By India Tomorrow News,
Washington D.C., 24 Dec 2013: An American-based human-rights organization, the Coalition Against Genocide (CAG), has released a report which allegedly contains evidence that another American-based pro-Hindu organization, Hindu American Foundation (HAF), has deep links to the violent Hindu supremacist movement, the Sangh Parivar.
In a press release, CAG says that the report gives evidence of 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 Mr. Alex Koshy, on why he had reason to believe HAF was part of a violent Hindu supremacist movement, he said “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.” Mr. Koshy added, “it is also obvious that they are trying to downplay the Indian Christian community’s participation in the Coalition Against Genocide.”
The organization had previously published a report on December 17, 2013 that 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. This 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 on Dec 18 released a document which, CAG claimed, failed to take on any of the evidence the organization had provided.
“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.
Pointing towards the double standard of HAF, Dr. Shaik Ubaid, another CAG member asked, “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?”
References:
1. Affiliations of Faith – Part II: Joined at the hip
http://coalitionagainstgenocide.org/reports/2013/cag.22dec2013.haf.rss.2…
2. Affiliations of Faith – Part I: Hindu American Foundation and the Global Sangh
http://coalitionagainstgenocide.org/reports/2013/cag.15dec2013.haf.rss.pdf
