On August xxx, the Federal Bureau of Investigation released its annual hate crime statistics for 2020. Afterward claims by some Hindu groups about ascension "Hinduphobia" in the US and of imminent threats to the safety of Hindu students on our campuses, I was curious to see what the written report says nigh incidents of faith-based bias against Hindus.

The study, by the domestic intelligence service of the Usa, has a comprehensive definition of what constitutes a detest crime: it covers all forms of biases, including assaults, intimidation, property vandalism and more.

I was relieved to find that anti-Hindu detest crimes ranked towards the bottom. The category was 31st among 35 groups listed. In 2020, there were 12 incidents confronting Hindus, compared to 951 incidents against Jews, 134 against Muslims, and 72 against Sikhs. To give another perspective, anti-black detest crimes were listed at three,886 and anti-Asian at 335.

The FBI said in a press release about the latest statistics, "At that place were seven,554 single-bias incidents involving 10,528 victims. A percent distribution of victims past bias type shows that 61.9 percentage of victims were targeted because of the offenders' race/ethnicity/ancestry bias, xx.5 per centum were victimised because of the offenders' sexual-orientation bias, 13.four pct were targeted because of the offenders' religious bias, 2.v percentage were targeted because of the offenders' gender identity bias, 1.0 percent were victimised because of the offenders' disability bias, and 0.vii pct were victimised because of the offenders' gender bias."

It added, "The number of reported hate crimes nationwide against Asian and Black people sharply increased in 2020."

Equally graph higher up shows, incidents of religion-based hate crimes actually declined from 2019, which is welcome news. Even so, the steep increment in anti-Asian and anti-Black hate law-breaking is worrying.

With regards to the anti-Hindu hate crimes, of the 12 reported incidents, 5 were cases of vandalism, three of assail, two of intimidation and one each of burglary and credit card fraud.

What is one to make of these statistics?

Obviously, these FBI statistics cannot be the sole indicator of what is happening on the ground. However, it is the only data ready based on a clear and consequent definition, and vetted by law enforcement – equally opposed to claims and counter claims on social media.

Information technology is entirely possible that many anti-Hindu incidents were only non reported to the FBI or to the police. Just, on the other hand, since Hindu groups had pushed the FBI to add "anti-Hindu bias" as a new category, it is simply reasonable to assume that they would accept made every attempt to encourage reporting of incidents of bias encountered by their constituencies.

Maybe, many of the incidents reported as anti-Hindu past the victims were determined by constabulary enforcement to be biases based on colour and ethnicity – something that I can personally attest to as a victim of on several occasions over the years.

In any case, under-reporting of incidents of bias would non be unique to Hindus alone. What is important therefore is to wait at relative numbers, which clearly point that almost all other faith groups experienced many more instances of religious hate crimes in 2020 than did Hindus.

The most obvious determination one could describe from the data is that Hindutva-aligned groups accept been leading the community on past spreading simulated or exaggerated narratives of Hindu victimhood.

The 2020 FBI detest offense statistics directly challenge their self-serving narratives, which are intended as a smoke screen for their own strong back up for escalating hate crimes confronting religious minorities in India.

As if to rudely remind u.s.a. of that reality, a Hindu religious leader in Bharat has just demanded that all Muslims and Christians exist stripped of their citizenship. All 200 million of them.

Paramhans Acharya Maharaj, who goes by the honorific Jagadguru or "teacher of the world" is a highly revered leader with a huge following, who appears to have admission to some of the highest officials in the government. People like him are also coveted as allies by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the religious wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

Such demands, which may audio ridiculous on the surface, are not isolated.

In a video interview terminal yr, Subramanian Swamy, a prominent Member of Parliament and once a Harvard visiting professor, asserted that the equality promised to all Indian citizens under the Indian Constitution does not utilise to Muslims.

Information technology is notable that Swamy has been a frequent guest of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh/Vishwa Hindu Parishad-aligned groups in the U.S.

Earlier this year, another Hindu leader and a temple priest, Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati, had declared that "Islam should be eradicated from Earth ... all Muslims should exist eliminated."

Despite widespread reporting of his statements, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America invited him to be a guest speaker. They cancelled his advent only after intense public pressure,

Why is all this relevant to hate crimes in the U.s.a.?

Because, many of the US-based Hindu groups that are crying foul virtually imminent threats to Hindus, are also ideologically aligned with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Vishwa Hindu Parishad in India. They therefore implicate themselves not only with such incendiary remarks intended to dehumanise Muslims, simply with the surging detest crimes confronting the community: mob lynchings, conspiracy theories demonising the minorities, laws that regulate what they can eat and whom they can ally, stifling free speech communication and printing freedoms, fraudulent arrests of activists and more.

Their seeming opposition to hate crimes in the US is hypocrisy of the worst kind.

Non surprisingly, such groups are slap-up on pushing the Hindu victimhood narrative on campuses in an endeavour to co-opt Hindu students, many of whom are blissfully unaware of such groups' sinister connections with violence in Bharat.

I retrieve it is extremely of import that Hindu American students who may take been at the receiving end of incidents of bias inquire themselves who can be their genuine partners in countering discrimination against Hindus and others. They should as well seriously examine if groups whose raison d'etre is hatred for Muslims and Christians can be counted on as true friends.

Surely, at that place must exist alternatives to such Hindutva-aligned groups for students to positively express their Hindu identity, report incidents of bias, and at the same fourth dimension oppose all forms of bigotry hither and in Republic of india?

At the end of the day, hatred for other faiths should not exist a pre-requisite to express pride in i's ain religion and culture. At the same fourth dimension, Hindus who defend other faiths confronting violent attacks are not "self-hating" Hindus, simply are but responding to a universal telephone call to resist all kinds of detest. Fighting bigotry is not a zero-sum game.

Getting back to detest crime statistics, I leave with another important perspective: atrocities against Dalits and Adivasis in India, which eclipse FBI'south hate criminal offence statistics in the US. In 2019, there were 47,500 cases and they accept been climbing every year, even every bit most of the incidents go unpunished.

Wouldn't it exist a groovy twenty-four hours for our community when every Hindu who has experienced an incident of bias in the US can resolve to also stand up in solidarity with the thousands of victims of rape, murder, land dispossession, social cold-shoulder, and other daily humiliations at the hands of upper-caste Hindus?

Raju Rajagopal is a co-founder of Hindus for Human being Rights, a US-based organisation dedicated to fighting all forms of bigotry in Due south Asia and North America.