The Many Faces of Fascism in India | Vidyarthi Vikas

OVER TIME, WORLD society has gone through some administrative systems that were and are adopted by more than one culture, often separated by vast distances, that have helped development and progress, locally. Among these are primitive societal groupings, slave societies, semi-feudal, feudal systems, colonial systems, capitalist society, and now its latest avatar, crony capitalism. In between these phases, the Renaissance came in the form of Buddhism, Jainism, and Sufism in India and the French Revolution, Russian Revolution, and Marxism in Western countries.

India, however, has fostered the oldest republic in the world, and it was in India that monarchies flourished, feudal systems thrived and continue still, the colonial system made Britain rich and then democracy was established under the Indian Constitution in 1947. The first city-state of ancient India was the Kuru kingdom, sometime around 1200-900 BC. By the time of the late Vedic period (700 BC) there were several city-states, known collectively as the Janapadas. Some of these were monarchies (saamrajya) and other were republics (ganarajya). Around 600 BC, some of the smaller city-states coalesced to form larger ones through imperial expansions and were known as Mahajanapada. By the time of Gautama Buddha, around 500-400 BC, there were 16 such regions, the kingdom of Magadha being prominent among these.

One thing persists at every point in time, however. Brahamnical society, came into India from 1000 BC, with populations from Asia Minor migrating into the subcontinent. They created the caste system and Brahmins have controlled Indian society – from the time of great republics to today – perpetuating undeclared fascism in India. The common elements of fascism are racism, nationalism, and religious bigotry.

The paper illustrates some experiences from three selected books. One can find the root of the social and political system in Manusmriti, i.e., the Brahminical system. In the 21st century, the Manusmriti is still an inspiration for today’s majoritarian society in India. One can see how authoritarian and fascist are the laws or social system mentioned in Manusmriti. The world is today told that a good number of policies and propaganda being adopted in India are influenced by Ramacharitmanas, Manusmriti and M S Golwalkar’s ’Bunch of Thoughts’. A good number of ‘smriti’ embodied in the Ramacharitmanas, Manusmriti and the Bunch of Thoughts direct the socio-economic-political life of the Indian people.

The idea of a Hindu, as written in the Bunch of Thoughts is: ‘Brahman is the head, King the hands, Vaishya the thighs, and Shudra the feet’. The Hindu (Brahminical) system is a fascist, discriminatory idea. The Varna system – Kshatriya, Vaisya, and Shudra – is a system of ruling over others, entitlements to labour and oppression. The Ramacharitmanas (Sundarakand) says that ‘Dhol Ganwar, Shudra, Pashu, aur Nari, Sakal Tadna ke Adhikari (Drum, Rustic, Shudra, Animal, and Women are entitled to chastisement)’. The Bunch of Thoughts claims that these varnas are equal in Indian society and it was the British who ‘drew a line with their divide-and-rule policy ( p. 107)’.

Manusmriti says that if a Brahmin killed a Khastriya, a Vaishya or a Shudra, then for ‘atonement’, he should donate one thousand cows or one hundred cows to another Brahmana. In the case of a Shudra, he should kill ‘a dog or a frog or an owl or a crow’ (Shastri 1952:625-626; Stanza 127, 129 and 131, lesion 11).

A book written in the 1960s in the country says that, ‘The concept of democracy “by the people, and of the people†is a Myth in Practice (Golwalkar 1968: 187) and ‘communism’ is ‘internal danger’ (Golwalkar 1968: 191) and ‘socialism’ is an internal threat, as its content is the same – because socialists say socialism can be achieved through the ballot box. It also says, ‘Federal Structure is “Poison†for the country (Golwalkar 1968: 212)’. The thinking is – Muslims and Christians cannot be citizens of India (Golwalkar 1968: 128).

After all, why is it necessary to mention these so-called books which are now the inspiration for Hindutva? Because nowadays, there is talk of changing the Constitution of India and making a constitution based on Manusmriti. As it is, although the constitution prevails, the power of amendment makes parliament more powerful. In 2020, Rajya Sabha member Rakesh Sinha had attempted to move a resolution in the Council of States, seeking the removal of the phrase ‘socialism’ and ‘secular’ from the preamble of the Constitution. Recently, NCERT removed chapters from its books on Poverty, Migration, Human Development, Mughal Empire, Colonial Cities, Understanding Partition, Rise of Popular Movement, Marginalisation, India after Independence etc. Prabhat Patnaik (2023) said that it is an ‘Anti-Intellectual Tendency’ of the Government of India. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1rmyaIsJM4). 

We are living once again in an era of strident nationalism, and xenophobia. Hitler also created the same situations in his country for the Jews, leftists, socialists and democrats.

Dictatorship in any country is generally accompanied by corruption, high crime rates, government incompetence, a failed rule of law, violence, unwanted deaths, camouflaging violence, secret policing, leader worship, racism, nationalism, religious hate, authoritarian power, despotism, propaganda politics, subservient (godi) media, use of technology to govern the people, manipulate opinion through deceit, lies and deceptions. It allows certain amount of dissent, certain amount of unfair election, uses religious leaders for public opinion, uses crony capital to buy votes and manage the stakeholders, attacks education and institutions, brain-washes the public with doublespeak and censoring etc.

Trotsky observed that Hitler’s fascism was directed and financed by capitalist forces (Wistrich 1976). Similar strategies of socio-economic-political-cultural techniques are being used in India to get power. The content resembles the content of Hitler’s fascism. Hitler consciously did not allow the proletariat working class and labour unions to unite and destroyed them one by one. Clara Zetkin (1923) says that, ‘this is the result of the underestimation of the situation by contemporary intellectuals, working class, socialists, and leftists (Wistrich 1976)’.

If we juxtapose the situation of Nazi Germany and present India, this essay’s contention may be justified. From the beginning, Hitler’s regime targeted German Jews with anti-Semitic propaganda claiming that they were responsible for the country’s defeat in the First World War and the subsequent economic crisis. A series of laws were passed restricting Jewish rights to full employment, education, and citizenship. Segregation in public spaces, being paraded wearing humiliating slogans and scrubbing pavements were all tactics designed to dehumanize and degrade Jews and pave the way for public acceptance of even worse treatment to come. The Eternal Jew (1940) was an anti-Semitic Nazi propaganda film. In Germany, Jews as well as Roma, and Gypsies were murdered. Many people were made impotent, many were used for medical experiments, were shot on a large scale, were ordered to be killed by locking them in gas chambers, and were made bonded labourers. Crores of people were killed or expelled from Germany; all these are happening in India in the 21st century, says Roger van Zwanenberg (2022), in his Pluto journal article, Hindu Nationalism: BJP in Historical and Comparative Perspective of Fascism.In this he claims 50 to 90 million people in India are today victims of India’s policy holocaust. Examples are films like Kerala Story and Kashmir Files, which serve as anti-Muslim toolkits. The viewer is provoked to consider minorities as obstacles to national unity and is made not to consider them as ‘human beings’. Racism and religion have always been the two main weapons of fascism. The ‘nationalism’ is a new concept that has been manufactured in Western countries.

Racism

Research on race and racism started in Western countries between 1850 and 1945. The subject of study was whether racism has any relation to being ‘intellectual’. Eventually, the research was stopped and it was found that it was not related to skin, hairstyle, or physical appearance, but it was related to lifestyle, environment, culture, different climatic zones, and different conditions. Around 1,500, the Portuguese and Spanish invaders of Central America sought advice from the Catholic Pope and the Pope said that a ‘native person’ had to be converted to Christianity or killed. In 1530, a notification was issued from the church to the people of Mexico, that the ‘religious representative’ sent by the Spanish or Portuguese king was to be accepted by colonies without any resistance. If this religious authority was accepted, the native person could be killed or enslaved along with the entire native family. One can find these types of statements in Manu-Smriti. ‘Zew/Yahudis’ were not considered human beings in Germany during Hitler’s regime, just like Muslims, Christians, Buddhists and Jains in ‘today’s India, and if the condition remains the same, then Punjabis will also become a discriminated community. A ‘Hindutva’ state would be dangerous for many non-Brahmins, including for India’s Dalit and Backward people.

At a programme on ‘75 Years of Gandhi’s Martyrdom’, organized in April by IPTA in Patna, Professor Apoorvanand stated that the systematic and institutional attacks on Muslims and Christians have increased in the country and it is scary. Communal poison has been mixed with the country’s air. According to him, the minority population is under attack in two ways, i.e. from above and from below; the anti-triple talaq law makes the Muslim man a criminal. A blogger, Bapan Nandi, was attacked by the Hindutva brigade as he gave the message of ‘Social Harmony’ in a video and played the role of a Muslim boy. He is a blogger by profession. Recently, big riots took place in Bihar Sharif and Sasaram in which a former BJP MLA was involved. The communal riots that took place in Odisha in April 2023, on the occasion of Hanuman Jayanti, saw an Internet shutdown. Wasim Sajjad was killed by a communal police in Jharkhand in the month of April. The charge was that he was breaking a ‘branch’ of a tree in Ranchi and stealing sand.

In Gautam Nagar, Thane, Agra, a cow was allegedly slaughtered to incite riots on Ram Navami. For this, Sanjay Jat was caught by the police, who is the leader of the Hindu Mahasabha. Kundan Kumar was caught in the Bihar Sharif riots (2022); during this time, it was also found that there was a WhatsApp group of 456 people spreading rumors on riots. The United Hindu Front (UHF) in Delhi’s Karawal Nagar, indulged in communal propaganda openly. Jai Bhagwan Goyal, working president of UHFI, openly says that North-East Delhi is to be declared as the first ‘Hindu district’ of the country. And the country is now to be declared a ‘Hindu nation’ (https://www.newsclick.in/conspiracy-spread-violence-brigade-resorts-fake-news-and-cow-slaughter). People offering Namaz have been attacked, hooted by miscreants.. In Moradabad, Paanch Janya, the RSS mouthpiece was said to spread false news that a Hindu girl had married a Muslim and a Muslim youth raped the girl in court.

Bhasha Singh, a senior journalist, says that it is not only men, but some women also propagate communal hatred, like the hate speech being given by Kajal Hindustani. The business of hate is on the rise. According to a PUCL report, 700 Muslim girls were denied entry into schools, colleges and 1,001 girls dropped out in this process. This is an example that Muslims are being intimidated in the country through policy, office orders. The song ‘lab pe aati hai dua, ban ke tamanna meri zindagi, shama ki surat ho khudaya meri!’ was sung by the school students and then a case against someone called Siddiqui and another person Wazeeruddin was lodged under Sections 298 (deliberate intention to wound religious sentiments) and 153 (provocation with intent to cause riot) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). 

In April 2022, a Hindu Mahapanchayat was organised in Delhi itself, in which Yati Narasimhanand, the priest of Ghaziabad’s Dasna Devi temple, and his followers were present. In this Hindu Mahapanchayat, hate speeches were given and some journalists (Muslim journalists and others) were beaten up. Now, Muslim journalists can’t even go to cover such events as they are easily targeted at such places. In August 2022, 11 rapists of Bilkis Bano who were sentenced to life imprisonment were released in Ahmedabad. All the rapists of Bilkis Bano, in a massacre in which around 14 people were killed, were acquitted, and the accused of Naroda Patiya and Naroda Gaon were acquitted; in which about 100 people were burnt alive.

Other Minorities

Not long ago, the Government of India’s minority minister said in the Lok Sabha that Maulana Abul Kalam Azad National Fellowship (MANF) and other minority scholarships have been closed. It may be noted that the Minority scholarship was started on the basis of the Sachar committee report. In Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh, in 2017, 55 Dalit houses were burnt down and hundreds of people were brutally beaten up and houses were burnt. They were ‘Dalits’, not Muslim, which indicates that Dalits/OBC will be the next target after Muslims. On 19 December, a three-day ‘Dharma Sansad’ was held in the hall of Ved Niketan Dham in Haridwar. It openly talked about conducting a ‘Muslim Genocide’. No action was taken even after months. Participants of this ‘D-Sansad’, who raised this slogan said that many Ministers and MLAs have become followers and no one will be able to do anything to us.

In a series of ‘riots’ and ‘communal violence’, Manipur State also last year came under ‘communal violence’. The immediate provocation is the demand to grant ST status to the Meiteis, but there are other reasons behind the simmering anger. The role of RSS cannot be underestimated as claimed by Hijam Rajen, a social activist (https://www.facebook.com/girijeshaajtak/videos/200057652835347/). This example shows how the air of India is being communalised. We know about the select riots-communal attacks through media platforms. What about uncovered-non-listed communal violence? There are thousands of small, sporadic riots that take place but do not get registered. And it is not necessary that the riot should be only fatal but make life ‘afraid’ for a citizen. Sometimes, Muslims are in danger due to their religious ‘identity’. According to Apoorvanand (2023), the situation in some areas of the country has become such that if a Muslim leaves for work in the morning, he ‘does not know’ whether he will return home in the evening. Crimes against Muslims are being justified.
 
Recent experiences hinted that the parliament of India is not running as per the constitution, that the opposition accuses the ruling party of stifling their voices, and that

Also, a low democracy needs attention as the Opposition accuses the ruling party and elected government of not conducting itself according to the constitution. In March 2023, the Lok Sabha passed the 2023-24 Union Budget in just 12 minutes, without any discussion. In May 2023, the Supreme Court reinstated the ‘legislative and executive powers’ of the Government of NCT, Delhi over the Union Government. The power of the elected NCTD government was arbitrarily seized by the Government of India on 21 May 2015. The case of ‘toppling the government of Maharashtra by the then Governor’ in 2022 was an illegal exercise, a verdict passed by the Supreme Court said. Recent Act/Policies, the Insurance Amendment Act, 2021, the three farm laws (2020), the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Amendment Act, 2020; the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019; the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019; Revocation of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir in 2019 are all perceived as ‘undemocratic’.

Apoorvanand says that it is not necessary that the form of fascism which existed in Germany should also exist in India. Because people take lessons from history. In India, it is possible that fascism may adopt a liberal form. The lives of minorities will be made such that they will not be able to live the life of a common person even after being a man. A dangerous doctrine has been given by the National Security Advisor that ‘Civil society’ is dangerous for the country because these organisations work as a ‘pressure group’ between the state and society.
 
The question arises whether the land of democracy (India) is ready for fascism. It seems impossible but, as per the Genocide Watch Report (2021), today’s India has crossed 8 out of 10 stages of Genocide i.e, Classification (1), Symbolisation (2), Discrimination (3), Dehumanisation (4), Organisation (5), Polarisation (6), Preparation (7), Persecution (8), Extermination (9) and then the last stage of ‘Mass Killing-Rape-Destruction’ of religious property along with denial (10) of mass graves (burn the bodies-cover up evidence). The report also apprehended that the West and America will be partners in the genocide of Muslims. The report says that all these stages can be stopped if preventive measures are taken on time (Zwanenberg 2022). V-Dem’s Report (2023) says that the 21st century is the era of autocracy. According to V-Dem, India is moving towards an ‘elected dictatorship’. It would seem, nearly eighty years since Independence, spin dictatorship leads towards Vishkal (poisonous era) rather than Amritkal (divine era).

(Author: Vidyarthi Vikas is Assistant Professor of Economics at A N Sinha Institute of Social Studies, Patna | Email: drvidyarthivikas[at]gmail.com)

References:

• Golwalkar (1968). Bunch of Thoughts. Vikrama Publication, Mangalore.
• https://www.newsclick.in/conspiracy-spread-violence-brigade-resorts-fake-news-and-cow-slaughter
• Patnaik (2023). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1rmyaIsJM4 
• Shastri, Pandit Sri Hargowind (1952). Manusmriti. Haridas Sanskrit Granthmala, Chaukhamba Sanskrit Series Office, Varanasi.
• Wistrich, Robert (1976). Leon Trotsky’s Theory of Fascism. Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 11, No. 4, Special Issue: Theories of Fascism
• Zwanenberg, Roger Van (2022). Hindu Nationalism: BJP in Historical and Comparative Perspective of Fascism. Pluto Journal.
• V-DEM (2023). Democracy Report. University of Gothenburg, Sweden.