Watching some 50,000 of her fellow Indian Americans line up outside a Houston stadium on September 22 to see India’s prime minister Narendra Modi take the stage at last month’s Howdy Modi rally, Sarah Philips felt sick.
“As an Indian Christian who grew up in this city . . . I stand here disgusted that a man who is responsible for persecution against religious minorities, violence against Dalits, and so much more evil is standing in that stadium,” Philips, an organizer with AZAAD Austin, declared into a megaphone at the protest she helped coordinate against the rally. “You are celebrating a man who has a singular view of what India is: a Hindu state. That view is violent, and you aren’t celebrating us.”
[Modi was in Houston to appear at a rally with President Donald Trump and other US political leaders, as well as to mark a major natural gas partnership between American and Indian companies.]
