US leader's 'false Hindu God' remark

A towering 90-foot statue of Lord Hanuman in Texas has ignited a major controversy in the US.

Transcript

00:00Huge half-monkey, half-human statue in Texas, a false statue of a false Hindu god.

00:04These are the headlines and the remarks now fueling a major row in the United States,

00:08all over a 90-foot statue of Lord Hanuman in Texas, among the tallest statues in North America.

00:14The latest spark came from Republican Senate candidate Alexander Duncan,

00:17a Trump ally who took to social media objecting to the construction of the Hanuman statue,

00:21questioning why it should exist in what he described as a Christian nation.

00:25Posting a video of the Statue of Union, he tweeted,

00:27Why are we allowing a false statue of a false Hindu god to be here in Texas?

00:31He even cited the Bible to back his objection,

00:33remarks that many Hindu groups and Indian Americans have condemned as anti-Hindu and inflammatory.

00:38The Hindu American Foundation has demanded disciplined reaction,

00:42accusing Duncan of bigotry and reminding Republicans of their own anti-discrimination guidelines,

00:47as well as America's First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of religion.

00:51This isn't the first time that the Hanuman statue has faced backlash.

00:54Ever since its unveiling in August 2024 at the Shri Ashti Lakshmi Temple,

00:58it has been a target of Trump's MAGA supporters online.

01:01Some went so far as to call it demonic.

01:03One US headline mocked it as a huge half-monkey, half-human statue in Texas,

01:07a description Hindu groups condemned as offensive.

01:10Some conservatives even made shocking comparisons,

01:12claiming the statue resembled George Floyd,

01:14whose death in 2021 triggered massive racial justice protests across the United States.

01:19But despite the political firestorm,

01:21the Hanuman statue stands as one of the tallest of its kind in North America,

01:24a spiritual symbol for the Hindu community and now a flashpoint in America's cultural wars.