Both versions carry a strain of historicity and fact. This motivated me to delve deep into the archives and indulge in some additional reading. Original proponents of fascism are the best references. Hence I chose to read the Doctrine of Fascism originally propounded by Mussolini, the architect of original first ever fascist State in Italy, years ahead of Second World War. These are the features of so called Classical Fascism.

Some may doubt the source of the text I am quoting below. For their benefit, I am stating that the text is sourced from a 1935 publication Fascism Doctrine and Institutions, downloaded by an official from the then Fascist Government’s website. None can explain basic ingredients of  Fascism better than this, I believe.

Mussolini arrived at a point where he believed that in order to see that Fascism does not die, it must provide itself with a doctrine. He also credited himself as the one who dictated this small 20 page text, aimed at giving it universality. This he felt, is one of the basic tenets of all doctrines representing a moment in the history of human thought. With this doctrine, he not only wanted to immortalize the concept of Fascism as an action and thought but also called upon it’s followers to use this doctrine as a guide to revise, correct, enlarge, develop Fascism, should the need arise.

Mussolini also holds that Fascism as a spirit is universal in its nature but the institutions are nation specific. That is why he clearly states, “It (Fascism) has a form correlated to contingencies of time and space; but it has also an ideal content which makes it an expression of truth…” The key elements were discussed, deliberated and formulated through School of Fascist Propaganda.

Taking on the doctrinaire approach, prevalent by mid 20^th century as an accepted norm for any idea intended to be transformed into force, Mussolini categorically states, “lack of a forma system as used by the disingenuous adversaries as an argument for proclaiming Fascism incapable of elaborating a doctrine at the very time when the doctrine was being formulated..” Fascism is not the nursling of a doctrine previously drafter at a desk, it was born of the need of action, and was action, it was not a party but in the first few years, an anti-party movement. It is a doctrine of faith. For those who are looking for Classical Fascism, the words, fascism is not a doctrine but action born out of need of the action shall be a chilling reminder.
 
This is in contrast to all other established universal doctrines, theories, postulations beginning with Socrates to Galileo to Darwin, Newton, Marx. These were postulated in their standard form which are available, not only to the followers, but also to critiques for generations. However, doctrines like Fascism preferred to be postulated by the proponents orally as a basis for action to their cadres. This is a structural, and key, difference between egalitarian ideologies and in-egalitarian ideologies. To list one key difference, all egalitarian ideologies with liberative content are well structured theories preserved in texts that can be sourced back to one single person. However,  all in-egalitarian ideologies are structured on grand narratives. This grand narrative keeps metamorphosing into several forms and structures. It is difficult to locate or source these grand narratives to a single authority, person or a source. It is obvious that these propose to chain humans rather than seek to liberate them.

Let us look at the main thrust of Doctrine of Fascism. Under Fascism, the conception of State is fundamentally the conception of life. It is only within this construct that the principle expressions of Fascism such as Party organisation, system of education and discipline can be understood. The concept of man as social animal laid the foundation for understanding individuals as part and parcel of society; in their constant interaction they affect society and getting affected by society, too. In contrast to this, within the fascist doctrine, man appears merely as individual, standing by himself, self centered, subject to natural law, inclined towards selfish momentary pleasure, bound by moral law and common tradition, renounces self interest. Accordingly, “the life as conceived by Fascist is serious, austere and religious, all its manifestations are poised in a world sustained by moral forces and subject to spiritual responsibilities”. Thus Fascism is opposed to all individualistic abstractions of 19^th century materialism and opposed to all utopias and inventions. These lines from Doctrine can help us to assess the style and structure of RSS- BJP organizations as well as the recent statements by Modi’s cabinet colleagues against Darwinism, science and technology, rational approach etc.

There are interesting findings about the State from this doctrine. We are all well aware about the Modi’s 2014 slogan of minimum governance and maximum government. It is only when we look at the fascist conception of state, that we can begin to understand this slogan as a ploy to attract the fund raisers, that is national and international monopoly capitalists. We shall also look at the fact that the State under neoliberalism is synonymous with cronyism and corruption. This will help us to contextualize Modi’s slogan of minimum state, which appears a corruption free administration in the eyes of common man whereas its original intent is corruption unregulated by State. Thus we have our Lalit Modis, Vijay Mallyas and now Nirav Modis and Mehul Choksis are few of them those who understood well Modi’s slogan. Bankruptcy code,  vajrayudh against corruptly piled up non performing assets in the eyes of common man whereas it is flute in the hands of Lord  Sri Krishna, for corporate as the Code can curtail the repayment amount as high as 70% of original of principle plus interest, of course, it will be implemented case by case manner.

The fascist conception of State is primarily anti individualistic. Fascist conception state rebukes the libertarian social contract theory that shaped bourgeoisie state and states that it is not the nation that creates the State … rather it is the State that creates the nation. Thus, State creating a nation through reconfiguring history is key element in fascistic strategy. This leads us to conclude totalitarianism is integral to fascism. For Fascists, the State is not only higher form of expression of personality but also a spiritual to the core. Fascist State is not only law giver and a founder of institutions but an educator and promoter of spiritual life. And we have the well developed concept of Hindu Rashtra which synthesizes unit inclusive of all values – interprets, develops and potentiates the whole life of people.

One more important core element of Fascism is its stress on purity, quality of nation rather than its compositeness. When we talks of purity, it could be racial purity, religious purity, or a kind of Plato’s nation governed by enlightened minds of handful few people, or purity in the political thought, which in essence opposes the multi party system and refutes the existence of multiple ideas championed by multiple parties in democracy. We can now understand the fascistic ideological underpinnings of Modi’s slogan and RSS strategy migrating from Congress mukt Bharat to Opposition mukt Bharat.

In the Doctrine of Fascism, a clear role is assigned to peace. It generally does not believe in the possibility or utility of perpetual peace. It strongly argues, War alone keys up all human energies to their maximum tension and sets the seal of nobility on those peoples who have the courage to face it. Anti peace tendencies of Fascism does not stop here. It “believes now and always in sanctity and heroism, that is to say – an acts in which no economic motive – remote or immediate –is at work. This explains the basis of RSS belief in mob violence and using fear as an important element in increasing its legitimacy.

For fascism, the State is absolute and groups relative. Individuals and groups are admissible in so far as they come within the State. The Fascist loves their neighbor but the neighbor does not stand for a vogue understanding. It will have nothing to do with universal embraces.  Fascism also denies the immutable and irreparable character of theclass trgugles which is the natural outcome of the economic conception of history, above all denies the class struggle as preponderating agent in social transformations. This means that fascism denies liberty, equality and fraternity, the foundations of libertarian philosophy. The libertarian maxim of society which is freedom of individuals, for Fascism, is not in conformity with nature’s plan.

Fascism ridicules democracy as means that degenerates. Fascism eulogises heroic capitalism, which in essence, focuses on the primitive expropriation. In Mussolini’s words, “ (Fascists) have constituted a Corporative and Fascists state, the state of national society, a State which concentrates, controls, harmonizes and tempers the interests of all social classes, which are thereby protected in equal measure.” In this formulation, protecting by equal measures is the key word which means, the Rule of Law applies equally to all the subjects, whether  they are expropriated or exploited. Thus the Fascistic state precisely preserves the status quo in property relations. For fascism, the state is fully grown out Corporative state. Fascism stand for a new principle in the word, for sheer, categorical, definitive antethesis to the world of democracy, plutocracy, free-masonry, to which the world still abides by the fundamental principles of liberty, equality and fraternity.

From the above contextualized reading, we can conclude as follows. Fascism is backward looking, theocratic, exclusionary, anti liberatarian, anti-equalitarian, anti liberal, anti socialistic, ethno religious, believes in spiritualis, anti-trade union, anti  democractic state persevering the property rights, status quo in economic aspects of life, surrendering individual to State, a nation creating agency, striving for a State building protecting the profit motives and primitive expropriations. In a multi cultural and multi religious society like India, it stands for purity of religion, purity of race, purity of thought, purity of Party, austere, sacrificial, based on postulations of individual leaders instead of well laid out doctrines. These might be the reasons for the Western media to term RSS as Hindu nationalist force instead of indentifying it as fascistic force.

This makes us clear that though today’s BJP ministers vouched by the sovereignty of Indian constitution, they, both in letter and spirit despise Constitution, the Law of the Land and defies and stifles the constitutionally running institutions which are being run based on the egalitarian and libertarian principles which are against the core foundations of fascistic principles. It also makes it clear that merely by looking at their outwardly appearance, we can’t judge and characterize them. There is more in their words and deeds than what is revealed through their postulations. Hence looking for Classical Fascism in 21^st century is a futile attempt.

That is why I am motivated to quote the following, which is religious in nature but secular in practice. No one can take a dip twice in the same waters. Though you may not be changing your feet from the ghats, the water flowing through your feet will keep changing. New water flows. But the river remains the same. Merely because we are standing in the same river, we should not feel content that we are taking dip in the same waters. For example, in the wake of 1929 great depression caused by the finance capital’s imperial hegemony, which is the highest stage of capitalism, the then Fascists opposed and criticised finance capitalism, admonished Capitalism by staying that it served its historical duty. If we come to a conclusion, while endeavoring to see Classical Fascism, unless we won’t name it as fascism unless it opposes Capitalism, it would be foolish on our part.
 

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With Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) saddled in power among Left circles discussion has renewed about the emergence of fascism in India. With release of the draft Political Resolution by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) towards its 22^nd Congress, there has been ongoing discussion about Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), BJP and fascism in a developing country.

Prakash Karat, the former general secretary of Communist Party of India (Marxist) way back in 2016 initiated discussion by stating that the threat to Indian democracy is from authoritarianism which is semi-fascist in character. He also went on to state that there is no sign of fully developed fascism in India (as of now) and the RSS is set to develop into an authoritarian political entity. By stating this, Karat in effect clearly discounted the possibility of emergence of fascism in India.  

Karat argued: “A correct understanding of the ruling regime and the political movement that it represents is necessary because it has a direct bearing on the political strategy and electoral tactics to be followed in order to fight the BJP and the Modi government.” While stressing the necessity for clarity in defining character of BJP, he added: “The BJP is not an ordinary bourgeois party. Its uniqueness lies in its organic links to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. The BJP is a right-wing party with respect to its economic and social agenda, and can be characterized as a right-wing party of majoritarian communalism. Further, given its linkage to the RSS, which has a semi-fascist ideology, it is a party that has the potential to impose an authoritarian state on the people when it believes that circumstances warrant it.”

For the benefit of readers, I am giving the web link from where it can be read in original rather than depending on my selective quotes from the article.

This understanding is a slight deviation from what was arrived at 21^st Congress of the Party which concluded, “This (BJP emerging as single largest party with required majority to form the government on its own)  has set the stage for a rightwing offensive  comprising an aggressive pursuit of neo-liberal policies and a full-scale attempt by the RSS-led Hindutva forces to advance their communal agenda. Such a conjuncture presages growing authoritarianism.” The understanding pronounced by Karat in his article requires certain preconditions warranted to impose authoritarianism whereas the understanding arrived at 21^st Congress is that the conditions are already presages growing authoritarianism.

The argument expounded by Karat not only rules out any possibility of fascism in India. According to him even authoritarianism is not warranted by circumstances. In support of his argument, he goes back to the classic definition of fascism and states that fascism in power is “the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital.” He further states, “In India today, neither has fascism been established, nor are the conditions present — in political, economic and class terms — for a fascist regime to be established.”

These are the key elements that led Karat to reach above conclusion. “There is no crisis that threatens a collapse of the capitalist system; the ruling classes of India face no threat to their class rule. No section of the ruling class is currently working for the overthrow of the bourgeois parliamentary system. What the ruling classes seek to do is to use forms of authoritarianism to serve their class interests.”

While affirming that so called chauvinist nationalistic Hindutva ideology at work does not constitute the establishment of a fascist order, at the same time he agrees that they pose a danger to democracy and secularism, and concludes that  India today confronts the advance of an authoritarianism that is fuelled by a potent mix of neo-liberalism and communalism.

According to him, there are two components among the major source of authoritarianism at work in India, ie, Hindutva communalism and right-wing neo-liberal drive. The neo-liberal regime acts to constrict democratic space, homogenize all bourgeois parties, hollow out parliamentary democracy and render the people powerless as regards basic policy-making. The impact of neo-liberalism on the political system has led to the narrowing of democracy.

Several questions arise from the understanding advanced by Karat. He brings back the question of classical definition of fascism but goes on looking at its features instead. For any Marxist, the key to observe the developments when they are in motion, when situations are giving them a shape and identity and their characteristic features are under evolution. But Karat’s suggestion is to stick to the classical definition of fascism instead. If we accept his assertion we should stick to the capitalism as was seen and characterized by Marx rather than discussing about the 21^st century variant, the global finance capital and its characteristics. Similarly the emergence of fascism as instrument of state power followed the very same principle pronounced by Lenin and Dimitrov who saw the things while they are taking shape. They changed the strategies and tactics to fight the enemy while it is emerging rather than waiting until it emerges to its fullest strength and adorns its true nature.

Another important limitation of his assertion lies in the linkages that were attempted to establish. That is about threat to rule of capital. He reads no threat to rule of capital and advocates that no section of ruling class is currently working to overthrow the bourgeoisie parliamentary system. It is surprising that the BJP itself hallowing out the bourgeoisie parliamentary institutions, which are key pillars to the parliamentary system, arriving at such a conclusion is surprising one for every one. Coming to the larger question of hegemony of capital, he explicitly feels, there is no crisis that threatens the capitalist system. But after a year since he wrote in the Indian Express, while delivering a lecture in memory of former politbureau member Moturu Hanumantha Rao at Vijayawada in October 2017, he changed his assessment.

He concluded: “But today there is a change. Neo-liberalism is in crisis which got accentuated and we saw the global financial crisis of 2007 and 2008. Today neo-liberalism is not able to overcome that crisis fully. In fact some people have already proclaimed that neo-liberalism is dead. So the contradictions coming out of this neoliberal setup is manifesting itself like emergence of Donald Trump. Nobody expected such a person to come up as USA president. It manifested itself in Brexit where in Britain majority of the people have decided that they don’t want to be part of EU. Because through EU neoliberal policies are imposed. It is the working class that said we don’t want to be part of EU. So it is manifesting itself in different ways. In some places, the right wing forces are utilizing the mass discontent. Many right wing parties have emerged in Europe. But the fact is that the neo-liberalism is on its death bed. Our ruling classes have adopted neo-liberalism because international finance capital everywhere they say this is the way to go but the situation has changed.”

From this it is clear that the working class still has the potential to teach a lesson to the neoliberal hegemony of global finance capital and Brexit is a positive example whereas rise of Trump to presidency is by way of ruling classes response to the working class challenge. In support of his assessment and changed understanding he quotes from an authentic survey in which public at large deplored the neo-liberalism which is basis for Jermyn Corbin’s announcement, “Neo-liberalism is Dead.”

But the draft Political Resolution that is out for debate also distances from shades of his understanding while dealing with the international situation. Confirming its assessment of international situation, DPR states, “1.1 The main features of the international situation since the 21^st Congress are the following: (i) Though there are forecasts of a modest global economic recovery, the systemic crisis of global capitalism that manifested itself in the financial meltdown in 2008 continues. (ii) This is leading to further intensification of economic exploitation of the vast majority of the people and attacks on their democratic rights in all capitalist countries. Protest actions and struggles against these attacks continue to grow in various countries of the world. (iii) This continued economic crisis of global capitalism has resulted in further widening the economic inequalities both globally and in individual countries. (iv) In its efforts to consolidate its global hegemony and to overcome the negative impact of the economic crisis, US imperialism is displaying greater all-round aggressiveness, particularly through political and military interventions. (vi) The period has seen a further political rightward shift in many countries in the world with the rise of extreme rightwing neo-fascist forces in Europe. The ascendancy of Donald Trump as the President of USA, representing the most reactionary sections of the US ruling class, further strengthened this trend.”
 
From the above understanding we can conclude that the emergence of neo-fascist forces in the West and elsewhere is due to continued crisis of global capitalism rather than due to the threat it is facing from its class enemy.
 
Here we should draw our attention towards Samir Amin’s contribution towards understanding of fascism in contemporary capitalism. In his article in Monthly Review in September 2014 Samir Amin defined fascism as “a particular political response to the challenge with which the management of capitalist society may be confronted in specific circumstances.” He further clarifies the key aspects of fascism under contemporary capitalism: “the fascist choice for managing the capitalist society in crisis is always based on –by definition even – on the categorical rejection of democracy. Fascism always replaces the general principles on which the theories and practices of modern democracies are based – recognition of diversity of opinions, recourse to electoral procedures to determine majority, guarantee of the rights of minority etc.”
 
Here it is important to note that the reversal of values is always accompanied by returning to backward looking ideas which are able to provide an apparent legitimacy to the procedures of submission that are implemented. This approach of ruling class is also accompanied by a proclamation of return to the past, subjugation of State to Religion makeup the spectrum of ideological discourses deployed by the fascist forces.
 
The breeding ground for fascism includes real major crisis and collective trauma, authoritarian leader, aggressive defamation used as tactics, or even sometimes strategy, enforced political conformity, pretention to represent the will of the people, which are evident amply in today’s Indian situation. Lastly but not least, it would be educative to look at fourteen common threads derived by  Dr. Lawrence Britt, who studied fascist regimes of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Franco’s Spain, Salazar’s Protugal, Papadopoulos’s Greece, Pinochet’s Chile, Suharto’s Indonesia. They are: powerful and continuing nationalism, disdain for the recognition of human rights, identification of enemies/ scapegoats as a unifying cause, supremacy of military, rampant sexism, controlled mass media, obsession with national security, intertwining religion with state, protected corporate power, suppressed labour power, disdain for intellectuals and arts, obsession with crime and punishment, rampant cronyism and corruption, fraudulent elections.
 
A word of caution is needed. One should not conclude that unless all these fourteen features are explicitly present in any national situation at a time, we won’t agree with the fact that fascism has arrived. We can conclude that fascism at the very minimum takes the form of a mobilizing mythic core of revolutionary ultra nationalist rebirth which is populist in the sense that it is directed towards moblising all authentic members of the national community. The fascist forces did not conveniently end in 1945. It has a protean quality, an almost Darwinian capacity for adaptation to its environment.
 
Unless we realize this quality of the genie called fascism and its ability to adopt new shapes and forms in climates different from each other, we will be failing to read the writing on the wall. While discussing classic fascism, which was referred by Karat, Samir Amin opines that “it was an evanescent in history that emerged as a consequence of specific types of relative deprivation caused by disorder, economic calamity and national humiliation and fascists won the power because of the direct or indirect support of all those who were afraid of expropriation in the event of communist or socialist victory.”
 
This is the specificity which Karat is willing to reject or unwilling to recognize. Surprisingly he dubs all those who argue about the emergence of fascism, or neo-fascism for the sake of discussion, as mere liberals un-rooted in reality!  To remind people such as him, it is appropriate to quote historian, Adrea Mammone who said: “If someone thinks that modern fascism means exact copies of interwar black shirt militias then one is probably looking in the wrong direction.”
 
Thus the discussion inside the leading component of  Left movement in India which is codified in the form of Draft Political Resolution and discussion presages to that, focused on economic struggles by disregarding the balanced approach it arrived at 21^st Congress, that is the dual danger unveiled by the emergence of BJP as single largest ruling class representative. Thus there is an urgent need to read the writing on the wall and realign with the widest possible forces to defeat the emerging fascist forces.
 

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Comrade Prakash Karat's academic piece ('Know Your Enemy', The Indian Express, September 6, 2016)[i] analysing the character of Hindutva/RSS/BJP brand of politics/ideology suffers from confusion which greatly keeps the parliamentary Left incapacitated at the national level against the rising tide of the Hindutva fascism. I am sure that, soon, the Hindutva public relations’ machinery will be circulating certificates from comrade Karat for disseminating the happy news that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is not a fascist organization.
 
Comrade, in order to buttress his position quotes classical definition of the fascism as being 'the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital' and goes to argue that 'India today, neither has fascism been established, nor are the conditions present—in political, economic and class terms—for a fascist regime to be established.
 
There is no crisis that threatens a collapse of the capitalist system; the ruling classes of India face no threat to their class rule. No section of the ruling class is currently working for the overthrow of the bourgeois parliamentary system'. Despite having said this he is unable to decide whether the present regime 'has the potential to impose an authoritarian state' or follow the path of RSS 'which has semi-fascist ideology'.
 
As an academician Karat must be familiar with the fact that history never repeats itself and two similar looking political happenings are not similar in nature. That was the reason that both the Russian Revolution and the Chinese Revolution though guided by the same ideology were immensely different in both happening and outcome. The differences are well-documented in the voluminous 'Great Debate' with which Karat must be familiar as CPM broke with CPI on many issues debated in this discourse. Hindutva Fascism may not be a photocopy of the European variety but has all ingredients specific to the latter.

Karat is not the only one in the Left fraternity who is confused about the character of the ideology as well as goals of the RSS/BJP brigade. They think Hindutva politics is a danger for a section of minorities and liberal intellectuals only and despite 'a determined effort' to re-order society and polity on Hindutva lines 'they do not, by themselves, constitute the establishment of a fascist order'. This group also feels that someday the Hindutva brigade will secularise/democratise itself.

These well-intentioned secularists due to a shallow understanding of the Hindutva phenomena feel that latter despite being antithetical to secular-liberal ethos does not represent a fascist challenge to democratic-secular India. They fail to understand that Hindutva's Bharat Mata is not a democratic-secular India but a Brahmanical Hindu polity modelled after the Peshwa Raj where Sudras and Hindu women will have sub-human existence.

Hindutva is nothing else but fascism in which Hindu nationalism represents superiority of Aryans over the rest.Fascism's integral element Racism is camouflaged as Casteism, anti-Jewish politics is resurrected as anti-Muslim/Christian pogroms and the fascist wish to control the world is expressed in the call for rule over the world by Aryan Hindus.

Hindu Nationalism & Aryan Nationalism
Fascism was based on the superiority and pre-dominance of the Aryan Race. Hindutva ideologues like VD Savarkar (The Hindutva, 1923) and MS Golwalkar (We Or Our Nationhood Defined 1939) both claimed that the white-skinned Hindu Aryans speaking Sanskrit once ruled the globe and are destined to rule the world in future. The Hindusthan was only for Hindu/Aryan nationalists. Hindutva ideology makes a sharp distinction even amongst Hindus so far as being Aryan or non-Aryan is concerned. The Hindutva hatred for non-Aryans is crystal clear. The most prominent Hindutva ideologue, MS Golwalkar went to the extent of glorifying a terribly anti Hindu women and Racist method of improving the 'breed' of Kerala Hindus who were considered as no-Aryans.

Golwalkar was invited to address the students and faculty of the School of Social Science of Gujarat University on December 17, 1960. In this address, while underlying his firm belief in the Race Theory, he touched upon the issue of cross-breeding of human beings in the Indian society in history. According to a report published in the English organ of the RSS (Organizer, January 2, 196) he said:
 
"Today experiments in cross-breeding are made only on animals. But the courage to make such experiments on human beings is not shown even by the so-called modern scientist of today. If some human cross-breeding is seen today it is the result not of scientific experiments but of carnal lust. Now let us see the experiments our ancestors made in this sphere.
 
In an effort to better the human species through cross-breeding the Namboodri Brahamanas of the North were settled in Kerala and a rule was laid down that the eldest son of a Namboodri family could marry only the daughter of Vaishya, Kashtriya or Shudra communities of Kerala. Another still more courageous rule was that the first off-spring of a married woman of any class must be fathered by a Namboodri Brahman and then she could beget children by her husband. Today this experiment will be called adultery but it was not so, as it was limited to the first child."

Thus for the Hindutva gang, Hindu nationalism and Aryan identity are one and same. Our current PM Modi, taking clue from here, when he was CM of Gujarat identified himself as 'Hindu nationalist' (Modi talking to Reuters on July 12, 2013). It was first time in the history of the Indian Republic that a constitutional functionary described himself as such. Leaders like Karat did not take any note of such a serious utterance of a chief minister, who later became PM of India. Being Hindu nationalist means that one is not Indian nationalist and if Modi is Hindu nationalist then there are bound to be Muslim/Sikh/Christian/Buddhist nationalists.

Totalitarianism was part of fascism and the most prominent ideologue of RSS, Golwalkar long before Independence in 1940 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”.

Fascism rejected any concept of all-inclusive democratic state. RSS did not lag behind. The RSS organ Organizer on the very eve of Independence (14 August, 1947) rejected the whole concept of a composite nation and declared that in, "Hindusthan only the Hindus form the nation and the national structure must be built on that safe and sound foundation, the nation itself must be built up of Hindus, on Hindu traditions, culture, ideas and aspirations”.
 
Casteism is Racism
If Hitler declared 'all that is not Race in this world is trash' so is the belief of Hindutva practitioners in Casteism. It is declared to be synonymous with Hinduism and Hindu nationalism. Golwalkar in a book published in 1966 declared that "Brahmin is the head, Kshatriya the hands, Vaishya the thighs and Shudra the feet. This means that the people who have this fourfold arrangement, i.e., the Hindu People, is [sic] our God. This supreme vision of Godhead is the very core of our concept of ‘nation’ and has permeated our thinking and given rise to various unique concepts of our cultural heritage.” [Italics as in the original] It is to be noted that Manusmriti in chapter 1 and verse 91 decrees that the only job for Sudras was to serve 'meekly' the other 3 castes. When Constituent Assembly passed Indian Constitution, RSS rejected it and demanded with Savarkar that instead Manusmriti should be promulgated as the constitution. 
 
Comrade Karat fails to understand that Hindutva gang's war-cry that Manusmriti should be promulgated as constitution of India presents a far worse scenario than what fascism did to Jews and Communists in Europe. It prescribes a sub-human life to Sudras as well as Hindu women. I wish Karat had read in detail the Manusmriti which was declared to be the most worshipable Holy Book after the Vedas by Hindutva’s icon, VD Savarkar.
 
Laws of Manu Concerning Shudras
1.  Once-born man (a Sudra), who insults a twice-born man with gross invective, shall have his tongue cut out; for he is of low origin. (VIII/270)
2.   If he mentions the names and castes (jati) of the (twice-born) with contumely, an iron nail, ten fingers long, shall be thrust red-hot into his mouth. (VIII/271) 
3.   If he arrogantly teaches Brahmanas their duty, the king shall cause hot oil to be poured into his mouth and into his ears. (VIII/272)
4.   With whatever limb a man of a low caste does hurt to (a man of the three) highest (castes), even that limb shall be cut off; that is the teaching of Manu. (VIII/279)
5.   He who raises his hand or a stick, shall have his hand cut off; he who in anger kicks with his foot, shall have his foot cut off. (VIII/280)
6.   A low-caste man who tries to place himself on the same seat with a man of a high caste, shall be branded on his hip and be banished, or (the king) shall cause his buttock to be gashed. (VIII/281)
 
 As per the Code of Manu, if Sudras are to be given most stringent punishments for even petty violations/actions, the same Code of Manu is very lenient towards Brahmins. Shloka 380 in Chapter VIII bestowing profound love on Brahmins decrees:  
      “Let him never slay a Brahmana, though he have committed all (possible) crimes; let him banish such an (offender), leaving all his property (to him) and (his body) 
 
Laws of Manu Concerning Women
1.   Day and night woman must be kept in dependence by the males (of) their (families), and, if they attach themselves to sensual enjoyments, they must be kept under one’s control. (IX/2)
2.   Her father protects (her) in childhood, her husband protects (her) in youth, and her sons protect (her) in old age; a woman is never fit for independence. (IX/3)
3.   Women must particularly be guarded against evil inclinations, however trifling (they may appear); for, if they are not guarded, they will bring sorrow on two families. (IX/5)
4.   Considering that the highest duty of all castes, even weak husbands (must) strive to guard their wives. (IX/6)
5.   No man can completely guard women by force; but they can be guarded by the employment of the (following) expedients:
6.   Let the (husband) employ his (wife) in the collection and expenditure of his wealth, in keeping (everything) clean, in (the fulfilment of) religious duties, in the preparation of his food, and in looking after the household utensils.
 
Both Believe in Violent Cleansing of Minorities
For fascism Jews were the enemy number ONE and Communists enemy number TWO to be killed or thrown out of the country. For Golwalkar, Hindusthan is only for the 'Hindu Race' and 'Hindusthan' must be cleansed of those who 'are either traitors or enemies to the national cause, or to take charitable view, idiots'. The second supremo of the RSS, whose words are considered as holy, Muslims, Christians and Communists are 'Internal Threats' number 1, 2 and 3 respectively.
 
Golwalkar in his 1939 book, We Or Our Nationhood Defined (pages 47-48) settled the status of Muslims & Christians in the following words: “From this stand point, sanctioned by the experience of shrewd old nations [Nazi Germany & Fascist Italy], the foreign races in Hindusthan must either adopt the Hindu culture and language, must learn to respect and hold in reverence Hindu religion, must entertain no idea but those of the glorification of the Hindu race and culture, i.e., of the Hindu nation and must lose their separate existence to merge in the Hindu race, or may stay in the country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu Nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment not even citizen’s rights."
 
Karat instead of downplaying the fascist potential of the Hindutva brigade should have been concerned that how such a brazenly inimical ideology has captured power through constitutional means. Now the Hindutva brigade is capable of undoing India both from within (brute majority in Lok Sabha) and its pro-active Hindutva zealots outside. It is the gravest challenge since Independence whatever nomenclature you may give it.
 
For some of S. Islam's writings in English, Hindi, Malayalam, Kannada, Bengali, Punjabi, Urdu & Gujarati see the following link: http://du-in.academia.edu/ShamsulIslam
 
Facebook: shams shamsul
Twitter: @shamsforjustice

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Photo Courtesy: Indian Express  Home Page Image: Foxnews.com

One hundred and eighty million workers in India went out on strike on 2 September. It is the largest strike in human history. Workers came from all sectors – from the mines and crèches, from the rail yards and the banks. All trade unions – except the one backed by the RSS – backed the strike. Even workers in the RSS union joined the action. What was most notable about the strike was that it crossed lines of formal and informal sector, with the unions fierce in their determination on working-class unity at the deepest level.
 
A few days later, at Jawaharlal Nehru University, long-time campus adversaries – the Student Federation of India (SFI) and the All-India Students Association (AISA) – put up a united left slate to defeat the RSS-BJP’s student wing, the ABVP. The campaign was hard fought. In the name of JNU’s integrity, the Left fought to define the ABVP as party to the attack on freedom of expression and the rights of students across the country – from Hyderabad Central University to Jadavpur University to Himachal University. Student struggle against the pressure from the BJP-led government at the Centre has been fierce. The Left slate in JNU triumphed, winning the entire central leadership panel and most of the councillor seats in the various schools. SFI, AISA and the All-India Student Federation (who campaigned with the Left) understand that this is the time of Left unity. There were principled disagreements between the SFI and the AISA, but these were articulated in an honest and comradely fashion.
 
A few weeks before, in Una (Gujarat) and in Mumbai (Maharashtra), mass demonstrations took place that brought Dalit groups and the Left together to combat the atrocities against Dalits and the disregard shown to the legacy of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar. Despite great divides that still come between Dalit organisations and Left parties, all sides recognize that building bridges is the task of the present. As Brinda Karat, CPI-M Politburo member wrote at the LeftWord Books blog, ‘The slogan of class unity will have more meaning for a Dalit worker if working class and agrarian class organisations and movements, mobilize all workers against the specific oppression and exploitation that a worker faces as a Dalit’.
 
In this atmosphere, with Left Unity in the air, historian Jairus Banaji comes out with a harsh denunciation of CPI-M Politburo member Prakash Karat. It is a nasty piece of writing, ad hominem by definition, starting with crude statements to describe what Banaji thinks is Karat’s character. If Banaji’s larger point is that the need of the hour is unity of all forces against fascism, then his own prose fails the test – there is no comradely tone here, no attempt to win over Karat to Banaji’s view. The essay by Banaji oscillates between condescension and juvenile derision. To disagree is necessary and important. But how one disagrees is as necessary and as important.

Brinda Karat, CPI-M Politburo member wrote at the LeftWord Books blog, ‘The slogan of class unity will have more meaning for a Dalit worker if working class and agrarian class organisations and movements, mobilize all workers against the specific oppression and exploitation that a worker faces as a Dalit’

 
Why would Banaji write in this vein? It is as if Banaji is fighting ancient battles, the contest of Stalin versus Trotsky on the one hand, and the squabbles at JNU in the 1970s between the SFI and the Trotskyites on the other. His is not the tone of the United Front or the Popular Front, but one that emerges from the deepest wells of sectarianism. Must the Left return to those old debates to find its way in the present?

In most contexts, including in India, the debates between ‘Stalinists’ and ‘Trotskyites’ are of little concern. These are the parlour room discussions of hardened militants who find it hard to come to terms with the new debates over questions of strategy and tactics to organise the large segments of the ‘informal sector’ of workers who have been politically disarmed by neo-liberal policy and the mass media. But this is not Banaji’s interest. He is in the mood to score points.
 

Defending the BJP?

 
Prakash Karat makes a distinction in his short essay in the Indian Express between a fascist regime and an authoritarian one. What is the basis of this distinction? It is that fascism is an extreme form of rule sanctified by the bourgeoisie when the capitalist system faces great threats of collapse. No such signs are evident in India today. There is no imminent crisis to the fractured and complex Indian bourgeoisie, nor is there any indication that the BJP government has the stomach to move against the Constitution or even towards an Emergency regime. The BJP pushes its right-wing agenda, but it is hampered by a host of political adversaries – not only political parties, but also pressure groups and mass sentiment that will not allow it to enact its complete agenda. The fact that one hundred and eighty million workers went on strike shows that there remains wide opposition to the BJP’s ‘labour reform’ agenda, one that is otherwise quite acceptable to large sections of the parliamentary opposition (including the Congress Party).
 
The BJP itself, Karat acknowledges, is ‘not an ordinary bourgeois party’. It is, after all, part of the Sangh Parivar and linked, therefore, to the RSS. The RSS, Karat notes, ‘has a semi-fascist ideology’. What makes it ‘semi-fascist’, asks Banaji? It is semi-fascist or fascisant because it can never hope to achieve hegemony over the popular imagination, but has to impose its fascistic ideology from above, through the institutions, by manipulation of the media, by deceit rather than by the creation of conviction. Fissures along caste and regional lines are too deep to allow the RSS to dig its roots into the Indian popular imagination. If it elevates Hindi, it will alienate Tamils. If it pushes the Ram Mandir, it does not speak as loudly to Bengalis as those who read Tulsidas. The BJP – the electoral arm of the Parivar – finds it hard to break into regions of India where the RSS is not as powerful. It makes alliances. These are opportunistic. These alliances strengthen the BJP in Delhi, but do not allow it to penetrate the popular consciousness elsewhere.When the BJP is on the RSS’s (and VHP’s) turf, then matters are different. The Gujarat pogrom of 2002 took place in a setting where the RSS and the VHP had prepared the terrain. All this is well-described in TeestaSetalvad’s forthcoming memoir from LeftWord Books.
 
What we have in the BJP is authoritarianism – a strong determination to use force of various kinds to gets its way, to use fear to stifle dissent, to use intimidation to transform culture. Modi moves the authoritarianism of the BJP to its extreme. The leader is venerated, the style of politics is menacing, and the agenda is business-friendly. Echoes of Turkey’s AKP are loud, as Karat notes, but so too are there echoes of the Eastern European right-wing.
 
But in Turkey or Bulgaria, these right-wing parties are able to formulate a stable kind of racist nationalism. The societies appear more homogeneous. India is, in that sense, different. It is a multi-national state, with caste as a fissure that tears through society. No simple racist authoritarianism can succeed in India. That is why the BJP attempts to change the idea of India, push against the multi-national consensus towards what first appears as an anodyne One India politics but which later could provide the cultural basis for the Hindu Rashtra. But this feint is being contested openly and successfully. The BJP foists its representatives on the cultural institutions, but they are not obeyed. Legitimacy is not going to be easy to earn.
 
Because Banaji does not like Karat’s distinction between fascism and authoritarianism, he suggests that Karat is defending the BJP. That is outrageous. None other than the Left has been the fiercest combatant against communalism of all kinds. Others truck with communalism when it suits their electoral purposes. But the Left is principled on this issue. To make a distinction so as to clarify one’s tactics does not amount to a defence of the BJP.
 

Alliance with the Congress?
 

Banaji’s insistence that the BJP is a fascist party is not merely a technical discussion nor a debate about Germany in the 1920s (although it sometimes reads that way). This is an argument about the strategy for the Indian Left. Banaji seems to suggest – by analogy from Germany’s 1920s – that the Congress Party could be the Social Democratic ally that the German Communist Party of the 1920s rejected in the fight against Nazism. If the Communists in India today join up with the Congress Party, he implies, then they will be able to take on the BJP.

The essay by Banaji oscillates between condescension and juvenile derision. To disagree is necessary and important. But how one disagrees is as necessary and as important.

 
There are two strikingly peculiar premises to this assessment. First, the assumption that the Congress Party today is Social Democratic would be hard to sustain. The only reason that the Congress Party-led UPA 1 government adopted parts of a watered-down social democratic agenda was because of the Common Minimum Programme (CMP) it had to sign with the Left.
 
The CMP, even with the addition of the Left’s social welfare demands, remained neo-liberal in its orientation. There was no illusion about that. At that time, the Left had a bloc in parliament that made a difference to the stability of the government. It was able to force the Congress Party, whose temperament on economic matters is shared with the BJP, to pay attention to the acute crisis in the country. No such Left parliamentary bloc exists today.Evidence of the Congress Party’s social democracy is weak. Apart from the occasional speech about poverty, Congress leaders are utterly committed to the same kind of economic policies as pursued by the BJP.
 
The second assumption of Banaji’s text is that the Left – by abjuring an electoral alliance at the national level with the Congress Party – is somehow sectarian. In fact, the Left unions worked closely with the Congress unions for the September strike.
 
Sectarianism from below is not the agenda at all. In fact, it is the opposite – to build the largest coalition from below to confront the exercise of authoritarian power by the BJP government and semi-fascist power by the RSS in its boroughs. There is ample evidence of non-electoral joint struggles on the ground.
 
Banaji does not register this joint action. The Left’s hesitancy about the Congress is not a repeat of the Comintern’s social fascism doctrine, where actions with the social democrats were forbidden. If Leon Trotsky were to have appeared in India on 2 September and give his December 1931 speech, his words would appear to be quite ordinary: ‘Should fascism come to power, it will ride over your skulls and spines like a terrific tank’, he said. ‘Your salvation lies in merciless struggle. And only a fighting unity with the Social Democratic workers can bring victory’.
 
The Left mass organisations work closely with the mass organisations of other groups, and with workers and peasants who are not in any formal organisation. They are already building that ‘fighting unity’. The building of mass struggles – such as the strike of 2 September and the post-Una protests – is the task of our time.
 
Banaji’s ill-toned attack on Prakash Karat is evidence of the kind of sectarianism that the broadly defined Indian Left needs to shed. Left unity is essential if the Left in India is to create the unity of the workers and peasants whose lives and hopes depend on it. As Trotsky said in that 1931 speech, ‘Make haste, worker-Communists, you have very little time left!’
 
 
(Vijay Prashad is the Chief Editor of LeftWord Books. He is the author of No Free Left: the Futures of Indian Communism (2015) and the editor of Communist Histories, vol. 1 (2016), both published by LeftWord Books)

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In The Indian Express (September 6, 2016) Prakash Karat, former general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has an opinion piece defending the BJP against its characterisation by sections of the Left in India as the external face of a fascist movement driven by the RSS and its vision of a non-secular, Hindu state. The threat that is sweeping through India today is one of authoritarianism, not fascism, he argues. Nor are the conditions present for a fascist regime to be established, even though a ‘determined effort is being made to reorder society and polity on Hindutva lines’. The crux of Karat’s argument is a conception of fascism lifted straight from the famous formula adopted by the Comintern’s executive committee in December 1933. “Fascism is the open, terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinist and most imperialist elements of finance capital”.
 
Why is it that every time mention is made of Prakash Karat powerful images of rigor mortis rush through my brain? Is it because the young student leader from JNU days always impressed me as the pure type of the apparatchik, the social type that flooded the Communist Party of the Soviet Union by the late 1920s, swamped it as the emerging base of Stalin’s rapid consolidation of power within the party and then in the country as a whole?

The apparatchik destroyed Lenin’s party but he couldn’t discard Marxism completely. He adapted to Marxism by converting it into a draw full of rubber stamps. Incapable of thought, much less of any more creative process like actual intellectual engagement, the building of theory, unfettered debate, etc., he (for we are dealing overwhelmingly with males) opened the draw to look for the right stamp every time some phrase or expression triggered a signal.

Stalin with Dimitrov

‘Fascism’, ah yes, what does the stamp say? It had Georgi Dimitrov’s name on it.  A definition of fascism first adopted by the executive committee of the Communist International at the end of 1933 became famously associated with Stalin’s favourite Dimitrov when it was taken over and circulated more widely in his report to the Seventh World Congress in 1935. This is the one I’ve cited in the preamble above, ‘Fascism is the open terrorist dictatorship (etc.)’. It rapidly became orthodoxy on the Stalinist Left, the ‘official’ line on fascism.  

Karat reiterates it with a profound sense of loyalty and timelessness, citing it in the Indian Express piece. The implication here, of course, is that nothing that has been said or written about fascism since 1933–1935 has any relevance for him. We have gained not a whit (in understanding, knowledge, analysis and so on) since those (pre-Holocaust!) years. Do we have a better understanding of fascism today? Obviously not as far as Karat is concerned. That definition is ‘classic’, as he says. ‘Classic’ here means cut in stone, impermeable to argument, eternally true like some truth of logic. As Karat says, there is ‘no room for ambiguity’ here.

The Comintern had deliberately narrowed the definition to ‘finance capital’ to allow other sections of the capitalist class to join the fight against fascism once Stalin decided he desperately needed alliances (‘Popular Fronts’) with all manner of parties regardless of who they represented. For Karat the reference to ‘finance capital’ suffices. It sums up the essence of fascism, and fascism for him is simply a state form, a type of regime that breaks decisively with democracy (‘bourgeois’ democracy).

The response to this is simple: how did such a state emerge in the first place? Fascism must have existed in some form other than a state for it to become a state? Since Karat stopped reading Marxism decades ago, it may be worth rehearsing some of this for him. Before fascism succeeds as a state it exists as a movement. And fascism only succeeds in seizing power because it first succeeds as a mass movement.

The question the revolutionary Left simply failed to address in the twenties and thirties (with a handful of exceptions such the German Marxist Arthur Rosenberg and the psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich) was why fascists are able to build mass movements. How do they create a mass base for the parties they form? As soon as we frame the issue in these terms (breaking with Karat’s myopic fascination with end results), the problem itself becomes a practical one. We have to look at the specific techniques used to generate mass support. We have to ask also how this ‘mass’ that fascism creates and dominates differs from, say, the social forces that Marx saw driving revolutionary movements forward.   

To suggest that fascism is largely or entirely about ‘finance capital’, that a handful of bankers could have created the fascist movements in Germany and Italy shows how detached dogma can become from reality when it ignores the formation of culture and looks simply at the economy as a force that affects politics without mediations of any sort.

To suggest that fascism is largely or entirely about ‘finance capital’, that a handful of bankers could have created the fascist movements in Germany and Italy shows how detached dogma can become from reality when it ignores the formation of culture and looks simply at the economy as a force that affects politics without mediations of any sort.

Anti-Semitism, racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, Islamism, Hindutva, patriarchy, male violence, caste oppression, militarism, and (not least!) nationalism then become basically irrelevant; window-dressing on a beast (capitalism) that works in some purely economic way, as if the ‘formation of the authoritarian structure’ (Reich) which has everything to do with how reactionary ideologies come about in the wider reaches of civil society is not a process every bit as material as the economy.

What does Karat think he is debating? Is there anyone on the Left who claims that we are currently in the throes of a full-blown Hindu Rashtra in India, that the machinery of the law lies in ruins, that the media, servile as they are, have been taken over and remoulded by a self-defining Hindu state, that trade unions have been abolished, opposition parties banned, active opponents rounded up and murdered?  That would be India’s counterpart of a fascist state.

On the other hand, is there anyone (on the Left especially) who is naive enough to think that there is no danger of any of this? That the rampant cultures of communalism, attacks on minorities and repeated violence against them (this includes unlawful detention) are not being used (consciously used) as tools of fascist mobilisation of a spurious ‘Hindu majority’? That the Indian state has not been extensively infiltrated by the RSS at all levels, even down to the vice-chancellorship of JNU?

That the Gujarat cases had to be transferred out of the state of Gujarat by the Supreme Court, no less, speaks volumes for the court’s view of the shamelessly compromised state of the justice system in Gujarat under Modi’s government there. That the mass violence against Muslims in Gujarat became pivotal to the consolidation of Modi’s support-base in the state and then rapidly in other parts of India, leading to his emergence as prime minister; that Modi financed his campaign for power with the explicit backing of big business groups who were looking for a ‘decisive’ leader; that nationalism is now being used to whip up hysteria among the middle classes to try and justify the repeated use of charges like ‘sedition’ and justify attacks on freedom of speech, thought and politics; that the Right-wing in India has repositioned itself in the more totalising and utterly sinister discourse of ‘nation’ and ‘nationalism’ to create the absurd sense of an Indian Volksgemeinschaft and construct definitions of the other as ‘anti-national’, a sort of fifth column of the nation’s enemies… if none of this reminds us of the way fascism emerges and builds itself up historically, then we have no memory, and certainly not a historical one.       

“India today confronts the advance of an authoritarianism…”, Karat argues, wanting to distinguish this from fascism. The issue surely is what form of authoritarianism we are up against in India today. While all authoritarianisms are not fascist, all fascisms are a form of authoritarianism. What is distinctive about fascist authoritarianism is its appeal to forms of mass mobilisation and attempt to create sources of legitimacy among ‘the masses’ – through cultural (e.g. pseudo-religious) and ideological domination.

'The political struggle against the BJP cannot be conducted in alliance with the other major party of the ruling classes'. This of course reflects a major rift within the CPI(M) itself and may well be Karat’s way of posturing for control of loyalties in the web of factional conflicts that have characterised the party for years.

This is why Hindutva becomes a marker of something more sinister than just authoritarian politics. In Karat’s mental map, as I said, culture and ideology play no major role; they are simply tools to divide people to allow those in power to implement what he sees as the truly dangerous agenda of ‘neo-liberalism’. They are a sort of sideshow, pure excrescences on a largely economic programme where capital remains the chief instrumentality.

Karat agrees that the RSS has a “semi-fascist ideology (and) the potential to impose an authoritarian state on the people when it believes that circumstances warrant it”. Why ‘semi-fascist’? What is its other half? When Golwalkar praised the extermination of the Jews as a possible model for the way a future Hindu state might want to deal with its minorities, was he being ‘semi-fascist’? Is the growing culture of intolerance and forcible suppression of political views the BJP finds abrasive ‘semi-fascist’?
 
And the qualification ‘when it believes the circumstances warrant it’? How do people at large tell the RSS has finally come around to that belief?  That it has so decided? The answer, alas, as with so much of the immobile Left, is – when it’s too late!
 
The German film director Alexander Kluge calls this approach to history and politics ‘Learning Processes With a Deadly Outcome’. If that mum with her three kids in the basement of this house in Halberstadt on 8 April 1945 had fought the Nazis in 1928 and millions of others like her had done the same, she wouldn’t be there now, on this dreadful day in April, sheltering from a fleet of 200 American bombers that will, in seconds, wipe out her entire town.
 
If Stalin and the Comintern hadn’t worked overtime to sabotage the possibility of a United Front between the German Communists and the Social Democrats and the two parties had fought fascism with combined strength; if the Left in Germany had campaigned more consistently and vigorously against anti-Semitism than it ever did and started those campaigns much earlier; if feminism had been a stronger force in German society and the patriarchal/authoritarian order less firmly entrenched in German families… and so on and so forth.
 
Learning processes that shape history, that affect its outcome, are those that strive consciously to learn the lessons that generate a politics that preserves and affirms life against the ‘deadly outcome’. Do we wake up one morning and say, India’s fascism was ‘majoritarian communalism’ after all!!    
 
“The political struggle against the BJP cannot be conducted in alliance with the other major party of the ruling classes”. This of course reflects a major rift within the CPI(M) itself and may well be Karat’s way of posturing for control of loyalties in the web of factional conflicts that have characterised the party for years. So why was the CPI(M) in alliance with that ‘other major party of the ruling class’ in the first place?
 
The alliance broke over a nuclear deal with the US but doubtless no similar deal with Putin would have occasioned a major crisis of that sort. Since the United Front has come up and Karat prefers the safety of a 'Third Period' position (short of calling the Congress, a former ally, ‘social fascist’; 'Third Period' refers to the politics of the Comintern in the period of widespread economic collapse that was said to have started in 1928), perhaps we can leave him with Nehru’s more Marxist grasp of this issue than he himself seems to have:
 

 
There is a constant sense in Karat’s opinion piece that neo-liberalism is as dangerous if not more dangerous than communalism. But this is a senseless position. To the extent that communalism leads to a fascist transformation of the state, it deprives working people of any basis for resisting capitalist onslaughts. Neo-liberalism disarms the working class economically, destroying its cohesion in an industrial, economic sense. Racism, communalism and nationalism (all nationalism, not just what Karat calls ‘chauvinist’ nationalism) do the same in more insidious ways, destroying the possibility of the working class ever acquiring a sense of its own solidarity and of what it really is.

(The writer is a well-known historian and Marxist intellectual).

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