Cultural nationalism, the RSS’s standard description of its ideology, has a new brand name around the world: national conservatism. The global far right has been trying to forge a broad ideological coalition over the past five years by holding a series of NatCon (national conservatism) conferences.

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The first conferences, held in London, Washington and Rome between May 2019 and February 2020, also marked the launch of a new American institute called the Edmund Burke Foundation, chaired by Israeli-American philosopher Yoram Hazony. The recent NatCon conference, held in Washington DC from July 8-10, 2024, featured two participants from the Sangh stable for the first time – Ram Madhav and Swapan Dasgupta. This sheds new light on the RSS’s emerging global connections beyond its own complex network within the Indian diaspora.>

When the RSS was founded, it was clearly inspired by the fascist far right of Europe in the first half of the 20th century. Important impulses were taken from the rise of Mussolini in Italy. Golwalkar had spoken openly about the lessons that nationalists in India should learn from Hitler.

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The current global right-wing extremist movement is also taking place against the backdrop of a renewed wave of neo-fascism. But the word fascism or Nazism (so-called National Socialism) is now taboo even for fascists and therefore serves as a cover for national conservatism.>

Ram Madhav had a typical WhatsApp university response to the accusation of fascism.

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“How can we be called fascists or accused of following Hitler when we love the Jews and Israel so much,” Madhav said. He urged his predominantly white audience not to trust talk by Indian and Western liberals about a “backsliding of democracy” in India:>

“Remember, these are the same people who call you white supremacists and racists.” One only has to listen to Ram Madhav’s speech at the NatCon conference to see how fascists and racists are trying to rehabilitate themselves under the guise of conservatism.>

Ram Madhav and Swapan Dasgupta told the conference that India was best placed to lead this surge in conservatism because Indians appear to be born conservatives. In their view, the conservative credo of “faith, flag and family” – “faith in God” and loyalty to family and nation – is a natural trait for Indians.>

Madhav was quick to put a figure on India’s conservative base, claiming that one billion Indians followed conservative ideology. Incidentally, India has a voter list of nearly one billion, of which 642 million voted in 2024, and the BJP had a vote share of 36.56%, or less than 24 million if we talk about actual numbers.

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Be it status quo or fascism, whatever shade Madhav may have in mind when he uses the general term conservatism, the Sangh-BJP establishment has never enjoyed the support of a billion Indians. As with the appropriation of icons and the falsification of history, the Sangh discourse continues to portray the justice-seeking, democracy-loving common people of India as supporters of the RSS’s regressive ideological project.>

If conservatism and conformism were the dominant features of Indian tradition – be it social, cultural or political – India would still be suffering under colonial rule, Dalits would still be subjected to slavery and Hindu women would still be burned at the stake with their dead husbands in the name of Sati.>

Of course, democratic and radical impulses are as “Indian” as conservative ones, but they have always had to struggle to gain a foothold in what Ambedkar called the profoundly “undemocratic soil” of a patriarchal-feudal caste society – the core of what Madhav celebrates and wants to present to the world as a model for global conservatism.>

Ram Madhav tries to lead his fellow conservatives from other parts of the world by invoking the power that the Modi regime currently enjoys. He boasts that ten years ago he too might have been telling a conservative “cry story”, but today he can tell a success story.

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And he claims that this success was achieved through a cultural mobilisation from below, through a grassroots imposition of conservative ideology. He is telling a very obvious lie. The BJP’s rise to power was paved by a series of violent campaigns, from Advani’s Ayodhya Rath-Yatra to the carnage in Gujarat under Modi’s leadership to the relentless anti-Muslim riots, lynchings and bulldozer attacks of the last decade. And having come to power through the systematic use of violence, the BJP is now maintaining it by unleashing more violence and spreading terror.>

True to the classic character of fascism, the BJP’s rule in India today is practically an open terrorist dictatorship. Modi 3.0 is by no means ready to accept the increased strength of the opposition and the consequent weakening of the fear factor following the 2024 election result.>

And as for the rise and growth of the RSS, it has always been based on the organisation’s direct and indirect control over state power and the institutional network of a modern society, outside the traditional instruments of caste and creed. More than direct appeals to the regressive ideology of conservatism, the RSS has historically grown by spreading lies and rumours and orchestrating hatred and violence.

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Much like Modi’s ‘Vishwaguru’ ambitions and posturing, the RSS too now seems to be seeking greater global recognition and role. The RSS is aware that India’s strategic importance in the US worldview is due to India’s role and potential as an ally in the so-called war on terror and in containing China.>

It seeks to place this strategic relationship on a stronger ideological footing based on a shared far-right and conservative affinity. Beyond diplomatic cooperation between the states within the framework of a broad neoliberal economic consensus and Western military dominance, the RSS seeks to play out its role at the ideological level by advocating for a conservative convergence led by the far right, regardless of the changing political balances and electoral outcomes in individual countries, building on the shared values ​​of racism, Islamophobia and anti-immigrant hypernationalism and xenophobia.>

Ram Madhav and Swapan Dasgupta compare the Indian diaspora in the US with the pro-Israel Jewish lobby. Dasgupta even believes that the Indian diaspora has achieved a comparable level of strength and prosperity in terms of economic progress. They now want the Indian role in America to be as politically and ideologically influential as the pro-Israel lobby.

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Just as Israel enjoys complete impunity and active support from the US, Madhav also wants the US to adopt the Modi government’s model in dealing with India’s religious minorities and its Muslim neighbours and stop making even mildly critical tones about religious freedom and human rights violations.>

Madhav also wants evangelical American conservatives to recognize the RSS’s opposition to religious conversion, or what the Sangh calls the Christian proselytizing campaign.>

Perhaps as the RSS prepares for its centenary in 2025, we will see further attempts by the RSS to sell itself as a global role model and India as an ideological target for “national conservatives” from around the world.>

In fact, Madhav told his conservative colleagues that India was ready to take the lead in implementing the conservative agenda. The emerging international entanglements of Indian fascism certainly require closer attention from anti-fascist forces around the world.>

The author is General Secretary of CPI (ML-Liberation).>