By SAFA AHMED
Last month marked the third anniversary of the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, when a mob of more than 2,000 insurrectionists stormed into the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., in support of then-President Donald Trump. The images from that day are still shocking: militia members in MAGA hats scaling walls; U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s lectern hauled around like a trophy; a rioter in a buffalo-horned hat and patriotic face paint shouting skyward. One image, however, drew more confusion than outrage: an Indian flag, held high among the insurrectionists amid a sea of red, white, and blue.
Analysis by the Indian journalist Mohammed Zubair found that the man waving the flag was Krishna Gudipati, an Indian-American Trump supporter who had previously been outspoken in his support for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), India’s ruling far-right, Hindu supremacist party. Gudipati, a local leader in the Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America (VHP-A), remains active in far-right political events in the Washington, D.C. area. Most recently, in December 2023, he led a car rally in support of the consecration of a deeply polarizing Hindu temple, which was built on a plot of land where a Hindu militant mob demolished a historic mosque in 1992. Celebrations of the temple, a key rallying point for Hindu supremacists, have often centered on displays of aggression towards Muslims and other minorities.
The fact that a Hindu supremacist organizer stood out at the January 6 insurrection represents a phenomenon that threatens the future of global democracy: the growing convergence between white supremacy and Hindu supremacy.
Although most Americans are painfully familiar with white supremacy, there is far less awareness of Hindu supremacy, also known as Hindu nationalism or Hindutva, despite the strong support it enjoys among a segment of the Indian American diaspora. Hindu supremacy is a century-old political ideology that aims to turn India from the world’s largest democracy into a Hindu ethno-state, accomplishing this through the violent expulsion of Muslims, Christians, and other minorities whom it deems to be foreign.
This story was originally published in progressive.org. Read the full story here.
