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The Coalition Against Genocide (CAG – http://www.coalitionagainstgenocide.org/), today published “Part II” of its report on Hindu American Foundation (HAF) titled “Affiliations of Faith – Joined at the Hip” – with further evidence of HAF leadership’s ties and dedication to the global Hindu Nationalist Movement that functions under a conglomerate of organizations known as the Sangh Parivar.
The new report documents HAF leadership’s participation in Sangh Parivar training camps in India, HAF’s support for demagogues of violence and sectarian hatred, such as Sadhvi Rithambara, and the isolation of HAF from the mainstream of national and international human rights organizations.
CAG coalition partner Rajinder Singh Mago of the Sikh American Community said, “CAG coalition partners have fought for justice for a long time, including against the 1984 massacre of Sikhs in Delhi and other places, and we are solidly with the coalition all the way to the very end, in fighting against injustice to any community in India.”
“HAF’s attack on respected human rights leader, Fr. Cedric Prakash, a Jesuit priest who has tirelessly fought for the rights of non-Christian minorities for decades, shows the kind of bigoted mindset that would attack anyone who disagrees with their distorted ideas of India’s history and destiny,” said Mr. Alex Koshy, a coalition partner. “It is also obvious that they are trying to downplay the Indian Christian community’s participation in the Coalition Against Genocide,” added Mr. Koshy.
The first report published on December 17, 2013 documented HAF leadership’s established ties to the Sangh and how the idea of HAF itself was seeded from within the ranks of the Hindu supremacist movement. The first CAG report also documented the specific ideological common ground between the HAF and the Sangh on caste as expressed by the HAF in the California Textbook controversy. In response, the HAF released a document on December 18, that failed to take on any of the above evidence.
“All HAF had to do to prove that it is not a Hindu supremacist organization was to show that Mihir Meghani never served on the VHPA Governing Council and that it had indeed championed the Dalit cause as outlined by several Dalit organizations during the textbook controversy. HAF failed to do even this much,” said Dr. Raja Swamy, a CAG spokesperson.
Instead HAF has resorted to McCarthyite tactics of red baiting and Islam baiting. Such tactics alongside HAF’s inability to challenge the core facts presented in the first report leaves little doubt that the HAF is indeed a Sangh outfit. The new report adds more weight to the argument by showing that all four of the HAF’s current Board of Directors for instance, have clear Hindutva ties; either institutional or ideological or both. “How can an organization whose entire Board of Directors is of one institutional/ideological persuasion deny their affiliation to the Sangh?” asked Mr. Alex Koshy. “We promise there is more evidence if the public wants more,” added Mr. Koshy.
The controversy around HAF’s links to Hindu supremacist organizations and Hindutva ideology (which is different from Hinduism), escalated when HAF attempted to misrepresent HR 417. The core of the resolution empathizes with religious minorities in India and seeks to include human rights as an issue within the ambit of the Indo-US Strategic Dialogue.
“Our new report is invaluable because it points to the fact that HAF has never cared about the situation of Indian minorities, has worked against social justice in India, and still calls itself a human rights organization advocating for minorities in the US and elsewhere. If this is not a blatant double standard, then what is?” asked Dr. Ubaid.
CAG is a broad coalition, representing a diverse cross section of the religious and political spectrum of the Indian diaspora, including several Hindu, Christian, Sikh, Muslim and Leftist organizations. CAG is committed to democracy and pluralism and to projecting an accurate image of India internationally.
This story was first appeared on coalitionagainstgenocide.org
