Hindu nationalism in the US: changing configurations of political practice

The meaning and implications of Hindu nationalist expression in the United States are different from those at home, but both are linked through transnational circuits of communication and exchange. In India, the invocation of religion summons up the unresolved debates between nationalism and social reform, and presents Hinduism as an implicitly conservative force. By contrast, in the US, Hindu religion is more self-consciously a medium of cultural reproduction. This article points to the ways in which Hindu nationalism seeks and promotes transnational affiliations even while espousing a rhetoric of insularity, cultural pride and self-sufficiency.