Hindu Nationalist Groups Are Expanding In East Asia

The Indian flag. Creative Commons photo.

(ANALYSIS) At a time of tense China-India relations, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and its affiliates are advancing the Hindu nationalist agenda in East Asia. 

Modi’s leadership since 2014 has encouraged the rise of Hindu nationalism and seen greater violence against religious minorities, but the political philosophy that India is a Hindu nation and should prioritize Hindu interests despite its diverse population and secular Constitution has been gaining popular support since at least the 1980’s.

Back then, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a grassroots paramilitary organization for advancing their brand of Hindu values, began campaigning to build a Hindu temple in northern India where a 16th century mosque was believed to sit on the birthplace of Lord Ram, a Hindu god. In 1992, a mob of Hindu activists from the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) and BJP destroyed the mosque, and rioting between the Hindu and Muslim community killed at least 2,000 people, mostly Muslims. A 2019 Supreme Court verdict granted the disputed land to a trust to build the Hindu temple.

Last year, the VHP — once listed as “a religious militant” organization by the American CIA — officially registered as a religious-cultural NGO in Taiwan and Hong Kong. The Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS), the overseas branch of the RSS, and the Overseas Friends of the BJP (OFBJP), the foreign wing of the BJP, are the other two right-wing organizations operating in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau, all autonomous regions but subject to Beijing.

The VHP’s establishment in Taiwan and Hong Kong is only the latest step in the expansion of a Hindu nationalist base internationally, which has intensified since the first overseas RSS branch was set up in 1947 aboard a Kenya bound ship of Indian immigrants. RSS now has an estimated 1,500 branches in 39 countries. The VHP is operational in at least 15 countries.

For example, both groups have an entrenched presence in the U.K. and the U.S. The first branches were established in the late 1960s as a wave of Indians emigrated in search of better education and employment opportunities. The U.S.-based VHP and RSS wings are pivotal in funding activities of Sangh affiliates in India through the India Development and Relief Fund (IDRF) and other charities. The HSS has 205 local shakhas or chapters and the Hindu Students Council is present on 60-plus American college campuses. 

While the influence of Sangh organizations in Western countries is well documented, there is little information on their role in India’s immediate neighboring countries in the East. The new launch of the VHP in the two Chinese territories is noteworthy, considering India recognizes the One China policy and has no diplomatic ties with Taiwan. China, which considers Taiwan as an inalienable part of its territory, has rebuked the Indian government’s attempts of closer engagement with Taipei. Most recently, on Oct. 7, the Chinese embassy issued a diktat to Indian news media organizations to not commemorate Taiwan’s national day as it violates the “One-China policy” and urged them not to refer to Taiwan as a country.

The growing presence of Hindutva groups in Hong Kong and Taiwan indicates that the BJP is looking at expanding its presence on the islands and building political and most likely financial ties among the Hindu diaspora that has the most to gain or lose in future relations between China and India.

Taiwan’s Hinduvta community

Taiwan’s long-term Indian residents set up the VHP chapter in 2016 on the advice of Swami Vigyananand, the joint general secretary of the VHP. He is also the founder of the World Hindu Congress that brings together various right-wing Hindu outfits, “to address critical issues impacting Hindus worldwide, including human rights, discrimination and cultural assaults.”

In a meeting with Hindu community members in Taipei, Vigyananand asked the long-term residents to register the World Hindu Economic Forum (WHEF). The event which earlier has been organized in London, Chicago, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Nairobi, Mumbai and Bangalore, aims to bring together “financially successful members in Hindu society, to share business knowledge, expertise and resources.” But the numbers of Indians in Taiwan is small. Undated official figures put the estimate at less than 4,000 but locals pegged the number up to 10,000 registered as students, researchers and service employees.

“We told him the Hindu community of Hindu businessmen or traders was small and not mighty influential,’’ said Shiv Kumar Nebhwani, recalling the decision to instead start a VHP branch. Nebhwanni is a VHP member who runs a trading company and has been residing in Taipei since 1981. He’s also a lifelong Sangh volunteer (swayamsevak).

He added that most Indian kids and young people in Taipei were less aware of their culture as they were away from their families. “We aim to inculcate Indian culture through VHP,”  he said.

Vivek Walia, a geo-physicist at the National Taiwan University who has lived in Taipei since the 1990s, said long-term residents like him who felt distant from their cultural roots and longed for a religious connection with the motherland welcomed the VHP chapter. For starters, he said, the local Taiwanese population had no idea about the Indian community, the Hindu religion or its importance. The little knowledge they had, came through stereotypical depiction from Bollywood movies.

“We wanted to live like Indians in Taiwan and one way to do this is to promote our culture,” Walia said. “Then we can proudly say here, we are Hindus.”

Initially, the few Hindu families who joined VHP, started the outfit’s activities with a volunteering experiment to teach Hindi, one of India’s 24 official languages, spoken by 520 million people. Walia said many families like his rued the situation that their kids, born in Taiwan or who live away from their families, moved here at a young age and didn’t know the language, their mother tongue. 

Enthused by the response for the Hindi classes for children, VHP this year launched classes in yoga and Mandarin for their older members, housewives and new student arrivals to learn the local language of Taiwan. It has also organized free turban-tying and mehendi (henna) events, hosted Bhangra troupe and distributed free meals called langar, to promote Indian culture and attract the attention of the locals. Turban tying and langar are usually associated with Sikhs, who intermarry Hindus at much higher rates than Hindus marry Christians or Muslims, who many in the Hinduvta community consider adherents to foreign religions. Sikhism formed in India as it broke away from Hindusim in the 1400s. India’s Republic and Independence Day celebrations are also celebrated along with Hindu festivals like Vijaya Dashmi (Dussehra), Navratri, Janmashtami (Krishna’s birthday), Raksha Bandhan, Diwali and Makar Sankranti.

The religious events and activities draw from Sanatan dharma, an orthodox version of Hinduism practiced by the Sangh organizations. It’s based on ancient Vedic texts that command protection of the religion as the duty of every Hindu. The resulting practice is a homogeneous, nationalistic Hinduism found mainly in the Hindi-speaking belt of northern India that ignores the diversity of practices, languages and beliefs found in Indian Hindu communities.

“Behind the garb of cultural-religious organization, they act to infiltrate political and religious ideologies amongst the diaspora,” said Mriganka Mukhopadhyay, a PhD researcher at the University of Amsterdam who is closely following the rise of Hindu nationalism.

Although other Indian community groups like Taiwan Tamils Sangam from South India, Taiwan Bengali Association (TBA) from East India, Taiwan Malayalee Association from South India and Indians Association of Taipei have existed for decades, VHP members say their goal is to unite the various communities under a common Hindu identity.

Indian journalist Geeta Puri, in her paper “Hindutva Movement and Politics, The Case of Vishwa Hindu Parishad,” notes that the BJP and the RSS lent their powerful political support to the VHP’s Hindu Unity project. She explains that the VHP-led movement for Hindu resurgence and awakening aims to consolidate more conservative and traditional Hindus with the Hindu-inclined sections of the organized working classes, modernized elites, peasantry, urban classes and even India’s low castes, Dalits and tribal people who tend to follow a mix of pagan and Hindu practices.

This overt assertion of Hindu identity by the VHP is met with apprehension by Indians who want to maintain tolerance of religious diversity and human rights groups closely following violence against minority faith groups in India.

Officially, groups like the VHP and RSS operate with the status of non-political organizations, though they have been influential in shaping the right-wing political discourse in India.

The Babri mosque demolition is only one example of how Hinduvta groups organized around an issue many Hindus cared about, and stoked tensions past their boiling points. International human rights groups also identified the VHP, RSS, BJP and Bajrang Dal as perpetrators of communal violence in the 2002 Gujarat riots in which more than 1,000 people died, mostly Muslims, over three days after a train transporting Hindu pilgrims caught fire and Muslims were blamed of arson without evidence.

Modi, the leader of the state of Gujarat at the time, was accused of stirring up violence and holding back police from containing the bloodshed, according to senior police testimony. India’s Supreme Court appointed a special investigations team that cleared Modi of all charges of complicity in the violence in 2012.

More recently, the VHP was involved in assaulting protestors opposing new legislation that fast-tracks citizenship for persecuted religious minorities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, but excluding Muslims. In March 2020, riots in Delhi linked to a BJP rally against the protesters killed 53 people (36 Muslims). Hinduvta activists have also vilified the Indian Muslim community during the pandemic with a disinformation campaign dubbed “corona jihad” that Muslims are intentionally spreading the coronavirus.

Diaspora Diplomacy

Both Nebhwani and Walia reiterated that although VHP works to promote Hindu ideology it is not against Indians from other religions. They say the organization helped transport the body of a Muslim student to his family in Hyderabad, for example. “Many feel people allergic when they hear the word Hindu, but we don’t discriminate against others,” Nebhwani said.

Echoing the growing sentiment back home, VHP members in Taiwan also said they would like to work for closer ties between Taipei and New Delhi. With the deadly border tensions with China and India since June, there has been a growing call by experts to exercise strategic autonomy and increase Indian engagement with Taiwan.

VHP members in Taiwan claimed that the India-Taipei Association, which operates as a semi-formal presence of the external affairs ministry, has ignored the VHP’s presence.

“ITA does not invite the VHP to official functions because of its perceived ‘communal nature,’” said Walia. “The previous officials selectively avoided us and did not attend any function even after being invited.”

India’s external affairs ministry has faced criticism over high-ranking diplomats attending HSS, VHP and OFBJP events, since the Modi government came to power in 2014, raising concerns about their political neutrality.

The Modi government has actively engaged in diaspora diplomacy, tapping into the skills and financial resources of expatriate Indians to support its policies at home. The right-wing Hindu diaspora groups are accused of attempting to influence the domestic elections in the U.S, U.K. and Canada.

During the 2015 U.S. presidential campaigns, the Hindutva groups came out in support of President Donald Trump, splitting the traditional Indian-American Democratic vote bank. They were instrumental in the making of a Trump-Modi friendship and organizing high profile speaking events like Modi’s at New York’s Madison Square Garden in 2014 and “Howdy Modi” in Texas featuring Modi and Trump in 2019. 

The OFBJP and the Hindutva groups in the U.S. are vocal advocates of the Hindu nationalist party in power in India. They raised large funds for the BJP’s election campaigns in 2014 and 2019 that Modi won with a rousing mandate and held several demonstrations in support of the BJP government by drawing global attention on issues like Pakistan-sponsored terrorism and attacks in Kashmir, human rights violations in Balochistan and the new Citizenship Amendment Act for persecuted religious minority groups in nearby Muslim-majority countries.

The Hindu diaspora in the East is not as politically influential, yet there are signs of BJP’s backhand at work. Like their counterparts across the globe, the OFBJP, the VHP, HSS and other Indian community groups too held demonstrations in January, supporting the citizenship amendment act. Around the same time, multiple protests had spilled over on the streets in India opposing the act for omitting Muslim refugees from citizenship.

The Hindutva organizations have however remained silent over China’s belligerent posture leading to war cries in India. Nandkishore Rathi, president of VHP Hong Kong, confided that the new national security law would pose a problem if Hindu organizations were to hold anti-China demonstrations. “We can’t comment on the issue,” he said, adding the organization follows local laws and does not intervene in political matters.

But in June, the BJP presence in Hong Kong came under the spotlight over Chinese funding in political organizations, think-tanks and NGOs in India. The BJP targeted an opposition Congress Party foundation for receiving donations from Chinese organizations. Congress in turn called on the BJP to reveal its sources and funding details from the Overseas Friends of BJP-China and Hong Kong.

Raju Sabnani, vice president OFBJP for China and Hong Kong, runs a Bangkok restaurant named NAMO (a popular acronym of Modi’s name) and is a known fugitive. A 2003 report by the U.S. Federal Research Division Library of Congress on terrorist and organized crime groups in the Tri-Border Area of South America, profiled Sabnani’s role as an operative of Lebanese Hezbollah supplying the group with funds and weapons from Paraguay.

Following the money

The Modi government legalized foreign funding and enabled anonymous donations to political parties by introducing electoral bonds and amending the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA), 2010, which earlier prohibited political parties from receiving funds from foreign sources. The new laws allow unregulated checks on the involvement of foreign donors in funding elections campaigns and other activities of political parties, without revealing their source or identity. 

The Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations (PM CARES) Fund, set up in March to tackle the fallout from COVID-19 situation, is also surrounded by controversy due to lack of transparency and the government’s denial for public audit of funds. There is no way to know what the money is spent on. The opposition Congress Party has alleged that several politically-connected Chinese firms like Huawei, Xiaomi  and the Chinese embassy have donated millions of rupees to the PM-CARES fund. 

While the BJP government conveniently activated incognito mode in case of foreign funding, absolving itself of any public scrutiny, it has systematically shut down overseas contributions of NGOs and human rights groups. Recently, the BJP forced Amnesty’s India branch to close its operations for illegally sourcing foreign funding and failing to comply with regulations after the government stripped it of a license needed for foreign funding. Amnesty had been advocating for Kashmiri Muslims, who have been stuck in a lockdown and an Indian military occupation for over a year that included a months-long Internet ban and reports of thousands of teens arbitrarily detained, beaten or missing.

Amidst the tightening control on NGOs in India, the BJP and Sangh family continues to expand their overseas network for foreign funding and political influence.

The RSS, the ideological base of the BJP, still has a strong influence on India’s domestic matters. Although it has passed resolutions in the national council meetings on matters of India’s foreign policy and published several pieces in their mouthpiece publications advocating a reset of relations with China, experts say the Sangh family does not hold much ideological sway on matters of external policy with the BJP government. 

The impact of the Hindu right-wing network dominating the Indian diaspora in East Asia remains to be seen, but it is certain that the ruling BJP is nurturing a Hindu political constituency under China’s shadow.

Shweta Desai is an independent Indian journalist and researcher based in France.