On 15 July, American lawyer and Republican Party official Harmeet Dhillon ended the 2024 Republican National Convention (RNC) with a Sikh prayer. Dhillon’s prayer led to a meltdown on social media by American Christian supremacists who found it anti-Christian and blasphemous against American national and religious values.

This presents a curious case of a known Khalistani sympathizer, an anti-Hindu/anti-Bharat ideologue, receiving a taste of her own medicine from her supposed allies. Although Hindu society shows respect and brotherly camaraderie towards the Sikh community, the Khalistanis vehemently oppose Hindus and Bharat and express their hate towards Hindu Dharma.

However, these same Khalistani do not dare question the Abrahamic (both Christian and Islamic) hatred against the ‘paganism’ of Sikhs. The modern-day Sikhs inspired by Khalistani ideology typically try to decouple their religion from ‘Hindu’ elements and attempt to portray themselves as being closer to the Abrahamics and better than the ‘polytheist’ and ‘idolatrous’ Hindus. But little do they realize that they are also considered inferior by the Abrahamic supremacists, whom they try to imitate.

The case of Harmeet Dhillon is something to be taken note of by those not affiliated with the Khalistani ideology in the Sikh community and identify and distinguish their real friends/allies from the enemies of their religion/culture.

Dhillon receives severe backlash from American Christian supremacists

“ABSOLUTELY UNACCEPTABLE!!,” tweeted conservative Christian commentator Behizy. “I have nothing but respect for Harmeet Dhillon but fire whoever invited her to pray to a foreign god; there is only one true God we pray to, and his name is not whatever she said. His name is YAHWEH, and his only begotten Son is Jesus Christ.”

Others accused Dhillon of being a pagan and termed the Sikh blessing “witchcraft”. “How about you get deported instead, you pagan blasphemer. God saves our president, and the RNC mocks him with this witchcraft,” tweeted far-right political activist Lauren Witzke.

An American RW account in X, “s_zumock”, compared Dhillon’s prayer to devil worship. Another Republican Christian supremacist supporter, “BenZeisloft”, also expressed his disgust towards the Sikh prayer.

You can worship freely, but you should not promote your non-Christian religion at the GOP convention,” said one X user.

Another X user said reciting a Sikh prayer at the RNC was “embarrassing.”

“America is a Christian country. We had an excellent Christian prayer before this that mentioned Jesus Christ. This was unnecessary, performative, and blasphemous,” X user Connor Mahoney tweeted.

“YearOfTheKraken” in X made a long-list compilation of many such hateful comments by the US Christian supremacist supporters of the Republican party.

Anti-Bharatiya / anti-Hindu stance of Khalistani sympathizers and slavish subservience towards Abrahamics

The dichotomy of anti-Bharat / anti-Hindu postures, all the while being slavishly subservient towards the Abrahamic supremacists, is a characteristic feature of the Khalistani sympathizers and leaders.

Earlier, Dhillon had come out in support of the pro-Khalistani elements and Canadian government over allegations against Bharat in Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar’s murder case. On 19 September 2023, a day after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused Bharatiya agents of killing Nijjar, Dhillon quoted Canadian opposition leader Pierre Poilievre, who supported Trudeau in attacking Bharat.

In December 2023, she quoted US-based media house The Intercept’s dubious and baseless report against Bharat, where it was claimed that the Bharatiya Ministry of External Affairs issued a secret memo in April 2023. The news report claimed that the Bharatiya government, in the memo, ordered its consulates in North America to launch a “sophisticated crackdown scheme” against ‘Sikh diaspora organisations’ in Western nations. Bharatiya government categorically denied the existence of any such memo.

In March 2023, she quoted a Reuters report on so-called Human Rights violations in Bharat and asserted that the people of Punjab suffered due to the recent internet shutdown. She also claimed that Sikh journalists and activists were being targeted. The internet shutdown in Punjab she was referring to was done to stop the spread of misinformation during a crackdown against Khalistani sympathizer preacher-turned-MP Amritpal Singh.

Despite being an American politician who has no say in Bharat’s internal affairs, she kept trying to meddle during farmer protests.

The controversy around Harmeet Dhillon’s Sikh prayer at RNC highlighted the intolerance embedded in American society. However, before jumping in to defend her, Bharatiyas and Hindus especially must be aware of her history of supporting controversial claims and figures, like Khalistani terrorists Hardeep Singh Nijjar and Gurpatwant Singh Pannun.

Despite receiving such bigoted hate, the Khalistani sympathizers seem to be blindly expecting respect from the Abrahamics by trying to dissociate themselves from the Hindus. This was seen in several online interactions by Sikh accounts while American Christians were ignorantly calling the Sikh prayer a Hindu prayer.

Some Sikhs expressed their disbelief about the hateful comments received by them. One account, “jpdeol”, claimed that no “real Christian” would criticize the Sikh prayer. He even went on to say that half his “family” were Christians. This goes on to show the shallow understanding of average Sikhs on how religions work and primarily how Abrahamic religions operate in the socio-cultural space.

The instance of Sikh prayer by Harmeet Dhillon at a prominent US political event has shown mirror to the dichotomy between the Christian evangelical supremacist dominance in the USA/The West and the Khalistani slavish mentality of acting like useful idiots and acting against their interests. While blindly attacking the Hindus, who are much closer civilizationally and culturally than the Abrahamics.