Alt-Right with the Hindu-right: long-distance nationalism and the perfection of Hindutva

ABSTRACT

In the 2016 US Presidential election, a small but vocal group of Hindu supporters of Donald Trump drew international media attention in India and the US for their political mobilizing for the Republican candidate. In this paper, I examine the political campaigns of “Hindus for Trump” and its affiliated groups to analyse the diverse ways in which these diasporic activists engage in and advance a number of distinct nationalist projects simultaneously. Tracing links between the “Hindus for Trump” platform, Hindutva ideology that seeks to redefine India as a Hindu nation, and the racist “alt-right” movement that forms the political base for President Trump in the US, I argue these diasporic activists enact a synergetic nationalism that has productive effects in both “home” and “host” countries. The result is the perfection of Hindutva on the global stage through the very activities that legitimize the isolationist xenophobia associated with the Trump administration.

KEYWORDS:

• Hindutva
• long-distance nationalism
• cultural performances of nationalism
• Indian diaspora
• American alt-right
• 2016 presidential elections

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Sitara Thobani http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8697-2753

Notes

1 See Triandafyllidou (1998) for more on the role of the “significant Other” in delineating the boundaries against which national identity is demarcated.

2 In 2016, Indian Americans held a 71 per cent approval rating for Clinton compared to 11 per cent approval (and 79 per cent disapproval) for Trump (Ramakrishnan et al. 2016).

3 Highly vocal during the elections, they were also significant financial donors (Dikshit 2017).

4 Centering on Ayodhya, the presumed birthplace of Lord Ram, this movement gained momentum following the 1992 demolition of the Babri Mosque by Hindu activists. This demolition led to deadly outbreaks of violence in several cities across India.

5 This description appears on the group’s Twitter and Facebook accounts.

6 This phrase was repeated on various promotional materials for the event.

7 This flier was reproduced on the HFT blogsite.

8 The city revered as holy in Hinduism from which Modi launched his own election campaign for Prime Minister.