The first Indian Independence Day I can remember was with my family in Hyderabad, India. I was 10 or 11 years old and remember seeing enormous parades at the state capitol building. When I came to the U.S. in the early 1980s, the parades were much smaller and more subdued. But since that time, the Chicago parades have grown, coming to represent the connection we feel for our birth country and its triumphant break from British colonial rule.

With Indian Americans now the most politically active Asian American group in the country, it’s no surprise that Chicago, Schaumburg, and Naperville are all set to have their own sizable Indian Independence Day events in mid-August.

The growing pride and strength of Indian Americans is a cause for celebration. The domestic growth of Hindu nationalism, an ideology that is tearing India apart, is not.

Hindu nationalism is a movement that seeks to remake India into a pure Hindu nation, in which followers of other faiths, particularly Islam and Christianity, are subjected to routine, state-sanctioned discrimination and violence. Championed by India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it motivates frequent violence against Muslims, Christians, caste-oppressed, and indigenous Indians, all of whom are seen as foreign threats to the dominance of Hinduism.