In Germany, out of ninety lakhs Jews, fascism took the lives of sixty lakhs (six million). In fact, there is a conspiracy in the very formulation of the ideas of minority and majority. In India, the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS) is the only organisation that portrays minorities as ‘Others’, presents them as ‘obstacles to development’, ‘threats to national security’, and ‘enemies’; it is against them that the RSS has built its ideology and organisation over the last hundred years. We can call only the RSS, which formulated such a theory and prepared a suitable structure for it, a fascist organisation. The Congress is different. It is true that when Mrs. Indira Gandhi was assassinated, large-scale anti-Sikh riots broke out (October-November 1984), and the Congress government of the day allowed and encouraged them, but this was only a cynical, election and power ploy. We cannot say that anti-Sikhism was part of the Congress doctrine. In Hyderabad (undivided Andhra Pradesh), we have had the experience of Congress creating communal strife once to topple the NTR government and another time to topple the Chenna Reddy government. Those incidents of communal strife –opportunistically communal and deplorable as they were, were also created for immediate political needs but not for the establishment of a theocratic state. Congress never believed in a hegemonic ideology like RSS-BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party).

The Congress Party imposed state of emergency in 1975 and ran an authoritarian regime. But it did not incite the majority community against the minorities. It was state violence against all the people. Even today, state violence has become common. All governments, whether under BJP rule or under the rule of other parties, are undermining completely the fundamental rights of the people and the political opposition. However, no party other than BJP is instigating people of one religion against the people of another religion; none other than the BJP showcase one section of society as both ‘Others’ and ‘Outsiders’. Therefore, we cannot call those (other) parties as fascist, on par with the BJP.

When it comes to rights, David Harvey, a famous Marxist writer, once said, “In the capitalist system, people do not get their rights without effort; people have to achieve and protect their rights through their own struggles”. Today, all political formations practice dictatorship rule (of different parties in various states). People have been living with (or under) dictatorship regimes for some time, now. But what we see unfolding before us now is fascism, a qualitatively different regime, the seeds of which were sown a hundred years back.

Fascism, now, under the headship of the RSS (the Sangh Parivar), is aggressively displaying its two facets Communalism and Manu Dharma. When dictatorship is built on hegemonic fanaticism, it takes the form of fascism. That is what we are experiencing today. Further, only by pushing forward the agenda of “corporate capital loot” can the Sangh Parivar forces get the support for their agenda of ‘Hindu Rashtra’. That is why, in order to further their Hindutva agenda, they are protecting the general interests of corporates and, more importantly, giving high priority to the interests of a select a  few corporate entities. The partisanship being shown by them in favour of the interests of their chosen corporate bodies has surpassed all limits. There is no space here (in this article) to examine the consequences.

It is true that Sangh Parivar’s fanatical activities divert people’s attention from the real issues created and intensified by corporate loot. However, more than that, such activities are leading the country towards ‘Hindu Rashtra’ (a theocratic state). Some dismiss the actions of the Sangh Parivar only as “distractions from the real issues”. This is a very dangerous trend. The RSS is an organisation of activists committed to a maniacal ideology. The RSS has a trained and organised private army based on this irrational, maniacal, ideology. So, one has to understand that while the fanatic activities pursued by the Sangh Parivar forces do help diverting the attention of the people from real issues, they are firmly directed to pave path for the final goal of ‘Hindu Rashtra’.

Every move of Sangh Parivar is aimed at the establishment of a ‘Hindu Rashtra’ based on Communalism and Manu Dharma. The ‘Hindu state’ is not just an electoral gimmick or a way to sidestep public discontent. That is their goal. It may not be possible to achieve such a goal; even if it is achieved, it will be annulled, as was done in Germany. But if fascism’s development is not stopped now, we will see bloodshed like never before and this will be unstoppable for at least two or three decades. Fascism can plunge a society into darkness.

As far as economic policy is concerned, both the Congress and the BJP implement the corporate agenda. But there is a major difference in how this plays out in the political arena. Ruling class politics operate mainly against mass movements. While Congress follows one route to weaken mass movements, the BJP follows a different route; that is the only difference.

During the period 2004–2014, the Congress government at the Centre had slowly implemented neo-liberal policies and simultaneously implemented some welfare programs to prevent the occurrence of any major uprisings. This very pattern is also followed by almost all non-BJP parties. This pattern bears some resemblance to Keynes’ welfare state. When it comes to the BJP, it is implementing neo-liberal policies very aggressively, diluting all welfare programs. The BJP, by promoting communalism and national jingoism, is diverting common people’s discontent which is arising out of its pro-corporate actions. In the process, it is pursuing its own agenda of laying the foundations for the construction of the ‘Hindu Rashtra’. This difference assumes significance in the context of elections.

To state it briefly, Congress and other ruling class parties seek to “manage” people’s dissatisfaction by welfare measures whereas BJP seeks to divert people through communal propaganda. The RSS has nicknamed its doctrine ‘Hindutva’. It is suicidal for the critics of the Sangh Parivar to call this fascist theory by the name preferred by its creators. To repeat, the ideology of Sangh Parivar is based on Communalism and Manu Dharma. They are not only religious bigots but also staunch followers of Manu Dharma. They openly undermine the Constitution of India. As early as 1950, they called for (re) writing the Constitution of India on the basis of Manu Dharma.

The RSS strongly believes that ‘Hindu Jathi‘ can be strengthened only by restoring the ‘caste system’. They also believe that families will live happily and peacefully only if women are restricted to the kitchen. They do not herald and promote fanaticism only to divert the attention of the people. They are fostering various forms of exclusivism (madness) to (re) establish a hegemonic and hierarchical order in our society. Their ideology hinges on the supremacy of the majority community over minority communities, ‘higher castes’ over ‘lower castes’, males over females, and Sanskrit over other languages.

Fascism is a hegemonic ideology. Further, Socialism cannot be brought in through parliament, but fascism can. That is why those who truly want to resist fascism cannot ignore Parliament and Elections, the electoral processes. All approaches like a)the boycott of elections, b) using elections as mere opportunity for ideological campaign and c)trying to get some votes and seats are equally (and dangerously) faulty. A proper electoral intervention for stalling onward march of fascist forces –as was successfully achieved by Eddelu Karnataka — is in order.

The good thing about the present situation is that the Indian people have not become fanatics, yet. People continue to observe the mis-governance of BJP. That is why the BJP has lost elections in many states. The BJP lost consecutively in Bengal, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, and Karnataka. They would have faced more defeats if the media role had been impartial. In the coming five state elections, the Left Democratic, Secular, and Opposition forces should make concerted efforts to prevent the BJP and its allies from coming to power. In these states too, like Karnataka, civil society should work on a large scale.

If the BJP comes back to power, the entire state system (executive, judiciary, army, and police) could be filled with Sangh Parivar forces. Parliament may then be dissolved or become completely worthless. Exposing Sangh Parivar’s Communalism and Manuvadi Samskruthi (upper caste, Brahmanical culture) roots in the cultural sphere is as important as defeating fascism at the polls. The struggles on the economic front also have to be continued and intensified.

(The author is a presidium member, All India Forum for Right to Education-AIFRTE)

This is an English rendering of a Telugu article written by Ramesh Patnaik and published on October 25, in Andhra Jyothi, a largely circulated daily in Andhra Pradesh, in a slightly modified version – Editors

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To reimagine India in Authoritarian times is to first and foremost truthfully bear witness to what is happening around us, to acknowledge the rifts being created, to name the injustices and cruelty and to call out the powers that divide.

We are here today to honour the memory of Gauri Lankesh who so bravely spoke truth to power and who even in death reminds us to bear truthful witness however painful that may be, and I am grateful and would like to say a thank you for being given this opportunity to be part of today’s very special and important gathering.

As I stand here in India, as we in the Northeast are fond of calling the country that lies beyond the chicken neck, I want to begin with a few introductions and disclaimers.

My name is Angela Rangad, I belong to the Matrilineal Khasi tribe of Meghalaya. I am also a beef eating, pork savouring Christian who also dips into the indigenous Khasi faith system for sustenance. I do not like to wear my religious and ethnic affiliations on my sleeve, but in today’s India, I feel it imperative to display my multi-layered identity of being a Christian and, a scheduled tribe minority woman, as a way of challenging those who wish us away.

When India got its independence in 1947, the self-governing, Khasi states that make up the major part of today’s Meghalaya, were unsure of joining the larger nation-state called India. And that was OK. There were attempts then, even at such a crucial juncture, of leaders both

Indian and Khasi considering this hesitation of the Khasi States and its people as something legitimate – to be acknowledged, debated and taken seriously.

Today, when representatives from our region are being silenced in the parliament, it is hard to imagine that Rev. JJM Nichols Roy confronted the majoritarian minded leaders of the

Constituent Assembly who openly wanted to assimilate the Tribals of India into their notion of a dominant Indian culture and society. He said

“It is said by one honourable gentleman that the hill tribes have to be brought to the culture which he said “Our culture” meaning the culture of the plains men. But what is culture? Does it mean dress or eating and drinking: if it means eating and drinking or ways of living, the hill tribes can claim that they have a better system than some of the people of the plains? I think the latter must rise up to their standard. Among the tribesmen there is no difference between class and class. Is that practised in the plains?”

Actively supported in the Constituent Assembly by visionary leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru and Dr. Ambedkar, our leaders like Rev. J.J.M. Nichols Roy, Jaipal Singh Munda and others spoke fearlessly of the visions and aspirations of the small tribes and fought to ensure constitutional provisions of autonomy that became enshrined in the 5th and 6th schedule of the constitution.

The democracy that India envisaged for itself at its founding moment was not going to be just a brutality of numbers, but an everyday aspiration of many sovereignties and freedoms. I grew up listening to the stories about people from our hill, such as Mavis Dunn – one of the first women cabinet ministers in India who articulated both the desire for Khasi freedom and freedom of khasi women in front of the Bardoloi Committee. Stories of Wilson Reade, who gate crashed a meeting of Prime Minister Nehru, demanding provincial autonomy from Assam for the hill tribes. They did this without fear of reprisal or arrest. All of it seems like a dream now. Every day a new ideological horror is being perpetrated against all of us.

Seven decades on, that promise of the Constitution of India of ensuring open dialogues, of tentative relationships being OK, of the possibility of questioning being the edifice upon which our multi-cultural multi ethnic communities will determine their collective lives, is being undermined. Or in the words of Late L. G. Shullai, it is as if we have exchanged British India for Bharat India or the Hindu Rashtra being peddled today.

Today, we no longer refer to those who ought to be representing us as OUR govt. More and more we refer to those in power as The Regime. And this is telling. Regime – a word that conjures in our minds the feeling of being controlled, of having little choices and of being regimented into ONE uniform India.

For us from North East India, uniformity is an impossibility. And that is not only OK, but it has allowed us to thrive. With over 200 tribes having 300 plus languages and dialects between us, we contend with diverse cultural practices, customs and religions. A constellation of indigenous faiths and beliefs, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, heterodox Hinduism find expression across the region.

We are also a region that has, before maps got set and drawn, lived our relationships beyond the hills and rivers that defines India’s territoriality – which is why today when the military coup in Myanmar forced people to flee, the communities in states like Mizoram ensured refuge to them. Mizoram as a state, understanding the sentiment of a shared history and community relations extended a helping hand.

It is here that we find ourselves at odds with the regressive push of papering over these myriad and minute elements that define us. There can never be One Nation, One Law, One Belief to encapsulate our multi layered identities, relationships and ways of being.

Federalism as a key principle therefore, should not be emphasised merely as the sharing of powers between the union and the states but as an acknowledgement of the diversity within states and regions.

An acceptance that this experience of plural identities and relationships is best understood by those living it. If these local experiences and knowledge is what is allowed to inform policy and governance, the union of states as envisaged by the framers of our constitution would indeed become a reality.

The very idea of India where smaller communities like ours could have a political, economic and cultural voice seem distant now, under this regime. Although to be truthful, the relationship between India and its Northeast, very soon after independence, was sought to be turned into one of a patron-client relationship overseen by the security state, that process has now been further weaponised in favour of Delhi, and the Federal imagination is now being replaced by notions of double engine governments. For small states in the North East it is a reality that even when combined together we do not command legislative clout in terms of the number of representatives- and the number is set to further diminish if the proposed plans of delimitation go through. It is also a fact that for many North eastern states, our economies are crippled.

This dependency on the union has been used as a tool to put us in our place. An arm twisting that has pitted one neighbouring state against another and most crucially pushing communities and tribes to be wary and suspicious of each other. Double engine government has meant a replication of the divisive politics and hate that is on exhibition at the centre.

What is happening in Manipur today, is precisely this. A double engine government that is twice complicating the already complex histories and tenuous relationships among the people in this state. The Double Engine government has doubled the oppression, doubled the violence, and doubled the mistrust. The failure to contain the violence and hostilities for more than four months  now, clearly shows not only the total complicity of the double engine government but a glaring undermining, by design, of the federal guarantees of our constitution.

Manipur has also shown us how a regime can use communities – their sense of specialness and deprivation and the notions of majority to form blocks and cartels that can so easily be deployed for the larger sinister geo-political narratives and visions of an Akhand Bharat. I do not claim to be speaking on behalf of the people of Manipur, but after our recent visits there, many of us feel Manipur is a major experimentation in the region. A project to have a nation of majoritarian hate-filled cartels that will pave the way for easy access and exploitation of whatever resources the region may have by pitting communities against each other rather than allowing them their constant everyday messy negotiations, give and take and contradictions.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not here to glorify the region nor to romanticise its cultures, customs and practices. It has never been all love and fair play. There are fights. Claims and counterclaims. We have our fair share of looters, oppressors and patriarchs. However, if we are to reclaim our voices and spaces, we have to turn to our strength. That being our communities. The diversity and the entanglements which this diversity brings is what more than ever we will have to recognise, reclaim, embrace and work with. We cannot allow our communities to be used for a project that seeks to annihilate us. We as tribals cannot keep quiet when Dalits are targeted. We, as, Christians cannot allow our faith to be used to bring international legitimacy to a regime that persecutes our Muslim brothers and sisters. The Union of Communities needs to come together in solidarity of the MANY against ONE.

And, may I take this opportunity to also call out the so-called leaders in our north-eastern states who have played a politics of convenience for power and allowed themselves to be subsumed under majoritarian politicking. They have sold us out and sacrificed indigeneity, and even Christ at the altar of greed. It is a myth that Meghalaya or Nagaland or Mizoram is being led by regional parties. What we have is BJP-lite. Even as we rejected the BJP in the elections, we have BJP directed governments. The Prime Minister merely throws us representational crumbs in images of him with cultural symbols like headgear and tribal fabric wrapped around his neck or badly mouthing local language greetings from an auto-cue, while his government passes laws like the Forest Conservation Amendment Act that blatantly takes away our land and forests from our control.

We, as citizens, seem to be losing control over everything that makes a country ours. And At a time in our history when our institutions have been hollowed out, legislative processes hijacked and our ideals of liberty, equality and secularism are being held to ransom I hold on to some of my Khasi ideals as my personal existential weapon. For a khasi there are two important principles that are supposed to guide one’s life. Tip Briew – Tip Blei and Kamai Ia Ka Hok. Tip Briew – Tip Blei literally translates into” knowing humanity is knowing god”.

When the lens of humanity is being systematically blurred out and broken and when the decade long assertion of majoritarianism with its culture of impunity and hate filled mobs tearing us apart – we have to piece it back together with the Khasi principle of Tip Briew – Tip Blei. Knowing and embracing humanity forces us to be reflexive and there can be no Vishwa Guru greater that a self that is directed by an understanding, acceptance and compassion for another.

Kamai Ia ka Hok means to earn Righteousness. To live a life not of greed but of communitarian sufficiency. Today, when it has become difficult to distinguish Govt. from big capital and when corruption has been Adani – ised and development no longer remains a consultative process but a diktat, emphasising on the other khasi principle and praxis of Kamai la ka Hok becomes even more relevant.

So, may I end by imploring all of us present today to Tip Briew – Tip Blei, to Kamai Ia ka Hok and to constantly remind ourselves that the India of today is not our destiny. Together, we must continue to rage against the imprisonment we all feel. We need to constantly ask – Do we want to second guess ourselves all the time? To look over our shoulder and worry about the names we have? Can’t we enjoy a train ride the way we used to? Can’t we sit at a table and share our cuisines and joke about the smelly foods that some of us consume? Can’t we draw strength?

From each other – from the farmers and what they achieved at the borders of Delhi? Can’t we look south – to the peoples of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and imbibe their sense of self to stand up against bullies, Can’t we borrow courage from Kashmiris imagining a world beyond the prison bars and from a subjugated northeast that continues to draw breath?

Can’t we have a life like a river – we meander, we change course, we ebb and flow, we nurture, we even sometimes destroy but we move forward always with the promise of the expanse of an ocean awaiting…

The author, a political activist from Meghalaya wrote this for a memorial held at Town Hall, Bengaluru, September 5, 2023, 5-8 p.m.

Related:

Gauri Lankesh assassination: 6 years down, no closure for family and friends, justice elusive

Gauri, a film on journalist-activist Gauri Lankesh wins international award: Montreal 2023

Gauri Lankesh Assassination: Accused denied bail by Aurangabad HC

Remembering Gauri Lankesh, Renewing A Pledge

Five years since we lost Gauri Lankesh

The post TO BE LIKE RIVERS- Reimagining India in Authoritarian Times, a soul cry from India’s North East appeared first on SabrangIndia.

On October 9. 2022, the day of the canonisation of Giovanni Battista Scalabrini, a person who did so much for migrants in his lifetime, Pope Francis used very strong words which were unscripted; he thundered, “the exclusion of migrants is scandalous; indeed, the exclusion of migrants is criminal, it makes them die in front of us. Thus, the Mediterranean is the largest cemetery in the world. The exclusion of migrants is disgusting, it is sinful, it is criminal” He added, “we exclude them, we send them away to the concentration camps where they are exploited and sold as slaves. Brothers and sisters today do we think of our migrants, those who die and those who are able to enter, do we receive them as brothers or do we exploit them? I leave the question “. He continued, “we stop dividing ourselves on the basis of merit, the roles we hold or some other external aspect of life, and the internal walls, prejudices, fall. Thus, finally, we rediscover ourselves as brothers. It does us good to take off our outer armour, our defensive barriers and take a nice bath of humility, reminding us that we are all fragile inside and in need of healing, all brothers, let us remember this: the Christian faith always asks us to walk together with others, never to be solitary walkers”.

“The exclusion of migrants is scandalous; indeed, the exclusion of migrants is criminal, it makes them die in front of us. Thus, the Mediterranean is the largest cemetery in the world. The exclusion of migrants is disgusting it is sinful, it is criminal”  – Pope Francis
 

 Pope Francis’ strong words would not have been taken kindly by Giorgia Meloni’s who was elected as the new Prime Minister of Italy on 25 September. Her ‘Brothers of Italy’ party won the snap general elections in Italy. The party, which is the most ultra-right-wing party to gain power in Italy since Mussolini’s fascism is known for its anti-immigrant stand and its disdain for human rights particularly those of women and of the LGBTQI community.  Meloni’s Government took office on October 22 and in her maiden speech she reiterated, “we must stop illegal departures and human trafficking;” repeating a campaign pledge to stop boats heading to Italy from North Africa. Several leading international editorials and op-eds have captioned Meloni’s rise to power as ‘the return of the fascists. It was exactly one hundred years ago, on October 28, 1922 that the fascists marched to the capital Rome, forcing the King to send a telegram to Benito Mussolini to form the government!

Some weeks earlier, there was another shock awaiting the people of Europe: Sweden , once regarded as a bastion of democracy and of liberal values voted by a slim margin for a right-wing Government Analysts said that the recent vote had been one of the closest in modern times and reflected a desire by Swedes to move in a new direction after decades of centre-left policymaking that has included an openness toward asylum seekers, an emphasis on individual liberties and an adherence to socially liberal ideals. All cherished values of democracy! There are other countries in Europe like Belarus, Hungary and Poland that have blatantly shed any pretence of being democracies as authoritarianism takes over. In Belarus, the elections are openly rigged and civil liberties are throttled. The despotic President there has total control of the military, the judiciary and other institutions that are meant to be independent. Pro-democracy protests and movements are brutally dealt with. 

The new UK Government with the Pakistani-origin, Hindu Rishi Sunak at the helm clearly has very fascist and pro-capitalist trends. The reappointment of Suella Braverman as the Home Secretary is a clear sign of this. Braverman is considered to be a staunch supporter of Brexit and right-wing culture. She recently said “I have concerns about having an open borders migration policy with India because I don’t think that’s what people voted for with Brexit. Look at migration in this country, the largest group of people who overstay are Indian migrants.” Braverman further said that the agreement between the Indian and the UK government to facilitate better cooperation on migration has not “necessarily worked very well”.

The world continues to wait in expectation for the second round of polling in the Brazilian elections on 30 October. If former President Lula wins (as he is likely to ) it will be, people say, a victory for Democracy. The past years governed by the right-wing President Bolsonaro have been disastrous for the poor and the marginalised, the indigenous peoples and for the Brazilian economy in general. Bolsonaro is in the same mould of Trump, Modi, Putin and Xi. Yes, democracy is in peril everywhere! There is no doubt about that! 

We see how democracy (and the values it embodies) is slowly but surely being dismantled in country after country. Rights and freedoms guaranteed in Constitutions held sacred by people across the globe are systematically being denied. ‘Neo-fascism’ usually includes ultranationalism, racial supremacy, populism, authoritarianism, nativism, xenophobia, jingoism, exclusivism and anti-immigration sentiment, as well as opposition to liberal democracy, social democracy, parliamentarianism, liberalism, Marxism, neoliberalism, communism, and socialism. Under the pretence of democracy, that’s exactly what’s happening today!

Donald Trump and his cohorts are back in the news, as the trial continues with regard to the invasion of the U.S. Capitol on 6 January 2021. That was certainly a black day for democracy. Trump called his supporters to Washington DC for a ‘Stop the Steal’ rally on the day Congress would count the votes of the Electoral College. No one expected the violence and the mayhem, that would take place in the world’s oldest democracy. The world watched with shock and angst. Such a terrible reality could not be happening in the United States and more so, instigated by an outgoing President

Watching the apparent falling apart of the great American Democracy- there was universal condemnation; world leaders reacted swiftly and strongly. Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor said Mr. Trump bore responsibility for the riot by his supporters “unfortunately, President Trump did not accept his defeat since November, not even yesterday, and that has naturally created an environment that enabled such violent events.”  Her foreign minister, Heiko Maas, was even more blunt, drawing a parallel with Hitler’s power grab, “Violent actions come from inflammatory words—on the steps of the Reichstag and now in the Capitol,” he said, in reference to the burning of republican Germany’s parliament building in 1933. “Disregarding democratic institutions has devastating consequences.”

Democracy in India is in the doldrums too! India attained her independence on 15 August 1947; later the Constituent Assembly gave the people of India a democratic and visionary Constitution, based on the four non-negotiable pillars of justice, liberty, equality and fraternity. For years India went to town priding herself of being the world’s largest democracy. But suddenly those very institutions which are meant to be the bulwark of democracy have begun collapsing, like a pack of cards. Thanks to the fascist regime!

Since 2019, there has been a dramatic and drastic erosion in the democratic space in every respect and particularly for dissent in the country; the ordinary citizen has been experiencing this in many brutal ways. The calculated destruction of democratic values and of the rights of the citizens, take place at a frightening regularity. Hate speech is on the rise; the demonization and the denigration of the ‘other’ particularly the minorities have gained official legitimacy! The perpetrators indulge in verbal and physical violence with impunity: knowing full well that nothing will eventually happen to them!  On the other hand, a strategy that has been central to the erosion of democratic space, has been the weaponizing of the criminal justice system by the State, to harass and punish those who dare to protest against the anti-people and anti-Constitutional policies and actions of the Government. 

The disheartening part is that the judiciary in India has not sufficiently played the role of being independent, impartial and for ‘the people of India’. Judges have often acted in a partisan manner and have been reluctant to speak truth to power and restore justice. Earlier, the mainstream media allowed for expression of protest and raised issues of such injustice; unfortunately, today it has become the voice of the State and an important medium to popularise the narrative of the State. Several human rights activists, friends and supporters of those in jail under these laws, have consistently and persistently built up a campaign for their release and against the use of draconian laws. Scores of people have been detained under various other repressive state laws. This includes journalists, human rights activists, trade union activists and workers, cultural activists, comedians, farmers and fishermen, environmentalists, youth, students, electricity and industrial workers, and large numbers of minorities, to create a false narrative of internal terrorism and threat to the nation.  

Those who have taken a visible and vocal stand for justice and peace, those who have taken up cudgels for the excluded and exploited, the marginalised and the minorities are at the receiving end of a brutal vengeful system. Many, as those in the Bhima Koregaon conspiracy case are still languishing in jail without trial. Recently, Prof G. N Saibaba, Umar Khalid, Jyoti Jagtap, Siddique Kappan were denied bail. Stalwarts like Teesta Setalvad, R. B. Sreekumar and Sanjiv Bhatt are hounded and harassed no end. One does not have to be a rocket scientist to understand and realise that those who support constitutional rights and the democratic framework of the country have false and fabricated charges foisted on them.

Last year a ‘National Campaign to Defend Democracy’ was launched when 165 movements, platforms and organizations, representing thousands of citizens, gave a call for a country wide action to save our democracy: marking the international day for Indigenous people & Quit India movement day, as a day of Public Action. The action all over the country continued until 28 August with India’s Independence Day (15 August) being the high point, when thousands pledged to campaign for the repeal of draconian laws and to protect our democracy. The pledge read: “On the occasion of the 75th Independence Day, on  August 15, we pledge to defend the legacy of our Freedom Movement, the spirit of the Preamble and the values of our Constitution. We pledge to campaign for repealing all draconian laws and assert the right to bail of every citizen. We believe that the right to question and the Right to Dissent are the foundation of our democratic, secular and socialist republic. We commit to campaign against all ideologies, laws, and state actions that deprive us of the freedoms of speech and opinion, conscience, association, and to non-violent opposition”. 

Strongmen, dictators, those who attempt to destroy democracy and democratic institutions have with them money: Modi and his ilk have amassed huge amounts of wealth, because of demonetization, electoral bonds, the GST and through corrupt deals. They have been able to buy up elected members from opposition parties and others, silence them, black mail them. Then there is muscle: the violence they use to intimidate, harass, incarcerate and even kill; the military establishment normally toe their line. They are adept at manipulation: both minds and machines. Then have with them the media which is completely ‘godified’. Tell a lie a thousand times and people will accept it as the truth. That was the dictum of Josef Goebbels the information minister of Hitler

Some years ago, historian Lawrence Britt studied the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia), and Pinochet (Chile) and found they had 14 elements in common. He calls these the identifying characteristics of fascism. (published in ‘Free Inquiry’ Spring 2003, pg. 20 as ‘Fascism Anyone?’); these are:

1.    Powerful and Continuing Nationalism
2.    Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights.
3.    Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause
4.    Supremacy of the Military
5.    Rampant Sexism.
6.    Controlled Mass Media
7.    Obsession with National Security
8.    Religion and Government are Intertwined
9.    Protection of Corporate Power
10.    Suppression of Labour Power 
11.    Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts
12.    Obsession with Crime and Punishment
13.    Rampant Cronyism and Corruption
14.    Fraudulent Elections

Britt provides clear indicators to each of the above characteristics. One does not need too much of an intelligence, to realise that the above characteristics are a reality in India and elsewhere today! The fact is that with the throttling of the fundamental rights of citizens and the shrinking of democratic space, the emergence of neo-fascist regimes in India and elsewhere have gained ground as never before. 

But all is not lost! ‘We the people of India’ need to take hope from the visionary inspiration of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, the father of the Indian Constitution, who defined democracy as “a form and a method of government whereby revolutionary changes in the economic and social life of the people are brought about without bloodshed”. We need to ensure that this much -needed change takes place now!

This article first appeared in India Currents on October 31, 2022 before the final Brazil election results that brought Lula back to power had been concluded) 

The post The Emergence of Neo-Fascism appeared first on SabrangIndia.

First Published on 06 Apr 2019

India faces a general election within the next weeks, the first election after a majoritarian government was sworn in on a 31 per cent vote in May 2014. The last five years have seen an unusual and aggressive tussle. The tension is between an ideology that militates against India’s Constitution, and representatives of that worldview occupying powerful positions in government, and the requirements of constitutional governance. The Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS) who rules –the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is but its parliamentary wing–is committed to an overthrown of the Indian Constitution.

I still recall the numbing sense of shock as the results poured in on May 16, 2014. Through the sense of despair rose a steely resolve echoed so beautifully echoed by BERTOLT BRECHT wrote the brief poem Motto about Germany in the late 1930s:

“In the dark times/
Will there also be singing?/
Yes, there will also be singing/
About the dark times.”
 
(Hindustani translation by Safdar Hashmi:
Kya zulmaton ke daur par geet gaaye jayenge?
Kya zulmaton ke daur par geet gaaye jayenge?
Haan, zulmaton ke daur par geet gaaye jayenge
Zulmaton ke daur ke hee geet gaaye jayenge)
 
These are the lines I posted on my facebook post that day. One of the first calls I received was from friend and soul mate Gauri Lankesh, worried and concerned. As we spoke, it was she was burst into tears, bawling, “What will happen to you, my Teesta?” As the days passed,  her words would come back to haunt me. It is a very special and unique place to me, when you are treated as Target Number 1 of the country’s prime minister. You are marked out, almost ostracised, associates of previous years and institutes and organisations with which you worked, discreetly cut you out, agencies and law enforcement are misused. Even international support ebbs and flows with the tides of adjustment and opportunism. In the balance, however the overwhelming support from hundreds, even thousands of others that despite everything, has kept us going. Do we look at the glass half empty or half full?
 
Over the past years we have continued our battle for justice and equity even expanding our concerns to the battle for implementation of the Forest Rights Act, 2006 in Sonbhadra and citizenship rights for the marginalised in Assam. Our organisation is battling a vicious bureaucracy and an inhuman state as over 40 lakh persons were rendered ‘non Indians.’ CJP with its unique intervention has helped over 10 lakh persons in Assam. Our campaign for a #HateFreeElection and the launch of the #HateHatao APP is also unique. Nothing more fuels the anger of the powers that be than the fact that we have carried on, undeterred.
 
The Zakia Jafri Case has now reached the Supreme Court. The highest court in the land will now deliberate on the issue of whether –in the face of the most rigorously gathered and damning evidence–justice in cases of mass crimes can ever be meted out. Meanwhile powerful convicted persons like Maya Kodnani have been aquitted by the Gujarat High Court (April 2018) and Babu Bajrangi granted bail –CJP was the lone voice that opposed this –by  the Supreme Court.
 
On June 4, 2014,  within eight days of the swearing in of the prime minister and his cabinet, a young technocrat, Mohsin Shaikh was beaten to death with sticks by members of the Hindu Rashtra Sena (HRS). His murder (lynching is the new word we use now for this targeted crime!) has gone unpunished. Dhananjay Desai who heads the outfit is notorious for inciteful speech was released on bail following a controversial judgement of the Bombay high court.  Our authorities and statutory bodies, courts included have been tardy in prosecuting such crimes.
 
Mohsin’s killing was nothing short of a signal to India and India’s Muslims as the first heralding notes of a Hindu rashtra in action were sung. While the later lynching of Mohammad Akhlaq had drawn Indian artistes out of the numbing silence that had enveloped Indian ‘civil society’ since May 2014, the shadows and silences around Mohsin’s killing is a stark reality to which we all need to answer. Activists like me were also stymied by the issues surrounding us, unable to step in and demand justice, with the rigour that we otherwise could have brought. On December 18, 2018, his father Sadiq Shaikh died of a heart attack, a broken man as the Maharashtra government did not even honour the promise made to his family, to pay compensation.  A facebook post on Shivaji (that in no way can be traced to him) was the ostensible ‘reason’ behind this hate crime. Leave alone justice and reparation, even basic compensation was denied to the family. We have lived a new, bitter reality under regimes with this majoritarian tilt. Maharashtra, too had, in August 2014 voted in a RSS-BJP regime though the vote share of the saffron combine had diminished.
 
“Social media platforms” –especially facebook, have been used brazenly by perpetrators of hate crimes to mobilise support for inciteful hate crimes, gloat on the cruelty of the killings and build a voyeuristic support base. This while this US-based multi billion dollar marketing enterprise has been found in investigations to sway to the dictates of the Modi regime. Hence, while the social media has certainly broken the hold of commercial television and newspapers, increasingly pressurised by a rapacious regime to ‘toe the line’ and withhold criticisms of the government policies, individuals like me have been special targets. Both face book and twitter, despite repeated, official requests for a ‘blue tick’ to authenticate my accounts and that of the organisations I represent have been evasive and shifty. Numbers of pour supporters have been (from the back end) kept lower than is natural. There are costs that you pay when you are ‘target number one’ that go beyond the raids, the attempts and public humiliation and efforts at incarceration.
 
Mohsin was beaten to death by a mob of ideologically brainwashed men simply because he looked and dressed like a Muslim. Then there was Mohd Akhlaq from  Dadri village which is still called the ‘first lynching’ even as a north and Delhi centric media and citizenry blurs out the beating to death of Mohsin. Akhlaq’s killing –over the alleged dreaded possession of beef –shocked a paralysed citizenry into action and writers and film makers –previous recipients of national awards returned them in protest.
 
The lynchings did not stop. Zahid Bhat from Srinagar (October 2015) Mohammad Noman from Himachal Pradesh (October 2015), Majloom Ansari and Imtiyas Khan Ansari in Latehar Jharkand (March 2016),  Pehlu Khan lynched in Alwar Rajasthan (April 2017), Zafar Khan was brutally assaulted to his death when he objected to open defecation in Pratapgarh Rajasthan (municipal employees were photographing the killing in June 2017), Junaid (15 years old) was stabbed to death on a train bound from Delhi to Mathura after he and his brothers were returning to Mewat after Eid shopping (June 2017), Alimuddin Ansari was beaten to death by a mob in Ramgarh, Jharkand (June 2017),  Anwar Hussain killed for allegedly transporting cows (August 2016), Ummar Khan lynched and his death covered up in Dausa, Govindgarh, Rajasthan (November 2017), Farzan Saiiyed attacked to his death in Chhatral, Gandhinagar  simply because he and his mother did not abide by the Bajrang Dal ‘rule’ that they should not be seen and remain indoors (March 2018), Mukesh Vania a Dalit rag picker beaten to death in Rajkot, Gujarat (May 2018), Two Muslim men brutally beaten (one to his death). 

There are more such violent incidents that have dotted India’s landscape over the past five years:

Rafiq and Habib from Mainpuri, UP (October 2015), Mohd Hussain and Naseema Bano (assaulted at Kirikiya railway station in MP (January 2016), floggings in Una, Gujarat, (June 2016), four Muslim women slapped in Madhya Pradesh again over allegations of carrying cow meat (July 2016), brute assault and gang rapes of Muslim family in Mewat Haryana (August 2016), three Muslim Boys beaten in Imphal (April 2016), two forced to eat cow dung for allegedly eating beef Manesar highway (June 2016), Members of a shepherd tribe attacked in Jammu (April 2017), DYSP Ayub Pandit lynched outside his home in Srinagar (June 2017), Waseem Ahmed Tantray a mentally challenged man was tied to a tree and flogged in Sopore, J and K (October 2017), Mohd Faisal, a migrant labourer thrashed by a mob in Jaipur over false allegations that he had kidnapped a girl.  

Meghalaya man Poding Momin lynched on allegations of practising witchcraft (April 2018), MP man Siraj Khan and associate attacked in Satna, MP for allegedly slaughtering a bull (May 2018), Nilotpat Das and Abhijit Nath lynched in Assam over allegations of being child lifters, (June 2018), two Muslim men, Jirafuddin Ansari and Mustafa Mayan, lynched for allegedly stealing buffaloes in Godda, 300 kms from Ranchi, (June 2018), Two Muslim men Qasim and Samyuddin brutally beaten in Hapur over cow slaughter rumours, Qasim died (June 2018), woman beggar lynched in Ahmedabad over child lifting rumours (June 2018), Jahir Khan, Guljar Ahmed and Khurshid Khan lynched in Tripura over child lifting rumours (June 2018), 5 men lynched in Dhule over child lifting rumours (July 2018), Qatar techie Mohammed Azam lynched in Bidar (July 2018), Rakhbar Khan lynched in Alwar on cow smuggling allegations (July 2018), Kapil Tyagi lynched in UP on theft allegations (August 2018), Shahrukh Khan lynched in Bareilly over buffalo theft allegations (August 2018), Farooq Khan lynched in Manipur on bike theft allegations (Sept 2018), UP man dragged out of police vehicle and lynched (Nov 2018).
 
The brutality is stark. The celebration of the targeted violence by the ideological storm troopers of the regime, because the victims are ‘enemies’ of the re-fashioned nation, sickening. There has been none, or little of condemnation of such violence by the powers that be. What is most telling is however the reactions from the political opposition to this violence. There have been sharp reactions and speeches on occasion but mostly the opposition has been sporadic. It was in July 2018 that Congress president, Rahul Gandhi sharply criticised Pehlu Khan’s brute murder, calling this “the brute new India under Modi”,  a statement that predictably drew the ruling party into a slugfest with the ruling party that pointed out the incidents of mass targeted violence in the past while Congress was the party in power. It is this defensiveness of the ruling opposition that is unable to admit to its own failures of constitutional governance in the past that is a constant stumbling block for the issue of mass, targeted violence against India’s minorities becoming the subject of sustained political condemnation and campaigns. Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo, Mayawati –not a favourite with either the extreme right nor the ‘liberal secular forces’ –threatened a walk out from Parliament if she was not allowed to speak on Dalit atrocities. She resigned her parliamentary seat in 2017 over the issue of not being allowed to speak. She had spoken forcefully on the attacks on Muslims and Dalits under the BJP regime.

The Communist Party of India (M) has been proactive at least after Junaid’s killing with party delegations visiting the bereaved family and the party thereafter demanding a law against this growing violence. The real challenge in the future will be for India to be able to restore its moral, constitutional balance and ensure that public debate allows a free and fair discussion on issues related to all sections of Indians.
 
It was a rare evening, September 5, 2017 that I was home at a reasonable hour after a day’s work. The chilling news came from my lawyer friend, Aparna Bhat who also hails from Bangalore. She called me from Delhi. She sounded hesitant and cautious when she called, skirting around the subject, hinting at what she had just seen flashed on a Kannada television channel. Desperately, I made calls: Shiva Sundar, Dinesh Matoo, Kavitha Lankesh. Yes, Gauri Lankesh had been shot dead, outside her home. Four bullets had been ploughed into her frail frame as the killers of Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare and MM Kalburgi now got their fourth target. Sanatan Sanstha a rabid and well heeled organisation with discreet and not so discreet connections with the spawning family of outfits wedded to a Hindu theocratic state and who represent the violent and supremacist Hindutva right, has been found after investigations, to be responsible for the killings. While the investigations into the Dabholkar, Pansare and Kalburgi murders have been at best tardy, and at worst complicit, the SIT appointed by the Karnataka government within days of Gauri’s killing has been meticulous. The agency has found clear linkages between the killers of Gauri Lankesh and two Hindutva organizations, the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti (HJS) and its sister concern, Sanatan Sanstha.
 
Rage, anger and outrage spilled over in Karnataka, the rest of India and even the world after Gauri’s killing. The protests were creative and unprecedented. The black void of nothingness caused by her loss was redeemed slowly by a strengthened sense of community and family as young Komu Souharde Vedike activists, Kavitha Lankesh, darling Esha and Prakash Raj and me bonded, again, together. Kavitha’s abiding and gnawing sense of loss is reflected in her poems dedicated to her sister. Last year, on September 5, 2018, a year after our Gauri left us, we presented these in a booklet dedicated Kavitha and her one year’s of painful struggle with the pain.
 
The ugliness in our midst however refuses to go away. What is even more sinister than this darkness and violence is the linkages to the most powerful. Narendra Modi has been a patron of  HJS. When HJS organized second all India Hindu Convention for making India a Hindu rashtra between  June 6-10, 2013, Modi who was then chief minister of Gujarat, sent a message of felicitation to this conference which aimed at replacing the democratic-secular polity and Constitution of India with a theocratic and autocractic ‘Hindu’ state.  It is a sobering thought, and a challenge as we go to the polls now to remember the worldviews of the men and women in power at this juncture. There is more. Along with the love and outpouring of protest, hate mongers too had their field day after Gauri’s killing. Nikhil Dadhich, who is followed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the microblogging site, abused Gauri Lankesh in his post that was later deleted. Several Twitter handles suggested that she deserved her fate. At least four such accounts are followed by India’s present prime minister Modi. These are the forces we battle this election.
 
From brazen moves to amend the state laws related to land acquisition and compensation (after attempts to dilute the central law brought in by UPA II through an ordinance failed), to criminalising of student’s protest and dissent, to an attack on the Forest Rights Act of 2006 –a long overdue legislation that finally recognises the inalienable rights of forest dwellers, forest workers and adivasis –this government has all but actually declared a war on its own people. The idea seems to be to create a constant state of social strife and fear and distrust between people and thereafter craft a support based on the interest groups that are favoured by this hatred and those towards him public largesse is redistributed.
 
Workers, farmers, democrats, liberals, lawyers, activists, all have come under target and fire. It’s resort to the politics of hate mongering and othering –including the hate crimes detailed above –is as serious as the structural changes it has wrought and the institutional damages wrecked. If political change comes after this election, and such change is crucial, the restoration of constitutional values and norms will not be easy, flushing out ant constitutional elements from within the agencies and structures of governance will also pose a serious challenge. Indians need to look at these elections and cast their vote carefully. These elections must be viewed as a three step liberation process: short term goals to vote the proto fascists out, middle term to build democratic and creative campaigns around issues central to the deepening ofdemocracy and finally the long term goal of getting an ideal politics in!
 
It is not possible to reflect on the past five years without a searing sense of anger and loss at the institutional murder of Rohith Vemula, the criminal targeting of JNU student Najeeb and the overall attempt of the regime to criminalise students protest and dissent. This is even as bright lights on the our youthful horizon like Richa Singh, Jignesh Mevani, Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid, Shehla Rashid and Chandrashekhar Azad signal dissent and hope. Even as copies of the Indian constitution were periodically burned under the watch of this regime (and none from the central government spoke up in condemnation), scholarships to students for higher education were slashed and a democratisation process set in place over decades of struggle, pushed back.
 
We are at the threshold of a sense of uncertainty laced by an eternal sense of hope. Not yet knowing what the results to this elections will bring, we can only re-dedicate ourselves to the struggle for sanity, the resistance against wrong doing and constitutional erosion even realising the consequences to us all if this regime is voted back: the human and material costs that we will all have to pay, will be massive, and possibly insurmountable.
 
Teesta Setalvad
Mumbai
April 5, 2019

Reference Notes;
RSS+Supremacist
https://cjp.org.in/lynching-timeline/
https://indianexpress.com/article/india/politics/muslim-techie-beaten-to-death-in-pune-7-men-of-hindu-outfit-held/
https://sabrangindia.in/article/mohsin-sheikh-lynching-father-dies-waiting-justice
https://www.newsclick.in/part-1-facebook-india-truly-independent-political-influence
https://www.newsclick.in/bjp-watching-and-waiting-block-you-social-media
https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/bulandshahr-cop-killed-in-cow-slaughter-clashes-probed-akhlaq-lynching-in-2015-1401709-2018-12-03
 

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Before sharing my views on the tasks of artists-writers-intellectuals in the times of Fascism, let me; briefly define Fascism and how it is different from totalitarianism. Totalitarianism is political concept, a dictatorship of an individual, family or group which prohibits opposition in any form, and exercises an extremely high degree of control over public and private life. It is also described as authoritarianism. Whereas Fascism while retaining all these repressive characteristics also believes in god-ordained superiority of Race, culture, religion and language of the rulers. It is the rule of the Aryans over pagans or malechas, where the latter belonging to an inferior Race (which Hitler described as “no-Race”) should be eliminated as these corrupt the superior Race, its culture, religion, and language.

The capture of the Indian state by the Fascist RSS/BJP rulers should not be confused with therule of Nazi Party in Germany and the Fascist Party in Italy after the World War I. The rise of Nazism and Fascism in Europe was the outcome of a severe crisis of capitalism globally. Since Germany and Italy had powerful working-class movements, the capitalists, bureaucrats, military elite and the Rightist political leaders decided to crush the Left and impose totalitarian rules in the two countries.

India, on the other hand, had always been a breeding ground for the totalitarian ideology with Brahmanism or Hindutva Fascism as a favourite ideology of the Hindu high Castes with the arrival of Aryans to Indian peninsula. The Brahmanism codified into Vedas, Codes of Manu (Manu Smriti) and Chanakya’s Arthshastra. These are the fundamental documents of Brahmanism which preach Hindutva brand of Fascism.

What this Fascism amounts to can be understood by glancing over some of the dehumanized elements contained in these documents of Brahmanism. According to VD Savarkar who played important role in chalking out the modern Hindutva Fascism in India only those could stay who belonged to a “common Race”, “common blood”, and “common civilization” known as Aryan Race which spoke holy language, Sanskrit.   

The Hindutva Fascism’s other prominent ideologue, MS Golwalkar while fully supporting the cleansing of the Jews by Hitler and Mussolini in their countries. He went on to declare shamelessly that cleansing of Jews by Hitler and Mussolini was “a good lesson for us in Hindusthan to learn and profit by” for eliminating non-Aryans.  

We should not miss the fact that Hindutva Fascism in comparison to the German/Italian Fascism is multi-dimensional, multi-faceted and insidious. Whereas in Europe it was Aryans versus Jews, the Hindutva version denigrates adversaries at two levels.

On one level minorities, specially, Muslims and Christians have to be cleansed, at the other level Sudras through imposition of Varna system have to be enslaved. According to Hindutva ideologues, Hinduism, Hindu nation and Casteism are synonymous. Manu Smriti blatantly decreed that Brahma created the Kshatriya, the Vaisya, and the Sudra from his mouth, his arm, his thighs and his feet. The lord prescribed for Sudras one occupation only that was to serve meekly the other three Castes. If a Sudra criticizes a twice-born man his tongue would be cut out; for he is of low origin. If Sudra arrogantly taught Brahmanas their duty, the king would cause hot oil to be poured into his mouth and into his ears. If a low-caste man tried to place himself on the same seat with a man of a high caste, would be branded on his hip and be banished, or (the king) shall cause his buttock to be gashed.

As per the Manu Code if Sudras are to be given most stringent punishments for even petty violations/actions, the same Code of Manu is very lenient towards Brahmins. Manu decreed:  

“Let him never slay a Brahmana, though he have committed all (possible) crimes; he should be asked to leave, leaving all his property to him and his body unhurt.”

The fact is that Hindutva ideology is the original Fascist system and with Modi’s coming to power in 2014 India began its journey under the Hindutva Fascist rule. However, it would not be correct that before Modi’s becoming PM India was a peoples’ democracy. It was an anti-people rule under the garb of democracy. The rulers of all hues despite running the country for the benefit of imperialists, capitalists and feudal rule continued their public affirmation to the so called democratic-secular polity of India. But with Modi’s coming to power this facade was abandoned. The RSS/BJP rulers declared Hindutva as their ideology under which India would discard secularism and democracy and convert India into a Hindu rashtra. This current vision of the Hindutva rule is direct borrowing from Golwalkar, who as early as 1940 while delivering a speech before the 1350 top level cadres of the RSS had declared: “RSS inspired by one flag, one leader and one ideology is lighting the flame of Hindutva in each and every corner of this great land.” This slogan of one flag, one leader and one ideology was directly borrowed from the programmes of Nazi and Fascist parties of Europe.

Glorious legacy of resistance against fascism by writers, artists and intellectuals

World history is witness to this amazing fact that whenever the Fascists tried to suppress peoples’ aspirations, crush humanity and impose silence of the graveyard on the society, writers-artists-intellectual stood shoulder to shoulder with other sections of the society in resisting the march of Fascists. Some of the glorious examples are worth remembering.     

OLYMPE DE GOUGES

Olympe de Gouges (1748-93) was a French playwright, activist and feminist whose powerful polemics against racial and sexual injustice won her a wide audience in the years before and during the French Revolution. Her most vital 17 point, The Declaration of the Rights of Women and of the Female Citizen (1791) was written in response to the revolutionary Declaration of the Rights of Man (1789), highlighting its inherent sex bias and addressing key issues of women’s rights that it had failed to cover. For this ‘crime’ she was beheaded in Paris on November 3, 1793, at the age of 45. Before being slaughtered she roared: “Since women already have the right to climb the scaffold, they must be given the right to mount the rostrum so that they can speak their minds.”

BRECHT

Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. He was the main proponent of the genre named epic theatre (which he preferred to call “dialectical theatre”). During the Nazi period and World War II he lived in exile, first in Scandinavia and then in the United States. During the Nazi rule, Brecht expressed his strong opposition to the National Socialist and Fascist movements in his most famous plays: Life of Galileo, Mother Courage and Her Children, The Good Person of Szechwan, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Fear and Misery of the Third Reich, and many others.

Brecht, even today, remains the greatest dramatist and poet against Fascism and his teaching can play great role in fighting the Hindutva fascism. His advice to the artists that “Art is not a mirror held up to show reality but a hammer with which to shape it”. Thus, he wanted the artists to use art as a political tool to revolutionize the society. He wanted writers-artists-intellectuals not to be cowed down by the Fascists repression, by telling: “In the dark times will there be singing? Yes, there will also be singing. About the dark times”.

Fascism plays havoc with the truth. Brecht gave five-point programme to uphold the truth and confront lies. “Nowadays, anyone who wishes to combat lies and ignorance and to write the truth must overcome at least five difficulties. He must have the courage to write the truth when truth is everywhere opposed; the keenness to recognize it, although it is everywhere concealed; the skill to manipulate it as a weapon; the judgment to select those in whose hands it will be effective; and the running to spread the truth among such persons.”

Charlie Chaplin

Charles Spencer ‘Charlie’ Chaplin was born on April 16, 1889 in London. His childhood was fraught with hardship and poverty. Chaplin was sent to a workhouse at the tender age of seven. At the age of 13, Chaplin began his slow and arduous climb in the world of entertainment and not only became one of the greatest entertainers of the silent movie era but also a great an artist who confronted directly through his satires Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, anti-Semitism, and the Nazis. One of his productions, The Great Dictator had this long speech, written in lyrics and delivered to perfection by Chaplin, that has surprisingly gone down in history as one of the most inspiring and evocative orations against Racism and Fascism.

I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor.
That’s not my business.
I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone.
I should like to help everyone if possible.
Jew-Gentile (non-Jew) – Black Man, White.
We all want to help one another, human beings are like that.
We want to live by each other’s happiness.
Not by each other’s misery.
We don’t want to hate and despise one another.
And this world has room for everyone, and the good Earth is rich can provide for everyone.
The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way.
Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate…stepped us into misery and bloodshed.
We think too much, and feel too little.
More than machinery, we need humanity.
More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness.
Without these qualities, life will be violent, and all will be lost…
To those who can hear me, I say – do not despair.
The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed – the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress.
The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people.
And so long as men die, liberty will never perish. ….
You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.
Then – in the name of democracy – let us use that power – let us all unite.
Let us fight for a new world – a decent world that will give men a chance to work – that will give youth a future and old age a security.
By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power.
But they lie!
They do not fulfill that promise.
They never will!
Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people!
Now let us fight to fulfill that promise!
Let us fight to free the world – to do away with national barriers – to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance.
Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness.
Soldiers!
in the name of democracy, let us all unite

Martin Niemöller

Martin Niemöller was a German Lutheran pastor and theologian born in Lippstadt, Germany, in 1892. Niemöller was an anti-Communist and supported Adolf Hitler‘s rise to power at first. But when Hitler started pogrom of cleansing Jews and working-class turned against Nazism, he became the leader of a group of German clergymen opposed to Hitler. In 1937 he was arrested and eventually released only in 1945 by the Allies. An excerpt from his long poem which remains one of the greatest anthems against Fascism.

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.                      

Antonio Francesco Gramsci (22 January 1891 – 27 April 1937) was an Italian Marxist philosopher and communist politician. He wrote on political theory, sociology and linguistics. He was a founding member and one-time leader of the Communist Party of Italy and was imprisoned by Benito Mussolini‘s Fascist regime. He was released from jail a few days before his death when the Mussolini regime knew that he would not survive.

He wrote more than 30 notebooks and 3,000 pages of history and analysis during his imprisonment. His Prison Notebooks are considered a highly original contribution to 20th century political theory. The notebooks cover a wide range of topics, including nationalism, the French Revolution, fascism, civil society, folklore, religion and high and popular culture.

Gramsci is best known for his theory of cultural hegemony, which describes how the state and ruling capitalist class – the bourgeoisie – use cultural institutions to maintain power in capitalist societies. The bourgeoisie, in Gramsci’s view, develops a hegemonic culture using ideology rather than violence, economic force, or coercion. Hegemonic culture propagates its own values and norms so that they become the “common sense” values of all and thus maintain the status quo. Hegemonic power is therefore used to maintain consent to the capitalist order, rather than coercive power using force to maintain order. This cultural hegemony is produced and reproduced by the dominant class through the institutions that form the superstructure.

He argued that capitalist power needed to be challenged by building a counter-hegemony. By the need to create a working-class culture and a counter-hegemony Gramsci meant for a kind of education that attempted to help students question and challenge the beliefs and practices that were dominating. In other words, it was a theory and practice of helping students achieve “critical consciousness.”

Those of us who are committed to challenging the hegemony of the culture of the Fascism must learn from Gramsci. His message in the note for the editorial staff of l’unita (The Unity, official Organ of the Italian Communist Party which Gramsci was editing) at the time of the arrest (November 8, 1928) is as relevant for us at it was for Italian comrades in 1928: “It is necessary to think and study even under the most difficult conditions…to keep the risk of intellectual degradation at bay”.

At the end, I would remind you of words of Comrade Lenin who emphasized that cultural activists must have a grasp of politics of the rulers as well as revolutionary politics. When asked to suggest, he responded by saying:

“We must at all costs set out, first, to learn, secondly, to learn, and thirdly, to learn, and then see to it that learning shall not remain a dead letter or a fashionable catch-phrase (and we should admit in all frankness that this happens very often with us), that learning shall really become part of our very being, that it shall actually and fully become a constituent element of our social life…In order that it may attain the desired high level, we must follow the rule: ‘Measure your cloth seven times before you cut'”

Please learn from this magnificent heritage, do not replicate it only, carry it forward with revolutionary creative innovations added so that we are able to resist the current Hindutva fascist onslaught more meaningfully. Let’s hasten its demise, we can do it.

WE SHALL FIGHT, WE SHALL WIN!

Link for some of S. Islam’s writings in English, Hindi, Urdu, Marathi, Malayalam, Kannada, Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati and video interviews/debates: http://du-in.academia.edu/ShamsulIslam

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Language creates, destroys, and maintains but not always in the fashion in which it was intended. When even well-intentioned people repeat a word or phrase too often, or use it in trivial or decontextualized ways, they create ironic and often portentous conditions. As with the stories of the “Boy Who Cried Wolf” or “Chicken Little,” overuse or benign abuse of language nudges us to maintain complacent inertia when in fact the sky is truly falling.

So it is with the world “fascism.” When we refer to a tough teacher or a micro-manager as “fascist” and when we repeat the idea ad nauseam, we both exaggerate the exigencies of normal life and tragically, inure ourselves to actual fascism growing in our midst.

Jason Stanley reminds us that we are in fact slouching towards fascism as we normalize the invidious rhetoric of racism, misogyny, otherization, false-victimhood, and Orwellian turns of phrase. Carrying the enormous emotional baggage associated with his own parents’ struggles as refugees and victims of Nazism coupled with the logic of a learned philosopher, Stanley has produced a clear, readable, and important treatise on fascism and how it grows and ultimately engorges itself on normalized lies.

In fact, Stanley organizes the book in 10 chapters, each with illustrates a key pillar of fascist strategy. These chapters are:

1. The Mythic Past
2. Propaganda
3. Anti-intellectual
4. Unreality
5. Hierarchy
6. Victimhood
7. Law and Order
8. Sexual Anxiety
9. Sodom and Gomorrah
10. Arbeit Macht Frei

Fascism movements are alike in that they invoke these 10 categories to create a state of mind in which people are primed and softened in a way that makes their acceptance of fascism appear natural. Stanley intelligently offers examples: the US under Trump, India under Modi, Hungary under Orban, and others to show that the methodologies employed cross boundaries; he invokes Hitler and Mussolini as well and shows that the language employed by today’s fascists is structurally similar to that of these famous and genocidal fascists of the mid-twentieth century.

Important to the argument is that tendencies towards fascism are not restricted to the canonical Right wing. Liberals too often invoke mythical pasts and redacted histories, find code-language and dog whistles to refer to minorities, and go out of their way to lionize the Armed Forces and police. Further, they also indulge in anti-intellectualism, replacing partially-formed thoughts and self-serving instincts for scientific facts and real data.

The point is clear. It can happen to anyone. It can happen here. It is happening here. Fascism is a multi-pronged onslaught that, like a tidal wave, can roll low until it becomes and unstoppable force that destroys anything decent in its path.

Romi Mahajan in an Author, Marketer, Investor, and Activist

Originally published in Medium

Courtesy: Counter Current

The post How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The Constitution is under threat and India is “being torn apart”, declared Mahua Moitra, the first-time parliamentarian from Trinamool Congress as she lashed out at the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in her maiden speech in Lok Sabha on Tuesday. Interrupted by heckling from the Treasury benches, the MP from Krishnanagar in West Bengal listed seven signs indicating that “there is a danger of fascism rising in India”.

These signs, she said, were contained on a poster in the lobby of the Holocaust Museum in the US.

— sarah rose (@1SarahRose) January 30, 2017
Moitra was addressing the Lok Sabha to oppose the Motion of Thanks to the President’s address. She began by acknowledging the BJP’s enormous victory in the elections and said that “the very nature of the overwhelmingess of this mandate makes it necessary for the voices of dissent to be heard” because it lacks the “natural check and balance woven into the narrative”.

She invoked freedom fighter Maulana Abul Kalam Azad’s address from the 1940 Ramgarh session of Congress: “It is India’s historic destiny that many human races and cultures and religions should flow to her, finding a home in her respectable soil and that many a caravan should find rest here, where our cultures, our languages, our poetry, our literature, our art, the innumerable happenings of our daily life shall bear the stamp of our joint endeavour.”

This ideal is embedded in India’s Constitution, which every MP had sworn to protect, she said. But it is under siege, she claimed, and went on to explain why.

1) Superficial nationalism
Moitra drew attention to Assam’s initiative to update its National Register of Citizens, which requires people who have been living in the country for 50 years to produce proof of their citizenship while “ministers cannot produce degrees”. This seemed to have been a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Minister of Women and Child Development Smriti Irani, whose educational qualifications have been the matter of much speculation.

2) Disdain for human rights
Moitra noted that hate crimes have increased ten-fold increase between 2014 and 2019. “It is like a valuation of an e-commerce start-up,” she said. “There are forces in this country that are sitting there just pushing this number up.”

3) Media control
The MP alleged that five of the largest media organisations in the country are “either indirectly controlled or indirectly indebted to one man”. She said that fake news had become the norm. “This election was not fought on farmers’ distress, this election was not fought on unemployment but this election was fought on Whatsapp, on fake news and on manipulating minds,” she claimed.

4) An obsession with national security
The obsession with national security and the identification of enemies has resulted in :fear pervading everywhere”, she said. “The achievements of the Army are being usurped in the name of one man,” Moitra said.

Despite this, she said, terrorist attacks have gone up. “There has been a 106% increase in the death of jawans in Kashmir,” she said.

5) The intertwining of religion and government
Highlighting the flaws in the National Register of Citizens and the Citizenship Amendment Bill, Moitra alleged, “We are making sure that it is only one community that is the target of anti-immigration laws.”

6) Disdain for intellectuals and the arts
This, the MP said, was the most dangerous sign. “There is a suppression of all dissent,” she said, even as funding is being cut for liberal education. But the spirit of dissent is “integral to India”, she said, going on to quote Hindi poet Ramdhari Singh Dinkar’s Krishna Ki Chetavani (Krishna’s Warning) to emphasise her point.

7) Erosion of independence in the electoral system
During the Lok Sabha polls of 2019, the Election Commission of India was embroiled in multiple controversies where it was accused of siding with the BJP.

“The Election Commission is being used to transfer key officials,” she said. “Rs.60,000 crore were spent on this election of which Rs.27,000 crore, 50 per cent, were spent by one party.”

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It was a rainy Monday morning.
 
Our guest from India Deepika Singh Rajawat wanted to go to a temple for prayers. I then picked her up from a friend’s house where she was staying and drove her to Burnaby Hindu temple, one of the largest in North America.
 
Once we reached the temple, she greeted the priest respectfully, removed her shoes and went straight inside the prayer room. She then took several minutes to perform the holy ritual of bathing the idol of Lord Shiva with milk and water. With eyes closed in devotion and prayers on her lips, she was completely immersed in paying obeisance to God.  After the prayers were over, she seemed completely relaxed with tears flowing from her eyes.
 
She had a hectic week as she was here to speak about her fight for justice on the invitation of Indians Abroad for Pluralist India (IAPI), a group I belong to. It was established in response to growing attacks on religious minorities under the right-wing Hindu nationalist Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) government.
 
A human rights defender who I would prefer to call Deepika, on purpose in the rest of the text, is a devout Hindu. She is a practising lawyer based in Jammu region of India. She came into the limelight after she stepped forward to defend the family of an eight-year-old Muslin nomad girl Asifa Bano who was raped and murdered by Hindu fundamentalists. The perpetrators of the heinous crime wanted to terrorise and humiliate Muslims and used the little child’s body as a battlefield. 
 
IAPI had decided to invite her and honour her for standing up for a minority community and share her story with the people in Canada. Talking about such an intensive subject again and again also becomes emotionally draining after all and I could feel that pain in her.

 
After the prayers, she reminded me what true Hindu values stand for and how those using Hinduism as a political tool know nothing about their faith. She has repeatedly said that her brand of Hinduism is based on the philosophy of love and not bigotry.
 
Yet, her faith in Hinduism did not stop her to take up the cause of Bano even when Indian society is completely polarized under the BJP government that won another term in the recently concluded election. This is despite the fact that she is a Kashmiri Pandit – an ethnic group which has been persecuted by the Islamic fundamentalists for years.
 
Being a staunch believer of the law and the Indian constitution that is based on principles of secularism and inclusion, she did what she thought right. Notably, she has emphasised many times that she is a proud Indian and a proud Hindu. On the contrary, those in power stood in support of those involved in the conspiracy to rape and murder Bano. So much so, the BJP men marched with national flag to show solidarity with the suspects and kept attacking Deepika on social media.
 
An undeterred Deepika continued to fight until the case was transferred outside Jammu to the neighbouring state of Punjab to ensure a fair trial. However, this fight has never been easy for Deepika. She had to face challenges even from within her own family and the fraternity of lawyers. The majoritarian sentiment had almost alienated her completely. Not only was she branded anti-national, but also anti-Hindu. Whereas, the Indian establishment should have given her the highest civilian award she deserved for standing up for the values enshrined in the constitution, she was labelled unpatriotic.

Interestingly, the BJP supporters who want Bhagwad Gita, a sacred Hindu text to be declared as a national book, deviated from its teachings when they tried to malign Deepika who is a far better Hindu. Geeta teaches everyone to perform their assigned duty with dedication and without any prejudice. Well, she was exactly doing that as a lawyer, but the self-styled custodians of Hinduism threatened to rape and murder her for coming to the defence of a Muslim family. 
 
During her stay in Vancouver, one evening she cooked dinner for everyone that included goat meat. This was despite the fact that she herself is vegetarian. This gesture how small it may seem alone shows her openness something the BJP lacks. This is in sharp contrast to what self-styled cow vigilantes are doing in India. Since Hindus consider cow as a sacred animal, they have started going after Muslims and Christians suspected of carrying beef in their tiffin boxes.
 
Another instance of her faith in inclusion is her visit to the Abbotsford Heritage Gurdwara where she prayed before Guru Granth Sahib, the holy scripture of the Sikhs.  That the members of Baba Banda Singh Bahadur Society, another gurdwara in Abbotsford came to see her at a specially arranged meeting in Surrey to give her a small token of appreciation shows the kind of respect she received from the Sikh community which has faced worst forms of state-sponsored violence in the past.  
 
Ironically, the day Deepika returned to India, the electorate of that country re-elected the BJP government with a brute majority in spite of the fact that the past five years saw repression of minorities. The verdict of the Indian voters was clearly in favour of hate and terror. While a person like myself hoped that what they did to Bano will bring a new awakening and the BJP will either be ousted or lose seats, it has actually increased its strength in the parliament. The voters who completely ignored the cries of Bano have let us down.
 
Deepika, which means lantern, continues to give us hope in these depressing times and we believe it will continue to flicker and remove this darkness one day. We need more true Indians and good Hindus like her to rescue that nation from the religious extremists who are bent upon ripping the secular fabric and turn that land of diversity into Hindu theocracy.

 
Sabrang India would like to clarify that on November 16 last year, Bano’s father filed an application in court divesting Rajawat of her power of attorney, citing her consistent absence from court hearings and accusing her of only taking up the case to get publicity.
 
Rajawat, a 38-year-old Kashmiri Pandit from Jammu, is an advocate at the Jammu and Kashmir high court. She is the chairperson of Voice for Rights, an NGO for human rights and also works for Child Rights and You (CRY).
 
Rajawat took to Twitter saying they were letting her go when the rainy days had passed.
 
Reached for comment by ThePrint, Rajawat said the case was being handled very well by a battery of senior lawyers. “There are two super senior prosecutors conducting the trial. They have far more experience than I have in handling criminal cases,” she told ThePrint.
 
“I had wanted to go to the trial at least once a week, but it is not possible for me to go to Pathankot every day — I have to take care of my daughter. If I travel to Pathankot every day, which is 200 kilometers away, I will not be able to take care of my own practice.
 
“It was unfortunate that such a request was made by the victim’s father. But I have no grudge against anyone. I did what I thought needed to be done at that crucial stage, and everyone was scared to come forward. I am standing by the family.”
 

The post My thoughts on Deepika and her Hinduism –a beacon of hope in these depressing times appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Image Courtesy:The Indian Express

In a fascist regime, power is generally centralised in or around one person, and such a rule unfailingly tries to convince us that it is in our best interest to be “taken care of”. The fascist always elevates his own nation and people above others to establish a false sense of superiority. They try to establish the supposed supremacy of their race, heritage, history, or scriptures. They openly suppress opposition within the nation; any dissent or protest is met with crushing force. In a fascist regime, regressive nationalism takes centre-stage. It is a nationalism that is narrow in approach, propagating a parochial patriotism. The fascist always dictates, personally or through the party, — eventually killing the spirit of democracy. They use democracy as a rubber stamp. Unfortunately, we are becoming the victims of such a fascist regime that is trying to gather strength using a mix of new and conventional means. The Indian National Congress has also been decidedly fascist in the past. The Emergency, Operation Blue Star, and press censorship are some of the irrefutable instances of its fascist attitude. But today’s situation is somewhat different. It has correctly been summed up by the well-known sculptor Anish Kapoor: ‘India is being ruled by a Hindu Taliban.’

The present government and its associate organisations have mastered the art of dubbing anybody in the country ‘anti-national’. When about 100 distinguished people, decided, individually, to return their national awards to protest against the cultural and communal intolerance of the establishment, they were described as part of a ‘manufactured revolt’, implying the influence of the Congress. But when this slander did not cut any ice, and the protest created international impact, they were labelled anti-nationals. This label is a useful weapon because it can easily be used to exploit public sentiment. Two ridiculous arguments were put forward at the time of the award return in 2015. The first was that the return of awards embarrassed the nation internationally. Actually, the movement created goodwill, in response to people of conscience raising their voices against injustice in a working democracy. The second reason presented for branding them anti-national was that by returning awards, they had insulted the State of India which had given the honour. This idea was disseminated from all possible platforms, and at the highest possible decibel level, to malign the awardees. But the fascists again failed, because the writers and artistes didn’t throw away the awards. They simply returned them in a dignified manner and for a compassionate cause. They only wanted the killers of Kalburgi and those of Dabholkar and Pansare (and later Gauri Lankesh) to be arrested and punished. They were not an organised group at that time, and almost every awardee responded to his or her conscience. There was no campaign to create a group. Unlike the sympathisers and supporters of this government, none of the awardees spoke against the minorities or the majority, nor did any of them try to divide society on a religious, caste or regional basis. No author/artiste/filmmaker ever showed any sign of intolerance and none of them stooped to the level of online trolling that they had to face. This trolling was supported, if not sponsored, by the fascists.

Media is always managed by the fascists and it was done very skilfully. A number of channels began labelling the writers, film makers and painters as ‘sickulars’. Gradually, the present government raised jingoism to a level where anybody speaking against the BJP Government became anti-national. The cacophony of this so-called ‘anti-nationalism’ paved the way for its cruel use against Muslims and Christians. If you eat beef you are anti-national. If you don’t say ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’, you are anti-national. The rulers openly declared that they will not pursue the Congress policy of Muslim appeasement, but the ‘development of all’ was practically absent. Instead, they continued trying to provoke Muslims in different ways. To keep their caste-Hindu vote bank intact, they gradually began equating Muslims with Pakistan. Thanks to their rants and contrary to reality, Muslims, anti-nationals and Pakistanis are established now as inter-changeable terms. Rabindranath Tagore had the last word on such a narrow nationalism in a 1908 letter to his friend, A M Bose: “Patriotism can’t be our final spiritual shelter. I will not buy glass for the price of diamonds and I will never allow patriotism to triumph over humanity as long as I live.”When Einstein equated nationalism with measles on the face of children, he was talking about a situation that is exactly equal to ours.

I believe that the so-called patriotism or nationalism of the present dispensation is just a veil on the face of fascism. It is just a veil with which they wish to fool the public and sweep the polls. It is time that we unveil them. It is time we reveal and see their real face by casting our votes wisely.

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum

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