The influence of Hindutva’s unique brand of realism on Modi’s foreign policy is apparent. By January 01, 2021 Advertisement A spate of inquiries into the nature of rising India, specifically under the tenure of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, have attempted to examine the role of Hindutva as the guiding philosophical framework for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) foreign policy orientation. Present-day iterations of both the BJP and its key associate and ideological repository, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangha (RSS), claim allegiance to long-standing Hindu ideas on politics, economics, and society. These variegated ideas, espoused most prominently by figures such as Swami Vivekananda, V.D. Savarkar, H. V. Sheshadri, and M.S. Golwalkar, were formed during a period of Hindu renaissance in early to mid-20th century colonial India. At the time, these interlocutors attempted to define the religion’s scope in exclusivist “national” terms by adumbrating the requisites and rituals of “Indianness” that were considered vital to gaining legitimate membership in the nation. Their political project was mainly realized through exceptionalist re-readings of the subcontinent’s cultural history that embraced mythologized paeans and ballads of Hindu greatness in India’s ancient past, which were followed by despairing narratives of victimhood instigated by foreign invasion, moral corruption, loot, and plunder – with special emphasis reserved for the British and Mughals.