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From India to America: Navigating Identity and the RSS Narrative
Despite being a small minority within the vast American population, Indians retained a distinct identity.
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D. Vithal - Sun, 06, Apr 2025
- 13:23 EDT
- 285
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Representative Image / AI Generated
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar famously observed, “Unlike a drop of water which loses its identity when it joins the ocean, man does not lose his being in the society in which he lives...” This underscores a vital distinction between physical and social integration.
An individual’s identity is multidimensional, shaped by both inherent and acquired attributes. Unlike personality, which is intrinsically expressed, identities are societal constructs used to classify individuals and groups. These identifiers can arise from family, community, education, race, religion, and other factors.
Before moving from India to the U.S. for university, my teacher advised me to remember that I would be seen as a representative of India. At the time, I questioned whether an individual could truly embody their entire country of origin. However, living in the U.S. nearly three decades ago, when Indian culture was far less visible, I came to appreciate the wisdom of her words. For many Americans then, their understanding of India was shaped by stereotypical images, biased news, making it easy to generalize based on limited interactions with Indians or small Indian communities—a phenomenon we jokingly referred to as "one-point extrapolation."
Despite being a small minority within the vast American population, Indians retained a distinct identity. This identity found expression in myriad ways, while also contributing to American society across various domains—financially, intellectually, socially, culturally, and educationally.
While integrating into broader American society through shared experiences, Indians preserved their cultural roots through language, heritage, religious practices, and dharmic philosophy. Remarkably, these internal distinctions generally did not divide the larger Indian community. However, a new challenge emerged: the rise of an activist mindset prone to apophenia—the tendency to see connections where none exist.
This apophenia often framed perceptions of Indians through a divisive lens, favoring extremism over plurality and groupthink over diversity of thought. Hindu-Americans, in particular, became a focal point of criticism, largely due to their real or perceived association with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the world’s largest voluntary organization. Many members of the Indian diaspora, including myself, questioned the disproportionate hostility towards the RSS—an organization that many critics had never directly encountered. Activist narratives consistently labeled the RSS, and by extension Hindu immigrants, as extremist and radical.
Such accusations against the RSS are not new, especially in post-independence India. Interestingly, in 1925, two organizations representing opposing worldviews emerged: the RSS in September and the Communist Party of India in December. A century later, the RSS’s influence has grown visibly and positively, while Communist ideology, having waned even in its birthplace of Russia, continues its desperate struggle for relevance. This juxtaposition invites a dispassionate analysis of the factors contributing to the RSS's enduring success—what has worked, how it has worked, and most importantly, why—while leaving discussions of failure of the opposite ideology for another time.
The author is passionate about environmental sustainability. He is deeply involved in various social work activities in Indian and American communities in the United States.
(The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of New India Abroad)
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