Communalism, Fascism and Working Class
Narendra Modi led BJP has assumed power in the central government with a sole majority in the last lok sabha elections. Ever since then the Sangh Parivar and other extremist Hindu communal forces have vigorously intensified their aggressive activities. Almost immediately after the BJP's win in the last lok sabha elections, on 2nd of June, the cadres of Hindu Rashtra Sena openly murdered a Muslim IT professional - Mohsin Sheikh, in the streets of Pune, allegedly for making derogatory comments about Bal Thackeray and Shivaji. Subsequently, during the last year, there have been countless incidents of aggressive communal remarks, statements and even physical attacks by the Sangh Parivar and other extremist Hindu communal forces.
While, one minister is hurling invective that the voters will have to decide whether they want to choose "Ramzadon" (Ram's sons) or "Haramzadon" (Bastards), another MP is making statements that the voting rights of the Muslims should be scrapped. Many of the dalit Hindus and Adivasis, who had converted to Islam or Christianity, have been forcefully re-converted. Although not as big as the 1992 or the 2002 riots, several riots have since been organized - in Baroda, in Trilokpuri, Delhi and in other places. The killing of the Pune based IT professional took place during such a riot. Cow slaughter has been banned in several states including Maharashtra. At the time of going to the press there is a continuous flow of reports of how a muslim family have been planfully accused of cow-slaughter in a village near Noida, just on the fringe of the capital and attacked by a mob incited through a loudspeaker of the village temple by some communal elements, leading to the brutal killing of the head of the family and rampant assault on the others. The aggressive hindutva of the Sangh Parivar led extreme Hindu communal organizations is thus marching forward dangerously.
The aim of the Sangh Parivar's onslaught
From the communal activities of the Sangh Parivar and other extremist Hindu organizations some notable features of their activities and their mission become clear. First, by carrying out attacks on the Muslims and the Christians, by destroying their religious places, by organising riots, effectively they are curbing the freedom of these sections to follow their religious practices and in this manner trying to keep the people of minority religious communities, especially the Muslim masses, cornered and subjugated as second class citizens. Thereby, they are advancing their aim to convert India to a Hindu Rashtra. Secondly, in an attempt to win over a section of the Hindu masses towards their vile activities they are continuously carrying out their communal propaganda against the Muslims and the Christians by out-and-out falsification, distortion of historical as well as current facts and events. Besides these, they are trying to bring people of Hindu community more and more into Hindu communal identity. The poisonous effect of their campaign is the intensification and deepening of existing communal division in the society.
Apart from this, there is another dangerous aspect of the activities of Sangh Parivar. There had been reflections of this aspect in the past as well as in contemporary times. Recently, in the Indian Science Congress, some people connected with the Sangh Parivar have made some strange claims. About 7000 years ago Rishi Agastha and Rishi Bharaddwaj invented aeroplane in ancient India! The ancient planes flew not only between different countries of the world but also flew to different planets!! Also these planes could move in all directions - forward, backward, left and right!!! Many such claims were made by several intellectuals close to the Sangh Parivar in this science (?!) congress. Why should we blame them? The prime minister, Narendra Modi himself claimed that plastic surgery was invented long ago in India - the elephant head of Ganesha bears testimony to that! There is no doubt that like any other ancient civilizations, the Indian civilization too has made significant contributions towards the development of science and knowledge of the human race. But the claims they are making are utterly unscientific, false and concocted. Through these unscientific claims and in the pretext of establishing the ancient Indian heritage they are trying to establish unscientific, superstitious ideals in the society. Additionally, there is yet another important aspect of their claims. They are trying to portray the entire Indian civilization as a Hindu religious civilization, which itself is a distortion of history.
They are not limited to merely making such unscientific claims. More importantly in an attempt to silence all those who are trying to expose these unscientific and communal lies, they are ready to go to any extent. The proof lies in the murders of progressive and rationalists like Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare or M.M. Kalburgi.
These incidents clearly reveal that the ideals of Hindutva that the Sangh Parivar and their ally extremist Hindu communal forces want to establish in society are unscientific and superstitious thoughts which are completely against scientific principles and the regiment of extreme Hindu communal forces that they have built up based on this ideology is hell-bent on demolishing any opposing view in society in a fascist manner. In one word, Sangh Parivar is not simply extremely communal; they are a fascist force that is totally against progress and democracy.
Is India at the doorstep of fascism?
Are these activities of the Sangh Parivar something new? Of course not. The rise of Sangh Parivar started from the latter half of the eighties. Major incidents of communal onslaught of Hindutva forces like the demolition of Babri Masjid, communal riots following the demolition, communal riots of Mumbai following the serial blasts in 1993 took place during that period. The intensity of this onslaught did not remain at the same level always, sometimes it has been intensified further, and sometimes it has receded to some extent.
The fascist character of the Sangh Parivar, in a way, was evident right from its birth. But this character came into sharper reflief following the demolition of Babri Masjid. The manner in which the Sangh Parivar demolished the Babri Masjid by ignoring the legal system of the country, by ignoring not the only the feelings of Muslims but also of a large section of the non-Muslim people, clearly revealed their fascist character. The Gujarat genocide of 2002 once again brought forward the danger of the fascist onslaught of Sangh Parivar. Not only these incidents, but there were other activities of the Sangh Parivar which revealed the threat of fascism.
Naturally the assumption of power by the chief architect of the Gujarat pogrom and subsequent increased zeal of the Sangh Parivar has once again brought forward the danger of fascism. These facts have raised the question : is our country standing at the doorsteps of fascism?
If viewed from the perspective of the Sangh Parivar then there is no doubt that their ultimate aim is to establish Hindu rashtra (Hindu state). A state which will not only subjugate the people belonging to the other religion, but a state where the one of the main pillars of authority will be a blindly faithful regiment organized on the basis of reactionary ideology of Hindutva. Quite naturally such a state will abolish the minimum rights of bourgeois democracy as a result of which freedom of expression, the rights of women, and the democratic rights of struggle and organization of the exploited, toiling masses including the working class will be curbed. Is any religious state a fascist state? No. But if we carefully scrutinize the activities and the aim of the Sangh parivar then there is hardly any room for doubt that the Hindu rashtra planned and cherished by the Sangh Parivar will be a fascist state. However, whatever be the plans of Sangh Parivar, ultimately, like any other country, whether a fascist rule will be established in India or not will be determined not by Sangh Parivar or any other organization, but by the ruling camp, mainly their leader - the big bourgeois ruling class. To transfer the burden of their crisis on the toiling people, the big bourgeoisie have brought the Narendra Modi led BJP to power to intensify the attack of liberalisation-globalisation. But that does not mean that they want to establish a fascist structure by dismantling the parliamentary structure. We must look at this issue in greater details.
From the recent comments, statements of the representatives of big bourgeois it is apparent that the extreme Hindu communal activities of the Sangh Parivar following the last Lok Sabha elections have become a matter of concern for the big bourgeoisie They are openly expressing their anxiety and advising Narendra Modi and the BJP leadership to restrain these extreme Hindu communal elements. A few months back, one of the leading representatives of the big bourgeoisie and industrialist, Adi Godrej has warned that government needs to control extreme 'Hindutva' elements as continuation of such cases can dampen investor sentiments and "create disturbances". (BJP led govt needs to control 'extreme-Hindutva' elements: Adi Godrej, The Financial Express, April 18, 2015). Another capitalist, Harsh Goenka stated, "as a secular nation, we must avoid any form of fundamentalist activity. Random fascist comments lead to communal disharmony and should be dealt with severely." In the last few months we have noted several such comments from the big bourgeoisie.
What is the reason behind this? Has the Indian big bourgeoisie become non-communal and democratic? Undoubtedly it will be foolish to think in this way. We may sense the real reason for their worry from the statement of the FICCI president, Jyotsna Suri: "It (statements by the saffron hotheads) is certainly diluting the focus and is uncalled for." (Source of the above two quotes: India Inc frets over govt's fading sheen, Times of India, April 8, 2015, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/India-Inc-frets-over-govts-fading-sheen/articleshow/46843332.cms?). The implications of these quotes are clear - they are worried that the government may deviate from the focus of the job of transferring the burdens of their crisis on the toiling masses through the onslaught of "reforms," for which they had supported the Modi government.
If we delve a bit deeper then it is not difficult to understand the real reason for this attitude of the big bourgeoisie - they want to keep the present structure undisturbed. For more than seven decades they have continued their rule through this parliamentary structure and deceived the masses in a shrewd and astute manner. Continuously through a series of reforms they have refined the parliamentary structure to fasten the people with the thoroughly. At the same time it is clear that the people too are confined in this parliamentary system strongly. Hence the big bourgeoisie should not feel any urge to replace the existing parliamentary structure by a fascist one.
Probably for this reason, despite the significant advancement of the Sangh Parivar in the Indian political scenario during last two or three decades, the possibility of establishment of a fascist rule in India has not become much stronger. Does it mean the big bourgeoisie ruling class will not opt for a fascist rule in India? Definitely, that will be a wrong assumption. If the economic crisis of this country deepens further and due to that, the crisis of the big bourgeoisie intensifies, then the big bourgeoisie may tilt towards a fascist rule if they feel for such a necessity and in that case the fascist Sangh Parivar may well become their appropriate tool. However, as of now it would not be right to claim that this possibility has already matured.
Here, we want to draw attention towards another issue. It would be wrong to judge the extent of influence of communalism among the Hindu masses from the rise of BJP's vote share or from their absolute majority with respect to number of seats in the last parliamentary elections. On the one hand, the propaganda for development or "achchhe din" (good days) by the Modi led BJP in the pre-election campaign influenced the masses and attracted a section towards BJP and on the other hand, the dissatisfaction against the Congress government played a significant role in mobilising support towards BJP. Yet, it is true that the starting from the latter half of the eighties till today the network of Sangh Parivar and its branches have spread substantially. It is also true that in the last 20-25 years, BJP - the political wing of the Sangh Parivar, has apparently digressed a bit from the line of extreme Hindutva of the Sangh. Hence, we have at times witnessed some conflicts between the Sangh Parivar with its political wing, the BJP. Probably this is a reflection or expression of the contradiction that exists as of now between the ruling class and the Sangh Parivar. As a political party and more so, as a governmental political party operating within the present system, BJP is bound to represent the interests of the big bourgeoisie. Since the present ruling class wants to continue their exploitative rule through the long-tested line of parliamentary structure, through the so-called secular, democratic (with all its limitations, incompleteness and deviations) set up, BJP is also following, rather bound to follow the same politics. For this reason an apparent contradiction between the vision of Sangh Parivar and the present political path of BJP is surfacing now and then. It would not be right to ignore this contradiction as a mere hoodwink. At the same time this not an irresolvable contradiction. It is like a contradiction within different members of the same family. From the necessities of parliamentary democracy, the BJP cannot solely depend upon the agenda of extreme Hindutva to retain power, neither it is able to disregard its major support base - the upper caste Hindu communal sections. On the other, in spite of the apparent conflict between the main aim of Sangh Parivar and the present activities of BJP, for the achievement of the ultimate aim of Sangh Parivar itself, it is also necessary that the BJP stays in power.
The crisis of class unity: main danger for the proletariat
Since the big bourgeois ruling class is not opting for a fascist rule right now, does it mean that the fascist communal venture of the Sangh Parivar is not a major threat for the working class and other toiling masses? Should we look at BJP only as a party of the big bourgeoisie, like Congress which has merely used some communal slogans to organize the Hindu masses? No doubt that will be a grave mistake.
For the working class, the biggest danger of communalism is disruption of class unity. The vision of communal harmony that is time and again professed by the bourgeois-petty bourgeois parties or the intellectuals of those classes may satisfy them, but not the working class. For the bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie it is sufficient to be in an environment of communal harmony while remaining divided in communal lines. However, for the working class what matters is their class unity, unity of the working class irrespective of their communities. This unity is required to build up struggle against the attack and exploitation of the capitalists. This unity is even more required to once and for all put an end to all forms of exploitation and build a non-exploitative egalitarian society. The communal onslaught of the Sangh Parivar each and every day is obstructing the development of this class unity. Not only from the perspective of the workers and toiling masses belonging to the Hindu community, since the extreme Hindu communal onslaught of the Sangh Parivar on the other hand, is also helping to increase the influence of Muslim communal forces on the country's Muslim population, this communal divide is acting as a major impediment for establishing class unity of the toiling masses cutting across religious lines.
Simultaneously, another dangerous aspect is that the Sangh Parivar rests its foundation on a backward, unscientific and reactionary ideology. As much the influence of Sangh Parivar and other extreme Hindu communal forces on the workers and toiling masses will increase, it will further divert them from the ideology of social change, from the vision of building of a class less, non-exploitative, egalitarian society. Additionally, the danger of using the fascist force, based on the reactionary ideals of extreme Hindutva which the Sangh Parivar is nurturing, to crush any democratic movement is also ever increasing. Not only are the developed ideals of an egalitarian ideology under threat, any logical, progressive, scientific thought are also being increasingly threatened.
Consequently, the advancement of the Sangh Parivar is not only a danger for the working and the toiling masses but also for the all forces of progress and democracy. Hence, the advanced section of the working class must decide how this danger can be combatted.
The danger of minority communalism
There is no doubt that, among the communal forces, the extreme Hindu communal forces are the main danger in front of the working class and the toiling masses. First, because this is the communalism of the majority community and they have increasingly become aggressive and attacking during the past two or more decades. Under the leadership of the fascist Sangh Parivar, they are carrying out their activities in an extremely organised manner. They are not only the enemy of the people belonging to the minority religious community but they are the enemy of the workers and the toiling masses irrespective of any religion, they are the enemy of the people belonging to oppressed nationalities, dalit and tribal people and all exploited and democratic people. They are the main danger as they can assume state power, of course, if the ruling classes tread that path, and can help to establish a fascist state.
Although extreme Hindutva is the primary danger, it would be wrong to underestimate the danger of the minority communalism, particularly Muslim communalism. While on one side they are weakening the class unity by organising the toiling masses of their community on the basis of their communal identity, on the other hand their communal activity is assisting in increasing the influence of Hindu communalism within the toiling masses belonging to Hindu community. The history of Muslim communalism in India dates back to the latter half of the nineteenth century when it developed hand in hand with Hindu communalism. This led to the partition of the country and subsequent riots. The present development of Muslim communalism is based on this history. One of the main reasons for the consolidation and spread of Muslim communalism in India during the last 25-30 years is the growth of fierce and aggressive extreme Hindu communalism, whose aggressive onslaughts have been prominently manifested among other incidents, through such large-scale, horrifying incidents of tremendous assaults like the 1992 Babri Masjid demolition, the 1993 Mumbai riots, and the 2002 Gujarat genocide. In reaction to such attacks of the extreme Hindu communal, fascist forces on the minority religious communities, especially the masses of Muslim community, the communal feeling among these masses is also increasing, utilizing which the fundamentalist, communal forces have been further able to spread their influence.
There is another reason for the increase of the influence of Muslim communalism in India, and this reason is international. The imperialist countries, especially U.S. imperialism, in order to spread their hegemony are continually attacking the countries of Middle-East and other adjoining countries for several decades. They are barbarically assaulting the masses of this region. Although the aim of imperialism is to increase their domination over West and Central Asia so they can establish their absolute hegemony on the natural resources of this region, in order to veil its actual intention, they are carrying out such attacks in the name of war on Islamic terrorism. To the Muslim people this whole series of attacks is appearing as attacks on their Muslim community. Unfortunately, due to the present disorganized and dispersed state of the international proletariat, the anti-imperialist resentment of the Muslim people is largely being voiced by the Muslim fundamentalist and communal organizations. Consequently, the influence of the Muslim fundamentalist organizations on the people of the Muslim community is growing and the communal organizations are expanding.
Secondly, a section of them, instead of building mass struggle against the immensely powerful imperialism are resorting to terrorist activities., which in turn is creating the basis for anti-Islamic or anti-Muslim sentiments among the non-Muslim masses. The imperialists and their stooges are deviously exploiting this contradiction and stamping the entire Muslim community as terrorists. The common Muslim people are frequently becoming victims of various kinds of harassment, torture and oppression. Such incidents are further increasing the community feeling among Muslims and strengthening the influence of fundamentalist, communal forces.
There is yet another reason for the growth of Muslim fundamentalist forces in imperialist countries. Within the imperialist countries, especially within some countries of Europe, a large section of immigrants are Muslims. In recent times due to a number of reasons the contradiction of these people with the original inhabitants, who are mostly white and Christians, is also growing. This is also assisting the growth of Muslim fundamentalist forces.
We need to clearly understand that it is not possible to confront any particular communalism in isolation. The advanced proletariat has to oppose both the communalism simultaneously. Because, one communalism helps to enhance the other. Of course out of the two, extreme Hindu communalism has to be primarily combated as they pose the main danger. Although secondary in terms of the threats posed in India, the advanced proletariat must also oppose minority communalism.
What is the path to combat all communal forces including the Sangh Parivar?
It is not sufficient merely to understand the danger associated with this rise of fascist force, we must also understand how this menace can be confronted. In an attempt to find the path for resistance, first, we need to understand the main reasons as to why this problem has assumed such a shape. Unless we understand the reason behind any problem it is impossible to charter a path for resistance. Second, we need to understand who or which forces are the forces to confront - who in the real sense possess the ability to resist the communal and the fascist forces.
There are a number of reasons behind such rise of communalism in our country. Through a complex interaction and interplay of these factors communalism has risen up to such an extent in India. Of course the main reason for this rise of communalism is socio-economic. Although there has been a development of capitalism in our country, it has occurred not through a democratic revolution but has occurred through reforms. Due to that reason, till now the remnants of pre-capitalist production relations exist to a large extent in society and the economy. As the development of capitalism has occurred through reforms, the influences of old values and ideals prevail significantly. Here religion is not merely a matter of personal belief. A considerable influence of religion prevails in social life. Due to this religion based communities are firmly entrenched in society. On the other hand, stunted development of capitalism has also given rise to a competition that aims to seize the benefits of capitalism, leading to the rise of religious communal existence, division and conflict.
Who is responsible for such a situation? Of course the big bourgeois ruling class of India. Not only they have maintained the socio-economic foundation for the existence of communalism and religious fundamentalism, they have used of communalism and religious fundamentalism for their vested interest of clinging on to power. They never had the strength to strike the foundation for social dominance of religion and for that reason they never treaded the path of establishing a real secular state by separating religion from the state and education. The secular state that they have established has assumed the policy of giving equal treatment and encouragement to all religions. But a country where a vast majority of the people belongs to a particular community, effectively there it is impossible to provide equal treatment to all religions. The state is bound to remain inclined towards the majority religion. Such a role of the state has actually encouraged various religious fundamentalist forces and helped in maintaining and expanding communalism. Hence, the fight against communalism and fundamentalism in one sense is a political fight against the ruling class.
The political parties representing the big bourgeoisie, who claim themselves as secular parties, and also the other parliamentary bourgeois and petty-bourgeois political parties have more or less utilized the communal divide for their electoral interests. In the parliamentary arena, it is impossible to find a single party which has never used communal division in any form or has not taken the help of religious fundamentalists. Not only the BJP or other communal organizations, even the so-called secular parties have also helped to increase the division and are still doing so. Truly speaking, the anti-mass character of these parties and their pseudo-secular character have positively contributed towards the strengthening of Sangh Parivar and other Hindu communal forces. The opposition that they have offered to the extreme communal and fascist onslaught of the Sangh Parivar is largely pretentious and their actual objective was to utilize the resentment, accumulating within a certain section of the masses against the Sangh Parivar, to assume political power. Therefore, those who are trying to establish in front of the working and toiling masses that these parties will be able to resist the rise of Sangh Parivar, they are simply deceiving them.
Another important reason for rise of communalism, especially extreme Hindu communalism, is the absence of any current of revolutionary struggle. When class struggle is in higher tide, then the communal forces are unable to influence the mass substantially. The current of revolutionary struggle was comparatively stronger in the late sixties and the struggle of the workers and peasants were also on the high. But this did not last long. Looking back it can be understood that that retreat is linked up with the defeat of the first campaign of the international socialist movement. After that the class struggle, for long, has remained at a very low stage. To whatever extent the struggles of the workers and the rural poor masses was seen during this stage, it remained confined within the limits of economic struggle and that too in isolation from each other. On the other side following the fragmentation of the CPI (ML) into numerous sections no revolutionary party has emerged in the last 40 years, quite naturally there is no trend of revolutionary movement in society and the stream of activities of the revolutionary communists that exists is so weak that it is unable to produce any impact in the society. As filth accumulates in stagnant water, in a similar manner, in the absence of revolutionary movement and revolutionary ideology, the identities of religion, caste or nationality has acquired prominence within the workers and poor toiling masses. Since the revolutionary communists are completely detached from the masses, it was not possible for any of them or for that matter even for their combined efforts to assume any effective resistance against the Sangh Parivar.
Who then can resist the Sangh Parivar?
Just as the objective reasons for the rise of the Sangh Parivar is latent in the socio-economic condition of the society, similarly the objective elements of resistance struggle is also present in this society.
What are these objective elements? Of course the most powerful force for this is the working class. The capitalist mode of production, irrespective of which community a worker belongs to, makes them part of the same production process and by making them victim of the same kind of exploitation and oppression, objectively push the working class in the direction of liberation from religious communal divisions. It does not require much effort for the workers to understand from the experiences of their lives that the capitalists are their enemies, the workers and poor people of other religions are not enemies of one another.
But such a realization can assume a firm, effective form only when the workers in the course of their struggle advance in the direction of becoming class-conscious and when they understand in real terms the necessity of keeping the class unity intact, expanding and consolidating it. Objectively the working class is the only force in society which has the capacity to actually resist the communal and fascist forces and defeat all kinds of communal forces including the extreme Hindu communal, fascist Sangh Parivar by building up class unity and developing class struggle.
The agrarian labourer and poor peasants of the villages including a large number of toiling people also oppose communal conflict and hatred, especially riots through the experiences of their life.
Additionally, the development of capitalism has given rise to scientific thought, enlightment, individual freedom and democratic consciousness among the bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie of society. Due to this reason a section of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois intelligentsia emerges from the rank and file as a consequence of their position with respect to individual freedom, democratic perceptions, and scientific thoughts and stand up against communalism. Apart from the working class and other toiling masses they too objectively carry with them elements of anti-communal struggle in society. The working class organized as a class is able to unite all the toiling masses along with the democratic and anti-communal forces to build up anti-communal struggle.
The working class and the toiling masses through the objective experience of their lives and through the objective struggle against the exploiters, irrespective of their community, can realize the necessity of unity the workers and the toiling masses and to an extent wage the struggle against communal forces. But, in order to be elevated to anti-communal, anti-fundamentalist and anti-fascist position in its totality, they need to acquire, at least to an extent, the modern, scientific, and developed ideology, the ideology of socialism as opposed to the old, backward ideology. This is because the manifestation of the influence of communalism and fundamentalism within the masses is in the true sense a reflection of an ideology. On one side the emergence of this ideology occurs through religious bigotry, superstitions, belief in fate, reliance on god etc. On the other side it manifests through approaches like searching for some supernatural forces for the problems of their life instead of trying to find out the real causes and blaming the people of other communities, competing with other communities to prove the superiority of one's own community, etc.
But this ideology can only attract the poor, toiling exploited masses only when a powerful current of class struggle of the working class and the rural proletariat with an aim to build a non-exploitative, egalitarian society exist in the society and naturally a communist party capable of consciously leading that struggle is also present.
But the hard reality is that the stream of this struggle is not present, neither is there any communist party. The working class has still not been able to rise up from the situation of defeat. No powerful trend of the working class movement is present in the society. Only some initial signs of its turnaround have started appearing. How can the working class resist the rise of fascist forces in this situation? Isn't it a mere wishful thought?
First, even in the level of economic struggle, although partially, the workers due to the necessity of their struggle will attempt to build up a struggling unity against communal division. But to build up real anti-communal struggles at the political level in its totality from a real class position, there is the necessity of developed class-consciousness, the necessity of comprehending the objective aim of working class towards building a society free from exploitation. The struggles of the working class that have presently started at the level of economic struggle will definitely proceed in the coming days towards a country-wide struggle in its totality. Through its advancement and the experiences acquired from it, the working class will advance by taking lessons and thus proceed towards higher class consciousness. When a strong current of revolutionary struggle of the working class and a working class party will be built up, under the leadership of that party and through the united strength of workers and peasants, a real anti communal struggle will develop. The anti-communal struggle is an inseparable part of the class struggle of the working class and toiling masses and it will be able to reach its cherished goal only by advancing in the direction of socialism.
If under the present disarrayed, disorganised condition of the working class, anyone thinks that the not the working class but the vociferous and relatively progressive, democratic section of the petty bourgeoisie will be able to resist the onslaught of the Sangh Parivar, they are highly mistaken. As a class the petty bourgeoisie is always vacillating and their fighting capacity is extremely weak. A progressive, democratic section of the petty bourgeoisie exist who are indeed fighting against the Sangh Parivar. However, they are a very limited section and they are not capable of drawing the toiling masses into this struggle.
What can the communists do in such a situation?
In the present condition of class struggle, in the absence of a communist party, it is not only impossible for a group to organize large sections of backward masses, but even the large mass of working class, on the basis of a real anti-communal position and build up anti-communal struggle. Only a real communist party can perform such a task. In such a situation, the task that the communists can take up is the task of making the advanced section of the working class conscious about the extreme, Hindu communal and fascist politics of Sangh Parivar. They must also carry out campaign against all kinds of communal, fundamentalist forces. The aim of this campaign will be to isolate the advanced sections of workers and rural poor from the clutches of respective fundamentalist communal forces and to consolidate and expand the advanced force representing the class interest of the working class. In spite of tremendous adversities it is possible to make the section of advanced workers think as it is possible for them to realize the commonality of interests of the exploited masses from experiences of their lives and the necessity of unity of the toiling masses cutting across religious lines. Secondly, they can assume another role in the development of working class struggle. That is the role of assisting the consolidation and development of the trend of independent role of the working class that has started to appear at the level of economic struggle. Through this, the force that is capable of really confronting the Sangh Parivar in the future will develop.
Although small, the existence of a section of the petty bourgeoisie is presently clearly evident with whom there is a clash of the extreme Hindutva ideology of the Sangh Parivar. It is possible to lead a section of the petty bourgeois intellectuals to assume a general position against the extreme Hindu communalism and fascist ideology of the Sangh Parivar as well as against all forms of communalism. Their thoughts need to be provoked and they should be attracted more from the perspective of a developed ideology rather than from the perspective of class unity.
27th September, 2015
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