Koenraad Elst (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈkunraːt ˈɛlst]; born 7 August 1959) is a Flemish author, known primarily for his adherence to the Hindutva ideology and support of the Out of India theory, which is regarded as pseudo-historical by mainstream scholarship.

[18] In Ayodhya and After (1991), Elst was even more explicit in the support of the demolition and termed it an exercise in national integration which provided "an invitation to the Muslim Indians to reintegrate themselves into the society and culture from which their ancestors were cut off by fanatical rulers and their thought police, the theologians".

[25][26][27] Elst perceives Hindutva as a tool to decolonize the mental and cultural state of Indians and return to the past days of (supposed) Hindu glory.

[29] The Saffron Swastika is widely regarded to be his magnum opus[30], which argues against the idea that the brand of Hindutva practiced by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) / Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh are fascist in ideology.

[31] Advani had high regards for the work,[32] terming Elst as a 'great historian' and even carried a "heavily marked" copy of the book from which he freely quoted the passages that discussed him.

[36] In his 1992 book, Negationism in India: Concealing the Record of Islam, Elst attempts to demonstrate that there exists a prohibition of criticism of Islam in India and accuses secular historians (including the likes of Romila Thapar, Bipan Chandra, Ram Sharan Sharma et al.) of suffering from Hindu Cowardice wherein they ignore Muslim crimes against Hindu communities, in order to fulfill their Marxist agenda.

[37][38][39][40] Anthropologist Thomas Blom Hansen describes Elst as a "Belgian Catholic of a radical anti-Muslim persuasion who tries to make himself useful as a 'fellow traveller' of the Hindu nationalist movement".

[26][44][45][30] Meera Nanda has accused Elst of exploiting the writings of his intellectual forefathers over Voice of India, to "peddle the worst kind of Islamophobia imaginable".

[48] The manifesto, among other things sought to deport all Muslims from Europe and quoted Elst in asserting the existence of a massive movement that was aimed to ''deny the large-scale and long-term crimes against humanity committed by Islam''.