Imran Yaqub
New York
South Asian diaspora groups protested against the Ram Mandir and Hindutva in New York’s Times Square and drew global attention to the miserable minorities situation in India.
Same time some to celebrate the construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya.
While ambitious plans by the American India Public Affairs Committee, said to be a pro-Bharatiya Janata Party group, to project an image of the proposed temple on the prestigious Nasdaq screen in Times Square did not materialise, one digital board of the temple aired over the Hershey’s store for a limited part of the day.
However, many South Asian civil rights groups held protests against the temple, and other digital banners saying ‘Kashmiri Lives Matter’ and ‘Kashmir siege day’ also went up. Those protesting the Ram Temple at Times Square included a whole range of groups, including civil rights activists, Kashmiris protesting the year-long lockdown and Sikh groups.
A truck with images of the Babri Masjid on the sides went around Times Square. Protestors meanwhile held up banners with slogans like “Stand Against Hate” and “Join the Struggle Against Fascism”. Mittal said she found it somewhat “surreal” to watch both the celebrations and protests unfold under large images of Mickey and Minny Mouse.
Prominent protestors at Times Square included Zohran Mamdani, housing counsellor and Democratic nominee for New York’s
36th assembly district. He had urged New Yorkers to stand up to fascism in a series of tweets.
Jagdish Sewhani, president of the American India Public Affairs Committee, said to be associated with the BJP and RSS, was behind the effort of Hindu groups to ‘celebrate’ the inauguration of the temple’s construction. He was quoted by the Indian media as saying that images of the Ram Mandir would be beamed on prominent billboards across Times Square including the Nasdaq screen. However, swift action by a hurriedly put together coalition of civil rights groups managed to prevent that from happening by lobbying with Branded Cities, the agency that handles the hoardings on the Nasdaq building.
