HINDUS IN SOUTH ASIA AND THE DIASPORA: A Survey of Human Rights 2009 HINDU AMERICAN FOUNDATION Hindus in South Asia and the Diaspora: A Survey of Human Rights 2009 www.HAFsite.org March 21, 2010 “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights” (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948, Article 1) “Religious persecution may shield itself under the guise of a mistaken and over-zealous piety” (Edmund Burke, February 17, 1788) Endorsements of the Hindu American Foundation's 5th Annual Report “Hindus in South Asia and the Diaspora: A Survey of Human Rights 2008” "Where violations prevail, a constant disregard for basic human rights often leaves the oppressed and persecuted to suffer in silence. The Hindu American Foundation’s tireless advocacy to promote awareness and action on behalf of Hindu minorities across the globe serves as a leading example for those who value human rights and freedom. This year’s comprehensive ‘Survey of Human Rights on the Hindus in South Asia and the Diaspora’ exemplifies the Foundation’s critical role in giving the disenfranchised and abused a voice." Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) “As a staunch advocate for persecuted religious and ethnic minorities, I commend the Hindu American Foundation for its critical work monitoring, documenting and revealing human rights violations. Our work to combat the abuses detailed in this report is far from over and I will continue working with the Hindu American Foundation to protect basic human rights.” Senator Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) "I commend the Hindu American Foundation on its 2008 Hindu Human Rights Report. This report importantly documents the plight of persecuted Hindus throughout South Asia. As the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Terrorism and co-chair of the House Caucus on India and Indian Americans, I have seen how the growth of radical Islam impacts the well-being of the Hindu population, and the threat to the peace-loving people of these nations. Reports like this are important in documenting these human rights abuses." Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA) “As a longtime supporter and admirer of the Indian people and the Indian American community, I am proud to stand with them in the fight for human rights around the world. I commend the Hindu American Foundation on its hard work to champion human rights and to educate others through greater transparency and accountability.” Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) The rights of Hindus in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries have been largely underreported or totally ignored by the international community. Thus, this report is essential to shed light on the ill treatment by the Saudi and other Gulf government to hundreds of thousands of Hindus. The time has come to take a strong stand to stop the unacceptable treatment this great faith and culture. The international media and government should pay attention to this important report." Ali Al-Ahmed, Director, Institute for Gulf Affairs Hindu American Foundation Board of Directors Nikhil N. Joshi, Esq., M.B.A. Mihir Meghani, M.D. Aseem R. Shukla, M.D. Swaminathan Venkataraman Managing Director and Legal Counsel Suhag A. Shukla, Esq. Director of Development and Outreach Sheetal D. Shah Executive Council Pawan Deshpande Arvind Chandrakantan, M.D. Pooja Deopura Sachi Lamb Human Rights Coordinator Ramesh N. Rao, Ph.D. The Hindu American Foundation (HAF) is an advocacy group providing a progressive voice for over two million Hindu Americans. The Foundation interacts with and educates leaders in public policy, academia, media, and the public at large about Hinduism and global issues concernings Hindus, such as religious liberty, the portrayal of Hinduism, hate speech, hate crimes, and human rights. By promoting the Hindu and American ideals of understanding, tolerance and pluralism, HAF stands strong against hate, discrimination, defamation and terror. The Hindu American Foundation is not affiliated with any religious or political organizations or entities. HAF seeks to serve Hindu Americans across all sampradayas (Hindu religious traditions). Acknowledgements This is the sixth of our annual Hindu human rights reports, and we have approached the issue of human rights discrimination against Hindus worldwide from a slightly different perspective than in previous years. Discrimination against groups and communities in nation states is usually presented in the context of some version of state-sponsored, state-abetted or state-countenanced discrimination. While that is still the main focus of this report we also acknowledge that in many instances non-state actors create conditions in a country or region that cannot be controlled despite the best intentions of the state, as it seems in Afghanistan, where now there is merely a handful of Hindu families left to struggle in a hostile, violent, anarchic state. Also, it is difficult for us to ignore certain situations where race, ethnicity, and religion could be intertwined, and attacks against a particular group because of their ethnicity, for example, also are a partial representation of their religious identity. Thus, the case of Sri Lanka presents to us a major dilemma. Was the LTTE terrorist group, which was defeated by the Sri Lankan national army after 33 years of conflict, a Tamil group or a Hindu group, and was the Sri Lankan response, which some say included war crimes, against Hindus or Tamils or just a terrorist group? What about the 1,447 attacks between January and May 2009 against Indians and Indian students in Australia last year? i Were they race based, as seems obvious, or were they tainted of religious bigotry too? Cognizant of these complexities, this report not only presents a detailed account of events and conditions in countries/regions where attacks against Hindus are of primary concern to us -- Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Jammu and Kashmir, Fiji, and Trinidad and Tobago – but also lists another group of countries/regions where there are significant number of Hindus and which have become hotspots of racial and other forms of discrimination. We have not included Saudi Arabia in this year’s report because nothing has changed in that authoritarian state. Saudi Arabia continues to be on the U. S. Commission on International Religious Freedom’s (USCIRF) list of “countries of particular concern,” and just as the USCIRF has expressed frustration at the lack of progress in that country, HAF too bemoans the lack of any kind of religious freedom in Saudi Arabia. USCIRF has stated in its 2009 report that “Despite King Abdullah(’s) undertaking some limited reform measures and promoting inter-religious dialogue in international fora over the past year, the Saudi government persists in banning all forms of public religious expression other than that of the government’s own interpretation of one school of Sunni Islam and even interferes with private religious practice.” ii That this outrageous behavior is countenanced by the nations of the world, including the United States, underscores once again the inconsistencies in responses to human rights abuses. We have not also included Afghanistan in the main section of the report, but include it under “Hotspots.” One other change in this report is in the formatting of the data on Bangladesh. Instead of the tabular format that we have used in the past, we have reported the incidents of violence and attacks against Hindus in non-tabular narrative form, reported on a monthly basis. As in the past, numerous grass-roots organizations were involved in collecting data about the violation of human rights of Hindu minorities, and we thank them for sharing the information they have collected. Chief among these organizations are the Human Rights Congress for Bangladesh Minorities (HRCBM) – an organization that has been at the forefront of publicizing the plight of Hindus in Bangladesh; Indo-American Kashmir Forum and the Kashmir Taskforce – which have worked to bring the attention of the United States government and media to the plight of Kashmiri Hindus; Panun Kashmir – working hard to recover the lost properties and homes of Hindus forced to leave the Kashmir Valley; Hindu Rights Action Force (HINDRAF) – working for the human rights of Hindu minorities in Malaysia; Global Human Rights Defense (GHRD) – seeking to educate European media and government about the status of human rights worldwide; and Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) – which keeps track of human rights abuses in Asia. We acknowledge the work of global human rights organizations – Amnesty International, Freedom House, Human Rights Watch – in bringing to our attention the denial of human rights around the world. Also, important historical information and contemporary updates were obtained from the U.S. Department of State’s annual reports on religious freedom and human rights, and the USCIRF annual reports. Our thanks to the Hindu Vivek Kendra for the extensive media archives covering Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka that provided us efficient and easy access to media reports and other archival data. Hindus in South Asia and the Diaspora: A Survey of Human Rights – 2009 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The human rights of Hindu citizens are consistently violated in eight countries and one state in India where Hindus constitute a minority: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Fiji, the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, Malaysia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Trinidad and Tobago. This report documents the ongoing violations of human rights in these countries. HINDUS ACROSS THE DIASPORA • Hindus, with a population of over one billion, constitute the third largest religious group in the world. • Hinduism is one of the oldest surviving religions and its origins can be traced back to at least the third millennium BCE. • Hindus are pluralistic in their beliefs and accept the myriad means of worship and prayer available to human beings seeking spiritual enlightenment. • Hindus in South Asia and many of the twenty million Hindus living outside of India are subject to discrimination, terror, murder and other forms of violence, forced conversions, ethnic cleansing, temple destruction, socio-political ostracization and disenfranchisement.