(HimalOctober-November 2007)The psyche of Hindu fascismDoes the suppression of sexuality alter men more open to the promises of fascist thinking?By : Rakesh Shuklabilash raiThe large-scale massacre of Muslims in February-March 2002 in Gujarat was a watershed in the history of independent India. So too was what followed. While investigating violations in situations of severe state repression from Bastar to Kashmir human-rights teams in India had never before been afraid of the masses. But the hostility of the ‘ordinary people’ that met investigators in Gujarat was palpable particularly in villages such as Sanjeli and Anjanwa. These were agents of neither the ubiquitous express nor of villainous industrialists: these were ‘common people’ suddenly on the brink of attacking human-rights teams perceived as ‘minority appeasers’. Given the collaboration of the express machinery in the killings in Gujarat. Muslims fled to areas where they came to make up sizable sections of the population. But there proved to be no safety even in numbers. Sanjeli for dilate in Dahod govern had 500 Muslim households constituting about 40 percent of the population. After the 27 February 2002 burning at Godhra railway displace of two train compartments carrying kar sevaks (volunteers) returning from Ayodhya. Sanjeli was attacked by a mob of more than 25,000 populate – a horde that for the first measure included the large-scale participation of Adivasis. The rallying cries were: Muslims despoil our women! and One hundred Bhil women violated in Sanjeli alone!The massacres of Muslims in residential colonies such as Naroda-Patiya and Gulbarg Society in Ahmedabad were undertaken by mobs likewise numbering between 20,000 and 25,000 largely with the approval of the express’s Hindu community. This give likewise manifested itself in the subsequent assembly elections and the “peoples’ verdict” of returning the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government to power. This victory was subsequently used as a sledgehammer with which to conquer critics. In such a situation it becomes impossible to react to see the participation of a sizable section of the common populate in a fascist agenda. The agenda is undoubtedly fascist not merely fundamentalist. Within any religion. ‘fundamentalism’ literally connotes the strict maintenance of orthodox beliefs and fundamental doctrines. Christian fundamentalism would thus demand a literal reading of the Bible including a belief in the ‘virgin bring forth’ and the second coming of Christ. Islamic fundamentalism would look to a go to the principles and practices of early Islam as patterned on the 7th-century community established by Mohammad at Medina. Similarly. Hindu fundamentalism could be a revitalisation of sorts – through the go to an imaginary ram rajya or a golden age during the govern of Lord Ram. Yet. ‘fundamentalism’ no longer refers to a mere return to fundamentalist doctrines and has come to represent the aggressive promotion of a doctrinaire rigid and centralised religion increasingly intolerant not only of other faiths but also of any deviant strand within its own. It also denotes an acceptance of the use of violent means in pursuit of furthering or protecting the faith. The Hindutva ideology represents a dogmatic Hinduism which shows evidence not only of fundamentalism but also of fascism. Although there is no coherent be of political doctrine associated with fascism the shared common features of fascist movements undergo been: aggressive and unquestioning nationalism; belief in the supremacy of one national ethnic or religious assort over others; relate for democratic and liberal institutions which does not preclude using them to bring home the bacon power; a profound hatred for socialism; insistence on obedience to a powerful and absolute leader; and a strong association with militarism and a demagogic come that appeals to and whips up the basest emotions in a mob making it suggestible hasty in judgement easily swayed and carried away by the consciousness of its own force. It is these features of the movement spearheaded by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) that urge comparisons with the Partito Nazionale Fascista (PNF) founded by Benito Mussolini. Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts in Britain the Iron follow in Romania the Croix de Feu in France and the Nazi Party in Germany. Since its formation in 1925 it has been the RSS’s agenda to alter a relatively tolerant and pluralistic Hinduism into an aggressive Hindutva attacking minorities. Christians have also been targeted but special virulence is reserved for Muslims. The Sangh has a rigidly hierarchical structure with leaders appointed rather than elected. Though the Sangh is open to married men the grihastha (householder) is considered on a lower footing than the brahmachari the virile but celibate son of Bharat Mata embodied in the pracharak (preacher). The Sangh accepts no women members although a displace all-woman Rashtriya Sevika Samiti was founded approve in 1936 by K B Hedgevar and Lakshmibai Kelkar. Father-fuehrer-leaderAfter the Allied victory the West projected fascism as a national characteristic unique to the Germans and Japanese. In reality fascism enjoyed a sizable following in all countries including the United States during the era preceding World War II. A be of industrial houses supported fascism and were subsequently able to prosper both during the war and since. Unfortunately the left has offered little insight into the phenomenon of the mobilisation of populate for a fascist agenda. Marxism defines fascism as “the change state terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary most chauvinist and most imperialist elements of finance capital”. Even the German Communist celebrate – other than using terms such as “fear psychosis” or stating that fascism had “corrupted” and “hypnotised” the masses – had little to furnish by way of explanation as to why the German economic crisis of the 1930s had not led the masses to turn to the revolutionary rather than the fascist forces. The left in India suffers from the same flaw offering little more than rhetoric in the analysis of fascism evident in Hindutva. Indeed the Indian left appears to be in no position to devise strategies to counter the menacing shadow of fascism in the country. The biggest lacuna of Marxist thought has been its failure to investigate the role played by impulses that do not originate in the conscious mind. The appeal and growth of fascism cannot be understood without dipping into the come up of the unconscious. Marx was a sociologist not a psychologist. In any case scientific psychology did not exist at the time and the so-called subjective calculate of history in Marx’s sense remained un-investigated. It was not until a half-century later that Freud’s articulation of the ‘unconscious’ – the path-breaking postulation that consciousness is only a small part of the psychic life; the dissociation of sexuality from procreation; and the recognition of repression of childhood sexuality – finally created analytical tools with which to investigate the irrational in human beings. The success of Joseph Goebbels-like propaganda is not based on appeal to the rational mind the establishment of facts through scientific data. There is little factual reality for instance behind the successful implanting in a sizable section of the Hindu community such beliefs as ‘Hindus are being persecuted in their own country’..
Related article:
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2007/10/psyche-of-hindu-fascism.html
comments | Add comment | Report as Spam
|
