Houston: The political divide between Hindu supporters of US President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger Joe Biden is getting deeper with the presidential election less than two weeks away and the starting of early polls in some states.
In a sign of the growing political prominence of Hindus in America, the Trump and Biden campaigns are wooing this religious minority community like never before. Hinduism is the fourth largest faith in the US, representing approximately one per cent of the US population in 2016.
The Biden campaign in September launched ‘Hindu Americans for Biden’ in September, while the Trump campaign in August announced the formation of the ‘Hindu Voices for Trump’ as part of their efforts to attract the over two million members of the religious community in the US.
A virtual debate held on Sunday between American Hindu supporters of Trump and Biden brought the message home that there is a clear political divide among the community in the US. While one group alleged that Biden “panders to Muslims”, the other accused Trump of being a “racist”.
The webinar titled ‘2020 Presidential Election: A debate on the American Hindu issues’ was co-sponsored by the Hindu American Foundation, the Hindu American PAC, the HinduPACT and the HinduVote.
During the debate, Biden supporters alluded to the Obama-Biden administration’s lifting of nuclear sanctions against India as a demonstration of Biden’s pro-India stance, while Trump supporters brought to light how Biden as the senate foreign relations committee chair passed a bill pumping billions of dollars for improving Pakistan’s economy, which ended up funding the Pakistan military and promoting terrorism across the border.
Trump supporters underlined that Pakistan honoured Biden with ‘Hilal-i-Pakistan’, the country’s second-highest civil award. On the other hand, Trump, they said, named Pakistan a ‘country of particular concern’ for supporting cross-border terrorism and drastically cut the financial aid to the nation.
They recalled that Hindus had asked the Obama administration to cut aid to Pakistan, but it was not done. A much more direct question to the Biden team was about the party platform having sections on American Muslims, American Jewish, but “nothing clear cut about American Hindu community, not even a mention”.
In response, the Biden team said the Democratic Party as a policy recognises “cultural communities” and not religious communities, thus, its policy towards “Indian American community” is on the platform. Utsav Chakrabarty, a Trump supporter, said he had written at least six letters to the Democratic Party leadership, asking them to post a policy paper on American Hindus, but he never got any response.
A Democratic Party operative, he claimed, told him that unless he made a contribution to the Biden campaign, nothing would change. Tushar Dayagude, another Trump supporter, echoed Chakrabarty’s assertion that campaign contribution was a must for Hindus to have their cause recognised in the Biden team.
Dayagude opined that Hindu members contributing to Trump’s campaign was the reason Biden campaign ignored the community.
In this context, Srilekha Palle, a Trump supporter from Fairfox, Virginia, disputed the assertion that American Hindus largely donated only to the Trump campaign.
Palle pointed out that a prominent Houston-based American Hindu raised USD 3.5 million from the community members in single night for Biden campaign. Trump supporters said the Democrats have always “pandered to Muslims” and its support to the Hindu community was nothing more than a “tokenism”. (PTI)
