Once a fringe Indian ideology, Hindu nationalism is now mainstream, thanks to Modi’s decade in power

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Gujarat state's then chief minister Narendra Modi, third left, with former chief minister Keshubhai Patel, second right, and leaders of Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), salute during the concluding ceremony of the eight-day RSS convention in Ahmedabad, India, on Jan. 1, 2006.(AP photo/File)
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Updated 19 April 2024
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Once a fringe Indian ideology, Hindu nationalism is now mainstream, thanks to Modi’s decade in power

  • While Mahatma Gandhi preached Hindu-Muslim unity a few decades earlier, the RSS advocated for transforming India into a Hindu nation
  • RSS, which stands for Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, is paramilitary, right-wing group founded nearly a century ago
  • Modi joined the political wing of the RSS in the late 1960s in their home state, Gujarat, when he was a teenager

AHMEDABAD, India: Hindu nationalism, once a fringe ideology in India, is now mainstream. Nobody has done more to advance this cause than Prime Minister Narendra Modi, one of India’s most beloved and polarizing political leaders.

And no entity has had more influence on his political philosophy and ambitions than a paramilitary, right-wing group founded nearly a century ago and known as the RSS.
“We never imagined that we would get power in such a way,” said Ambalal Koshti, 76, who says he first brought Modi into the political wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in the late 1960s in their home state, Gujarat.
Modi was a teenager. Like other young men — and even boys — who joined, he would learn to march in formation, fight, meditate and protect their Hindu homeland.
A few decades earlier, while Mahatma Gandhi preached Hindu-Muslim unity, the RSS advocated for transforming India — by force, if necessary — into a Hindu nation. (A former RSS worker would fire three bullets into Gandhi’s chest in 1948, killing him months after India gained independence.)
Modi’s spiritual and political upbringing from the RSS is the driving force, experts say, in everything he’s done as prime minister over the past 10 years, a period that has seen India become a global power and the world’s fifth-largest economy.
At the same time, his rule has seen brazen attacks against minorities — particularly Muslims — from hate speech to lynchings. India’s democracy, critics say, is faltering as the press, political opponents and courts face growing threats. And Modi has increasingly blurred the line between religion and state.
At 73, Modi is campaigning for a third term in a general election, which starts Friday. He and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party are expected to win. He’s challenged by a broad but divided alliance of regional parties.
Supporters and critics agree on one thing: Modi has achieved staying power by making Hindu nationalism acceptable — desirable, even — to a nation of 1.4 billion that for decades prided itself on pluralism and secularism. With that comes an immense vote bank: 80 percent of Indians are Hindu.
“He is 100 percent an ideological product of the RSS,“in said Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, who wrote a Modi biography. “He has delivered their goals.”
 




In this Feb. 23, 2014 file photo, Indian Muslims shower flower petals as volunteers of Hindu nationalist group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, (RSS), march on the concluding day of their three-day meeting in Bhopal, India. For the RSS, Indian civilization is inseparable from Hinduism. (AP Photo/Rajeev Gupta, File)

Uniting Hindus
Between deep breaths under the night sky in western India a few weeks ago, a group of boys recited an RSS prayer in Sanskrit: “All Hindus are the children of Mother India ... we have taken a vow to be equals and a promise to save our religion.”
More than 65 years ago, Modi was one of them. Born in 1950 to a lower-caste family, his first exposure to the RSS was through shakhas — local units — that induct boys by combining religious education with self-defense skills and games.
By the 1970s, Modi was a full-time campaigner, canvassing neighborhoods on bicycle to raise RSS support.
“At that time, Hindus were scared to come together,” Koshti said. “We were trying to unite them.”
The RSS — formed in 1925, with the stated intent to strengthen the Hindu community — was hardly mainstream. It was tainted by links to Gandhi’s assassination and accused of stoking hatred against Muslims as periodic riots roiled India.
For the group, Indian civilization is inseparable from Hinduism, while critics say its philosophy is rooted in Hindu supremacy.
Today, the RSS has spawned a network of affiliated groups, from student and farmer unions to nonprofits and vigilante organizations often accused of violence. Their power — and legitimacy — ultimately comes from the BJP, which emerged from the RSS.
“Until Modi, the BJP had never won a majority on their own in India’s Parliament,” said Christophe Jaffrelot, an expert on Modi and the Hindu right. “For the RSS, it is unprecedented.”
Scaling his politics
Modi got his first big political break in 2001, becoming chief minister of home state Gujarat. A few months in, anti-Muslim riots ripped through the region, killing at least 1,000 people.
There were suspicions that Modi quietly supported the riots, but he denied the allegations and India’s top court absolved him over lack of evidence.
Instead of crushing his political career, the riots boosted it.
Modi doubled down on Hindu nationalism, Jaffrelot said, capitalizing on religious tensions for political gain. Gujarat’s reputation suffered from the riots, so he turned to big businesses to build factories, create jobs and spur development.
“This created a political economy — he built close relations with capitalists who in turn backed him,” Jaffrelot said.
Modi became increasingly authoritarian, Jaffrelot described, consolidating power over police and courts and bypassing the media to connect directly with voters.
The “Gujarat Model,” as Modi coined it, portended what he would do as a prime minister.
“He gave Hindu nationalism a populist flavor,” Jaffrelot said. “Modi invented it in Gujarat, and today he has scaled it across the country.”
A few decades earlier,
In June, Modi aims not just to win a third time — he’s set a target of receiving two-thirds of the vote. And he’s touted big plans.
“I’m working every moment to make India a developed nation by 2047,” Modi said at a rally. He also wants to abolish poverty and make the economy the world’s third-largest.
If Modi wins, he’ll be the second Indian leader, after Jawaharlal Nehru, to retain power for a third term.
With approval ratings over 70 percent, Modi’s popularity has eclipsed that of his party. Supporters see him as a strongman leader, unafraid to take on India’s enemies, from Pakistan to the liberal elite. He’s backed by the rich, whose wealth has surged under him. For the poor, a slew of free programs, from food to housing, deflect the pain of high unemployment and inflation. Western leaders and companies line up to court him, turning to India as a counterweight against China.
He’s meticulously built his reputation. In a nod to his Hinduism, he practices yoga in front of TV crews and the UN, extols the virtues of a vegetarian diet, and preaches about reclaiming India’s glory. He refers to himself in the third person.
P.K. Laheri, a former senior bureaucrat in Gujarat, said Modi “does not risk anything” when it comes to winning — he goes into the election thinking the party won’t miss a single seat.
The common thread of Modi’s rise, analysts say, is that his most consequential policies are ambitions of the RSS.
In 2019, his government revoked the special status of disputed Kashmir, the country’s only Muslim-majority region. His government passed a citizenship law excluding Muslim migrants. In January, Modi delivered on a longstanding demand from the RSS — and millions of Hindus — when he opened a temple on the site of a razed mosque.
The BJP has denied enacting discriminatory policies and says its work benefits all Indians.
Last week, the BJP said it would pass a common legal code for all Indians — another RSS desire — to replace religious personal laws. Muslim leaders and others oppose it.
But Modi’s politics are appealing to those well beyond right-wing nationalists — the issues have resonated deeply with regular Hindus. Unlike those before him, Modi paints a picture of a rising India as a Hindu one.
Satish Ahlani, a school principal, said he’ll vote for Modi. Today, Ahlani said, Gujarat is thriving — as is India.
“Wherever our name hadn’t reached, it is now there,” he said. “Being Hindu is our identity; that is why we want a Hindu country. ... For the progress of the country, Muslims will have to be with us. They should accept this and come along.”
 


Taiwan accuses China of carrying out ‘provocative’ military patrol near island

Updated 10 sec ago
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Taiwan accuses China of carrying out ‘provocative’ military patrol near island

Taiwan, which China views as its own territory, has complained of repeated Chinese military drills and patrols nearby
Taiwan’s defense ministry said that starting mid-afternoon Friday, it had detected 21 Chinese military aircraft

TAIPEI: Taiwan accused China on Friday of raising tensions in the region with a “provocative” military patrol involving warplanes and warships near the island, an unusual public rebuke in what are typically routine accounts of Chinese military activity.

Taiwan, which China views as its own territory, has complained of repeated Chinese military drills and patrols nearby. Since President Lai Ching-te took office last year China has held three major rounds of war games.

Taiwan’s defense ministry said that starting mid-afternoon Friday, it had detected 21 Chinese military aircraft, including J-16 fighters, operating with warships to carry out “so-called joint combat readiness patrols” and “harass the airspace and seas around us.”

“The Ministry of National Defense stresses that these acts are highly provocative, fail to pay proper attention to the maritime rights of other countries, bring anxiety and threat to the region, and blatantly undermine the status quo in the region,” it said.

Taiwan regularly reports such Chinese “combat patrols,” but does not generally attach such commentary to its statements.

China’s defense ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

China says democratically governed Taiwan is its “sacred territory” — a position the government in Taipei strongly rejects — and that it has a right to carry out drills in Chinese territory.

Lai, who last month marked a year in office, is hated by Beijing, which calls him a separatist and has rebuffed his repeated offers for talks.

Lai says only Taiwan’s people can decide their future. China has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control.

‘One hell after another’: US travel ban deepens despair for Afghans awaiting visas

Updated 06 June 2025
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‘One hell after another’: US travel ban deepens despair for Afghans awaiting visas

  • Trump’s sweeping new travel ban on 12 countries, including Afghanistan, will go into effect from Monday
  • Thousands of Afghans have applied for visas to settle in US, either as refugees or under Special Immigrant Visa program 

KABUL: Mehria had been losing hope of getting a visa to emigrate to the United States but her spirits were crushed when President Donald Trump raised yet another hurdle by banning travel for Afghans.

Trump had already disrupted refugee pathways after he returned to power in January but a sweeping new travel ban on 12 countries, including Afghanistan, will go into effect on Monday.

The ban changes little for most Afghans who already faced steep barriers to travel abroad, but many who had hung their hopes on a new life in the United States felt it was yet another betrayal.

“Trump’s recent decisions have trapped not only me but thousands of families in uncertainty, hopelessness and thousands of other disasters,” Mehria, a 23-year-old woman who gave only one name, said from Pakistan, where she has been waiting since applying for a US refugee visa in 2022.

“We gave up thousands of hopes and our entire lives and came here on a promise from America, but today we are suffering one hell after another,” she told AFP.

The United States has not had a working embassy in Afghanistan since the Taliban ousted the foreign-backed government in 2021, forcing Afghans to apply for visas in third countries.

The Taliban’s return followed the drawdown of US and NATO troops who had ousted them two decades earlier in response to the September 11, 2001, attacks.

The Taliban government has since imposed a strict view of Islamic law and severe restrictions on women, including bans on some education and work.

Hundreds of thousands of Afghans have applied for visas to settle in the United States, either as refugees or under the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program reserved for those who aided the US government during its war against the Taliban.

Afghans with SIV visas and asylum cases will not be affected by Trump’s new order but family reunification pathways are threatened, the Afghan-American Foundation said in a statement condemning the ban.

Some 12,000 people are awaiting reunification with family members already living in the United States, according to Shawn VanDiver, the president of the AfghanEvac non-profit group.

“These are not ‘border issues’. These are legal, vetted, documented reunifications,” he wrote on social media platform X. “Without exemptions, families are stranded.”

Refugee pathways and relocation processes for resettling Afghans had already been upset by previous Trump orders, suddenly leaving many Afghans primed to travel to the United States in limbo.

The Trump administration revoked legal protections temporarily shielding Afghans from deportation in May, citing an improved security situation in Afghanistan.

“We feel abandoned by the United States, with whom we once worked and cooperated,” said Zainab Haidari, another Afghan woman who has been waiting in Pakistan for a refugee visa.

“Despite promises of protection and refuge we are now caught in a hopeless situation, between the risk of death from the Taliban and the pressure and threat of deportation in Pakistan,” said Haidari, 27, who worked with the United States in Kabul during the war but applied for a refugee visa.

Afghans fled in droves during decades of conflict, but the chaotic withdrawal of US-led troops from Kabul saw a new wave clamouring to escape Taliban government curbs and fears of reprisal for working with Washington.

Pakistan and Iran have meanwhile ramped up deportation campaigns to expel Afghans who have crossed their borders.

The Taliban authorities have not responded to multiple requests for comment on the new travel ban but have said they are keen to have good relations with every country now that they are in power — including the United States.

Visa options for Afghans are already severely limited by carrying the weakest passport globally, according to the Henley Passport Index.

However, travel to the United States is far from the minds of many Afghans who struggle to make ends meet in one of the world’s poorest countries, where food insecurity is rife.

“We don’t even have bread, why are you asking me about traveling to America?” said one Afghan man in Kabul.

Sahar, a 29-year-old economics graduate who has struggled to find work amid sky-high unemployment, said the new rules will not have any impact on most Afghans.

“When there are thousands of serious issues in Afghanistan, this won’t change anything,” she told AFP.

“Those who could afford to travel and apply for the visa will find another way or to go somewhere else instead of the US.”


Dutch election set for October 29 after government falls

Updated 06 June 2025
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Dutch election set for October 29 after government falls

  • Far-right leader Geert Wilders pulled out of the ruling coalition, bringing down the government
  • The vote in the EU’s fifth-largest economy and major global exporter will be closely watched in Europe

THE HAGUE: The Netherlands will hold snap elections on October 29, authorities announced Friday, after far-right leader Geert Wilders pulled out of the ruling coalition, bringing down the government and sparking political chaos.

“We have officially set the election date: the... elections will take place on Wednesday 29 October 2025,” Interior Minister Judith Uitermark wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

“In the coming period, I will work with the municipalities and other stakeholders to prepare so that this important day in our democracy goes smoothly,” added the minister.

The vote in the European Union’s fifth-largest economy and major global exporter will be closely watched in Europe, where far-right parties have made significant electoral gains.

Polls suggest Wilders’ Freedom Party (PVV) is running neck-and-neck with the Left/Green group of former European Commission vice president Frans Timmermans.

The liberal VVD party stands just behind in the polls, suggesting the election will be closely fought.

The election was prompted by the dramatic withdrawal of Wilders and the PVV from a shaky ruling coalition in a row over immigration policy.

Wilders grumbled that the Netherlands was not fast enough to implement the “strictest-ever” immigration policy agreed by the four-way coalition – and pulled out.

He had stunned the political establishment in the Netherlands by winning November 2023 elections by a significant margin – clinching 37 seats out of the 150 in parliament.

The fractured nature of Dutch politics means no one party is ever strong enough to win 76 seats and govern with an absolute majority.

Wilders persuaded the VVD, the BBB farmers party, and the anti-corruption NSC party to govern with him – but the price was to give up his ambition to become prime minister.

The PVV has apparently lost some support since that election, with recent surveys suggesting they would win around 28 to 30 seats.

But the issue after the coming election will be: who will enter into a coalition with Wilders and the PVV?

There was widespread fury with the far-right leader for bringing down the government over what many saw as an artificial crisis.

Far-right parties have been on the rise across Europe. In May, the far-right Chega (“Enough“) party took second place in Portugal’s elections.

In Germany, the anti-immigration far-right AfD doubled its score in legislative elections in February, reaching 20.8 percent.

And in Britain, polls show the anti-immigration, hard-right Reform UK party of Nigel Farage is making significant gains following a breakthrough in local elections.


Red Cross confirms office closures in Niger and the departure of its foreign staff

Updated 06 June 2025
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Red Cross confirms office closures in Niger and the departure of its foreign staff

  • The ICRC said it had been in dialogue with Niger’s authorities since February to understand the reasons for their decision and provide any necessary clarification but that these efforts were unsuccessful

DAKAR: The International Committee of the Red Cross announced the closure of its offices in Niger and the departure of its foreign staff, four months after the ruling junta ordered the organization to leave the country.
The ICRC confirmed the closure and departure in a statement on Thursday.
“We reiterate our willingness to maintain constructive dialogue with the authorities of Niger with a view to resuming our strictly humanitarian protection and assistance activities,” Patrick Youssef, the ICRC’s regional director for Africa, said in the statement.
In February, Niger’s Foreign Affairs Ministry had ordered the ICRC to close its offices and leave the country. No official reason was given for the military junta’s decision to shut down the organization’s operations in the country at the time.
The ICRC said it had been in dialogue with Niger’s authorities since February to understand the reasons for their decision and provide any necessary clarification but that these efforts were unsuccessful.
On May 31, Niger’s junta leader, Abdourahamane Tchiani, justified the ICRC expulsion on Nigerien state television, accusing the organization of having met with “terrorist leaders” and funding armed groups.
The ICRC refuted the accusations in its statement on Thursday, saying that dialogue with all sides in the conflict is necessary to carry out its humanitarian mandate and that it “never provides financial, logistical, or any other form of support” to armed groups.
The humanitarian organization had been active in the West African country since 1990, mainly helping people displaced by violence by Islamic extremists, food insecurity and natural disasters. According to the organization, it provided humanitarian aid to more than 2 million people in Niger.
Niger’s military rulers took power in a coup two years ago, the latest of several military takeovers in Africa’s Sahel, the vast, arid expanse south of the Sahara Desert that has become a hotspot for extremist violence by militant groups.
Since the coup, Niger has pulled away from its Western partners, such as France and the United States, turning instead to Russia for security.
Last November, the country’s military junta banned the French aid group Acted from working in the country amid tensions with France.


France cools expectations of swift Palestinian state recognition

Updated 06 June 2025
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France cools expectations of swift Palestinian state recognition

  • France is due later this month to co-host with Saudi Arabia a UN conference in New York on a two-state solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians

PARIS: France on Friday dampened expectations Paris could rapidly recognize a Palestinian state, with the French foreign minister saying while it was “determined” to make such a move, recognition had to be more than “symbolic.”
France is due later this month to co-host with Saudi Arabia a UN conference in New York on a two-state solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
There had been expectations that France could recognize a Palestinian state during that conference, with President Emmanuel Macron also growing increasingly frustrated with Israel’s blocking of aid to the Palestinians in the war-torn Gaza Strip.
“France could have taken a symbolic decision. But this is not the choice we made because we have a particular responsibility” as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said, while saying Paris was still “determined” the make the move.
He said France would not recognize a Palestinian state alone, in a possible reference to the eagerness of Paris to see any French recognition matched by Gulf Arab allies — notably regional kingpin Saudi Arabia — recognizing Israel.
Several EU countries including Ireland, Spain and Sweden recognize a Palestinian state. But Germany, while backing a two-state solution, has said recognition now would send the “wrong signal.”
France is reportedly working closely on the issue with the United Kingdom, which also so far has not recognized a Palestinian state, at a time when French-British diplomatic ties are becoming increasingly tight after Brexit.
Macron on Thursday said that he expected the conference in New York would take steps “toward recognizing Palestine,” without being more specific.
He has said he hopes French recognition of a Palestinian state would encourage other governments to do the same and that countries who do not recognize Israel should do so.
Barrot meanwhile also stressed the “absolute necessity” to address the issue of the disarmament of Palestinian militant group Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip.
Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Militants abducted 251 hostages, 55 of whom remain in Gaza, including 32 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Hamas-run Gaza has killed 54,677 people, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry there, figures the United Nations deems reliable.
Relations between Israel and France have deteriorated over the last weeks, with Israel’s foreign ministry accusing Macron of undertaking a “crusade against the Jewish state” after he called on European countries to harden their stance if the humanitarian situation in Gaza did not improve.