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The Spectre of Fascism

Article in Economic and Political Weekly · March 2012

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BOOK REVIEW
The Spectre of Fascism
Rohini Hensman
I
f the message of both these books had
to be summed up in one sentence, it
would be this: The spectre of fascism
is haunting India. Godse’s Children (here­
after GC) concentrates on the phenomenon
of Hindutva terrorism, while The Saffron
Condition (hereafter TSC) is divided into
three sections: S­affronisation and the
Neoliberal State, Logic of Caste in New
India, and State and Human Rights.
There is thus an area of overlap between
the two, with Hindutva terror also ap­
pearing in TSC, but treated in far greater
detail in GC.
“What could be said to be the first act
of terrorism in independent India?” asks
Gatade, and replies, “Everybody would
agree that the killing of Mahatma Gandhi
on 30 January 1948 by a Hindu fanatic
called Nathuram Godse constitutes the
first terrorist act in independent India”
(GC: 41). If “terrorism” is defined as vio­
lence or threats of violence against civil­
ians in pursuit of a political goal, then
the assassination of Gandhi could in­
deed be seen as a terrorist act. The point
being made here is that terrorism is not
something new for the Hindutva agenda
of creating a “Hindu Rashtra” in India: it
was always part of it. The author outlines
the conspiracy between members of the
Hindu Mahasabha, Rashtriya Swayam­
sevak Sangh (RSS) and V D Savarkar to
eliminate Gandhi. An interesting fact
that emerges is that the successful assas­
sination was only the last of at least five
attempts starting in 1934. This lays to
rest the idea that it was Gandhi’s support
for Partition that motivated the killing.
Gandhi was a devout Hindu and fairly
conservative socially; what made Hindu
nationalists hate him so much that they
made repeated attempts to kill him and
finally succeeded?
In fact, the idea of people’s amity cutting across
boundaries of race, religion, sex, etc, which
Gandhi upheld all his life was...anathema to
the exclusivist, Hindu supremacist world view
of the members of RSS and Hindu Mahasabha.
And, while “nation” was a racial/religious
construct in the imagination of the Hindutva
34
Godse’s Children: Hindutva Terror in India
by Subhash Gatade (New Delhi: Pharos Media and
Publishing), 2011; pp 400, Rs 360.
The Saffron Condition: Politics of Repression and
Exclusion in Neoliberal India by Subhash Gatade
(Gurgaon: Three Essays Collective), 2011; pp 475, Rs 500.
forces, for Gandhi and the rest of the nation­
alists it was a territorial construct or a
bounded territory comprising of different
communities (GC: 44).
The assassination of Gandhi could not
prevent India from adopting a predomi­
nantly secular, democratic constitution.
Another way of working for a Hindu
n­ation was to launch periodical massacres
of Muslims and, more rarely, other mino­
rities, including the Nellie massacre of
1983 in which an estimated 3,300 Muslim
men, women and children were killed.
These have in popular parlance been
called “riots”, but this is a misnomer
since it suggests a spontaneous outbreak
of violence, whereas all investigations
show these events to be carefully planned
and executed; “pogroms” would be a more
accurate description. As Gatade points
out, one of the most disturbing aspects of
these pogroms is that the ringleaders
and all but a very few of the l­ower-level
perpetrators have never been punished.
Furthermore, “the same citizenry which
is categorically opposed to terrorism
would exhibit a strange sense of ambiva­
lence towards such indiscriminate vio­
lence and arson” (GC: 62). Where the vic­
tims of terror are minorities or dalits,
impunity has been the rule.
Kafkaesque Happenings
This is the background against which
Hindutva terror in the narrower sense
emerges. The incidents mentioned in GC
(including those where the terrorists killed
themselves by accident, training was
imparted to would-be terrorists, and blasts
were designed to frame Muslims) are nu­
merous. Including instances quoted from
S M Mushrif’s book Who Killed Karkare?
the list would go something like this:
march 3, 2012
training camp in the use of gelatin sticks
(Pune, Maharashtra, 2000); training camp
in handling weapons and making bombs
(Bhonsala Military School, Nasik, Maha­
rashtra, 2001); a series of bomb attacks on
mosques and madrasas (Saharanpur, UP,
2002); firearms training camp (Bhopal,
MP, 2002); bombs planted at a Muslim
gathering (Bhopal, 2002); manufacture
and use of bombs in the Gujarat carnage
(2002); weapons training camp for women
(Kanpur, UP, 2003); bombing of mosque
(Parbhani, Maharashtra, 2003); bombing
of madrasa and mosque (Purna, Maha­
rashtra, 2004); bombing of mosque (Jalna,
Maharashtra, 2004); accidental blast while
handling explosives (Nanded, Maharash­
tra, 2006); deadly bombing of a Muslim
festival (Malegaon, M­aharashtra, 2006);
deadly bombing of the India-Pakistan
Samjhauta Express (Haryana, 2007);
Mecca Masjid blast (Hyderabad, Andhra
Pradesh, 2007); Ajmer Sharif blast
(Ajmer, Rajasthan, 2007); detonators de­
livered to Muslim merchants (Wardha,
Maharashtra, 2007); another accidental
blast (Nanded 2007); bomb planted out­
side mosque (Pen Highway, Maharashtra,
2007); explosion at New Bus Stand (Ten­
kasi, Tamil Nadu, 2008); bomb attack on
RSS office (Tenkasi, 2008); explosion at
auditorium (Thane, Maharashtra, 2008);
bomb discovered and defused at audito­
rium (Vashi, Maharashtra, 2008); bomb
at cinema (Panvel, Maharashtra, 2008);
accidental explosion (Kanpur, 2008); live
bomb recovered from Belgaum-Hubli road
(Karnataka, 2008); bomb blast at court
(Hubli, Karnataka, 2008); bombing of
marketplace (Malegoan 2008); bomb blast
in marketplace (Modasa, G­ujarat, 2008);
low-intensity blast (Kanpur, 2008); bomb­
ing of church (Lalitpur, Nepal, 2009); ex­
plosion at Margao (Goa, 2009); live
bomb defused (Sancole, Goa, 2009);
bomb blast at primary health centre
(Kanpur, 2010).
For anyone who has not been follow­
ing the news about Hindutva terrorist
attacks, the sheer number and wide geo­
graphical distribution of these attacks is
astonishing, and indicates, as the author
suggests, a turn from communal po­
groms to terror attacks as the favoured
strategy for “the reactionary political
project of building fascism” (GC: 320-21).
vol xlviI no 9 EPW Economic & Political Weekly

It is apparent that at least in the 21st
century, Hindutva terror has been far
more active in India than Islamist terror.
Why, then, has this fact not been appre­
ciated more widely? The answer to this
question is extremely disturbing, and
opens up the possibility that other terrorist
attacks too that have been attributed to
Muslims have actually been perpetrated
by Hindutva terrorists.
In the overwhelming majority of these
cases, Muslims were the first to be
blamed for the terror attacks. Here is
one instance of the Kafkaesque manner
in which innocent Muslims have been
framed by the police:
The prosecution had claimed that the accused
were arrested following a gunfight near Gur­
gaon-Delhi road on 1 July 2005. Delhi police
had informed the court that the four accused
in the car had tried to flee when they were
asked to stop. It was also claimed that the ac­
cused opened fire on the police team. After the
encounter, which lasted for a few minutes, the
team was arrested by the police and an army
combat uniform, fake currency of Rs 50,000
and a sketch of Palam Air Force Station were
“recovered” from their possession. The judge
discovered to his utter surprise that there was
no such encounter on the intervening night of
1-2 July 2005, and an absolutely fake encoun­
ter story had been manufactured sitting in the
office of the Special Staff led by Sub-inspector
Ravindra Tyagi (GC: 276).
Similar stories are repeated in case after
case: police personnel, often acting in col­
lusion with intelligence agencies, arrest,
incarcerate and torture innocent Muslims.
(Appendix VI, GC: 359, is an account of
what was done to one of these victims.)
Years later, when their cases finally come
to trial, they are acquitted, but not before
their lives have been ruined and their fam­
ilies devastated. Meanwhile, the real cul­
prits are left free to kill again.
Karkare Assasinated?
The honorouble exception to this rule was
Hemant Karkare, chief of the M­aharashtra
Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) from January
2008. Meticulously following the clues
in a spate of terrorist attacks, including
especially the 2008 terror a­ttack in Male­
goan, Karkare began to unearth evi­
dence against and arrest members of a
Hindutva terrorist network comprising
sadhvis and swamis, former and current
military personnel, and other right-wing
activists. One would think that he would
Economic & Political Weekly EPW march 3, 2012
be honoured for helping to make Mahar­
ashtra safe by putting terrorists behind
bars, and there were indeed some who
treated his work with the greatest re­
spect and admiration. But leaders of the
BJP, RSS, VHP and Shiv Sena called him a
traitor, demanded that he be dismissed
as ATS chief, and issued him with death
threats (GC: 141-44, 148-49).
Karkare was killed during the 26 No­
vember 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai,
and evidence uncovered by his widow
Kavita, Vinita Kamte (the widow of Ashok
Kamte, another police officer killed
along with him) and Mushrif revealed
that the official account of his death was
completely unreliable, fuelling specula­
tion that he had been assassinated by
Hindutva activists. Gatade quotes from an
article in Hardnews which emphasises
that the bullets which killed Karkare were
never identified, and their trajectory –
from the top of the shoulder downwards
rather than from the front, back or side –
suggests that they were fired by one of the
police personnel inside the vehicle with
him rather than by any terrorist outside
(GC: 152-53). He concludes that it is crucial
there should be a separate commission
of enquiry into the death of Karkare and
the other police officers killed with him, a
demand that has been echoed by others.
Thus there is abundant evidence that
the police and intelligence agencies are
heavily infiltrated by accomplices in
Hindutva terror. But the rot goes higher.
The author points out that many bomb
blasts (e g, the Samjhauta Express blasts)
are timed to sabotage India-Pakistan talks,
the timing of which would not be known to
lower-level functionaries; these planners
and masterminds would be much higher in
the state apparatus. He also observes that
in BJP-ruled states, the trail of Hindutva
terror inevitably goes cold even when
policemen pick it up, demonstrating
political involvement of the Hindutva
forces at the highest l­evels. Among
“disguised terrorists” the author includes
elements in the media who “take the hand­
outs of intelligence agencies as gospel
truth” instead of pointing out the “incon­
sistencies and loopholes galore in them”.
“Honourable exceptions apart, the domi­
nant media is hugely biased in favour of
Hindutva” (GC: 336-37). Bar associations
vol xlviI no 9
BOOK REVIEW
too have engaged in the unethical practice
of refusing to represent Muslims accused
of terrorism, even when these cases have
been patently false. Gatade mentions two
courageous lawyers who challenged this
ban and faced physical violence as a con­
sequence (GC: 169-70), but strangely
leaves out Shahid Azmi, who was shot
dead in Mumbai in 2010 after he had
proved to the satisfaction of the court
that his client, Fahim Ansari, had been
framed by the police in the 26 November
terror attacks.
Resemblance with Nazism
Supposedly secular political parties have
not taken up the challenge either. The only
senior Congress Party leaders who have
spoken out openly against Hindutva terror
– Digvijay Singh and P Chidambaram –
were not supported by others in the party,
supposedly in order not to antagonise
ordinary Hindus (GC: 325-26, 329-30).
But it is hard to believe that the party is
unaware of the distinction between the
religion, Hinduism, and the political ideo­
logy of Hindutva. The result of Congress
softness on Hindutva terror is that in
Congress-ruled states too, innocent
Muslims have been incacerated and
tortured for terrorist acts they did not
commit, while the perpetrators have
been free to kill again. “The most dis­
turbing aspect of this phenomenon”,
writes the author, ‘is that even the Left,
especially its mainstream version, failed
to rise to the occasion” (GC: 24).
There is a striking resemblance bet­ween
this situation and pre-Nazi Germany as
described by Arthur Rosenburg in his
e­ssay “Fascism as a Mass Movement”
(translated by Jairus Banaji in Historical
Materialism 20(1), 2012). Here it is pointed
out that the fascist ideology which was
later exploited by Hitler and the Nazis was
widely prevalent decades earlier. In the
case of India, the corresponding ideology
is communalism. U­nless Gatade’s urgent
call for “an uncompromising struggle
against communalism” (GC: 342) is
heeded, India could be heading in the
same direction.
The resemblance with Nazism is even
more striking in Gujarat under Narendra
Modi, as the author points out in chapters
entitled “Auschwitz of Our Times” (TSC: 42)
35
BOOK REVIEW
and “Modi’s Gujarat” (TSC: 52). The hor­
rific gang rapes and mass murders of
Muslims in 2002, accompanied by arson
attacks on everything owned by them or
associated with them including places of
worship, would qualify the statewide
pogrom as a crime against humanity if not
genocide as defined in the Rome Statute
of the International Criminal Court. The
continuing ghettoisation and persecution
of Muslims, the impunity enjoyed by the
perpetrators (which is being challenged
in court by courageous survivors and their
supporters), and “the absence of remorse
among people of the state” (TSC: 59) are
all indicators of fascism as a mass move­
ment. The indoctrination of children by
means of falsified history textbooks (in­
cluding the glorification of Hitler) (TSC:
109-111) constitutes an attempt to pass on
this ideology to a new generation. The
inevitable destruction of the rule of law is
exemplified by the failure of the authori­
ties to intervene when a young dalit
woman student was gang-raped repeat­
edly by six of her teachers at a government
teacher training college (TSC: 60-65). We
might add that prominent industrialists
hailing Modi as a future prime minister
and Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan
acting as brand ambassador for Modi’s
Gujarat indicate that certain sections of
the elite favour fascism.
The author repeatedly makes the point
that while fully fledged fascism might
be the preserve of the Sangh parivar,
the soft communalism of other parties
including Congress (the hostility of some
members to religious conversions, for
example) provides fertile soil for extrem­
ism to grow. Almost universal acceptance
of a society hierarchically structured by
caste is another factor f­acilitating this
growth. Systematic discrimination against
dalits, forcing them to engage in demean­
ing occupations like manual scavenging,
and frequent gang-rapes, mass murder
and arson attacks, indicate that the evils
of untouchability and caste oppression
are far from being eradicated. But what
could the remedies be? The section on
the logic of caste (TSC: 207-324) exam­
ines this question.
The author also asks why, despite fac­
ing very similar oppression, dalits and
Muslims have failed to unite. On the
36
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contrary, dalits and adivasis have in some
cases been recruited as storm-troopers
in communal pogroms (e g, in Gujarat),
although others have acted in solidarity
with Muslims. Kancha Ilaiah has blamed
this on Muslim intellectuals who have
been indifferent to the issues of caste
and untouchability, but Gatade correctly
observes that this cannot explain how
the same dalits who had been the targets
of casteist Hindutva violence since the
anti-reservation riots of the early 1980s
could find common cause with their op­
pressors (TSC: 223). He suggests this is a
classic case of the submergence of the
dalit identity within the “larger canopy”
of Hindu identity, and points out the par­
allel with the large-scale participation of
Hindu women in the pogroms following
the demolition of the Babri Masjid, de­
spite the fact that Hindutva is similarly
oppressive towards women. Dalits, he
explains, have only two paths to social
mobility: either to reject the religious
edifice that sanctifies the caste system
and seek an alternative identity, or to
climb the social hierarchy by imitating
the dominant castes. Their absorption
within the “Brahminical-Fascist project
of the Parivar” (TSC: 230) is an example
of the latter.
Gatade examines the experiment of
the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in a parti­
cularly nuanced and illuminating way,
showing that it has genuinely improved
the position of dalits in Uttar Pradesh,
and yet, by forming alliances with the
BJP, soft-pedalling the activities of the
Sangh parivar, and Mayawati’s endorse­
ment of Modi, has also served the
Hindutva agenda. The conclusion seems
to be that although state power can in­
deed be used to advance the interests of
dalits, the drive to capture it at any cost
leads to adjustments that in the end
u­ndermine the cause of dalit empower­
ment. The transition from a “bahujan” to
a “sarva jan” identity exemplifies the
way in which electoral politics have
a­ffected the party’s agenda.
Complicit Civil Society
The continued prevalence of atrocities
against dalits and the ways in which the
Protection of Civil Rights Act (1955)
and the Scheduled Castes and Tribes
march 3, 2012
(Prevention of Atrocities) Act (1989) are
routinely subverted are eerily reminiscent
of the ways in which those who rape and
kill Muslims manage to get away with it.
And in this case too, the role of “civil
s­ociety” is not edifying: “Civil society…is
complicit in perpetuating caste-based in­
equalities, indignities and violence against
SCs”. The author comments that so long
as “caste inequality is accepted both in
theory and practice, a legal constitution
has no bearing on the ethical foundation
of caste-based societies” (TSC: 270).
It seems to follow then that abolition of
caste is the only solution, and reservations
as a form of affirmative action were in­
stituted in this belief. Yet 60 years later,
not only do dalits still suffer discrimination
and violence, but they are themselves
split along caste lines and caste remains
all-pervasive. A weakness of the book is
that it does not discuss possible alterna­
tive strategies such as a campaign for
equal opportunities legislation, which
would also have the merit of bringing
together dalits, adivasis and Muslims.
The last section of TSC deals with a
v­ariety of ways in which the state attacks
human rights: through legislation like the
Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA),
which allows the armed forces to violate
human rights with impunity, extra-judi­
cial killings, torture, clamping down on
social protests, incarcerating human rights
defenders and so on. The struggles of
Irom Sharmila, on hunger strike against
the AFSPA for over a decade, and Binay­
ak Sen, a human rights defender and
doctor serving the poor, are described.
Gatade belongs to the small section of
left-wing writers and activists who take
the task of combating the growth of fas­
cism in India seriously. These important
books should be read widely. However, a
detailed index with subsections would
have been helpful in both, since they are
collections of articles, and pursuing a
theme becomes difficult if the researcher
has to go through several items in order
to find a particular one. Hopefully this
will be remedied in future editions.
Rohini Hensman (rohinihensman@yahoo.
co.uk) is an independent scholar and activist,
and the author of a novel set in contemporary
Sri Lanka, Playing Lions and Tigers.
vol xlviI no 9 EPW Economic & Political Weekly