A section of American Hindus are trying to turn the phrase “snakes in the Ganga” into a neo-Hindutva metaphor for Hinduphobia. This is highly disrespectful to revered Naga-devata or snake deities of  Indian rivers and water bodies, including Ganga. This is another case of  American Hindu IT engineer  “parents” creatively misinterpreting Hinduism from 5,000 miles away, claiming inspiration from Agamic “parampara”. Clinging to Hindu roots in foreign soil, after your parents abandoned Indian citizenship for money, is difficult. But it is lucrative. It enabled the UK PM to marry an extremely rich Hindu girl, so rich that her Brahmin caste does not matter.

Snakes are evil in Christian and Islamic mythology. They embody the Devil. They tempted Eve to eat the Forbidden Fruit. So God cursed the serpent to forever crawl on its belly. In Islamic art, from mediaeval Persia, the serpent is often shown as a dragon, with feet, to remind us of this myth. JK Rowling was accused of being anti-Christian because she popularised witches and wizards. But she reinforced the Christian idea of equating the snake with evil Voldemort. She deliberately used the words Nagini and Slytherin to remind her readership of this ancient connection.