Bollywood actor Arjun Rampal while speaking at a panel discussion held on March 11 at the TV Asia studios on hate crimes targeted at the Indian-Americans and the South Asian-American community, said that the best way to beat the negative around us is through love and not through hate. “By keeping quiet about hate crimes or discrimination, we are giving victory to the terrorists and the hate mongers,” he said.
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Moderated by Dr. Kavita Gupta, panelists included Rampal; Hirsh Vardhan Singh, a New Jersey-based businessman, who has announced his run for the governor’s race; Dr. Sudhir Parikh, publisher of Desi Talk and recipient of India’s Padma Shri award; Dr. Sanjay Gupta, a New Jersey-based physician and executive producer of HealthTime TV; Dia Mathews, an immigration attorney from the Chug firm and Woodbridge Township Councilman Viru Patel.
Parikh emphasised on the crucial role that the media can play in creating awareness in the community by educating both the manistream audience as well as the community members. “Education is the most important factor in creating awareness,” Parikh said.
Calling the recent hate crimes against Indian-Americans as deplorable, Parikh said that the incidents were a combination of ignorance and bigotry.
Mathews said that her office has been inundated with calls from Indians, on all kinds of visas, from work visas to Green Cards to event U.S. citizens, who are ambivalent about what documents they might need if out of the country or event out for errands or a walk within their neighborhood. Many are skeptical that they may be asked to go back to their country, Mathews said.
The panel had noted that while such incidents and few in the tristate area because of the assimilation, the Mid-west is another ball game. Communities there need to be reached out to and their education should be a priority, the panel concluded.
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According to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) annual census of hate groups and other extremist organizations released last year, the number of hate groups in the country rose for a second year in a row. The most dramatic growth was the near-tripling of anti-Muslim hate groups, from 34 in 2015 to 101 last year. The SPLC has found that the number of hate groups operating in 2016 rose to 917, up from 892 in 2015.
By Premji
