Abstract
The Brexit referendum to leave the EU and Trump’s success in the US general election in 2016 sparked new waves of discussion on nativism, nationalism, and the far right. Within these analyses, however, very little attention has been devoted towards exploring the transnational ideological circulation of Islamophobia and anti-establishment sentiment, especially amongst diaspora and migrant networks. This article thus explores the role of the Indian diaspora as mediators in populist radical right discourse in the West. During the Brexit referendum and Trump’s election and presidency, a number of Indian diaspora voices took to Twitter to express pro-Brexit and pro-Trump views. This article presents a year-long qualitative study of these users. It highlights how these diasporic Indians interact and engage on Twitter in order to signal belonging on multiple levels: as individuals, as an imaginary collective non-Muslim diaspora, and as members of (populist radical right) Twitter society. By analysing these users’ social media performativity, we obtain insight into how social media spaces may help construct ethnic and (trans)national identities according to boundaries of inclusion/exclusion. This article demonstrates how some Indian diaspora individuals are embedded into exclusivist national political agendas of the populist radical right in Western societies.
Highlights
This article explores the role of British and Americanbased Indian diaspora supporters for Brexit and Trump
One legacy of Indian diaspora political mobilisation in the West is largely based on Hindutva, an ideology that promotes the superiority of Hindu civilisation from the threat of Islam and Muslim ‘invasion’
Word frequency shifted in relation to current political events during the Brexit referendum and subsequent negotiations, as well as Trump’s campaign and administration
Summary
This article explores the role of British and Americanbased Indian diaspora supporters for Brexit and Trump. It begins by introducing how the Brexit referendum to leave the European Union and Trump’s campaign and presidency in the US (both which at times deliberately targeted the Indian diaspora) utilised populist radical right rhetoric to galvanise support on social media. The emergence of pro-Brexit and pro-Trump social media movements based on identitarian membership, such as ‘Sikhs for Britain’ and ‘Hindus for Trump’, as well as the establishment of advocacy organisations such as the Republican Hindu Coalition in the US which openly supported Trump’s candidacy, reveals some diasporic Indians as proponents of populist radical right ideas.
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