January 17, 2020

Dear Friends,

It has recently come to our attention that a New York-based group, South Asian Solidarity Initiative (SASI), has been making several unfounded accusations against our organization. We do not wish to repeat them here, but for those who do not yet know us well, we would like to reiterate our mission and values:

HfHR was established on the decades’ old record of human rights work of our co-founders: Sustained anti-Hindutva work ever since the 2002 anti-Muslim pogroms in Gujarat; a lead role in opposing the RSS-combine in the 2006 California textbook controversy; fighting for women’s rights in Afghanistan; working for justice for displaced Adivasis in the Narmada Valley and for Native Americans in New Mexico and South Dakota; and addressing Homelessness in the United States. An important dimension of our work is encouraging and practicing diverse and inclusive Hinduism in temples and social movements around the U.S. and in India.

Since our coming together, we have participated in numerous protests, teach-ins, inter-faith conferences, congressional briefings, and have published several opinion pieces in major news media on the current crisis besetting India -- including the Kashmir lock-down, the CAA/NRC/NPR travesty, police excesses, and the normalising of anti-Muslim bigotry by politicians. We continue to chronicle those activities on our website and on our Facebook pages. 

In recent weeks, several of us have been travelling in India, meeting with human rights activists, Dalit groups, faith leaders, and business thought leaders in several cities. Our goal has been to make collective sense of where Indian democracy is headed and to explore joint action plans to resist Hindutva both in India and in the United States. We are chronicling some of those interactions as well on our website and Facebook pages.

As we celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Indian Republic, HfHR is committed to escalating our fight against the narrow-minded bigotry of the Sangh Parivar, which is hurtling India towards a nightmare ‘Hindu Rashtra.’ We are at the same time strongly committed to taking on the challenge of fighting the abominable varna-jaati system and the continuing atrocities against Dalit communities. Our future vision is one of ekta – of a vibrant togetherness that celebrates equality, creativity, and love among all communities. 

SASI has done itself a great disservice by not doing its due diligence before making divisive and provocative public allegations, which are unlikely to deter our decades old partners. Our record speaks for itself and it is regrettable that at this critical hour when we should be building more partnerships, SASI seems to be on a mission to undo alliances.

HfHR is a 501c(3) organization, registered in Washington D.C. whose mission is to build an organization committed to Democracy and Pluralism, both in India and in the United States.

 Best Regards,

 The Board of Directors

Deepak, Punya, Raju, Giri, Sunil, and Sunita

Photo: Dr. Gregory Stanton, Founder of Genocide Watch, speaking at a Congressional Briefing on Kashmir & NRC which HfHR cosponsored along with Indian American Muslim Council and Emgage Action, on Dec 11, 2019: “Preparation for a genocide is definitely underway in India.”