About us

Who we are

We are a diverse group of people living and working in the United States. We formed CSFH in 2002, in the aftermath of the pogrom in Gujarat. We are primarily concerned with the following developments:

1. The rapid erosion of state tolerance and secularism, and the potential descent into majoritarian fascism in India, and
2. The need to prevent material and ideological support for hate and violence in India from outside India, especially in the USA

Among us are industry professionals, teachers, scientists and students, and our members are from various faiths, as well as agnostics and atheists. We contribute personal time and money to the campaign and do not accept any institutional funding. We share a vision of an India without hatred, where people are not persecuted for their faith or political beliefs, and where state power remains accountable to secular democratic values enshrined in the constitution.

Our Focus: (Course of action)

We are deeply concerned about threats to pluralism and tolerance in Indian society. Foremost among these threats, and thus our primary focus, is Hindutva (thmovement of Hindu ultra-nationalism). Hindutva is based on Hindu supremacist ideas, demonization of non-Hindus as "foreigners" in India, and attempts to construct India as a Hindu nation. Proponents of Hindutva have a demonstrated track record of deploying state power to carry out what amounts to ethnic cleansing and genocide, and of using state power to threaten the entire country's non-Hindu minorities with genocide. Hindutva is a majoritarian political ideology and as such appeals to a wider range of the Indian population than can be described as "religious extremists." However, we do not view Hindutva as operating in an ideological vacuum. Instead, we view Hindutva as operating in competition with and feeding off other exclusionary and supremacist ideologies (such as political Islam and Christian fundamentalism) that also have potential for hate and violence in India.

We recognize Hindutva to be part of the global growth of exclusionary religious and cultural movements, a growth that is in part fueled by the deeply inequitable outcomes of neo-liberal globalization, caste and patriarchal oppression, and the complex and new politics of identity among Indians in various quarters of the world.

The focus of our collective is on identifying and challenging the material and ideological ties between the growth of Hindutva as a political movement in India and its support bases in the United States. We seek to staunch the flow of funds from unsuspecting donors that fuel the RSS's violent activities in India, as well as the efforts by Sangh Parivar operatives to legitimate the Hindutva agenda by expanding their base among unsuspecting students in U.S. colleges.

CSFH stands in absolute solidarity with all groups, South Asian and non-South Asian, that fight hatred. Our goal is to have a substantial impact on the efforts to defend democracy and pluralism in India by exposing to public scrutiny the activities of the Sangh Parivar in the U.S.