Admin | On 24, Oct 2019

HAF features Aarti Tikoo Singh at National Press Club conference

Washington, DC: October 24, 2019 — Despite her recent claims that Islamophobia is a “bullsh*t word,” the Hindu American Foundation will host Aarti Tikoo Singh at an October 24 event at the National Press Club entitled “Locked Down or Liberated: The Story of Kashmir.”

Singh, a journalist for The Times of India most recently found herself in conflict with US Congresswoman Ilhan Omar at an October 22 hearing on the human rights situation in Kashmir. Omar suggested that Singh, who was nominated by the Indian government to appear as a witness at the hearing, was operating as a “mouthpiece for a government.” Singh lashed back on social media, accusing Omar of being an “Islamist” who “gagged me.”

The controversial journalist has repeatedly denied that Islamophobia is a legitimate concept. In July 2019, she stated, “This bullsh*t word called Islamophobia, is thrown in as a slur usually by those who have irrational fear (phobia) of any criticism of Islamic extremism & regressive Muslims.” In December 2018, she stated, “Jihadi terrorism in the last 30 years across India has also created rational fear. But pointing it out is idiotically branded as Islamophobia by the Leftlib media.” Furthermore, in August 2018, she claimed, “The fear of religions including Islam is not irrational. It is pretty rational given the sanction for violence and barbarism, religious texts contain. Therefore, there is no Islamophobia.”

“It is deeply disturbing that the Hindu American Foundation is providing a platform to a person who denies the existence of prejudice against Islam and Muslims,” remarks Arvin Valmuci of Organization for Minorities of India. “HAF has staked its reputation on opposing Hinduphobia, the very real problem of prejudice against Hindus which was most virulently illustrated in the 1980s attacks on South Asians by the so-called ‘Dot Busters’ group. We agree with HAF’s past opposition to all forms of xenophobia and demand that they apologize for inviting such a as divisive a personality as Aarti Tikoo Singh.”

Valmuci pointed out that, in 2007, HAF issued a report on Hinduphobia in which they stated, “Racism, anti-Semitism, xenophobia, homophobia, anti-Hindu hate, Islamophobia — whatever the name and context — must be exposed and condemned for it necessarily precludes civilizational dialogue that is so crucial today.”

At the Oct. 22 hearing, which was sponsored by the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, Congresswoman Omar directly addressed Singh, stating:

“Ms. Singh, a reporter’s job is to find the objective truth about what is happening and report it to the public. You have an enormous audience at The Times of India and you have an enormous responsibility to get it right. I am aware of how the narrative shaped by reporting can distort the truth. I am also very aware of how it could be limited to sharing only the official side of the story. The press is at its worst when it is a mouthpiece for a government….

“In your version of the story, the only problems in Kashmir are caused by what you call militants, the only people protesting to break away from India; and are all nefariously backed by Pakistan. You also make the incredibly dubious claim that the Indian government’s crackdown in Kashmir is good for human rights. If it was good for human rights, Ms Singh, it wouldn’t be happening in secret.”

Singh subsequently shot back at Omar, arguing, “The entire Congressional hearing was prejudiced, biased and a setup against India and also in favor of Pakistan.”

Valmuci dismisses Singh’s allegation. “Congressman Brad Sherman, who chaired the hearing on Kashmir, just received a major fundraiser on October 13 by the US-India Political Action Committee,” says Valmuci. “The fundraiser host, Navneet Chugh, proudly described Sherman as someone who has ‘always been a friend of India.’ Singh is venturing into the territory of conspiracy theory by claiming that a US congressional hearing on Kashmir chaired by Sherman was a setup in favor of Pakistan.”

Brian Isai, an associate director of OFMI, says HAF’s “history of toeing the Hindu nationalist line” is “troubling.”

“The board members of HAF have a troubling history of toeing the Hindu nationalist line,” says Isai. “They have repeatedly justified some of the worst major state-sponsored atrocities against India’s minorities. That includes excusing the 2002 Gujarat Pogrom, which was conducted under the oversight of the Hindu nationalist Modi, as well as the 1992 destruction of the Babri mosque, in which Modi also played a part.”

Isai drew attention to an article by HAF co-founder Aseem Shukla in which he blamed “Muslim provocateurs” for “shattering communal calm in 2002.” In contrast, Human Rights Watch reported: “What happened in Gujarat was not a spontaneous uprising, it was a carefully orchestrated attack against Muslims. The attacks were planned in advance and organized with extensive participation of the police and state government officials.”

Shukla, in another article, asserted, “The police, inexcusably blinded by the rage of the moment, may have participated with the rioters in the first 24 hours.” His remarks again contradict HRW, which reported that police told victims in the 2002 pogrom that “we don’t have any orders to save you” and claimed, “In almost all of the incidents documented by Human Rights Watch the police were directly implicated in the attacks. At best they were passive observers, and at worse they acted in concert with murderous mobs and participated directly in the burning and looting of Muslim shops and homes and the killing and mutilation of Muslims.”

Other board-members of HAF have faced similar criticism over the years.

Mihir Meghani, an HAF co-founder, has been cited as a member of Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh, the international wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, and a speaker at conferences organized by Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America, the international wing of VHP, which is the RSS’s religious branch. In a 1998 essay praising the “great nationalist ideology” of India’s Bharatiya Janata Party, Meghani said that, after the death of thousands of Muslims in riots following the mob destruction of the 16th-century Babri mosque, “It is up to the government and the Muslim leadership whether they wish to increase Hindu furore.”

When HAF board-member Padma Kuppa successfully ran for the Michigan House of Representatives in 2018, it emerged that she had endorsed criminalization of religious conversion in India. OFMI noted that Kuppa had published a 2012 article terming anti-conversion laws a defense against “unethical tactics.” Such laws, in force in approximately ten Indian states, typically require those desiring to change their religion to first obtain permission from local authorities. In 2014, UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief Heiner Bielefeldt warned that the laws place converts in the position of “exposing themselves and explaining the reasons [for their conversion] as if the State were in a position of being able to assess the genuineness of conversion.” The BJP has suggested that it intends to introduce a national anti-conversion law in the near future.

Most recently, HAF board-member Rishi Bhutada served as the official spokesperson of “Howdy Modi,” the RSS-organized pep rally for India’s BJP prime minister in Houston, Texas. Rishi is the son of Ramesh Bhutada, the Vice-President of HSS.

“HAF appears to have no other purpose than protecting the interests of those who want to diminish minorities and ethnically cleanse indigenous cultures,” comments Balbir Singh Dhillon, the president of West Sacramento Sikh Gurdwara. “They have apparently come here to the land of the free to take advantage of our country’s liberties in order to work to increase the slavery of the oppressed minorities back in India. The same people they champion are those responsible for slaughtering Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, and even Hindus who stand against the Hindu nationalist project.”