Kautilya 3, Shahinshah121 and others: A look at the anti-Hindu editors who vandalised the Wikipedia page of Hindu American Foundation

For many years, OpIndia has been highlighting the fact that the so-called ‘free encyclopedia’, Wikipedia, is neither free nor fair in any respect. Wikipedia allows anti-India and anti-Hindu editors to use the platform for publishing biased and misleading information about individuals and entities. New research by the Neutral Point of View (NPOV) Media reveals how the anti-Hindu editors have peddled propaganda against the US-based Hindu American Foundation (HAF) on Wikipedia. Certain Wikipedia editors have linked various activities of the Hindu American Foundation to Hindutva, in an attempt to push a narrative that HAF furthers a pro-Hindu political agenda. According to the HAF’s Wikipedia page, the Hindu rights organisation is ‘rebranding’ Hindutva as “Hindu rights” by highlighting Hindu persecution in the US, opposing cultural appropriation of the Hindu practice of Yoga and opposing laws that weaponise imaginary caste discrimination to target Hindus. “The organization alleges that its advocacy focuses on protecting rights of Hindus in the United States, drawing attention to Hindu persecution abroad, pushing back against the cultural appropriation of yoga, and opposition to laws prohibiting caste-based discrimination. However, these efforts largely function as an attempt to rebrand Hindutva as “Hindu rights” in order to better suit the mainstream politics of multiculturalism in the United States,” the Wikipedia page of the Hindu American Foundation reads. In a report published on 3rd June, the Ashley Rindsberg-led NPOV Media highlighted how a small cluster of anonymous editors controlled more than 80% of the HAF’s Wikipedia page. There are four editors, responsible for 80% of the biased information appearing on the HAF’s Wikipedia page. These editors are TrangaBellam, Kautilya3, Llightex, and Shahinshah121. Vanamonde93, a notorious Hindu-hating editor, has also intervened to support the editors cluster involved in creating an interconnected ecosystem of pages surrounding HAF, its critics, and the organisations aligned against the Hindu rights group since 2021. “The effort to reshape the narrative about HAF began in early 2021. It was then that a small cluster of highly active Wikipedia editors began constructing an interconnected ecosystem of pages surrounding HAF, its critics, and the organizations aligned against it. These users include TrangaBellam, Kautilya3, Llightex, and Shahinshah121. Another users, Vanamonde93, one of the most powerful administrators on the site, frequently intervened in ways that appear to support the core cluster,” the NPOV report titled Wikipedia’s India War reads. It must be recalled that it was in 2021 that Audrey Truschke, a notorious anti-Hindu ‘historian’, launched a major online attack on the HAF, and accused the group of promoting ‘Hindu nationalism’ in the US. In May 2021, the HAF filed a lawsuit against the Mughal fangirl. All this while, the Wikipedia page of the Hindu American Foundation was being besmirched by several anti-Hindu editors, and new material was being churned out in a coordinated attack on the Hindu rights advocacy group. The NPOV Media research found that just two months before the HAF filed a lawsuit against Truschke, George Soros-funded Hindus for Human Rights and the Islamist group, Indian American Muslim Council,  “TrangaBellam created the Wikipedia biography of Audrey Truschke, and on which is still by far the dominant user, with over 57% authorship (compared with under 5% for the third-ranked user on the page).” On one hand, the HAF’s page was being edited for inserting biased information against the Hindu rights group, on the other, Audrey Truschke’s Wikipedia page was embellished with her own claims of victimhood. On X (formerly Twitter), in her articles and speeches, Truschke would claim that she was receiving threats from ‘Hindu nationalists’. The interesting part? Wikipedia editors cited a Washington Post opinion piece co-authored by Audrey Truschke as their “source” for the claim that Truschke was being subjected to harassment by “people affiliated with Hindutva” The other source was the “Hindutva Harassment Field Manual” created by South Asia Scholar Activist Collective (SASAC). This group was co-founded by Audrey Truschke. In a nutshell, Truschke claimed that she was being victimised by Hindu rights groups like the HAF, repeated the same lies in her articles, trashy ‘manuals’, etc, and Wikipedia editors just picked up whatever claims she made and inserted them in her Wikipedia page. TrangaBellam and other anti-Hindu editors basically wanted the page visitors to either ignore the source of the victimhood bogey or see it and believe that since ‘Audrey Truschke is saying that Hindus are harassing her, then it must be true.’ “Within weeks, her Wikipedia entry did not just carry this same messaging, but was structured around it, with the claim made in the very first sentences of the page. “Truschke has been a frequent target of harassment by supporters of Hindutva,” the lead section reads, “who accuse her of having prejudiced views on Hinduism, and making offensive statements; scholars reject the charges,” the NPOV report stated. The Wikipedia entry that Truschke was being subjected to harassment by Hindu ‘extremists’ was made on 10th July 2021 by TrangaBellam. As per the NPOV report, it was on the same day the account added that Truschke had formed a “collective  to combat increasing harassment of South Asian scholars.” “This addition took place just nine days after the domain for the group was registered, according to WHOIS records—and only four days after the first recorded snapshot of the site being live on Archive.org. In this space of time, an editor presumably unrelated to the group had not only become aware of this nascent, highly obscure organization and its brand-new website, but had also found time to write it into the factual record on Wikipedia—a remarkable coincidence,” the NPOV report reads. It further highlights how just days later, TrangaBellam made its first and most important edit to the Hindu American Foundation’s page. TrangaBellam floated the claim that the HAF’s lawsuit represented an unprecedented attack on academic freedom. The biased editor inserted various false claims against the HAF on HAF’s Wikipedia page and, in clear violation of the platform’s rules, cited the website of Hindus for Human Rights—a litigant in the suit filed by the HAF. In addition to TrangaBellam, one Shahinshah121 added various links from Truschke’s days-old SASAC website, began editing the HAF page, inserting claims of anti-Muslim sentiment among some of the group’s members. Before this, on 8th July 2021, Shahinshah121 attempted to create a Wikipedia page for Truschke’s SASAC. This attempt was made just two days after SASAC registered its domain. Shahinshah121 made three more such unsuccessful attempts. Shahinshah121 24 edits to the HAF page, six edits to its second most edited page, Hindutva. This editor’s half of the lifetime edits were to the HAF’s page, second-most to the Hindutva page, while on the rest of the work, Shahishah121 made only single edits. Shahinshah121 essentially indulged in behaviour of what Wikipedia calls a “Single Purpose Account”. The NPOV analysis deduced that the edits by TrangaBellam, Shahinshah121 and others from the cluster, established a narrative that the Hindu American Foundation is an RSS-linked and pro-BJP Hindutva extremist group masquerading as a mere Hindu rights advocacy group. The report further cites a 2025 incident to demonstrate how the Wikipedia editors relied on vague letters and random news reports to peddle an insinuation that the HAF was somehow on the US Department of Justice’s radar. “In 2025, the HAF was named in a complaint to the Department of Justice, alleging that the HAF operates as an unregistered foreign agent of India’s BJP…”  the HAF’s Wikipedia page reads The framing gives an impression to the readers that the Hindu American Foundation was investigated by the DoJ for being an “unregistered foreign agent”. In reality, however, a pro-Khalistan Fremont Gurdwara Sahib had, through a law firm, written an unsolicited letter to the DoJ making the ‘foreign agent’ claims. The incident was covered by a propaganda outlet, Mother Jones, Khalistani rag Baaz News, and the UK-based anti-India newspaper, The Guardian. Shahinshah121 mentioned this episode on the HAF Wikipedia page; however, the editor deliberately withheld the key information that DOJ never announced any investigation against the HAF. There was no confirmation that the DOJ even read the letter sent by the Fremont Gurdwara Sahib. Another major anti-Hindu editor who transformed the HAF Wikipedia page significantly to make the Hindu rights appear like a deceitful nationalist extremist outfit was Kautilya 3. “The organisation has its roots in the Hindu nationalist organisation Vishwa Hindu Parishad America and its student wing Hindu Students Council. According to its critics, the HAF has repackaged the Hindu nationalist agenda in the language of “Hindu rights” in a way to suit mainstream American politics,” an edit by Kautilya3 to the HAF Wikipedia page reads. In addition to contributing to the HAF page, Kautilya 3 also holds 25.3% authorship of the Wikipedia page for the Indian American Muslim Council. Kautilya 3 also holds 41.4% authorship of the Wikipedia page on caste discrimination in the US. In January 2026, Uday Reddy aka Kautilya 3, edited out the critical remarks by the Indian Americans against the SB 403 and Equality Labs survey. Notably, the SB403 was a so-called anti-caste discrimination legislation that is making its way through the Californian state legislature. California Senator Aisha Wahab tabled the bill. The dubious organisation Equality Labs is one of the bill’s biggest supporters. The bill was completely based on the Cisco caste case. While the bill passed through the state legislature in September 2023, Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed in October 2023. Notably, Kautilya 3 is a UK-based Wikipedia editor, Uday Reddy, who was booked by Manipur police in 2024 for promoting enmity between communities in Manipur and propagating anti-Meitei hatred. He received criticism from some Wikipedia editors for attempting to label the blockbuster Dhurandhar films as a piece of pro-Modi and anti-Pakistan ‘propaganda’. Back in 2024, OpIndia published a dossier detailing how Wikipedia is not a free, editorial-intervention-free encyclopaedia which relies on the voluntary work of thousands of unpaid, passionate volunteers across the globe, as claimed by the Wikimedia Foundation. OpIndia concluded that Wikipedia’s “NPOV” (Neutral Point of View) guidelines do not mean that the entire spectrum of views would find equal representation in the article. Kautilya 3 has consistently been pushing the Islamo-leftist agenda on Wikipedia. Earlier, a section on the 2020 anti-Hindu Delhi Riots was added to the Hindu terror Wikipedia article. In this section, Kautilya 3 added that a police investigation into the incident had revealed that the perpetrator belonged to AAP and therefore, it was a ‘conspiracy’ to create strife. Basically, the Wikipedia editor stated that the Delhi Police investigation should be removed since the Delhi police specifically is not a reliable source of information, while the left-leaning media is. Reddy was booked by the Manipur Police over accusations of publishing inflammatory posts and statements on social media platforms. His X handle was withheld in India. The complaint against him alleged that Reddy may have links with Khalistanis elements in Canada. The complaint stated that Uday Reddy has been working online to create tensions between Meitei and Kuki communities on religious grounds in Manipur. The FIR has been registered with a police station in Imphal East district under Sections 117 (abetment), 295-A (insulting religious sentiments), 153-A (promoting enmity between communities) and other relevant provisions of law. Manipur Police had issued a statement wherein it said that Uday Reddy used to host spaces on social media platforms and allegedly directs people in Manipur on how to create unrest and trouble against law enforcement personnel. Previously, Reddy was criticised for spreading propaganda about the Meitei community, particularly in the context of the Manipur crisis. In April 2022, he accused Hindus of “weaponising” Ram Navami against Muslims. In a post on X, he wrote, “Hindutva nationalist organisations, spearheaded by RSS and BJP, have weaponised the festival to create Hindu-Muslim frictions, causing riots and deaths, in which the Muslims have been the major sufferers.” Contrary to Reddy’s claims, it was Muslims who attacked Hindus across India on Hindu festivals like Ram Navami and Hanuman Jayanti. In fact, processions related to festivals of Saraswati Puja and Ganesh Chaturthi too have been attacked, which are benign festivals related to the celebration of wisdom and knowledge. The anti-Hindu bias of Wikipedia editors is also evident from its page about the 2002 Godhra carnage, in which 59 Hindus were burnt alive in a bogey of the Sabarmati Express while returning from Ayodhya. The train bogey was set ablaze by a Muslim mob. However, if one searches for it, a Wikipedia page titled “Godhra Train Burning” shows up. Wikipedia calls it ‘train burning’ since they do not believe that the fire was indeed set by a Muslim mob, essentially to burn Hindus alive. In addition to TrangaBellam, Shahinshah121, and Kautilya 3, the anti-Hindu cluster of Wikipedia editors includes one Vanamonde93, who, besides other anti-Hindu Wikipedia edits, made significant interventions on the HAF page as well. It is notable that Vanamonde93 is among the only 32 admins on Wikipedia who are both checkusers and oversighters. “On September 16, Vanamonde93 stepped in to make yet another seemingly minor change that would, in practice, have lasting impact. They did so by renaming a section heading from “Alleged Hindu Nationalist Ties” to simply “Hindu nationalist ties.” In a single minute, the claim went from an allegation to an accepted fact,” the NPOV report reads. Back in 2018, Audrey Truschke had published a Tweet calling Lord Ram a ‘misogynist pig’. She ‘roughly translated’ a version of the Valmiki Ramayan to claim that Goddess Sita called her husband Lord Ram a ‘misogynist pig’ during the Agnipariksha episode. After backlash, Truschke claimed that she merely cited a translation of the text by Berkeley Sanskritist Robert Goldman. However, Goldman has issued a strong statement rejecting Truschke’s blasphemous characterisation of Lord Ram and said, “Truschke was ‘in no way quoting our translation’, and that her language was ‘extremely inappropriate’. Fast forward to September 2021, Vanamonde93 edited the portion on this controversy, “he stripped out the references to Goldman’s response—the “shocking and extremely inappropriate” language, and the surrounding context around the controversy. His edit summary asked: “how is this remotely an acceptable source for unattributed controversial assertions in a BLP?” the NPOV reported. The analysis pointed out that material criticising Truschke was subjected to intense scrutiny; however, content hostile to the HAF, including self-published activist material, like Truschke’s ‘Field Manual’, etc, was not. More recently, Vanamonde93 made a series of edits to the HAF page on 23rd February 2026. Vanamonde93 removed a public statement from HAF’s executive director, Suhag Shukla, regarding the lawsuit against Truschke, H4HR, and IAMC. The Wikipedia editor cited the platform’s policy against primary sources for the changes made. “Kautilya3 had used the same rule in January 2021 to strip out HAF’s self-defenses. HAF’s own statement about its own lawsuit was deemed off-limits. The activist sources and op-eds framing the lawsuit as an attack on academic freedom stayed,” the NPOV reported. The NPOV Media report also highlighted shenanigans of another Wikipedia editor, Llightex. It was Llightex, who created the page of the Sunita Vishwanath-led anti-Hindu outfit, Hindus for Human Rights, had previously worked there. Llightex edited not only H4HR’s page but also that of IAMC’s page, created a separate Wikipedia page for Sunita Vishwanath, while the HAF lawsuit was ongoing. After the lawsuit was over, Llightlex made edits to the HAF’s page as well, further portraying the Hindu rights group in a bad light. Executive Director of the Hindu Amercian Foundation calls the vandalisation of the HAF’s Wikipedia page an “insider job” In reaction to the NPOV’s explosive exposé, the HAF Executive Director Suhag Shukla said that the defacement and vandalisation of the Foundation’s Wikipedia page was an insider job. Taking to X, Shukla wrote, “It was an inside job! We’ve watched our @Wikipedia page completely defaced & vandalized for 5 years that rendered @HinduAmerican unrecognizable. This investigation by @AshleyRindsberg, @npovmedia blows the cover off of what appears to be a concerted attack on HAF by a cabal of 4 editors—two of whom are apparently tied to Audrey Truschke & the fringe group, Hindus for Human Rights.” Highlighting the role of the four Wikipedia editors in vandalising the HAF Wikipedia page, Shukla wrote, “Trangabellam, Kautilya3, Lightex and Shainshah121 are responsible for 80% of the entire content of the HAF wiki page. Who are they? Trangabellam created, protected & shaped Audrey Truschke’s Wikipedia page while they defaced HAF’s with unsubstantiated slurs. Lightex actually disclosed “past work with “Hindus for Human Rights,” created that group’s wiki page (against wiki’s own rules) & then attacked HAF’s wiki page changing the lead to cast HAF as a “far-right nationalist organization. Shahinshah121 added false allegations that HAF is “Hindutva” & “under investigation by the DOJ for acting as a foreign agent” while promoting Truschke’s “South Asian Scholars Collective” within hours of it being formed. Kautilya3, the 2nd most active editor of the HAF page, erased all information that provided an HAF perspective to allegations, including that “HAF has absolutely no links” to various foreign orgs. He then added the line that “HAF repackaged the Hindu nationalist agenda in the language of ‘Hindu rights’ to suit mainstream American politics.” It was an inside job!We’ve watched our @Wikipedia page completely defaced & vandalized for 5 years that rendered @HinduAmerican unrecognizable. This investigation by @AshleyRindsberg @npovmedia blows the cover off of what appears to be a concerted attack on HAF by a cabal of… https://t.co/LdSfu7KH1v— Suhag A. Shukla (@SuhagAShukla) June 3, 2026 Answering an expected “Why are you crying about this on Twitter—do something about it”, reaction, Suhag Shukla said, “Well, read the full article and see how one of Wikipedia’s 32 most powerful editors, Vanamonde93, blocked attempts to balance the HAF Wiki page and actually defaced it further. question in advance.” Wikipedia is not an unbiased intermediary but a biased publisher: What OpIndia research found In 2024, OpIndia released an extensive dossier detailing how Wikipedia is not a free, editorial-intervention-free encyclopaedia which relies on the voluntary work of thousands of unpaid, passionate volunteers across the globe, as claimed by the Wikimedia Foundation. OpIndia’s research paper revealed that the structure of Wikipedia itself gives unmitigated power to a handful of individuals who are called ‘administrators’. There are only 435 active administrators in the entire world who have the power to ban editors, blacklist sources, ban contributors and decide the edits that should be made or reverted on articles. Soon after OpIndia released the dossier, Facebook, another Left-leaning platform that has been accused of election interference in the USA and many such instances of furthering the political interest of a certain ideology, banned the dossier to restrict its viewership. Wikipedia claims to be an intermediary which depends on the wisdom of the crowd without content intervention and editorial line, based on ‘reliable sources’ and maintaining a neutral point of view. This, however, is far from the truth, as evidenced in OpIndia research. Wikipedia meets all the standards of publishers. They collate information on current events and historical events, they pay their editors and administrators, and they are easily accessible by the people at large on the internet. Given that Wikipedia has an editorial stand based on the personal opinions and biases of its editors and administrators, the evidence cited in the OpIndia dossier suggests that they are no longer eligible to be considered an intermediary. OpIndia recommended that once declared a publisher, Wikimedia would have to have its offices in India, set up a grievance redressal system and submit to Indian laws about illegal content which undermines the sovereignty of India or creates disaffection.  The findings of the research paper prepared by OpIndia Editor-in-Chief Nupur J Sharma reveal that despite not having offices or presence in India, Wikipedia has been funding entities and individuals with anti-India ideology and even links to Islamists and Khalistanis, to further its own business and ideological interests in the country. Wikipedia not only collects funds from India in the form of donations but also spends millions of dollars in India and toes an absolutely biased and rigid editorial line, all while claiming to be an intermediary and not a publisher to escape any accountability before the Indian law. Besides, declaring Wikipedia as a publisher, OpIndia also recommended that Wikipedia’s financial transactions be scrutinised. The OpIndia dossier titled Wikipedia’s War on India can be read here. Wikipedia co-founder, Jimmy Wales, once said Wikipedia’s mission was to “make the sum of all human knowledge available to everyone.” Today, that mission appears conditional, as knowledge is welcome only if it conforms to one side of the political spectrum. The very guideline that demands “Neutral Point of View” has been hollowed out, because neutrality now depends entirely on which sources are allowed into the conversation. As the OpIndia dossier concluded, “If the pool of reliable sources itself is tainted with ideological bias, the ‘Neutral Point of View’ merely remains a requirement where all versions of the Left are prominently added.” In an interview published by Politics Home in October 2025, Wales unapologetically defended Wikipedia’s own internal censorship, that is, the blacklisting of sources he has personally deemed unreliable in the past. He insisted that “the idea that we should take sites that routinely publish crazy conspiracy theories and nonsense just doesn’t make any sense.” Previously, Jimmy Wales himself admitted as well that he is the final arbitrator of content on Wikipedia. “Final policy decisions are up to me, as always,” he once said. According to Wikipedia itself, “The contributors or editors of Wikipedia participate subject to many policies and guidelines governing behaviour and content. These rules are supervised by various authorities: Jimmy Wales, nominally in a position of ultimate authority, although he has deferred in most instances to the leadership of Wikipedia, the ~34 present Bureaucrats or Crats, the ~700 active Administrators or Admins, and another group called the Arbitration Committee or ArbCom with 15-18 members or Arbs, depending upon the rules adopted each year. In July 2012, there were 14 active arbitrators identified, all of whom were administrators, although this is not a set rule. The Wikimedia Foundation or its designated agents also have the authority to impose bans against IP addresses for pages, topics, or the entire site. The Arbitration Committee “has no jurisdiction over official actions of the Wikimedia Foundation or its staff”. In fact, Larry Sanger, the co-founder of Wikipedia, has categorically stated as well that Wikipedia has a pronounced Left bias. In several interviews and talks, he has spoken extensively about how Wikipedia skews the scale of balance, leading to the information being an inaccurate representation of reality, ridden with Left bias. Jimmy Wales created an Arbitration Committee, which is essentially Wikipedia’s Supreme Court. This Committee is an extension of the decision-making power he formerly held as CEO of Bomis Inc., to take over his role in resolving complex disputes between users. Bomis Inc was a for-profit private company which was co-founded in 1996 by Jimmy Wales for ventures like Nupedia and Wikipedia. By 2007, the for-profit company was shut down, and all the Wikipedia-related sources were transferred to Wikimedia Foundation, a nonprofit charitable organisation, also founded by Jimmy Wales. The content on Nupedia, the predecessor of Wikipedia, was less extensive in comparison to Wikipedia. For example, in its first year, Nupedia had only 21 articles while Wikipedia had 200. However, Larry Sanger has criticised how Jimmy Wales sacrificed authenticity for volume while shifting from Nupedia to Wikipedia. The Wikimedia Foundation was established in 2003, 2 years after Wikipedia was started by Jimmy Wales. OpIndia dossier highlighted the relationship between Google and Wikipedia, and how the former granted millions of dollars as ‘gifts’ to Wikipedia over the years through Tides Foundation. Tides Foundation is notorious for funding several anti-Hindu, anti-India organisations and elements. The Foundation gave grants to Hindus for Human Rights (HfHR), which has links to Islamists and Khalistanis, and was formed in 2019 by two Islamist advocacy groups, the Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC) and Organisation for Minorities of India (OFMI). Tides also funded AMAN Public Charitable Trust (AMAN). This trust is connected to the NewsClick-China funding scandal, where it is alleged that Chinese entities funded NewsClick, a Delhi-based pro-China propaganda outlet funded by CCP stooge Neville Roy Singham, to disrupt Indian sovereignty. From the page of the Hindu American Foundation, Bengal Files, The Kashmir Files, The Kerala Story, Dhurandhar films, OpIndia, to the recent online gimmick Cockroach Janta Party, Wikipedia is platforming anti-India and anti-Hindu Islamo-leftists, who are creating, vandalising, or decorating pages of various individuals and entities based on their own ideological alignment, all while Wikipedia claims to be an editorial-intervention-free encyclopaedia.