In Edison, New Jersey, a bulldozer, which has become a symbol of oppression of India’s Muslim minority, rolled down the street during a parade mark-ing that country’s Independence Day. At an event in Anaheim, California, a shouting match eru-pted between people celebrating the holiday and those who show-ed up to protest violence against Muslims in India.
Indian Americans from di-verse faith backgrounds have peacefully co-existed stateside for several decades. But these recent events in the U.S. — and violent confrontations between some Hindus and Muslims last month in Leicester, England — have heightened concerns that stark political and religious polariza-tion in India is seeping into dias-pora communities.
In India, Hindu nationalism has surged under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party, which rose to power in 2014 and won a landslide ele-ction in 2019. The ruling party has faced fierce criticism over rising attacks against Muslims in recent years, from the Muslim community and other religious minorities as well as some Hindus who say Modi’s silence embold-ens right-wing groups and threat-ens national unity.
Hindu nationalism has split the Indian expatriate community just as Donald Trump’s presid-ency polarized the U.S., said Varun Soni, dean of religious life at the University of Southern California. It has about 2,000 students from India, among the highest in the country.
Soni has not seen these ten-sions surface yet on campus. But he said USC received blowback for being one of more than 50 U.S. universities that co-sponsor-ed an online conference called “Dismantling Global Hindutva.”
The 2021 event aimed to spread awareness of Hindutva, Sanskrit for the essence of being Hindu, a political ideology that claims India as a predominantly Hindu nation plus some minority faiths with roots in the country such as Sikhism, Jainism and Buddhism. Critics say that exclu-des other minority religious groups such as Muslims and Christians.