Saraswati, a chief priest of the Dasna Devi Temple in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, is a known hate monger and Islamophobe and a violent Hindu extremist who has been in the news recently for making several controversial comments encouraging violence against Muslims and insulting Prophet Mohammed and Shirdi Sai Baba
Press release siyasat.net
New York: The Alliance to Save and Protect America from Infiltration by Religious Extremists (ASPAIRE) has strongly condemned the decision of World Hindu Council of America (Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America, or VHPA) to invite Yati Narsinganand Saraswati, to celebrate the auspicious festival of Vasant Navratri. These virtual celebrations, including the Ramayan Path (recitations from Ramchatmanas), by Saraswati from April 13-21, 2021, are to be streamed live on their facebook page and their youtube channel. Saraswati, a chief priest of theDasna Devi Temple in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, is a known hate monger and Islamophobe and a violent Hindu extremist who has been in the news recently for making several controversial comments encouraging violence against Muslims and insulting Prophet Mohammed and Shirdi Sai Baba
He is also the leader of a Hindu extremist organization called Hindu Swabhiman (Hindu self-pride). Saraswati has made several notorious statements calling for violence and genocide against Muslims, over the years, which has intensified recently. But neither the centre nor the state government has made any attempts to arrest and prosecute him.
Just last month, a 14-year-old Muslim boy was violently assaulted by his followers for drinking water at his temple in Ghaziabad, which he defended strongly, despite the outrage all over the country. The temple even displays a board, stating that Muslims are not allowed.
He recently targeted Shirdi Sai Baba, a saint who preached “sab ka malik ek” (“everyone’s lord is one”), revered by both Hindu and Muslim devotees alike, not just in India, but the US as well.. However Saraswati has described Sai Baba as a “jihadi” and “pakhandi” (fraud), asking Hindus to refrain from praying to him.
One of his followers even forcibly removed a Sai Baba idol from a Hindu temple in Delhi, replacing it with an idol of Hindu elephant god Ganesha overnight. Saraswati openly congratulated him for the arrest. SInce the national media refrained from reporting the event, possible violence was averted but the police made no attempts to arrest him either.
The VHPA and several of its affiliated Hindu organizations have claimed that Hindus in the US are subjected to Hinduphobia. And yet inviting such a hate monger and an Islamophobe on an auspicious event like this, is inviting criticism from the Hindus themselves.
Over the decades VHPA had vociferously denied any links with its parent body in India, the VHP, which was identified as a militant organization by the Central Investigation Agency (CIA) in 2018. The founder members of VHP like MS Golwalkar were inspired more by the Nazis of Germany rather than the Hindu texts.
However in the last few years, since Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister of India, VHPA and its affiliate Hindu organizations have aggressively pursued right wing Hindu nationalism or Hindutva, which is a political ideology and nothing to do with the religion, Hinduism. The Hindus in the US, like in India are split into two, with less than half of the HIndu population supporting this Hindutva ideology, which is putting the entire Hindu community, at risk in the US.
“VHPA’s invitation of Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati is a clear indication of the spread of HIndu extremism in the US. VHPA is registered as a 501(c)3 nonprofit receiving federal funding, and therefore any attempts by it to contribute to the spread of Hindu extremism needs to be investigated by US authorities”, said Dr Shaik Ubaid, co-chair ASPAIRE.
Since the last two decades, several civil rights and advocacy groups including ASPAIRE have worked hard to curtail the spread of Hindu extremism in US politics. One of their first success was a travel ban on the then chief minister Narendra Modi to the US, after the international outrage against him followng the 2002 Gujarat Genocide.
They also exposed attempts by other controversial organizations like the Hindu Swayam Sevak (HSS), the international wing of the Rashtriya SwayamSevak (RSS) in India, Office of the Bharatiya Janata Party (OFBJP), the international wing of BJP and the Hindu American Foundation (HAF), besides the VHPA to fund several US politicians of Indian origin like congressional candidate Sri Preston Kulkarni. They also succeeded in exposing Sonal Shah who was part of President Barack Obama’s closest team of officials and her links with the VHPA, in 2008. In recent times, they also exposed Amit Jani, son of one of the founders of OFBJP and part of the Democrat’s Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) outreach team.
Though the Hindutva groups here, especially the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) and the Hindu Student Council, started by the VHPA claim to have no interest in Indian politics, it is very far from the truth. “Every attempt has been made to present the Indian prime minister Narendra Modi well to not only the Indian diaspora, but also to the American politicians. For this, they have presented wrongful data of not only the 2002 Gujarat Genocide, but also the 2020 Delhi riots. They have even attempted to downplay the negative impact of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and have dismissed the ongoing Farmers protests as “anti-India”, on various platforms in the US”, said Masood Rab, co-chair, ASPAIRE.
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