Hindu nationalism with an American flavor

Abstract

This presentation will focus on the mutations of Hindu nationalism (a supremacist ideology equating the Indian nation with the Hindu majority) in the United States diasporic context. Since the election of Narendra Modi in India in 2014, Hindu nationalism – or Hindutva – has dominated the Indian political landscape. The Indian diaspora has played a central role in normalizing Hindutva internationally, through the growing involvement of Hindu nationalist diasporic organizations in the political arena of their host countries. In their lobbying efforts, Hindutva groups abroad have adapted the Hindutva ideology in different ways depending on their interlocutors, who range from the extreme right to the center-left of the political spectrum. The presentation will address these logics of vernacularization of Hindu nationalism in a diasporic context based on a fieldwork carried out in the United States in October 2024, with Hindu nationalist activists engaged in the electoral campaign. This first fieldwork will enable me to present two distinct ways in which Hindutva become americanized.