Varanasi Ram Madhav (born 22 August 1964) is an Indian politician who served as the National General Secretary of the

Bharatiya Janata Party The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the ruling political party in India under Narendra Modi ...

. He was a member of the National Executive of the

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh ( ; , , ) is an Indian right-wing, Hindu nationalist, paramilitary volunteer organisation. The RSS is the progenitor and leader of a large body of organisations called the Sangh Parivar (Hindi for "Sangh family" ...

and has authored a few books. His latest is ''Uneasy Neighbours: India and China after Fifty Years of the War''.

Early life

Madhav was born in the

East Godavari East Godavari is a district in the Coastal Andhra region of Andhra Pradesh, India. Its district headquarters is at Rajahmundry. As of 2011 Census of India, census 2011, it became the most populous district of the state with a population of 5,151,54 ...

district of

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (, abbr. AP) is a state in the south-eastern coastal region of India. It is the seventh-largest state by area covering an area of and tenth-most populous state with 49,386,799 inhabitants. It is bordered by Telangana to the ...

on 22 August 1964. Primarily a student of engineering, he earned his Diploma in Electrical Engineering from Andhra Pradesh. He also has a post-graduate degree in Political Science from the

University of Mysore The University of Mysore is a public state university in Mysore, Karnataka, India. The university was founded during the reign of Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV, the Maharaja of Mysore. The university is recognised by the University Grants Commission ...

Karnataka Karnataka (; ISO: , , also known as Karunāḍu) is a state in the southwestern region of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act. Originally known as Mysore State , it was renamed ''Karnat ...

Political career

Madhav's association with the

began as a teenager. He volunteered to be a full-time worker for RSS in 1981. He was assigned to several key positions in the organization. Ram Madhav and Rajdeep Sardesai

He has also been the editor of ''Bharatiya Pragna'', a monthly magazine in English published by Pragna Bharati, and associate editor of ''Jagriti'', a

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode S ...

weekly. He worked as a journalist for over 20 years with RSS sponsored publications and has authored more than twelve books. He serves as the Member of the Board of Governors of India Foundation, a New Delhi-based think-tank focused on the issues, challenges and opportunities of the Indian polity. He is also a mentor at

Vision India Foundation Vision, Visions, or The Vision may refer to: Perception Optical perception * Visual perception, the sense of sight * Visual system, the physical mechanism of eyesight * Computer vision, a field dealing with how computers can be made to gain un ...

, a New Delhi-based think tank working on public leadership amongst youth He served as the national spokesperson of the RSS from 2003 to 2014. Madhav was seconded to the BJP and appointed as one of its national general secretaries in 2014. As a General Secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Party, he is credited for the rise of the party in

North East India , native_name_lang = mni , settlement_type = , image_skyline = , image_alt = , image_caption = , motto = , image_map = Northeast india.png , ...

and stitching alliance with regional parties.

Personal views

Foreign policy

He has called for India to take a more "proactive role in the region” in order to check China's

One Belt One Road Initiative The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI, or B&R), formerly known as One Belt One Road ( zh, link=no, 一带一路) or OBOR for short, is a global infrastructure development strategy adopted by the Chinese government in 2013 to invest in nearly 150 ...

. He was involved in the BJP's entry to the

International Democrat Union The International Democrat Union (IDU) is an international alliance of centre-right political parties. Headquartered in Munich, Germany, the IDU consists of 84 full and associate members from 65 countries. It is chaired by Stephen Harper, ...

, a worldwide grouping of right of centre political parties.

Reception

British anchor Mehdi Hasan's interview

On the talk show called Head to Head in

Al Jazeera Al Jazeera ( ar, الجزيرة, translit-std=DIN, translit=al-jazīrah, , "The Island") is a state-owned Arabic-language international radio and TV broadcaster of Qatar. It is based in Doha and operated by the media conglomerate Al Jazeera ...

, a Qatari news channel, anchored by

Mehdi Hasan Mehdi Raza Hasan (born July 1979) is a British-American political journalist, broadcaster and author of Indian descent. Hasan has been the host of ''The Mehdi Hasan Show'' on Peacock since October 2020 and on MSNBC since February 2021. In 2 ...

on Hindu Nationalism, Ram Madhav's statement o
'your' ISIS
to the British anchor with an explanation later published in Indian Express calling it just a slip of tongue After the show, the anchor

stated that he was being called as ISIS supporter since then by internet trolls.

Books

*''Uneasy neighbours : India and China after 50 years of the war'', New Delhi : Har-Anand Publications, 2014, 256 p Hindutva Paradigm