NEW YORK — In a play that opened in New York last week, a Hindu god who drinks wine and uses foul language goes to Nazi Germany to reclaim the swastika from Hitler. The swastika, which for many has become a reminder of chilling human evil, is also an ancient and sacred Hindu symbol that is commonly found on doors and walls in Indian homes, and that women in southern India draw every morning on their porches.

When the play, “Ganesh Versus the Third Reich, ” was staged in Australia in 2011, Hindus there protested, claiming to be wounded by the comic representation of the elephant-headed god, the length of whose trunk is used in one scene to allude to a vital male organ. Some Hindu groups in the United States, whose antennas often seem as if they are finely tuned to seek offense, are now contemplating how they should react to such a play in a land where complaints on religious grounds are largely subordinate to artistic freedom.

It is possible that there are many American Hindus who are not troubled enough by their cultural displacement to get too worked up about religion, India or myths of identity. But the most visible Hindus in the United States are the online fanatics who react instantly and with conviction to news developments and personalities in India. They are a part of the middle-class South Asian settlements in the United States that are growing disenchanted, whether discreetly or overtly, with the West and thus are becoming obsessed with their roots.

In a cafe in downtown New York, Sheetal Shah, a senior director at the Hindu American Foundation, told me that there was a distinction between American Hindus who were born and raised in India and those whose formative memories are in the United States. It is those in the former group who feel compelled to react to Indian politics, she said. The latter tend to be less interested in politics, but just as passionate about Hinduism and India.