The fascist BJP has to be defeated in the 2024 Elections

The fascist BJP has to be defeated in the 2024 Elections but only through a genuine revolutionary alternative and not the tailiism of bankrupt political parties.

HarshThakor, Freelance Journalist

                

The 2024 elections are starting when India is on the verge of turning proto-fascist. In every sphere, the Hindutva saffron brigade has penetrated every sphere or rung of the social order and destroyed the very fabric of the constitution. Persecution of minorities, particularly Muslims has reached heights unscaled, laws or bills have been passed violating constitutional norms and jeopardising the projection of farmers and industrial workers like never before, economic disparity is wider than ever before, inflation and unemployment have sky-rocketed at an unprecedented level, democratic dissent has been crushed more mercilessly than ever in the nation’s history, corporates have been given free license to plunder at a level unmatched, and communal fervour has gripped every corner the nation, giving overtones of fascist regimes of the 1930s.

The political scenario e of India has been dramatically reversed after the 2014 Lok Sabha elections when the BJP-led NDA (National Democratic Alliance emerged victorious. Development was the only agenda of the BJP government in the election of 2014, which shifted to Kashmir and CAA-NRC in 2019. Recently, the Indian government has amended the preamble and scrubbed the words ‘socialist’ and ‘secular’ without any constitutional amendment. The government thus unscrupulously evaded the very base of constitutional morality in the Indian constitution. Regretfully there is no organised mass movement sprouting in the country, which illustrates the need to elevate the process of development of consciousness with historical bondage n of religious beliefs and feudal relations and practices far stronger than democratic values. 

Background (based on CPI-Maoist statement)

India is going for elections to the 18th Lok Sabha in 7 phases starting from April 19th to June 1^st, 2024. The proto-fascist BJP is fortified to the last tooth converting the country into a Hindu state. Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) has been on its agenda for a long time along with the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) and the present decision to implement CAA just before the announcement of the election schedule was to win over the majority Hindu votes, which will strip the minimum rights of the people of all other religions. While the electoral parties are busy trying to make alliances to defeat the BJP, their disunity in seat sharing only helps the BJP.

Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS), the Hindutva organisation has around forty crore members together in its affiliated organisations penetrating various classes and sections of people all over the country. This is where BJP is rooted in its neo-fascist ideology with the saffron forces constituting above one-third of voters of the country fed brainwashed with  Hinduism, that unleash brutality at its most ruthless height on the people. With this massive penetration and absolute support from the imperialists and big corporate houses, the BJP government is carving the path to build ‘Vikasit Bharat’ (Hindu Rashtr) by 2047with this election is playing a major role in achieving its agenda. 

Parliamentary democracy in India is illusions Elections violate democracy and the percentage of polling in any General election is just 60 percent. Real democracy can never materialise in the existing semi-feudal conditions where money power, caste power, and religious frenzy are dominant..

While the ruling classes of India project it to be the biggest democracy in the world they mask an autocratic country where Parliamentary elections are held only to consolidate and strengthen comprador bureaucracy and to stabilise the exploitation and oppression by the imperialists of the world, domestic comprador bureaucratic bourgeois and feudal classes on the oppressed people of the country. Despite the t natural resources aplenty, the government is making the country more and more subservient to imperialist aid and technology. ‘Vikasit Bharat-2047’ road map, Make in India, Digital India, Smart Cities, Start-up India, Skill India, and Fasal Bima schemes are examples of instruments of domestic and foreign corporate companies. 

When the BJP captured power for the second consecutive term in 2019, it enforced several anti -Muslim, anti-nationality, anti-tribal traitorous Acts such as Triple Talaq, CAA, etc. UCC and other such Acts that transform the country into a Hindutva fascist autocratic state if it comes to power for the third time. 

Manipulating proceedings for election victory

The issue of electoral bonds exposed the BJP government‘s merciless strategy to escalate it’s monopoly. The bonds were money donated to the electoral parties, in lieu of expenditure on elections. The Supreme Court directed the State Bank of India 2 (SBI) to give all details. It must convey to the Election Commission the names of bond buyers, the dates and amounts of purchase, and the names of those who benefited. The Election Commission should communicate the data on its website to the people. Bonds already bought but not deposited were ‘directed’ to be returned. 

When the SBI finally submitted the details of the 18,871 purchases and 20,421 encashment of the electoral bonds worth Rs. 12,551.1 crores, out of which BJP owns Rs. 6,060 crores, it lacked details of the alphanumeric numbers and the serial numbers that reveal accurate details.

BJP is plundering funds in a big way to spend it in elections. ‘Buying’ the elected candidates, creating pandemonium in the state governments, and bringing them into its fold. It is robbing the funds of the opposition parties in the name of silly matters only to help BJP come to power. So, this is not at all a true democracy as it claims to be. 

The facts about the expenditure of BJP on advertisements additionally show the extent of its corruption. BJP spent Rs. 30 crores in 30 days starting from the end of January this year on streaming ads, mostly videos according to Google Ads Transparency Centre data. It clearly shows that the present fascist rule of the BJP in India is no more a ‘democracy’. 

Communal thrust

Another major problem faced by the people under BJP rule, especially tribal and Muslim people was evacuation. According to a report “Forced Evictions in India: 2022 & 2023” by The Housing and Land Rights Network (HLRN), 58.7 percent of the evictions were in the name of ‘slum clearance’, ‘removal of encroachment’ or ‘beautification of the city’. 35 percent were for infrastructure projects, 4.7 for environmental projects, and 0.7 percent for disaster management. One and a half lakh houses were demolished by the government in which 7.4 lakh people were forcefully evicted. In 2023 alone, more than 5 lakh people were evicted in Delhi being in the first place. Courts always were in favour of evictions. This is nothing but marginalisation of tribal and Muslim communities from society. The elections would intensify attacks on these communities with the goal of the BJP to provoke  Hindu sentiments and gain votes. 

The inauguration of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya on 22nd January was one issue that the BJP used as a weapon its political propaganda. Crores of people’s money was spent for the purpose. The construction of Ram Mandir, also a part of the agenda of Brahmanic Hindutva was done at the time before elections to exploit the sentiments of the majority Hindu people of the country. It also illustrated the Supreme Court’s anti-people character that gave judgment in favour of the construction in 2019.

Modi government created a propaganda machine of Nazi scale against the ongoing people’s movements through feature films. After the infamous ‘Kashmir files’ and Kerala story’ that Modi personally also promoted in his public speeches, ‘Bastar, the Naxal story’ and ‘Joram’ in the background of the revolutionary movement in Bihar-Jharkhand were released in March.

Regressive political economy

In the past decade of BJP’s rule in the leadership of Modi, Lakhs of workers and employees were deprived of employment in favour of modernisation of corporate enterprises. Casualisation and outsourcing of labour intensified in unprecedented volumes. Lakhs of small and medium-scale industries were closed to facilitate big corporate tycoons. 26 crores of agricultural labours are living miserable lives. 2.7 lakh central government 3 permanent employees were removed in the name of lay off and VRS. 15 lakh workers were removed from 7 big public sector organisations. Employees, small traders, students, unemployed, women and all the oppressed sections are facing the wrath of Brahmanic Hindutva Fascism. The Hindutva forces in power are making these oppressed classes a scapegoat in favour of the corporate houses. Such policies gain validity through winning the elections. 

BJP Modi government about India projects India as the third biggest economy, and the everyday turnover of various sectors testify that it is development pertaining to domestic and foreign corporate companies. As per the fresh assessment of IMF, the GDP of the US is 26.8 trillion dollars, and per capita income is 80.41 thousand dollars. India is in the 5th place with a GDP of 3.7 trillion dollars and per capita income of 2.6 thousand dollars. As per the statistics of per capita income, our country is the poorest in the G-20 alliance. 

The loan on the people of the country is estimated to reach Rs. 169 lakh crores by March 2024. In addition to this, the state governments made a loan of another Rs. 76,09,926 crores. The government collected more than Rs. 26, 51,919 crores from the people in the name of fuel taxes on petrol, diesel, and cooking gas. An amount of Rs. 1,70,000 crores are being collected per month in the name of GST. In addition to all the taxes paid by the people, the central government collects cess (special taxes) in education, health, agriculture, railways, coal mines, roads, infrastructure, exports, and other sectors. 6,68,400 hectares of forests were destroyed in our country in 2015-2020 under Modi’s rule. India is in the 155th place among 188 countries in the World Environment Protection Index in 2021. 

These facts and figures illustrate that the governments elected through elections only serve the coffers of imperialists, comprador bureaucratic capitalists, and big landlords.

Weaknesses within the anti-fascist Movement and correct approach

Unlike Western developed nations, Indian parliamentary democracy only had a semblance of bourgeois democracy, being still subservient to imperialism after 1947, with landlordism, morally not abolished. It is incorrect to equate the fascist tendencies of the ruling classes in India with the historical fascist phenomena in Nazi Germany or Italy. In those countries, these phenomena crystallized as a tirade against bourgeois democracy - while in a country like ours, bourgeoisie democracy never completely established its social base. Thus it is fruitless to adopt an anti-fascist classical model applicable to fascist countries of the 1930’s in Europe.

Regretfully there is no organised mass movement sprouting in the country to check the fascist wave which illustrates the need to elevate the process of development of consciousness with historical bondage n of religious beliefs and feudal relations and practices far stronger than democratic values. 

The last mass movement was against the CAA-NRC which engulfed almost every part of the country. The way that the students took part in this movement was outstanding exposing the general masses to the draconian laws of the country, under which a number of activists were arrested on fabricated charges of UAPA. It projected the character of the proto-fascist nature of the state, where the entire Delhi police administration rallied behind the RSS forces and even the Apex court accepted the Delhi Police’s biased investigation into the Delhi pogrom case. However, this movement scarcely mobilised the peasantry and working-class population. Being controlled largely by petty-bourgeois leaders and limited constituency-holding forces. (This para is based on views of Nazariya) 

The farmers' movement of Samyukta Morcha, has waged valiant resistance but its leadership has in important stages blunted the revolutionary resistance, and been complicit in promoting electoral politics.

The traditional left parties hardly undertook political education inside their trade unions to build solidarity on the class line and instead projected   Hindu-Muslim Ekta. The parties were correct to build communal harmony between the two communities, but they failed to wedge class solidarity and a working-class movement to force fascist forces to retreat. The opportunistic tendency of left parties misleads common people that all left parties are bidding for only gaining votes and winning a few seats in the election. Here, we need to distinguish between the opportunistic tendencies of the progressive section

Today most organized forces of the state and the on-ground fascist movement are operating complicity and are working hand-in-hand to suppress the people’s voice.

The history of Congress and other ruling parties in India is more or less the same. The Congress never eradicated or even restricted the flow of foreign finance penetration from imperialists. Under the regime of Congress, the first idol of Ram-Sita was installed inside Babri Masjid, and entry was restricted. Congress stormed into Nagaland to suppress their demand for nationhood. It paid no heed to the Sachhar Committee report in the interest of minorities, Congress introduced draconian laws like AFSPA, NSA, UAPA, etc. It was sold Indian agriculture to the WTO. This very Congress opened the gates of Babri Masjid in 1986 to sponsor Rath Yatra and brick worship. This very party opened the gates to globalisation and liberalisation, which sold out India to corporates. It was Congress, which gradually dismantled the industrial sectors. It never effectively combated RSS-like organizations and morally and craftily tried to support the idea of Hindutva Nationality. The BJP has merely sharpened the path that Congress was treading in the past.     It has also been a common e phenomenon of opposition parties like Aam Aadmi Party or Janata Dal to pamper Hindu politics and the indirect agenda of Hindutva and corporations.

To stir a revolutionary wave or combat against fascism, the independent initiative of the proletariat is an imperative task. The independent initiative of the communist party is essential to establish its own base within the masses.  Without an independent initiative, the communist party will ultimately be tailing behind the big parties (they might be social-democrats or comprador bureaucratic parties). The electoral left parties firmly adhere to the fact that the current regime can only be toppled through the electoral means and there is no other way to combat it. They also endorse the idea that the current political regime of BJP-RSS is fascist, and must be overthrown in the election. (This para is the view of Nazariya journal).

A united front like the Indian National Development Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) under the leadership of Congress will not check the wave of fascism, because most of the parties harbour fascist inclinations and show electoral opportunism. The history of fascism manifested that it takes a violent mass movement stirred by the direct influence of the ruling class. There. We have witnessed throughout history that, if the communist forces delay action the feeling of nationality blunts the class consciousness of the working class too. The working-class people rallied behind the Nazi forces not because they cherished d the working condition or facilities provided by Hitler, but due to the weakness of the proletarian leadership to act on time.. If democratic forces fail to undertake collective organized action against fascism, it will rob us of time to cut its weeds.(view of Nazariya)

There are also deviationist trends amongst Communist revolutionaries. Some like the CPI (Maoist) call for election boycotts, without establishing alternative organs of democratic power or requiring revolutionary democratic consciousness. In spite of great sacrifices and strides the people often become hapless spectators and indirectly the Maoists give support to ruling class candidates. On the other hand CPI(ML) factions like ‘Red Star’, ‘Mass-line ‘, or ‘Class Struggle’ participate in the parliamentary process without properly securing a re-organized vanguard party., with the Communist party being in scattered bits. This is capitulationism. The only correct approach is undertaking an active political campaign, calling for building a democratic alternative, utilising contradictions of ruling class parties.

Therefore, to confront the fascist attack of the Modi government, the true secular and democratic sections of the people need to garner a common solution around class and democratic issues. All the people of the working classes, including the tribals, Dalits, Women, oppressed religious minorities, and oppressed nationalities who are victims of the special oppression of the special Indian state,  intellectuals, journalists, and other democratic sections, who are under the attack of this Hindutva corporate fascist attack need to build a front. This fascist attack needs to be combated at the ideological political plane as well as in the arena of practical class struggle. Communal nationalism in particular should be strongly fought in the ideological field, with anti-imperialism the real Rashtriyaism (concluding para is stand of Punjabi journal Surkh Leeh).

I recommend reading the pamphlet of the Democratic People’s Front of India convened by Arjun Prasad Singh which in the most balanced manner projects what the doctor orders in 2024. Elections.

Harsh Thakor is a freelance journalist .Thanks information from Nazariya blog, Surkh Leeh and CPI(Maoist)  statement on Maoist path.