A Republic in Ruins: How Some Indian American Hindus Use Hindutva to Attack Constitutional Values in America
- Apart from blatant attacks on the values of pluralism and tolerance, there are concerted efforts by Hindu supremacists to weaponize American city and state legislatures against Muslims.
Celebrating India’s Republic Day in America is a surreal experience. Some of us — Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Hindu, and otherwise affiliated — commemorate by wearing traditional clothes, attending Republic Day BBQs, and taking pictures in the sun with the Indian flag. Some send WhatsApp forwards about the importance of the Indian Constitutional values of justice, liberty, equality, and fraternity. Many post reminders that in India right now, these values are being ground to dust by the now-mainstream Hindu supremacist movement.
The lead-up to Republic Day 2024 has proved as much: swaths of far-right Hindus in both India and the U.S. are more focused on celebrating the Ram Mandir as a monument to a new age of Hindu supremacist rule in India.
At a time when people should be celebrating India’s rich diversity and multiculturalism, we are instead seeing Hindu supremacist mobs dancing to genocidal songs in front of mosques, planting saffron flags on churches, and placing garlands of sandals around the neck of an Ambedkar statue. Meanwhile, the American Hindu right refuses to condemn this hatred, mirroring their Indian counterparts instead with Tesla parades amid chants of “Jai Shri Ram.” Who cares for equality and fraternity when it’s the extremist mob carrying the lathi?
Muslims in the diaspora watch this, and we worry. We worry for our families and friends in India who are dealing every day with bloodthirsty hate speech, calls for violence, and the loss of their most fundamental human rights. But we also worry about how this hatred for democracy is already beginning to spill over into our communities in the U.S. In its quest to destroy India’s commitment to its constitution, the Hindutva movement — like the American far right — has begun attempting to sabotage American democratic processes and liberties as well.
There’s no lost irony in the fact that the Hindu right is a minority in the U.S. and therefore benefits from its constitutional protections. In fact, they often weaponize this reality to paint themselves as left-leaning civil rights activists, working for the betterment of U.S.-India relations and Hindu Americans as a whole.
But ask these people to support the rights of Dalits, Muslims, and Indian Christians, and the cracks form immediately in their liberal facade. In their eyes, every criticism of Prime Minister Modi must be shut down; every attempt to hold India accountable for human rights abuses must be labeled “Hinduphobia;” and every minority voice must be flattened with harassment, hate speech, and propaganda. The Indian sangh commits the bloody crimes, while the American sangh provides the cover. Look away, they tell the American public. Nothing to see here. Why are you so Hinduphobic?
American academics, journalists, and activists have reported being harassed by the online Hindu American mob — with help from overseas sanghis — for criticizing Modi and the BJP.
Just like the Indian far-right, shutting down dissent — whether through lobbying or legislation or brute force — is a go-to tactic. American academics, journalists, and activists have reported being harassed by the online Hindu American mob — with help from overseas sanghis — for criticizing Modi and the BJP. A number of academics critical of the Modi regime have reported that their jobs were threatened after coordinated email campaigns to their employers accused them of “Hinduphobia.”
One major American Hindutva group, the Hindu American Foundation, uses lawsuits to try and silence its critics: in 2022, the group issued a defamation lawsuit against a journalist, an academic, and a group of Indian American activists — Hindu, Muslim, and Christian — for criticizing the American Sangh in an Al Jazeera article.
Fighting for the preservation of caste discrimination is another pastime of the Hindu-American right. Throughout the past few years, these groups have weaponized political connections, lawsuits, and harassment to try and prevent the passing of anti-caste legislation in California and Washington state. In California, HAF filed two lawsuits attempting to label caste protections for Dalits as “anti-Hindu,” despite extensive reporting on Silicon Valley’s rampant caste discrimination problem. At Seattle City Council hearings in the run-up to its historic anti-caste bill, American Hindu supremacists routinely showed up to protest; online, they harassed the bill’s primary sponsor, accusing her of “Hindu hate” and dropping casteist insults in her mentions.
Then there are attempts by Hindu supremacists to weaponize American city and state legislatures against Muslims. In 2021, under the influence of Hindutva supporters, the Illinois General Assembly passed the Illinois Indian American Advisory Council Act. The law, which was revised after backlash, initially excluded Muslims from being able to join the council, stating that “Indian” refers to “a person descended from any of the countries of the subcontinent that are not primarily Muslim in character.” In 2020, American Hindutva groups blocked a proposed resolution by the Chicago City Council, which condemned the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) as discriminatory, by collaborating with an anti-Muslim think tank to claim that the resolution was sponsored by “terrorists.”
Then there are the more blatant attacks on the values of pluralism and tolerance. A bulldozer displaying images of Modi and Yogi Adityanath rolled down a street in New Jersey. A Texas Hindutva group raising funds to demolish Indian churches. A major pro-Modi event in Houston featuring Donald Trump as a special guest. Attempts to strip mentions of historical caste discrimination from California textbooks. The shaping of hateful American politicians like Vivek Ramaswamy, who grew up attending VHPA events and praised Modi for “reviving national pride in India;” and Nikki Haley, who snidely called Muslim Congresswomen an “embarrassment” for protesting Modi’s Congressional address in D.C. earlier last year.
At this point, the only difference between Hindu supremacists in India and in the diaspora is the fact that, unlike the Indian sangh, the American Hindu right isn’t bold enough to form lynch mobs or use violence to achieve its undemocratic aims.
The poisonous hatred of Hindu supremacy is no longer an Indian problem, and it will not be satiated only by the collapse of Indian democracy. India must fight to re-embrace its constitutional values of secularism, pluralism, and democracy for all, or see its international image tainted by those who have exported Hindu supremacy all over the world.
(Top photo, Narendra Modi/Facebook)
Safa Ahmed is the Associate Director of Media & Communications for the Indian American Muslim Council.
Awww….poor safa playing the victim card and blaming Hindus for everything wrong under the sun. Why don’t you admit a few hard to swallow truths about Muslims? You don’t respect the law of the land anywhere you go. You want sharia. You put religion before country so much so that saying “Vande matharam” or “Bharat mata ki jai” is unacceptable. You want all the privileges and benefits India has to offer but can’t be loyal to India. You want to destroy temples and vandalize Hindu homes but don’t have the decency to allow Hindus to practice their religion. I can go on and on. Stop living in your little delusional world built on Hindu hatred, lies, distorted facts. You cry islamophobia at the drop of a hat but Hindus can’t mention hinduphobia isn’t it? Hindus have been generous with their “live and let live” attitude. Can you say the same about Muslims? Sit down, take a deep breath and give your venom filled brain a little oxygen.
If you consider merely us showing our excitement for the 500 year fight to win back our sacred space as a threat, that’s on you. This article goes against the culture of religious tolerance and plurality and shows the characteristic entitlement I see often from some sections of the Muslim community. What does it say about you when you write an article claiming that our celebration of our faith, of reclaiming stolen and destroyed sacred spaces is a show of ‘supremacy’. The babri madjid destruction was ONE unused mosque that was built on a sacred Hindu temple. Every single North Indian temple was destroyed by the Mughals.
Meanwhile in the last 75 years, over 10,000 temples have been destroyed in Pakistan, bangladeshi and Afghanistan. Where was the sense of religious plurality then? The Kashmiri Hindus were genocided off their lands in kashmir in 1992, funded by the ISI – but it was Pakistani Americans who protested on the streets to ‘give Kashmiri to Pakistan’ despite what happened in kashmir to Hindus.
You create a religious divide and gaslight us when we stand up for ourselves. I’ve never advocated to convert or harass someone but I’ve been harassed multiple times by Muslims at school, telling me I’ll burn in hell or that i worship demons. What does that say about your religious plurality? I would ask such people to take a long look at your self and your entitlement. This world is pluralistic and you should abide by that.
I hate how even our celebrations are looked at with suspicion. It honestly sounds like the great replacement theory and mccarthysim and i don’t support the rhetoric of this article. Apparently celebrating a temple opening is proof of evil doing but the people protesting for Palestine and saying on yt that they support Hamas is not proof of intolerance. I’m literally so baffled
Thank you for a succinct article summarizing the rise of polarization in the American Indian community.
She refer to a caste bill in California and Wahsington. Seriously, who discriminates on Indian castes in US.
Aisha Wahab is from Afghanistan.
Came to US on Asylum. Now wants to have a bill against Hindus.
Safa Ahmed has written three articles…all attacking Hinduism.
I wonder who gives platform to this nonsense articles.
Hello, isn’t there a lot of Christian supremacy and xenophobia in the US, and elsewhere? And Islamic countries, my goodness, they are horrible. And yet all this writer can rant about are Hindus.