Author: Shankar Sharan
Publication: Organiser
Date: July 16, 2000
According to our left-wing
intellectuals India has been reeling under fascism for the last two years.
Such intellectuals number a few but hyper-activity projects them as a multitude.
Mostly occupying cosy quarters in the capital they never tire of branding
the Government 'fascist'. So what if the Government is duly elected,
working under a democratic and independent judiciary et al. In spite
of everything and anything the regime is fascist, and that is that-in a
typical Leninist fashion the left intellectuals declare!
From their indefatigable
campaign, however, it would be impossible to find any meaning and connotation
of fascism. Various statements, speeches, pamphlets and exhibitions
organised by them fail to make a theoretical account of fascism.
For instance, one leftist gentleman not given extension after his term
expired in Prasar Bharti branded it a 'fascist' step. An academic
council was reconstituted, another gentleman cried 'fascism'. Somewhere
a stone is thrown, if the target happens to be a non-Hindu, no doubt, the
government is pursuing a 'fascist' agenda never mind who did the stone-throwing,
no verifying whatsoever. In fact, a group of 'fascist'-mongers take
a perverse satisfaction whenever such an incident is heard. Why,
that gives them the opportunity to cry hoarse! They hardly feel pain for
a victim. They never go to help troubled ones-victims of cyclone,
flood, Naxalism, terrorism or other violence- that is not their job.
Their concern is academic and an opportunity to indulge in politics.
Hence any news giving chance to cast aspersion at the administration is
good news.
It is our good fortune
that we have not experienced fascism. Perhaps that is also a reason
these elite intellectuals comfortably name anything as a piece of fascism.
In this country of huge illiterates and vast semi-educated masses how many
challenge such a fraud? Consequently it becomes possible to use, most unjustly,
such a terrible epithet for any government they oppose.
It is quite possible
that many of their gullible followers are little aware of the historical
experiences of fascism. Because, even though so outraged about the
'fascist' government in this country, the learned leftists never write
to explain what fascism is and what Germany or Italy have had under fascism.
Why, that will debunk their legerdemain. One can find any number
of statements signed by Yadavs, Panickers, Habibs and other but not a single
essay on fascism as such. (In contrast, one of the 'fascists', L.K.
Advani, has analysed it in good length in his A Prisoner's Scrap Book).
The leftists do not recall even Marxist theories of fascism authored by
Trotsky, Palme Dutt, Naumann or Paulantzas. For good reason.
It would deprive them of the freedom to call anything fascist if fascism
is clearly formulated, even in Marxist terms. So better keep it open-ended
for the credulous believers and beat the foe by all means-fair or foul.
That is the game.
However, to understand
how far or near the present Indian regime is from fascism it is necessary
to outline it, much-abused here for a long time. To begin with President
Roosevelt of the USA had identified the essence of fascism as "ownership
of the government by an individual". Hitler, the worst fascist, hated
democracy and wrote that there would be no democratic nonsense in a Nazi
state. Mussolini scoffed at the talk of civil liberties and declared
that the fascist state would leave to the individual only "as much liberty
as essential". Spain's dictator Francisco Franco called strikes a
crime and the right to strike as indicative of "the law of jungle and primitive
societies".
Therefore, unlimited
state power, concentrated in the hands of an individual or a clique, and
suppression of civil liberties constitute the pith and substance of fascism.
It has no other meaning. And in this country who did anything similar
to it? The great favourite of our leftist intellectuals-Smt Indira Gandhi-during
her emergency regime. When she was doing all this our Marxists were
writing pamphlets such as "will the Congress alone bring Socialism?" At
the same time the communists were vehemently calling Jayaprakash Narayan
a fascist, who was fighting precisely to restore the democratic rights
abolished by Indira Gandhi. So, according to Indian Marxist standards
A.B. Vajpayee and L.K. Advani fall in the category of Jayaprakash.
In Nazi Germany, fascism
had two very distinct characteristics. First, adoption of propaganda
as a key instrument of state policy; second, the systematic development
of demonology to keep the masses in a mood of perpetual hysteria.
Mathews and Shell-Cross, two specialists in advertising studies, have observed
that advertising, in its spirit and purpose, is germinal fascism.
In his autobiography Hitler used the distinctly, commercial word reklame
(advertising) to describe his political method. His minister Goebbels
later became a synonym for mendacious propaganda. The only match
in such propaganda have been the communist writers. Publicity about
the supernatural abilities of Lenin, Stalin or Mao and the 'best democracy'
on earth had no parallel. To take a recent example: after the brutal
massacre of thousands of students at Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989,
a Chinese spokesman said brazenly : "Nothing happened at Tiananmen Square."
The second thrust of
Hitler was creation of demonology to whip up mass passions to justify its
own perpetuation. Thus, for the German masses, the jewish community
was painted as a diabolical ogre responsible for all their suffering.
Legal suppression of this community, and later even its extermination,
were projected as legitimate in the national interest. Again, the
Stalinist pogroms of Jews in Poland and Romania were at par with those
of Nazis. In the Soviet Union the great dictator uprooted entire
nationalities from Caucasus to 'solve' the nationalities question.
If we witness a frenzied rhetoric here, it is the leftist orators about
the 'fascist' forces, not by such 'fascist' one hears similar discourse
against anyone.
The third feature of
the Nazi state was political idolatry of a most vulgar and uncouth kind.
Hitler himself said in 1935 : "The Fuehrer is the Party; and the Party
is the Fuehrer." The Russian poet Mayakovsky said exactly the same thing
seventeen years earlier, "Lenin is the Party and the Party is Lenin." It
was later said even more ardently about Stalin, repeated incessantly for
25 years till his death. Back home, an identical expression was that
of a Congress President, D.K. Barooah, saying, "India is Indira,
and Indira is India." Such "fetish worship of an individual", as Churchill
characterised it, has been a distinct domain of the Congress party in this
country. Sometimes, it looks ludicrous when septuagenarian Congress
leaders slavishly ask a greenhorn, gentleman, lady or lass, to 'guide'
them.
Therefore, the general
features of fascism are concentration of state power in the hands of one
individual, suppression of civil liberties, use of lies and propaganda
as a key instrument of state policy and reliance on demonology. It
is very remarkable that the first three features are also an inalienable
part of Marxist-Leninist states. Most of these states are extinct
now, but China, North Korea and Cuba are still there to prove the point-one
leader or a clique rules the country, no political party other than the
ruling communist party, no rule of law, no free press, no elections, no
civil rights and no independent judiciary exist in these countries.
Besides, in their glorious times they also butchered millions of compatriots
as mercilessly as did the fascists. In this respect they have even
outdone the fascists. Data of terrible mass killings are official
now, not only during Pol Pot's regime in Cambodia, but in Russia under
Stalin and in China under Mao as well. Such were the Marxist havens
everywhere.
It is undeniable, therefore,
that the closest brothers of actual fascists have been the ruling communists.
In each country, where solely they came to power, there has been no other
variety of socialism. Yet even after the total collapse of the socialist
utopia, Indian Marxists did no review, repented nothing, altered no tenets
of the moribund theory. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) still
decorates big portrait of Stalin in its party Congresses. What does
it signify? Only this: had they got the whole country to rule we would
not have escaped the grim logic of the communist system and the horrendous
cruelties millions of Russians and Chinese suffered.
Fortunately in comparison
to the communist regimes, we have a wonderful system which our leftist
intellectuals enjoyed more than their opponents. They hurl abuses
on the 'fascist' government because their monopoly over academic seats
of power is no more. Therefore, they feel the punch and use the right
to say whatever they feel. They are welcome. That is the beauty
of our system, presently being headed by leaders they love to call 'fascist'.
Some intellectuals might
protest, saying the present regime is not fascist yet, but moving towards
it. In that case they indicate the future, not present. But
the Marxist record in future telling has been abjectly dismal. At
the end of the 19th century, to them, capitalism was to be over within
few years. Then the Soviet Union was to create a new 'Soviet man';
it was to overtake the USA by 1980s; Afghanistan was to reach directly
to socialism, escaping capitalism; and the Indian revolution was at hand
in 1950. The list of such predictions is endless. Thank you,
comrades! Such farsighted intellect is required no more.
