Over the past year we have heard from our friends, relatives and clients in America a narrative which is decades old (namely, anti-Indian racism in USA) but now interwoven with a new layer (namely, a splintering in the Indian community’s response to this racism with some Hindus claiming that their battle against racism does not find common cause with other religious minorities from India).
Raju Rajagopal, the founder for Hindus for Human Rights in America (which opposes Hindu supremacy and caste discrimination and speaks up for minority rights), writes in Scroll about this strange phenomenon. He says: “Year after year, anti‑Hindu hate crimes have remained at the lowest end of the 34 categories tracked – alongside Buddhists, Hawaiians, and Jehovah’s Witnesses – while Sikhs, Muslims, and Jews are many times more likely to face hate crimes.
Data from the FBI shows that hate crimes against most communities either trended downward or held steady during 2024-2026, contrary to claims of a surge in “anti‑Hindu” or “anti‑Jewish” hate crimes…
I examined FBI data for the state. To my surprise, there was only one anti‑Hindu crime over the last five years, classified as vandalism. In the same period, there were 18 anti‑Sikh, six anti‑Muslim, 42 anti‑Jewish, and 99 anti‑White hate crimes. (Unreported bias incidents may exist, but that is true for all communities.)…
An extensive search for data supporting claims of widespread “Hinduphobia” yielded no evidence.”
Mr Rajagopal says that Hindu lobbyists have now convinced the state of Georgia to pass legislation which outlaws “Hinduphobia”. As expected, this has triggered public ire and created resentment even among those Americans who formerly were not interested in this subject.
So, asks Mr Rajagopal, “Why are Hindutva organisations so fixated on portraying “Hinduphobia” as a major threat?
At one level, the answer mirrors the foundational dogma in India that Hinduism is perpetually endangered by Islam and Christianity…“Hindus are in danger”, has longserved as a rallying cry and justification for hostility toward minorities.
At another level, “Hindu victimhood” is central to Hindutva organisations’ messaging and fundraising in America. In this narrative, school textbooks describing caste, scholars critiquing Hindutva, Dalits advocating for caste‑discrimination protections, and Sikhs supporting laws against transnational repression are all labeled “Hinduphobic.”” Concocting an atmosphere in which Hindus are apparently living in perpetual, he says, is important for successful fund-raising in the home of modern capitalism.
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