On June 9th, the Hindu American Foundation submitted formal comments to the California State of Hate Commission highlighting a disturbing surge in bias incidents, vandalism, and targeted violence over the past several years. In the public comments, HAF Managing Director Samir Kalra stated:
“Hindu Americans are an integral, vibrant part of the California tapestry. However, freedom of religion and the right to practice without fear of violence are foundational. We respectfully urge this Commission to formally recognize this dangerous spike in anti-Hindu bias and to prioritize the protection, safety, and inclusion of the Hindu American community in statewide anti-hate initiatives.” HAF urged the Commission and the Civil Rights Department to: - Improve reporting mechanisms and expand outreach to the Hindu American community
- Increase hate crime transparency, so that law enforcement and policymakers can better understand the scope of the problem
- Enhance security resources, including increasing state security grants and awareness programs for places of worship and community centers
- Condemn hate and support community resilience by publicly recognizing the system nature of anti-Hindu bias in the state
- Fulfill advisory role of the commission, advising the Civil Rights Department and other state agencies on the importance of fighting anti-Hindu hate
Read HAF’s full public comments below: To: California Civil Rights Department, Commission on the State of Hate Meeting Date: June 9, 2026 Re: Formal Comments on the Rising Trends of Hate and Violence Against Hindu Americans Dear Chair Brian Levin and Members of the Commission, On behalf of the Hindu American Foundation (HAF), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit civil rights advocacy and education organization, I am submitting these comments to highlight a deeply concerning trend that threatens the safety, dignity, and religious freedom of the Hindu American community. Over the past several years, Hindu Californians have faced a disturbing surge in bias incidents, vandalism, and targeted violence. This reality is directly reflected in the Civil Rights Department’s own data; the CA vs Hate state hotline revealed that anti-Hindu incidents constituted the second most frequent form of religiously motivated hate in California, accounting for a staggering 23% of all reported religious bias cases. These are not abstract statistics. Our houses of worship—spaces meant for peace and community sanctuary—have faced a systematic pattern of intimidation, desecration, and infrastructure sabotage, often times at the hands of others from the broader South Asian community: Chino Hills Mandir Desecration: The BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in Chino Hills—the largest Hindu temple in California—was struck by vandals who targeted the sacred property. The suspects spray-painted vulgarities and anti-Hindu, anti-Indian hate slogans across the temple’s marble sign and walkways, resulting in over $15,000 in property damage. Sacramento Temple Infrastructure Attack: The BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in Mather/Rancho Cordova was targeted in an overnight raid. Beyond defacing the marquee signage with hateful rhetoric, the perpetrators intentionally cut and severely damaged the property’s primary water lines, an escalation into malicious infrastructure tampering investigated as a hate crime. Bay Area Vandalism Spree: Temples across Northern California, including the Newark Shri Swaminarayan Temple andHayward Vijay’s Sherawali Temple, have been repeatedly defaced with hostile, politically charged anti-Hindu graffiti meant to intimidate local worshipers. Furthermore, individual community members face targeted bias. A prominent example includes the serial targeted assaults in Santa Clara County, where an attacker intentionally sought out and physically assaulted elderly Hindu women wearing traditional clothing (sarees) to forcefully rip away their jewelry—an explicit campaign of bias-motivated violence prosecuted as a hate crime. Another example is the assault accompanied by anti-Hindu slurs directed at a Hindu man in a Taco Bell in Fremont. Despite these alarming trends, members of the Hindu American community frequently face steep barriers to reporting. Many families are hesitant to approach law enforcement due to language barriers, unfamiliarity with the legal system, and fears of retaliation or being dismissed. This deep-seated underreporting means that even the high numbers captured by state resources represent only a fraction of the daily harassment and vulnerability our community experiences. Furthermore, we are witnessing an alarming and deeply concerning rise in digital racism and xenophobia directed at the Hindu American and Indian American communities across the country. Fueled by coordinated online disinformation campaigns and political scapegoating regarding immigration, the United States has increasingly become an epicenter for anti-Indian and anti-Hindu hate speech. Anti-Indian slurs reportedly increased 115% between 2023 and 2025 and Stop AAPI Hate reported that 75% of all anti-Asian slurs recorded between December 2024 and January 2025 were directed against South Asians, the majority of which surrounded anti-Indian H1B rhetoric. These hateful narratives—which include ethnic slurs, occupational scapegoating, and overt bigotry against Hindu practices—do not remain isolated to the internet. The Rutgers–Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) report “Anti-Hindu Disinformation: A Case Study of Hinduphobia on Social Media” (2023) produced a key quantitative study, which explicitly framed online patterns as early indicators of potential real-world targeting, consistent with NCRI’s work on antisemitism and other forms of hate. Specifically, the report found: - Anti-Hindu content is “exploding across entire web communities,” with millions of comments and impressions, including on mainstream platforms.
- Memes and slurs depict Hindus as “genocidal” or “evil,” mixing white-supremacist and Islamist extremist imagery, and using coded language (“pajeet,” “dothead,” “Brahminical fascism”) to evade moderation.
- State-linked Iranian troll networks seeded anti-Hindu narratives (e.g., “Hindus are committing genocide”) in over a million tweets to inflame tensions and cast Hindus as perpetrators.
We urge the Commission and the Civil Rights Department to address this crisis and ensure the safety of Hindu Californians, including through the following actions: Improve Reporting Mechanisms: Allocate state resources to expand multilingual education and outreach specifically tailored to Hindu American communities to build confidence in reporting via the CA vs Hate system. Alongside this, consult with the Hindu American community about who would be the most culturally appropriate community based organizations to serve this role in CA vs Hate. Increase Hate Crime Transparency: Ensure that future data collection and annual reports by the Commission explicitly track and disaggregate anti-Hindu hate incidents to help law enforcement and policymakers accurately understand the scope of the problem. Enhance Security Resources: Support community-driven safety solutions by advocating for increased state security grants and safety awareness programs for vulnerable places of worship and community centers. Condemn Hate and Support Community Resilience: Publicly recognize and condemn the systemic nature of anti-Hindu bias, reinforcing that California stands united against all forms of religious and ethnic bigotry. Fulfill Advisory Role of Commission: Fulfill your role on the Commission to advise the Civil Rights Department and other state agencies on the importance of fighting anti-Hindu hate so that state resources can be allocated appropriately. Hindu Americans are an integral, vibrant part of the California tapestry. However, freedom of religion and the right to practice without fear of violence are foundational. We respectfully urge this Commission to formally recognize this dangerous spike in anti-Hindu bias and to prioritize the protection, safety, and inclusion of the Hindu American community in statewide anti-hate initiatives. Thank you and we look forward to working with the Commission in confronting hate across our state. Respectfully submitted, Samir Kalra, Esq. Managing Director, Policy & Programs Hindu American Foundation | 
