Savera’s second report on Hindu supremacist VHP America's trail of violence

 https://www.wearesavera.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Cut-from-the-Same-Cloth_Savera-Report-2.pdf

USA: During 2024 Election cycle South Asians Must Speak Out on white supremacy, Hindu supremacy, and Zionism

 https://medium.com/@southasianadvocates/statement-about-2024-elections-from-concerned-south-asian-american-advocates-cd4c13339e0d

Statement about 2024 Elections from Concerned South Asian American Advocates | April 2024

South Asian Advocates

We are over 100 South Asian American advocates living in the United States who believe in an inclusive, multi-faith, and multiracial democracy. We are deeply concerned about how white supremacy, Hindu supremacy, and Zionism are influencing political candidates and policy platforms during the 2024 election cycle. In particular, we are alarmed by research, news and community reports indicating that several Indian American candidates running for national office this year are expressing divisive policy positions, associating with organizations that reportedly promote Hindu supremacy, and being either silent or neutral in response to the ongoing genocide in Palestine.

Background

Around the world and here in the United States, far-right political ideologies peddle dangerous conspiracies and hierarchies, uphold racist and harmful policies, and target marginalized communities through erasure, displacement, and violence. In the United States, white supremacy has led to systems, narratives, and policies that reinforce colonialism and anti-Black racism. White supremacy also influences other far-right ideologies such as Hindu supremacy, which promotes the idea of establishing India as a Hindu nation.

Reports and media articles reveal the spread of Hindu supremacy in various contexts here in the United States as well. Hindu supremacist groups regularly oppose affirmative action policies along the lines of both race and caste; spread anti-Muslim disinformation and hate speech; and oppose laws geared towards ending caste discrimination. Many of these groups also provide financial support for political candidates with like-minded views in the US, and are attempting to build influence in the Democratic Party.

The alignment between Hindu supremacy and the white supremacist movement, Zionism, and other far-right forces is cause for collective concern. In March 2024, over 100 groups representing Black, Asian American, Latinx, Native and other communities — from the Movement for Black Lives to Jewish Voice for Peace to Grassroots Asians Rising — joined a declaration issued by SAVERA: United Against Supremacy to highlight concerns about the spread of Hindu supremacy.

Concerns about Indian American Candidates in 2024 Elections

The signatories to this statement are particularly concerned about research, community, and news reports that indicate how several Indian American candidates running for national office are expressing divisive policy positions, associating with organizations that reportedly promote Hindu supremacy, and being either silent or neutral in response to the ongoing genocide in Palestine. The information below is based on publicly available news media, research, reports, interviews, social media posts, and community statements.

Presidential Election: While campaigning for the GOP nomination, Vivek Ramaswamy expressed a range of policy positions that endanger the rights of people of color and immigrants. Ramaswamy argued in favor of limiting legal immigration, dismantling the H1-B program used heavily by Indian nationals, and deporting American-born children of undocumented immigrants. He also dismissed and denied the existence of white supremacy, calling it a “boogeyman.” Following his attendance at two galas held by the VHP of America, a group reported to espouse Hindu supremacist beliefs, Ramaswamy praised Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his official visit to the United States in June 2023. Although Ramaswamy is no longer running, he remains an influential presence within the GOP.

Nikki Haley, who also contended for the GOP presidential nomination, has been criticized by civil and human rights organizations and leaders for a range of reasons. As governor of South Carolina, Haley did not remove the Confederate flag from statehouse grounds until public pressure mounted in the wake of the Charleston AME church massacre by a white supremacist. On the campaign trail in the 2024 cycle, she failed to mention slavery as the cause of the Civil War. Previously, as UN Ambassador during the Trump Administration, Haley supported a long-standing Israeli agenda to delegitimize Palestinian human rights. In June 2023, after members of Congress boycotted Prime Minister Modi’s speech to Congress, Haley tweeted that “the Squad boycotting India’s democratically elected leader while they side with Palestinian terrorists and socialist dictators is exactly on brand.” Although Haley has suspended her presidential run, she remains an influential figure within the GOP.

12th Congressional District (PA): Summer Lee, who currently represents the 12th Congressional district in Congress, is being challenged in the Democratic primary by Bhavini Patel, a borough council member.

Media reports reveal that during a recent fundraising call in support of Patel, several individuals and political action committees linked to Hindu supremacy spoke in favor of her candidacy. According to news reports, speakers on the fundraising call also unanimously supported Israel and its “current war efforts in the Gaza Strip.” During the fundraising call, Patel apparently spoke about taking down a member of the Squad in Congress by “leveraging support from right-wing Hindu and pro-Israel supporters.”

On the genocide in Palestine, Patel has not called for a ceasefire to date, while Representative Lee co sponsored a House resolution for a ceasefire in October 2023. Patel has criticized Lee for accepting donations from activists and groups supporting Palestinian rights, characterizing them as “hateful, dangerous individuals.” Patel has also accused Lee of “agreeing to speak with … extremists” in reference to an invitation to appear at an event organized by CAIR-Philadelphia.

Queer Indian-American Hindu voices of the Alliance for South Asian Progressives in Pittsburgh expressed their views about Patel in a March 2024 statement titled “Bhavini Patel Does Not Make South Asian Communities Safer.” They write that “Patel’s sixth campaign since 2017 is Islamophobic, racist, homophobic, casteist, and only seeks to better one person — herself.”

The Democratic primary in Pennsylvania takes place on April 23, 2024.

13th Congressional District (MI): Shri Thanedar is the current Democratic representative of the 13th Congressional District which includes Detroit.

In June 2023, Thanedar welcomed and escorted Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to his address in Capitol Hill. In September 2023, Thanedar announced the “Dharma Caucus” that reportedly focuses on protecting the interests of Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs and Jains living in United States; however, it has been roundly criticized by Sikh, Muslim, and Hindu organizations.

News reports also reveal that Thanedar received donations from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in the 2024 election cycle, and went on a trip to Israel hosted by the AIPAC-affiliated American Israel Education Foundation.

The Democratic primary in Michigan occurs on August 6, 2024.

10th Congressional District (VA): Manga Anantatmula is running in the Republican primary in Virgnia’s 10th Congressional District. A recent report from SAVERA about the VHP notes that Anantatmula is a VHP-A affiliate. She also sits on the board of the Asian American Coalition for Education (AACE) which supported Edward Blum’s Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) case against the use of affirmative action in higher education admissions. Anantatmula has spoken publicly about her stance against affirmative action.

The Republican primary in Virginia is on June 18, 2024.

Rishi Kumar and Burt Thakur are two Indian American candidates who ran in 2024 primaries but did not prevail. Rishi Kumar ran in the California Democratic primary to represent the 16th Congressional District. Kumar has praised Indian Prime Minister Modi in the past, and helped to organize his visit to Silicon Valley in 2015. About Israel, Kumar proclaimed in February 2024: “I’m the only candidate in this race who has taken an explicit pro-Israel stance on the Israel/Hamas conflict of today.” In Texas, Burt Thakur ran in the Republican primary to represent the 26th Congressional District. Thakur has called for a “temporary moratorium on immigration” and disparaged undocumented immigrants. A recent report reveals that Thakur also appeared on a YouTube show that often includes people espousing Hindu supremacist beliefs.

South Asians Are Speaking Out

During the 2024 election cycle and beyond, it is vital for South Asians to oppose white supremacy, Hindu supremacy, and Zionism. We must uplift and support human rights, here in the U.S., in South Asia, in Palestine, and beyond. We must learn about the spread of Hindu supremacy in the United States and initiate courageous conversations with family members, friends, and personal and professional networks. South Asians can also join and support the many organizations and coalitions in the U.S. that are working to stop Hindu supremacy, advocate for just and equitable policies, end caste discrimination, and provide services to impacted community members around the country.

Additionally, it is important to support political candidates who promote liberatory principles and policies for all people, and to disavow the political opportunists who don’t represent our communities. To borrow from the words of Zora Neale Hurston, not all skinfolk are kinfolk. As South Asian Americans with complex histories of discrimination and oppression back home and here in the United States, we must reject divisive policies, narratives, and appeals from candidates who come from our communities — but are not working towards collective liberation and justice.

We hope that this statement contributes to the ongoing work of organizations and advocates, and catalyzes local efforts, deeper conversations, calls for accountability, and authentic solidarity among South Asian communities in the run-up to the 2024 elections and beyond.

Questions? Email southasianadvocates@gmail.com.

Signatories

Zahir Adil

Samantha Agarwal

Tanzila “Taz” Ahmed

Aishwarya A.

Pyaari Azaadi

Anish

Dr. Puja Batra

Pabitra Benjamin

Anuradha Bhagwati

Shikha Bhatnagar

Sayu Bhojwani

Zahra Billoo

Niketa Brar

Anjan C

Anirvan Chatterjee

Amber Chaudhry, J.D., M.P.H.

Anouska Cheddie

Pabitra Dash

Vasudha Desikan

Nandani Devi

Sukhman Dhami

Pawan Dhingra

Veena Dubal

Namita Dwarakanath

Anupa Gewali

Antony Gnalian

Venu Gupta

Prarthana Gurung

Shahnaz Habib

Almas Haider

Aarti Harper

Abeer Hoque

Chaumtoli Huq

Mala Iqbal

Deepa Iyer

Deepa V. Iyer, Esq.

Abhi Janamanchi

Syed Zane Kaleem

Manpreet Kaur Kalra

Aliya Karmali

Jo Kaur

Maria T. Khan

Saaliha Khan

Aakriti Khanal

Aminta Kilawan-Narine, Esq.

Kavi Ramachandran Ladnier

Tsering Lama

Kavita Mahoney

Sunil Malhotra

Rupa Marya, MD

Noor Mir

Susan Misra

Priya Murthy

Priti Nemani

Kunoor Ojha

Ria Pal

Sapna Pandya

Prachi Patankar

Harish I. Patel

Prachi Patel

Prital Patel

Shailja Patel

Shiwali Patel

Sumun Pendakur

Supriya Pillai

Dolly Prabhu

Sunil Prabhu

Umer Qureshi

Eesha R.

Darakshan Raja

Manju Rajendran

Varsha Ram

Luna Ranjit

Saira Rao

Anjuli Rathod

Nick Rathod

Swati Rayasam

Prerana Reddy

Angela S

Annetta Seecharran

Chaitali Sen

Arjun Singh Sethi

Paromita Shah

Silky Shah

Pushkar Sharma

Preeti Shekar

Amar Singh Shergill

Sonal Sheth

Imraan Siddiqi

Sonny Singh

Daljit Kaur Soni, Esq.

Rita Soni

Lakshmi Sridaran

Sanjay Sridaran

Trishya Srinivasan

Lina Srivastava

Vega Subramaniam

Amita Swadhin

Ranjeet S. Tate

Sujata Tejwani

Joe Thomas

Subha Varadarajan

Suchitra Vijayan

Sunita Viswanath

Ammad Wajahat

Hena Zuberi

How a CIA man helped the RSS come out of Godse’s shadow | Dhirendra Jha (Feb 2024, The Caravan)

 

Double Agent

How a CIA man helped the RSS come out of Godse’s shadow

 

https://caravanmagazine.in/history/how-a-cia-man-helped-the-rss-come-out-of-godse-shadow

Debunking Myths -- HAF's Ram Temple Narrative

 https://americankahani.com/perspectives/debunking-myths-a-critical-analysis-of-hindu-american-foundations-ram-temple-narrative/

The Global VHP’s Trail of Violence | SAVERA united against supremcacy

 https://www.wearesavera.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/The-Global-VHPs-Trail-of-Violence-v2.pdf

USA: Indian-Americans organise rally of over 350 cars in Edison in New Jersey, raise ‘Jai Shri Ram’ chants

https://twitter.com/timesofindia/status/1746844154406338752

Video Reportage: A New Brand of Hindu Extremism is Going Global | Decade of Hate (vice)

 

USA: What Kailasa's Con Job Says About The Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh | Pieter Friedrich

 

What Kailasa's Con Job Says About The Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh

The international wing of India's fascist RSS dupes American elected officials

Pieter Friedrich Jun 6

The New Jersey city of Newark was caught in an embarrassing situation in March 2023. Just two months previously, the city signed a “sister cities” agreement with the United States of Kailasa, but when the truth finally emerged after the 12 January 2023 signing, the embarrassment was two-fold: not only is Kailasa a fake nation governing no territory, but its founder and self-appointed “prime minister,” Nithyananda, is a rape-accused swami absconding from India.

It’s unclear what first red-flagged the situation for Newark. Perhaps it was the late February 2023 appearance of a colorfully clad Kailasa representative at a United Nations meeting, where she somehow managed to slip in to protest the persecution of the “supreme pontiff of Hinduism.” When that incident made international headlines, maybe Newark officials recognized her as the same person who had accepted their “sister city” agreement: a turbaned woman wearing a saffron sari, one arm bared to reveal a garish tattoo of Nithyananda’s face.

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According to Nithyananda, Kailasa is the world’s only “sovereign Hindu nation.” Despite the overtly Hindu nationalist ethos of the fake nation, however, Kailasa has managed to secure at least 30 or more recognitions by American cities over the past few years, not to mention acknowledgements by a member of US Congress, the capital of Sierra Leone, and even the Prime Minister of Canada. Yet, within the US, where it has apparently been the most active, Kailasa’s pseudo-diplomatic rampage exposes a far deeper problem: other much wealthier, older, and far more genuinely powerful Hindu nationalist organizations throughout the country have similarly duped naive American politicians over many years.

The Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh’s American branch (HSS-USA) tops the list.

It’s easy to point and laugh at what happened in Newark. To date, however, most media outlets seem to overlook the underlying gravity of the situation. Around the US, politicians stand willing and ready to award recognition to practically any organization which approaches them requesting it, no vetting apparently ever required, and, upon gaining it, even the most illegitimate of organizations can begin to establish a veneer of legitimacy.

“The plan, in a basic sense, relies on the fact that most cities and government entities are pretty liberal in handing out proclamations, and Kailasa happily promotes its victories on social media,” reported New York Magazine. Such proclamations, whether to Kailasa or anyone else, are typically solicited by the celebrated organization. As the spokesperson for one duped American city noted, “More often than not, requests are accommodated.” Noting that they usually give up to two dozen such proclamations a month, the spokespersonexplained that, when Kailasa approached them with a stack of previous recognitions, it made them look legitimate.

In other words, until the point at which its con job faced widespread exposure, the pile of proclamations Kailasa had amassed was worth far more than the paper it was printed on. In a sense, these recognitions represented a small-scale version of a fledgling nation finally receiving diplomatic recognition from a major world power – or the UN itself.

Such, once again, is the case with the HSS-USA.

Unlike Kailasa, however, the HSS-USA is not “fake,” but rather a real — though deeply problematic — organization. It is the American wing of India’s nearly 100-year-old paramilitary, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which is the parent organization of the country’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The RSS-BJP combined are ideologically devoted to an ethnocentric, Hindu nationalist vision for India — one, however, which the RSS’s corollary in the US does not lead with when soliciting support from local governments.

The HSS-USA — like Kailasa — has benefited greatly from the ignorance and naïveté of American politicians who are all too willing to sign off on official proclamations. Recognition, though generally considered meaningless by the city which grants them, carry deep significance for the recipient organization. As these otherwise worthless proclamations stack up at an astonishing rate, HSS’s credibility in the eyes of American elected officials expands exponentially.

For years, HSS-USA has approached American city and county councils, in particular, to solicit proclamations recognizing a wide variety of things: an annual (in January) “yogathon” by the HSS (which is separate from the UN-recognized International Day of Yoga in June), Raksha Bandhan (an otherwise benign Hindu festival in which sisters tie a “protection bracelet” around their brothers’ wrists — but which, when celebrated by HSS-USA, typically involves doing the same with local police and fire departments), “Hindu Heritage Month” recognitions (which invariably include promotion, within the text, of HSS-USA specifically), and more.

This tactic, however, is now getting noticed.

“Although the HSS has received proclamations for various reasons, the vast majority are for its Yogathon events,” reported by The Nation in April 2023. “For the last four consecutive annual Yogathons, the HSS has received 439 proclamations.” Invariably, “the group itself drafted the text of the proclamation.’

As the outlet reported, it “reached out to more than 80 congresspersons, state representatives, and mayors, speaking with 15, and found that in most cases, proclamations are awarded to the HSS without a background check.”

Not a single one of the elected officials contacted by the outlet was aware of the HSS’s links to the RSS. In other words, cities and counties around the US are frequently passing proclamations platforming and praising the HSS with apparently total ignorance of the credentials of the group. Apparently, no one in any of these cases ever bothers even taking five seconds to Google the HSS!

Further exposing the system, some cities have even passed proclamations for both the HSS and Kailasa, even recognizing the latter after being informed about the former’s ties to the RSS.

On 17 November 2021, Roseville presented the HSS with a “Hindu Heritage Month” proclamation. On 15 December 2021, I attended the city council meeting to warn officials that the HSS is “serving as an international support base and propaganda mouthpiece for the RSS’s fascist agenda.” Exactly a week later, Nithyananda’s Facebook account published an official “City of Roseville Certificate of Recognition” acknowledging the “Sovereign of the Sovereign State of Kailasa.” The certificate highlighted Nithyananda’s “global humanitarian contributions to Hinduism.” Twice in two months, the same city was duped into platforming and praising dubious groups simply, it seems, due to a failure to do even basic research.

A few miles from Roseville, Folsom is a more recent example of a city falling for the HSS scam. On 28 February 2023, the city passed a proclamation recognizing HSS’s “Health for Humanity Yogathon.” The proclamation specifically called out HSS as a “nonprofit organization with over 235 branches in 164 cities” and praised the group for its “community service.” Its verbiage – both about HSS and the yogathon – was practically identical to that used for previous such proclamations in neighboring cities.

Contacted for comment, a Folsom spokesperson was coy.

“No,” they could not discuss the research conducted on HSS before granting the proclamation. It was given, they said, “to highlight the significance of yoga as an ancient Hindu practice.” They were (but only because my questions brought their attention to coverage in The Nation) aware that three neighboring cities had recently rescinded identical resolutions, but could not comment on it.

This is not to single out Folsom or Roseville – or, indeed, even Newark – but rather to expose a chink in the armor that should surround and protect secular democracy in America. In the apparent interest of maintaining an equal opportunity open door policy to all citizens, and upholding a pluralistic ethos that welcomes and celebrates all that is good in humanity, these cities have neglected to filter out bad actors who can and do use these local governmental platforms to their own less than honorable ends.

In contrast to Roseville and Folsom, three of their neighboring cities did, in fact, become the first few in the nation to retract their proclamations after learning about the HSS’s antecedents.

Manteca, CA – an hour south of Folsom and Roseville – led the way in August 2022. Lathrop and Elk Grove immediately followed suit.

The retraction process at Manteca, in particular, vividly illustrated just how much the HSS apparently values these proclamations.

It was a swift process. After HSS critics (including myself) raised the issue at a regular city council meeting, the city convened a special meeting just two weeks later to consider retraction. When HSS supporters got wind of it, approximately 75 of them mobilized to attend in protest. As Manteca ran a hybrid meeting permitting public comments both in person and via Zoom, perhaps another 40 called in to oppose retraction.

The city’s solution to the whole matter, once evident, provoked outrage from these HSS sympathizers.

After briefly considering amending the proclamation to remove references to the HSS, the city decided to instead fully retract it since it not only praised the HSS but was also given to them. In return, the city proposed to pass — from itself — a proclamation recognizing the International Day of Yoga (which is in June) rather than the Health for Humanity Yogathon (a distinctly HSS event in January).

Yet the HSS supporters appeared aghast. Several of them became visibly disturbed, started standing up, and even cried out in protest. “No,” they seemed to say, “we don’t want you recognizing yoga unless it includes mention of the HSS.”

Their reaction, combined with the massive number speaking against retraction (an estimated 4-1 against versus for, judging by the list of nearly 60 speakers recorded in official minutes of the meeting), indicated the immense importance – to the HSS – of these city proclamations.

Just like Kailasa, the HSS routinely “happily promotes its victories on social media.” Just as reported about that fake nation, the large and growing stack of prior proclamations that the HSS can present when approaching new cities does much to “make the group seem legitimate.”

Yet, just as with Kailasa, if American cities relied on a bit of basic research on Google rather than the face value claims of the HSS, they would swiftly discover a truth which would almost certainly compel them to close off the group’s official access to these local halls of political power.

That truth is that, just as Gandhi was being assassinated by an RSS member in India in January 1948, a group of RSS members emigrating from the country founded the HSS to be, in the words of its founder, a “Sangh expansion overseas.” Rather than the “Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh” (National Volunteer Corps), they called it the “Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh” (Hindu Volunteer Corps) because it was based outside India.

Today, the HSS — which exists in perhaps 100 or more countries — is especially entrenched in English-speaking nations like Australia, Canada, the UK, and, of course, the US. Just as at most RSS meetings, the HSS’s meetings typically feature, on stage, garlanded photos of the first two chiefs of the RSS. Every five years, the RSS hosts India-based training camps for HSS members from around the world. Not only does the HSS regularly host tours of its chapters by senior RSS leaders, but many of its teaching sessions are also reportedly conducted by visiting RSS members. Moreover, the HSS’s Global Coordinator is a full-time RSS worker.

Data collated from a wide variety of sources — including RSS-approved researchers, Indian diaspora media reports (usually put out by HSS sympathizers), and HSS social media — confirms beyond a shadow of a doubt that the HSS is linked to the RSS. Aside from the legal distinction between the two entities, in practice, the HSS and the RSS appear to be one and the same thing.

The HSS is, in short, the international wing of the RSS.

In that context, the most important lesson the Kailasa con job can teach us is that the naïveté and negligence of American elected officials can have real world consequences. These officials seem to assume that every organization soliciting their support is acting in good faith, as though no one requesting a governmental stamp of approval needs to be verified as legitimate before they get it.

With Kailasa, the outcome is, thankfully, nothing more than embarrassment — as well as mild amusement for those of us observing from the sidelines. Yet it’s a far graver situation when local governments are similarly hoodwinked into platforming and praising the HSS. While Kailasa is a fake nation holding no real political power, the HSS is the international wing of the world’s oldest, largest, and fastest-growing fascist movement: the RSS.

Through the BJP, the RSS has ruled India since 2014. Thus, although the HSS is probably betting on the likelihood that local American governments won’t realize it is the international wing of the RSS, every time these governments award the HSS a proclamation (or some other kind of recognition), they’re aiding and abetting — albeit inadvertently — the RSS-BJP’s ongoing and escalating implementation of an authoritarian, anti-minority agenda in India.

Ultimately, the Kailasa con job reveals how easily real harm can occur when these local governments so readily grant acclamation without double-checking whom they are acclaiming. “With little or no background checks, the HSS’s political outreach continues to yield results,” reported The Nation. Not only has HSS stockpiled hundreds of proclamations, but it has also — like Kailasa — been embraced even by members of US Congress. Beyond that, various state legislatures and governors have even applauded it in formal greetings, platformings, and resolutions. In fact, HSS’s infiltration into the US political arena has been so unnoticed and unopposed that an HSS-USA director was even appointed to a Department of Homeland Security role in 2022.

Yet, as the few cities which have now rescinded proclamations to the HSS demonstrate, enlightenment about its true nature as the international wing of the RSS can — and should — make it persona non grata for those enlightened.

Ultimately, as the truth spreads, many officials in the US at city, county, state, and federal levels will have to grapple not with the embarrassment endured by Newark but with a far deeper level of shame. Had they bothered to check, they could have avoided empowering the RSS’s international wing. The amends they must make when they learn the reality of what they have done ought to extend far beyond simply quietly backtracking. That’s the least they owe to the marginalized people of India who are being crushed beneath the boots of the RSS-BJP.

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Indian-Origin Teen Who Crashed Truck Under influence of US Far-Right?

 ndtv.com

"Will Kill President (Biden) If...": Indian-Origin Teen Who Crashed Truck

https://www.ndtv.com/indians-abroad/indian-origin-teen-sai-varshith-kandula-crashes-truck-into-white-house-barrier-to-seize-power-4061307#pfrom=home-ndtv_topstories

USA: Trump’s shadow army of extremists

 https://twitter.com/indy_americans/status/1665773392258125826

Neo Nazi Connection ? "Will Kill President (Biden) If...": Indian-Origin Teen Who Crashed Truck

 https://www.ndtv.com/indians-abroad/indian-origin-teen-sai-varshith-kandula-crashes-truck-into-white-house-barrier-to-seize-power-4061307#pfrom=home-ndtv_topstories

A commercial from US TV on anti-discriminatory housing

 https://twitter.com/daweiner/status/1612269975187906560

How Far-Right Hindu Supremacy Went Global | vice - Oct 26, 2022

 vice.com - Oct 26, 2022

How Far-Right Hindu Supremacy Went Global

An extremist ideology from India is fuelling rising division and hate speech in the UK, US, Canada and Australia.

by Max Daly

by Sahar Habib Ghazi

by Pallavi Pundir

 

https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7z947/how-far-right-hindu-supremacy-went-global

Report on the Infrastructure of Hindutva Influence Peddling, Mobilizing and Fund Raising in the United States, 2014-2021 | (released via sacw.net - May 2022)

 A Report on the Infrastructure of Hindutva Influence Peddling, Mobilizing and Fund Raising in the US, 2014-2021 | (released via sacw.net - May 2022) http://www.sacw.net/article14915.html

Did somebody pull the plug on the American diplomat Atul Keshap following his visit to the RSS boss in India ?

Why Atul Keshap's Exit From US Diplomatic Service After RSS Visit Is a Win for the Diaspora

Sustained diaspora protests had preceded the end of the ambassador’s diplomatic career.

 by Pieter Friedrich

[ . . . ]

https://thewire.in/external-affairs/why-atul-keshaps-exit-from-us-diplomatic-service-after-rss-visit-is-a-win-for-the-diaspora

North America Has a Hindu Nationalist Problem, and Scholars are On the Frontlines of These Right-Wing Attacks (oct 19, 2021)

by Manan Ahmed, Rohit Chopra, and Audrey Truschke Oct 19, 2021 

Though you aren’t likely to read about it on the front page of the New York Times or spot it in trending topics on Twitter, for over two decades now North America has had a Hindu Nationalism problem. Scholars in the US and Canada working in the areas of Hinduism, Indian politics, and South Asian history have been targeted in campaigns of harassment and intimidation by right-wing Hindu nationalists. And despite the fact that such attacks have escalated significantly in 2021 in both frequency and scale, most Americans remain unaware of this growing threat to academic freedom and know little about its anti-intellectual instigators. We, as members of the South Asia Scholar Activist Collective, seek to change that by publishing a timeline that tracks the harassment of South Asian academics in North America as part of a larger project we call the Hindutva Harassment Field Manual.[ . . . ] https://religiondispatches.org/north-america-has-a-hindu-nationalist-problem-and-scholars-are-on-the-frontlines-of-these-right-wing-attacks/

Twitter's Sewa International donation: Image rehabilitation for RSS-linked charity? | Pieter Friedrich

 

Twitter's Sewa International donation: Image rehabilitation for RSS-linked charity? Beyond a financial boost, Twitter's donation legitimizes a non-profit tainted by exposés

As COVID plagues India, Indresh Kumar and Shyam Parande stepped forward — on more than one occasion in May 2021 — to release consignments of oxygen concentrators donated by non-profit organization Sewa International. The raging pandemic is not the first time that the two have publicly partnered. Parande, the global coordinator of Sewa International, is not just linked to Kumar through the non-profit but also through their shared activism with another organization: the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). In past years, for instance, the two travelled to Cambodia together to prepare a report about how India’s RSS can make a “cultural investment” there. Parande, whose participation in the Cambodia project was reported as that of a “senior” RSS leader, has additionally been reported as head of the RSS’s “Vishwa Vibhag (foreign department)” and, with his wife, even described as one of “RSS’s power couples.” Kumar, for his part, is a senior member of the RSS’s national executive committee. In December 2010, Kumar was in Pune, Maharashtra to speak at the Vishwa Sangh Shibir (VSS). “The VSS is a once-in-five-years conclave of the RSS-supported Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh [HSS],” explained The Indian Express. Noting that the event is often the first trip to India for some HSS members, senior RSS executive Manmohan Vaidya said that the conclave focuses on “how to spread the work and the message of RSS.” Speakers at the multi-day VSS included a “who’s who” of the Sangh Parivar — the “family of organizations” springing from the RSS. Aside from Kumar, there was RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat, who argued that “a Hindu alone can think of the welfare of the humanity” and declared, “The world has to acquire Hindu values to survive.” There was Ashok Singhal, then chief of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the religious wing of the RSS. From the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the political wing of the RSS, came the party’s then second-in-command, Ram Lal. From Sewa Bharati — the service wing of the RSS and parent organization of Sewa International — came Sitaram Kedilaya. And from the US and the UK came the presidents of the HSS branches of those countries. Travelling all the way from Texas to attend was Ramesh Bhutada, the vice-president of HSS-USA. The event gave Bhutada — who has hosted Mohan Bhagwat in his Houston home — a chance to not only wear the RSS’s official uniform but meet and pose with the founder of the HSS. It also gave him a chance to travel with a Houston delegation that included Arun Kankani. Aside from their shared interest in the HSS/RSS summit in Pune, Kankani and Bhutada are connected through their ties to Sewa International USA. Kankani became the non-profit’s president in 2020. Bhutada is the organization’s chairperson. Sewa International, according to one report about a VSS from the 1990s, is among “several affiliated organisations of RSS” operating abroad. Sewa USA is, reported The New Indian Express, “a part of the Sangha Parivar in the US.” It is also, as of 10 May 2021, the recipient of a $2.5 million donation from Twitter. Twitter’s donation, announced by CEO Jack Dorsey, has outraged some. Nearly 2500 people have signed a petition demanding that Dorsey rescind it due to the organization’s connection with the RSS. The money, though it is officially earmarked to aid Sewa International’s campaign to provide emergency relief medical equipment in India’s struggle against COVID, also seems likely to assist the RSS-linked non-profit’s public image. The RSS and Sewa International are both in need of image rehabilitation. Bhutada, as both the RSS’s number two man in the US as well as chair of Sewa USA, likely knows that more than most. And he — along with Kankani — has a history of playing a crucial role in helping to rehabilitate the image of the man some hold responsible for India’s current COVID crisis: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, an RSS member. In September 2019, Bhutada served as a leading patron of “Howdy, Modi,” a mega-reception organized in Houston to promote the Indian prime minister. While Bhutada’s son, Rishi, was the event’s head spokesperson and his brother-in-law, Jugal Malani, chaired the event’s organizing committee, Kankani served as head of operations. Meanwhile, Sewa International (Houston) President Gitesh Desai served, alongside Rishi Bhutada, as an event spokesperson. “Howdy, Modi” was the third such mega-reception organized in the US since Modi’s election in May 2014. His visits were an opportunity to pay back his thousands of Indian-American supporters who worked for his election (including people like Bhutada as well as Desai, who actually travelled to India to campaign). They also marked a personal victory as they were the first times that Modi — as a beneficiary of diplomatic immunity in his new position as prime minister — was allowed into the US after being banned from entry in 2005. The US State Department, at the time, held him responsible for “particularly severe violations of religious freedom” that occurred in Gujarat in 2002. Extreme anti-Muslim violence erupted days after Modi was appointed chief minister of the state; according to Human Rights Watch, the groups responsible primarily included the RSS and its affiliates. While Modi and the RSS (which, in 2008, was again implicated in an anti-minority pogrom) had — before the 2014 election — faced a great need for international image rehabilitation, so too did Sewa International. Founded in 1989 by then RSS Chief Madhukar Deoras, Sewa Bharati — in India — “is an umbrella organisation which constitutes over nine hundred NGOs of the Sangh,” explains The Caravan. In the organization’s own words, it was founded to provide a formal structure for “volunteers of RSS and other allied organisations” to engage in charity. It is “affiliated to the RSS,” “RSS-led,” and operates as “the main agency for social work in the RSS.” “We make no secret of the fact that we are members of the RSS,” one senior Sewa Bharati leader has said. According to political scientist Malini Bhattacharjee, the RSS’s focus on sewa — meaning “selfless service” — “stemm[ed] from the need to rehabilitate the RSS’ image as a social and humanitarian organisation as opposed to a communal and paramilitary body.” As she explains, “Participation in relief and rehabilitation activities have not only helped create a compassionate image for the RSS, but also provided it with opportunities to undertake cadre building, consolidate its organisational network, and even penetrate those regions where it had no traditional support base.” “The RSS also has an international wing, Sewa International, which organizes welfare work outside India and raises funds for parivar projects in India,” reports sociologist Chetan Bhatt. Founded in 1997, Sewa International has repeatedly described Sewa Bharati as its “local partner organization.“ It has various branches abroad, including, as noted, in the US. Raising funds abroad while rarely mentioning its connections to the RSS (an organization about which many non-Indians are already ignorant, anyways), Sewa International managed to make inroads. It — and its sister groups — even secured patronage from politicians and agreements for corporate matching of donations. In the early 2000s, however, a series of events dented the non-profit’s image.  In August 2002, the late Lord Adam Patel resigned as a patron of Sewa International UK (SI-UK). “I very much regret ever having been part of this racist organisation,” said Patel. “Sewa International is a front for controversial militant Hindu organisations, and so I have been forced to resign my position as one of its patrons.” His resignation came “amid claims that it has links with rightwing Hindu extremist groups blamed for provoking rioting in India.” That was followed in December 2002 by a Channel 4 News special. British authorities, said the channel, were investigating allegations that money raised through SI-UK “might fund communal violence in India.” According to the channel, “We wanted to find out whether money given by British donors to Sewa International, apparently to help the poor in India, could actually end up funding sectarian violence there.” Meanwhile, in November 2002, a report in the US claimed that Sewa International, in India, was affiliated with the US-based India Development and Relief Fund (IDRF). “Sewa International is [an] IDRF affiliate in India overseeing IDRF’s Indian operation,” stated the report. “In terms of international funding, it may be amongst the most significant of IDRF’s ‘sister’ organizations. It is a Sangh Parivar organization set up primarily to coordinate foreign contributions for different Sangh projects in India.” As Financial Times subsequently reported, “According to IDRF’s tax filings, more than 80 per cent of the almost $3.2m[illion] it directly sent to India between 1994 and 2000 went to projects managed by groups that are explicitly part of the RSS family.” In response, matching corporate donors like Cisco Systems and Oracle Corporation suspended their collaboration with IDRF while the US Justice Department reportedly “launched an investigation into charges that millions of dollars… were used to fund Hindu fundamentalism in India.” IDRF’s spokesperson, Vijay Pallod — a relative of and long-time co-activist with Bhutada who also wore an RSS uniform at the 2010 VSS — shot back: “The accusations are falsehoods packaged by propagandists masquerading as concerned citizens.” Nevertheless, IDRF’s star briefly faded, and, over the following year, Sewa USA was founded with Bhutada at its helm.  The pounding continued. In 2004, a new report emerged in the UK which revealed that SI-UK “is the fundraising arm of the HSS UK,” alleged that it is “directly linked with the RSS and its affiliates, including Sewa International India and Sewa Bharati,” and claimed that “Sewa Bharati has been openly involved in Hindutva [Hindu nationalist] extremist political work in India.” The report argued that SI-UK’s “main purpose” was to “raise funds in the UK for RSS projects in India in order to directly help the expansion of the extremist RSS’s networks across Indian society in line with the long term political and sectarian aims of the RSS.” “Sewa Bharati is the main recipient of funds from SIUK,” stated the report. “The fundamental aim of these projects is to penetrate communities through service activities in order to promote RSS ideology and organization.” Arguing that the RSS was “distributing relief selectively to higher caste victims and neglecting Dalits and Muslims” as well as “organizing training cells (shakhas) in relief camps,” the report explained: “An alarming chain links unsuspecting donors in the UK to the active political promotion and glorification of the extremist RSS in Gujarat. UK donors gave funds in good faith to SIUK for humanitarian reconstruction and rehabilitation following the 2001 Gujarat earthquake; these funds went from SIUK to the RSS’s Sewa Bharati which managed the work, with additional funds from government agencies; work was started through RSS ceremonies, or completed villages were inaugurated by very senior RSS officers…. The extremist RSS and its dangerous ideology were actively promoted in Gujarat through these processes. The Hindutva political agenda of the RSS was explicit in the reconstruction and opening ceremonies of several villages funded by SIUK. The agenda to glorify and expand the RSS was well known by SIUK but not revealed to donors.” It was an inauspicious launch into the 21st century for Sewa International but, 20 years on, the RSS-linked non-profit seems to be successfully rehabilitating its image as it opens its coffers to receive the outpouring of financial support offered by Twitter. A rising tide floats all boats, however. Thus, Indresh Kumar of the RSS seems to also be benefitting from the self-promotional PR opportunities that arise as international aid pours into India. Kumar certainly needs the image boost. After a series of blasts targeting Indian Muslim locations in the mid-2000s, Kumar’s name figured in the diary of a key accused, another key accused claimed he had prior knowledge of a blast, and yet another accused — Swami Aseemanand, a full-time RSS worker affiliated with Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, an RSS-affiliate named as both a participant in anti-minority violence as well as a top recipient of funding from the IDRF and SI-UK — confessed that Kumar (along with Mohan Bhagwat) gave their blessings to his plans for staging the blasts. “This is great,” Aseemanand claimed Kumar and Bhagwat said about his plans. “It’s very important that it be done. But don’t link it to the Sangh.” Although Kumar certainly never hoped for that (alleged) conversation to be made public, the things he has unapologetically said in public in recent years do little to improve his image anywhere other than in Hindu nationalist circles. He has denounced conversion as an act of Satan, demanded national legislation against “Love Jihad” (the conspiracy theory that Muslim men are systematically duping Hindu women into marrying them), and described protestors against the Citizenship Amendment Act (which sets “a legal criterion for citizenship based on religion”) as “traitors.” From Kumar to Modi and the RSS to Sewa International, image rehabilitation is certainly a need of the past two decades. As COVID continues ravaging India and the nation still faces a catastrophic shortage of oxygen, it appears that the crisis comes as a fresh of breath air to a supremacist movement that has been increasingly hounded by bad publicity. While the Modi regime’s pandemic policy includes suffocating dissent, the regime’s apologists — thanks, in part, to millions donated by a social media giant — are, for now, breathing a little easier. Chances are, however, that the Sangh, although it thinks the donation is very important, doesn’t want it linked to them.

Pieter Friedrich is a freelance journalist specializing in analysis of South Asian affairs. He is the author of Sikh Caucus: Siege in Delhi, Surrender in Washington and Saffron Fascists: India's Hindu Nationalist Rulers as well as co-author of Captivating the Simple-Hearted: A Struggle for Human Dignity in the Indian Subcontinent. Discover more by him at PieterFriedrich.net.