Harsh Kapoor: Modi's Idiom and Indian Version of Fascism
First published on: siawi.org
Harsh Kapoor interviewed by Andy Heintz; June 2018
Harsh Kapoor interviewed by Andy Heintz; June 2018
Do you see Prime
Minister Narendra Modi as part of a worldwide trend of country’s electing
nationalist leaders around the world? There is an
international phenomenon of nationalistic and xenophobic forces that are on the
rise in the world. There are some similarities, but considerable local national
differences that have driven Modi’s rise. The big common element is creating
perceptions of being anti-elite, anti-cosmopolitan, anti-intellectual, and
nationalist. The local national conditions are crucial here though there are
international factors, the most notable being the role of India’s influential
right-wing diaspora from the UK and the USA.
What can the Left do to counter the nationalist appeal of figures like Modi? What mistakes have the Indian Left made that has allowed Modi and his Hindu nationalist party to gain such a foothold in Indian politics? The long process of rise of the Far right in India has had its own reasons and history can’t simply be attributed to the failures of the Left. The language of Modi is pretty crude, sharp, brazen, uneducated talk – often intended as a spectacle of shock and awe and that appeals to an impatient public. He is a new type of authoritarian leader – different from the old conservative elites of the Hindu right – but he is very much part of the right-wing Hindu nationalist movement, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which dates to the mid-1920s. The RSS, whose founders saw the Nazi final solution against Jews as exemplary and made links with Mussolini to refashion their organization model along Italian lines [1] has been banned thrice since India’s independence in 1947.
Modi was an RSS
ground-level activist for more than 20 years and rose from the ranks to become
the three-term chief minister of Gujarat state [2],
which saw big pogroms in 2002, that received a huge amount of social support.
The RSS believes in majoritarianism and defines Indian Identity as essentially
rooted in ‘Hindu culture’, that all other religious groups must lend allegiance
to the dominant Hindu-ness. This ideology is one of creating border lines and
cleavages along religious lines or camps and creating an imagined glorious
history of the past of India – dominated by all things Hindu and creating an
atmosphere of suspicion towards the minorities and whipping up fear. It is the
India version of fascism. Its growth has been slow and molecular, but
widespread across India. [3].
Man Accused Of Murdering Junaid Khan To Contest 2019 Lok Sabha Election
Modi’s idiom, that of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is part of the old RSS fare, but its dramatic manner of deployment of divisive communal ideology and crude nationalism has had a big social echo in political mobilization certainly starting in 2013-2014. He is popular among large sections of the jet-setting professional class, and also the new entrants to the middle classes who have an axe to grind against India’s eroding democratic institutions, and there is a social consensus for arm-twisting authoritarian ways to deal with social chaos and upheaval.
In the post 1990s liberalization phase, there has been a change in the social composition of the middle classes, and a whole vast new section of the labouring people with poor schooling and limited familiarity with history of the Nehruvian period and the anti-colonial period. The liberalization phase has certainly shifted the social fulcrum to right-wing ideas and neoliberal methods as the route to take. The Nehruvian period has been under attack by BJP and Modi. A mass poisoning of minds – crafting a ‘communalised’ social common sense. The BJP is one party which has had an early organized communication’s strategy, and which has used technology effectively. Upon being denied a visa to travel to the US in 2005, Modi spoke from Gujarat to supporters in Madison Square garden via satellite link video.
Man Accused Of Murdering Junaid Khan To Contest 2019 Lok Sabha Election
Modi’s idiom, that of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is part of the old RSS fare, but its dramatic manner of deployment of divisive communal ideology and crude nationalism has had a big social echo in political mobilization certainly starting in 2013-2014. He is popular among large sections of the jet-setting professional class, and also the new entrants to the middle classes who have an axe to grind against India’s eroding democratic institutions, and there is a social consensus for arm-twisting authoritarian ways to deal with social chaos and upheaval.
In the post 1990s liberalization phase, there has been a change in the social composition of the middle classes, and a whole vast new section of the labouring people with poor schooling and limited familiarity with history of the Nehruvian period and the anti-colonial period. The liberalization phase has certainly shifted the social fulcrum to right-wing ideas and neoliberal methods as the route to take. The Nehruvian period has been under attack by BJP and Modi. A mass poisoning of minds – crafting a ‘communalised’ social common sense. The BJP is one party which has had an early organized communication’s strategy, and which has used technology effectively. Upon being denied a visa to travel to the US in 2005, Modi spoke from Gujarat to supporters in Madison Square garden via satellite link video.
The BJP used the mobile phone messages
and personalized calls like no other party, since then they have a special IT
cell. The BJP and Modi regime has engineered a whole new technical ecosystem in
the Indian context way beyond anything attempted by other parties. Modi has
over 20 million followers on Twitter, they use WhatsApp, Facebook, mobiles
phones for spreading their propaganda very massively. A number of very big
media networks (owned by tycoons close to the BJP) that spread fake news and
target liberals also have been used to great effect. BJP adopted hologram
technology in pre-election rallies prior to the 2014 general elections creating
a new visual register as if in religious mythology seen on TV [4]
. Over the past three years, there is a Narendra Modi App available for phones
and tablets [5] and people are being
encouraged and pushed into using this app with direct messages from the prime
minister. A whole new technical ecosystem, that Indian political formations
haven’t been used to.
On paper in statements and in its every day discourse, the left is very clearly challenging the Hindu Right, But, oddly it shares a common thread (with right-wing BJP) of disdain for India’s Congress party, a former ruling party now in opposition. The left has long history of being unable to directly mobilize the public to challenge communalism hands on. It has had interminable debate on whether ‘communalism’ is fascism or authoritarianism (or on the character of the Modi regime). It has an old fashioned ‘Comintern’ (Communist International) style take on fascism. It explains it away simply by pointing at connections to capitalist big business interests. The slow sustained work on society by RSS through propaganda, social work and thousands of schools has had a considerable mind shifting influence and cultural appeal on society in India. The RSS has over 50,000 branches in small towns and cities across India that holds daily or weekly meetings.
The RSS of today has become socially acceptable. It has a wide social influence beyond its membership that has a lot to do with BJP having been in government earlier in 1998, 1989-2004 before returning to power again after 2014. Its ‘communal’ project resonates at multiple social levels through multiple entities – it also has infiltrated different arms of the state, the bureaucracy, and particularly the police. It has a vast project of working through educational, cultural spaces and lately through the media. The RSS runs thousands of schools and coaching facilities and has a large student arm in the university campuses. Whenever the BJP wins political power it facilitates the activities of the full network of RSS associate bodies, which include ‘soft’ ones to those on the extreme right that are erroneously described as marginal fringe groups but are a connected with the RSS nomenclature.
On paper in statements and in its every day discourse, the left is very clearly challenging the Hindu Right, But, oddly it shares a common thread (with right-wing BJP) of disdain for India’s Congress party, a former ruling party now in opposition. The left has long history of being unable to directly mobilize the public to challenge communalism hands on. It has had interminable debate on whether ‘communalism’ is fascism or authoritarianism (or on the character of the Modi regime). It has an old fashioned ‘Comintern’ (Communist International) style take on fascism. It explains it away simply by pointing at connections to capitalist big business interests. The slow sustained work on society by RSS through propaganda, social work and thousands of schools has had a considerable mind shifting influence and cultural appeal on society in India. The RSS has over 50,000 branches in small towns and cities across India that holds daily or weekly meetings.
The RSS of today has become socially acceptable. It has a wide social influence beyond its membership that has a lot to do with BJP having been in government earlier in 1998, 1989-2004 before returning to power again after 2014. Its ‘communal’ project resonates at multiple social levels through multiple entities – it also has infiltrated different arms of the state, the bureaucracy, and particularly the police. It has a vast project of working through educational, cultural spaces and lately through the media. The RSS runs thousands of schools and coaching facilities and has a large student arm in the university campuses. Whenever the BJP wins political power it facilitates the activities of the full network of RSS associate bodies, which include ‘soft’ ones to those on the extreme right that are erroneously described as marginal fringe groups but are a connected with the RSS nomenclature.
Since Modi took
power the institutions of national importance have systematically been taken
over by members and supporters of Hindu nationalist organisations (The National
film school, The State Broadcaster, National Book Trust, Museums, Archives,
Universities). Efforts have been made to intensify the communal campaigns
around ‘beef eating’, ‘against interfaith love marriages’ and ‘ghar-wapsi’
(return back to the fold) or conversion to Hinduism of the tribals or
indigenous people’ and whip up massive anti-Pakistan, anti-migrant,
anti-Rohingya, and anti-Bangladesh hysteria. Muslim citizens and Christians are
being labelled as outsiders and foreigners with suspect national loyalties... read more: https://sabrangindia.in/article/modis-idiom-and-indian-version-fascism
see also
