https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3081-6310
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ABSTRACT
Activist research that conducts social investigation and analysis can be the key first step in organising at the grassroots and movement building. This paper critically analyses two research reports titled ‘The Foreign Exchange of Hate’ (Sabrang/Coalition against Genocide 2002) and ‘In Bad Faith’ (Awaaz South Asia Watch 2004) produced by progressive activists situated in progressive mobilisations in the North American and British South Asian diasporas. This research was amongst the earliest to systematically investigate and expose the transnational networks and activities of Hindu nationalism. Drawing on the scholarship of Aziz Choudry, I discuss key influences, goals, impacts and costs of these activist research projects. The analysis offer situated insights into the relationship between activist research and movement-building in the context of collective resistance to Hindu nationalism in Eurocentric, liberal multicultural societies.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 The transnational Hindutva movement has developed a global presence since the seventies and eighties with migrations of East African Hindus to the UK (Bhatt and Mukta Citation2000), and Hindu IT professionals from India to the USA (Mathew and Prashad Citation2000).
2 Available at https://www.hindutvaharassmentfieldmanual.org/
3 Still in publication all though now online in the USA, SAMAR (South Asian Magazine for Action and Reflection was founded in 1992 and run by a volunteer-collective based in the USA with contributors from all over the globe). Contributors included academics and activists and the magazine was distributed through community events and academic conferences.
4 The coalition was formed in 2005 by 40 organisations dedicated to fighting for minority rights in India.
8 House of Cards website is maintained by a Hindu-American named who takes inspirated from US based Sangh ideologue Rajiv Malhotra whose mission is to expose the “handiwork of Radical Indian Leftists, aggressive Christian Evangelicals and certain Islamic Advocacy groups.” https://www.ahouseofcards.net/groups/ekta-cac/
10 A Channel 4 television news report broadcast on 12 December 2002 revealed how one organisation funded by Sewa International, the Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram in Gujarat, was directly involved in the genocidal violence against Muslims in the state which took place in February and March of that year.
14 These linkages encompassed the inception of the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) by the Sangh Parivar in India, common ground on the specific topic of caste as expressed in the California textbook controversy, HAF leadership's participation in Sangh Parivar training camps in India, HAF's support for demagogues of violence and sectarian hatred, such as Sadhvi Rithambara, and the isolation of HAF from the mainstream of national and international human rights organisations (see also CAG Citation2013)
15 A report titled ‘Hindu Nationalism in the USA: A Report on Nonprofit Groups 2001–2014’ documented how India-based Sangh affiliates continued to receive social and financial support from its US-based tax-exempt counterparts including those named in the first IDRF report i.e. HSS-USA, VHP-America, (SACW Citation2014). The report also highlighted how Hindu nationalist groups have increasingly inserted themselves into curricular, administrative and financing arenas in North American academic and educational institutions, specifically in the disciplines of history, religious studies, Indology and other fields
16 In the USA, a key site and moment of contestation has formed around the revision of public school history textbooks by the California state Department of Education in 2006 and 2016. Although the issues broadly remained the same in terms of contestations around what needed to be revised and why, these two moments gave rise to very different kinds of activist campaigns, knowledge production and dissemination and eventually outcomes. Hindu nationalists sought to revise what they considered deficit representations of ancient India, unequal gender relations and the oppressive caste system. In 2006, a coalition of community organisers and South Asia academics prevailed on the DOE and the revisions proposed by the Hindu organisations were unsuccessful (see e.g. Bose, Citation2008; Kamat and Mathew Citation2003). However, in 2016, the Hindu right returned with a highly organised and apparently parent-led campaign that vocalised concerns about bullying, racism and Hinduphobia related to portrayals of caste and gender-based oppression in US textbooks. The sophisticated and well-resourced campaign also involved the strategic use of quantitative data and pro-Hindu nationalist South Asia academics to claim authoritative knowledge. Other campaign strategies included vicious social media attacks on individual progressive activists as well as backdoor negotiations with the Pearson textbook company (Wu, Citation2019). In response, progressive activists formulated a campaign around the message of ‘South Asian Histories for All’. However, the DOE eventually accommodated a number of revisions proposed by the Hindu right.
17 According to some activists, this was not always the case in the UK. In the eighties and nineties, progressive South Asian activists enjoyed close relationships with British politicians, particularly Labour, at the national level in the as indicted by the release of the SIUK report in the House of Lords. However, these relationships have eroded with the passage of time and the changing culture of politics in neoliberal Britain.