Hindu American Foundation
The Hindu American Foundation ( ) is an American Hindu advocacy group founded in 2003. The organisation has its roots in the Hindu nationalist organisation Vishwa Hindu Parishad America and its student wing Hindu Students Council. According to critics, HAF has repackaged the Hindu nationalist agenda in the language of "Hindu rights" to suit mainstream American politics. Establishment. The Hindu American Foundation (HAF) was founded in September 2003 by Mihir Meghani, an emergency care physician, Aseem Shukla, an associate professor in urologic surgery, Suhag Shukla, an attorney, Nikhil Joshi, a labor law attorney, and Adeeti Joshi, a speech therapist . The organization describes itself as a human rights and advocacy group, providing "a voice for the 2 million strong Hindu American community", that aims to educate the government and the public about Hinduism and the issues concerning the Hindus globally. It emphasizes the "Hindu and American ideals of understanding, tolerance and pluralism." According to Harvard professor Diana L. Eck, the foundation has emerged as "the first major national advocacy group looking at Hindu identity." Scholar Vinay Lal has noted that the organization draws on the claims of Hinduism being unique in its tolerance and religious pluralism as well as the  enormous goodwill created by Gandhi in the West. However, scholars and critics have pointed out HAF's links to Hindutva organisations. Mihir Meghani had served on the governing council of Vishwa Hindu Parishad America (VHP America) and authored an essay on the philosophy of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which was published on the BJP website. In the essay, Meghani had decried the alleged "pseudo-secularism" and the "denigration of treasured [Hindu] traditions" by the Indian National Congress, and the supposed demand of Hindus for "true secularism". He praised the demolition of the Babri Masjid as an exhibition of "thousands  of years" of bottled-up Hindu anger, and warned Muslims that they needed to join the "nationalistic spirit of Bharat". Coalition Against Genocide pointed out that the formation of the Hindu American Foundation was essentially a result of Meghani's parleys on the governing council of VHP-America and an effort to rebrand the Hindutva agenda as "Hindu rights" in a language suitable to mainstream American politics. Their report also points out that most of the office bearers of the Hindu American Foundation were drawn from the activists of the Hindu Students Council, the student wing of the VHP America . The HAF denies having any "affilitation or ties" to any other organisations or political parties. It has filed a defamation suit against a wide range of organsations that alleged its Hindutva links. Activism. Hindu persecution in different countries. During 2004–05, the organization held events to educate legislators about issues of concern to Hindu Americans. These included the abuse of Hindus in the Muslim majority regions of South Asia, including Kashmir, Bangladesh and Pakistan. During the visit of Pervez Musharraf to the US in 2006, the organization issued a press release holding the Musharraf regime complicit in the "forced religious conversions , temple destructions and intimidation of Hindus" in Pakistan. The organization supports strong ties between India, Israel and the US to create an axis of countries aiming to fight Islamic terrorism. Hindu rights in USA. In 2004, HAF challenged the public display of the Ten Commandments in Texas, where it appeared as amici curiae (friend of the Court) in "Van Orden v. Perry" in the United States Supreme Court; they argued that the display represented an "inherent government preference" for Judeo-Christian religions over others and the state must be reminded of its obligation to maintain religious neutrality. In 2005, it  joined the American Jewish Committee (AJC) to jointly sponsor a program at Stanford University on "countering biases against Hindus and Jews on the College campus." In 2008, HAF, along with a coalition of other religious groups, filed a lawsuit and blocked the issuance of Christian themed license plates in South Carolina. In 2013, HAF joined a coalition of Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Sikh, and Muslim organizations urging the Justice Department investigate the New York City Police Department for discriminatory surveillance of American Muslims. In 2015, as a part of the Hate Crimes Coalition, HAF participated in the drafting and submission of  the edits to an FBI manual to specifically track hate crimes against Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims. In 2016, HAF along with Indiaspora and other organizations successfully convinced the United States Postal Service to issue a stamp commemorating the Hindu festival of Diwali. Hindutva. In 2010, the Foundation launched a "Take Yoga Back" campaign as a reaction to the cultural appropriation and secularization of yoga. It contended that Raja Yoga is an integral part of Hinduism and cannot not be practiced independently, inviting criticism from Deepak Chopra and Meera Nanda. In September 2019, the HAF published a letter, co-signed  by "a record number of 230 Indian-American organisations", asking congressman Ro Khanna to withdraw from the Congressional Caucus on Pakistan and criticizing him for a tweet where he had stated that "it is the duty of every American politician of Hindu faith to stand for pluralism, reject Hindutva, and speak for equal rights for Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhist and Christians." Caste. in 2010, HAF issued a report on the caste system, asking Hindus to acknowledge that caste is not an intrinsic part of Hinduism even though it is a feature of the Hindu society and labeling caste-based discrimination  as a major human rights problem. The report declares that only Hindus, through reform movements and education, can rid Hindu society of caste-based discrimination. It also castigates organizations like evangelical Dignity Freedom Network for arguing that Dalits are not Hindus. Hindu Nationalist ties. The Coalition Against Genocide (CAG) and others have alleged that the organization has links to Hindu nationalist organizations, namely the Vishva Hindu Parishad America (VHPA) and Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS), the overseas wings of the Indian Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) respectively. Specifically, these critics cited that one of the organization's  founders, Mihir Meghani, also founded the University of Michigan's chapter of the Hindu Students Council (HSC), a nationwide network of student societies affiliated with the VHPA, in 1991. He is also known to have been a member of the HSS. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) credited Meghani as the author of an essay on their website titled "Hindutva: The Great Nationalist Ideology", which claims that Hindus and Hinduism were denigrated by the Indian National Congress and that Hindus rose up to demand a "true secularism." The essay drew a parallel between the Hindu experience and that of Jews, African  Americans and colonized groups, and defended the demolition of the Babri Masjid, terming it as the release of "thousands of years of anger and shame." The essay also challenges Muslims to prove their commitment to India or else face the ire of Hindu nationalists: "The future of Bharat is set. Hindutva is here to stay. It is up to the Muslims whether they will be included in the new nationalistic spirit of Bharat. It is up to the government and the Muslim leadership whether they wish to increase Hindu furor or work with the Hindu leadership." Academics and journalists have  provided more extensive documentation of links between the Hindu American Foundation and the Sangh Parivar, including the RSS. Georgetown University's Bridge Initiative notes that "HAF board member Rishi Bhutada served as the official spokesperson of 'Howdy Modi,' the RSS backed rally for India’s BJP prime minister held in Houston, Texas on September 22, 2020." Both the Bridge Initiative and several journalists' exposes of HAF have documented anti-Muslim statements made by HAF board members, past and present, as well as by individuals invited to speak by HAF. There is also an extensive money trail that links HAF to  other Sangh Parivar groups via their donors. In April 2021, after following an Al Jazeera investigation, a broad coalition of Indian American activists and United States-based civil rights organizations has called on the US Small Business Administration (SBA) to probe how Hindu right-wing groups received hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal COVID-19 relief funds Controversies. Textbook Revisionism. In 2006, HAF was actively involved in the Californian Hindu textbook controversy. On 16 March 2006, it filed a lawsuit contesting the California's Curriculum Commission's decision to reject many of the Vedic Foundation and Hindu Education Foundation's  suggested edits to California's textbook curriculum on Hinduism and India. The proposed changes had been publicly opposed by Indologists organized by Michael Witzel, who renounced them as "politically and religiously motivated", as well as by various Hindu groups. The court ruled to retain the textbooks, noting the significant expense associated with reissuing the textbooks. In 2016, the HAF lobbied against the replacement of the word "Indian" with "South Asian" in middle school history textbooks in California, arguing that the change was essentially an erasure of India itself. These efforts were protested by South Asian academics and activists belonging to  India's minority groups, who said that those on the side of the HAF sought to whitewash California's history textbooks to present a nativist, blemish-free view of how the Hindu caste system was enforced in India. They also argued that the term "South Asia" correctly represents India's collective history with countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh. A letter to the California State Board of Education about this issue, which garnered thousands of signatures, was spearheaded by the HAF. In 2014, the Texas State Board of Education voted to adopt new textbooks that incorporated over 100 corrections submitted by  HAF working in conjunction with scholars and historians. Some of the changes in the textbooks include coverage of Hinduism and Hindus in contemporary world history and geography, greater context in the explanation of caste, and the first-ever K-12 textbook mention of Hindu saint Adi Shankara. 2020 defamation suit. In May 2021, the Hindu American Foundation had filed a lawsuit against several human rights groups in the United States and Audrey Truschke alleging defamation. A diverse group of intellectuals and academics — Akeel Bilgrami, Amitav Ghosh, Anita Desai, Cornel West, Martha Nussbaum, Nandini Sundar, Noam Chomsky, Romila Thapar, Sudipta Kaviraj, Sheldon  Pollock, and Wendy Doniger among others — condemned HAF's tactics as a strategic lawsuit against public participation to silence critics and push forward Hindutva. On 15 March 2022, Judge Amit Mehta stayed defendants' motions to dismiss the suit since he deemed one of their arguments—about whether HAF had successfully satisfied the second requirement of invoking diversity jurisdiction—as a "substantial question" of procedure, that needed to be settled prior to adjudication on merits. It was subsequently held that HAF's claimed damages were "speculative" and devoid of "supporting facts" thereby necessitating a discovery. Dismantling Global Hindutva conference. During August –September 2021, the Hindu American Foundation participated in a protest campaign against a virtual conference, titled "Dismantling Global Hindutva": "Multidisciplinary Perspectives" organised by a conglomeration of American and other western Universities. Multiple academics and activists involved in the conference reported receiving death threats and being subject to other forms of intimidation. In response, American Historical Association condemned the attacks against academic freedom while Association for Asian Studies noted Hindutva to be a "majoritarian ideological doctrine" different from Hinduism, whose rise to prominence had accompanied "increasing attacks on numerous scholars, artists and journalists". The conference went ahead as scheduled, with support  from departments and centers at more than 50 universities.