Save Us, Dev Patel! Anti-Indian Hate and Desi Representation

Words: Gabrielle Menezes-Forsyth

On August 11th, Bridgerton star Charithran Chandran took to her Instagram story. On it, she posted screenshots of a series of hate comments in response to her casting as Miss Wednesday, a.k.a. Nefertari Vivi in Netflix’s One Piece series 2, with an ironic caption: “Thanks for all your support.”

This follows in a now-established tradition of non-white actors being cast in live action remakes and receiving hateful online backlash due to the perceived inaccuracies related to their skin tone. It's also not Chandran’s first encounter in online furor, as earlier this summer she went viral when photographed at Wimbledon.

What followed was a baffling combination of anti-Indian sentiment, misogyny and colourism, taking place mostly on X. The treatment of Chandran gives way to a larger conversation about south Asian representation in the media, and the massive spike in anti-Indian racism we have seen in the last two years. In getting to the bottom of this phenomenon we find the usual suspects: Trump and Musk, of course, but also the roots of colonial oppression, south Asian colourism and Hindu facism. 
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We can actually track the origins of the visible spike in anti indian hate on X to  December 2024 with the appointment of Sriram Krishnan as an advisor to Trump, compounded by Vivek Ramaswamy’s appointment to DOGE and his subsequent X post criticising American Culture as “lazy and mediocre”. These two instances became the heart of a storm that would see Indians, or anyone perceived as South Asian as targets for racist vitriol on X. A CSOH study found 128 posts on X targeting Indians between December 22nd 2024 and January 2025. It should be noted however that there was precedent for xenophobia against Indians prior to this, with slurs against Indian origin people in Canada surging 1350% between 2019 to 2023. North American, Canadian and British anti-Indian sentiment can all be tied to fears surrounding immigration and housing crises, further exacerbated by Trumpian models of targeting minorities, Musk’s profit incentive for verified accounts on X to post inflammatory posts for engagement and, most uniquely to the Indian  diaspora, an often caste-based Hindu fascist faction who desire proximity to whiteness so intensely they will throw their own under the bus. 

Dev Patel served us one of the few media representations of Hindutva facism in his action epic, Monkey Man. Patel himself called the film a “Trojan horse and a gateway drug” to discussing caste and giving voice to marginalised communities in India, particularly the Hirja, a spiritually significant community of trans or third gender individuals rarely so tenderly depicted in cinema, if at all. Patel’s portrayal of India, both loving and scathing, is revolutionary for Desi representation on screen. Usually, Indian representation requires some form of western conformity – take Netflix's Never Have I Ever, for instance, which in turn contributes to the perception of Indians as being either a ‘model minority’ or ‘whitewashed’. In a video essay, Rohan Davis asserts that Indians are often at once the ‘perennial foreigner’, the ‘barbaric other’ and a ‘servile monolith.’ 

The particular nuances of Indian representation and the state of anti-Indian hatred today can’t be extricated from our colonial history. Connections to south Asian heritage for a western-born diaspora have often been severed; often leading to a ‘colonialism of the mind,’ where western norms are internalised at the expense of desi identity. The ways south Asians are represented in Britain and the United States is inseparable from the migration paths that brought these communities to each country. In the US, restrictive immigration laws meant that only small numbers of Indians – largely upper-class, high-caste, and highly educated professionals – were admitted, creating a diaspora dominated by right-leaning, elite voices. This has skewed American representation toward narrow, often stereotypical depictions that struggle to reflect working-class realities. Anyone’s first thought when it comes to American Indian representation will undoubtedly be Apu. 

“What emerges from all of this is a stark reminder that representation is never just about entertainment, it is about survival, dignity, and who gets to be seen as fully human.”

By contrast, Britain’s Windrush immigration, driven by large-scale recruitment of south Asian labourers from former colonies, produced more varied and working-class communities whose cultural negotiations were reflected earlier and more earnestly on screen. British cinema and television, like East Is East or Bend It Like Beckham and, more recently, comedies like Citizen Khan or Man Like Mobeen grapple directly with racism, class, and the persistence of colonial hangovers. While both countries have long histories of mocking desi accents, food, and traditions, the UK’s larger, more diverse diaspora has allowed for earlier and more complex depictions of South Asian life, compared to the US where representation remains limited and skewed by a demographic shaped by exclusivity and assimilation. It makes sense, then, that this recent onslaught of anti-Indian hatred has stemmed from the US and Canada and trickled down, with flames being fanned by the X algorithm and the rise of the far right in the UK.

As ever, there is also a gendered aspect to the discourse. Simone Ashley’s most recent romantic comedy, Picture This, stands out not just for its deliberate, culturally authentic portrayal of a South Asian protagonist and love interest, one that leans into Indian traditions without caricature and allows a darker-skinned British-Indian woman to be front and centre in a rom-com narrative. In discussing her role, Ashley has been vocal about the scarcity of leads who look like her in the genre, describing how she was often relegated to the ‘dorky Indian girl’ with strict parents rather than a romantic lead. Simone and Chandran’s joint breakthroughs in Bridgerton marked a truly seminal break from tradition in casting two dark skinned Indian women as love interests on a global stage. The impact of colourism in Bollywood and on screen more generally cannot be understated. Mean Girls star Avantika Vandanapur spoke frankly about ‘feeling uglier in India.’ 

The colourist, caste based intra-community issues within the Indian diaspora are front and centre when we look at the slurs, stereotypes and insults now skyrocketing online The GPAHE’s research into online racism against South Asians found the ‘demographic covering India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, have seen a monumental spike in English-language slurs and hate directed at them on fringe online platforms between January 2023 and January 2024.’

What emerges from all of this is a stark reminder that representation is never just about entertainment, it is about survival, dignity, and who gets to be seen as fully human. The surge of anti-Indian hate online is not an isolated phenomenon, but the product of a long history: colonial violence, caste hierarchies, colourism, and the modern algorithmic amplification of prejudice. Yet alongside the vitriol, there are figures like Dev Patel, Simone Ashley, and Charithra Chandran who are actively rewriting the scripts handed down to us; placing dark-skinned South Asians in roles of power, romance, and complexity. If anti-Indian hate is intensifying, then authentic, radical representation on screen has never been more urgent.