Modi's Hindutva: Has BJP's Politics Hurt India's International Image?
The Indian cricket team's crass behavior after defeating the Pakistani team at the Asia Cup 2025 group encounter has raised eyebrows among sports fans around the world. Not only did Suryakumar Yadav, the Indian team captain, refuse to do the customary handshake before and after the match in Dubai but he also made controversial statements linking the match with the recent India-Pakistan conflict. “A few things in life are above sportsman’s spirit ......We stand with all the victims of the Pahalgam terror attack and with their families, and dedicate this win to our brave armed forces who took part in Operation Sindoor”, he said.
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| Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi |
This latest incident in the UAE illustrates one of the reasons why there is a growing backlash against the Indian diaspora in Australia, Canada, Europe, the United Kingdom and the United States. All of these countries and regions have seen very public expressions of disgust at the behavior of Indians in these countries. This is in part attributed to the politics of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has proclaimed his country as "Vishwaguru", meaning the world's guru. It is often seen as an expression of Hindu Supremacy and denigration of all others.
The arrogance of the Indian diaspora was highlighted last year when Vivek Ramaswamy, then a candidate for the Republican Party's presidential nomination, said Americans don't have a good enough work ethic as American culture "venerated mediocrity over excellence." He offered it as a key justification to bring in more Indians to work in the United States. The backlash in the United States was immediate and strong. The essence of the response to the Hindu supremacist criticism of the US culture went like this: People from India, a "shit-hole" country, are jealous of America. Earlier, Professor Amy Wax of University of Pennsylvania, told Tucker Carlsen that “the role of envy and shame in the way the third world [sic] regards the first world […] creates ingratitude of the most monstrous kind.” She also said that ‘Brahmin women’ of India are taught that they are better than everybody.
American social media, particularly Trump's MAGA base, have turned against India and Indians, making them the most hated diaspora in the United States. They are getting a taste of the kind of hate that the BJP, India's ruling party, has been promoting against Muslims. Anti-Indian slurs like "pajeet", "dirty Indian" and "coolie" have become common.
Ashley Tellis, a strongly pro-India analyst in the United States, recently published an essay for Foreign Affairs magazine titled "India's Great Power Delusions" in which he wrote that "the country (India) is shedding one of its main sources of strength—its liberal democracy—by embracing Hindu nationalism. This evolution could undermine India’s rise by intensifying communal tensions and exacerbating problems with its neighbors, forcing it to redirect security resources inward to the detriment of outward power projection. The country’s illiberal pivot further undermines the rules-based international order that has served it so well".
In recent years, India has emerged as a major hub for global scams. The US government has alleged in court documents that a large enterprise originating from India was involved in stealing nearly $1.5 billion from elderly Americans. Recently, two Indian nationals, Pranay Mamindi and Kishan Patel, were found guilty of participating in a money laundering conspiracy, concealing the source of the money, and using the illegally gained money to further promote a criminal enterprise. Six other defendants from India also pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing.
These global scams appear to have started amid widespread unemployment in India. Many of the scammers previously worked in call centers where they learned to use computers and telecommunications networks to reach out and talk to Americans. In 2022, U.S. citizens fell victim to a massive loss of over $10 billion from phishing calls orchestrated by illegal Indian call centers, according to data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Indian-Americans, too, have been found guilty in a number of high-profile scams. A federal jury convicted former Theranos executive Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani, an Indian-American entrepreneur, on all 12 counts of fraud in 2022. Balwani was born in 1965 in Pakistan to a Sindhi Hindu family. His one-time girlfriend and partner Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of Theranos, was convicted on similar charges earlier that year. Both face up to 20 years in prison.
Last year, a federal judge sentenced former Outcome Health CEO Rishi Shah, an Indian-American, to 7½ years in prison for a massive fraud scheme that prosecutors say enabled a “jet-set lifestyle” featuring private aircraft, yachts and a tony Chicago home.
In 2020, Dr. John Nath Kapoor, Indian-American CEO of Insys Therapeutics, was found guilty of conspiring to recklessly and illegally boost profits from the opioid painkiller Subsys, a fentanyl spray designed to be absorbed under the tongue, according to multiple media reports.
Rajat Gupta, an Indian-American former global head of McKinsey & Company, was convicted of insider trading in 2012. He was charged with passing on confidential business information about Goldman Sachs to hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam. Gupta was found guilty on multiple counts of conspiracy and securities fraud and served a two-year prison sentence.
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| India Ranks Number One For Misinformation and Disinformation |
Beyond the hub of scams and frauds, it seems that India has earned a reputation as the epicenter of misinformation and disinformation. According to experts surveyed for the World Economic Forum’s 2024 Global Risk Report, India was ranked highest for the risk of misinformation and disinformation. This was on full display during the recent conflict with Pakistan.
After the recent Pahalgam militant attack in Kashmir, the Indian government immediately blamed it on Pakistan without any investigation or evidence. More than a month later, the perpetrators have neither been clearly identified nor apprehended. And yet, the government of Prime Minister Modi proceeded with air strikes inside Pakistan. Pakistan retaliated and shot down several Indian fighter jets, including its most advanced French Rafales. The conflict began to quickly escalate with strikes and counter-strikes, with the world fearing a nuclear exchange. This prompted the United States and several other countries to intervene and force a ceasefire in less than 4 days of armed conflict.
During this short 4-day period, the Indian mainstream media was filled with lies. Here's how the Washington Post reported this: "Times Now Navbharat reported that Indian forces had entered Pakistan; TV9 Bharatvarsh told viewers that Pakistan’s prime minister had surrendered; Bharat Samachar said he was hiding in a bunker. All of them, along with some of the country’s largest channels — including Zee News, ABP News and NDTV — repeatedly proclaimed that major Pakistani cities had been destroyed".
It is unfortunate but true: Fraud and falsehood have become endemic in the Indian society. Part of the blame falls squarely on the ruling BJP party which promotes falsehoods. In 2018, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's right-hand man and home minister Amit Shah told his party's volunteers commonly known as Modi Bhakts: "We can keep making messages go viral, whether they are real or fake, sweet or sour". "Keep making messages go viral. We have already made a WhatsApp group with 32 lakh people in Uttar Pradesh; every morning they are sent a message at 8 am", Shah added, according to a report in Dainik Bhaskar, an Indian Hindi-language daily newspaper.
Related Links:
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Indian-American Operator Charged With Fraud By US Federal Prosecutors
Lying Indian Media Caught Red Handed
India's Firehose of Falsehoods
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Riaz Haq's Youtube Channel
Comments
India boycotts Pakistan across all forums except multinational cricket. And that’s because it stands to lose too much money.
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2025/9/15/indian-crickets-pakistan-problem-can-you-monetise-patriotism
India’s most recent encounter with Pakistan in the Asia Cup was celebrated as a patriotic spectacle: a win dedicated to the armed forces and those affected by the Pahalgam attack. Such declarations, however, expose something deeper: a strategy of playing politics with sport, hypocrisy masked as principle.
Beneath this posturing and tokenism lies a contradiction too stark to ignore. This is not just sport. It is cynical theatre in which administrators, players and commentators attempt to ride on two boats at the same time. The hypocrisy is visible to anyone with a sane set of eyes.
At the heart of this contradiction is the relationship between India and Pakistan in cricket. Officially, India refuses bilateral cricket with Pakistan. The line is firm: no tours, no series and no diplomacy. The justification rests on national security, especially after the clash between the South Asian neighbours in May.
Indian artists are banned from collaborating with their Pakistani counterparts. Pakistani singers and actors once popular in India have been cut off on social media and otherwise. Indian celebrities themselves are trolled and shamed for past collaborations done on neutral grounds.
Yet the same ecosystem explodes with excitement when India faces Pakistan in multination tournaments. Matches are packaged as spectacles, marketed as the “greatest rivalry” and cashed in for billions in advertising revenue.
This duality is not accidental. Jay Shah, now serving in International Cricket Council (ICC) leadership, has been accused of pressuring Team India into playing Pakistan despite reluctance from within the camp. Sanjay Raut, a member of parliament in India, recently alleged that Shah’s hand forced the decision, turning the match into an obligation rather than a choice.
If true, this signals how far politics has penetrated Indian cricket administration for the sake of money and clout. The game is no longer simply sport but a vehicle for symbolic battles decided in boardrooms, not dressing rooms.
The hypocrisy becomes sharper when one considers the home environment. While Indians in other spheres faced online lynching for working with Pakistani colleagues even before the war, cricketers are being placed on a pedestal for defeating Pakistan. It is not only about double standards. It is about a calculated exploitation of sentiment.
Cricket is permitted as the only arena of “contact” because cricket sells more than most things in India. The ban on cultural exchange is explained as nationalism, but cricket is exempted in the name of multilateral obligations and commercial survival. Dedications of wins to soldiers and terror victims act as moral cover for what is essentially a business transaction. This is sheer hypocrisy and tokenism.
If India insists on involving politics in sport, consistency demands more. Look at Muslim athletes and countries known for boycotting matches against Israeli opponents. They forfeit games, risk sanctions and face bans. Whatever one thinks of their politics, their actions are clear, uncompromised and costly. They make a stand and face consequences.
India refuses bilateral cricket with Pakistan yet plays them in ICC tournaments because the money is too big to lose, especially when most of it comes home through viewership endorsements and advertisements. It tries to sail on two boats, waving nationalism with one hand while collecting profits with the other. The dedication of victories to the armed forces does not erase that contradiction. It exposes it.
The India-Pakistan rivalry itself is not what it used to be. Competitive balance has tilted drastically. India has dominated recent contests due to the Pakistani team’s poor form. Suspense is long gone, but the manufactured hype remains.
https://theprint.in/opinion/pov/indian-cricket-team-half-hearted-performative-patriotism/2743740/
'In a move that appeared performative and unnecessary, Indian players refused to shake hands with their Pakistani counterparts. This left Pakistan’s players awkwardly waiting at the boundary.
The gesture, or lack thereof, came off as pretentious, aimed more at pacifying public outrage. It wasn’t defiance. It was theatrics. It was immature. It was humiliating sportsmanship.
...If patriotism truly ran deep, the team could have pulled out of the tournament, regardless of the loss they would have incurred.
But once the decision to play was made, professionalism and sportsmanship should have followed. The spirit of the game should have been respected.
So yes, India won the match, congratulations on that. But when it came to upholding the spirit of the game, they dropped the ball.
The rupee settled at 88.76 against the U.S. dollar, its weakest ever closing level and down slightly from its close at 88.7175 on Friday. The currency declined to an all-time low of 88.7975 last week.
After starting the session with a modest uptick, the local currency drifted lower through the session, averting a sharper decline due to dollar sales by multiple state-run banks, which traders said were likely on behalf of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
https://www.reuters.com/world/india/rupee-anchored-near-record-low-outflows-corporate-dollar-demand-2025-09-29/
India deserves a stronger voice on the global stage. But, expecting Indian Americans, increasingly under attack from both ends, to continue sacrificing and paying for it is not a sound strategy.
Suhag A. Shukla
SUHAG A. SHUKLA
https://theprint.in/opinion/shashi-tharoor-diaspora-india-in-the-us/2757908/
AI Overview
Suhag A. Shukla, co-founder and executive director of the Hindu American Foundation (HAF), responded to Indian politician Shashi Tharoor's comments by stating that Indian-Americans are not "proxies" for the Indian government. In an opinion piece for The Print and on social media in early October 2025, Shukla countered Tharoor's criticism that the Indian-American diaspora was largely silent on US policies affecting India.
The exchange of views
Tharoor's original comments:
Following a meeting with a US congressional delegation in September 2025, Tharoor questioned why the diaspora appeared apathetic to US policies affecting India, including H-1B visa fees and tariffs.
He cited a conversation with a US congresswoman who claimed to have received no calls from Indian-American voters regarding these policy changes.
Tharoor suggested that this silence undermines India's interests and that the community should be more vocal in advocating for the relationship.
Shukla's response:
In her response, Shukla clarified that Indian-Americans are US citizens with primary loyalties and civic duties in the United States.
She argued that expecting them to act as lobbyists for the Indian government's sovereign policy decisions is unreasonable and that India can hire professional lobbyists for such work.
Shukla contended that Tharoor's claims misrepresent the diaspora's involvement and engagement in US issues, and she defended their active participation in shaping policy.
She pointed out that statements like Tharoor's can undermine the diaspora's hard-earned credibility in the US by fueling suspicions that they are not "true Americans".
While acknowledging the deep cultural ties Indian-Americans have with India, Shukla asserted that this does not negate their identity as Americans.
She also highlighted the community's diversity and the unique challenges they face compared to other diaspora groups that Tharoor mentioned.
Tharoor's subsequent reaction:
After Shukla's response, Tharoor welcomed the pushback, stating he was happy his questions got the Indian-American diaspora thinking.
He acknowledged that the challenges of the Indian diaspora are different from others but maintained that they could still make their voices heard within the rules of US democracy.
https://www.newsweek.com/h-1b-visa-sponsor-will-not-h-1b-applicant-going-forward-10871156
Tata Consultancy Services’ CEO K Krithivasan said that the Indian tech company would reduce the number of H-1B visa holders in its U.S. offices.
Krithivasan told the Times of India that the company would “continue to hire more locally,” adding that this was part of a “reduction in dependency on visa-based talent.”
Why It Matters
The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows U.S. employers to hire skilled foreign workers.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order in September that would impose an annual $100,000 fee to companies for H-1B visas, citing “abuse” of the program.
Critics of the visa scheme have said it undercuts the U.S. workforce, while its proponents have argued that it helps the country draw in skilled talent from around the world.
What To Know
Tata Consultancy Services was the second largest sponsor of H-1B visas in the U.S. in the financial year of 2025, second only to Amazon, with 5,505 visas approved, according to data from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
SANA HASHMI
https://theprint.in/opinion/eye-on-china/in-china-ashley-tellis-arrest-is-proof-that-us-india-trust-was-always-fragile/2768261/
The arrest of Ashley J Tellis—long regarded as the intellectual face of India-United States strategic cooperation—has sent shockwaves through Washington and New Delhi’s diplomatic and strategic circles. A senior adviser in the US State Department until recently, Tellis has been charged with holding classified documents and maintaining contacts with Chinese officials. Almost overnight, he has shifted from being a symbol of partnership to a subject of suspicion.
In China, his arrest has sparked online discussions, with users highlighting unease about US strategy and global power dynamics, as well as a perceived downward trajectory in India-US relations.
A Trump-era recalibration?
On the Chinese internet, discussions of Tellis’s arrest stand in contrast to the discourse in India, where his recent writings have had limited resonance. Many Chinese observers interpret Tellis’s fall as evidence of the fragility of US-India trust and the apparent end of America’s “strategic altruism” towards India.
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AI Overview
The FBI's surveillance of Ashley Tellis began as early as September 2022 when he was observed at a dinner meeting with Chinese government officials. The surveillance was later "stepped up" following additional meetings and suspicious activities in September and October 2025.
The specific dates the FBI focused on in its affidavit include:
September 15, 2022: Tellis was observed arriving at a dinner with Chinese officials carrying a manila envelope and leaving without it.
April 11, 2023: Tellis had another dinner with Chinese officials.
March 19, 2024: Tellis dined with Chinese officials again.
September 2, 2025: Tellis had another dinner with Chinese officials where they gave him a gift bag.
September 12, 2025: Video surveillance at a secure Pentagon facility (Mark Center) captured Tellis directing a colleague to print classified documents.
September 25, 2025: Tellis was recorded accessing a classified computer system at the State Department, printing hundreds of pages of a sensitive Air Force document under a false file name, and later deleting the file.
October 10, 2025: Tellis was allegedly captured on video concealing printed documents, including Top Secret material, inside notepads and placing them in his briefcase before leaving a secure facility.
The surveillance and the subsequent execution of a search warrant at his home on October 11, 2025, led to his arrest and charges of unlawfully retaining national defense information.
https://theprint.in/opinion/indian-diaspora-under-attack-gone-wrong/2756131/
The Indian diaspora is under attack, particularly in English-speaking countries. The current situation is vastly different from the ’90s when the author lived in Britain and the US. Then, the diaspora was emerging as a “model minority”, who came in legally, worked hard, were by and large law-abiding, were significant contributors to the economy, and who assimilated well into professional and business networks. That has all changed in a few decades. Indians are now seen as job-stealers, as racially and culturally incompatible, as scabs who take an axe to the wages of natives, and even as law-breakers — but not as peaceable law-abiding folks.
What has gone wrong?
The first thing is that numbers matter. When the number of immigrants is in thousands, even in tens of thousands, they remain unnoticed, and are literally under the radar. But when the numbers run into millions, these people form a good chunk of the populationbase. The situation then changes, not just quantitatively, but qualitatively too.
The second thing is that speed matters. It is one thing if millions of people of Indian origin had entered the US in a hundred years. But it becomes an entirely different matter if the numbers increase exponentially in two decades. And this hurried increase has happened in many countries. This automatically draws attention of the unwanted and undesirable kind to people who look different and in fact are different.
Thirdly, success can be a double-edged sword. Successful, tax-paying persons were admired earlier. Now, successful people breed envy and resentment — two of the oldest human emotions. A few decades ago, there were probably only a few Indian-origin CEOs in the US. But today, the number may have crossed 50, with many not even in the proverbially Indian-infested tech sector. Envy and resentment cannot and should not be underestimated.
I recently read the book Europe Against the Jews: 1880–1945 by German scholar Gotz Aly. It is a really fascinating book. It points out that the dislike for Jews was not an exclusively German or Nazi phenomenon. Consider a country like Romania. We know little about it, except for answering quiz questions about its capital Bucharest. After World War I, when European and Middle Eastern maps were redrawn, it turned out that about 4.5 per cent of Romania’s population was made up of Jews. They had a reputation of being peaceful and law-abiding. But as subsequent events proved — tragically for them — these Jews were successful.
A vast number of the doctors in Romania were Jews. Non-Jewish Romanians, especially the doctors among them, envied and resented this situation. So, under pressure, the Romanian parliament passed laws severely restricting Jews from getting admission to medical colleges. Many Romanian Jews went to countries like France and obtained medical degrees. Presto! A new law was passed that Jews with foreign degrees could not work as doctors in Romania. Non-Jewish Romanians could do so. Aly’s book is important because it highlights that for minorities being peaceful and law-abiding was not an antidote for the disease of success. It also points out that excessive representation in specific professions can become an albatross. Do you want to think about computer programmers in a country very far from Romania?
https://thewire.in/religion/decoding-maga-members-hinduphobia-and-the-new-jagran-juggernaut-brimming-with-silicon-sanatanis/
"It could not have been a more devastating blow to the jagran jhankritis dancing and leaping on the streets of Dallas and Texas, New Jersey and New York, violating local laws and disturbing the neighborhood, to be hit by an avalanche of hate media by horrified residents. Worse, what the #Hindutva heavies must have believed were their natural allies, Make America Great Again (MAGA) or President #Trump’s ardent followers, were virulent and merciless as they spat invectives on social media asking Indians to go back home. MAGA members called the festival “un-American” and asked Indians to “Get out of my country” and “Go home and worship your sand demons.”
Dr. Audrey Truschke
@AudreyTruschke
Usha Vance is an enabler and victim of far-right intolerance.
And that's one big lesson here -- When minoritized individuals and groups support the American far-right, they don't become accepted and validated; they are tolerated in a second-class way.
https://newrepublic.com/post/202493/jd-vance-questioned-wife-usha-christian-turning-point-usa
https://x.com/AudreyTruschke/status/1984604098373550252
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Dr. Audrey Truschke
@AudreyTruschke
The same dynamic is playing out with Hindu far-right groups in America who follow Hindutva.
They've been beyond mealy-mouthed in their responses, knowing that they must accept public humiliation to maintain their political alliances.
That emboldens the intolerance further.
https://x.com/AudreyTruschke/status/1984604684309447091
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Dr. Audrey Truschke
@AudreyTruschke
Hindu far-right groups don't represent American Hindus; they only speak for a subset who follow a specific political ideology.
But in so doing, they're throwing everybody else under the bus.
This story is a bellwether for religious pluralism in America. It's not going well.
https://x.com/AudreyTruschke/status/1984605248736874681
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JD Vance Seems to Think His Wife Is Going to Hell
https://newrepublic.com/post/202493/jd-vance-questioned-wife-usha-christian-turning-point-usa
At a Turning Point USA town hall Wednesday at the University of Mississippi, in honor of the late right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk, Vance was questioned about the contradictions between his public statements on race, immigration, and religion, and his personal relationship with his Hindu, Indian American wife, Usha Vance. “You are married to a woman who is not Christian.… She still calls herself Hindu. You are raising three kids in interracial, cultural, racial religious household. How are you maintaining, how are you teaching your kids not to keep your religion ahead of their mother’s religion?” a young South Asian woman asked Vance.
“Yes, my wife did not grow up Christian, I think it’s fair to say that she grew up in a Hindu family, but not a particularly religious family in either direction,” Vance replied, before stating that the two were both “agnostic or an atheist” when they met. “Everybody has to come to their own arrangement here. The way that we’ve come to our arrangement is she’s my best friend and we talk to each other about this stuff. So we decided to raise our kids Christian.… That’s the way that we have come to our arrangement.”
The crowd erupted with applause.
“You just gotta talk to the person that God has put you with,” Vance continued, as his answer became more strange. “Most Sundays, Usha will come with me to church. As I’ve told her, and I’ve said publicly, and I’ll say now in front of 10,000 of my closest friends: Do I hope eventually that she is somehow moved by the same thing that I was moved in by church? Yeah, I do wish that. Because I believe in the Christian gospel, and I hope eventually my wife comes to see it the same way.”
Many rightfully saw this as Vance rejecting his wife’s own religion and culture.
“Watch as Vance denies his wife’s religious identity as Hindu. Instead, he labels her as currently without a religion and a future Christian,” South Asian history professor Dr. Audrey Trushcke wrote on X. “Folks, believe the far-right when they say Christian is the only legitimate religious identity. They mean it.”
“When JD Vance had hit his lowest, it was his ‘Hindu’ wife and her Hindu upbringing that had helped him navigate through the tough times,” Indian author Monica Verma wrote. “Today in a position of power, her religion has become a liability. What a fall. What an epic fall for the man.”
For the record, Usha Vance has described her Hindu upbringing as something that helped make her parents “good people.”
At a Turning Point USA event, JD Vance was questioned about his brown, Hindu wife. His answer was disgusting.
https://newrepublic.com/post/202493/jd-vance-questioned-wife-usha-christian-turning-point-usa
For the record, Usha Vance has described her Hindu upbringing as something that helped make her parents “good people.”
“I did grow up in a religious household, my parents are Hindu, and I think that was one of the things that made them such good parents, that make them really very good people,” she said in an interview with Fox News last year.
“When you convert to Catholicism it comes with several important obligations, like to raise your child in the faith and all that,” she said in a more recent interview with Meghan McCain. “We had to have a lot of real conversations about how do you do that, when I’m not Catholic, and I’m not intending to convert or anything like that.… The kids know that I’m not Catholic, and they have plenty of access to the Hindu tradition from books that we give them, to things that we show them, to the recent trip to India, and some of the religious elements of that visit.”
This “arrangement” does not sound like a compromise, especially when Usha’s husband is proudly proclaiming that he hopes she’ll abandon the religion she grew up with.
Vance also faced questions by the same woman about his vehemently anti-immigrant policies and rhetoric.
“You sold us a dream. You don’t owe us anything, we have worked hard for it. Then how can you as a vice president stand there and say that we have too many [immigrants] now, and we are going to take them out?”
“I’m talking about people who came in in violation of the laws of the United States of America, and I’m talking about, in the future, reducing the number [of immigrants].”
“You just said you are not stopping with the people who came here legally, right?” the woman replied. “But you are pushing out policies that hurt us. And these policies are not even solving the problems. These problems are just creating chaos.”
“I can believe that the United States should lower its levels of immigration in the future, while also respecting that there are people who have come here through lawful immigration patterns that have contributed to the country,” Vance said. “Just because one person or 10 people or 100 people came in legally and contributed to the United States of America, does that mean we are thereby committed to let in a million, or 10 million, or 100 million? … My job is not to look out for the interests of the whole world. It’s to look out for the people of the United States.”