Some Constituents Disturbed By U.S. Congress Candidate Suhas Subramanyam’s Pro-Modi Donors

Subramanyam protested in-district for Hindutva ties

Over 30 South Asian American constituents of Virginia’s 10th congressional district rallied in Ashburn on the evening of October 28 to protest candidate Suhas Subramanyam’s receipt of donations from out-of-state donors who are allegedly linked to support for Narendra Modi, the Hindu nationalist prime minister of India.

Chants of “Suhas has got to go” rang out at Ashburn Park. “We cannot afford another Modi in Virginia,” said Pawan Singh of Leesburg at the rally.

Singh says he was inspired by my recent research on Subramanyam’s funding which shows he has taken approximately $80,000 from donors linked to Modi. Some of these even traveled to India to help elect Modi. Many are leaders in American affiliates of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the paramilitary parent organization of Modi’s political party.

Protesters held signs reading: “Modi kills North Americans. Modi’s sympathizers fund Suhas. Suhas endangers America.”

Last year, Canada accused Modi’s government of assassinating a Canadian citizen in the Vancouver region. Over the past ten months, the Department of Justice has indicted two Indian nationals for attempting to assassinate a Sikh-American attorney in New York City who criticizes Modi’s government.

“My worst fear if Suhas is elected is that there will be more hunting of Sikhs here in the U.S.,” says Singh. “The Sikhs that left India, the first generation that has even been born in the U.S., their rights and their freedoms will definitely be violated even more because India will be given a free pass if Suhas is in Congress.”

Other constituents of South Asian origin expressed similar concerns.

“Modi’s government is targeting Christians at an unprecedented rate,” an Indian-American Christian, who would only speak off-record out of fear of reprisal, told me. “It’s terrifying that Suhas might be accountable to supporters of Modi. That means only bad things for how Congress will address persecution of Indian Christians and even for the safety of American critics of Modi.”

The RSS, of which Modi is a member, follows a Hindu nationalist ideology known as “Hindutva” which views India as a Hindu nation and seeks to “purify” it of religious minorities, especially Christians and Muslims. Along with its political arm, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), it is accused of mass violence.

In 2002, for instance, the RSS-BJP massacred approximately 2,000 Muslims in the state of Gujarat. Modi, who was chief minister of the state at the time, was later banned from the U.S. for his culpability in the violence.

After Modi became prime minister in 2014, he side-stepped the ban with diplomatic immunity. Yet under his administration, attacks on Christians have sky-rocketed to thousands a year, according to the Federation of Indian American Christian Organizations of North America. Meanwhile, Hindutva supporters are openly calling for genocide of Indian Muslims while a project of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum warns there’s a high chance of it occurring.

“Democratic candidates for federal and state offices who are accepting campaign funds from pro-Modi Hindu PACs and individuals are betraying Indian democracy by emboldening Modi’s despotic rule,” Raju Rajagopal, an internationally known Indian-American Hindu activist, told me.

Yet Suhas Subramanyam is silent regarding his position on all of this, even as constituents like Rafi Uddin Ahmed of Mannassas have questioned him about it. Ahmed wants to know where Subramanyam stands on Hindutva violence, if he will condemn attacks in India but also attempted assassinations in America and, especially, if he is taking money from donors aligned with Modi.

There has been no response from the Subramanyam campaign, yet Ahmed found some answers in the campaign financing sources.

“It makes me feel uneasy that he’s accepting the money,” Ahmed told me. “I’m very concerned that if he does get elected that his policies or his voting will be influenced by Hindutva donations. As an American, as a Muslim, I am concerned about the safety of the minorities in India.”

“Suhas being a minority is a plus, but him accepting money from people affiliated with the groups who are doing these atrocities is deeply disturbing,” says Ahmed. He adds that he wouldn’t be concerned if there were no ongoing atrocities against Indian minorities. Yet he thinks such donations make Subramanyam more likely to influence other Democratic colleagues to whitewash India’s atrocities.

Dr. Sangay Mishra, an assistant professor at Drew University, told me that the Hindutva movement is transnational in nature and having influence in U.S. politics is often used to protect Hindu nationalism in India from criticism abroad.

“Hindu nationalists are deeply interested in shaping Indian American communities and their political involvement in the U.S.,” says Mishra. “They want Hindu Indian-Americans to adopt a Hindu nationalist framework. Sponsoring candidates is part of this larger goal of Hindu nationalists.”

He says that having elected officials who support their cause helps Hindutva not only legitimize but also expand its presence in the political arena.

One of the top donors to Subramanyam is Ramesh Bhutada. A Houston-based industrialist, he is also the long-time vice-president of Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh USA (HSS-USA), the American branch of India’s RSS. In September, Bhutada met with Subramanyam in Houston before donating the maximum amount. 

Pawan Singh, from the Ashburn rally, denounces the association.

“Bhutada is a driving force behind the promotion of Modi’s Hindutva agenda in America,” says Singh. “As a politically astute Indian-American of Hindu faith who grew up in Houston, Suhas undoubtedly knows that. His meeting with Bhutada demonstrates that he’s willing to side with the Modi agenda and take out-of-state donations from his supporters.”

Singh thinks that, if Subramanyam is elected, “Modi will again be invited to a joint session of U.S. Congress. They will just go hush-hush on atrocities, and no punitive measures will be taken against India for targeting Sikhs in America.”

There is only one thing that would make him comfortable with the candidate: “Suhas should return all the money, denounce Hindutva ideology, and say he will have no contact with RSS personnel or their sister organizations like the HSS-USA.”