In the late 1930s, the world was drifting towards catastrophe. Adolf Hitler had tightened his grip on Germany, turning its politics into a brutal campaign for racial purity. Far from Europe, in colonial India, a Hindu nationalist leader was watching closely. His name was M.S. Golwalkar, the chief ideologue of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
Golwalkar’s 1939 work, We, Or Our Nationhood Defined, is not a dusty relic of nationalist thought. It is a document that openly admires certain aspects of Nazi Germany’s policies towards minorities. In one passage, he points to Germany’s “purging the country of the Semitic races” as an example of national pride and cultural preservation. The language is chilling. It carries the certainty of a man who saw no contradiction in praising the most notorious ethnic cleansing of the 20th century while imagining a future for India built on similar exclusions.
The RSS was founded in 1925, at a time when nationalist movements across the world were experimenting with paramilitary discipline, ideological training, and the politics of identity. Its members wore uniforms, marched in drills, and cultivated a collective sense of purpose. These outward similarities to fascist movements were not accidental. Golwalkar’s vision rested on a core belief: India was, and must remain, a Hindu nation.
In his book, he offered minorities only two options. They could completely assimilate into Hindu culture, abandoning their own religious and cultural identities, or they could remain in the country “wholly subordinated” to the Hindu majority, without political rights or privileges. This was not a passing remark. It was the foundation of a political worldview that saw pluralism as weakness.
The parallels to Nazi ideology are difficult to ignore. In 1930s Germany, the Jewish community was one of the most assimilated minorities in Europe. Within a decade, relentless propaganda turned them into a political underclass. The lesson for majoritarians everywhere was simple: demonising a minority can transform a numerical advantage into a weaponised majority, bound together by fear and resentment.
The RSS absorbed that lesson. Over decades, it built an organisational culture that normalised suspicion towards Muslims and other minorities. Historical disputes over temples and mosques became political flashpoints. Economic restrictions, such as bans on cattle trading, targeted livelihoods. Laws and campaigns, from the Citizenship Amendment Act to the rhetoric around “love jihad,” deepened the sense that some citizens would never be equal.
This ideological inheritance is not unique to India. Across the world, nationalist movements have borrowed and adapted elements of fascist thought. In Myanmar, Buddhist nationalism used similar arguments to justify the expulsion of the Rohingya. In Sri Lanka, Sinhala Buddhist leaders framed Tamil identity as an existential threat. The pattern is familiar: define the nation in ethnic or religious terms, paint a minority as incompatible, and then use state power to enforce the hierarchy.
Golwalkar’s book is rarely quoted in full today. Its most dangerous lines are often downplayed or dismissed as products of a different era. But the continuity of thought is visible. The language may have softened in some quarters, yet the underlying principle — that belonging is conditional on cultural submission — remains alive in parts of India’s political discourse.
History offers no comfort here. The architects of exclusionary nationalism rarely declare their final intentions at the outset. They proceed step by step, normalising discrimination until it no longer shocks. By the time society recognises the danger, the machinery is already in place.
The RSS–Nazi connection is not about claiming India is Germany in 1939. It is about recognising that ideas travel, adapt, and survive. When those ideas are rooted in the belief that diversity is a threat, the outcome is rarely peaceful. Remembering Golwalkar’s words is not a matter of academic interest. It is a warning.
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