ASATA

On this episode of APEX Express, host Miata Tan is joined by ASATA members who discuss the  South Asian Coalition, an emergent national network committed to collective liberation and solidarity.

Together they explore what it means to build South Asian political power in this moment—and how cross-movement solidarity can shape a more just, multiracial future.

Listen to the episode here.

_______

Learn more about the South Asian Coalition: Website | Instagram | Policy Priorities

Sign-On Form for Organizational Sign-Ons

April 15, 2025

As members of immigrant rights groups, refugee advocacy groups, and community organizations and allies, we stand in firm solidarity with the Nepali-speaking Bhutanese American community currently facing unjust detention and deportation by U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). For decades, we have been collectively advocating for immigrant justice, and we now raise that voice in support of our Nepali-speaking Bhutanese American neighbors and friends.

As of the writing of this statement, we have witnessed alarming reports of ICE targeting, arresting, and incarcerating more than 60 members of the Nepali-speaking Bhutanese American community across Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas, Kentucky, Vermont, New York, North Dakota, South Dakota, and other states since March 2025–and deporting at least 20 additional members to Bhutan since March 26, 2025. Those deported by the United States to Bhutan are rendered stateless and remain in peril–with at least four community members rejected by Bhutan and expelled to Nepal, where they are now in police custody. We continue to receive new, increasingly disturbing updates daily about people being targeted, detained, or deported.

This crisis resurrects painful memories for a community that has already endured forced displacement. As refugees who fled ethnic cleansing in Bhutan in the 1990s and spent over 15 years in refugee camps in Nepal, these people – families, children, communities – came to the United States starting in 2008 through official resettlement programs. Nepali-speaking Bhutanese American refugees have built homes, businesses, and families here. They have become an integral part of our social, economic, and cultural fabric.

1. Our position and why this is needed

We are releasing this statement at a moment when the American right wing is divided over the issue of skilled immigration and guest worker visas. With Donald Trump entering his second presidential term, white nationalists and their associates seek to restrict all immigration to the United States. Opposing them are tech industry oligarchs and Hindu reactionaries, who insist that high-wage skilled guest workers are meritocratically superior to low-wage and undocumented guest workers (who are, of course, demonized by both sides). When our opponents are in conflict, we have the opportunity to gain ground.

As a San Francisco Bay Area organization, ASATA's membership includes current and former H-1B workers, their families, and their friends. We see the struggles of H-1B guest workers as intrinsically linked to those of all guest workers in the United States, as all guest workers hold in common a state of precarity and exploitation enforced by U.S. border policy. We hope to join these efforts in a common purpose – to fight together against all deportations, employment-based visa restrictions, visa overstay punishments, and all other forms of coercion levied against guest workers under the U.S. immigration framework.

2. Who are H-1B workers?

H-1B workers are skilled professionals who fill critical roles in specialized fields such as technology, engineering, and healthcare, often in high-wage positions. South Asians, particularly those from India, form a significant portion of this workforce. Indian nationals comprise 72% of all approved H-1B petitions in FY 2023. Workers from Pakistan and Nepal are also among the top ten countries associated with the H-1B program.

3. How do H-1B workers relate to the fight for guest workers’ rights?

There are several points of overlapping interest between H-1B workers and other guest workers. Family migration for all categories of documented guest worker is conducted using the H-4 visa, and H-4 visa holders must apply separately for an employment authorization document in order to work in the United States. H-4 visa holders may find themselves in similar cycles of dependence, isolation, or financial hardship if they are denied their employment authorization, regardless of the type of work visa associated with their H-4 visa.

H-1B workers and their family members can become illegal. H-1B workers who overstay their visas are barred or restricted from future immigration benefits, while their children under H-4 visas can age out and lose legal status. The threat of illegal immigration status is an essential coercive force levied against H-1B workers and their families.

Ultimately, the anti-immigrant far right levies attacks against all guest workers regardless of wage or skill level, and at present it’s clear that such attacks are inevitable and indiscriminate. No single group of guest workers can be rendered safe from white nationalism, and it is always advantageous to cultivate solidarity in situations where confrontation is imminent.

4. How can we fight for H-1B workers?

H-1B visas tie workers to a single employer, creating significant vulnerabilities. Workers may be reluctant to report workplace abuse, advocate for fair pay, or seek better opportunities for fear of jeopardizing their immigration status. This system benefits corporations that exploit visa dependency to suppress wages and increase profits. We support implementing stronger whistleblower protections for workers reporting abuse and decoupling the H-1B visa from single employers.

H-4 visa holders (typically spouses of H-1B, H-2A, or H-2B workers) often face work restrictions, leading to economic dependence and isolation. This has gendered impacts, as H-4 visa holders are overwhelmingly female. H-4 work restrictions sideline the careers of women, and sometimes contribute to family stress or gender-based violence. We support universal work authorization for H-4 visa holders.

Children of H-1B workers lose dependent visa status at age 21, often resulting in forced “self-deportation” or separation from families. These young people, despite growing up in the U.S., are left without clear pathways to stay in the country legally. We support visa protections for children aging out of dependent status.

Green card applicants from India face decades-long backlogs due to a per-country cap, compounding stress and uncertainty for workers and their families. We support providing a clear pathway to citizenship for long-term H-1B workers.

Muslim H-1B workers must navigate Islamophobic border enforcement in order to comply with visa requirements. We support ending Department of Homeland Security policies that target Muslims based on their religious identity.

Workers that lose visa status while remaining in the United States become illegal, and if caught, may be deported and barred from re-entry. Workers without legal status are chronically underpaid and exploited due to their precarity. We support providing a clear pathway to citizenship for workers who are in default or have defaulted on their work authorization, and ending bars to entry and permanent residency based on lost visa or illegal status.

Above and beyond these specific and immediate recommendations, we advocate for the free movement of labor into and out of the USA. 

5. Reject the right-wing debate, pick a third option.

At present, fracture over H-1B visas is a conflict between right-wing factions without a clear left-wing alternative. White nationalists push for the end of all immigration, while tech sector capitalists and Hindu-American reactionaries advance “meritocracy” for the skilled guest worker and border walls for the “unskilled” guest worker. Left unrepresented in this discussion are any South Asian guest workers themselves.

This is an opportunity to mobilize South Asians who are not content with these options. South Asians exist at all levels of guest worker visa status and skill level, and many South Asian-Americans find that a choice between white nationalists and the Hindu right is no choice at all.

We call on South Asian progressives, allies, and policymakers to stand in solidarity with H-1B workers and their families, as one facet of the fight for the dignity of all guest workers. South Asian employees should push their companies to adopt fair labor practices for guest workers, while unions and labor groups must ensure that guest workers of all skill levels are fully included in their demands. Policymakers must prioritize policies that uphold the dignity and rights of all immigrant workers. South Asian activists should align together against all attacks on immigration, whether they demonize specific segments of the population or attack all guest workers broadly.

ASATA members joined the Third World Liberation contingent on January 20, 2025 to celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr.'s radical, anti-imperialist legacy and stand in solidarity with all those impacted by heightened attacks as Trump took office that day. We are ready for the long work ahead.

On Sunday, December 1, volunteers with ASATA, Hindus for Human rights, and other local groups in solidarity painted a street mural in front of the Indian Consulate in San Francisco to call for justice on the 40th anniversary of the industrial disaster in Bhopal, India. 

Organizers like Farhana Sobhan from ASATA and Vivek Kembaiyan from HFHR brought together a coalition of organizations, activists, and artists to demonstrate solidarity with survivors using art with the support of longtime street muralist and organizer, David Solnit. The mural and accompanying banner was designed by artist Kamardip Singh by adapting and combining previous campaign art demanding justice for the survivors of the Bhopal disaster. The mural is anchored by two women who are survivors and movement leaders in Bhopal, in front of the still unpremeditated chemical plant and billowing clouds of lethal gas. This image was made by artist Alizarin Menninga-Fong, in collaboration with movement leaders in Bhopal, to serve as a logo commemorating the 40th anniversary. The 40th logo was also worn as screen printed patches by participants at the event. 

On December 3, 1984, a Union Carbide factory in Bhopal leaked deadly poison into the community, killing thousands and leading to long-lasting damage that continues today. Our San Francisco action amplified the demands of the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal, including for the American company Dow Chemical, of which Union Carbide is now a subsidiary, to pay for the death and destruction they wrought, and for the central and state governments of India and Madhya Pradesh to hold the perpetrators accountable and provide for the health and safety of the people of Bhopal (which they have totally failed to do).

It was a beautiful day, in which we painted, listened to the music of artists from Bhopal, and tied the destruction in Bhopal to the ways companies like Dow Chemical are killing Americans as well. We are grateful to artivists Esha, Priya, Sangeeta, Hafsa, Sabrina, Fernando for helping to execute the vision of the mural. Learn more about Bhopal at bhopal.net.

The SUMUD: Resistance Until Liberation mural project is a collaboration between artists and activists in the U.S. and Palestine that explores and confronts the deep interconnections between the brutal systems of imprisonment in the U.S. and Palestine. ASATA members collaborated on the concept, design, and painting of a section of this mural titled Internationalism + The Fight Against Empire. See more about the SUMUD mural project here.

Internationalism + The Fight Against Empire By Haiti Action Committee, GABRIELA Oakland, Alliance of South Asians Taking Action (ASATA), and BAYAN Norcal

ASATA members volunteered at the SUMUD Mural Community Launch event on October 13th celebrating joy and resistance.

Read the full artist statement below:

As organizations with a history of working with each other, we understand the interconnectedness of our movements for liberation internationally, especially across the Global South. We know that the liberation of one of our homelands contributes to the liberation of all of us. 

Our spoon was inspired by Handala, a 10-year-old Palestinian cartoon character created by the Palestinian cartoonist Naji al-Ali. Handala’s age represents Naji al-Ali’s age in 1948 when he was forcibly displaced and became a refugee after the Nakba. Hence, Handala remains 10 years old, and he is depicted with bare feet, spiked hair, and tattered clothing, and always has his back turned to the viewer to represent the fight against empire. 

Our mural depicts Handala, hand in hand with a character robed in Lumud textiles of the indigenous communities in the Southern Philippines. This design is based off of a work by Cece Carpio, and for us in GABRIELA Oakland and BAYAN Norcal, resonates with our commitment as a movement to defend indigenous land against plunder and environmental degradation, from Palestine to the Philippines. On the far left, we also chose to include a peasant farmer. To this day, the Philippines remains a semi-feudal country, with peasants comprising the majority (75 percent) of the islands’ population. Our peasant figure represents the 500 year legacy of resistance among Filipinos, especially in the countryside, and the will of the landless class to take up the struggles for liberation and basic human rights.

On the other side of Handala, is a figure representing Haiti’s continuing resistance to colonialism, depicted by a boy similar in age to Handala, holding the flag of Haiti. The flag is a symbol of Haiti’s historic revolution and overthrow of slavery which gave birth to the first free Black nation in the Americas. Sculptural metal birds adorn both sides of the mural, and represent symbolic elements deeply rooted in Haitian spirituality and creative resistance. 

The figure wearing a sari has designs on the pleats of the sari inspired by different countries in South Asia, as well as a design that represent the South Asian descendants of indentured servitude. We also incorporated a design inspired by Kashmiri weavers to connect the occupation and resistance struggles of Kashmir and Palestine. The figure was intentionally designed to challenge the binary of masculinity vs. femininity that exists within most patriarchal cisheteronormative South Asian cultures, and to include the colors of the pride and trans flags to represent solidarity with queer and trans communities. The South Asian figure holds a farming tool to represent the farmers’ movement and uprising. 

Press Release at this link.

Come join us in Downtown Oakland on September 25th, 2024, at 6 PM. RSVP here (seats are limited).

__________________________

40 years ago, Bhopal, India, experienced the world’s worst-ever corporation-caused disaster, resulting in the deaths and disabling of hundreds of thousands of marginalized people over multiple generations. Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, corporations have been exploiting, polluting, and appropriating land and people for over a century. How can we disrupt this corporation-enriching global extractive system that results in widespread injustice, poverty, hunger, climate change, and irreversible environmental destruction? Join changemakers, knowledge-holders, and innovators from Bhopal and the Bay, representing over 30 organizations and diverse perspectives, as they discuss how frontline/ indigenous communities and activists across the world are taking on what is the greatest challenge of our time. Participants will include organizers, community/ indigenous leaders, artists, lawyers, activists, musicians, reformers, and other changemakers from a diverse range of ethnicities and perspectives, including waste reduction, carceral reform, Indigenous rights, land sovereignty, social-environmental justice, climate change, human rights, food sovereignty, and corporate accountability.

__________________________

COVID protocols: 

As COVID rates are on the rise, we are implementing the following protocols:

Testing: We recommend you do an antigen test 24 hours before attending this event.

Masks: Masking is strongly recommended at all times.

Precautions: If you show symptoms of COVID, we kindly request you stay home.

Accessibility: 

The event space is 100% wheelchair accessible. Gender neutral bathrooms are available. 

We are not able to provide food/drinks; however, you are welcome to bring your own snacks and reusable closed beverage bottle. We request that you minimize plastic and landfill waste/garbage.

Child Care: 

June 10, 2024 — San Francisco

ASATA members rallied in front of the San Francisco Federal Building today to support the plaintiffs in the historic case to charge the U.S. Government with complicity in genocide. Vivek gave a speech highlighting how the Israeli government is exporting its apartheid legal tactics to the U.S. and to countries like India which have been used against our most vulnerable populations. ASATA continues to stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine as we resist fascism in all its forms.

Watch the full speech here.

Photo courtesy of Vivek

There will be a “Unity March against Anti-Semitism'' in San Francisco tomorrow. However the last 147 days of  genocide in Palestine have made clear that this “unity march” is just a cover for Zionists advocating to continue bombing and starving Palestinians. 

The only non-Jewish speaker at the event is Pawan Deshpande from the Hindu American Foundation (HAF). HAF is a right wing Hindu Nationalist (Hindutva) hate group that started as an outgrowth of the core Hindu Nationalist group, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), associated with the current fascist BJP regime in India. These organizations advocate for Hindu Fascism at every level, both in the US and India. You can read more about the VHP in this recent report by Savera, a new, progressive South Asian coalition in the US. 

The presence of an HAF speaker at this Zionist march is a clear signal of the deep ideological and political alliance between Zionists and Hindu nationalists. Both ideologies are built on the belief of an ethnonationalist state only achieved through normalizing violence against minorities, ethnic cleansing, state repression, and cultural erasure. Zionists and Hindu nationalists have been increasingly working together on building power and strategy. This alliance is apparent in India being the largest purchaser of Israeli weapons, their use of Israeli technology and strategy in the ongoing occupation of Kashmir, and India’s recent sale of “killer” drones to Israel. 

Pawan Deshpande and the HAF don’t represent the diversity of the South Asian or Hindu communities in the Bay Area. ASATA stands with the majority of Americans in calling for a permanent ceasefire. Since October, we have joined our Palestinian and Arab comrades, along with people of conscience across the Bay Area, fighting for an end to US aid to Israel and a Free Palestine. 

ASATA members joined hundreds of protesters in front of the Israeli consulate in San Francisco on October 8, 2023.

The Alliance of South Asians Taking Action stands in solidarity with the people of Palestine in the face of the current escalation of violence unfolding in Gaza and the West Bank. Over the last two weeks, ASATA members looked to the leadership of Palestinian activists in the San Francisco Bay Area who continue to lead protests that lift up the unrelenting resistance of those living under violent occupation. 

As we mobilized for direct actions and joined the call for Palestinian liberation, we also deepened our understanding of how the state of Israel’s settler colonial tactics are proliferated and being replicated in the Indian government’s violent occupation of Kashmir. As part of a diverse South Asian Diaspora, ASATA members clearly see the close relationship between Hindutva (Hindu Nationalism) and Zionist ideologies. As South Asians, we challenge all forms of imperialism. Thus, we oppose Zionism, a settler colonial project displacing indigenous Palestinians, resulting in the world’s largest diasporic refugee population. 

The current close relationship between India and Israel has enabled a security regime where India has adopted Israeli tactics of collective punishment (such as the arbitrary revocation of residency and citizenship rights, arbitrary detention, statewide suspension of internet, etc.) in its occupation of Kashmir.  The deployment of the Israeli hacking software Pegasus to spy on Indian journalists, lawyers, activists, academics, supreme court judges, opposition politicians, and many others must be seen in the context of the announcement by India and Israel that cyber security is a key area of cooperation between them. The NSO group, an Israeli firm that’s an expert in cyber surveillance, has in effect abetted the Indian government’s surveillance of its own citizens as it has done in a dozen other countries.  

The Israeli government’s alliance with and support of the BJP’s Hindutva agenda is part of a longer history where it has exported its violent policies and military tactics to South Asia in order to suppress resistance movements there. For example, The New York Times has reported that as early as the 1980s, Israeli intelligence agents trained their Sri Lankan counterparts in their fight against Tamil groups. Israeli human rights lawyer Eitay Mack has raised questions about Israel’s more recent role in war crimes committed during the Sri Lankan civil war, and has called for criminal investigations into the involvement of Israeli companies, officials, and individuals. 

India’s embrace of Israel is polarizing the Indian-American diaspora, and has exacerbated the islamophobia of those who subscribe to the toxic ideology of Hindutva. The US-India Political Action Committee (USINPAC) is modeled after AIPAC and the AJC, and the Hindutva lobby’s use of the accusation of “Hinduphobia” to shut down critical discourse is inspired by the Zionist lobby’s success in silencing critics of Israel’s policies by weaponizing charges of anti-semitism.  

The BJP’s fearsome “IT Cell” is a massive disinformation machine that amplifies Hindutva propaganda through an army of paid employees and volunteers that flood social media with fake news, and through a large-scale use of bots that power harassment and trolling campaigns. Many accounts known to push Hindutva content are now being used to spread disinformation about Hamas while continuing their systematic spreading of islamophobic content. 

Indeed, as documented by BOOM, one of India's most reputable fact-checking websites, India is now one of the largest sources for disinformation targeting Palestinians negatively. We call on fellow South Asians in the diaspora to condemn the demonization of Palestinians, and ensure we do not contribute to the spread of disinformation and anti-Muslim hate. 

We take inspiration from the women of India’s National Federation of Dalit Women (NFDW) who have declared their solidarity with Palestinians —  invoking the “historic oppression” and “systematic dehumanization” that both communities have faced. 

We are also in solidarity with the many anti-Zionist Jewish groups and individuals both within Israel and world-wide that are opposing the Israeli state’s attacks on Palestine, and its long standing policy of apartheid against the Palestinian people.  

by ASATA Member Preeti Gamzeh

Over two million homes across California depend on the essential care provided by more than 300,000 domestic workers in the state – yet they remain without health and safety protections in the workplace. Care workers who ensure our economies have a healthy workforce, are ironically and sadly, marginalized and invisible-ized by intentional exclusion from worker protection laws. These exclusions are a remnant of the United States’ legacy of slavery and discrimination against Black and brown immigrant women workers that continue on in California state’s labor code today.

As a result, domestic workers are regularly exposed to health and safety threats. These include exposure to toxic products, heavy lifting leading to muscle tears, sprains, back  injuries and other long-term chronic conditions such as asthma, chronic cough, vision impairment, impacts on the reproductive system, and more.

To address this historic inequality, the California Domestic Workers Coalition (CDWC) worked with the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA) to create SB 686, a bill that created the first ever health and safety guidelines for the domestic work industry. This bill was put together by an Advisory Committee of domestic workers, employers, and occupational health and safety experts with Cal/OSHA.

To push for the signing of this bill into law, the CDWC and the NDWA organized a historic rally of over 600 domestic workers in Sacramento,on August 29th. ASATA member Preeti Shekar got to interview Kimberly Alvarenga, the Executive Director of the California Domestic Workers Coalition, to discuss why SB 686 is important and how domestic worker organizing is one of the most important and feminist movement in the country. This discussion aired on KPFA 94.1 FM’s Women’s Magazine on Mon, Oct 9th.

Postscript: After this interview was recorded, Governor Newsom vetoed the bill, on October 2nd, on grounds that homes and businesses cannot be regulated by the same set of laws. The CDWC and the NDWA expressed their disappointment in this decision and are currently re-strategizing. While it is disappointing that this bill was outright vetoed, the organizing of domestic workers, who are largely from black and brown immigrant communities, is one of the brightest sparks of feminist movements in the United States, and is inspiring to organizing care work everywhere.

Learn more about the incredible strides domestic worker organizing in California has made by visiting their website at cadomesticworkers.org and following their updates on social media. 

Extra Links/Resources:

“We are a small group of people, and if we are annihilated the world won’t even miss us because most of the world doesn’t even know we exist.”

The Kuki-Zomi tribal community of Manipur, a small picturesque state in north-east India, has been witnessing violent ethnic conflict in which over 120 lives have been tragically lost and more than 50,000 individuals displaced from their ancestral homes since May 2023.

Hosts Miko Lee and Cheryl Truong are joined by Niang Hangzo and Sonny Gangte, both members of the impacted Kuki-Zomi and a part of the North American Manipur Tribal Association@namtaus. They unravel the complexities of Manipur’s crisis and the factors perpetuating this atrocious humanitarian violation against the Kuki people.

Also please check out Niang’s article for more information.

CONTENT WARNING:

Please be advised that the things we’re going to be talking about and what has been happening to the Kuki-Zomi people of Manipur is horrific. Tonight’s show handles sensitive topics, such as violence, genocide, gender based violence and sexual assault. Our show’s transcript will be available to read in our show notes for those who would like to process at their own pace.

Stay updated on the Manipur crisis and the incredible work by the North American Manipur Tribal Association by following their socials:

Instagram/Twitter/Facebook: @NamtaUS

namta.us and namta.us/donate

South Asian Therapist Collective

Many South Asians struggle with mental health, and those who try to work through it using therapy additionally struggle to find culturally competent care. Seeing this, a few therapists within ASATA's membership, Farhana Sobhan and Ishita Pohoja, worked to start a therapy collective in hopes of addressing this need. The below is a quote from Farhana:

This directory was created with the intention of connecting South Asian therapists to South Asian clients. When I was looking for a therapist, I wanted to work with someone who understood some of my nuanced cultural experiences. Someone to whom I would not have to explain my collective understanding of relationships. Someone with whom I didn't have to take time educating about my culture and how it impacts me. This directory was formed from the work of South Asian Therapist Collective (SATC) who formed during the lockdown of Covid-19. The collective has coalesced in order to examine the nuances of working with South Asian themes via consultation, to be in community with one another to lessen isolation, and to decolonize therapy through dialogue and being in community with one another. As a collective, we want to continue to create more visibility for South Asian therapists to link South Asian individuals to culturally informed care. And for us, as therapists to be in relationship to one another that tends to be isolative due to the nature of mental health work.  

On May 14, 2023 the Alliance of South Asians Taking Action (ASATA) and Arwah Collective presented a screening of BBC's documentary, India: The Modi Question. This documentary lays out the increasingly perilous conditions for Indian Muslims, specifically following the ascension of current Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Starting with his reign as chief minister of Gujarat, the documentary goes in-depth into Modi’s orchestration of the 2002 pogrom, the recent implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC), the abrogation of Section 370 in Kashmir, the systemic stoking of communal violence targeting Indian Muslims, repression of protesters, and the dwindling freedom of press in the nation-state. 

Before the film began, organizers welcomed the audience and discussed why it was important to screen this documentary which has been banned by the India and censored by YouTube and Twitter in collusion with the Indian government. In brave defiance of this ban, several student groups in India organized screenings of this film and were met with violent state repression. ASATA organizers prepared the audience for the violent footage we were about to see and the BBC's editorial decisions to give a platform to the political enablers of of Hindu fascism. Members of Arwah Collective lifted up the importance of international solidarity against all forms of fascism from Kashmir to Palestine with a grounding in the legacy of genocide of indigenous peoples in what is now the United States.

Arwah Collective also facilitated a decompression/healing space to support participants who needed a break from the content of this documentary to process, reflect, and calm our nerves. Participants were also able to connect with one another about ways we can build stronger movements in resistance to Hindutva and fascism in the subcontinent and diaspora.

Above: ASATA members with Pierre Labossiere of Haiti Action Committee. Below: folks decompress after the conference. Photos courtesy of Sabiha Basrai.

The Center for Political Education has convened the People Get Ready Conference biennially since 2017. People Get Ready 4 took place at UC Berkeley on March 25, 2023. The one-day conference gathered left movements in the Bay Area of California to analyze political conditions and discuss movement strategy during a period of deepening economic, social, and ecological crises.

ASATA co-sponsored the conference and participated in the planning committee, and volunteered for logistical roles at the event.

Sabiha from ASATA moderated the panel " Transnational Fascism(s)" at the in conversation with Thenmozhi Soundarajan of Equality Labs, Brandon Lee of SF Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines, and Nora Abedelal of Arab Resource & Organizing Center. Authoritarian forces and people’s movements are engaged in fierce conflicts across the globe. Fascist projects often find strategic support from rightwing forces across borders and from the US government and its imperialist military. The panel focused on how Left forces analyze, resist, and build power to defeat these international networks.

For Immediate Release                

March 6, 2023

Contact: S. Karthikeyan                                                           [email protected]

San Jose, CA: A coalition of human rights and civil rights organizations including Ambedkar King Study Circle, The NAACP, Hindus for Human Rights, Indian-American Muslim Council and Jewish Voice for Peace organized a screening of the BBC documentary “India: The Modi Question” which reveals rising authoritarianism and widespread political repression in India under the rule of Hindu Nationalist (AKA Hindutva) Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. Through interviews with survivors of police brutality and the families of the victims of mob lynchings, the film, banned in India, makes a powerful case that the ruling party BJP and its leader, Mr. Modi, are committed to advancing a Hindutva agenda at all costs, including that of the Indian Constitution.

Following the screening, Mr. Imran Dawood, who was nearly beaten to death and witnessed his two uncles being murdered by Hindu supremacist mobs in Gujarat in 2002, shared in powerful testimony that the pogrom continues to affect him not only because of his personal trauma, but also because Modi and many of the highest officials responsible for the violence and killings have never faced legal accountability for their complicity. He invoked Malcolm X’s quote, “You're not to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it” to urge all Indians to stand up against Hindutva ideology. This was echoed by Javed Ali, president of IAMC’s Bay Area chapter, who implored the audience to condemn Hindutva ideology wherever it arises, including in California.

The event organizers spanned several religious and ethnic communities that gathered to stand in solidarity with the victims of Hindutva. Rev. Jethroe Moore from the NAACP called upon all to stand together, strive together and fight together for justice, everywhere that it is under threat. “It all amounts to one struggle, the struggle for Human Rights,” asserted Sharat Lin, from Human Agenda and the San Jose Peace & Justice Center. 

S. Karthikeyan from Ambedkar King Study Circle called attention to the fact that Hindutva organizations are not only thriving in India but are spreading their hateful agenda globally. Organizations such as the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh, Sewa International, Ekal, VHP-America and others masquerade as social and cultural organizations and have diverted millions of tax exempt dollars to India to fund the indoctrination of children, sowing of division, and spreading of hate. He emphasized that the stronger organizational presence of Hindutva in the U.S. has made Dalit and Muslim Americans and immigrants more vulnerable. AKSC is committed to exposing these groups to the American people through mass mobilizations and political education. The call for political education was echoed by Aamir Qureishi from the Culture and Conflict forum which is working to bring marginalized voices to the fore, and by Elizabeth Kamya from the youth group Afro Umoja Political Representation in Silicon Valley (AFRO-UPRIS) which plans to educate and mobilize its members against Hindutva’s hateful agenda. 

Swati Rayasam from the Alliance of South Asians Taking Action drew a parallel between Hindutva and Zionism, and alerted the audience to how the seeds of Hindu fascism are planting themselves in progressive US organizations in the same ways that Zionism did before. Prabodh Jamwal from Hindus for Human Rights (which fights Hindutva) and Wendy Greenfield from Jewish Voice for Peace (which fights Zionism) both spoke at the event; Jamwal described how Hindu nationalism poses a clear and present danger to Indian and US democracies, while Greenfield urged building strong bonds of solidarity to thwart divisive forces.

The Hindu American Foundation (HAF) is one example of US-based Hindutva organizations which employ a rhetoric of multiculturalism and insert themselves into mainstream spaces through a savvy and cynical use of the language of minority rights. Many interfaith spaces, for example, have been occupied by Hindutva organizations that claim to represent all Hindus while maintaining a strategic silence when it comes to Hinduism’s internal battles such as the fight against caste oppression by millions, or the struggle by Hindu women against gender-based discrimination, including female infanticide. The HAF has in fact campaigned to remove references to casteist and gender discrimination from grade school textbooks in California, an act of historical amnesia and gaslighting that was opposed by Ambedkarite and progressive South Asian organizations. The HAF’s toxic record also includes attempts to block legislation to ban Caste discrimination, but it was defeated roundly in Seattle!

The testimonies offered in the film serve to document the ongoing capture and transformation of India’s democratic and secular traditions by the BJP’s fascist ideology, changes that add up to a veritable checklist of fascism: 

Assault on Press Freedom: Journalists and news organizations that are critical of the government are being targeted with impunity. India's ranking on the World Press Freedom Index has fallen from 80 in 2002 and 133 in 2016 to 150 in 2021, its lowest ranking ever out of 180 countries. 

Disdain for Human Rights and Obsession with National Security: Any criticism by human rights activists, union organizers, lawyers, students, etc. is immediately suppressed through violence or by invoking national security laws that address sedition and counterterrorism. Rights watchdog Amnesty International has expressed concern about the “abusive use” of the draconian law UAPA (Unlawful Activities {Prevention} Act) which allows the government to bypass constitutionally guaranteed civil liberties and fundamental rights that protect citizens from abuses of state power.

Identification of Enemies as a Unifying Cause, Religion and Government Intertwined: According to Genocide Watch, the official sanction of Islamophobia by the BJP government has escalated now into a genocide emergency, where massacres are ongoing and “beatings and murders of Muslims with impunity occur almost daily.” The revocation of article 370 in Kashmir (which is 95% Muslim), and the targeting of organizations that fight casteism including Dalit rights groups and Adivasi (indigenous) land right groups are also testament to the BJP’s exclusionary politics.  

AKSC invites all people of conscience to join its fight against Hindutva. Jai Bhim!

References:

The 2022 report by Human Rights Watch, “India: Media Freedom Under Threat” explains the decline in press freedom by highlighting multiple stories of journalists being targeted, harassed, physically attacked, and even imprisoned. 

Stop Hindutva in America offers excellent documentation of Hindutva in America including a mapping of the network of Hindutva organizations, and two full-length reports that trace how donations given to U.S.- based Hindutva organizations fund hate in India.

ASATA Co-Coordinator Swati Rayasam gave the following statement:

The seeds of Hindu fascism are planting themselves in progressive US organizations in the same ways that Zionism did before it; building a campaign to flatten our culture and rewrite our histories of violence and resistance.

So much of the power retained by fascists like Modi is through their ability to control the narrative around state violence and call it justifiable. But hosting this political education to deepen our understanding of the 2002 pogrom and hearing from the survivors is a way to put that story back where it belongs - with the people.

As an organizer of a volunteer and grassroots-led group in the Bay Area, we know that this is a transnational issue — the RSS and VHP are thriving in the United States and here in California. We know that there are parallels to police violence in India and in the United States. We also know it is our responsibility, specifically of Hindu and dominant caste communities, to disrupt this continued violence and radicalization in our communities. And lastly, we know that it takes interfaith, intercaste, and transnational activism to defeat the project of Hindutva and build an alternative path.

It is critical now more than ever that South Asian and progressive organizations in the US build with, learn from, and show up for each other, for our comrades in Palestine and the Philippines, and that we push the US Left show solidarity with South Asian progressive organizations in a united front against Hindu fascism and fascism worldwide.

Preeti, Taz, Sabiha and Haleema came together to discuss the politics and cultural impact of the Disney TV show Ms. Marvel. Check out their discussion which aired on APEX Express on January 19, 2023.