Hindutva has expanded far beyond South Asia
Luke Peterson
January/February 2022
The plague of right-wing ethnonationalism has gone global. From the UK’s British National Party to Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro to Donald Trump’s popularizing of the old American fascist slogan, “America First,” few corners of the globe seem to have escaped the politics of racism, essentialism and economic privilege.
In India, always touted as “the world’s largest democracy,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have excelled at the politics of division and shifted South Asia’s political playing field from policies focused on population growth, climate change and economic scarcity to full-throated support of Hindu nationalism. This change has been concomitant with public calls to target and violently exclude India’s 12% Muslim minority, calls to action so common and brazen that they have sparked ethnic violence in the northeast. Indeed, Modi apparently hopes to ride a popular wave of anti-Islamic policy and discourse that will allow him to stay in power for the foreseeable future.
Two million Muslims living in Assam province have already been officially disenfranchised. According to Modi and the BJP, these “Bangladeshi migrants” should be excluded from India’s democratic processes. But these Assam-born Indians, just as Indian as Modi himself, have been tarred with a catch-all phrase used by far-right Hindu nationalists in seats of power throughout the region to identify all South Asian Muslims.
In the provinces of Bihar and Bengal, which shares a border with Bangladesh, anti-Muslim racism is also rife. Provincial (state) officials have called for citizens of both districts, home to more than 40 million Muslims, to undergo “citizenship verification processes,” a carefully crafted euphemism advocating that Muslim citizens take Orwellian loyalty oaths under threat of deportation, reeducation or worse.
In effect, this process effectively otherizes India’s Muslims, classifying them as something less than the mainstream, acceptable Hindu-majority population. Being Muslim in India today, then, has become a life-threatening liability, as mob violence against them for actions as simple as herding cattle or being in the company of Hindu women can attest. In sum, thanks to Modi and the BJP’s unabashedly racist nationalism, the “construct of the Muslim [Indian] as the unwanted, dangerous outsider has been honed and mainstreamed” (https://time.com/6103284/india-hindu-supremacy-extremism-genocide-bjp-modi/).
The rampant ethno-nationalism at the heart of Modi’s vision has proven to have a surprisingly long reach as well, extending its Islamophobic aims as far afield as the American academy. In September 2021, a planned conference organized by researchers in the U.S. to examine the rise of Hindu nationalism and Modi’s Islamophobic policies was attacked by a targeted, online campaign. In all, more than a million emails threatening death, rape and/or bombs were sent to scholars and universities nationwide, as well as to the principal researchers behind the conference, should the event be convened.
Some experts on South Asia were surprised by the sheer volume of these threats, but not by the fact that they were made. Several lecturers who speak on Hindu nationalism had long ago required security at their events. One scholar who travels to India regularly told the Washington Post about the threat of violence looming over contemporary South Asian studies, only after the newspaper agreed not to mention his/her name. Unsurprisingly, several prominent scholars cancelled their participation in the September 2021 event. Various law enforcement agencies are currently investigating some of the more violent threats made by proponents of the Modi regime (https://www. washingtonpost.com/world/2021/10/03/india-us-universities-hindutva/).
Universities with South Asian Studies departments remain in a compromised position vis-à-vis the study of Hindu nationalism. The Hindu American Foundation (HAF) and similar pressure groups monitor their activities and challenge their faculty members when unflattering reports about Modi and the rise of Hindu nationalism appear on university web pages. HAF has taken its agenda to the U.S. public school system as well, objecting to the language around lessons on the caste system and Hinduism’s origins. Still, the Indian diasporic community contributes mightily to university life in the U.S., with representation across all disciplines of study in virtually all regions of the country. Critiquing Modi and India’s sanctioned Islamophobia could jeopardize that relationship and, possibly more importantly from the view of administrators, jeopardize this large flow of funds into those departments.
Beyond the academy, elements of the Modi regime have also pursued a more direct method: seeking legitimacy within Washington’s highest ranks. During Donald Trump’s presidency, relations between the two heads of state were so cordial that Trump attended a September 2019 Modi rally sponsored by Houston’s Indian population. Even after the end of Trump’s term, elements of the Modi government have sought influence from within the much less ethnonationalism Biden administration as well.
In one such occurrence, members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) came to Washington in 2021. This century-old paramilitary group, responsible for numerous acts of violence (including assassinating Gandhi), has indelible ties to Modi’s BJP. Their agenda included a meeting with Rep. David Trone (D-Md.). The RSS doesn’t hide its avowedly fascist origins, for its members continue to push the language and policy of ethnic exclusion that has become a stable trope under Modi. They are on record as opposing multiculturalism and speaking in glowing terms about Hitler’s treatment of Europe’s Jews. Trone has stated that he didn’t know who he had agreed to meet with and sent a letter to Atul Keshap, the then U.S. acting ambassador to India, distancing himself from the paramilitary group’s views. Ironically, this Indian American had no qualms about calling upon RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat on Sept. 8, 2021, and boasting of the fact on Twitter.
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, the first Hindu in Congress, is a strong HAF ally. A member of the House committees on Foreign Affairs and Armed Services, as well as co-chair of the India Caucus, she was a 2020 presidential hopeful. “Dozens of Gabbard’s donors,” wrote Soumya Shankar, “have either expressed strong sympathy with or have ties to the Sangh Parivar — a network of religious, political, paramilitary, and student groups that subscribe to the Hindu supremacist, the exclusionary ideology known as Hindutva, according to an Intercept analysis of Gabbard’s financial disclosures from 2011 until October 2018” (https://theintercept.com/2019/01/05/tulsi-gabbard-2020-hindu-nationalist-modi/; Jan. 5, 2019).
The operations of Hindu ethnonationalism in the U.S. are as varied as they are savvy. Denying accusations that they support discrimination and Islamophobia in India, groups like the HAF use the language and the infrastructure of multicultural America to wage their battles. They claim that accusations of bigotry are themselves anti-Hindu slights and suggest that those who make them are themselves trafficking in damaging stereotypes. Further, they are using the court system to sue scholars and speakers who criticize Modi, the RSS and the BJP for defamation. Incidentally, BJP’s American chapter is registered as the Overseas Friends of the BJP.
Also, and very mouthwatering to American exporters, especially weapons makers, is the fact that India’s foreign exchange reserves top $640 billion. Much can be brushed under such sparkle.
Robust as these efforts are, however, they only serve to further muddy India’s political waters, which are clearly overflowing with anti-Muslim violence and discrimination sponsored by the head of state, his political party and its more dangerous affiliates. Though efforts should be made to criticize specific policies and their supporters, an equally robust push must be launched by those in the know to ensure that violent ethnonationalism is arrested on the Subcontinent. The situation has reached a critical juncture, and American scholars and journalists must do what they can to stop another genocide of a Muslim minority now before they are tasked with writing moving elegies to its future victims.
Luke Peterson, PhD (The University of Cambridge (King’s College), Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, works on investigating language, media, and knowledge surrounding the political conflict in the Middle East. He lives in Pittsburgh where he regularly contributes to local, national, and international media.