The first door didn’t go well. David Orkin was campaigning in South Richmond Hill, a neighborhood in New York’s Queens borough, when he met with a familiar piece of political wisdom. The man who answered said he had worked on Democratic campaigns for years, and in a neighborhood that is overwhelmingly South Asian, voters would back the candidate who looked like them. In his view, identity was paramount.
But the next door told a different story. It was a multigenerational Bangladeshi Muslim family, whose first question was not about ethnicity or representation, but about Gaza. In his response, Orkin situated himself plainly. He is Jewish, he said, and has spent over a decade organizing in Palestinian solidarity movements. “I saw them relax a little bit,” Orkin said. “And then they told me about various things going on in the neighborhood and what matters to them.”
An immigrant rights attorney and organizer, Orkin is running for a seat in Assembly District 38, which covers parts of south Queens, including Richmond Hill, Woodhaven and Ozone Park, and is currently held by Jenifer Rajkumar, a close ally of former Mayor Eric Adams. She had emerged as a prominent face of the Hindu — and South Asian — community during his tenure, but faced criticism for her alleged links to donors associated with right-wing Hindu groups in the United States.
Orkin, however, was one of the first candidates to be endorsed by Hindus for Human Rights Action, itself one of the first progressive Hindu political advocacy groups in the U.S., and spoke at its launch in New York in March. The group is the political arm of Hindus for Human Rights, a nonprofit formed in 2019, and will engage directly in election races across the country.
Orkin’s experience of facing assumptions about identity at one doorstep and policy-driven questions at the next captures the central tension that HFHRA and other progressive South Asian organizations in the U.S. are seeking to address. They are deliberately rejecting identity politics and instead emphasizing a values-based approach, backing candidates who oppose the rise of Hindu nationalism, combat transnational repression and support legislation protecting against caste-based discrimination in the U.S.
“We focus on values, not identity,” Ria Chakrabarty, who leads HFHRA, told New Lines. “We don’t assume that a candidate should be supported simply because they are Hindu or Indian. We evaluate their positions, their alliances and their track record.”
The progressive Hindu bloc first came into the spotlight during Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral campaign last year, when the Indian-origin candidate faced stiff opposition from certain Hindu groups, particularly in New Jersey, and the group “Hindus for Zohran” mobilized on his behalf.
Now, such influence is extending beyond New York. In Illinois, several progressive South Asian organizations recently campaigned against Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, who went on to lose the Democratic primary for the Senate race. And this bloc is now eyeing candidates and races across other states, including California, Michigan, Georgia and Texas.
The political voice of Hindu Americans first came to mainstream attention in the U.S. in 2021, when academics from more than 50 universities, including Harvard, Stanford and Princeton, organized a three-day “Dismantling Global Hindutva” conference to critically examine the rise of Hindu nationalist ideology both in India and among diaspora communities.
It would have been the first conference of its kind, but the event sparked a fierce backlash from right-wing Hindu-American organizations, who organized coordinated campaigns against the academics, flooding their universities with complaints and accusing organizers of promoting “Hinduphobia.”
Several academics in the United States told me in the aftermath that while earlier trolling and abuse largely originated from India, the backlash changed after the conference and U.S.-based organizations started mobilizing against them. Incidents that had once been isolated and largely confined to the fringes had since grown in number, they said.
Right-wing Hindu organizations such as the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) and the Coalition of Hindus of North America have used their influence to shape the political Hindu voice in the U.S. Beyond targeting academics, these groups have lobbied against measures such as anti-caste protections, often framing such efforts as discriminatory toward Hindus, and also pushed for bills to classify criticism of Hinduism as Hinduphobia.
Public processions and rallies have also featured symbols associated with Hindu nationalist politics, including bulldozers, a motif critics link to demolition drives in India targeting properties owned by Muslims, alongside other religious-national iconography.
Since Hindus and Indians are among the wealthiest communities in the U.S., there has been a visible rise in Hindu nationalist-aligned donor networks. Formed in 2012, the Hindu American PAC has recently endorsed Democrats like Krishnamoorthi and Rajkumar, and Republicans like Rich McCormick. The conservative Americans4Hindus, established in 2019, with chapters in over 30 states, has also extended bipartisan support and aims to “influence and support” 200 election campaigns in the country. Meanwhile, the Hindus of Georgia PAC has endorsed candidates even beyond the state. The Republican Hindu Coalition, on the other hand, which was launched in 2015, has worked to align Hindu-American interests with the GOP.
At the same time, however, progressive Hindu and South Asian organizations have begun to push back against the growing influence of right-wing Hindu groups in the U.S. They have organized protests against Hindu nationalist events or figures, such as a temple visit in Chicago by Sadhvi Ritambhara, who was accused of involvement in the 1992 demolition of the Babri Mosque in India, and far-right Hindu nationalist activist Kajal Shingala’s event in New York City last year, from which former Mayor Adams withdrew following protests.
Now, as these progressive Hindu and South Asian nonprofits launch political advocacy wings, they are directly endorsing candidates or campaigning against them in election races. Speaking about the impetus for such an initiative, Chakrabarty said that while some organizations were engaged in theological and cultural work, there wasn’t a political organization that said, “you can be Hindu and politically opposed to Hindu nationalism.”
“When Hindus for Human Rights started around 2019, after Prime Minister Modi’s reelection, there were very few Hindu voices in the U.S. speaking critically about rising Hindu nationalism and the role of the diaspora,” she added.
Far-right Hindu groups have often drawn on the organizational playbook of pro-Israel and Zionist advocacy groups in the United States, and progressive formations have developed their own parallels. HFHR and its action arm have modeled themselves on progressive Jewish organizations in the U.S. “Right now, ‘Hindu’ as a political identity is often conflated with Hindutva,” Chakrabarty said. “We’re trying to separate those. A useful comparison is Jewish Voice for Peace, which distinguishes Jewish identity from Zionist political ideology.”
In the lead-up to the 2024 presidential elections, with Democratic nominee Kamala Harris on one side and figures such as Usha Vance and Vivek Ramaswamy drawing attention on the other, there was heightened curiosity about Indian Americans as a political bloc, and the divisions among them. In an essay for New Lines, journalist Vignesh Ramachandran examined the growing visibility of Indian-American voters and the assumptions surrounding their political loyalties.
Today, however, Indian-American candidates across the U.S. — particularly Democrats — are increasingly being pressed on their political stances, as well as on financial or institutional links to Hindu nationalist groups and donors.
Take the case of Democratic candidate Rakhi Israni, who recently entered California’s 14th Congressional District primary, scheduled for June 2. Soon after, her support for Hindu nationalist causes and opposition to caste-based protections came under scrutiny, along with her donations to Republican candidates and MAGA-aligned figures such as Laura Loomer.
Reporting by The Intercept noted that Israni was serving as a board member of the Hindu American PAC, which shared leadership ties with the controversial HAF. And she had also appeared at several of its events, including a panel titled “Hinduphobia and Antisemitism: Two Sides of the Same Coin.”
Meanwhile, in Illinois, where Krishnamoorthi was running for the Senate, SACRED Acts, the action arm of the South Asian American Coalition to Renew Democracy, a progressive South Asian organization in the state, joined a broader coalition, “Illinois Against MAGA,” in their “Reject Raja” campaign in the recent primary.
They were primarily involved in researching Krishnamoorthi’s campaign finance records, which showed that he had received funding from major donors aligned with the MAGA bloc, and connected to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and right-wing policy networks. The research informed an expose in the Chicago Sun-Times, which was widely cited by his opponents and helped shape public perception. At the start of the campaign, polling showed him with about 42% support; at the end, he received around 33% of the vote and lost the race.
Supporting anti-caste legislation has been a core priority for these Hindu and South Asian progressive groups. “We make it a requirement for endorsements that candidates commit to combating caste discrimination. These are civil rights issues,” said Chakrabarty, adding that opposition framed as “reverse discrimination” by right-wing Hindu groups mirrors rhetoric historically used against racial and gender equality protections. “It’s important to have a Hindu voice clearly stating that anti-caste laws are not anti-Hindu,” she said.
Building on this approach, SACRED Acts has developed a candidate scorecard based on three core issues: addressing transnational repression affecting South Asian communities, supporting anti-caste discrimination measures and signing a nonviolence pledge that includes rejecting funding from groups linked to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the fountainhead of Hindutva politics in India.
Last week, California Rep. Ro Khanna, widely seen as a potential presidential contender in 2028, distanced himself from an event featuring Dattatreya Hosabale, the general secretary of the RSS, which was part of the New India Conference organized by the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C. Khanna, who appeared via a recorded video message, said he had been unaware of the guest list and did not support the RSS.
The stance echoes an earlier controversy in 2019, when Khanna said it was “the duty of every American politician of Hindu faith to stand for pluralism” and to “reject Hindutva.” The remarks drew protests from right-wing Hindu-American groups, which urged him to “stand against Hinduphobia.” Khanna, however, doubled down, saying he had “no tolerance for right-wing nationalists” aligned with Donald Trump.
Now, as Khanna eyes a larger role in American politics and emerges as a leading Democrat with a national profile, his actions and associations related to Indian and Hindu nationalist politics are likely to face closer scrutiny from community members, particularly progressive Hindus.
Before these efforts, New York City’s mayoral race had become a pivotal moment for progressive Hindu voices to coalesce into a more assertive political presence. Right-wing Hindu groups had been largely silent on Mamdani until a few days before the primary last June, despite his prominence as the son of Indian-American filmmaker Mira Nair, whose work has been instrumental in shaping the community’s cultural narratives on screen for decades.
As Mamdani foregrounded his Muslim identity, worked to build a broader Muslim and South Asian political coalition, and publicly criticized Modi, sections of the Indian Hindu community, particularly in New Jersey, began mobilizing against him by amplifying opposition messaging and supporting his rivals, including former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa, in addition to Adams.
In response, a group calling itself “Hindus for Zohran” mobilized in his support, aiming to counter the narrative that all Hindus were opposed to him. “There was a gross generalization and flattening,” said Lavanya DJ, co-founder and co-lead of the group, at the launch of HFHRA.
The campaign gave many people “an opportunity” to participate in resisting the Hindu right and their influence. “Before that, we just didn’t have the space to do it,” she said. The group organized temple visits, interfaith prayer meets and community outreach events, which sought to broaden Mamdani’s appeal among Hindu voters while also signaling a more plural, cross-religious political identity.
“Historically, Hindu nationalist-aligned groups have been better funded and more visible,” Chakrabarty said. “But we’re starting to see a shift.” According to her, there is growing enthusiasm among progressive Hindus seeking to support an alternative political vision. “Not all of them are major donors, but many are highly engaged — volunteering, organizing and building networks,” she said. The visibility of campaigns like Hindus for Zohran, she added, has demonstrated “a real appetite for this kind of politics.”
What makes these efforts distinct in the U.S. is the way they have crystallized a dichotomy between right-wing and progressive Hindu identity and voice. This stands in contrast to resistance movements in India, where opposition to Hindu nationalism has largely been framed through a broader civic argument that Indian identity is not reducible to a politicized Hindu one.
Chakraborty, however, framed this divergence as intentional. Given that right-wing Hindu groups in the U.S., often dominated by Indian-origin members, claim to speak for all Hindus, she envisioned HFHRA to be a political home for “Hindus irrespective of nationalities.”
She pointed to the case of Bangladesh, where the lynching of a Hindu worker in December 2025 sparked widespread outrage and renewed concerns about rising intolerance, particularly within Hindu nationalist circles in India. The incident also prompted protests in the U.S., led largely by conservative Hindu groups, which, Chakrabarty said, underscored the need for an alternative space.
Moreover, the idea of a “progressive Hindu” has raised questions about what it means to identify as Hindu in a political sense, especially for those who are not religious in their personal lives or who engage with the identity primarily in cultural terms. “That’s something we talk about a lot internally. Our community includes religious Hindus, atheists, cultural Hindus and everything in between,” Chakrabarty said.
The idea is to avoid defining Hindu identity in a prescriptive way. “We’re trying to move away from that rigidity because that’s often what fuels exclusionary politics,” she said.
For many members, engagement with progressive Hindu groups is an attempt to rethink their relationship to Hindu identity, she added, “making it more personal, less doctrinaire, and aligned with values like anti-casteism and pluralism.”
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