New report exposes HAF’s ties with the Hindutva actors
Washington: The new report has said that Hindu far-right Hindutva actors and supremacist movements in the United States, Hindu American Foundation (HAF), plays a key role in spreading Islamophobia, casteism, and other forms of bigotry within Indian American communities.
According to Kashmir Media Service, a ground-breaking new report, jointly published by Political Research Associates (PRA) and the Savera: United Against Supremacy coalition; sheds light on the far-right associations and agenda of the HAF. Through its alignment with far-right actors and supremacist movements in the United States, HAF plays a key role in spreading Islamophobia, casteism, and other forms of bigotry within Indian American communities. Through these actions, the HAF aims to undermine solidarity between communities of colour and pull Hindu Americans toward an increasingly multiracial far-right.
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 reflects 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.” In attacking the extension of civil rights protections to caste-oppressed groups, spreading hateful stereotypes about Muslims, and working to shield Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s regime from accountability, HAF has also found common cause with a constellation of other far-right actors.
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) and has sought to keep them covert.
Through this subterfuge, HAF sought to exploit a broader lack of awareness about far-right strands in the Indian diaspora to find space in mainstream American civil society, which invited HAF into their interfaith and multicultural coalitions under the assumption that they were including a legitimate representative of the Hindu American community. And yet, as its far-right record has accelerated, HAF has increasingly moved away from these very spaces, responding to their inclusion with exclusionary lobbying. As the multiracial far-right grows, US civil society must recognise the threat HAF presents to building a truly multiracial democracy.
“The Hindu supremacist movement is a dangerous and increasingly influential force within an emergent multiracial far-right in the United States,” said Tarso Luís Ramos, Executive Director of Political Research Associates. “The Hindu American Foundation has cleverly exploited the general lack of awareness in this country about Hindu supremacism to present itself as a civil rights organisation. This report sets the record straight: HAF is a stalking horse for Hindutva and must be understood as an extension of the Indian far-right,” he said.
Sunita Viswanath, Cofounder and Executive Director of Hindus for Human Rights said: “With this report, our third on the Hindu supremacist ecosystem in the United States, we have presented the most comprehensive treatment of how diasporic far-right networks are also a key part of the authoritarian movement in the US. This report is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand what the far-right is shaping up to be.”
Chaitanya Diwadkar of Ambedkar King Study Circle said the report clearly illustrates how HAF has facilitated hate-mongering and supremacist politics. “Even as Hindu supremacists in India demonise minorities, in the US, they advance their supremacist agenda in the very language of minority rights. In doing so, they deny the existence of caste discrimination in the US, an issue that affects marginalised communities within the Hindu minority. Hindu supremacy is a significant threat to democracy and requires immediate attention at all levels.”
Rasheed Ahmed, Executive Director of the Indian American Muslim Council, said the new report compiles evidence of what many South Asian and Muslim civil rights groups have known for a long time: that HAF rejects protections for caste-oppressed groups, aligns with a foreign regime’s efforts to target our Sikh siblings, and joins in the xenophobic demonisation of Muslims. “As Savera connects the dots between these harms and the new alliances the far-right is building, the world will know this too,” he said.
