Abbott’s Attack on CAIR Is an Attack on Democracy
Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s attempt to designate the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as a “terrorist organization” marks a chilling escalation in the use of state power to intimidate and punish minority communities. It is a move without legal basis, rooted not in security concerns but in the long American tradition of smearing civil rights groups when they challenge majoritarian authority.
For Hindus for Human Rights, this moment is not merely about one organization. It is about what happens to democracy when elected officials decide they can label their critics “terrorists” by proclamation. It is about the dangerous ease with which Islamophobia is mobilized to score political points. And it is about refusing to stay silent while Muslim communities are targeted in our name, in our country, and through the machinery of our government.
CAIR is the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights organization. For decades, it has fought discrimination, provided legal support, defended free speech, and insisted that Muslim Americans deserve the same rights, dignity, and protections as everyone else. That such an organization would be singled out using language about “sharia law” and “subversion” is no accident — it is the direct continuation of a well-worn political strategy: turning minority communities into imagined threats to distract from real governance failures.
If this dynamic feels familiar, it is because it echoes other painful patterns in South Asia and its diaspora. When political leaders face pressure, dissent is often reframed as extremism. When human rights advocates speak too loudly, they are painted as enemies of the state. And when communities organize against structural injustice, they become targets of fearmongering campaigns designed to isolate and silence them.
Abbott’s proclamation attempts exactly this: to turn Muslim civic life into something suspect, to police who gets to organize and speak, and to normalize a world where civil rights organizations can be criminalized for holding power to account.
As a Hindu organization committed to human rights, we reject this logic outright. These values are not abstract for us. They shape our work against Hindutva, casteism, Islamophobia, antisemitism, racism, and every ideology that divides people into the worthy and the expendable.
Standing with CAIR today is not an act of charity. It is an act of democratic self-defense. If a state government can unilaterally brand a civil rights organization “terrorist” without evidence, without due process, and without federal authority, then no advocacy group — including ours — is safe.
Abbott’s attack is meant to frighten. It is meant to shrink the space for dissent. It is meant to teach communities to keep their heads down. We refuse.
We stand with CAIR, with Muslim communities in Texas, and with everyone fighting for an America where difference is not treated as danger. At a time when authoritarian tendencies are gaining strength globally, solidarity is not optional — it is the only way forward.
We encourage reading CAIR’s formal response to Governor Abbott’s proclamation: