Description
How is collective victimhood, defined as the feeling of being victimised for belonging to a community, is articulated and mobilized within the Hindu community among Indian diaspora groups? The existing scholarship on Hindu nationalism in diasporic communities has focused on the USA and the United Kingdom; Western countries with large number of Indian diasporas. This paper, empirically, contributes to knowing the mobilizational strategies of collective victimhood amongst Indian-Hindu diaspora as well as the penetration of Hindu nationalism in Australia. I enquire how Collective Victimhood becomes a central linking category for a religious-cultural community across distinct geographies. Using critical discourse analysis, I draw on fifteen in-depth semi-structured interviews with the multi-religious Indian diaspora in Australia. I explore how Hindu nationalist organisations in diaspora, mobilise people for community formation and boundary making. This study contributes to understanding how social, political and cultural factors have contributed to the feeling of collective Victimhood in the Australia Indian Hindu diaspora. This research also sheds light on the changing contours of Indian diasporic community in Australia. I suggest that the Hindu nationalism championed by Bhartiya Janata party (BJP) government in India has presented new challenges to the diaspora community, deepening the fault lines based on religion.
