A few weeks ago, a friend sent me a disturbing set of posts from a local news personality here in the Bay Area. Those posts:
This is the man the Santa Clara County DA says attacked at least 14 Hindu women ages 50-73 in a 2 month hate crime spree. DA Rosen told me Lathan Johnson “rips off their jewelry, drags them down the street breaks their wrists, beats up their husband (s)”. #StopAAPIHate
The DA says there may be more victims & they’re looking for people to come forward. The @HinduAmerican Foundation applauds the charging— saying during a time of increased attacks they’d like to see more counties charge crimes on #aapi victims at hate crimes. #StopAAPIHate
Johnson faces up to 63-years behind bars if convicted. NOTE: Samir Karla of the @HinduAmerican points out the women did nothing wrong. They were just wearing saris & bindis, frequenting temples & Hindu sites. https://abc7ne.ws/3rwm5JD#StopAAPIHate#HinduHeritageMonth
Based on his name and physical appearance, the suspect here appears to be black. I suppose it’s possible that he might come from the Caribbean and have some burning resentment against Hindus from his youth. It’s also possible that he has very strong opinions about the destruction of the Babri Masjid that he’s taking out against his Hindu victims. In any case, we have two potential reasons that this man might be robbing older Hindu women going to the temple: either he hates Hindus for reasons entirely his own, or else he noticed that older Hindu women going to the temple are loaded up with valuable jewelry and not in physical condition to fight back. I’m not sure which conclusion is more reasonable, but those involved in this case have clearly adopted the former conclusion.
One reason why this case might be treated in this way is made apparent in the tag used: Stop AAPI Hate. Given that the “Asian hate” stories that we first heard two years ago seemed to be linked to blaming Chinese for the coronavirus, one might think that this might be a phenomenon whose victims are limited to those who might plausibly be taken to be Chinese, but cases like this show that AAPI hate can victimize anyone, so long as they fall within the United States Census’s racial category of Asian American and Pacific Islander. For those with a strong emotional investment in the idea of a unified AAPI identity, the notion of shared trauma is very useful.
Of course, a violent criminal repeatedly attacking victims who fit a clear profile would be newsworthy in any case, but those concerned about AAPI identity are not the only ones with an interest in framing this through the perspective of hate crime. Given the preoccupation in contemporary liberal circles with racial justice, hate crimes are trendy now. If the story were just that Indian women need to be careful about their custom of wearing jewelry to the temple, there would be no particular reason for anyone who isn’t Indian to care except perhaps to be more circumspect about their own jewelry. But if this were framed as a hate crime, it could attract countless liberals to the idea of these women as members of a victimized minority in need of support.
The next question to ask, then, is who exactly is doing this framing. For starters, it’s telling that this is not reported as a set of anti-Indian hate crimes, even though all the victims are Indian; it is clear that these are meant to be seen as anti-Hindu crimes. The news report here uncritically quotes a representative of the Hindu American Federation, a Hindu nationalist organization. I’ve written before about Overseas BJP infiltration into the Democratic Party; typically this infiltration has come as a result of would-be Democratic politicians keeping their opinions about the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh under wraps, but Hindu nationalists are certainly not averse to dressing their views up in the language of social justice.
A month ago, for instance, the Indian government saw fit to issue a warning about “a sharp increase in incidents of hate crimes, sectarian violence and anti-India activities in Canada.” This was mystifying to Canadians who were aware of no such increase, but it makes sense in the context of the strong political organization of Sikhs in Canada. The Indian government’s intention was to suppress disagreement about Indian internal politics by dressing it up in the language of Asian hate. Hindu nationalists have done a great deal to cultivate the Indian diaspora, and this sort of messaging is meant not only to arouse the sympathies of gullible Westerners, but also to tell Hindus abroad that they are not safe in their new countries and that they had better cleave unto their mother Hindutva, the only real guarantor of their identity.
Going back to the crimes in California, the representative of the Hindu American Federation breezily refers to “online Hinduphobia” as being connected to the case. It’s not clear how online criticism of Hindu nationalists relates to these women being beaten and robbed any more than it’s clear why Sikh political activity would put all Indians in Canada would be in physical danger; in both cases, we’re not actually supposed to make the connection. Perhaps here we’re supposed to imagine a site like 8chan where the suspect was radicalized before he set about violently separating Indian women from their jewelry. Of course this is absurd when you think about it, but how many people are really going to understand enough to be able to think about it?
I doubt that this problem is limited to Hindu nationalists; I’m just close enough to the subject to be able to tell when Hindu nationalists are doing it. Concern about racism is something that decent people have, and worry about hate crimes is entirely understandable given our country’s profound racial pathologies, but it’s incredibly easy for bad actors to weaponize the sympathies of people looking to pursue social justice. All you need is a legitimate-sounding title and a word you can attach the suffix “-phobia” to.
Naveed Chowdhury 