Thread by @parthparihar

I feel so gaslit by @arunNYC’s “report” on “Hindutva threats” to academic freedom & Hinduphobia that I’m breaking my 7-year Twitter maun vratam (silence). @WNYC’s deliberate ERASURE of Hindu-scholar voices must be called out. @indumathi37 @hinduoncampus @HinduStudentsC (1/n)

Troubling that @WNYC’s race & immigration reporter centered discussion on Hinduphobia and diaspora views around a white woman being attacked by Indian trolls and had brown U.S. voices implicitly argue AROUND *her* throughout the segment. Someone tell @WNYC it’s not 1923. (2/n)

Leave that aside for a moment. The entire latter half of the segment focuses on scholars “debunking” the Hindu community’s insistence that Hinduphobia exists. Why, then, was not a SINGLE scholar who'd actually written about Hinduphobia invited to share their scholarship? (3/n)

Disappointing because @arunNYC knows that these scholars spoke at @hinduStudentsC’s #UnderstandingHinduphobia Conference. He references the event in his piece…. But only to say that “people are unwilling to come forward about Hinduphobia.” Totally bizarre... (4/n)

Here’s what REALLY happened: At UH 2021, award-winning and emergent academics came together to discuss (1) what Hinduphobia is; (2) the evidence for its existence. Our definition of Hinduphobia can be found online here: understandinghinduphobia.org/working-defini…. (5/n)

Our speakers have taught at @Harvard & @Princeton, and have grad training in South Asian Studies, Education, Religious Studies, and Economics from prestigious institutions. Our invited speakers like @hinduprof are incredibly humble, brilliant scholars in their own right. (6/n)

Yet, we're zealously ignored by media reporting this issue. By refusing to acknowledge existence of scholars recognizing & studying Hinduphobia, @ArunNYC conveys this is an "academics vs RW Hindus" phenomenon. Arguing for existence of Hinduphobia becomes anti-intellectual. (7/n)

I try to give BOTD, but given that @ArunNYC cherry-picked 2-mins of anonymous audio—the only anonymous offering— from an *eight-hour* conference (youtube.com/c/HinduStudent…) packed with presentations, it is difficult to imagine this was NOT a deliberate journalistic choice. (8/n)

In fact, his claim of students not being willing to come forward is untrue. At Understanding Hinduphobia, two powerful Hindu women-- @rashmiDVS and Prasiddha Sudhakar-- spoke about Hinduphobia on their campuses for 35 min. These young women aren't faceless RW puppets (9/n)

@arunNYC does not even *begin* to probe whether Hindu scholars who speak about Hinduphobia face online attacks. All of the scholars who presented at the conference *do* and it usually comes from other “academics”—@RaniRosser and @indumathi37 talk about this at UH 2021. (10/n)

Recently, @ProfVemsani has also gone public with her own harrowing experience: (11/n)

I myself have faced this, too. In March 2020, a @Cambridge prof posted morphed images of me on Facebook, liked a comment in which I am called a ‘cow piss drinker,’ and laughed as one of her colleagues posted a photo of my parents’ car + license plate on FB. (12/n)

Unlike with the “academic” @arunNYC centers, the hate-filled comments I received linked to identifiable, physical markers that could be used in the real world to trace me and my FAMILY. @arunNYC knows that this can happen--@hinduonCampus *told* him prior to publication (13/n)

Am I surprised that @NPR-affiliate @WNYC did this? Nope. In 2019, concerned Hindu academics (incl me) wrote to @nancybarnesnews, in the wake of Furkan Khan’s tweet, re: Hinduphobia that continued to be blared on its airwaves & hosted online. (

https://twitter.com/indumathi37/status/1417558935746322433

) (14/n)

Even now, I hope @WNYC & @ArunNYC do the right thing, though I fear they won't-- even as Hindu scholars detail their problematic reporting. I'm not someone who speaks out a lot (I hardly tweet) but as a scholar, my first commitment must be to truth, even at personal cost. (15/n)

And the truth is this: As people who have become inured by the double standards, we are not surprised or disappointed. BUT... @WNYC, NEVER claim we are not brave enough to come forward with our stories, just because you aren’t brave enough to LISTEN. (16/n)