New academic study argues multicultural policy, education and Australia–India diplomacy are helping normalise transnational Hindu nationalism

A major new peer-reviewed study examining Hindutva in Australia should be essential reading for policymakers, educators and multicultural community leaders.

Published online on 17 August 2026 in Asian Studies Review, The Quiet Mainstreaming of Transnational Hindutva: Long Distance Nationalism and the Australian State is authored by Felix Pal of the University of Western Australia, Priya Chacko of Adelaide University and Nisha Thapliyal of the University of Newcastle.

The article’s importance lies not simply in documenting the activities of Hindu nationalist organisations in Australia, but in asking a more difficult question: what role has the Australian state itself played in enabling their legitimacy?

What is ‘quiet mainstreaming’?

The authors locate Hindutva within the transnational network associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), commonly referred to as the Sangh, whose organisational and ideological affiliates include the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Rather than concentrating only on how Hindutva organisations mobilise the Indian diaspora, the researchers examine the Australian institutions that receive and interact with them. Their central concept is “quiet mainstreaming”: the process through which organisations and political ideas acquire legitimacy and normality through apparently routine relationships with governments, bureaucracies and public institutions.

This is the paper’s most significant analytical contribution. The authors reject the idea that far-right movements simply penetrate an otherwise neutral political mainstream. Mainstream institutions themselves can facilitate normalisation through the everyday decisions of politicians, bureaucrats, educators and government agencies.

Importantly, this should not be read as equating Hinduism or Hindu Australians with Hindutva. The paper’s subject is specifically Hindu nationalist organisations and networks and how organisations claiming representative status can acquire institutional authority.

Multiculturalism and representation

The first case study concerns multiculturalism. The authors argue that Australia’s preference for dealing with identifiable “representative” community organisations can unintentionally privilege dominant voices within diverse diasporas.

They examine relationships involving the Hindu Council of Australia (HCA), Vishwa Hindu Parishad Australia (VHPA), Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh and other organisations, tracing personnel, institutional and ideological connections within the broader Sangh network.

Government consultation, advisory positions, grants and participation in multicultural programs can consequently do more than recognise an organisation: the authors argue that state recognition leaves an “authoritative residue”, indirectly giving legitimacy to the political ideology associated with it.

Education as a critical battleground

The study’s examination of education is particularly significant. It scrutinises Special Religious Education in NSW public schools and the role of the VHPA, HCA and Chinmaya Mission as registered Hindu SRE providers.

According to the study, VHPA claims involvement in 80 Sydney public and high schools, involving approximately 250 volunteers and almost 25,000 children weekly, although the authors caution that these figures cannot independently be confirmed because the Department of Education does not publicly collect and release such data.

The analytical concern is therefore not Hindu religious education itself, but whether the state has adequate mechanisms to distinguish religious and cultural education from ideological nationalism.

Australia’s strategic relationship with India

The third dimension is foreign policy. As Australia has increasingly regarded India as an economic and strategic partner, particularly within the Quad, the authors argue that Australian governments have become reluctant to critically engage with Hindutva.

They examine Australian political engagement with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and RSS-linked figures, alongside official representations of India as a pluralistic democracy. The article also contrasts DFAT assessments that Indian Muslims face a “low risk of official discrimination” with international and scholarly findings documenting substantial discrimination and marginalisation.

This exposes the paper’s broader geopolitical argument: economic and security interests can shape not only foreign policy but also how diaspora politics are understood domestically.

A warning for Australian multiculturalism

The article does not establish that every government interaction with a Hindu organisation constitutes endorsement of Hindutva. Its argument is subtler and more consequential: repeated recognition, funding, consultation and institutional access can normalise organisations without government consciously endorsing their underlying ideology.

The authors conclude that the growth of diasporic far-right networks is therefore “not simply incidental but rather permitted”. They argue that Australia’s multicultural machinery tends to privilege dominant organisations claiming representative authority, while closer strategic relations with India’s government reduce incentives to interrogate those relationships.

That makes this study bigger than a debate about Hindutva. It raises a fundamental question for Australian multiculturalism: when governments choose organisations to represent diverse communities, who scrutinises who those organisations actually represent, what ideologies they carry, and whose voices within those communities are consequently marginalised?

Original article: Felix Pal, Priya Chacko & Nisha Thapliyal (2026), “The Quiet Mainstreaming of Transnational Hindutva: Long Distance Nationalism and the Australian State,” Asian Studies Review, published online 17 August 2026, DOI: 10.1080/10357823.2026.2710197.

Read the full open-access article:
The Quiet Mainstreaming of Transnational Hindutva: Long Distance Nationalism and the Australian State