There are more than 50,000 Indian Americans in San Diego, and our community is always growing. Like any other group, we have our agreements and disagreements, our highs and our lows — we still get together to celebrate each other’s holidays, Hindus attending Ramadan, Muslims attending Holi, and our other faiths and non-believers getting together for barbecues.

But there is also a more troubling undercurrent whose presence seems to grow in the local diaspora: Hindu nationalism.

Not to be confused with the Hindu faith, Hindu nationalism is instead a 20th-century political project founded by ideologues seeking to import European fascism into India.  It is a supremacist ideology which seeks to render India a pure Hindu nation, in which other minority faiths, especially Islam and Christianity, are not welcome.

In its meteoric rise in influence, it has motivated countless killings of Muslims and Christians, and is now espoused in India’s highest political offices, including by current Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Despite its troubling history, it has found many supporters in San Diego.