Mayor Adams backs out of joint appearance with divisive Hindu figure

Mayor Eric Adams canceled an appearance next week in Queens with a controversial Hindu leader who for years has faced charges of fomenting anti-Muslim hate in the United States and India, where she was once jailed on charges of hate speech.

Adams was billed as the “guest of honor” in online flyers promoting the joint appearance on July 16 with Kajal Hindusthani in Fresh Meadows. The well-known Hindu activist has drawn fire for calling Muslims “bloodthirsty zombies” in a speech earlier this year. Hindusthani also faced criticism for purportedly urging Hindus to boycott Muslim businesses during an appearance in Dallas last month.

But Harshad Patel, president of the Gujarati Samaj of New York, which organized the event with a number of other local Hindu and Indian-American groups, said the mayor had agreed to attend only to pull out five days later without offering any explanation.

City Hall staffer Zachary Nosanchuk would only say the event was not on Adams' official schedule and that the mayor did not in any way endorse Hindusthani’s views. Adams' re-election campaign staff said it would have no comment on Friday. But advance publicity of the joint appearance – amid a campaign where religious identity and conflict have been issues – spurred calls for Adams to disavow Hindusthani and her past statements.

“ If you're the mayor of New York City, you know what's going on in India,” said Democratic political strategist Amit Singh Bagga, referring to that country's long-standing religious tensions. “It's just not credible that you would accept such an invitation without having had at least a couple of people vet it first.”

The controversy evinces how religious and political differences in the South Asian diaspora have taken on unprecedented meaning in New York City politics, including the race for mayor. Adams, who is running as an independent, faces Zohran Mamdani, a state assemblymember and the winner of last month's Democratic mayoral primary. Mamdani, who is a Muslim, was born in Uganda to Indian parents.

Mamdani’s campaign and outreach have galvanized voters in immigrant neighborhoods, leading to noticeably higher turnouts, including among segments of the 450,000 South Asians who live across the five boroughs. But those voters are no monolith. Hindu community leaders have criticized Mamdani for his rebuke of India’s Hindu nationalist ruling party and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whom he’s called a “war criminal.”

In a statement to Gothamist, Mamdani said, “It’s troubling, though unsurprising, that it required scrutiny from the press and pushback from community organizations for Mayor Adams to cancel his guest of honor appearance at an event for Kajal Hindustani. We should be bringing New Yorkers together, not stoking division."

Hindusthani, who also goes by the name of Kajal Shingala, according to her personal website, promoted the event on social media, with an image of herself alongside that of Adams and a brief comment: “New York… I am coming.” She did not respond to messages seeking comment.

Despite the cancellation, more than two dozen local community organizations from the South Asian diaspora and the city’s interfaith network issued a letter calling on the mayor to denounce Hindustani and better familiarize himself with the problem of “Hindu supremacy” in the West.

The July 10 letter, signed by Hindus for Human Rights, India Civil Watch International, the Indian American Muslim Council, Riverside Church and Islamic Center of Long Island, among other groups, stated that Hindusthani “owns the dubious record of giving more hate speeches in 2023 than any other Hindu supremacist figure.”

They cited a report from the Center for the Study of Organized Hate, a nonpartisan think tank based in Washington, D.C. The report noted that Hindusthani “delivered an anti-Muslim hate speech” in India claiming that “Muslim fruit vendors and eateries were injecting medicines that were increasingly rendering Hindus impotent and infertile.”

According to Indian news reports, Indian authorities arrested Hindusthani on charges of “wantonly giving provocation with intent to cause riot” and “deliberate or malicious act intending to outrage religious feelings,” after a communal clash erupted following a speech she gave in 2023. But she has also courted controversy in the United States.

In an online summary of Hindusthani's June 29 speech in Dallas, Global Hindu Heritage Foundation USA, which co-sponsored the event, wrote that Hindusthani was a “staunch nationalist, Hindu human rights activist, and influencer” who “stressed the importance of supporting Hindu carpenters, milkmen, plumbers, electricians, and others, and not giving business to jihadis to save a few rupees, because that money could be used to harm your fathers and brothers.”

The organization, which cited the remarks with approval, did not respond to questions about the speech. According to the Indian American Muslim Council, a national group that bills itself as the country’s largest advocacy group for Indian Muslims, a coalition of Dallas-area Christians and Muslims filed a police complaint asking law enforcement officials to investigate the speech as a bias-motivated hate incident.

Patel, the president of the Gujarati Samaj of New York, said the organization had invited Hindusthani to speak because she’s from the Indian state of Gujarat “ and she's a good speaker.”

The free event is supported by a number of other organizations, including the Brahmin Society of New York, the Indo American Senior Citizens Center and the Brahmin Samaj of New York, and helps mark the Gujarati Samaj’s 50th anniversary celebrations, Patel said.

He added that the mayor had attended five or six of the group’s events in the past, including Diwali celebrations, and was expected to speak “a couple words” and participate in photo ops with attendees following Hindusthani’s speech.

Dheepa Sundaram, an assistant professor of Hindu Studies at Denver University, said Hindusthani’s past statements related to Muslims “appeal to a particular segment of the broader South Asian community in the United States, but particularly in New York, where we've seen a small plurality of folks that have expressed these kinds of thoughts about Zohran Mamdani.”

Zainab Tanvir, the co-director of the New York chapter of Muslims for Progressive Values, a signatory of the letter to Adams, said Hindusthani’s appearance in New York exacerbated religious tensions in the city and placed Muslim New Yorkers at risk.

“The hateful ideology promoted by Kajal Hindustani does not exist in a vacuum — it actively contributes to an atmosphere of bigotry that endangers lives,” Tanvir said. “In New York City, where Muslims live, worship, and raise their families, this rhetoric fuels a climate of fear and opens the door to real-world violence. We refuse to remain silent as our communities are targeted.”

Sunita Viswanath, the executive director of Hindus for Human Rights, said she was deeply concerned about the “level of vitriol” being injected into the mayoral race, especially relating to Islam and Mamdani.

“I'm very ashamed and I'm very worried,” Viswanath said. “It really behooves the person running the city to really pour water on the hate right now.”

This story was updated with additional information.