We, the Assemblies of God India Fellowship of North America, are writing to express our deep concerns about a fundraiser held by Global Hindu Heritage Foundation (GHHF), a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization in Frisco, Texas on November 27, to raise money for the disturbing goal, among other causes, of demolishing churches in India.

GHHF is a Hindu supremacist group that raises money in the United States to fund its project of forcibly converting Muslims & Christians to Hinduism in India. This group supports an ideology known as Hindutva, or violent Hindu Supremacism, which holds that Hindu Indians are superior to non-Hindus and that minority groups, especially Christians and Muslims, should be reduced to second-class citizens and subjected to violence.

The US State Department and other major human rights organizations, including the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Freedom House, have noted the demonization and persecution of nearly 28 million Christians.

Today, Christians in India face the threat of being physically attacked - sometimes while in their own homes - and having their churches vandalized, arsoned, or shut down.

These attacks are even more common in Indian states that have passed anti-conversion laws. Hindu extremists use flimsy claims that Christians are “forcibly converting Hindus” as an excuse to break into churches, vandalize prayer spaces, disrupt congregations, harass worshippers, molest women present, detain faith leaders, and socially boycott Christian communities.

In most cases, authorities in the states ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party arrest the Christians victims instead of the Hindu extremists who orchestrate and participate in violence against them.

Human rights groups reported nearly 800 hate crimes against Christians in 2021 alone. However, the government of Prime Minister Modi refuses to condemn these hate crimes, and Hindu supremacists in India and abroad, including GHHF, continue to justify the persecution by claiming that Christians pose a “threat” to Hindus.

 In 2014, GHHF wrote a letter to India’s Minister of Education exhorting her to revise the educational curriculum and teach children about the “heroism” of the man who murdered Mahatma Gandhi, Nathuram Godse.

In 2020, GHHF hosted an event in Plano in support of discriminatory anti-minority legislation passed in India, advocating that Muslims and Christians be stripped of their minority status.

 Now, GHHF is attempting to raise money to demolish even more churches, going as far as to call them “illegal.”

 We find it extremely disturbing and dangerous that GHHF would so openly advertise their goal to cause such great harm to Indian Christians, who already face enormous persecution on a daily basis.

 We urge you to sign the petition to forcefully condemn this blatant and brazen display of anti-Christian hate and bigtory. We also urge you to write letters to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the US Department of Justice (DoJ), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) seeking immediate investigative and legal action against the Global Hindu Heritage Foundation for violating its 501c3 status by funding hate and enabling violence against religious minorities in India.

 Sincerely,

Assemblies of God India Fellowship of North America (AGIFNA)

cc: Federation of Indian American Christian Organization in North America (FIACONA)