That minority groups are often used by progressives as a political football is evident to all, but no one summed it up as sharply as Malcolm X, who observed: “The white liberal differs from the white conservative only in one way: the liberal is more deceitful than the conservative. The liberal is more hypocritical than the conservative. Both want power, but the white liberal is the one who has perfected the art of posing as the Negro’s friend and benefactor.”Today, the average Indian-American voter finds herself in a similar conundrum, except that, unlike the African-American voters of yore, neither liberals nor conservatives – with a few honourable exceptions – even care to pay lip service to earn a few brownie points.Consider how little noise the American political machine – on both sides of the aisle – made when a potential massacre was averted because a crazy 19-year-old’s rifle jammed in the parking lot of a Hindu temple in suburban Chicago.As the midterms arrives, Indian-Americans find themselves in familiar territory: between a rock and a hard place, staring into the abyss of political irrelevance. Despite being one of the richest immigrant groups in the country, Indian-Americans may feel that America has rarely been more hostile towards them.On one side are MAGA’s open racists, who see Indian-American students enjoying a football game and imagine a great replacement in a strange iteration of the Tebbit Test, where even loyalty to one’s new land cannot overcome skin pigmentation.
Bo French started the fresh anti-India hate on social media after he posted a photo of the students of University of Texas.
On the flip side are the Democrats, who, despite claiming to stand for minority rights, can’t even call Indians by their proper name, referring to them as “South Asians”, and are wont to platform people who are usually found at Dismantle Global Hindutva conferences.It’s a delicious twist of Shakespeare’s tongue that, after labelling Native Americans as “Indians”, so much of the American commentariat likes to call Indians “South Asians”. Unfortunately for us, when white folks make a faux pas, it lives on through history as the correct term.As Pushpita Prasad, an Indian-American community leader, pointed out to TOI Digital: “It’s frankly disrespectful to try and roll an India label into something else. India is a massive and historical label. Yet in 2020, Kamala Harris, the daughter of an Indian woman, gets called South Asian, while Jill Biden’s Italian American heritage is respectfully used, even though her family immigrated in 1900.”Prasad also made a similar point about Diwali in a 2022 essay for the Coalition of Hindus of North America (CoHNA), co-authored with Smitha Raj, arguing that rebranding the Dharmic religious festival as a generic “South Asian” celebration amounted to cultural appropriation and erased its religious roots.New Jews to New ZionistsThe sobriquet “South Asian” vacillates wildly depending on the context.A dish invented in India becomes Pakistani or South Asian; grooming gangs, on the other hand, earn the South Asian label.Anti-India hatred in Texas is labelled rising hatred of South Asians, while caste is always an Indian problem, as is “Hindu nationalism”, which is always rising and is almost always blamed for every evil in the world when it cannot be explained by Zionism or white supremacy. Twenty-six years after Jagdish Bhagwati named Indian-Americans the “new Jews”, Hindus are now often labelled the “new Zionists”.In fact, the caste bogey has been so prevalent in American discourse that California Democrats tried to push through a specific caste-discrimination bill that was eventually buried by Governor Gavin Newsom – ostensibly after a quiet word from the White House – because common sense prevailed and grown-ups realised that California didn’t have a raging caste issue.The more under-reported irony of that particular kerfuffle was that the campaign was spearheaded by Equality Labs, whose caste-sensitivity material was examined in a 2024 NCRI-Rutgers study. The researchers found that exposure to the material actually increased prejudice rather than reducing it. Participants became more likely to perceive caste discrimination where none was established and to endorse dehumanising descriptions of Brahmins.That’s not to say Indian-Americans cannot move the needle. They can when it exists within the ambit of the culture-war sphere, like getting Apu banned in The Simpsons, but in general, Indian-Americans struggle to counter global Anglosphere narratives about India, and that tends to pass the burden of Indian politics onto the diaspora.Great Power, No VoiceAnd this predicament is rather curious because Indian-Americans have never had greater representation in the US establishment, but with greater power didn’t come a greater voice.We’ve come a long way from the Samosa Caucus.New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, an Indian-American, is one of the most well-known Democratic faces across the country, but while he might shake a leg to the title track of Dhoom, he is still averse to referring to himself as Indian-American and even repeats mendacities about his ancestral state.Kash Patel might say Jai Shree Krishna at his FBI confirmation hearing but seldom speaks about atrocities against his co-religionists. Then again, he has been busy jet-setting across the country with his country-singer fiancée or chugging beer with hockey players.Vivek Ramaswamy, who was co-head of DOGE – before his abrupt exit following an epic diatribe on American laziness – is hoping to become governor of Ohio. While he was vocal about being Hindu during the presidential election debates – albeit presenting his version of Hinduism as crypto-Catholicism – he has been quieter in the run-up to the Ohio governor race. After the temple attack in Chicago, Ramaswamy’s silence was louder than his campaign’s obnoxious video attacking his opponent, Amy Acton.Ro Khanna, Pramila Jayapal, Ami Bera and Suhas Subramanyam are seeking re-election to Congress. In California, Khanna faces fellow Indian-American Ritesh Tandon, while in Washington, Jayapal is being challenged by another Indian-American Republican, Nirav Sheth. Elsewhere, Amish Shah is contesting Arizona’s 1st Congressional District, and Pooja Sethi is attempting to become the first Indian-American elected to the Texas Legislature.
From left: Ami Bera,Pramila Jayapal, Ro Khanna, Suhas Subramanyam and Vivek Ramaswamy.
Yet, while Indian-Americans have become more prominent, none of the issues that affect the Indian community are particularly at the forefront. Racism against Indians is hardly worth discussing in American media outlets, and when it is, it is bundled together as discrimination against South Asians, which is often mentioned alongside Islamophobia.While there are numerous groups that now speak exclusively for the problems faced by Hindu-Americans, some of them, as Voltaire showed with the Holy Roman Empire, barely make a peep for actual Hindu issues – like the atrocities faced by minority Hindus in Bangladesh – but are more willing to hold forth on the Middle East.While MAGA, as Malcolm X famously described white conservatives’ reaction to black people, is fairly open about its animus towards Indians, claiming without proof that they participate in nepotism or H-1B fraud, the other side of the aisle is filled with people who often paint Indian-Americans as oppressors at the top of the caste hierarchy.While MAGA goes bonkers about a Hanuman statue on private land in Texas, its liberal opponents use the BAPS case in France to claim parochialism and misogyny among Hindu groups, even though a probe confirmed that the group had never explicitly asked for women to be removed from the Eiffel Tower.Neither of these issues directly affects the midterm results, but they show how easy it is to make Hindus or Indian-Americans pantomime villains.For a long time, Indian-Americans have been held up as a “model minority”, and perhaps that’s because they were never particularly bothered about political power, thinking that their status and money could protect them from the racism aimed at other minority groups. Or perhaps it was for that reason that Indian-Americans now find themselves at a crossroad. The numbers suggest Indian-Americans aren’t confused about whom they are going to vote for, even if they remain less certain about whom to identify with.Dem Vote, No Dem LoveAccording to the Carnegie Endowment’s Indian American Attitudes Survey, released on November 2, 62% of Indian-American citizens intend to vote for Democratic candidates in the House elections, compared with just 19% for Republicans. Another 12% remain undecided. In Senate contests, the Democrats enjoy a similarly commanding lead of 63% to 21%.That’s a 43-percentage-point Democratic advantage in House voting intentions, a rather remarkable figure considering the gains Trump appeared to make among Indian-Americans in 2024, when 30% supported him against 62% for Kamala Harris.But look beyond the surface and the numbers get more interesting.Despite the overwhelming preference for Democratic candidates, only 46% of Indian-American adults identify as Democrats, compared with 19% who identify as Republicans and 26% as independents. And those numbers have barely changed since January 2026.The most revealing finding, however, is that 35% of Indian-Americans intending to vote Democratic say they are doing so primarily because they oppose the Republican candidate or party, rather than because they support the Democrats. Among intending Republican voters, just 17% cite opposition to the Democrats as their principal motivation.
Vivek Ramaswamy could make history by becoming the first Indian-American governor of Ohio.
So, while MAGA appears to have succeeded in alienating Indian-Americans as it has most other groups who flipped in 2024, it hasn’t necessarily made them fall in love with the Democrats. A substantial section of the community is voting against the Republicans rather than enthusiastically embracing the alternative.The Democrats can count on their votes, but whether they can count on their affection is an entirely different matter. And perhaps the most peculiar aspect of this entire debate is how little the priorities of ordinary Indian-Americans resemble the ideological arguments conducted on their behalf.Carnegie’s earlier 2026 survey found that inflation and prices were the biggest concern for 21% of respondents, followed by jobs and the economy at 17%, healthcare at 13% and immigration at 11%. Just 2% named US-India relations as their most important political issue.For all the American commentariat’s fascination with caste, Hindu nationalism and the geopolitical implications of Indian identity, the average Indian-American appears rather more interested in the cost of living, employment and healthcare.Which raises an uncomfortable question for both parties.If a community can produce some of the richest people in America, occupy positions at the highest levels of government, finance political campaigns and remain one of the Democrats’ most reliable voting constituencies, why does it still struggle to have its particular concerns heard?Perhaps that is the real political predicament facing Indian-Americans as they head to the polls. They may have acquired enough influence to help decide who governs America, but they still appear to be struggling to influence how America understands them. They know whom they intend to vote against. Who will speak for them after the votes are counted remains a rather more complicated question.About 133 years ago, a man born Narendranath Dutta said he was from India (rather than a princely state or presidency, as was the norm then) and preached tolerance at the World’s Parliament of Religions in a speech that evokes awe even today. It’s sad that, so many years later, Americans of all stripes have become particularly intolerant towards his descendants.