Vivek Ramaswamy, an Indian American former pharmaceutical executive, recently emerged as a long-shot Republican presidential candidate. Approaching DeSantis in the polls, but far behind Trump, Ramaswamy’s anti-woke rhetoric, extreme policy proposals (like raising the voting age to twenty-five), and relative youth (he’s thirty-eight) have made him appealing to a segment of Republicans that seem to be growing more anti-democratic by the day. But for all of the attention on Ramaswamy, there’s one aspect of his campaign that’s been glossed over by the press: his support for Hindu nationalism.
Several Hindu militant groups have overseas branches operating here, often posing as benign cultural or advocacy organizations.
Supporters of the movement believe that India belongs to Hindus, while religious minorities— specifically Muslims and Christians—should be subjected to violence, have their cultures and contributions to Indian history erased, and be reduced to second-class citizens, all while India’s secular democracy is restructured into an autocratic Hindu ethno-state. Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India since 2014, and his party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), are both rooted in this exclusionary ideology.
When Modi visited Washington in June, he received a relatively warm welcome, dining with Biden and conferring with Elon Musk. Representatives Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and other members of Congress, in contrast, boycotted Modi’s address to call attention to his “notorious and extensive record of human rights abuses,” including being complicit in the 2002 Gujarat riots. Yet even among politicians who were favorable toward Modi, Ramaswamy stuck out as exceptionally ingratiating: “I respect Modi for reviving national pride in India,” he tweeted. “It was a healthy reminder of what we are missing right here in America.”
It’s alarming that Ramaswamy sees Modi’s India—with its suppression of dissent, punitive and arbitrary demolition of Muslim-owned homes and businesses, normalized anti-minority hate speech, laws restricting religious freedoms, and dangerously common mob lynchings of Muslim men—as an aspirational vision for America. It’s also ironic that while Ramaswamy attempts to court favor with American Christians, he praises a leader under whose rule atrocities against India’s more than thirty million Christians have skyrocketed—particularly in the state of Manipur, where predominantly Christian tribal communities have borne the brunt of a wave of violence that has left at least 150 people dead and 357 churches in ruins.
Perhaps Ramaswamy is attempting to appeal to a growing Modi fanbase in the United States. Several Hindu militant groups have overseas branches operating here, often posing as benign cultural or advocacy organizations. One such group, the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS), uses yoga campaigns and cultural events to whitewash its connection to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a powerful Hindu paramilitary group connected to the BJP.
Another group, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America (VHPA), is the U.S. arm of India’s Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), which the CIA previously classified as a “militant religious organization” for its involvement in acts of violence against minority groups. In the past few months alone, VHP leaders in India have gone viral for demanding that Muslims be barred from public office and calling on Hindus to cut Muslims’ hands and behead them.
The VHPA doesn’t shy away from this connection with its Indian counterpart (a memo on its mentions it clings to the “same values and ideals” held by the VHP, including the notion that Muslims are “barbaric” invaders of India). In 2022, Ramaswamy was one of the keynote speakers for an online gala organized by HinduPACT, an advocacy initiative of the VHPA.
“The [woke] culture of fear that I worry is increasingly eroding our culture of free speech,” Ramaswamy lamented during that event. “This new church of inclusion has actually created this new culture of exclusion.”
Ramaswamy’s comments, of course, ignored how far-right Hindu Americans, from towns in New Jersey to workplaces in Silicon Valley, have used lawsuits, lobbying, and targeted harassment to protect their promotion of hate and discrimination. Earlier this year, for example, Hindu nationalists in California and Seattle pushed back against a bill that would protect caste-oppressed people against discrimination; in Illinois, they influenced attempts to legally redefine the word “Indian” in a way that blatantly excluded Muslims.
And last August, a Hindu nationalist group in New Jersey flaunted a bulldozer during an Indian Independence Day parade, a symbol widely recognized as anti-Muslim and a celebration of the displacement of Muslim communities in India. Another group, Global Hindu Heritage Foundation, raised funds to demolish churches in India, and regularly posts anti-Muslim and anti-Christian hate speech on its website.
Last September, American Hindu nationalists platformed a Hindu militant leader—one responsible inciting major anti-Muslim violence—at events in Georgia, New Jersey, California, and other states. Academics across the country have reported being sent death threats by far-right trolls for criticizing Modi and Hindu nationalism.
By praising Modi and building ties to groups like the VHPA, Ramaswamy has shown that he's willing to stand by the hateful ideology behind these incidents. That stance is inherently exclusionary—and the fact that he remains a relevant GOP candidate is troubling, not just as a sign of the right’s increasing extremism, but of how he could continue to give legitimacy to Hindu nationalism.