Sep 04, 2026 15:22 pm IST

Opinion | The Rise Of Indians In US Is Making Some Americans Very, Very Angry

A new report released yesterday shows how Indians are now among the biggest targets of racist attacks in America.

Naresh Kaushik Naresh Kaushik Columnist

Naresh Kaushik Columnist

The US Second Lady, Usha Vance, has again been in the news this week for her Indian heritage. Her husband, Vice President JD Vance, attacked Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Party's Senate nominee for Michigan, at a campaign rally on Monday over remarks about Usha. "Abdul, keep my wife's name the hell out of your mouth because she's way out of your league," Vance warned. A week earlier, El-Sayed wondered in a social media post whether the Vice President would take Usha "back in time to meet Papaw" if he could, referring to Vance's late grandfather and seemingly implying that he would not have approved of their interracial marriage. Indian community leaders criticised El Sayed for the remarks. Ironically, he himself has been a target of racial and Islamophobic hatred from members of Vance's Republican Party.

Usha Vance, a Hindu, has been among the most high-profile victims of racial attacks in the United States, mostly from supporters of the Republican Party and far-right activists. The most prominent among them is Nick Fuentes, a 27-year-old white supremacist leader, an admirer of Adolf Hitler and Holocaust denier. Fuentes has frequently attacked Usha's Indian heritage and Hindu background and has condemned JD as a "race traitor" for marrying her and betraying white identity. The attacks began after Trump picked Vance as his Vice-President for the 2024 election. "What kind of man marries somebody named Usha? Clearly, he doesn't value his racial identity," Fuentes said.

Other prominent Indian American targets of such hatred include former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy (also a Hindu), New York's mayor, Zohran Mamdani (a Muslim), and Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon (a Sikh). Ramaswamy, who is currently campaigning to become governor of Ohio on a Republican Party ticket, faces racial abuse online almost daily and sometimes in person, despite being endorsed by President Trump. Some ask him to go back to India; others say they will only elect a white person.

The latest FBI report on hate crimes, released last month, said there was a 10% reduction in such cases against Asians across the US in 2025. But it also reported that such crimes were up by 24.6% against Sikhs and 12% against Hindus, while anti-Muslim hate crimes fell by 10%. However, independent researchers paint a much more alarming picture of racial abuse against........

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