By Nitya Chakraborty
On June 25 last year, the first time Lok Sabha member of Trinamool Congress, Mahua Moitra mesmerised the house in her debut speech indicating how the Indian state under Prime Minister Narendra Modi is showing early signs of fascism. Based on the poster put up in the main lobby of the Holocaust Memorial Museum in the United States, Moitra chose seven signs relevant to the Indian context and explained its significance amidst the continuous disturbances made by the BJP members.
Exactly six months and 14 days after her speech, a look at the state of the nation under the second BJP led regime of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP President and Home Minister Amit Shah, confirms the signs and this visionary aspect of this young Trinamool MP must have weighed with the Forbes magazine when it decided to include Moitra among the 20 people globally who should be watched in 2020.
2020, the first year of the third decade of the 21st century has started in India with the unprecedented development at the Jawarharlal Nehru University on January 5 night when masked thugs numbering around one hundred beat the students and the faculty members in the hostels and the teacher’s flats while the Delhi Police stood outside without taking any action. The time when the mayhem was continuing, the JNU administration was busy in writing complaints against the students union president and her student colleagues for some developments taking place on January 1 and January 4.On January 7, the FIR was filed by the Delhi police against the students who was attacked by the masked men on Sunday night.
Then on January 7, another significant development took place at Lajpatnagar. The BJP supporters evicted two women lawyers from their respective flats after they showed a banner against the CAA and NRC to the BJP outreach procession in support of CAA led by Amit Shah. This means that nobody has any right to put protest banner in a peaceful manner. The signal is crystal clear to the single women professionals in Delhi that they are not safe if they protest against the ruling BJP’
Coming to the seven signs of early fascism as mentioned by Moitra, the first is the nurturing of narrow, superficial and xenophobic nationalism, the second is complete disregard of human rights and hate crimes. The developments in the last five years are the testimony to what extent the hate industry has proliferated under the Modi regime. The renowned economist Prof. Pranab Bardhan said once that Modi’s Gujarat model of development had no takers in other parts of India despite all hype over it during the first tenure of the Prime Minister. But Modi has been able to spread the Gujarat model of hate all over India in the last five years
The third sign is the subjugation of the mass media, especially the big national media and the TV channels and fourth is obsession with national security. This has not to be elaborated. It is so apparent every day by the newspaper readers and the viewers. The journalists working in the big media themselves know the ongoing developments. As regards fourth, no speech of Modi-Shah ends without mentioning Pakistan and always mentioning those who are opposed to CAA, NRC and NPR as playing Pakistan’s game.
The fifth sign is the intertwining of religion and Government. It is known that the New India of which the Prime Minister is talking about is about the Hindurashtra as per the BJP’s election agenda. The party and the Government are working in tandem. There is another aspect which the sociologist Dr. Ashish Nandy had said after the coming of Modi for the second time in May 2019. Nandy said that the Indian military leaders have started talking in the pattern of ruling party leaders in the nature of Pakistan. This is a dangerous sign, he said. After the comments of the then Army Chief and now CDS, Vipin Rawat about the students movements, it becomes clear that the Government leadership is encouraging the politicalisation of forces. Rawat should have been ruled out of CDS position after this violation of defence ministry rules, but he was given the coveted position to give signal to the senior armed forces personnel that the political talk on the line of the ruling regime, will not invite any wrath.
The sixth sign is the complete contempt for intellectuals. This has been the experience of the independent thinkers and the faculty members of the prime academic institutes in the last few years. This situation is likely to aggravate and the ruling regime is sure to take more measures to see that the intellectuals fall in line with the BJP and the Government thinking.
The seventh, according to Mahua Moitra is the erosion of the independence of the electoral system. This has been in evidence for the last five years. The ruling regime is determined to put faithfuls in key positions of the bureaucracy, judiciary and the constitutional body like Election Commission.
So that way India in the beginning of 2020 shows all, the seven signs mentioned by Mahua Moitra. But there is hope as the anti-CAA movement has spread throughout the country and this has engulfed people of all ages, religion, gender and political parties excepting BJP. There is enormous anger against the economic policies of the Modi regime, The living conditions are becoming increasingly unbearable. On January 8, all India general strike has been held against the anti-people economic policies of the Modi government
This latest upsurge by the civil society, especially students and women has to be channelised in a proper way. The opposition parties, especially the Congress, Left, NCP, Trinamool and DMK have to mobilise themselves on the basis of a programme taking civil society all along. The BJP juggernaut has to be halted in Delhi and Bihar assembly elections. By undermining BLP’s power through peoples mandate in the coming elections, the fight against the fascist tendencies can get stronger. The non-BJP parties still rule over 65 per cent of the country’s population. A visionary opposition can still combat the jingoism of the BJP and retard the process of growing fascist tendencies. 2020 is the crucial year for the opposition to take that plunge. (IPA Service)