A new report, jointly published on Wednesday by Political Research Associates (PRA) and the Savera: United Against Supremacy coalition, sheds light on the far-right associations and agenda of the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) in the United States.
The report, titled “HAF Way to Supremacy: How the Hindu American Foundation Rebrands Bigotry as Minority Rights,” finds that HAF’s messaging and advocacy throughout its existence has reflected a zero-sum approach to civil rights, in which “the civil rights and religious freedoms of Hindus are framed in opposition to, and at the expense of, those of other communities.”
Through its alignment with Hindu-right actors and supremacist movements in the US, HAF plays a key role in spreading Islamophobia, casteism, and other forms of bigotry within Indian American communities with the aim of undermining solidarity between communities of color and pulling Hindu Americans toward an increasingly multiracial far-right.
In attacking the extension of civil rights protections to caste-oppressed groups, spreading hateful stereotypes about Muslims, and working to shield the Modi regime from accountability, HAF has also found common cause with a constellation of other far-right actors, said the report
As the report shows, HAF’s right-wing alignment is no recent accident, but rather explained by its history. The project of a second generation of Hindutva activists who cut their teeth in older and more openly bigoted Hindu supremacist organisations, HAF sought to present a more palatable version of Hindutva that would be capable of garnering mainstream legitimacy. Nevertheless, it has maintained strong ties with Hindu supremacist organisations like the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS) and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America (VHP-A), but has sought to keep them covert, the report says.
This story was originally published in maktoobmedia.com. Read the full story here.
