80% of Indian American Muslims feel less safe due to politics back home, survey finds

Minhaj Khan is used to 2 a.m. calls from India. As former president of the Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC), he often fields late-night reports of anti-Muslim incidents back home. But this time, the call was about an incident in Edison: Someone had driven a bulldozer, a symbol associated with anti-Muslim actions in India, in the India Day parade.

“I was shocked,” Khan recalls about the 2022 incident. 

In recent years, Khan and other Indian Muslims in New Jersey said they have felt increasingly uncomfortable in the face of rising Hindu nationalism in the diaspora. Last month, IAMC and ReThink Media published a survey that found 80 percent of Indian American Muslims feel less comfortable in Indian American spaces since the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in India. 

Nearly 1,000 Indian American Muslims responded to the survey, and a “significant majority” reported experiencing harassment, discrimination, and prejudice from Hindu friends and contacts in the last decade, the survey found. Nearly half of respondents said they had been harassed on social media. The result has been growing social division and erosion of trust, which has taken a mental toll on many Indian American Muslims, IAMC noted.

New Jersey is a hotbed of tension between Hindus and Muslims, Central Desi’s reporting has found. The state has one of the largest populations of each religion. In 2022, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-NJ) filed 152 cases of anti-Muslim discrimination and reported a notable uptick in Hindutva-related incidents among them. 

Tensions at school

Zeeshan, a Muslim resident of Edison who moved there from Delhi in 2015, has grown increasingly concerned about Hindu-Muslim tension in the community, especially now that he has an 18-month-old daughter.

“Many Gujaratis have raised their families in New Jersey, and their children are in schools. The parents' ideology transfers to their children, and that raises serious concerns for my daughter’s mental health and future,” he said, citing an event in 2020 when anti-Muslim flyers were distributed to Gujarati households in Piscataway ahead of the Democratic primary. The School Ethics Commission later found Piscataway Township School Board Member Nitang Patel in violation of multiple provisions of the School Ethics Act and recommended his censure.

Zeeshan, who grew up studying in a Hindu-majority school, said he had a diverse set of friends in India. It was only in New Jersey that he felt he began facing discrimination from Indian Hindus. 

Shortly after he arrived in the U.S., Zeeshan attended a Garba event—a traditional Hindu Gujarati celebration—through a friend's invitation. He said someone said to him, “We are doing a puja (Hindu prayer), not namaz (Muslim prayer),” implying that his presence as a Muslim was unwelcome.

Lack of safe spaces

Aisha was born and raised in North Jersey. While it used to frustrate her to correct those who assumed she was Pakistani because of her Muslim name, she has since made peace with the task of educating others about the presence of Muslims in India, which has one of the largest Muslim populations in the world.

The rise of Hindu nationalism has made her increasingly worried that her identity is at risk of erasure.

“Hindutva’s rise is erasing Muslims not only from present-day Indian culture but also from history. It’s as if we were never part of India,” she said.

Since coming to power, the BJP-led government has made numerous revisions to school textbooks, removing historical content predominantly related to Muslims and other minorities, including references to Muslim freedom fighters who fought British colonialism and the atrocities of the 2002 Gujarat riots.

Aisha also feels concerned about how politics in India are impacting politics in the U.S. She has observed increased support for conservatives and former President Donald Trump within Indian diaspora groups, largely driven by the friendship between Modi and Trump.

Some Desi groups, including the American Hindu Coalition-Georgia and Hindus for America, have endorsed Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris, despite her Indian roots.

Abid, an Indian Muslim immigrant, said he is learning to be cautious when making Desi friends. He came to New Jersey for his Ph.D. in 2016 and noticed patterns of discrimination against Muslims in New Jersey similar to what he had observed in India. 

When looking for housing in Harrison and Jersey City, where many Indian students live, he noticed ads by Indians specifying "veg only” tenants.

“It’s a way of excluding some people and only having upper-caste Hindu roommates in the name of dietary preferences,” he said, adding that he avoided applying to such listings.

In India, laws prohibit housing discrimination based on religion or caste to prevent further segregation of minorities. Many landlords bypass this by specifying dietary restrictions, refusing to rent to people who eat meat, which disproportionately targets minorities. Apartment complexes and neighborhoods in India are also now adopting "vegetarian-only" tenant policies.

While organizations like Hindus for Human Rights are actively pushing back against Hindutva politics in both India and the U.S., their numbers remain relatively small.

“When 9/11 happened, people raised their fingers against the Muslim community. Muslims did respond: We were distancing ourselves from hate ideologies within the community,” Khan said. “Is it not time for the Hindus to stand up and reject Hindutva?”

Tehsin Pala is the associate editor of Central Desi.

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