Trump and Modi are the mainstream faces of the global far right
Even by the standards of the Trump era, the “Howdy Modi!” meeting in Houston, Texas, this Sunday was weird. The Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, had invited Donald Trump to be his guest at a massive rally in the American heartland. And, unsurprisingly, giving his submissive behavior towards authoritarian leaders, the president had accepted, happily playing second fiddle to a foreign leader on US soil.
But beyond these remarkable details, the meeting was in many ways symptomatic of what I have called the fourth wave of postwar far-right politics in my new book, The Far Right Today. The fourth wave is characterized by extreme heterogeneity as well as mainstreaming and normalization, all of which were on display in Houston this weekend.
For decades the far-right operated at the margins of democratic politics, barely making it into national parliaments. And when they did, they were shunned by the other parties. Even when they increased their electoral successes in the last two decades of the 20th century, few were able to break into power. And this Sunday, two far-right leaders met in Houston, representing two of the most populous and powerful democracies in the world. They are the new mainstream!
The mainstreaming of Trump is now well-known, but no one personifies the mainstreaming and normalization of the far-right better than Modi, darling of the international business community, who sells India abroad as a modern, rising economic power, while implementing a radical Hindu nationalism (Hindutva) at home. On his travels all around the world, he is rarely confronted with protesters and few journalists will describe him as far right.
And yet, Modi has been involved in Hindutva politics since his childhood – he allegedly joined the extremist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which has been banned three time in Indian history, at the tender age of eight. And Modi himself was banned from entering the US for almost a decade, until five years ago, because of his role in the 2002 anti-Muslim pogroms in the Indian state of Gujarat. Modi served as chief minister of Gujarat when 1,200 people, mostly Muslims, were killed in Hindu riots.
But things have changed. What was once an electoral liability is now a political asset. In fact, more than anything, Modi and Trump are united in their Islamophobia. Both have turned it into authoritarian policies, criticized by the international community but
popular among their respective bases – from Trump’s so-called “Muslim ban” to Modi’s lockdown of the Muslim-majority state of Kashmir.
But while the far-right has become a global phenomenon in the fourth wave, it is not a global force. This is in part because of their nationalism – all farright leaders put their own country first and believe in a dog eat dog world. But it is also because the contemporary far-right is extremely heterogeneous, in terms of ideologies, organizations and traditions.
Take Trump and Modi. Trump is a far-right leader who hijacked a traditionally conservative party and is slowly but steadily reshaping it in his own political image. Modi is the leader of the largest political party in the world, the Indian People’s party (BJP), which claims some 180 million members. Trump has far-right instincts, rather than a developed ideology (there is no “Trumpism”), whereas Modi is the product of a century-old ideology and subculture (the so-called Sangh Parivar). This lack of a global agenda was on full display in the past week. While Modi fed his Indian American base some anti-Pakistan red meat in Houston, accusing its northern neighbors of supporting terrorism, Trump said only a few days earlier that he had “great relationship with Pakistan and with India”. And even on trade Modi and Trump are at best close to a “minideal”.
While we are not yet confronted with a global far-right political force, individual far-right leaders and parties are collaborating in their battle against the liberal democratic elites. Trump endorsed Benjamin Netanyahu in the recent Israeli elections, and Modi endorsed Trump for the 2020 presidential elections.
These acts of solidarity might at times provide an electoral boost to the far-right, but they are shallow and fleeting. When your slogan is “America first” there is only so far your alliances with others can go – even when they are as far right as you are.
Cas Mudde is a Guardian US columnist and the Stanley Wade Shelton UGAF professor in the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Georgia