It was in January 2017 that CPI, the second largest ally of the LDF government in Kerala led by CPM Polit Bureau member Pinarayi Vijayan, had accused the latter as “Modi in mundu” (dhoti-clad Modi). However, the developments since then have reached a stage now such that instead of BJP, Vijayan’s links with RSS which currently uses BJP as its principal political tool, are becoming well-defined and deep-rooted in Kerala. And the unfolding revelations point to an explicit nexus between RSS and Vijayan ever since the latter’s ascendancy as CPM chief minister in 2016, amidst his apparent contradiction with the state-leadership of BJP. No doubt, while his close links with Modi regime pertaining to the implementation of all far-right, neoliberal, corporate-fascist policies continue uninterrupted, the conspicuous absence of BJP leaders in the meeting between Vijayan’s emissaries including senior police officers with top RSS leaders has been revealing.
Of course, in spite of RSS adulation of US, the Library of Congress, the main research arm of US Congress, has defined RSS as “a right-wing Hindu nationalist, paramilitary, volunteer, and allegedly militant organization in India.” Today, it has become the world’s biggest and longest-running fascist/neofascist organisation, whose ultimate aim is India’s transformation into a majoritarian, theocratic Hindurashtra in which, as per Manusmriti, Dalits will be subhuman and Muslims being ‘second class’ citizens. Obviously, in fulfilling this task in multi-lingual, multi-cultural, multi-religious, multi-ethnic and caste-ridden India, BJP alone as political tool is insufficient.
Hence, in addition to BJP, RSS is bound to use any party as it’s political tool according to the concrete specificities of States. For instance, in the RSS conclave held in Delhi during the third week of September 2018, it’s Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat himself had unequivocally stated that there was no compulsion on Swayamsevaks to work for any particular party, which implies that RSS can use any political party for achieving its ultimate objective. And, even the relation between RSS and it’s principal political tool BJP need not always be in good terms. Vajpayee’s concerted and earnest efforts while he was PM, especially at the time of Gujarat pogrom, to keep RSS at bay are already well-known.
It is in this context that the depoliticised, ideologically degenerated and organizationally bureaucratic CPM is being transformed as the most suited political tool of RSS and its recruiting centre in Kerala. Except in the colour of its flag, in ideological and political-economic essence, CPM, especially in Kerala, which is it’s last ruling bastion, has totally degenerated to ruling class politics. And, it has been a prolonged process too. The erstwhile undivided Communist Party, in spite of its Brahmanical approach to Caste (that prompted Ambedkar to characterize it’s leadership as ‘Brahmin boys’), had a very cordial relation with the minority Muslim community in India, especially in the context of latter’s heroic role in the anti-colonial independence struggle.
However, in the course of the degeneration of CPM to ruling class politics, even while appeasing Muslim community in the interests of electoral politics, CPM’s basic anti-Muslim and Islamophobic inclination as integral part of its orientation towards majoritarian ideology and politics began coming out in the open since the 1980s when EMS was the General Secretary of CPM. His tirade against ‘Shariat’ and Muslim Personal Law and support of Uniform Civil Code coupled with unwavering support for upper-caste oriented Economic Reservation were examples. By issuing a Central Committee Resolution in this regard in November 1990, CPM had also become the first party in India demanding Economic Reservation, and the Pinarayi regime in Kerala became the first state in India to implement it.
Regarding CPM’s inherent Islamophobia, even V S Achuthandan’s deplorable and notorious statement in Delhi in July 2010 while he was CM, that Muslim fundamentalists were using “money and marriages to make Kerala a Muslim majority state” acted as the forerunner of the fiction around “love jihad” (religious conversion under the pretext of love) now effectively used by both Hindutva forces and their Christian lackeys in the overall context of global Islamophobia propped by imperialist-fascist forces in the neoliberal period. All these, by arousing the Hindutva consciousness of CPM cadres have already created the fertile ground for RSS to penetrate deeply into CPM and Kerala’s social fabric. CPM State Secretary, Kodiyeri’s October 2020 comment that the “Hassan-Kunhalikutty-Aziz” (the latter being Ameer of Jamaat e Islami) axis leads Congress-led United Front, was just another variant of this despicable and malicious campaign by CPM for a majoritarian polarisation in the elections. It is in continuation of this highly Islamophobic campaign that today both CPM and the government led by it in Kerala under the leadership of ideologically bankrupt Vijayan, are strengthening the foundation for corporate-saffron raj in manifold ways.
Though Kerala has been one of the States with the largest number of RSS shakhas, second only to UP, it is under the present CPM-led government that saffronisation of higher echelons of administration and senior police officials became so glaring. In this regard, the saffron links of Pinarayi’s previous police advisor and police chief are much discussed topics. Three years ago, even Annie Raja, leader of CPI, second coalition partner in Pinarayi government, had resolutely questioned the patriarchal and Manuvadi RSS influence in Kerala police force. And, as evident from Sabarimala issue onwards, Kerala has been on the same wavelength as other BJP-ruled States where the fascist “double engine” is in full swing in the realm of polity, economy and culture and in administration including police.
The latest involvement of ADGP Ajithkumar, whose secret parleys as government emissary with RSS is hotly debated in the disruption of the iconic Thrissur Pooram festival for stoking Hindu resentment that enabled RSS/BJP to win Thrissur Lok Sabha seat, is to be viewed in this context. And in the 18th Lok Sabha election that was held under Viyayan’s second term in Kerala, apart from winning Thrissur, Hindutva fascist forces could raise their vote-share by 4 percent and came first in 11 Assembly constituencies. While the 18th Lok Sabha results that denied a majority-mark for BJP in Lok Sabha were a shock to fascist forces and when oppressed people imparted heavy blows to RSS/BJP in strongholds like UP, it was Kerala under Pinarayi regime, for the first time in history, gave the ray of hope for fascists enabling them to have steep rise in their vote-share.
Of course, according to the concrete historical and cultural conditions, while global neofascism today pursues varying ideological roots, everywhere, the material basis of fascism is the most corrupt reactionary corporate capital. As such, from its very inception, along with pursuing the far-right, pro-corporate policies of Modi, Pinarayi regime has been fully integrated with both leading Indian crony capitalists like Adani and global neoliberal corporate centres. As a mark of his unwavering embrace of neoliberalism, immediately after coming to power in 2016, Pinarayi appointed the Harvard neoliberal economist Gita Gopinath, who later became Chief Economist of IMF, as his economic advisor. For transforming Kerala into corporate investor-friendly, he entrusted KPMG, one of the “master-minds of international tax avoidance” to study and suggest measures on “ease of doing business” in Kerala. Among the Indian states, Pinarayi government was the first that whole-heartedly supported Modi’s GST, the most regressive postwar neoliberal tax reform that demolished India’s federal structure. Following Modi’s adoption of speculative Masala Bonds issued by World Bank-backed International Finance Corporation in November 2014, Pinarayi govt of Kerala was the first Indian state to embrace it, and Pinarayi himself went to the London Stock Exchange, the embodiment of international speculative capital, to inaugurate the issuing ceremony of Masala Bonds.
In this context, without going into details, (which have been covered by article in Countercurrents entitled, “CPI(M) and BJP Become “Twin Brothers” in Kerala in Their Ignominious Servility to Adani!” dated 05/12/2022) it can be said that no state government in India including that ruled by BJP, the so called “double engines”, has surpassed the far-right neoliberal-corporatisation unleashed by the Pinarayi government in Kerala. Today, in the context of the CPM-RSS nexus, when controversies around Pinarayi’s use of corporate-saffron PR agencies come to the fore, it should not be viewed as isolated or a new development. It is the logical continuation of the despicable involvement of black-listed multinational consultancies in CM’s office when reports of gold-smuggling with alleged links with it were news headlines and haunting Kerala a few years ago.
To be precise, therefore, the close CPM-RSS nexus or the former being used as political tool by the latter is fully in consonance with the present ideological-political degeneration of CPM in Kerala under the leadership of Pinarayi. As CPM is becoming a political tool of RSS, the lesson conveyed by it is straight and simple: self-professed communists subject to depoliticisation and ideological degeneration are like, or more dangerous than, class-enemies!
(Courtesy: Countercurrents.org)
