Behind the West’s rising dislike of Indian migrants
An ethnically assertive and prosperous community — very aware of and very vocal about the rise of the country of its roots — has invited native wrath
The surge of hatred for immigrants across the world is almost unprecedented. It is not just the H1B issue. In the UK and Australia, the streets have recently seen hundreds of thousands of protesters gather to decry immigration. Disturbing clips of Indian-origin persons being assaulted have gone viral. In Europe, countries as far apart as Poland and Ireland have seen similar protests and attacks on Indian-origin persons. There are wider issues at stake here, all of which will impact the Indian expatriate community.
The Right, throughout history, has risen amid economic suffering, discontent with the ruling elite, corruption, and unemployment. Europe, traditionally the base for such exclusionary sentiments, had been warning of the rise of the far Right and introduced a Resolution in 2023 on ways to combat it. But that year, unemployment was at a historic low, indicating that other factors were at play.
Official figures show 334 of 426 people arrested in 22 European Union (EU) countries for terrorism-related offences were linked to jihadist terrorism. Rabid Islamist preachers such as the UK’s Anjem Choudary have functioned with impunity. Choudary continued his radicalisation lectures across North America despite the banning of his group, Al Mujahiroun. A question was raised in the European Parliament about the two million euros of foreign funding received by the Örebro Mosque in Sweden, where the preacher was found to be an ISIS recruiter. At the al-Muhsinin Mosque in Bonn, radical preachers encouraged the faithful to attend “al-Qaeda training camps”. Mosques, institutes, and study centres with links to the Muslim Brotherhood were also funded in France.
All of this has stoked Islamophobia. In Australia, 366 cases of online Islamophobic abuse were recorded between January 2023 and November 2024, as were 309 in-person incidents. The tipping point, however, seems to have been the worldwide protests against the genocide in Gaza, including in all major Australian and European cities. In the US, particularly, it was opposed as carrying wokeism too far, “in support of Hamas and Hezbollah”.
Alongside came Hinduphobia. Where and how did the term crop up? And how did it turn into hate against Indians? The term can be traced back to protests by Hindus in the US. In California, a few years ago, Indian-origin people objected to the mention of caste discrimination in school textbooks as “Hinduphobia” and “bias against Indians”. Protests organised by several Hindu groups in the US — including the Hindu America Foundation, set up in 2003 — began to be portrayed as assertions of “Hindu nationalism”. India’s domestic politics found its way into the US expatriate community. Hindu sites in the US foisted “community pride” as an assertion of identity, even as few politicians on both sides of the community fostered hate against the other.
All of this came together in a toxic mix of caste, religion, and divided political loyalties. The setting up of new temples across the US, particularly the BAPS Swaminarayan temple in New Jersey (the largest Hindu temple outside Asia), and a slew of organisations aimed at drumming up support from wealthy Indians in the US for political gains back home, added to all of this.
This snowballed as the number of Indian migrants grew — between 2010 and 2020, Indians became the second-largest migrant community in the US after the Mexicans. This trend of migration was reflected across the world, with the World Migration Report 2024 noting that Indians were the largest migrant group in 2022; Pakistanis and Bangladeshis formed much smaller migrant wholes.
And this was not merely about numbers. It reflected the surging demand for skilled Indians in high-paying sectors such as information technology, health care, and finance, to name a few. This was not just in the US, but elsewhere in the developed world too. It was seen in the UK, where Indians typically reside in upper-class neighbourhoods and earn far more than the other immigrant groups from South Asia. Numbers have also been rising in Germany and the Netherlands, where well-heeled Indians are establishing businesses and creating a huge economic impact on their respective economies. In short, suddenly, Indians are everywhere, very aware of and very vocal about their country’s rise in world affairs.
While Islamophobia is tied to the threat of terror, anti-Indianism is not. What is apparent is the marked shift from the era when Indians were known to live quietly and unobtrusively to the one in which “nationalist”, “ethnically aware” Indians are being wooed by the political establishments in their adopted countries, for the influence they are perceived to hold in their communities. External affairs minister S Jaishankar, while praising their contributions, also said that in difficult times, “we (India) have got your back”. That is certainly commendable and necessary support.
But, pragmatically, it would be far better if Indian migrants were to blend in with adopted country, and present a united front to a world where a minor “activist” such the stridently anti immigrant activist like Charlie Kirk becomes a national hero, and becomes the rallying point for US President Donald Trump and the MAGA in his fight against immigration and the H1B visa programme.
It is also time that New Delhi considered a different source of influence, by inviting American and European universities to operate here rather than allowing our wealth to shift to foreign shores via the route of Indians choosing to study abroad. An economy that is set to be the third-largest globally should be prepared to compete even in terms of wages, opportunities, and living standards to encourage Indians to stay here instead of looking to move to the developed world. But for quality of life that Europe for example offers, first clean up your cities and your act. Showcase the real humility and compassion of India’s rich civilisational history and follow this on the ground in Parliament, in institutions and in schools and colleges. These are troubled times, as our neighbourhood shows, and there is no time to waste.
Tara Kartha is director, research and analysis, at the Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS). The views expressed are personal
