Over the last few years we have been witnessing the normalization and rise of supremacist, ultra-nationalist brand of right-wing politics in the U.S., India, Europe and other parts of the world and an increasing alliance between the Hindu far right and the Western alt-right to find historic and current justifications for their racist, xenophobic and divisive views.

The rise of Hindutva in India has heightened Islamophobic sentiments in the country in the past few years. The BJP is a political wing of a paramilitary, fascist organization, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), founded in 1925 whose founders wrote treatises, in which they said quite clearly that they would like to do to the Muslims in India, what Hitler did [to] the Jews in Germany.

The Hindutva ideology in India poses an existential threat to minorities, including life, liberty and assault on constitutional rights, and religious freedom. Gregory Stranton, the President of Genocide Watch, stated at a Congressional briefing last year that Muslims in Kashmir and Assam were just one step away from extermination.

India’s worsening situation was highlighted earlier this year by Freedom House, the Washington-based pro-democracy think tank, that downgraded India from “Free” to “Partly Free” while highlighting “a steady erosion of democracy increasingly manifested through pressure on human rights groups, the intimidation and harassment of journalists and academics, policies that target and harm religious minorities, particularly Muslims, and the politicization of the Indian judiciary.”

The US State Department’s report, released March 30, was a scathing account of the ground situation in India that noted significant human rights issues including, but not limited to “unlawful and arbitrary killings, including extrajudicial killings perpetrated by police; torture and cases of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment by some police and prison officials; arbitrary arrest and detention by government authorities..”

India’s situation will get infinitely worse without significant international pressure. Meanwhile in the U.S., Hindutva organizations are gaining influence in the spaces of Indian Americans, while pursuing proximity to power through active lobbying in Washington, DC, campaign financing of politicians, and projecting themselves as champions of human rights through well-crafted campaigns.

IAMC needs your support to expand it’s work of impactful advocacy to confront the challenges that Hindutva poses both here in the U.S. and in India.