Friends of South Asia (FOSA) is a California, United States based social and political activist organization. Founded jointly in 2001 by Americans of Pakistani and Indian origins, the group describes its mission as "achieve a peaceful, prosperous, and hate-free South Asia...work[ing] through people-to-people contacts, dialog, and other non-violent, non-exclusionary means." [1] FOSA activism has touched upon issues inside South Asia, [2] [3] as well as outside South Asia such as those relating to Israel and United States policy in Cuba and Venezuela among others. [4] [5]
FOSA was founded in December 2001 by a group of nine Pakistani Americans and Indian Americans, concerned that "the place we call home was full of war cries and that South Asia was on the brink of a war." [3] [6] Members organized candlelight vigils [7] and letter-writing campaigns [8] for peace, initially in collaboration with groups like the Sikh Qaumantri Punjabi Bhaichara (Punjabi International Friendship) Group of California. [7] [9] The local vigils grew out of a series of vigils for peace in South Asia held simultaneously in 18 cities around the world. [10]
FOSA registered as a tax-exempt non-profit charitable entity in Arts, Culture and Humanities category with United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Its non-profit status remains revoked by the IRS, as of November 2013, because FOSA has failed to file required annual reports and certifications under United States laws for three consecutive years. [11]
FOSA has an informal organizational structure, and a number of members have served as spokespeople.[ citation needed ] Group members have often collaborated with or co-sponsored events with other California South Asian American anti-communal organizations like EKTA [12] and the Coalition against Communalism. [13]
Friends of South Asia was described by Metro Santa Cruz in April 2006 as "a hodgepodge of mostly secular-leaning South Asian Hindus and Muslims—university students, Silicon Valley engineers moonlighting as activists, etc.—who regularly organize local vigils, poetry readings, films and speaker events relating to South Asian issues." [14] Between 2008 and 2013, FOSA activities have included a variety of issues inside and outside South Asia. [1]
Friends of South Asia has been involved with several campaigns inside India and Pakistan, including opposition the 2002 Godhra riots, [15] Pakistani military actions in Balochistan, Pakistan, [16] [17] and the 2006 bombings in Varanasi, India, [1] as well as support for victims of the Bhopal disaster, [18] advocacy for the civil rights of immigrants to the United States, [19] support for the Right to Information movement, [20] and the proposed expansion of reservations (quota-based affirmative action) in higher education for members of Indian castes defined as Other Backward Classes. [21] FOSA has also specifically focused on highlighting art and activism linked to social change movements in Pakistan, including issues like peace with India, ending the Indo-Pak nuclear race, [22] [23] opposition to censorship [24] and ending religious intolerance against the Ahmadiyya Muslim minority who have been victims of pogroms in Pakistan. [25] [26]
Friends of South Asia organized and participated [27] in protests against Walmart and Gap for buying clothes in Bangladesh. They claimed it is always a race to the bottom in garment industry: they give the contract to whoever produces the goods most cheaply, that vendors will be certain to take out their share, leaving very little for wages and improving workplace safety.
Friends of South Asia has actively participated in a campaign to block foreign direct investment projects in India, and in support of traditional way of life and agrarian livelihoods. For example, activists of FOSA participated and co-authored a report on POSCO India, by forming a so-called Mining Zone Peoples’ Solidarity Group. This activism targeted to stop the $12 billion foreign direct investment by the South Korean company in the Indian state of Orissa. The co-authors of this report included others such as Biju Mathew and Balmurli Natrajan. [28] [29] In 2011, FOSA independently, as well as the front organization Mining Zone Peoples’ Solidarity Group, co-signed and submitted a letter to the Prime Minister of India asking that the POSCO project be cancelled. [30]
Friends of South Asia was a prominent participant in the Californian Hindu textbook controversy, [31] [32] in which it joined a number of other groups in petitioning California's Curriculum Commission to reject allegedly revisionist edits to California's textbook curriculum on Hinduism and India, as suggested by two American Hindu organizations. In 2006, during the textbook controversy, then-graduate student Anupama Mandavilli was a primary spokesperson. [33] [34] [35]
The group advocates against what they term "militarism in India, Pakistan, and the United States." According to a 2006 statement, "We express our deepest disappointment with the recently concluded visit of George Bush to India and Pakistan, and unequivocally condemn the Indo-US nuke deal...The United States' imperial designs in its war on Afghanistan and Iraq and the submission of the Indian and Pakistani governments to go along, is not lost on their people who came out in thousands in both countries to protest against Bush and his agenda." [36]
Friends of South Asia endorsed and sponsored speeches and signed letters denouncing Israel as a colonial occupier of Palestine. In 2010, it criticized novelist Amitav Ghosh for accepting the Dan David Prize from the President of Israel. [4] [37] In 2011, it endorsed a letter declaring Israel as a colonial occupier of Palestine. [5]
Friends of South Asia has endorsed letters, protests and rally calling United States' policy in Venezuela and Cuba as hostile, the current governments in Venezuela and Cuba as progressive. [5] [38]
The group holds an annual literary event in August, celebrating the Indian and Pakistani Independence days with readings in Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Kannada, Gujarati, and English. Topics have included "South Asian Writings on War and Terrorism," [39] "Revisiting Changing Homelands," [40] and "The Language of Food." [41]
Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto spoke at Stanford University in October 2001. [42] According to the Stanford Report, "a handful of protesters who called themselves 'concerned Pakistani students' and 'friends of South Asia' held signs promoting peace and passed out fliers detailing corruption charges against Bhutto -- charges she disputed during her talk." [43] [44]
On May 15, 2005, FOSA organized a San Francisco march for peace in support of the 2005 India-Pakistan peace march, with the help of seven local co-sponsors, including the Pakistan American Alliance (PAA). [45] About a week after the event, an anonymous online critic of the Association for India's Development pointed out that the Pakistan American Alliance's website included an image of a man holding a placard reading "Allah will destroy the terrorist state of India" [46] [47] at an October 2004 rally in New York City co-organized by the New York chapter of PAA. [48] FOSA responded by deleting references to the Pakistan American Alliance from their website, and issuing an update stating that they were disturbed by the photo and had been unaware of PAA's politics, which were contrary to their own. [49]
In 2006, Mihir Meghani, president of the Hindu American Foundation, itself strongly linked to the Hindutva Bharatiya Janata Party, [50] was quoted in Silicon Valley newspaper Metroactive saying that "It's pretty well known that they're [FOSA] tied with the Communist Party in India...It's really a ploy to break down and dissemble [sic] Hinduism." [31] In 2006, The Stanford Daily had to retract an article accusing FOSA of having communist ties, saying "FOSA does not have any ties to Communist or terrorist groups". [51]
Speakers hosted by Friends of South Asia have been the subject of controversy.
In 2006, FOSA invited Professor Biju Mathew (Rider University) to speak at Stanford University about labor organizing among New York City taxi drivers, globalization, and the anti-war movement. [52] The Stanford Daily student newspaper ran an article critical of the planned event, based on an anonymous email claiming that there were simultaneous "Islamist and Communist sympathies within the organization." [14] The anonymous correspondent also claimed that Mathew, a co-founder of the Forum of Indian Leftists [53] (later renamed the Forum of Inquilabi [revolutionary] Leftists to be inclusive of non-Indian members [54] ), supported the Unabomber and other terrorist groups. [55] The article received significant public criticism, [56] [57] [58] and the Stanford Daily retracted the story. [59] and printed apologies in the two subsequent issues, concluding that "FOSA does not have any ties to Communist or terrorist groups...We also apologize to Prof. Biju Mathew for associating him in any way with the Unabomber and other extremist elements." [51]
In 2003, FOSA invited and organized a forum speech that included Syed Ghulam Nabi Fai of Kashmiri American Council. [60] Fai was arrested by United States' FBI in July 2011. [61] [62] According to U.S. court documents, Fai served as the director of the Kashmiri American Council, an NGO that held itself out to be run by Kashmiris, financed by Americans, and dedicated to raising the level of knowledge in the United States about the struggle of the Kashmiri people for self-determination. Contrary to public representations, Fai's Kashmiri American Council was secretly funded with millions of dollars by officials employed by the government of Pakistan, including the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI), for several decades. Fai pleaded guilty in December 2011, and was sentenced to prison in 2012, for the crime of conspiracy to defraud the US by concealing transfer of funding from Government of Pakistan for his illegal lobbying efforts on Kashmir. [63] There is no evidence that FOSA knew of Fai's Pakistan government's funding and connection, when it invited him as a key speaker in 2003.
According to a 2007 article by Indian pilot and animal welfare activist V. Sundaram, the book NGOs, Subversive Activists and Foreign Funds- Anti-Nation Industry contains articles describing how FOSA and eight other groups are allegedly engaged in "anti-national activities" directed toward India, which are collectively labeled "Instruments of Hate and Fratricide." [64]
Kashmir is the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term "Kashmir" denoted only the Kashmir Valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal Range. Today, the term encompasses a larger area that includes the India-administered territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, the Pakistan-administered territories of Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan, and the Chinese-administered territories of Aksai Chin and the Trans-Karakoram Tract.
Kashmiri or Koshur is a Dardic Indo-Aryan language spoken by around 7 million Kashmiris of the Kashmir region, primarily in the Kashmir Valley of the Indian-administrated union territory of Jammu and Kashmir. Kashmiri has split ergativity and the unusual verb-second word order.
Harkat-ul-Mujahideen- al-Islami is a Pakistan-based Islamic jihadist group operating primarily in Kashmir. The group have been considered as having links to Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar.
The insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir, also known as the Kashmir insurgency, is an ongoing separatist militant insurgency against the Indian administration in Jammu and Kashmir, a territory constituting the southwestern portion of the larger geographical region of Kashmir, which has been the subject of a territorial dispute between India and Pakistan since 1947.
The Kashmir conflict is a territorial conflict over the Kashmir region, primarily between India and Pakistan, and also between China and India in the northeastern portion of the region. The conflict started after the partition of India in 1947 as both India and Pakistan claimed the entirety of the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. It is a dispute over the region that escalated into three wars between India and Pakistan and several other armed skirmishes. India controls approximately 55% of the land area of the region that includes Jammu, the Kashmir Valley, most of Ladakh, the Siachen Glacier, and 70% of its population; Pakistan controls approximately 30% of the land area that includes Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan; and China controls the remaining 15% of the land area that includes the Aksai Chin region, the mostly uninhabited Trans-Karakoram Tract, and part of the Demchok sector.
A controversy in the US state of California concerning the portrayal of Hinduism in history textbooks began in 2005. The Texas-based Vedic Foundation (VF) and the Hindu Education Foundation (HEF), complained to California's Curriculum Commission, arguing that the coverage in sixth grade history textbooks of Indian history and Hinduism was biased against Hinduism; points of contention included a textbook's portrayal of the caste system, the Indo-Aryan migration theory, and the status of women in Indian society.
Kashmiris are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group speaking the Kashmiri language and originating from the Kashmir Valley, which is today located in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir.
Anti-Hindu sentiment, sometimes also referred to as Hinduphobia, is a negative perception, sentiment or actions against the practitioners or religion of Hinduism. It exists in many contexts in many countries, often due to historical conflict. There is also scholarly debate on what constitutes Hinduphobia in the Western World.
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The Federation of Tamil Sangams in North America (FeTNA) is a non-profit organization of Tamil organizations in the United States and Canada. It is a registered, non-profit, tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization and founded in 1987 by five Tamil organizations: Tamil Association of Delaware Valley, Tamil Sangam of Washington & Baltimore, New York Tamil Sangam, Ilankai Tamil Sangam and Harrisburg Tamil Sangam. In July 2018, it stated that it represents 50 Tamil organizations based in America and Canada.
Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami is a Pakistani Islamist extremist, fundamentalist and terrorist organisation affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Anti-Indian sentiment, a form of racism also known as Indophobia or anti-Indianism, includes negative feelings such as hatred and disgust towards India, Indians, and Indian culture. Indophobia, in the context of anti-Indian prejudice, is "a tendency to react negatively towards people of Indian extraction, against aspects of Indian culture and normative habits". Its opposite is Indomania.
Amitabh Mattoo is one of India's leading thinkers and writers on Modern and Contemporary History, Political science, International relations. He was awarded Padma Shri by the Government of India in 2009. He is Dean of the School of International Studies, Chair & professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University and honorary professor of international relations at the University of Melbourne. Until 19 June 2018, he served as Advisor to the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, with the status of a Cabinet Minister. Mattoo is a member of the Academic Advisory Board of the German Institute for Global and Area Studies and was recently elected unanimously as its Deputy Chair. He was the founding CEO of the Australia India Institute at the University of Melbourne and served as chairman of the governing board of Miranda House, University of Delhi, the highest-ranked women's college in India, and served as Chair of Kirori Mal College earlier He has also been a member of the Lancet Commission on Adolescent Health and Wellbeing. In 2002, he was the youngest person to be appointed as vice chancellor of a public university in independent India. Mattoo's advice on policy matters has been sought across political parties and across governments, including by Prime Ministers Atal Behari Vajpayee and Dr Manmohan Singh. Following the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution of India, he has offered a political roadmap for securing the future of Jammu and Kashmir. He has been a persistent advocate of multiculturalism and of reconciliation between Kashmiri Pandits and Kashmiri Muslims.
2003 Nadimarg massacre was the killing of 24 Kashmiri Pandits in the village of Nadimarg in Pulwama District of Jammu and Kashmir on 23 March 2003. The Government of India blamed militants from the Pakistan-based terrorist group, Lashkar-e-Taiba but failed to secure convictions.
Syed Ghulam Nabi Fai is an American citizen of Kashmiri origin, and a Jamaat-e-Islami activist. He founded the organisation Kashmiri American Council in the United States and carried out lobbying on behalf of Kashmiri separatist groups and the Government of Pakistan. In 2011, the US government stated that this was a front group for Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
Secession in India typically refers to state secession, which is the withdrawal of one or more states from the Republic of India. Whereas, some have wanted a separate state, union territory or an autonomous administrative division within India. Many separatist movements exist with thousands of members, however, some have low local support and high voter participation in democratic elections. However, at the same time, demanding separate statehood within under the administration of Indian union from an existing state can lead to criminal charges under secession law in India. India is described as an ‘Union of States’ in Article 1 of the Indian constitution I.e "Indestructible nation of destructible states" by its father of constitution Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar where a state or Union territory of India cannot secede from India by any means and the Central Government has more powers than the respective state governments and can forcefully change the names and boundaries of the states without their permission at any time when needed for self interest and for the maintenance of integrity.
Human rights abuses in Jammu and Kashmir range from mass killings, enforced disappearances, torture, rape and sexual abuse to political repression and suppression of freedom of speech. The Indian Army, Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), and Border Security Personnel (BSF) have been accused of committing severe human rights abuses against Kashmiri civilians. According to Seema Kazi, militant groups have also been held responsible for similar crimes, but the vast majority of abuses have been perpetrated by the armed forces of the Indian government.
Human rights abuses in Kashmir have been perpetrated by various belligerents in the territories controlled by both India and Pakistan since the two countries' conflict over the region began with their first war in 1947–1948, shortly after the partition of British India. The organized breaches of fundamental human rights in Kashmir are tied to the contested territorial status of the region, over which India and Pakistan have fought multiple wars. More specifically, the issue pertains to abuses committed in Indian-administered Kashmir and in Pakistani-administered Kashmir.
The Exodus of Kashmiri Hindus, or Pandits, is their early-1990 migration, or flight, from the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley in Indian-administered Kashmir following rising violence in an insurgency. Of a total Pandit population of 120,000–140,000 some 90,000–100,000 left the valley or felt compelled to leave by the middle of 1990, by which time about 30–80 of them are said to have been killed by militants.
Peacebuilding in Jammu and Kashmir includes confidence-building measures at a nation-state level between the governments of India and Pakistan, track two diplomacy, as well as initiatives by non-governmental organisations (NGOs), institutes and individuals. The purpose of peacebuilding in Jammu and Kashmir include conflict prevention and reduction of hostilities in the Kashmir Valley. Many countries such as Russia, United States and China have also played a de-escalatory role with regard to tensions in the region.