In New York, Israeli flags levitate over Ram Temple Float
The nexus between Zionism and Hindutva on full display.
Hindutva fascists openly flaunted a “Ram Janmabhoomi Mandir” float at this year’s India Day Parade in NYC. Whereas the story of the offensive float made its way onto several media outlets, little has been made of the Israeli flags that accompanied the parade. Samee Ahmad reports.
On Sunday 18 August, thousands of people descended onto the streets of New York City to celebrate India’s Independence Day.
The event, in its 42nd year, typically involves a parade through Madison Avenue, in which Indian Americans sing and dance to Bollywood tunes, proudly wave the Indian tricolour as they walk alongside several floats expected to represent India’s diversity.
This year organisers decided to include a replica of the recently inaugurated Ram Temple in Ayodyha, to the parade.
The Ram Temple, constructed on top of the 1992 destruction of Babri Masjid by right-wing mobs, is widely seen as a symbol glorifying the demolition of mosques in India and for “returning” India to a Hindu State.
Though several human rights organisations complained to the city about the float, and an Indian Muslim group pulled its own float out of the event in protest, the parade went ahead as planned.
As the Ram Temple float rolled down Madison Avenue, devotees of the symbol of violence chanted “Jai Sree Ram” (Victory to Lord Rama).
In recent years, the religious declaration has turned into a battle cry for Hindu lynch mobs.
Right behind the float, there were some Indians carrying banners that read: "Jews of India", along with Israeli and American flags. They chanted “Aim Yisrael Chai” (“The Jewish people lives”), a cry that has also been appropriated by Jewish Israelis.
The open celebration of this symbol of hate surrounded by Israeli flags highlights the new normal in India and its diaspora--a total embrace of hateful, ethnonationalist politics on a transnational level.
It also underscored the extent to which Hindu nationalists have embraced the Zionist project, as a model and roadmap for action in Kashmir and in other restive regions.
Contrary to popular belief, India and Israel have long had a history of covert military collaboration, but after India normalized ties in the early 1990s, partnerships between the two militaries became widespread.
Under Modi, however, ties between the two countries moved to unprecedented heights.
It’s worth noting that Modi was one of the first officials to condemn the October 7th attacks in ‘48 (the state we now call Israel).
India has also stood firmly behind Israel throughout this genocide, sending arms and offering diplomatic cover at the UN.
India has been the largest buyer of Israeli arms since 2013, assisting Israel in maintaining its brutal occupation of Palestine.
India, in turn, has used Israeli weapons and surveillance tech in its own violence against Kashmiris, Dalits, and indigenous groups in India.
Anti-fascist protesters
The violent mobs originally responsible for the razing of Babri Masjid in 1992 included the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP).
It is no surprise, then, that the American branch of VHP co-sponsored the Ram Temple float at the NYC event.
According to the Bridge Initiative at Georgetown University: “VHPA’s leaders have a history of making anti-Muslim remarks, it has platformed far-right Hindu nationalists and recently has targeted American Muslim politicians and rights organizations who call attention to the persecution of Muslims and rising Hindu nationalism in India.”
The VHP, aligned with ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, has not only caused violence against Muslims in India, but it also regularly spreads hate against other minorities, including the LGBTQ community and Dalits.
The inclusion of the Ram Temple float this year, then, also demonstrates how deeply the Hindutva project has permeated Hindu Indian identity in the US.
In 2022, Muslims in Edison, New Jersey reported that VHPA brought out a bulldozer adorned with images of fascist BJP politician Yogi Adityanath in a parade to intimidate the Muslim community. The use of the bulldozer is reminiscent of the demolition of Muslim homes by the BJP mafia in India, especially by Adityanath’s administration.
As the parade moved through Manhattan, a small group of anti-fascist protesters followed these marchers, chanting anti-Modi and pro-Palestinian slogans.
This group handed out a special India-Israel edition of The New York War Crimes, and disrupted the march with banners.
NYC Mayor Eric Adams, who has has been present in parades in years past, didn’t didn’t attend the rally this year.
But he didn’t make any attempt to stop the groups from rolling the offensive float down the streets of the city either.