Padma Lakshmi asks fellow Hindus to ignore anti-Muslim fear-mongering
A parade of Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh members. The Sangh reportedly controls the Bharatiya Janata Party, which rules India with Narendra Modi as Prime Minister, as well as numerous organizations from students to army veterans groups..
May 2, 2022
In recent weeks, while Indians face rising inflation and high unemployment, the focus of some leaders of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) appears to be on celebrating Hindu religious festivals in any way they please; they view any restraint as an act of anti-Hindu aggression.
Last month, during celebrations of the Hindu festival Hanuman Jayanti, Hindu-Muslim clashes broke out in Delhi, Uttarakhand, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. Earlier, during the Hindu festival of Ram Navami, there were clashes in Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Jharkhand, West Bengal and three other states.
The clashes reportedly erupted after groups, led by Hindu extremists and including men armed with guns and swords, marched through Muslim areas. During the violence, one person died and dozens of homes, shops and other businesses, mostly of Muslims, were set on fire or destroyed. Also, attempts were made to install saffron flags, a Hindu symbol, in the mosques.
“Sickening to see the violence against Muslims celebrated in India,” tweeted Padma Lakshmi, chef, author and TV host based in New York, following news reports of the Hindu-Muslim clashes. “The widespread anti-Muslim rhetoric preys on fear and poisons people. This propaganda is dangerous and nefarious because when you consider someone less than it's much easier to participate in their oppression…True spirituality doesn't include any room for sowing hatred of any kind.”
Padma Parvati Lakshmi, 51-years-old, is the creator, host, and executive producer of the Hulu TV series Taste the Nation. She also serves as a host and executive producer of Bravo’s series Top Chef.
She began her career as a fashion model and actress working in Europe and the United States. She established herself as a food expert early in her career hosting Padma’s Passport, where she cooked diverse cuisine from around the world, and Planet Food, a documentary series, both on the Food Network in the U.S. and worldwide on the Discovery Channel. Lakshmi’s books include Easy Exotic, The Encyclopedia of Spices & Herbs and her memoir The New York Times best-selling Love, Loss and What We Ate. In 2021, her children’s picture book Tomatoes for Neela, a young girl of Indian descent, was published.
Born in Chennai, India, into a Hindu family, Lakshmi grew up in the United States. She graduated from Clark University, near Boston, with a Bachelor’s Degree in Theatre Arts and American Literature. She serves as an Artist Ambassador for immigrants’ rights and women’s rights for the American Civil Liberties Union.
Following her tweets about the violence against Muslims, Lakshmi was attacked by an army of trolls, with many tweets asking how much she was paid for the posts. The BJP, and other organizations reportedly run by the secretive, hierarchical, militant Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), uses volunteers and paid employees, in India and abroad, to co-ordinate and execute centralised directives to “constantly peddle hate tweets and conspiracy theories and slander journalists” and critics, according to a book written by Swati Chakravarti, a former troll for the BJP.
But other Indians, including in the U.S., supported Lakshmi. “Thank you Padma! It’s been really disheartening seeing the silence from high profile members of the (Indian) diaspora,” tweeted Sumbelina DeTejas.
In a tweet, Sree Sreenivasan, a visiting professor of journalism at Stony Brook University, New York, also thanked Lakshmi, “for being so clear on this topic. Hindutva (Hindu extremism) is doing serious damage to India” He encouraged “everyone to follow @Hindus4HR and other groups doing good work.” In July, Sreenivasan will start running the CronkitePro, a new program at the Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University, providing lifelong learning for professionals around the globe.
Modi’s BJP “is accused of overseeing a religiously divisive agenda and emboldening hostility towards India’s 200 (million) Muslims, relegating them to second-class citizens,” the British newspaper The Guardian, noted in a report on last month’s communal clashes. “Meanwhile, Hindu vigilante groups such as VHP have been allowed to operate freely and have increasingly begun to take the law into their own hands,” the report continued. The VHP is the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, reportedly an arm of the secretive, hierarchical, militant Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS); the RSS is also said to control the BJP.
Typically, Hindu Muslim clashes occur before the elections. Most of them start with attacks on Muslims or their mosques. If the Muslims react, it often leads to a spiral of violent Hindu-Muslim clashes. Then, Hindu extremist political leaders vigorously campaign that all Hindus must vote for them since they are the only ones protecting the Hindus from the Muslims.
In December last year, Hindu extremist monks took an oath to turn India into a Hindu nation, if needed by killing Muslims. This oath was taken at a gathering in Haridwar, Jharrkhand state, in December, two months prior to the state elections in UP as well as in neighboring Jharkhand. Those who took the oath included some influential monks with close ties to the BJP as well as BJP members, according to news reports.
Muslims make up about 14% of India’s population, while the Hindus are about 80%. Yet, as numerous media reports have pointed out, Hindu extremist groups and their supporters are pursuing a well-organized campaign on social media, news media and on the streets with the battle cry “Hindu khatre main hain” (Hindus are under threat)..
“Fellow Hindus, don't succumb to this fear-mongering,” tweeted Lakshmi. “There is no threat to Hinduism in India or anywhere else. People of all faiths should be able to live peacefully together in this ancient, vast land.”
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