proposed<\/a> in March by former ASUC Senator Justin Taylor\u00a0but was argued against by other ASUC representatives, such as former senator and current ASUC Executive Vice President Isha Chander. The resolution was indefinitely tabled by the ASUC.<\/p>\nFollowing the original resolution\u2019s failure to pass in March, CYAN moved to social media in May to condemn the ASUC for not passing the resolution.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cDespite passing several other heritage month resolutions this semester, student senators chose to politicize Hindu Heritage to push Hinduphobic talking points, including the accusation of \u2018Hindu Nationalism,\u2019\u201d said a May 13 Instagram post by CYAN.<\/p>\n
Chander claims that these posts severely misrepresent her perspective. She said that she opposed the initial resolution because its subtext and citations referenced several lobbying groups that may be affiliated with Hindu nationalism,\u00a0not the resolution itself.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy intention was never to change the material outcomes of the resolution at all,\u201d Chander said. \u201cI think recognition and celebration of all students on our campus is incredibly important. \u2026 It was an attempt to make sure that, when we\u2019re thinking about identity-based commemorations in a secular institution like student government, it\u2019s not being affiliated with some sort of larger movement that might conflate religion and advocacy.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a recent interview with Indian news outlet PGurus following the passage of the resolution, CYAN representative Aryan Sawant, alongside other Hindu YUVA and CYAN representatives, said the current resolution had \u201cno substantial differences\u201d from the prior resolution other than its citations.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201c(The ASUC) basically acknowledged that there never was any Hindu nationalism in the resolution,\u201d Sawant said in a YouTube video posted by PGurus. \u201cThis whole debacle has just been a ploy to basically make a political statement: that Hindus are always held to a higher standard and therefore they have to \u2026 spend twice the amount of time to get a Hindu Heritage Month compared to other groups.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chander noted that \u201cthe material outcomes of the resolution\u201d are \u201cpretty much the same\u201d and that the conversations around its amendment was to avoid \u201clanguage that could be perceived as harmful by, for example, religious minority communities.\u201d<\/p>\n
The May social media posts received significant internet attention, gaining hundreds of likes. According to Chander, she received threats to both herself and her family, as well as doxxing, due to the posts.<\/p>\n
Chander said this caused harm to not only her but other senators who were named in the posts.<\/p>\n
Despite the online conflict, Chander and other ASUC representatives participated in a working group for several months with CYAN and Hindu YUVA representatives to create the recently passed resolution.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a firm believer in the power of our student government structures and what they\u2019re built to foster, which is discourse and debate,\u201d Chander said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The ASUC passed a resolution Dec. 3 formally recognizing October as Hindu Heritage Month after months of controversy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":99655,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[54394,26927,48526,54391,54389,54390,54385,54386,54392,40567,2959,2302,143,145,144,54393,54387,54388],"class_list":["post-99654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-aryan-sawant","tag-asuc","tag-asuc-executive-vice-president-isha-chander","tag-asuc-senator-justin-taylor","tag-cohna-youth-action-network","tag-cyan","tag-hindu-heritage-month","tag-hindu-youth-for-unity","tag-hinduphobic","tag-indian","tag-march","tag-may","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-pgurus","tag-virtues-and-action","tag-yuva-at-berkeley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99654\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}