“Sleepwalking Into Genocide”: HfHR’s Nikhil Mandalaparthy Issues Powerful Call for Hindus to End Their Silence
On Friday, February 4, HfHR's Advocacy Director Nikhil Mandalaparthy spoke at Forces of Renewal Southeast Asia (FORSEA)'s marathon livestream event, entitled "A Scream from Global Civil Society: India Genocide Warning," alongside distinguished activists and intellectuals including Noam Chomsky and Harsh Mander. Watch Nikhil's speech, in which he delivers a powerful call for Hindus in India and the diaspora to end their silence as extremists issue genocidal calls in the name of their faith, and read the full remarks below:
Dear friends,
Thank you so much for this opportunity to speak alongside distinguished activists, scholars, artists, and intellectuals around the world.
My name is Nikhil, and I serve as Advocacy Director with Hindus for Human Rights. We are honored to be co-sponsoring this event along with our friends at Indian American Muslim Council and so many other groups who we’re lucky to work with.
In particular, we are proud to be the only Hindu organization co-sponsoring this event.
Many other speakers have shared about the situation on the ground in India today - rather than repeating those points, I want to speak specifically about the role of India’s Hindu majority.
I have grown up with Hindutva, or Hindu nationalism.
End of high school: Modi elected
Beginning of college: Hindus for Trump
I want to open with a quote from Hindu theologian Dr. Anantanand Rambachan: “The rise of populist nationalism, and especially those versions that clothe themselves in religious colors, requires a critique from the same religious traditions.”
Whether here in the US, or in India, I have not seen a robust movement of Hindus, speaking up as Hindus, against this ideology of hate. Rather, we have mostly seen silence: from temples, religious leaders, community leaders, and everyday people.
It is this silence which has led us to where we are today: where so-called religious leaders, swamis, sadhus, can get up on stages and issue calls for genocide.
As a Hindu organization speaking out against caste and Hindutva, we get our fair share of backlash from the community, trolling, attacks, threats, etc. But at the end of the day, we know that simply because we are Hindu, this is nothing compared to what our Dalit friends, or Muslim friends, or Christian friends are going through. Rather, we see this as our dharma, or religious duty, to speak out against injustice.
My heartfelt appeal to any Hindu watching this, whether you are personally religious or not, is that now is the time we need to speak up – as Hindu. You can still identify as liberal, or secular – that is important and needed as well. But we also need those who have the privilege to carry Hindu names, Hindu identities, to stand up and say – this ideology of hate does not represent the India I love.
Mr. Maung Zarni told us earlier that “if hundreds of millions of good Indians stay silent and let the hate-mongers call, plan and press for mass-violence against Muslims and other non-Hindu communities, not only will India’s greatness diminish but its majoritarian Hindu society will sleep-walk into genocide.” What an ominous and horrifying image. At Hindus for Human Rights, we are offering a platform a path, and a community for Hindus who have woken up — a path for Hindus to defend both Indian democracy and our Hindu traditions themselves — and prevent this catastrophe of genocide. Thank you.
