Multiculturalism, minoritization and the War on Terror: The politicization of Hinduism in North America

Abstract

With some American Hindus joining the public opposition to the so-called “Ground Zero mosque” in New York, and their Canadian counterparts calling for restricted immigration, the politicization of North American Hindus is becoming increasingly aligned with the terms of the post-9/11 War on Terror. This discussion examines the relationship between the discourses of the War on Terror and processes of minoritization. I examine recent assertions of Hindu political interests in North America that invoke notions of terrorist threats to make public claims about Hindus as non-threatening “model minorities”. Such claims draw not only on the War on Terror’s familiar vocabulary of Orientalist tropes and “us” vs “them” binaries, but also on the uneasy specter of “homegrown” or domestic terror threats, amplifying split processes of minoritization that seek to navigate increasingly anxious multiculturalisms.

Keywords:

• multiculturalism
• Hinduism
• minoritization
• War on Terror
• transnationalism
• homegrown terrorism

Notes

1. From the rally notice and information posted online at <http://nomosquesatgroundzero.wordpress.com/2010/09/page/2/>.

2. The notion of Hindutva, so often characterized as an ideology (Basu et al. 28) or a fundamentalism (Frykenburg 251–53), is not necessarily reducible to a fixed set of ideas and mobilizations. There is a complex lineage of discourses, mobilizations, and social forces accompanying notions of Hindu nationalism and Hindutva.

3. See coverage and promotion of the rally at <http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2011/07/911-freedom-rally-at-ground-zero.html>.