Steep rise in hate toward South Asians in Canada documented through social media posts

2025/06/27 Leave a comment

Disturbing:

Canada has seen a steep rise in hate toward South Asians on social media in recent years, with a large spike occurring during the recent federal election — especially aimed at former NDP leader Jagmeet Singh, according to a new report.

The report, titled “The Rise of Anti-South Asian Hate in Canada” and published by the U.K.-based Institute for Strategic Dialogue, used the social media monitoring tool Brandwatch to analyze posts that mention Canadian cities and regions and South Asians on X.

Between May and December 2023, they found 1,163 posts containing explicitly hateful keywords toward South Asians. During the same period in 2024, that number rose to 16,884 — an increase of more than 1,350 per cent.

A new report by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue finds a huge increase in racist posts in 2024, notably in the lead-up to the federal election.

Canada has seen a steep rise in hate toward South Asians on social media in recent years, with a large spike occurring during the recent federal election — especially aimed at former NDP leader Jagmeet Singh, according to a new report.

The report, titled “The Rise of Anti-South Asian Hate in Canada” and published by the U.K.-based Institute for Strategic Dialogue, used the social media monitoring tool Brandwatch to analyze posts that mention Canadian cities and regions and South Asians on X.

Between May and December 2023, they found 1,163 posts containing explicitly hateful keywords toward South Asians. During the same period in 2024, that number rose to 16,884 — an increase of more than 1,350 per cent.

The report says Canada has been singled out as a cautionary tale — in the eyes of far-right influencers and extremists globally — of how immigration policies can lead to an “invasion” of South Asian migrants.

Steven Rai, an analyst at ISD who focuses on domestic extremism, pointed to the American-based X account EndWokeness, which has 3.7 million followers, as one that has made numerous posts about South Asians in Canada “overtaking society.”

“Canada is held up by a lot of racists as the example of what happens to a country when it’s supposedly overrun with South Asians,” Rai said.

“Domestic extremists within Canada are promoting that stereotype and that gets picked up by people all around the world.”

The ISD notes that hate isn’t confined to the online sphere. Between 2019 and 2023, police-reported hate crimes against South Asians in Canada increased by more than 200 per cent, according to Statistics Canada.

The ISD defines domestic extremism as a belief system grounded in racial or cultural supremacy, as well as misogyny, based on a perceived threat from out-groups, which can be pursued through violent or non-violent means….

Source: Steep rise in hate toward South Asians in Canada documented through social media posts

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Who Is Afraid of Caste Equity in Canada?

2023/03/14 Leave a comment

Of note, from the more activist perspective:

On March 8, 2023, International Women’s Day, the Toronto District School Board’s trustees voted on a resolution (16 in favour and five against) recognising caste oppression and asked the Ontario Human Rights Commission to create the framework to address caste oppression in public education. The motion was spearheaded by Dalit feminist trustee Yalini Rajakulasingam and supported by Anu Sriskandarajah.

This historic initiative in Canada recognises caste oppression on par with racism and sexism. Once the Ontario Human Rights Commission develops a framework and protocols to address caste-based oppression, it will become part of the Human Rights Code. If mandated, all public and private institutions will include rules against caste discrimination in their diversity, equity and inclusion policies. Victims will have access to legal recourse.

Anyone familiar with caste stigma and the violence endured by caste-oppressed Dalits and other minorities should have welcomed this move as a progressive step. But Indian-origin privileged caste Hindus in Canada organised a protest demonstration in front of the TDSB office. In the name of the Canadian Organisation for Hindu Heritage Education, they launched a coordinated campaign against Rajakulasingam and other trustees who supported the motion. The protestors had the support of the Hindu American Foundation and other right-wing organisations in North America.

Privileged caste Hindus as cultural ambassadors

The end of colonial empires, the emergence of a new global order based on nation-states and the collapse of communist regimes led to globalisation. This globalisation relied on the movement of not only capital but also skilled and unskilled labour across Europe, Australia and North America, including to Canada. Moreover, at one level, the shared history of English colonial rule made the North American landscape familiar to the new immigrants from India, especially privileged caste Hindus with generations of English-language education.

As a result, by the 1990s, caste Hindus emerged as the most successful and visible of minorities in North America. They occupy high positions in the corporate sector, government and politics. Thus, they emerged as the cultural ambassadors of India. Notably, given their inherited caste privileges, they had easy access to elite education that enabled them to navigate and succeed in the white power ecosystem.

Moreover, the white colonial powers, such as Germany, France and England, and others like Russia, were obsessed with Sanskrit and Aryan cultures, even tracing their roots there. That is why the orientalist construction of Hinduism by the Europeans as a religion of non-violence, otherworldly yogis and vegetarianism set privileged caste Hindus as different from other racialised minorities, even though they faced racial oppression and violence periodically along with other minorities.

Moreover, historically in the construction of racialised societies in settled colonial spaces like in North America, caste became a template to order and govern by dehumanising non-white souls. In this context, one can see an invisible connection between caste and white supremacy that produced the Aryan race supremacy of Adolph Hitler’s Nazi Germany and the Italian fascism of Benito Mussolini. The rise of Hindu supremacist nationalism in India in the 1990s was predicated on the theory of one nation, one religion and one language, undermining the plural and diverse cultural history of India. It targeted minorities such as Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Dalits and indigenous Adivasis who do not subscribe to the Hindu supremacist agenda.

In this context, privileged caste Hindus who have emerged as India’s cultural ambassadors and faces of the Indian diaspora are normalising a Hindu supremacist ideology. They are targeting and discrediting non-Hindu minorities as anti-nationals and ‘Hinduphobic’ for speaking about the growing violence against minorities and other oppressed sections under the current regime in India, by conflating India with Hinduism.

Why caste equity matters in Canada

This homogeneous construction of Hinduism erases the everyday killings, rapes and lynching of caste-oppressed people. Equally important is how it undermines the violence endured by non-Hindu minorities such as Muslims, Christians and Sikhs in India, Canada and the US. In recognition of this reality, the California State University system and universities across the US and Canada are outlawing caste discrimination and including caste in their diversity, equity and inclusion policies. Recently, the Seattle city council outlawed caste discrimination as the city hosts several corporate headquarters that attract migrants from South Asia.

Racial oppression is visible, and the victims can seek legal recourse. Caste oppression is invisible and has no legal recognition. Privileged caste people in positions of power, while not acknowledging their caste privilege, inflict insidious discrimination, micro-aggressions and humiliation at workplaces and social gatherings. Canada, especially the Greater Toronto Area, is home to countless oppressed caste people. They face everyday forms of aggression, exclusion and discrimination. Even the children who attend schools in the Toronto area face caste-based slurs and humiliation.

Despite Canada being a tolerant and accepting society, caste oppressed people cannot come out and report their sufferings due to the fear of caste stigma and retaliation from their dominant caste colleagues and neighbours.

Fear of equality

Given the hierarchical nature of the caste system, dominant communities have felt entitled to their inherited privileges for centuries. Caste not only accrues social status, but also comes with the material benefits of free labour and the right to violence. Thus, any recognition of caste injustice and violence makes them uncomfortable. They feel the earth under their feet is moving, like they’re losing control over systems of power, both real and imagined. That is why they do everything they can to uphold their privileges and accuse anyone who shows a mirror to their face of ulterior motives.

For example in 2019, I delivered a lecture on caste-based violence in India at the Noor Cultural Center in Toronto. Ragini Sharma, the main organiser of Hindu supremacists in Toronto, protested the event. Attempts were also made to disrupt the proceedings. Not surprisingly, most of the disruptors were older men in their 70s and 80s. I felt sorry for them, as they teach their children and grandchildren hatred instead of empathy for fellow human beings. Ironically, they use the language of multiculturalism, decolonisation, religious fear and anything that helps their agenda of holding on to their privileges.

Even after moving out of their native lands and settling in liberal countries like Canada, where there is no necessity for caste to survive, they feel their existence is under threat if someone talks about caste oppression. They not only deny the existence of caste and but use all weapons at their disposal to discredit those who raise the matter. The ludicrous denial of caste is like the white supremacist denial of racial oppression and the persecution of indigenous people in Canada.

The stories of oppressed castes in South Asia are like those of the indigenous people in Canada, as they were denied fundamental human rights and dignity as human beings. In this context, by recognising caste oppression, the Toronto District School Board has become a trailblazer in upholding people’s humanity without barriers and discrimination. No human being deserves to live under the fear of oppression and exclusion.

Chinnaiah Jangam is Associate Professor in the Department of History, Carleton University.

Source: Who Is Afraid of Caste Equity in Canada?

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Culturally focused dementia care needed for Canada’s senior immigrants, researchers say

2022/03/12 Leave a comment

A reminder that immigrants also age and thus do not do much, if anything, to address longer-term demographics. Striking that immigrants now form almost one-third of all seniors (earlier waves) and thus not surprising that more supports needed (e.g., language, foods):

It all began when Navjot Gill’s grandmother started to mistake her for her aunt.

That’s what happens when you get older, said Gill’s family, but as time went on, it happened more often.

As a student studying dementia, Gill, who lives with her family in Hamilton, Ont., knew it wasn’t that simple — something more was going on and it was going to be hard on everyone.

For South Asian families, it’s understood that family takes care of its own. And it’s not uncommon for many to assume, said Gill, that when an elder first encounters symptoms of dementia, it’s just a normal part of aging — denial that is often driven by a lack of awareness and cultural stigma.

There’s no word for dementia in Gill’s mother tongue, Punjabi, and most of the resources she could find to share with her parents were in English and not culturally specific.

“I’m engaged in dementia research, I know these things, and even I’m not able to fully [explain it],” said Gill, who is 27 and now working on her PhD at the University of Waterloo. “It took a while to come to the point of this is not a normal part of aging … dementia is something that is outside the realm of normal.”

Dementia is an overall term for a set of symptoms, including memory loss and difficulty performing tasks, caused by disorders affecting the brain. Alzheimer’s is the most common type of dementia, with risk of developing the disease growing as people age.

Canada’s senior immigrant population now makes up over a third of the overall population of older people, and that has Gill and other advocates calling for more culturally appropriate care and dedicated dementia research to serve these individuals as they enter long-term care homes — to make the transition easier on the entire family.

Ngozi Iroanyah went through a similar experience when her father was diagnosed with dementia in 2007.

“My community is Nigerian and we also don’t talk about dementia, we don’t talk about seniors’ mental health. It’s heavily, heavily stigmatized,” she said.

Iroanyah said stigmatization can lead to isolation and discourage families from seeking the right treatments.

Having worked in health care for over two decades, and as manager of diversity and community partnerships with the Alzheimer Society of Canada, she knew what the next steps were, and even then, it was a “minefield,” she said.

“Then when you add the cultural piece on top of that, it was even more so: What do we do? What do we need? Where can we go? What are the supports? And there weren’t any supports,” said Iroanyah.

Supporting the older immigrant population

Organizations like the Alzheimer Society and the Research Institute for Aging recognize more work is needed to better understand and support the diverse needs of older adults with dementia.

Canada’s senior immigrant population is growing. According to Statistics Canada, in 2016, senior immigrants represented 31 per cent of the total senior population over age 65.  Asia and Africa were among the top continents that sought immigration to Canada.

The Alzheimer Society estimates 500,000 people are living with dementia, a figure that is estimated to grow to 912,000 by 2030.

“Because we have an aging population that is more culturally, ethnically diverse and racially diverse, are we prepared in Canada? We see that our younger population is not increasing as plentiful, so who is going to be taking care of these older populations?” said Iroanyah.

She said the Alzhiemer Society is developing more education and awareness resources for culturally diverse groups and their caregivers, as well as other groups that are underrepresented in dementia research, including the LGTBTQ population and rural communities.

A BIPOC research program is also expected to launch this year, Iroanyah added, to support researchers who want to better understand the impacts of dementia within BIPOC populations.

“We need statistics, we need data and numbers to be able to understand what is happening, to be able to understand what these experiences are, and to be able to understand what the need is,” she said.

Specialized care programs uncommon

Finding culturally specific care and programs for Gill’s grandmother became an impossible task, she said. Nowhere could she find a place that would feel familiar.

“At one point I was looking at nursing homes, just to see, and there is no way my grandmum would be able to survive in that [environment] because everything would be alien to her,” she said, from language, to activities — even the food.

A spokesperson for the Ontario Ministry of Long-Term Care said in a statement that the province “realizes the importance of homes providing culturally specific services to meet the needs of their residents,” and though individual homes may choose to provide culturally specific services or programs, that information is not tracked by the province.

Of the 36 long-term care homes in the Waterloo-Wellington area, some have catered to the Mennonite community’s needs, said a spokesperson with Home and Community Care Support Services Waterloo Wellington. None, however, provide culturally specific care for Chinese, South Asian or Black residents — the region’s three most populous cultural groups.

“Co-ordinators work with patients and families to complete care needs assessments including determining what is important in individuals’ care experiences such as ethnocultural, language and religious aspects,” the spokesperson said, adding they can help find a more suitable care home elsewhere in the province.

For now, Gill is dedicating her studies to understanding the impacts of dementia within the South Asian community and their caregivers.

“The further you move from the GTA [Greater Toronto Area] the more scarce culturally appropriate services become and the South Asian community is the biggest visible minority according to Statistics Canada,” she said.

“I’m bilingual and can speak the local language, so I can use that to my benefit to interview people and remove that first barrier, where they might not participate in our research because they don’t speak English.”

Gill and her family are doing what they can to care for her grandmother at home, where she can stay in an environment that is familiar to her and communicate with people in her own language.

As she continues with her research, Gill hopes her work will bring more awareness and ultimately help support more older adults and their caregivers in her community.

Source: Culturally focused dementia care needed for Canada’s senior immigrants, researchers say

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4 B.C. sisters victorious in court after parents left them tiny share of $9M estate

2019/07/24 Leave a comment

Interesting case where traditional and Canadian values collide, resolved in favour of the latter. Also of interest is that the male heirs did not contest the fundamental injustice of the original will, although they argued that they still should have a greater share:

When they died three years ago, Nahar and Nihal Litt left behind an estate valued at more than $9 million. They willed 93 per cent of that to their two sons, leaving their four daughters to split what was left.

That’s despite the fact that the daughters, now in their 50s and 60s, took on most of the work of caring for their aging parents in the years before they died, according to a B.C. Supreme Court judgment. They also helped build their parents’ fortune, working on family-owned farms beginning when they were children.

And so the sisters decided to contest their parents’ will in court, arguing that their parents discriminated against them based on outdated traditional values, the judgment says.

“One of the reasons that they wanted to pursue the claim was not just out of self-interest, but so other South Asian women in the same position would also have the courage to do so,” their lawyer, Trevor Todd, told CBC News.

This week, Justice Elaine Adair agreed to redistribute the Litt estate, granting about $1.35 million to each of the sisters: Jasbinder Kaur Grewal, Mohinder Kaur Litt-Grewal, Amarjit Kaur Gottenbos and Inderjit Kaur Sidhu.

That adds up to 60 per cent of the family fortune, much higher than the $150,000 each they were initially promised.

Their two brothers, Terry Mukhtiar Singh Litt and Kasar Singh Litt, will split the remaining 40 per cent, or about $1.8 million each.

The brothers both agreed that their parents had failed to meet their “moral obligations” to their daughters, though they argued in court for larger inheritances for themselves. Terry Litt testified that he had tried to convince his mother and father that the wills were unfair, but he was unable to persuade them to make changes.

‘The hurts were deep’

Adair’s judgment lays out more than five decades of history in an immigrant family whose frugal lifestyle and hard work helped build a multi-million-dollar legacy. It reveals a network of complicated family relationships touched by resentment that led one daughter to become estranged from her parents for 20 years.

The Litts arrived in B.C. from India in 1964, when their children were between the ages of three and 14 years old, according to the judgment.

Dad Nahar found a job at a sawmill, and the family gradually began acquiring real estate, including a number of farms.

“As soon as they were old enough, the siblings were expected to work during the summers alongside their mother, picking fruit and vegetable crops,” Adair wrote.

The difference, according to the daughters, is that they were expected to take care of household chores, while their brothers were not. They testified that, as girls, they were treated as less valuable.

“There is little doubt that Nihal, over her lifetime and without justification, treated her daughters very cruelly. Jasbinder and Mohinder, the two oldest, were particular targets,” Adair wrote.

“The hurts were deep and are still keenly felt.”

Despite that cruelty, the two eldest daughters took on most of the work caring for their ailing parents in the years before they both died in the span of two months in early 2016.

‘They consider it a victory’

Today, the siblings all have their own families and are financially independent. Even before they receive their inheritance, some of them have assets valued in the millions of dollars.

But Adair wrote that the parents’ wills were not adequate to support their daughters.

B.C.’s Wills, Estates and Succession Act gives judges wide leeway to make drastic changes to a will to make sure there’s a “just and equitable” distribution to someone’s surviving spouse and children. At the same time, they’re expected to consider the “testamentary autonomy” of the dead person — in other words, a person’s right to decide who gets their money.

Todd said he believes the judge did a good job of balancing those two concerns.

“The clients are very happy with the result. They consider it a victory,” he said.

Source: 4 B.C. sisters victorious in court after parents left them tiny share of $9M estate

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Why some South Asians are resisting identity politics

2019/05/27 Leave a comment

Valid discussion on the balance between focussing on Canadian issues and the politics of the country of origin, one that pertains both to long established communities (e.g., Ukrainian Canadians) and more recent ones:

Multiculturalism and diversity is touted by all politicians as Canada’s strength, it is in the news so often that most people believe that slogan to be true. I don’t. Last week I spent a few hours with a group of Sikhs who had all come to the conclusion that multiculturalism has been misused by the political class to play identity-based politics which has been detrimental. Over time, this has resulted in divisions within South Asians.

Everyone in the group decided upon a plan of action by first creating a platform where South Asians of all ethnicities and religious backgrounds get together and discuss issues of common interest.

Politicians have wilfully encouraged identity politics in the name of multiculturalism so much so that today issues dominating the headlines in South Asian countries resonate here in the community.

Indian politics for example dominates the conversation of hundreds of thousands of Indian immigrants. I have met such immigrants who were so well-versed with all things happening in India while they knew next to nothing about issues dominating the headlines right here in Canada. No politicians will dare encourage ethnic Canadians to focus on Canadian politics and all things Canadian because well, that suits them just fine.

The group of Sikhs at the meeting I attended were of the view that dwelling excessively on foreign issues takes the focus away from local issues that affect the lives of all Canadians, as also those of their children. This enables the politicians and elected governments to sweep these important issues under the rug; as long as a large section of the population is occupied in advancing foreign causes, local governments can avoid accountability for their mediocre performance.

Regardless of difference in political ideology, one point of unity among all Canadians is that everyone wants to secure the best future for themselves, their children and the country. The differences are only in terms of how to reach that goal. The objective, therefore, of this initiative is to achieve unity as Canadians, so that the ill effects of the divisions caused by identity politics can be diminished or entirely eliminated.

In the months to come, this group is expected to announce its plans and hold events where all South Asians will be invited to discuss issues pertinent to Canada and not the land they left behind.

The problem noted by some of these concerned citizens was that the term South Asian that is commonly used is a generic one denoting a single ethnic group, there are many distinct sub-ethnic groupings within the broader category of ‘South Asian’. The one that mainstream Canadians are most familiar with is the Sikh community – often wrongly termed as the Punjabi community. What is lost is the fact that Punjabis can be Sikh, Hindu, Muslim or Christian. All of these sub-groups are present in sizable numbers in Canada and particularly in the GTA. In addition, there are ethnic groups such as Gujarati, Tamil, UP-ite, Marathi, Goan, Bengali and Sinhalese etc also, each with a significant population, all of these groups come from the Indian sub-continent.

But because South Asians have been divided to such an extent, even politicians of South Asian descent end up pandering to their own communities and are typically surrounded by members of their group. It can also be said that these elected MP’s and MPP’s lack the maturity to see the need of reaching out beyond their original support base. This behaviour on their part has the effect of making the other ethnic or religious groups feel politically orphaned. This feeling then feeds into the divide that, by that point, is well-entrenched in the broader South Asian community.

As long as South Asians continue to dwell on the politics of their homelands, they will be seen as outsiders or Canadian in name, just like actor Akshay Kumar who is a so-called Canadian citizen. -CINEWS

Source: Why some South Asians are resisting identity politics

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Preference for boys persists among 2nd generation South Asian parents, study finds

2018/06/23 Leave a comment

Alarming that preference carries through to the second generation:

Where are all the girls?

A new Ontario study has found the preference for boys among South Asian parents persists among second-generation families born and raised in Canada, pushing the male-to-female ratio to 280 boys born for every 100 girls.

Previous research showed that women born in India, who already had two daughters, gave birth in Ontario to 196 boys for every 100 girls — compared to just 104 boys per 100 girls among non-South Asians — but the new finding surprised even the researchers.

While immigrants tend to assimilate over time, “from the evidence we see, this suggests it is different when it comes to the preference for sons,” said the study’s lead author, Dr. Susitha Wanigaratne, a social epidemiologist and post-doctoral fellow at the Centre for Urban Health Solutions at St. Michael’s Hospital and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences.

The study, published Thursday in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, examined live births to first- and second-generation mothers of South Asian ethnicity between 1993 and 2014, based on data from the institute, the immigration department and the Canadian Institute for Health Information’s Discharge Abstract.

Almost 10,300 live births to second-generation South Asian mothers and 36,687 live births to their first-generation counterparts in Ontario were identified.

Among the second-generation South Asian mothers with two previous daughters and at least one prior abortion, 280 boys were born for every 100 girls, which was greater than the male-to-female ratio among their first-generation peers. The report suggests both groups of mothers are likely taking part in sex-selective abortion in Ontario.

The researchers looked at many different combinations of order, number and gender of births, but found third births among mothers with two previous daughters revealed a significant increase in the male-to-female ratios.

Born and raised in Brampton, Manvir Bhangu, founder of a non-profit group that promotes gender equity among South Asians in Greater Toronto, said she was both shocked and saddened by the findings.

“Even though you were born and grew up in Canada and are highly educated, you still can’t get away from the culture. You are surrounded by it. South Asian women carry the honour of the family on their shoulders for their parents and in-laws,” said Bhangu, 26, of Laadliyan Celebrating Daughters. (Laadliyan, in Punjabi and Hindi, means beloved daughters.)

“It comes down to having a place at home and in the community. It makes a big difference in your presence in the family whether you give birth to three boys or three girls. It’s easier to be loved and wanted by the people around you with three boys. People do make nasty comments if you have three girls,” added Bhangu, a co-author of the study. “The bottom line is keeping the family name alive.”

The report said it appears South Asian immigrant parents emphasize educating their second-generation daughters out of the need to uphold the image of a “model minority,” as hardworking, disciplined and successful, as well as the desire to restrict the girls’ social engagements outside of the home in order to limit western influence and improve marriageability.

“Studies in India have shown that higher maternal education is either not associated with son-biased sex ratios or that it is associated with greater knowledge of and access to sex-selective technology,” the report said.

“This situation among second-generation mothers certainly exemplifies a ‘double burden’ whereby women are educated and work outside the home but are also expected to maintain their traditional roles within the family.”

Both Wanigaratne and Bhangu hope the study can get the community to start a dialogue about gender equity and culture.

Source: Preference for boys persists among 2nd generation South Asian parents, study finds

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