Towards a Conservative Consensus

(The article was originally published in OPEN Magazine on July 12, 2024. Views expressed are personal.)

India is a deeply religious country. Conservatism is in its blood. A PEW survey found that nearly all Indians – 98 per cent – say they believe in God, and roughly 80 per cent among most religious groups say they are absolutely certain that God exists. To borrow the phrase from John Micklethwait, India is a “Right Nation”.

Nationalism too is not a new thing for India. Unlike in the West, there is no pejorative meaning attached to it. Our entire movement against British colonisation is called “national movement”. The principal Opposition party in India is called the “Indian National Congress”.

So, national conservatives are not the ‘other’ in India. India is national and conservative.

That’s why we prefer to distinguish ourselves as “cultural nationalists”. As the name suggests, we derive our national identity from our ancient culture. Some call us “Hindu nationalists”. We don’t mind that label as long as it is not misunderstood as ‘religious nationalism’. We stand not for “theocracy”, but for “dharmocracy” – in which dharma represents universal values that India stood for – something like the Ten Commandments for the Christian world.

Cultural nationalism can be broadly understood as the Indian equivalent of national conservatism.

We waged many battles against left-liberal ideology for decades after our independence in 1947. One of my colleagues, Swadesh Singh, called that ideology the Nehruvian consensus – a liberal, socialist, secular and globalist ideology that dominated India’s ruling elite during those initial decades championed by India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

Our religiosity, cultural identity and national unity were at stake during those trying decades. But we responded to that challenge through a different route. We built a strong social movement of cultural nationalism at the grassroots first. Through decades of hard work by organisations like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a strong grassroots movement of resistance to liberal globalism was nurtured. And when the appropriate moment came ten years ago, in 2014, that social conservatism was translated into political conservatism.

Cultural nationalists are the dominant political force today, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.

A billion Indians stand up for this idea of cultural nationalism today. Even our political adversaries, Congress and others, whom we like to dub “secular nationalists”, cannot go against this new cultural consensus anymore.

In January this year, a massive temple complex came up at Ayodhya in North India, marking the restoration of India’s cultural and civilisational glory. The old temple at the birthplace of Lord Ram was destroyed by invading Mughal armies in the early 16^thcentury. Like how millions of Jews yearn for the restoration of the Temple on the Mount in Jerusalem, 1.4 billion Indians yearned for centuries for the restoration of the temple at Ayodhya. They too waged many battles.

We succeeded in bringing that temple back through a judicial process in 2019. And when its consecration happened in January this year, and the prime minister himself was present there to inaugurate the temple, it represented that new national consensus. The only objection raised by the leader of the main Opposition Congress party was not “whether it was secular or not”, but “why Modi for the consecration, why not me?”

That is the new idea of India—quintessentially cultural, patriotic and nationalist. This idea is not exclusive, nor against any religion or community. It is the reassertion of the conservative soul of our ancient nation.

After we secured an absolute political mandate ten years ago, we used this cultural consensus to take back everything that the Nehruvian liberal elite took away from us several decades ago. We ended socialist protectionism and promoted free market economy. Of course, the process began in the 1990s but it was taken forward vigorously in the last ten years. From the 11^th position a decade ago, India was catapulted to the fifth or fourth largest economy in the world.

We reclaimed our universities and academic bodies; we took back the media space. We recently introduced a New Education Policy (NEP) to rebuild our academic curriculum to teach conservative values to our future generations, a major concern for many in the West.

It is no longer fashionable to call oneself liberal or socialist or secular in India anymore. On the contrary, it is ‘cool’ to be a Hindu or a Buddhist or a Jain or an adherent of any other religion. Cool to be a ‘cultural conservative’. Cool to wear your religious and cultural symbols on your sleeves.

Cornered from all sides, the left-liberal elite are in deep distress. They once controlled prestigious institutions like the Jawaharlal Nehru University for decades. But they are scrambling for a foothold today. As the going became tough in India, many of them moved to the NYTs, WaPos and universities.

Next time there’s an article about India in the American liberal media talking about ‘authoritarianism’, ‘oppressive atmosphere’, ‘democratic backsliding’ etc, it should just be laughed off. It is the wallowing of those desperate left-liberals. India should not be looked at through their prism.

We share many ideas with the NatCons. But we may not fully appreciate the conservatism-liberalism discourse, deeply rooted in the Western socio-political context. Hence, there are bound to be a few differences.

In the Global South, conservatism comes with the baggage of colonialism and a superiority complex. The trauma of centuries of European colonisation, and the harsh treatment meted out to our religions, our cultures and our traditions, is still fresh in our minds.

We believe in freedom of religion. India is a land of many religions. At the root of Indian conservatism is the belief that all religions are valid paths to the same eternal truth. We don’t abhor religious diversity; nor do we insist that everyone should follow only one ‘true’ religion; we celebrate diversity.

Our understanding of religious freedom is of the freedom to propagate one’s religious beliefs; but not the freedom to decry or demonise others. Thus, while an individual’s freedom of religion is sacrosanct, we consider the institutionalised activity of proselytisation, especially if pursued using force, fraud or allurements, as alien to our worldview. We oppose such proselytisation, as much as an animist opposes it in Africa or an Orthodox Christian does in Russia, or a religious Jew does in Israel or a Catholic or a Protestant does in America.

At the same time, we zealously uphold the right of every Hindu, Christian, Muslim and Jew to practise his or her religion without fear.

Finally, we consider issues like climate challenge as real and disapprove of their denial. Also, we are not against the choices of human agency, be it sections like LGBTQ or others. We respect individual rights to the extent that they are complementary to fundamental duties and also do not violate social sensitivities and order. Prompted by that principle, our government had said no to same-sex marriages while, at the same time, decriminalising the choices of the LGBTQ community.

These redlines notwithstanding, I express our solidarity with NatCons in the battle for preserving national identities, religious traditions, and social customs. In the emerging new world order, while we, the conservatives, are busy contradicting and confusing each other, the left-liberals have moved far ahead of us in creating global networks and alliances. They captured institutions like the media and academia and spawned global NGOs. Using those instruments, they created a profoundly negative image of conservatism.

They are attacking our national identities; destroying our family values; and ruining our social and cultural fabric. They promoted unbridled illegal immigration in the name of ‘multiculturalism’, destroying demographic and cultural balance in Western societies. “Demography is destiny”, averred Auguste Comte. We realise this hard reality today as our streets are inundated with infiltrators and our social life becomes acutely unsafe.

Left-liberals took the human rights discourse to a dangerous level by promoting social promiscuity in the name of wokeism, tearing individuals, families and societies apart. Those who stand up to this mindless menace are subjected to a harsh ‘cancel culture’.

In India, we checkmated these heteropolar forces. We built stringent laws against illegal infiltrators. We tightened the noose around terror outfits and their overground support mechanisms championed by liberal elites in the name of human rights, etc. We put strict regulations in place to prevent global NGOs from digressing from their assigned duties of charity and playing havoc with our social-political institutions.

We are criticised, demonised and disparaged by the global liberal elite. But we dismiss them with all the power of a billion Indians behind us.

The power of a billion Indians is ready to stand by our conservative colleagues from across the US and Europe. Let us build a strong global movement for conservatism based on the principles of pluralism, inclusivity, and respect for religious diversity, where our religions feel respected, societies feel secure, and governments feel free to pursue their national agendas.