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Lecture halls at Canadian and American universities have turn into battlegrounds for critics and defenders of Hindu nationalism, punctuated by threats of violence and even loss of life. Temples of Sikhs and Hindus in Canada and Australia have been defaced with slogans paying homage to India’s timeless divisions. Parades in two North American cities have featured shows celebrating episodes of brutal sectarian violence in India.
The Canadian authorities’s startling accusation that Indian authorities brokers had been behind the professional-style killing of a Canadian Sikh separatist in Vancouver has centered consideration on the rising tensions inside the huge Indian diaspora, reflecting divisions in India which have been fueled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s model of Hindu nationalism.
Mr. Modi’s Hindu-first insurance policies and rising intolerance of scrutiny have spilled over into Indian communities worldwide, intensifying historic divisions amongst Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and completely different castes. They’ve performed out in metropolis councils, faculty boards, cultural celebrations and educational circles.
“Earlier than 2014, when Modi got here to energy, you didn’t see these sorts of divisions within the Indian diaspora in Canada — in no way,” mentioned Chinnaiah Jangam, an affiliate professor of historical past at Carleton College in Ottawa and an professional on caste-based discrimination.
Stephen Brown, the chief govt of the Nationwide Council of Canadian Muslims, mentioned, “What you’ve seen is a contagion impact.”
Mr. Modi and his social gathering, the Bharatiya Janata Occasion, or B.J.P., got here to energy in 2014, espousing a Hindu nationalist agenda known as Hindutva that critics say has fueled rising violence and discrimination towards India’s non secular minorities, about 20 % of the inhabitants.
Mr. Modi’s authorities has adopted legal guidelines and insurance policies discriminating towards non secular minorities as a few of his supporters have carried out killings and acts of violence towards them, typically with impunity. However criticism from Western nations searching for nearer financial ties with India and a geopolitical counterweight to China has been muted.
Fears that tensions in India are spreading to diaspora communities have translated into higher scrutiny over the abroad actions of the B.J.P.; the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or R.S.S., India’s main far-right, Hindu nationalist group; and even Indian diplomats.
Underneath Mr. Modi, the R.S.S. has turn into more and more lively abroad in international locations with giant Indian diasporas, mentioned Dhirendra Okay. Jha, an Indian writer who has adopted the group for many years. The B.J.P. is taken into account the political wing of the R.S.S., which helped kick off the political profession of Mr. Modi, who continues to be a member.
In Canada, two long-established, R.S.S.-linked associations, the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (Hindu Self-Reliance Affiliation) and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council), are mobilizing assist for Mr. Modi and his Hindu-first insurance policies by means of academic, cultural and social actions, in line with consultants in addition to a latest report printed by the Nationwide Council of Canadian Muslims and the World Sikh Group of Canada.
Officers on the two organizations didn’t reply to requests for interviews.
Malavika Kasturi, a historian on the College of Toronto and an professional on Hindu nationalism, mentioned that the 2 teams and others that “cover underneath a wide range of completely different fronts” kind a community backing Mr. Modi’s Hindu-first agenda in Canada.
“What they do have is a standard agenda which is to crack down on all dissent,” Ms. Kasturi mentioned. “So any critique of Hindutva is known as Hinduphobia. Any critique of Mr. Modi is known as Hinduphobia.”
Mr. Modi has tapped right into a “very deep-seated psychology” amongst members of the diaspora who “wish to get better a misplaced delight within the rise of an amazing civilization that has been wronged” by means of colonization, mentioned Meera Nanda, an Indian historian researching the influence of Hindutva in america.
However Ragini Sharma, president of the Toronto-based Canadian Group for Hindu Heritage Training, mentioned critics had been utilizing Mr. Modi’s political agenda to painting Hinduism as illiberal.
Her group opposed the Toronto District College Board’s latest resolution to acknowledge that caste-based discrimination exists in its colleges, saying it will “demonize” the Hindu neighborhood. It’s lobbying the Canadian authorities to acknowledge Hinduphobia, a time period utilized by Hindu activists lately.
“There may be this bogey of Hindu nationalism that’s being utilized to harmless folks,” Ms. Sharma mentioned.
Hardeep Singh Nijjar — the Canadian Sikh chief whose killing now lies on the heart of a diplomatic conflict between Canada and India — championed the creation of Khalistan, a separate homeland for Sikhs carved out of the state of Punjab.
After turning into the chief of a very powerful Sikh temple in British Columbia in 2019, Mr. Nijjar criticized Mr. Modi’s Hindu-first insurance policies as an try and “convert all of India into believers of Hinduism,” mentioned Gurkeerat Singh, a detailed affiliate of Mr. Nijjar’s.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada has mentioned that Indian authorities “brokers” gunned down Mr. Nijjar in June, basing his accusations on intelligence gathered by Canada and shared by america. India has denied any involvement within the killing of Mr. Nijjar, whom it labeled a terrorist in 2020.
The killing has alarmed teachers who say they’ve been focused by Hindu extremist supporters of Mr. Modi since he grew to become India’s chief.
Mr. Jangam, the affiliate professor at Carleton College, who has researched caste-based discrimination and violence in India, mentioned he has confronted loss of life threats from Hindu extremists in Canada.
He has been accused of giving India and Hinduism a foul picture, Mr. Jangam mentioned, including that he was the primary tenured educational in Canada from the Dalit neighborhood, as soon as generally known as the untouchables.
“Nobody ever bothered about so-called Hindu identification earlier than” in Canada, Mr. Jangam mentioned of the years earlier than Mr. Modi’s rise to energy. “It’s a shock for me how folks have transitioned from being regular, peculiar folks into Hindu fundamentalists.”
A chat he gave on caste discrimination in Toronto in 2019 was disrupted by upper-caste Hindu hecklers who instructed him to return to India, Mr. Jangam mentioned.
One of many organizations opposing the speak was the Indo-Canadian Concord Discussion board, saying it lacked stability. The group’s chairman, Praveen Verma, mentioned Mr. Modi had elevated India’s world standing.
“India has come on the world stage, and I really feel the Indian neighborhood is proud about that,” mentioned Mr. Verma, a profession diplomat who served as India’s ambassador to Yemen and Guatemala earlier than retiring in Ontario.
Harassment of sure students has had a unfavorable impact on scholarship on India, mentioned Harjeet Grewal, an professional on Asian religions on the College of Calgary.
Lecturers keep away from delicate matters, he mentioned. “We see much less and fewer give attention to faith and society in India in American, Canadian and U.Okay. universities.”
Divisions inside the Indian diaspora have expressed themselves in different methods. Descendants of the traditionally oppressed Dalit neighborhood have led a push to ban caste discrimination, pitting them towards upper-caste Hindus in Toronto, Seattle and California. Tensions and violence amongst Indian immigrants has ruptured communities as soon as heralded as fashions of integration, like Leicester, England.
The Toronto suburb of Brampton has turn into an epicenter of most of the tensions within the diaspora. Hindu temples have been vandalized with slogans championing Khalistan. A float recreating the assassination of Indira Gandhi appeared in a Sikh parade.
When Brampton introduced through the pandemic that mosques could be allowed to play the decision to prayer on loudspeakers throughout Ramadan, a person recognized as a member of the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh by the Canadian Anti-Hate Community requested on social media whether or not that might result in “separate lanes for camels and goat riders” or ladies overlaying “themselves from head to toe in tents.” The person was subsequently fired from a close-by faculty council the place he had been the chairman.
In Brampton, the Indian authorities has additionally been accused of straight interfering to defend Mr. Modi’s insurance policies or India’s picture in ways in which have deepened divisions.
In 2017, Indian diplomats from the consulate normal in Toronto pressed organizers of an annual cultural competition to cancel a pavilion dedicated to Punjab, the one Indian state the place Sikhs are a majority, or to fold it into the India pavilion, in line with Brampton metropolis staffers on the time.
“The organizers shared with us how they had been getting telephone calls and so they had been being harassed by the Indian consulate to close this pavilion down,” mentioned Jaskaran Sandhu, an adviser to the mayor on the time.
The mayor wrote to Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s international minister on the time, that “one of these unwarranted interference by Indian officers in an area cultural competition is surprising,” in line with a replica of the letter obtained by The New York Occasions.
Ms. Freeland instructed the information media that “interference in home affairs by international representatives in Canada is inappropriate.”
The Indian consulate in Toronto and embassy in Ottawa didn’t reply to requests for remark.
The Abroad Pals of the B.J.P., the worldwide arm of Mr. Modi’s social gathering, has established a rising presence overseas to push its agenda, and is registered as a international agent in america.
In Canada, which doesn’t have a international agent registry, the Abroad Pals of the B.J.P. of Canada was established in 2014 and altered its title to the Canada India International Discussion board in 2018.
Dr. Shivendra Dwivedi, an anesthesiologist who has been the group’s president since 2019, mentioned its focus is commerce and that, not like associates in america and Europe, it didn’t have ties to Mr. Modi’s social gathering.
Dr. Dwivedi mentioned assaults on teachers had been led by “fringe components” and that “there was no place for that in Canada.”
Nonetheless, he added, strikes to have caste-based discrimination formally acknowledged had been a part of “a motion to malign the nation” simply as India has gained worldwide prominence.
“Once I was rising up in Quebec, I used to be in all probability the one brown child in my class,” mentioned Dr. Dwivedi, 64. “And other people would actually say, ‘Hey, what? Aren’t you fortunate to come back to Canada? At the least you’re not ravenous like they’re in India.’”
At the moment, the stability between Canada and India has shifted, Dr. Dwivedi mentioned.
“Thirty years in the past, the Indian financial system wanted Canada,” he mentioned. “Now it’s a 180-degrees reverse. Canada wants India. India is the rising financial and army energy, not Canada. We want them. They don’t want us.”
Sameer Yasir contributed reporting from New Delhi, and Yan Zhuang from Sydney.
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