Hindu Groups Threaten Participants Of A US Conference On “Hindu Nationalism”

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Participants in "Dismantling Global Hindutva" conference face threats from Hindutva groups.

Many of the scholars who were invited to speak at the “Dismantling Global Hindutva” are reported to have withdrawn after threats from Hindu groups in the US and India.

India Tomorrow

NEW DELHI—Several participants in the three-day “Dismantling Global Hindutva” conference have received death threats from right-wing Hindutva groups in India and the US, and many of them were forced to withdraw, report theguardian.com and Al-jazeera.com.

The Hindu right groups threatening the scholars said the conference was “anti-Hindu”.

The conference that began in the US on Friday, has been co-sponsored by more than 50 universities including Harvard, Columbia, Princeton, Berkeley, Stanford and the University of Chicago.

The aim of the conference, according to theguardian.com, is to bring together scholars to discuss Hindutva, otherwise known as Hindu nationalism, a rightwing movement that believes India should be an ethnic Hindu state, rather than a secular nation.

“India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), led by the prime minister, Narendra Modi, has pushed forward a Hindu nationalist agenda, under which India’s 200 million Muslims have faced discrimination and attacks,” theguardian.com.

Talking to Al-Jazeera, one of the participants, Meena Kandasway said that she had been threatened and abused online by pro-Hindutva groups.

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