Usually a party, this year’s parade was somewhat divided in this suburb, immigrant-heavy city 50km from New York when a yellow bulldozer – a symbol that has offended many Indian Muslims – appeared among the floats.
The vast Indian diaspora consists mostly of a Hindu-majority community, but also includes many Muslims.
During the August 14 parade, a sign reading “Bulldozer Baba” in Hindi hung on the bulldozer, next to a picture of Indian politician Yogi Adityanath.
A staunch Hindu, Adityanath is a member of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and chief minister of the country’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, where scores of Muslim homes have been bulldozed.
Several houses were also demolished in Delhi, which is ruled by the opposition party Aam Aadmi.
Adityanath denies being anti-Muslim.
“The chief minister used a bulldozer to demolish illegal buildings,” said an aide in Lucknow, the state capital. “It’s clear that people of Indian descent understand his commitment and that’s why they chose to praise him at the rally in New Jersey.”
Some Muslims in India say the community has been humiliated and pressured since Modi came to power in 2014. Earlier this year, Muslims took to the streets to protest anti-Islam comments by two BJP members.
“We are hurt to see this hatred move from India to the United States,” Mohammad Jawad, chairman of the American Indian Muslim Council who has lived with Edison for two decades, told Reuters. “This hatred is now in our gardens”.
The organizer of the event, the Indian Business Association (IBA), a New Jersey-based group of Indian Hindu businessmen, issued an apology and did not return a follow-up call asking why the decision to include the bulldozer had been made.
Nonetheless, residents said they remain concerned that the march illustrates how political conflict and religious tensions in India are seeping into the expatriate community in the United States. Several parties objected to the organizer’s decision to invite Sambit Patra, the BJP’s national spokesperson, as a special guest.
Patra could not immediately be reached for comment.
According to participants, other groups had appeared in the Edison parade, including the Overseas Friends of the BJP as well as the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, both hardline Hindu groups.
“If this is not removed from the start, if the seeds of this discord have grown, then we will have the same situation here as at home,” said Imtiaz Siamwalla, a 56-year-old Muslim, technology consultant and Edison resident. . “We are very concerned about this.”
Nearly half of Edison’s roughly 110,000 residents identify as “Asian”, according to US census data. A long stretch of shops and small businesses linking Edison and the nearby town of Woodbridge is known as “Little India”.
Two weeks after the parade, the IBA issued an apology, saying: “Unfortunately there was a bulldozer among the parade floats, a divisive image that does not reflect our mission. It was viewed quite negatively by many people who were deeply touched and humiliated by the particular activity that had been carried out. happened in India.”
In a letter to the mayors of Edison and Woodbridge, the IBA pledged to remove the symbol of division from parades in the coming years.
Edison Mayor Samip Joshi said in a statement, “I want to make it clear: any symbol or act that represents discrimination is not welcome in Edison Township.”
