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Hindutva fascism: What it is and how to fight it
ANALYTICAL MONTHLY REVIEW
The parliamentary elections of 2014 are now casting their shadow ahead. The nationwide elections on a five-year schedule have become a festival, with the decorations manufactured by the media monopoly and the parliamentary parties. The prospects are dismal for any sign of intelligent engagement with crucial issues. Instead, we are to be subjected — by the tacit agreement of our rulers — to a mixture of social politics in the repulsive form of communalist agitation, and economic discussions in which “reform” and “development” mean abject subjection to the interests of U.S. capital and its domestic plutocratic satellites. The recent anointment of Narendra Modi as BJP Prime Ministerial candidate has added momentum as we slide down this path. The real issue of the Gujarat pogrom of 2002 under the criminal supervision of Narendra Modi as Chief Minister now comes to the fore only to counter the “Vikash Purush” of Gujarat. It looks as if there will not be much difference from previous experience — either fear of Modi will push a slapdash majority behind another five years of Chidambaram & Co corruption and economic polarization, or a BJP-led government will follow the same “free market” policies accompanied by a small dose of its communal program. One way or another, the electoral fraud of “choice” will be accomplished. But looked at from a longer perspective, things may be moving toward more dramatic events.
For the great majority — those to whom the price of onions is a very serious daily concern — life has been increasingly difficult. The Manmohan Singh-Chidambaram regime is worn out and mired in endless scams and corruption. For reasons with which we are all too familiar, the real alternative from the Left will not be an available option in the Great Electoral Festival. The RSS has realized that large sections of people desire change — and would not bother to analyze what is the change that the RSS and its political affiliate BJP stand for. One should not ignore the recent report of the meeting between BJP veteran LK Advani and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat. It is most unusual for the RSS to come out with a statement on the meeting between two top leaders. These relations are normally presented as unofficial. The BJP is now openly under the control of the RSS. On this occasion, the RSS forced all dissenting senior leaders of the BJP to acquiesce in declaring Modi as the PM candidate. The RSS not just appoints the BJP’s leadership but also controls the organisation even in micro matters. What this means is that all those who expect a new BJP government to follow a centre-right path independent from RSS control are mistaken. This is not a second version of the Vajpayee experience, when Hindutva initiatives were sidelined in the interest of pushing the “free market reforms” under which we have suffered now for more than two decades. The lesson the RSS have drawn from the 2004 election is that a new BJP-led national government following the “free market reforms” path will in its turn be rejected; they believe that 2014 offers an opportunity for a long-lasting domination.
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It’s in the (Indian) air, smells like semi-fascism
by BERNARD D’MELLO
Public memory of how (the) fascists “use[d] and abuse[d] democratic freedoms in order to abolish them” (Hannah Arendt) was strong when, more than 60 years ago, India’s Constituent Assembly rejected the option of a presidential type of executive. But now, the coming general elections are being framed as a presidential-style contest between the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) “strongman” Narendra Modi and the Congress Party’s “weakling” Rahul Gandhi, presuming, of course, that the latter will be named by his party as its prime ministerial candidate. In a recent Economic Times/Nielsen opinion poll of 100 CEOs, it was reported, 74 wanted Narendra Modi as prime minister compared to only 7 who backed Rahul Gandhi. The Washington-headquartered lobbyist Apco Worldwide, which had been hired by the Gujarat state government to promote the biennial “Vibrant Gujarat” Summit, seems to have transformed the image of Modi from that of an infamous communalist bigot into one which big business regards as most suitable to be India’s next prime minister.
The founding fathers (and mothers) of the Indian Constitution, apprehensive of the emergence of tyranny in the future, opted for parliamentary democracy. But religious-communal hate politics, already given an ideological content with the founding of the Hindu Mahasabha (a rightwing Hindu political assembly, founded in 1914) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS, a rightwing paramilitary, volunteer Hindu nationalist organisation, founded in 1925), grew steadily after Partition. The Jan Sangh, the previous incarnation of the BJP, joining the JP movement only after the Emergency, opportunistically entered the power structure via the Janata Party, and over time, as the BJP, in a series of fascist manoeuvres within the parliamentary framework, established itself as the main contender of the Congress Party for power at the Centre.
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