For @WearYourVoice i wrote about Hindutva soft power: how the idea of Hindu = India = Hindu is sugarcoated here in the West through popular depictions/conceptions of "Indian culture", namely through yoga, and depictions of Indians in TV and movies: https://wearyourvoicemag.com/hindutva-gets-sugarcoated-through-pop-culture-sensations-while-fascism-continues-its-rise/?_thumbnail_id=60648

Fascism doesn’t mushroom overnight. It requires a cultural ecosystem—a primordial soup, if you will—that enables these ideologies to flourish. This culture is soft power, which is then weaponized in order to create or actualize a political movement: fascism.

Examining Indian and diasporic pop culture is essential because it is where our identities are created and reflected. Shows Indian Matchmaking, Never Have I Ever promote an upper-caste, Hindu-centric picture of who Indians are.

The backstory of how Hindutva was whitewashed is a study in tenaciously manipulating Hindutva soft power to launder Modi’s image in Washington and establish a fetishized image of a nonviolent and exoticized India, the World’s Largest Democracy.

This has led, most insidiously, to the tacit acceptance of India as Hindu, which has been sold with tremendous success as an inherently nonviolent religion. This, in turn, means that India must also be inherently nonviolent in this myth.

This helps explain why Modi receives ZERO censure, and Trump's alliances with him are never questioned in the way that he gets called out for cavorting with Kim Jong-un for eg.

But this isn't just a republican issue. Even a Biden administration isn't going to rebuke him. Hindutva will keep getting whitewashed.

(as always, CC most favorites: @avassanji @azadessa @suchitrav @BabaGlocal @bhakti_shringa ) So many thanks to @Femmefeministe for commissioning and to @SherrondaJBrown for edits. PLEASE SUPPORT @WearYourVoice, they are absolutely incredible.