‘Lalkaar-Pratibaddh’ Group’s Understanding of Fascism
A Menagerie of Dogmatic Blunders
(Part – VII)
Abhinav Sinha
(To download the PDF of this part, follow this link)
16. Sukhwinder’s Account of Fascism in India: A Menace to the Development of Any Understanding of Fascism in India
A. “Bare-naked” Vacuity of Sukhwinder’s Very, Very Brief Account of Fascism in India
From page number 47 to 49 in his booklet on fascism, Sukhwinder presents a very, very brief account of fascist rise in India. He warns the readers that they should consult “other books”. Well, to say the least, after systematic dumbing down of the minds of the readers with this very, very brief account, even reading the best of the research works on fascism in India, would not be able to play the role of an antidote. We will explain why we are saying this.
First of all, any person has the right to present a brief account of any historical process. However, the usefulness of such account depends on one basic pre-requisite that it must fulfil: it must capture at least the nodal points or defining moments of that process. Sukhwinder’s account completely fails to capture the milestones or the turning points in the rise of fascism in India. It is a very poor factual account with inaccuracies. Secondly, if a Marxist presents even a very brief account of a socio-economic and political phenomenon, it must have two basic elements: one, causal analysis and two, the identification of the phases of the process. Both these elements are missing. Allow us to demonstrate this fact.
The account of Sukhwinder is a thoroughly impoverished selection of facts from a variety of sources. A reader can get a better view of things by reading Wikipedia articles on the subject, if not scholarly research works! For instance, he does not even mention the core of the ideology of Hindutva fascism, as it originated and evolved through Savarkar to Golwalkar and later. The essence of fascist ideology itself is lost in his account. Secondly, he does not discuss the basic phases of evolution of fascist ideology and organization from 1925 to 1947 (foundations of fascist ideology, origins of the cadre structure and development of a limited support base among the urban petty-bourgeoisie and upper-caste landlordist reaction), from 1948 to 1962 (period of relative downturn and sidelining of the RSS due to the assassination of Gandhi, even though the ban on the RSS was lifted very soon and the development of cadre organization and infiltration into state apparatus continued), from India’s China War (1962) to the mid-1980s (the re-emergence of the RSS in the mainstream bourgeois politics, continued growth of cadre organization, continued infiltration into the state apparatus, and beginnings of the rise of fascist social movement), the mid-1980s to 1996 (the period of first paroxysm with the demolition of the Babri Masjid when Indian fascism moved from a long ‘war of positions’ to a period of ‘war of movement’, formation of BJP or BJP-led governments in some states, increasing electoral might of the BJP at the centre), 1996 to 2002 (the period of three Vajpayee governments, interspersed with short-lived non-BJP coalition governments, which saw a much more systematic process of the internal takeover the state apparatus reaching a new stage, fascization of the formal ideological state apparatuses from education to culture, unprecedented impetus to neoliberal policies), 2002 to 2004 (the second paroxysm with the Gujarat Genocide, beginning of rise of the cult of Modi, intensification of fascization of state apparatus, molecular permeation into the pores of the society, communalization of public opinion at an unprecedented level), 2004 to 2011 (electoral defeat of the BJP at the central level due to unprecedented economic discontent, a period of what certain scholars have termed as ‘the Indian Weimerism’ between 2004 and 2011, the onset of economic crisis globally in 2007-08 and spiraling down of the Indian economy since 2010-11, reflection of the general economic condition into politics in the shape of large-scale corruption, fractional interests of the bourgeoisie assuming prominence and development of a political crisis), 2012 to 2014 (rising tide of communal frenzy, the right-wing populist anti-corruption movement feeding into the fascist consolidation, rise of Modi as the preferred candidate of the Indian bourgeoisie in the conjuncture of economic and political crisis and finally the thumping electoral victory of Modi), the period from 2014 to present which has many sub-phases (first tenure of Modi government, the third paroxysm of fascism, qualitatively higher level of the internal takeover and molecular permeation, development of the communal consensus, a qualitatively higher level of systematic fascization of state within the shell of bourgeois parliamentary system).
Of course, Sukhwinder could have presented his own different periodization which were marked by nodal events/processes marking qualitatively distinct levels of the fascist rise. However, the readers find no such periodization into qualitatively different phases separated by certain nodal events/processes. What we get is certain dates, certain numbers, certain data about electoral performances, but no logical and rigorous understanding of the dialectic of development.
Secondly, any account of the rise of fascism in India would be incomplete without, at least a brief, discussion of the Gujarat Riots of 2002, the systematic state-sponsored genocide of the Muslim masses, in a certain sense, the first fascist communal holocaust in India. Why is this event a turning point in the history of the rise of fascism in India? Because it reveals, as Sartre had rightly remarked, the fact that fascism is distinguished not by how many people it kills, but by how it kills them. The fascistic preparation, the complicity of the state, the systematic building of the mass fascist frenzy and the conjuring of wide mass support for or indifference and callousness to the fascist “reaction to the action” in almost all parts of India (even South India), the consequent rise of Modi as the “Hindu Hridaya Samrat” and the führer-figure and various other processes that Gujarat-2002 initiated are constituent elements of fascism in all cases.
Even while describing the original social props of the RSS, when it was formed, Sukhwinder talks in the way of journalists and bourgeois psephologists. He says that the original social support base came from among the Brahmins-Baniyas. A Marxist would first of all point out the class character of the social basis of fascism. The class character in the initial decades was shaped mainly on the basis of those petty-bourgeois sections who had been conventionally attracted to the reactionary, romanticist and revivalist Hindu nationalism, the principal figures of which had been Dayanand Saraswati and Arya Samaj, Bankim Chandra, Lala Lajpat Rai, Madan Mohan Malaviya, etc. These were precisely the sections, which gravitated towards the reactionary ideological and political tendency represented by the All India Hindu Mahasabha and later the RSS, especially after Gandhi became hegemonic inside the Congress, representing a fusion of elements of the Tilak tendency as well as the Gokhale tendency.
The second important section which lent its support to the RSS in the first years was the feudal and semi-feudal landlordist reactionary classes. Very soon, the bourgeoisie, too, found out the extreme usefulness of the RSS for its own political expediencies and many sections of the rising Indian industrial bourgeoisie, too, began to give financial support to the RSS. However, the petty-bourgeois support base, which is most instrumental for the fascist ideology and organization to evolve into a reactionary social movement, was not sufficient before the independence, for obvious reasons. The bulk of petty-bourgeoisie participated in the national movement and its intelligentsia supplied its intellectual and political leadership. As a consequence, in terms of social base, the RSS remained at the reactionary revivalist margins of the petty-bourgeoisie, because the fundamental historical and political factors that drive larger sections of the petty-bourgeoisie into the camp of far-right and fascist reactions were not present as such and the right-wing elements of this class were absorbed in the mainstream of the national movement itself.
Sukhwinder’s very, very brief account misses all the cardinal elements of the historical development of fascism in India. It tells us vacuous details, bereft of any historical and political content and ends up being a very poor and inaccurate fact-sheet. The poverty of this factsheet can be gauged by Sukhwinder’s comment that Golwalkar’s Bunch of Thoughts was published after some time of the publication of We, Our Nationhood Defined. The fact is that the former was published in 1938, whereas the latter was published almost three decades later, in 1966, seven years before the death of Golwalkar in 1973. Sukhwinder has been too hasty in writing this section and copied certain facts from here and there.
Similarly, Sukhwinder’s claim that when capitalist development gathered momentum after the independence, the petty-bourgeoisie expanded as well as got proletarianized! In fact, the proletarianization of the lower echelons of the urban petty-bourgeoisie picked up pace only when the first major economic crisis hit the Indian economy in the late-1960s and in particular in the 1970s and the 1980s. Certain parts of petty-bourgeoisie always witness the process of dispossession, especially the rural parts. However, as a significant social process having far-reaching political consequences, the proletarianization of the petty-bourgeoisie, in general, accelerated since the late-1960s and especially (in the context of the urban petty-bourgeoisie) since the 1970s, assuming particularly alarming proportions in the 1980s.
It is not without reason that despite attempts to move to a ‘war of movement’ from a long period of ‘war of positions’ in the late-1960s and early-1970s, the Sangh Parivar failed to arouse a fascist communal frenzy. One such attempt was the anti-cow-slaughter riots in Delhi in 1966, which fizzled out after some time, without giving the Sangh Parivar much political mileage. A few more attempts like that were made in the 1970s, too. However, they, too, failed to gain any traction. The reason was clear: the fundamental pre-requisites of the emergence of broad-based reactionary social movement of the petty-bourgeoisie were still not sufficiently fulfilled. There are so many inaccuracies in the very, very brief historical account of Sukhwinder that we can only suggest the readers to refrain from reading it. Even non-Marxist and journalistic accounts of the rise of RSS’s fascism in India, like that of A. G. Noorani, D. R. Goyal, Dhirendra K. Jha, give a much better insight into the mechanisms of fascism in India.
Now let us come to the factors that Sukhwinder sees as ‘obstacles’ in the rise of fascism in India, especially, its rise to power. Here, in particular, he commits the most idiotic mistakes, as we shall see.
B. “Unevenness” of Development of Fascism in India and the Remarkable Evenness of the Development of Sukhwinder’s Idiocy
Immediately before the subhead on ‘obstacles’ to the rise of fascism, Sukhwinder opines:
“Presently, in India, there exist a strong fascist movement in the leadership of RSS. But its development is quite uneven. In some states RSS/Sangh Parivar is in a strong position while in others, it is quite weak. In Kashmir, Punjab, some states of South India, many states of North East RSS/Sangh Parivar is in a weak position. But where it is weak, it is trying its utmost to gain a foothold. To what extent it succeeds in this, only the future can tell. It is important to keep in mind the uneven development of fascist forces in India. So that an effective strategy for its resistance may be formed.” (Sukhwinder, op.cit., p. 50, emphasis ours)
Sukhwinder is trying to build a foundation for the extremely inane, asinine and ignorant arguments that he presents in the next section. Let us elaborate.
First of all, the rise of fascism in the historical cases, namely, Germany and Italy, too, was not even. There is no novelty in claiming that in India, too, as one can expect, the rise of fascism is not even. In fact, it cannot be even in any country. Moreover, it does not need to be even in order to rise to power. Sukhwinder’s point is that it is bound to be weaker in multi-national countries, in those territories, where the oppressed nations and nationalities live! The assumption is simple: the multi-nationality of a country presents a hurdle before the rise of fascism. Is that true? No. Why does Sukhwinder fail to understand this? Because he assumes two things: one, fascism is really nationalist whose nationalism, as it were, is historically-rooted, and not a purely ideological construct; two, he does not understand that essentially pragmatism is a constituent element of fascism. Fascism does not need particular variables in each case. It has what scholars like Geoff Eley have termed as the promiscuous adaptability of fascism and its propaganda (Eley, G. 2003. op.cit., p. 85). It can co-opt a number of disparate trends, tendencies and elements within its overall political framework.
Thus, in India, Hindutva fascism can co-opt the reactionary Christian groups within its fold vis-à-vis the Islamic fundamentalists in Kerala, it can promote beef-eating and even promise increasing its supply in Kerala, Goa and certain North-Eastern states; it can co-opt dalits as well as tribals within its own narrative, without even rejecting their own communitarian/religious traditions, rather by co-opting these very traditions within the architectonic of the narrative of Hindutva. We must first recognize that Savarkar was smart enough to weave the narrative of Hindutva in such a way that has the potential to co-opt a variety of elements, in terms of religion, ethnicity, language, etc. ‘Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan’ has a certain limited propaganda value, however, to see the superficial reality as the essential reality in the case of the fascist project in India would be suicidal. Before the BJP had conquered the state of Karnataka, certain naïve observers used to say this about Karnataka, too, that the RSS cannot develop stronghold in this state due to the problem of nationality and language. The same could become true about Telangana and Andhra Pradesh in near future, whereas in Kerala and Tamil Nadu in a little more distant future.
Thus, Sukhwinder has completely taken things at face-value, whereas fascism in general and Hindutva fascism in particular shows threatening flexibility and in Eley’s words, ‘promiscuous adaptability’. Sukhwinder is searching for ways to counter “centralization” by fascists, their “attack on federalism” and “transformation of India into one nation” (how could that happen, anyway!), whereas the fascists are bothered about none of these, any more than any other political representative of the bourgeoisie in India, which itself has a multinational character with stakeholders from all the bourgeoisies of the nations, which are not oppressed, that is to say, Kashmir and certain North-Eastern states. Just like Don Quixote, Sukhwinder is tilting at the windmills!
C. Is the Multinational Character of India a Hindrance to the Rise of Fascism in India? Sukhwinder’s Farcically Fantastic Fancies
Sukhwinder writes under the subhead on ‘obstacles’ to fascist rise in India:
“The multinational character of India is the biggest obstacle in fascism’s path. Behind RSS’s fascism there is not a united identity/ force, like there was behind Hitler (the national identity of Germany). RSS talks of ‘Hindu Rashtra’, but Hindu is not a nation, it is a religious sect. It does not a have a monolith, countrywide identity. Hindus of India are Hindus of different nations. Their language, culture and history are different. RSS (Sangh Parivar) is attempting to erase these differences and make India into a nation. This is impossible. As the BJP government is progressing on the path of centralisation policies, stripping the rights of various states, the contradiction between monopoly capitalists of India, which control the union government, and different nations is sharpening.
“Caste is another obstacle in the path of RSS’ fascism. RSS favours Varna system. Thus, Dalits, who form nearly 16% of India’s population, do not trust it.” (Sukhwinder, op.cit., p. 50-51)
This is all that has been written under this subhead by Sukhwinder and every claim and assertion made here are no less than outrageous, as it betrays unbelievable ignorance of history, as well as theory, and also reveals the fundamentalist and chauvinistic idea of nation harbored by Sukhwinder. Let us elaborate it.
Every single sentence in the above excerpt is foolish and betrays the worst of the street journalistic understanding that you hear from liberals in TV debates. Consider the first sentence. It says that the German fascism was based on a unitary identity of the German nation. Sukhwinder accepts the Nazi definition of what a German nation was, what it included and what it did not. Were the Jews in Germany a part of the German nation? Yes, they were. They spoke the German language, they lived in what became Germany for several generations, they actually represented the best of the German culture, intellectual traditions, language, etc. The only difference was racial and, in some cases, religious. The Nazi idea of what a German nation was, is a purely ideological concept based on a chauvinistic idea of racism, religion and ethnicity. Moreover, many of the other national minorities who were considered the descendent of Germanic Aryans or Nordics, were easily accommodated within the idea of what was truly German! Except the Jews, Blacks and the Romani, and Slav and Turkish people, most of the whites of North-Western descent were considered Nordic and Aryan and assimilated within the idea of German-ness by the Nazis. Thus, the whole Nazi idea of German nation was based on a purely ideological construction, stemming from the chauvinistic racist ideology. It had nothing whatsoever to do with the historical category of German nation. However, due to his utter ignorance about history, Sukhwinder has no clue about it. He takes things at the face-value and then takes off for the flights of imagination, on the runway of stupidity.
In other words, the ‘German Aryan Nation’ that the Nazis talked about and which fascinates Sukhwinder had nothing national per se about it, if we take nation as a historical category, and it was a purely ideological community built on the basis of a chauvinistic and reactionary ideology. It was a racist exclusivist idea. However, Sukhwinder’s own idea of what a nation is, itself, extremely chauvinistic and communal and therefore we are not surprised by his agreement with the Nazi idea of nationhood. Just read these lines:
“We must stand against the fascist attacks on national minorities especially the Muslims, Christians and Sikhs.” (Sukhwinder, op.cit., p. 54)
Thus, Muslims, Christians and Sikhs are national minorities! Sukhwinder shows his true chauvinistic colours here. At the same time, Sukhwinder argues:
“Behind RSS’s fascism there is not a united identity/force, like there was behind Hitler (the national identity of Germany). RSS talks of ‘Hindu Rashtra’, but Hindu is not a nation, it is a religious sect. It does not a have a monolith, countrywide identity.” (ibid, p. 50)
But if Hindus are not a national community, or does not constitute a nation, how can the Sikhs, Muslims and Christians, constitute a national community, or a nation, or a national minority (which has every other trait of a nation, except, a clear territoriality)? Thus, for Sukhwinder, religion can become a basis for national identity for the Sikhs, Christians and Muslims, but not for Hindus! Such is the idea and understanding of Sukhwinder as to what a nation is. One is not surprised that he and his group have been spewing chauvinistic bullshit about migrant workers in Punjab demanding ‘Punjabi jobs for Punjabis’, ‘Punjabi as a compulsory language for jobs in Punjab’, have the most fantastic ideas about Punjab (and all nations and nationalities of India!) being an oppressed nation, have the basest kinds of identitarian ideas about languages, dialects and the relation between the two, and have the most infantile type of pygmy “imperialistic” idea about Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, all being basically parts of Punjab itself! So, let us get things straight for the readers.
Muslims, Christians or Sikhs are not national minorities, as Sukhwinder fantasizes. They are religious minorities. Moreover, Punjabis themselves are not national minorities in Punjab. In Punjab, they constitute a nation. They have a clear territoriality. Punjabis living in Bihar, for example, constitute a national minority in Bihar. However, Punjabis themselves are not national minority, who do not have a territoriality. They do have a territoriality and constitute a nation, though they are not oppressed nation, because the national oppression originates with the oppression of the bourgeoisie of a nation, by another nation, on the question of the control of the domestic market, as Lenin and Stalin have clearly shown several times, and later, Maoist thinkers like Ibrahim Kaypakkaya, too, have demonstrated. Needless to say, once this national oppression comes into existence, it engulfs the rest of the classes of the nation, too, and results in various forms of political oppression, for instance, the restrictions on movement, restrictions on religion, language, press, freedom to assemble peacefully, right to expression, etc.
However, in the case of Punjab, there is no such contradiction between the Punjabi bourgeoisie and some anational Indian big bourgeoisie (non-existent anyway!), as Sukhwinder believes. In fact, the big bourgeoisie of India is not some anational big bourgeoisie, but a multi-national big bourgeoisie, constituted and formed historically, through the organic participation of the bourgeoisies of many nations that reside in the country. The only nations which do not have any share in the political power and economic might, the bourgeoisies of which, themselves, are oppressed, do not have any control over their own domestic market, are Kashmir and nations residing in certain states of the North-East. There is no such thing as an anational bourgeoisie.
Anyway, the point here is that, Punjabis are not national minority, even if Sukhwinder meant Punjabis by Sikhs (an assumption which itself is highly problematic). Moreover, Sikhs are not in any way a nation or nationality; they are a religious community and religious identity is not the basis of nationhood for Marxists and social scientists. It is the basis of nationhood for a variety of fundamentalists, chauvinists, fascists and reactionaries. From Savarkar to Shyama Prasad Mukherji, from Madan Mohan Malaviya to Golwalkar, the religious identity forms the basis of nationhood. For Jinnah and other Muslim identitarians, religious identity forms the basis of the nationhood. The CPI in its revolutionary period did commit the mistake to support the Partition on the basis of the same confusion, though they corrected this mistake very soon. It is shameful for a person, claiming to be a communist, to contend that Muslims, Christians and Sikhs are national minorities. If Sukhwinder believes that Sikhs constitute a national minority, what difference is there between his position and the position of the Khalistanis?
Coming back to the original point.
Behind Nazi ideology, there was no unitary nation, as Sukhwinder thinks. Is the “great German Aryan race” a nation? No. Were German Jews part of what can truly be termed as the German nation? From a Marxist-Leninist understanding, yes. Moreover, who was Jew, this definition itself was constructed and reconstructed by the Nazis repeatedly. Let us give you a concrete instance.
Eric Hobsbawm writes about the interesting case of a Protestant professor in Germany, who suddenly came to know that he was a Jew, because according to the new definitions of the Jew, imposed by the Nazis, he was to be considered a Jew and had to emigrate to London! Thousands of such Protestants met the same fate. Hobsbawm points out:
“Or, consider the case of the Protestant German classical scholar, Pater, a professor of Classics in London, who suddenly discovered, after Hitler, that he had to emigrate, because, by Nazi standards, he was actually Jewish—a fact of which until that moment, he was unaware. However he had defined himself previously, he now had to find a different identity.” (Hobsbawm, E. 1996. ‘Identity Politics and the Left’, Lecture delivered at Institute of Education, London, 2 May, 1996)
Thus, even Jewishness was not always-already given or pre-ordained in the Nazi discourse. These identities constantly shifted, mutated, transformed and re-defined in the general political and socio-economic context of the new Nazi reality of Germany. What we are trying to elaborate is merely the fact that the very idea of ‘German nation’ put forth by the Nazis and their definitions of ‘Jewishness’ were part of their overall project to construct a purely ideological community, based on a chauvinistic ideology, in order to tap the potential of the petty-bourgeois reaction and weld it to the interests of big capital, and also a false enemy, which then can be blamed for all the sins of capitalism.
However, as always, all the essential things and nuances make Sukhwinder dense like a rustic bum. He assumes that in Germany, the Nazis succeeded because their project was based on a unitary nation and nation-state, whereas in India, its multinational character will become the biggest hurdle, because, again, Sukhwinder taking things at face-value, argues, the intention of the RSS is to make India ‘one nation’ by imposing the slogan of ‘Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan’! Nothing can be more superficial. Sukhwinder does not understand that rhetoric and the real project are not the same thing. Moreover, as we pointed out above, fascism in all cases is in-built with the basest kind of pragmatism. In fact, Mussolini had once said that pragmatist thinker William Jones was one of the three principal philosophical influences in his thinking, whose slogan was “whatever works!” This holds true for all fascists. They are not so much bothered about principles, in fact, their principle itself is that there should be no principles! Only pragma, no dogma! They might use one slogan here, another slogan there, according to the political expediency. This precisely is the promiscuous adaptability of the fascist ideology and its propaganda, the Geoff Eley refers to. Moreover, the slogan of ‘Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan’ existed long before the fascists became a force. Most of the original fascists came from what Sukhwinder would call an “oppressed nation”, that is, the Maharashtrians. They did not write in Hindi. Rather, they wrote either in English or in Marathi. In fact, fascism originally was not a phenomenon in the so-called “Hindi-belt”, as Sukhwinder assumes due to his own national chauvinism and took hold in the Hindi-speaking area much later. Sukhwinder has no clue what is he talking about.
The idea that the Hindutva fascists cannot succeed in a multinational India is utterly foolish and any person acquainted with even some elements of the contemporary history of fascist rise in India cannot make this claim. It fails to explain why the BJP has such strong support base in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Odisha, even Rajasthan (because for Sukhwinder each separate language constitutes a separate nation), Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh (because for Sukhwinder every dialect is actually an underdeveloped language and every language constitutes a nation and the dialects spoken in Madhya Pradesh have nothing to do with Hindi and they are separate languages suppressed by Hindi!), Bihar (same, because Bhojpuri, Magahi, etc. are separate languages, constituting separate nations, like a Bhojpuri nation, a Magahi nation!), even West Bengal and especially Assam and Manipur! However, Suhwinder is least bothered about facts.
The above facts only show that the multinationality of India is not an obstacle in the rise of fascism in India in anyway because fascism works on the basis of the most reactionary version of pragmatism, in terms of its mass propaganda, and is capable of using any communal/identitarian antagonism or divide for its own purpose, as it has been doing in so many states effectively, in the absence of effective revolutionary propaganda. They do not need a monolithic identity that is real and historically constituted; their whole project is based on the construction of a purely ideological identity, a community which can adapt, adopt, adjust, re-adjust, mold and remold varieties of identities and communities within the remarkably flexible definition of that purely ideological community; they can co-opt the Kannadiga Hindus, Lingayats, Chhara tribals in Gujarat, the fishing community of Odisha, a sizeable part of the Christians of Kerala, etc. with equal ease, because that is how the very definitional foundation of their project has been designed. Again, it has a promiscuous adaptability.
Those who do not understand this, look at the electoral results in states like Karnataka, Telangana, Gujarat, Odisha, Rajasthan, etc. with bamboozlement and bewilderment. Sukhwinder’s eyes must be particularly wide-open and his jaws must be dropped the lowest, as, how can a fascist project based on a unitary monolithic nationalist identity develop such organic support base in “the oppressed nations” like Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Odisha, West Bengal, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh and has now even begun to develop in-roads into the seemingly impregnable fortress of Kerala!
One thing that keeps coming back to your mind again and again while reading Sukhwinder is this: this guy seriously needs to read, travel across India and also involve in some direct political practice, instead of giving idiotic and inane sermons from his “Kremlin” in Raikot.
Moving further.
D. ‘Federal Functioning’ of Sukhwinder’s Logic and the Problem of Centralization
Now let us come to the next part of the quote of Sukhwinder that we have presented above, where he argues that the centralizing impulse of the Modi government will increase the contradictions between the “union government controlled by the monopoly capitalists” and the “different nations in India”! Mind you, not between the “union government controlled by the monopoly capitalists” and “the bourgeoisie of the different nations” but whole nations (which includes the regional bourgeoisie of these nations as well)! Of course, in such case, Sukhwinder must form alliances with the regional (national!) bourgeoisie (including the small and medium capitalists of Ludhiana for instance [but then what will the Textile Hosiery Mazdoor Union and Karkhana Mazdoor Union do!] as well as the kulaks and capitalist farmers of Punjab) to oppose the centralizing policies of the Modi government! Sukhwinder never even mentions whether there is a ruling class, a regional small and medium bourgeoisie, for instance, in these so-called “oppressed nations” or not! If not, then to what class the small and medium industrial capitalists and the rich kulaks and capitalist farmers belong! Are they part of the masses and the “oppressed nation”? If yes, why not ally with them for national liberation? If no, then what constitutes these “oppressed nations”? Only the working people? But then the whole Marxist-Leninist concept of the nation is obliterated! It is clear that Sukhwinder has no class analysis of Punjab because even a poor version of class analysis of Punjabi society will run counter to the chauvinist nationalist line of Sukhwinder and ‘Pratibaddh’ group. Sukhwinder utterly lacks the capability to measure the implications of the stupid proclamations that he regularly makes. Anyway, precisely for this reason, Sukhwinder proposes nothing for the operative part of the discussion.
Anyway, the above-referred sentence of Sukhwinder is full of so many asinine assertions, that it will take some time to refute all of them. However, we persevere!
First point, the communist position is not against centralization in general and is not in support of federalism. The revolutionary communist position against centralization by a reactionary bourgeois government is not a call for federalism, but a call for consistent democracy. We are all for centralization, if done with consistent democracy for all nations and nationalities and other minorities. Why? Because the demand for federalism is a demand by the middle, small regional bourgeoisie of different states/nations. Sometimes, the representatives of big regional bourgeoisie, too, raises it, but only to put a weight on the scale of the bargaining for a larger share in the appropriated surplus. However, essentially, it is the demand of regional and small bourgeoisie (including the agrarian bourgeoisie). The demand of the working masses and working people is never for federalism, as it erects boundaries among the working people of different nations. Sukhwinder claims that this is the “old Marxist position” which was changed by Stalin. We have refuted this false accusation against Stalin and the attempt to turn Stalin into an ordinary liberal and anti-Leninist here:
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Are Marxists in favour of decentralization? No. They never have been. If we are talking about an oppressed nation within a country, nothing can be more humiliating for the oppressed nation to demand federal rights and decentralization! For an oppressed nation, the Marxist-Leninist program is one of the demand for unconditional self-determination, the action slogan for which would be the demand for a plebiscite. They would find it insulting to demand decentralization, cultural and educational autonomy and federalism. In all other cases, the demand for decentralization is reactionary from the standpoint of proletariat. Instead, the proletariat demands centralization with consistent democracy. Wherever the democratic element is missing, the proletarian demand is not for federalism and decentralization, but for consistent democracy with centralization. Let us see what Lenin clearly indicated in 1913:
“Marxists are, of course, opposed to federation and decentralization, for the simple reason that capitalism requires for its development the largest and most centralized possible states. Other conditions being equal, the class-conscious proletariat will always stand for the larger state. It will always fight against medieval particularism, and will always welcome the closest possible economic amalgamation of large territories in which the proletariat’s struggle against the bourgeoisie can develop on a broad basis.
“Capitalism’s broad and rapid development of the productive forces calls for large, politically compact and united territories, since only here can the bourgeois class—together with its inevitable antipode, the proletarian class—unite and sweep away all the old, medieval, caste, parochial, petty-national, religious and other barriers.
“But while, and insofar as, different nations constitute a single state, Marxists will never, under any circumstances, advocate either the federal principle or decentralization. The great centralized state is a tremendous historical step forward from medieval disunity to the future socialist unity of the whole world, and only via such a state (inseparably connected with capitalism), can there be any road to socialism.” (Lenin, V. I. 1977. ‘Critical Remarks on the National Question’, in Collected Works, Volume 20, Progress Publishers, Moscow, p. 45-46, emphasis ours)
Lenin writes further that with centralism, the proletariat from all the non-oppressed nations would rally the masses to fight for consistent democracy within a union:
“It would, however, be inexcusable to forget that in advocating centralism we advocate exclusively democratic centralism. On this point all the philistines in general, and the nationalist philistines in particular (including the late Dragomanov), have so confused the issue that we are obliged again and again to spend time clarifying it.” (ibid, p. 46, emphasis ours)
In a letter to Shahumyan in 1913 itself, Lenin wrote:
“You are opposed to autonomy. You are in favour only of regional self-government. I disagree entirely. Recall Engels’s explanation that centralization does not in the least preclude local “liberties”. Why should Poland have autonomy and not the Caucasus, the South, or the Urals? Does not the central parliament determine the limits of autonomy? We are certainly in favour of democratic centralism. We are opposed to federation. We support the Jacobins as against the Girondists. But to be afraid of autonomy in Russia of all places—that is simply ridiculous! It is reactionary. Give me an example, imagine a case in which autonomy can be harmful. You cannot. But in Russia (and in Prussia), this narrow interpretation— only local self-government—plays into the hands of the rotten police regime.
““The right to self-determination does not imply only the right to secede. It also implies the right to federal association, the right to autonomy,” you write. I disagree entirely. It does not imply the right to federation. Federation means the association of equals, an association that demands common agreement. How can one side have a right to demand that the other side should agree with it? That is absurd. We are opposed to federation in principle, it loosens economic ties, and is unsuitable for a single state. You want to secede? All right, go to the devil, if you can break economic bonds, or rather, if the oppression and friction of “coexistence” disrupt and ruin economic bonds. You don’t want to secede? In that case, excuse me, but don’t decide for me; don’t think that you have a “right” to federation.
““Right to autonomy?” Wrong again. We are in favour of autonomy for all parts; we are in favour of the right to secession (and not in favour of everyone’s seceding!). Autonomy is our plan for organizing a democratic state. Secession is not what we plan at all. We do not advocate secession. In general, we are opposed to secession. But we stand for the right to secede owing to reactionary, Great Russian nationalism, which has so besmirched the idea of national coexistence that sometimes closer ties will be established after free secession!” (Lenin, V. I. 1977. Collected Works, Volume 19, Progress Publishers, Moscow, p. 500-01, emphasis ours)
If the readers refer to the entire controversy on the national question, they will realize that the autonomy that Lenin refers to here is not cultural and educational autonomy, but territorial/regional autonomy of the nations under the same state, where they will look after the local administration and implementation of the central policies. In fact, Lenin was systematically opposed to Austro-Marxist and Bundist slogan for cultural autonomy, which was a big hindrance to the development of the class political consciousness of the proletariat across national lines.
Many such quotations can be presented from Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. During the socialist construction, too, the Bolshevik Party clearly pointed out that the temporary federal structure was only a transitional step towards complete union, in the case where the lack of trust on the part of the erstwhile oppressed nations was still existing and they were immediately ready for the stage of a voluntary federation; however, this was made clear at the outset itself that the federation was not an end in itself and it was not the positive proposal of the revolutionary communists. Moreover, even for joining the federation, the pre-conditions were stipulated in strict terms, for instance, the central character of the foreign policy, monetary and economic policy, foreign trade, defence, etc. This is only an interregnum when the masses from different nations would democratically move towards complete union. The period of RSFSR (Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic) was later replaced with USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) which was initially and formally, a union with federal structure, but in essence, it assumed the form of a complete union, which was reflected in Soviet Constitution from 1936. It was precisely this constitution from which Sukhwinder blatantly distorted a quote and lied that USSR was federal! We have revealed this lie of Sukhwinder in the book Marxism-Leninism and the National Question: A Debate (written by Shivani and myself, published by Rahul Foundation in English in 2024 from Lucknow). We have also shown in the book that Stalin did not change Marxist-Leninist position on federalism, as Sukhwinder has claimed. Readers can refer to the above book for detailed explanation with quotes and other evidence.
Anyway, this much is certain: Marxist-Leninists do not demand decentralization or federalism. Either they demand consistent democracy with centralism (in the case of voluntary union on equal basis, of different nations residing in the same country, under the same state) or they demand the unconditional right to self-determination including the right to secede (in the case of oppressed nations). Sukhwinder’s demand for decentralization is nothing short of surrender and capitulation to the regional bourgeoisie of Punjab, which includes the kulaks and capitalist farmers, too. Sukhwinder erroneously considers Punjab as an oppressed nation, but shies away from demanding the right to self-determination, as his knees shake like a leaf. So, he presents a Trotskyite argument: even if a nation is oppressed, the stage of revolution for that oppressed nation would not be national democratic revolution, but socialist revolution in the oppressor state itself! So, the oppressed nation of Punjab should directly work for socialist revolution…in entire India! This is precisely what the likes of Parvus and Trotsky would heartily support and this is what the Dutch and Polish communists of the 1910s would support, who were severely criticized by Lenin for not understanding the national question.
Moving on.
Sukhwinder argues that there is a dichotomy between the monopoly capitalists who control the state in India and the oppressed nations (for Sukhwinder, believe it or not, all nations of India!) and the contradiction between them is increasing due to the centralizing impulse of the Modi government. Let us probe the correctness of this claim.
First of all, the monopoly capitalists who lead the ‘power bloc’, which controls the state in India, is constituted by the monopoly capitalists from different non-oppressed nations of India themselves. They have not descended from the planet of Mars or Venus! Sukhwinder never mentions in this essay (what he used to claim earlier in his childish scribbles) what is the character of this ‘monopoly bourgeoisie’ that he is talking about. Is it the ‘Hindi-belt’ monopoly bourgeoisie? No. Is it only the Gujarati bourgeoisie? No. Is it simply a Marwari Rajasthani bourgeoisie? Not at all! Then what is its character? For Sukhwinder, as per his original position, this bourgeoisie does not have any national character, because its national roots have been severed. The proof of this severance, according to Sukhwinder, was the fact that most of the members of this big bourgeoisie, be it Gujarati, Marwari, or Punjabi or Tamil, live in Mumbai, not in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab or Tamil Nadu! Can you believe such stupidity? Of course, the capitalists generally prefer to focus their official and financial operations in the financial capital and centres of any country. Most of the Spanish big bourgeoisie have their main headquarters in Barcelona, rather than Madrid. This is quite natural. According to Sukhwinder, this anational big bourgeoisie is oppressing all nations of India and they should secede to form separate nation-states! However, Sukhwinder does not raise the demand for secession in Punjab! Rather, he begs for alms from this anational big bourgeoisie: alms of federal rights and decentralization! Wow! Nothing can be more shameful for a person claiming to be a Marxist.
Anyway, the point is that Indian big bourgeoisie is not anational. It is constituted by the bourgeoisies of many non-oppressed nations that live in India. All of them have representation in the political power and economic might. Of course, the co-sharing is not and can never be equal. The general law of capitalism, the law of unequal development applies here, too. Among capitalists no sharing of either surplus or of political power can be equal. Some factions of the bourgeoisie have been traditionally stronger as they are much older than other factions, such as, the Gujaratis and the Marwaris. Whereas, some other factions emerged in a different political economic process and have a robust economic base, for instance, the Tamil bourgeoisie, bulk of which was not transformed from commercial and usurious capitalists to industrial-financial capitalists, but came into existence as entrepreneurial bourgeoisie itself, especially from engineering industries. Similarly, some other factions emerged much later from mining and metallurgy, due to shifting of huge surplus appropriated in the agricultural sector, for instance, Andhra and Telangana bourgeoisie.
We can go on to discuss the peculiarities of different bourgeoisies like that of Kerala, West Bengal, etc. Some factions of the bourgeoisie which share power at centre are backbenchers in terms of industrial and financial might, but in the game of bourgeois democracy, simply due to the demographic weight of their regions, they have a leeway. Of late, these factions have invested heavily in the real estate as well as certain industries and have increased their economic weight, too. For instance, the capitalist class in Uttar Pradesh. It goes without saying that the relative weight of the shares of different regional factions of the big bourgeoisie of India fluctuate due to the changing movements of profitability, which expresses itself differentially across regions, as well as changing internal political equations due to a variety of historical and political factors.
There is another reason why a bourgeoisie cannot be anational. Every dominant class needs mass legitimacy. Only an imperialist bourgeoisie can be “anational” within a colony or a neo-colony, because its rule is not based mainly on hegemony, but mainly on dominance through force and it cannot win mass legitimacy and it is least bothered about it, anyway. Or a comprador bourgeoisie can be “anational” in a totally different sense. Except these special cases, there can be no anational bourgeoisie in any possible sense of the term. There can be a ruling bourgeoisie which has a uninational character, in the cases of nation-states, or, there can be a multinational bourgeoisie in the cases of multinational countries, which has representations from the bourgeoisies of all the non-oppressed nations which reside in that country. Without this, the dominant classes would not be able to manufacture consent and thus, attain mass legitimacy. This is very simple to understand. Only those would find it difficult to understand who do not understand the historical difference between the rule of the capitalist class and the rule of the pre-capitalist ruling classes and those who do not understand the very concept of hegemony, though they, too, use it frequently and carelessly, without understanding it. Sukhwinder is one of them.
Therefore, Sukhwinder does not make any sense when he claims that the contradiction between the (anational) monopoly bourgeoisie which controls the central state on the one hand, and all the other nations (because all are oppressed for Sukhwinder!), on the other, is increasing due to the Modi government’s centralizing policies. Because the multinational monopoly bourgeoisie has contradictions with no nations (except the oppressed nations of Kashmir and North-East); it has contradiction with the working masses, that is, the working class, the poor and lower-middle peasants, semi-proletariat, and lower echelons of the petty-bourgeoisie of all non-oppressed nations.
You will find no reference to the class contradiction in Sukhwinder’s essay. Everything has been reduced to the binaries of centralization/decentralization, union/federation, central state/oppressed nations, etc. Class analysis is totally absent. The real contradiction is between the multinational ruling bourgeoisie and the working masses of all states and all non-oppressed nations of India on the one hand, and the oppressed nations on the other. This is symptomatic of the fact that Sukhwinder has completely departed from Marxism, though he could not be considered a serious Marxist, even when this departure had not been realized.
This position of Sukhwinder also dissipates the contradiction between the masses of these nations and their bourgeoisie. Because if all the nations are oppressed by the central state in possession of an anational bourgeoisie, then the principal contradiction is between these nations taken as a whole, including its national bourgeoisie, on the one hand, and, the ruling anational bourgeoisie on the other. If the entire contradiction is reduced to ‘the centre vs. all the nations that reside in India’ (which is intensifying under the Modi government’s centralizing drive!), then, for example, the masses of Punjab do not have to fight the bourgeoisie in Punjab at all, because in that case, there must be considerable sections of the Punjabi bourgeoisie, which still retain a ‘national character’ (in the anti-national-oppression sense) and the proletariat must form strategic alliance with them to fight against the national oppression! Consequently, the Punjabi working masses, in strategic alliance with the Punjabi national bourgeoisie, only need to fight against the anational big monopoly bourgeoisie at the centre. Then how can Sukhwinder justify his prescription for the stage of socialist revolution? Such contradictions abound in the utterly nonsensical line of Sukhwinder. He never even mentions the contradiction between the working class of Punjab and the regional medium and small bourgeoisie of Punjab, because then the national chauvinist line of this group is jeopardized altogether. What is this if not giving lap-dance to the regional bourgeoisie of Punjab?
Sukhwinder argues in the end of his essay that at present there is no condition for the formation of an anti-fascist ‘popular front’ because the communist movement is disintegrated and one should focus only on local struggles. Thus, locally, too, the struggle would be against the big monopoly bourgeoisie of the centre (which has no representation from the Punjabi bourgeoisie according to Sukhwinder; the Punjabi capitalists who are part of the monopoly bourgeoisie have no national roots for him!); thus, of course, in this struggle the regional Punjabi bourgeoisie including the powerful agricultural bourgeoisie of Punjab would become an ally! This is where the line of Sukhwinder leads to: complete surrender before, capitulation to and collaborationism with the regional Punjabi bourgeoisie. This what his political line on the national question entails and this precisely is what his unbelievably poor and ignorant line on fascism entails. It is not surprising therefore that in its dying state, this group is frothing at its mouth about “giving Chandigarh to Punjab”, “giving Panjabi University to Punjab”, etc. We are waiting for Sukhwinder and his band of infantiles to demand “appropriate share in GST” from the centre!
Finally, if the centralizing impulse of Modi government is increasing “the contradiction between the centre ruled by anational monopoly bourgeoisie and the all nations of India since all are oppressed (!)” then how does BJP has such strong foothold and social base in Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Assam, Haryana (also a nation according to Sukhwinder; earlier he used to say that it is Punjabi nation itself; later he claimed that Haryanvi is not a dialect but a language and since each language engenders a nation, Haryanvi people are a nation!), Bihar (inhabited by many nations like Magahi nation, Bhojpuri nation, all oppressed!) and now also in Odisha, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and has clearly demonstrated signs of its creeping consolidation in even Kerala and Tamil Nadu, all of which are inhabited by oppressed nations according to Sukhwinder? This social base is not only reflected in the electoral fortunes (in which, they indeed do reflect) but in general in political and social mobilizations and organization.
As the readers can see, Sukhwinder has again gloriously landed into a steaming pile of crap.
E. Sukhwinder’s Peculiar Anti-Fascist Slogan: Caste System is Obstructing the Rise of Fascism! Let’s Abolish Caste System and Clear the Way!
Let us now move to the last part of the above excerpt where Sukhwinder claims that the caste system of India, besides the multinationality of the country, is another “obstacle” in the path of fascism in India. Sukhwinder writes:
“Caste is another obstacle in the path of RSS’ fascism. RSS favours Varna system. Thus, Dalits, who form nearly 16% of India’s population, do not trust it.” (Sukhwinder, op.cit., p. 51)
However, in the section on tasks against fascism, merely after two and a half pages, Sukhwinder writes:
“We will have to struggle for the abolition of caste system. Struggle would also have to waged against the patriarchal oppression of women. Come what may, the fascists of India wish to preserve these.” (Sukhwinder, op.cit., p. 54)
What? The caste system is an obstacle to the rise of fascism in India, and, the fascists want to preserve the caste system? Either the fascists have gone mad, or the editor sa’ab of ‘Pratibaddh’ deserves to go to a lunatic asylum! The latter possibility seems to be more real and tangible. We will go into the outrageously idiotic claim of caste system being an obstacle before fascism in India a little bit later, but what is this madness? Did Sukhwinder forget what he wrote a few paragraphs ago? Did he not see the clear contradiction between both these claims? Is he saying that the Indian fascists want to “preserve” the caste system because it is a hurdle in the way of rise of fascism? What a buffoon!
Now let us deal with this baseless claim that caste system poses a threat to the rise of fascism in anyway, in India. Also, the claim that the 16 percent dalit population cannot veer politically towards RSS and Hindutva fascism is factually incorrect and is an identitarian argument which replace politics with identity. All claims can be tested only on the basis of facts and history. Do these claims hold any water historically? No. Let us understand.
Do the dalits have some insurmountable doubt regarding the BJP? It does not look that way. This assumption itself is based on a fallacy, namely, that the BJP is some kind of a feudal landlordist brahmanical party, which is intrinsically incapable of winning the support of the dalits. BJP is a fascist organization and one of the components of its ideology is indeed the brahmanical thought, in its contemporary capitalist form; however, the ideological ensemble that the fascist ideology represents in India, also has other components like pragmatism, revivalist religious reformism, and most importantly communalism, which allows it to adapt to the concrete caste dynamic of different regions of India. In fact, these components of the fascist ideology of the RSS are much more important.
Thus, what we see right now is this: in every state, the BJP has striven to win over all the dalit castes except the dominant dalit caste, which traditionally has its own party. The same tactics has been adopted in the case of the OBCs also. Thus, in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP has succeeded in winning over the bulk of non-Yadav OBC votes as well as non-Chamar and non-Jatav dalit votes. The Yadav votes go to the SP, whereas the Chamar/Jatav votes used to go mainly to the BSP and this time got partially divided between the BSP and the Azad Samaj Party, besides a considerable part going to the BJP as well. Similarly, in Haryana, too, the non-Chamar and non-Jatav dalit votes and non-Jat OBC votes went in bulk to the BJP. Besides, in Maharashtra, too, the non-Maratha OBC votes as well as the non-Mahar dalit votes have shifted to the BJP. In Gujarat, the bulk of dalit and tribal votes go to the BJP. The actual figures will explain this.
In 2014, in all the dalit reserved seats, the BJP won 27.6 percent votes, in 2019 in the dalit reserved seats the BJP won 35.3 percent votes and in 2024, in the same seats, the BJP won 34.5 percent votes. If we take the figures of the NDA, the same figures for the three elections would be 35.4 percent, 44.3 percent and 42.4 percent respectively. In Gujarat, 57 percent of the dalits voted for the BJP in the last Lok Sabha elections. In Odisha, too, 46 percent (the largest share) of the dalit votes went to the BJP. The vote share of BJP among the dalits decreased mainly in the UP and Haryana in the Lok Sabha elections of 2024, but in the Vidhan Sabha elections of Haryana, the story was totally different. Even in the West Bengal, where the BJP fell far behind TMC, the largest share of the dalit votes (45 percent) went to the BJP. In Assam, a state of the North-East, 70 percent of the dalits voted for BJP. Even in 2022 UP assembly elections, when the seat tally of BJP declined, 41 percent of non-Jatav dalit votes went to BJP and even 21 percent of the Jatav votes, a quite high figure, went to the BJP. In 2017, in the UP assembly elections, too, out of the 85 reserved seats BJP won 75 seats!
So, on what basis on earth, did Sukhwinder make such a preposterous claim? Did he read any data, any statistics, any report from psephologists, or even political scientists? No. May be he read some social media posts of identitarian dalits and Ambedkarites, who live in their own fantastic world, which has nothing to do with the concrete social reality.
There are many reasons for the shift of dalit votes to the BJP. One reason is the protracted decline, weakening and collapse of the bourgeois dalit parties, or their complete capitulation to the BJP. The second reason is implicit in the fact that the dalits themselves are divided into so many castes and sub-castes, with differential economic and social condition, as well as, political representation. Why the determination of sub-quotas within the SC reservation has found so much support among various non-dominant dalit castes explains this. Thus, for example, the non-Mahar, the non-Chamar and non-Jatav dalit votes have shifted en masse to the BJP. That is the beauty of dalit identitarianism! From the very beginning, there was a potential of this shift and now in the last two decades it has been happening in a big way.
The third reason is what certain sociologists have called creating a loyalty network through “new welfarism”, by the Modi government. This has allowed them to win over a considerable part of the dalit voters who have long been feeling left-out and unrepresented. The class cleavages within the dalit population has been given an identitarian misarticulation by the BJP and through this political maneuver, RSS has trumped the traditional dalit parties. The same has been done with the non-dominant OBC castes in most of the states, albeit in a different way.
Finally, communal card trumps every other card in the Indian society, except the one “card” (it is not a card per se, but a political line and program) which has not been played effectively: the revolutionary proletarian politics. A lot of people thought that mandal had trumped mandir. It is hard to find such people now, except the ones who live in some kind of delusion. A lot of people have also pinned their hopes on the politicking around the caste census to trump BJP; may be in the short run, it might lead to slight decline in vote percentage of the BJP among dalits and the OBCs. However, the strengthening of the identitarian politics among the OBCs and dalit masses will only make the BJP stronger in the long run. Despite the Mandal agitation, who is winning the bulk of the OBC votes today? The BJP!
Besides, and importantly, as a general fascist methodology, the RSS targets the most vulnerable, most invisible, most unrepresented communities within the dalits, OBCs and tribals. All of these communities can be co-opted and are indeed being co-opted within the fold of Hindutva, in the absence of any revolutionary intervention. The RSS has host of particular mass organizations and institutions like the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, Samajik Samrasata Manch, etc. These organizations do holistic work among the dalit, tribal, and OBC masses, which includes patient ideological propaganda, political propaganda and agitation and building a communal consensus among these masses by co-opting them into the highly elastic narrative of Hindutva. The planned and organized political and ideological work among these masses by the RSS and its organizations is a very important factor in the shift of dalit votes to the BJP during recent many elections.
One mistake that prevents such revolutionary intervention is such stupid beliefs that there is something intrinsic within the dalit identity, which makes the dalits antagonistic or at least non-trusting towards the BJP. That is the liberals’ and identitarians’ castle in Spain!
Thus, Sukhwinder has fallen prey to the TV channel discussions and certain op-ed articles, which continue to calculate ad infinitum a subaltern caste equation that would checkmate the electoral machine of the RSS and the BJP. However, the fact is that there is no such subaltern caste equation that can trump the BJP. In fact, every such identitarian equation would strengthen the fascist forces in the long run. The logic of identitarianism is endless fragmentation of movements and resistance along the lines of identity. Once the fragments have been atomized, the BJP successfully subsumes them within the Hindutva narrative and Hindutva machine, just as, in manufacturing, when the technical division of labour develops to a stage where each task has been separated and simplified to the highest degress, they can be easily automated in a compound system of tools with an automaton, that is, a machine. The RSS uses polyphony for this. On the one hand, in the internal life of BJP, brahmanical casteism prevails (just like in all other bourgeois parties it exists in varying degrees!), and on the other hand, they would give calls for abolition of caste to unite the Hindu society, an old call of the Hindu nationalist and revivalist-reformist organizations and individuals. Even though such calls have no more than propaganda value and are no more than a political tactic, it does indeed work in the context of the social contradictions that pervade the society, even within the dalits, between the dominant and non-dominant castes. The fascist politics has that promiscuous adaptability to co-opt the discontent and dissatisfaction of all who feel left-out and unrepresented, even among the dalits and the OBCs.
There is nothing intrinsic in the dalit identity itself which makes it antagonistic to the BJP and fascism in general.
Not only the electoral fortunes of the BJP have improved as a secular, that is, a long-term trend especially since the early-2000s itself, the RSS and the BJP have expanded organizationally and socially, too, among dalits. This development, too, has been documented by various scholars. The increasing organizational base of the fascist forces among the dalits is a well-recorded fact and this tendency has increased especially since the new millennium.
Sukhwinder should have read at least something about the subject he is writing on. It is clearly visible that he does not understand the dynamics of caste politics and its intersection with fascism in India. There is a general idea embedded in Sukhwinder’s brain (I don’t know from where he got this foolish idea!) that for the rise of fascism, the country in question must be homogeneous in social structure, it must be a uninational country, that is, a nation-state, it must not be heterogeneous or diverse in any respect. This is such an outrageous fallacy and idiocy that any layman can comprehend its vacuity. We have only demonstrated with some representative facts and historical data, that such fantastic ideas of our Trot-Bundist chieftain have no basis in social and political reality. Neither multinationality of India is an obstacle to the rise of fascism, nor is the caste system an obstacle to its rise. In fact, the fascist ideology and politics are flexible enough and have sufficient digestive power to co-opt and remold all these elements to adjust them structurally in their own Hindutva fascist narrative and they have been doing this not without considerable success in the past few decades, as we just saw.
F. Is the Modi Regime Fascist? Sukhwinder Reveals His Dogmatism Once Again
Following the relentless bombardment of the readers with inanities of the worst type, Sukhwinder moves to the question of the character of the Modi government. Is it fascist? Is it not fascist? This is what Sukhwinder writes in the very beginning:
“The union government of BJP is not a fascist regime. Fascist dictatorship has not been set up yet in India. The working class of India does not yet face the choice of fascism or bourgeois democracy rather the task facing it is that of setting up proletarian dictatorship in place of bourgeois democracy. This is so because at the moment the ruling classes, particularly the monopoly capitalists, do not face a serious crisis, neither at the economic front nor at the political one. The working class movement of India is scattered, broken up and disorganised. Here a countrywide communist party does not exist. The ruling classes of India face no such crisis which could threaten their existence. That is why, at the moment, naked fascist dictatorship is not required by ruling classes.” (Sukhwinder, op.cit., p. 51)
By now, the readers would have become capable of dissecting this ignorant paragraph. First of all, the government is not a regime! A regime represents the character of a particular state. Any kind of state might have a variety of state-forms and each state-form might have different kinds of governments. For instance, the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie can be established through a multi-party parliamentary democratic republic, a constitutional monarchy, or a fascist government, a military junta, a Bonapartist rule (with or without the shell/form of parliamentary system). To confuse government with a regime or a form of state is an old Kautskyite disease, regarding which Lenin had only scorn and ridicule. Lenin points out:
“To speak of forms of government in this connection is trebly stupid, for every schoolboy knows that monarchy and republic are two different forms of government. It must be explained to Mr. Kautsky that both these forms of government, like all transitional “forms of government” under capitalism, are but varieties of the bourgeois state, that is, of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.
“Lastly, to speak of forms of government is not only a stupid but also a very crude falsification of Marx, who was very clearly speaking here of this or that form or type of state, and not of forms of government.” (Lenin. V.I. 2021. The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky, Foreign Languages Press, Paris, p. 11, emphasis ours)
Poulantzas even makes a difference between forms of state, which themselves are determined by the relative weight of the parts of the state apparatus (for instance, the relative weight of the executive and the legislative, the relation between the repressive state apparatus and ideological state apparatus, etc.) within the limits posed by the class character of the state, on the one hand, and the forms of regime, on the other, that represent a certain form of state. (see Poulantzas. 1979. op.cit., p. 310-12). For Poulantzas, the question of the form of the state refers to the particular political conjuncture, that is, the conjuncture of the political class struggle, whereas the form of regime refer to the concrete methods of class struggle in that conjuncture. For us, there is no need to dwell on this distinction here, as every form of regime corresponds to a particular form of state itself. The point here is that Sukhwinder is unaware of the difference between the government and the state-form, which engender particular forms of regime. Anyway, Sukhwinder claims that Modi government is not a “fascist regime” (?). There are two things to consider here. What is the character of the Modi regime, then? Is it bourgeois democratic for him? If yes, then he should say so clearly. Moreover, when did he begin to have this position? Because in December 2019 editorial of ‘Pratibaddh’, Sukhwinder argues that the Modi government is indeed a fascist government. We did not find any self-criticism in his booklet on fascism, which would have been a mark of honesty on the part of Sukhwinder. However, by now, we have ceased to have any such expectation regarding him. So, we will analyze his present claims.
The second fallacy in Sukhwinder’s argument presented above is that the rise of fascism to power must happen in the same way in which it happened in the early-Twentieth century, namely, in the form of what Sukhwinder calls “bare-naked dictatorship”. We have already explained in detail earlier in this critique that whether the fascist forces would abandon the form/shell of parliamentary system or retain it, depends on a variety of historical and political factors.
We have demonstrated above and we will also elaborate towards the end that in the neoliberal phase, the rise of fascism assumes qualitatively different form due to some fundamental changes: one, the changes in the nature of capitalist crisis, whereby the crisis has assumed the form of a long chronic crisis, instead of much shorter cycles of boom and bust; two, the reactionary response of the bourgeoisie in the form of an aggressive onslaught of capital against the working class and working people in general, which has assumed varied forms in different capitalist countries; three, as a consequence, changes in the very structure of the form of bourgeois state in general, to which various scholars from Poulantzas and Meiksins Wood, to Tamas, Palheta and others have alluded to; four, the consequent decay of the bourgeois democratic content of the form of bourgeois parliamentary system, due to the changes in the very nature of the state apparatus; five, the decay of the remaining democratic character of the bourgeoisie as a political class faced with a protracted crisis; six, the review of summation of their own historical experience by the fascists themselves who recognize the fact pretty well that abandoning the shell of the bourgeois democracy is neither required today in the light of the above changes, nor is it desirable, as it makes the fascist rise inherently fragile and the defeat of fascism assumes the form of total destruction and banishment from the stage of history for a long time.
All these fundamental changes are completely lost on Sukhwinder. He does not understand that why fascism required the abandoning of the form of the parliamentary system in the early-Twentieth century, why it had to assume a particular form of state-project, which must be fulfilled in the form of a cataclysmic event, and why today, the fascist project must be an ongoing project. He does not understand why today the fascist rise would have, to use Sumit Sarkar’s words, ‘a long gestation period’, which allows itself to assume the form of, again to use Aijaz Ahmad’s words, ‘a hurricane from below’. In other words, it has a long incubation period, in which it wages a long ‘war of positions’ and intermittently moves to short and swift periods of ‘wars of movement’, depending upon the general context of the economic crisis and particular conjuncture of political class struggle. These short periods of wars of movement assume the form of paroxysms, just like 1992, 2002, etc. In this long incubation period it performs two tasks: one, deep infiltration into the apparatus of the state, including the police, the army, the bureaucracy, the judiciary, and the premier institutions like the EC, the ED, the CBI, as well as what Althusser has called the ideological state apparatuses from schools, colleges, universities, media and religious apparatuses like maths (monasteries) and other religious bodies etc.; two, a molecular permeation into the very pores of the society through a patient and protracted institutional reform and cultural work.
These changes have allowed the fascists to accomplish, more-or-less, an internal take-over of the state. The mass legitimacy of the bourgeois system cannot, in general, be maintained in the long-term by abandoning the shell/form of bourgeois parliamentary system, and there is no need of this enterprise anyway due to the changes in the neoliberal phase noted above. However, certain contradictions stem from this obligation to maintain the shell of bourgeois parliamentary system. This entails the possibility of the fascist forces going out of the government due to losing elections in the periods of high economic discontent and their resultant political articulations, which do not bode well for the electoral fortunes of the fascist party. However, even during these periods outside the governmental power, the fascist forces maintain their positions within the political society, that is, the state, as well as the civil society. They do not only maintain these positions, they strive to strengthen these positions, in order to organize their next political offensive. Thus, the fascist forces today can go in and out of the government, while maintaining their positions in the state apparatus and the society, with the obvious support of the bourgeoisie. That is the reason why any other party or coalition, when in power, do not and cannot, in general, take any decisive action against the fascist forces. It is not about the will or wish of the likes of Rahul Gandhi or Tejashwi Yadav. It is about the will and wish of the bourgeoisie as a political class, which even the Congress or other bourgeois parties represent. The dominant classes would not allow any other bourgeois government to take any decisive action against the fascists; moreover, the state apparatus itself is not under strict control of such parties, whenever they are in power. This also relates to the increasing weight of the executive in the entire political process of capitalist system in the present conjuncture, which has been deeply infiltrated by the fascist forces.
This is a short recap of the reasons why the fascist forces would not abandon the shell of the bourgeois parliamentary system today, even if they sometimes run the risk of going out of the government. Their rise to power does not assume the form of a cataclysmic event anymore (in which case their end, too, would have assumed the form of a cataclysmic event); it is an ongoing process or project which never ends but continues perpetually in a contradictory manner and precisely for this reason, it perpetually tends to completeness but is never complete. Thus, it has now assumed the form of a constantly and perpetually ongoing project, rather than a cataclysmic event.
That is why, the going out of governmental power for the fascists does not mean their total destruction and banishment from the stage of history. On the contrary, they remain in their consolidated positions within the state apparatus as well as the society. Haven’t we been witnessing this process from the mid-1990s itself? With every paroxysm, the fascist forces become more entrenched in the state apparatus as well as the society. Their rise takes a chronic form, rather than acute form. Therefore, those, who, like Sukhwinder, are waiting for what Sukhwinder calls “bare-naked fascist dictatorship”, would wait forever like the characters in Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. That situation, in general, is not going to come. As a consequence, Sukhwinder has no anti-fascist strategy as we shall see.
Further.
It must be understood that in the past as well as today, even in the conditions of a fascist regime, the proletariat is not necessarily faced with the binary of bourgeois democracy/fascist dictatorship (a false binary even in the period of the Seventh Congress of the Comintern). Today, of course, it is not at all faced with this binary because the shell of the bourgeois parliamentary system is not abandoned by the fascists. However, as in the past, even if it was abandoned, it is not a given or axiomatic that the proletariat would face this false binary and would necessarily be fighting for restoration of bourgeois democracy. Whether the proletariat in such a political situation would fight for the restoration of the bourgeois democracy (the excess of the weakness of the proletarian forces over that of the bourgeois forces), or people’s democracy/new democracy (the excess of the weakness of the bourgeois forces over that of the proletarian forces) or socialist democracy or the dictatorship of the proletariat (the decisive strength of the proletarian forces), would depend on the accumulation and alignment of the class forces, or in other words, on the particular conjuncture of the class struggle. Sukhwinder, like a loyal dogmatist, has mindlessly copied some formulae (incorrect anyway!) from his sketchy and dumb reading of certain quotations from variety of sources, and had converted it into the conditio sine qua non of anti-fascist proletarian strategy.
G. Once Again on the Pre-conditions of Rise of Fascism: Sukhwinder Repeats His Balderdash
Sukhwinder claims since the Indian bourgeoisie, especially monopoly capitalist class is not faced with economic crisis, because Modiji has informed him that the GDP growth rate is over 7 percent, the fundamental cause for the fascist rise is absent! We have shown above that Sukhwinder is behaving like a true Modi-bhakt here. We have quoted various researches by even non-Marxist economists who have revealed that the GDP data released by the Modi government is fake and the actual real GDP growth rate has never been above 3 to 3.7 percent after 2016 and even before that it was never above 5 percent. Secondly, Sukhwinder does not know that GDP must be converted into the Marxist terms of value-product by deducting the non-production sectors from the calculation, in order to calculate the Marxian rate of profit. He takes GDP as the rate of profit. We have exposed the bankruptcy of Sukhwinder on this issue above, including the other issues of political economy in general.
Moreover, the very nature of the long, chronic crisis is that it assumes the form of a long mild recession, collapsing periodically into serious long depressions. It is not a pre-condition for the rise of the fascist forces to power that there must be something of the sorts of the ‘Great Depression’. Even in Italy, fascism seized power much before the ‘Great Depression’ and due to a domestic economic slow-down. Finally, a political crisis might brew even under conditions of a chronic, instead of acute, crisis, as the case of Italy demonstrates. Sukhwinder’s formula is like this: ‘acute economic crisis = political crisis = rise of exceptional form of state like fascism’. However, the economic crisis and political crisis have a much more complicated relation than that. Sukhwinder also thinks that in the rich capitalist countries, the bourgeoisie can prevent the economic crisis from developing into political crisis! We have demonstrated above that Sukhwinder fails to understand the general relation between the political and the economic, namely, the relation of relative autonomy.
The third assertion of the Sukhwinder is equally inane. He argues that since there is no threat of revolutionary working class in India, fascism cannot come into power! He assumes that fascism comes into power only when the bourgeoisie is threatened by a revolutionary upsurge of the proletariat! Therefore, if there is no united communist party in India, if the working class is not in position to mount a political offensive, if it is scattered, then there is no question of fascist rise to power. Again, we have shown above in detail that fascist rise to power is not a response to the threat of the revolutionary working class or the political offensive of the proletariat. On the contrary, it is the absence of the political offensive of the proletariat, which leads to fascist rise to power. We have shown by referring to the studies of Clara Zetkin, Antonio Gramsci, Nicos Poulantzas, David Abraham, Kurt Gossweiler, and others and even from the tacit admission of this fact by Dimitrov in the Seventh Congress, that fascism begins its offensive only when it is not faced by a rising political offensive of the proletariat. In the words of Gramsci, it begins to maneuver only when the offensive of the proletariat has already fallen dormant, silent and has subsided.
In the case of the Twenty-first century rise of fascism, in most of the countries where fascism’s ‘hurricane from below’ has seized power, or has started to move in that direction, the working class movement is already in disarray. With the collapse of socialist experiment in China, one historical round of proletarian revolutions came to an end, inaugurating a protracted era of defeat and reversal. We are still far from the point where the rising tide of proletarian revolutions will take the centre-stage of history. We are still in the period of a correct evaluation of the positives and negatives of the socialist experiments of the Twentieth century, of a Marxist assessment of the changes in the modus vivendi and modus operandi of capitalism in the period following the Second World War, in general, and in the period of the neoliberal globalization, in particular, the development of the new forms and strategies of working-class movement, envisaging the building and formation of the communist party along the Bolshevik lines in this new conjuncture and the recommencement of the accumulation of the forces of the proletariat under the instrumentalized leadership of the vanguard party in order to enable it to break the hegemony of the bourgeois political line among the masses and establish its own political leadership of the masses.
Can someone claim that, since in this period, there is not going to be an imminent threat of the proletarian revolution, there can be no fascist rise? There can be nothing more preposterous, and more importantly, dangerous and suicidal than that. Despite the absence of the threat of proletarian political offensive the world has become witness to the rise to power of a variety of far-right forces from reactionary neo-Bonapartists like Putin, to quasi-fascist and authoritarian Erdoğan, from fascist Modi to the quasi-fascist Duterte, from authoritarian right-wing populists like Bolsonaro to military dictators who retained the parliamentary form.
Sukhwinder forgot one basic teaching of Marx, which he articulated when he was polemicizing against Proudhon: all abstractions, including economic and political categories emerge from history; history does not engender from such categories, as if these categories were the Hegelian demi urgos which engendered the real concrete human history; moreover, economic or political abstractions express the essence of the infinitely rich social and political phenomena, but the essence itself does not exist in the phenomena as such, because that essence is the result of the abstraction, generalization and summation of the rich phenomena. Marx wrote:
“Economic categories are only the theoretical expressions, the abstractions of the social relations of production. M. Proudhon, holding things upside down like a true philosopher, sees in actual relations nothing but the incarnation of these principles, of these categories, which were slumbering—so M. Proudhon the philosopher tells us—in the bosom of the “impersonal reason of humanity.”” (Marx, K. 2021. Poverty of Philosophy, Foreign Languages Press, Paris, p. 101)
In a uniquely poor parallel, Sukhwinder wants to see the reincarnation of the abstraction of a very poor the idea of fascism that he has conjured up in his mind from a complete misreading of and ignorance about the historical experience of fascism in the early-Twentieth century, in the contemporary world. However, history walks two steps ahead of even the greatest of the abstractions, and the less we talk about the quality of Sukhwinder’s abstraction (!), the better it will be. Anyway, we have already dealt in detail with Sukhwinder’s false and foolish assertion that fascism emerges as a response to the revolutionary onslaught of the working class. We have shown in detail that in every case, the very process of fascist rise began as the result of the absence of any revolutionary offensive of the proletariat.
Let us deal with another important point here. Even the presence of a powerful organized working-class movement under the leadership of the social-democrats, which is imprisoned within the limits of economism and trade-unionism is not a pre-requisite for the rise of fascism. In the early-Twentieth century historical cases of rise of fascism in Germany and Italy, the objective economic impact of the economism and trade-unionism of the organized working-class movement was “profit-squeeze” for the bourgeoisie already reeling under the impact of economic crisis and the consequent dissolution of the labour-capital compromise. However, today, there is no existence of such a large organized working class. In fact, 93 percent of the working class is engaged in the unorganized/informal sector. As a consequence, there is no question of the rise of that kind of organized workers’ movement in the conditions of neoliberal globalization, that is, in the new regime of accumulation and the new mode of regulation that emerged since the 1970s itself. Does that mean there can be no fascist rise anymore? Of course, nothing can be more foolish and self-destructive than that. However, even without the presence of such organized working-class movement, the social-democracy does play its political role in the systematic depoliticization of the working-class by preventing it from becoming the political leader of the working masses and sticking to whatever economic rights it has, rather than going beyond that and thinking politically.
Moreover, we must understand that today, in the structural sense, the capitalist class in most of the capitalist countries is much more fragile and vulnerable than the early-Twentieth century. The economic vulnerability of the world capitalist system today, notwithstanding the unprecedented increase in its military might, is qualitatively much greater than that in the early-Twentieth century. It is continuously bogged down in the mire of a long recession which collapses into serious depressions at the drop of a hat, from the speculative maneuvers of a single capitalist, or bank or speculator.
This crisis is not cataclysmic like the crises before the Second World War and we have already discussed this change in the nature of capitalist crises, as predicted by Engels more than a century ago and later others as well. However, the nature of the industrial cycles has undergone a change and this is reflected in the shorter periods of boom and much longer periods of crisis and stagnation. As a consequence, the bourgeoisie is economically much more fragile and much more vulnerable. It does not need the additional “profit squeeze” induced by an intransigent organized workers’ movement that stubbornly clings to its economic benefits and at the same time systematically refuses to beyond the ambit of the system, due to the reformist illusions inculcated in this class by the revisionists. In other words, today, the economic registers of the impact of the social-democrats on the working-class movement are much weaker, whereas, at the same time, its political registers are as strong as before.
H. How Much Multinationality is Sufficient to Pose an Obstruction to Fascism? Sukhwinder’s “Innovative” Measuring Tape
Sukhwinder presents his persistent idiocy regarding the multinational character of India as an obstacle to the rise of fascism:
“Second cause of this is the multinational character of India and very uneven development of fascist movement. Though in the past, naked dictatorships of the capitalist class have been established in multinational countries, like the Franco dictatorship of Spain which was primarily a military dictatorship. This is common in both military and fascist dictatorship that both throw away the mask of parliamentary democracy and enforce naked dictatorship of the capitalist class. But the condition of India is different than that of countries like Spain. Firstly, the national diversity here is much greater and secondly, there does not exist the clear domination of any one nation. But still the possibility of the setting up of naked dictatorship by the capitalist class in the future cannot be rejected outright. This possibility depends primarily on the nature of crisis facing the ruling classes here.” (Sukhwinder, op.cit., p. 51-52)
We have already shown the vacuity of this argument. However, few more words about this idiocy is in order here.
Sukhwinder presents two reasons why in India, the multinationality of the country would indeed be a hindrance to the rise of fascism. First, that its multinationality is quantitatively greater than that of Spain, where a military dictatorship did come into being in the 1930s. Secondly, unlike Germany, Italy or Spain in India there is no clear domination of one nation. Both these arguments lack one thing: basic reason! Let us demonstrate this.
First of all, the first logic is purely quantitative. It does not in itself make a difference that in Spain, the multinationality was quantitatively less than that in India. For such comparison, in order to determine, how much of something is less or more, there must be a benchmark, a standard. How much multinationality, in quantitative terms, is sufficient to pose an obstacle before the rise of fascism or other forms of exceptional state, for Sukhwinder? How much multinationality quantitatively speaking would not be consequential for the rise of fascism? There must be a standard, a benchmark to determine the excess or lack of this multinationality. One can also argue that Spain’s geographical expanse, too, is much smaller than that of India! Shouldn’t one counterweigh all other indicators, while keeping this difference in mind? Spain, in proportion to its geographical expanse has many nations and nationalities: the Spanish, the Catalans, the Basques, the Galicians, the Andalusians, the Valencians, the Balearics, the Aragonese, etc. Some of these nations are demographically speaking, considerably large, like the Catalans, the Basques, the Galicians, etc. Therefore, the quantitative logic of Sukhwinder would not work. One cannot say that variable ‘A’ is too much and variable ‘B’ is too less, unless and until, a benchmark or standard for the appropriate range of quantity is determined beforehand, otherwise, the whole determination would become purely relativistic and subjective. Thus, the basic question is the multinationality of a country, not the particular quantity of multinationality. The example of Spain, too, proves that such multinationality is no obstacle at all to the emergence of an exceptional state, in the case of Spain, a quasi-fascist military dictatorship like that of Franco.
Since Sukhwinder has decided beforehand, acting in the capacity of the self-proclaimed personalization of the ‘Supreme Idea’, that fascism will not rise to power, he will not have to form the ‘popular front’ with the Congress, the AAP and the Akalis (a quite embarrassing exercise, that would be!), therefore, the only task is to work for socialist revolution in India! One might interject: “what about the national oppression of Punjab? Wouldn’t Punjab first resolve the national-democratic question, since it is nationally-oppressed by Indian anational bourgeoisie?” Sukhwinder responds: “That question would be solved with the socialist revolution in India itself!” This is the crux of the Trot-Bundist line on the national question. The oppressed nations do not have the national-democratic stage of revolution; they must fight for socialist revolution in the oppressor country and till that revolution is accomplished, they should demand federal rights from the central state of the oppressor country! To peddle such a bankrupt line and at the same time claim to be a Leninist is preposterous. Thus, for Sukhwinder, the oppressed nations of Russian empire like the Ukrainians, Georgians, Armenians, Azerbaijanis, Tajiks, Uzbeks, etc. should not have fought for national liberation but for socialist revolution in the country of the oppressor nation, that is, Russia in this case, or the oppressed nations like Palestine, should fight for socialist revolution in Israel! What could be more outrageous and preposterous?
Coming to the second reason given by Sukhwinder as to why fascism cannot rise to power due to the multinationality of India: the lack of a clear domination of one nation. What does he mean? There is only vague/unclear domination of one or a host of nations? Or does he want to say that the oppressive entity, the Indian state, has no national character, that is, the ruling class which is in possession of the state-power, has neither a multinational character, nor a uninational character? From the uniquely poor intellectual record of the editor sa’ab of ‘Pratibaddh’, it seems that he is saying that the ruling class in India is anational. It is a big monopoly bourgeoisie which has no national character (in the generic sense, not in the political anti-imperialist sense), it has no roots, and it exists in Sukhwinder’s mind, as ether once existed in the imagination of medieval alchemists! We have shown that this argument is baseless. Then what is the character of the Indian bourgeoisie, vis-à-vis its national character in the generic sense.
It is, indeed, a multinational bourgeoisie, what historians and political economists have termed as a ‘composite ruling class’ in terms of national character. The bourgeoisie of various non-oppressed nations of India, have a share in the economic and political power. It goes without saying that just like all other multinational states and multinational bourgeoisie, the shares of different national fractions of the ruling multinational bourgeoisie are not and cannot be equal and also that these shares change historically.
Moreover, if an anational bourgeoisie is the dominant class in possession of the state-power, how and why is it an obstacle in the path of fascism’s rise to power? If a single nation’s bourgeoisie is in power, according to Sukhwinder, it will have no problem in imposing one of its exceptional political choice, that is, fascism, because, according to Sukhwinder, it would be able to rely upon nationalism. Again, Sukhwinder assumes that fascism relies upon nation and nationalism, as historical categories. However, that was not the case with the German Nazism, which relied upon, not the German nation which did include the German Jews, too, but on a purely ideological construction of what a nation was and what its ‘nationalism’ would be. That was also not the case with Italian fascism, which glorified the ancient Roman Empire as the millenarian place of return for Italy, which dates to a period when the very category of nation had not come into being. The Nazi idea of “German Aryan Nation” included even those, who were not part of German nation originally, but whom the Germans did consider the part of German Aryan identity due to their particular racial identity. However, it excluded those parts of the German nation, which were racially “impure” from the Nazi standards of “Aryan-ness”.
If fascism has to rely upon a pathological version of “nationalism” based, not on the historical category of nation, but on a purely ideological community, a construct conjured up on the basis of a chauvinistic ideology, then domination of a single-nation’s bourgeoisie, or that of a multinational bourgeoisie, or Sukhwinder’s “anational” bourgeoisie does not make any difference at all, because the fascists’ “nation” is a fetishistic construct fabricated on the basis of a chauvinistic ideology like communalism, racism, xenophobia, etc. Based on such chauvinistic ideology, the fascist politics can construct the purely ideological idea of ‘nationhood’, based on racial, religious, ethnic, linguistic, or regional identity and it would not matter, therefore, whether this idea can be supported by the historical nationalism of a historical nation or not, because, from the very outset, the fascist ideology and politics is not based on those historical categories. It is not without reason that Golwalkar had to strive to define the nationhood (‘We, our nationhood defined). Would Sukhwinder contend that the Nazi idea of German Aryan nation, was based on the historical German nation? If he does, then it is obvious that he is in the need of basic school-level tutoring on the theory and history of Nazism in Germany.
The fascists construct a purely ideological community and name it as ‘nation’. Just like the German Aryan Nation had nothing national about it, the ‘Hindu Rashtra’, too, has nothing national about it, and it does not need to have! Secondly, this identity is based on a chauvinistic ideology. Third, it is extremely adaptive and flexible, and has a promiscuous quality about it. It can easily co-opt the Odiya Hindu identity as well as the Malayalam Hindu identity; it can adjust the Assamese idea of Hindu-ness as well as the deities of various tribals within the fold of a Hindutva identity, which is, not so strangely, syncretic as well as semitized. It will use “go-rakhsha” where it works, and it would use the promises to supply “more beef” where it works; it will burn Christians alive in Odisha, while, at the same time, ally with the Christian fundamentalists in Kerala against Muslims; it can ally even with Sikh fundamentalists, even while, at times, prosecuting the Sikhs by branding them collectively as khalistanis! This is precisely because of the fact that the basest and vilest kind of pragmatism is a component and constituent element of fascist ideology and politics. Its only principle is that in the pursuit of the will to power for the monopoly big capital, there is and should be no principle. The will of power itself is the only principle and it justifies all means.
It will use any cleavage in the society, any contradiction in the society to misarticulate in the reactionary far-right manner. It only needs one ‘big other’, the principal imagined enemy. In Hitler’s case, it were the Jews; in Hindutva fascism’s case, it is the Muslims. In general, it is only this polar opposite of the ‘imagined nation’ of the fascists and the imagined enemy, whereby the false enemy cannot and must not be adjusted within the Hindutva identity, because the very identity of the false enemy is also constitutive of the Hindutva identity. All others can somehow be co-opted. Except this axial other, all the rest can be co-opted and adjusted in differential situations in differential ways, from dalits and tribals to women, from Malayali to Odiya, from Assamese to Lingayats and from Christians to Jains, Buddhists and even Sikhs. This quality or trait is precisely what the revolutionaries need to understand regarding fascist ideology and politics if they hope to resist and dismantle it. And this is precisely what Sukhwinder is totally dense and oblivious about. He takes fascist propaganda on its face-value and hypothecates that since nationalism is an essential component of fascism, fascism cannot rise to power or will find it extremely difficult to rise to power in a country that is multinational. Nothing can be further from the truth. Such a claim only betrays the particular crude and vulgar dogmatism, ignorance and inanity of Sukhwinder.
Further.
I. Can Fascism Come to Power Only in an Imperialist, Militarist, Expansionist Country? Sukhwinder’s Vacuousness Exposed Again
The following excerpt of Sukhwinder reveals that he does not understand even those basic characteristic features of fascism which even school kids reading the old NCERT textbooks would understand; it is so childish and immature that even a common reader not acquainted with the nuances of the history of fascism in the early-Twentieth century Europe would not be able to miss its particularly asinine character. Sukhwinder writes:
“While discussing about fascism is India, we must bear in mind that India is not an imperialist country like Germany or Italy. India is a backward capitalist country which is economically dependent on imperialism. National chauvinism, militarism which is an important characteristic of fascism is not to be found in fascism of India. Though RSS/Sangh Parivar continue to create an anti-Pakistan “national” chauvinistic atmosphere but this does not receive an impassioned response from the entire country. This anti-Pakistan, “national” chauvinist jingoism provoked by Sangh Parivar remains restricted to the so called Hindi belt. In Punjab the atmosphere exactly opposite to this.
“The limited “national” chauvinist jingoism provoked by Indian fascists fail to serve any end because Pakistan too has nuclear weapons. Second country which is presented as an enemy by fascists of Sangh is China. Waging war against China is beyond the realm of capabilities of rulers of India. The fascism of India, unlike the fascism of Germany and Italy, is not in a position to wage wars and occupy other countries.” (Sukhwinder, op.cit., p. 52)
How do we even begin? The load of crap zipped in just two small paragraphs! The compressing ability of editor of ‘Pratibaddh’ is unique! Let us try to dismantle this heap of idiocy.
Fascism is an arch-reactionary political trend of the bourgeoisie reeling under economic and political crisis, which emerges in the imperialist stage, which refers to the general stage of world capitalism. Does it mean that fascism can rise to power only in those countries, which themselves are imperialist, and therefore militaristic, war-monger, etc.? No. Fascism as a political trend emerges in the imperialist stage because it is precisely in this stage that the bourgeoisie, in general, loses its republican and democratic character and becomes increasingly reactionary and chauvinistic. It becomes increasingly bereft of its democratic potential, which have been exhausted once the anti-feudal tasks, and in the case of colonial world, the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal tasks have been fulfilled.
The bourgeoisie in the imperialist countries becomes increasingly reactionary and chauvinistic because with the accomplishment of the anti-feudal tasks, with the reaching of the saturation-point of the ‘laissez faire’ capitalism, with the reaching of the concentration and centralization of capital to a qualitatively new stage, namely, the monopoly stage, the ruling bourgeoisie is obliged to shed the democratic and republican pretenses, assume an open offensive against the forces of labour, scramble for the limited opportunities of profitable investment at the national and international level, attack the basic civil and democratic rights of the masses.
On the other hand, the bourgeoisie in the colonial world, which came into existence in the imperialist stage itself, which lacked the radical democratic spirit of the Renaissance, Reformation, Enlightenment, the Scientific Revolution and classical bourgeois democratic revolutions, which began fighting against imperialism, but in a capitulationist and collaborationist manner (we are talking about the national bourgeoisie here), which has a tendency to become scared of the revolutionary upsurge of the masses and therefore regulate the mass national movement to keep it within the ambit of its own interests, which has a tendency to veer towards compromising with the imperialists whenever it is threatened with the revolutionary movement of the working masses; this bourgeoisie never truly had any radical democratic potential, in general, except in certain mass moments of the national movement, and whenever it did show some radical or militant element it was mostly due to the mass pressure from below, or due to the peasant component of this class, which was inclined to fight more militantly than the nascent industrial bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie, therefore, which came into power in the so-called ‘Third World’ countries between the 1940s and 1990s, did not have any democratic or republican character from the very beginning, but was opportunist, reactionary, anti-people and chauvinistic. That is the reason why the bourgeoisie in the imperialist countries as well as the other post-colonial relatively backward capitalist countries, have hardly any progressive democratic character in the Stage of Imperialism.
That is the reason why, fascism as a reactionary tendency of the bourgeoisie faced with the crisis of capitalism in the monopoly stage (which is not a negation of competition, but intensification and condensation of competition), emerges in the stage of imperialism. It does not in any way mean that fascism will emerge only in those countries that are imperialist, and therefore war-monger and militarist. To deduce such conclusions from the basic Marxist proposition that fascism emerges in the stage of imperialism, would not only be historically incorrect but also theoretically bankrupt. Thus, Sukhwinder has confused the question of the imperialist stage as a world-historic stage of the development of world capitalism as the general context in which fascism rises, with the notion that fascism rises only in the imperialist, militarist and expansionist countries. Nothing can be more inane.
Sukhwinder claims that national chauvinism and militarism is an important characteristic of fascism which is absent from the fascism of India. Regarding the national chauvinism, we have discussed earlier in this critique in detail. Now let us come the question of militarism.
First of all, this assumption itself, that fascism must be militaristic is incorrect. In Germany and Italy, the fascist regimes were bound to be militaristic. Had a non-fascist bourgeois regime come to power in the conditions created after the First World War and the end of the period of labour-capital compromise (Weimer period in Germany and Giolitti’s period in Italy), they, too, would have been militaristic. Why? This is due to the position in which Germany and Italy found themselves after the First World War in the chain of imperialism. Germany was the defeated side and had to pay excessive reparations and face the political humiliation under the terms of the Versailles Treaty. On the other hand, Italy felt cheated and deceived despite being on the side of the winning coalition for a variety of economic and political reasons.
Both these latecomers in the industrial capitalist world, which entered the industrial capitalist world in the monopoly stage of capitalism led by the finance capital and the state, had also been vying for a greater share in the colonial loot and plunder of the world. In a very short span of time, they had emerged among the leading industrial powers of the world. However, despite increasing economic might and political clout, their share in the booty at the international level was disproportionately low. These countries were bound to become militaristic and expansionist, whether under fascist regime or under some other reactionary regime. The reasons of this militarism and expansionism were not implicit in the conjunctural factor of the rise of fascist regimes in these countries but in the structural factor of their late entry into the club of advanced industrial capitalist powers having strong imperial ambitions. That is why, on this particular point, Ignazio Silone is correct, when he says: “This is not to deny that there is also a militarist element in fascism, but it is not its basic one.” (Beetham, D. 1983. op.cit., p. 239, emphasis ours)
Sukhwinder’s claim that the anti-Pakistan militaristic rhetoric fuelled by the Sangh Parivar does not find resonance in India, except in the Hindi belt. Can you believe these bullshit claims? First of all, this rhetoric not only finds resonance in all parts of India, they are particularly strong in certain states, which Sukhwinder considers to be “oppressed nations”, for instance, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and even Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Moreover, Punjab, too, is not immune from this jingoistic frenzy. Why Sukhwinder is making such a baseless claim? It is an effort to demonize the so-called Hindi-belt, as if it is the harbinger of fascism in India and its population constitutes one homogeneous reactionary mass. This tendency of Sukhwinder also stems from his Punjabi chauvinist nationalist position, which drives him against, not simply the “imposition of Hindi” (he never talks about imposition of English, which happens over the so-called ‘Hindi-belt’ too!) but against Hindi itself and the people who speak Hindi.
Sukhwidner’s position often degenerates to the level of the reactionary Tamil national chauvinists who talk about “Hindians” destroying the great Tamil land. Needless to say, these people who are being called “Hindians” in a derogatory manner are actually the hundreds of millions of toilers who do back-breaking work in Tamil Nadu and also in the fields and factories of Punjab. In fact, ‘Lalkaar’ and ‘Pratibaddh’ social media handles and those of their members used to share such anti-North Indian social media posts of reactionary nationalists from Tamil Nadu who called the North-Indians as “Hindians”. Every well-read observer knows how such pejorative epithets merely try to hide the deep-rooted anti-working class prejudices of the petty-bourgeoisie of these nations. The working class of these nations does not and cannot harbor such notions, except the sections that are under the strong influence of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideology and politics. The truth is that Sukhwinder harbors the same chauvinistic notions. That is the true sentiment of Sukhwinder which finds its way across the filters of political correctness and expresses itself in this way, as the fact of sharing of such posts of the most reactionary elements of Tamil nationalists through the social media handles of ‘Lalkaar’ and ‘Pratibaddh’ demonstrates.
Sukhwinder’s childish logic that India’s militaristic rhetoric against Pakistan does not work because Pakistan has nuclear weapons, too, is appropriate for schoolboys or for some bourgeois television debate. India and Pakistan have engaged in the Kargil War, after both the countries had already become nuclear powers. Pakistan successfully developed nuclear weapons in 1984 whereas India had already become a nuclear power in 1974. To assume that nuclear powers cannot engage in military conflicts without the use of nuclear weapons is an assumption, which again shows the utter ignorance of Sukhwinder regarding international politics. Such statements suit the street and platitudinarian understanding of Sukhwinder, which, too, he copies from this or that website or ‘prefaces’ or ‘introductions’ of some pulp history or college reference book on international relations.
In the end of this subhead Sukhwinder claims that unlike Germany and Italy, India is not in a position to wage wars, show militarism, or occupy other countries. So? Are these necessary characteristic features of fascism? If yes, then Sukhwinder must develop this line of argumentation and claim that fascism cannot rise to power in all the post-colonial relatively backward capitalist countries (needless to say, China cannot be counted among these) because they are not going to wage wars and occupy countries. The readers can see the empty-headedness of the editor of ‘Pratibaddh’. He has just written anything!
Moreover, militarism is a political tendency which is not necessarily expressed in waging wars against other countries and occupying them. Franco’s Spain, too, was militaristic. However, on its own, it did not wage wars against any country or occupy it. It did help the fascist axis, that is, Germany and Italy, in their war endeavors. However, it did not, itself wage wars or annex regions of other countries or other countries. However, it was militaristic inside Spain, against its oppressed nations and nationalities, prosecuted minorities and political opposition. Similarly, militarism exists in most of the capitalist states in one or the other form. It is not simply about an external “enemy” propped up by jingoistic propaganda. In fact, even a comprador bourgeoisie can be militaristic, which essentially has nothing whatsoever to do with nationalism! The general trend of militarism in the imperialist epoch in all capitalist countries, whether expansionist or not, has been recognized by Marxists for more than a hundred years. Karl Liebknecht writing in 1907 pointed out:
“Militarism is not only a means of defense against the external enemy; it has a second task which comes more and more to the fore as class contradictions become more marked and as proletarian class-consciousness keeps growing. Thus the outer form of militarism and its inner character take a more definite shape: its task is to uphold the prevailing order of society, to prop up capitalism and all reaction against the struggle of the working class for freedom. Militarism manifests itself here as a mere tool in the class struggle, as a tool in the hands of the ruling class. It is destined to retard the development of class-consciousness by working together with the police and the courts of justice, the school, and the Church. The task of militarism is, above all, to secure for a minority, at whatever cost, even against the enlightened will of the majority of the people, domination in the state and freedom to exploit.
“Thus we are confronted by modern militarism which wants neither more nor less than the squaring of the circle, which arms the people against the people itself, which dares to force the workers (by artificially introducing by every means the distinction of class according to age into our social organization) to become oppressors and enemies, murderers of their own comrades and friends, of their parents, brothers and sisters and children, and which compels them to blight their own past and future. Modern militarism wants to be democratic and despotic, enlightened and machine-like, nationalist and antagonistic to the nation at the same time.
“All the same one must not forget that militarism is directed also against the nationalist and even the religious enemy at home—in Germany, for instance, against the Poles, Alsatians and Danes. It is employed even in conflicts between the non-proletarian classes. One must not forget that it is a changeable phenomenon capable of assuming many forms, and that the Prusso-German militarism has blossomed out into a special flower owing to the peculiar semi-absolutist, feudal-bureaucratic conditions of Germany.” (Liebknecht, K. 2021. Militarism and Anti-Militarism, Foreign Languages Press, Paris, p. 29-30, emphasis ours)
Liebknecht points out further:
“Generally speaking, militarism at home and all its perniciousness— more felt in normal times—with its many ramifications will have to contend with ever greater difficulties and thus the class-war character of militarism will become more prominent.” (ibid, p. 163, emphasis ours)
Liebknecht categorically points to war as the secondary manifestation of militarism. In fact, “militarism at home” is more important manifestation of this political tendency which emerges from the domestic class struggle itself. He argues:
“War is a thing which nowhere takes place so regularly, as does the conflict with political militarism at home; it generally presents itself to the consciousness of the masses as a future danger of rather a theoretical kind.” (ibid, p. 141, emphasis ours)
That is why, Liebknecht argues:
“It is taken as a matter of course and is disputed by no one that as a proletarian Party Social Democracy is the unconditional enemy, the enemy sans phrase, the enemy to the knife of militarism at home; to tear it out root and branch is one of its most important tasks.” (ibid, p. 156)
Thus, in and by itself, militarism has nothing to do with foreign expansionism, wars or occupying other countries. It is a political tendency of the reactionary bourgeoisie which becomes particularly pronounced during the periods of exceptional bourgeois regimes like military dictatorship and fascism, but also in other periods depending upon the political conjuncture of class struggle in a country. In fact, there are many examples of countries ruled by military dictators but having no expansionist ambitions, for example, Thailand under military rule and Park’s military dictatorship in South Korea. Similarly, is the Sinhalese chauvinistic regime in Sri Lanka foreign expansionist and war-monger? No. Is it militaristic? Ask any persecuted Sri Lankan Tamil and he/she will tell you the answer.
Is the fascist regime in India today militaristic? Yes, a hundred percent. What they are doing in Chhattisgarh, Kashmir, Manipur today is nothing short of the most heinous forms of militarism. In fact, Kashmir is the most militarized region of the world. There have been many scholarly studies of Indian militarism, which has been one of the principal instruments to repress and keep under control not only the oppressed nations, persecuted communities but also the peasant insurgencies as well as revolutionary movements of the proletariat. To confuse militarism exclusively with wars and foreign expansionism is to confuse all mammals with donkeys. Donkey is only one of the mammals, not the only mammal. However, Sukhwinder moves in mysteriously stupid ways!
Therefore, it does not really matter whether the Indian bourgeoisie in general and the Indian fascist regime in particular is able to wage wars of annexation against other countries, or not. It has nothing whatsoever to do with fascist rise to power or the fascist regime in India. Fascism is very much compatible with the absence of foreign occupation, annexation, etc. Militarism in general can be used against oppressed nations, occupying their territories militarily, suppressing all forms of progressive popular dissent and insurgency, as evident especially after Modi’s rise to power, but also from the overall post-independence history of India. Sukhwinder is totally oblivious regarding both: the nature of the Modi-Shah regime as well as the contemporary history of India; he is as dense about theory as he is at sea regarding history. What he lacks is precisely this: reading, research and logic to make sense of whatever scanty he reads.
J. Sukhwinder’s “Strategy” Against Fascism: A Monstrously Risible Proposal for Indefinite Suspension of the Most Urgent Tasks
Consequently, Sukhwinder moves to the question of ‘struggle against fascist threat’ under a separate subhead. He accepts that in India, there exists a strong fascist movement, but adds, “with uneven development”. Again, is there any other kind of fascist movement, which develops evenly across any country? Was the fascist movement in Italy like that? Was the Nazi movement in Germany like that? Not at all. He only adds this qualifier to allude to the ‘obstacles’ in the rise of fascism to power in India, because he assumes that only those fascist movements rise to power which develop with even distribution across a country. The assumption as well as the claim are equally stupid and idiotic and reek of ignorance regarding the history of fascism across the world.
Then Sukhwinder commits another intellectual hara-kiri. He quotes Dimitrov at length where the latter is discussing the strategies to be employed by the revolutionary communists against a fascist movement which has not yet seized power. However, in the end of this quote Dimitrov refers, as an example to emulate, the efforts of the French proletariat in successfully implementing this strategy. Sukhwinder does not know what Dimitrov is referring to, here. Well, Dimitrov is referring to the implementation of the strategy of the ‘popular front’ by the French Communist Party since 1934 itself, when Dimitrov shifted the line of the Comintern formally from a “left”-deviationist version of the united front of the working class, to the right-deviationist line of the ‘popular front’, by accepting the position of Doriot within the French Party and persuading Thorez and the rest of the French Communist Party to accept the line of ‘popular front’!
Thus, Dimitrov is arguing that the policy of the ‘popular front’ has nothing to do with the question whether fascism is in power or not, as we have shown earlier in this critique, too! Even if there is fascist movement in a country, the revolutionary communists must form the ‘popular front’ by taking the initiative. Here is the quote of Dimitrov that Sukhwinder presents:
“Whether the victory of fascism can be prevented depends in the first place on the militant activity displayed by the working class itself, on whether its forces are welded into a single militant army combating the offensive of capitalism and fascism. Having established its fighting unity, the proletariat would paralyse the influence of fascism over the peasantry, the petit bourgeoisie of the towns, the youth and the intelligentsia, and would be able to neutralise one section and win over another section.
“Second, it depends on the existence of a strong revolutionary party, correctly leading the struggle of the toilers against fascism. A party which systematically calls on the workers to retreat in the face of fascism and permits the fascist bourgeoisie to strengthen its positions will inevitably lead the workers to defeat.
“Third, it depends on whether a correct policy is pursued by the working class towards the peasantry and the petit-bourgeois masses of the towns. These masses must be taken as they are, and not as we should like to have them. It is only in the process of the struggle that they will overcome their doubts and vacillations. It is only provided we adopt a patient attitude towards their inevitable vacillations, it is only with the political help of the proletariat, that they will be able to rise to a higher level of revolutionary consciousness and activity.
“Fourth, it depends on whether the revolutionary proletariat exercises vigilance and takes action at the proper time. It must not allow fascism to catch it unawares, it must not surrender the initiative to fascism, it must inflict decisive blows on the latter before it can gather its forces, it must not allow fascism to consolidate its position, it must repel fascism wherever and whenever it manifests itself, it must not allow fascism to gain new positions—all of which the French proletariat is doing so successfully. (Applause.)
“These are the main conditions for preventing the growth of fascism and its accession to power.” (Dimitrov, G. 2021. The Fascist Offensive and the Unity of the Working Class, Foreign Languages Press, Paris, p. 17-18, emphasis ours)
As far as the strategy of resistance is concerned, Sukhwinder has only this to quote. However, just like a true kharra-man, he does not know what he is reproducing! So, he argues that the ‘popular front’ is the proletarian strategy against fascism in power only. But, then, goes on to quote where Dimitrov is prescribing the policy of the ‘popular front’ for the political situation in which there is a fascist movement and the question is of preventing its rise to power! Why did Sukhwinder not understand that? Because he missed what Dimitrov says in the end of this excerpt – “all of which the French proletariat is doing so successfully.” What is Dimitrov referring to here? Dimitrov is referring to the successful formation of the ‘popular front’ in France in 1934, which for Dimitrov presented the model to emulate for the proletariat in all countries which were faced with a fascist movement, as well as those which were already reeling under the yoke of a fascist regime. Dimitrov referring to the example of France, opined:
“France, as we know, is a country in which the working class is setting an example to the whole world proletariat of how to fight fascism. The French Communist Party is setting an example to all sections of the Comintern of how the tactics of the united front should be conducted; the Socialist workers are setting an example of what the Social-Democratic workers of other capitalist countries should now be doing in the fight against fascism… This is not merely a movement of a united working class front; it is the beginning of a wide general front of the people against fascism in France.” (ibid, p. 36, emphasis ours)
Finally, Dimitrov points out that if the early successes of the ‘popular front’ finally lead to the formation of a ‘popular front’ government, the communists, while maintaining their general antipathy to any bourgeois government, would support such a government, in so far as, it plays an anti-fascist role. This hope of Dimitrov was dashed when the bourgeoisie and its parties betrayed the ‘popular front’ (which was quite natural, given their class character and their capitulationist attitude towards the fascists, whenever they felt threatened by proletarian mass movement). Dimitrov, however, says in his report:
“And if in France the anti-fascist movement leads to the formation of a government which will carry on a real struggle against French fascism— not in word but in deed—will carry out the programme of demands of the anti-fascist people’s front, the Communists, while remaining the irreconcilable foes of every bourgeois government and supporters of a Soviet government, will nevertheless, in face of the growing fascist danger, be prepared to support such a government.” (ibid, p. 38, emphasis ours)
We have already quoted at length from the documents of the Comintern to demonstrate the central role that the PCF played in the formulation of the policy of the ‘popular front’, which Dimitrov himself had acknowledged. However, Sukhwinder is completely unaware about the history of the evolution of the policy of the ‘popular front’, as we have shown above. He has not even read the Dimitrov report comprehensively and has only done quotation-hunting from Dimitrov’s report. As a consequence, as usual, he fails to understand what is being said and the whole context of the discussion.
That is the reason why Sukhwinder fails to understand that even in the countries where there was a fascist movement, but fascists had not yet seized the power, Dimitrov’s strong prescription was to form the ‘popular front’. His assumption that the policy of the ‘popular front’ was prescribed only for the countries where fascism has conquered power is baseless and ignorant. Dimitrov’s policy of the ‘popular front’ was applicable to countries with fascists in power as well as for the countries where there was a fascist movement, which had not yet seized power. We have shown this earlier in the essay clearly, with appropriate quotes, references and evidence. There is no need to repeat all of that here.
Why Sukhwinder limits his espousal of the policy of the ‘popular front’ only to the cases of fascism in power? Because if he accepts that it was proposed by Dimitrov as the anti-fascist front policy also for the countries where there is a fascist movement, then he would be obliged to form a ‘popular front’ against Hindutva fascism from today itself, which would entail sending proposals of anti-fascist unity to all bourgeois parties except the fascist party! This would be such a shameful capitulation that even a shameless person like him would find it difficult to defend it in front of his own group’s members who are still honest, but have been systematically kept under ignorance, by an equally ill-read, politically illiterate and idiotic leadership. Moreover, this would invite unprecedented ridicule from various Marxist-Leninist groups of Punjab as well, before whom, Sukhwinder and this group is presently in complete prostration, in order to avoid complete isolation due to the horrific and disturbing incidents within the group and the role of the leadership in these incidents.
Subsequently, Sukhwinder thinks “If I merely quote Dimitrov regarding the strategy against the fascist threat and do not add anything to it, I would become a laughing stock!” So, he adds something and still ends up becoming a laughing stock, as we shall now see.
Sukhwinder writes, immediately after presenting a long excerpt from Dimitrov that we have presented above:
“Besides these general points regarding anti-fascist struggle, these points also have to be kept in mind:
“1) The ideological, political struggle against fascism has to be continued. We have to keep on exposing among the masses the anti-people ideology and politics of fascists, their cowardly past (their aloofness from the freedom struggle of India, playing the role of colonial master’s lackey’s etc.)
“2) We will have to struggle for the abolition of caste system. Struggle would also have to waged against the patriarchal oppression of women. Come what may, the fascists of India wish to preserve these.
“3) RSS/Sangh Parivar’s program of national oppression, ‘Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan’, should be especially opposed. Due to the centralisation policies of BJP, the contradiction between monopoly capitalists and different nations is sharpening. In this we must stand in favour of the rightful, democratic demands of various nations.
“4) We must stand against the fascist attacks on national minorities especially the Muslims, Christians and Sikhs.
“5) Presently, there exist no conducive conditions for constructing any anti-fascist united front in India. The communist movement of country is in a condition of disintegration. It isn’t in a situation to unite on a countrywide basis and undertake an effective anti-fascist activity. Thus we should concentrate more on the local, issue based activities against fascism.” (Sukhwinder, op.cit., p. 53-54)
That’s all, folks! But that is not all! The above quote is so full of the most idiotic and even reactionary arguments that we cannot even begin to dismantle this huge mess, this unprecedented farrago.
First of all, look at the second point. A couple of pages before Sukhwinder claimed that caste system is one of the major hindrances to the rise of fascism in India. Now he is arguing that one of the important anti-fascist task is to remove this hindrance by the abolition of the caste system! But why? Why does Sukhwinder want to clear the way for fascism by abolishing the caste system? Would not the absence of caste system tantamount to removal of an obstacle from the path of fascism?
Why does Sukhwinder fall head on into the pit of crap that he himself has created? Because the very assumption that the caste system is an obstacle to fascism is ridiculous and has nothing to do with concrete facts, as we have demonstrated above. Once he starts proceeding from this brainless assumption, he, consequently, embroils himself in imbecilic paradoxes, just like the one we just discussed.
In point 3, Sukhwinder argues that the Sangh Parivar has intensified the national oppression of the oppressed nations (which, for Sukhwinder, includes every nation that lives in India, oppressed by an extra-terrestrial big bourgeosie!), by imposing ‘Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan’. This, according to Sukhwinder has increased the contradiction between the Indian state and the all the nations, due to the centralizing impulse of the former. And what the oppressed nations are supposed to do in order to respond? They should struggle for their rightful and just democratic demands! What are these demands? Federal rights! This is the essence of the Trot-Bundism of Sukhwinder: a complete capitulation to the bourgeoisie on the national question. As we have pointed out above, if all the nations including Punjab are oppressed nations, they should fight for the unconditional right to self-determination including secession, not beg for federal rights. Nothing can be more humiliating for an oppressed nation to demand a little bit of autonomy, a little bit of federalism from their national oppressors.
However, ‘Lalkaar-Pratibaddh’ group’s leadership is uniquely coward in this respect. They do not have the courage to raise the demand for plebiscite to determine the question of national liberation. They also do not raise this demand because they know that even if such a plebiscite takes place, the result will not be to the liking of Sukhwinder, because Punjab (and all the other nations of India, except Kashmir and certain nations that live in the North-Eastern states) is not an oppressed nation! In fact, the Punjabi bourgeoisie is one of the main co-sharers in the economic and political power in India and constitutes an important component of the ruling multinational bourgeoisie in India.
Secondly, Sukhwinder, as usual takes things at face-value. He assumes that RSS is really going to impose the old slogan of ‘Hindi’ on non-Hindi speaking states! The fact is that in various Southern states, the RSS hardly uses this slogan anymore and uses the local languages. Recently, Adityanath said that Sanskrit and Tamil are two classical languages that originated from the mouth of Shiva. Similarly, the Sangh Parivar is swiftly adopting English to make in-roads, especially, in Tamil Nadu. The slogan of Hindi as the national language or the principal national language of ‘Hindustan’ is used mainly in the Hindi-belt itself, as a tool of fascist political agitation. In fact, the RSS was very careful not to call Hindi the national language. The second RSS supremo Golwalkar said in 1957 in an interview:
“I consider all our languages as national languages. They are equally our national heritage. Hindi is one among them which, by virtue of its countrywide usage, has been adopted as the State Language. It will be wrong to describe Hindi alone as the national language and others as provincial languages. That would not be seeing things in the right perspective.” (Golwalkar, M. S. 1957. The Language Problem, interview with special correspondent, The Organizer, December, 1957)
We know that the RSS can speak in many tongues and can present diametrically opposite positions simultaneously like a many-headed hydra, speaking different things from its many heads. However, what we need to understand here is simply this: the Sangh Parivar never ties its hands with such rhetorical slogans. It will use them where they are useful and it will abandon them where it is politically expedient. In fact, the RSS itself did not come into existence in the Hindi-belt. For some years in the beginning, it was a political phenomenon limited to Maharashtra, with support among the high-caste landlordist class and a limited support base among the petty-bourgeoisie and stemmed from a variety of religious revivalist trends within the national movement. We have already discussed this above.
The point is that those who do not understand that fascists are always pragmatists as pragmatism is one of the component parts of fascist ideology (it is notable that Mussolini revered the notable pragmatist thinker William Jones, as we have pointed out above) and the Indian fascists are pragmatists par excellence. Their political digestion power is unprecedented and they can mold and remold their narrative according to the changing space and time, within the ambit of fascist ideology and politics. Its differentia specifica is not sticking to a particular language, or regional identity. The common minimum denominator is construction of a false or imagined enemy, a purely ideological community and drive the blind reaction of the threatened petty-bourgeoisie against the false enemy. They follow one principal of pragmatism for this purpose: there is no principal! Whatever works!
To reduce the fascist politics to such commonplaces only reveals complete ignorance of Sukhwinder regarding the essence of fascist ideology and politics, even though he talks about fighting against fascist ideology in point 1, where he reduces it to exposing the pro-British rule, anti-patriotic character of the RSS! Well, with that, my friend, you have not even touched the core of fascist ideology and politics! The core of the fascist ideology and politics have been discussed earlier in this essay and without understanding that crux, we cannot carry out the anti-fascist propaganda at the ideological and political level.
Now, let us come to point 4 of Sukhwinder. This is really shocking. Sukhwinder says that in order to oppose the fascists the communists must resist the attacks on the “national minorities especially the Muslims, the Christians and the Sikhs”. Can any communist with his mind in right place say something as outrageous and as revolting as this? But then we think about the imbecility of this group’s leadership and calm ourselves because such wonders are possible in the world of Sukhwinder. We, then, also understand the source of his national chauvinism, which has been expressed so many times in the past few years on the question of linguistic identitarianism, in their slogans like ‘Punjabi jobs for Punjabis’, ‘make Punjabi the pre-requisite of employment in Punjab’, etc. Leaving Sukhwinder aside, can any revolutionary communist say that Muslims, Christians, Sikhs are national minorities? What Sukhwinder says here is precisely what Savarkar had said. His idea was that Muslims and Christians do not constitute a part of the Hindu nation (Sikhs were different for most of the Hindutva ideologues and so were Buddhists and Jains, who were considered part of the ‘Hindu civilization’ because their ‘holy land’ and their ‘father land’ was in India). He also took Hindu religion and what he considered the ‘protestant sects within the Hindu civilization’ such as Sikhism, Buddhism, Jainism, etc. to be the basis of nationhood. Thus, his idea of religion, was the basis of the national identity. That is precisely what Sukhwinder is arguing here. According to him, too, the religious identity of a person is the basis of his national identity, and that is why he calls Sikhs, Muslims and Christians as ‘national minorities’ and not as religious minorities. Why Sukhwinder could not understand the national question and why he wrote some unbelievably idiotic pieces on the national question can be understood from the position that he has presented here. What can you expect from a person who considers religious communities as nations?
Finally, Sukhwinder writes the last paragraph of this small essay, packed with so many inane and asinine analyses and propositions, that we had to write more than 200 pages to refute it. Here he reaches his political nirvana and proposes a program of doing nothing against fascism. He argues that we only have to work for socialist revolution and undertake some “local” actions against fascism. He opines:
“Presently, there exist no conducive conditions for constructing any anti-fascist united front in India. The communist movement of country is in a condition of disintegration. It isn’t in a situation to unite on a countrywide basis and undertake an effective anti-fascist activity. Thus we should concentrate more on the local, issue based activities against fascism.” (Sukhwinder, op.cit., p. 54)
First of all, what are the conditions for the formation of any anti-fascist united front, especially of the ‘popular front’ type in any country, according to the original Dimitrov theses, to which Sukhwinder subscribes without understanding it? It is precisely the lack of unity among communist organizations, disintegration of the movement, reversal and pessimism in the working-class movement! If there is a unified revolutionary communist party, or a considerable degree of the unity among the revolutionary communists, and existence of an offensive of the working class, then the need for the formation of a united front will still be relevant in the general political sense, but not so pertinent. In other words, especially in the times of disunity and disintegration of the communist movement, the need for the formation of a united front against rising fascist tide becomes all the more important, urgent, pressing and pertinent in the immediate sense. However, Sukhwinder will first wait for the communist movement to reemerge and reorganize itself and only then an anti-fascist united front will be formed! What kind of logic is that?
Moreover, when the fascists are organizing their onslaught and their activities on an all-India level, how can a communist propose to limit the anti-fascist activities to mere issue-based local actions? In fact, the approach of the revolutionary communists would be to organize activities on the widest possible and broadest possible basis, which will include not only the anti-fascist actions of a particular group, but also formation of general united front against fascism among the revolutionary communist groups and organizations, and particular issue-based united fronts against fascism among all forces ready to fight against fascism on those particular issues, while at no moment and in no conditions, surrendering its proletarian political independence to carry out its own anti-fascist as well as socialist propaganda and agitation.
Sukhwinder spills these pearls of wisdom because he has no anti-fascist program, whether for fascism in power, or for a fascist movement that threatens the masses by seizing the power. We have seen that even from Sukhwinder’s own poor and shamefully ignorant version of ‘popular-frontism’ of Dimitrov, he should form the ‘popular front’ from today itself. He must sent a communique to the Congress, the AAP, and the Akali leaders of Punjab for the formation of a ‘popular front’! However, he will first wait for fascist forces to establish what he calls the “bare-naked” dictatorship, completely suppress the working class and whatever exists of its movements, repression of all political opposition, abolition of all democratic and civil rights (again, whatever remains of them!) and then he will come out from his closet in Raikot!
Such is the ideologically and politically bankrupt line of ‘Lalkaar-Pratibaddh’ group, having no historical or theoretical understanding of fascism, no understanding of the peculiarities of the neoliberal phase of imperialist stage, no understanding of the history of the anti-fascist strategies employed by the revolutionary communists since the 1920s, and no understanding of absolutely anything related to the issue at stake. It is a small booklet of most ignorant, ridiculous, laughable, inane and asinine kind of idiocies and the best we can do is to alert the readers about it, if they want to retain their basic logic and reasoning.
