Thursday 28 March 2024

News Analysed, Opinions Expressed

Thinking Freely

Is Indian Corporatism the Fascism?

 

I present here some of the classic features of a fascist society and contend that they very much apply to today's India. Are we willing to accept this ?



With the unilateral abrogation of Article 370 in J&K, with the State going after individuals calling them Urban Naxals and Maoists, with dissenters being detained indefinitely under UAPA and POTA without trial, with the State getting obsessed with crime and punishment of individuals as in the Sushant Singh Rajput case selectively as against the Hathras rape or violence case, with five teams investigating the SSR case as against no investigation of Dr Dabholkar, Kalburgi, Pansare and Gauri Lankesh case  – whatever 50-50 liberal democracy Bharat had since 1947 (with an exception of a brief period of declared emergency in 1975) is now as good or bad as vanished.

We now need to understand the fabric of fascism.

Future holds fascism – at least reasonably foreseeable future of India. Any denial of this from Indians would be Ostrich mentality or plain cowardice!

Interesting as it might sound, reality seems to have a leftist bias. Or at least a centrist bias. That is why the left of centre leadership around the world and in India too never needed to generate a solipsistic reality or an alternate reality.

Nehru or Gandhi never falsified history. They never needed to generate alternate narratives. They never needed to hard sell alternate reality to the masses through controlled mass media, dedicated news channels, dedicated literature, rewriting of history, an army of social media trolls and elimination of intellectuals who resist this generation of alternate reality.

This is one interesting aspect of the fabric of fascism. Reality never supports it. So an alternate reality has to be generated and hard sold to the voting masses.

There is yet another aspect. Corporatism.

Benito Mussolini, the father of Fascism once said, “Fascism should be more appropriately called Corporatism because it is a merger of State and Corporate power.”

The ever widening gap between the rich and the poor in current India, the dismal ranking of India behind Pakistan and Bangladesh in Hunger Index, the agony of the agitating farmers – all indicate corporatism.

Weakening cognitive fortification against propaganda, pseudoscience and general falsehood is another aspect of the fascist fabric. Through systematic mind manipulation, fascism makes the people complicit in its agenda of achieving homogenisation of thought, behaviour and emotions of a civilization. Thereby fascism alters the very fundamentals of a civilization. It redefines civility – just as it redefines morality and justice.

Abandonment of the Constitution, because the Indian Constitution does not permit any change in its basic secular doctrine is another sign of fascism. Without intertwining religion with state power, it is impossible to achieve the cognitive deficiency in the general population that is necessary to bulldoze the fascist agenda. Such abandonment of the Constitution takes away the freedom from the lowest who need it most; and hands it over to the highest or the wealthiest who already had it. The wealthy, in turn, strengthen the fascist system that hands over the freedom to them.

Freedom and its quality itself is redefined in this manner – and the people are convinced that such redefinition is the need of the hour.

Can Indians resist this corporatism, these redefinitions, this alternate reality and alternate history?

Disclaimer: Views expressed above are the author's own.



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Dr Mukul Pai Raiturkar

Dr Mukul R Pai Raiturkar is a consultant pediatrician & neonatologist practicing in Margao. He is the co-convener of Ami Goenkar, an organisation of secular young Goans working towards a novel approach to religious-political issues of Goa. Son of veteran Goan freedom fighter Mr Ravindranath Pai Raiturkar, he exudes unshakable faith in a liberal, secular and free spirited democracy of India.

 

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