I don’t even know where to begin with this. I’ve had relatives reaching an almost rage state because I was wearing a keffiyeh. I’ve gone to charity walks and some random uncle asks me where I’m from (basically trying to interrogate whether I’m Muslim or “from Pakistan”). I’ve seen a temple that I’ve gone to many times suddenly allow a BJP overseas group to rent their hall. At that same event I just happened to walk in, so I took some shots with my camera only for some thug to try to physically remove my phone from my hand and push me back to the exit/door with the help of his buddies. They immediately were like “why are you wearing Muslim thing?” because I was wearing a keffiyeh (nevermind the fact that I was wearing a regular indian kurta, etc., it was even their “favorite color” orange lol).
These guys are totally foaming from the mouth hindu nationalists (actually fascists is more appropriate) and they’re not just in India, they’re in the US as well. I’ve never had any white person say anything to me when I wear a keffiyeh. In fact I’ve had ppl low key give thumbs ups or say “nice” but with these fucking uncles (and yes they are always middle-aged indian uncles) it’s like a coin toss. Some think it looks cool (and have no idea what it means), whereas others see it and immediately think I’m some sort of terrorist. And btw my family is moderately high caste Hindu, and I think caste is complete bullshit, but I only mention it because if these fucking fash uncles don’t know that ahead of time, they’ll immediatley think you’re Muslim/Pakistani/terrorist by the things you wear. I’m going to continue rocking the keffiyeh but fuck these fucks.
Comrades, keep an eye out for these shitheads.
Also would love to hear any sort of stories from other comrades about family/friends/etc who have hindu nationalist views and how you dealt with it.
I hold some hope that the younger generation can change things, but honestly, most younger hindu americans i know mostly don’t care and are all about the “STEM grind” bullshit.
Yeah I’ve noticed that with younger coworkers too who are fresh out of college. The STEM grind very easily feeds into fascism without proper political education, too.
The STEM grind very easily feeds into fascism without proper political education, too.
And feeds into dumbass silicon valley and elon musk worship and complete hatred of anything humanities related (although these dorks still love sci-fi and other stuff that actually requires some knowledge of writing/creativity)
Especially in the past few months this has been coming up more and more in my circles. Indian comrades have been doing a lot of poli-ed about it. General consensus is it’s the formation of a force to witness in US politics. They assassinated the Sikh guy in Canada and got the caste discrimination bill vetoed in California, which is orthogonal but related.
Indian comrades have been doing a lot of poli-ed about it.
Has it been an uphill road? How is the education going?
Solidarity.
My mom has had Indian store owners be all friendly to her because her name is obviously south asian (one even said “oh that’s my mom’s name!”) but then as soon as they find out she’s Muslim they get hostile and threatening to her and want to argue about it. Not all stores, but she’s had to shop around to find a store that wasn’t run by such overt fascists. And she’s like, hey, we’re in the US, leave the grudges at the border! Her family has AMPLE reason to hate hindu nationalists what with the massacres and needing to flee during the partition but she’d rather leave all that in the past, but the hindutva fuckers want to harass an old woman.
Anyway they’re lucky they’ve never actually physically attacked her, because I would fedpost the store of anyone who fucking touched her.
Cool I’m gonna wear mine around the Hindu temple in town some time in the near future to gauge the levels of fash in my small Indian community now thanks for letting us know it pisses off the Hindutva
