The Rising Wave Of Hindutva In USA: How The Far-Right Has Found Momentum On American Soil

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the US on his official state visit in 2023, there was an overwhelming support from Indians and Indian-Americans. Though support for Modi among the Indian diaspora in the US has been an important factor in powering his image as a global leader, his charisma extends beyond his personality. Pushing the Hindu nationalist agenda, the BJP government has found its base as the political guardian of the Hindu identity. Working behind the popular appeal of religious consolidation, the US has been home to numerous Far Right Hindu groups actively advocating the spread of Hindutva and finding an active and extended support base in the country. 

The stupendous rise of Hindutva prompted over 100 civil rights groups to issue a declaration on March 26 this year against the rise of Hindutva in the US. The declaration rejected all forms of hatred and supremacist politics, including Hindu supremacy, and expressed concern about ‘the ideology and global presence of the Hindu supremacist movement, and its intersections with the broader Far Right’ in America. The declaration has asked the US government to enter into conversations surrounding human rights and democracy with the Indian government, and to stand with activists and organisations working to promote a ‘diverse, inclusive, and liberatory vision of Indian American identity’. 

According to a 2022 report by the South Asia Citizen Web, called ‘A Report on the Infrastructure of Hindutva Influence Peddling, Mobilizing and Fund Raising in the US, 2014-2021’, between 2001 and 2019, according to available tax returns, seven Sangh-affiliated charitable groups spent at least $158.9 million on their programming, sending much of it to groups in India, of which 53 per cent ($85.4 million) was spent between 2014 and 2019, during the first tenure of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government. 

The expenditure recorded was not only channelled to send money to affiliates in India, but also to influence legislation in the context of education and academics, related to religion and history, and further the foreign policy priorities of the NDA government. The report also looked at the political campaign financing carried out by the lobby groups. The Hindu American Political Action Committee (HAPAC) had spent more than $172,000 in various US elections between 2012 and 2020, based on government filings. 

The ideology has found endorsers in the US mainstream political realm as well. Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican candidate who was running for US presidential election―until he dropped out in January 2024―was actively brandishing his orthodox Hindu identity, where many pointed out his endorsement of soft Hindutva and amplifying the Indian government policies in furthering the ideology. 

“Just got out of Prime Minister Modi’s address to the joint session of Congress. I respect Modi for reviving national pride in India,” he had tweeted following Modi’s state visit last year. “It was a healthy reminder of what we are missing right here in America.” In 2022, Ramaswamy was one of the keynote speakers for an online gala organised by the Hindu Policy Research and Advocacy Collective (HinduPACT), an advocacy initiative of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) of America. “The (woke) culture of fear that I worry is increasingly eroding our culture of free speech. This new church of inclusion has actually created this new culture of exclusion,” he said at the HinduPACT event, which was classified as a ‘militant religious organisation’ by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for its alleged involvement in violence against minority groups.

According to a report by The Guardian’s Hannah Ellis-Petersen, in 2021, a conference titled ‘Dismantling Global Hindutva’, which was co-sponsored by more than 53 universities, including Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, Columbia, Berkeley, the University of Chicago, the University of Pennsylvania, and Rutgers, had come under attack after several groups in India and the US accused the event as being “anti-Hindu”. The aim of the conference was to bring together scholars to discuss Hindutva and the momentum of the right-wing movement in India against secularism. 

“Organisers and speakers have received death threats, threats of sexual violence, and threats of violence against their families. Women participants have been subjected to the vilest kind of misogynistic threats and abuse and members of religious minorities associated with the conference have been targeted with casteist and sectarian slurs in the ugliest sorts of language,” Rohit Chopra, an associate professor at the Santa Clara University, California, and a conference organiser, had told The Guardian. 

The report further mentioned that the “groups campaigning against the conference are the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti, an Indian organisation that has faced allegations of being linked to the murders of intellectuals and journalists, and US-based rightwing groups the Hindu American Foundation and the Coalition of Hindus of North America”. The Samiti had also written to the Indian Union home minister demanding action against those taking part in the event, while the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh USA, a sister group of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) expressed concerns regarding the culture of Hinduphobia and the violence incited by such events against the minority Hindu population in the West. 

In 2022, a report of the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT World) by C J Werleman highlighted that the Indian Business Association (IBA) organised an India Independence Day rally in Edison, New Jersey. This rally had witnessed “Jai Shri Ram” chants, featuring a bulldozer along with the posters of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders. The event was supported by the Overseas Friends of BJP-USA, whose website, reads, “We promote the philosophy of integral humanism”, and has BJP national spokesperson, Sambit Patra, as the grand marshal of the parade. The rally was further attended by numerous US state and national level political leaders. 

The bulldozer, brandished at the rally, symbolises the demolition drive which is being carried out across the country. Talking about the symbolism of the bulldozer, Werleman further writes, “The newest weapon in the Indian government’s quest for Hindu supremacy. This so-called “bulldozer justice” has been described as a tool of genocide, and now it’s being feted by Hindu nationalist forces on American streets”. 

The TRT World report further talks about how the Hindu Education Foundation (HEF), a US-based affiliate of the RSS, pressured California’s education department “into adopting Hindu nationalist talking points for school textbooks, including the characterisation of Muslims as external invaders”. 

Despite the US government recently expressing concerns over the rise in human rights abuses against religious minorities by government representatives in India, the Hindutva forces have walked towards the endorsement of their ideology on American soil, many of which have found support in notable politicians and celebrities. 

Following the arrest of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, the US government issued a statement which said that they are closely following reports of the arrest of Kejriwal and that they encourage a fair legal process. 

Following the statement, India summoned a US diplomat and objected to remarks on Kejriwal’s arrest. “The recent remarks are unwarranted. In India, legal processes are driven by the rule of law. Anyone who has similar ethos... especially fellow democracies... should have no difficulty in appreciating this fact,” said the Union Ministry of External Affairs. The ministry spokesperson further emphasised the Indian government’s commitment to protect the country’s judicial and democratic institutions “from any form of undue external influences”. 

The US reiterated its call for a “fair, transparent, timely legal processes”. The US State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller also noted that they were also aware of the Congress party’s allegations that tax authorities had frozen some of their bank accounts.