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Monday, November 18, 2024

‘What’s happening in Canada?’: clashes between Hindus and Sikhs spark fears of growing divisions


Misinformation drives tensions in Ontario’s south Asian community amid rise of Hindu nationalism


Olivia Bowden in Brampton
THE GUARDIAN
Sun 17 Nov 2024 

The Hindu Sabha Mandir temple in the Canadian city of Brampton lies beside a busy road in a suburb where many homes are still strung with lights left over from Diwali. Standing over the parking lot, a 17-meter-tall statue of the monkey god Lord Hanuman gazes out over the traffic as worshippers come and go.

A couple of minutes down the road, the Gurdwara Dasmesh Darbar Sikh temple sits near a strip mall with sari shops, Indian restaurants and other businesses indicative of the city’s large south Asian population.


Save for a few security guards at the Hindu temple, it would be hard to tell that this quiet residential neighbourhood was recently the site of violent clashes between Sikh activists and nationalist counterprotesters.

The confrontation drew condemnation from the city’s mayor, the premier of Ontario and Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau – and also from India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, who described the incident as an attack on the Hindu temple.

View image in fullscreenThe Hindu Sabha Mandir temple in Brampton, Ontario. Photograph: Nick Lachance/Toronto Star/Getty Images

So far, local police have made five arrests and say more may come.

But as the dust settles, members of the local community say they fear further violence between Sikh separatist activists and Modi supporters, some of whom espouse Hindu nationalist ideologies.

Videos of the overnight clashes on 3 November show men throwing bricks, kicking cars and striking each other with sticks or flagpoles – including some flying the Indian tricolour and others the bright yellow emblem adopted by advocates of an independent Sikh homeland known as Khalistan.

The protests were prompted by a visit to the temple by Indian government officials who have been holding consular sessions at places of worship across Ontario, including Sikh temples.

The 4 November visit came at a moment of high tension, soon after Canadian police and Trudeau’s government alleged that Modi’s government had orchestrated a campaign of violence and intimidation against Sikh activists in exile.

Inderjeet Singh Gosal, a leader of Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) who helped organize the demonstration, said the protest was specifically against the Indian government, not the Hindu religion, and that he had liaised with police to ensure it would not disrupt worship.


Gosal was a close associate of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, another SFJ leader and Khalistan advocate whose 2023 assassination Canadian officials have linked to Indian diplomats and consular staff.

The Khalistan movement is banned in India, where o
fficials describe Sikh separatists as “terrorists” and a threat to national security.

View image in fullscreenSikh demonstrators outside the Indian consulate in Toronto on 25 September 2023, after the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
 Photograph: Cole Burston/AFP/Getty Images

Gosal claimed that it was pro-Modi counterprotesters who instigated the violence, alleging that one of them had looked him in the face and told him in Hindi: “We’re going to kill you.”

“I went forward to him and said, ‘Look, I’m sorry you feel that way.’ But before I could say anything they moved up and punched [me],” he said.

Peel regional police have since charged Gosal with assault with a weapon; he accepts he has been charged and has not yet entered a plea.

The clashes escalated and later that night crowds waving Indian flags blocked traffic outside the temple. Video posted online shows a man with a megaphone drawing cheers from the group as he called for the Indian army to “storm” Sikh temples in Canada, which he says are “promoting terrorism”.

Peel police confirmed the man had been charged with public incitement of hatred.

Jaskaran Sandhu, a board member of the World Sikh Organization advocacy group, said such scenes were unprecedented in Canada, home to the largest Sikh population outside India.
This type of Hindu nationalist rhetoric is very normal in India, but not in Canada. That’s very disturbingJaskaran Sandhu of the World Sikh Organization


“This type of Hindu nationalist rhetoric is very normal in India, where minorities are targeted in this manner, but not in Canada. That’s very disturbing,” he said.

Sandhu said that the unrest did not reflect tensions between Sikhs and Hindus, who have historically lived alongside each other in Brampton.

“What’s different here is you have violent, pro-India, Hindu nationalist actors in this country,” he said.

Paritosh Kumar, an adjunct assistant professor of political science at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, said Hindu nationalists around the world have been emboldened by Modi’s government – and that this has become an increasing concern in Canada.

But he also said the ideology was attractive to some members of the diaspora who encountered racism in western countries.

Kumar said academics in Canada have previously been harassed after denouncing Hindu nationalism, but the recent violence marked a serious escalation.

“That seems like a very dangerous transition that is taking place,” he said.

Modi’s framing of the protest as an attack on a Hindu temple by Sikhs may also further inflame the situation, he said.

“It’s a trend that will probably manifest in more street violence,” Kumar said.
View image in fullscreenA Sikh protester holds up an effigy of the Indian prime minister outside the Indian consulate in Vancouver, British Columbia, on 18 October. Photograph: Jennifer Gauthier/Reuters

That worries Chinnaiah Jangam, an associate professor of history at Ottawa’s Carleton University who focuses on Dalit peoples, considered the lowest rung of India’s caste system.


Jangam is a practicing Hindu and identifies as Dalit. After the protests in Brampton, relatives in India called him to see if he was safe – an indication of how successful Modi’s supporters had been in casting the protests as an attack on Hindus.

“They are playing into this idea of victimhood. It’s a false narrative … and this is a part of a larger narrative to discredit [the Canadian government],” Jangam said.

Brampton city councillor Gurpartap Singh Toor said misinformation published in the Indian media or shared on WhatsApp had framed the unrest as a violent attack on the Hindu temple, fanning fear and hatred in both Canada and India.

“It’s sad to see it happening here in our city. And then to pitch it as the Sikh community versus the Hindu community – it’s just a gross injustice,” he said.

Roopnauth Sharma, the pandit at the Ram Mandir Hindu temple in the nearby city of Mississauga, said the unrest in Brampton did not reflect any broader sectarian tensions.

“This is not a Hindu-Sikh issue … It is a group of people who have a certain opinion, and they’re allowed to [express it],” he said.

Sharma, who is also the president of the Hindu Federation, said he had been working with local officials to create restrictions on demonstrations near places of worship.

“We want to make sure people still have the right to protest … but we want to make sure there’s a safe distance,” he said.
View image in fullscreenPandit Vasudev Joshi at the Hindu Sabha Mandir temple in Brampton, Ontario. 
Photograph: Nick Lachance/Toronto Star/Getty Images

Leaders of the Hindu Sabha Mandir temple did not respond to a request for comment, but Vasudev Joshi, a pandit at the temple, told the Toronto Star that the protest should have been held outside the Indian consulate.

Such sentiments were echoed by political leaders: Brampton’s mayor, Patrick Brown, pushed for a bylaw that would ban protests at places of worship, while Trudeau said last week that acts of violence at the temple were “unacceptable”.

But Sandhu said such statements miss the point. “Our leaders are so quick to speak about mob violence … but have chosen to be absolutely silent on this India violence directed at the Canadian Sikh community,” he said.

“Are the visuals not enough for you to realize what’s happening in Canada?”

Thursday, November 14, 2024

For these Hindu Americans, a pivot from the Democratic Party was long overdue

(RNS) — In the Trump coalition, they see a burgeoning multiracial religious right that has ample space for Hindu Americans.


Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump listens as Vivek Ramaswamy speaks during a campaign rally at Thomas & Mack Center, Thursday, Oct. 24, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Richa Karmarkar
November 12, 2024

(RNS) — Days after Donald Trump’s sweeping presidential win, reactions around the country ranged from surprise and sadness to, in Texan Burt Thakur’s case, relief.

“What a moment,” he told RNS. “The biggest comeback in political history, I would say, for any world leader in modern times.”

A Republican congressional hopeful who ran in Frisco, Texas, under the slogan “one nation under God, not one nation under government,” Thakur — a former Navy sailor, nuclear power plant worker and immigrant from India — has much in common with the average faith-based Trump voter. Though Thakur lost his March primary in northeast Texas, “arguably the most evangelical part” of the state, Thakur said he had “never felt more welcomed” than when he campaigned as a conservative in his district

For so long, says Thakur, Hindu Americans had to wait their turn to enter the political space as anything other than a Democrat. But now, with openly Hindu Republican figures like Vivek Ramaswamy, Tulsi Gabbard and even Usha Chilukuri Vance, the wife of Vice President-elect JD Vance, Thakur sees a burgeoning multiracial religious right that has ample space for Hindu Americans.

“If we want to build a bridge, if we want the Vivek Ramaswamys of the world to get into office, if we want our voice heard, these groups are waiting for us,” said Thakur, who added he has often been “one of the only brown faces in the room” at Republican-led events. “We just have to show up.”

Political observers have noted the uptick in Trump-supporting Americans from various ethnic and immigrant backgrounds, especially Latinos and Asians, as the marker of a changing America. The Democratic Party has too often relied on the support of Indian Americans, says author Avatans Kumar, who, like many in his immigrant cohort, initially leaned to the left.

“Indians, Hindus specifically, are very deeply religious people,” said Kumar, who moved to Chicago for a Ph.D. in linguistics in 1994. “And progressivism is not alien to us. It comes to us because we are Hindus — very progressive, liberal minded. But there’s a limit to it. So I think we may have, you know, broke that limit for many of us.”

Notions of DEI, Critical Race Theory and affirmative action led Kumar to question the state of the meritocracy he once valued in his chosen country. For him, the breaking point came, as it did for many Hindus, in 2023 with a senate bill in California. Bill 403, supported by many Democrats, would have codified caste as a protected category under existing anti-discrimination laws. Governor Gavin Newsom ultimately vetoed the bill after fierce opposition from prominent Hindu advocates who argued it misrepresented the Hindu faith as intrinsically caste-based.

RELATED: As caste bill meets defeat, Hindu Americans on both sides make their voices heard

Trump’s “America First” views, where ideology is more important than identity, greatly appealed to Kumar.

“I don’t think identity should be a big factor,” he said. “You are who you are, and our dharma tells us to be loyal to our nation, the country where we live. You know, we made this country home, and we will be very loyal. But also, India is our spiritual homeland, that’s the connection we have.”

In a pre-election 2020 survey, 72% of registered Indian American voters said they planned to support Biden, a share that fell to 61% percent for Kamala Harris in the month before the 2024 election — while Trump support went from 22% to 32%, according to the Indian American Attitudes Survey conducted before both elections.

President Joe Biden’s administration of “mostly activist ideologues,” said Kumar, did little to support a diplomatic relationship with India. In contrast with liberals’ criticism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rule, and the occasionally violent Hindu nationalism of his Bharatiya Janata Party, Trump has instead publicly shown his great appreciation and admiration for the leader of the world’s largest democracy.

“We will also protect Hindu Americans against the anti-religion agenda of the radical left,” posted Trump on Diwali. “Under my administration, we will also strengthen our great partnership with India and my good friend, Prime Minister Modi.”

The majority of Indian Americans either approve of or have no opinion on Modi’s performance as prime minister, and most value a strong partnership between India and the U.S., according to a 2023 survey by Pew Research Center.

But Trump’s foreign policy is only a small piece of the puzzle, according to D.C. native Akshar Patel. Increased inflation and pathways to legal immigration, the latter of which is especially relevant to the majority-immigrant population with a decadeslong backlog for citizenship, were the issues strong enough to sway otherwise progressive-minded Hindus like himself into a Trump vote.

“Diversity, tolerance, pluralism, things like that: those are Hindu ideals,” said Patel, who in 2018 founded the independent news outlet The Emissary, which discusses Indian and American history and politics. “On the flip side, though, ideas around God, family and natural patriotism, you could say those are also Hindu values.”

But Patel warns against characterizing the multi-religious coalition as a “pan-Republican phenomenon,” instead calling it a distinctly “Trumpian” one. He noted the backlash over Harmeet Dhillon, a practicing Sikh, reciting a prayer to Waheguru (the Sikh name for God) at the Republican National Convention, with some calling it “blasphemous” and “anti-Christian.”

“I think that is a real part of the Republican Party, which I guess Hindus need to be cognizant of, and keep one eyebrow up,” Patel said.

Srilekha Reddy Palle, a board member of the nonpartisan American Hindu Coalition, has been a vocal supporter of Trump throughout the 2024 campaign season. Some of her colleagues were “instrumental,” she said, in getting Trump to mention the violence against Hindus in Bangladesh in his October X post. “Kamala and Joe have ignored Hindus across the world and in America,” added the post.

But her support for Trump goes beyond “superficial” identity-based lines, says Palle, who ran for county supervisor in her home state of Virginia in 2019. “I just want us to be at a point where anyone can stand on the stage,” she said, noting how in local elections in her state candidates still feel a need to emphasize their Christian faith.

“That kind of thing should go away from America,” she added. “That’s what I call religious freedom. Religious tolerance alone is not religious freedom. It just means that you practice whatever you want, but you should be agnostic when it comes to running, when you come into the public eye.”

On either side of the American political spectrum, many Hindus like Reddy feel pride in the influx of Indians in lawmaking positions, like the six Congress members elected just this cycle, or Hindus like Ramaswamy, Gabbard and Kash Patel — who are all expected to have a role in Trump’s government.

The goal for AHC, she says, is to move the community away from opening wallets and photo ops, and towards getting more like-minded people into leadership positions.

For Indu Viswanathan, director of education for the Hindu University of America, “there’s nothing more Hindu than viewpoint diversity,” or the ability to empathize and understand other perspectives, including those of her more right-leaning colleagues. The former public school teacher says too many in the Indian American community, among the wealthiest and most educated ethnic group in the nation, live in their enclaves and are not exposed to the reality of mainstream America.

“This is where the culture wars, and a lot of social justice has done us a disservice, because in the name of being inclusive, it’s actually created a lot of more isolating categorization of people,” she said. “It’s really easy to get fired up, and it’s really easy to feel like you’re drowning.”

But Viswanathan sees Trump, with his felony convictions, as “not at all aligned with dharmic values,” and is especially cautious of the alignments some Hindus are making with an increasingly nationalist form of Christianity in a nation that has historically misrepresented or even denigrated ritualistic forms of the religion.

“Your everyday American is actually really open minded,” she said. “So we don’t need to make ourselves fit in that way. We can actually be really authentic in our representations and expressions and understandings of the world. Don’t try to dilute or make your sort of experience of Hinduism digestible to others,” she said.

“The more diversity of expression that we see, not just in politicians, but in media and entertainment, in all of these different spaces, the richer our country is, the richer the representation of Hinduism is. And I think we’re all better off for it.”

Wednesday, November 06, 2024

 INDIA

How Hindu Festivals Are Being Abused to Spark Violence and Hate


Ram Puniyani 




Two recent books chart the intensity and increase in communal violence and hatred since 2014, particularly during religious yatras.

File photo of violence in Bihar Sharif during Ram Navami in 2023.

Communal violence has been the bane of Indian society with increasing intensity. While in the pre-colonial era, it was an occasional ethnic strife, from the period of British rule, it started to become a regularly occurring phenomenon. The communal historiography, looking at history through the prism of religion of the ruler, introduced by the British, was the solid base of the emergence of narratives that formed the ground for various communal streams, Muslim and Hindu.

These streams devised their own mechanisms to create a ‘social common sense’ and instigate violence in the communities, based on religion. While this phenomenon has seen an exponential rise during the past three decades, scholars, journalists, activist-researchers have made serious efforts to understand the newer mechanism to communalise the majority community and also the newer ways of initiating violence.

A dogged journalist, Kunal Purohit, in a path-breaking book, H-Pop- Inside the Secretive World of Hindutva Popstars, brings to our notice how popular culture is being shaped by songs that are spreading hatred against the heroes of the national movement, such as Gandhi, Nehru, in particular, and against Muslims. He warns us that Hindutva pop stars are adding intense hatred, particularly in the North Indian scenario.

Another important book is Weaponization of Hindu Festivals, by Irfan Engineer and Neha Dabhade (Pharos Media). Both these activists-researchers are part of the Centre for Study of Society and Secularism, by legendary Asghar Ali Engineer. This centre has constantly been monitoring and studying the nature and intensity of communal violence.

In the wake of the violence being orchestrated around Hindu festivals, particularly Ram Navami, the author duo has focused on the mechanism as to how festival celebrations have been made intimidatory and aggressive to the Muslim community, mostly leading to violence and polarisation.

As far Hindu festivals and their celebrations are concerned, from centuries they have assumed a sort of culturally integrating character. The major example of this is that most Hindu festivals were celebrated not only in the Mughal courts but were also jointly celebrated with Muslims. I do recall the Ram Navami procession in my childhood was a time to be joyous and go around the city in a procession in a festive mood.

This book is based on an in-depth inquiry into the violence instigated by religious processions as a part of celebrations of festivals, Ram Navami in particular in 2022-2023. It seriously analyses the incidents following the inquiry by the teams in which they participated. The violence covered in the book relates to Howrah and Hooghly (2023), Sambahji Nagar (2023), Vadodara (2023), Biharsharif and Sasaram 2023, Khargone (2022), Himmat Nagar and Khambat (2022) and Lohardagga (2022).

This book is relevant, as its observations can be of great help in preventing this violence by ensuring that the pattern which is coming into being should be prevented for maintaining peace among communities.

Irfan Engineer, in the introduction, points out, “Even a small Group of Hindu nationalists masquerading as ‘religious procession’ could insist on passing through minority inhabited area and provoke some youth using political and abusive slogans and playing violent songs and music, hoping that a reaction, a stone would be thrown at them. The state would do the rest by arresting a large number of members of a minority and demolishing their homes and properties within days without any judicial procedure.” (Page 24)

What needs to be understood for prevention (of violence) is that most of the time these processions, which are well armed; deliberately decide to pass through Muslim majority areas, with loud music and provocative and abusive slogans. It has become a pattern that someone will climb over the mosque and replace the green flag with saffron flag and the crowds down below dance and applaud.

Such a phenomenon has seen a boost particularly after 2014 with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government coming to power at Centre. The Khargone incident is very revealing in this regard. A minster of the Madhya Pradesh government said stones were thrown on the procession, which came from Muslim households, so these households are to be turned into stones. Now these hooligans and organisers of such programmes feel that ‘it is their government’ as the popular phrase says, “Sainya Bhaye Kotwal to dar Kahe ka” (If your husband is chief police officer, why be afraid of anything).

In addition to Ram Navami, other local religious yatras (processions), Ganga Aarti, (prayer for river Ganges), satsangs (religious meetings) and other religious programmes are being started with similar goals. The example of Kanwad Yatras (the holy pilgrimage to collect Ganges water and to be offered to Lord Shiva) is another example where the participants become aggressive.

To add salt to the injury, the Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand government (both BJP-ruled) issued orders that all stalls and eateries on the path of the Kanwad Yatra should display the name of the owner on the boards so that the Kanwadiyas (participants in the pilgrimage) can avoid those owned by Muslims. Fortunately, the Supreme Court put a stay on the orders.

Such violence is intensifying the prevailing fear in the Muslim community. It is deepening polarisation and aggravating the atmosphere of fear. Festivals, times to enjoy and celebrate, are being used to instil fear and violence. The book is very relevant as it calls upon the State to take measures by anticipating the moves of communal organisations planning such processions. Carrying arms and use of loud music with songs abusive to the minority communities have to be stopped by administration. This is very much within the law, as we have laws to punish those spreading hatred. The use of DJs can be prohibited. The State has a crucial role to play in preventing this ghastly rise in denigrating religious festivals.

A proper inquiry and suitable punishment to culprits is a must in addition to compensating the victims. Finally, we need to start community programmes for unity and amity, through cultural programmes and popularisation of films and videos promoting harmony. In the foreword to the book, Tushar Gandhi, great grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, emphasises that we need to reach the messages of Mahatma Gandhi time and over again to bring sanity to our society. This is so pertinent and crucial in present times. 

The writer is a human rights activist, who taught at IIT Bombay. The views are personal.


LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Hinduism Is Fascism

Opinion

Exvangelicals, none's, secular Americans are undertapped in fight against Christian nationalism

(RNS) — Just because they’re no longer invested in a better Christianity doesn’t mean they aren’t a crucial part of the battle for a better country.


In this Jan. 6, 2021, file photo, violent rioters storm the Capitol, in Washington. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)

Blake Chastain
November 5, 2024

(RNS) — In January 2024, Pew Research published a study showing 28% of U.S. adults are now religiously unaffiliated, making the “nones” (as they’re nicknamed) the largest religious cohort in the country, outnumbering Catholics and evangelical Protestants. Yet when it comes to the groups trying to resist Christian nationalism, you’d be hard-pressed to find adequate representation of this demographic. This is an unfortunate oversight, and one faith-based and secular advocacy groups alike should seek to correct.

For nearly a decade, on my podcast “Exvangelical,” I have spoken to people who have left the evangelical church. While some discovered new forms of faith-based community and beliefs in more liberal Christian denominations, Buddhism and so on, many found religious spaces untenable altogether and migrated toward a wholly secular worldview.

Progressive Christians are fortunate to find representation and participation in politics through campaigns such as Christians Against Christian Nationalism and the Faith & Democracy Tour. But these initiatives tend to spend as much time trying to reform conservative Christianity and reaffirming liberal faith as they do trying to repudiate far-right agendas. Secular exvangelicals with zero interest in trying to rescue Christianity get left out of the conversation

This is a problem because Christian nationalist groups are tightly organized, well-funded and well-represented in both the media and the government. Opposing such forces will require more than vying for reform in faith communities — it will require a strong coalition of both religious and secular people.

Those who have exited religion completely form a key part of this coalition. Whether they’ve left evangelicalism, Catholicism or other faith traditions, they have a deep well of knowledge and personal experience to offer the movement. Many were directly harmed by Christian nationalism, and so intimately understand the threat it poses. They’ve experienced firsthand the decades of partisan politicization of reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights, the staunch opposition to gender equality and the resistance to reckoning with racism and endless abuse scandals. Just because they’re no longer fighting for a better Christianity doesn’t mean they aren’t a crucial part of the fight for a better country.

In fact, exvangelicals and other formerly religious embody one of the traits that’s essential to defeating Christian nationalism: the ability to change one’s mind. They prove that you don’t have to keep identifying with a toxic set of beliefs once you understand the harm it causes. And while shifting to a benevolent form of faith is valid, it’s equally valid to opt out of religion altogether. People who have done so (increasingly women more than men) still have as much at stake as anyone else and still belong in the political conversation.

Chrissy Stroop, co-founder of the feminist media collective The Flytrap, says, “As a queer exvangelical atheist who advocates for pluralism, I often feel left out by those who have the largest platforms to talk about American secularization and the roles of religion in our society. Too many liberal and progressive Christians give lip service to pluralism without checking their Christian privilege and continue to treat secular Americans like second-class citizens. For us to work well together, respect must be mutual and reciprocal, which would require giving secular Americans a meaningful seat at the table.”

Stroop argues that instead of emphasizing shared belief, interfaith coalitions must emphasize shared values such as democracy, social justice and pluralism.

Andrew L. Seidel at Americans United for Separation of Church and State, whose membership is roughly split between religious and nonreligious members, agrees: “I would rather have a drink and a chat, maybe split some guacamole, with a group of Christians who value anti-racism and social justice than [with] a group of anti-equality atheists (there aren’t many of those, but they exist and they are loud). But here’s the capper: shared values matter far more when we as a nation face an existential threat like white Christian nationalism.”

Tori Douglass, creator of the anti-racist education initiative White Homework, was raised evangelical and now identifies as atheist but sees opportunity in forging alliances between “nones” and religious groups. They told me over email that “as an antiracism educator, about half of the groups I work with are faith-based. These groups have already done a great deal of work around community-building, which is great! I love working with faith-based groups because they bring the same sense of urgency to the work that I do. They understand the threat that Christian nationalism poses to our fragile democracy in a way that secular groups don’t always see.”

Douglass also recognizes the importance of joining together on the basis of values rather than beliefs. “A meaningful approach for faith-based and secular groups to collaborate with religious nones in opposing Christian nationalism would center on shared values rather than religious identity or beliefs. Recognizing our common interest in pluralism and the value of democracy, regardless of belief in a higher power. By focusing on values like democracy, human rights, and social justice, we can find common ground and stop Christian nationalism in its tracks.”

With the final day of voting concluding Tuesday (Nov. 5), the stakes are high regardless of its outcome, and a failure to build an inclusive enough coalition could have grave consequences. Seidel puts the situation in stark terms: “Our country is on fire. Our democracy isn’t slipping away, it’s being stolen. The republic is being strangled. Those of us who share values like equality and justice and truth and fairness must come together to stop the arsonist, the thief, the murderer. And that means coming together and fighting Christian nationalism.”

By inviting exvangelicals and “nones” to participate fully in advocacy, faith-based and secular groups gain allies. This is all the more important in a world where people require the freedom to shift in and out of religious groups and beliefs as they see fit — a freedom that is under threat by Christian nationalists who seek to privilege their own way of life above all others.

(Blake Chastain is author of the book “Exvangelical & Beyond: How American Christianity Went Radical and the Movement That’s Fighting Back” and host of the “Exvangelical” podcast. The views expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect those of RNS.)

State ecumenical groups ramp up efforts to combat Christian nationalism

(RNS) — Church members are seeking ways to respond to family members, friends and neighbors taken up with Christian nationalism. Ecumenical and interfaith groups on the state level are offering some tips.


James Gailliard, the pastor of Word Tabernacle Church in Rocky Mount, N.C., takes questions from the audience after a screening of the movie “Bad Faith,” which examines Christian nationalists’ quest for power. Seated on stage in back are Duke University historian Nancy MacLean, left, and the Rev. Jennifer Copeland, executive director of the North Carolina Council of Churches. RNS photo by Yonat Shimron

Yonat Shimron
November 5, 2024


ROCKY MOUNT, N.C. (RNS) — After watching a documentary on the threat of Christian nationalism on a Tuesday evening last week, members of Word Tabernacle Church, a predominantly Black congregation about 55 miles east of Raleigh, had lots of questions.

Mostly, they wanted to know how to confront the movement’s adherents who have so distorted their faith.

“What’s one concept or two that we can really engage in conversation with people who may be under the chains of this way of thinking to help them start to transition to a free space?” asked Kyle Johnson, whose title is next generation pastor at Word Tabernacle Church.

That concern is shared by many who are grappling with an ideology that has rooted itself at the heart of Republican Party politics and in the candidacy of Donald Trump. Christian nationalists deride anyone outside their movement as evil and hell-bent on stripping Christianity from the public square.

The Rev. Jennifer Copeland, executive director of the North Carolina Council of Churches who sponsored the event, offered one answer that many were searching for.

“I would say the answer to the question is, love God, love your neighbor,” she said. “If we can think of ways to engage in conversations with our neighbors by calling on the great themes of Scripture, by reminding people that God is the God of the vulnerable, that God always tells us to look out for the people in our communities who are most vulnerable. And then maybe you can begin to ask some of the harder questions, like, do you see this policy as good or bad for the vulnerable, do you think the minimum wage is really enough for vulnerable people to support their families?”


Members of Word Tabernacle Church hold hands and pray before watching a documentary on the rise of Christian nationalism on Oct. 29, 2024, in Rocky Mount, N.C. RNS photo by Yonat Shimron

Church members, such as those in the 4,000-member Word Tabernacle Church, want to better respond to family members, friends and neighbors taken up with Christian nationalism — the ideology that holds the United States is a country defined by Christianity and that Christians should rule over government and other institutions — by force, if necessary.

While many white evangelicals and members of nondenominational charismatic movements have been swayed by the ideology, mainline Protestants, Black churches and some Roman Catholics are now attempting to challenge its tenets. Church councils and interfaith groups have published resources, voter guides and educational materials on the subject. Some have bought licenses to screen documentaries such as “Bad Faith,” directed by Stephen Ujlaki and Christopher J. Jones, which examines the origins of Christian nationalism leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. (The documentary is streaming on multiple streaming services.)

RELATED: With Bible verses and Baptist zeal, Amanda Tyler offers how-to for dismantling Christian nationalism

After receiving an anonymous gift of $100,000 to combat Christian nationalism, the Rev. Jeffrey Allen, executive director of the West Virginia Council of Churches, convened a meeting of his fellow church council executives earlier this summer to decide how to use it.

“We spend a lot of time talking about, how do we humanize this? How do we avoid demonizing people? How do we present our case in nonacademic language?” Allen said.

Fourteen council leaders ended up applying for a mini grant of $3,000 to $7,200 to provide programming on Christian nationalism.

The fight against Christian nationalism has become a wide-ranging effort drawing in dozens of nonprofit groups across the nation, some of them faith-based. Among them are national groups such as Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty and the Interfaith Alliance.




“Bad Faith: Christian Nationalism’s Unholy War on Democracy.”
 Poster courtesy of film site

But state councils of churches and interfaith groups are rooted in particular places and better able to address the ways Christian nationalist ideology may be affecting local races and issues. For example, Christian nationalists may be pushing state legislatures to beef up educational funding for private Christian schools, passing laws requiring prayer in schools or displaying the Ten Commandments outside of public building

Their local work can help people of faith draw connections between national ideology with no recognizable leader and the way it may be implemented in their state.

They do so not to debate their opponents but to talk to one another.

“The people in the room are already thinking about Christian nationalism as a problem,” said Copeland. “What they seem to be most grateful for is that they’re in a room full of people like themselves, where often they might feel like they’re the only person that thinks that way.”

The North Carolina Council of Churches has across the state sponsored seven screenings of the documentary “Bad Faith,” with a discussion forum after the screening. Copeland often invited Duke University historian Nancy MacLean to join her on her talks to church groups in part because understanding Christian nationalism requires a historical and political understanding of the rise of the far right.

Members of Word Tabernacle Church appreciated the event, which was also livestreamed to 300 members at home. The church, started in 2005 as a Southern Baptist-affiliated congregation, is now nondenominational. As such, it is not a member of the state’s Council of Churches, which is composed of 18 denominationally affiliated congregations. But its pastor, James Gailliard, a former Democratic state legislator, said he wants to work more closely with the council.


Lorenza Johnson of Rocky Mount, N.C., a member of Word Tabernacle Church, expressed some thoughts after watching the movie “Bad Faith.” RNS photo by Yonat Shimron

Lorenza Johnson, a church member who attended the screening in person, said he appreciated what he learned and said he felt mobilized to do more.

“We can be happy in here and shout in here and be safe and go to heaven,” said Johnson, who lives in Rocky Mount. “But in reality, we still have another generation that’s gonna be here. And if we don’t find out the power of a vote and get the right people in place, then we may be going to heaven, but we can be living in hell while we’re here.”

Although much of the effort of state councils of churches will conclude after the presidential election, several others have decided to keep going.

The Wisconsin Council of Churches, for example, is putting together a sermon series for Lent, which begins on March 5, and soliciting hymns, songs and other artwork that address ways of countering Christian nationalism.

“So often, people look at these large election cycles and they think, ‘OK, we’re, we’re going to pay attention to this issue and then once the election cycle is over, we all calm down,’” said the Rev. Kerri Parker, executive director of the Wisconsin Council of Churches. “We need to pay attention to these moral and ethical issues all along.”

The Arizona Faith Network, an interfaith group, is also going to continue exploring the issue in 2025, with a focus on religious nationalism in other faith traditions, such as Hinduism and Buddhism.

Allen said he thinks these efforts at the congregational level may be the most meaningful.

“People who are feeling lonely and left out and connecting with folks who are manipulating them,” said Allen. “I think the church can provide an alternative to that — an authentic community that doesn’t seek to take anything from them, but instead to give.”

(This story was reported with support from the Stiefel Freethought Foundation.)



We tried Christian nationalism in America. It went badly.

(RNS) — Nostalgia for a ‘Christian America’ overlooks the realities of religion in the founding era — which included taxes, jail time, exile and even public hangings for anyone who defied state-run churches.


Mary Dyer being led to her execution on Boston Common, June 1, 1660. (Image courtesy of Wikimedia/Creative Commons)
Bob Smietana
October 30, 2024

NORTH MIDDLEBORO, Mass. (RNS) — The Rev. Jason Genest loves God and his church.

He also loves U.S. history.

Which is why he gets nervous when he hears people talk about America being founded as a Christian nation. Or wanting to make America Christian by using the power of politics.

America tried that in the past, he said. It did not go well — including for the founder of Genest’s own church.

First Baptist Church of North Middleboro, Massachusetts, was founded by Isaac Backus – a champion of religious freedom in the 1700s — who often found himself at odds with leaders of the Congregational church, which at the time was the official religion of the Bay State.


The Rev. Jason Genest. (RNS photo/Bob Smietana)

So-called New Light Baptists like Backus, who were followers of the famed evangelical preacher George Whitefield — a leader of the First Great Awakening who stressed the need for personal conversion — were seen as troublemakers and threats to public order by leaders of the official church, which was essentially a state bureaucracy, said Genest.

New Light Baptists questioned social institutions, by claiming the baptisms — and sometimes the marriages — of the unconverted were invalid. They also set up rival churches to draw worshippers away from parish churches and, more importantly, refused to pay taxes to support those parish churches. That led to government crackdowns, with some gatherings of New Light Baptists banned as illegal.

“When you get along with a state bureaucracy, it’s great,” Genest said. “When you disagree, you have problems.”

Today, as America has grown both more secular and more religiously pluralistic, there has also been a rise in Christian nationalism — an insistence that America was founded by Christians and should be run by Christians. But the founding era was not a religious utopia, where Colonists were free to choose their faith. Instead, disputes between different kinds of Christians were fierce in the Colonies that became the United States. Those Colonies often had official churches that used government power to collect taxes, enforce doctrine and crush their rivals.

Catherine Brekus, a religious historian at Harvard, says there’s a powerful myth that the early American Colonies were founded on the idea of religious freedom.

“That is not true,” she said.

“We think that religious freedom was enshrined from the beginning, and instead it was a long and hard fight,” she said.



Portait of Isaac Backus at First Baptist Church of North Middleboro, Mass. (RNS photo/Bob Smietana)

In the 1700s, some Christians, like Backus’ mother and brother, ended up in jail. Others found constables at the door, hauling their possessions away for back taxes — taxes meant to subsidize the state church. Still others were banned from meeting altogether in so-called illegal churches.

Backus’ concerns about the power of government to dictate what people believed — and to punish those who disagreed — fueled his efforts to separate the church and state in Massachusetts. (This became reality in 1833, nearly three decades after Backus died.)

While Genest believes churches should be active in public life, that’s different from trying to mandate what people believed. When the government has that power, bad things happen, he said.

“I hate to say we use God, but I think God is often used as a means of people getting what they want,” Genest said.

RELATED: What is Christian nationalism, anyway?

About 30 miles west of North Middleboro stands another First Baptist Church — also known as the First Baptist Church in America — with its own story of clashing with Christian nationalism

This year on Oct. 13, the guest speaker at First Baptist was John McNiff, a retired national park ranger and historical reenactor who often portrays Roger Williams, the church’s founder. Williams was exiled from Massachusetts in the 1600s because of his “dangerous ideas” about religious freedom.

Among those ideas: State leaders should not use civil power to make people go to church or observe religious rules. During his talk, McNiff pointed out that none of the worshippers in the service were there because the law required them to be.



Historical reenactor John McNiff portrays Roger Williams at the First Baptist Church in America on Oct. 13, 2024, in Providence, R.I. (Photo by J. Stanley Lemons)

“These politicians, these rulers, were compelling people to a faith that they did not believe in,” he said, drawing from Williams’ writings. “The civil sword can make a nation full of hypocrites, but not one true Christian.”

That fear of state-run religion was shaped in Williams’ childhood, said Charlotte Carrington-Farmer, a professor of history at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island.

“Williams grew up in a world of religious turmoil, where the ‘official’ state religion changed on the whim of a monarch,” Carrington-Farmer wrote in a 2021 book chapter about religious freedom and Williams, who was born in England.

When he arrived in New England, Williams realized he had not come to a place where people were free to worship.

“When he gets to Massachusetts, he’s horrified,” said Carrington-Farmer, editor of a forthcoming collection of Williams’ writing, called “Roger Williams and His World.” “He’s seen the same persecution, just under a different umbrella.”


“The Banishment of Roger Williams” by Peter F. Rothermel, circa 1850. (Image courtesy of Wikipedia/Creative Commons)

Williams became an outspoken advocate for religious freedom, often holding meetings in his home to advocate for his ideas. In particular, he believed government should have no right to enforce religious rules. That put him at odds with other Puritan leaders such as Gov. John Winthrop and clerics who felt it their God-given duty to keep their community holy.

Tired of Williams’ “diverse new & dangerous opinions,” a Boston court banished him on Oct. 9, 1635, giving him six weeks to leave — or else government officials would remove him by force. He eventually fled the state during a blizzard that winter, going to Narragansett Bay, where he founded the town of Providence and later, First Baptist.

Carrington-Farmer said Puritan leaders had tried to avoid banishing Williams, whom they held in high esteem, and tried to get him to moderate his views. But Williams would not compromise

Puritan leaders, she said, felt caught between a rock and a hard place. They had experienced persecution for the faith in England and wanted to create a new community that was faithful to the Bible and Christianity — which, as John Winthrop put it, would be a city on a hill. They feared troublemakers like Williams would put that vision at risk. The Puritans believed God would punish them if they allowed sin and dissent to flourish.

Ironically, in being banished, Williams was lucky. Several decades later, Mary Dyer, Marmaduke Stephenson, William Leddra and William Robinson—all members of the Society of Friends, or Quakers — were hanged on the Boston Common for defying the power of the established church.

On a sunny afternoon in early September this year, a pair of tourists who identified themselves as descendants of Williams stopped in the church he started, to have a look. After settling them in to watch a short video about the history of First Baptist, the Rev. Jamie Washam, the church’s current pastor, sat on the church stairs for a conversation about Williams’ legacy.



The Rev. Jamie Washam. (RNS photo/Bob Smietana)

Washam, the pastor of First Baptist since 2015, said she worries that the hard-won lessons of Williams’ life have been forgotten.

“The story and legacy of Roger Williams reminds us that it has always been a struggle to advocate for religious liberty,” said Washam, sitting on the church steps. “We continue to fervently believe that that cost is worth it.”

She’s skeptical of the idea that voting for the right candidate will make America more Christian.

“Better legislation doesn’t make us better Christians,” she said. “Being more faithful and loving and just people make us better Christians.”

Some Christians, however, worry something essential is being lost as the country becomes less religious. That’s the case for Jerry Newcombe, executive director of the Providence Forum, which has produced a series of videos about the Christian origins of the United States.

“I feel like there’s been a great deal of misinformation and forgetting,” said Newcombe, whose organization seeks to “preserve, defend and advance the Judeo-Christian values of our nation’s founding.”


First Baptist Church in America in Providence, R.I. (RNS photo/Bob Smietana)

While he fiercely promotes the idea that America was founded on Christianity, Newcombe admits things did not always go well — especially for religious groups that clashed with political leaders over matters of faith.

“It’s not as if everything was Shangri-la, especially if you were a nonconformist,” he said in a phone interview.

“In retrospect, we don’t agree with that,” he said. “But don’t throw God out of the whole equation.”

Other conservative Christians go much further, saying America must return to its Christian roots or perish. Josh Abbotoy, head of American Reformer magazine and an investor who wants to rebuild a Christian America, has suggested the U.S. might need a “Christian Franco” — a reference to the longtime Spanish Catholic dictator — to restore Christianity to its rightful place in American society. Others, like the National Conservatism movement, believe the government should use Christianity to shape society. During a recent Nat Con event, Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, praised the Protestant empire that built America — saying that religious foundation must be restored.

“I want to say that I do not believe this nation and all that it represents can survive abandoning its theological roots. We will recover those roots and commitments or lose everything,” Mohler said earlier this year.

Conservative activists such as Charlie Kirk have called for a return to America’s Christian roots, praising the fact that the early Colonies had religious tests for office and were run explicitly by Christians.


Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk speaks before Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump arrives at the Turning Point Believers’ Summit, July 26, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

“One of the reasons we are living through a constitutional crisis is that we no longer have a Christian nation but we have a Christian form of government. And they are incompatible,” said Kirk, in advocating for an end to the separation of church and state and a return to a Christian America during an online panel discussion.

Douglas Winiarski, professor of religious studies at the University of Richmond and author of “Darkness Falls on the Land of Light” — which details the end of established churches in New England — said that nostalgia for a Christian America can overlook how complicated religion was in the founding era.

He said that by the early 18th century, the Congregational church — which had descended from the Puritans — had become fairly tolerant, allowing space for dissenters as long as they paid their taxes and didn’t cause trouble.

That tolerance ended, however, with the rise of New Light Baptists and others who disagreed with the teachings of the Congregationalists and refused to submit to their authority on religious matters.

Ironically, Congregationalists, who had dominated religious life in Massachusetts and other New England states for two centuries, would learn the downside of having a state religion, with the rise of Unitarianism in the early 1800s. Residents began electing Unitarian ministers to lead parish churches over the objections of Congregational church members, who were Trinitarians.

That led to court battles over church property, with the state Supreme Court siding with Unitarians in 1821. As a result, the Congregationalists found themselves losing the buildings and congregations they had controlled since the 1600s.



First Baptist Church of North Middleboro, Mass., was founded in 1756. (RNS photo/Bob Smietana)

Eventually, because of the efforts of Backus and others like him, Massachusetts allowed a kind of moderated religious freedom, in which the taxes paid to the state church were diverted to other congregations — including Baptists and the breakaway Congregationalists. But it was an uneasy peace and led to the disestablishment—the end of official status—of a state church in Massachusetts.

The archives from First Parish in Cambridge — which was an official government church from the 1600s to the early 1800s — were filled with letters from residents of that city, requesting their taxes be sent to other churches in the 1800s, said Gloria Korsman, a First Parish historian and a Harvard librarian. At that time, the clerk of the parish church — a state church that eventually became Unitarian — was responsible for collecting taxe=s.

Korsman said she can’t imagine why anyone would want to go back to that time.

“I don’t know what there is to long for,” she said. “During the time of disestablishment, neighbors were against neighbors on this issue. It wasn’t like a peaceful time or a time when people were unified. There was a lot of division.”



(Photo by Brad Dodson/Unsplash/Creative Commons)

RELATED: Whose Christianity do Christian nationalists want?

This story was reported with support from the Stiefel Freethought Foundation.

Friday, November 01, 2024

The mashup holiday 'Diwaloween' celebrates light as the year turns dark

(RNS) — This Thursday (Oct. 31), two seemingly opposing holidays, Diwali and Halloween, will be celebrated as one by many South Asians for the first time since 2016.


“Spooky Chai” artwork created by Manasi Arya, featuring a skeleton hand and a green hand with henna toasting with glasses of chai tea. (Image courtesy of Manasi Arya)
Richa Karmarkar
October 29, 2024

(RNS) — What happens when the religious festival celebrating the victory of good over evil coincides with the spookiest night of the year? Diwaloween. Or maybe Hallowali.

Mashups of Diwali and Halloween occur every few years as Diwali, a day on the lunar calendar that shifts from year to year on the Western calendar, falls on or around Halloween. This year the two coincide for the first time since 2016.

The made-up holiday takes the form of trick-or-treating at the temple, Bollywood-themed costume parties, sparklers lighting the night for both the evil-destroying goddess Lakshmi and little goblins. Diwaloween, say many South Asian Americans, is one of the best examples of the diaspora’s unique dual-belonging and could only happen in America.

“I think this is a sign of one of the many ways that Hindu and other South Asians who celebrate Diwali and festivals this time of year are making America their own in some way and participating in these rituals,” said Shana Sippy, associate professor of religion and chair of Asian studies at Centre College.

RELATED: For New York’s Indo-Caribbean Hindus, Diwali is a fusion of East and West

Diwali, one of the largest and most recognizable celebrations for South Asian of dharmic faiths, is celebrated by Hindus, Jains, Buddhists and Sikhs around the world. Those who observe the day traditionally wear their best new clothes, exchange sweets with neighbors, light oil lamps called diyas, draw colorful rangoli patterns with sand and send off fireworks.


Devotees light earthen lamps on the banks of the River Sarayu as part of Diwali celebrations in Ayodhya, India, on Nov. 6, 2018. (AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh)

Increasingly a secular holiday even in the India subcontinent, the holiday can trace its roots to several strands of Hindu mythological stories of Lord Ram, Lord Krishna and the goddess Kali. Diwali is considered an especially auspicious time to start something new.

Halloween, with its ghosts, ghouls and skeletons, often seemed in conflict with the season of light, renewal and hope to many immigrants who came to the United States. Manasi Arya, a 27-year-old social media content creator and fashion designer in New York, said her parents initially “couldn’t understand the point” of Halloween and often asked, “Why don’t you just dress up as an Indian princess?”

“All my friends at school, my neighbors, they were always wearing these really cool costumes that were just like a different character, but I was literally wearing a lengha,” said Arya, referring to a typical Indian dress.

Arya’s family eventually warmed up to the American ritual, even helping her paint Desi-style pumpkins for competitions, with henna art or a heavily made-up woman’s face.

The inspiration led Arya to launch a Diwali-meets-Halloween line of clothing and accessories that included Desi vampires, patterned ghosts and witches with saris and bindis. On Diwaloween, said Arya, “It just so happens that two of our favorite holidays are happening in one day.”


“Desi Witches” artwork created by Manasi Arya. (Image courtesy of Manasi Arya)

The combined holiday also addresses the reality that the resources for traditional Diwali celebrations aren’t always available in the U.S. “We don’t get to do the very typical, traditional things for Diwali, the way that you can do it in India, right? So I think it’s cool to bring that American element into how we’ve been able to celebrate our Diwali here.”

Diwaloween even has its requisite holiday movie, thanks to Shilpa Mankikar, whose multigenerational comedy “Diwal’oween,” is about a diaspora family’s hijinks leading up to the holiday. The film, currently being screened at cultural organizations across the U.S., is patterned after Mankikar’s own upbringing as a first-generation Indian in New Jersey, the state with the most South Asians in the country.

The film’s laughs come from the contradiction of a festival of lights clashing with a festival of darkness, Mankikar told RNS. “They are in opposition, and that’s like the comedy clash of it all.”

Mankikar, 47, grew up in a time when representation of Indian Americans in the media was restricted to misinterpretations and offensive stereotypes. But today non-South Asian Americans’ awareness and even celebration of Diwali has shot to an all-time high. The holiday has been recognized as a work holiday by several states and school districts, including New York City public schools, which will recognize it with a day off for the first time this year


“Holidays are a good opportunity to learn about each other and also, with celebrating Indian culture, there’s so much color and dancing and food that people now are familiar with,” said Mankikar. “It’s such a rich culture, so it’s great too that it’s now in the mainstream. We’re kind of coming to it on our own terms as an American generation.”


Youth enjoy a craft table during a Diwaloween screening in Shelby Township, Mich. (Photo courtesy of Shilpa Mankikar)

Sippy pointed out that, as a result of its popularity, Diwali has taken on an air of all-American consumerism, pointing to a Diwali Barbie released earlier this year, or the packs of Diwali mithai (sweets), sparklers and other branded Diwali goods for gift-giving. Diwali’s adoption by the retail world is analogous to the corporatization of Hannukah, or “Chrismakkah.”

The professor said the urge to combine the two holidays points to a human need for connection and community in an age of atomization in American society. “When (else) do we let our kids knock on strangers’ doors? We don’t often know even our neighbors’ names,” Sippy said. “Here you dress up and you buy things to give away to complete strangers,” she said.

Though opposites in spirit, Sippy said the two celebrations create warmth amid darkness — “Halloween being the dressing up, this opening of doors, the sharing of food, and the lighting of light as we start to get darker earlier.”

Prasanna Jog, national coordinator for the charity SewaDiwali, said Diwali food and parties have gotten better over the two decades since he arrived in the U.S. But what has gotten left behind is a tradition of thinking of the less fortunate on Diwali, he said. Jog co-founded SewaDiwali in 2018 as a reflection of the Hindu tenet of “seeing that everyone is happy,” and that inner growth happens when one “brings light to others.”

Opinion
Pennsylvania's recognition of Diwali as a state holiday is a big deal and long overdue
(RNS) — Beyond the symbolism of these bills and proclamations, there is the long overdue feeling of being seen.

(Photo by Udayaditya Barua/Unsplash/Creative Commons)
Murali Balaji
October 30, 2024

(RNS) — A native Pennsylvanian, I remember what it was like for my family to celebrate Diwali (or Deepavali, as it is also known for people of South Indian descent) at a time when Hinduism and other dharmic faiths were considered foreign and exotic religions.

In the 1980s, my family would perform a small puja at home on Diwali. We never mentioned that we were celebrating a religious holiday, despite Diwali’s significance to not just a billion Hindus, but to Jains, Sikhs and some Buddhists as well. We celebrated in the shadows, afraid of not being considered “American” because of Diwali’s foreignness, which only added to the stigma of growing up Hindu back then.

That’s why, when Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro signed Senate Bill 402, recognizing Diwali as a state holiday, last week, it was a long overdue acknowledgment of not only the presence of Hindus and followers of other dharmic faiths in Pennsylvania, but the contributions they have made, to the state and America as a whole. State Sen. Nikil Saval and state Rep. Arvind Venkat, who sponsored the bill in their respective chambers at the Statehouse, were there to see Shapiro sign it into law, along with Montgomery County Commissioner Neil Makhjia.

Pennsylvania’s recognition of Diwali follows in the footsteps of other states, such as New Jersey, New York, California and Texas, which have made similar efforts to recognize followers of dharmic faiths.

RELATED: How Kamala Harris and JD Vance appeal to Hindu voters

While Pennsylvania’s government won’t close on Diwali’s first and most important day, which this year falls on Thursday, its inclusion as a state holiday means that Hindu parents no longer have to defend taking their kids out of school in areas where the holiday isn’t already observed. A growing number of school districts in Pennsylvania (including my own alma mater, North Penn) already close for Diwali, signaling the important shift in recognizing Hindus as fellow Americans.

Diwali is commonly known as the festival of lights, though the holiday has multiple meanings and celebrations. The most widely commemorated by Hindus and non-Hindus is the return of Lord Rama from exile in the Hindu epic the Ramayana. The Sikhs’ celebration, known as Bandi Chhor Divas, marks the 17th-century release of Sikh Guru Hargobind and 52 Hindu kings who had been imprisoned by Mughal Emperor Jahangir for refusing to convert to Islam.

Beyond the symbolism of these bills and proclamations, there is the long overdue feeling of being seen. For years, I was bullied for being a Hindu, and a number of my peers (fellow Gen Xers) shied away from the religion so as to not be seen as foreign. My wife and I have vowed to raise our son Hindu in a manner in which he can proudly and comfortably feel connected to both our faith and our Americanness.
RELATED: The mashup holiday ‘Diwaloween’ celebrates light as the year turns dark

Our son’s teachers have asked my wife to make a presentation this week on Diwali, which was a welcome surprise. On Thursday, we’ll do a small puja, light the diyas (candles) celebrating Lord Ram’s return and then go trick-or-treating. Blending those celebrations together speaks to how far we’ve come from the days I had to hide who I was.
(Murali Balaji is a journalist and a lecturer at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of RNS.)

“As we gain economic prosperity, it’s even more imperative that we think of others,” said Jog, whose group of more than 450 contributing organizations has raised more than 2.2 million pounds of nonperishables for food pantries. “Even though we may not be born here like our children were, we consider the United States our ‘karma-bhoomi’ (land of action). Wherever you are, you need to contribute for the welfare or the betterment of the society, and it is through the power of selfless seva (service).”

And this year, volunteers send a special request for the little ones.

“We are just using that as an opportunity for the kids to have that courage to go door-to-door,” he said. “And in addition to asking for candy, they can also ask for some cans of food!”
























Wednesday, October 30, 2024

Canada alleges Indian minister Amit Shah behind plot to target Sikh separatists

Kanishka Singh
Tue, October 29, 2024 

India's newly appointed Home Minister Amit Shah greets the media upon his arrival at the home ministry in New Delhi

By Kanishka Singh

(Reuters) - The Canadian government alleged on Tuesday that Indian Minister of Home Affairs Amit Shah, a close ally of Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was behind the plots to target Sikh separatists on Canadian soil.

The Indian government has dismissed Canada's prior accusations as baseless, denying any involvement.

The Washington Post newspaper first reported that Canadian officials alleged Shah was behind a campaign of violence and intimidation targeting Sikh separatists in Canada.



Canadian Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister David Morrison said to a parliamentary panel on Tuesday that he told the U.S.-based newspaper that Shah was behind the plots.

"The journalist called me and asked if it (Shah) was that person. I confirmed it was that person," Morrison told the committee, without providing further details or evidence. The High Commission of India in Ottawa and the Indian foreign ministry had no immediate comment.

India has called Sikh separatists "terrorists" and threats to its security. Sikh separatists demand an independent homeland known as Khalistan to be carved out of India. An insurgency in India during the 1980s and 1990s killed tens of thousands.

That period included the 1984 anti-Sikh riots that left thousands dead following the assassination of then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards after she ordered security forces to storm the holiest Sikh temple to flush out Sikh separatists.

Canada in mid-October expelled Indian diplomats, linking them to the 2023 murder of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil. India also ordered the expulsion of Canadian diplomats.

The Canadian case is not the only instance of India's alleged targeting of Sikh separatists on foreign soil.

Washington has charged a former Indian intelligence officer, Vikash Yadav, for allegedly directing a foiled plot to murder Sikh separatist leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a dual U.S.-Canadian citizen and Indian critic in New York City.

The FBI warned against such a retaliation aimed at a U.S. resident. India has said little publicly since announcing in November 2023 it would formally investigate the U.S. allegations.

The accusations have tested Washington and Ottawa's relations with India, often viewed by the West as a counterbalance to China.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Richard Chang)

Top India Minister Authorized Murder Plots in Canada, Official Alleges

Brian Platt
Tue, October 29, 2024
BLOOMBERG



(Bloomberg) -- Indian Home Affairs Minister Amit Shah authorized a wave of violence across Canada that included extortion and homicides, said a senior Canadian government official.

David Morrison, Canada’s deputy foreign minister, told a parliamentary committee on Tuesday that he had confirmed the identity of Shah in a newspaper report earlier this month.

The Washington Post reported that Canadian security agencies had collected evidence that “a senior official in India” had “authorized the intelligence-gathering missions and attacks on Sikh separatists” in Canada. The story went on to say that a Canadian source identified Shah as being the Indian official in question.

“The journalist called me and asked me if it was that person,” Morrison said. “I confirmed it was that person.”

India’s Ministry of External Affairs on Wednesday didn’t immediately respond to the allegations against Shah. It’s previously dismissed Canada’s accusations that India’s government was involved in the alleged attacks against Sikh activists, calling them “baseless.”

Morrison was appearing at the committee alongside other Canadian police and government officials about the escalation of a diplomatic dispute two weeks ago. Canada ejected India’s high commissioner and five other diplomats from the country, and India then responded with a similar action.

A year earlier, India expelled 41 Canadian diplomats after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said there were “credible” allegations that Narendra Modi’s government helped orchestrate the killing of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil. But instead of the matter ending there, Canadian officials allege India continued a violent campaign against activists in Canada.



The US has also charged an Indian national and an Indian government employee with attempting to kill a Sikh activist on American soil. Modi’s government launched an internal probe of the allegations that concluded rogue agents were behind the plot, Bloomberg News has reported.

Shah is a close ally of Modi for more than three decades and is considered a possible successor to the prime minister. He has a controversial past, though, and previously faced charges in 2001 of running an extortion racket and ordering three murders while an official in Gujarat state. He denied the allegations at the time, and a court eventually threw out the case in 2014 after Modi came to power.

Evidence Presented

Nathalie Drouin, Trudeau’s national security adviser, told the parliamentary committee Tuesday that she had personally attended a meeting where evidence was presented connecting Indian agents and diplomats to the crime wave in Canada.



Drouin flew to Singapore for an Oct. 12 meeting with her Indian counterpart, during which both sides agreed to keep the matter quiet while they worked on addressing it, she said.

“Instead, the government of India chose to not respect our agreement and go public the next day, Sunday, Oct. 13, and use again their false narrative that Canada has not shown any evidence,” Drouin said during testimony to a Canadian parliamentary committee.

In response, Canadian police held an extraordinary news conference the following day to outline their evidence, and the government announced it was ejecting six Indian diplomats — including High Commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma.

Drouin said Canadian officials also decided at that point to brief international media on the evidence Canada held, selecting the Washington Post.

In Singapore, Canadian officials provided evidence that Indian government agents in Canada had been collecting information on certain Canadians, primarily Sikh activists, and then passing that information to an organized crime outfit to carry out extortion, assassination plots and killings, she said.

“Given how alarming the evidence was, we knew we had to act and act quickly,” Drouin testified. “We needed the agents of the government of India to stop their illegal activities in Canada, and sought a collaborative approach with Indian officials.”

Drouin said Canadian officials gave multiple options to India on how to proceed, including Canada’s preferred option of India publicly opening an investigation into the matter, similar to the approach India has taken with the US assassination case.

But she said India quickly made it clear they weren’t interested in that course of action.


“By going public, the government of India clearly signaled that they were not going to be accountable or take the necessary actions we needed to ensure public safety,” Drouin said.

Drouin ended her testimony by stressing that Canada did not act lightly, and does not want to ruin its relationship with India especially in the broader context of having to counteract China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific region.

“Canada remains open to cooperation with India, but we need to have a meaningful engagement from India on our grounded and serious concerns,” she said.

--With assistance from Sudhi Ranjan Sen and Swati Gupta.

©2024 Bloomberg L.P.

Member of Modi's inner circle behind Canadian criminal plot, official says
Mounties have alleged India is involved in widespread crimes in Canada, including murder and intimidation

CBC
Tue, October 29, 2024 

Narendra Modi and Justin Trudeau

A senior official in Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government is alleged to have authorized a campaign to intimidate or kill Canadians, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs David Morrison told MPs Tuesday.

Morrison joined other senior officials testifying before MPs on the public safety and national security committee. MPs on the committee are asking questions about the RCMP's shocking claim two weeks ago that agents of the Indian government were complicit in widespread crimes in Canada, including murder, extortion and intimidation.

Conservative MP Raquel Dancho, the party's public safety critic, led off the hearing with questions about information the Canadian government shared with the Washington Post.

The newspaper reported that Canadian officials identified Indian Home Affairs Minister Amit Shah as one of the senior officials who authorized intelligence-gathering missions and attacks on Sikh separatists in Canada.

"The journalists called me and asked me if it was that person. I confirmed it was that person," Morrison said.

Shah has been described as India's "second most powerful man" and is one of Modi's closest confidants.

Before Tuesday, Canadian officials would only state on the record that the plot could be traced back to the "highest levels of the Indian government."

RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme also testified Tuesday. He has said police evidence shows Indian diplomats and consular staff collected information for the Indian government, which was used to issue instructions to criminal organizations to carry out acts of violence in Canada.

He said the Mounties also have assembled evidence of credible and imminent threats to members of the South Asian community, specifically members of the pro-Khalistan movement seeking a separate homeland for Sikhs.

On Thanksgiving Monday, the federal government announced it had expelled six Indian diplomats — including the high commissioner, India's chief envoy to Canada. India has denied the accusations and swiftly retaliated by kicking Canadian diplomats out of its territory.

Commissioner Mike Duheme tells Power & Politics that RCMP allegations about acts of violence and extortion in Canada link to the upper echelons of India's government, and provides an update on police progress against threats to public safety.

WATCH | 'Strong evidence' links 'highest levels' of Indian government to violence: RCMP

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Duheme said police have warned 13 Canadians since September 2023 that they could be targets of harassment or threats by Indian agents. Police say some of those individuals have received multiple threats.

Duheme told CBC he believes those people are safer since the Indian diplomats were expelled.