Podcast: Jerry Rao on The Past, Present, and Future of Conservatism in India

Jerry Rao’s book, The Indian Conservative: A History of Indian Right-Wing Thought, examines the contribution conservative ideas have made—and could make in the future—to the economy, politics, culture, society, and aesthetics of India.

In 2015, the historian Ramachandra Guha wrote an essay in the Indian magazine Caravan that ruffled a lot of feathers. Guha remarked that while India had a right-wing party in power, the country lacked a serious right-wing intellectual ecosystem.

A new book by the author and entrepreneur Jerry Rao argues that India in fact has a long, ancient tradition of right-wing thought. Rao’s book, The Indian Conservative: A History of Indian Right-Wing Thought, examines the contribution conservative ideas have made—and could make in the future—to the economy, politics, culture, society, and aesthetics of India.

On this week’s episode, Milan Vaishnav (Director of the South Asia programme at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace) and Jerry sit down to talk about the roots of conservative thought in India, the connection between Hindu nationalism and conservative tradition, and what the future holds for Indian secularism.