NEW DELHI: Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik 's ringing endorsement of Hindutva and Hindu nationalists has left saffron leaders embarrassed.

Ram Madhav of RSS called it "motivated propaganda", while VHP 's Vinod Bansal insisted that his manifesto, in which he has praised Hindu nationalists, "made no sense". However, BJP MP B P Singhal was quoted as saying that the killer's ideas were not wrong but his methods were.

In his over 1,500-page manifesto titled "2083: A European Declaration of Independence", Breivik talks of Hindutva elements as allies and urges them to fight shoulder to shoulder with his knights. His mission: To stem the spread of Islam in Europe. That India occupies a large part of his perverse mindspace is clear from the 100 pages he dedicates to the country. He comes out in support of "sanatana dharma movements and Indian nationalists in general". He provides the BJP, RSS and ABVP websites as references for more information. The Indian government, he claims, should have insisted on a name change of the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan, because they were named after the Hindus who "were massacred" there. Modern India, he says, "white washed this Hindu genocide", which he likens to "Auschwitz".

Breivik quotes an NCERT directive of 1982 (which actually shows India embracing its multicultural identity) to say he is outraged that it stipulates, "characterization of the medieval period as a time of conflict between Hindus and Moslems is forbidden".

Reacting to Breivik's rant, Ram Madhav, senior RSS leader, said: " His entire so-called manifesto quotes conservative writers from both sides of the Atlantic. Ideological similarities have been drawn from all over, so to say suddenly that it is linked to Indian nationalists or Hindutva is simply motivated propaganda."

The VHP's Vinod Bansal said: "Most of what he has to say makes no sense, except the bit about appeasing Muslims is right. Basically, the UPA government under Sonia Gandhi has been indulging in it and also framing policies in such a way that the whole country is converted to Christianity."

Hindus, Breivik says, have been victims of the greatest historical "genocide" by waves of Islamic jihad.

He quotes right-wing historian KS Lal to argue his point. The most important part of this document is his cherry-picking of history and religion to come to some terribly distorted conclusions.

Breivik claims he wrote several emails and also used Facebook to reach out to people in India. It is possible that he sent his manifesto to the addresses he farmed ahead of the massacre.

There are several themes running through Breivik's tortured manifesto. On the one hand, he attacks Islam and the "appeasement" of Muslims by everybody from western countries to countries like India. But on the other, he has a special place for what he calls the Marxist intellectuals, who, he says, dominate western thought and stifle free societies.