I would suggest that it's actually much the opposite. If you've seen Wild, Wild Country (and I'm assuming you have, based on the fact that you're asking this question), you will notice that the non-Rajneeshi interview subjects are very clearly both ignorant of and prejudiced against Indian religion right from the beginning of the story. Outsiders are coming to their town, and they're not Christian. This is one of the main sources of conflict that colors the entire story.

This isn't to say that what the Rajneeshis did was above reproach, but the local prejudice against them for believing in a religion they weren't familiar with was a major factor in everything that happened.

Of course, there's more to it than the fact that the Rajneeshis ascribed to an "Indian" religion. There's the legacy of the hippies and other white practitioners of New Age and Eastern spirituality -- which isn't strictly the same thing as Hinduism or Buddhism -- as well as the growing popular concern in the 1980s with "cults" and really any non-traditional religious movement. For example, the mass hysteria over Satanic Ritual Abuse was going on at the same time, which involved anxiety about (among other things) the potential for people to practice Western-oriented non-JudeoChristian religions. The 1980s were a time of significant social change and anxiety about that social change. One component of which was growing religious plurality and the ways Americans worshipped (whether it's the growth of atheism and secularism or the rise of Evangelical denominations as opposed to Mainline Protestantism). You also can't ignore race as a factor here, as even if the Rajneeshis were a secular group or a group of, for example, Korean Methodists, who descended on a small rural town en masse, there most likely still would have been tensions.