WASHINGTON: A Democratic Party unit in a New Jersey town has passed a resolution calling out the US-based Hindutva outfits as “domestic branches” of “foreign hate groups”.
The Teaneck Democratic Municipal Committee (TDMC) in New Jersey named several right-wing Hindu groups such as the Hindu American Foundation (HAF), the Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America (VHPA), SEWA International, Infinity Foundation, Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation, as “foreign hate groups”, and said that they have direct and indirect ties to RSS. Calling them Hindu Supremacists, the unit of President Joe Biden’s party has demanded that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) should step up research on “foreign hate groups that have domestic branches with tax-exempt status”.
The resolution passed by TDMC says, “Hindu nationalist organizations have infiltrated all levels of politics and were highly effective in blocking US House Resolution 417 which was a congressional attempt to warn against the Hindu nationalist movement.”
The TDMC resolution noted that “most local American elected officials remain unaware and unprepared to deal with the Hindu extremists”.
The resolution claimed that US-based right-wing Hindu groups had “direct and indirect ties to Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the right-wing Hindu nationalist paramilitary organization in India whose ideology are part of Nazism and European fascism.”
The resolution urged New Jersey Senators Bob Menendez and Cory Booker and Congressman Josh Gottheimer to “revise the Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015 to address foreign violent extremists with speaking engagements in the US”.
Teaneck Democratic Municipal Committee claims that the Hindu organizations can be declared as terror groups under US Code Title 22 Chapter 38, section 2656f(d), which defines terrorism as, “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience”
They say that only condemning hate incidents is insufficient as “hate groups” are increasingly more organized, cause fear and harm to people, and need to be identified and monitored now for safety and security.
