The Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), a key religious group linked to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has condemned the organising of an online conference called "Dismantling Global Hindutva".
The conference, co-sponsored by nearly 70 academic units from 49 universities, is set to “explore the consolidation of Hindu supremacist ideology in India and elsewhere”.
While talking to Sputnik on Wednesday, VHP’s International president Alok Kumar said: “This is a conspiracy to defame Hinduism as a global threat by the forces that have always been against the rise of India.”
He stated that Hindus, living as minorities in most countries, have never been associated with any extremist activities.
“Hindus have a track record of peaceful coexistence with other communities. So the bogey of this kind is only to serve the vested interest of groups which are inimical to India”, he added.
The global conference, co-sponsored by nearly 70 academic units from 49 universities, will be “exploring the consolidation of Hindu supremacist ideology in India and elsewhere”.
On Tuesday, a prominent local US senator also condemned it and termed it as an anti-Hindu gathering.
Ohio state Senator Niraj Antani said in a statement, “This conference represents a disgusting attack on Hindus across the United States, and we must all condemn this as nothing more than racism and bigotry against Hindus. I will always stand strong against Hinduphobia”.
Antani is the youngest Hindu elected official in the history of the United States and is the first Indian-American state senator in Ohio history.
The Coalition of Hindus of North America (CoHNA) has also written more than 350,000 emails against the conference to the universities, academicians, and various stakeholders.
“This conference paints Hindus disproportionately and falsely as purveyors of extremism, actively denies the genocide of Hindu people, and most troublingly, labels those who disagree as ‘Hindutva’ which the conference organisers define as Hindu extremism”, the CoHNA said in a statement.
The organisers, who wish to remain anonymous, say they are invested in examining the Hindutva ideology “that propagates hate, promotes Islamophobia, and seeks to reduce the myriad practices of Hinduism to a singular notion of a Hindu motherland”.