Rising hate crimes widen divide between Hindus and Sikhs in California

But Hindus aren’t the only ones in California’s Indian community seeing an increase in hate crimes and bias against them. Sikhs, members of the ethno-religious minority whose separatist slogans appeared on the Newark temple, reported six hate crimes against them — the highest number since the state’s Justice Department began reporting that data in 2014.

Many Sikhs are on edge following several recent high-profile attacks across the country. The June 2023 assassination of Canadian Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a subsequent foiled plot in New York, and an August shooting outside Sacramento have revived fears among Sikh activists that they are being targeted by India for their advocacy in North America.

The potential for escalation has Thakkar, a key figure in the local Hindu community who moved to the Bay Area from India in 2012, feeling anxious about stoking tensions. While some devotees expressed fear after the attack, his temple members were generally ready to move on, he said.

“I personally have had nothing to do with it,” he says when asked if he has ever experienced discrimination in California.

Other Hindus don’t want to forget the temple vandalism. Instead, they have asked the legislature to recognize that Hindu Californians are the subject of “pro-Khalistan extremism,” a reference to the name of an independent state that some Sikhs want to separate from India.

They also opposed two bills in the California legislature in the past year that they believed would discriminate against them. One would explicitly ban caste discrimination in California, and the other would name India as a sponsor of international political repression. Neither bill became law.

“Nearly all of the documented anti-Hindu hatred in California comes from pro-Khalistan activists who use violence and intimidation to advocate for an independent theocracy in India,” the Hindu American Foundation wrote in a letter opposing the political repression law, citing the vandalism of temples as an example of such intimidation.

National and local Sikh groups supported both measures and have roundly disputed that characterization of the modern separatist movement. They had hoped the legislature would back them, given the more than century-old Sikh presence in California, and some felt the hand of the Indian government in opposition.

“They’re using these broad terms, like Hindu Americans, to justify killing a bill that’s against transnational repression,” said Karam Singh, advocacy director for the California Sikh Youth Alliance, which sponsored both bills. “I think most Americans of all walks of life would clearly be in favor of protections for Californians from being intimidated, harassed and targeted by a foreign government.”

Is anti-Hindu animosity growing in California?

California is specially equipped to track incidents of hate and bias, thanks to a hotline launched by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2023. The so-called “CA vs. Hate” hotline reported receiving more than 2,000 calls in its first year, according to a May 2024 report from the California Department of Civil Rights.

During that period, hotline investigators said they documented 24 acts of verified anti-Hindu bias, about 23% of all acts of religious hatred that investigators verified. Nearly 37% were anti-Jewish and 15% were anti-Muslim. No anti-Sikh figures were mentioned.

The numbers shocked California Hindus across the political spectrum. Extremist and hate-motivated acts are nothing new for Sikh and Muslim Americans, who have been dealing with hate crimes in the United States for decades since 9/11. There have been isolated cases, but Hindu Americans have not been disproportionately targeted in such crimes overall.

Pushpita Prasad, a spokeswoman for the Coalition of Hindus of North America, is not a fan of the state’s civil rights wing. The wing has anti-hate partnerships with major Sikh, Jewish and Muslim organizations, but not Hindu groups. Her organization opposed the caste law last year.

But she called the hotline data “yet another confirmation” of the “experience of Hinduphobia.” Her group encouraged Hindus to use the hotline during debates over the caste discrimination bill, she said. They also told people to use it after temple vandalisms in Newark and Hayward.

“Anti-India issues are constantly being conflated with Hinduism,” she told CalMatters. More and more non-Hindus are becoming aware of caste and Indian politics, and “there’s a double standard at play that we all participate in, and some of us resist, but most of us don’t.”

State analysts gave few details about the anti-Hindu incidents. They are not necessarily criminal acts; some incidents could be alleged to involve workplace discrimination or other forms of bias.

“I’m not sure there’s much more I can add to the specific questions about anti-Hindu acts,” Arvind Krishnamurthy, a postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley, wrote in an email. “Data on reports to CA vs Hate should not be used to make generalizations about the extent of a particular type of hate in California.”

Five Indian-American lawmakers, meanwhile, have tried cautiously to address the fears of both communities. None of them is Sikh.

In March, they called for a briefing from the federal Justice Department on attacks on Hindu temples and anti-Hindu hatred. They also called federal prosecutors’ allegations in December about a foiled plot against a Sikh activist in New York “deeply disturbing” and welcomed an Indian-led investigation into the matter.

That was criticized by a major Sikh civil rights group as “insufficient to provide accountability” and is calling for an independent investigation.

“There have to be other actors,” said Sangay Mishra, an associate professor of political science at Drew University who studies South Asian Americans. “Not necessarily government agencies, but other kinds of nonprofits or civil rights groups that are willing to invest in this and understand what’s happening so that it doesn’t become this deeply partisan, polarizing issue.”

A spokesman for Rep. Ro Khanna, who signed both letters and represents Newark in Congress, declined an interview request and did not respond to written questions. He condemned the vandalism on social media at the time.

Anti-Hindu incidents being taken ‘very seriously’, authorities say

Thakkar said elected officials did everything right at the Newark temple. He never had to call a state hotline to get help from the local community.

The State Department’s Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs and three California state lawmakers condemned the incident. Local authorities said they moved quickly to provide the house of worship with needed resources.

“The temple vandalism was taken very seriously,” Newark Police Capt. Jolice Macias wrote in a statement. A similar vandalism occurred a few weeks later at a Hindu temple in Hayward, and investigators combed through security footage from nearby businesses for clues. Officials from the FBI and the Justice Department were on the scene. “Every possible line of inquiry was followed up.”

One of the bills opposed by some Hindu groups would have given law enforcement agencies more training on how to combat and respond to incidents of foreign governments harassing American citizens, a trend known as transnational repression. Some Hindu leaders opposed it because it singled out India, along with Russia, Iran and China, as states that require special attention for law enforcement. It died in the Senate Budget Committee in August amid opposition and a price tag of more than $600,000.

In letters opposing Assembly Bill 3027, the Transnational Repression Act, the Hindu American Foundation and the Coalition of Hindus of North America argued that the legislation would override federal law and give police officers more leeway to ignore violent acts by the separatist movement.

The bill’s author, Assemblymember Jasmeet Bains, a Bakersfield Democrat, is the Legislature’s only Sikh. She has said California is a safe haven for immigrants who need to take more steps to fulfill that promise. She has also reported threats and harassment in her office, similar to Sen. Aisha Wahab, the Hayward Democrat who sponsored last year’s bill to ban caste discrimination.

But it’s not always clear where the threats and violence come from. The graffiti on the Newark temple even misspelled the name of a notorious Sikh leader from India.

A Sikh media group in October suggested that a man who stormed a Fremont gurdwara and tore down a poster honoring Nijjar was an “Indian nationalist extremist” and Hindu. His family even told the house of worship that he had mental health issues. And in June, federal authorities charged a Dallas Hindu man with sending threats to a Sikh nonprofit about separatist activism, often using anti-Muslim language.

“The citizens themselves are all victims of this phenomenon in a sense, whether they’re Sikh, Muslim, Hindu or some other religious tradition,” said Nirvikar Singh, co-author of “The Other One Percent: Indians in America,” and a professor of economics at UC Santa Cruz. “Democracy allows us to work through differences in a nonviolent and equalizing way, but we see a lot of disruption.”

Political or online tensions, however, are far less palpable on the ground in California. The Bay Area violations did not provoke direct or immediate protests. Sikh separatist-led rallies in California have largely avoided counterprotests and violent clashes. That’s a contrast to the post-October 7 Gaza war protests, which saw a subsequent spike in Islamophobic and anti-Semitic hate crimes.