Gujarat Genocide: The Passage to Fascism

The process of fascisation has entered a new phase. The Gujarat genocide has crystallized the reorganization of BJP state policy. Two political principles that fundamentally alter the Indian state have been articulated and legitimized as a state policy. First, the minority community is to be held responsible for every action of an individual, group or political trend within the community. Second, the representatives of the dominant Hindu community have the right to retaliate against and exact retribution from the minority community without due process of law. The acceptance of this principle by the BJP Government in Gujarat, and the NDA Government at the centre, along with the failure of the Indian polity to oust the Modi Government has sanctioned this ideological orientation, howsoever incompatible it is with constitutional norms. Narendra Modi personifies this orientation and he is the pivot of the reorganization of the fascist forces into a new phase. The political defeat of Modi can arrest this process momentarily.

Our main contention is that the Gujarat genocide is no ordinary political event or even one of the many increasingly vicious and brutal communal riots that have engulfed Indian society in the last decade with the rise of BJP. It is a decisive step by the Sangh Parivar to push the state system into a qualitative different and higher phase of fascisation of the state. No doubt this change of phase was precipitated by the recent electoral debacle which reflected the peoples opposition — ranging from militant struggle to wide discomfort — to liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation, which has been induced by the imperialist restructuring of the global economy, and which has led to the erosion of support for the BJP.

The compulsion of imperialism is evident, but it does not explain the more than willing acquiescing character of the BJP which led to the loss of focus on economic policy that could serve the possible, limited national interest and the ability to sustain economic growth. Even that Indian big bourgeoisie that accepts dependency on imperialism expects the state to craft a policy that would enable it to accumulate capital so as to negotiate a better position for itself in the hierarchical global capital structure.

If earlier, it grew under state led capitalism now it needs a stable political formation with an orientation of market driven capitalism, ruthlessness in the privatization of the public sector and the negotiating ability to gain a greater access to global capital, technology and markets. The big bourgeoisie found such a right-wing oriented government with the wide social base to fulfil its need in the BJP-led NDA government. Now, that the BJP is increasingly failing in these tasks, the clamour of its general incompetence and bad governance is being expressed loud and clear. Add to this the large-scale communal unrest that does not allow a peaceful transition period of production and economic transaction for restructuring business, and the call is out for heads to roll.

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