Another Bay Area temple in California has been defaced — this time Vijay’s Sherawali Temple in Hayward. In the same incident in December 2023, the partitions of a Hindu temple in California’s Newark metropolis had been defaced with anti-India and pro-Khalistan graffiti with the title of Bhindranwale scrawled throughout it in massive letters. The US authorities handled this as a hate crime. The Hindu American Foundation additionally handled this as an anti-Hindu hate crime “specifically meant to traumatise temple goers and create a fear of violence”. The Government of India handled this, and fairly rightly, as an act by extremist and separatist forces in opposition to India. Interestingly, it didn’t deal with this incident as a hate crime in opposition to Hindus, although it was scrawled on a temple wall.

It was India that first introduced up religiophobia in opposition to non-Abrahamic religions on the UN Security Council (UNSC) in October 2021, when the minister of state for exterior affairs, V Muraleedharan, mentioned: “…we are witnessing how member-States are facing newer forms of religious phobias. While we have condemned anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and Christianophobia, we fail to recognise that there are more virulent forms of religious phobias emerging and taking root, including anti-Hindu, anti-Buddhist and anti-Sikh phobias.” He warned presciently that the world ignores this new type of religiophobia solely at its personal peril. And positive sufficient, in February 2023, after India left the Security Council, for the primary time, phobias in opposition to Abrahamic religions had been expressly talked about in a UNSC presidential assertion. There was no point out of non-Abrahamic religions. The division of the UN, and the world outdoors, on spiritual strains is nicely on its means.

Attacks in opposition to non-Abrahamic religions, together with assaults in opposition to temples and gurudwaras and forcible conversion of Hindu minorities, are more and more taking part in out, particularly in our neighbourhood. However, worryingly, these have exponentially elevated within the West, particularly within the US, Canada, Australia and elsewhere supported by these whipping up separatist agendas in opposition to India. The Prime Minister and the exterior affairs minister have taken these up with their counterparts. While the US is witnessing the rise of anti-Semitic and Islamaphobic forces in American faculty campuses (thanks additionally to the current Israel-Hamas battle), they ignore the anti-Hindu and anti-Sikh propaganda on campuses, which, paradoxically, targets Indian-American children. Indian college students are labelled as racists and casteists and subjected to undue stress, whereas American campuses permit blatantly anti-Hindu actions.

We not too long ago witnessed outrage by US senators and American public figures to the unwillingness of the presidents of three premier universities to sentence anti-Semitism. The US administration additionally expressed critical concern. But the identical US administration, which was fast to sentence anti-Semitism, has maintained a stoic silence on the open menace within the media issued from American soil by American-Canadian Khalistani extremist Gurupatwant Singh Pannun in opposition to Hindus, temples, Air India flights, Indian Parliament and absolutely anything in India he can consider. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom is silent on anti-Hindu and anti-Sikh hate crimes. The battle in opposition to religiophobia can’t be selective.

Canada has remained a silent spectator within the face of assaults on temples and on Indian diplomatic premises on its soil, largely by Khalistani radicals and terrorists, citing freedom of expression. But when a 55-foot idol of Hanuman was put up in Canada’s Brampton, there have been vehement protests that Hinduism was being imposed on Christian-majority Canada. However, the combo in Canada is stronger since three forces have come collectively — terrorism, Hinduphobia and separatism. Canada has condoned Hinduphobia (which is affecting its personal Hindu minority residents) and ignored the Khalistanis’ separatist agenda in India.

In Tamil, we’ve got a proverb: One’s dangerous actions will burn oneself. True sufficient, Khalistani Hardeep Singh Nijjar is killed on their soil however the Canadian authorities are fast to allege that India killed him. However, in the identical breath, they are saying that open threats by their residents to kill Indians on Indian soil are “not actionable”. The designation of two Canada-based members of the fear outfit Babbar Khalsa International — Lakhbir Landa and Goldy Brar, self-confessed killers of singer Sidhu Moose Wala, as “terrorists” by India is simply the newest in India’s try and fight this menace from Canada through the years.

Fortunately, some are waking as much as the hazard. The US state of Georgia turned the primary US state to acknowledge the rise of Hinduphobia. The Georgia House of Representatives handed a decision in March 2023 condemning Hinduphobia and anti-Hindu bigotry. More and extra Americans have gotten conscious that the true goal of such hate crimes is their residents. But not sufficient is being carried out. It shouldn’t require an Israel-Hamas warfare to wake Americans as much as religiophobia of their society.

As the primary nation to flag the problem within the UN, it turns into much more vital for India to be lively in calling out such assaults on non-Abrahamic religions. More importantly, religiophobia, like Islamophobia, shouldn’t be allowed for use to condone terror. India stopped such makes an attempt within the UN by Islamic nations led by Pakistan when the UN Global Counterterrorism technique was being finalised.

While it’s not India’s case to intrude within the train of freedom of faith in different nations, it can not maintain quiet when religiophobia in opposition to India is inspired overseas. Being a pluralistic nation mustn’t cease us from being vocal about hate crimes in opposition to non-Abrahamic religions. Nor ought to India really feel defensive about countering such hate. On the opposite, the extra silent India is, the extra encouragement these forces obtain to query our multi-religious and multi-ethnic cloth.

TS Tirumurti is a former Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations. The views expressed are private