A Hindu advocacy group, HinduPACT's American Hindus Against Defamation (AHAD), on Tuesday demanded the dismissal of top US official Peter Navarro from President Donald Trump's team, condemning his remarks as "inappropriate and Hinduphobic."
The group objected to Navarro's reference to caste and his "portrayal of
Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a sacred act of Hindu prayer."
In its press release, AHAD said, "Navarro's rhetoric constitutes not only a cultural violation but also a reckless provocation that endangers the dignity of over a billion Hindus and threatens the foundational relationship between the two largest democracies."
The group criticised Navarro’s comments about "Brahmins profiting at the expense of the Indian people," calling it a colonial stereotype. "It's not a critique; it's a colonial-era trope recycled to divide Hindu society and depict India as inherently unjust," AHAD stated.
Ajay Shah, executive chair of HinduPACT, said, "This is not foreign policy. It's weaponized Hinduphobia. Dividing Hindus through colonial scripts doesn't build relationships. It destroys them. People like Navarro have no place in American political life."
Deepti Mahajan, president of the group, also took issue with Navarro’s use of Modi’s prayer image. "Saffron is sacred. Prayer is not propaganda. What exactly was Navarro trying to say by using that image?" she asked.
Navarro, a White House advisor, recently renewed his criticism of India, accusing the country of indirectly funding Russia’s war in Ukraine through discounted oil purchases.
Speaking to Fox News, he said: "Look, Modi's a great leader. I don't understand why he's getting into bed with Putin and Xi Jinping when he's the biggest democracy in the world. So I would just simply say to the Indian people: please, understand what's going on here. You've got Brahmins profiteering at the expense of the Indian people. We need that to stop. Yeah, and we'll be watching that closely."
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