Resisting across borders : Hindu Fascism, Xenophobia, and Diasporic Solidarity

À bâbord ! : What is SADAC and how was it created ?

Arun : There's been a lot of South Asian organizing in Quebec and Canada, over decades. Ours is a very recent group. We are a grassroots collective that works in Tiohtiá:ke/Mooniyang (Montreal). We work in solidarity with various oppressed groups, activists and movements. With people both here in our communities from South Asian backgrounds, but also from people directly in South Asia, be it India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and so on. We are focused on having a community and a place without poverty and casteism, in solidarity with Indigenous people's rights. We focus on migrant justice, housing, and labour issues as well, depending on what's happening in our communities. A lot of it is also anti-fascist given the current political climate in India.

Marya : Also, SADAC is not about just being inside and having talks. It's like being on the streets and building solidarity with other movements here in Montreal as well. All of us have been or are involved in various movements like Defund the police, Solidarity across borders, or the Palestine solidarity movement.

Lily Paul : SADAC came into being a few years ago. In India, the government had passed legislation called the Citizenship Amendement Act (CAA) where they were removing citizenship from many people. There was a huge mobilisation on the streets, and so there was a response here, almost spontaneous. Public events were held, teach-ins, demonstrations... Some people who had already been working together in earlier diasporic formations felt that we needed to concretise this.

I've lived in Montreal for 50 years and I cut my political teeth when the government of Indira Gandhi declared the Emergency in 1975 [1]. That was my political awakening and my involvement in diasporic Indian and South Asian politics. From then, my trajectory has been a continuum, responsive to what's happening in South Asia, but also connected with what's going on here, whether it's my involvement with the South Asian Women's Community Centre or other groups like CERAS [2]. Others had some earlier political engagements related to migrant rights and student protests. But really, it's the anti-CAA moment that kind of galvanised us to come towards the formation of SADAC, which is an acronym but also means road or pathway in Hindi (सड़क) and Urdu (سڑک).

ÀB ! : You actively oppose Hindutva, a far-right Hindu supremacist ideology. How would you define it, and what issues does it raise ?

Marya : The Hindu supremacist movement, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh [3](RSS), has been active since 1925. It's the longest continuous running fascist movement in the world. They were inspired by European Nazism and took direct tactical inspiration from Mussolini. They were banned several times in India. In 2014, they came to power with the leadership of Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), their political arm.

There's this whole caste system in India and because it's a Hindu supremacist movement, they are both opposed to those who are not Hindu (Muslims, Sikh, Christians), and those who are not upper caste Hindu like the Dalits. In North America, there have been attempts to include discrimination against Dalits in the Human Rights Code, which have been systemically opposed by these right-wing elements.

Arun : There are all sorts of rights at stake when we're talking about far-right Hindu supremacy, particularly in India. We can also talk about how they come after Muslim or Sikh activists, their use of online actions (including doxing or blocking off people traveling to India), but also physical confrontations, which has been increasing over time. They also ally with far-right groups who have commonalities with them, notably Zionist organizations.

Lily Paul : There's very little that's known among the public in Quebec and Canada about Hindu ethno-nationalism. For a lot of people, if they hear Hindu and they're sort of liberal, particularly if they're opposed to laïcité, they'll think : “well it's a religion and that's fine”. So, we try to find a variety of ways to do public education through events and meeting with allies.

ÀB ! : In recent years, you have warned against the weaponization of the concept of hinduphobia in North America by some of conservative Hindu organizations. Could you elaborate ?

Lily Paul : The term hinduphobia is something that they are popularizing here as a way of trying to gain support for themselves, similar to the way Zionists use anti-Semitism. For example, one of these organizations, which has very deep roots and pockets in the United States, CoHNA [4], has been conducting so-called anti-hate campaigns in Canada in collaboration with local police forces. They held one in Montreal, even though there is no evidence of such hate crimes. They tried to create a base to then say that they're doing this work “because” and claiming that anti-Brown racism is anti-Hindu racism, thus confusing people. We mobilized, sent individual and group letters, and they responded by targeting some of us with doxing. It's been ongoing. It can be challenging and dangerous to do this work because they act in very nefarious ways.

Marya : A couple of years ago, there was a parliamentary petition here in Canada sponsored by Melissa Lantsman, a conservative MP, that asked for hinduphobia to be included in the Human Rights Code, saying that any criticism of Hindus constitutes a hate crime. There are many parallels with Zionism and the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's (IHRA) work to get a Zionist definition of anti-Semitism universally recognized. Beyond the trade and weapons links, the Hindu far-right has borrowed a lot of tactics from Israel. The parliamentary petition was signed by 25.000 people. We organized and had a huge cross-Canada campaign against that, which was fairly successful. The ministry said that Canada's Human Rights Code provisions on racism are inclusive in this respect. But they are tireless and continue to push this project forward.

ÀB ! : You've mentioned the rising issue of intimidation and physical violence from far-right Hindu organizations.

Marya : Yes, they work in various groups and incarnations of the same ideology. For example, in 2023, a Sikh leader, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, was assassinated in British Columbia with support from the Indian government. The far-right group that was connected to this murder, the Bishnoi gang, was recently labeled by Canada as a terrorist organization. Trudeau stood up in the Parliament and said that the Indian government was involved in assassination here on Canadian soil. Following this announcement, we called for banning of RSS in Canada. But it didn't prevent Modi to be invited to the G7 right here in Canada. So, at state level there's some sort of a complicity as well.

Arun : There's a reason why we've ramped up the level of activity we have. The founder and executive director of Hindutva Watch, Raqib Hameed Naik, a Kashmiri journalist, tracks hate speech and incidences. It's not just hearsay. There's a clear increase of Hindutva activity since Modi, not only in India and surrounding countries, but here on the ground with far-right groups, with the government, with the police, with assassinations and unrest across a multitude of communities where Hindu supremacists are feeling empowered [5].

ÀB ! : Does this movement enjoy significant support outside India and among the diaspora ?

Arun : They're quite powerful, rich and present in our communities worldwide, notably in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom. In 2024, a liberal MP, Chandra Ayra, raised an orange flag called the Bhagavad Gita at Parliament Hill in Ottawa under the guise of Hindu Heritage Month. But in India, this flag is explicitly used by fascist movements when mosques are being demolished, when hate speeches are being said. It's one thing celebrating religion and a very different thing celebrating a political ideology of hate. This is kind of the issue with having a blanket term for all brown people or all Indian people. It's it doesn't bring the nuance right. But they intentionally conflate this with the help of the police and diplomats.

Lily Paul : And money goes from here to India. In fact, we would like Canada Revenue Agency to investigate organizations like SEWA International that fund so-called development projects in India that are run by the RSS.

Regarding the diaspora, there's nothing as successful as success itself. Everybody likes to gravitate to people who are in power. People who are not very political, who are ignorant or opportunistic, they're very happy to associate with the current government in India and its representatives over here. People like us can be seen as troublemakers. Although we've encountered people who think like us, there's this sort of entrenched conservatism within the mainstream established community and a deep-seated anti-Muslim bias.

Marya : Moreover, these Saffron fascists organizations are aligning with conservative parties in Canada on values, crime, cost of living and anti-LGBTQ politics. They're also receiving funding from them. These high-level alliances show that the number of people affected extends beyond the diaspora [6].

ÀB ! : In Quebec and Canada, we are also seeing a rise in racist and xenophobic policies. What are the implications for the South Asian diaspora ?

Lily Paul : In Quebec, we see increasing xenophobia and jingoism. It's a political tool to garner votes, to create the us and them. There is anti-brown racism, often mixed with islamophobia. We're always being hit on the head with proposed legislation, whether it's the extension of Bill 21 or the scapegoating of immigrants. Even in the face of neoliberal logic, they're so ideologically committed to staying in power that they will do anything to achieve this, even acting irresponsibly. We don't always hear, people don't report, but we know in our communities that people do face discrimination and violence. And social issues that are not unique to racialized communities always end up being racialized.

Arun : There's a synergy between far-right groups. In today's political context, particularly in Montreal, it is anti-Muslim. In a broader context, it is anti-Sikh and anti-Dalits. That racism towards brown people is often not towards high caste Hindu Indian nationals. In fact, on a socio-economic level, they're one of the most mobile classes. This is why knowing the nuances and the differences between ourselves is so important : systemic discrimination is not something experienced equally by all people with brown skin or South Asians. But India is often considered as a monolith in the eyes of your average individual. CoHNA and a lot of other groups funded or close to the RSS and BJP ecosystem know that. They weaponize multiculturalism, much like the Zionists weaponized anti-Semitism. Any kind of conversation that is seen to be against their view of a Hindu Rashtra [7] is framed as hinduphobia. By doing so, it not only cheapens the racism – because actual racism is still happening – but it creates confusion for the people here, who don't know the details and the nuances, on how to react. If we keep working on ignorance and keep working on that broad approach that all Indians are the same kind of people, a racialized identity of sorts, then we never win or get our values and our way of life to move forward because then we're just talking about lies.

ÀB ! : What are the main challenges of organizing the South Asian diaspora in Montreal and building solidarity across borders, status and linguistic divides ?

Marya : In Parc Ex, I work with Solidarity Across Borders as well. There are so many people who are in various levels of status, mostly precarious (non-status, refugee waiting for status). Some arrived recently, like international student, and they're focused on finding a job and many other things. So, our focus is not on “we have to mobilize South Asian community”. We work to support, intervene and run campaigns to stop deportations, support people with the housing issues, provide translation like we did during COVID with the Immigrant Worker Center, etc. In terms of linguistic divides, in many mobilizations we would have translation in different languages or like predominant languages that are represented here from South Asia like Bangla, Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu, Hindustani…

Our work and our challenge have been to popularize and bring our analysis of what's happening in India but also what's happening here, and why solidarity is important, and it has been great ! We have support from Palestinian organizations and related groups like Independent Jewish Voices (IJV), Palestinian and Jewish Unity (PAJU) and others. We have been a lot more in Anglophone spheres, so it'll be good to reach Francophone audiences.

Arun : It's definitely not easy, right ? I can see why it can be framed as a challenge. But it's a very fruitful and valuable aspect to the work we do. Yes, there's a lot of difficulties and roadblocks, but what you often see on the other side of that are communities coming together, people working together. In Montreal, where the nuances are often dismissed, overlooked or ignored, we make sure to have a space to empower the people who are affected. A space for the people who are directly looking, studying, understanding or directly fighting against these issues. It is a challenge, but at the end of the day, it is worth every bit. Also, it counters that narrative of linguistic nationalism, linked with the idea of inefficiency and lack of productivity. When people from various backgrounds, languages or religions, come together to defend housing and migrant justice ; are talking about the political issues that affect them here, but also the ones affecting them where they are originally from or have family members from.