ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the role played by India in far right ideology during a period of intense debate surrounding its role as a British Crown Colony. It will be shown that while India was seen as the pride and joy of the British Empire and testament to British imperial glory, Indians – particularly Hindus – were despised in far right publications and viewed as racial inferiors. Accordingly, the Indian independence movement, typified by Gandhi and the Indian National Congress in the interwar period, was criticised as being a ‘fake’ movement and the mere puppets of a Judaeo-Bolshevik global conspiracy aimed at destroying the Empire. Draconian and indeed, totalitarian solutions to the issue of Indian unrest were subsequently proposed by interwar fascist movements. Mosley, in particular, saw destroying the Indian textiles industry as crucial for economically rejuvenating Lancashire and other northern mill towns. Fierce national debate surrounding the question of Indian autonomy, which culminated in the Government of India Act (1935), also provides a good example of the far right’s ineffectiveness in exploiting imperial issues with mainstream attention. While there was some collaboration with marginalised mainstream conservatives, the far right were never viewed as authorities on the issue. Indian independence in 1947 was decried as a tragedy by the postwar far right and largely disappeared from conversation, yet, anti-Indian stereotypes persisted. The Republic of India was criticised, like the independence movement, as part of a global conspiracy, only this time applied to a Cold War context.
