New Delhi: Microblogging site X has withheld the accounts of US-based advocacy groups Hindus for Human Rights (HFHR) and the Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC) in India, prompting allegations of censorship.
A message on both accounts says they have been withheld in response to “a legal demand”. Significantly, the two groups have been seen as vocal critics of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s regime.
In its statement, the HFHR said the account was withheld on 14 October. “We have no idea why we have been shut down, but we can take a guess: The mighty Modi raj is scared of a movement of progressive Hindus and their supporters speaking up to save Indian democracy,” it said.
Calling it transnational repression, the group alleged that the move represents “the beginning of a massive clampdown of anti-Modi voices” prior to the 2024 election in India.
The IAMC statement, uploaded on its website, was also on similar lines. It said that the move to suspend its X account is part of the “Indian government’s broader crackdown on critical voices in media and politics”.
Both groups also accused Elon Musk, who took over X last year, of working with Prime Minister Modi to suppress free speech and democracy in both India and the US. They have also claimed that they received no prior intimation from X about the move.
ThePrint has reached HFHR, IAMC, and X via WhatsApp and email for their responses. This report will be updated if and when the statements are received.
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In their statements, both groups pointed to a continued escalation of the intimidation of journalists and activists within India and called on X to restore access to their accounts. IAMC has over 1,85,000 followers on X, while HFHR has over 12,000.
Section 69 (A) of India’s Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000 allows the government to issue content-blocking orders to platforms like X, if it’s deemed a threat to national security, sovereignty, or public order.
“Much as they try, we will not be silenced or stopped, like a river flows on in spite of boulders in the way, finding its way around,” HFHR said in its public statement. “As long as people like Umar Khalid, Teesta Setalvad, Harsh Mander, Arundhati Roy, Newsclick, Amnesty India ….. as long as brave defenders of Indian democracy are continuing to fight, we will stand with them. The resistance movement against Hindutva will grow like a tidal wave and engulf the hatred.”
IAMC, meanwhile, said it was working with attorneys to seek legal recourse and challenge the withholding of their accounts.
Diaspora at loggerheads
The two groups are part of an active network of identity-based advocacy groups in the US, and have often been at loggerheads with other groups like the Hindu American Foundation (HAF), which has been accused of funding Hindu nationalism.
These groups often clash stateside over politics in India — while one camp wants to dismantle Hindutva, the other claims ‘Hinduphobia’. This clash has been coming to a head, bleeding out of diaspora politics into India’s domestic politics.
The groups have also taken legal action against each other: the HAF filed a strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP) against the HFHR, which was dismissed in 2021. The lawsuit is typically used to censor or silence critics in America.
Another flash point in diaspora relations was the Dismantling Global Hindutva conference in September 2021, which the HAF branded Hinduphobic. Conference participants and organisers received massive pushback from Hindu groups in the US, with some participants choosing to withdraw after receiving death threats. Over 1 million emails were sent to the universities involved in the conference, pressuring them to shut the conference down.
More recently, following Rahul Gandhi’s visit to the US in May 2023, Union Minister Smriti Irani accused HFHR co-founder Sunita Vishwanath of being part of a conspiracy funded by hedge fund tycoon George Soros to “destroy India”.
Vishwanath wrote in ThePrint that she was being used as “cannon fodder in BJP’s attempts to distract from Rahul Gandhi’s visit to Manipur.”
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
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