San Jose Inside Op-Ed Elevates Work of Racist and Bigot
In a recent opinion piece in San Jose Inside entitled, Ro Khanna Rejects Hindutva, Launches New Debate for South Asian Americans, the author Amar Shergill makes several factual errors of omission and commission in his attempt to demonize Hindu American activists and political donors.
Perhaps his most egregious error, however, is elevating the work of Pieter Friedrich, the sketchy figure at the center of the Ro Khanna debate on Hindutva.
Shergill starts by matter-of-factly asserting that Friedrich is a “South Asian analyst.”
Friedrich is without doubt a writer, but a review of his published articles — as well as his activist activities — calls into serious question his credentials as a “South Asian analyst.”
Friedrich never provides a single credential, university degree, professional association, or history that establishes his bona fides. Instead, we find online two self-published books accompanied by a slew of slandering, biased, and often factually wrong videos and articles demeaning Hindus and Hinduism.
Friedrich also has a well documented and particular hatred for Mahatma Gandhi, devoting a good deal of activism attempting to forcibly remove Gandhi statues in public places. He has even asserted, entirely counterfactually, that the father of non-violence as a political movement supported Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.
In addition to this, I personally witnessed Friedrich publicly harassing Hindu American students and parents waiting to testify about their experiences dealing with stereotypes and bullying in the classroom at public hearings during the California State Board of Education history textbook debates a few years ago.
He has also been photographed at demonstrations holding what only can be described as bigoted signs, denigrating Hindu respect for cows, emblazoned with slogans such as “Don’t throw a fit, but cow culture is bullshit,” and “We don’t drink pee in the land of the free.”
Finally, Friedrich has maligned Hindu American community leaders, organizations, and politicians merely for proudly asserting their Hindu identity and speaking out on issues of concern to the community.
While the underlying issues in the South Asian diaspora written about in Shergill’s piece are certainly worth discussing, elevating the work of such a racist and bigoted person as Friedrich is a profound disservice to readers on the part of both Shergill and San Jose Inside.
Samir Kalra, Esq. is the Sunnyvale-based Managing Director at the Hindu American Foundation, a national advocacy organization.