Hindutva used to be a quest for cultural self-respect in India, a movement resulting from historical wounds and civilizational pride. Nevertheless, it has developed outside its motherland in the last ten years. From online forums to political rallies, the ideology has acquired new viewers in the global Indian community and has evolved from a cultural assertion to a political project that has far-reaching influence worldwide, particularly in India.
Even nowadays, the echoes of Hindutva can be heard in the language. It is no longer a matter of temple politics or textbooks; it is a matter of who belongs, who talks, and who is not. On different continents, it sounds like the far-right: anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, and highly nationalist.
The Diaspora’s Role: Identity or Influence?
In London, Leicester, New York, and Edison, the Hindutva-related movements have organized the global Indian community mobilizations in unparalleled terms. Allegedly spreading the message of Hindu pride, most of these groups have been moving in line with political interests that resonate with right-wing populism in the Western world.
Since the UK backing of exclusionary candidates, to the US alliances with conservative Christian organizations, the alliances show more than commonality of values; they show commonality of fears. Fear of cultural dilution. Fear of the “outsider.” And the terror of the loss of control in societies is becoming more and more diverse. What used to be a nostalgic feeling towards Indian identity has now started to become the very reflection of the ideologies that the creators of Hindutva were against.
When Online Nationalism Goes Global
The mighty amplifier of this change has been social media. The slogans that previously remained in the rallies of Indians are currently trending around the world. WhatsApp groups, Facebook pages, and YouTube channels confuse Indian and Western political rhetoric. The memes that attack minorities in India seem to be the very same ones, nearly identical, nearly everywhere on American right-wing social media or in British right-wing discussion boards.
Hindutva finds its place in these digital echo chambers, which create a global story of resentment. It is the language of patriotism and the success of polarization. It is an assurance of community, but usually breeds aggression. Globalization that was supposed to bring shared progress has begun to follow a shadowy trail of shared anger.
Between Pride and Prejudice
People who believe in Hindutva protect the movement aggressively. It is a retrieval of dignity for them following centuries of colonial oppression and cultural obliteration. Each temple rebuilt, each festival observed, is a kind of resistance. A haughty assertion of: we are still here.
However, critics are even more concerned about a different picture: that of a change of self-respect to supremacy. Their argument is that the rhetoric of pride will easily end up in the rhetoric of exclusion. Leicester Muslim-bashing, hate speech on the Internet, and increasing political polarization among diaspora members are evidence that cultural pride can be easily transformed into cultural aggression.
A Global Trend in Disguise?
What is interestingly threatening about this trend is how it fits the far-right trends in other countries. Conservative organizations that previously perceived Hinduism as foreign have found in Hindutva a convenient political ally in the United States, held together by Islamophobia and nationalism. Stories of cultural purity echo menacingly in the white supremacist movement as well as the Hindutva movement in Europe.
It poses a troubling question: Is Hindutva becoming a component of a larger global trend where ideological boundaries are no longer relevant, so long as the enemy is the same?
The New Transnational Extremism?
Hindutva in foreign countries is no longer the question of maintaining cultural loyalties, but it is the question of recreating world identity politics. It offers a new digitally connected space of ideological exchange between the right-wing movements throughout the globe. Grief spreads immediately; wrath crosses national borders.
What we are likely to be observing is not isolation but integration, a new worldwide coalition of extremisms, not tied by ethnicity or territory but by common complaints and imaginative dangers. Hindutva is not merely imitating the far-right all over the world; it is supporting it.
The Bigger Picture
From Delhi to Dallas, from Leicester to Lucknow, nationalism is becoming unrecognizably global. Hindutva’s role in that transformation forces us to confront uncomfortable questions about identity, belonging, and power in the 21st century. Does cultural pride inevitably breed exclusion when exported? Or can it evolve into a more inclusive idea of dignity?
Suddenly, Hindutva looks less like a cultural pride movement and more like a piece of the global far-right puzzle. The question is: Are we witnessing the birth of a new, transnational extremism?
Whatever the answer, one thing seems certain: Hindutva is no longer India’s domestic debate; it’s part of a larger, interconnected story of how fear, faith, and belonging are being redefined across the world.
