Turbocharged neoliberalism and Hindutva

On turbocharged neoliberalism, chasing the bull, and Hindutva

Mohan Dutta

I have often been struck by the appeal of the Ayn Rand ideology of unfettered free market neoliberalism among the convent educated Hindutva ideologues.

This particular species of the Hindutva ideologue speaks chaste English, performs well the convent-educated accent and mannerisms, sits in the boardrooms of tech corporations and global investment capital, on one hand loves everything American and White, and on the other hand, holds deep hatred for Muslims and disdain toward oppressed caste communities.

She/he passes on well as the diversity hire, as the model minority who has climbed through the ranks of financial-technology capital. The finance technology corporations declare having fulfilled their diversity quotas.

Moreover, she/he knows well how to play victim, producing the narrative of the margin to claim marginality in multicultural contexts. Through this claim to a marginalized identity, the convent educated Hindutva ideologue lays claim to superficial Western multiculturalism.

This convent-educated English speaking class makes up your investment bankers, IT professionals, doctors, lawyers etc. that migrate to Western democracies chasing the bull. They import their deep Islamophobia, caste affinities, and desires for Hindutva into the spaces of global capital. The economic basis of the Hindutva extremism on the ground in India and on digital spaces is often funded through networks of Hindutva espousing professionals in the diaspora.

So how does the desire for neoliberalism sit alongside this desire for Hindutva?

As communicative structures that legitimize inequalities and produce the common sense of inequalities, the anglicized versions of Hindutva and neoliberal economics go hand-in-hand. It is the seduction of grotesque power that consolidates itself through the legitimization of the marginalization of the under classes.

The savarna brahminical belief in the natural order of caste inequality and the neoliberal faith in natural inequality mirror each other.

The desire for the Wall Street bull mirrors the desire for caste inequality.

This explains the ways in which immigration policies in Western democracies have enabled the rapid rise of Hindutva both in the diaspora and in India.

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