India: How Hindutva works?

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by Bhabani Shankar Nayak     20 May 2021

In recent years, Hindutva politics has caused long-term damage to India and Indians. The so-called 56-inch macho PM, the propaganda master, manufactures and survives all political crises, including the current mismanagement of the Coronavirus pandemic in India. Despite deaths and destitutions, the social, cultural, economic, and religious base of Hindutva is intact. There are only a few scratches in the electoral fortune of the BJP in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. It is time to move away from the analysis based on the leaders’ personalities like Modi and Amit Shah. It is time to blame both the faulty products like Modi and Shah and expose their bigoted manufacturing firm called the RSS. The rule of BJP led by Modi is based on the ideological frameworks of the RSS, developed from the 1920s to 2021, provides conclusive proof that the primitive ideology of Hindutva has destroyed the social fabric, economic foundations, religious harmony, and multicultural outlooks of India and Indians. During the Modi-led BJP regime, India contributed nearly 60% to the rise of global poverty. It speaks volumes about the failure of the BJP government in India. Hindutva politics is neither an option nor an alternative for a modern, progressive, democratic, developed, and peaceful India. There is no ambiguity about it.

However, BJP’s victory in the recently concluded Assam state election and securing a huge percentage of votes in both Assembly and parliamentary by-polls in different parts of India is a worrying sign for Indians. Hindutva politics continue to be a dominant force in Indian politics. Therefore, two fundamental questions need serious discussion.  1. How did Hindutva politics and its myopic leadership managed to convince the electorate to vote for them? 2. How Hindutva works? These two questions need to critically reflect on the core ideological foundations and social base of Hindutva politics.

The riots and assaults on reasons led by Hindutva from Gujarat to New Delhi, ruinous economic and agricultural policies from demonetisation, GST to firm bills, the anti-constitutional citizenship amendment act, the demolition project called ‘Central Vista,’ and the utter failure to manage the Coronavirus crisis are some of the milestones in the Hindutva misgovernance. These avoidable and annihilating crises did not disturb the ideological, social, and political base of Hindutva forces in India. The pathology of the toxic Hindutva politics and its violent projects based on illusory capitalist economic growth and development can be defeated only by defeating its reactionary ideological foundations in society, politics, economy, and culture. The political oppositions and its fatigue of electoral defeats are only strengthening the Hindutva politics. It is time to change the direction against Hindutva politics and fight its core ideological roots.

The Brahminical social and cultural order, majoritarian dominance, anti-Muslim and religious minorities, anti-Dalit, anti-women cultural propaganda, anti-working class politics, and capitalist corporate command economic system are seven pillars of Hindutva politics in India. The pandemic and all other crises did not disturb these core ideological foundations of Hindutva politics. The struggle for a secular, progressive, egalitarian, liberal, and democratic India depends on people’s ability to defeat caste, religious bigotry, and market fundamentalism promoted by capitalism. Hindutva politics works by using these three core value systems, which are disastrous for India and Indians. The Hindutva politics is not an illusory project. It is a serious project of national, international, and regional capitalist classes.

The Hindutva politics has penetrated every step of India’s social, cultural, religious, economic, and political walks of life with its organisational networks, the RSS supported by Indian and global corporates. People with the RSS networks capture all constitutional institutions. The RSS directly or indirectly controls most schools, colleges, universities, cultural and social organisations. Most media organisations have surrendered their professional ethics and sold their freedom to the Hindutva advertisement revenue. The power of money, media, political marketing, and the organisational electoral machine makes Hindutva politics one of India’s most formidable and dominant forces. These combined forces make every Hindutva abnormality and inhuman activities natural and normal. Social depression, political despondency, and acute economic crises are the three net outcomes of Hindutva politics, which create the foundation for Hindutva fascism in India. Deaths and destitution don’t disturb Hindutva ideology. Therefore, morality is alien to Hindutva’s ideology.

In this difficult terrain, India and Indians need radical politics addressing people’s everyday social, cultural, economic, and spiritual needs. The need-based political struggle intertwined with desires and unwavering commitment to re-establish values enshrined in the Indian constitution can revive the Indian path to peace and progress by defeating Hindutva’s core ideology, which is based on caste and capitalism. The struggle against Hindutva is a struggle against caste and capitalism. It is impossible to defeat Hindutva without defeating caste and capitalism. The caste system and capitalism are twin sources of oxygen for Hindutva forces. India needs a radical mass movement to end caste and gender based on economic exploitation and social, cultural, and spiritual oppression.

There is no capitalism, caste, and Hindutva with a human face. These forces and their ideology can never be reformed and recycled. The vulgar reality show of Hindutva fascism and its caste-based capitalism is neither conducive for human lives nor the planet. India and Indians need global support and solidarity movements to re-establish liberal, secular, and constitutional democracy in India. The mass movement for social and political transformation is an urgent need of the hour for the survival of India and Indians. The Coronavirus pandemic is an occasion to end the pandemic of Hindutva and all its ideological and institutional infrastructure in India to safeguard its present and future.