South Asians

South Asians are people whose ancestry traces to the Indian subcontinent (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and surrounding countries). The term appears in discussions of immigration law, racialization, religious conversion, and citizenship politics, where South Asians have been variously classified and treated by Western governments and societies.

Claims that use this term

• While these Americans and Britons avoided any suggestion that someone, drawn by a positive characteristic of the religion, might willingly accept Islam, others argued that, if there had been a good reason for South Asians to convert, it reflected less the value of Islam than the deficits of Hinduism, specifically caste prejudice and the proscription of widow remarriage. Reverend John Takle – a New Zealander working as a missionary in Bengal – used the most recent ‘scientific’ evidence that tracked intermarriage between Muslim and native races to supposedly prove a long-standing conclusion. In 1911 he stated, ‘The anthropometric survey made by government proves conclusively that the vast majority of the Mohammedans in India are converts from among the depressed Hindu communities.’
• The 1923 Supreme Court ruled all South Asians ineligible for citizenship
• South Asians were classified as white by the U.S. Census before the 1980s
• Early US immigration law racialized South Asians more harshly than Arabs.
• Citizens conflate Muslim nationalities so South Asians get slurred as Arab
• Anti-Muslim harassment targeting Arabs and South Asians is simultaneously actionable under § 1981