Sangh Parivar

Hin­du suprema­cist (Hin­dut­va) orga­ni­za­tions and lead­ers have increas­ing­ly aligned with U.S. nation­al con­ser­v­a­tive move­ments, as exem­pli­fied by their par­tic­i­pa­tion in the 2024 Nation­al Con­ser­vatism (Nat­Con) con­fer­ence in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. Key fig­ures like Ram Mad­hav from the Rashtriya Swayam­se­vak Sangh (RSS) and Swa­pan Das­gup­ta from the Bharatiya Jana­ta Par­ty (BJP) spoke at the event, advo­cat­ing for India to lead the glob­al con­ser­v­a­tive move­ment and cel­e­brat­ing their claimed suc­cess in defeat­ing what they called the “left-lib­er­al-Marx­ist-rad­i­cal Islamist cabal” in India. This align­ment is fur­ther demon­strat­ed through orga­ni­za­tions like the Repub­li­can Hin­du Coali­tion, sup­port­ed by Steve Ban­non, and through fig­ures like Vivek Ramaswamy, who attempt­ed to posi­tion him­self as a Hin­du cham­pi­on of Judeo-Chris­t­ian val­ues. The con­ver­gence reflects a broad­er trend of transna­tion­al far-right col­lab­o­ra­tion, with Hin­du suprema­cist groups increas­ing­ly embrac­ing overt expres­sions of suprema­cy and align­ing with Repub­li­can pol­i­tics despite their posi­tion as an eth­nic and reli­gious minor­i­ty in the U.S.

The Sangh Pari­var is a col­lec­tive of Hin­du nation­al­ist orga­ni­za­tions in India, led by the RSS and close­ly asso­ci­at­ed with the BJP. It encom­pass­es a wide net­work of groups that pro­mote Hin­du cul­tur­al and reli­gious iden­ti­ty, often tied to polit­i­cal, social, and eco­nom­ic objec­tives. The Sangh Pari­var empha­sizes Hin­du pri­ma­cy in Indi­an soci­ety, oppos­ing sec­u­lar­ism and for­eign cul­tur­al influ­ences, and active­ly engages in grass­roots mobi­liza­tion, social ser­vices, and ide­o­log­i­cal cam­paigns. The Sangh Pari­var aligns close­ly with many Nation­al Con­ser­vatism (NC) prin­ci­ples, par­tic­u­lar­ly in its empha­sis on cul­tur­al nation­al­ism, tra­di­tion­al val­ues, exclu­sion­ary poli­cies, and nation­al­ist edu­ca­tion. Its ide­ol­o­gy focus­es on pro­mot­ing Hin­du iden­ti­ty as the foun­da­tion of Indi­an nation­al­ism, par­al­lel­ing NC’s pri­or­i­ti­za­tion of cul­tur­al and reli­gious iden­ti­ty in defin­ing the nation-state. It shares a pref­er­ence for nation­al sov­er­eign­ty, pro­tec­tion­ism, and patri­o­tism over glob­al­ism, often resist­ing West­ern influ­ence and assert­ing Indi­a’s inde­pen­dence in cul­tur­al and eco­nom­ic terms. The Sangh­Pari­var’s approach to wel­fare and social poli­cies also reflects the NC’s exclu­sion­ary ten­den­cies, pri­or­i­tiz­ing Hin­du com­mu­ni­ties while mar­gin­al­iz­ing minori­ties. Its advo­ca­cy for tra­di­tion­al fam­i­ly struc­tures and oppo­si­tion to pro­gres­sive social changes aligns with NC’s tra­di­tion­al­ist stance.

Sim­i­lar­ly, its fear-based rhetoric on immi­gra­tion, espe­cial­ly tar­get­ing Bangladeshi Mus­lims, mir­rors NC’s focus on closed bor­ders and cul­tur­al preser­va­tion. On edu­ca­tion, the Sangh Pari­var active­ly pro­motes nation­al­ist nar­ra­tives, reshap­ing his­to­ry to empha­size Hin­du con­tri­bu­tions and down­play for­eign influ­ences, much like NC’ss use of edu­ca­tion to instill nation­al­ist val­ues. Fur­ther­more, it effec­tive­ly uses tech­nol­o­gy and media for ide­o­log­i­cal influ­ence and dis­in­for­ma­tion, ampli­fy­ing its nar­ra­tives and tar­get­ing dis­senters. The Sangh Pari­var diverges slight­ly in its eco­nom­ic poli­cies, as it bal­ances eco­nom­ic nation­al­ism with pro-busi­ness stances under the BJP’s lead­er­ship. Addi­tion­al­ly, while present in rhetoric, its envi­ron­men­tal poli­cies lack empha­sis, align­ing mod­er­ate­ly with NC’ss de-pri­or­i­ti­za­tion of cli­mate con­cerns. The Sangh Pari­var embod­ies a cul­tur­al­ly spe­cif­ic man­i­fes­ta­tion of Nation­al Con­ser­vatism root­ed in Hin­du nation­al­ism. While it shares struc­tur­al and ide­o­log­i­cal sim­i­lar­i­ties with NC move­ments glob­al­ly, its foun­da­tion in Hin­du iden­ti­ty gives it a dis­tinct char­ac­ter with­in the broad­er frame­work of nation­al­ist and tra­di­tion­al­ist politics.

Sources:

Polit­i­cal Research Associates

Research Direc­torate, Immi­gra­tion and Refugee Board of Canada