India — with Jews, Black Americans, and colonized groups, whose bottled-up anger, for over a millennium, allegedly found a channel of outburst in the rise of the ] and the ].{{sfn|Prema Kurien|2007a}}{{sfn|Prema Kurien|2007|p=145}}<ref name="Frontline"> | |||
] are by definition universal. Hence, in an ideal world there would be no need to write a separate report on the human rights of Hindus, or for that matter any other group. In the real world, unfortunately, there is a gaping hole when it comes to the awareness of human rights for Hindus, mainly in Bangladesh, ] and in the ] valley <ref name="HAFreport"></ref>.}} | |||
{{Cite news |author1=Raqib Hameed Naik |author2=Divya Trivedi |date=16 July 2021 |title=Sangh Parivar's U.S. funds trail |url=https://frontline.thehindu.com/the-nation/sangh-parivars-us-funds-trail/article35117629.ece |newspaper=Frontline}} | |||
</ref>{{sfn|Prema Kurien|2007|pp=145-146}} | |||
] (CAG) — a platform established in the aftermath of ] against Hindu nationalist violence directed at minorities{{sfn|Prema Kurien|2016}}<ref name=":7">{{Cite journal |last=Kurien |first=Prema |date=26 July 2016 |title=Majority versus minority religious status and diasporic nationalism: Indian American advocacy organisations: Majority versus minority religious status and diasporic nationalism |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nana.12255 |journal=Nations and Nationalism |volume=23 |issue=1 |pages=109–128 |doi=10.1111/nana.12255}}</ref> — alleged the formation of HAF to have been the outcome of Meghani's parleys on the governing council of VHPA and an effort to rebrand the ] agenda{{Efn|] is the term used for the strand of ] in the present day context, which covers the present ruling party of India, the ], its parent organisation ], and dozens of affiliated organisations that are collectively termed the ].}} as "Hindu rights" to suit mainstream American politics.<ref name="Hindu rights"> | |||
The 71-page report compiles media coverage and firsthand accounts of human rights violations perpetrated against Hindus because of their religious identity. The incidents are documented, often quoting from well-known international human rights organizations <ref name="HAFreport"/>.The Hindu American Foundation presented the report to the co-chairs of the ]ional Caucus on India and ], Representatives ], a ], and ], a ]. Both of these members of Congress endorsed it<ref name="Pacislands"> | |||
{{harvp|Coalition Against Genocide|2013|loc=Sec. 2}}: 'With the VHP-A led by first-generation immigrants who are unable to penetrate the mainstream American political framework, Meghani's creation of the HAF provided a hitherto unavailable opportunity to bridge the gap between the Hindutva agenda and mainstream American politics. By situating the HAF's work within a framework of American multiculturalism, Meghani effectively gained the ability to push the VHP-A's Hindutva agenda as an issue of "Hindu rights".' | |||
Second Annual Report On Hindu Human Rights Released, ''Pacific Magazine''</ref>.Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Associate Dean and co-founder of the ], praised the HAF for the report. | |||
</ref> They further note most of the HAF office bearers to have been drawn from HSC activists.{{sfn|Coalition Against Genocide|2013|loc=Sec. 2: " trajectory as a “second generation” leader of the U.S. Sangh is also notable for the fact that Meghani utilized a rich crop of young Sangh activists like himself to build the HAF. Meghani's team of volunteers/staff who went on to become the founding leadership of HAF (and continue to be its leaders today) are largely drawn from within the ranks of those placed exactly like him, individuals with established credentials as members of one or another American Sangh organization or initiative. Thus Rishi Bhutada came out of the HSC at University of Pennsylvania, Sheetal Shah served as the Southeast Regional Coordinator for the HSC, Suhag Shukla was active with organizing HSC's regional conferences in the same region, Kavitha Pallod out of the VHP-A’s American Hindu Youth Camp, Padma Kuppa with the VHP-A's Hindu Temple Executive Council, and Ramesh Rao with the India Development and Relief Fund (IDRF), a fund-raising arm of the VHP-A."}} | |||
==== Response to claims about their origin ==== | |||
{{cquote|The Simon Wiesenthal Center welcomes this report which will help the international community and Non-governmental Organizations to have a broader understanding of the human rights situation in that important region of the world<ref name="Pacislands"/>.}} | |||
HAF rejected that their founders had any ties with Hindu Nationalist politics and accused CAG's "leaders and member organisations" of "espousing Marxist ideology or fringe Islamist positions, openly advocating anti-American, anti-Israel, and anti-India views".{{sfn|Prema Kurien|2016}} | |||
==Activism== | |||
Several academics on campuses around the U.S. also reviewed this year’s report. Florida International University Professor of religious Studies, Nathan Katz, remarked on the promulgation of various anti-Hindu sentiments recorded in the report: | |||
HAF was the first American Hindu advocacy organization to have a professional organizational structure as well as full-time staff and is widely considered to be the most prominent organization in the Hindu advocacy field.{{sfn|Prema Kurien|2016}}<ref name="NYT">{{cite news |date=27 November 2010 |title=Hindu Group Stirs a Debate Over Yoga's Soul |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/28/nyregion/28yoga.html?pagewanted=2&_r=2&sq=yoga&st=cse&scp=2 |newspaper=The New York Times}}</ref> The organization was heavily aided by Jewish advocacy groups during its development; it continues to work with the ].<ref>{{Cite news |author=Niraj Sheth |title=Jews, Hindus in Bay Area discover common ground |newspaper=East Bay Times |date=2007-08-20 |url=https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2007/08/20/jews-hindus-in-bay-area-discover-common-ground/}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Gopalan |first=Aparna |title=The Hindu Nationalists Using the Pro-Israel Playbook |newspaper=Jewish Currents |date=28 June 2023 |url=https://jewishcurrents.org/the-hindu-nationalists-using-the-pro-israel-playbook}}</ref> | |||
=== Highlighting Hindu persecution === | |||
{{cquote|“This report by the Hindu American Foundation…is a real eye-opener”.“As a minority in Islamic societies that consider them to be ‘idolaters,’ Hindus in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan face unimaginable persecution routinely<ref name="Pacislands"/>.}} | |||
During 2004–05, the organization held events to educate legislators about issues of concern to Hindu Americans. These included the abuse of Hindus in the Muslim-majority regions of South Asia, including ], ] and ];{{sfn|Prema Kurien|2007a}} | |||
<nowiki></ref></nowiki> since then, they have continued to publish regular "Hindu Human Rights" reports.{{sfn|Prema Kurien|2016}} HAF critiqued Pakistan's treatment of Hindus and advocated for better assimilation and integration of Pakistani Hindu migrants and refugees in India.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Raheja |first=Natasha |date=1 September 2018 |title=Neither Here nor There: Pakistani Hindu Refugee Claims at the Interface of the International and South Asian Refugee Regimes |url=https://academic.oup.com/jrs/article/31/3/334/4922733 |journal=Journal of Refugee Studies |volume=31 |issue=3 |pages=334–352 |doi=10.1093/jrs/fey013 |issn=0951-6328}}</ref> The organization also supported strong ties between India, Israel and the US to create an axis of countries against ].{{sfn|Vinay Lal|2012|p=122}} | |||
=== Advocacy for Hindu rights in the United States === | |||
The report documents the long history of anti-Hindu atrocities in Bangladesh, a topic that many Indians and Indian governments over the years have preferred not to acknowledge. Such atrocities, including targeted attacks against temples, open theft of Hindu property, and ] of young Hindu women and enticements to ] to ], have increased sharply in recent years after the ] joined the coalition government led by the ]. | |||
In 2004, HAF unsuccessfully challenged the public display of the ] in Texas, appearing as ] in '']'' in the ]; they argued that the display represented an "inherent government preference" for ] religions over others and hence, violated the state's obligation to maintain religious neutrality.{{sfn|Prema Kurien|2007|p=1}}{{sfn|Vinay Lal|2012|pp=122-123}} In 2008, HAF, along with a coalition of other religious groups, filed a lawsuit and blocked the issuance of Christian-themed license plates in South Carolina.<ref>{{Cite news |title=Lawsuit filed over 'I Believe' plates in S.C. |url=https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna25270095 |newspaper=NBC News |date=2008-06-19}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |author=Jon Hood |title=Religious License Plate Banned in South Carolina |newspaper=Consumer Affairs |date=5 November 2009 |url=https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2009/11/sc_plates.html}}</ref> | |||
In 2015, as a part of the Hate Crimes Coalition, HAF participated in the drafting and submission of edits to an ] manual to track ] against Hindus specifically.<ref>{{cite news |author=Sunita Sohrabji |title=FBI Adds Hindus, Sikhs to New Hate Crime Tracking Manual |newspaper=IndiaWest |date=26 March 2015 |url=https://www.indiawest.com/news/global_indian/fbi-adds-hindus-sikhs-to-new-hate-crime-tracking-manual/article_a092d0ca-d412-11e4-ba4e-e73a618932a6.html |archive-date=11 November 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181111134012/https://www.indiawest.com/news/global_indian/fbi-adds-hindus-sikhs-to-new-hate-crime-tracking-manual/article_a092d0ca-d412-11e4-ba4e-e73a618932a6.html |url-status=dead}}</ref> However, Azad Essa argued that the HAF has exaggerated the hate crimes faced by Hindus in America.<ref name=":15">{{Cite book |last=Essa |first=Azad |title=Hostile Homelands: The New Alliance Between India and Israel |publisher=Pluto Press |year=2023 |isbn=978-0-7453-4505-5 |jstor=jj.168341}}</ref> Essa found HAF's alarmist statements about a "rise" in ] hate crimes in 2019 to not correspond with reality — out of the 7,120 hate crimes which were reported to the FBI in 2018, only fourteen concerned Hindus; the years before, this count was stable at eleven and ten.<ref name=":15" /> | |||
The report concludes with: | |||
In 2016, HAF along with ] and other organizations convinced the ] to issue a ] the festival of ].<ref> | |||
{{cquote|Some Indians may feel uncomfortable with this report because they do not want to be reminded about the problems of Hindus outside their milieu. And for some in the Indian ], it is a badge of honour to distance themselves from these ]s as a mark of their supposed enlightenment, oddly trashing their own ] in the process. Many more Indians are reluctant to speak out against atrocities committed against Hindus for fear of being labeled "communal". Merely speaking about human rights for Hindus is for them a form of ]}} | |||
{{cite news |date=23 August 2016 |title=Diwali stamp to be released by the United States Postal Service on 5 October |url=https://www.americanbazaaronline.com/2016/08/23/diwali-stamp-to-be-released-by-the-united-states-postal-service-on-october-5416558/ |newspaper=American Bazaar}}</ref> | |||
=== Pro-India advocacy === | |||
The people whose persecution is amply documented in this report are being persecuted because they are Hindu, not because they are poor or because of their political views. Human rights activists in Bangladesh and Pakistan, many of whom are not Hindus, have painstakingly documented the violations of basic human rights of Hindus in their country. | |||
In 2002, ] witnessed ] under the ] of ]; scholars blamed the incumbent government — including Modi himself — for active complicity.<ref>{{Cite book |author1=Hermann Kulke |author2=Dietmar Rothermund |chapter=The Republic |title=A History of India |date=2016 |edition=6 |pages=287 |doi=10.4324/9781315628806-8 |isbn=978-1-315-62880-6 |url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/mono/10.4324/9781315628806-8/republic-hermann-kulke-dietmar-rothermund |publisher=Routledge}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |author1=Kenneth Bo Nielsen |author2=Alf Gunvald Nilsen |chapter=Hindu nationalist statecraft and Modi's authoritarian populism |title=Routledge Handbook of Autocratization in South Asia |publisher=Routledge |date=2021 |pages=99 |doi=10.4324/9781003042211-10 |isbn=978-1-003-04221-1|s2cid=245165294 |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |author=R. Santhosh |chapter=Muslims in Contemporary India |editor=Knut A. Jacobsen |title=Routledge Handbook of Contemporary India |pages=393 |publisher=Routledge |date=2015 |doi=10.4324/9781315682570-31 |isbn=978-1-315-68257-0 |url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781317403586/chapters/10.4324/9781315682570-31}}</ref> In 2005, when the ] invited Modi for an address, activists, including ], lobbied the ] to introduce a resolution criticizing him for his role in those riots.{{sfn|Prema Kurien|2016}} ] and ] introduced House Resolution 160 to such effects.<ref>{{Cite web |title=IMC-USA applauds Congressional Resolution condemning persecution by Modi |publisher=IAMC |url=https://iamc.com/imc-usa_applauds_congressional_resolution_condemning_persecution_by_modi/ |access-date=2023-08-15}}</ref> HAF opposed this resolution, deeming it "Hinduphobic" and criticizing the Congressmen for making India the "focus of a resolution condemning religious persecution in South Asia" while ignoring Pakistan and Bangladesh.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2007-08-24 |title=Hindu American Foundation Condemns Hinduphobic Resolution in House of Representatives |publisher=Hindu American Foundation |url=http://www.hinduamericanfoundation.org/media_press_release_pitts.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070824040612/http://www.hinduamericanfoundation.org/media_press_release_pitts.htm |archive-date=2007-08-24}}</ref>{{sfn|Prema Kurien|2016}} Nonetheless, the State Department denied Modi a visa two days after the bill was introduced.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Janmohamed |first=Zahir |title=U.S. Evangelicals, Indian Expats Teamed Up to Push Through Modi Visa Ban |newspaper=India Ink , New York Times |date=2013-12-05 |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/india.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/05/u-s-evangelicals-indian-expats-teamed-up-to-push-through-modi-visa-ban/ }}</ref>{{sfn|Prema Kurien|2016}}{{efn|Modi would qualify for a visa and visit the United States only after becoming ] in 2014.<ref>{{Cite news |title=Obama invites Modi to visit U.S. despite past visa ban |work=Reuters |date=2014-05-16 |url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-modi-obama-call-idINKBN0DW1NY20140516}}</ref>}} | |||
In 2013, HAF again opposed a fresh bill by Pitts that commended the 2005 visa denial, encouraged the federal government "to review the applications of any individuals implicated in religious freedom violations under the same standard", and urged for the repealing of anti-conversion laws in several Indian states.<ref>{{Cite news |title=Their Master's Voice In Washington |newspaper=Outlook |date=4 February 2022 |url=https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/their-masters-voice-in-washington/289551 }}</ref> HAF mounted fresh criticism, arguing that the bill ignored the impact of Islamist and ] terrorism in the country, and selectively targeted Hindus; a few Indian activist groups who supported the bill were denounced for being unpatriotic.{{sfn|Prema Kurien|2016}} | |||
The HAF was actively involved in the ]. On ], ], it filed a a lawsuit contesting the California's Curriculum Commission's decision to reject many of the ] and ]'s suggested edits to California's textbook curriculum on Hinduism and India, which were opposed by a number of organizations and individuals, claiming that many of the changes were revisionist. (See main article ] for details.) | |||
In 2016, HAF hosted briefings for legislators about Pakistan’s support for ] and raised concern about how US aid might be diverted against India.{{sfn|Prema Kurien|2016}} In August 2019, after the ], which took away the autonomy of the province and rendered it a union territory, HAF published a "Reporter’s Guide" which emphasized about how the new regulations would ensure equal property rights for women, protections for the ] community, and better opportunities for ] in the region.<ref name=":15" /> | |||
As of September 1 2006, the HAF case has been resolved. The court has ruled in favour of retaining the textbooks while also noting that the approval process adopted by the board was flawed. HAF has launched a circular confirming the decision by the courts and expressing a certain measure of satisfaction at the recognition of the illegality of the proceedings. The brief published by HAF reports that the judge ruled in favor of retaining the edits on the grounds that he did not wish to disrupt the process of disseminating the revised editions at this stage. The legal team of HAF has posted an assessment of the result. | |||
=== ''Take Back Yoga'' campaign === | |||
Mihir Meghani, President of the Hindu American Foundation, described the judgement as a "mixed victory". He says: | |||
In 2010, HAF launched the "Take Back Yoga" campaign as a reaction to alleged ] and ] by popular press and neo-gurus who according to the HAF "abstained from discussing the origins of yoga in Hinduism and corrupted a Hindu philosophical practice to a mere collection of physical postures."<ref>{{cite magazine |author=Meera Nanda |title=Not as Old as You Think |date=12 February 2011 |url=http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/living/not-as-old-as-you-think |magazine=] |author-link=Meera Nanda}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |author=Farai Chideya |title=Has Yoga Strayed Too Far From Its Hindu Roots? |work=] |date=24 March 2011 |url=https://www.npr.org/2011/03/24/134822766/Has-Yoga-Strayed-Too-Far-From-Its-Hindu-Roots}}</ref>{{sfn|Andrea Jain|2014}} Particular emphasis was laid on the Hindu nature of yoga manuals across centuries to corroborate claims of yoga being a Hindu form of spiritual quest.{{sfn|Andrea Jain|2014}} | |||
], a professor of Religious Studies at ], located HAF's claims within a ] discourse of ] that unwittingly borrowed from and mirrored the West; while HAF spoke about the inevitable Hinduization of anybody who chooses to practice Yoga in its "true essence", the Christian far-right denounced Yoga as a satanic act which took practitioners away from Christ into the fold of ].{{sfn|Andrea Jain|2014}}{{Vague|reason=It is unclear who this "Christian far-right" refers to|date=November 2024|text=the Christian far-right denounced Yoga as a satanic act which took practitioners away from Christ into the fold of Brahmins}} Furthermore, Jain found the HAF's ] discourse on Yoga to be ahistorical — according to him, Yoga was a fluid tradition made and remade by different socio-religious cultures across different times with different connotations.{{sfn|Andrea Jain|2014}} Other scholars reiterate Jain's observations;<ref>{{Cite book |author=Stephanie Corigliano |title=The Routledge Handbook of Hindu–Christian Relations |chapter-url=https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9781003139843-6 |chapter=Orientalism and postcolonial theory in Hindu–Christian encounters |date=31 December 2020 |pages=54–66 |publisher=Routledge Handbooks Online |isbn=978-0-367-00070-7 |doi=10.4324/9781003139843-6|s2cid=229427069 }}</ref> Christopher Patrick Miller, a professor of Yoga Studies at ], found it ironic that to defend against perceived Christian ingressions, HAF had to borrow from Christian (and colonial) notions of what constituted a Yogic canon.<ref>{{Cite book |author=Christopher Patrick Miller |title=The Routledge Handbook of Hindu–Christian Relations |chapter-url=https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9781003139843-27 |chapter=Christian and Hindu responses to Christian yoga practice in North America |date=31 December 2020 |pages=280–293 |publisher=Routledge Handbooks Online |isbn=978-0-367-00070-7 |doi=10.4324/9781003139843-27|s2cid=229449147 }}</ref> | |||
<blockquote> | |||
"This ruling now forces the California Board of Education to comply with the law — to have a fair and open public process to benefit all California students." | |||
</blockquote> | |||
=== Caste === | |||
as well as: | |||
In 2010, HAF issued a report titled "Hinduism: Not Cast in Caste" alleging that Christian missionaries were able to push their ] agenda only because of the prevalence of ]; it went on to argue that caste cannot be considered to be an intrinsic definitional aspect of Hinduism due to a lack of theological sanction in its most sacred texts and urged for reforms led by Hindus themselves.{{sfn|Prema Kurien|2016}} This led to a flutter in conservative Hindu circles in India and the following year, HAF toned down their report; they even cautioned against the trend of passing resolutions against caste discrimination adopted by various global organizations and held caste to be an internal affair of a sovereign India.{{sfn|Prema Kurien|2016}} HAF has since portrayed castes as occupational ] which had brought stability to premodern India before being reified under ]; it has vehemently opposed drawing parallels between caste-discrimination and racism — arguing that it belittles the brutality faced by African Americans — or even any depiction of the caste-system as a rigid birth-determined pyramid of hierarchy.{{sfn|Prema Kurien|2016}}{{sfn|Prema Kurien|2022}} | |||
In 2021, on the heels of prolonged transnational activism by Dalits, "caste" was added as a protected category to ]'s anti-discrimination policy.<ref>{{cite news |author1=Nani Sahra Walker |title=Cal State system adds caste to anti-discrimination policy in groundbreaking decision |work=Los Angeles Times |date=20 January 2022 |url=https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-01-20/csu-adds-caste-to-its-anti-discrimination-policy}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |author=Lakshman Sriram |title=Group opposes protection from caste discrimination in California Varsity's faculty union |work=The Hindu |issue=24 January 2022 |url=https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/group-opposes-protection-from-caste-discrimination-in-california-varsitys-faculty-union/article38319866.ece}}</ref> HAF perceived such policies to have the potential to enable the malicious targeting of Indian Hindu academics and lodged stiff opposition; their office-bearers argued caste to be a "stereotype", that was imposed upon South Asians only by the British Raj.<ref name="TIME">{{cite magazine |author1=Rohit Chopra |author2=Ajantha Subramaniam |title=Caste Discrimination Exists in the U.S., Too—But a Movement to Outlaw It Is Growing |url=https://time.com/6146141/caste-discrimination-us-opposition-grows/ |magazine=TIME |date=11 February 2022}}</ref> In October 2022, HAF provided legal representation to two University of California professors who sued their employer to prevent the implementation of caste-based protections.<ref>{{cite web |date=20 October 2022 |title=California State University professors sue over caste policy, allege discrimination |url=https://religionnews.com/2022/10/20/california-state-university-professors-sue-over-caste-policy-allege-discrimination/}}</ref> The month before, they unsuccessfully sued the ] for allegedly misrepresenting caste as intrinsic to Hinduism in its submission to the ].<ref>{{Cite news |title=HAF Sues California for 'Misrepresenting' Hindu Beliefs, Practices |url=https://thewire.in/world/haf-sues-california-for-misrepresenting-hindu-beliefs-practices |date=25 September 2022 |newspaper=The Wire}}</ref> | |||
<blockquote> | |||
"The (foundation) is disappointed that ... (the judge) has not ordered the textbooks on hand to be modified to be more accurate ... and a flawed and illegal procedure leads to flawed textbooks" | |||
Ajantha Subramaniam, a professor of South Asian Studies at Harvard University, rejected HAF's charges concerning anti-caste legislations and questioned their accusations of being discriminated based on religion; she and other scholars emphasized on the depth of scholarship that has held caste to be a reality of central significance from premodern South Asia to present-day India including in the ].<ref name="TIME" /><ref>{{Cite web |title=Not Even Indian Students in American Colleges Can Escape Caste Discrimination |url=https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7dyg9/csu-caste-indian-students-california-state-university-policy |newspaper=VICE |date=3 February 2022 }}</ref><ref name="Sailaja Krishnamurti">{{Cite book |last=Krishnamurti |first=Sailaja |title=The Routledge Handbook of Hindu–Christian Relations |date=31 December 2020 |publisher=Routledge Handbooks Online |isbn=978-0-367-00070-7 |pages=180–192 |chapter=Race, representation, and Hindu–Christian encounters in contemporary North America |doi=10.4324/9781003139843-18 |quote=Despite claiming to have no affiliations with transnational Hindu groups like the VHP, however, the HAF has earned a reputation as a conservative group supporting a nationalist Hindu politics. At best, the version of Hinduism promoted by HAF is homogenous and simplistic, as Bauman and Saunders (2009) suggest. |chapter-url=https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9781003139843-18 |s2cid=229400060}}</ref> | |||
</blockquote> | |||
==== SB403 ==== | |||
In early 2023, HAF was among several Hindu-American organizations that opposed the ], which aimed to explicitly add caste into the definition of ] under anti-discrimination laws in ].<ref name="POLNewsom">{{cite news |author=Eric He |title=Newsom vetoes a proposed ban on caste discrimination in California |newspaper=] |date=7 October 2023 |url=https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/07/newsom-veto-caste-discrimination-00120495 }}</ref> The proponents of the bill insisted that an explicit ban on caste discrimination was needed to raise awareness of this bias, but HAF contended that this proposal unfairly targeted Hindus;<ref name="NYTOct7">{{cite news |author=Amy Qin |title=Newsom Vetoes Bill Banning Caste Discrimination |website=] |date=7 October 2023 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/07/us/california-caste-discrimination.html|quote="Hindu residents and organizations who had argued that the proposal unfairly targeted them because the caste system is most commonly associated with Hinduism"}}</ref> and may result in racial profiling against Hindu Americans.<ref name="SacBee-Recall">{{cite news |last=Hatch |first=Jenavieve |title=Republican-backed recall committee forms against Bay Area Democratic Sen. Aisha Wahab |website=] |date=3 May 2023 |url=https://amp.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article274935271.html}}</ref> | |||
In May, the ] passed the bill after a divisive debate.<ref>{{cite news |author=Sakshi Venkatraman |title=California Senate passes bill that would make caste discrimination illegal |url=https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/calif-state-senate-passes-bill-make-caste-discrimination-illegal-rcna83981 |website=] |date=11 May 2023}}</ref><ref name="BBCCaste">{{cite news |title=The divisive debate over California's anti-caste bill |website=] |date=June 9, 2023 |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-65819688 }}</ref> However, in October 2023, after sustained lobbying by HAF, California Governor ] vetoed the bill, agreeing that "caste discrimination already prohibited under existing civil rights protections".<ref name="NYTOct7" /><ref>{{Cite web |author=Andrew Cockburn |title=The Hindutva Lobby: How Hindu nationalism spreads in America |website=Harpers |date=18 September 2024 |url=https://harpers.org/archive/2024/10/the-hindutva-lobby-hindu-nationalism-america-andrew-cockburn/ }}</ref> | |||
== Attacks on academic freedom == | |||
], a historian of South Asia at ], notes HAF to have "prioritized attacks on higher education."<ref name="Truschke Oxford">{{citation |author=Audrey Truschke |chapter=The Hindu Right in the United States |title=Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History |doi=10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.013.1070 |publisher=Oxford Univer Press |year=2022}}</ref> Other scholars agree.<ref>{{Cite news |author=Vinayak Chaturvedi |first=Vinayak |title=The Hindu Right and Attacks on Academic Freedom in the US |newspaper=The Nation |date=2021-12-01 |url=https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/hindu-right-academic-freedom/ |issn=0027-8378}}</ref> | |||
=== Textbook revisionism in California === | |||
{{main|California textbook controversy over Hindu history|2016–17 California textbook controversy over South Asian topics}} | |||
In March 2006, HAF filed a lawsuit against California's Curriculum Commission's decision to reject most of the edits proposed by the Vedic Foundation and Hindu Education Foundation — two Hindu Nationalist groups linked with ] — to the textbooks taught in the state.<ref name=":12">{{Cite journal |last=Bose |first=Purnima |date=2008 |title=Hindutva Abroad: The California Textbook Controversy |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40339280 |journal=The Global South |volume=2 |issue=1 |pages=11–34 |issn=1932-8648}}</ref> The suggested changes had sought to downplay the salience of ] in Indian history, reject ] in favor of ],{{Efn|HAF has also critiqued '']'' for showcasing the theory of Indo-Aryan migrations.<ref>{{Cite web |title="Story of India" Misses the Mark: Press Release by HAF |url=https://www.harekrsna.com/sun/news/01-09/news2455.htm |date=12 January 2009}}</ref>}} and not describe the declining status of women in ancient India, arguing that such portrayals would humiliate Hindu children in classrooms. Multiple ], including ], ], ], ], ], ], ] and ], and other South Asian activist groups opposed the changes.<ref name=":12" /><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Visweswaran |first=Kamala |last2=Witzel |first2=Michael |last3=Manjrekar |first3=Nandini |last4=Bhog |first4=Dipta |last5=Chakravarti |first5=Uma |date=2009 |title=The Hindutva View of History: Rewriting Textbooks in India and the United States |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/43134195 |journal=Georgetown Journal of International Affairs |volume=10 |issue=1 |pages=101–112 |issn=1526-0054}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Witzel |first=Michael |display-authors=etal |date=8 November 2005 |title=Letter to California State Board of education |url=https://safarmer.com/textbook.petition.2005.pdf}}</ref> The court ruled against HAF and chose to retain the textbooks;<ref name=":13"> | |||
{{Cite news |date=9 September 2006 |title=US text row resolved by Indian |url=http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2006-09-09/india/27800566_1_aryans-textbook-affidavit |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120715082709/http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2006-09-09/india/27800566_1_aryans-textbook-affidavit |archive-date=15 July 2012 |newspaper=The Times of India}} | |||
</ref> it found HAF's accusations of a biased and negative portrayal of Hinduism unpersuasive.<ref>{{Cite book |last=LaSpina |first=James Andrew |title=California in a Time of Excellence: School Reform at the Crossroads of the American Dream |publisher=State University of New York Press |year=2009 |isbn=978-1-4384-2512-2 |pages=129}}</ref> | |||
In 2016, the HAF lobbied against the replacement of the word "Indian" with "South Asian" in middle school history textbooks in California, arguing that the change was essentially an erasure of India itself. These efforts were protested by South Asian academics and activists belonging to India's minority groups, who said that those on the side of the HAF sought to whitewash California's history textbooks to present a nativist, blemish-free view of how the Hindu caste system was enforced in India. They also argued that the term "South Asia" correctly represents India's collective history with countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh. A letter to the California State Board of Education about this issue, which garnered thousands of signatures, was headed by the HAF.<ref> | |||
{{Cite news |first=Jennifer |last=Medina |title=Debate Erupts in California Over Curriculum on India's History|work=The New York Times |date=4 May 2016 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/06/us/debate-erupts-over-californias-india-history-curriculum.html}} | |||
</ref> | |||
=== Censorship of Wendy Doniger === | |||
In 2009, ] — the Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of History of Religions at the ] — published '']'', to rave reviews in mainstream media.<ref name="Michael Jerryson">{{Cite web |author=Michael Jerryson |title=Policing Academic Freedom: A Book, a Controversy, and the Ominous Aftermath |website=Religion Dispatches |date=2014-04-10 |url=https://religiondispatches.org/policing-academic-freedom-a-book-a-controversy-and-the-ominous-aftermath/}}</ref> However, soon it drew ire from the ] who found Doniger's work to be stigmatizing of Hinduism.<ref name="Michael Jerryson" /> | |||
The following year, as the ] shortlisted her work for its 2010 annual awards, HAF protested the choice.<ref name="Michael Jerryson" /> They alleged Doniger's scholarship to be laden with numerous inaccuracies and an anti-Hindu bias. HAF also accused her of offering "offensive, shocking, and gratuitous deconstruction of some of the most important epics" and providing "pornographic depictions" of Hindu deities.<ref name="Michael Jerryson" /> Suhag Shukla, director of HAF and also an ex-student of Doniger, went on to criticize the ] for coming out in support of Doniger and supporting the academic freedom of scholars to "offer any interpretation" of any religion.<ref name="Michael Jerryson" /> | |||
=== Defamation suit against academics and activists === | |||
In May 2021, HAF filed a defamation lawsuit against ] and Raju Rajagopal of ], Rasheed Ahmed from the ], Prabhudoss, and Truschke.<ref name="Scroll"> | |||
{{Cite web |author=Anisha Sircar |title=Explained: The Hindu American Foundation's defamation case against Hindus for Human Rights founders |newspaper=Scroll.in |date=24 May 2021 |url=https://scroll.in/global/995560/explained-the-hindu-american-foundations-defamation-case-against-hindus-for-human-rights-founders}} | |||
</ref><ref name=RNS> | |||
{{Cite news |author=Mythili Sampathkumar |title=Hindu American Foundation files defamation suit against Hindu rights nonprofit |newspaper=Religion News Service |date=20 May 2021 |url=https://religionnews.com/2021/05/20/hindu-american-foundation-files-defamation-suit-against-hindu-rights-nonprofit/}} | |||
</ref> It alleged statements in two '']'' articles that characterized the HAF as having "ties to Hindu supremacist and religious groups" and with the RSS as defamatory.<ref name="Scroll"/> A diverse group of intellectuals and academics — ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], and ] among others — condemned HAF's tactics as a ], designed to silence critics and push forward ].<ref name="Scroll" /><ref name="repudiate"> | |||
{{Cite web |title=Over 300 Writers, Academics and Scholars Repudiate HAF's Attempt to Silence Hindus for Human Rights |url=https://www.hindusforhumanrights.org/en/blog/for-immediate-release-300-academics-and-scholars-express-their-solidarity-with-hindus-for-human-rights-and-its-allies-in-the-lawsuit-filed-by-the-hindu-american-foundation-py7je |access-date=18 July 2021 |website=Hindus for Human Rights}} | |||
</ref> Shukla, in response, noted them to have a record of producing "anti-Hindu scholarship".<ref>{{Cite tweet |number=1395588485768261637 |user=SuhagAShukla |title=There’s Doniger, Thapar, Pollock, Yengde, Nussbaum, Chomsky & more “repudiating” @HinduAmerican ! Could there be a greater endorsement of our work? Could there be a stronger statement that HAF has shaken these academics with a record of anti-Hindu scholarship to the core? |author=Suhag Shukla |date=21 May 2021}}</ref> | |||
On 15 March 2022, Judge ] stayed the defendants' ] since he deemed one of their arguments about whether HAF had satisfied the second requirement of ] — by proving the amount of monetary loss to have exceeded 75,000 USD — as a "substantial question" of procedure, that needed to be settled before adjudication on merits.<ref name=":4">{{Cite Pacer|plaintiff=Hindu American Foundation|defendant=Sunita Vishwanath|title=ORDER staying the pending motions to dismiss in this matter for a limited period of jurisdictional discovery as to the amount in controversy.|doc-number=48|date=15 March 2022|pacer-number=230928|case-state=DC|case-division=1|case-year=2021|case-type=cv|case-sequence=01268}}</ref> Mehta accepted HAF's new evidence to pass muster and ordered discovery. On 20 December 2022, he dismissed the suit since HAF had failed not only to establish any ], even assuming that their allegations were factually accurate,{{Efn|Judge Mehta rejected that HAF had provided any evidence to support that the defenders were acting with malice, which is integral to maintainability of a defamation suit.}} but also to provide any evidence that the court had personal jurisdiction over the defendants except one.<ref name="Scroll"></ref>{{Efn|HAF requested discovery to bolster its jurisdictional claims; Judge Mehta denied the request for being a "fishing expedition, not made in good faith." As to the lone defendant - Prabhudoss - over whom the Court had jurisdiction, Judge Mehta ruled that his statements were opinions that could not be plausibly alleged to be "verifiably false" and hence not litigable.}} | |||
=== Opposing ''Dismantling Global Hindutva'' conference === | |||
During August–September 2021, HAF launched a protest campaign against a virtual conference, ''Dismantling Global Hindutva'': ''Multidisciplinary Perspectives'', organized by a conglomeration of American universities.<ref name="Guardian" /> It accused the conference of platforming activists with "extensive histories of amplifying Hinduphobic discourse ... equate the whole of Hinduism with caste bigotry, deny the subcontinental indigeneity of Hindus ... and deny the resulting genocides and ethnic cleansings of Hindus".<ref name=":15" />{{Efn|On the politics of the deployment of the term "Hindu genocide" and its (lack of) historical accuracy, see {{Cite journal |last=Subrahmanyam |first=Sanjay |date=2023-01-02 |title=Inventing a ‘Genocide’: The Political Abuses of a Powerful Concept in Contemporary India |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/25785648.2022.2153974 |journal=The Journal of Holocaust Research |volume=37 |issue=1 |pages=102–107 |doi=10.1080/25785648.2022.2153974 |issn=2578-5648}}}} | |||
Multiple academics and activists involved in the conference reported receiving death threats and being subject to other forms of intimidation.<ref name="Guardian"> | |||
{{Cite news |title=Death threats sent to participants of US conference on Hindu nationalism |newspaper=The Guardian |date=9 September 2021 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/09/death-threats-sent-to-participants-of-us-conference-on-hindu-nationalism }} | |||
</ref><ref> | |||
{{Cite web |author=Raqib Hameed Naik |title=US academic conference on 'Hindutva' targeted by Hindu groups |newspaper=Al Jazeera |date=7 September 2021 |url=https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/7/us-academic-conference-dismantling-global-hindutva-hindu-right-wing-groups}} | |||
</ref> In response, the ] condemned the attacks against academic freedom, and the ] noted Hindutva to be a "majoritarian ideological doctrine" different from ], whose rise to prominence had accompanied "increasing attacks on numerous scholars, artists and journalists."<ref> | |||
{{Cite web |title=AAS Statement on the Dismantling Global Hindutva Conference |website=Association for Asian Studies |date=10 September 2021 |url=https://www.asianstudies.org/aas-statement-on-the-dismantling-global-hindutva-conference/}} | |||
</ref><ref> | |||
{{Cite web |title=AHA Releases Statement on Threats to Academic Conferences |date=September 2021 |publisher=Americal Historical Association |url=https://www.historians.org/news-and-advocacy/aha-advocacy/aha-statement-on-threats-to-academic-conferences-(september-2021)}} | |||
</ref> The conference went ahead as scheduled and without any significant disruptions.<ref> | |||
{{cite news |title=Explained: What is 'Dismantling Global Hindutva Conference', and why has it triggered a row? |work=The Indian Express |date=14 September 2021 |url=https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/global-hindutva-conference-us-7501478/}} | |||
</ref> | |||
HAF has since complained to the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights against the ] for violating ] — they alleged that the University, co-sponsored a "one-sided" conference, promoted negative "stereotypes and slurs" about Hindu academics, and discriminated against them.<ref name="Daily Pennsylvanian">{{Cite news |author=Tori Sousa |title=Penn faces federal complaint for participation in conference discussing Hindu nationalism |newspaper=The Daily Pennsylvanian |date=26 October 2021 |url=https://www.thedp.com/article/2021/10/hindu-foundation-penn-complaint-us-department-of-education }}</ref><ref name="Philadelphia Enquirer">{{Cite news |author=Susan Snyder |title=A Hindu foundation has filed a complaint against University of Pennsylvania, saying an online conference perpetuated stereotypes |newspaper=The Philadelphia Inquirer |date=17 October 2021 |url=https://www.inquirer.com/news/hindu-foundation-penn-civil-rights-complaint-hindutva-20211017.html }}</ref> However, multiple professors at the University who identify as Hindus rejected the accusations and highlighted how HAF had weaponized Hindutva to stifle free speech.<ref name="Daily Pennsylvanian" /><ref name="Philadelphia Enquirer" /> Dheepa Sundaram, a religion and digital culture scholar at ], found the lawsuit to leverage "the rhetoric and tactics of social justice activists" in "pursuit of an oppressive ideology."{{sfn|Dheepa Sundaram|2023}}{{Cite journal |last=Sundaram |first=Dheepa |date=2023-06-23 |title=Hindutva 2.0: How a Conference on Hindu Nationalism Launches a Change in Strategy for North American Hindutva Organizations |url=https://academic.oup.com/jaar/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jaarel/lfad028/7205785 |journal=Journal of the American Academy of Religion |volume=90 |issue=4 |pages=809–814 |doi=10.1093/jaarel/lfad028 |issn=0002-7189|doi-access=free }}</ref> | |||
== Reception == | |||
Scholars, almost unanimously, agree that HAF purveys a politics embedded in Hindutva.{{Citation needed|date=November 2024}} | |||
Sailaja Krishnamurti, a professor at ] who specializes in religious traditions of the South Asian diaspora, summarized that HAF has "earned a reputation" of being a conservative group purveying Hindu nationalist politics. <ref name="Sailaja Krishnamurti" /><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Jenkins |first1=Laura Dudley |last2=Teater |first2=Kristina M |chapter=Hindu perspectives on the right to religious freedom |title=Routledge Handbook of Freedom of Religion or Belief |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=2020 |pages=102–116 |doi=10.4324/9780203732625-11 |isbn=9780203732625 |s2cid=228820013 |url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780203732625-11/hindu-perspectives-right-religious-freedom-laura-dudley-jenkins-kristina-teater }}</ref> Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst, a historian specializing in South Asian religions at the ], qualified the HAF as a "deeply conservative" outfit.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Fuerst |first=Ilyse R. Morgenstein |date=28 June 2022 |title=Survivals: The Stakes of Religious Literacy |url=https://brill.com/view/journals/mtsr/34/5/article-p435_2.xml |journal=Method & Theory in the Study of Religion |volume=34 |issue=5 |pages=435–445 |doi=10.1163/15700682-bja10078 |issn=0943-3058 |s2cid=251185536}}</ref> Sangay K. Mishra, an assistant professor of political science at ], argued that the HAF had remolded ]-leaning politics into the language of "Hindu rights" to be palatable in the American mainstream.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Mishra |first=Sangay K. |title=Desis Divided : The Political Lives of South Asian Americans |date=1 March 2016 |publisher=University of Minnesota Press |isbn=978-0-8166-8115-0 |page=101–103, 215}}</ref> Truschke finds HAF to be an integral component of the "wider Sangh Parivar" and Hindu right in the United States.<ref name="Truschke Oxford" /> | |||
Sundaram found among the group's aims to sanitize the exclusionary nature of Hindutva, in part by borrowing from decolonial vocabulary, misleadingly portraying terms like "Hindutva", "Brahminism", etc. as oriental pejoratives.{{sfn|Dheepa Sundaram|2023}} Chad Bauman, a professor of religion at ], contended HAF's portrayal of Hinduism to be misleadingly monolithic and in service of a political agenda.{{sfn|Bauman|Saunders|2009}} Nishant Upadhyay, a professor at the ], specializing in gender and sexuality studies found the group's queer-friendly portrayal of Hinduism to be embedded within a discourse of Hindutva ].{{sfn|Nishant Upadhyay|2020}} | |||
The ] has noted that the HAF has lobbied support in favor of Narendra Modi, the incumbent Prime Minister of India, amongst the diaspora.<ref name="Bridge Initiative"> | |||
{{Cite web |title=Factsheet: Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) |url=https://bridge.georgetown.edu/research/factsheet-rashtriya-swayamsevak-sangh-rss/ |access-date=11 July 2021 |website=Bridge Initiative}} | |||
</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=28 April 2022 |title=Why the West is reckoning with caste bias now |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-61241849 |access-date=4 May 2022 |work=BBC News }}</ref> ]'s Bridge Initiative found HAF board member Rishi Bhutada to have also served as the official spokesperson of "]," a ](RSS)-backed rally in support of India's incumbent prime minister ] held in Houston, Texas in 2020.<ref name="Bridge Initiative" /> They — as well as several journalists — documented numerous anti-Muslim statements made by HAF board members, past and present.<ref name="Bridge Initiative" /><ref name="Frontline" /><ref> | |||
{{Cite news |author=Ram Vishwanathan |date=29 October 2020 |title=How the American Sangh hopes to win the 2020 US elections |url=https://caravanmagazine.in/politics/how-the-american-sangh-hopes-to-win-the-2020-elections |website=The Caravan}} | |||
</ref> Academics and journalists have also investigated money trails linking HAF to other ] groups via their donors.<ref name="Frontline" /> | |||
=== Response === | |||
HAF denies these charges, claims to be non-partisan, and has unsuccessfully filed defamation suits against a wide range of organizations and individuals that alleged its links to Hindutva.<ref name="RNS" /><ref>{{Cite web |last=Menon |first=Vandana |date=14 June 2022 |title=A mysterious new report tells you who funds Hindu nationalism in US, and with how much money |url=https://theprint.in/features/a-mysterious-new-report-tells-you-who-funds-hindu-nationalism-in-us-and-with-how-much-money/995680/ |access-date=7 August 2022 |website=ThePrint }}</ref> However, Arun Chaudhuri, an anthropologist of religion and politics at ], cautions that such disavowals should not be taken at face value but rather as efforts at distancing HAF from the overtly negative connotations of Hindu nationalism. Sonia Sikka, an academic specializing in the intersection of religion and politics, too rejects HAF's claims of non-partisanship.<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal |last=Sikka |first=Sonia |date=12 July 2022 |title=Indian Islamophobia as Racism |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-923X.13152 |journal=The Political Quarterly |volume=93 |issue=3 |pages=1467–923X.13152 |doi=10.1111/1467-923X.13152 |issn=0032-3179 |s2cid=250515835}}</ref> | |||
== Notes == | |||
{{Notelist}} | |||
==References== | ==References== | ||
{{Reflist}} | |||
<references/> | |||
== |
===Sources=== | ||
* {{cite report |title=Affiliations of Faith: Hindu American Foundation and the Global Sangh |publisher=Coalition Against Genocide |date=15 December 2013 |url=https://www.coalitionagainstgenocide.org/reports/2013/cag.15dec2013.haf.rss.pdf |ref={{sfnref|Coalition Against Genocide|2013}}}} | |||
* {{Cite journal |last1=Bauman |first1=Chad |last2=Saunders |first2=Jennifer B. |title=Out of India: Immigrant Hindus and South Asian Hinduism in the USA: Immigrant Hindus and South Asian Hinduism in the USA |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1749-8171.2008.00121.x |journal=Religion Compass |volume=3 |issue=1 |date=January 2009 |pages=116–135 |doi=10.1111/j.1749-8171.2008.00121.x}} | |||
* {{Cite book |author=Andrea Jain |title=Selling Yoga: From Counterculture to Pop Culture |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2014 |chapter=Yogaphobia and Hindu Origins |pages=130–157 |doi=10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199390236.003.0006 |isbn=978-0-19-939023-6 |chapter-url=https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199390236.003.0006}} | |||
* {{cite book |author=Prema Kurien |author-link=Prema Kurien |title=A Place at the Multicultural Table: The Development of an American Hinduism |publisher=Rutgers University Press |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-8135-4161-7 |url={{Google books|DxneawQ8sKQC|keywords=|text=|plainurl=yes}}}} | |||
* {{cite journal |author=Prema Kurien |author-link=Prema Kurien |title=Who speaks for Indian Americans? Religion, ethnicity, and political formation |journal=American Quarterly |volume=59 |number=3 |year=2007a |pages=759–783 |doi=10.1353/aq.2007.0059 |url=http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/american_quarterly/v059/59.3kurien.html |jstor=40068449 |s2cid=143780494 }} | |||
* {{cite book |author=Prema Kurien |author-link=Prema Kurien |chapter=Chapter 7. What is American about American Hinduism? Hindu Umbrella Organisations in the United States on Comparative Perspective |editor=John Zavos |display-editors=etal |title=Public Hinduisms |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uuuICwAAQBAJ&pg=PT103 |place=New Delhi |publisher=SAGE Publ. India |year=2012 |isbn=978-81-321-1696-7}} | |||
* {{Cite journal |author=Prema Kurien |title=Majority versus minority religious status and diasporic nationalism: Indian American advocacy organisations: Majority versus minority religious status and diasporic nationalism |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nana.12255 |journal=Nations and Nationalism |volume=23 |issue=1 |date=2016 |pages=109–128 |doi=10.1111/nana.12255}} | |||
* {{Cite journal |author=Prema Kurien |title=The Racial Paradigm and Dalit Anti-Caste Activism in the United States |journal=Social Problems |volume=70 |issue=3 |date=2022 |pages=717–734 |doi=10.1093/socpro/spac035 |issn=0037-7791 |url=https://academic.oup.com/socpro/advance-article/doi/10.1093/socpro/spac035/6613071}} | |||
* {{cite book |author=Vinay Lal |author-link=Vinay Lal |title=The Other Indians |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SmFmpTMJFgIC&pg=RA1-PT55 |year=2012 |publisher=HarperCollins Publishers |isbn=978-93-5029-261-7}} | |||
* {{cite book |author=Pyong Gap Min |author-link=Pyong Gap Min |title=Preserving Ethnicity Through Religion in America: Korean Protestants and Indian Hindus Across Generations |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wHUTCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA32 |year=2010 |publisher=NYU Press |isbn=978-0-8147-9586-6}} | |||
* {{cite book |author=Vijay Prashad |author-link=Vijay Prashad |title=Uncle Swami: South Asians in America Today |publisher=The New Press |year=2012 |isbn=978-1595588012 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=h9ImLEPR-4QC}} | |||
* {{Cite journal |author=Dheepa Sundaram |title=Hindutva 2.0: How a Conference on Hindu Nationalism Launches a Change in Strategy for North American Hindutva Organizations |journal=Journal of the American Academy of Religion |volume=90 |issue=4 |pages=809–814 |date=2023 |doi=10.1093/jaarel/lfad028 |issn=0002-7189 |doi-access=free |url=https://academic.oup.com/jaar/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jaarel/lfad028/7205785}} | |||
* {{Cite journal |author=Nishant Upadhyay |title=Hindu Nation and its Queers: Caste, Islamophobia, and De/coloniality in India |journal=Interventions |volume=22 |issue=4 |pages=464–480 |date=2020 |doi=10.1080/1369801X.2020.1749709 |issn=1369-801X |s2cid=218822737}} | |||
==External links== | |||
* | |||
{{Wikiquote}} | |||
* {{URL|http://www.hafsite.org/|Hindu American Foundation official website}} | |||
* Mihir Meghani, , bjp.org, archived on 17 January 1997. | |||
* , audreytruschke.com, January 2023. | |||
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Latest revision as of 15:36, 22 December 2024
American Hindu advocacy organization
Abbreviation | HAF |
---|---|
Formation | September 22, 2003; 21 years ago (2003-09-22) |
Founders | Sanjay Garg, Nikhil Joshi, Mihir Meghani, Nagendra Rao, Aseem Shukla |
Tax ID no. | 68-0551525 |
Legal status | 501(c)(3) non-profit |
Purpose | Hindu American advocacy |
Headquarters | 910 17th St NW Washington, D.C. |
Region served | United States |
Official language | American English |
Executive Director | Suhag Shukla |
Website | Official website |
The Hindu American Foundation (abbr. HAF) is an American Hindu non-profit advocacy group founded in 2003. The organisation has its roots in the Hindu nationalist organisation Vishwa Hindu Parishad America and its student wing Hindu Students Council.
HAF's areas of activism include protecting Hindu rights in the United States, highlighting Hindu persecution in other countries, pushing back against the cultural appropriation of yoga, and opposition to legislation of anti-caste discrimination laws. Scholars argue that HAF's activism aligns with Hindu nationalism and impinges on academic freedom.
Establishment
The Hindu American Foundation (HAF) was founded in September 2003 by Mihir Meghani, an emergency care physician; Aseem Shukla, an associate professor in urologic surgery; his wife, Suhag Shukla, an attorney; Nikhil Joshi, a labor law attorney; and his wife, Adeeti Joshi, a speech therapist. Describing itself as a human rights and advocacy group, it emphasized upon the "Hindu and American ideals of understanding, tolerance and pluralism." Vinay Lal, a professor of South Asian history at University of California, Los Angeles noted that the organization appeared to have banked on the enormous goodwill created by Mahatma Gandhi in the West.
Hindu nationalist origins
In 1991, Meghani had founded the University of Michigan's chapter of the Hindu Students Council (HSC), a nationwide network of student societies affiliated with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad America (VHPA). He went on to serve on the governing council of VHPA and authored an essay for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) comparing Hindus — a religious majority in India — with Jews, Black Americans, and colonized groups, whose bottled-up anger, for over a millennium, allegedly found a channel of outburst in the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the demolition of the Babri Masjid.
Coalition Against Genocide (CAG) — a platform established in the aftermath of 2002 Gujarat riots against Hindu nationalist violence directed at minorities — alleged the formation of HAF to have been the outcome of Meghani's parleys on the governing council of VHPA and an effort to rebrand the Hindutva agenda as "Hindu rights" to suit mainstream American politics. They further note most of the HAF office bearers to have been drawn from HSC activists.
Response to claims about their origin
HAF rejected that their founders had any ties with Hindu Nationalist politics and accused CAG's "leaders and member organisations" of "espousing Marxist ideology or fringe Islamist positions, openly advocating anti-American, anti-Israel, and anti-India views".
Activism
HAF was the first American Hindu advocacy organization to have a professional organizational structure as well as full-time staff and is widely considered to be the most prominent organization in the Hindu advocacy field. The organization was heavily aided by Jewish advocacy groups during its development; it continues to work with the Anti-Defamation League.
Highlighting Hindu persecution
During 2004–05, the organization held events to educate legislators about issues of concern to Hindu Americans. These included the abuse of Hindus in the Muslim-majority regions of South Asia, including Kashmir, Bangladesh and Pakistan; </ref> since then, they have continued to publish regular "Hindu Human Rights" reports. HAF critiqued Pakistan's treatment of Hindus and advocated for better assimilation and integration of Pakistani Hindu migrants and refugees in India. The organization also supported strong ties between India, Israel and the US to create an axis of countries against Islamic terrorism.
Advocacy for Hindu rights in the United States
In 2004, HAF unsuccessfully challenged the public display of the Ten Commandments in Texas, appearing as amici curiae in Van Orden v. Perry in the United States Supreme Court; they argued that the display represented an "inherent government preference" for Judeo-Christian religions over others and hence, violated the state's obligation to maintain religious neutrality. In 2008, HAF, along with a coalition of other religious groups, filed a lawsuit and blocked the issuance of Christian-themed license plates in South Carolina.
In 2015, as a part of the Hate Crimes Coalition, HAF participated in the drafting and submission of edits to an FBI manual to track hate crimes against Hindus specifically. However, Azad Essa argued that the HAF has exaggerated the hate crimes faced by Hindus in America. Essa found HAF's alarmist statements about a "rise" in Hinduphobic hate crimes in 2019 to not correspond with reality — out of the 7,120 hate crimes which were reported to the FBI in 2018, only fourteen concerned Hindus; the years before, this count was stable at eleven and ten.
In 2016, HAF along with Indiaspora and other organizations convinced the United States Postal Service to issue a stamp commemorating the festival of Diwali.
Pro-India advocacy
In 2002, Gujarat witnessed a communal riot under the Chief Ministership of Narendra Modi; scholars blamed the incumbent government — including Modi himself — for active complicity. In 2005, when the Asian-American Hotel Owners Association invited Modi for an address, activists, including John Prabhudoss, lobbied the United States Congress to introduce a resolution criticizing him for his role in those riots. Joseph Pitts and John Conyers introduced House Resolution 160 to such effects. HAF opposed this resolution, deeming it "Hinduphobic" and criticizing the Congressmen for making India the "focus of a resolution condemning religious persecution in South Asia" while ignoring Pakistan and Bangladesh. Nonetheless, the State Department denied Modi a visa two days after the bill was introduced.
In 2013, HAF again opposed a fresh bill by Pitts that commended the 2005 visa denial, encouraged the federal government "to review the applications of any individuals implicated in religious freedom violations under the same standard", and urged for the repealing of anti-conversion laws in several Indian states. HAF mounted fresh criticism, arguing that the bill ignored the impact of Islamist and Maoist terrorism in the country, and selectively targeted Hindus; a few Indian activist groups who supported the bill were denounced for being unpatriotic.
In 2016, HAF hosted briefings for legislators about Pakistan’s support for terrorism in Kashmir and raised concern about how US aid might be diverted against India. In August 2019, after the revocation of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir, which took away the autonomy of the province and rendered it a union territory, HAF published a "Reporter’s Guide" which emphasized about how the new regulations would ensure equal property rights for women, protections for the queer community, and better opportunities for Dalits in the region.
Take Back Yoga campaign
In 2010, HAF launched the "Take Back Yoga" campaign as a reaction to alleged cultural appropriation and secularization of yoga by popular press and neo-gurus who according to the HAF "abstained from discussing the origins of yoga in Hinduism and corrupted a Hindu philosophical practice to a mere collection of physical postures." Particular emphasis was laid on the Hindu nature of yoga manuals across centuries to corroborate claims of yoga being a Hindu form of spiritual quest.
Andrea Jain, a professor of Religious Studies at Indiana University, located HAF's claims within a polemical discourse of religious fundamentalism that unwittingly borrowed from and mirrored the West; while HAF spoke about the inevitable Hinduization of anybody who chooses to practice Yoga in its "true essence", the Christian far-right denounced Yoga as a satanic act which took practitioners away from Christ into the fold of Brahmins.the Christian far-right denounced Yoga as a satanic act which took practitioners away from Christ into the fold of Brahmins Furthermore, Jain found the HAF's essentialist discourse on Yoga to be ahistorical — according to him, Yoga was a fluid tradition made and remade by different socio-religious cultures across different times with different connotations. Other scholars reiterate Jain's observations; Christopher Patrick Miller, a professor of Yoga Studies at Loyola Marymount University, found it ironic that to defend against perceived Christian ingressions, HAF had to borrow from Christian (and colonial) notions of what constituted a Yogic canon.
Caste
In 2010, HAF issued a report titled "Hinduism: Not Cast in Caste" alleging that Christian missionaries were able to push their proselytizing agenda only because of the prevalence of caste discrimination in India; it went on to argue that caste cannot be considered to be an intrinsic definitional aspect of Hinduism due to a lack of theological sanction in its most sacred texts and urged for reforms led by Hindus themselves. This led to a flutter in conservative Hindu circles in India and the following year, HAF toned down their report; they even cautioned against the trend of passing resolutions against caste discrimination adopted by various global organizations and held caste to be an internal affair of a sovereign India. HAF has since portrayed castes as occupational guilds which had brought stability to premodern India before being reified under British colonialism; it has vehemently opposed drawing parallels between caste-discrimination and racism — arguing that it belittles the brutality faced by African Americans — or even any depiction of the caste-system as a rigid birth-determined pyramid of hierarchy.
In 2021, on the heels of prolonged transnational activism by Dalits, "caste" was added as a protected category to California State University's anti-discrimination policy. HAF perceived such policies to have the potential to enable the malicious targeting of Indian Hindu academics and lodged stiff opposition; their office-bearers argued caste to be a "stereotype", that was imposed upon South Asians only by the British Raj. In October 2022, HAF provided legal representation to two University of California professors who sued their employer to prevent the implementation of caste-based protections. The month before, they unsuccessfully sued the California Civil Rights Department for allegedly misrepresenting caste as intrinsic to Hinduism in its submission to the Cisco caste discrimination lawsuit.
Ajantha Subramaniam, a professor of South Asian Studies at Harvard University, rejected HAF's charges concerning anti-caste legislations and questioned their accusations of being discriminated based on religion; she and other scholars emphasized on the depth of scholarship that has held caste to be a reality of central significance from premodern South Asia to present-day India including in the diaspora.
SB403
In early 2023, HAF was among several Hindu-American organizations that opposed the SB 403 bill, which aimed to explicitly add caste into the definition of ancestry under anti-discrimination laws in California. The proponents of the bill insisted that an explicit ban on caste discrimination was needed to raise awareness of this bias, but HAF contended that this proposal unfairly targeted Hindus; and may result in racial profiling against Hindu Americans.
In May, the California State Senate passed the bill after a divisive debate. However, in October 2023, after sustained lobbying by HAF, California Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed the bill, agreeing that "caste discrimination already prohibited under existing civil rights protections".
Attacks on academic freedom
Audrey Truschke, a historian of South Asia at Rutgers University, notes HAF to have "prioritized attacks on higher education." Other scholars agree.
Textbook revisionism in California
Main articles: California textbook controversy over Hindu history and 2016–17 California textbook controversy over South Asian topicsIn March 2006, HAF filed a lawsuit against California's Curriculum Commission's decision to reject most of the edits proposed by the Vedic Foundation and Hindu Education Foundation — two Hindu Nationalist groups linked with RSS — to the textbooks taught in the state. The suggested changes had sought to downplay the salience of caste in Indian history, reject Indo-Aryan migrations in favor of Indigenous Aryanism, and not describe the declining status of women in ancient India, arguing that such portrayals would humiliate Hindu children in classrooms. Multiple Indologists, including Romila Thapar, Michael Witzel, Harry Falk, Robert P. Goldman, Jonathan Mark Kenoyer, Sheldon Pollock, Patrick Olivelle and Madhav Deshpande, and other South Asian activist groups opposed the changes. The court ruled against HAF and chose to retain the textbooks; it found HAF's accusations of a biased and negative portrayal of Hinduism unpersuasive.
In 2016, the HAF lobbied against the replacement of the word "Indian" with "South Asian" in middle school history textbooks in California, arguing that the change was essentially an erasure of India itself. These efforts were protested by South Asian academics and activists belonging to India's minority groups, who said that those on the side of the HAF sought to whitewash California's history textbooks to present a nativist, blemish-free view of how the Hindu caste system was enforced in India. They also argued that the term "South Asia" correctly represents India's collective history with countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh. A letter to the California State Board of Education about this issue, which garnered thousands of signatures, was headed by the HAF.
Censorship of Wendy Doniger
In 2009, Wendy Doniger — the Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of History of Religions at the University of Chicago — published The Hindus: An Alternative History, to rave reviews in mainstream media. However, soon it drew ire from the Hindu Right who found Doniger's work to be stigmatizing of Hinduism.
The following year, as the National Book Critics Circle shortlisted her work for its 2010 annual awards, HAF protested the choice. They alleged Doniger's scholarship to be laden with numerous inaccuracies and an anti-Hindu bias. HAF also accused her of offering "offensive, shocking, and gratuitous deconstruction of some of the most important epics" and providing "pornographic depictions" of Hindu deities. Suhag Shukla, director of HAF and also an ex-student of Doniger, went on to criticize the American Academy of Religion for coming out in support of Doniger and supporting the academic freedom of scholars to "offer any interpretation" of any religion.
Defamation suit against academics and activists
In May 2021, HAF filed a defamation lawsuit against Sunita Viswanath and Raju Rajagopal of Hindus for Human Rights, Rasheed Ahmed from the Indian American Muslim Council, Prabhudoss, and Truschke. It alleged statements in two Al Jazeera articles that characterized the HAF as having "ties to Hindu supremacist and religious groups" and with the RSS as defamatory. A diverse group of intellectuals and academics — Akeel Bilgrami, Amitav Ghosh, Anita Desai, Cornel West, Martha Nussbaum, Nandini Sundar, Noam Chomsky, Romila Thapar, Sudipta Kaviraj, Sheldon Pollock, and Wendy Doniger among others — condemned HAF's tactics as a SLAPP, designed to silence critics and push forward Hindutva. Shukla, in response, noted them to have a record of producing "anti-Hindu scholarship".
On 15 March 2022, Judge Amit Mehta stayed the defendants' motions to dismiss the suit since he deemed one of their arguments about whether HAF had satisfied the second requirement of invoking diversity jurisdiction — by proving the amount of monetary loss to have exceeded 75,000 USD — as a "substantial question" of procedure, that needed to be settled before adjudication on merits. Mehta accepted HAF's new evidence to pass muster and ordered discovery. On 20 December 2022, he dismissed the suit since HAF had failed not only to establish any cause of action, even assuming that their allegations were factually accurate, but also to provide any evidence that the court had personal jurisdiction over the defendants except one.
Opposing Dismantling Global Hindutva conference
During August–September 2021, HAF launched a protest campaign against a virtual conference, Dismantling Global Hindutva: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, organized by a conglomeration of American universities. It accused the conference of platforming activists with "extensive histories of amplifying Hinduphobic discourse ... equate the whole of Hinduism with caste bigotry, deny the subcontinental indigeneity of Hindus ... and deny the resulting genocides and ethnic cleansings of Hindus".
Multiple academics and activists involved in the conference reported receiving death threats and being subject to other forms of intimidation. In response, the American Historical Association condemned the attacks against academic freedom, and the Association for Asian Studies noted Hindutva to be a "majoritarian ideological doctrine" different from Hinduism, whose rise to prominence had accompanied "increasing attacks on numerous scholars, artists and journalists." The conference went ahead as scheduled and without any significant disruptions.
HAF has since complained to the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights against the University of Pennsylvania for violating Title VI requirements — they alleged that the University, co-sponsored a "one-sided" conference, promoted negative "stereotypes and slurs" about Hindu academics, and discriminated against them. However, multiple professors at the University who identify as Hindus rejected the accusations and highlighted how HAF had weaponized Hindutva to stifle free speech. Dheepa Sundaram, a religion and digital culture scholar at University of Denver, found the lawsuit to leverage "the rhetoric and tactics of social justice activists" in "pursuit of an oppressive ideology."Sundaram, Dheepa (23 June 2023). "Hindutva 2.0: How a Conference on Hindu Nationalism Launches a Change in Strategy for North American Hindutva Organizations". Journal of the American Academy of Religion. 90 (4): 809–814. doi:10.1093/jaarel/lfad028. ISSN 0002-7189.</ref>
Reception
Scholars, almost unanimously, agree that HAF purveys a politics embedded in Hindutva.
Sailaja Krishnamurti, a professor at Saint Mary's University (Halifax) who specializes in religious traditions of the South Asian diaspora, summarized that HAF has "earned a reputation" of being a conservative group purveying Hindu nationalist politics. Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst, a historian specializing in South Asian religions at the University of Vermont, qualified the HAF as a "deeply conservative" outfit. Sangay K. Mishra, an assistant professor of political science at Drew University, argued that the HAF had remolded Hindutva-leaning politics into the language of "Hindu rights" to be palatable in the American mainstream. Truschke finds HAF to be an integral component of the "wider Sangh Parivar" and Hindu right in the United States.
Sundaram found among the group's aims to sanitize the exclusionary nature of Hindutva, in part by borrowing from decolonial vocabulary, misleadingly portraying terms like "Hindutva", "Brahminism", etc. as oriental pejoratives. Chad Bauman, a professor of religion at Butler University, contended HAF's portrayal of Hinduism to be misleadingly monolithic and in service of a political agenda. Nishant Upadhyay, a professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, specializing in gender and sexuality studies found the group's queer-friendly portrayal of Hinduism to be embedded within a discourse of Hindutva homonationalism.
The BBC has noted that the HAF has lobbied support in favor of Narendra Modi, the incumbent Prime Minister of India, amongst the diaspora. Georgetown University's Bridge Initiative found HAF board member Rishi Bhutada to have also served as the official spokesperson of "Howdy Modi," a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh(RSS)-backed rally in support of India's incumbent prime minister Narendra Modi held in Houston, Texas in 2020. They — as well as several journalists — documented numerous anti-Muslim statements made by HAF board members, past and present. Academics and journalists have also investigated money trails linking HAF to other Sangh Parivar groups via their donors.
Response
HAF denies these charges, claims to be non-partisan, and has unsuccessfully filed defamation suits against a wide range of organizations and individuals that alleged its links to Hindutva. However, Arun Chaudhuri, an anthropologist of religion and politics at York University, cautions that such disavowals should not be taken at face value but rather as efforts at distancing HAF from the overtly negative connotations of Hindu nationalism. Sonia Sikka, an academic specializing in the intersection of religion and politics, too rejects HAF's claims of non-partisanship.
Notes
- Meghani critiqued the "denigrations of Hindu traditions" and "pseudi-secularism" practiced by Indian National Congress and went on to warn Muslims about the need of adjusting to a Hindutva-ised Bharat. Meghani claims to have changed his views on the subject in the years since publication - the essay was, apparently, a part of his academic coursework (as a history-major at UMich) and he professes ignorance about how it came to BJP.
- Hindutva is the term used for the strand of Hindu nationalism in the present day context, which covers the present ruling party of India, the Bharatiya Janata Party, its parent organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, and dozens of affiliated organisations that are collectively termed the Sangh Parivar.
- Modi would qualify for a visa and visit the United States only after becoming Prime Minister of India in 2014.
- HAF has also critiqued The Story of India for showcasing the theory of Indo-Aryan migrations.
- Judge Mehta rejected that HAF had provided any evidence to support that the defenders were acting with malice, which is integral to maintainability of a defamation suit.
- HAF requested discovery to bolster its jurisdictional claims; Judge Mehta denied the request for being a "fishing expedition, not made in good faith." As to the lone defendant - Prabhudoss - over whom the Court had jurisdiction, Judge Mehta ruled that his statements were opinions that could not be plausibly alleged to be "verifiably false" and hence not litigable.
- On the politics of the deployment of the term "Hindu genocide" and its (lack of) historical accuracy, see Subrahmanyam, Sanjay (2 January 2023). "Inventing a 'Genocide': The Political Abuses of a Powerful Concept in Contemporary India". The Journal of Holocaust Research. 37 (1): 102–107. doi:10.1080/25785648.2022.2153974. ISSN 2578-5648.
References
- "Hindu American Foundation Guidestar Profile". Guidestar. Retrieved 6 January 2019.
- Shukla, Suhag (13 May 2022). "Aww, thanks @SuhagAShukla! Married a law student 27 years ago, but didn't know I married Wonder Woman!" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
- Melwani, Lavina (April 2009). "Meet the Young Hindu American Foundation". Hinduism Today.
- Prema Kurien 2007, p. 159.
- Vinay Lal 2012, p. 123.
- ^ Prema Kurien 2007, pp. 145–146.
- McDermott, Mat (27 May 2021). "Letter to the Editor of India Abroad from Mihir Meghani, April 2006". Hindu American Foundation.
- ^ Prema Kurien 2007a.
- Prema Kurien 2007, p. 145.
- ^ Raqib Hameed Naik; Divya Trivedi (16 July 2021). "Sangh Parivar's U.S. funds trail". Frontline.
- ^ Prema Kurien 2016.
- Kurien, Prema (26 July 2016). "Majority versus minority religious status and diasporic nationalism: Indian American advocacy organisations: Majority versus minority religious status and diasporic nationalism". Nations and Nationalism. 23 (1): 109–128. doi:10.1111/nana.12255.
- Coalition Against Genocide (2013), Sec. 2: 'With the VHP-A led by first-generation immigrants who are unable to penetrate the mainstream American political framework, Meghani's creation of the HAF provided a hitherto unavailable opportunity to bridge the gap between the Hindutva agenda and mainstream American politics. By situating the HAF's work within a framework of American multiculturalism, Meghani effectively gained the ability to push the VHP-A's Hindutva agenda as an issue of "Hindu rights".'
- Coalition Against Genocide 2013, Sec. 2: " trajectory as a “second generation” leader of the U.S. Sangh is also notable for the fact that Meghani utilized a rich crop of young Sangh activists like himself to build the HAF. Meghani's team of volunteers/staff who went on to become the founding leadership of HAF (and continue to be its leaders today) are largely drawn from within the ranks of those placed exactly like him, individuals with established credentials as members of one or another American Sangh organization or initiative. Thus Rishi Bhutada came out of the HSC at University of Pennsylvania, Sheetal Shah served as the Southeast Regional Coordinator for the HSC, Suhag Shukla was active with organizing HSC's regional conferences in the same region, Kavitha Pallod out of the VHP-A’s American Hindu Youth Camp, Padma Kuppa with the VHP-A's Hindu Temple Executive Council, and Ramesh Rao with the India Development and Relief Fund (IDRF), a fund-raising arm of the VHP-A.".
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- ^ Andrea Jain 2014.
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Despite claiming to have no affiliations with transnational Hindu groups like the VHP, however, the HAF has earned a reputation as a conservative group supporting a nationalist Hindu politics. At best, the version of Hinduism promoted by HAF is homogenous and simplistic, as Bauman and Saunders (2009) suggest.
- Eric He (7 October 2023). "Newsom vetoes a proposed ban on caste discrimination in California". Politico.
- ^ Amy Qin (7 October 2023). "Newsom Vetoes Bill Banning Caste Discrimination". The New York Times.
Hindu residents and organizations who had argued that the proposal unfairly targeted them because the caste system is most commonly associated with Hinduism
- Hatch, Jenavieve (3 May 2023). "Republican-backed recall committee forms against Bay Area Democratic Sen. Aisha Wahab". The Sacramento Bee.
- Sakshi Venkatraman (11 May 2023). "California Senate passes bill that would make caste discrimination illegal". NBC News.
- "The divisive debate over California's anti-caste bill". BBC News. 9 June 2023.
- Andrew Cockburn (18 September 2024). "The Hindutva Lobby: How Hindu nationalism spreads in America". Harpers.
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External links
- Hindu American Foundation official website
- Mihir Meghani, Hindutva: The Great Nationalist Ideology, bjp.org, archived on 17 January 1997.
- Documents from the HAF’s Lawsuit, audreytruschke.com, January 2023.
- Religious organizations established in 2003
- Hindu organizations based in the United States
- Hindu organizations established in the 21st century
- 2003 establishments in the United States
- Human rights organizations based in the United States
- Civil liberties advocacy groups in the United States
- Advocacy groups in the United States