A 109 per cent surge in anti-South Asian slurs online, the growing scrutiny of immigration enforcement, and a contentious caste-discrimination debate expose three fault lines in the civil rights protections available to a community of 5.41 million. Add the threat of losing access to ancestral India through OCI cancellation, and the question of belonging becomes considerably more complicated, says Manu Shrivastava.
The American dream carries a contradiction for millions of Indian Americans. They have become citizens, entrepreneurs, technology professionals, academics, doctors, elected representatives and employers across the United States, yet their belonging can still be challenged by racial hostility from outside their community and inherited social hierarchies within it. Their passports may establish their American citizenship, but online abuse can still cast them as foreigners. Meanwhile, for those who retain family, property and professional connections to India, the Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) card can become an additional point of vulnerability when political expression collides with the discretionary powers of a foreign government.
Three distinct developments bring these tensions into focus. Stop AAPI (Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders) Hate's September 2026 report, 'The State of Anti-South Asian Hate', documents rising online hostility and widespread experiences of race-based hate. The controversy over OCI cancellation raises a separate question: Whether a foreign government could use control over travel and residence privileges to discourage political dissent among people who are American citizens. And the long-running dispute over caste discrimination in US workplaces exposes disagreements about whether existing civil rights protections adequately recognise discrimination rooted in inherited social status.
These are not interchangeable problems. Anti-South Asian racism, alleged transnational repression and caste discrimination involve different conduct, legal frameworks and remedies. Their common thread is the adequacy of institutions meant to protect people against discrimination, coercion and exclusion, regardless of ancestry, citizenship or social background.
The demographic stakes are substantial. American Community Survey figures released on October 29, 2026, put the Indian American population at an estimated 5.41 million in 2025, up from 5.09 million a year earlier, an increase of approximately 315,000, or about six per cent. The estimate rises to approximately 5.91 million when multiracial respondents are included. California accounts for about 1.02 million Indian Americans, followed by Texas with 708,000, New Jersey with 471,000 and New York with 420,000. Illinois and Florida account for another 288,000 and 239,000 respectively.
The community's economic position is equally striking. A Pew Research Center tabulation puts median household income among Indian-headed households at $151,200, against $105,600 among Asian-headed households overall. Approximately two-thirds of Indian Americans were immigrants in 2022, according to the cited demographic data. Economic success, however, does not automatically eliminate racial hostility, guarantee equal treatment at work or protect people from the consequences of an immigration decision made by another country.
The question facing American lawmakers is whether the country's civil rights framework can respond to these different forms of vulnerability without conflating them, overlooking evidence or allowing political controversies to substitute for legal analysis.
Stop AAPI Hate's September 2026 report provides a disturbing account of the hostility confronting South Asians in the United States. Its research draws on online monitoring of anti-South Asian slurs and threats from 2023 to 2025, a nationally representative survey of South Asian adults about experiences of hate in 2025, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) data covering 2023 to 2026, and firsthand reports submitted to the organisation's reporting centre. The combination of online monitoring, survey responses and enforcement data offers a wider view of the problem than any single dataset could provide.
The headline findings are stark. Use of anti-South Asian slurs online increased by '109 per cent between January 2023 and December 2025'. Between August 2024 and December 2025, South Asians accounted for '71 per cent of the anti-Asian online threats of violence' examined by the organisation. Its survey found that '48 per cent of South Asian adults experienced a hate act because of their race, ethnicity or nationality in 2025'. A further 55 per cent said they, or another Asian American or Pacific Islander person in their community, had been affected by changes in immigration policy or anti-immigrant sentiment.
These numbers measure different phenomena. The 109 per cent increase concerns online slur usage, not a corresponding increase in physical attacks. The 71 per cent figure concerns the distribution of monitored online threats, while the 48 per cent finding comes from a survey of reported experiences. The 55 per cent figure measures perceived effects on respondents or people in their communities. They should not be added together or treated as a single measure of hate crime. Taken together, however, they point to an environment in which online hostility, racial discrimination and immigration-related anxiety overlap.
Stop AAPI Hate also analysed ICE enforcement data and reported that South Asians had the highest numbers of arrests, detentions and deportations among Asian regional groups during the second Trump administration. Its comparison with an equivalent period under the previous administration found that deportations involving South Asian citizens were approximately 14 times higher. These are the organisation's findings from its analysis of enforcement data; they do not establish that every person affected was targeted because of ethnicity, political opinion or protected speech.
The figures nevertheless make immigration enforcement a central part of the community's civil rights concerns. A public debate about visas and deportations can be legitimate, but its consequences extend beyond the people whose immigration status is directly affected. When political rhetoric treats South Asians collectively as outsiders, US citizens of Indian origin may find themselves targeted alongside temporary workers, international students and undocumented migrants.
The pattern is familiar. South Asians are portrayed as job thieves, demographic threats or representatives of an immigration system supposedly taking opportunities away from American workers. Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis may be lumped together, with differences of nationality, religion, citizenship and political outlook erased. A citizen born in the United States can face the same racialised accusations as a recent arrival on a temporary visa.
That is the contradiction behind the title of this feature. Citizenship is a legal status; belonging is also shaped by social attitudes. A passport can establish the former, but it cannot prevent someone from being told to go back to a country they may never have lived in.
Stop AAPI Hate's findings also underline the importance of examining the relationship between online hostility and real-world discrimination without assuming that every offensive post leads to a physical attack. Slurs, threats, doxxing and targeted harassment can normalise dehumanising language and make exclusion appear acceptable. Establishing a direct causal link between online rhetoric and a particular assault requires evidence, but the scale of the hostility documented by the organisation warrants serious attention from policymakers and law enforcement.
In September 2026, US Representative Ami Bera joined other South Asian lawmakers, state and local officials, Indian American Impact and Stop AAPI Hate at a roundtable on rising hate and discrimination. The discussion focused on prevention, reporting and responses to hostility directed at South Asian American communities. The participation of elected representatives reflects a growing recognition that the problem requires more than individual vigilance or public condemnation.
Official crime statistics offer a narrower view of the problem. The FBI's 2024 hate-crime collection recorded 11,679 incidents involving 14,243 victims, based on reports from participating law-enforcement agencies. Its comparable trend dataset showed reported incidents declining from 11,041 in 2023 to 10,873 in 2024. These police-recorded incidents cannot be compared directly with Stop AAPI Hate's survey findings, because criminal incidents and reported experiences of hate measure different things.
Harassment, discrimination and hostile online encounters may not meet the legal threshold for a hate crime. Some victims never report incidents; others may not know where to report them or may fear that approaching the authorities will expose their immigration status, employment circumstances or family to unwanted scrutiny. A low number of recorded incidents therefore cannot, on its own, demonstrate that a community experiences little discrimination.
The FBI's classifications include anti-Asian bias under race, ethnicity and ancestry, alongside separate religious-bias categories such as anti-Hindu, anti-Sikh and anti-Islamic. These classifications are useful for national reporting, but they do not separately identify every South Asian nationality or ancestry. The available national figures cannot, by themselves, reveal the full scale of hostility directed specifically at Indian Americans.
The remedy begins with more consistent reporting and better identification of bias. Police departments should train officers to recognise anti-immigrant and anti-South Asian tropes, document the available details of reported incidents and make complaint procedures accessible. Local authorities and the Justice Department should assess whether existing data can be disaggregated more effectively while protecting privacy and avoiding categories so narrow that they produce unreliable results.
Community liaison programmes could help victims understand their rights and navigate reporting systems. Any such programme should include safeguards separating crime reporting from unnecessary immigration-status checks. A victim who fears that seeking police assistance could jeopardise their family or livelihood may be reluctant to come forward, weakening both public safety and the evidence available to policymakers.
The online dimension also demands attention. Credible threats, doxxing and targeted harassment should be assessed according to their facts, with law enforcement, civil rights organisations and platforms acting within their respective legal responsibilities. A useful reporting system must distinguish offensive speech, targeted harassment, credible threats and criminal conduct rather than treating every hostile post as the same kind of violation.
For many India-born Americans, citizenship has not severed the practical and emotional ties to their country of origin. Parents may remain in India, property may be inherited there, and businesses, professional networks and extended families may span both countries. The OCI scheme provides a mechanism for maintaining those connections without restoring Indian citizenship.
An OCI card offers significant travel and residence privileges, including a multiple-entry, lifelong visa, subject to the governing rules and applicable restrictions. It is not dual citizenship in the constitutional sense, and it does not give its holder the same political rights as an Indian citizen. The Indian government retains powers under its immigration and citizenship framework to restrict entry and cancel OCI registration on specified grounds.
Section 7D of India's Citizenship Act, 1955, sets out grounds on which OCI registration may be cancelled. These include fraud or material concealment in obtaining registration, specified conduct involving disaffection towards the Constitution, certain criminal or security-related circumstances and other grounds provided by law. Additional grounds were specified in a Ministry of Home Affairs notification issued in August 2025. The existence of cancellation powers is not itself evidence of abuse; whether a particular decision is justified depends on the legal ground invoked, the facts and the procedure followed.
The concern arises when the exercise of those powers is alleged to be retaliatory. If an India-born US citizen publishes criticism of the Indian government in the United States and subsequently loses OCI status, the chronology may warrant scrutiny. But timing alone does not establish motive. A credible assessment must examine the official grounds, the evidence, comparable cases, the available appeal process and whether the decision was proportionate and lawful.
The practical consequences can be severe. Losing OCI privileges may complicate visits to an ill parent, attendance at a funeral, management of inherited property or the maintenance of professional relationships. For someone whose family remains in India, the possibility of losing access can create pressure even before a cancellation occurs.
That is the potential chilling effect. A journalist might reconsider an investigation, an activist might hesitate before joining a campaign, or a researcher might avoid a politically sensitive subject because they fear that critical speech could jeopardise future travel. Such self-censorship can be difficult to measure, and individual claims require evidence, but the policy question is legitimate: can control over a travel privilege become a mechanism for influencing lawful expression abroad?
The First Amendment protects freedom of speech and the press against government infringement in the United States. American citizens, including naturalised citizens of Indian origin, are entitled to participate in lawful political debate, investigate allegations of misconduct and criticise foreign governments. Their constitutional protection does not depend on their country of birth or their willingness to remain silent about it.
But the First Amendment generally restrains the US government, not the Indian government acting under Indian law. It does not automatically invalidate an Indian OCI cancellation because the affected individual is an American citizen or because the individual has criticised India. Nor does American citizenship exempt someone from every immigration rule imposed by another country.
The legal questions must therefore be kept separate. India has authority to regulate OCI status under Indian law, subject to the relevant legal safeguards and judicial review. Whether a cancellation was retaliatory is a question of evidence and the applicable Indian legal framework. Whether that conduct amounts to transnational repression, and what the United States should do about it, is a separate question of American foreign policy, civil liberties and potentially applicable US law.
Transnational repression generally describes attempts by governments to intimidate, coerce or silence critics beyond their borders. The FBI identifies methods including threats against relatives, harassment, surveillance, abusive legal processes and the withholding of documents. Mobility restrictions may also become a source of pressure where they are used to punish lawful expression.
The United States has recognised the broader problem. In May 2025, the State Department announced a visa-restriction policy targeting foreign nationals responsible for censorship of protected expression in the United States. Congressional proposals have also sought to strengthen the federal response to foreign-government repression. These measures do not automatically resolve the OCI issue, but they demonstrate that Washington has tools to respond when foreign conduct crosses the relevant legal or policy thresholds.
The appropriate approach is not to assume that every OCI cancellation is an act of repression. It is to create a credible process for investigating allegations, protecting affected citizens and distinguishing legitimate immigration enforcement from coercive attempts to suppress lawful expression.
For US lawmakers, this means examining whether existing federal laws adequately address threats, intimidation and the use of foreign travel privileges to pressure American citizens. The government can improve complaint mechanisms, investigate credible allegations, raise substantiated cases diplomatically and consider proportionate consequences where legal authority exists. It can also seek greater transparency and procedural fairness in bilateral discussions without claiming the power to dictate India's immigration decisions.
The principle is straightforward: an American citizen should not have to purchase the practical security of family connections by remaining silent about matters of public concern. Establishing whether a particular case crosses that line requires evidence, not rhetoric.
The civil rights challenge does not end with discrimination directed at South Asians from outside their community. A separate dispute concerns allegations of caste-based exclusion in American workplaces, universities and professional networks.
Dalit advocates argue that inherited social status can influence professional relationships, access to opportunities and treatment at work, even when employees share a national or religious background. Opponents of explicit caste protections counter that existing civil rights laws already prohibit discrimination based on race, ancestry, religion and national origin, and warn that poorly drafted rules could stigmatise entire religious or ethnic communities.
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination because of race, colour, religion, sex and national origin. It does not expressly name caste. That omission does not automatically place caste-related conduct outside federal law: depending on the facts, discrimination associated with caste may overlap with existing protected grounds. The unresolved policy question is whether current provisions are sufficiently clear and consistently applied to address caste-based conduct when the people involved share an ethnic or religious background.
The Equality Labs survey of 2018, based on slightly more than 1,500 online respondents, reported that 67 per cent of Dalit respondents had experienced unfair treatment at work, 41 per cent reported discrimination in education and 25 per cent said they had been physically assaulted because of caste. The survey became influential in advocacy, but its representativeness and methodology have been disputed. The Coalition of Hindus of North America questioned its statistical validity, while a 2020 Carnegie Endowment survey found that approximately five per cent of Indian Americans reported experiencing caste discrimination.
Those figures cannot simply be set against each other as if they measured the same population using identical questions and sampling methods. The Equality Labs survey focused on experiences reported by its respondents, including Dalits; the Carnegie research surveyed Indian Americans more broadly. Differences in sampling, wording, population and definitions can produce different estimates. The appropriate conclusion is that more transparent, representative and carefully designed research is needed, not that one number automatically disproves the other.
The absence of reliable, comparable data makes policy harder. It also risks turning a workplace issue into a polarised contest between organisations claiming that caste discrimination is widespread and those warning that explicit caste rules unfairly target Hindus. A sound legal framework should identify the conduct being prohibited, specify the evidence required to establish a claim and protect all employees without treating ancestry or religious identity as proof of wrongdoing.
The Cisco Systems case brought caste discrimination into the American legal system. On June 30, 2020, California's civil rights agency sued Cisco and two managers, alleging that a Dalit engineer working at the company's San Jose campus had faced caste-based harassment, discrimination and retaliation. The allegations concerned the employee's treatment in a workplace where caste was said to have influenced professional relationships and opportunities. Cisco disputed the allegations and said its internal investigation found no evidence of caste discrimination or retaliation.
In April 2023, the state voluntarily dismissed its claims against the two individual managers while continuing its action against Cisco. A separate lawsuit brought by the Hindu American Foundation challenged the state's enforcement action on constitutional grounds. That challenge was dismissed on standing grounds, a procedural ruling distinct from a decision on whether the alleged caste discrimination occurred.
The distinction matters. The procedural history is not a finding that the employee's allegations were proven, nor is the dismissal of the separate constitutional challenge a determination that every aspect of the state's case was correct. The underlying claims must be assessed on their own evidence and legal merits.
The case illustrates the uncertainty employers face when applying existing civil rights protections to allegations involving inherited social status. If caste-based treatment affects recruitment, assignments, performance reviews, promotion or compensation, employers need procedures that allow complaints to be assessed fairly. Employees should be able to raise concerns without retaliation, while allegations against managers and organisations must be investigated rather than treated as proof of guilt.
Municipal and state efforts to address caste discrimination have produced sharply different outcomes. In February 2023, the Seattle City Council voted 6–1 to add caste to its anti-discrimination ordinance. The measure took effect on March 25, 2023, extending explicit protection under the city's civil rights code. Advocates argued that naming caste would make it easier for employees and enforcement agencies to identify prohibited conduct.
California's SB 403 proposed a statewide approach. The bill passed the state Senate 31–5 and sought to define caste discrimination expressly in California's civil rights framework. Supporters argued that explicit recognition would improve clarity and enforcement. Opponents, including Hindu American organisations, argued that caste-specific language risked singling out Hindus and creating an unfair presumption about religious or cultural identity.
The final bill defined caste in terms of a person's perceived position within a system of social stratification based on inherited status, without the references to Hinduism and India that had appeared in earlier debate. In October 2023, Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed SB 403, stating that existing California law already prohibited caste-based discrimination. The veto did not resolve the underlying disagreement over whether explicit statutory language would improve enforcement or whether existing protections were adequate.
Universities and private employers have meanwhile adopted their own approaches. Columbia, Harvard, Brown, UC Davis and the California State University system, alongside companies including Apple, IBM and Cisco, have included caste in policies or codes addressing discrimination. Such rules can establish internal standards even when state or federal legislation does not expressly name caste. Their practical value depends on the clarity of the rules, the fairness of investigations and whether employees trust the process.
The policy debate is not simply a choice between naming caste and doing nothing. Existing law may apply to conduct linked to ancestry, race, national origin or religion, depending on the facts. Explicit provisions may nevertheless offer clearer notice and more consistent training. Concerns about careless application or the stigmatisation of an entire religious community must be addressed through precise definitions, evidence-based investigations and safeguards against discriminatory enforcement.
The three challenges require different responses, but each demands clearer rules, reliable evidence and accessible remedies.
First, improve the collection and reporting of hate data. Federal and local authorities should examine whether existing classifications can better identify anti-South Asian hostility, while preserving privacy and statistical reliability. Police departments should train officers to recognise anti-immigrant tropes and make reporting accessible to victims who fear retaliation or unnecessary immigration scrutiny. Online threats and doxxing should be assessed according to their actual content and circumstances.
Second, establish an evidence-based process for alleged transnational repression. The State Department, FBI and Department of Justice should coordinate the assessment of credible complaints from US citizens who believe foreign governments have threatened their family connections, travel privileges or legal status in retaliation for protected expression. Assessments should distinguish documented facts, official explanations, allegations and judicial findings. Congress should receive periodic information about complaint volumes, remedies pursued and outcomes, subject to legitimate privacy and security restrictions.
Third, address OCI concerns through law and diplomacy. US officials should seek greater transparency over cancellation procedures, meaningful opportunities to respond where legally appropriate, and clarity about the distinction between legitimate immigration enforcement and retaliation for lawful expression. The United States cannot dictate who qualifies for OCI status under Indian law, but it can investigate credible allegations of coercion directed at American citizens and raise substantiated cases in bilateral engagement.
Fourth, strengthen workplace protections. Employers can explicitly prohibit caste-based discrimination in internal equal-opportunity policies, train managers to recognise relevant conduct and provide confidential routes for complaints. Structured performance criteria, documented promotion decisions and consistent pay reviews can help identify patterns of unfair treatment. Universities and professional bodies should make their procedures accessible without assuming that all South Asians share the same background, beliefs or views on caste.
Finally, invest in research that can withstand scrutiny. Representative surveys, transparent methodologies and careful comparisons are necessary to establish the prevalence of both racial hostility and caste discrimination. Community organisations can provide valuable evidence, but their findings must be interpreted within the limits of their samples and methods. Public policy should be based on what the evidence establishes, not on the assumption that every allegation is proven or that the absence of a final court judgment means the underlying concern can be ignored.
The online-hate findings, OCI controversy and caste debate should not be collapsed into a single story of victimhood. Anti-South Asian hostility is often directed at people because they are perceived as foreigners, regardless of citizenship. Alleged transnational repression concerns the use of cross-border pressure to influence or silence people. Caste discrimination, where it occurs, concerns treatment linked to inherited social status and can operate within communities that share a national or religious background.
Their common feature is the importance of institutions that can identify harm accurately and respond fairly. Public agencies need data that reveal the experiences of particular communities. Governments need processes that distinguish legitimate immigration enforcement from retaliation. Employers need rules that recognise prohibited conduct without turning identity into evidence of guilt.
Indian Americans should not have to prove their belonging repeatedly to a society in which they are citizens. Nor should their economic success be used to dismiss the racial hostility they report experiencing. Equally, the existence of discrimination against South Asians from outside their community must not become a reason to avoid examining credible allegations of caste-based exclusion within it.
The legal task is to make protections work in practice. That means better data, accessible reporting, fair investigations, clear rules and remedies that address proven misconduct. It means protecting freedom of expression without pretending that the First Amendment directly governs India's OCI decisions. And it means recognising that a government may possess a legal power without every possible use of that power being justified.
A community of millions should not have to choose between defending its place in American society, maintaining family ties across borders and confronting discrimination within its own institutions. The law's responsibility is to protect all three interests with equal seriousness.
The central test is not whether Indian Americans have achieved the American dream. It is whether the institutions around them protect their rights when their citizenship, ancestry, political expression or inherited social status becomes a source of vulnerability.