When Rutgers University announced an event titled “Hindutva in America: A Threat to Equality”—co-hosted by the Center for Security, Race and Rights (CSRR), the Rutgers Anti-Caste Collective, and spearheaded by Professor Audrey Truschke and Professor Sahar Aziz—many Hindu Americans felt an uncomfortable déjà vu. Once again, our small, peaceful, and deeply assimilated community was being painted as a threat to the very society we have worked so hard to serve and strengthen.
This event, launched alongside a CSRR report accusing “Hindutva in America” of undermining civil rights and pluralism, is being presented under the banner of social justice and civil rights. But when examined closely, it raises more questions about motives and intellectual fairness than it answers.
An Event Without Balance or Credibility
The composition of the panel alone should make any reasonable observer pause. All of the principal organizers—Audrey Truschke, Sahar Aziz, and the Rutgers Anti-Caste Collective—have long histories of activism that lean sharply in one direction.
Events like this one are troubling because they confer academic legitimacy on what is, in effect, a campaign of suspicion against a minority faith.
Noticeably absent from the event? Any Hindu or Indian-American scholar offering a counter-narrative, or even basic balance. In a university that prides itself on diversity of thought, not a single Hindu academic voice was included to contextualize, challenge, or clarify. The absence is not oversight—it is evidence of intent.
Inventing a Crisis That Doesn’t Exist
Let’s be clear: there is no credible evidence—no data, no legal ruling, no verified case—that Hindu organizations in the United States have ever curtailed the civil rights of Muslim Americans or any other group.
In fact, Hindu Americans make up barely 1% of the U.S. population, a smaller proportion than Muslims (~1.3%). To claim that this tiny community somehow wields the power to “undermine pluralism” in America stretches credulity beyond reason.
The Rutgers-affiliated report relies on anecdotes, conjecture, and imported political fears from India. It cites parades, social-media arguments, or educational-curriculum debates—not court cases or policy changes—as “evidence” of rising Hindu extremism. None of this meets the standard of empirical, peer-reviewed scholarship.
When activists elevate isolated incidents (a parade float, a slogan, a Facebook post) into an alleged “civil-rights threat,” they aren’t doing civil-rights work. They are manufacturing a social panic around an entire faith community.
Conflation: The Favorite Weapon of Ideologues
The danger here is not academic debate—it’s conflation.
By deliberately blurring the distinction between Hindutva (a complex and evolving term from Indian political discourse) and Hinduism, these organizers cast suspicion on every Hindu American organization, temple, and youth group.
Under their framework, even a cultural celebration or interfaith Diwali event can be reinterpreted as “Hindutva influence.”
That is not scholarship. It is a guilt-by-association campaign, dressed in academic robes.
When a top public university gives its podium to voices that caricature Hindu Americans as extremists, it doesn’t promote diversity—it licenses discrimination.
Targeting any minority faith with sweeping, unsubstantiated accusations is not courage—it’s prejudice with a progressive gloss.
Ignoring the Real Threat: Anti-Hindu and Anti-India Hatred
Ironically, while Rutgers academics claim to expose “Hindutva hate,” hate against Hindus themselves has been rising sharply in the United States.
In just the past two years:
- Multiple Hindu temples in California and Texas have been vandalized with anti-India and anti-Hindu graffiti.
- FBI hate-crime data show anti-Hindu incidents increasing, even though they remain under-reported.
- Hindu students and professionals face mockery for their faith, especially online, where “Hinduphobia” has become an ugly subculture.
These acts receive far less institutional attention than any claim of “Hindutva influence.” Why? Because in elite academic spaces, Hindus are now paradoxically portrayed as both a minority and a majority oppressor—a logical impossibility that reveals bias, not analysis.
The Real Danger: Academic Legitimization of Bigotry
Events like this one are troubling because they confer academic legitimacy on what is, in effect, a campaign of suspicion against a minority faith. When a top public university gives its podium to voices that caricature Hindu Americans as extremists, it doesn’t promote diversity—it licenses discrimination.
Young Hindu students, already underrepresented and often misunderstood, now see their identity questioned on campus. University lectures and “activist scholarship” that single out Hindus as latent supremacists create an unsafe, intimidating climate under the veneer of critical inquiry.
If the goal truly were equality and pluralism, Rutgers would have invited Hindu American scholars, interfaith leaders, or data experts to share facts—not ideology. But that’s not what happened. Instead, the event resembles a tribunal without defense counsel.
A Call for Balance and Intellectual Honesty
Criticism of any ideology is fair game in a democracy. But criticism must rest on evidence, not innuendo. It must be balanced, not one-sided. And it must target specific actions, not entire faith communities.
Hindu Americans have quietly and diligently contributed to every sector of American life—medicine, technology, education, and philanthropy. Their temples feed the hungry, their organizations fund disaster relief, their children excel in schools and civic life. To recast such a community as a “threat to equality” is not just absurd; it is dangerous.
Rutgers University, and other academic institutions, must ask themselves:
Are we fostering genuine inquiry—or enabling ideological bullying under the banner of “civil rights”?
Until that question is faced honestly, the true threat to equality in America will not come from Hindu Americans.
It will come from those who weaponize academia to turn neighbor against neighbor, and faith against faith.
Author’s Note
As Hindu Americans, we reject all forms of hatred. But we also reject being scapegoated for political agendas imported from abroad. Equality must mean fairness for all, not selective outrage for some.
I am writing this piece because a powerful institution like Rutgers University—with its prestige, public funding, and academic reach—has chosen to lend its full weight and legitimacy to an ideological agenda that is not grounded in verified fact. When a university of such influence amplifies one-sided claims against a peaceful minority without due diligence or balance, it moves beyond scholarship into advocacy.
Such actions have real-world consequences: they shape public perception, reinforce prejudice, and risk inciting hostility toward Hindu Americans, who already constitute barely 1% of the U.S. population. This essay is not about silencing dissent—it is about demanding intellectual integrity and fairness in public discourse, especially from institutions that shape young minds and social narratives.