How Was 2022 for Canadian Hindus? — Part 2
Continued from Part 1
In this part, we’ll look into the other two actors in perpetuating Hinduphobia in Canada in 2022.
4. Schools
It will not be wrong that planting Hinduphobic ideas in the West starts from the very young age when school kids are exposed to the toxic, biased and hateful material and conversations about Hindus. This is where the self-loathing of Hindu kids in the West begins. While incidents like the California Textbook Case was a major event where the community came together, it isn’t the only instance. Day in and day out, the school textbooks, supplementary material, teachers’ presentations and school assignments are full of such Hinduphobic content.
Unfortunately, the community stays busy building economic prowess and the only attention they seem to be paying to the kids is how they do in Science and Math, while Social Studies does its job silently getting into the minds of their kids and polluting them with Hinduphobic ideas, disarming them from defending their Dharma unlike the kids from other religions.
Popular Book Company Throws “Caste Bomb” on Hindu Children
Popular Book Company, a Singapore based publishing company, that sells books in Canada as well, in their Grade 4 and 5 book, “Complete Canadian Curriculum”, which includes Math, Science, Social Studies and English, provided a grave and hateful misrepresentation of Hindu faith. The book was is not a part of textbooks, but it is used by students across Canada as a supplement exercise.
One of the exercises showed a picture of a dark-skinned saree-clad woman, whom they called “Medieval Indian Woman” (whatever that meant) saying,
“I belong to the Sudra caste. My family is very poor. I do not receive any education. I am a servant in a priest’s house. I prepare the meals, take care of the kids, and clean the house. My parents found me a husband in the same caste. My work is harder now because I also have to take care of my husband, my children, and my house. I don’t have any rights and I’m not allowed to go anywhere or do anything I like. I can never move up to a higher caste.”
Just below that, they showed, what they called “Today’s Women” with a picture of a white and a black girl saying,
“We were friends in the university. After graduation, we chose the fields we’d like to work in and now we have our own careers. We married the men we love. We share with our husbands the responsibilities of taking care of our kids and household chores. We work hard and we now enjoy a better quality of life. We can afford going to a family trip every year. We like having gatherings and going to the movies together when we have spare time.”
So, the authors not only came up with this weird name “Medieval Indian Woman” — like that is a real name — to describe a Hindu woman, but also decided that it makes sense to compare two women from different era and different geographies.
While I don’t think women should be subject to comparison like this, but if at all one wants to do it, it should have at least same geography-different times or different geographies-same time.
Alberta High School Cries “Hindu Extremist” for a Political Assassination
In April 2022, a Social Studies teacher in a Calgary High School, in one of the presentations on “Legacies of Historical Globalization”, while discussing the partition aftermath, in one of the bullet points, writes, “In 1948, Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu extremist who believed that Gandhi has weakened India.”.
On the next slide of the same presentation, the teacher also writes, “Pakistan wanted residents of Kashmir to vote on whether to join India or Pakistan, but India claimed that Kashmir had already decided to remain part of India.” — positioning India as an aggressor and ignoring the seven exoduses of Kashmiri Hindus from Kashmir in the last couple of centuries, with three of them post-1947 (India’s independence) and the last one being as recent as 1990.
The teacher also asserts that “Pakistan wanted residents of Kashmir to vote”, but not mentioning the three conditions for the plebiscite that the United Nations Resolution 47 states with the first condition being for Pakistan’s administration to withdraw its forces from the occupied region (known as Pakistan Occupied Kashmir today), something which was never done.
Aylesbury Public School Promotes Hinduphobic Khalistan Narrative Through School Assignments
Around October 4, 2022, a substitute teacher at the Aylesbury Public School in Brampton, provided an assignment for Grade 7 students regarding Khalistan.
The assignment was titled “Khalistan Referendum Response”. The assignment provided the following links for students to refer, which included a Pakistani newspaper
The assignment had the following questions, among others:
- Should the Canadian government have attempted to halt the “Khalistan Referendum” political protest in Brampton? Why or why not?
- Does the Khalistani vote qualify as hate speech?
- Was India’s response to the protest a fair reaction? Why or why not?
5. Media Attacks on Hindu Community
It was quite a shock for me to find out the extent of hostility towards the Hindu community that the Canadian mainstream media engages in. I always knew it was there since the Canadian mainstream media is even more ideologically charged and toxic than the US mainstream media but the amount of vitriol wasn’t expected to be this much. The most common Hinduphobic tropes discovered in the media were genocide denial, dual loyalty allegations, stoking anti-immigrant sentiments against Hindus by accusing them of bringing foreign issues into domestic politics, and refusal to accept the truth of Swastika.
Toronto Star Distorts “The Kashmir Files”, A Movie About Kashmiri Hindu Genocide, as Movie That Supports Muslim Genocide
On April 1, 2022, Toronto Star, a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper, published an opinion piece by Shree Paradkar, a Toronto-based columnist, titled, “Anti-Muslim film ‘The Kashmir Files’ a dangerous step in India’s descent into hate”.
The article, without any evidence, declared that the movie is “based on distortion of true events”. The article also labeled the movie, “a Goebbels-worthy piece of malevolent filmmaking.”, connecting it to the Nazi propaganda, without any evidence.
The article, towards the end, categorically denied, the Kashmiri Hindu genocide and instead dog whistled about the “impending genocide” (which, for some reason, has never come ever since its dogwhistling started in 2014) of Muslims, as it says,
“It insists the atrocities against Kashmiri Hindus amount to genocide. In reality it’s the movie itself that is priming the country to support genocide, against Muslims.”
CBC Denies Hinduphobia, Calling it “Anti-White Racism”
On April 7, 2022, CBC, a Canadian public broadcaster and a federal Crown corporation that receives funding from the government, produced a hit job, titled, “Hate speech and death threats: Canadian academics harassed after criticizing Hindu nationalism in India”.
The article described Hindutva (Hinduness or being Hindu) as “the right-wing political ideology” and “a modern political ideology that advocates for Hindu supremacy and seeks to transform India, a secular democracy, into an ethno-religious country”.
The article also claimed that the Indian diaspora exported “fascism and Nazism” and that, “Canadian Hindu extremist groups often create seemingly benign cultural organizations and use them to promote far right views.” — again, with no examples, but making every non-Hindu Canadian suspicious of Hindu cultural organizations.
The article, through Ingrid Therwath, a Franco-Indian journalist, also alleged that, “They are factually hate groups,” (they being the Canadian Hindu cultural organizations) but doesn’t produce any facts.
The article also described the “Dismantling Global Hindutva” conference of 2021 as “an online conference on contemporary Indian politics”, when it cleared advocated for annihilation of Hindu faith.
The article also denies Hinduphobia on two occasions 1) Alleging that anything critical of Hinduism is Hinduphobia (under the pretext of Gopala Krishna, the director of Dwarapalakas, believing that); and 2) Conflating Hinduphobia with “anti-white racism” after saying that Hindus make up more than 80% of the population (not mentioning that Hindus don’t make up for even 2% of Canada’s population).
CBC Throws “Caste Bomb” With a Hit Job Article
On May 16, 2022, CBC, a Canadian public broadcaster and a federal Crown corporation that receives funding from the government, published an article titled, “How prejudice rooted in an ancient social system has migrated from India to Canada” which talked about how the “caste” system manifests in Canada.
The article claimed that “The Hindu caste system divides people into four sub-communities based on ancestry — Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras — and the caste of a person can often be identified by their last name. The four main castes are further divided into 3,000 castes and 25,000 sub-castes.” — thereby misrepresenting the Hindu society’s social structure and alleging, a well debunked lie, that last name of the person is indicative of the “caste” of the person.
The article also claimed that “The caste tradition transcends religion.”, parroting a Hinduphobic narrative that Hindu faith is responsible for the social inequalities present in other religions.
The article also includes comments from Chinnaiah Jangam, an associate professor in the department of history at Carleton University, Meera Estrada, the Toronto co-host of the pop culture show kultur’D on Global News radio, and Sailaja Krishnamurti, associate professor of religious studies and women and gender studies at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax. Sailaja Krishnamurti also participated in the 2021 “Dismantling Global Hindutva” conference that openly asked for destroying the Hindu faith itself.
The Pointer Caricatures Entire Hindu Community in Canada as Islamophobe
On December 16, 2022, Jessica Durling, a reporter for The Pointer (owned by The Pointer Group Incorporated, with a sole Director, San Grewal, the founder of The Pointer), writes an article titled, “’Us Canadians are not a threat to you’: Are old world conflicts behind the ugly outcry against a new Mosque proposal in Brampton?”
The article is Hinduphobic on multiple counts:
1. Racial profiling of delegates (identifying only Hindus, and also specifically the ones with last name “Patel”)
2. Allegation of dual loyalty (painting Canadian Hindus as “right-wing” and sympathizers of the nationalism in India)
3. Allegation of “organized conspiracy”
4. Squarely blaming “Hindus only” for the fringe animosities between the communities
5. Anti-immigration conspiracy (calling local issues as imports from foreign country by immigrants)
The article has basically painted a target on Canadian Hindus and ensuring that an average Canadian, especially a Canadian Muslim, will be hostile to any proud Canadian Hindu (unless of course, Hindus in Canada actively erase their identity markers).
Hindu Community Response:
It is certainly not the case that while the above incidents happened, the community was sleeping. It was great to see the community leaders and prominent personalities reaching out to concerned authorities and working with them to get the corrective actions taken. Certain entities though, like temples, do need to speak up more instead of holding back.
The current approach is more reactive (putting out fires) than proactive. There is a handful of political support but not belonging to any one party. The efforts to get a more favorable political discourse is great as Hindus are finally realizing the value of their vote, especially in a thinly populated country like Canada. The aim should be to root out the “honored and humbled” syndrome and hold the lawmakers accountable.
But lawmakers isn’t the only avenue to make the change. The community needs to engage also with law enforcement, school boards and corporates to create more breathing space for the Hindu community. I am putting Universities and Media towards the end because, unfortunately, they are the MOST IDEOLOGICALLY CHARGED entities in the Canadian society and highly resistant to make any changes based on facts.
What to ask in 2023?
The Hindu community has just started the push back against the Hinduphobic agenda unlike other communities that started way back in 20th century. It is an uphill task but certainly not impossible.
We are dealing with more basic issues and it would be the most pertinent to focus our efforts in terms of importance+urgency+ROI.
Some thoughts:
- Formal recognition of Hinduphobia in policies, by-laws etc. at municipality, city, provincial level at least
- Categorization of incidents under “hate crimes”
- Encouraging the community, especially temples, to ensure formal reporting of the incidents
- Understanding by Hindu organizations that talking about Hinduphobia or Swastika is NOT “political”
What can the Hindu Community in India Do?
The biggest noise about Hinduphobia in the West needs to come from India, in addition to whatever necessary the diaspora needs to do.
Work done by Jewish organizations like Hillel, Israel on Campus Coalition and Canary Mission is strongly reciprocated by the Israeli government that takes suitable action on individuals and organizations engaging in antisemitism.
With respect to Hinduphobia, it becomes important that:
- Hinduphobic incidents in the West are taken cognizance of
- Indian media continues to write about the Hinduphobia incidents occurring in the West — not just English media but also the vernacular media
- Indian think tanks and government agencies analyze these incidents and publish whitepapers (remember, for Leicester violence in United Kingdom, besides Henry Jackson Society, it was also the NCRI (Network Contagion Research Institute) that published the report even though it is based in US). Western institutions keep publishing such analysis and papers on the events happening in India. Not just that India needs to do it more now, but these reports need to be one of the factors taken into consideration during the engagements with the concerned country.
- Not just the central government but even state governments (at least the ones who don’t hate Hindus) should talk about such incidents and even engage with their counterparts in other countries where such incidents happen. Remember the city councils in the US that passed resolutions around CAA?
- More social media conversations and awareness about such incidents
Let me know your thoughts in the comments section.
References:
https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/hindu-community-in-canada-concerned-as-two-more-temple-break-ins-reported-101644746462835.html
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/hindu-temples-peel-break-in-1.6346570
https://twitter.com/CoHNAOfficial/status/1491628907790942210
https://www.facebook.com/hinduheritagecentremississauga/posts/pfbid032pjQ1a2PEAGnrQS9F1zH9Mu2UJwAyR3ibzG3bnCFGKEtRRj4sNxrnkRR2eJE48THl
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/gandhi-statue-defaced-richmond-hill-1.6519873
https://globalnews.ca/news/8988849/vishnu-temple-richmond-hill-vandalism-york-regional-police/
https://twitter.com/DebashishHiTs/status/1570417190649864193
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/hindu-temple-toronto-khalistan-graffiti-anti-india-1.6584478
https://twitter.com/LeenaManimekali/status/1543200394477805568
https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/what-is-kali-movie-poster-controversy-outrage-against-leena-manimekalai-for-maa-kaali-smoking-poster-494896
https://torontosun.com/news/local-news/warmington-rowdy-diwali-celebration-in-mississauga-under-scrutiny
https://ca.style.yahoo.com/environment-canada-diwali-air-alert-fireworks-racism-225723027.html
https://www.cp24.com/news/environment-canada-removes-reference-to-diwali-in-gta-air-quality-statement-1.6121909
https://twitter.com/DeepakAnandMPP/status/1587458551118798848
https://www.thestar.com/politics/2022/09/30/ontario-township-to-rename-swastika-trail-after-years-of-controversy-over-street.html
https://twitter.com/justiceforallcn/status/1582540367261761536
https://twitter.com/TazeenHasan/status/1585500548153081856
https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/sikh-secessionist-referendum-continues-in-canada-871731672.html
https://hindutimescanada.ca/peel-school-removes-politically-sensitive-assignment-given-to-grade-7-after-hindu-group-registers-complaint/
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/2022/04/01/anti-muslim-film-the-kashmir-files-a-dangerous-step-in-indias-descent-into-hate.html
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/academics-harassed-criticism-india-politics-1.6402486
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/caste-india-canada-students-1.6450484
https://thepointer.com/article/2022-12-16/us-canadians-are-not-a-threat-to-you-are-old-world-conflicts-behind-the-ugly-outcry-against-a-new-mosque-proposal-in-brampton
