On the night of September 17, 2022, chants of Jai Shri Ram rocked Gold Mile along the Belgrave Road in Leicester City. The chant is a battle cry for Hindu nationalist violence, literally meaning ‘victory to Lord Ram,’ a deity in the Hindu pantheon. The tussle of customers who were buying sweets and rifting through colorful sarees was replaced by masked Hindu nationalists rampaging against Muslim businesses and spaces. Clashes soon broke out, resulting in violent brawls and destruction of property. Leicester, alongside Birmingham, was one of the first British cities to have a non-white majority, with only 40 percent of the population identified as “White” in the 2021 census. 23.5 percent of residents identified as Muslim and 17.9% as Hindu. They also share a decades-long history of fighting off white nationalists, namely the National Front and the English Defence League (EDL). Propaganda and virulent disinformation, the likes of which are now common in India, have proliferated among local communities.
The concept of diaspora—and the nationalistic tendencies therein—are based on the origins of nation-state building itself. Anglo-Irish political scientist and historian Benedict Anderson’s seminal work posited the diaspora to be engaged in “long-distance nationalism.” Anderson posits that long-distance nationalism creates a “transborder citizenry” for immigrants and their descendants, where citizens in the “territorial homeland view emigrants and their descendants as part of the nation, whatever legal citizenship they may possess.”
For those from racially or ethnically marginalized communities, diaspora nationalism addresses feelings of alienation, seclusion, exclusion, and humiliation that comes with being an immigrant in the West. Imagined diaspora draws communities to the homeland culturally and emotionally and substitutes the desire to maintain a connection to the idea of a homeland where one belongs, especially in second and third-generation immigrants.
Hindu Nationalism in Diaspora
In the case of Hindu nationalism or Hindutva, the idea of long-distance nationalism is ingrained in the very conceptualization of Hindu-ness as an identity. As early as 1953, leaders of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a far-right, Hindu nationalist paramilitary organization, proclaimed that they had a “world mission” to propagate the Hindu notion of the world as a single family.
The aim to cultivate Hindu nationalism overseas has been a part of the RSS’s mandate since the beginning. This growth has been spearheaded by the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS), the overseas arm of the RSS, now present in over 39 countries, and the Overseas Friends of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the overseas wing of India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). HSS has seen steady growth since its early beginnings among the Indian diaspora in East Africa. The group had actively participated in “homeland politics,” especially during the emergency in 1975-77. The Ram Temple movement is a prominent example, representing a political and religious campaign in India focused on constructing a temple dedicated to Lord Ram at a historically contested site. Today, with the BJP government in power, HSS has a new mission: to provide the BJP with legitimacy and insularity at an increasingly polarized global stage.
The overseas growth of the HSS is both ideologically organic and strategic. Ideologically, the end goal of Hindutva is a globally united Hindu community, one that reveres its homeland. The growth has been attained using hybridized methods, negotiating local legal, social, moral, and political environments by employing diverse tactics while variously concentrating or diluting their ideological messaging depending on the audience. The global HSS shakha, or branch, meetings are generally less gendered and have smaller and less regular gatherings than in India. They focus primarily on “cultural education” to cater to a different audience, most of whom have never lived in India.
This acculturation is critical, as it presents the RSS ideology, in all of its ideological facets, to those who have romanticized notions of the country; it invokes a mythical and glorious past, then destroyed and broken into the divided present by “invaders” who do not belong to the land or hold fidelity towards it, and the Hindu Messiah who will lead the Holy nation to a glorious future. Many diasporic Hindu nationalist organizations still maintain the militant nationalism that the RSS represents. A witness to the riots in Leicester said, “These guys came down like a military unit, and we were left wondering where the hell these guys came from,” echoing the same fear felt by minorities in India, a country that has seen a sharp rise in organized hate and violence over the past decade.
Strategically, the support of an influential diaspora invested in the politics of the homeland is critical to sustaining any national movement. The diaspora has the additional ability to act as a vessel for the normalization of an exclusive ethno-national identity via international acceptance. Beyond India, the Turkish and Israeli diaspora are respective examples of these tendencies taking the forefront in nationalist movements. The RSS has long been committed to expanding its influence into diverse institutions, including a strong lobby in the diaspora, which deliberately conflates culture with politics in order to shape a Western understanding of what being “Indian” really means.
Mechanisms of Neo-Hindutva
Like every fascist movement, Neo-Hindutva or Neo-Hindu nationalism advocates for a homogenized Hindu majority and cultural hegemony. Normalization of Hindu nationalism among the diaspora, especially after the electoral victory of the BJP, means that diaspora nationalism is not confined to the structures of the HSS. Condemnation of Hindu nationalism is increasingly frowned upon because of its widespread influence across nearly all aspects of Indian diaspora life.
Hindu nationalists abroad also have to navigate multicultural environments to represent and advocate for the interests of their racial and ethnic minority community. This “Hindu representation” often refers not only to other religious minorities but also to lower caste and Dalit minorities within the diaspora. They actively participate with other diaspora groups who fight against racism, only to infiltrate said spaces and use them to their advantage. The HSS actively co-opted the Black Lives Matter movement in the U.S., at the same time promoting an ideology that is accused of perpetrating anti-Muslim bigotry, including pogroms and mob lynchings.
The popularity of neo-Hindutva is a direct result of the proliferation of endogamous caste groups that have been left unchecked in the diaspora. According to a recent study, 83 percent of Indian-Americans self-identified as belonging to the ‘upper caste.’ Diasporic Indians from dominant castes bring not only discrimination and prejudice but also a sense of Hindu sovereignty that is part of the fabric of savarna nationhood—referring to individuals who belong to the three upper castes: Brahmin, Kshatriya, and Vaishya. The term encapsulates culturalization of caste to sites of hegemony where class, gender, and hierarchy meet the materiality of caste, when they arrive abroad.
Across the Atlantic, an election campaign called Operation Dharmik Vote (ODV) urged Hindu voters to vote for the candidate who supports Hindus and India and rallied against the Labour candidate whose campaign promises included the criminalization of caste. In India, the dominant caste members overwhelmingly support Narendra Modi’s brand of caste prejudice and Islamophobia.
The riots that erupted in Leicester were not isolated or unprecedented. In 2017, a bigoted Islamophobic campaign was led against the Muslim community after they requested that the Leicester city council convert an office space on Belgrave Road into a mosque. In May 2022, a Muslim man was assaulted after a group of about thirty men attacked him while shouting, “are you Muslim?” Tensions spiked up again in August 2022, when Indian cricket fans walked through Leicester city center, screaming “Death to Pakistan,” a slogan used by Hindu nationalists during pogroms against minorities, particularly Muslims. Even though Tory leaders like Priti Patel, Rishi Sunak, and Alok Sharma are all Modi acolytes, the riots were used by Conservatives to villainize migrants and further extend the Tory agenda of curbing immigration.
The Way Forward
Addressing Hindutva ideology requires a critical acknowledgment of Hindu nationalism as a politically motivated, exclusionary project that leverages fear to consolidate power. Effective critique should originate form within the Hindu diaspora, which has largely overlooked its ideological influence, often dismissing such movements as marginal. Given the foundational role of caste hierarchies in the proliferation of Hindutva, responses must integrate anti-caste perspectives and actively engage with anti-caste organizations, particularly in the U.S., U.K., Europe, Canada, and Australia, where such movements are gaining traction.
Another essential approach is the refinement of discrimination’s definition. While Islamophobia is globally recognized, frameworks need to be expanded to include the role of Hindu nationalism in fueling such hatred, alongside more robust definitions of anti-Sikh and anti-caste discrimination. Such a framework could guide policymakers in upholding strict international human rights standards while countering narratives like “Hinduphobia,” which equates criticism of the current Indian government and its actions with anti-Hindu hatred. Only through these intersectional approaches can the global community effectively challenge the divisive impact of Hindu nationalism.
(Gowri Niranjana is a researcher based in Vienna focusing on mechanisms of extrajudicial intergenerational justice. She writes about the multi-racial alt-right, ethno-nationalism, and culturalization of caste in the diaspora.)