US-based Hindu & Sikh Organizations Speak Against India’s Excesses

On behalf of the coalition of South Asian American civil society organizations, recently the US-based Hindus for Human Rights wrote to the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s chairman about the excesses of the Hindu nationalist BJP government in India (SDW Vol. 1 Issue 11, Story 1). The letter says, ‘We also write to express our concerns about the rise of such repression from the Indian government. In 2023, this repression greatly accelerated, with the worst brunt of this repression affecting minority religious communities in the United States.’ The list of excesses the letter presents is exhaustive and includes Panjab in March 2023, when ‘the Indian government conducted the largest known internet shutdown in the state.’ It also references the clampdown on social media handles, including of famous journalists, politicians, writers and others. The letter concludes with: ‘As India becomes a closer security partner, the US must make clear that this partnership cannot come at the cost of the civil rights of Americans or the security of our democratic ideals as a nation.’ Four Sikh organizations from the US - Ensaaf, Jakara, SALDEF, and SikhRI - have also made an appeal to the US government and ‘people committed to democratic principles to come forward to ensure that Sikhs and all Indian minority communities living in the US are safe from India’s transnational repression.’ The statement reads, ‘Sikhs and all Americans living in the US should be able to practice their constitutional and human rights without experiencing repression from a foreign power. They must be able to gather, protest and speak out, free from intimidation, harassment, surveillance and violence from other nations and their agents.’