Zohran Mamdani’s unexpected win in the New York Democratic mayoral primary in June 2025 catapulted him onto the national and global stage. Running as a democratic socialist, Mamdani was sworn in on January 1, 2026, as the city’s youngest mayor in over a century and the first Muslim mayor of South Asian heritage. On the one hand, his message of economic justice and the success of his multiethnic grassroots campaign inspired progressives throughout the country. Mamdani’s detractors, on the other hand, called him a communist, questioned his patriotism, and, most surprising of all, accused him of being “anti-Indian” and “Hinduphobic.”
Allegations of anti-Indian and anti-Hindu bias in a New York mayoral race were puzzling at first. Media outlets seized on the story, amplifying attacks on Mamdani’s Muslim identity and his advocacy for Palestinian rights. The New York Times asked why, in the run-up to the Democratic primary, an Indian American group from New Jersey—Indian Americans for Cuomo (Mamdani’s opponent)—would fly a banner over the Statue of Liberty declaring: “Save NYC from Global Intifada. Reject Mamdani.”Footnote 1 The Diplomat magazine gave the story a transnational spin: “Zohran Mamdani Raises Hackles of India’s Hindu Right-Wing.”Footnote 2 Al Jazeera made the connection to Indian politics even more explicit, quoting Kangana Ranaut, a member of parliament from the governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), who called Mamdani “an enemy of India” who “sounds more Pakistani than Indian.”Footnote 3 Mamdani’s criticism of India’s human rights record under Prime Minister Modi and protests against the construction of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya fueled Hindu right-wing attacks against the new mayor whose multicultural background, Muslim faith, and progressive platform evoked cultural and class anxieties from New York to New Delhi.
While a large number of New Yorkers of South Asian heritage supported Mamdani, the news reports spotlighted the Hindu right’s displeasure, manifested in familiar anti-Muslim tropes targeting a young charismatic leader who had called out the Modi government’s antidemocratic policies and attacks on religious minorities. Although the right wing’s sloganeering did not alter the outcome of the race, it drew renewed attention to the growing visibility and incipient power of the Indian diaspora in American civic life while also underscoring its enduring connections to India. Even as Hindu right-wing groups exude confidence and power in the public arena, they demand protection from “harmful” speech and policies—including from others of Indian and South Asian heritage.
This essay explores how right-wing Hindu organizations in the United States have co-opted American political discourses and institutions for promoting and validating Hindu nationalist causes. Specifically, they claim civil rights and “safety” in a multicultural society, and employ the language of equity and inclusion to further their agenda via public and private institutions and the law. Political discourses, I argue, do not function in an organizational or institutional vacuum, nor can we separate discursive choices from broader goals and strategies. As Felix Pal reminds us, Hindu nationalism, like all nationalisms, “is made up of flesh and blood, brick and mortar, and messy relationships.”Footnote 4
Right-wing appropriation of progressive causes for political gain and legitimacy is not unique to Hindu nationalists.Footnote 5 We see plenty of examples of extremists co-opting—and distorting—the left’s political rhetoric and agenda in the United States and other countries. Nonetheless, studying how and why Hindu right-wing organizations have hijacked a rights-based discourse is important and timely for three reasons.
First, a range of organizations—with vast online platforms—allow us to compare objectives, discursive strategies, and audiences. Hindu right-wing organizations might share a common ideology and goals yet differ on institutional priorities, political calculus, and target audiences. Organizations like the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) claim broad mandates and appeal to multigenerational constituencies. Student organizations tend to focus on a narrower set of priorities aimed at Hindu heritage students and campus cultures that call for different tactics. More significantly, as I argue, student-activists play a vital role in identity formation and “normalizing” Hindutva on college and university campuses, making it more palatable to Western audiences and students from diverse backgrounds.Footnote 6 Ostensibly independent, student groups often ally politically with bigger organizations while also benefitting from them materially. Their campaigns to change how Indian history is taught and/or codify “hate speech” are remarkably similar to those of other hard-right Hindu organizations operating in different institutional contexts.
Second, comparing discursive choices on issues such as the teaching of history or religious freedom reveals the contradictions and limits of particular types of framing and illuminates the power of countermovements offering different alternatives. The right wing’s agenda is rife with inconsistencies, for example: defending the rights of Hindus while discriminating against other minorities, especially Muslims; championing free speech but threatening scholars and activists who oppose them; disavowing any connection to Hindu supremacist ideology yet openly propagating the agenda of the BJP and its allies. These contradictions create a level of ambiguity, aimed at enhancing audience appeal and deniability.
Third, analyzing the politics of the Hindu right is timely, as it revels in the success of politicians and public officials of Indian heritage, particularly avowed supporters like Ohio’s Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and former Republican South Carolina governor and ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley. Right-wing organizations have capitalized on the economic and professional achievements of first- and second-generation Indian Americans and leveraged demographic and electoral shifts in US politics, attracting the attention of both Democrats and Republicans. Geopolitical factors, too, enable the growing confidence—and visibility—of the Hindu right, buoyed by India’s rising prestige in international affairs and the Modi government’s engagement with diaspora populations.
This essay is informed by a substantial body of multidisciplinary scholarship on the global Indian diaspora including studies specific to the United States, for example: Bhatt and Mukta’s analysis of the cultural and religious forms of Hindu nationalism in the West; Kurien’s study of the reconfiguration of Hindu identities in multicultural societies; and Chakravarty’s analysis of pedagogic materials produced by Hindu religious organizations.Footnote 7 I am intrigued by the idea of a malleable Hindu nationalism, or what Vijay Prashad and Biju Mathew famously called “Yankee Hindutva,” an ethno-nationalist ideology adapted to the American milieu, which asserts the primacy of Hindu religion and deems India to be a “Hindu Rashtra” or Hindu nation.Footnote 8
Jaffrelot, Anderson, and Mudde’s works have shaped my understanding of the BJP’s evolution from a political front for the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to a mainstream party winning state and national elections. In consolidating power, the BJP has imbued cultural, educational, and media institutions with Hindu nationalist ideology, leading to a “saffronization of the public sphere.”Footnote 9 Right-wing organizations abroad, though inspired by the BJP’s “saffronization” project, have modified their agenda and strategies to resonate with diaspora audiences, as Deepa Reddy argues in her essay on “Neo-Hindutva.” For Anderson and Longkumer, neo-Hindutva is constitutive of the “idiosyncratic expressions of Hindu nationalism which operate outside of (or on the peripheries) of the institutional and ideological framework of the Sangh Parivar.”Footnote 10 The Hindutva project in the United States, however, is hardly peripheral to the Sangh Parivar today.
Adroit practitioners of a “soft” version of Hindu nationalism, U.S.-based right-wing groups deny explicit connections to the Sangh Parivar but adapt its ideology and practices to local conditions.Footnote 11 Hindutva, Leidig explains, “is not centered on religion (although Hinduism does play a significant role), but rather on how religion is politicized in such a way that being a Hindu generated belonging as an ethnonational identity.”Footnote 12 The formation and mobilization of Hindu identity is central to diasporic nationalism, as Mishra, Biswas, and Anderson have shown.Footnote 13
I begin with a short note on Indian immigration to the United States before probing the goals, strategies, and discursive tactics of two prominent advocacy organizations—Hindu American Foundation (HAF) and the Coalition of Hindus of North America (CoHNA). Both organizations, like others formed in the early 2000s and after, favor a US-oriented mission stressing liberal norms and civic values so as to distance themselves from an earlier generation of India-centric organizations. Notably, HAF and CoHNA deny associations with Hindu nationalism, the BJP, or its affiliates and find such allegations to be slanderous and “Hinduphobic”—akin to Zionist organizations’ charge of antisemitism against critics of the Israeli government and its policies.Footnote 14 I show the overlapping discourses and tactics of the Hindu right and conservative Jewish organizations, each seeking affirmation from the other.
Additionally, I examine the role of student organizations—Hindu Students Council (HSC), Youth for Unity, Virtue, and Action (Hindu YUVA) and Hindu on Campus (HOC) in expanding the scope of the Hindu right-wing agenda on university campuses. Student groups have opened up new spaces for Hindutva, part of a broader effort to build support among second- and third-generation Hindu Americans. They claim to be apolitical, but their statements and programs align closely with Hindu nationalist ideology and its organizational structures.
I then analyze three Hindutva projects that illustrate different modes of discursive and institutional co-optation. The first deals with representations of Indian history and religions in US social science and history textbooks and shows how long-standing conflicts over history and religion in India have spilled over into American society and institutions. The second concerns policies against caste-based discrimination. As Indian and Hindu populations in the United States grow more diverse along class and caste lines, Dalit campaigns against caste discrimination have sparked a backlash among upper-caste Hindus. The final example involves a common ritual—India Day parades in New York (2024) and New Jersey (2022). The decision by VHPA and the Federation of Indian Associations to display controversial parade floats (for example, a replica of the Ram temple) sparked cross-communal tensions, revealing how Indian and Hindu identities are constructed—and contested—in diasporic spaces where “homeland” symbols and ideologies intersect with American political culture.
1. Immigration and demographics
According to recent estimates, 5.2 million people of Indian origin reside in the United States, a sharp increase from 2000 when the Indian immigrant population was approximately 1.8 million. This includes immigrants from India and those born in the United States or elsewhere. Now the second largest diaspora population after Mexico, Indian immigrants began arriving in significant numbers after the enactment of the 1965 Immigration Act ending country quotas in favor of skill-based migration and family unification. About 20 percent of the Indian immigrant population lives in California, followed by Texas (11%), New Jersey (10%), and Illinois and New York (6%). The metropolitan areas with the largest concentration of Indian immigrants are New York (710,000), Dallas (270,000), and San Francisco (260,000). Nearly 48 percent of Indian Americans identify as Hindu.Footnote 15
Overall, Indian immigrants have a high level of educational attainment, with 81 percent of Indian immigrants over the age of 25 holding a bachelor’s degree. Indians, on average, report higher incomes than foreign- and native-born populations, with a median annual income of $166,200 in 2023.Footnote 16 Indian Americans in prominent positions—CEOs of Fortune 500 companies and Silicon Valley startups, high-ranking public officials, and members of both Republican and Democratic parties—present an image of diaspora “success” that largely excludes Indian immigrant labor in the United States and a growing number of undocumented Indians.Footnote 17
2. Political organization and strategic frames
This section explores how HAF and CoHNA leverage progressive causes and a vocabulary of multiculturalism, inclusion, and equity to promote Hindu nationalist ideology and policies. Both are involved in political advocacy, educational programs, and activities aimed at second- and third-generation Hindu Americans, who are rooted in American culture and civic life but identify as both American and Indian.
Multiculturalism calls for the “positive inclusion of marginalized groups marked by race and their sense of ethnocultural identities.” The “commitment to racial equality…allows minorities to publicly oppose negative images of themselves in favor of positive self-definition and accommodation.”Footnote 18 The hard right counters negative representations of Hindus and Hinduism by asserting a monolithic ethno-national identity that excludes and denigrates other communities, as examples throughout the essay show. Invoking a “multicultural approach to national belonging,” the Hindu right pursues a majoritarian ideology framed as minority rights, or as Prema Kurien suggests, “the two faces of American Hinduism—genteel multiculturalism and militant Hindu nationalism.”Footnote 19 We see this in the programmatic choices of organizations pursuing a Hindu right-wing agenda while also supporting progressive causes—a strategy aimed at Indian Americans who lean liberal in US politics but are more conservative when it comes to India and support for the Modi government.Footnote 20
The VHPA (the American wing of the VHP) established in 1970, the Hindu Swayam Sevak Sangh (HSS, 1989), and the Overseas Friends of the BJP (1992) were among the first Sangh Parivar organizations in the United States. They set up chapters in major metropolitan areas where first-generation Indian migrants had settled, promoting Hindu religious practices through educational and cultural activities, community service, and the construction of temples—glossing over the violence and militancy of the RSS and VHP. Rather than be overshadowed by newer organizations, VHPA co-opted their discursive maneuvering and projects like combating “Hindudvesha (i.e., systemic Hinduphobia),” ironically comparing it to “Islamophobia.” Galvanized by the BJP government and the American right wing, VHPA is now plunging into US politics, behaving as if it were a “normal” political actor. For example, setting up a public affairs committee (PAC), Americans4Hindus, to “empower Hindu Americans to have a voice in American democracy” and counter the “anti-India and anti-Hindu” bias of the Progressive Caucus of the Democratic Party.Footnote 21
Although HAF was founded in Philadelphia in 2003 (30-plus years after VHPA), it claims to be the “largest and oldest education and advocacy organization and preeminent voice for Hindu Americans.” Dedicated to upholding “Hindu principles and American values” (“religious liberty, free expression, equality and justice”), HAF shrewdly positions itself on both sides of an arbitrary political divide. It advocates for “center-left” or “progressive” issues like “voting rights, marriage equality, hate crime prevention, and environmental and animal protection” while supporting “center-right” or “conservative” causes such as freedom of speech and national security.Footnote 22
Playing “both sides” has paid off to some extent. HAF joined the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on cases involving religious freedom in schools and partnered with the Interfaith Alliance in lobbying the Senate to codify same-sex marriage protection, thereby signaling its support for civil rights advocacy. Mitigating climate change and advancing women’s rights and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ) rights also track with a progressive agenda. The co-optation of feminism by the Hindu right is well documented by Amrita Basu and others.Footnote 23 As US politics shifts further to the right, HAF has embraced elements of the Republican agenda as well, such as ending affirmative action in college and university admissions.
HAF’s aspirational rhetoric of pluralism, equality, and justice contrasts sharply with its narrative of persecution and victimhood, of amorphous harms that must be rectified. “Standing up for the rights of Hindus and other minorities around the world,” according to HAF, “does require us to highlight current and historical discrimination, subjugation, and violation of human rights committed by members of other religious communities.” The statement echoes Hindu nationalist sentiments—a powerful majority in India that sees itself as a beleaguered minority—and condones discrimination against other religions and minorities.Footnote 24
CoHNA, a “grassroots advocacy and civil rights organization” of recent vintage (2020), has three main goals: educating the public about “Hindu heritage and tradition,” instilling “cultural pride in younger generations,” and defending the civil rights of Hindus. Replicating the educational mission of HAF and others, it produces multimedia resources for parents, teachers, and young Hindu Americans concerned about stereotypes of Hindus and Hinduism, anticaste discrimination measures and “Hinduphobia.” The materials play on the anxieties of parents worried about discrimination or of their children drifting away from familial cultures and traditions—a common tactic of hard-right movements that pit the insecurity and fears of one group against another. In calling out “woke-bullying” of Hindu American children, CoHNA puts an American right-wing spin on the Hindu nationalist project.Footnote 25
CoHNA and HAF defend the human rights of religious minorities in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh while disregarding violence against Muslims, Christians, and Sikhs in India, even going so far as to oppose Congressional resolutions condemning violations of religious freedom and human rights in India. Following the BJP, CoHNA and HAF foreground the 1971 Bengali Hindu genocide in the former East Pakistan and the plight of Hindus in Kashmir by drawing attention to Hindu “persecution” and blaming violence exclusively on Muslims and Pakistan. Both championed the Indian Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA-2019), calling it a “big win for the human rights of persecuted religious minorities”—a claim that appealed to their supporters in the United States and won them kudos from the BJP government. Widely criticized by Amnesty International for discriminating against Muslim minorities, the CAA went into effect in 2024.Footnote 26
Whether absolving Hindu leaders of responsibility for mass violence or supporting the Citizenship Amendment Act, HAF and CoHNA’s rights-based discourses (and actions) reveal a deep and abiding animosity toward Muslims—a core characteristic of Hindutva. The Hindu right wing exploited the 9/11attacks for political advantage, casting Muslims as a common “security threat” for both India and the United States. Similarly, HAF seized upon Hamas’s attack against Israel on October 7, 2023, comparing it to the 2008 attacks in Mumbai as another example of Muslims targeting Hindus and Jews/India and Israel, the “bastions of progress and democracy surrounded by hostile Muslim nations”—a popular refrain of right-wing governments in India and Israel.Footnote 27 Some Hindu American organizations emulate hardline pro-Israel groups like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) when seeking political access and institutional legitimacy.
Informal ties have evolved into joint strategy and actions such as a January 2024 webinar on “Antisemitism and Hindudvesha: What Jews and Hindus Can Learn from One Another.”Footnote 28 The pamphlet “Ten Things Jews and Hindus Have in Common” illuminates deeper connections. A joint endeavor of HAF and StandWithUs, an organization dedicated to “supporting Israel and fighting antisemitism around the world,” the pamphlet notes the “surprising spiritual and cultural parallels between two ancient civilizations” and applauds Hindus and Jews who come from “sacred homelands” with “shared histories,” “value women,” and believe in religious pluralism. References to women and religious tolerance elevate the status of Jews and Hindus while implicitly denigrating Muslims and Islam.
Complaints of inhospitable and unsafe conditions for Jewish and Hindu students on American campuses is a common refrain in Hindu and Jewish right-wing circles. The pamphlet cites “anti-Israel and anti-India conferences and campaigns,” biased media reports, and “bullying and hatred” of Jewish and Hindu students on social media as evidence of harmful “misconceptions and stereotypes” of Jews and Hindus. Accounts of “Hinduphobia” and antisemitism deliberately conflate criticism of the Indian and Israeli governments with attacks on Hindu and Jewish religions and cultures.
Part of a broader campaign to combat “anti-Hindu bias and prejudice,” HAF and CoHNA have lobbied, with some success, state legislators and members of Congress to recognize and codify “Hinduphobia.” In January 2025, Representative Thanedar from Michigan introduced a bill in the House condemning “Hinduphobia and anti-Hindu bigotry” in the United States, and in April 2025, Georgia became the first state in the country to introduce a bipartisan legislative bill to “formally recognize Hinduphobia and anti-Hindu hate” in the state’s penal code. CoHNA praised Georgia for “leading the nation in addressing the unique challenges faced by Hindu Americans and setting a model for inclusive faith-based civil rights.”Footnote 29 Though fears of religious or racially motivated prejudice and violence against minorities are valid, Georgia’s bill lacked a “clear threshold” for defining “Hinduphobia,” raising fears of its arbitrary application against critics of the Hindu religion, Hindutva, or the Modi government.Footnote 30
3. Mobilizing a new generation
As the Hindu right makes further inroads into civic and cultural institutions, colleges and universities have become prime targets for cultivating new audiences who might not explicitly endorse Hindutva ideology yet find its social and cultural affirmation and right-based discourses appealing, especially in a political climate that is increasingly hostile to minorities and international students. Increasing numbers of students of Indian heritage on American campuses, as well as those coming directly from India, is a key motivating factor. In the 2023–2024 academic year, 331,602 students came to the United States from India, surpassing China as the largest source of international students.Footnote 31
Expanding its “educational mission” into new organizational spaces primed for identity formation and belonging, the Hindu right is advancing its political agenda through student programming and activism. Student-activists, for example, have accused scholars of engaging in “hate speech” that is harmful to Hindu students. What constitutes hate speech is fiercely debated in the academy and beyond, along with “trigger warnings” and “safe spaces”—a concept co-opted by Hindu students. Rather than tackling hate speech in solidarity with other students, HSC singles out “Hinduphobic” speech, denying others the right to challenge its claims. Positing “student harms in Hindu student voices,” HSC couches “Hinduphobia” as a social justice problem.Footnote 32 Teaching topics like “caste oppression” creates, in its view, “an unsafe academic environment.”Footnote 33 As arguments rage over who represents Hindu Americans—and whose version of Hinduism prevails—threats against scholars have escalated, including calls for their removal from academic positions and a defamation lawsuit filed by HAF in 2021 against Audrey Truscheke, a Rutgers University professor and historian of South Asia.Footnote 34
In some respects, HSC, YUVA, and HOC are no different from many other campus organizations offering social and cultural opportunities for students of common ethnic, religious, or cultural backgrounds. They are more complicated, however, than the typical student organization, given their ties with Hindu right-wing groups. HSC, for instance, functioned as the student wing of VHPA from 1990 to 2003 when it became an independent nonprofit organization. Connections between YUVA and HSS are somewhat nebulous, although HSS’s Annual Report for 2023–2024 praises YUVA’s “expanding presence on university and high school campuses.”Footnote 35
With over 60 chapters in high schools and universities, HSC, “North America’s largest organization for Hindu youth,” aims to “create a safe space” for Hindu students.Footnote 36 In addition to social and cultural activities, HSC organizes a Global Dharma Conference, the first of which took place in Edison, New Jersey, in 2003. Held shortly after 9/11, it included a familiar Hindutva litany of global terrorism perpetrated by Islamists, anticonversion policies targeting Muslims and Christians in India (a key priority for the Sangh Parivar), and “scholarly misrepresentation” of Indian traditions.Footnote 37
As efforts to define and legislate “Hinduphobia” ramped up, HSC hosted a conference on “Understanding Hinduphobia” at Rutgers University in 2021. The “first ever academic initiative” to tackle “Hinduphobia,” it reiterated claims of widespread and systemic bigotry against Hindus in a long history of persecution.Footnote 38 This framing replicates the language of Hindu nationalists while also placing Hindus alongside other US minorities seeking justice for historical injuries. Shortly after, the Rutgers University Student Assembly passed a resolution endorsing HSC’s definition of “Hinduphobia,” including the problematic claim that even questioning the existence of “Hinduphobia” is anti-Hindu.Footnote 39 An identical version of HSC’s definition of “Hinduphobia” appears in the pamphlet “Ten Things Jews and Hindus Have in Common,” published a year after the Rutgers conference.Footnote 40
Founded in 2006 by University of Washington students, Hindu YUVA’s mission of “preserving, practicing and promoting Hindu Dharma” appears fairly banal. With nearly 100 chapters across the United States and Canada, YUVA believes “Hinduphobia,” is “something many Hindus have experienced” and seeks a “just and safe environment” for Hindu Americans. Mirroring Hindu nationalists, it extolls “Bharat’s cultural renaissance,” bemoans “bias against native scholars,” and sees Hindu Americans as “ambassadors for a decolonized Hindu Dharma.”Footnote 41
In 2025, YUVA was caught in a free speech/hate speech controversy when it sponsored a series of lectures by Sachin Nandha, the author of a new revisionist biography of Hedgewar, the founder of the RSS. The lectures, publicized as an effort to promote a better “understanding of Hedgewar’s role in decolonization and rebuilding social capital in Indian society,” drew protestors on several campuses.Footnote 42 Some campuses went ahead with the event. Others like the University of California-Davis canceled at the last minute under pressure from faculty and students. A faculty member at the University of Texas-Dallas saw the lectures as a sign of the “normalization” of Hindutva and other extremist ideologies on university campuses.Footnote 43
Billed as an organization for Gen Z, HOC protects Hindu students from “prejudice” and “bias” and ensures “fair treatment of Hindus in academic environments worldwide.” It claims Hindu students have the right and responsibility to challenge academic content and “frameworks that are built on colonial assumptions and biases.” References to colonial frameworks and decolonizing Hinduism accord with the Hindu right’s (mis)appropriation of decolonial rhetoric to justify its revisionist histories and opposition to anti-caste discrimination measures.
Reproducing CoHNA’s incident-log of “hate and violence” against Hindus, HOC’s “Campus Hinduphobia Tracker” documents discrimination against Hindu students, citing “over 50 incidents of Hinduphobia from across the globe” in 2024.Footnote 44 Bigotry of any kind would be troubling; but 50-plus cases worldwide is hardly a systemic problem, yet the report reinforces right-wing claims of discrimination against Hindu students on American campuses. The “tracker,” regardless of numbers, concretizes vague complaints of “Hinduphobia,” paving the way for legal action against academic institutions and faculty.
HAF, for example, filed a Title VI Complaint with the US Department of Education’s Civil Rights Office against the University of Pennsylvania, alleging that it might have “violated the rights of Hindu students” by cosponsoring a conference “Dismantling Global Hindutva” in 2021. It accused the university of endorsing a project that “promotes negative stereotypes” about Hindus, “denies Hinduphobia and anti-Hindu hatred,” and “condones hostility toward faculty and students of Indian and Hindu descent.”Footnote 45 Conference organizers and university administrators received hundreds of threatening emails and messages, organizers’ personal information was leaked online, and complaints were lodged with the Indian government and US lawmakers to stop the conference. Although the conference went ahead, the contentious lead-up to it showed the Hindu right’s capacity for intimidating scholars and institutions—and getting away with it.Footnote 46
4. History and identity
The rewriting of Indian history, a long-standing Hindutva project, has ensnared scholars and public officials in India and abroad who do not subscribe to its distorted versions of Muslim and colonial histories or believe that caste hierarchies are no more than an unfortunate legacy of colonialism. The promotion of revisionist histories in India (a BJP priority) and the US is driven by a shared ideology and purpose, yet here it reflects the immigrant experience as seen through the lens of Hindu nationalism and specific to the American context where the teaching of US history and its representation drives much of the extreme right wing’s agenda. In fact, Hindutva organizations have gone so far as to mimic the American right’s claims of “parents’ rights” when determining the content of school textbooks and the curriculum.
In 2005, when the California Board of Education initiated a review of the history and social science curriculum and textbooks, the Texas-based Vedic Foundation and the Hindu Education Foundation (HEF), an organization affiliated with HSS-USA, launched a petition “to protest unfair and inaccurate depiction of Hinduism in school textbooks.” The Vedic Foundation proposed over 200 changes to rectify stereotypes and misrepresentations of Hinduism in roughly a dozen textbooks, leading to counter proposals against what Friends of South Asia (a California-based activist group of Americans of Indian and Pakistani origin) called a “fundamentalist agenda.”Footnote 47 Scholars of South Asia who objected to the Hindu right’s “whitewashing” of Indian history were accused of anti-Hindu bias.Footnote 48
Complaints about factual errors and stereotypes were justified up to a point, but the Vedic Foundation and HEF’s proposals were far more radical, reducing India’s complex histories to a glorification of Hindu religion and culture, for example, removing references to caste discrimination and gender-based violence; erasing the word Dalits; designating Hinduism as a monotheistic religion; and downplaying religious conflicts.Footnote 49 Although a compromise was worked out in 2005, HAF challenged a new round of revisions recommended by the South Asia Faculty Group in 2016, calling them “discriminatory against Indians in general and Hindus in particular.”Footnote 50
Disputes over historical knowledge and cultural representation also erupted in Virginia in 2008 and Texas in 2013. HEF and the Hindu Parents Network (a CoHNA offshoot), whose mission is to expose “biased teaching” and “textbook distortion,” have led these efforts.Footnote 51 Framed as the right of “historically marginalized groups” to represent themselves accurately, textbook controversies morphed into complaints of Hindu children losing their “self-esteem” or being “bullied” because of negative depictions of the caste system and the treatment of women.Footnote 52 Similar claims have been made by right-wing groups who argue against teaching about anti-Black racism because of its harmful effects on white children. In claiming recognition for itself as a minority community, the Hindu right’s discursive framing excludes and vilifies other religions and communities, contrary to the multicultural ethos it invokes.
5. Caste discrimination and civil rights
In October 2023, California governor Gavin Newsom, ostensibly under pressure from wealthy donors, vetoed a bill passed by the California state legislature that would have added caste to the list of protected civil rights categories under the state’s antidiscrimination laws. Echoing Hindu nationalist arguments, Governor Newsom called the bill “unnecessary” as caste-based discrimination was already covered under existing categories. Had the bill passed, California would have been the first state in the country to prohibit caste-based discrimination. Seattle became the first city in the United States to officially ban caste-based discrimination in February 2023.
Disputes over how the caste system is taught in American schools and the California bill show that caste hierarchies—and prejudice—have been replicated in the social relations and workplaces of Indian and Hindu immigrants, affecting Dalit employees in the corporate, education, and housing sectors. As California state senator Aisha Wahab, the sponsor of the bill, noted: “In the United State most people try to pretend that there is no caste prejudice here”; “to say caste is not an American issue is incorrect.”Footnote 53 Though the bill failed in the California legislature, it signified a growing movement against caste-based discrimination involving courts, state legislatures, federal agencies, and educational institutions.
In 2020, the California Division of Civil Rights (CDCR) filed a lawsuit against the company Cisco for allegedly discriminating against a Dalit engineer because of his caste. Dalit employees in the technology sector complain of discriminatory behavior and accusations of having benefited from affirmative action—a common refrain among upper-caste Hindus opposed to preferential policies in India. One of several lawsuits filed on behalf of Dalit workers, the case was eventually dropped.
The Hindu right dismissed calls for a formal ban, claiming that caste discrimination is not a widespread practice and that it could lead to bullying and violence against Indians in schools and workplaces. A counter suit filed by HAF and other plaintiffs against CDCR argued that including anti-caste discrimination measures in California’s Fair Housing and Employment Act would “violate the First Amendment rights of all Hindu and Indian Americans,” preventing them from freely discussing and practicing their faith.Footnote 54 Prohibiting discrimination against Dalits, they believe, would place an undue burden on other Hindus. The case was one of many attempts to deny the existence of caste, reducing it to a marker of “benign difference” having little to do with Hindu religious practice—a position consistent with Hindutva ideology.Footnote 55
In another egregious example, Google canceled an employee-organized presentation on caste bias in June 2022 by Thenmozhi Soundararajan, the founder of Equity Labs, an Oakland-based South Asian Dalit civil rights organization, after it received complaints that Soundararajan was “Hinduphobic,” and that the talk was “creating a hostile workplace and that people felt unsafe.”Footnote 56 Activists have fared better with colleges and universities (Brandeis, Brown, the California State University system, and Colby College), convincing them to add caste to their nondiscrimination policies.
6. Political symbols and civic rituals
The destruction of the 16th-century Babri Masjid in Ayodhya in 1992, led by the RSS and the BJP, and the violence that followed killing thousands of people, mostly Muslims, was a powerful catalyst for Hindu nationalism at home and abroad. Temporarily banned in India, the RSS and VHP sought diaspora support and funds for constructing a new edifice (Ram temple) in place of the mosque and celebrated its inauguration over 30 years later by Prime Minister Modi.Footnote 57
The temple remains a potent nationalist symbol for the global Hindu right, signifying the erasure of Muslim history and the triumph of Hindu supremacy. Its inauguration was celebrated in the United States with a combination of “spectacle, technology and spirituality” featuring Ram Yatra car rallies, Tesla lightshows, and parties in Times Square.Footnote 58 Mihir Meghani, cofounder of HAF, compared the moment to “reclaiming indigenous rights,” an “opportunity” for Hindu civilization to once again “control its destiny.” The VHPA’s Jai Bansal described the site of the temple “as proof of the historic oppression of Hindus…a reflection of the thousand-year history of slavery we have endured under the Islamic, British and Portuguese rule.” He advised Hindus to “resolve to ourselves… ‘never again.’ Never again will we let this happen to us.”Footnote 59
Comparisons to indigenous rights, slavery, or the Holocaust could not conceal the chauvinism of Hindutva and the demonizing of non-Hindu minorities. Tensions around the temple surfaced again a few months later when a replica of it, sponsored by VHPA, was selected for New York’s India Day Parade. Objections by local Muslim and Indian community organizations, who saw it as a “symbol of anti-Muslim hate…glorifying acts of violence” and an “affront to American values,” were dismissed as “Hindu hate” by Ajay Shah, the president of VHPA.Footnote 60 The VHPA’s prominent position in the 2024 parade, in contrast to the years when organizers would not even allow it to march in New York’s India Day parade, further underscored the growing acceptance of extreme right-wing movements in the public arena.
Universalizing Hindu nationalist identity, the Federation of Indian Associations, which organizes the parade, claimed the replica was a source of pride for all Hindus. Zohran Mamdani was among the local officials who criticized the decision to include it in the India Day celebration. “For the BJP and associated Hindu nationalist groups,” Mamdani argued, “India’s Muslim population isn’t only an obstacle to their political goals, it is anathema to their definition of the nation.”Footnote 61
Previously, organizers of an India Day Parade in Edison, New Jersey, a township with a large number of Indian immigrants, had displayed a yellow “wheel loader” (with images of Prime Minister Modi and Yogi Adityanath, the hardline BJP chief minister of Uttar Pradesh), a stand-in for the bulldozers used to demolish the homes and businesses of Indian Muslims. For some members of the community, the wheel loader was a symbol of “hate” targeting Muslims.Footnote 62 An apology from the event organizer the Indian Business Association did not prevent the dispute from spilling over into municipal meetings and even the New Jersey state legislature, which issued a statement condemning the inclusion of a controversial symbol in the parade.
The Teaneck Democratic Municipal Committee (TDMC) criticized parade organizers for including a symbol that “weaponized hate against minorities” and called out Hindu nationalist groups (HAF, VHPA, and HSS) with “direct and indirect ties” to the RSS for sponsoring speakers who incite violence against Muslim and Chrisitan minorities.Footnote 63 CoHNA denounced the TDMC for demonizing the “entire Hindu community, their activities, their beliefs, and their political participation in New Jersey.” Others accused the municipal committee of “anti-Indian and anti-Hindu hate speech,” and billboards around north and central New Jersey urged Democrats to “Stop bigotry against Hindu Americans.”Footnote 64
Over 50 New Jersey-based Hindu American organizations signed a letter saying: “In a time where there is an increased awareness of the need for diversity, inclusion and mutual respect, it is ever more important to call out false narratives, bigotry and hatred as we see it.”Footnote 65 New Jersey’s Democratic senators Cory Booker and Bob Menendez, who had originally criticized parade organizers, did not comment on the TDMC resolution or the reactions to it. Within days, the New Jersey Democratic State Committee condemned the TDMC resolution, declaring that “we stand with those who value inclusivity and diversity, and against hate and bigotry in any form.”Footnote 66
The temple celebrations and the India Day parades demonstrate how the Hindu right lays claim to public spaces and rituals where diaspora identities are formed, contested, and amplified via digital platforms and media technologies. In Edison, more so than New York, Democratic party officials became mired in a controversy that seemed peripheral to the business of state politics yet could not be ignored because of the rising numbers and stature of Indian American voters.
7. Whose rights are we talking about?
By hijacking progressive causes and adapting rights-based discourses, HAF, CoHNA, and others actively promote Hindu nationalism in public institutions (school boards, college campuses, city councils, and courts) so as to appeal to diverse audiences. Demands for textbook revisions referenced both the rights of “historically marginalized groups” and “parents’ rights”—language that would likely resonate with their supporters as well as school officials. Opposition to anticaste discrimination measures, framed as a civil rights issue with First Amendment implications, targeted state governments, multinational corporations, universities, and courts. Controversial parade displays were dismissed as “harmless” symbols of cultural pride and heritage and a matter of free speech that must be protected. Formalizing “Hinduphobia” in state legislatures or universities would, in turn, ensure “inclusive faith-based civil rights.” As the American government and institutions move further to the right, Hindu nationalists are appropriating the rhetoric and tactics of hard-right Jewish and American organizations to advance their claims and/or discredit critics.
Discursive strategies are shaped by the mission and goals of hard-right Hindu organizations. While each has its own priorities, HEF, CoHNA, and their affiliates share a common ideology that privileges the rights of Hindus while marginalizing and vilifying other ethnic and religious minorities, as Mamdani and many more have learned. Though connections between US- based organizations and the vast Sangh Parivar network are quite robust in both ideology and operations, the precise level of strategic and tactical coordination is difficult to ascertain.
The Hindu right’s turn toward schools and universities is not unusual as educational institutions play a crucial role in molding cultural and political identities. Student-activists, claiming “safe spaces,” have become purveyors of Hindutva on US campuses where multiculturalism is the mantra. They are both shaping and enacting the hard-right agenda, from the teaching of India’s histories to calling out discrimination against Hindu students to codifying “Hinduphobia.” Some schools have pushed back, while others have been more accommodating, treating HSC, YUVA, and HOC as regular student organizations, albeit with a different agenda. Understanding the appeal of Hindu nationalism for second- and third-generation students and the role of student organizations in developing “Yankee Hindutva” merits further research, especially as academic institutions in the US, India, and elsewhere face growing political pressure from right-wing movements and autocratic regimes.
Hindutva is not immune to challenges from Indian and South Asian Americans who reject the idea of Hindu hegemony and oppose the Modi government. Progressive organizations have protested the CAA, resisted revisions of history textbooks, and campaigned for the inclusion of caste oppression in antidiscrimination policies. The organization of countermovements is a significant development, particularly as Hindu nationalism enters the mainstream of American politics.
The Hindu right’s politics in India and abroad is similar in many respects to that of right-wing movements globally. Exclusionary nationalisms, fueled by narratives of victimhood, drive political action. Common tactics include controlling information and amplifying propaganda, fearmongering, coercion, and even inciting violence against opponents. Demonizing ethnic and racial minorities is a familiar strategy, as is the manipulation of public institutions and the law to intimidate and silence critics. Given its relatively privileged economic and caste status and audience, the Hindu right in the United States has largely ignored Trump and Modi’s brand of antielite populism. It has also resisted the far right’s antigovernment stance, which is consistent with the goal of “mainstreaming” a radical ideology into American public life.
Author contribution
Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Resources, Validation, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing: K.K.
Conflict of interests
The author declares no competing interests.
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