Digital platforms have become powerful spaces for shaping perception and for spreading prejudice against vulnerable communities. Our recent studies have found a growing wave of harmful online content aimed at South Asian communities especially Indians in Canada and the United States.

This discussion brings together researchers to examine what drives anti-Indian racism online, why such content often goes unmoderated, and what policymakers, platforms, and communities can do to counter it effectively.

Speakers

Sid Venkataramakrishnan 

Sid Venkataramakrishnan is an analyst and editorial manager at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD); his role includes both overseeing the quality across both public and confidential outputs, and analysing a range of topics including anti-South Asian hate, misinformation related to the financial system and anti-migrant discourse.

Reena Kukreja

Reena Kukreja is Associate Professor in the department of Global Development Studies at Queen’s University in Canada. Using an interdisciplinary framework of political economy, critical studies in men and masculinities, critical race theory, and migration studies, Reena’s research interests focus on migration governance, migrant masculinities, political economy of gig and agricultural labour, Islamophobia and populist hate against racialized migrants. Her current research examines, in Canada, the impact of anti-South Asian hate on Indian international students, and in Portugal, she is studying how populist xenophobic and Islamophobic discourses shape lived reality of racialized male migrants working in the gig economy and efood delivery.  She has published over 30 single-authored articles for leading area journals, edited a Special Issue on Bordering regimes and masculinities of racialized migrant men in Europe, and an edited volume, South Asians in Southern Europe: Exploring Labour, Identity, and Desire (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2025). She has also directed over 50 documentaries on gender, labour rights, and anti-trafficking.

Rohit Chopra 

Rohit Chopra is Professor in the Department of Communication at Santa Clara University and Visiting Fellow at the Center for South Asia at Stanford University. His research covers several areas including: global online communities, with a focus on Hindu nationalist and right-wing groups; violence, hate speech, and rights in online and physical publics; the relationship of media, culture, and political memory; and disability in global culture and media. Rohit is author, most recently, of The Gita for a Global World: Ethical Action in an Age of Flux (Westland, 2021) and The Virtual Hindu Nation: Saffron Nationalism and New Media (HarperCollins, 2019).