The HMEC: An American Hindutva

Abstract

Over the past 20 years the Hindutva movement, both in the United States and India, has grown increasingly assertive. Often the American Hindutva movement is dismissed as insignificant or treated as simple extension of its Indian counterpart. While American Hindutva does share deep ideological and organizational linkages with the Indian Hindutva movement, it has also demonstrated a significant capacity for innovation and adaptation. These innovations in the American Hindutva strategy are the result of the movement's utilization of and disciplining by the dominant discourse of American multiculturalism. This study focuses on one particular American Hindutva organization, the Hindu Mandir Executives' Conference, in and effort to understand the role American multiculturalist discourse plays in the expanding American Hindutva movement and its potential consequences.