Last week, braving extremely inclement weather and floods, SinghaBahini, a grassroots organization in India, organized a major pro-Israel rally in Kolkata, India.
The Kolkata rally saw more than 10 -12,000 people come together to attend. With bumper-to-bumper traffic and roads clogged due to sudden heavy downpour and floods, many more who wanted to attend the rally could not make it to the site.
President of SinghaBahini Devdutta Maji, who organized the rally, said, "Hindus for generations have been facing genocides. We have lost 400 million Hindus in the last 1400 years. 53 million Hindus have simply vanished from Bangladesh alone. This must end. Hindus need to get organized and see inspiration in the tiny beautiful nation of Israel, on how they stop terrorism on their own soil and support their own people."
Devdutta Maji, who visited Israel in 2018 and was hosted by Israel-based organizations and activists, told the Jerusalem Herald, "Today's rally will help to build on the foundations we have created for the India Israel relationship on a people to people basis."
"The implications of these are bound to spill over to co-operation between the two communities worldwide, who share similar values, making us strong."
In the rally, placards reading, "We Support the Jewish People in their 2000 years Old Struggle,", "India and Israel Friends forever," and "We Support Israel in their WAR against TERRORISM" were also put up.
The relations between India and Israel have shown a positive turn under the leadership of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. With strong trade ties, people to people contact and rallies in support of Israel as seen recently, ties between India and Israel and between the Hindus and Jews worldwide are expected to strengthen further.
While the organization SinghaBahini is just a year old, its organizers have been fighting the existential battle for the Hindus in the villages of Eastern India for over a decade. Devdutta Maji, SinghaBahini's founder, was instrumental in organizing two previous large pro-Israel rallies in India: one in 2014, with 20,000 people, and another in 2018, with 70,000 people.
