What is the India Day Parade?
As described by the Federation of Indian Associations (FIA) themselves, the India Day parade is an annual gathering of the diaspora– in fact, it is the largest of its kind outside of India with over 200,000 members of the diaspora coming together in New York City– celebrating the Indian anniversary of independence.
However, this project focuses specifically on moments between 1992 and 2001, when SALGA was denied the right to march in the India Day Parade by the FIA.
The mission of the India Day Parade, as described on the FIA website, is to celebrate the coming together of Indo-America and Indian immigrants as a celebration of Indian culture, with prestigious visitors in attendance such as “Bollywood celebrities, cricket greats, and community leaders.”
Motivated to maintain the mainstream image of what is entailed by the “Indian” identity, the FIA claimed that (1) the South Asian mission of SALGA fell beyond the scope of “India”, an inherently islamophobic argument meant to exclude non-Hindu and non-Indian desis who are equal consumers of Indian culture in many circumstances (2) the values of the LGBTQ community did not align with the values of the FIA and would hence not be an accurate representation of the Indian identity to an American audience– an excuse that was extended to deny other activist organizations fighting for marginalized groups such as Sakhi, a domestic violence shelter interested in marching as well.