Opinion | The Evolving Socio-Political Thinking Of Hindu Americans
The socio-political changes in the Indian community slowly saw the fake, make-believe politicians losing steam because they tried to be what they were not. Indians are slowly and surely becoming international citizens
I was in the USA for a month recently, during which I interacted with a cross-section of Americans, including Black people, intellectuals, and Hindu Americans. I even had long chats with Hindu youth in a few cities. My stay everywhere was with my friends from India, i.e. local Hindu families.
I could not help, but reflect on my earlier interactions with email groups during the Donald Trump-Hillary Clinton elections, and personal conversations with many Indian Americans, including Muslims, during my earlier trip in December 2019. I experienced a huge upheaval in Hindu society about how they look at American politics as US citizens.
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During the Clinton-Trump battle, I saw a big divide between the traditional Democrat supporters among the Hindu community and the new-age Republicans. Democrats, being the vocal majority at that time, were more aggressive. The Democratic Party was the party for all immigrants by default, and Indians were no different. However, the younger citizens and the American-born citizens were no more bound by the reflexive sympathy for Democrats. The political divide was so bitter that once I commented on a group, why were they fighting with each other? Why could they not come up with a Hindu agenda and talk to their respective candidates that this is our agenda, whichever candidate wins.
Hindus do not seek any favour because they have risen with hard work without seeking any favours. The only thing that worries and irritates Hindus is the way their religion is presented in education and the way they are misrepresented in public discourse. I was surprised at that time to hear from some senior Hindus that “we do not have that kind of lobbying power". However, since I did not have any stakes in American politics, I just let it pass. I had also told my hardcore Democrat friends that unless Clinton came up with a clear stand on Islamic terrorism and radicalism, she would lose. And she lost.
In the next election, we had the spectacle of Hindus falling for Kamala Harris, as one of their own, despite her never accepting this ownership, except for a few public shows of Indianness. It was the time when some politicians with Indian ancestry used to show themselves as American Christians, converted for the sake of being successful in politics. People like Bobby Jindal and Nikki Haley tried to shy away from their ex-Hindu and Indian identity, while we Indians insisted that they had strong Indian roots. The socio-political changes in the Indian community slowly saw the fake, make-believe politicians losing steam because they tried to be what they were not.
I could sense the changing mood of Hindu American citizens — the growing confidence in their American identity, while being open about their affection for their land of origin. They had begun taking an interest in American politics more actively. One saw more Indians in local politics, if not national politics. Some senators and Congressmen/women did come up. But they were either highly anti-Hindu or took one stance in public and another in private. So, there was an element of tentative uncertainty about them and their beliefs.
In this election, we saw Hindu politicians comfortable in their skin. No more apologetic, nor did they need to Americanise with a name change, no more need to show themselves to be more American Christian than they were. Their two generations of success based on sheer hard work backed by strong family values in that land have made them more confident and bolder. They profess a strong belief in America without giving up on their identity. Similarly, I also found Hindu youth and younger-generation Indians pitching their political and social views very confidently.
In one of the meetings, I met two young Hindu Americans making a strong pitch for the Democratic Party, believing that the youth were being misled by the Republican Party, which can never be theirs. There were also strong Trump supporters there. But, like true Hindus, they did not have any confrontation. I felt very happy to see this transformation of the political landscape within the Hindu community. No more bitter fights within the community, but healthy competition.
Another interesting thing I noted was that the Indians in the USA with H1B visas seem to be much less worried about their visa renewal than the Indians in India. They are confident of their skills and knowledge. The pro-Trump Indians and even Democrat Indians feel that what Trump is doing is necessary for the USA to break free of the shackles put in by the extreme Left. A senior Hindu Democrat leader said they were saved from doing this clean-up as Trump is doing it, and they will also reap the benefit from this spring cleaning. There is nothing one can do about hardcore Democrat supporters who were swearing at Trump. But there were objective critics who feared that the aggressive stance of tariffs could hurt the USA badly, as inputs will become costly. In a way, there is a big churn. And like other Americans, Hindu Americans are also equally invested in it.
An Atlanta senator, who was incidentally Black, asked me about Modi ji’s economic policies, which he thought were Leftist, although he was being called a right-wing politician. I responded by telling him how India does not fit into the western binary of Left and Right. And how, economically, Modi ji and Hindu economic philosophy was more ‘left of centre’. I also explained the philosophy of Integral Humanism that Modi ji imbibed. It was refreshing to see rising American interest in India without any traditional baggage, with a fresh look.
A group of students at Harvard requested me to give a talk about my book ‘Conflict Resolution – The RSS Way’. Although they got some hate mail from the usual suspects, they stuck to their guns. I am told it was the first talk ever in the Kennedy Centre at Harvard with a subject directly about the RSS. Surprisingly, it was attended by students from five countries from the African continent and Eastern Europe, apart from the Indian students.
I met an eminent professor who specialises in democratic institutions. He shared a chapter about the success of India and Indonesia in democracy. When I told him that Indian democratic polity does not flow from the western model and just our Constitution, but from our long tradition of institutions like Panchayat, to my surprise, he had no clue. He was honestly eager to know more. However, his ignorance showed me how the academics references in the west is dominated totally by Left, secular intellectuals. So much so that he could not find any book about these traditions. Though I did send him a list of a few books, I hope the Ministry of Foreign Affairs tries to bridge this gap of lack of books in western institutions.
During my earlier visits and even the current one, when Hindu Americans would ask me about problems in Bharat, I used to teasingly tell them, “Let us worry about Bharat and Modi. You should just enjoy the spectacle of rising Bharat; but worry about how Hindus are portrayed in your own country."
One of the elder Americans was unhappy at this suggestion. He poured forth his love for his country of origin and how he carried his Hindu identity back from his village in Bharat to America, where he had come due to some circumstances, but always thought of Bharat. In the same meeting, when I asked a young, American-born Hindu girl about her views, she went beyond what I had imagined. She said, “I am not worried about political developments in Bharat. I think we should focus on where Hindus will be 100 years from now in America, where the community would be in American society."
When I look back at the last 10-12 years of Indian and American politics and the evolving thought process of Hindu Americans, especially the new generation, I like the feel of the rising expectations and changing perceptions of Hindus and local Americans about Bharat and their own country, that is, the USA.
Indians are slowly and surely becoming international citizens.
The writer is a well-known author and political commentator. He has written several books on RSS like RSS 360, Sangh & Swaraj, RSS: Evolution from an Organisation to a Movement, Conflict Resolution: The RSS Way, and done a PhD on RSS. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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