On Saturday (7th October), a student union coalition at Harvard University issued a statement blaming Israel for the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. The letter issued by the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Groups was co-signed by 33 student groups.
Calling Israel an apartheid regime the letter asserted that Israel alone is responsible for the fresh onslaught by the Hamas terrorists. The pro-Palestine letter accused Israel of ‘systematised land seizures’, ‘regular airstrikes’, ‘detentions’ and forced family disappearances. The letter for all the obvious reasons did not mention the atrocities committed by the Hamas terrorists though.
“The apartheid regime is the only one to blame. Israeli violence has structured every aspect of Palestinian existence for 75 years. From systematized land seizures to routine airstrikes, arbitrary detentions to military checkpoints, and enforced family separations to targeted killings, Palestinians have been forced to live in a state of death, both slow and sudden,” the letter reads.
The statement concludes with the pro-Palestine student union coalition calling on the Harvard community to “take action to stop the ongoing annihilation of Palestinians.”
The letter sparked a huge outrage with many Harvard alumni condemning the university’s inaction against the said letter. Moreover, several corporate heads also announced that they would not hire anyone of those who supported Hamas which is inflicting atrocities on innocent Israeli civilians.
Interestingly, several Indians were also among the thousands of signatories of the outrageous letter. Notably, a student group named Harvard Undergraduate Ghungroo supported the pro-Palestine resolution only to backtrack later. It is notable that this organisation is a part of Harvard’s South Asian Art (SAA). As per the information available on SAA’s website, Arjun Prasad is the co-president of SAA along with Farib Mahmud while Siona Prasad and Nikhil Dharmaraj are SAA’s cultural chair.
Interestingly, the Board of members of the SAA had supported the infamous Hinduphobic SB403 Bill alongside Thenmozhi Soundararajan, Executive Director of Equality Labs, the dubious organisation that supported the bill. The contentious bill was recently returned by the governor of California Gavin Newsom who found the bill unnecessary since the existing law already prohibits discrimination based on caste, color, religion and other similar lines.
In the media section of the SAA’s website, a screenshot of a video conference held by the SAA board members including Nikhil Dharmaraj and Siona Prasad along with Equality Labs’s Thenmozhi Soundararajan titled “Caste 101: Fighting Caste Discrimination in CS/Tech.
As reported earlier the bill was tabled by Senator Aisha Wahhab and passed by the state assembly on 29th August this year, however, it could not become a law with the governor’s veto. The bill was completely based on the Cisco caste case that fell flat in January 2023. Despite the main case on which Aisha Wahab and Equality Labs based the bill was no longer effective in the court, the California State Assembly moved forward and passed the bill.
SAA’s Nikhil Dharmaraj in May this year wrote a piece for far-left propaganda magazine The Caravan titled: “The dangers of facial-recognition technology in Indian policing”. The article not surprisingly was blatantly Hinduphobic. Nikhil Dharmaraj in his propaganda piece also blamed Hindus/Hindu mob for the 2020 anti-Hindu Delhi riots.
The “saree-loving” Nikhil Dharmaraj in an X post regarding the said article did not forget to bring in Brahminical genealogies even in subjects like AI and face recognition technology.
Humbled to share this piece today covering the insidious Brahminical and colonial genealogies of AI surveillance and facial recognition tech in Hindutva India (a short-form version of my senior thesis)—read below / DM me re any access issues ⬇️ https://t.co/DoId3fhGQP
— Nikhil (@nikdharmaraj) May 29, 2023
Notably, Dharmaraj over the years has been a hater of Israel. As reported by Canary Mission, Dharmaraj was also a member of Harvard University’s Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC) in 2020, 2022, and 2023. It is rather ironic to see a queer supporting Islamic terrorist organisation like Hamas when Islamists openly despise queers.
Moreover, Nikhil Dharmaraj and the abovementioned SAA board members are a part of South Asians for Forward-Thinking Advocacy and Research (SAFAR) which has been a pro-Palestine and pro-Kashmir ‘freedom’ organisation known for its disdain towards India and Israel.
As highlighted by an X user who goes by the name “Sensei Kraken Zero”, one of the signatories of the anti-Israel Harvard student union statement, Sravya Tadepalli is on the board of directors of a dubious organisation named Hindus for Human Rights.
Sravya Tadepalli, who signed off on the Harvard Students Union letter in support of Hamas/Palestine and blaming Israel for the terror attack, is also on the Board of Directors of the Anti-Hindu organisation "Hindus For Human Rights" (HFHR).
— Sensei Kraken Zero (@YearOfTheKraken) October 11, 2023
HFHR brands Hindutva as a fascist… pic.twitter.com/a4e3736C5L
Indians/people of Indian origin who signed off on the disgusting Harvard statement in support of Palestine/Hamas and against Israel:
— Sensei Kraken Zero (@YearOfTheKraken) October 11, 2023
Shivani Gupta, Sravya Tadepalli, Jasleen Kaur and Sraddha Joshi pic.twitter.com/PG8yWwcpTv
It is worth noting that HFHR co-founded by Sunita Vishwanath is notorious for its pathological hatred for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It is the same organisation that endorsed the infamous ‘Dismantling Global Hindutva’ event. To no surprise, the HFHR also has links to the controversial financier and ‘regime change specialist’ George Soros.
There is one thing in common about most of the Indian signatories of the outrageous statement against their hatred for PM Modi and India’s “right wing”. Shraddha Joshi, another Harvard alumni to sign the said statement has been a Modi hater as evidenced by her article titled: “Modi’s Visit to the US Whitewashes India’s Far-Right Violence” published in The Nation magazine in June this year as PM Modi was on a historic state visit to the United States. “Ever since Modi took power in 2014 as the leader of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), India has experienced what is widely described as democratic backsliding, characterized by anti-minority and caste-based violence along with brutal crackdowns on dissent,” the article reads.
Interestingly, Joshi has also been an intern at propaganda portal NewsClick which is currently under investigation over receiving funds from China for peddling pro-China propaganda. The portal is accused of flouting the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) rules. Shraddha Joshi is also a supporter of Urban Naxal and ‘journalist’ Gautam Navlakha.
It is worth recalling that Gautam Navlakha was arrested in 2020 when 11 people were taken into custody for organizing and giving provocative speeches during the Elgar Parishad event on the 31st of December 2017. The event was organized by “activists” of Kabir Kala Manch in Pune. The NIA says that the event promoted enmity between different groups of people and caste groups, leading to violence and loss of life. The NIA investigation revealed that the organizers of Elgar Parishad were in touch with leaders of CPI (Maoist), a banned terror outfit under UAPA, and were spreading the ideology of Naxalism/Maoism to encourage unlawful activity.
As per a Canary Mission report, Shraddha Joshi was an organiser at Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC). Joshi has also been involved in furthering anti-Israel propaganda. Being a typical hypocrite, Joshi has been actively involved in downplaying the violence committed by the Palestinian side against Israel while blaming Israel for the conflict between the two countries over the years.
Israel Hamas War
The terrorist organisation Hamas launched a devastating terror strike on Israeli soil on 7th October. Over 900 people were killed in the attack. Paragliders and vehicle-borne Hamas terrorists brandishing automatic weapons stormed the border fences, attacking civilians, residential communities, and even a music festival in Southern Israel. In retaliation to the brutal terrorist attack, Israel declared war on Hamas and has been bombarding the Gaza Strip with bombs for three days. Hundreds of Israelis and other nationals have been reported to have been kidnapped by Hamas. Despite the fact that Hamas is holding innocent Israeli people hostage, killing children and families, and raping women, the student unions of Harvard extended support to Hamas and blamed Israel.
