Protecting the people: populism and masculine security in India and Hungary

ABSTRACT

The article contributes to a comparative understanding of populism, securitization, and ontological security by demonstrating how masculinity plays a central role in invocations of insecurity. We argue that masculinity, understood as a set of gendered relations that helps in forging affective communities between populist leaders, the people, and objects of securitization, can provide useful insights into the political practice of populism and securitization. Building upon an analysis of the speeches of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, this article shows how right-wing populist constructions of security function by accommodating objects of securitization within an imaginary of family and kinship and invoking a familial bond between the populist leader and the objects of securitization. These constructions of security and terrorism are built upon similar gendered relations and influences across national contexts. In their constructions of security, both populist leaders invoke love and pride in gendered ways to create a familial bond between the populist leader and the people, even as they engage in acts of violence toward objects of securitization within a familial order by deploying idioms of kinship and the family.

Introduction

The past decade has witnessed an upsurge in populism across Europe, America, and South Asia.¹ Populist leaders lay claim to power and authority as representatives of a ‘forgotten people’ who are disillusioned with ‘mainstream politics’, corrupt elites, technocratic governance, corrupt institutions, and ‘globalist’ policies and ideologies.² Populists appeal to the identity of these purported ‘people’ and their sense of national belonging.³ Populism has also been defined as a political style, as ‘repertoires of performance are used to create political relations’ by populist leaders; therefore, one can study populism by focusing on the relationship between populist leaders and the people and analyzing their political style,⁴ where right-wing populist leaders rely on emotions to mobilize the people.⁵

Scholars of populism have characterized populist politics as being inimical to pluralism as it relies upon a homogeneous ‘will of the people’.⁶ To that extent, populist politics appears to be a threat to some of the tenets of liberal democracy, such as the protection of civil liberties and minority rights. Recent scholarship on populism has explored the interaction between populist rhetoric and performances and discourses of security and securitization. Scholars have taken note of how populist securitization works through social constructions of enmity, crisis, and existential threats to the people, foregrounding narratives of ontological insecurity vis-à-vis those purported to be enemies of the people, and through the mobilization of a range of performances, rhetorical styles, and aesthetics linked to security. ⁷ This article contributes to scholarship on populism and securitization by presenting a comparative study of populist constructions of terrorism and insecurity in two national contexts by analyzing the centrality of masculinity. Through a comparison of the speeches of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, this article delineates the myriad ways in which masculinity mediates populist constructions of terrorism and security. It shows how masculinity functions in comparable ways across different national contexts and contributes to a project of securitization carried out by right-wing populists. Masculinity is understood not only as a set of gender attributes of populist leaders but as also performances and gendered relations in both contexts. The article traces how assignments of love, faith, pride, and responsibility are intertwined with the exercise of discipline, power, violence, and force in the masculine constructions of terrorism and objects of securitization by both populist leaders. This is achieved primarily through the trope of the gendered family, which is then expanded onto the nation and concerns about national security by populist leaders. To that extent, we show how masculinity is relational and how it is tethered to a set of hierarchical gendered relations that constitute a project of securitization. Additionally, this article also draws out how masculine constructions of insecurity bring together global, transnational, and nationalist gender ideologies. Hence, the article contributes to scholarship on populism, securitization, and ontological security through an analysis of performative and relational aspects of masculinity that mediate securitization and help in constructing notions of ontological security. We show how ontological security is restored through particular constructions of masculinity. These notions of masculinity are based on bonds between men as well as gendered relations between men and women.

Using a discourse analysis of the speeches of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, we trace the comparable ways in which masculinity functions in both contexts in the construction of terrorism. Despite the different historical circumstances in which right-wing populism emerged in Hungary and India – Hindu nationalist consolidation and the decline of Congress hegemony in India and the rise of nationalism against perceived European domination and skepticism toward the European Union in post-communist Hungary, we observed that gendered populist rhetoric on terrorism and security is constructed in comparable ways, albeit with finer, subtle differences in style and substance of populist leaders. Both Modi and Orban conceptualize the nation in need of security as a family that needs to be protected by a masculine protector. The rhetoric of protection brings together love, faith, pride, and the typical qualities of discipline, force, and power associated with a masculine strongman. In the Indian case, Modi’s construction of a masculine state as a protector against cross-border terrorism resonates with global counterterrorism discourses post-9/11 that legitimate preemptive security measures and suspension of civil liberties by a masculine state to rein in terrorism. Orbán posits a Christian, white, ethnic nationalist conception of the Hungarian identity that relies on the physical prowess of a male protector of the family, women, and children who purportedly guards against terrorism resulting from cross-border immigration. Orbán’s construction of security is premised on affective bonds between the populist leader and men and gendered relations between men and women. Orbán’s construction of a masculine state also draws upon a repertoire of securitization of immigration that gained ascendance across Europe post-9/11. This discourse of securitization is premised upon the imagined threat posed by racialized bodies to white European Christian civilization and the crisis of multiculturalism in Europe.

We focus on speeches by Modi and Orbán delivered between 2014 and 2019 that pertain to terrorism. This period is characterized by the widespread rhetoric in Europe linking migration to crime, terrorism, and the failure of multiculturalism.⁸ Eastern European nations such as Hungary and Poland have elected right-wing nationalist parties – Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s Law and Justice Party (PiS) in Poland and Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz Party in Hungary – led by populist leaders with huge majorities. Similarly, India, the world’s most populous democracy, has witnessed the consolidation of a right-wing nationalist party led by a populist leader who won massive victories in national elections in 2014 and 2019.⁹ This article is divided into six sections. The first section provides a brief note on methodology. The second section situates our inquiry in conversation with scholarship on populism, securitization, ontological security, and political masculinities and affect. The third section briefly lays out the historical context in which right-wing populism emerged in Hungary and India. The fourth section reconstructs Modi’s speeches on terrorism and security and delineates how notions of masculinity mediate the construction of these concerns. The following section similarly reconstructs Orban’s speeches on terrorism and security to delineate the masculine, protectionist imaginaries of the state and the people. The final section highlights the subtle differences between Modi and Orbán’s populism and also discusses insights that can be gained from the comparison.

Methodology

We chose Narendra Modi and Orban as both leaders present similar populist claims to representing and embodying the people, even though they come to power in different national and therefore socio-political and historical contexts. In both cases, the rhetoric of national security performs an important constitutive function in legitimizing the appeal of the leaders as protectors of the ‘people’. Modi’s upsurge has been understood as a form of authoritarian populism as he combines majoritarian rule legitimized by massive electoral victories with the restoration of neoliberal economic policies.¹⁰ Modi’s political rhetoric sits well with the general trend of strong leaders elected across the world who promote hyper-nationalism, religious or ethnic majoritarianism, and a violent division of society into ‘pure people’ and ‘enemies of the people’.¹¹ Modi’s invocation of the rhetoric of national security further legitimizes the need for a strong leader and a security state. Similarly, Orban has touted himself as an authentic representative of ethnic Hungarian people and targeted his political opponents, members of civil society, and the European Union as external enemies of the nation.¹² In conducting a discourse analysis of the speeches, we follow a discourse-historical approach to critical discourse analysis developed by Austrian linguist Ruth Wodak.¹³ Following Wodak’s method, we focus on four different levels of analysis of the speeches. 1) the language of the text or the ‘text-internal context’, 2) the ‘intertextual’ and ‘interdiscursive’ relationship between ‘texts, genres, and discourse’, 3) social variables and institutional frames pertaining to a specific situation, and 4) the broader socio-political and historical contexts in which discursive practices take shape.¹⁴ Additionally, we also analyze how the speeches of the two leaders draw upon and mobilize, as well as the gendered relations that these build upon and concretize.

In attempting a discourse analysis of Modi’s speeches on terrorism and security, we paid particular attention to the gendered linguistic tropes he used and the gendered relations that these invoke and are embedded in. We also situated his speeches within the broader socio-political and historical context of Hindu nationalism and the changing vocabulary of the Hindu right with the upsurge of counterterrorism post-9/11 as well as a closer alignment between the state and Hindu nationalism with Modi’s ascendance to power. In order to reconstruct the historical and socio-political context that shaped Modi’s speeches, we used secondary scholarship on Hindu nationalism and Modi’s authoritarian populism, as well as newspaper and magazine reportage during the period 2014–2019. We analyzed Modi’s speeches (both texts and YouTube videos) delivered in a range of spaces, such as the Parliament, election campaigns, speeches at public events, interviews, televised addresses to the nation, and statements from 2014–2019. We searched for speeches available on his official website delivered during this period. We used the key words ‘terrorism’ and ‘security’ in the texts of the speeches. Similarly, for speeches where English translations were not available, we searched for the key words atankvaad (terrorism) and suraksha (security). Most of the speeches are in Hindi. Where available, official translations from the Prime Minister’s website were used; in other cases, we used our own translations. In our analysis of the speeches, we paid attention to how Modi conceptualized the relationship between the people, national security, and terrorism, paying particular attention to gendered relations. We also paid particular attention to the construction of gender as well as the socio-political and historical contexts of the speeches.

Similarly, for Viktor Orbán, we looked at his speeches and interviews available on the official website of the Hungarian government during the same period and newspaper reports that pertain to the theme of terrorism. The official website provides English translations for most of his speeches. For an analysis of the socio-political and historical context of Orban’s speeches, we used sociological and historical secondary scholarship that traced the rise of Orban. We also looked at newspaper reportage for the relevant dates when these speeches were delivered to get a sense of the socio-political context within which these speeches were made. We looked for the key words ‘terrorism’ and ‘security’ in Orban’s speeches collected from the official website of the Hungarian government. In analyzing these speeches, we paid particular attention to the historical context of post-communist Hungary as well as the more recent context of the immigration crisis in Europe that triggered the political rhetoric linking immigration and terrorism. We then paid attention to the gendered ways in which terrorism and security had been conceptualized by Orban. We made note of the linguistic tropes as well as the historical and socio-political context within which they emerged.

Populism, security, and masculinity

Scholars have taken a keen interest in the global upsurge of a right-wing populist politics of securitization. Recent scholarship has taken note of how populist leaders invoke a discourse of securitization premised upon the trope of a people under threat.¹⁵ Discourses of securitization deployed by populists mobilize social constructions of enmity, crisis, and existential threats to the people.¹⁶ Narratives of ontological security vis-a-vis those considered to be enemies of the people also play an important role in constituting discourses of securitization. A range of performances, rhetorical styles, and aesthetics mediate populist constructions of insecurity.¹⁷ Wojczewski terms this project of conceptualizing the people as being under threat of ‘populist securitisation’. This framework can provide useful insights into the ways in which populists invoke and practice security. Populist securitization is said to depend on a politics of fear, urgency, and exceptionality.¹⁸ The people are constituted as objects requiring security; this legitimizes a politics of fear and exceptional security measures adopted by populist leaders in power. Populist rhetoric has also been interpreted through the lens of ontological security.¹⁹ Ontological insecurity refers to the anxieties and dangers that arise when one’s identity and autonomy appear under threat.²⁰ Appeals to populist politics gain prominence in times of perceived crisis, be they economic, social, or psychological.²¹ In times of perceived crisis, populists mobilize feelings of social, economic, or psychological ‘anxiety and insecurity’ in the people.²² Giddens contended that ontological insecurity and existential anxiety are useful ways of understanding modernity and globalization. Giddens defines ontological security as a ‘sense of place’ in a changing world, a place that provides a ‘psychological tie between the biography of the individual and the locales that are the settings of the time-space paths through which the individual moves’.²³ Scholarship on ontological security has shed light on how ruptures in established routines and biographical narratives can lead to a sense of insecurity and hence a search for security in the everyday.²⁴

Kinnvall and Svensson have recently reconceptualized Gidden’s initial formulation of ontological security. They argue that notions of being are often in a state of flux and a creation of our imagination, and therefore we need to emphasize a ‘security of becoming’ rather than a ‘security of being’ as an important aspect of far-right politics. Far-right populist leaders often invoke an imagined secure future that is only attainable through the annihilation of people and communities who putatively threaten the realization of such a future. Crisis and fantasy narratives, therefore, play an important role in mobilizing support for populists. According to Kinvall and Svensson, far-right populist leaders deploy imagination, myth, and fantasy by capitalizing on insecurity and ‘existential anxiety in terms of uncertainty’. Far-right leaders mobilize fantasies of trauma and glory to construct narratives of both humiliation and shame and pride and superiority among their followers.²⁵ Ontological security is constituted by particular values and traditions that ostensibly need protection from contamination by other cultures. Ontological security literature has explored the role played by narratives in establishing a link between ‘the self and identity, individuals and the group, as well as between individuals and groups and the state.’²⁶

Yet in this analysis of populism, securitization, and ontological security, the role played by masculinity in populist engagements with security remains under-analyzed and undertheorised. It is our contention that the role of masculinity in populist rhetoric and the politics of securitization needs to be analyzed by paying attention to a range of gendered relations through which masculinity is constituted. Masculinity can be a useful lens for analyzing the political discourse of securitization. Populist mobilizations of political masculinity build upon emotions. Scholars of political masculinity have shown how a personality cult around populist leaders shapes the masculinization of politics.²⁷ Starck and Sauer define political masculinity as any kind of masculinity that is ‘constructed around, ascribed to, and/or claimed by “political players” including professional politicians, party members, members of the military, as well as citizens and members of political movements claiming or gaining political rights’.²⁸

Some of the traits associated with a charismatic, masculine leader are those of a masculine, potentially violent ‘strongman’ who rules on the basis of ‘a cult of a leader’.²⁹ Masculine attributes of strongmen include the courage to take difficult decisions, anti-intellectualism, the use of ‘simple and vulgar language’, and the leader’s charisma.³⁰ Political masculinities play a crucial role in the production of gendered power relations.³¹ The political phenomenon of populism is inextricably linked to instances of the production and reproduction of gendered power.³² Scholars have shown how the appeal of populists is based upon and reproduces hegemonic gender roles. For example, Geva argues that Marie Le Pen’s charismatic appeal is constituted by hegemonic constructions of masculinity and femininity. Marie Le Pen was valorized by her supporters for her masculine leadership style, exemplified by her political will, courage, authority, and conventional feminine traits of physical beauty and care.³³ Wiedlack shows how the ridicule of Russian President Putin’s strongman performance in the Russian and American media reproduces the idea of a charismatic, able-bodied strongman.

Though some scholars have paid attention to the relationship between gender, masculinity, and populism, more attention needs to be paid to masculine constructions of and engagement with security, and the range of gendered relations and affective communities that they reside in.³⁴ Emotions have emerged as important elements of right-wing popular mobilization in the past few years.³⁵ We also aim to move beyond a limited understanding of masculinity merely as masculine gender performance and explore gendered relations, hierarchies, and the wide range of affective ties with other genders that constitute a performance of masculinity and interact with discourses of securitization in important ways. Existing scholarship on this topic is focused on the gendered attributes of the populist leader. The populist leader is portrayed as a masculine and potentially violent strongman.³⁶ Descriptions of the populist leader often emphasize masculine attributes.³⁷ The populist leader is also portrayed as being part of a masculine cult.³⁸ We aim to evolve a richer understanding of the gendered ways in which populist leaders constitute security and move beyond a limited understanding of populist securitization as enabled by a populist strongman. An affective, masculinist identity politics shapes the emergence of right-wing populism.³⁹ Right-wing populists mobilize the ‘fear of a crisis of masculinity and the affective wish for a better future based on traditional gender roles, the heterosexual family and its promise of love’.⁴⁰

Scholars of masculinity have stressed the need to explore men as gendered beings to enhance our understanding of gender as a relationship between men and women, as well as between men, women, and other genders.⁴¹ Understanding gender therefore requires understanding men as gendered beings too. This can be achieved by understanding the ‘networks and commonalities that bring men together on the basis of a shared gender identity’ as well as the hierarchies and exclusions that separate them.⁴² Masculinity studies can provide useful insights into how populist leaders construct notions of security and insecurity in gendered ways. In this article, we show how an analysis of masculinity can further our understanding of how populist securitization works. Masculinity can be explored as a set of concerns and tropes that produce gendered relations between populists, the people, and objects of securitization that mediate the construction of insecurity in complex ways. We show how masculinity plays an important role in constituting a sense of ontological security using a range of affective registers and gendered relations. Our article enriches emerging scholarship on populism and securitization through a conceptual analysis of the gendered ways in which populist leaders construct terrorism and security in two different national contexts.

Emergence of right-wing populisms in India and Hungary

The rise of Hindu nationalism as a movement to create an ethnic Hindu national consciousness and then as a political party that sought to create a Hindu nationalist state in India in the 20^th century was shaped by a range of factors, including the colonial state’s categorization of religious identities in the early 20^th century, the decline of Congress hegemony in Indian politics in the 1980s, and the purported threats to national integration and national security from an armed insurgency in Kashmir and Muslim immigration from Bangladesh in the 1990s.⁴³ The Hindu nationalist movement took a decidedly populist, personality-orientated turn with the election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to power in 2014 and 2019. Modi conflated his claims to represent and embody the people as a unity with a securitized discourse of the Indian nation.⁴⁴

The massive electoral victories of Narendra Modi in 2014 and 2019 saw the consolidation of right-wing Hindu nationalism as a hegemonic entity in Indian politics and therefore marked a massive ideological shift in favor of the BJP.⁴⁵ This ideological shift was manifested in how voters of the BJP increasingly equated democracy with Hindu majoritarianism; the years of Modi’s Prime Ministership thus witnessed a decided turn toward an ‘ethnic democracy’ in India, with both state and non-state actors curtailing minority rights. Modi’s dispensation stands out from earlier ethnoreligious mobilizations of the Hindu-right wing in the excessive attention focused on one populist leader who claims to represent the nation and the people. This was a marked departure from the Hindu nationalist movement’s conventional hostility to the personalization of power.⁴⁶ Modi’s leadership combined elements of populism, majoritarianism, and ethnic nationalism that gained prominence across Europe, the United States, and parts of the Middle East at about the same time.⁴⁷ Modi claimed to represent and speak on behalf of the people against the elite because of his humble background. His claims to represent and embody the people as a singular entity, as well as his intolerance for pluralism, his use of ‘catchy and empty slogans’ that were powerful but hollow, and his rhetoric of state securitization in India, all align him with right-wing populists in Europe and the United States.⁴⁸

The rise of the far-right in Hungary takes place in a different historical context. According to Ernest Gellner, the rise of European nation-states in the 17^th century as political entities was accompanied by the upsurge of various political and homogenizing cultural forces that sought to destroy and reconfigure local cultures into homogeneous national cultures.⁴⁹ Nationalism became a particularly potent force in the 1980s in post-communist societies in Eastern Europe as communism was imposed by an external power.⁵⁰ In the 1980s, opposition movements claimed to rescue the ‘nation from the grasp of an alien, imposed, and illegitimate communist regime’.⁵¹ Nationalist sentiments enabled the demise of communism but, at the same time, led to the rise of right-wing populists in the post-communist period in Hungary and Poland.⁵² The People’s Law and Justice Party in Poland conflated nationalist and anti-communist rhetoric and mobilized the ‘patriotic feelings of the Poles, their sense of traditional moral values, and their faith in Catholicism’.⁵³ In the 2015 elections, PiS gained control of the Presidency, Premiership, and the Parliament.⁵⁴ In a post-communist civil society, right-wing populist movements gained ground in Hungary too. Far-right populist movements in Hungary emerged as a powerful political force as a post-communist civil society produced a mythic nationalism and the idea of a ‘greater Hungary’.⁵⁵ Conservative civic groups mobilized the symbolic imagery of Hungarians’ historic ‘independence struggle’ against the Ottoman occupation in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, against Habsburg rule, and the loss of Transylvania (and parts of Northern and Southern Hungary) after World War I.⁵⁶ A range of historical motifs about a mythical, united Hungarian nation were fed into a contemporary narrative of the curtailment of Hungarian independence by multinational corporations and the EU. Membership in the EU triggered a nationalist invigoration in both Poland and Hungary. In the early 1990s, Fidesz (Hungarian Civic Alliance) was founded as a liberal youth organization, but in a decade, it transformed into a conservative right-wing populist party. Leaders of Fidesz mobilized nationalist sentiments on several occasions by branding the opposition as ‘rebranded communists’ and invoking the historical trauma of the post-World War I settlement for Hungary and the Treaty of Trianon. In 2010, Fidesz, led by Viktor Orbán, achieved a majority in Parliament. Orbán has implemented numerous bills that undermine the rule of law in Parliament.

Immigration has played a significant role in political discourse in Hungary, even though the country is ethnically homogeneous with low levels of immigration. There have been concerted attempts to prevent any immigration into Hungary in the past two decades and to make Hungary into an ethnically homogeneous nation consisting of Hungarians. Viktor Orbán furthered these attempts by amending the citizenship law in 2011 to offer full citizenship to anyone who spoke Hungarian and had one ancestor who had lived in the territory of Hungary.⁵⁷

Modi’s populism: terrorism and the masculine state

Popular discourse around Modi’s election campaign has focused on Modi’s ‘manly’ leadership style, characterized by efficiency, dynamism, and potency, as well as physical attributes such as his ‘56-inch chest’, his ability and willingness to ‘bear the harshest of burdens in the service of Mother India’.⁵⁸ But in addition to these attributes, Modi’s masculinity also works through gendered relations in the heteronormative family as well as invocation of love for the people that necessitated some discipline. Since his election to the position of Prime Minister in 2014, Modi has invoked the threat of terrorism in several public speeches across the country. This rhetoric has been most pronounced in his speeches in the territory of Jammu and Kashmir.⁵⁹ The issue of Kashmiri separatism has been invoked continually by the Hindu right-wing BJP and its affiliated organizations such as the RSS and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP); Kashmiri Muslims serve as ‘contrapuntal symbols – of terrorist violence, illegitimate religious impulses, [and] sedition- for contriving a mythical Hindu nation’.⁶⁰ Modi’s response to the threat of terrorism and ‘separatism’ in Kashmir was to invoke familial love and idioms of kinship with respect to the people of Kashmir, even while emphasizing the need to fight against terrorism with full might and resolve. The youth of Jammu and Kashmir who are engaged in separatist activities are considered misguided youth who have been assaulting their holy land and they needed to be reintegrated into the family of the nation or motherland.⁶¹ Modi said that people had been living together as children of the motherland India for thousands of years, and no power on earth could drive a wedge between brothers. On another occasion, he proclaimed his ‘love and affection’ for patriotic Kashmiris who had stood by him. A life of peace, tranquility, and brotherhood is promised to the people of Kashmir within this framework of the gendered family. At the same time, he underscored how thousands of youths of the state would be employed in the security sector so that they could become useful for the safety and security of the state and the country.⁶² It is perhaps pertinent to note here that the Kashmir Valley is the most militarized zone in the world.⁶³ Modi celebrated a massive expansion of the defense budget allocated for the upkeep of law and order in the state.⁶⁴ This was part of ‘our’ national duty. At a time when terrorism was spreading its wings across the world, Indians had to fight a united war against terrorism. Terrorism was perceived as a cross-border phenomenon that needed to be attacked with ‘full might and resolve’. Modi established a set of gendered relations here between the populist leader and a section of the disgruntled people who were also the objects of securitization – in this instance, Kashmiri youth.

In Modi’s speeches pertaining to terrorism in Kashmir, one can discern him taking over the gendered role of the head of a family. He stressed the need for discipline and order while at the same time expressing his love and affection for the people of Kashmir as members of one family. Masculinity mediates his construction of terrorism in multiple ways. Notions of kinship, family, and love are extended to the public sphere as the people of Kashmir protesting the state’s excesses are reinscribed as ‘brothers’ who need to be reintegrated into the family. Love is intertwined with the violence of the security state; men of Kashmir are both objects of love as well as violence. In fact, they are loved as members of a family only to be recruited as members of a security state to fight against terrorism. Modi invokes love and affection to forge an affective bond between the male patriarch and the youth imagined as male members of a family. But this love is premised upon deference to discipline and obedience and the willingness to commit oneself to the project of the security state.

Modi expressed mutual affection and love between him and the people; this bond is used to legitimize state action against terrorism. According to Modi, strong action against terrorism by a masculine leader is loved by people and is therefore an expression of people’s will. For example, the abolition of Article 370 in Kashmir, a provision in the Indian Constitution that guaranteed some autonomy to the state of Jammu and Kashmir, is touted as the will of the people. Modi merely embodies the will of the people. Through his actions, he symbolizes the love and enthusiasm of the people for decisive action and the expression of strength in the abolition of Article 370.⁶⁵ The abrogation of Article 370 was accompanied by extremely repressive measures that curbed any protests or political dissidence by the people of Kashmir. On 5 August 2019, Home Minister Amit Shah introduced the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Bill in the Rajya Sabha (the upper house of Parliament) that sought to amend Article 370 of the Constitution to do away with the autonomy guaranteed to the state of Jammu and Kashmir by the Indian Constitution.⁶⁶ The bill was rushed through Parliament without giving members of the opposition an adequate opportunity to debate and discuss its provisions in a way that defied a number of procedural norm.⁶⁷ In the run-up to the introduction of this controversial bill in Parliament, severe restrictions were introduced in the Kashmir valley to contain any protests. Thousands of Indian troops were deployed, schools and colleges were closed, tourists were asked to leave, telephone and internet services were suspended, and Kashmiri political leaders across the political spectrum were placed under house arrest. Kashmiri political leaders continued to remain under house arrest for a year after the abrogation of Article 370. Internet services were suspended in the valley for 18 months.⁶⁸ According to Modi, the implementation of these repressive measures is not only an exercise of brute power. It is an expression of strength, might, and resolve that people ‘love’ and admire. Here we see yet another exercise of masculinity as a set of gendered relations. The masculine exercise of power and strength meant to counter terrorism and insecurity forges affective bonds between the populist and the people.

Love is situated within the gendered economy of the heterosexual family in Modi’s speeches. People’s love for strong, decisive action is prompted by their desire to end terrorism in Kashmir. Terrorism in Kashmir, Modi argues, has taken the lives of many brave warriors of the army from various parts of the country, the ‘sons’ of brave mothers who have sacrificed their lives to ensure the ‘security’ of Kashmir. The courageous act of soldiers attacking terrorists is also said to invoke ‘pride’ among the people. This sense of pride is conveyed using masculine, bodily images of an expanded chest that are symbolic of people’s pride as they hear about the achievements of soldiers fighting terrorists. In his election campaigns, Modi also described himself as a chowkidar (a security guard) who would protect the people against terrorists. The image of the chowkidar evokes a sense of everyday familiarity, security, and safety in the minds of the people. In an Indian context, the chowkidar, or security guard, has traditionally been a man. But the figure also stands for a sense of everyday security and familiarity in a neighborhood.

Modi’s government also attempts to securitize Muslim immigrants by proposing the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act, which fast-tracked citizenship for Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, and Christian refugees who had migrated to India from neighboring countries and explicitly omitted Muslim migrants from the provisions of fast-tracked citizenship.⁶⁹ Election campaigns of the BJP have consistently focused on the fear of Muslim migration and demographic changes to the population in India since the 1990s. Amit Shah, home minister in Modi’s government, termed Bangladeshi Muslim immigrants ‘termites’ and ‘infiltrators’ who were a threat to national security.⁷⁰ Yet in his speeches, Modi assured Muslim citizens in India who had lived in the country for ‘generations’ that they had no reason to fear from the new Act and that it was only meant to weed out undocumented, illegal immigrants.⁷¹ Hence, Modi constructs a quasi-familial relationship with the Muslim immigrant who has lived in India for generations, even as his government’s policies directly disenfranchise them.

Modi’s masculinity is thus constituted through a range of affective registers such as love and pride as well as through gendered relations. We argue, therefore, that analyzing multiple dimensions of Modi’s masculinity sheds light on the dynamics of how insecurity and ontological security are constituted by populist leaders. In Modi’s speeches in Kashmir, love and affection are intertwined with the violence of the security state. In these moments, people of Kashmir envisaged as objects of securitization are also reinscribed within the imaginary of the family. These measures are deemed essential to combating terrorism. Similarly, authoritarian action by the state, meant to ostensibly counter terrorism, is legitimized by the love of the people for such action. Strong action by the masculine security state is not merely an expression of brute power but is intimately linked to the pride and love that it invokes among the ‘people’. Hence, masculinity and its operations through a range of relations help us grasp how populists try to restore ontological security. Gidden’s formulation of ontological insecurity underlined ruptures in established routines and biographical narratives, a loss of a ‘sense of place’ in a changing world with the onslaught of modernity and globalization. In populist invocations of security, establishment of ontological security is tethered to entanglements of love and violence and the establishment of gendered relations. Love is entangled with the exercise of violence directed toward the object of securitization, in this instance, the Kashmiri youth, by the populist leader deploying a rhetoric of securitization. Hence, the restoration of ontological security is not merely an establishment of order and stability for the self but also a normalization and legitimization of everyday violence by invoking love and pride. The sense of stability and order in the everyday is used to legitimize violence and extraordinary measures, even while notions of kinship and family are invoked. These gendered relations are tethered to new idioms of kinship and gendered relations that seek to create affective bonds between the populist leader and the people, as well as between the populist leader and the objects of securitization; gendered relations are built upon a new vocabulary that helps in integrating violence into a familial order. In this section, we have shown how Modi’s political masculinity produced gendered power relations by relying upon affective bonds between Kashmiris, envisaged here both as an object of securitization as well as family, the people as a whole, and the populist leader. Understanding Modi’s protective masculinity helps us further expand the scholarship on political masculinities, affect, and populism. We do so by delineating the intriguing ways in which a performance of masculinity brings together gendered familial love, the language of kinship, and extreme violence toward objects of securitization.

At an ideological and discursive level, Modi’s masculinity and his construction of terrorism bring together both nationalist and global ideas about masculinity. Modi’s imaginary of the masculine state as offering protection against terrorism resembles a post-9/11 logic of securitization popularized in the US and increasingly across the world during and after the war on terror.⁷² This patriarchal logic of state security is based upon the notion of the masculine protector who protects women and children in the family while they are placed in a subordinate position of ‘dependence and obedience’.⁷³ As leaders of a democratic state position themselves as protectors of national security, citizens acquire a subordinate status like women in a patriarchal family. The masculine protector mobilizes an impending external threat to legitimate a paternalistic attitude toward citizens and authoritarian state power. A logic of masculinity informs the actions of the masculine protector; the male head of the state is presumed to be the protector of the family, and by extension of this logic, masculine leaders and ‘risk takers’ can be protectors of the people.⁷⁴ Modi’s protective masculinity ultimately masks the subversion of democratic processes in Kashmir and the abuse of power through the implementation of a regime of everyday securitization. Within a familial order, the objects of securitization are not treated as equal citizens. The language of family and kinship obscures the everyday violence of securitization and militarization and the exclusion of people from democratic decision-making processes. This is manifested in moments of securitization of Kashmiri men, where Modi simultaneously branded them sons and brothers within a familial order, highlighted the need to recruit them in the security state, and invoked extreme repressive measures to curtail democratic activities in the valley. Moreover, this protective masculinity is given a veneer of democracy by invoking the will of the people. The revocation of Article 370 is justified in the name of implementing the will of the people. Ultimately, the invocation of the people by Modi legitimized violence against a section of the ‘people’. He construed democracy narrowly as meaning the will of a particular group of people while enforcing extreme violence against objects of securitization even as he performatively integrated them into a familial order.

Modi’s masculinity also drew upon the idea of muscular nationalism, which is the hallmark of Hindutva ideology. Yet Modi’s performance of masculinity was a creative reworking of this notion of muscular nationalism, as he emphasized not only martial prowess, strength, and the recovery of a lost manhood but also invoked love, affection, and kinship to counter terrorism and reintegrate people deemed a threat to security. In the muscular nationalist imaginary of Hindutva, the nation is imagined as a suffering mother, symbolized by Mother India.⁷⁵ Hindutva ideologues link the apparent decline of Hindu glory to a disintegration of the martial spirit of Hindus. According to this oversimplified and highly gendered version of Indian history, Hindus were first overpowered and conquered by Muslim invaders and then by the British because of the erosion of their martial strength and military might. The recovery of martial strength and prowess is meant to undo this project of humiliation and protect the unity of the motherland.

Orban and the threat of Muslim invasion

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán hails from the political party Fidesz. His political party originated in the post-communist era and was built upon the resurrection of nationalist ideals against the external enemy of communism. In recent times, these nationalist ideals have found expression in animosity toward immigrants and toward the proposals of the EU to accommodate migrants and refugees.⁷⁶ Much like Modi, Orbán posits a gendered conception of everyday insecurity; everyday insecurity is constituted by the specter of terrorism and immigration and, in turn, necessitates masculine aggression that can protect the people. Orbán perceived terrorism as an external threat to the nation; immigration was construed as the root cause of it. Orbán’s rhetoric against immigrants was often couched in the language of Muslim invasion as a threat to national security and social cohesion. He thereby highlighted the need to protect the Christian identity of the Hungarian nation.⁷⁷ Orbán underscored the need for masculine aggression to protect the homeland and a Christian European civilization from terrorism and immigration. He also stressed the importance of the biological family and procreation and its role in forging a culturally homogeneous nation and preventing Hungarian ethnicity from extinction. Orban’s masculinity functioned through relationships that enabled the racialized and gendered securitization of immigration.

Terrorism and the dangerous Muslim immigrant

In July 2015, at the height of the inflow of immigrants into Europe, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party ran a campaign with billboards ostensibly aimed at immigrants with slogans asking them to respect Hungarian culture and laws and warning them against taking Hungarians’ jobs.⁷⁸ Orbán government’s anti-immigration campaign started in July 2015 following the terror attack in Paris at the office of the newspaper Charlie Hebdo.⁷⁹ Invoking the paranoia of a demographic invasion, Orbán said that Europe faced the threat of tens of hundreds of thousands of migrants flocking to its shores, so much so that one day ‘we could wake up and realise that we are in the minority on our own continent’.⁸⁰ A national consultation on immigration and terrorism was begun by the government on 24 April 2015 and ended on 27 July 2015. Orban referred to the terror attack in Paris, which had led to the loss of many innocent lives, and argued that Brussels and the EU were unable to deal with the issue of immigration.⁸¹

According to Orbán, the valor, courage, and pride of security guards protecting the nation could provide security and also ensure the flourishing of happy families. In his formulation, families mean ethnically homogeneous Hungarian families, which will provide a bulwark against the contamination of the nation by immigrants. This is evinced by Orban’s inauguration of a new ‘border hunter’ force consisting of police and army units to keep out migrants and guard Hungary’s southern border with Serbia and Croatia.⁸² At the ceremony of swearing-in of the new border hunters in Budapest, Orbán called upon the border hunters to take a pledge to protect Hungary and Hungarian families by risking their own lives, as protecting the ‘homeland, our homes, women, children, and parents is a moral imperative stretching back centuries’.⁸³ Orbán described Hungary as being under siege; millions of immigrants were the ‘Trojan horse of terrorism’; the valor of the border personnel would ensure future peace in Hungary and Europe.⁸⁴ This project of defending the country and ostensibly defeating terrorism is envisaged as a calling for men that is different from a mere job. Orbán invokes a sense of pride among the soldiers, as their work would ensure peace in Hungary and Europe. He asked the border hunters to be proud of the vocation that they were taking up. At the same time, he asserted that he was proud of them. Hungarian forces were described as a battle-hardened community that could stand their ground under the harshest of circumstances. Orbán described the border hunters as members of ‘modern-day fort garrisons’. The ‘body’ of officers in Hungarian uniform, the police, border guards, and border hunters were invoked as symbols that could inspire the newly appointed personnel. This could be achieved by protecting the borders and making the border fence of Hungary impenetrable, thereby protecting both Hungary and Europe against the external threat of immigration.

Orbán’s masculine construction of security is premised upon strength, valor, and the virility of an adult male body. The performance of masculinity is tethered to a sense of pride in the role that the soldiers supposedly play in constructing an ethnic nation. Orbán’s masculinity also forged gendered relations between men as well as between men and women, using affective bonds of pride and an emphasis on physical strength. Orbán forged an affective bond between himself, a masculine populist leader, and a group of men engaged in protecting and creating the ethnic nation. The bond was constructed upon shared pride between men regarding the vocation of saving the nation as well as the shared cultural heritage of Europe and Hungary. Orban’s performance of masculinity relied on gendered pride and valor. These mediate the relationship between the populist leader and Hungarian men. This relationship relies upon a notion of duty to protect the biological family, where men are conceptualized as protectors and women as performing the biological role of procreation. At the same time, they are used to further a racialized discourse of immigration and normalize violence against immigrants. Orban’s case advances the scholarship on political masculinities and affect as we show how gendered notions of pride and love are used to justify violence and racialization of immigrants and reinstate an ethnonationalist nation based upon a gendered familial order.

Much like Modi, Orban’s invocation of family and gender was used to mask the violence and inequality of securitization. Orban’s protective masculinity is based upon violence toward and racialization of immigrants, even while he invokes the trope of the family and familial order. The invocation of the family as well as gendered pride and honor only concretize unequal status of women and immigrants within an ethnonationalist framework in Hungary. The bond between the populist leader and the people, mostly men, is also exclusionary, hierarchical, and gendered, as women and children are placed in a position of protection by men. It is deeply racialized and ethnicised, as only white, ethnic Hungarians are part of this community. Orbán also normalized and concealed the violence against refugees by emphasizing pride and shared cultural heritage. The purported affective community of men was based on the exclusion of the racialized bodies of migrants.

These affective and relational aspects of Orbán’s masculinity promise to restore a sense of ontological security. The family and gendered relations are key to the reestablishment of ontological security. Ontological security has been understood as a sense of continuity, stability, and order in the biographical narratives of individuals. Masculinity works through a range of gendered relations as well as racialized hierarchies to create a purported sense of order. Hierarchical gendered relations between men and women whom they seek to protect and affective bonds between the populist leader and the men play an important role in the establishment of this sense of ontological security. The establishment of ontological security here is premised upon a fallacious threat of demographic aggression and contamination by migrants, which necessitates both protection and the forging of an ethnically homogeneous nation by a community of men, as well as the creation of a new affective community between men and the populist leader based upon a sense of pride.

Orban’s attempts at restoring a sense of ontological security draw upon imagined and putative threats to the ethnic homogeneity of the nation. This is evinced in his constant invocation of the myth of ‘demographic aggression’ and white replacement theory in his response to the putative threats of terrorism and immigration. Orban government’s anti-immigration campaign started in July 2015 following the terror attack in Paris at the office of the newspaper Charlie Hebdo.⁸⁵ Invoking the paranoia of a demographic invasion, Orbán said that Europe faced the threat of tens of hundreds of thousands of migrants flocking to its shores. People in Hungary, Orbán argued, were threatened by a mass of migrants arriving there who brought infectious diseases with them and were aggressive.⁸⁶ The response to this imagined threat was to encourage the boosting of birth rates in the region through ‘family first policies.’ The trope of the family created through biological reproduction is presented as a solution to the problem of demographic invasion by Muslims and terrorism. Orban invoked the far-right ‘white replacement theory’ to assert that Europe would be overtaken by outsiders soon if Europeans did not procreate. Addressing a conference on the theme of the persecution of Christians, Orban asserted that the adoption of the Christian faith was the key to the survival of the Hungarian nation; a thousand years ago, a special Christian cast of mind and a special Hungarian Christian state were reborn. If Hungarians believed in the words of the Christian king (Jesus) they could build ‘a strong country, a flourishing culture, a loving home, and a happy family.’⁸⁷ State support for the heterosexual family is evinced by the Hungarian government’s increased spending on families between 2010 and 2019, with the goal of achieving a ‘lasting turn in demographic processes by 2030’. Similar measures were also adopted by other countries in central Europe. Poland introduced a scheme whereby parents were paid 500+ zloty a month per child from the second child onwards (Walker, 2019).⁸⁸ In this instance, ontological security is sought to be established by Orbán through the establishment of gendered relations in the heterosexual family and through the conceptualization of a procreative function for families based upon love that would produce an ethnically homogeneous nation.

The reestablishment of ontological security depends on gendered relations between right-wing populist leaders across Europe who feel similarly threatened by the onslaught of immigrants into Europe, an imagined threat to a white European identity. They thereby emphasize the restoration of European and Christian values through the act of procreation, which is built upon the foundations of a ‘loving’ family. At the same time, ontological security is also sought to be created by means of invoking myths and insecurities based upon fallacious theories and conspiracies, such as the great replacement theory. Gender is quite central to the formulation of these theories. White replacement theory has been an extremely influential conspiracy theory which broadly draws upon the rhetoric of how the white population across Western Europe and other parts of the world is facing extinction because of the onslaught of nonwhite immigrants.⁸⁹ Hence, the procreation and creation of ethnically homogeneous white families are presented as urgent needs. This conspiracy theory gained prominence in 2011 with the publication of Le Grand Replacement by Renaud Camus, a book that played an important role in the radicalization of far-right actors in many parts of the world. Brenton Harrison Tarrant, a right-wing fanatic who gunned down over 50 Muslim worshippers in two mosques in New Zealand, released a manifesto entitled ‘The Great Replacement’ in which he accused liberal politicians of planning the replacement of White Westerners with non-Whites through mass immigration. In 2019, a shooter who killed 20 people and injured 26 others at the US-Mexico border in El Paso argued that he was responding to the ‘invasion’ of Texas by the Hispanic.⁹⁰

Orbán’s gendered discourse on terrorism and the need for masculine aggression rests on both a transnational European Christian identity and an ethnic Hungarian identity. Orbán’s securitization of immigration and his invocation of European values can be situated within the discourse on the crisis of multiculturalism in Western European societies as well as a global post-9/11 discourse on Islamist terrorism.⁹¹ These discourses tether particular identities to a paradigm of security.⁹² In many parts of Europe, the immigrant is viewed as a security risk in the aftermath of 9/11.⁹³ Political parties often attribute social tensions and terrorist acts to the failure of multiculturalism in Europe and a putative ‘clash of civilisations’ between European values and radical Islam. Central and Eastern European states have drawn from Western European rhetoric on the securitization of migration. In Orbán’s speeches, the masculine state, masculine aggression, and the family are invoked as protectors of European values. This is borne out in the speeches addressed to border security personnel, who are hailed as protectors of homes, families, women, and children, as well as protecting the borders against immigrant assaults on European and Hungarian values. The biological family and the act of procreation are deemed essential to protect Europe from the challenges of terrorism, migration, and radical Islam. This is apparent in the speeches delivered in 2019, where Orban addressed other right-wing leaders and governments about the need to augment families through procreation and arrest demographic changes in Europe.

In ethnically homogeneous, predominantly ‘white’ nations such as Hungary and the Czech Republic, migrants from the Middle East and Africa are treated as racialized others.⁹⁴ The ethnically homogeneous nation rests upon a gendered conception of a family and a country where a male protects the country, the home, and the family from the ills of immigration and terrorism. This is borne out by the tropes invoked by Orban of brave, determined, and dedicated people in uniform, ready to protect homes, children, women, and the family from terrorism and the cultural onslaught of immigration. Over the last two decades, Hungarian governments have demonstrated a concerted attempt to create an immigration system that privileges citizenship for ethnic Hungarians. An amendment to the citizenship law in 2011 provided for the automatic naturalization of ethnic Hungarians. Negative public attitudes toward foreigners are widespread. The 2001 Act on the Entry and Residence of Foreigners provided special benefits such as educational support, work permits, social security, and health coverage for ethnic Hungarians.⁹⁵

Comparable yet contrasting populist masculinities

This article compares Modi and Orbán to bring out the comparable, similar ways in which masculinity shapes the political performance of right-wing populism and how this study of masculinity can provide useful insights into the securitization of terrorism and immigration by right-wing populists. The comparison is a useful way of tracing transnational connections and similarities between right-wing populist leaders as well as tracing how local, national, and historical contexts shape their political performance. In the article, we have traced the range of comparable tropes that are invoked by both Modi and Orban to securitize terrorism and immigration in gendered ways. The chief among them is gendered love and pride, as well as the trope of the family that is used to create a bond between the populist leader and the people, as well as legitimize violence and securitization. Yet it is important to be mindful of the finer differences between the masculinity and securitization processes of the two populist leaders that are shaped by their respective national and historical contexts. Modi’s project of securitizing terrorism and his integration of Kashmiri Muslims into the Indian state is inspired by the Hindu nationalist preoccupation with a territorially defined, sovereign Hindu nation state that includes Kashmir.⁹⁶ Through the 1990s, the Hindu right emphasized the threat to national integration because of the rise of insurgency and terrorism in Kashmir and immigration from Bangladesh.⁹⁷ In Modi’s project of securitizing Muslims, they are integrated into the putative familial order of the Indian nation-state, even though in reality they have unequal status as citizens. Hence, Kashmiri Muslims are both constructed as objects of love and subjected to violence. On the other hand, Orban’s securitization of terrorism and immigration relies on a rising anti-immigrant discourse in Europe and an ethnonationalist Hungarian sentiment against EU membership. From the 1990s onwards, a motif about a mythical, united Hungarian nation has come into conflict with Hungary’s EU membership. The last two decades have witnessed a concerted attempt to cut down on immigration and create an ethnically homogenous nation comprising Hungarians.⁹⁸The hatred toward immigrants frames Orban’s discourse of securitization in important ways. The immigrant is clearly demarcated as a racialized, undesirable other, even as an affective community is conjured between Orban and native Hungarians on the basis of love and shared pride in a Hungarian ethnonationalist cultural heritage. Immigrants cannot be integrated into this affective community of an ethnonationalist Hungarian nation. Hence, we can conclude that while both the leaders invoke similar ideas of love and pride and construct a familiar order in processes of securitization, they construct the immigrant and the terrorist differently. These differences are explained by the different national and historical contexts of Hindu nationalism in India and the anti-immigrant sentiments and ethnonationalist mobilization in Hungary.

Conclusion

To highlight the gendered ways in which right-wing populists shape the discourses of terrorism and security, this article builds on a discourse analysis of the speeches of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. We present here a novel contribution to a study of the relationship between populism, securitization, and ontological security. We explore the mechanisms through which masculinity performs the task of securitization and reinstates a sense of ontological security. This article has advanced scholarship on political masculinities, populism, and affect by drawing out the range of affects that are deployed by right-wing populists in processes of securitization. Our analysis has delineated the complex gendered as well as contextual ways in which love and idioms of kinship and family work to securitize immigrants and terrorism. We therefore urge attention to how populist masculinists can invoke a range of anxieties beyond the figure of the masculine strongman.

The analysis of Modi and Orbán’s speeches demonstrates how masculinity operates through hierarchical gendered relations between men as well as between men and women. This is how securitization and a sense of ontological security are achieved by right-wing populist leaders in similar, comparable ways across two different national contexts in India and Hungary. In the article, we have explored the myriad ways in which this mode of securitization functions and constitutes ontological security through the lens of masculinity. In masculine constructions of security, love and pride are enmeshed with the exercise of violence against the objects of securitization. Modi invokes love and affection along with the need for discipline and violence to securitize the dissident, protesting Kashmiri youth. Notions of family and kinship are invoked to discipline dissident citizens and integrate them into the structure of the security state. This gendered relationship is premised on a hierarchical relationship between the strongman populist leader and the youth of the Kashmir valley. Authoritarian action taken by the populist leader is also justified in terms of the love of the people for such action. Orbán’s masculinist securitization of immigration and terrorism similarly works on the basis of a shared sense of pride between men called upon to guard the borders and himself. This affective community of men is hierarchical and gendered. It places women in a position of protection with respect to men. It also creates a racialized hierarchy between ethnic Hungarians and nonwhite immigrants. The exercise of masculinity is a response to fallacious ideas and myths of demographic aggression and racialized conspiracy theories of white replacement. Masculine aggression promises the establishment of some sort of ontological security, which ultimately rests on these assumptions and conspiracy theories. Additionally, this article has traced how global, transnational, and nationalist gender ideologies animate the construction of terrorism and insecurity and how these ideologies find expression in similar tropes in two different national contexts. In Modi’s case, Hindu nationalist anxieties about masculinity as well as a global rhetoric of masculine state protectionism post-9/11 mediate the construction of terrorism and security. Orbán’s construction of terrorism is mediated by the construction of immigrants as a security threat. He consequently stressed the need for a masculine protector to preserve a gendered ethnic Hungarian identity from the ills of immigration and terrorism. Orbán’s rhetoric of protection is expressed through images of the gendered family, envisaged both as a repository of European and Christian values and an ethnic Hungarian identity.

As the upsurge of right-wing populism becomes a global phenomenon, it is more important than ever to explore the ways in which global ideas about terrorism and insecurity shape ethnonationalist sentiments in many parts of the world. This gives us an insight into the evolving forms of political practice of right-wing populists and might be an entry point into thinking about global solidarity against such ideas and practices. This article is based on research on two populist leaders and is limited in scope because of the nature of the primary materials that we had access to. Future research may examine everyday securitization led by populist leaders on a larger scale using ethnographic and fieldwork-based methods and thereby expand our everyday conceptual understanding of populism and securitization.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. V. Kaul, and A. Vajpeyi, ‘Minorities and populism: Critical perspectives from South Asia and Europe’, in V. Kaul and A. Vajpeyi (Eds) Minorities and Populism – Critical Perspectives from South Asia and Europe (Cham: Springer, Cham, 2020), pp 1–14. We define populism as a ‘thin-centered ideology’ which can align with both left-wing and right-wing politics; populist leaders typically claim to speak on behalf of the people against the elites.

2. G. Löfflmann, ‘Introduction to special issue: The study of populism in international relations’, The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 24(2022), pp. 403–415.

3. Ibid., p. 3.

4. B. Moffitt, and S. Tormey, ‘Rethinking populism: Politics, mediatisation and political style’, Political Studies 62, no. 2 (2014), p. 387.

5. B. Sauer, (2020). Authoritarian Right-Wing Populism as Masculinist Identity Politics. ‘The Role of Affects’, in Gabriele Dietze & Julia Roth (Eds) Right-Wing Populism and Gender. European Perspectives and Beyond (Beilefeld: transcript Verlag, 2020), pp. 23–40.

6. J. W. Müller, What is populism? (London: Penguin UK, 2017).

7. T. Wojczewski, ‘‘Enemies of the people’: Populism and the politics of (in) security’, European Journal of International Security, 5 (2020), pp. 5–24; B. Kurylo, ‘The discourse and aesthetics of populism as securitisation style’, International Relations, 36(2022), pp. 127–147; B. J. Steele, and A. Homolar, ‘Ontological insecurities and the politics of contemporary populism’, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 32 (2019), pp. 214–221; C. Kinnvall, ‘Populism, ontological insecurity and Hindutva: Modi and the masculinization of Indian politics’, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 32 (2019), pp. 283–302; C. Kinnvall and T. Svensson, ‘Exploring the populist ‘mind’: Anxiety, fantasy, and everyday populism’, The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 24 (2022), pp. 526–542.

8. Kaul and Vajpayee, op. cit., Ref. 1, p. 5.

9. C. Jaffrelot and G. Verniers, ‘The BJP’s 2019 election campaign: Not business as usual’, Contemporary South Asia, 28 (2020), pp. 155–177.

10. S. Sinha, Subir, ‘‘Strong leaders’, authoritarian populism and Indian developmentalism: The Modi moment in historical context’, Geoforum 124 (2021) pp. 320–333.

11. Ibid.

12. A. L. Pirro. and B. Stanley, ‘Forging, Bending, and Breaking: Enacting the ‘Illiberal Playbook’ in Hungary and Poland’, Perspectives on Politics, 20 (2020) pp. 1–16.

13. R. Wodak, Critical discourse analysis, discourse-historical approach. In: The International.

Encyclopedia of Language and Social Interaction. John Wiley & Sons. Available at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118611463.wbielsi116/abstract

14. Ibid., pp. 4–5.

15. T. Wojczewski, ‘Enemies of the people’: Populism and the politics of (in) security’, European Journal of International Security, 5 (2020), pp. 5–24; B. Kurylo, ‘The discourse and aesthetics of populism as securitisation style’, International Relations, 36 (2022), pp. 127–147; B. J. Steele B J., and A. Homolar, ‘Ontological insecurities and the politics of contemporary populism’, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 32 (2019), pp. 214–221; C. Kinnvall and T. Svensson, ‘Exploring the populist “mind”: Anxiety, fantasy, and everyday populism’, The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 24 (2022), pp. 526–542.

16. Wojczewski, ‘Enemies of the people’, op. cit., Ref. 14.

17. Kurylo, ‘The discourse and aesthetics of populism as securitization style’, op. cit., Ref. 14.

18. Wojczewski, ‘Enemies of the people’, op. cit., Ref 14, p. 6.

19. Kinnvall and Svensson, ‘Exploring the populist “mind”: Anxiety, fantasy, and everyday populism’, op. cit., Ref. 14.

20. R. Laing, The divided self: an existential study in sanity and madness (New York: Pelican, 1960).

21. C. Kinnvall, ‘Populism, ontological insecurity and Hindutva: Modi and the masculinization of Indian politics’, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 32 (2019), pp. 283–302.

22. Ibid., p. 286.

23. A. Giddens, The constitution of society: outline of the theory of structuration (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984).

24. F. Ejdus, Crisis and Ontological Insecurity: Serbia’s Anxiety over Kosovo’s (Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2020); C. Kinnvall, ‘Globalization and religious nationalism: Self, identity, and the search for ontological security’, Political Psychology, 25 (2004), pp. 741–767; B. J. Steele, Ontological security in international relations: Self-identity and the IR state (Routledge: London, 2008)

25. Kinnvall and Svensson, ‘Exploring the populist “mind”: Anxiety, fantasy, and everyday populism’ op. cit., Ref. 14.

26. Ibid.

27. Marion Löffler, Russell Luyt, and Kathleen Starck, ‘Political masculinities and populism’, Norma, 15, no. 1 (2020), pp. 1–9

28. K. Starck, & Sauer, B., ‘Political masculinities: Introduction’, in K. Starck, & B. Sauer (Eds) A man’s world? Political masculinities in literature and culture (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholar Publishing, 2014), pp. 3–10, p. 6.

29. C. Mudde, & Rovira Kaltwasser, C., Populism: A very short introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), p. 63.

30. Ibid.

31. K Starck, Kathleen, and R Luyt, ‘Political masculinities, crisis tendencies, and social transition: Toward an understanding of change’, Men and Masculinities 22, no. 3 (2019):, pp. 431–443.

32. M Löffler, R Luyt, and K Starck, ‘Political masculinities and populism’, Norma, 15, no. 1 (2020), pp. 1–9.

33. Dorit Geva, ‘A double-headed hydra: Marine Le Pen’s charisma, between political masculinity and political femininity’, Norma 15, no. 1 (2020), pp. 26–42.

34. B. Eksi B. and E.A Wood, ‘Right-wing populism as gendered performance: Janus-faced masculinity in the leadership of Vladimir Putin and Recep T. Erdogan’, Theory and Society, 48 (2019), pp. 733–751; C. Agius, A. B. Rosamond and C. Kinnvall, ‘Populism, ontological insecurity and gendered nationalism: Masculinity, climate denial and Covid-19’, Politics, Religion & Ideology, 21 (2020), pp. 432–450.

35. B. Sauer, ‘Authoritarian Right-Wing Populism as Masculinist Identity Politics. The Role of Affects’, in Gabriele Dietze & Julia Roth (Eds) Right-Wing Populism and Gender. European Perspectives and Beyond (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2020), pp. 23–40.

36. P. Taggart, Populism (Buckingham: Open University Press, 2000).

37. S. Meret, ‘Charismatic female leadership and gender: Pia Kjærsgaard and the Danish People’s Party’, Patterns of Prejudice, 49 (2015), pp. 81–102.

38. C. Mudde and C. R. Kaltwasser, ‘Vox populi or vox masculini? Populism and gender in Northern Europe and South America’, Patterns of Prejudice, 49 (2015), pp. 16–36.

39. Sauer, Birgit. ‘Authoritarian Right-Wing Populism as Masculinist Identity Politics. The Role of Affects’, in Gabriele Dietze & Julia Roth (Eds) Right-Wing Populism and Gender. European Perspectives and Beyond (transcript Verlag, 2020), pp. 23–40.

40. Ibid.

41. S Srivastava S., ‘Modi-masculinity: Media, manhood, and ‘traditions’ in a time of consumerism’, Television & New Media, 16 (2015), pp. 331–338; R. O’Hanlon, ‘Issues of masculinity in North Indian history: the Bangash Nawabs of Farrukhabad’, Indian Journal of Gender Studies, 4(1997), pp. 1–19.

42. Srivastava, ‘Modi-masculinity: Media, manhood, and “traditions” in a time of consumerism’, op. cit., Ref. 30.

43. C. Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement in India (Columbia University Press, New York, 1996).

44. Chatterji A.P., Hansen T.B. and Jaffrelot C. (Eds) Majoritarian state: How Hindu nationalism is changing India (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019).

45. Jaffrelot C. and Verniers G., ‘The BJP’s 2019 election campaign: Not business as usual’, Contemporary South Asia, 28 (2020), pp. 155–177.

46. Ibid.

47. Chaterji, Hansen, and Jaffrelot, ‘Majoritarian state: How Hindu nationalism is changing India’ op. cit., Ref. 33.

48. Ibid., pp. 6–11.

49. E. Gellner, Nations and nationalism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008).

50. V Bunce, ‘The national idea: imperial legacies and post-communist pathways in Eastern Europe’, East European Politics and Societies, 19 (2005), pp. 406–442; Á Bocskor, ‘Anti-immigration discourses in Hungary during the ‘Crisis’ year: The Orbán government’s ‘National Consultation’campaign of 2015’, Sociology, 52 (2018), pp. 551–568; A. L Pirro, A. L. and B. Stanley, ‘Forging, Bending, and Breaking: Enacting the ‘Illiberal Playbook’ in Hungary and Poland’, Perspectives on Politics, op. cit., Ref. 11, pp. 1–16.

51. K. Darden and A. Grzymala-Busse, ‘The great divide: Literacy, nationalism, and the communist collapse’, World Politics, 59 (2006), pp. 83–115.

52. I. Ding and M., ‘Hlavac ‘Right’ Choice: Restorative Nationalism and Right-Wing Populism in Central and Eastern Europe’, Chinese Political Science Review, 2 (2017), pp. 427–444.

53. J. E. Fox and P. Vermeersch, ‘Backdoor nationalism’, European Journal of Sociology, 51 (2010) pp. 25–357.

54. Ding and Hlavac, ‘Right’ Choice: Restorative Nationalism and Right-Wing Populism in Central and Eastern Europe, op. cit., Ref. 41.

55. V. Molnár, ‘Civil society, radicalism and the rediscovery of mythic nationalism’, Nations and nationalism, 22 (2016), pp. 165–185.

56. Ibid.

57. (Bocksor, 2015).

58. S. Srivastava, ‘Modi-masculinity: Media, manhood, and ‘traditions’ in a time of consumerism’, op. cit., Ref. 30.

59. It is important to note here that in August 2019, the BJP government removed the special provisions under Article 370 that provided for a degree of autonomy to the state of Jammu and Kashmir.

60. M. Rai, ‘Kashmiris in the Hindu Rashtra’, in A. P Chatterji, T. B Hansen. And C. Jaffrelot (Eds) Majoritarian state: How Hindu nationalism is changing India (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019) pp. 259–280.

61. Narendra Modi speech, 19 May, 2018 Available at https://www.narendramodi.in/text-of-pms-speech-at-event-marking-the-dedication-of-kishanganga-hydro-electric-project-to-the-nation-in-srinagar-540171 (Accessed 11 March 2023).

62. Narendra Modi speech, 12 August, 2016, Available at: https://www.narendramodi.in/pm-s-concluding-remarks-at-all-party-meeting-on-jammu-kashmir-511595 (Accessed 11 March 2023).

63. Mridu Rai notes that there are 700,000 members of the Indian armed forces in the Valley which means that there is one soldier for every eleven civilians. This number might well have gone up after the abrogation of Article 370 which was accompanied by massive movement of troops into the Valley.

64. The Indian Express, ‘Modi in J&K Highlights: Will break the backbone of terror in state, says PM’ Available at: https://indianexpress.com/article/india/pm-narendra-modi-in-jammu-live-updates-leh-srinagar-bjp-5566594/

65. Narendra Modi speech,14 October, 2019, Available at https://www.narendramodi.in/text-of-pm-modi-s-speech-at-public-meeting-in-ballabhgarh-haryana-546901 (Accessed 11 March 2023).

66. Article 370 was the legal provision in the Indian Constitution using which the state of Kashmir was ensured autonomy. This article, along with the Constitution (Application to Jammu and Kashmir) Order 1954, enabled the President to decide what provisions of the Indian Constitution could be applied to the state of Jammu and Kashmir with ‘concurrence’ of the state government. This article had been amended from time to time to apply more provisions of the Indian Constitution to Jammu and Kashmir. Article 370 also formed a model for similar provisions in other states such as Andhra Pradesh and Sikkim.

67. M Verma, Diminishing the Role of Parliament: The Case of the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Bill. Economic and Political Weekly. Available at https://www.epw.in/engage/article/diminishing-role-parliament-case-jammu-and-kashmir.

68. A. B. Jamwal, 4 G Is Back in J&K After 18 Months, But it Can’t Compensate for What We Lost. https://thewire.in/rights/jammu-and-kashmir-4g-internet-costs (Accessed 11 March 2023).

69. Ibid.

70. Bilal Kuchay, ‘What you should know about India’s anti-Muslim citizenship law’ https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/12/16/what-you-should-know-about-indias-anti-muslim-citizenship-law Accessed 7th October, 2023.

71. https://www.livemint.com/politics/news/pm-modi-calls-for-peace-and-harmony-says-caa-and-nrc-will-not-impact-indian-muslims-11577011406382.html

72. I. M. Young, ‘The logic of masculinist protection: Reflections on the current security state’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 29 (2003), pp. 1–25.

73. Ibid., p. 2.

74. Ibid., p. 3.

75. S. Banerjee Muscular Nationalism (New York: New York University Press, 2012)

76. Á. Bocskor, ‘Anti-immigration discourses in Hungary during the ‘Crisis’ year: The Orbán government’s ‘National Consultation’ campaign of 2015’, Sociology, 52 (2018), pp. 551–568.

77. Goździak, M. Elżbieta, ‘Using Fear of the “Other,” Orbán Reshapes Migration Policy in a Hungary Built on Cultural Diversity’, 10 October, 2019, Available at: https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/orban-reshapes-migration-policy-hungary.

78. D Nolan, ‘Hungary government condemned over anti-immigration drive’ The Guardian, 2 July 2015, Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/02/hungary-government-condemned-over-anti-immigration-drive. (Accessed November 11 2022)

79. Bocskor ‘Anti-immigration discourses in Hungary during the ‘Crisis’ year: The Orbán government’s ‘National Consultation’campaign of 2015’, op. cit., Ref. 38.

80. Hungarian government, ‘If we do not protect our borders, tens of millions of migrants will come’.

81. Bocskor ‘Anti-immigration discourses in Hungary during the ‘Crisis’ year: The Orbán government’s ‘National Consultation’campaign of 2015’, op. cit., Ref. 39, p. 353.

82. K Than ‘Hungary to arm new “border hunters” after six-month crash course’. Reuters. Available at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-hungary-borderhunters-idUSKBN16G2ED (Accessed 11 March 2023)/.

83. Website of the Hungarian government (2017). ‘Viktor Orban’s speech at the ceremonial wearing in of new border hunters.’ Available at: https://2015–2019.kormany.hu/en/the-prime-minister/the-prime-minister-s-speeches/viktor-orban-s-speech-at-the-ceremonial-swearing-in-of-new-border-hunters. (Accessed March 11 2023).

84. Ibid.

85. Bocskor ‘Anti-immigration discourses in Hungary during the ‘Crisis’ year: The Orbán government’s ‘National Consultation’campaign of 2015’, op. cit., Ref. 39.

86. Website of the Hungarian government. ‘Viktor Orban’s interview on Kossuth radio’s 180 minutes programme’ Available at: https://2015–2019.kormany.hu/en/the-prime-minister/the-prime-minister-s-speeches/prime-minister-viktor-orban-s-interview-on-kossuth-radio-s-180-minutes-programme20151124. (Accessed November 11 2022).

87. Ibid.

88. S Walker, ‘Viktor Orbán trumpets Hungary’s “procreation, not immigration” policy’ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/06/viktor-orban-trumpets-far-right-procreation-anti-immigration-policy

89. G Cosentino Social media and the post-truth world order (Cham: Palgrave Pivot, 2020).

90. Ibid.

91. T. Triadafilopoulos, ‘Illiberal means to liberal ends? Understanding recent immigrant integration policies in Europe’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 37 (2011), pp. 861–880.

92. M. Ibrahim, ‘The securitization of migration: A racial discourse’, International migration, 43 (2005), pp. 163–187; O. Wæver, Securitization and desecuritization (Copenhagen: Centre for Peace and Conflict Research, 1993).

93. A. Szalai, and G. Gőbl, Securitizing migration in contemporary Hungary (CEU Center for EU Enlargement Studies Working Paper, 2015).

94. Ibid.

95. Á. Bocskor, ‘Anti-immigration discourses in Hungary during the ‘Crisis’ year: The Orbán government’s ‘National Consultation’campaign of 2015’.

96. M. Rai, ‘Kashmiris in the Hindu Rashtra’, in A.P Chatterji, T. B Hansen. and C. Jaffrelot (Eds) Majoritarian state: How Hindu nationalism is changing India (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019) pp. 259–280.

97. C Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement in India (Columbia University Press, New York, 1996).

98. (Bocksor, 2015).