Hindu American Foundation

The Hindu American Foundation (HAF, founded September 3, 2003) is a Hindu advocacy group operating in the United States. It presents itself as a human rights organization, providing a voice for the Hindu American community. It publishes annual surveys of human rights of Hindus in South Asia and overseas. The organisation has links to the Hindu nationalist organisations Vishva Hindu Parishad and Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh. It was involved in the California textbook controversy over Hindu history.

The Hindu American Foundation was founded in 2004 in Fremont, California. The organisation describes itself as a "human rights group" and provides "a voice for the 2 million strong Hindu American community." It also describes itself as an advocacy group that aims to educate the government and the public about Hinduism and the issues concerning the Hindus globally. It emphasises the "Hindu and American ideals of understanding, tolerance and pluralism." According to Harvard professor Diana L. Eck, the foundation has emerged as "the first major national advocacy group looking at Hindu identity." Scholar Vinay Lal has noted that the organisation draws on the claims of Hinduism being unique in its tolerance and religious pluralism as well as the enormous goodwill created by Gandhi in the West.

The founding members of the organisation were Mihir Meghani, an emergency care physician, Aseem Shukla, an associate professor in urologic surgery at the University of Minnesota medical school, Suhag Shukla, a legal expert and three others. Meghani is the former founder of the Hindu Students Council (HSC) at the University of Michigan in 1991, a nationwide network of student societies affiliated to the Vishva Hindu Parishad America (VHPA). He also authored an essay titled "Hindutva: The Great Nationalist Ideology," on the web site of the Bharatiya Janata Party, where he claimed that Hindus and Hinduism were denigrated by the Indian National Congress and that Hindus rose up to demand a "true secularism." He drew a parallel between the Hindu experience and that of Jews, African Americans and colonized groups. He defended the demolition of the Babri Masjid, which he called the release of "thousands of years of anger and shame." According to the Coalition Against Genocide, Meghani served on the Governing Council of the VHP America. He is also known to have been a member of the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh, the overseas wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Several other leaders of the HAF are known to have had backgrounds in the other organisations associated with the Sangh Parivar.

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