New Delhi, July 1 -- How and why did Hindu nationalism become popular among the diaspora after India's independence in 1947? This is the central question of Hindu Nationalism in the Indian Diaspora: Transnational Politics and British Multiculturalism, the 2023 book by historian Edward Anderson. The book explores the distinctive resonance Hindutva ideology has overseas, and the multiple ways in which the diaspora engages with British politics and society while sustaining connections back home in India. Anderson spoke about his book on a recent episode of Grand Tamasha, a weekly podcast on Indian politics and policy co-produced by HT and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Anderson is an assistant professor of history at Northumbria University in Newcastle. His book was named by The Economist as one of the six books to read on the subject of "Hindutva". Anderson spoke with host Milan Vaishnav about the trajectory of Indian migration to Britain, the founding of the first overseas Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) shakha, and the Emergency's impact on the diaspora. One of the central arguments of the book is that "Global Hindutva" is often the product of strategies of domestic expansion as well as sustained coordination from India. "On the one hand, certain people suggest that Hindutva or Hindu nationalist groups outside India are entirely organic, they are grassroots [organisations]," Anderson said. "On the other hand, some people suggest that Hindu nationalism is a kind of export from India - it's something that's entirely coordinated or supplanted." Anderson's research finds that the truth lies somewhere in between. He stressed that his work does not suggest that all diasporic Hindutva is the product of coordination. "It's clear that a lot of it does occur in kind of organic ways," he said. "It's often dependent on proactive, very committed individuals who are doing a lot of the heavy lifting and organising of a wide range of groups." Anderson claimed that there is a degree of separateness between diaspora groups and Hindutva organisations, and that the latter "are often quite keen to emphasise the separateness" for strategic reasons. Anderson also spoke about the importance of the Emergency -- whose 50th anniversary is being commemorated this year -- in jumpstarting the Hindutva movement, which had repercussions for overseas Indians. One figure who shows up in Anderson's book is none other than Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "What we know about [Modi's role] is from a few things he'd written and said, and also a book that he published initially in Gujarati about Gujarat during the Emergency," explained Anderson. In the book, Modi describes his experiences as a pracharak and a full-time worker of the RSS. "One of the roles that he describes in the book is involved with coordinating activism and contact with people outside of India, including political leader Makrand Desai [former BJP national secretary], who is in England at this point. And Modi described getting information out of India, where press freedom is heavily restricted, that could be circulated among members of the diaspora, particularly the Gujarati diaspora in Britain and elsewhere," he said. Some of these stories would make their way into the global press while others would then be compiled into informal publications quietly circulated in India....