Dismantling Global Hindutva: Participants talk about threats, intimidation & lies from right-wing supporters

As the Dismantling Global Hindutva online global conference began on Friday, September 10, participants have come forward to share with the world the threats of physical harm, state-sponsored disinformation campaigns, Indian right-wing media bias and cyber attacks from Hindu nationalist groups hoping to scuttle the conference.

Meanwhile, the National Confederation of Human Rights Organisations has condemned the attacks on the conference by the Hindu right wing.

Despite the massive campaign of disinformation and intimidation, support for the conference has only grown. When the attacks began, the conference was backed by more than 45 departments and centers from 41 universities. Now, the conference has the support of 70 cosponsoring units and centers from 53 universities.

More than 10,000 have registered to attend the three-day online conference.

Rohit Chopra, Associate Profesor of Communication at Santa Clara University said, “The level of hate has been staggering. Organizers and speakers have received death threats, threats of sexual violence, and threats of violence against their families. Women participants have been subjected to the vilest kind of misogynistic threats and abuse, and members of caste and religious minority groups associated with the conference have been targeted with casteist and sectarian slurs in the ugliest sorts of language.”

“Each such instance of violent and forced censorship is meant to create a chilling effect. The hope of the Hindu Right is to intimidate and bully scholars so that no one dares analyze Hindutva in any manner other than the unequivocally laudatory or hagiographic,” Chopra added.

“This conference takes place at an urgent moment in my country's history at a time when farmers, workers, women, Dalits, Adivasis, Bahujans, Muslims, religious and sexual minorities, are opposing the project of Hindu majoritarian nationalism being put into practice by the Sangh Parivar,” wrote Professor Gyan Prakash, Dayton-Stockton Professor of History at Princeton University. “As education is an arena where Hindutva seeks to establish its dominance and control, such a conference is a collective intellectual exercise to plot and imagine our way out of this caste-fanatic, misogynist nightmare," said Dayton-Stockton professor of History, Gyan Prakash from Princeton University.

“The conference is an opportunity to understand how Hindutva poses itself as Hinduism and identifies India with its undemocratic ideology and politics. This is important because Hindutva has become the ideology of the Indian state with all its undemocratic implications for women, Dalits, Muslims, and the right to dissent, said Poet and Author Meena Kandasamy.

Audrey Truschke, Associate Professor of South Asian History at Rutgers University said, “I am the target of repeated smears and misinformation campaigns. Hindu nationalist groups have tried, unsuccessfully so far, to prompt my employer, Rutgers University, to take punitive action against me. Many Hindu supremacists openly discuss trying to influence the New Jersey state government, elected officials, and Rutgers administrators in order to silence me, a scholar.”

“While I am a favorite target of US-based Hindu supremacists, I am not exceptional. Many other scholars of South Asia have been targeted as well – not only by nationalists overseas but also by U.S. citizens who are part of this homegrown form of Hindu supremacist hate. In fact, Hindu supremacists based in the United States have led the campaign of fear and intimidation against the academic conference, Dismantling Global Hindutva.”

Apoorvanand, Professor at rhe Hindi Department, Faculty of Arts, University Of Delhi, said “The idea of academic freedom has now become redundant in India barring one or two states. The primary reason is the complete takeover of all institutions by the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party, which is the political wing of the Rashtriya Swaymsevak Sangh, a fascist organization which works in the name of Hindu supremacy.”

“It also rules the media space as most of the TV channels and newspapers have become its mouth organ. Rules have been framed depriving teachers of having and expressing their own opinion if it goes against the state. They cannot publish without the permission of the university authorities, especially if it critical of the state policies.”

“Many central universities in India which are centrally funded have adopted these service rules. They are forbidden from making any collective representation, even about academic and logistical issues. Recently, three teachers at a central university were issued show cause notice for having written collectively asking for internet facility on the campus for online classes. Before that, a general warning was issued after one of the faculty members published an article critical of the ideology of the ruling party.”