Lata
On January 17, 2023, BBC released the first episode of its documentary series, ‘India: the Modi Question’. The second episode was released on January 24. The January 17 release caused massive outrage among the Modi supporters, and criticism and allegations started raining from all quarters. Within hours the government of India announced a ban on the screening of the documentary. The Modi government invoked emergency laws to block the documentary. Twitter, YouTube and every other social media platform quickly removed the link and the videos. Twitter was the first to abide by the ban; it pulled out all the links and video snippets from its platform. Elon Musk’s ‘free speech absolutism’ seems to follow only absolutism. While YouTube spokesperson Jack Malon said the removal of the documentary was due to a BBC copyright claim, he declined to comment on takedown demands from the Indian government. The copyright claim is merely a face-saving logic as the documentary is freely available on other internet platforms. How Twitter, YouTube and other social media platforms reacted was unsurprising. These platforms are not totally autonomous from bourgeois states. They have always gave in to demands from reactionary governments if it fits their political alignment. Therefore, enlightened users keep no illusions regarding the freedom of speech available on these social media platforms. What is remarkable is the silence of the nations’ heads on the documentary release. Active support from right-wing elitists like Rishi Sunak was expected. Joe Biden, whose victory was widely celebrated by the liberals worldwide, did not comment, and his government denied even acknowledging the release of any such documentary.
The Modi Government retaliated weeks after the documentary’s release by sending the Indian excise authority to raid BBC’s offices in Delhi and Mumbai on February 16. The British government has not reacted or released any statement against the raid. However, hours after the Indian tax authorities probed BBC’s office in Delhi and Mumbai, Narendra Modi held phone calls with Joe Biden and Emmanuel Macron touting record orders of 470 planes by Air India Ltd. The silence on behalf of the US and French governments reflects the nexus between the fascist and the right-wing forces worldwide. Modi’s audacity to ban the documentary demonstrates the strategic importance India is gaining in international politics and the international economy. Today, Modi, who was slapped with a travel ban to US and UK and a diplomatic boycott by many countries after the Gujarat Riots of 2002, enjoys silent support from the ruling class of the US and the West. Active support or silence by the nations’ heads on Modi’s role in the 2002 Gujarat riot is also because India is seen today by the West and the US as a counterbalancing force against neighbouring China, a rising imperialist power challenging the US hegemony. India, realizing its strategic importance, also aspires to become a regional superpower with the backing of its western and US allies. We can also add to the fact that India is presenting itself as a lucrative market for FDI with a cheap labour force, cheap raw materials and almost negligible regulations. Under such a geopolitical and economic milieu, the silence from the West and the US was anticipated.
In response to the government’s reaction and ban, the screening and viewing of the documentary became a mode of protest among the students and the progressive community. In the universities, including EFLU, TISS Mumbai, HCU, and JNU, students tried to organize documentary screenings which met with strong fascist opposition and attack. The right-wing attack on the screening events made the documentary more popular, and it reached much more extensive sections than it would have reached in normal conditions. There is no doubt the ban made the documentary more popular, and many watched it as an act of defiance. However, the documentary has not come up with any exceptionally revealing evidence hitherto unknown. Many journalists in India have risked their lives in the past and have done exceptional investigations to show the brazen role of the Modi government in the 2002 riots. Without fail, the documentary raises some awkward questions about the role Narendra Modi played during the 2002 Gujarat pogrom. It was more awkward for Narendra Modi because the documentary series was internationally released. The positive side of this documentary is that it furnished some unsettling facts to a larger population in India and the world. The earlier investigations and reports failed to reach a broader population because they did not become a piece of mainstream news. Many investigations did not even see the light of day. They are lying somewhere in the moth-eaten files of the media houses. The mainstream media, after 2014, entirely shed its flimsy cover of independence, and their open nexus with the government is out in the open. The nomenclature ‘Godi Media’ suits them perfectly.
Returning to the BBC documentary, the two episodes show the rise of Narendra Modi to power in an authoritarian fashion. The documentary demonstrates the direct involvement of Narendra Modi in the riots, the erstwhile chief minister of Gujarat, his instructions to police and state officials to “let Hindus vent their anger”, his hate speeches and his rallying around communal lines to win elections. However, the documentary does not touch upon many aspects like the role Narendra Modi played in instigating violence; the role of VHP in manufacturing riots and conducting carnage; role of Amit Shah after the riot; the fascist takeover of state institutions; active support to fascist politics from big capital.
Rise of Hindutva Fascism
It is acceptable that a couple of documentaries cannot cover all; however, the approach conveys the message. The entire documentary revolves around one figure, Narendra Modi, and his rise to power. Narendra Modi is undoubtedly a significant figure in BJP’s quest for victory in Lok Sabha Elections. The mainstream media and the 2014 election campaigns projected him as an Iron Man, someone who could deal with any crisis and lead the nation to prosperity. However, he is the face of a politics deeply ingrained in Hindutva Fascism. Making him the sole architect of his rise to power would lead to a conclusion that his defeat in elections would solve the problems of communal violence and violence committed against minorities, Dalits, other nationalities and women. It is not just Modi’s strained relationship with Muslims and other minorities leading to a violent turn in Indian politics. It is the story of Hindutva Fascism making deep inroads in Indian society and state institutions. Shakhas, schools, women and youth institutions that RSS runs produce brains trained in Hindutva Fascism every year in large number. People from these institutions are now part of the bureaucracy, judiciary, police, defence, media, colleges, universities and other institutions. Apart from the storm-troopers from the lower middle class and the lumpen-proletariat, these men and women in the state institutions actively cement fascist propaganda and politics. The same Supreme Court, which constituted a Special Investigation Team in 2010, acquitted Narendra Modi of all charges in the Gujarat riot case in 2018. An independent adviser to the Supreme Court strongly recommended that there was enough evidence to prosecute Modi in the Gujarat riot of 2002. But the SIT came out with the findings that there was not enough evidence. The control Modi, through RSS and its other organizations like VHP and Bajrang Dal, had over the state institutions in Gujarat has now become an all-India reality. Even if we witness a few defeats fascism in the coming elections including the Lok Sabha elections in 2024, which seems very unlikely at present, the deep penetration of fascism into the state institutions will not go anywhere. Such a defeat and a period of some kind of coalition government led by or supported by the Congress will only prepare the ground for an even more rabid kind of fascist rise, given the terminal crisis capitalism is facing the world over and the fact that any bourgeois party in this era of crisis is obliged to follow the same neoliberal policies that prepare the ground for the rise of various forms of extreme right-wing reaction. The documentary series starts from the 2002 Gujarat riots and comes down to lynching and CAA-NRC protests but miserably fails to highlight the fascist takeover of the state institutions and the rapid expansion of fascist ideology and institutions at the grassroots levels. It fails to raise to most essential questions, despite showing many elements of the reality of fascist rise.
Review of Godhra Carnage
The second major shortcoming of the documentary is to trace the preparation of the riots in the backdrop of the 2003 Gujarat assembly elections, which was just around the corner at that time. The BJP had lost the gram panchayat elections in 2001 and the three assembly by-elections the same year. The BJP was badly rattled by these defeats and feared massive backlash in the coming assembly elections. Already a sensitive state in terms of Hindu-Muslim riots, the political polarization on communal lines was brewing at the higher levels of state government. Dark clouds still hover around the cause of the Godhra carnage; however, the incident definitely came as a readymade political gain. The decision to bring the charred dead bodies to Ahmedabad, parade them in the open and then hand them over to VHP and Bajrang Dal were conscious decisions deliberately taken to harvest electoral gains. These acts were impossible to realize without orders coming from higher government quarters. The state, which was already running a communally volatile atmosphere, bringing charred and deformed dead bodies of Hindus karsevaks and pilgrims in such a mood was a direct instigation for violence. Even a marginally sensible government would have prevented any such act. But the intentional violation of procedure was done solely to incite already heightened passion among the Hindus masses of the state.
Role of Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal
A close examination of VHP and Bajrang Dal’s role in this perspective is a miss in the documentary. There are few simple questions which are enough to draw attention towards the immediate outburst of anger escalating to such a massive level of violence. The people from the ordinary and poor localities mostly participated in the riots and were armed with swords, Trishul, acid or petrol bombs and similar arms. The possibility that such a huge number of such arms and bombs could be mobilized spontaneously within twenty-four hours of the Godhra carnage seems unlikely. The ordinary household generally does not keep such arms. The quantum of these arms and other such objects was such that it conducted three days of pogrom despite ‘Gujarat Bandh’ announced by VHP and Bajrang Dal. The three days of murder, loot, rape and destruction of property were so massive that they killed more than 2000 people, leaving many homeless and jobless. To conduct such large-scale violence and destruction requires thorough preparedness. There was, in fact a long-term preparation by VHP, Bajrang Dal and other outfits of RSS. The documentary failed to trace the Modi government’s and RSS’s active role in manufacturing the 2002 Gujarat riots. There should be a serious investigation into the channel through which the arms reached the rioters, allowing them to wage such massive violence. However, in the documentary, the reference of RSS comes only as a shaping mould of Narendra Modi’s personality and politics; and Bajrang Dal and VHP are mentioned only as rioters.
Role of Amit Shah
Various studies have demonstrated that the closeness of Amit Shah and Modi in the aftermath of the 2002 Gujarat pogrom coincided with the beginning of another episode of conspiracies, fake encounters, murders and arrests in the history of Hindutva Fascism in India. Amit Shah took up the charge of building Modi’s image as ‘Hindu Hriday Samrat’. According to a number of studies and investigations, the duo turned every stone to cover up and eliminate each grain of evidence which could lead to Narendra Modi’s role in the riots. Starting from the murder of Haren Pandya to Ishrat Jahan’s fake encounter, Shahabuddin’s fake encounter, the murder of Tulsi Prajapati, Judge Loya’s mysterious death, one after other, the Gujarat state machinery was employed to wash off every evidence and manufacture a larger than life image of Modi.
The documentary has not at all touched upon these aspects. All the investigations and fact-findings were based on the responses of the Gujarat police and administration. We are not going into the details of all these cases as the focus of the article is highlighting the missing aspects of the BBC documentary. The point we are trying to make is that the rise of Narendra Modi is not the rise of a single man to power but the rise of fascism in Indian politics. Around the time of the Gujarat riot, fascism had not yet as deeply penetrated into the Indian state institutions as it is today. Therefore, according to various investigative studies, the Modi-Shah duo had to rely on criminal conspiracies, murder, extortion and fake encounters to save their skin. Now, gradually coming into the position of controlling appointments from clerks to CJI, it appears that the need to engage in such criminal conspiracies has disappeared that all the fascist objectives are fulfilled through state institutions themselves.
The Gujarat Model
Most importantly, the construction of the ‘Gujarat Model’ was not the model for the so-called ‘Hindu State’ but a model of ‘ease of doing business’ for the capitalist class of India and the world. BJP and RSS presented a blueprint to the capitalist class for rapid implementation of neoliberal policies of globalization and privatization. It also presented a model where labour rights were virtually absent and through brutal repression “industrial peace” and higher rates of profit were being offered which appealed to the bourgeoisie facing the first Great Depression of the 21st century. Modi, through the Gujarat model, proved that rampant privatization, unbridled exploitation of resources, negligible regulation and cheap labour are possible only under a fascist regime. It appealed to the capitalist class running through the crisis of a falling rate of profit. They poured billions into electing Modi in 2014 and then in 2019. Modi’s rise to power is not a mystery; it is backed by big capital and established by fascist ideology, a reactionary fascist social movement of the petty-bourgeoisie, and a cadre-based fascist organization.
To sum up, the BBC documentary helped to bring back the ghost of the 2002 Gujarat pogrom to mainstream political discussion, but its analysis has major flaws. The ban made it popular overnight, but in no way it could be categorized as revolutionary or radical. It definitely raises some troubling and unsettling questions regarding and direct involvement of Narendra Modi in the riots but a thorough analysis of the rise of Hindutva Fascism in India is missing. The report coming from an international platform was detrimental to the formation of a larger-than-life image of Narendra Modi, a man aspiring to register his name as holding Prime Minister office for three consecutive terms only after Jawaharlal Nehru in the history of Independent India. The documentary undoubtedly made a dent in the shining halo around the figure of Modi for some. However, this certainly is not sufficient to prevent the fascists coming back to power in 2024, especially when there is no political analysis of the fascist rise, of which, Modi is only a representative figure.
