With the rise of Hindutva in Modi’s India, it’s time for the U.S. to step in

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Around the globe, democracy is constantly under threat. Support for right-wing movements and parties that emphasize cultural identity over values has steadily increased in European countries and demonstrates the fragility of democratic ideals. In India, worsening religious polarization and the deliberate marginalization of its minority groups jeopardize what a representative government should look like.

As the world’s longest-standing democracy, the United States has the responsibility to call out these violations and failures. And as the world’s largest democracy, India is responsible for serving as an example and protecting the system’s integrity.

Instead, its government has chosen to follow the direction of past European fascist regimes that threaten the nation’s founding values and repress its marginalized groups.

Hindutva, a right-wing ideology popularized by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, an Indian politician who coined the term in 1920, started as a movement to position Hinduism as integral to Indian identity. It later made way for the creation of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the largest right-wing nationalism organization in India.

Currently, Hindutva has infiltrated India’s government and plagued the country with nationalists who wield their authority to weaken its religious minorities and lower caste groups. Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, is the present face of the right-wing nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a “political offspring” of the RSS. The BJP is a staunch advocate for Hindu hegemony, and throughout his term, Modi has pursued and strikingly succeeded in establishing it as such.

Hindutva is not to be confused with Hinduism; it is an extremist culture that upholds political ideals and mostly deviates from the religion’s ideals of equality, unity and pluralism. Hindutva not only endorses Hindu supremacy in the region but frames non-Hindus as invaders and threats to Indian culture and heritage.

Ironically enough, Savarkar himself was an atheist. In his view, the campaign for a Hindu India was less about religion and more about a shared history between a common race. Indigeneity to India is elemental to Hindutva’s core; its vision conflates Indianness to an argument that the identity of India relies on its linguistic roots in Sanskrit and its connection to Hinduism.

A fundamental motivation for the mobilization of Hindutva stems from a lack of solidarity in the nation that questions what it means to be Indian. In a country that comprises various ethnic groups with different cultures and languages, there is little that unites — and destroys — India, like religion.

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Consequently, Hindutva’s primary foe is Islam. Savarkar and current Hindutva proponents view the arrival of Islam in India as the nation’s descent into calamity. Their villainization of Muslims goes beyond solely an objection against their faith, but Islam’s unmistakable influence on the cultural landscape of India.

At several points in history, Muslim empires ruled India, yielded significant economic changes, made advancements in several disciplines and even impacted cuisine and language. Hindutva’s rejection of Islam is rooted in a cultural anxiety about its history that owes a considerable portion of its success to what it deems as an invader.

Modi’s politics have made him an enemy to Muslims and other marginalized communities, but they are in no position to challenge the might of the BJP-backed prime minister. In 2019, when Modi sought reelection, his administration allegedly “engaged in large-scale voter suppression,” eliminating around 120 million voters from accessing the ballot. They sought to chiefly eradicate the risk of Muslims and Dalits from voting against the candidate who has repeatedly disempowered and excluded them.

Caste discrimination, although not formally acknowledged by the U.S. government as a form of discrimination, hurt Dalits who are fighting for representation and against injustice. Aside from already being a racial minority in the West, Dalits are often excluded from being a part of the broader Indian community due to their last name, a marker of their caste. Those who dispute the need for a bill against caste discrimination tend to be higher caste advocates of Hindutva.

The ceaseless question of Kashmir has also exposed the BJP’s agenda to transform India into an ethno-nationalist nation. As India’s only Muslim-majority state, Kashmir has long been the target of attempted Hindu reform and claim. But India’s occupation of Kashmir has largely been met with opposition and has resulted in years of violence and bloodshed in the region.

The Indian government’s response to Kashmiri resistance is a slew of human rights violations. For Hindutva’s patrons, Kashmir is an ongoing business venture and a hopeful testimony to what it can achieve.

As it weakens Islam’s place in India, the Modi administration has also taken great lengths to erase its past. In an attempt to delude future generations, important Islamic contributions in Indian history have been removed. Historic cities with names linked to Muslim rulers have been changed. Homes and businesses owned by Muslims have been demolished.

Islamophobia, with deep-seated roots in the U.S. as well, presents an opportunity for America to combat it on its front as well as abroad. Instead, the U.S. is complicit with Modi’s regime, as it stays silent when votes are repressed, violence in Kashmir worsens and religious turmoil intensifies. As a supposed defender of democracy, the U.S. must take infractions made by the Indian nationalist government seriously.

The United States plays a vital role in the controversy and the current path of India’s right-wing government. As a close ally to India, the U.S. has done little to hold India accountable for its human rights violations.

There has also been a growing movement among Indian Americans who justify Modi’s actions. Many diaspora Indians support the regime through financial or political means. Their assistance not only harms marginalized communities abroad but also in the U.S.

The decline of democracy in India is happening before our eyes, and it questions if democracy was ever truly meant to prevail in a country so inflicted by shame and rejection of its own history.

Christy Joshy is a freshman International Relations and Accounting major. She can be reached at cjoshy@syr.edu.