The killings of
Mohammad Akhlaq, Prof. M M Kalburgi and Yakub Memon have come to symbolize in
many ways the prevailing situation in the country under Modi-led BJP-rule.
Akhlaq was bludgeoned to death at his Dadri home in September by a lynch mob
that was instigated, mobilised and led by a bunch of Sanghi goons after
maliciously spreading the rumour of beef-eating.
Prof. Kulbargi was shot dead by
unidentified Hindutva-fascist assassins because of his consistent and
irrepressible opposition to their designs in Karnataka. Memon was hanged this
July in Nagpur jail after his conviction in the 1993 Mumbai blasts in a
travesty of justice.
For the self-appointed gendarmes of
the ‘Hindu Rashtra’, to eat something of one’s choice is anti-national, to
voice dissent is anti-national, to be even the brother of a Muslim who is
accused of so-called anti-national activities is anti-national – ‘crimes’ that
are punishable by death according to the Manuvadi
Hindutva-fascists.
Whether the execution is actually
carried out judicially by the state or by any of the numerous murderous gangs
raised by the hydra-headed RSS – it makes little different to the person at
the receiving end.
These killings (and of Govind
Phansade and Narendra Dabholkar earlier) are but a few of the more
talked-about incidents in what has become an incessant barrage of attacks
carried out in many forms by the Hindutva-fascists across the
country.
Particularly since the BJP government
came to power, such attacks are taking place almost on a daily basis. Though
termed by some as ‘intolerance’, this is part of an all-round attack by the
Brahmanical Hindu fascist forces against the people and affecting all spheres
of their lives.
These attacks are simultaneously
ideological, political, social, religious, ethnic, economic, cultural,
juridical and environmental – carried out with violent and non-violent, legal
and illegal, constitutional and extra-constitutional means.
On their target are all kinds of
dissent and non submissiveness, particularly the fighting organizations and
individuals – revolutionary, democratic, secular and patriotic – as well as
Muslims and Christians, Dalits and Adivasis, women and people of other
oppressed genders, oppressed nationalities and even sections of the
parliamentary opposition.
In fact, anyone who refuses to fall
in line with their Hindutva agenda or opposes their fascist diktats is a
potential target. Indeed, at a time like this when the assault of he
Hindutva-fascists is becoming increasingly conspicuous in all spheres of the
society and the state, one cannot be faulted for wondering if a vast section
of our people are already made to live in the shadows of a veritable ‘Hindu
Rashtra’.
Hindu-fascism, even with its
specificities, shares many characteristics of the fascisms that emerged in the
capitalist countries during the economic, social and political crises period
of the the1930s, the Great Depression and the interval between the two inter
imperialist World Wars.
Like Italian fascism and German
Nazism, Hindutva too is a phenomenon of the era of imperialism and proletarian
revolution, emerging along right-wing or fascist parties, institutions, armed
detachments and gangs in the capitalist imperialist countries with or without
a parliamentary democratic cover. Fascism raised its head when at its highest
stage, capitalism had entered a period of general crisis and socialism emerged
as a real alternative before the world people with the victory of Bolshevik
Revolution.
The role of Italian, German, Japanese
and other fascist movements of that time was to address this existential
threat faced by the imperialist ruling classes of their respective
countries.
It was the political offensive of the
bourgeoisie against the proletariat to come out of its severe economic and
political crises. They pursued a domestic policy of open terrorist rule and a
foreign policy of aggression and wars.
Domestically, the main enemy of the
fascists was the organisations and movements of workers and toiling masses,
revolutionary proletarian parties and organisations along with other
democratic classes and national minorities, migrants, while internationally,
its prime target was the socialist camp led by the Soviet Union along with the
national liberation movements of the colonies and semi-colonies.
They waged counter-revolutionary wars
against communist and democratic forces all over the world until revolutionary
and national liberation wars finally consigned them to their
graves.
But Hindutva – the ‘Made in India’
variety of fascism – not only escaped the fate of its European and Japanese
contemporaries but has in fact thrived during the last hundred years of its
existence. Hindutva fuses elements of India’s caste-feudalism (such as its
reactionary Brahmanical ideology and deep-rooted notion of inborn superiority,
etc.) with those modern bourgeois concepts (like the nation, Aryan Race theory
of colonial-Orientalist scholars and their communal formulation of Indian
history, and so on) that suit the interests of the Indian comprador ruling
classes and the obsolete social institutions and forces.
It falsifies history to invent a
glorious past of the ‘Hindu nation’, unmindful of the fact that neither a
religious community called the ‘Hindu’ nor a nation called the ‘Indian’
existed prior to British conquest of the subcontinent.
The brainchild of the early Hindutva
proponents is the neo-Brahmanical reactionary utopia of the ‘Hindu Rashtra’
(nation), which the Hindutva fascists project back as the country’s ‘glorious’
past and hold up as the ideal for the country’s glorious future.
They seek to impose this fascist
ideology on both Hindus and non-Hindus and all social communities, sections
and classes who do not agree with their communal conception of society and
history.
While Muslims and Christians are seen
as aliens to be either assimilated, kept in line or suppressed, the Sikhs,
Buddhists, Dalits and Adivasis are considered to be already Hindus and are
included in the ‘Hindu nation’ against their will.
The hierarchical, hegemonic and
chauvinist Hindutva ideology, culture and values are imposed on all of them by
suppressing, controlling or co-opting their diverse cultures, languages,
beliefs and customs.
This fascist ideology of Hindutva is
also reflected in the organisational structure of Hindu-fascist organisation.
RSS, Hindu Mahasabha etc. that were established in the early 1920s are highly
authoritarian and allows no disagreement with the leaders.
The command of the Sarsanghchalak is
the last word in RSS and is accepted without question. From its inception,
Hindutva forces received support and patronage of the big landlords and the
comprador big bourgeoisie as its reactionary ideology and authoritarian
organisational structure was a useful tool for their economic and political
interests.
They were also subservient to the
British colonial rulers, calling upon the people to struggle for ‘national
regeneration’ at a time when all the anti-colonial, democratic and patriotic
forces were engaged in the independence struggle (Savarkar glorified
colonialism by writing that “the glory of the British empire is great” (V D
Savarkar, Hindutva, p.85, 166); Golwalkar expressed his disdain for national
independence by terming it as “that haphazard bundle of political rights” (M S
Golwalkar, We or Our Nationhood Defined, p.7).
True to their comprador character,
Hindutva fascists continue to commemorate collaborators and traitors as heroes
like Savarkar while denouncing genuine nationalists and patriots like Tipu
Sultan.
Hindutva-fascist forces stand for
conciliation of antagonistic classes to prevent the development of class
consciousness among the toilers and an intensification of the organised class
struggle.
For instance, RSS had written to PM
Nehru way back in 1948, “Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s is the only way to meet
the challenge of communism and its is the only ideology which can harmonise
and integrate the interests of different groups and classes and thus
successfully avoid any class-war” (Letter by RSS office-bearers to PM Nehru,
published in Organiser, 23 October 1948). They make use of the traditional
adaptability of Hinduism to social change by preserving, protecting and
strengthening all its reactionary aspects in the service of the ruling classes
– be it the colonial rulers or the Indian ruling elite subservient to
imperialism which took their place.
They bolster the joint dictatorship
of the big landlords big comprador capitalists by suppressing the democratic
classes, whipping up communal and national chauvinism, persecuting religious
minorities and oppressing minority nationalities, Dalits, Adivasis and
women.
Ideologically, the metaphysical,
idealist and subjective Hindutva world-outlook is a die-hard opponent of all
forms of scientific, materialist, rational, objective and dialectical approach
to understand and change the world – most of all the Marxist approach of
scientific socialism and dialectical and historical materialism.
Ideological-political indoctrination,
social demagogy, national and religious chauvinism, Goebbelsian propaganda,
co=option and buying-out – i.e., all means fair and foul are part of their
arsenal to win over one section of the broad masses and to terrorise
others.
They fully utilise the gullibility,
backwardness, ignorance and contradictions among the broad masses as well as
the reactionary aspects in people’s culture and social values rooted in the
country’s semi-colonial semi-feudal system.
They constantly engage in lies,
deception, hypocrisy and subterfuge to manipulate public opinion and to
hoodwink, mislead and divide the masses – often doing the opposite of what
they say and saying in complete contrast to what they do.
They use the products of modern
science and technology to enslave the masses and achieve their reactionary
social, economic, political and cultural goals.
Hindutva-fascism has adapted itself
to the changing conditions and utilised all available forms to spread its most
deceitful, deceptive and bloody tentacles. Contrary to its ideology and stated
goals, it pledged itself to non-violent means, declared adherence to the
Indian Constitution and presented itself as a mere cultural organisation (as
did RSS after Gandhi’s assassination to get its ban revoked) – but it does not
conform to them in practice.
Like its Nazi counterpart, it has
utilised India’s parliamentary system to come to power in pursuit of its
objectives.
From the formation of Bharatiya Jana
Sangh in 1951 to the formation of first BJP government at the centre in 1997,
Hindutva-fascism had gained ground in large parts of the country by working
under cover of parliamentary politics. But as Ram Janmabhoomi agitation, Rath
Yatra, demolition of Babri Masjid, the subsequent bloodbath of Muslims in many
parts of the country, Gujarat pogrom and innumerable other large and small
heinous acts show, they have used extra-parliamentary and violent terrorist
methods for parliamentary ends.
They have achieved some significant
success in their tactics largely because its parliamentary opposition –
whether the Congress, revisionist CPI-CPI(M) or various regional parties – has
proved ineffective in stopping the onward march of
Hindutva-fascism.
In fact, these ruling-class parties
themselves have many overt or covert Hindutva adherents within them and helped
in the growth of Hindutva-fascism with their class collaboration and
opportunist politics. Since the parliamentary elections of 2014, BJP has
emerged as the largest, most powerful and most preferred all-India party of
the big comprador bureaucratic capitalists and landlords subservient to
imperialists by displacing the Congress from this position.
Like all fascisms of the past, the
present growth of Hindutva-fascism has taken place amidst an acute crisis of
the world capitalist system beginning in 2008 which has not shown any serious
sign of recovery. Fascist trends of various hues are on the rise once again
all over the world.
In India too, the old method of rule
by the Congress-led UPA became inadequate for the Indian ruling classes in the
present condition of crisis. Modi-led BJP was therefore catapulted to power in
the last elections to carry out the agenda of neo-liberal ‘reforms’ more
aggressively and ruthlessly – by fascist means if need be.
The BJP with its neo-fascist Hindutva
ideology and a wide network of fascist organisations working in almost all
fields and regions and among all social sections, was best suited for the
job.
The ‘slow’ pace of the
IMF-World neo-liberal reforms and or hold-ups in opening all sectors of
the economy for foreign and Indian big capital has led the BJP and its NDA
allies to steamroll a plethora of policy changes through parliamentary and
extra-parliamentary means.
Displaying naked majoritarianism
based on its absolute majority in the Lok Sabha, Modi-led BJP government is
imposing these policies with the fascist argument that they have got the
popular mandate to implement whatever programme and policy they
like.
It is worth noting that the Fascists
in Italy and the Nazis in Germany too had won majority seats in the
parliamentary elections and used this brute majority to impose their policies.
As the country’s economy sinks deeper into the abyss of recession and crisis,
Hindutva-fascists led by Modi are taking desperate measures to satisfy their
masters – the imperialists.
On the one hand, the big capitalists
big and landlords are showered with enormous financial windfall through
introduction of new pro-corporate laws and changes in the existing laws, tax
cuts and tax holidays, loan waivers and debt restructuring, disinvestment,
handing over government property at dirt-cheap rates and through numerous such
legal and illegal means.
A number of existing laws related to
the well-being and welfare of the people such as labour laws, laws entitling
peasants to subsidy and compensation, pension, retirement-benefit and
insurance regulations for the salaried classes, laws related to social
security, health and education, etc. are being changed by the government by
terming them as old and obsolete, while the age-old colonial laws used for
suppressing the people are not only being retained but are bolstered with
newer amendments.
Schemes like ‘skill development’ are
introduced to prepare a few million unemployed as cheap semi skilled labour to
meet the needs of the global capitalist economy and the Indian big
capitalists.
The drama of debate is acted-out in
the pigsty of parliament by the ruling parties and the opposition alike, but
all anti-people bills and policies are ultimately passed with mutual
understanding.
On the other hand, government
expenditure on agriculture and manufacturing, social welfare and subsidies,
education and health, water and housing, etc., are drastically curtailed in
the name of fiscal discipline and austerity.
Economic and political rights won by
the people – be it workers, peasants, working women, employees, salaried
people and others from the middle classes through long and bitter struggles –
are taken away step by step to serve the interests of the imperialists and the
Indian ruling classes.
It is introducing a plethora of new
policies that are having a bearing upon all spheres – economy, education,
health, environment, social welfare and so on. Foreign investment which only
tightens the noose of imperialism is presented by Modi government as the
panacea for all the economic problems besetting the country.
While mouthing pious discourses on
‘Environmental Justice’, the government is proceeding to remove even the
remaining namesake restrictions on environmentally sensitive zones to invite
foreign investment and maximise the exploitation of natural
resources.
By issuing indiscriminate clearance
to mining, dams, highways, ports, housing, industries and such other projects
and almost all kinds of services in such ecologically fragile regions, it is
giving an open invitation for unprecedented ecological destruction and
pollution, not to speak of large scale displacement of the people. Unable to
address the basic problems of the masses or fulfil the grand pre-election
promises, Modi and his ministers are resorting to gimmicks and ‘perception
management’.
Following the model of the Nazi
ace-propagandist Joseph Goebbels, Modi government is making extensive use of
print, electronic and digital media to slyly manipulate public opinion, to
delude the masses with lies and deception and to hard-sell the pro-imperialist
and pro-Hindutva agenda it is trying to implement.
The media is being controlled in
covert and overt ways to monopolise the means of disseminating information.
Phrases like ‘development’, ‘empowerment’ of the poor and the Dalits,
Adivasis, women or other ‘weaker sections’, ‘Sadbhavana- Shanti-Suraksha’,
‘nation building’, ‘national interest’ and such phrases are relentlessly
bombarded in a Goebbelsian manner.
Sangh Parivar organisations too are
using mass media to hide the real face of Hindutva fascism, to shape public
opinion in favour of its agenda and to turn illusions into reality. Hypocrisy
in words and in practice is a hallmark of the Hindutva-fascists.
Parallel to this process is the
gradual fascization of the state. Be it the bureaucracy, judiciary, armed
forces, jails or any other wing of the state – the BJP government is staffing
their top rungs with Hindutva adherents wherever possible.
The military, paramilitary and police
forces are being further fascized during their training and service by the
Hindutva fascists by using state power.
They are being indoctrinated with
pseudo-patriotism and favourite Hindutva themes like unity and integrity of
the country, national interest, War on Terror, etc.
In this way they are being brought
closer to the Hindutva camp and ideologically prepared to ruthlessly crush the
people and all forms of democratic movements in the name of defending the
country and the nation, religion and faith, civilization and culture,
etc.
Keeping the mask of Narendra Modi in
the forefront, Sangh Parivar is trying to expand its social base by
introducing a few populist social welfare programmes like ‘Beti Bachao-Beti
Padhao’, ‘Jan Dhan Yojana’, ‘Swacch Bharat Abhiyan’, etc.
Like all fascist forces of the past,
the NDA government and the Sangh are taking up some of these populist measures
only to facilitate the heightened exploitation and repression of the toiling
masses and the oppressed social groups without stirring up widespread
resistance.
A renewed attempt is being made at
saffronisation of education through measures like rewriting of school
textbooks, changes in the syllabus, imposition of Sanskrit, Yoga and Hindu
rituals in schools, and similar other measures. Modi government has stepped up
its interference in the internal affairs of the universities and all other
autonomous institutions with the aim of imposing the fundamentalist Hindutva
agenda.
This is in addition to the
intensification of the previous government’s policy of promoting privatisation
of education. It is aggressively eulogising RSS figures like Savarkar, Shyama
Prasad Mukherjee and Deen Dayal Upadhyaya etc. and systematically naming
public landmarks like roads, public institutions, welfare schemes, etc. in
conformity to their ideology. Such measures are making the prorich, pro-Hindu,
pro-‘upper’ caste, male-bias of the state even more pronounced.
Muslims and their organisations are
being targeted by the state in the name of fighting ‘Islamic terror’, while
discrimination against religious minorities is becoming more menacing. While a
free hand is given by the state to the offenders of the saffron camp including
murderers involved in massacre of Muslims, stringent punishment including life
term and death sentence are being handed out to the accused
Muslims.
A large number of them are kept in
long-term detention without trial. Hindutva fascists are holding up religious
minorities as the enemies in front of the people to divert their growing
frustration and anger into harmless channels. Similarly, Dalits, Adivasis,
women, oppressed nationalities, rationalists, atheists, democrats, communists
or even the parliamentary opposition – anyone who are in opposition to them –
are being targeted. Anyone standing for genuine democracy, independence,
sovereignty and self-reliance or militantly raising the basic democratic
demands of the people is subjected to brutal violence using the state or
saffron terror.
Thousands of such attacks have been
carried out in the last one and a half years of Modi rule, and the number is
on the rise. The growing incidents of so called intolerance all over the
country too are an integral part of the Hindutva-fascist design.
Internationally, BJP government and
the Hindutva fascists are pursuing a ‘big power’/‘super-power’ status for
India by more closely collaborating with US imperialism and clamouring for a
greater role in international affairs.
In their attempt to transform the
country into a strong regional outpost of the US and other imperialist powers,
NDA and RSS is a policy of drummed-up big-power chauvinism and expansionism in
south-Asia.
They are howling chauvinist barbs
against Pakistan and China and are clamouring to expand the fight against
‘Islamic Terror’ by aligning more closely with US-Israeli foreign
policy.
Guided by the hegemonic idea of the
Hindu Rashtra and Akhand Bharat, they are more aggressively following the
expansionist policies of the previous governments, interfering in the internal
affairs of the neighbouring countries like Nepal in scant respect for their
sovereignty, thereby attracting the wrath of their people.
The all-out Hindutva-fascist attack
therefore is becoming unbearable not only for the broad masses of India but
also for the people of our neighbouring countries.
In spite of the similarities,
however, Hindutva fascism is no Nazism of Hitler’s Germany or fascism of
Mussolini’s Italy. The material basis of Hindutva fascism lay in the country’s
social conditions and backward production relations.
These production relations
principally serve the interests of feudalism and comprador bureaucratic
capitalism which are strongly integrated with and depended on the imperialist
monopoly capital and are subservient to it.
This results in the type of fascism
peculiar to our country and any semi-colonial and semi-feudal countries –
comprador-feudal fascism.
As a result, Hindutva-fascism is
necessarily weaker and more unstable than its counterparts in capitalist
countries. As Dimitrov pointed out, here there can be no question of seeing
“the kind of fascism that we are accustomed to see in Germany, Italy and other
capitalist countries” (Dimitrov, Seventh Congress of the Comintern,
1935).
Comprador-feudal fascism, by its very
comprador nature, is unable to equal the fascism of imperialist
countries.
In addition, the oppressive,
discriminatory, hierarchical, unscientific, anti-people and reactionary
Brahmanical ideology and the rotten Jati-Varna system associated with it has
never gone unchallenged in the country.
It has faced unceasing ideological
and political and other kinds of resistance including violent resistance from
the oppressed and toiling masses from the time of its very inception. Whether
Charvakas, Sankhyas and the Buddhists of the ancient times; Ravidas, Kabir and
others of the middle ages or Jotiba Phule and Savitribai, Shahuji Maharaj, Dr.
Ambedkar, Periyar and several others representing the Dalits, Adivasis, women
and revolutionary-democratic forces of the modern period in their own ways
took part in this unbroken history of resistance.
The people of the country, supported
by the revolutionary and democratic people of the world, are now once again
standing on the way of the neo-Brahmanical Hindutva-fascism.
It is not plausible, therefore, to
establish the ‘Hindu Rashtra’ of their dreams which would require the
transformation of the present semi fascist rule (with thinly-veiled fascist
rule in some regions of the country such as parts of Dandakaranya,
Bihar-Jharkhand, Jammu & Kashmir and the North East) to a complete and
countrywide naked neo fascist rule.
Indeed, the present unprecedented
level of allround Hindutva-fascist attack is facing a broad resistance in the
country. Protests against saffron terror and fascization of the state are
going on, with more and more people coming out to join their voice.
The widespread indignation against
the killing of Prof Kulbargi, Akhlaq and to a lesser extent the judicial
murder of Yakub Memon carried forward this anti fascist movement.
Recently, hundreds of writers,
artistes, academics, actors, journalists, film-makers and others from the
literary, cultural and academic fields have returned government awards in an
unparalleled protest against the attacks and growing threat of
Hindutva-fascism.
Their opposition to the persecution
of minorities, attack on the basic civil and democratic rights including
freedom of expression and dissent and attempts to impose control and dictate
have snowballed into a veritable avalanche of protest.
A large number of demonstrations,
dharnas, meetings etc. are daily being organised across the country. The
people of foreign countries too are expressing their condemnation of growing
Hindutva-fascism in sharp contrast to the opportunistic whitewashing of the
crimes of Modi and his cohorts by their governments.
The recent outburst of anger of the
people fighting for Patidar reservation against hated state symbols like
Police Stations has shown that even places like Gujarat which were once
considered Hindutva strongholds are no longer safe due to the people’s growing
frustration and anger. The people will surely make the Hindutva-fascists
realise that they constitute only a small minority in the country representing
the obsolete forces, the reactionary ruling classes and their
henchmen.
The vast majority of the people of
the country will neither subscribe to their reactionary ideology, nor will
they take the forcible imposition of Hindu majoritarianism lying down. Sooner
than later, BJP and the Sangh Parivar will realise that it is no fun to be the
flunkeys of imperialism.
MIB unequivocally extends its
revolutionary solidarity to all who are part of this common fight –
revolutionary, democratic, patriotic and secular forces, workers and peasants,
national and religious minorities, Dalits and Adivasis, urban poor and the
urban middle class, national bourgeoisie, students, teachers and
intellectuals, academics, historians, writers, artistes, actors, advocates,
journalists, doctors, scientists, researchers, women, LGBT, differently-able,
the old and the young and people from all walks of life who are standing up
against Hindutva-fascist enslavement.
Taking inspiration from the
experience of the international proletariat and the democratic forces in
defeating fascism, we call upon all exploited and oppressed classes,
communities, sections and groups to unite to become a mighty force against
Brahmanical Hindu-fascism and to wage a protracted struggle to bury it once
and for all.
With the understanding that fascism
can be completely uprooted only in a revolutionary way and not by revisionist,
reformist and parliamentary ways or through electoral ‘victories’ over the
BJP, MIB appeals to you all to strengthen the ongoing armed agrarian
revolutionary war led by the CPI(Maoist) to establish a genuinely democratic,
independent, sovereign and self-reliant people’s republic which will be the
real and final graveyard of Hindutva-fascism.
(Varavara Roa is an activist,
revolutionary poet and writer)
source :https://www.siasat.com
