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Suhag A. Shukla Profile picture
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20 Apr, 7 tweets, 4 min read
#Breaking: @HinduAmerican takes legal action demanding retraction & apology for false and defamatory stories that appeared in @AJEnglish (by @raqib_naik) earlier this month. Letter sent sent through CA based litigation firm retained for this action. 1/ hinduamerican.org/press/haf-lega…
The letters outlining 17 false & defamatory statements were also sent to individuals quoted attacking @HinduAmerican:
-Sunita Viswanath, Raju Rajagopal @Hindus4HR
-Rasheed Ahmed @IAMCouncil
-John Prabhudoss @Fiacona_us

Damaging lies about @HinduAmerican cannot be tolerated.
2/
Legal action required due to #Hinduphobic/xenophobic allegations of dual loyalty to foreign govt, sending funds overseas to promote hate or malign influence on US govt. These lies mirror anti-Semitic rhetoric Jewish groups historically faced & will be strongly countered. 3/
@audreytruscke was also served with a cease and desist notice for amplifying these libelous articles on social media, and her own defamatory statements-including a recent accusation that HAF organized a campaign of harassment encouraging violence against her & India's minorities
Speaking up for persecuted Hindus in Pakistan, Bangladesh & Kashmir does not make us Hindu supremacists. Speaking out against anti-Hindu legislation does not make us a Hindutva lobbying group.

It makes us a Hindu advocacy organization. 5/
The named are given 24 hrs to retract & correct false and defamatory statements about @HinduAmerican. Should they choose not to reply, HAF will pursue further legal action. We will no longer idly sit by as blatant lies are spread about who we are and what we stand for.
We at @HinduAmerican take this action not just on our behalf. But on behalf of millions of #HinduAmericans who have been intimidated & threatened for finding their voice & supporting organizations they care about. We take this action because Hindu Americans will not be silenced.

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More from @SuhagAShukla

Suhag A. Shukla Profile picture
5 Apr
After COVID, 1000's of religious orgs received federal loans. But @AJEnglish runs a hit piece attacking only Hindu orgs for receiving aid.

Kashmiri activist @raqib_naik writes that Hindus "exploit [COVID] crisis and systems that are put in place to mitigate it."

Why?

1/
We know that some were upset after this article exposed how the overseas arm of Jamaat-e-Islami and Laskhar-e-Taiba were seeking paycheck protection loans due to COVID.

We figured Hindu groups would be targeted in response--@AJEnglish delivered. 2/
jns.org/opinion/for-te…
Did Hindus receive a sweetheart deal?

At this site, put in "Christian" "Muslim" "Islam" "Jewish." See what other religious advocacy groups received.

Hindus are the smallest recipient by far, yet we're targeted. @AJEnglish, this is religious bigotry. 3/
federalpay.org/paycheck-prote…
Read 4 tweets
Suhag A. Shukla Profile picture
20 Mar
Atmosphere on @Rutgers_Newark campus is rapidly deteriorating. @audreytruschke posted a letter that literally accuses @YuvaNortheast @HinduStudentsC of being Nazis.

Students report an increasingly hostile environment.

Truschke's response? More hostility. @AnnaBranchPhD 1/
Students complain about Truschke depicting a Hindu God as a "misogynistic pig" & teaching that Hindu texts promote rape culture. Instead of apologizing, Truschke digs in & posts a letter signed by mostly non-Hindu groups & some extremist groups, like separatist Stand with Kashmir
Students are afraid.

Truschke dissembles with Kashmir? Dalit politics? A letter that erases their concerns and grievances & accuses them of championing Nazi ideology or Islamophobia?

This is dangerous. 3/
Read 5 tweets
Suhag A. Shukla Profile picture
6 Mar
Check out this typical inquiry to @HinduAmerican from a South Asian journalist. Let's count the ways this flouts the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics.

-Anonymous email id.
-No last name.
-No mention of which outlet she is writing for.
-No contact number
1/
Asks leading/inflammatory questions without identifying sources.

"Hey, people say you whitewash caste, what's your take?"

I mean how do you respond to that when fighting against discrimination based on caste is literally in our founding documents? hinduamerican.org/issues/

2/
Falsely frames @HinduAmerican's defense against #Hinduphobic antics by activists as anti-Dalit.

Um, failure to complete background research and then confront your interviewee with a false allegation is another Society of Professional Journalists ethical no-no.

3/
Read 6 tweets
Suhag A. Shukla Profile picture
2 Mar
Seems @HinduAmerican's intervention in the @CalDFEH vs. @Cisco lawsuit sparked an amicus brief from South Asian activists/academics. And typically, @thecaravanindia features that brief in a piece attacking HAF, without presenting the crux of our legal argument.

So allow me 1/n
Caravan argues that HAF's motion asserts that the US Constitution's religious freedom means Hindus should be allowed to discriminate.

Why? Because caste discrimination is intrinsic to Hinduism.

Yes, Caravan publishes the ludicrous smear that we want to allow discrimination.
If @thecaravanindia cared about what @HinduAmerican actually argues, it's here: hinduamerican.org/california-cis…

@CalDFEH's case is unconstitutional & promotes racist stereotypes. State doesn't solve a problem by creating a new one-solution to discrimination is not more discrimination.
Read 5 tweets
Suhag A. Shukla Profile picture
28 Jan
This article exemplifies how colonial mentality -- the internalization of attitudes of cultural inferiority by previously colonized people -- is multigenerational. Their descendants' may never have been colonized physically, but their minds remain shackled.1/9
And in spite of a father's, a "hairy-chested" uncle's, or respected organizations like @ChinmayaMission's best efforts, racist, colonial tropes about Hindus and Hinduism rooted in European ideas of white and Christian supremacy persist, and in this case, prove insurmountable.2/9
What's fascinating (and frustrating) is how @mathangiwrites and many like her freely borrow the language of decolonizing used by other post-colonized peoples yet remain completely unaware of the colonial paradigms through which they view and demonize their own tribe. 3/9
Read 9 tweets
Suhag A. Shukla Profile picture
27 Jan
Two weeks apart in two democracies.

Two monuments to democracy breached.

Two capital city’s police attacked.

This is what fake news, conspiracy theories and religious radicalization wrought.

This is hard for Indian Americans. The parallels are uncanny and unignorable.1/
Both protests were religionized. Both were framed as religious revolutions against manufactured injustice.

One incited by a rejection of an election. The other incited by rejection of #FarmLaws2020 that were passed by a democratic parliament & that economists say are needed.2/
I want to believe these protests are not religiously motivated-that they are folks misled by #fakenews and demagoguery.

But why are some diasporic advocates continuing to suffuse the protests with religious imagery or Khalistan, when most Sikhs globally reject separatism? 3/
Read 4 tweets

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