‘Toolkit’ Case: How Indian Left Made Christian Fundamentalist Pieter Friedrich A Hero Despite Open Hate Against Hindus, LGBTQ Etc

The Delhi Police in a press-conference on 15 February had revealed fresh names in the toolkit controversy including that of Christian missionary Pieter Friedrich, who the cops say has been on the radar of Indian security agencies since 2006.

Friedrich's name was listed under the "persons to be followed" within the protest ‘Toolkit’.

Some netizens have dug up the old writings and speeches of Pieter Freidrich after his name propped up in the toolkit controversy. As the news blew up, Friedrich quickly deleted his hate filled, homophobic posts.

However, social media users had archived and taken screenshots of his writings.

Despite Friedrich deleting his blogs after the ‘toolkit’ case, social media users dug out his old posts which were allegedly full of repulsive rape-victim shaming, anti-LGBT anecdotes. He even argues against immediate abolition of slavery of Blacks.

A social media user has posted some writings of Pieter Friedrich from an old blogspot discussion. The quoted sentences are allegedly from a writing of Friedrich named as “Homosexuality: A Hate-filled Lifestyle”.

“The homosexuality agenda, even that agenda which consists of nothing more than getting up, going to work, coming home, entertaining oneself, and engaging in sexual activity with one’s partner - is evil, perverse and hateful,” writes Pieter Friedrich. He also calls homosexual activities as blatant violation of God’s law.

Netizens have said that while Pieter Freidrich’s previous mission was against homosexuals, his current mission is to target and demonise Hindus.

In 2006, Friedrich was found to be keeping the company of Bhajan Singh Bhinder alias Iqbal Chaudhary - an ISI operative part of the K2 desk of the Pakistani intelligence agency. While over the years Freidrich has managed to amass a large social media following, he is mostly dependent on Pakistan for his project's success.

Pieter Friedrich's Massive Cover-up

Before being propped up by Bhinder, Friedrich purportedly was a nobody. As per a thread by Disinfo Labs, a financially struggling Friedrich agreed to become an "expert-activist" and in his early days changed his name three-four times, and wrote book in different aliases.

Now amid his link to the toolkit, social media users have also dug up his alleged writings wherein he makes disparaging comments against LGBTQ+ community.

This includes alleged writings like "Homosexuality: A Hate-filled Lifestyle", wherein he described Homosexuality as "evil, perverse and hateful" and called it a "blatant violation of god's law".

A blog created to expose Friedrich's anti-Homosexuality stance, lists out other instances of similar views expressed by him. Incidentally, the blog also provides hyperlinks to Friedrich's purported blogs, all of which have now been removed.

While countering an anti-slavery essay by William Lloyd Garrison, Friedrich writes in an 8 February blogpost titled Garrison’s “To The Public”, "This notoriety would arise due to Garrison’s strident prose and his unique view in favor of immediate emancipation...yet while justice demanded satisfaction, the very success of black Americans depended on gradual abolition..the inflammatory rhetoric of Garrison’s essay is very persuasive, but only to those who overlook the value of gradual emancipation.

In another blogpost dated 1 April 2006 and titled Boycotts, Friedrich openly reveals his anti-LGBTQ+ views, "While I’m all for sensible boycotts if and when they succeed, I question the wisdom of boycotting Borders over this incident (boycott over Prophet Mohammed cartoons). After all, there are far better reasons to boycott the store, like in response to their well-stocked “gay and lesbian” section.

In a post dated 22 April 2006, Friedrich even shames a rape victim by writing, "As I said a month ago, after the St. Guillen murder, “A culture which still upheld good taste and refused to condone” the debauchery of middle-class women would have forced self-censure upon all the victims (or in the case of the Duke rape, purported victims) in question, and they would all be unscathed in any way."

Pieter Friedrich's Hinduphobia

In 2007 Pieter Friedrich founded an organisation named "Organisation for Indian Minorities (OFMI), which as per reports appointed Bhinder as the CEO in 2013 and Friedrich's brother-in-law Steve Macias became its CFO.

OFMI has been involved in vitriolic protests against first Hindu-American Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, which included calling her a "fascist" and "India's foreign agent". It has also made absurd equivalences of the RSS with US white supremacist organisation Ku Klux Klan (KKK).

As per the report, Friedrich was involved in campaigns to target and electorally defeat prominent Hindu-American lawmakers like Sri Preston Kulkarni and Padma Kuppa, Ami Bera, Raja Krishnamoorthi, Jenifer Rajkumar and Rishi Kumar.

The report adds that the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) wrote a letter complaining against Friedrich stating that, "(Friedrich) testified several times at the California State Board Education between 2015-2017 denigrating the Hindu religion, Hindu American activism, and promoting the inclusion of negative stereotypes on Hinduism in California textbooks".

The letter adds that Friedrich has participated in OFMI protests promoting hate speech against Hinduism and Hindu symbols. These protests included using "cow-piss" slurs against Hindus - similar to the one used by the Pulwama suicide bomber.

"Don’t throw a fit but cow culture is bullshit. We don’t drink pee in the land of the free", read one of the signs at the protest.

Friedrich was also instrumental in organising protests against statues of Mahatma Gandhi whom he called “a racist, a casteist, and a sexual predator”.

Also read: Understanding Ideological Hindu-Hatred And Underlying Christian, Islamic Imperial Structures That Fuel It

Why Indian left-liberals support a man with openly bigoted views?

It is anybody’s guess that a person saying similar things as Peter Friedrich openly on social media would not be allowed to become a hero by a self-proclaimed groups of “liberals” or “rights-activists”.

Friedrich’s fundamentalist stances would be a huge liability and threat to their credibility. However, it is quite opposite the case when it comes to Indian left-liberals.

Peter’s verified followers network includes the names of Irfan Habib, Mona Ambegaonkar, Prashant Kanojia, Sagarika Ghose, Kavita Krishnan etc.

As expected, no mainstream media house in India has questioned the people mentioned above about whether they endorse the anti-homosexual, racist views of Peter Friedrich, and if not, why were they willing to overlook them?

Allegedly, the ‘toolkit’ scenario has only increased Friedrich’s popularity and he is now collecting huge amounts of donations and selling his books to further his Hindu-hatred agenda.

And Friedrich’s Indian supporters, many of whom gobble up huge amounts of Indian taxpayers’ money sitting in public sponsored chairs, aren’t required to answer or clarify.

Indian left, almost completely rejected by Indians in the electoral democracy, has come to rely totally on the imperial forces for survival.

In order to do so, not only have Indian left-liberals blunted their capacity to critique the ideas that historically propelled imperialism, colonialism and conquest, rather emerged as champions of the Christian and Islamic imperialism in India, not the least due to the financial and political clout both hold in the global arena.

The Peter Friedrich episode is yet another in a long list of proofs.

Also read: Indian Left’s Fall From Grace: Those Who Criticised Global Capitalism Are Now Taking Orders From Foreign Masters