Indian-American political candidates and the Hindutva question

As a son of immigrant parents, growing up in America has led me to appreciate human rights and the freedoms that we all enjoy. Is America perfect? No. We still have our challenges, but we have a document that guarantees our freedoms and keeps our policymakers as honest as we can keep them.

By Rafi Uddin Ahmed (VA, United Sates)

In Virginia, June 20th is the primary election day. Just about all state and local positions are up for election. In the fray for positions are many immigrants and several who can trace their origins in India, either as first-generation immigrants or as the children of immigrant parents.

India as an origin country is currently undergoing a series of changes brought about by a fascist, extremist, majoritarian ideology followed by the current ruling party as well as the current Prime Minister, Narendra Modi.

They are all driven by the ideology – born out of a fascination of Hitler and the Nazis – taught by the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), the largest voluntary paramilitary in the world. That ideology has transformed the tolerance of Hinduism and created militant, extremist, supremacist followers, who are Hindu by name but Indian Nazis by nature. That dangerous ideology is called Hindutva.

RSS lynch mobs, organized as cow protectors, and under the protection of police, are lynching non-Hindus for eating beef or praying in churches and mosques. They are destroying churches, mosques, and tribal religious symbols.

Disinformation teams regularly put out hateful messages, furthering these attacks. Propaganda movies portraying Muslims as the cause of everything ominous, from economic regression to the COVID-19 pandemic, are proliferating India’s WhatsApp groups. Twitter was pressured into compliance by threats directly from the Indian government.

And through all of this, Modi remains silent, or worse, prods the mobs along.

Just recently mobs in the state of Manipur have attacked Christian tribal communities. By early May, 121 churches lay in ruin, completely destroyed. A more recent report states 100 were killed, 310 injured, and 40,000 displaced. All through, Modi keeps silent, with not a word in condemnation of his Hindu voter base in the state, because they are the ones that attacked Christians, and they will vote his party back in power next time around. Similarly, there is no word in condemnation of the calls for a genocide of India’s Muslims made multiple times by Hindu religious leaders who support his political party.

Strangely, many Indian-Americans support pluralism here and take advantage of it, yet support majoritarian extremism in what they still consider as “back home.”

That unquestioning support of Modi and Indian majoritarianism leads me to ask some very important questions for all Indian-American political candidates.

Do you condemn India’s Prime Minister Modi for giving the green light to the RSS which is responsible for demolishing churches and mosques in India?

Do you condemn his using propaganda films to further his political base?

Do you condemn the unilateral abrogation of the symbolic autonomy of the internationally-disputed region of Kashmir?

Do you condemn the recent mass killings of Christians by BJP supporters?

Do you refuse monies from groups such as the Overseas Friends of the BJP and other overt Modi supporters in the USA?

One may ask what does the situation in India have to do with the Virginia state elections? Well, I need to know from the following Indian American candidates in Virginia’s upcoming primary elections on June 20th, 2023.

Delegate Suhas Subramanyam state senate candidate Va-32nd district.

Shyamali Roy Hauth state delegate candidate Va-7th district.

Kannan Srinivasan state delegate candidate Va-26th district.

Sirisha Kompalli state delegate candidate Va-26th district.

Do they deplore the targeting of minorities in India as much as I do and condemn Indian Prime Minister Modi for creating the conditions that has allowed these atrocities to happen?

Hindutva is a dangerous ideology. I want to know from all Indian-American political candidates if they subscribe to it.

I am an American Muslim, and I condemn all human rights violations in any Muslim-majority country against any and all religious minorities.

Will the Indian-Americans, especially the Hindu-American candidates running in the upcoming elections step up and condemn the attacks against minorities in India and be Americans first rather than hold on to majoritarian dreams in a land they left half a world away?

Each of the candidates must reflect on and answer the questions posed above. I will wholeheartedly consider their candidature if they do.

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