Threats rise against South Asians in the US

South Asians in the United States say they are facing rhetorical and physical attacks, which are egged on by right-wing politicians and intellectuals. The latter are debating the so-called “Indian question” of whether ethnic minorities can truly assimilate into the American community. It is a discussion, critics say, with dark echoes.

‘Scourge of hate’

Indian Americans and South Asian migrants have “become a conspicuous target of online conservative anger,” said Vox. People of Indian heritage are not “being stereotyped as antisocial, criminal, coming here illegally,” said journalist Zaid Jilani to the outlet. Instead, their growing prominence in business and academic “positions that I think a lot of people have typically associated with white folks” have made them a “status threat” to middle-class Americans.

The result is a growing “scourge of anti-Indian American, anti-South Asian hate,” said Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) to The New York Times, after a Hindu temple in Illinois was targeted in an alleged mass shooting plot. Critics point to rhetoric such as that used by Bo French, a Texas Republican who sparked controversy last month when he posted an image of South Asians at a college football game. The “problem” of migration is “now obviously far worse than anyone imagined,” said French on X.

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Other observers cite “The Indian Question,” a podcast episode recorded in September by conservative commentators Jonathan Keeperman and Christopher Rufo. Many Americans “prefer to live in a homogenous [sic] society,” said Keeperman on X. Critics of Indian migration are pushing back against progressive attempts to “subdue any explicit political effort to maintain a white majority.”

‘Nativists have prevailed’

Talk of an “Indian question” amounts to the “mainstreaming of anti-Indian bigotry,” said Jonathan Chait at The Atlantic. A “historical rule of thumb” is that bad things happen when “your social identity is being made the name of a ‘question.’”

“Playing by America’s rules is no longer enough” for Indian immigrants, said Anang Mittal at Firstpost. The United States “told immigrants to come legally on the basis of merit, and Indians did.” Now it seems “the nativists have prevailed, for now.”