Those who forget history…

Lisa Sharlach, PhD

August 15th marks the 75^th anniversary of India’s independence and of the Partition of this former British colony into India and Pakistan (which then included Bangladesh). Apocalyptic violence on August 15, 1947 ruined what should have been a celebration of the victory of the “Quit India” movement. Pakistan was to be an Islamic republic, and India a secular one with a Hindu majority.  That the departing British left the demarcation of international borders unclear even on Independence Day resulted in pandemonium as Sikhs, Muslims, and Hindus found themselves on the wrong sides of the borders. Partition caused the immediate death of one million people, the displacement of up to fifteen million, and the kidnapping of tens, possibly hundreds, of thousands of girls and women. 

The anniversary of Independence and Partition provides an opportunity to outline for a Western anti-fascist audience the rise of colonial-era Indian fascism, adapted from Italy, and its reemergence in 21^st century India.   As in the West, fascists in India have scapegoated vulnerable segments of the body politic – in the case of India, religious minorities – to justify seizing political power on behalf of “the nation.”  Recurrence of this ethno-religious violence — which South Asians term “communalism” — has been particularly evident in recent decades since the political ascendancy of Hindu nationalism, or Hindutva (“Hindu-ness”). Its proponents depict themselves as victims within India of the non-Hindu minorities, whom they believe to be aligned in a conspiracy against them that involves also Pakistan and the Western world.  Hindutva supporters specifically encourage antagonism and even violence toward those Indians who practice Christianity and Islam, because foreign conquerors brought these religions to India. Sikhs, Jains, and Buddhists are less distasteful to the Hindu nationalists because their religions are indigenous to India.  The goal of Hindutva is to abolish secularism and create a Hindu India within an anti-democratic and pro-business environment. Critics liken Hindutva to fascism.  

Indeed, the history of Hindutva is intertwined with that of European fascism. In 1923, anti-colonial activist Vinayak Damodar Savarkar had coined the term “Hindutva” from prison in a pamphlet titled “Essentials of Hindutva.” He was released in 1924.  Two years later, physician Keshav Baliram Hedgewar founded the institution that embodied—and still embodies – this Hindutva ideology, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the “National Volunteer Corps.” Its original emphasis was physical and mental well-being through religious discipline. The RSS remains the nucleus of what are today several dozen affiliated and overlapping associations that comprise the Sangh Parivar or Sangh (“Family”), which are centered upon Hindutva.

According to researcher Marzia Casolari, early RSS adherents in Maharashtra, India, impressed by the rosy Italian fascist propaganda that had made its way there, decided that a Hindu-infused fascism could be a blueprint for building a vibrant Indian polity. B.S. Moonje, an Indian politician associated with the RSS and a close friend of the founder, traveled to Italy in March 1931 and had a meeting with Mussolini to seek his guidance on starting a fascist movement in India.  Moonje observed and took notes on Italy’s military college, the physical education training in schools, and the two youth indoctrination groups.  The latter became the prototype for the RSS’s paramilitary organizations for Indians between ages 6 and 18.  The Italian consulate in Bombay in 1938 began instructing youth in the Italian language – and fascist ideology.  A 1943 government report on the RSS notes that while some perceived it to be merely a sort of Hindu Boy Scouts, most chapters of it had martial overtones and advocated for an India free from British or Muslim influence. The influence of European fascism was obvious.  “The organization of the Sangh is based on Fascist principles, the elective and committee systems being absent. . . . The leaders of the Sangh (sometimes called organizers) are entitled “Chalak” (the exact Hindi equivalent of the word Fuehrer)” (Rashtriya Swayam Sewak Sangh, p. 63).  Then, in 1937, when the legal prohibition on his engagement in politics had expired, Savarkar became the president of Hindu Mahasabha.  It is political party that claimed to be distinct from the RSS, but was not. Savarkar, who had received a copy of Mein Kampf from a German journalist, in 1940 referred to National Socialism as the “saviour” of Germany. He repeatedly praised Hitler’s persecution of Germany’s Jewish minority, lauding it as an example of how India should treat its Muslims. However, World War II made it difficult for him and other Indian fans of fascism to communicate with Italy and Germany. 

Although the founders of the RSS were nationalists, most of the group did not support the “Quit India” movement.  They held a particular distaste for Mahatma Gandhi, and his willingness to work with Muslims.  Unsurprisingly, an RSS devotee, Nathuram Godse, assassinated Mahatma Gandhi on January 30, 1948.  (The RSS claims he was no longer affiliated with them).  The Indian government then banned the RSS and tried Savarkar for complicity in the assassination, but there was insufficient evidence to convict him. 

The political party associated with the RSS is the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which in 1980 replaced the Bharatiya Jan Sangh (BJS), founded in 1951.  The BJP’s stronghold is the Indian state of Gujarat, where it came to power in the mid-1990s. Narendra Modi, originally an RSS student leader, rose through the BJP party ranks in Gujarat in the 1990s.  He was the state’s chief minister during what are known as the 2002 “riots,” but which appear to have been a state-sponsored pogrom against Muslims. Modi has served as India’s Prime Minister since mid-2014 when the BJP again took the lead in the national legislative elections.  The BJP now dominates the legislature at the federal level and also in 19 out of the country’s 28 states. 

 Since the BJP’s political rise in 2014, governance in India has moved away from secularism and democracy, and toward a Hindutva-styled fascism.  The rights of Muslims have eroded; anti-Muslim sentiments flood the media, some perpetrated by BJP-affiliated troll bots; and the 2019 Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) grants a path to Indian citizenship exclusively for Hindu migrants from India’s neighboring countries.  Freedom of expression has shrunk, while surveillance of private communications has grown. Various branches of government, including the judiciary, the armed forces, the police, and some universities, cannot operate without undue interference from the BJP and/or the RSS.  Thus, Freedom House, V-Dem, and other think-tanks that measure democratization have stripped India of its status as the world’s largest democracy, a status that it had held since Independence Day in 1947.    

Other links:

Hindutva Watch https://hindutvawatch.org/communalism/

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh  https://www.rss.org/