Photo: Manish Swarup/AP

For Breivik, it is essential that far-right, Islamophobic movements in Europe and India “learn from each other and cooperate as much as possible.”

Breivik calls on his “Hindu Nationalist brothers” to “rise up” against the Muslim conquerors of India, and extols Hindu nationalist groups because “they dominate the streets” and “do not tolerate the current injustice and often riot and attack Muslims when things get out of control.” However, he complains, “this behaviour is nonetheless counterproductive.” “Instead of attacking the Muslims,” he continues, “they should target the category A and B traitors in India and consolidate military cells and actively seek the overthrow of the cultural Marxist government.” For Breivik, it is essential that far-right, Islamophobic movements in Europe and India “learn from each other and cooperate as much as possible” because “our goals are more or less identical.” He even provides a list of online resources for his readers — and it includes the website of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh among them. The RSS is a far-right, male-only paramilitary volunteer organization, founded in India in 1925. Breivik may have been lauding the RSS in 2011; but back in the 1920s and 1930s, the founders of the RSS were heaping praise on Europe’s far-right, totalitarian regimes — from Mussolini’s fascists in Italy to Hitler’s Nazis in Germany.

M.S. Golwalkar, the second leader of the RSS, wrote about how he was inspired by Nazi Germany, which he said displayed “race pride at its highest” and was “a good lesson for use” in India. V.D. Savarkar, who coined the term “Hindutva” to refer to the RSS’s vision of India as a Hindu state, claimed that “Germany had every right to resort to Nazism, and Italy to Fascism.” He even compared India’s Muslims to “Jews in Germany.” A former member of the RSS — and acolyte of Savarkar — would later assassinate Mahatma Gandhi, in protest of the latter’s pro-Muslim views. So where does Modi fit in here? The Indian prime minister is the leader of the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party, which is accurately described by Breivik in his manifesto as “the political arm of the RSS.” Modi himself began training with the RSS when he was 8 years old; by the age of 22, he was a full-time “pracharak,” or missionary, for the group. As chief minister of the state of Gujarat — the scene of brutal anti-Muslim pogroms in 2002 — Modi oversaw the distribution of high school textbooks that described Hitler as a leader who “lent dignity and prestige to the German government.”