Mounting attack of extremist Hindutva
From banning the hijab in schools and colleges to bulldozer onslaughts, restrictions on the use of loudspeakers for azan in mosques, and finally demanding the conversion of several mosques, including the Gyanvapi Mosque in Kashi, the Shahi Idgah in Mathura, into temples, and initiation of lawsuits in court--the campaign of the extremist Hindutva has gathered much steam in the last few months.
Many people know the story of the wolf and the lamb. With the ulterior motive of killing the lamb, when the wolf could not find any fault of the lamb, he killed and devoured the lamb on the pretext of a cooked-up crime of the father of the lamb. The moral of the story was: ?There is no dearth of wiles for the knave?. The arguments of the Sangh Parivar are similar. Muslim students will not be able to go to school or college wearing hijab, as it violates the secularism of the educational institution. However, Gita recitation should be made compulsory in all schools and colleges. Wonderful! Secularism is not violated if Saraswati Puja is performed in school and college, Gita recitation can be made compulsory for all students of all religions, it also does not violate secularism in school and college. Does it happen only if the Muslim student in school and college wear hijab? If there is a Hindu-Muslim riot (even if the incitement and active role of the extremist Hindu communalists is proven in it), only the houses of Muslims have to be targeted and demolished with bulldozers--because, they have committed a crime. Who decided it? The Government and the police. They are the accusers, they themselves are the judges, and they are the executors. The accused does not even have a chance to defend himself. If it is so, then why not wind up all the courts! Halal meat cannot be sold in a secular state. Why? The flag bearers of extremist Hindutva do not like it. Fish and meat shops cannot be opened during Navratri. Why? The Sangha Parivar has said that everyone must eat vegetarian food during Navratri, whether you observe Navratri or not. This is the secularism of the Sangh Parivar.
There is no doubt that the main target of this attack is Muslims. The attack is not only on their right to religious practice, but also on their homes and livelihoods. The excuse is not important. The aim is to make the people of the Muslim community more and more cornered, to take away their rights one by one, to make them understand that if they want to stay in this country, they have to accept meekly the high-handedness and persecution of the extremist Hindutva forces remaining deprived of their rights.
It is not that the opposition to this fascist campaign of extremist Hindu communalism is totally absent in society and that opposition is not arising just from a section of urban educated middle-class intellectuals. Although very few, it is also arising from among ordinary toiling people. Recently, such an interesting and significant event has come up in the news. Hindu residents of Keolkar village in Maharashtra's Buldhana district have protested in a unique way against the hullabaloo of the extremistHindu communal forces over the use of loudspeakers in mosques. Hindu residents of Keolgarh have donated a loudspeaker to a mosque in Kinhola, an adjacent village with Muslim-majority. It was their Eid gift to the Muslim brothers. More interesting information is that there is no mosque in Keolkar village, because there are no Muslim people living there. That is why they have chosen the mosque in the village of Kinhola, 8 km away. A representative of this initiative in Keolkar village told the media that they think the real purpose of the hue and cry over loudspeakers is to cause riots in the state, i.e. in Maharashtra. That is why they have this symbolic protest against this conspiracy. This incident is a glorious example of the fact that in spite of the terribly increasing communal divisions in India, there is an underlying current, though very weak, of unity and harmony among the people of different communities.
But, there is no doubt that this voice is still very weak in the society. It is a fact that this unilateral attack by the Sangh Parivar is going on almost without any opposition. The working class who could have protested most vigorously against this oppression of the people of a particular community in society, who could have resisted this attack on democracy, is no longer on the battlefield, nor is it organized as a class. Where they themselves cannot resist the onslaught of exploitation and oppression of the ruling bourgeoisie on themselves and are being beaten helplessly, how can they stand up against the onslaught of another oppressed class or community? It is an important question that what should be the role of the communist revolutionaries in the society in such a situation, against this growing attack of the Sangh Parivar on the people of the Muslim community, when they themselves are isolated from the working class and have a very weak force,?
In order to decide this, one must first understand the nature of the recent attacks by the Sangh Parivar and the governments run by them. Apparently the target of the attack is Muslims, but in reality it is not just the Muslims. The Hindutva of the Sangha Parivar is of a particular kind, which does not conform with the practices and behavior of all Hindus. The Sangh Parivar is also imposing its Hindutva rules on all those Hindus. In other words, by implementing their extremist Hindu ideology in the society, the Sangh Parivar is not only interfering in the rights of Muslims or other religious minorities, but is also interfering in the rights of many Hindus. Most importantly, they are doing it violently with the strong arm. Students of Jawaharlal University in Delhi have been attacked by the ABVP's goons for disobeying the Sangh Parivar's order to eat vegetarian food on Navratri. Is it just interference in the rights of the people of the Muslim community? No. The rights of all those Hindus who do not agree with the Sangh Parivar's definition of Hinduism are also being interfered with.
The second important aspect is that these attacks by Sangh Parivar, which have increased in recent times, are not being carried out mainly by the goons. This time the attack is being carried out mainly through the direct role of the government and the police administration. The government in some places, the municipality in some other places is making decisions and the police administration is implementing them. The government has banned the hijab. The municipality of Delhi has ordered to close fish and meat shops on Navratri. The state government is taking decision to demolish the houses with bulldozers and the police administration is enforcing it. And the whole thing is happening without any regard for the rights recognized in the current constitution of India and the law of the land.
The third important aspect is the role of the court. The furore over hijab controversy was sparked by the people of the BJP. The government then gave it legitimacy by banning the hijab in educational institutions on the orders of the government. The state high court validated the ban. This whole process didn't take long to complete. Now the campaign has started to convert various mosques into temples starting from Gyanvapi Mosque in Kashi and Shahi Idgah in Mathura. Here, too, the courts of ?secular? India are now engaged in judging whether these were temples or mosques. First, when land was allotted for the Ram Janmabhoomi temple, the Supreme Court said there would be no dispute over any other place of worship. So how can the courts themselves take part in this dispute? Moreover, another question is whether the mosque was constructed demolishing the temple and if it was done 400 years ago, can the punishment for that 'crime' be decided today by the current Indian law? In a word, what happened in history, whether it was right or wrong, can it be decided by the clauses of the Constitution of India? How will the court judge history? And, most importantly, even if we assume for the sake of argument that these mosques were built by demolishing Hindu temples, the question still arises as to whether history can be rebuilt by demolishing those mosques and building temples? Today, if millions of indigenous people in India go to the Supreme Court, or to the government and demand that they be given back the lands and forests from where they have been evicted rendering them refugees over decades and centuries, will the Supreme Court be able to give them back the lands and forests? Despite knowing that medieval history cannot be reconstructed in this way in the modern age, the courts are flaring up the controversies further by recognizing these disputes in every case, except for a couple of cases, such as the dismissal of the petition for opening a closed chamber in Taj Mahal. This change in the role of the court, however, is very noticeable.
In India, secularism and democracy were already in a limited, restricted sense. But, whatever secularism or democracy existed, it is slowly being destroyed and abandoned. If anyone thinks that the RSS-BJP's plan is to turn India into a Hindu state at some point in time, they will be very wrong. The process of turning India into a Hindu state is now underway; gradually India is being turned into a Hindu state. To this end, the flag bearers of extremist Hindutva, including the RSS and BJP, are moving forward.
The goal of this fascist campaign of the Sangh Parivar is not just to corner or subjugate the Muslim community. Their real aim is to establish the ideology of extremist Hinduism in this country by force, and to turn it into the ideology of the state. That is, in a word, the state will run on the ideology of extremist Hinduism. This means that not only communal division will be induced in the country; the country will be taken backwards. In this imperialist era and in a country dependent on imperialism like India, it was possible for the ruling bourgeoisie to carry out only a stunted bourgeoisie development. However, due to the bourgeoisie development to some extent, a development of democracy has taken place in this country, even though it is limited. The ideology of extremist Hinduism means the end of even this limited democracy. Extremist Hinduism means reaction against progress, bigotry and superstition against science, medieval religious ideology against modernity.
But the Indian state is in fact a state of big capitalists and big landlords dependent on imperialism. This class character is the real character of the state, whether the Indian state is a Hindu state or not. That is why the Hindu state does not mean merely religious oppression, or the medieval ideology of extremist Hinduism; this Hindu state means more terrible exploitation and oppression of the toiling people, including the workers and peasants, by the imperialism and big capital and the big landlords, where the working class and the toiling people would not have the minimum right to class struggle.
The BJP and the Sangh Parivar are also playing that role in a strong way. The BJP is now the most loyal representative of the ruling big bourgeoisie. We must remember that an influential section of the big bourgeoisie played an important role in bringing Narendra Modi to power in 2014. The experience of the last eight years of the Modi-led BJP or NDA government has shown us clearly how efficient it has been in bringing down attacks on the working class and the toiling people in the interest of the big bourgeoisie in the name of 'reform programme'. The more the BJP is tightening its grip on parliamentary arena, the more the representatives of the ruling big bourgeoisie are clamorously demanding more and more attacks in the name of more reforms. That is to say, the BJP and the Sangh Parivar are not only increasing communal divisions and hatred on the basis of religion, they are trying to establish the ideology of extremist Hinduism in the whole society, trying to establish it on all progressive, democratic people, and above all, they are most efficiently working to unleash more and more the exploitative attack of the ruling bourgeoisie on the working class and the toiling masses. More importantly, extremist Hindutva ideology of the Sangh Parivar can then only take full control of the state if it becomes conducive to the interests of the ruling big bourgeoisie. This means that the fascist Hindu state based on the ideology of extremist Hindutva will then be considered more useful to them than the present structure of parliamentary democracy in the quest to make their own profits by exploiting and oppressing the working people including the working class and the toiling people. That is why the danger is not only of Hindutva, it is not only the question of oppression of Muslims, the real danger to the working class is the more horrific exploitation and oppression of the imperialism, and theindigenous big capital and big landlords.
That is why, to the revolutionary working class, and naturally to the communists, the main danger of this fascist campaign of the Sangh Parivar is the danger of intensification of exploitation by the big bourgeoisie, who are dependent on imperialism, and the curtailment of rights of struggle and organization to combat that attack. The more the fascist campaign in this country becomes stronger, the more it will move towards turning this country into a fascist Hindu state, the more the struggle of the working class and the toiling people for liberation from exploitation will face adversity. For that reason, to the communists, the struggle against every attack of the Sangh Parivar is connected with its class struggle, the ultimate goal of which is socialism.
Theoretically we know that the working class is the most diehard soldier in the struggle for democracy and only the working class can lead the fight for democracy uniting all the oppressed classes. We have found the proof of this capacity of the struggle of the working class many times not only theoretically, but also in history. But, no doubt, the precondition for this role of the working class is to be organized as a class, which they are not at present. That is why the working class cannot be found in the field of struggle against this attack of the Sangh Parivar.
So do the communists have no role to play except to silently watch this campaign of fascist forces? Or, in the absence of the working class, should the communists look for another force that can stand up against this campaign of fascism? If that is the case, then the communist revolutionaries will have to rely on the anti-BJP parliamentary political forces against the Sangh Parivar campaign - which in many cases is being adopted by several communist revolutionary organizations. Or, they have to form alliances with all the forces of the Dalits or the minority community in the society which are opposed to the extremist Hindutva, which they seem to be doing from time to time. Or, they should think of resisting the fascist campaign of Sangh Parivar by organizing the educated, middle-class intellectuals, who are opposing this campaign of the Sangh Parivar.
There is no doubt that this leading role of the working class in resisting the campaign of fascist forces cannot be substituted by the joint programmes of communist groups, alliances with bourgeois opposition political parties or even petty bourgeois or, more accurately, educated intellectuals. In a word, the advancement of the fascist forces cannot be stopped by the latter forces instead of the struggle of the working class. We need to explain why this is being said. First, a major strength in the fascist campaign of the Sangh Parivar is especially the support of a large section of the lower strata of the majority Hindu community, who have been overwhelmed by communalism to some extent. But, another major reason for the influence of the Sangh Parivar on the people is the anti-people, unprincipled politics of all the established bourgeois political parties, including the Congress and the Left, especially the unscrupulous, undemocratic politics on the question of secularism, which has increased the people's disgust towards those political parties. That is why it is not possible to build an effective opposition against the fascist campaign with all these established parliamentary bourgeois political parties. It is unable to unite democratic, progressive people against the Sangh Parivar. Any opposition to the politics of the Sangh Parivar must come from a genuinely secular, genuinely democratic position, which cannot happen with the present bourgeois political parties.
Where there is no protest in the society against the fascist campaign of the Sangh Parivar, the protest voiced by the intellectuals is certainly important. But that protest must also stand on a genuinely democratic and secular position. At the same time, it needs to be mentioned that even if it does, intellectuals cannot substitute the role of the working class. Only the working class has the strength to build effective resistance against the Sangh Parivar by uniting the working people. The question is not only the strength of the organized force, but also the Sangh Parivar cannot be weakened if the working people under the influence of the Sangh Parivar are not pulled out of their influence. Only the politics of class struggle can unite the toiling people, including the working class, irrespective of religion and community, and show them the direction of their struggle. One of the major reasons for the influence of right-wing, reactionary ideology among a large section of the working people is the ideological vacuum created by the impact of the massive defeat of the international socialist movement of the working class. The development of the class struggle of the working class can play a role in filling this ideological vacuum by bringing forward the ideology of building a classless, exploitation-free society through revolution--the socialist ideology. Only the class struggle of the working class, inspired by the ideology of revolutionary socialism, will be able to build resistance against the campaign of the Sangh Parivar in real sense. There is no doubt that it will not happen in one day. At present a new struggle of the working class will be emerging to resist the attack on them by the capitalistclass and the government. That struggle will awaken the working class and make it conscious and organized about the necessity of the struggle for democracy and prepare it for the struggle against fascism.
That is why the communists have no separate struggle against the attack of the Sangh Parivar in isolation from the working class. Their only task is to organize the advanced section of the working class in order to awaken them, to prepare them for their struggle and above all to make them class-conscious, to prepare them as soldiers of democracy.
At this time, we must support the growing protest of intellectuals against the fascist campaign, but, merging with them would not be the right thing to do for working class representatives. It would be wrong for the communists today to think of organizing a section of the intelligentsia and any community or sect opposed to the Sangh Parivar, without focusing on the task of organizing the working class, in an attempt to resist the campaign of the Sangh Parivar, as the struggle of the working class is absent,. In this way, the attack of the Sangh Parivar cannot be resisted, and more importantly, the real task of the communists, to make the advanced section of the working class conscious and organized on the basis of class politics, in order to awaken the working class, will be harmed and in the end it will be impedimental to the building up of the struggle against fascism. It must be understood that today we are not in a position to resist the fascist campaign in any way; it is now the task of the communists to organize the working class for that role. We have to try to take full advantage of whatever meagre opportunities that democracy still has, otherwise we will not get the opportunity to do so later.
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