Denying Hinduphobia
South Asia Group Tries To Cancel Hindu Voices In Canada
- authored by Rishabh Sarswat
CoHNA, in partnership with the SPVM Hate Crimes Unit, is hosting a session on how Hindus can identify, report and address hate crimes. But in what has become a textbook illustration of Hinduphobia, our upcoming Suraksha event for Hindus in Montreal, was targeted by an organization called the South Asian Women’s Community Centre (SAWCC/CCFSA) using familiar tropes of denial, victim shaming and allegations of dual loyalty!
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Background
CoHNA’s Suraksha program is a series of civic education sessions that are being held across Canada in partnership with local law enforcement. Past sessions, organised in Toronto and Calgary, have been very well received, and much appreciated for educating and giving confidence to a community that often self-censors in the face of hate. Montreal’s civic spaces regularly host sessions on antisemitism, Islamophobia, and immigrant rights. But when Hindus ask for the same opportunity, they are demonized with smears and shadowy innuendo.
Civic education is particularly critical as there has been an unprecedented rise of Hinduphobia in Canada in recent years. Hate speech, targeting Hindus online, for instance, has spiked dramatically. The Institute for Strategic Dialogue reported a 1,350% surge in anti-South Asian slurs on X between 2023 and 2024. The NCRI Rutgers study on anti-Hindu disinformation warned that genocidal memes and slurs are being seeded by extremist networks, noting that such online rhetoric often precedes real-world violence.
This online hate parallels a rise in real-world hate crimes. Statistics Canada has reported a dramatic rise in hate crimes targeting South Asians, a demographic that is majority Hindu. Similarly, in the US, California’s Civil Rights Department reported in 2024, that anti-Hindu incidents were the second-most reported form of religious-based hate, accounting for over 23% of all religious cases. These data points collectively illustrate that Hinduphobia is a measurable and growing threat, manifesting in both the digital and physical worlds.
In such an environment, it is unfortunate that a group like SAWCC which claims to advocate for South Asian women is driving a smear campaign against CoHNA to cancel the Suraksha event in Montreal.
SAWCC’s letter (sent to the City of Montreal, the Centre Culturel et Communautaire Sanaaq, and the Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal-Montreal Police Service) denies the very existence of hate against Hinduism, smears Hindu advocacy as “foreign interference”, equates Hindu advocacy with Hindu “supremacy,” and demands exclusion of the Hindus from civic spaces. We categorically reject all of these claims. These claims themselves are evidence of the very Hinduphobia that we seek to highlight.
Denying and Justifying Hate
Incredibly, SAWCC insists that while South Asians may face racism, this cannot be “related to their possible religious affiliation as Hindus” – erasing the very real, documented experiences of Canadian Hindus. This statement deliberately ignores the repeated vandalisation attacks on multiple Hindu temples across Canada . Hindu devotees have been attacked inside temple premises. There have been calls for Hindus (vs South Asians) to “leave Canada.” Hindu students have been bullied for wearing bindis and mocked for using Sanskrit terms. Devotees walking in the sacred Rath Yatra procession have been harassed and violated.
These are not generic acts of racism. At least some of these attacks on Hindus have been carried out by people of similar racial backgrounds, so it is disingenuous to cover up their religious bigotry as racism.
SAWCC flatly declares that Hinduphobia “doesn’t exist in Montreal.” This is a stark dismissal of the lived experiences of Hindus in the city and across Canada. In August 2024, a panel discussion, originally planned for Concordia University, platformed individuals with a history of bigotry; in September 2023, academics from Montreal-based universities signed a letter demonizing the Hindu festival of Rath Yatra as a “symbol of mass violence”; and in November 2022, researchers at the University of Quebec in Montreal) objected to former Member of Parliament Chandra Arya raising the Hindu saffron flag with the sacred Aum symbol, on Parliament Hill, at the inauguration of Hindu Heritage Month.;
SAWCC suggests that Hindus need not worry about rising Hinduphobia because “laws, policies and procedures” already exist to address hate crimes. Those same legal and institutional frameworks also protect against antisemitism and Islamophobia. Yet, Jewish and Muslim community organisations often work closely with law enforcement to educate and educate their members with customized events. Hindus have the same rights.
Montreal’s libraries and civic spaces have long hosted countless sessions on antisemitism, Islamophobia, legal rights, and anti-racism. For example, Bibliothèque Maisonneuve has done legal workshops on citizens’ rights, Bibliothèque Mercier organized SPVM safety sessions, and the Jewish Public Library routinely does antisemitism awareness programs. Using the cover of South Asia, SAWCC is singling out Hindus and seeking to exclude them from civic spaces.
Victim Blaming
Asserting that “we have never encountered or experienced Hinduphobia,” SAWCC spreads falsehoods -alleging Hindu organizations are “sowing seeds of distrust and violence.” This is a classic case of victim-blaming.
Claiming that Hinduphobia does not exist because SAWCC has “never encountered it” is profoundly irresponsible and troubling. By this logic, any form of racism, misogyny, antisemitism or even crime may be dismissed since the organization can chose to ignore or silence its victims.
In a display of double standards, SAWCC insisting its own outreach is evidence of “harmony”, while Hindus raising concerns are disruptive. This inversion of accountability is deeply troubling. It gaslights marginalized groups into silence by suggesting that speaking about their pain is itself the problem.
SAWCC goes further. It argues that what CoHNA and others label as Hinduphobia is nothing more than a defense of “Hindutva.” This fits right into the standard Crying Hindutva playbook. The label of “Hindutva” is systematically weaponized to silence Hindu voices. Hindu organizations are smeared as extremist, their concerns reframed as “divisive,” and the problem of Hinduphobia denied outright. SAWCC’s statement serves not to defend pluralism but to silence Canadian Hindus.
Labels and Smears to Silence
Without offering any evidence, SAWCC accuses CoHNA of being a “front” for India and/or its political parties. This is an outright lie. These allegations of dual loyalty are a favorite ploy used to silence Hindus who seek to speak up. CoHNA is a registered nonprofit in Canada and the US, and our civic education program is about understanding local law enforcement and Canadian laws. We are an entirely independent organization and we challenge SAWCC or any organization, anywhere to provide even a scintilla of actual evidence of CoHNA’s ‘affiliation’ alleged by SAWCC.
Such assertions also try to suppress the diversity of the Canadian Hindu community. We come from diverse backgrounds including the Caribbean, Mauritius, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. Many of us are born and brought up in Canada yet we are asked to continually prove our loyalty? Surely, if their knowledge is ‘certain’, it must be an easy task to provide evidence of ‘affiliation’?
Problematic and Bigoted Track Record
SAWCC and its key leaders have repeatedly aligned with groups that target Hindu community initiatives. For instance, Chew co-signed the letter, mentioned earlier, that labeled the sacred Hindu festival of Rath Yatra a “symbol of hate.” In another open letter, Chew and other SAWCC representatives Mela Sarkar, Ghazala Munawar, and Mangaie Saravanabavan accused Ex-MP Chandra Arya of “inciting hate,” because he objected to the derogatory depiction of the Hindu goddess Kālī.
This is not the first time we are being attacked. SAWCC president Vrinda Narain and senior representative Dolores Chew were signatories to a letter, authored by the Centre for Studies and Research on South Asia (CERAS), a group known for its Hinduphobia, which explicitly called for a ban on CoHNA.
CERAS organized an event at Concordia University that labeled all Canadian Hindus as “Hindutva fascists” and at a time when Hindus in Bangladesh were being targeted by a new Islamist regime. Hindu students from Concordia and community members were barred from attending and student voices were gagged. One Hindu student received physical injury to his hand.
Prof. Narain and Prof. Sarkar may have deliberately overlooked the “Religious Phobia Symposium” held at their own institution—McGill University. That symposium directly addressed Hinduphobia, along with other forms of hate based on religion. It also engaged with Dr. Indu Viswanathan’s landmark paper on the “endogenous cycle of Hinduphobia.” It is unfortunate that rather than engaging with diverse scholarship, the professors misuse their privilege, institutional access, and academic credentials to curtail free speech.
Hindu Canadians deserve Equal Treatment and Dignity
Montreal prides itself on diversity. But diversity without Hindus is discrimination. Denying Hindus the right to name Hinduphobia would betray that legacy.
