A recent post by YouTuber Jesse Hughes, a conservative and MAGA (Make America Great Again) activist, calling for the removal of a 90 -foot statue of Lord Hanuman in Texas has sparked a row. Several Hindu groups and intellectuals voiced their discontent with the remarks and termed it "unpatriotic".
Since the consecration in August 2024, the Statue of the Union- installed at the Asthalaxmi Temple in Sugar Land- has been at the centre of controversy, with several conservatives calling it "un-Christian".
"Btw, when we win, we are tearing this down," wrote Hughes on X.
Ruchir Bakshi, a US Army veteran, criticised the remarks and said that it is a "threat against Hinduism itself to vandalise another American community's house of worship because you hate the faith inside it."
Bakshi describes himself as an American-Hindu and has raised his voice against the anti-Hindu sentiments in the US.
"I served with Christians, Jews, Muslims, atheists, and other Hindus. Nobody pulled rank on God before we went outside the wire. Some of those men never came home. None of them died so you could fantasise about ravaging someone else’s faith," he wrote on X.
The Coalition of Hindus of North America (CoHNA) and Carl Wheless, a US veteran based in Texas, had supported Bakshi's remarks.
"We share your horror at the open religious bigotry being mainstreamed on this platform and are proud to fight it alongside you," said CoHNA.
Ishaan Tharoor, son of Indian politician Shashi Tharoor, has voiced his criticism as well.
"I wonder if this fool knows that Christianity in India predates Christianity in the US by more than 1500 years. There are tens of thousands of churches in India. Yet America can't handle a Hanuman statue? Religious nationalists everywhere are the most fragile," he wrote on X.
Texas has been a Republican stronghold for decades and hasn't elected a Democrat to any office since 1994. The rising anti-immigrant narrative has been a recurring theme in the midterm election campaign in Texas.
