Hinduphobia is often not highlighted as much as it should be but cases after cases come up signaling that it is more than alive.
A Hindu Indian business owner was targeted with hateful graffiti on an Indianapolis business center in the case of severe Hinduphobia.
The scrawled messages targeted the Hindu God Shiva, Om and included hateful comments like the “Hindu traitors”, “Satanists live here”.
The news website, WTHR.com which covered this hate crime reported that spray paint was used, there was grease spread on the building and that a fire was set outside a back door. The report called it something “more than vandalism” and described it as a hate crime which was “aimed at business owner Rajesh Patnaik and his wife.”
Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada today, said that it was shocking for the hard-working, harmonious and peaceful US Hindu community numbering about three million; who had made a lot of contributions to the nation and society; to receive such signals of hatred and anger.
Rich Van Wyk, the journalist who covered this incident also shot a small video and wrote on his Twitter account that:
“Scraping hateful messages off an Indy business is a lot easier than erasing the memories of a hate crime”
Meanwhile, at this latest incident of Hinduphobia, Rajan Zed urged leaders of various religions and denominations in central Indiana, including Roman Catholic Archbishop Charles C. Thompson, to strongly and openly condemn this hateful incident and extend their support to the affected business. There are reportedly about 50,000 Hindus in central Indiana.
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Last year, there were reports of robbery and violent encounter in a Sacramento (California) Hindu temple kitchen; and a cow’s severed complete head with a bullet to it was reportedly left at a Hindu cow sanctuary in Jackson Township in Monroe County of eastern Pennsylvania.
According to reports in 2015; 40 Hindu religious flags were burned outside a home in Queens (a New York City borough) on Thanksgiving Day; a Hindu temple was vandalized in Kitchener (Ontario) in November; sign of planned “Winston Salem Hindu Temple” in Clemmons (North Carolina) was hit with over 60 shotgun blasts in July; a Hindu temple was vandalized in Dallas (Texas) in April; two Hindu temples in Kent and Bothell (both in Seattle metropolitan area of Washington) were vandalized in February; a Hindu grandfather was roughed-up by police in Madison (Alabama) in February, resulting in partial paralysis. In 2014, there was anti-Hindu vandalism in Loudoun County (Virginia).In short, Hinduphobia is a challenge for the community but very little is being done to address it.
