Hindutva and Hinduphobia: Transnational authoritarianism, racialized youth mobilization and nationalist politics of the US-Indian diaspora

• In Event: 20266 - Right-Wing Politics, Mobilities, and Immigrant Conservatism (Co-sponsored by Section on Political Sociology)

Abstract

Several scholars argue that we are witnessing a violent turn towards transnational authoritarianism around the globe in recent years (Juergensmeyer 2017, Pascale 2019). However, when exploring this right-wing global march, the focus is often on White-Christian nationalism in the US and Europe. This narrow focus makes us lose sight of attendant postcolonial forms of transnational authoritarianism like Hindu right-wing nationalism (Hindutva). By examining
Hindutva, I highlight contestations between democratic/civic/ethical and religious-ethnonationalist values and truth claims. I focus on Hindutva’s strategies of diasporic youth mobilization and religious pedagogical advocacy within religio-nationalist politics of the Indian diaspora in the US. I investigate how Indian/Indian American youth in the US, often inspired by multicultural, racial justice perspectives and racial-religious tolerance, understand the Hindutva movement and how the movement mobilizes the youth, both as supporters and as resisters. I ask – 1) How are Indian/Indian diasporic youth in the US mobilized in relation to the project of transnational Hindutva? (2) How do various transnational, Indian diasporic community-based
organizations employ religious and secular pedagogy and a rhetoric of social justice and decolonization to mobilize the youth both for and against transnational Hindutva in the US? (3) How do these organizations use intersections of racialized religion, gender, caste and indigeneity
through this struggle over religious and secular pedagogy and ethical values in relation to transnational Hindutva? (4) What are the interconnections between Hindutva and white supremacy and Christian nationalism as seen in these groups? I combine multi-sited global ethnography, formal semi-structured interviews, and archival work in India and the US. With this data, I understand how ethical values of justice and resistance against oppression can be used in reproducing as well as challenging hierarchies based on authoritarian politics and cultures and gendered-racialized religion and caste in the US and India.

Author

• Debadatta Chakraborty, University of Massachusetts-Amherst