Opinion | 'Alien', 'Pajeet', 'Browns Off Cliffs': How Indians Became The Most Hated Diaspora

Indians and Indian-origin folks abroad are facing a storm - a surge in racial hostility that is fuelled by envy, stereotypes and far-right paranoia. They are admired and resented, successful and scapegoated, celebrated in official speeches but vilified in everyday life.

Opinion | 'Alien', 'Pajeet', 'Browns Off Cliffs': How Indians Became The Most Hated Diaspora

London's Croydon district is sometimes mistakenly called an “immigrant city”. The tag comes partly from its visible diversity, but also because it houses the UK Home Office headquarters, where visa and immigration applications are processed. Walk its streets and you cannot miss the clusters of young Afghans, Iranians, Africans and Indians. The Indians are mostly from southern states, working as techies, nurses or students. Croydon has its share of skirmishes, usually over football matches or betting disputes. Almost always, the parties involved are not Indians. By and large, the Indian community here has earned a reputation for being the most peace-loving and industrious of the lot.

And yet, when racist violence erupted in July last year after the stabbing of three young White girls at a dance class in Southport - the worst such unrest the UK had seen in a decade - Indians could not escape the fury of white supremacists. The mob that rampaged did not distinguish between migrants and citizens or between those who fight and those who don't. All non-white faces became targets, and the Indian community, shocked but not surprised, found itself in the crosshairs of a storm it had little to do with.

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I understand that old prejudices have not vanished; they have simply taken on a modern form. I recall a conversation with former Labour MP Virendra Sharma before last year's general election. He became visibly emotional as he remembered the early 1960s, when he first arrived in Britain from Punjab. Most Indians then were labourers or semi-literate workers. “Outside our homes,” he told me, “we would sometimes find posters saying, ‘Indian dogs go back' or ‘curry-eating Indian coolies.' When we bought a house in a building, White families would often move out rather than live alongside us.”

Old Ways

Things may appear better today, one might argue. But that is not entirely true. The outright racism once rooted in notions of cultural superiority has now shifted into a form driven by envy and jealousy. I have often sensed the host community's resentment during moments of racial hysteria. At times, it feels as though Indians are paying a heavy price for being affluent, hardworking and academically bright. 

In the last few months alone, Indians or people of Indian origin have found themselves at the centre of shocking acts of racist abuse. In Ireland, an Indian student was brutally assaulted on the streets of Dublin, sparking outrage among the diaspora and raising questions about the safety of migrants in Europe. In the United States, a Sikh man - reported to be an illegal immigrant - was branded an “illegal alien” and publicly abused and threatened, his turban ripped off as onlookers filmed. These are not isolated incidents. They are part of a pattern of hostility that has grown sharper, more violent and brazen in the West over the last five years.

Anti-Indian hate is surging across the Western world. In the US, the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) latest figures highlight increasing anti-Sikh and anti-Hindu incidents, while hate speech targeting South Asians online has ballooned - doubling in extremist spaces between 2023 and August 2024, with Indians and South Asians bearing over 60% of the slurs. In Canada, hate crimes against South Asians (mostly Sikhs)soared by an alarming 227% between 2019 and 2023. In the UK, a University of Leicester study found that 45% of East and Southeast Asians reported experiencing hate crimes in just one year - yet 90% said they did not feel safe reporting them.

These are not stray numbers. They reveal a disturbing truth: the Indian diaspora, once seen as a model of peaceful integration, is increasingly under siege.

The Far-Right Playbook

What is driving this spike? Across both continents, far-right nativist movements have found fertile ground in anxieties about immigration and economic insecurity. Anti-immigrant propaganda paints migrants, whether documented or undocumented - ‘illegal' - as criminals, drains on welfare, or threats to ‘national identity'. In this narrative, Indians, often visible, successful and politically active, become easy scapegoats.

In Canada, viral posts during last year's election campaign described Sikh voters as “proof of demographic replacement”. Another called Canada a “shithole country” because of its huge Indian diaspora. Extremist groups like Diagolon, rooted in Canada's far right, recently mocked videos showing Indians dying in train accidents and openly fantasised about throwing “browns off cliffs”.

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The US is no better. Online hate analysis shows slurs like ‘pajeet' and ‘dirty Indian' circulating heavily, with a quarter of these mentions coming from North America. Worse, this online vilification bleeds into politics: Indian tech workers on H-1B visas are smeared as ‘cheap labour', blamed for undermining American jobs, and cast as part of the broader ‘replacement' narrative.

Degrading incidents, such as migrants involved in violent crimes, are cynically weaponised to justify crackdowns and fuel anti-immigrant rhetoric. Right-wing activists amplify isolated cases of crime involving migrants (often not Indians at all) to legitimise hostility towards all immigrants. Indians, who are overwhelmingly peaceful professionals, students and small business owners, get swept up in this backlash.

The hypocrisy is clear. Western democracies that routinely lecture India on tolerance and rights are failing at protecting Indians within their own borders.

Success Breeds Envy

Unlike many immigrant groups, Indians are among the most successful by virtually every metric. In the US, Indian-American households have a median income of $147,000 - more than double the national average. In Britain, Indians are the highest-earning ethnic minority group, with educational attainment far above the national mean. Indians dominate tech, medicine, academia and now politics - from Rishi Sunak in Downing Street to Kamala Harris as Vice President under President Joe Biden, or now, FBI director Kash Pramod Patel in the current Trump administration

However, I strongly believe this success has made Indians a target of resentment and envy. Far-right propaganda portrays Indian engineers and techies as “job stealers” and Indian students as “taking over campuses”. In Canada, the idea of “Indian enclaves” feeds paranoia about demographic takeover. In Britain, Indians in policing and government are held up as “evidence” of invasion rather than as examples of integration.

'Casual' Racism To Systemic Discrimination

Beyond the street-level attacks and online vitriol lies a more insidious reality: institutional racism. A recent report, titled Empowered/Imperiled: The Rise of South Asian Representation and Anti-South Asian Racism, highlighted that 40% of reported hate against South Asians in the US was institutional. That included discriminatory policing, biased immigration systems and barriers in housing and employment.

Currently, most Indians, especially those on H-1B visas, are petrified of being either put behind bars or deported to India. Many H-1B visa holders I have spoken to think the administration is targeting them deliberately, as it believes they have “taken American jobs".

The overlap between online and offline hate is striking. The same slurs - “dirty Indian”, “terrorist,” “go back to where you came from” - appear both on social media and in hate act reports. Even prominent South Asian figures such as Kamala Harris and Usha Vance (Vice President JD Vance's Indian wife) are dragged into racist narratives, showing how representation at the top does not erase hostility at the grassroots.

For everyday Indians abroad, this creates a climate of fear. Surveys show the majority of South Asians in the US are deeply concerned about racism and actively engaged in resisting it - signing petitions, lobbying lawmakers and funding community organisations. But the fact that such activism is necessary in societies that claim to be multicultural speaks volumes.

Why It Should Matter To India

First, the Indian diaspora is massive - over 32 million strong worldwide - and vital to India's global standing. They remit over $120 billion annually, the highest in the world, and act as bridges for trade, technology and diplomacy. Their safety is thus a matter of national interest.

Secondly, attacks on Indians directly affect families back home. Every Indian student applying to a US university, every young professional moving to Canada, every small entrepreneur in Britain carries with them the hopes of parents and communities. Their vulnerability abroad is not distant; it is felt in real time by families in Bengaluru, Amritsar, Hyderabad and Chennai.

Admired But Resented: A Curious Contradiction

Indians and Indian-origin folks are facing a storm - a surge in racial hostility that is fuelled by envy, stereotypes and far-right paranoia. They are admired and resented, successful and scapegoated, celebrated in official speeches but vilified in everyday life. 

This cannot be dismissed as “casual racism”. The numbers prove otherwise. Hate crimes are rising, slurs are mainstreaming, and institutional bias is entrenched. The stories prove otherwise, too - engineers shot, women harassed, temples defaced, politicians threatened.

For India, silence is no longer an option. Protecting the diaspora is not just about sentiment; it is about strategy. It is about safeguarding billions in remittances, defending India's global reputation and ensuring that young Indians abroad are not treated as expendable targets. It is time for India's media, policymakers and civil society to demand accountability from host countries. Because what is at stake is more than the diaspora's security. It is India's voice in the world, the promise of equal citizenship and the credibility of the West's commitment to its own ideals. If that promise fails Indians, it fails everyone.

(Syed Zubair Ahmed is a London-based senior Indian journalist with three decades of experience with the Western media)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author

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