WASHINGTON (Middle East Eye) – A Hindu-American community leader appointed to the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) faith-based religious council is a senior member of an organization associated with a Hindu supremacist group in India, Middle East Eye revealed.
Chandru Acharya, who was appointed by the DHS in late September to advise the US government on domestic issues, is a director of the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS-USA), a group that has repeatedly defended the policies of India’s right-wing Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The HSS says it is apolitical and says it acts as a vessel for celebrating Hindu cultural and religious values.
Acharya confirmed his association with HSS-USA to Middle East Eye but denied any affiliation between his organization and the RSS.
The organization is made up of hundreds of branches in close to 40 countries.
The 25-member faith-based security council on the DHS, which includes leaders from several faiths, was set up to provide advice to the secretary on matters “related to protecting houses of worship, preparedness and enhanced coordination with the faith community”.
Ria Chakrabarty, policy director for Hindus for Human Rights (HFHR), told MEE: “The RSS is the ultra-right wing Hindu extremist organization and the founding of the Hindutva ideology, which is a Hindu supremacist and Islamophobic ideology.”
“The HSS is the overseas arm of the RSS. We firmly oppose the inclusion of organizations like HSS in any religious freedom council.”
Scholars and activists describe the RSS, formed in 1925 in Nagpur, India, as the backbone of Hindutva or the Hindu nationalist movement in India. Its aim is to make India a Hindu Rashtra or Hindu state.
It is under the RSS that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), as well as several other organizations like the HSS and the right-wing religious organization Vishva Hindu Parishad, emerged in hundreds of branches across dozens of countries over the past four to five decades.
The organizations operate separately on an administrative level but ultimately fall under the umbrella of the RSS. Modi is a lifelong RSS member.
Several Indian Americans, including activists and scholars of South Asia, told MEE that it was “very troubling” that a member of a known group linked with and inspired by a supremacist organization that sees India’s minorities as second-class citizens would now make their way into a body purportedly looking to shape the domestic policies of the U.S. government.