Afrigather NEW YORK (RNS) — Waving each the tri-color Indian flag and the American Stars and Stripes, greater than 13,000 individuals gathered in Lengthy Island on Sunday (Sept. 22) to see and listen to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reward the energy of the Indian American group, which, at an estimated 5 million individuals, is the most important Indian diaspora of any nation.
Modi referred to the gang as “Bharat’s (India’s) strongest model ambassadors” and projected a rising affectionate bond between the U.S. and India because the world’s oldest and largest democracies, respectively.
“Now our ‘Namaste’ has gone multinational,” he mentioned. “It has gone from native to world, and it’s you who has made this potential.”
The “Modi and US” occasion was sponsored by the nonprofit Indo American Neighborhood of USA and held within the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum. The gathering’s theme, “unity in range,” drew from the Sanskrit phrase “vasudhaiva katumbakam,” or, “the entire world is one household.”
Talking in Hindi, Modi congratulated the diaspora for its “unparallelled” expertise, expertise and dedication to bettering the American nation, together with, to uproarious applause, Indian American illustration at this 12 months’s T20 cricket world cup. Little to no references to Hinduism, not to mention a “Hindu rashtra,” or Hindu nation, had been made.
However exterior the venue, anti-Modi protests of about 300 faith-led activists converged.
One group of about 50 Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Christians highlighted the methods wherein they are saying Modi’s rule has normalized a fiery model of Hindu supremacy, known as “Hindutva,” or “Hinduness,” and facilitated violence in opposition to ethnic and non secular minorities in India.
Activists of varied religion backgrounds maintain indicators protesting Narendra Modi, exterior the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, N.Y., Sunday, Sept. 22, 2024. (Photograph by Rohan Narine/Hindus for Human Rights)
“Modi, Modi, you’ll be able to’t cover, you’re answerable for genocide,” some chanted, referring to the lethal 2002 anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat, western India, that human rights teams have linked to the Modi administration that ruled the state at the moment. Indicators with “MODI=HITLER, RSS=KKK,” referring to the Hindu nationalist paramilitary group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh seen as formative to Modi’s rise, and “Hindu Dharma is Justice for All,” may very well be seen among the many crowd.
Throughout a police-installed barricade, a separate protest of virtually 300 Sikhs advocated for the creation of Khalistan, a would-be break-away Sikh nation-state in India. There, some took turns utilizing footwear to hit a life-size effigy of Modi. Some held indicators with the slogan “Modi: Face of Hindu Terror.” The Modi authorities has killed a number of Sikh and Kashmiri separatist activists, whom they label terrorists and extremists, together with fatally taking pictures a Sikh activist in Canada and making an attempt to assassinate a Sikh activist, an American citizen, within the U.S.
“I don’t agree with the concept of Khalistan for a lot of causes, though I assist everybody’s democratic proper to demand self-determination, however I don’t assist non secular nationalist actions,” mentioned Pieter Friedrich, an anti-Hindutva activist and journalist who was a part of the multifaith Reclaim Indian Democracy facet of the protest, including that one other bus of round 50 volunteers from New Jersey was unable to make it because of a blockage on the turnpike.
“However the wrestle in opposition to Hindutva might be profitable when we have now a full unified intermingling of all communities, throughout all religions,” he mentioned.
Attendees put together to enter the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum earlier than the “Modi and US” occasion in Uniondale, N.Y., Sunday, Sept. 22, 2024. (RNS picture/Richa Karmarkar)
Spiritual leaders, like Imam Saffet Catovic from distinguished non secular freedom group Justice for All, known as Modi’s management fascist and modeled on Hitler’s regime.
“There isn’t a democracy with out the safety of human rights of the minorities of that land,” he mentioned, drawing from his expertise with genocide in his house nation of Bosnia.
One other activist spoke concerning the plight of Christians in Manipur, India, the place church buildings have been attacked and greater than 60,000 individuals displaced after tons of had been killed in mob violence this 12 months. One other spoke about Modi’s position within the Gujarat riots, which prompted the U.S. authorities to ban Modi from visiting the U.S. at the moment.
Friedrich, an invited inaugural speaker on behalf of the Federation of Indian American Christians of North America, centered his speech on the “audacity” of Modi’s “rockstar reception,” and the “insult to damage” he provides coming to talk three months after and simply miles away from the place an Indian nationwide was indicted for the tried homicide of a U.S. citizen.
“From each angle, from the Sikh angle, the Khalistani angle, from the secular, pluralistic angle, we have now people who find themselves deeply, deeply offended and wounded as Americans,” Friedrich advised RNS. “That India underneath Modi would have the audacity to suppose that they will strip away our authorized constitutional rights to freedom of expression right here, not in India, however right here in America.”
The accused assassination plot of Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, the chief of Sikhs for Justice, has heightened the tensions amongst some within the diaspora, particularly amongst those that say India has been partaking in “transnational repression” of pro-Khalistani Individuals for years.
U.S. safety officers have mentioned that the Indian intelligence service underneath Modi has more and more surveilled and harassed Sikhs and different teams within the diaspora perceived as disloyal to the Indian authorities.
A vandalized signal on the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir Hindu temple in Melville, N.Y. (Photograph courtesy BAPS)
However many Hindus blame Khalistani rhetoric for the current desecration of American Hindu temples throughout the nation, a lot of which had been vandalized with anti-Modi expletives. Simply days in the past, a BAPS Swaminarayan Mandir close by in Lengthy Island was spray-painted with pro-Khalistani messages.
Whereas the U.S. and India have agreed on some designations of Islamic terrorism, Sikh extremism has divided them, with the U.S. not formally designating any Khalistani group as a terrorist group regardless of violent assaults just like the 1985 bombing of an Air India flight en route from Canada to India that killed greater than 300 individuals. Canadian authorities consider the assault was orchestrated by Sikh separatists.
Suhag Shukla, government director for the Hindu American Basis, was contained in the rally venue throughout the protests. Although freedom of expression and peaceable protests are “very crucial to a democracy,” she mentioned, Shukla thinks it’s an unfair evaluation to characterize Modi’s go to as problematic, as a substitute selecting to deal with the diplomatic worth of the occasion, and of the nations’ “pure, mandatory and inevitable friendship.”
“What I believe is harmful for a democracy is demonizing total communities, demonizing organizations, and, you understand, publishing lies,” she advised RNS. “If we actually are dedicated to secular democracy, as Individuals, we should be nuanced and clear about understanding each other slightly than making assumptions about each other.”
Hemlata, left, and Arvind Bhakta with their daughter, Darshna, on the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, N.Y., Sunday, Sept. 22, 2024. (RNS picture/Richa Karmarkar)
For a lot of of those that waited hours in strains and site visitors to attend the rally, Modi is a nationwide hero who has helped unfold Indian tradition overseas. Some described themselves as “Modi superfans.” The multigenerational Bhakta household of Pennsylvania, for instance, has adopted Modi’s rise since his humble beginnings as a tea vendor of their house state of Gujarat.
“My mother-in-law took an oath that till he (Modi) turned Chief Minister, she’s not going to eat rice,” mentioned Hemlata Bhakta, whose household has personally met with Modi twice. “She didn’t eat rice for that 12 months.”
But many Hindus nonetheless consider the protests in opposition to Modi are half of a bigger American progressive motion that stands in opposition to any overseas intimidation, mentioned Rohan Narine, New York-based organizer for Hindus for Human Rights, a progressive Hindu advocacy group that has been vocal about their opposition to the Indian prime minister.
“We’re calling on all Individuals to acknowledge the dangerous and rising presence of Hindutva organizations proper right here in the USA,” he advised RNS. “We are saying emphatically that Hindutva apologizers akin to Modi and his supporters usually are not welcome right here in New York, they usually’re not welcome in Lengthy Island and never welcome right here in the USA.
“I might say for Indian diaspora liberals who’re very small in numbers, the struggle is all the time in opposition to the tide for us, all the time like salmon swimming upstream,” he added.
As Modi closed his tackle, chants of “Modi” and “Bharat Mata ki Jai,” or “Hail the motherland,” stuffed the sold-out stadium.
