Washington, DC: A prominent American State Senator has strongly condemned hosting of the “Dismantling Global Hindutva” conference and described it as an anti-Hindu gathering as several universities asked the organizers to remove their logos from the site of the event which has generated outrage among Hindu Americans.
“This conference represents a disgusting attack on Hindus across the United States, and we must all condemn this as nothing more than racism and bigotry against Hindus. I will always stand strong against Hinduphobia,” Ohio State Senator Niraj Antani said in a statement.
“I am condemning in the strongest possible terms the ‘Dismantling Global Hindutva’ Conference,” he said.
Antani is the youngest Hindu elected official in the history of the United States and is the first Indian American state senator in Ohio history.
Being held on the weekend of September 10-12, organizers of the “Dismantling Global Hindutva” have said they want to remain anonymous. However, they have made public names of several eminent speakers and academicians who will participate in the event.
Coalition of Hindus of North America (CoHNA) has written more than 3,50,000 emails against the conference to the universities, academicians and various stake holders. In an email to CoHNA, Rutgers University president Jonathan Holloway said that it was unaware that the university logo was being used by the organizers of the conference.
“This conference paints Hindus disproportionately and falsely as purveyors of extremism, actively denies the genocide of Hindu people, and most troublingly, labels those who disagree as “Hindutva” which the conference organizers define as Hindu extremism,” CoHNA said in a statement.
“The conference’s features the “Hindutva Harassment Field Manual” as an official resource that categorically states that Hindus have never “faced systematic oppression throughout history and in present times”. This resource also denies that anti-Hindu bias has ever led to “casualties on … horrific scales,” it said.
In an email, Rutgers university said that it “is not a sponsor of the symposium.” However, it noted that individual faculty from Rutgers may well be participating in the conference consistent with the tradition of academic freedom and fundamental American free speech rights. Dalhousie University has urged the organizers to remove its logo from their promotional material.
“We were previously unaware that UMass Boston was listed as a co-sponsor and we have not formally received any request, not have we approved any request, for UMass to be listed as such,” Marcelo Suarez-Orozco, chancellor of the university, said in an email.
CoHNA said its emails to several universities have been receiving similar response, reflecting that there was a “concerted and organized” effort against the Hindus. (PTI)
