Fascism and Its Progenies: The Ideological Roots of BJP
The Sangh Parivar is creating an ideological, cultural, and emotional backdrop in India to destabilize anti-capitalist struggles led by the working-class movement and to achieve their political, religious, and ideological objectives. They are leading the public mind towards an ultra-narrow nationalism, establishing a totalitarian regime, and adopting as their declared policy the maxim of liberating the Hindu Rashtra by protecting Hindu Dharma, Hindu culture, and Hindu society. Drawing inspiration from the race-based politics and culture that emerged in Italy and Germany, the RSS adopts the stance that, to be considered true Indian citizens, every individual must be prepared to prove their Hindutva heritage, thereby dismantling democratic and human rights in the country.
Fascists, who have made totalitarianism and anti-democracy their hallmark, prioritised practicality over ideas and emotions over reason as a doctrine. Listen to Moonje’s words at a meeting held on March 31, 1934, with Hedgewar and Lalu Gokhale: “Like what we see today in Italy and Germany, we need a Hindu dictator like Mussolini or Hitler, or like Shivaji, and a nation of our own. We should not sit idle but must plan scientific projects and campaigns for this purpose.” The extermination doctrine carried out by Hitler to elevate Aryan pride enthuses the Hindutva proponents. “To keep up the purity of the Race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic Races—the Jews,” Golwalkar writes. “Race pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also shown how well-nigh impossible it is for Races and cultures, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindusthan to learn and profit by.”
Having declared non-Hindus to be foreign races—and taking inspiration not just from the Nazi genocide of the Jews but also from how countries such as the United States, Britain and France dealt with minorities—Golwalkar writes: “From this standpoint, sanctioned by the experience of shrewd old nations, 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. There is, at least should be, no other course for them to adopt. We are an old nation; let us deal, as old nations ought to and do deal, with the foreign races, who have chosen to live in our country.”
Rejecting the historical processes that enabled the Indian people to form the identity of a nation-state amidst immense diversity, they are crafting a particular conception of patriotism that is ultra-narrow and hateful. In a democratic, secular country, the BJP government led by the RSS leadership is laying a fake ideological foundation where fascists can gain a foothold by constructing a political ideology entirely different from democracy. They attempt to mould the country into the structure of a fictitiously created definition of democracy by branding thought streams and minority communities that do not fall within the limits of the ruling regime’s conception as traitors.
The proponents of toxic thoughts, who maximally utilise opportunities to create division and disunity among the country’s citizens, are trying to put into practice here the teachings of extermination politics learned from its most detestable sources. To concentrate control of India in their hands and to artificially create public sentiment in their favour, the RSS has formulated the Corporate State theory. They implement agendas based on the majority religion while othering minority religions, with the blessings of the capitalist class, and skillfully neutralise the democratic means of resistance against the ruling regime.
There are numerous examples from recent times of fascist threats that bypassed even the laws passed by the country’s supreme legislative body, which embodied the essence of the Constitution, at times when the country’s secularism faced its greatest challenges.
This is indeed the Indian version of Mussolini’s tactic, in which, in 1936, he dissolved the Italian Chamber of Deputies, amended the electoral system for the Chamber, and subordinated the administrative system to function solely as a subordinate of fascist authority. Eliminating individuals, objects, or institutions for political objectives is the inherent nature of fascism.
Mussolini says in the pamphlet ‘The Doctrine of Fascism’ as follows: “Fascists are not pacifists. War energises man. Therefore, fascism cannot align with any doctrinal project that proposes peace. Fascism cannot align with any international project. It cannot align with anything that aims at material gains.” After setting fire to and destroying the buildings of Avanti, the Italian Socialist daily, during the violent general strike in Italy on August 1, 1922, Mussolini’s response was: “What could not be achieved by 48 years of sermons or propaganda, we have achieved through 48 hours of war-like attack.” Let me conclude by citing the observation of renowned Italian researcher Marzia Casolari regarding the unholy alliance between the RSS, fascism, and Nazism: “The interest of Indian nationalists in fascism and Mussolini was not merely coincidental. Nor was it something confined to a few individuals. This bond was formed as the ultimate result of the emphases they laid. Hindu nationalists, especially those in Maharashtra, had the Italian dictatorship and its leader in mind. For them, fascism was merely an example of an orthodox revolution.”
What must rise across the country today are Left movements based on lofty ideological consciousness against the Hindutva fascist terror under the BJP and RSS. It is the need of fascism to constantly lead anti-democratic activities by inflaming communal divisions in society to protect class interests. Remember that searching for the definition of fascism as an alternative to deep discussions about the dangers fascism creates under the cover of a dominant administrative system will only benefit the cunning adversary.
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