Dear Friends (List Suppressed),
In a recent issue, the Atlantic Magazine has published a negative article on Hindu Congresswomen Ms. Tulsi Gabbard. It is written by a person with a Hindu sounding name who has shamelessly wrapped in PM Modi as well. The member of our Hindu community and Dharmic institutions/organizations must rise to the challenge and call them out and protest such a biased and insulting portrayal.
Therefore, some of us have drafted a protest letter below. To convey your support, please give us your permission to include your name and/or organization. It is time for us to do our part for first-ever Hindu Congresswoman who is never uncomfortable to show her religious identity and stand for Hinduism as well as India. We will collect all the names and combine it with the other supporter and distribute it for maximum impact.
Please consider forwarding this message to your friends especially who can endorse this on the behalf of their organizations. For any questions, please feel free to contact the undersigned.
Your response by 9PM EST Wednesday, 25 January, 2017 will be greatly appreciated.
Warmly,
Sant Gupta
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We, the undersigned, would like to voice our objection to the anti-Hindu sentiment expressed in last week’s article by Krishnadev Calamur https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/tulsi-gabbard-syria/508367/#article-comments, whose willful mischaracterization of Tulsi Gabbard’s religion as “extremist” and a “cult” is a clear attempt to marginalize or “otherize” Vaishnava Hindus, a branch of Hinduism that is more than 5,000 years old and predates Christianity.
There are many more Vaishnava Hindus in the world than there are Methodists, yet the Atlantic would never publish an article that suggested Hillary Clinton, a Methodist, is a member of a fringe Christian cult.
By allowing this article to go to press, the editors of The Atlantic have unwittingly joined ranks with religious bigots who have viciously attacked both Tulsi Gabbard and her Hindu faith in the name of political discourse.
Last year, for example, her GOP opponent stated that “a vote for Tulsi is a vote for the devil” because of her Hindu faith. In the 2012 election, Tulsi’s Republican opponent stated in a CNN interview that she shouldn’t be allowed to serve in Congress because her Hindu religion “doesn’t align with the constitutional foundation of the U.S. government.”
We find the lack of sensitivity and editorial oversight to be unconscionable. Indeed, this type of veiled bigotry falls well short of the journalistic standards normally set by The Atlantic; it goes against the spirit of religious freedom enshrined in our Constitution; and, it provides dangerous encouragement to the anti-Hindu sentiment that is already far too rampant in the world.
The entire article is biased. The guilt-by-association references to India PM Narendra Modi are troublingly reminiscent of yellow journalism.
From the standpoint of religious intolerance, we ask that the offensive paragraph smearing practitioners of the world’s 3rd largest religion be removed or corrected.
Sincerely,
Source: World Hindu News (WHN)