Ram Madhav writes: India should steer the global conservative movement

The latest addition to this list was Geert Wilders, the firebrand conservative leader in the Netherlands, whose Party for Freedom (PVV) shocked the West by emerging far ahead of all other parties in the elections in November last year. Short of a majority, he may or may not succeed in forming the government. But he succeeded in making a strong case for a conservative revival in the liberal bastion, boosting the morale of the conservatives.

Unnerved by this conservative upsurge, liberal zealots resorted to illiberal tantrums when the conservatives planned their ninth National Conservatism Conference in Brussels earlier this month. Yoram Hazony, a Jewish-American leading light of the conservative movement, described the liberal onslaught, a political version of the notorious “cancel culture” in a detailed social media post. The liberal party mayors first denied permission for the conference to be held at a venue near the EU citing fears of so-called “anti-fascist” protests. When the organisers, Edmund Burke Foundation of America, secured the Sofitel Hotel as the alternate venue, the district mayor not only got the permission cancelled just one day before the event, but also boasted about it as a great liberal victory.

The conference went ahead at a nondescript venue in a poorer neighbourhood of Brussels, while Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo decried the shenanigans of his colleagues as “unacceptable”. Prominent conservative leaders like Suella Braverman and Nigel Farage from the UK and Eric Zemmour from France were present. But the star attraction was Viktor Orban, who called out the hypocrisy of the EU’s so-called liberalism that sought to deny his right to speak.

The rise of conservatism must be seen in the context of what is happening in the liberal wonderland of America. The celebrated Columbia University has announced the closure of its campus this semester and virtual teaching throughout the year after an uncontrollable agitation by Left-wing protestors over the happenings in Gaza engulfed its campus in New York. The New York mayor fumed at the protestors and their threats to the Jewish and other law-abiding students. Still, the police, sulking over the liberal calls for defunding of their force, showed a lukewarm response to the appeals by the university authorities. Even the metro stations around the campus were forced to shut down due to protests. From Harvard and Yale in the East to Stanford and UC Berkeley in the West, the Left-Liberal anarchy is ruling campuses in America.

The classical liberalism of Thomas Hobbes or John Locke was noble intentioned and stood for the marginalised sections of the society. But the takeover of the movement by the extreme left poses a serious threat to fundamental human values today. Distortion of liberal principles like DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion), propagation of an extreme “woke” version of human identity and rejection of all other ideas leading to “cancel culture” is disheartening to many true liberals too.

Professor Randall Kennedy, an eminent scholar of race and civil rights, published an op-ed in The Harvard Crimson denouncing the unscrupulous use of DEI statements in academic hiring. “I am a scholar on the left committed to struggles for social justice,” he wrote, adding, “The realities surrounding mandatory DEI statements, however, make me wince.” Lamenting that aspiring professors are required to “profess and flaunt” their faith in DEI in a process that “leans heavily and tendentiously towards varieties of academic leftism”, Kennedy exhorted that mandatory DEI statements “ought to be abandoned”.

The conservative case, on the other hand, is sublime. “God, religion, family, nation and patriotism” was how Orban summed up his conservative ideas in a recent interaction. At Brussels, speakers essentially identified the mainstream media, unbridled immigration, political correctness, global NGOs led by people like George Soros, and “Bolshewokism” as the challenge.

As the conservatives begin to reassert, liberal backlash is also intensifying. Liberals seem to have the upper hand, not necessarily because of the legitimacy of their ideas, but because of their control over instruments like academia and the media. The conservative movement has its own weaknesses that the liberals exploit to demonise it. It has its demagogues and hate-mongers. But most conservative leaders are decent and sensible. They champion ideas that are the need of the hour.

The global conservative movement faces the challenge of leadership in the face of a determined liberal onslaught. Viktor Orban and Marie Le Pen are popular leaders but still represent small populations. Yes, there is a Trump or a Meloni or a tech tycoon like Elon Musk. Yet, there is no Margaret Thatcher to bring the necessary “Thatcherist” heft to the movement. The ship of conservatism is sailing strong in the face of many vicissitudes, internal and external. A strong Indian leadership can stabilise its journey and succeed in creating “Brand Bharat” as the 21st-century conservative alternative to the disruptive extreme left-liberal politics.

Indian nationalist intellectuals need not worry about plunging into European identity politics and the liberal-conservative divide. On the Indian ideological soil of cultural nationalism, pluralism, democracy, and global family, the conservative movement of the world can find its roots and converge. Many classical liberals too may find traces of their beliefs in that tradition. The challenge, though, is to stand up to the ideals of Indian nationalism and seize the opportunity.

The writer, president, India Foundation, is with the RSS