The Taxonomy of the Indian right. Before we dive in here, we need to ask ourselves what defines a modernist movement? C19/ C20 saw the rise of modernist movements in much of the world

The essence of these movements was a reaction to the trauma of encountering the fully industrialized, modern nation-state western powers arriving at your door and subjugating you with modern weapons.

These encounters (especially the Opium wars in China) drove soul searching in much of the non-western world. Why are we so weak and why are they so strong”? was the question that defined most modernist movements.

Their differing answers circumscribed the paths that their nations took today. Three main species.

Answer 1: “Everything about us is bad, we should dismantle all the old ways and dispose of those who stand in our way”. Or CHINA. The Chinese Maoists and Cultural revolution destroyed their traditions, murdered their priests, and in general decimated any vestige of the old

Answer 2: “Nothing about the old ways is bad. We were just impure in following them” AKA Wahhabism. This was the reaction of the Arabs when they encountered Napoleon. It set in motion Wahabbism and Quttubism which later morphed into various Muslim Brother hood movements.

Answer 3: “We should bring the old into harmony with the new. Not all of the old is bad, but the new has to be given its due” AKA Japan. The Meiji restoration did not destroy Japanese culture, what emerged was still Japan. But it did modernize it with significant reform

Now lets turn to India. Indian Hindu Nationalists have the same question they are wrestling with? How did we lose to those silly Timurids and those tea slurping brits? But because India is slow at everything we have all 3 types of answers in society

A1 or Answer 1: This is the Nehruvian left, which genuinely loved the Indian people but genuinely (equally) detested Indian culture. They did attempt to dismantle it to the fullest extent possible, but because India was a democracy, they did not get very far

A2 or Answer 2: These are our trads, who yap all day about how varna by birth is the correct formula and use the word 'Mleccha'. They are not bad people, this comes out of a genuine love of country - but they are drawn from mainly the less educated sections of society

A3 or Answer 3: These are what I would call the ‘Savarkarites’. Savarkar saw that the division of caste and region was the poison that had afflicted India for a thousand years. He wanted the total and complete annihilation of caste.

It is worth noting that one of his most famous books was about Guru Gobind Singh and his admiration that the Guru was a man ahead of his time. A3s have achieved a lot of success in India, particularly under Narendra Modi.

The RSS is much more of an A3 organization than an A2, and India is rapidly moving towards the A3 consensus which is roughly - we will modernize Hinduism. We will attack the social prohibitions on inter caste marriage.

We will publicly and privately shame those who practice untouchability. Reservation will be the compensation for thousands of years of discrimination. In doing so we will create a unified Hinduism and cure the flaw that has subjected India to repeated invasion

Now what’s the problem with this? The first problem - is that India is doing in 80 years what the west figured out over 300 years of. The second, that it is doing this in a country where people have not that much material possessions and thus their traditions are cherished

A3s are in conflict with A1s but have mostly overpowered them. The A1 movement never actually took more than 1-2% of India.

A2s - the trads, poor boys, get it from both ends. The A3s don’t like them because a lot of unreformed doctrinare aspects are frankly vomit inducing. The A1s who control the media don’t like any Hindus anyway

The A2s respond in the way all disaffected young men do. They hide behind the anonymity of the internet, defend the traditions of their faith, and try to participate in the grand Indian civilizational project, where they are often not welcome

To add fuel to the fire, the A2s are often drawn from relatively underprivileged families of the Upper Castes, where, because India is still a poor country, they are unable to avail of any reservation. Indeed India doesn’t have any on the basis of economics

So, rejected by the state, rejected by the cultural elite, locked out of economic opportunity, and seeing his (and it is boys we are speaking of) only real saving grace in life, the higher ritual status, get withered away, he is filled with seething anger

They also have valid points. Today if you are a poor UC in India, you indeed have not much help you can expect from the state. And there are a lot of poor UCs, India is a poor country. They are correct that it is unfair. It is not like the village priest got anything from the Raj

What to do about it? The A2/A3 compromise is what will define 21st Century India culturally. It will likely be the A2s that will have to concede a lot because they are in the minority, and because no A2 movement has ever really succeeded.