In all, there must have been 20 of them.
Sporting saffron scarves around their neck, these men—who belonged to the right-wing group Hindu Sena—sang birthday songs, burst balloons, and even smeared cake on the poster of their hero, Donald Trump, whose 70th birthday they had come to celebrate in New Delhi on June 14. The cake weighed some seven kilograms.
At the makeshift venue at Jantar Mantar, a popular protest site that has long been a hotbed for political gatherings, the group also observed a moment of silence for those killed in the June 12 massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.
Invitations to the event were widely shared on Facebook and Twitter, though hardly anyone showed up apart from the organizers and journalists, with the latter outnumbering the former.
In the midst of the celebrating, members of the group explained why they admire Trump.
“He has promised to fight the menace of Islamic terror and that is why we are such big fans of him,” Vishnu Gupta, president of Hindu Sena, said at the event. “Only one man can save us all from this problem and that is him. Look at the horrific shooting in Orlando. We need to fight Islamic terrorism.”
This is not the first time that the Hindu Sena has come out to show its support for Trump. In May, the same group had offered prayers and recited hymns in Sanskrit for Trump’s upcoming US presidential election.