A Look Inside the School Professionalizing India’s Nationalists
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MUMBAI—Vinay Sahasrabuddhe is on a mission that is at once impossibly simple and yet somehow insurmountable: He is training Indian politicians to be competent.
Not just any politicians, mind you—Hindu nationalist politicians.
Sahasrabuddhe, a senior official in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, has for years been admitting election hopefuls to his Indian Institute of Democratic Leadership, teaching them to deliver speeches, debate while staying on message, and promote good governance, all to show them how to work the system and, ultimately, master it. In essence, Sahasrabuddhe and his colleagues are trying to professionalize nationalism.
Such an effort to induct a new generation of leaders into political life is unusual in India, where many elected officials still rely on patrons or lineage to rise to the top. The institute, which markets itself as offering an Ivy League education in politics, offers a window into the BJP’s efforts to educate
