Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni posted a selfie video with chortling Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi by her side from Apulia, where the G-7 group of advanced Western countries held its meeting. The two leaders look into the camera to say, “Hello from the Melodi team.” ‘Melodi’ (a portmanteau of Meloni and Modi) as well as Meloni and Modi have been the butt of many viral memes and jokes online.
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Some of the social media users were also critical of these memes.
We at Deshbhakt did not indulge in any of the #Melodi memes – simply because it was a bit below the belt and sexist to boot.
But when leaders of two nations decide to act like bumbling love struck teenagers – there is no helping them.
PM spent hundreds of crores of tax payer… https://t.co/Aw7fWR5rYD— The DeshBhakt 🇮🇳 (@TheDeshBhakt) June 15, 2024
When did it come together? What does this team do together? This ‘partnership’ which ‘The Melodi team’ alludes to, has got no official confirmation. But this ‘team’ between an RSS pracharak Indian PM and his Italian counterpart from a party, Brothers of Italy “with neofasict roots”, brings to mind an important backstory about the connection between India’s own far right, the RSS and Hindu Mahasabha on the 1930s, and their need and attempts to partner with and learn from the disastrous ‘nationalisms’ of Europe, which were to plunge the continent into years of darkness, before a world war finally put them out.
Italian historian Marzia Casolari, has noted in her book, how BS Moonje, a leading light for the Hindu right did his most to meet Mussolini and how “he travelled to Italy in 1931, also meeting [Benito] Mussolini, in order to study the organisation of the fascist state first hand. Moonje’s visit may be considered a turning point, since he insisted on structural changes within the RSS, based on the example of fascist youth organisations.”
She goes onto write in In the Shadow of the Swastika, The Relationships Between Indian Radical Nationalism, Italian Fascism and Nazism’ (2020) how “About 1938, Nazi Germany became the main point of reference for the Hindu Mahasabha, under Savarkar’s presidency. Germany’s rabid policies regarding race were taken as the model to be adopted to solve the ‘Muslim problem’ in India.” (page xii)
Placing in context Moonje’s role before his Vinayak Savarkar’s release after his mercy petitions to the British, Casolari writes, “Moonje has been president of the Hindu Mahasabha for only a year, but his militaristic vision of Hindu nationalism was shared by Savarkar it can be said that he continued to virtually lead the party until Savarkar took over.” (page 85).
After getting impressed seeing institutes imparting paramilitary training that fascists in Italy emphasised, Moonje “returned to the theme of cultural affinities between Italy and India.” About the symbol of the ‘fascio’ and its meaning, Casolari quotes Moonje as writing,
“The idea of Fascism vividly brings out the conception of unity amongst people. India and particularly Hindu India needs some such Institution for the military regeneration of the Hindus: so that the artificial distinction so much emphasised by the British of martial and non-Martial classes amongst the Hindus may disappear. Our Institution of Rashtriya Svayamsevak Sangh of Nagpur under Dr Hedgewar is of this kind, though quite independently conceived. I will spend the rest of my life in developing and extending this institution of Dr Hedgewar all trough out [sic] the Maharashtra and other provinces.”
Moonje, obviously very impressed after meeting Mussolini, wrote in his diary describing him as “one of the great men of the European world. He is a tall man with a broad face and double chin and broad chest. His face shows him to be a man of strong will and powerful personality. I have noted that Italians love him. I was told by Colonel that when the Fascist Revolution succeeded and Mussolini marched on Rome with his Fascist organisation and overthrowing the former Govt. became himself the Premier, he called on the King and said – I am your most loyal and obedient servant. How noble and how selflessly patriotic!” (page 44)
Meanwhile, Meloni has been taking steps to ingratiate herself in the European Union and on the international stage as a ‘moderate’ right winger, trying to get the world to forget the neofascist origins of her party and policies. In the process, write analysts, the right in Europe is extending and being persuaded to go more extreme, and render a lot of what was earlier not acceptable at all, as part of the agenda.
