I was riffling through the comments and my jaw dropped when Kabir claimed Hinduphobia doesn’t exist. It struck me as both historically and emotionally tone-deaf. I didn’t respond at the time, but I’ve been reflecting on it since.
Let me say upfront: Hinduphobia does exist. It may not always manifest in overt violence or systemic persecution (at least not today, and not in most places globally), but it does appear in more insidious, ideological forms; especially in academic and diasporic discourse.
Take, for instance, the backlash against H1B visa recipients. Much of that criticism is coded; targeting upper-caste Indians, especially Hindus, who are the primary beneficiaries of this brain-drain dynamic. It’s not just about class or meritocracy; there’s an unspoken discomfort with their presence and success, often couched in progressive rhetoric.
On the intellectual front, academics like Audrey Truschke and others within the left-liberal Western consensus have regularly challenged or dismissed Hindu identity altogether; reducing it to political nationalism or caste oppression. This refusal to acknowledge Hinduism as a living, plural, and spiritual tradition creates an environment where Hindu self-articulation is delegitimized. That too is a form of Hinduphobia.
Now, is this Hinduphobia the same as the systemic anti-Muslim, anti-Black, or anti-immigrant hatred we see elsewhere? No. Hinduphobia today is more dismissive than violent, more erasure than exclusion, but it is real and it needs to be acknowledged.
Pakistan Was Not Born from Hinduphobia Continue reading Hinduphobia Exists, But Pakistan Was Not Born from It
