The Myth about the Hindu Right Wing by David Frawley

Excerpts from the Article by David Frawley

In media accounts today, particularly in India, it seems that any group which identifies itself as Hindu or tries to promote any Hindu cause is quickly and uncritically defined as ‘right-winged’.

The truth is that the Hindu movement is a revival of a native spiritual tradition that has nothing to do with the political right-wing of any western country.


The Hindu cause is similar to the cause of native and tribal peoples all over the world, like native American and African groups. 

Yet while the concerns of native peoples have been taken up by the left worldwide, the same concerns of Hindus are styled right-wing or communal, particularly by the left in India!

When native peoples in America or Africa protest missionaries for interfering with their culture, they are supported by the left. Yet when Hindus express the same sentiments, they are attacked by the left.

Unfortunately, the intellectual elite of India, though following a leftist orientation, has no sympathy for the country’s own native tradition. They identify it as right-wing in order to express their hostility towards it. They portray it as a majority oppression of minorities, when it is the movement of a suppressed majority to regain its dignity.

Not surprisingly, the same leftists in India, who have long been allied to communist China, similarly style the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan cause as right-wing and regressive, though the Dalai Lama is honored by the American left.  

In India, the political terminology of right and left is defined by Marxists, who like to call anyone that opposes them right-wing or fascists. According to their view anything traditionally Hindu would have to be right-wing on principle, just as only their views are deemed progressive, even if supporting Stalinist tactics.

However, the entire right-left division reflects the conditions of western politics and is inaccurate in the Indian context. We must give up such concepts in examining Indic civilization, which in its core is spiritually based, not politically driven.

Read the full article here The Myth of the Hindu Right!