On the Issue of Brahmanic Hindutva Fascism — Question Answered by Comrade Amrut of the CPI (Maoist)

Q: Explain the character of Hindutva Fascist ideology of the present Indian government. Tell us how it attained a fascist character.

A: Firstly I shall clear one thing. Brahmanism is not confined to Brahmins. It is the ideology of the ruling classes of our country. It is neither confined to Hindu religion in our country. Islam too possesses a caste system that is inseparable from Brahmanism. Caste system prevails in Christianity also. It is seen in the tribal people also. It is ruling our Indian society in a way. Brahmanism exists in all in various forms and various levels. Brahmanism is different from Brahmin caste.

There is a lot of literature about Hindutva ideology. This is a very reactionary ideology. It represents idealist ideology against materialism. Idealism is the basis of the ideology of all religions. All religions preach to think about the other world leaving aside the existing world. Objective idealism opines that the consciousness said to be causing the existence of the world or that of material is not human consciousness. It says that the consciousness of another world outside the human consciousness and the objective world is not human consciousness. Objective idealism says that the consciousness of another world outside human consciousness and material world — Brahma, Paramatma, Akhand feeling, cause of the universe — are the reason for material world. It directly provides the basis for religion and religious beliefs. Most of the idealist philosophers from Plato (BC 424–327) to Hegel (1770- 1831) and the neo-Hegelians are mostly objective idealists. Hindutva ideology comes under Adwaita. Advaita is the Malabar Brahmin Sankaracharya of 8 th century (788–820 AD) formulated the Jaganmidhyaism (meaning the whole world is a myth). He said that theory does not suit practice. He said that knowledge and karma (that is practice) are mutually opposite. This is the philosophical tradition that reflected the interests of the idle ruling classes.

In order to understand the Brahmanic ideology, we must first know about the basis of our country. Marxists are clear about the relation between the base and superstructure. When we say the economy of our country is the basis of Brahmanism, that is the ideology, the economy is semi-feudalism. With the emergence of feudal society Indian idealism and Brahmanism became dominant. After feudalism settled down, the ruling classes took shelter in religious beliefs and idealism like in almost all parts of the world. Politically ours is a semi-colonial country. Our economy yet did not transform into totally capitalist country. Brahmanism is the ideology in superstructure. But, is this separate from the basis! No. for example there is caste system in our country. The ruling classes made intense labor exploitation basing on caste.

Therefore, the struggle against labor exploitation must be aimed at caste also. It would be wrong to think that ideology is mere superstructure and that it shall change automatically along with the base and to not take up struggles against the problems in this sphere. We made a mistake in understanding this during the time of CPI. We rectified it. We understood that caste is in the base and that we have to fight for the eradication of caste. Sankaracharya’s advaita and mayavad gained a strong place as a philosophical perspective of feudal classes in our country. Its spiritual perspective is Chaturvarna. The theory that Brahmanism preaches is the unitariness that does not identify diversity. The last and the most important in Brahmanism is the varna order.

It is said that one cannot read Brahmanist literature even if born 72 times. There are four Vedas, 108 Upanishats, 18 epics and the 6 Sashtras that came before these. There are many more.

The literature of Brahmanism that shows impact on human minds — 1. Manusmriti 2. Bhagavadgita 3. Sankaracharya’s literature 4. Mahabharat 5. Ramayan 6. Epics. These are poisonous.

What is the essence of Brahmanism? 1. This is said to be an ancient religion. But the initial culture of our country is that of Indus valley civilisation. This is called tantravad. Aryans who came from the north west to our country destroyed it. Brahmanism took birth through them. 2. It is said that it does not die. There is no maker and so there is no death. 3. It is said that Hindu religion emerged from the 7th century. 4. Brahmanism divided time into four eras. They are Satya era, treta era, dwapara era and kali era. It is said that we are now living in kali era. The cycle rotates. This is opposite to the spiral Hegel explained. It is against Marxism also. 5. Brahmanism says that brahma, paramatma and akhand feeling are the basis for the world. It is said that brahma, Vishnu and maheswara run the world. 6. The relation between birth and death is called Samsara. It says that punishments (the hell or the heaven) after death depend on the good and bad of the human during life time. This was created for the practice of karma theory. Buddha proposed it but later Brahmans moulded the karma theory as Kama, ardha, dharma and moksha. Kama is the personal happiness in which human must be satisfied. Ardha is the material properties and power. Dharma is to follow moral values in life. Moksha is salvation from human’s life. Human would reach God.

Following dharma is the most important. It means fulfilling the responsibilities. It is to control ardha and Kama. Elders go to Varanasi with the utmost feeling of worship. Hindus believe that if one dies there one would attain moksha.

Purushardha is the meaning of human life. It applies to both women and men. However, it was changed to another form in the later period. Human must live distant to Kama, krodha, lobha, mada and matsarya (sex, anger, stinginess and arrogance). All these were told only for the toiling people. But the parasitic class is full of all these.

More than 40 affiliated organisations of the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS) are continuing more than one lakh 75 thousand service projects in various spheres. In 1989 there were 5 thousand and reached 50 thousand in 1998, one lakh 40 thousand in 2012 and one lakh 75 thousand in 2020. There are more than 40 branches in foreign countries. 60 thousand branches work daily in the country. RSS says that Hindutva is Indianness. They see them synonymous. Sangh is a way of life and applies to all the patriots, according to them.

Our country is a centre for several languages. There were several religions on this land. But it is branded as the land of Vedas. It is being defined with Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan and Gaay (name of Cow in Hindi), Ganga (the River) and Geeta (Bhagavadgita, one of the epics). This is a country where Buddhism and Jainism took birth fighting against Brahmanism. There are many nationalities. There are hundreds of indigenous tribes in the country. There are different cultures. There is a lot of diversity. Brahmanism does not recognise the diversity and takes it unitary. It does not recognise the rest and says that all those are part of the Hindu religion that came forth in the 7th -8 th century. Those took birth in Hindustan but are not part of Brahmanism that was made synonymous to Hindu religion. Nearly 18 percent of the Dalits of the country are said to be Panchamas in the Chaturvarna order. They are embedded in Hindus. Hindu religion defined them untouchables. There are 8.4 percent tribal people in our country. The present Brahmanic rulers do not recognise them as indigenous people. This would go contrary to their argument that no Aryans have come from outside the country. They consider them as Hindus. There are several castes in our country. The Prime Minister of the country wrote a book in which he said that one finds happiness in one’s profession by virtue of caste. Intellectuals of working people and castes of our country and those who understood the origins of Brahmanism question ‘how am I a Hindu?’ Brahmanism does not recognise the diversity and says that except for the 15 percent Muslim people all other people of the country are Hindus. It is making laws. It brought the CAA. Ambedkar said that although he was born Hindu he did not wish to die as a Hindu. Modi and co praises him in its vote interest. These people do not have the right to say so. It is for sustaining their power. It is not surprising that like they did for Buddha, Ambedkar shall be made as the 11th avatar (form) of God Vishnu of Hinduism. Dalits of the higher strata such as Ram Vilas Paswan are joining Hindutva in their vested interest. Persons like Naqvi became its worshippers. Brahmanism is capable of catching hold of either the hair or the legs. Ambedkar realised Hindutva fascism for the first time in our country. He said, ‘If Hindu raj does become a fact, it will, no doubt, be greatest calamity for this country. No matter what the Hindus says, Hinduism is a menace to liberty, equality and fraternity………’. All these are its fascist characters.

1. One that does not recognise one value for one human, that insults the human, that brands human as an enemy, plans to murder and that propagates it as a divine deed after killing. Worshiping the murderer as a God is its killer culture.
2. Lack of brotherhood
3. No trace of democracy
4. Big blow to unity.

While the whole world divided work Brahmanism divided the labourers. Italian poet Umberto Eco analysed certain characteristics of fascism. For example,

1. Worshiping tradition.
2. Rejecting modernism (Vedas spoke of everything)
3. Worshiping actions in the place of critical perspective
4. Differing itself is sedition
5. Instigating fear among others
6. Cashing social despair
7. Always instigating that some or the other conspiracy is going on
8. Describing peace as weakness
9. Low opinion towards the weak.

All these apply to the ruling classes of our country or to the Hindutva forces who are ruling it as the priests. The Sangh Parivar forces are the major part of it. It is also said to be saffron fascism. Our party understood that this is a signal of danger long time back and now it also analysed it to be the main the new form of the old feudal ideology of the feudal exploitive classes of the country pushing forth their agenda of ‘new India’ that is nothing but Brahmanic Hindutva Fascism enemy.

Since the Indian ruling classes are semi-colonial, they implement and are implementing the imperialist dictated economic policies without any opposition. Moreover, the present rulers take up foreign interests in the name of Swadeshi Jagaran Manch. Each and every change that takes place in the imperialist economic policies reflect here. The policies of welfare state until 1990 later became LPG with the trickle down and neo-liberal policies. These are being implemented for the past three decades. In a way this started with the demolition of Babri Masjid. The earlier Congress rulers did all the needed and the Hindutva forces mobilised one lakh kar sainiks (soldiers by hand) who destroyed it. All the Indian ruling classes are the advocates of Hindu religion. But it deceives the Muslims with vote bank politics. The Indian Constitution defined secularism and its meaning was said to be equality of all religions. Perhaps the English must learn English from them.

When the left and the patriots warned about the great danger of LPG policies the government tried to blunt people’s thinking with the communal action with opium like religion. Since then the intensity of the implementation of imperialist economic policies are on the rise in the country and Hindutva is playing with the lives of the people of the country. Gujarat was a laboratory for Hindutva policies where massacres were made. The main persons of it were Modi and Shah. The book ‘Gujarat files’ reveals all their crimes. The writer Rana Ayyub is facing severe harassment from Hindutva forces. She can be said to be the Taslima Nasreen of our country. The rulers are praising this Gujarat where neo-liberal policies were implemented without stop as the ‘model for development’. Neo-liberalism needs a strong centre. The Indian rulers degenerated the states into the level of Municipalities and violating the nominal federal policies. They are strengthening the centre in the name of Indian nation. This is to give a shape to the exploitive dreams of the Indian comprador bourgeoisie. This stand is more aggressively being unleashed in the rule of the present Hindutva rulers. The Akhand Bharat is a part of it and new India is its form.

Modi is intolerable to the existence of states. According to the Constitution of our country agriculture comes under the category of the states. But he bureaucratically made the agriculture laws. GST lowered the states to beg. The National Educational Policy being implemented in our country is a part of their Hindutva agenda. The annulment of Article 370 was their long time wish. They legally banned triple talaq. Now they started to make changes in the Common Civil Code. Make in India is Modi’s flagship program and his agenda is the formation of Hindu state. His slogan is new India. ‘Ek Bharat Sresht Bharat’ is its road map. Now our country is full of ‘one nation-one tax’, ‘one nation-one ration card’, ‘one nation-one grid’, ‘one nation-one election’, ‘one nation-all in one’. There is no diversity, nothing. There is no nation. The only nation is Indian nation. This is the theory of Hindutva forces. This is their unity in diversity. They do not tolerate diversity. They hate it and are dead against to it.

Guru of Hate, (whom PM Modi credits for grooming him into a political leader) decreed while addressing the 1,350 top level cadres of the RSS in 1940 declared, “RSS inspired by one flag, one leader and one ideology is lighting the flame of Hindutva in each and every corner of this great land.” He said thus about Muslims in India Golwalkar’s attitude towards Indian Muslims is well known and recorded: they could either adopt the Hindu religion and all its customs, learn to glory in is heritage, or live on sufferance, ‘’ wholly subordinated…claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment — not even citizen’s rights’’. Jews are divine to them. Golwalkar said thus about them. ‘The Jews’ said Golwalkar, “had maintained their race, religion, culture and language: all they wanted was their natural territory to complete their Nationality”.

I lastly attack the resolution of our Unity Congress-Ninth Congress held in 2007 —

‘……Under the “patriotic garb” of Hindutva policies, they are meekly implementing the imperialist-dictated policies of liberalization-privatizationglobalization, especially after the 80’s. For this they are 1 4 conducting a Hindu fascist campaign, on the basis of which they will try to establish open terrorist forms of rule.

Since the early ’80s, the ruling classes have been promoting Hindu communalism, targeting religious minorities, with the hope of uniting the Hindu majority behind themselves. The Babri Masjid demolition in 1992 was a devious act committed with this very hope. The main vehicle of the Hindu fascist onslaught has been the BJP-RSS combine with its storm trooper organisations like the VHP, Bajarang Dal, etc. The Shiv Sena in Maharashtra too has been propped up to achieve this end. The Hindu fascists are particularly dangerous since they have the support of the most important arms of the state in all their activities.

Feb 2002 was a high point when the Hindu fascist forces in their laboratory, the BJP-ruled state of Gujarat, organized the worst-ever communal genocide since 1947. Thousands of Muslims were brutally killed, thousands burnt alive or maimed. Hundreds of Muslim women were gang-raped and murdered. Muslim property was targeted with absolute precision and destroyed by Hindu state organized goons of VHP, RSS and Bajrang Dal in connivance with state armed forces. Even after four years, many of them have not been able to return to their native places because of the threat of Hindu fascists.

While Gujarat was their own laboratory, similar hate campaigns against Muslims were taken in Karnataka at Baba Budanagiri mazar, in Madhya Pradesh at Jhabua, in Rajasthan, in Maharashtra at Malegaon, and at various other places. They use the smallest opportunity to flare up the sentiments against Muslims, like with the singing of vande mataram. The Indian state too has targeted Muslims, branding them “terrorist.”

After the 9/11 incident and the Parliament Attack Case Muslims were targeted once again. Every Muslim is supposed to prove his patriotism time and again. Indian state forces are even capturing and annihilating innocent Muslims now and then, in the name of nabbing terrorists. Evidences implicating state and Hindutva forces in “attacks” are being willfully suppressed, as can be seen in the Afzal Guru case and the attack on RSS headquarters at Nagpur.

The Cong-led UPA came to power projecting itself as a secular force, but it is the Congress party itself that has been mainly responsible for most of the communal riots ever since the transfer of power. Congress party is even more pernicious. It projects itself as a messiah of Muslims, but in real practice it leaves no stone unturned to spread malicious propaganda against Muslims and other minorities. The anti-Sikh pogroms of 1984 were one such example. In the name of equally opposing all types of fundamentalism, CPI and CPI (M) have actually helped in maintaining the status-quo of domination by the Hindu fascists. Various regional parties have made alliances with the Hindu fascists for the sake of votes and have become apologists for the Hindu fascists.

These Hindu fascists are trying to impose a hegemonistic Hindu culture on the various culturally diverse people of India. While their attacks are mainly concentrated against Muslims, they are also targeting Christians, especially in the tribal areas, aggressively converting tribal people to Hinduism. Similarly, they also attack Dalits.

The Unity Congress — 9th congress of the CPI(Maoist) calls upon the revolutionary masses, all democratic forces and the oppressed religious minorities to unite in a struggle against the Hindu fascists. The worldwide experience of the struggle against fascism teaches that the fascists can be defeated only by militant class struggle in the streets, factories and in the rest of the countryside. The fascists can be defeated only by isolating them from the people and smashing their organizational forces, and by developing and intensifying protracted peoples’ war with the aim of new democratic revolution, then socialism and ultimately establishing communism. The CPI (Maoist) pledges to fight resolutely against each and every instance of the trampling on the democratic rights of the oppressed minorities and others by the Hindu fascists. It pledges to do its best to defend the sections of the population targeted by the Hindu fascists. Our party is willing to unite in a broad front with all the genuine democratic forces which would be willing to fight back the Hindu fascist offensive