The narratives of victimhood being propagated by Hindutva supporters within the US are remarkably much like these of White supremacists. In each circumstances, privileged teams try to painting themselves as the actual victims. As well as, Hindutva supporters see Zionists as helpful allies of their effort to attract parallels between antisemitism and “Hinduphobia.”
These overlapping pursuits are being leveraged fairly successfully by Hindu supremacists to push their agenda within the US in favor each of Hindu elites and the Narendra Modi authorities.
Their claims of widespread “Hinduphobia” are being given a sympathetic and typically apologetic listening to by many US lawmakers, interfaith teams and human rights organisations, which fail to look critically on the underlying information.
The sufferer card
Hindutva supporters have learnt from the Israel foyer how you can play the sufferer card to build up political energy disproportionate to their numbers. This has allowed them to persuade US lawmakers and governors to assist their regressive positions on issues like stopping laws towards caste discrimination.
As a rule, their coverage positions are in sync with the Modi authorities and are designed to protect it from any criticism within the diaspora.
The latest instance is California’s Meeting Invoice AB 3027 on transnational repression. The invoice was launched in response to the tried assassination of an American Sikh chief, allegedly by operatives of the Indian authorities.
However the invoice would additionally present an improved sense of non-public safety to many Indian Individuals who’ve taken a principled stand towards the insurance policies of the Modi authorities and are already dealing with repression of varied types – for instance, threats to Abroad Citizen of India privileges; blocking of social media accounts and baseless allegations unfold by the BJP’s propaganda wing generally known as the IT Cell.
In fact, India has each proper to defend itself towards terrorism, however Modi’s latest assertion doubling down on India’s proper to assassinate adversaries abroad is being taken very significantly by human rights activists within the diaspora.
AB 3027 is at the moment stalled within the California Senate Appropriations Committee, and Hindutva teams like HinduACTion and the HAF are taking credit score, calling it an “anti-Hindu venomous invoice” that “implicitly targets Indian Individuals”.
This baseless argument is similar to the self-serving argument utilized by these teams to oppose SB 403 caste discrimination invoice, which had sailed by means of the legislature, solely to be vetoed by California Governor Gavin Newsom on the urging of a significant donor to Democrats.
The very fact of the matter is that the AB 3027 invoice had obtained assist from a number of regulation enforcement companies, which recognise the necessity for state-level coaching to fight overseas governments’ repression techniques inside the US. One would have thought that these apprehensive about potential unfair focusing on of Indian Individuals would have welcomed such coaching.
Hindutva teams are clearly putting the pursuits of a overseas authorities over the security and safety of Californians.
Enjoying politics
One other self-victimisation technique by Hindu supremacists is to say that any criticism of Hindutva ideology is an assault on all Hindus and on India. That is similar to the latest assertions by Zionists that any criticism of Israel is itself antisemitic.
Nevertheless, as a way to maintain the analogy with the Jewish group, they should persuade US lawmakers and the courts to view Hinduphobia on par with antisemitism and Islamophobia. To this finish, they’re busy with a spate of advocacy efforts to legitimise the notion that Hinduphobia is rampant within the US.
There is only one drawback: there are solely a handful of latest incidents which have been categorised as “anti-Hindu” by regulation enforcement. In reality, the Federal Bureau of Investigation persistently ranks anti-Hindu hate crimes on the lowest finish of 30 or extra communities tracked in its hate crimes statistics.
Even amongst these incidents, many latest ones are attributed to Khalistani separatists, who sadly select Hindu temples as targets to ship their political message to the Indian authorities.
With the intention to justify the declare of rampant Hinduphobia, organisations such because the Hindu American Basis are actually casting a a lot wider internet by redefining “Hinduphobia” itself, opposite to the generally understood definition of a phobia.
They’ve ready a glossary of phrases that they declare are “Hinduphobic,” which incorporates phrases like Brahmanism, twin loyalty, unique, mannequin minority, Hindu fatalism, Hindutvadi, bhakt and savarna.
“When the spectrum of phrases and tropes listed on this glossary are used recurrently, over time, the notion of Hindus as grotesque, untrustworthy, bigoted, evil, or violent grows and generates larger and larger ranges of hazard to Hindus’ lives and wellbeing,” they clarify.
This a blatant try and censor sincere dialogue locally. For instance, Dalits and Bahujans discuss with privileged dominant castes as savarnas, a time period popularised by Dr. Ambedkar, and now used routinely in caste conversations. It might be including insult to damage to counsel that the usage of the time period is now thought of “Hinduphobic.”
White supremacists
Of their quest to claim themselves within the US, Hindutva teams have more and more been trying to accomplice with White supremacists. In contrast to White supremacists, Hindutva teams already draw appreciable energy from the frameworks of minority rights within the US and multiculturalism born out of the civil rights battle. However the similarities of their “self-victimisation” methods and their invocation of the correct to defend themselves towards fictional assaults on their tradition lend themselves to a pure partnership.
One such partnership is led by the Republican Hindu Coalition, based by the Hindu billionaire and Trump supporter Shalab Kumar, and chaired by Steve Bannon, the previous advisor of Donald Trump. Considered one of their main objectives is to construct a “Hindu Holocaust Memorial” in Washington DC, a plan that Trump has endorsed.
In July, the Republican Hindu Coalition was in Washington to take part within the Nationwide Conservatism Convention, NatCon 4, which featured outstanding right-wing personalities from a number of elements of the world.
On the convention, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh ideologue Ram Madhav declared that below the management of Modi, India had already attained its Nationwide Conservatism objectives and is now ready to play the vanguard position in taking the conservative agenda ahead world-wide.
One report concerning the occasion stated that Madhav “would now just like the Indian position in America to be…as influential because the pro-Israel foyer…Madhav additionally desires the US to embrace the Modi authorities’s mannequin of coping with India’s spiritual minorities and its Muslim neighbours.”
The RSS chief additionally claimed that over a billion Indians assist his imaginative and prescient of Nationwide Conservatism. This can be a huge exaggeration, provided that solely about one-third of India’s voters usually assist the BJP. Within the US diaspora, surveys estimate that solely 69% of Hindus assist Modi and 40% of them disapprove of Hindu majoritarianism.
The place this might go
These are darkish occasions for Hinduism when a small part of the group is attempting to order for itself the correct to resolve who’s a “actual” Hindu and who’s anti-Hindu. Anybody who doesn’t share their narratives of Hindu victimhood and antipathy in direction of different faiths is being labeled “anti-Hindu”.
This can be a travesty.
The march in direction of the abyss can solely be stopped by Hindus who want to reclaim a tolerant and inclusive religion. They need to unequivocally condemn Hindutva bigotry and hate crimes in India. Within the diaspora, we should for the sake of future generations of Indian-Individuals soundly reject the misappropriation of the time period “Hinduphobia” of their self-victimisation methods to realize political floor and expose the nexus between Zionist extremists, White supremacists and Hindutva advocates.
The scholar Mahmood Mamdani, who has written concerning the frame of mind of majority Hutus main as much as the Rwanda genocide, says that “self-victimisation is usually a warning signal that may very well be used to forestall genocide”. In Rwanda, the world ignored these warning indicators and paid a heavy worth in human lives.
India has already gone previous such warning indicators, with state complicity in violence towards the minorities and open requires Muslim boycotts and genocide by folks claiming to be Hindu monks. It’s crucial that the world not make the identical mistake once more by putting geo-political pursuits over the bottom realities in Modi’s India.
Raju Rajagopal is a Co-founder of Hindus for Human Rights, which opposes Hindu supremacy and caste discrimination and speaks up for minority rights.