Make the National Campaign Against Modi’s Intensifying Fascist Offensive a Great Success! – Editorial, Redstar November 2022 Issue

Make the National Campaign Against Modi’s Intensifying Fascist Offensive a Great Success!

Ever since the ascendance of Modi government in mid-2014, RSS, the longestrunning and biggest fascist organisation in the world has been engaged in a systematic and steady offensive towards transforming of India as a Hindurashtra whose ideological basis is Manusmriti that treats both Dalits and women as subhuman and denies Muslims citizenship and human rights. Especially, under Modi.2 since 2019, India is also witnessing a ruthless acceleration of “Modinomics”, the Indian version of crony capitalism today and a multidimensional unleashing of full-fledged corporate-saffron fascism at the all India level.

Today under saffron neofascism, the entire social fabric is confronting a frightening disruption. Through extreme divisive policies, and through instigation, an atmosphere of mutual hatred among people is created leading to feeling of insecurity among Dalits and minorities. Backed by state power, RSS has succeeded its tentacles to every aspect of social life in addition to saffronisation of all Constitutional and administrative institutions in India. Since mid-2019, that is, under Modi.2, the Hindutva offensive got an added momentum. Within three months after his second coming to power, Modi began a series of fascist moves beginning with abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution, thereby breaking up of Kashmir into pieces on the one hand and forcibly integrating it into Indian Union on the other. Violating secularism even in name, Modi himself laid the foundation for construction of Ram Temple at the very site of Babri Masjid, followed by the CAA discriminating the issue of citizenship rights against Muslims and thus making them second class citizens. The next move was saffronisation and corporatization of education through NEP 2020 and superimposition of Hindi and Sanskrit over the States. No doubt, the agenda was to transform the multinational, multilingual, multicultural, multi-ethnic and multi-religious India in to a majoritarian Hindurashtra.

Today, to consolidate Hindu vote-bank in the forthcoming Assembly elections and to prepare the ground for a saffron sweep in the 2024 general election, a no holds barred Hindutva offensive is initiated by RSS and the BJP regime. For instance, in the so called Chintan Shivir of State Home Ministers convened during the last week of October, both Shah and Modi did their maximum to further whip up the majoritarian agenda with their rhetoric on superimposing a pan-Indian policing in violation of the provisions of the State list of the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution and further strengthening of the draconian NIA and UAPA including the plan of opening NIA Office in each State by 2024. In the name of fighting terror, many ideas such as “one data, one entry”, “one nation, one police uniform” and so on were also put forward, along with systematically spreading Islamophobia and depicting Muslims as enemies.

Now the latest in the series of this saffron offensive are Uniform Civil Code and Economic Reservation. Obviously, the objective of the Constitutionally mandated caste-based reservation as elucidated by Dr. Ambedkar was to protect the oppressed castes from the upper caste onslaught in the public spheres of social life. However, by incorporating Economic Reservation by the 103rd Constitutional amendment which the Supreme Court has recently endorsed, Modi regime has undermined caste-based reservation intended to rectify the historical injustice committed against the untouchable and oppressed castes by the brahmanical upper castes. Along with this, in the context of Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh elections, both BJP and AAP have now entered into a cutthroat competition for votes by creating a Hindu-Muslim polarisation once again pushing Uniform Civil Code as the foremost political issue camouflaging the far-right, pro-corporate policies superimposed by Modi regime making people impossible to subsist.

It is in this context that the Central Committee of CPI (ML) Red Star held in the first week of November, 2022 has decided to initiate a nation-wide political campaign against the intensifying RSS neofascism from December 6 to December 25. Obviously, December 6 marks the demolition of Babri Masjid by saffron goons as well as the death anniversary of Ambedkar, the architect of Indian Constitution, while December 25 is the day when Ambedkar burned Manusmriti, the ideological basis of RSS fascism. Along with the anti-Muslim, anti-Dalit and patriarchal moves, BJP-ruled states like Karnataka are treacherously implementing the draconian Farm Laws which Modi was forced to withdraw at the central level due to the historic Farmers’ struggle. Invariably, this political campaign decided by the Party uniting with like-minded forces is in line with the immediate task as outlined in the Political Resolution adopted by the 12th Congress of CPI (ML) Red Star. We appeal to the working class, peasants, and all oppressed together with all progressive-democratic sections to make this political campaign against the fascist regime a great success.

Editorial – Red Star Monthly – November 2022