What is a <i>vishwaguru</i>? Indian civilizational pedagogy as a transformative global imperative

Abstract Ambitions for India to enact the role of vishwaguru or ‘world teacher’ are a conspicuous feature foreign policy discourse under contemporary Hindu nationalist rule in India. This discourse, and India's foreign-policy practice, engage international realm with puzzling intensity given nationalism's inward-looking exclusionary emphasis on majoritarian cultural unity. In this article, I leverage International Relations scholarship social closure, order recognition struggles examine historical lineages recent articulations nineteenth-century religious reformist ideas about world mission spiritual superiority. argue that different Indian civilizational imaginaries across time produce pedagogical imperative, aimed at transformation global hierarchies. Centred quest assert superiority remake terms recognition, any project nonetheless relies recognition. The domestic diasporic appeal stems from how it appears intervene rectify longstanding misrecognition context, western liberal states' instrumental as democratic partner defender face ‘China challenge’ works endorse bolster current political moment.