According to the website of South Asia Scholar Activist Collective (SASAC) is a “group of scholars, activists, and students of South Asian studies and adjacent fields in North America” formed in 2021 by Audrey Truschke, Manan Ahmed, Ananya Chakravarti, Rohit Chopra, Purnima Dhavan, Supriya Gandhi, Simran Jeet Singh, Davesh Soneji, and Dheepa Sundaram. SASAC launched an online resource for those targeted by Hindu nationalists/Hindutva called the Hindutva Harassment Field Manual that “offers educational and practical resources for the targets, allies, students, and employers of those subjected to Hindu Rights assaults.”
SASAC has received some funding from Henry Luce Foundation known to have links to America’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
As per SASAC’s Hindutva Harassment Field Manual, “Hinduphobia” is a “false notion that Hindus have faced systematic oppression throughout history.” The manual claims Hinduphobia, unlike anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, has not faced horrific massacres like the Nazi led Jew holocaust and death of civilians in the Middle East. The manual also objects to Hindus de-colonising from the British and Islam terming it “not progressive” enough and “seeks to narrow diversity and enact social exclusions.”
SASAC has been at the forefront of many anti-Hindu legislations and conferences in the US. They released a statement in support of the Dismantling Global Hindutva conference in 2021. The statement reads, “Hinduphobia, a term deployed by Hindutva forces in the West to silence critiques of casteism, Islamophobia, sexism, anti-Semitism, racism, and other forms of supremacist ideologies at the heart of Hindutva. As Hindu groups themselves have argued, attempts to invoke “Hinduphobia” are an attempt to misappropriate the Hindu faith for the political purpose of furthering Hindutva as a global supremacist movement.” The Hindu group mentioned is the George Soros Open Society Foundation linked to Hindus for Human Rights (H4HR). Hindus push back to the bigoted and hateful conference was termed as “organized harassment, and despicable assault on academic freedom.” The group repeated the same in 2024 when Democratic Representative Shri Thanedar introduced a legislation in the Congress condemn to Hinduphobia and anti-Hindu bigotry.
Some members of SASAC, Manan Ahmed, Ananya Chakravarti, Rohit Chopra, Dheepa Sundaram, Audrey Truschke and a Lutheran theologian Ken Chitwood, editor of ReligionLink, produced “Reporting Guide on Hindu Nationalism“. The guide starts with the definition of Hindu nationalism / Hindutva as “a far-right political ideology of Hindu supremacy.” It further says that as per Hindu nationalism “Indian national identity and culture as inseparable from Hinduism.” The report mentions multiple times that “critics” and “many observers” consider India to be no longer a democracy, partly-free and an electoral autocracy. The critics and observers are organisations funded by America’s USAID, known for their regime operations. SASAC also raise objections to the abrogation of Article 35A in Kashmir. They write, “The BJP also revoked Article 35A, a clause that protected the rights of Kashmiris as permanent residents, opening the door to non-Kashmiris to grab land in the region, vote and contest in elections, and seek state employment at the expense of largely Muslim Kashmiris.”
The authors deliberately lie in the report.
- Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA): The report terms CAA as anti-Muslim and says, “Whereas the CAA ensures Hindus a quick path back to being Indian citizens, Indian Muslims would remain stateless and, according to experts, be vulnerable to state action.”
- 2020 Delhi Riots: The report terms Delhi 2020 riots as anti-Muslim and blames BJP politician Kapil Mishra for the violence. Delhi police have charged Pinjra Tod, AAZMI, SIO, SFI, Sharjeel Imam, Umar Khalid and others, calling it a pre-planned and deep-rooted conspiracy.
- History: The report calls Indian history “mythologized” and the genocide of Hindus by Islamic invaders an “invention of the holocaust of Hindus” that seeks to erase “, erasing the narratives of Muslim dynasties and Dalits from Indian textbooks” and objects to the Central Vista project that aims to transform Delhi.
In “Hindutva’s threat to academic freedom” SASAC, calls for the recognition of Hindutva as a political hate ideology that is distinct from Hinduism. She argues that Hindutva has “been instrumental in transforming India’s once pluralistic and secular democracy into an ethnonationalist state defined by Hindu supremacy and human rights violations.” The authors unwittingly agree that they want to gate-keep India’s history, preventing Hindus from seeking out India’s true history. “Such hate seeks to undermine our genuine, nuanced research, which presents a vision of South Asian history, religions and cultures as multifaceted and pluralistic. Our scholarship undercuts Hindutva’s project to remake India and Indian history.”
SASAC has supported and continues to support caste discrimination laws in the US even though there are ZERO instances of caste discrimination. They use a flawed and unscientific caste survey by Equality Labs led by a Christian woman of Indian origin to claim that “Dalits report alarmingly high rates of caste-based discrimination in educational settings.” American Hindu groups have debunked the propaganda report by Equality Labs.
SASAC’s facebook profile: https://www.facebook.com/southasiascholaractivistcollective/
STOP HINDU HATE ADVOCACY NETWORK 