India must stop spreading Hindu nationalism to its global diaspora – By Ashok Swain

In recent months, as India was witnessing protests against the Modi government’s citizenship law which discriminates against Muslims from neighboring countries, there were regular demonstrations and even occasional clashes between opposing Indian diaspora groups in Western capitals.

The aggressive and successful lobbying of minority diaspora groups to have their countries oppose Hindu nationalism has brought many diplomatic challenges for the Indian government, like the debate over Modi’s clampdown on Kashmir in the European Parliament and scathing remarks over deteriorating minority rights from the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.

… The new trend of host countries noticing and taking action against Islamophobic social media activism by the Hindu diaspora has further added to this concern. Several powerful voices from the Gulf have already come out against the Hindu diaspora’s social media activism, raising fears over the future of India’s friendly bilateral relations with these host countries. The political mobilization of the Indian diaspora along religious lines threatens to turn the community from a powerful asset into a difficult liability for India’s foreign policy.