In his article titled, “The Invention of the Hindu”, published on 24 June 2004, Pankaj Mishra, an author based in Mashobra, Himachal Pradesh, India, started the statement that “Hinduism is largely a fiction, formulated in the 18th and 19th centuries out of a multiplicity of sub-continental religions, and enthusiastically endorsed by Indian modernisers”

The writer also makes points about the majority of Indians supporting the violent "propaganda" of the ruling government and the organized attempts being made to erase the minority voice such as by changing the textbooks to reflect only Hindu ideas. Additionally, a tinge of support is expressed to those who convert from Hinduism to Islam or Christianity as those who do so are usually Dalits "escaping" the inherent caste oppression promoted in Hinduism.

The article tries to say that these verbal protests against "scholars" of Hinduism reflect a growing political ideology (Hindutva), implying that it is an organized attack against academia. No reflection is made on the controversial subject in the first place and the reasons behind the outrage directed at it.

On October 31, 2003, in Ashland, Massachusetts, Antony Picciolo spray-painted 'Sand N------ beware,' and 'head,' on a rock near Sri Lakshmi Temple on Route 135 in Ashland near the Framingham line. Police said 'head' was short for 'towel head.'

On the night of February 28, 2003, two teenagers, Paul Laird and Nathaniel Conner, threw a firebomb at the Hindu temple in St. Louis, Missouri. The miscreants first threw a brick through a window followed by a container filled with flammable liquid. The liquid started a fire at 3:45 am and set off the alarm system in the temple, which alerted the priests living nearby.

On the night of February 22, 2003, two teenagers, Paul Laird and Nathaniel Conner, threw a firebomb at the Hindu temple in St. Louis, Missouri. "It seemed to be a crude bomb or Molotov cocktail, which set fire to the front door of the temple," Krishna Reddy, president of the temple trustee board, said. The fire quickly burned itself out, charring a four-foot section of the door. "There are four priests living in the compound a little behind the temple. They did not hear anything that night," Reddy said. Established in 1990, it was one of the largest temples in the US at that time, serving more than 8,000 families. Lord Venkatesa is the principal deity.

In a 15 page document, John Stratton Hawley, currently a Claire Tow Professor of Religion at Bernard College, Columbia University, starts off saying: "Hinduism - the word, and perhaps the reality too - was born in the 19th century, a notoriously illegitimate child. The father was middle-class and British, and the mother, of course, was India. The circumstances of the conception are not altogether clear."

On the morning of Sept. 24, 1987, Kaushal Sharan, a 30-year-old physician, is beaten to a coma with a baseball bat by a group of men. The victim was found unconscious at Central and Ferry Avenues, near a city park and firehouse, the police said. The attack left Kaushal in a partial coma for over a week with severe damage to his skull and brain, impacting his long-term and short-term memory.

On September 12, 1987, Vikas Aggarwal and Syed Hassan, students at Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, were attacked by two assailants. When they reached a restaurant for dinner, a man grabbed Hassan’s umbrella from his hand. Vikas, who tried to get the umbrella back, was punched in the face. Simultaneously, another man hit Hassan with a metal bar. Shaken, bleeding and weak from the attack, Vikas and Syed tried to flee to site, and return to the university to call the security. However, they were assaulted again. While Syed was able to flee, Vikas collapsed on the curb. Ivan Salas, a man who worked at Chicken Galore, a nearby restaurant, heard the assailants shout “Hindu Hindu”. Salas identified the two assailants as “Chinito” and “Chinito’s brother”. Detective Thomas Cahill, who was assigned the case, found out that William “Chinito” Acevedo had been bragging to his friends at school that he “had beat up two Indians and the chicken man.

In July 1987, a hate group called Dotbusters published a threatening letter in the Jersey City journal, stating that they would take any means necessary to drive out Hindus from Jersey City: "I'm writing about your article during July about the abuse of Indian People. Well I'm here to state the other side. I hate them, if you had to live near them you would also. We are an organization called the Dotbusters. We have been around for 2 [sic] years. We will go to any extreme to get Indians to move out of Jersey City. If I'm walking down the street and I see a Hindu and the setting is right, I will hit him or her. We plan some of our most extreme attacks such as breaking windows, breaking car windows, and crashing family parties. We use the phone books and look up the name Patel. Have you seen how many of them there are? Do you even live in Jersey City? Do you walk down Central avenue and experience what its [sic] like to be near them: we have and we just don't want it anymore. You said that they will have to start protecting themselves because the police cannot always be there. They will never do anything. They are a week [sic] race Physically [sic] and mentally. We are going to continue our way. We will never be stopped."

On 23rd September 1916, the New Zealand Herald publishes an article titled "The Hindu Women - A Problematic Paradox". In one of the earliest paragraphs, the article peddles a lie saying, "We found that she had no recognised position in religion or society, was never regarded as man's equal, and was kept in seclusion and ignorance, greater reverence was given to the cow than to the mother of the Indian race". Attacking the joint-family system, the article says: "The young wives are left to the senior lady superior, whose home rule is despotic. She takes the maidens and bends them to her will and way. She teaches them along her own lines, and their husbands have no say in the matter. She has no sympathy with the liberal ideas of her male relatives,. for they have lived in the open air and become impregnated with Western thought, so she will check any budding ideas of equality and comradeship which the more-enlightened husband may have for his wife; rather she will emphasise the teaching of the sacred books that the husband must be regarded as a god. And the women seem to act up to the letter of this and venerate their husbands, un-Godlike though they be."

Thread: Hinduphobic origins of the word ‘juggernaut’ “Juggernaut” is the Anglicized name for the Hindu god Jagannath, the “Lord of the Universe.” “Juggernaut” entered English in the early 19th c. to mean “a powerful, dominant, unstoppable force”, as colonial Brits encountered the massive chariot of Jagannatha being pulled through the streets devotees during the Rath Yatra. Rev. Claudius Buchanan was the first to popularize “the Juggernaut” in both Britain and the United States in the early 1800s. Buchanan was an Anglican chaplain stationed in India, and a staunch supporter of Christian missions to India. In his letters sent back home from India, Buchanan described ‘“Juggernaut” as a dangerous, violent, and bloody religious cult. These letters were reprinted in Christian missionary magazines on both sides of the Atlantic. In 1811, Buchanan published Christian Researches in Asia, his broad examination of the religious state of India and its need for Christian missions. He described devotees throwing themselves under the wheels of Juggernaut’s chariots. He used a biblical reference to the Old Testament’s description of the heathen god Moloch (to whom people sacrificed their children) to explain Juggernaut to his Christian audience:“The idol called Juggernaut has been considered as the Moloch of the present age; and he is justly so named, for the sacrifices offered up to him by self-devotement are not less criminal, perhaps not less numerous, than those recorded of the Moloch of Cannan.” “Ruminating long on the.. empire of Moloch in the heathen world, I cherished my thoughts on the design of some ‘Christian institution’, which, being fostered by Britain, my Christian country, might gradually undermine this baleful idolatry, and put out the memory of it forever.” In the book he also claimed that Juggernaut “is said to smile when the libation of blood is made.” For Buchanan, Juggernaut represented everything that was wrong with “heathenism” in India that Christianity could solve: a symbol of violence, bloodshed, death, and “idolatry.” Buchanan’s description of Juggernaut became quite popular. Christian Researches in Asia was reprinted in numerous editions in America and Britain. The descriptions of Juggernaut were excerpted in nearly every missionary magazine in the country. When American missionaries were first sent to India in 1812, they sent back their own descriptions of Juggernaut to be published in American missionary magazines that continued to represent the god as violent and idolatrous. This idea/image of Juggernaut was so well-known in Protestant missionary circles that one missionary magazine from 1813 even used Juggernaut as a metaphor for the vice of alcohol. Like Juggernaut, the article argued, alcohol has “shrines on the banks of almost every brook” and “four thousand self-devoted human victims, immolated every year upon its altars.” Thus, “juggernaut” started to become a term for any violent or dangerous force.

The man named Jasimuddin from Nakhuti in Hojai district had met a Hindu woman in Tamil Nadu who is from Simen Chapari in Dhemaji district in Assam, where he had introduced himself as a Hindu and married her in a temple. Both were working in Tamil Nadu where they had met each other. Jasimuddin robbed the woman of her money and jewellery and fled to his home in Hojai District of Assam. After he went missing with her money and jewellery, the woman also returned to Assam and filed a case against him with the police.

Qasim Khaskhli who lived in the locality claimed to be a family friend. He was also Reena’s rakhi brother and was very much part of the marriage preparations. The family trusted him and so did Reena. Qasim Khaskhli with help of his mother and sister mixed drugs in sweets and gave it to Reena. He forcefully converted Reena to Islam and married her.