Beyond India: Sangh International and Vernacular Hindutva Politics in the UK

In the midst of the 2019 UK general election, a story broke that an affiliate of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), India’s ruling Hindu nationalist party, was openly campaigning for Conservative Party candidates in forty-eight marginal constituencies. The ideology of the BJP and its affiliates in the Sangh Parivar, Hindutva, has often been treated by scholars as a siloed entity that only affects India and the Indian or Hindu diaspora. Instead, this paper argues that Hindutva has become a transnational, right-wing populist vernacular that is grounded in the UK as a local political discourse through the principal Hindu nationalist organisational network, the Sangh Parivar. So, this paper asks; How has the organization and discourse of the Sangh Parivar vernacularised in the UK and affected the discourse of British politicians? Events such as Modi’s 2014 ascent to power and Brexit (2016) in the UK have facilitated the move of right-wing populist repertoires into the mainstream. This...Show moreIn the midst of the 2019 UK general election, a story broke that an affiliate of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), India’s ruling Hindu nationalist party, was openly campaigning for Conservative Party candidates in forty-eight marginal constituencies. The ideology of the BJP and its affiliates in the Sangh Parivar, Hindutva, has often been treated by scholars as a siloed entity that only affects India and the Indian or Hindu diaspora. Instead, this paper argues that Hindutva has become a transnational, right-wing populist vernacular that is grounded in the UK as a local political discourse through the principal Hindu nationalist organisational network, the Sangh Parivar. So, this paper asks; How has the organization and discourse of the Sangh Parivar vernacularised in the UK and affected the discourse of British politicians? Events such as Modi’s 2014 ascent to power and Brexit (2016) in the UK have facilitated the move of right-wing populist repertoires into the mainstream. This shift simultaneously enables the Sangh Parivar and Hindu nationalists’ growing confidence and organisational visibility. Thus, this paper updates previous scholarship's mapping of the multifarious network of the UK Sangh Parivar, highlighting the importance of identifying the component organisations of the Sangh Parivar to understand the discourse of global Hindutva. Moreover, this paper highlights how right-wing populist and far-right discourses intersect with Hindutva discourses in the UK. Right-wing, far-right and Hindutva discourses are networked in online spaces, such as social media platforms, where the difference between national and international discourses is often blurred. Finally, this paper argues that the activities of the Sangh Parivar have also affected the parliamentary discourse of British MPs. This effect shows the broader impact of Sangh Parivar discourses in the UK, and on other Hindu organisations that seek to represent British-Hindus and Indians. Thus, contrary to what previous research has assumed, the Sangh UK is political. Importantly, the Sangh Parivar UK has also contributed to the development of global Sangh organisations and collaborations. As such, the Sangh Parivar is a multi-polar, multi-directional and diffuse network of organisations that non-Sangh organisations and individuals, such as British-Hindu umbrella groups and parliamentarians, become entwined with. This can best be understood as ‘Sangh International.Show less

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Beyond India: Sangh International and Vernacular Hindutva Politics in the UK