India’s elections matter to Philadelphians, and here’s why

On Friday, India’s state and general elections will begin, and continue for six weeks — a somewhat complicated system that is designed to ensure everyone across the massive nation has a chance to vote.

I and many others in Philadelphia’s Indian diaspora are looking on with a mixture of fear and cautious hope.

Why are we afraid? Under the leadership of current Prime Minister — and front-runner in the new elections — Narendra Modi and his political party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), India has experienced a startling upsurge in violence against religious minorities.

Since he rose to power, Modi has been pushing the country away from its secular tradition (established in its constitution), in which all religions are treated equally, toward one in which Hinduism is dominant. Modi is widely considered culpable for inciting anti-Muslim riots that killed nearly 2,000 people in 2002, and creating a culture of impunity for mass murder, while other members of his party have delivered speeches exhorting followers to kill religious minorities.

If Modi wins another term, many of my Indian American students at the University of Pennsylvania, along with friends here, are worried about what will happen to our relatives in India — and more broadly, to the fragile democracy of our birth country.

But we are also worried about how this election will be received in our adopted city of Philadelphia.

Since assuming the role of prime minister in 2014, Modi’s Hindu nationalist ideology has divided the Indian American diaspora, pitting people from different faiths against each other. Advocating the idea of India as a pure Hindu nation — one in which Muslims, Christians, and other minorities are outsider, second-class citizens — Hindu nationalism has inspired numerous hate killings in India, and animated polarizing debates in the U.S. government at the local, state, and federal levels.

To those like myself, the Modi regime’s policies — which include bulldozing Muslim homes and demolishing Christian churches, passing laws that exclude Muslim immigrants from citizenship, imprisoning regime critics, and ignoring (or perhaps collaborating with) violent, anti-Muslim militants — are anathema.

But many Indian Americans in Philadelphia see Modi as a visionary leader, restoring to India a sense of national pride.

In light of the growing influence the more than 100,000 Indian Americans living in our area have in local politics (see: State Sen. Nikil Saval), along with the 4.4 million Indian Americans living throughout the country, the U.S.’s deepening military alliance with India, and the outsized importance Modi affords to the Indian diaspora, Philadelphia’s Indian voices matter both locally and internationally.

Philadelphia’s Indian voices matter both locally and internationally.

With Modi’s reelection highly likely, we should be raising as much awareness as we can about his regime’s poisonous legacy, sending a clear message from our city and country that his hate is not welcome here.

Instead, the opposite has occurred, with several groups in and around Philadelphia recently celebrating one of Modi’s most controversial acts.

In January, Modi consecrated the Ram temple, a sprawling complex built directly over the ruins of a mosque that had been destroyed by Hindu nationalist mobs in 1992. In the riots following the mosque’s destruction, more than 2,000 people were killed, most of them Muslims. That such a temple was celebrated in our city signals a lack of respect for the full diversity of the Indian American community, which includes numerous Muslim families.

My workplace, the University of Pennsylvania, also found itself in the middle of the local battle over Hindu nationalism in 2021. That year, it cosponsored a national conference entitled “Dismantling Global Hindutva” (Hindutva is the Hindi term for Hindu nationalism). Speakers and organizers received death threats for their participation in the conference, and the university became the subject of a federal complaint filed by the Hindu American Foundation.

Even though Philadelphia is thousands of miles away from India, we can feel the effects of Modi’s divisive politics, which have turned our local, state, and national institutions into battlegrounds.

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It will be up to all Indian Americans in Philadelphia to ensure our city and country take the right, oppositional stance to a hateful regime.

What might that look like? First, we need to alert our families and friends back home about the consequences of the return of the Modi government by debating openly about various political and religious dimensions. It’s also crucial now to engage with various secular organizations in the U.S. to share our concerns. Last but not least, Indian Americans need to learn to draw a clear separation between the politics of religion and the real practices of religion itself. Hinduism is not a threat to other religions, but Hindu nationalism is.

With India’s elections bound to bring Modi into the spotlight yet again among the diaspora in our city, we can’t afford to pretend a vote that occurs thousands of miles away doesn’t affect us.

Afsar Mohammad recently published a book, “Remaking History: 1948 Police Action and the Muslims of Hyderabad” (2023), with Cambridge University Press. He is currently working on a book about the new generation of Muslim activists and their role in the making of the post-Hindu nationalist India. He teaches at the University of Pennsylvania.