Why Indian Americans Are Liberal In the US (And Conservative In India)
(ANALYSIS) A person who speaks warmly of democracy or equality may sound principled in general conversation, but the harder test comes when the question concerns the power, safety or identity of that person’s own group.
A new study of Indian Americans suggests that many respondents supported more liberal positions when they were thinking about the United States and more conservative positions when they were thinking about India. Muslim Indian Americans were more consistently liberal in both countries.
The study, “Home and Away, Explaining the Paradoxical Political Attitudes of Indian Americans,” was written by Sumitra Badrinathan, Devesh Kapur and Milan Vaishnav, and published in Political Behavior. The authors surveyed 1,200 Indian American adults before the 2020 U.S. election, including both U.S. citizens and non-citizens.
In U.S. politics, 56 percent identified with the Democratic Party, which is generally associated with more liberal positions on immigration, minority rights and religious inclusion. Only 15 percent identified with the Republican Party, which has in recent years been associated with more restrictive immigration policies and stronger support among white Christian conservatives.
The authors also asked respondents to rate parties and leaders on a scale from 0 to 100. A score of 0 meant very cold or unfavourable feelings, while 100 meant very warm or favourable feelings. The Democratic Party received an average score of 64. The Republican Party received an average score of 41.
However, many Indian American respondents who leaned Democratic in U.S. politics also supported Narendra Modi in Indian politics. Nearly half approved or strongly approved of his performance as prime minister.
To test whether this pattern also appeared in views on specific policies, the authors asked policy questions. They chose five issues that had comparable versions in India and the United States. These were religious equality, undocumented immigrants, police force against protesters, media freedom, and affirmative action, or reservations, in university admissions.
On religious equality, 60.2 percent supported the liberal position in the U.S. question, measured through opposition to President Trump’s 2017 Muslim ban. In the India question, 49.1 percent supported the equivalent principle, measured through opposition to the Citizenship Amendment Act. On undocumented immigrants, 54.5 percent supported the more permissive position in the U.S. question, while 45.3 percent did so in the India question, measured through opposition to the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC).
The gap was smaller, or statistically insignificant, on police force, media censorship and affirmative action. The strongest differences appeared on issues where religion and minority rights were directly involved.
In the India questions, Muslim respondents were far more liberal. On religious equality in India, 70.9 percent of Muslims supported the liberal position, compared with 38.4 percent of Hindus. On permissive policies toward immigrants in India, 67.4 percent of Muslims supported the liberal position, compared with 30.4 percent of Hindus.
Further, the authors built an index called “Context Difference,” which recorded whether a respondent gave more liberal answers about the United States than about India. Hindus had a higher average score than Muslims.
The authors then tested whether religion was really driving that gap, or whether Hindu respondents differed from Muslim respondents in other ways that could explain it. For example, if Hindu respondents were richer, older, more educated, more likely to live in Democratic-leaning states, or more likely to have voted for Biden in 2020, those factors might have produced the higher Context Difference score.
After testing for those factors, Hindu identity was still linked to a larger U.S.-India gap. The pattern also appeared in four of the five policy areas, which means the index result did not come from one unusually sensitive question.
The authors argued that group position helps explain the pattern. Muslims are minorities in both India and the United States, so minority protections remain politically relevant to them in both countries. Hindus are a minority in the United States and part of the majority community in India. The study therefore suggests that a person may support minority protections where their own group feels vulnerable, then show less support for similar protections where their own group holds power.
The questions on majoritarianism made that point clearer. About 69 percent of Hindus and 80 percent of Muslims saw white supremacy as a threat in the United States. On Hindu majoritarianism in India, the gap was much wider. Seventy-four percent of Muslims saw it as problematic, compared with 40 percent of Hindus.
The survey showed why general questions about values, without a specific context, can be misleading. Respondents sounded more liberal when they were asked about a principle without being told which country or policy it referred to. For example, 90 percent of Hindus and 93 percent of Muslims said they supported equal treatment for all religious groups when the question was asked in general terms. Support fell when the same idea was linked to actual policies in the United States or India.
One lesson from the study is that people may apply political principles differently depending on where they see their own group in a conflict. Indian American politics therefore cannot be understood only through U.S. party identity. A person may support the Democrats in the United States and Modi in India because the two political settings place that person’s group in different positions.
This piece has been published in partnership with Newsreel Asia.
Vishal Arora is an independent journalist based in New Delhi, India, who covers Asia and beyond. He serves as editor of @Newsreel_Asia and is a board member of The Media Project. He’s written for many outlets including The Wall Street Journal, The Diplomat and The Caravan.