Aruna Miller, the new Democratic lieutenant governor of Maryland, is stirring concern in the state due to her decade-long ties to advocates for far-right Hindu nationalist groups in India, according to a report in the Huffington Post.
Miller, a former state
legislator, assumed office in January 2023 alongside Gov. Wes Moore (D). Since
then, activists and voters have sounded the alarm over Miller's history of
brushing shoulders with nationalist groups and dodging questions about her ties
to a violent ideology that has long cracked down on minorities. She and Moore
have also faced questions about collecting thousand of dollars in political donations from people
sympathetic to Hindutva, a far-right nationalist ideology that mirrors white
supremacy, Rowaida Abdelaziz wrote.
A spokesperson for Moore-Miller was quoted by HuffPost as saying that Miller "consistently and unequivocally condemns all forms of religious persecution and violence and all of the hateful ideologies that perpetuate it" and further noted that she had won her race with the highest number of individual votes in Maryland lieutenant gubernatorial history.
Tellingly, Miller's support of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the ruling extreme rightist Bhartiya Junta Party (BJP) dates back nearly a decade. In 2014, as Modi was mobilizing support ahead of the election, Miller attended an event in Virginia hosted by the Overseas Friends of the BJP (OFBJP), the international wing of the BJP.
Aruna Miller, a Maryland state delegate at the time, commented about looking forward to seeing Modi in New York after he won the election. "The last time I was at the Madison Square Garden in New York I think I saw a rock show. Now there's going to be a new rock star there on September 28, Prime Minister Modi," she said in an interview with The American Bazaar, an Indian American news publication.
Activists point out that Aruna Miller has continued to receive support from figures with close ties to Modi and the Hindutva movement.
When she launched her race for Maryland's 6th Congressional District in 2018, Aruna Miller brought on Sudhir Sekhsaria, an allergist in Maryland, as her treasurer. Sekhsaria hosted a fundraiser for Aruna Miller in Houston that was attended by several Hindu nationalists. Among them was Ramesh Bhutada, the long-time vice president of Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh USA, the American arm of a Hindu nationalist paramilitary volunteer organization in India called Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or RSS. The BJP is the political arm of RSS.
Scott Webber, a Democratic activist in Maryland, told HuffPost that he approved of Aruna Miller's platform as a state delegate--until he learned about her ties to far-right Hindu groups. "She is not anti-immigrant. She talks about being pro-female. She talks about religious pluralism. She talks about tolerance and she talks about the need for having open dialogue and being anti-violence," Webber said, adding: "She talks about all those things but supports the BJP."
Webber now joins a coalition of activists and voters who are increasingly concerned about the influence of Hindutva and are calling for Miller to unequivocally and publicly denounce the movement. They also want Miller to return donations she received from people with Hindutva connections and redirect those funds to human rights groups.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
