After backlash, MoCo cancels library event with controversial Hindu group

Coalition calls Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America a ‘hate group’; VHPA says it is target of ‘misinformation campaign’

April 11, 2026 10:00 a.m. | Updated: April 11, 2026 9:45 a.m.

Credit: Getty Images/Marco Venturini Autieri

Montgomery County Public Libraries (MCPL) called off a Hindi-language book event planned for Sunday at its Germantown Library after a coalition of religious and civil rights organizations objected to the participation of a local Hindi school associated with what the coalition described as a “hate group.”

“This concern is not about Hinduism, Hindu culture, or the Hindi language,” the coalition wrote in a Wednesday letter to county and library officials. “Our concern is about political ideology entering public institutions under the guise of cultural programming, particularly when that ideology has been documented as exclusionary, hateful, and violent.”

MCPL had planned to host “Many Languages, One Library: Celebrating Hindi,” on Sunday. The free event would celebrate the unveiling of a new collection of 160 Hindi-language books at the Germantown Library at 19840 Century Blvd.

Among the funders of the new book collection was Germantown’s Balvihar Hindi School, part of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America (VHPA). The VHPA describes itself on its website as “the oldest and one of the largest Hindu organizations in the U.S.” Representatives of the Hindi school were expected to speak at Sunday’s event.

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In the statement to Bethesda Today on Friday, VHPA Vice President Shyam Tiwari said the creation of MCPL’s Hindi-language book collection stemmed from “a simple desire amongst three friends to donate money to buy books for the local library and contribute to the community they live in.”

He urged county and library officials “to reconsider their decision and look deeper into the facts on [the] ground.”

County spokesperson Mary Anderson told Bethesda Today in an email Thursday that donations to the new book collection were “the result of a grassroots effort made up of many individuals, including parents and residents who use the library and want to see more Hindi-language materials.”

Other supporters of the book collection, according to a March 25 press release about the launch event, included Germantown’s Desi Runners Desi Walkers group and the nonprofit Senior Connection of Montgomery County in Rockville that’s partially funded by the county.

Coalition objections

The coalition that spoke out against the planned book launch event included the national advocacy groups Hindus for Human Rights, the Indian American Muslim Council, the Sikh Coalition, Dalit Solidarity Forum USA and others. It also included local groups such as No Hindutva Maryland and Peace Action Montgomery.

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In its Wednesday letter to county and library officials, the coalition wrote the VHPA has been “widely identified by scholars and civil and human rights organizations as part of a broader transnational network aligned with Hindutva, a political ideology that seeks to define India primarily as a Hindu nation.”

The coalition said that ideology — which it said promotes “exclusionary narratives that marginalize religious minorities and oppressed caste communities, frequently through extreme violence” — is not aligned with the values of equity and inclusion that the county and many Hindus share.

Rajya Karipineni, a Takoma Park resident and a member of Hindus for Human Rights, told Bethesda Today on Monday that she is an avid user of the county’s public libraries who cares about having representative books on the shelves.

The county’s earlier decision to partner with the VHPA “doesn’t represent me, it doesn’t represent my Hindu family, and it doesn’t represent a lot of Hindus that I know,” Karipineni told Bethesda Today.

“I don’t want the [VHPA] or any other extremist group like Moms for Liberty determining the books in our library,” she said, referring to the national organization that has pushed to remove LGBTQ+ books from libraries in Montgomery County and elsewhere.

The coalition also noted in its letter that the Hindi language is spoken not just by Hindus, but by “tens of millions of Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, and others.”

According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2024 American Community Survey, there are more than 9,000 Hindi speakers estimated to be living in Montgomery County.

VHPA response

Tiwari, the VHPA vice president, told Bethesda Today on Friday that his group has been targeted by a “hateful misinformation campaign launched by a motley coalition of Hinduphobic groups.”

He said opposition groups “routinely mix and associate politics in India to independent nonprofit organizations in the USA to attack them.”

In response to the claim that the VHPA and its ideology contribute to oppression of religious and caste minorities, Tiwari said the group “doesn’t promote any activity against other religions.”

“In fact, it is an established policy of VHPA to not speak against other religions. Our educational programs often have students from other religions and races as well,” Tiwari wrote. He also called the issue of caste — an ancient system of hereditary social classes — “irrelevant” in the U.S. context.

For his part, Ajit Sahi — the director of public affairs for the Indian American Muslim Council — told Bethesda Today in an April 3 interview that it is impossible to separate the VHPA’s efforts in the U.S. from the actions of Hindutva-aligned groups in India, which has included mob violence and the destruction of a mosque.

The Balvihar Hindi School, with classes across the country, “is not some harmless offshoot of the offshoot,” Sahi said. “It’s an ideological project.”

He said the VHPA often escapes public scrutiny because many in the U.S. do not have the context of Hindutva’s influence in India. Sahi is a Hindu who was born in India and now lives in Maryland.

“They deliberately go around the country, and the kind of things they talk about is yoga, language, the Hindu religion,” Sahi said of the VHPA. “And naturally, because they are a tiny minority, nobody cares to ask them, ‘What are your politics? Are you progressive people? Are you inclusive people?’ ”

Going forward, Sahi said his and other groups in the coalition would like the county to establish a robust process for reviewing the contents of foreign-language books. He also called on MCPL to consider adding books in more languages spoken in the Indian diaspora, including Tamil, Gujarati, Bangla, Telugu, Punjabi and others.

“We welcome Montgomery County Public Libraries’ decision to cancel this event. It is the correct step, though this partnership should never have been pursued in the first place,” Sahi wrote in a Friday statement to Bethesda Today.

“India has one of the world’s richest literary traditions, spanning thousands of years and especially flourishing during the last century’s anti-colonial struggle,” he continued. “It is also a country of many languages, cultures, and faiths. Any effort to represent Indian or Hindi literature in a public institution must reflect this diversity.”

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Originally published at Bethesdamagazine