Mumbai: As we traverse into 2026, the Indian diaspora finds itself navigating a geopolitical landscape that has undergone tectonic shifts beneath its very feet. For the better part of half a century, the narrative of the “Global Indian” was one of seamless integration and technocratic utility—we were celebrated architects of the digital age, benign doctors in the National Health Service, hardworking shopkeepers dotting the retail malls. This perception of the “model minority”—affluent, law-abiding, politically unobtrusive—served as a shield; but recent events suggest this shield has not merely cracked, it has become a liability. We witness a synchronized global escalation in anti-Indian sentiment that transcends mere isolated xenophobic incidents, evolving into a structural realignment of how the world views Indian identity; perhaps more disturbing than the violence itself, however, is the profound silence from institutions and advocacy groups that usually stand as vanguard against racial injustice.
The data from the past two years paints a picture of a community under siege from multiple ideological directions—the escalation is undeniable. In Canada, a 227% surge in hate crimes against South Asians between 2019 and 2023 served as a grim precursor to the current climate; in the United States, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s October 2025 decision to ban hiring of H-1B visa holders in state universities marked a watershed moment. It transformed anti-Indian sentiment from populist rhetoric into administrative law; by framing employment of Indian professionals not as contribution to knowledge economy but as theft against American worker, the state validated a dangerous nativist premise: that Indian presence is inherently parasitic. This policy effectively intellectualized crude “Don’t India My Texas” placards seen in Irving, providing a policy framework for what was previously street-level bigotry.
Yet as these waves of hostility crash against diaspora, a peculiar silence hangs over West’s progressive corridors. The “woke” coalitions, human rights watchdogs, intersectional activists who usually mobilize with ferocity against systemic racism are conspicuously absent from this conversation; to understand this silence requires sociological dissection of where Indian sits in modern hierarchy of victimhood. The primary reason for this apathy lies in the “Model Minority” trap; in current progressive framework, empathy is often distributed based on perceived lack of power. Because Indian diaspora is statistically successful—often topping income charts in US and UK—it is conceptually disqualified from status of “oppressed” group. The intersectional lens, which excels at analysing dynamics of power and privilege, struggles to process a minority that is simultaneously racially targeted and economically dominant; to modern social justice activist, an Indian tech CEO or a motel owner does not look like a victim—they look like beneficiary of the system. Consequently, violence against them is viewed not as systemic failure but as unfortunate anomaly, lacking revolutionary urgency required to spark movement.
This “proximity to whiteness”—an academic term often weaponized against successful minorities—creates deep empathy gap; when Zohran Mamdani, candidate for New York City Mayor, was targeted in 2025 with AI-generated imagery mocking him for eating with hands, it was clear instance of “civilizational” racism. It was an attempt to cast non-Western cultural norms as barbaric; yet outrage was muted—one can easily imagine global firestorm had such trope been deployed against a Black or Muslim candidate. But because the target was an “Indian” male, viewed through the lens of privilege rather than precarity, insult did not register as violation of sacred codes of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Furthermore, there is deliberate conflation of the diaspora with the geopolitical stance of the Indian state; in academic and activist circles, narrative has taken root that equates Hindu identity explicitly with “Hindutva” or right-wing nationalism. This intellectual sleight of hand allows Western left to view Indian immigrant not as vulnerable minority in foreign land but as remote extension of “majoritarian oppressor” back home. This rationalization permits moral distancing; it explains why gruesome beheading of Chandra Nagamallaiah in Dallas—a working-class motel manager killed over translation dispute—failed to ignite national conversation on racial safety. In eyes of the media and activist class, he was the wrong kind of victim; he did not fit established archetypes of state violence or systemic oppression, thus his death was rendered invisible—a mere footnote in crime statistics rather than the symbol of racial animus.
This selective morality is even more starkly visible when we turn our gaze to South Asia; the situation in Bangladesh, where over 2,900 incidents of violence against minorities were recorded in single year, represents catastrophic failure of international human rights machinery. The lynching of Deepu Chandra Das in December 2025—beaten and burned in medieval display of religious intolerance—should have triggered emergency sessions at UN and global campaigns; instead response has been bureaucratic and tepid. Here, “majority-minority” paradox is at play; because Hindus are the vast majority in India, global conscience struggles to conceptualize them as a threatened minority just across the border. The geopolitical narrative of India as a rising power overshadows the humanitarian reality of the Hindu as a persecuted refugee; vociferous groups that champion rights of minorities worldwide seem paralyzed by this complexity, preferring silence over cognitive dissonance of defending a group they have historically categorized as privileged.
The economic anxieties driving the nativist right are easier to decode; “March for Australia” protests, which mathematically pitted Indian immigration against housing affordability, are symptoms of the breakdown of the neoliberal promise. As Western economies struggle with housing shortages and wage stagnation, the highly visible, high-skilled Indian migrant becomes the perfect scapegoat; we are the face of globalization that the working class in the Anglosphere feels has left them behind. The “True Patriots of NZ” blocking a Sikh procession is not just religious bigotry—it is desperate assertion of identity by the majority that feels it is being replaced.
However, betrayal by the progressive left is more intellectual and thus more stinging; it suggests that anti-racism has become conditional. It implies one must be economically destitute or geopolitically aligned with specific Western narratives to warrant protection. The Indian diaspora, with its nuanced history, economic success, and refusal to fit neatly into “oppressor vs. oppressed” binary, disrupts simplified narratives of the modern left. This leaves the global Indian in precarious solitude; we are squeezed between right-wing nativism that views us as cultural invaders and economic usurpers, and progressive left that views us as privileged collaborators unworthy of solidarity. The intellectual challenge for the community is to forge a new language of civil rights that rejects this binary; we must assert that economic success does not strip the human being of the right to physical safety. We must argue cultural distinctiveness—whether eating with our hands or celebrating Diwali—is not refusal to integrate but the right to exist.
The silence of the “vociferous groups” is not oversight—it is a choice born of ideological rigidity; they cannot save us because their theories do not account for us. The onus, therefore, falls on the diaspora to build its own institutions of defence and documentation; we must move beyond the “model minority” myth, which was always cage disguised as pedestal, and embrace more vocal, rights-based advocacy. The world has changed, comfortable assumptions of past decades are gone; we are no longer guests who must be polite to stay—we are citizens who must fight to be seen. The intellectual battle of 2026 is not just against hate that screams from the streets, but against silence that whispers from universities and newsrooms—the silence that tells us our pain does not matter.
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Brijesh Singh is a senior IPS officer and an author (@brijeshbsingh on X). His latest book on ancient India, “The Cloud Chariot” (Penguin) is out on stands. Views are personal.
