In many respects, therefore, India’s recent history is a cautionary tale about the very real dangers that “mysticism” can present when it is mixed with exclusionary right-wing politics. Nor is this coincidental: the ideologues who laid the foundations of Hindu fundamentalism explicitly embraced fascistic theories of race, Aryanism, and so on. They may have invoked ancient symbols and images in their writings, but their ideas were very much products of colonial modernity, which is why they have now morphed so easily into an ideology of rapaciously extractivist nationalism.
