India is displaying classic signs that foreshadow fascism

http://qz.com/844672/along-with-narendra-modis-rise-india-has-displayed-classic-signs-that-foreshadow-fascism/

by M_Grey • 10 years ago

70 68 10 years ago

dogma1138• 10 years ago

So does Turkey and many other countries.

This is total bull. Just because the us and the UK are screwing themselves over, doesn't mean that the rest of the world is too. BJP is inspired by Nazis and fascists... Do some research first. Jeez !

cstross2• 10 years ago

You missed the just-aborted far right coup in Montenegro, or the way France is looking to see a run-off presidential election between a hard-right candidate and Marine Le Pen (who is a court-certified fascist -- as in, she sued an opponent who called her a fascist for libel and the court found that she was, indeed, a fascist)? Or the rise of the AfD in Germany? Golden Dawn in Greece? Vladimir Putin's adherence to the Dugin Doctrine expounded in "Foundations of Geopolitics"?

Trump and Brexit aren't isolated symptoms: it really does seem to be Springtime for Hitler wannabes this year.

gaius2• 10 years ago

Fascist is the most overused word of recent years. The original fascists in Italy were WW1 veterans who had read Marx and observed that being put in a uniform and militarized erased distinction between classes, and sought to replicate that at a societal level to end class conflict. The patriotism, the strong hierarchical government, the diversion of industry towards armaments production, were all parts of this, but they weren't the end in and of itself. And the Italian fascists didn't really have any sort of racial agenda. They worshipped technology, industrial progress, youth, futurist artists, and so on.

People called Farage a fascist, but there was very little overlap if any at all between what he believes and advocates, and what fascists do. Farage doesn't want a strong government, it's questionable if he wants any sort of functioning government at all, he's closer to an anarchist than a fascist. Same with Trump, he doesn't believe what fascists believe or want what fascists want. Now a lot of people don't like them, and fair enough - but if words are to mean anything at all let's retire "fascist" as a general purpose pejorative for any badman...

sandGorgon• 10 years ago

mildly true.

However, as compared to Trump ? jeez not even the leader of India's right wing quasi-religious party could ever say "ban muslims" in India.

I have a feeling that we are going to see a lot more of these articles... the liberal media in the US is trying to make sense of what just happened. And the closest available model is the Indian democracy.

dominotw• 10 years ago

jeez not even the leader of India's right wing quasi-religious party could ever say "ban muslims" in India.

Modi was held directly held responsible for 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom, though he was later cleared of all wrongdoing( politicians almost never get convicted of any crime in India, they are noble class that hovers over the democracy but never directly participates in it.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Gujarat_riots

snrplfth3• 10 years ago

“These features cannot be organised into a system; many of them contradict each other and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it.”

Umberto Eco is a smart guy but that essay is pretty silly. Fascism: anywhere, everywhere, and you can tell it's coming by any number of contradictory and non-definite phenomena.

6502nerdface• 10 years ago

No, if you read Eco's essay he takes pains to clarify that he's not saying "you can see it coming" -- he's describing the seeds of fascism that are present in many, perhaps all societies, which fascism can potentially latch onto and grow from... the aspects of our socieites that are usually checked, but have the potential to germinate into something worse.

snrplfth3• 10 years ago

I've read it, thanks. I read it a decade ago and a few times since, back when I was in a semiotics degree program and Eco was a prominently featured thinker. I respect him, but I don't really agree with him on this one.

Sure, he's describing major features of the category of political thinking that he calls fascism - but with the purpose of seeing it coming and doing something about it. He says: "Ur-Fascism can come back under the most innocent of disguises. Our duty is to uncover it and to point our finger at any of its new instances—every day, in every part of the world." His article is a rubric for identifying its features. Yet to say that fascism may have any of the enumerated features, in almost any combination, with drastically varying applications and manifestations, is to construct a category so broad that it is practically useless. It's a recipe for calling, and perceiving, almost everything as being nascently fascistic. We need to make better distinctions than this, I feel.

danharaj2• 10 years ago

It is a feature, not a bug, of fascism that it tolerates contradiction and does not care about constructing a coherent picture of the world. Truth is irrelevant and aesthetics are fungible. Fascism is unlike more sophisticated totalitarian ideologies like Marxism-Leninism. Umberto Eco's points are a summary of nucleation points for fascism: tendencies in society that can be the starting point for the process of fascist development. I think this is the best you can do in such a short essay. Eco's comparison to Wittgenstein's game is apt. "You know it when you see it".

If I were to try to grasp fascism from a different angle and how it relates to other totalitarian tendencies I would characterize it by the social class that puts it into power. The middle class has been the historical base of power for fascism. The points Eco makes are quite resonant amongst middle class people in many countries in particular the downwardly mobile middle class who feel like they are being cheated out of something they are entitled to. That is the mechanism by which fascism takes hold.

In contrast, Marxism-Leninism is primarily concerned with the proletariat and intelligentsia. Maoism is primarily concerned with the peasantry. Really, you can identify a political ideology without looking too closely at its details by examining how it goes about class struggle: its implementation as an actual political movement and not an abstract set of ideas.

snrplfth3• 10 years ago

Well, I take issue with the "know it when you see it" characteristic of the piece. Eco accuses fascists, rightly I think, of making no clear distinctions, of thinking in impressions. That's why I'm annoyed that he seems to give up on distinctions himself in characterizing fascism.

I find the "social class" analysis just as unsatisfactory. You might usefully characterze these different tendencies by their rhetoric, but if you insist on looking at them as an "actual implementation", I tend to find that they're just the same side of the same coin - a small state political class enormously empowered, and all other "classes" being simply categories measuring the loyalty and proximity to the state class.

amriksohata2• 10 years ago

What a load of bollocks this is exactly why the right has triumphed in America and Europe, the dumbass left continue their pursuit of identity politics which will wipe them out.

Latty3• 10 years ago

I've seen this a lot recently. 'identity politics' is an odd thing to accuse the left of. While the right continually fights to disadvantage groups of people (or keep them disadvantaged), they claim the left is focusing too much on those groups when they fight back.

I'm sure that if they had not been trying to hard to paint slaves not as people, but as chattel, the slave owners in the past would have called abolition 'identity politics' too - why focus so much on one group?!

The reality is the progress from the left benefits us all. These are never policies that specifically benefit one group, they just end up benefiting groups more because they are so disadvantaged right now.

Again, it feels like another way in which the right seems to believe that freedom and rights for others come at their expense.

Shivetya• 10 years ago

you really need to study up on it. It is not about trying to disadvantage groups, it is all about using the identity of a group to defend any actions or positions they take. Worse is when it is applied to candidates for office because every disagreement with that candidate is taken instead as an attack on them because of their race, religion, sex, and orientation.

It is a shameless exploitation that the left has championed for many decades. Pitting one group against another and laying the bigot/racist card on anyone who suggest special rights for a particular class/identity are not warranted.

amriksohata2• 10 years ago

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04h6wjx

"Identity politics on the left eventually triggers identity politics on the right".

vamsi360• 10 years ago

Is there any fact behind saying that Modi is inspired by Nazis?

Analemma_• 10 years ago

How many democracies aren't, these days? It's gonna be a grim decade, you can be sure of it.

throwanem• 10 years ago

Judging by this article and others, "alt-right" seems to be turning into another way of saying "politics I don't like and wish weren't taken seriously" - not that it ever referred to any particularly coherent movement in the first place, but those in the media can't seem to further dilute the label quickly enough, and even those who formerly adopted it seem to be starting to move away.

As for the actual subject matter, I don't know enough about India's domestic politics to comment - it's about all I can do most days to keep up with those of my own nation. But, as general bromides go, I think one might do worse than the suggestion that labeling any political change or strain one finds unsatisfactory as "fascist" does neither oneself nor anyone else any good - it increases blood pressure and strains credibility.

pavanky2• 10 years ago

India has always been a superstitious country. Taking the scientific stance in politics is an exception to the norm instead of the norm.

That said, the current party is in power rules only 7 states directly and another 5 indirectly (through their allies). For reference, India has 30 states.

Any unpopular, drastic change from this government is going to be met with a lot of resistance.

yolesaber• 10 years ago

Judging by this article and others, "alt-right" seems to be turning into another way of saying "politics I don't like and wish weren't taken seriously" - not that it ever referred to any particularly coherent movement in the first place, but those in the media can't seem to further dilute the label quickly enough, and even those who formerly adopted it seem to be starting to move away.

The term "alt-right" was coined by Richard Spencer and initially referred specifically to his paleoconservative brand of ethno-nationalism. Now it is a broader term, yes, but it's meaning is generally intact.

sremani4• 10 years ago

No Hindu is not an ethnicity, and RSS has more in common with say, Ayatollahs or Erdogan than with Hitler or Stalin. Every strain of populism even the religious kind is not fascism. Before declaring India a fascist state you have 50 some "Islamic Republics" that fit the bill of your definition of fascism.

edit: India is some how a fascist country for having a democratically elected right-wing party, but countries with Official state religions are not. I will drink your down votes, please keep them coming.

pavanky2• 10 years ago

I am not too sure about the points made in the article.

I take a bit of comfort in the fact that India is diverse beyond imagination (languages, religion, caste, states, political leanings, geography etc). Trying to impose any single point of view on such chaos is practically impossible.

kranner• 10 years ago

This could easily be mistaken for one of Hinduism’s most cited and profound tenets: Karmanye vadhikaraste, ma phaleshou kada chana, which translates to “You have the right to act but do not expect the fruits of your action.” What Eco implies is the lack of reflection before acting and a “distrust of the intellectual world.”

This is a bit of a red herring. The way that verse is explained is not "doing for the sake of doing" but "doing GOOD for the sake of doing GOOD". In no way does it imply not choosing the right action before performing it. It is about not getting attached to a particular expected outcome.

flawedluck3• 10 years ago

Modi isn't inspired by Nazis, neither is he an anti-Muslim. The author is just making a big deal of small things and quoting things out of context.

"Protesting students?- Anti-nationalist". Yeah except the student was protesting against the hanging of a cruel terrorist. "Appeal to social frustration" - makes no sense. India is special in this case in no way. "Craves heroic death" - We do make a big deal when someone dies doing a heroic action. This is fascism?

The whole article is just pointless rant. I think Modi is one of the most smart and active Prime Ministers that India has had and I'm in no way a supporter of BJP (his political party)

pksadiq• 10 years ago

neither is he an anti-Muslim.

[citation needed] (considering his involvement in Gujrat riots and Babari Masjid issues.).

flawedluck3• 10 years ago

How about we stop tagging people with such derogatory terms unless they do something that proves it? He not explicitly said or done anything anti-Muslim, especially not after since he became the Prime Minister.

He has said that Islam had ‘many good aspects’ but, ‘when one community says that my community is different from yours, it is higher than yours, and that until you take refuge in mine you cannot get Moksha [salvation], you cannot get Allah, you cannot get Jesus – then conflict starts’. Hinduism taught "truth is one in different ways", and there would be no conflict if it was accepted that ‘all religions are the same’.

jangid4• 10 years ago

(considering his involvement in Gujrat riots and Babari Masjid issues.)

[citation needed] (Considering Supreme Court Judgement on Mr. Modi)

NotACongitard2• 10 years ago

@pksadiq,

> [citation needed] (considering his involvement in Gujrat riots and Babari Masjid issues.).

What about those Hindus burnt alive in a train by muslim terrorists? Do you support them?

owaislone2• 10 years ago

The author is just making a big deal of small things and quoting things out of context.

.. and that's exactly what people should do to make sure we don't repeat the mistakes of the past. Ignoring the seemingly small things is what leads to much bigger issues. History has taught us this again and again.

It's not a pointless rant but a careful warning of what can happen. Let me guess. Whatever dangers the author exposes here are not applicable directly to you. You feel safe and that is why you don't see what is wrong with India today.

For supporters of BJP, the best thing to do is to make sure India doesn't turn to Fascism by keeping the government they elected in check instead of blindly defending it at every corner. Only way to prove the author wrong.

P.S. I don't think those are small things for a democracy like India.

flawedluck3• 10 years ago

Let me get this straight: I'm not a supporter of BJP. They are an alt-right Hindu organisation as the author says (however the notion that they're inspired by Nazis is laughable) and they're probably sexist too.

And the author does not 'expose' anything that is threatening to any 'communities' in India. He's just calling the citizens of India fascists in his high-on-vocabulary rant. He is also twisting and distorting Eco's points to suit what India is now.

I wasn't addressing the author's claims of a fascist India, I was merely pointing out how he falsely pictured Modi (who, in my opinion, is a great leader, atleast relative to the previous 5).

sremani4• 10 years ago

India can afford a Stalin (we already had one wannabe, his name is Sanjay Gandhi), but not a Hitler. Because India is not a ethnically cohesive state. Now, people talking about fascism in India are doing some lazy extrapolation. If RSS has their vision, you end up in Hindu Republic theocratic state, a weird Hindu version of Pakistan, not some gas chambers. People of India should be more worried about Statist and Stalinist figures like Mamata Banerji, J Jayalalitha, who are more autocratic than Modi ever will be.

throwawayIndian6• 10 years ago

It is a fact that Modi encouraged killing of Muslim families to catapult himself at centerstage politics. One of his cabinet ministers is even a convicted murderer!, of his own colleague in office: research on home minister Haren Pandya.

jangid4• 10 years ago

Supreme Court of India discharged Mr. Modi, that too under blood thirsty Congress government. What other proofs are required. Because of Gujarat governments support, free trial could have been conducted. Its own minister was convicted. Give me another such example. Ex-minister served the punishment under the government of his own political party.

realrocker2• 10 years ago

I am not sure about this. India has never been good at conforming to a particular point of view. Aurangzeb tried it. Indira tried it. I read an article about traffic of a country implying how lawful it is. And just before reading this, I almost got knocked down by a big car jumping a red light while on a bike(In Bangalore too. We call ourselves civilized here). So whenever I get worried, we are falling into absolutism, I then recall how chaotic our streets and roads are. It's kind of a strength-is-weakness thing with India. You can't enforce a law here, but also can't impose a fascist state. I guess we are just destined to be the average guy of the world. Like the Big Lebowski, we only want our own patch of carpet, everyone else can go fuck themselves. Hail Tribalism :/

throwawayIndian6• 10 years ago

Oh man! The Big Lebowski reference is 200% accurate. On a serious note though, it feels almost certain that the Modi Government is going to lead India into another bloodshed, sooner or later. I hope not but that sinking feeling just doesn't go away given his track record.

realrocker2• 10 years ago

It's already happened with the lynchings, killings and sporadic riots, but at scale of India, it just doesn't leave a big enough mark. It's kind of sad really. India rationalizes the most horrific acts of humanity, shrugs and moves on.

dorfsmay• 10 years ago

Can you explain the issues with Modi's government? As somebody who has never been there and get his news from the Caspian report, John Oliver and Al Jazeera, it looks like Modi is trying to do the right thing for the country.

kamaal• 10 years ago

>Like the Big Lebowski, we only want our own patch of carpet, everyone else can go fuck themselves. Hail Tribalism :/

Actually this is largely an outcome of scarcity. Not culture.

As somebody whose three generation have lived in Bangalore, the situation wasn't exactly the same. At least with a lot less intensity.

Before all this IT craze started the city was pretty normal to live in.

With the crowd comes competition.

sfifs2• 10 years ago

Most external people forget that India is closer to the model of Europe with a united monetary policy than a US or China or any individual countries it is compared to. Each province is big enough to be a country in itself, has significant power and provincial politics are as diverse as the spectrum of governments across Europe (there's actually an elected communist government in a province). The ruling coalition nationally doesn't enjoy rule in majority of the provinces and indeed has little line sight to it.

Therefore, sitting inside India, it's really funny to see outside columnists trying to paint broad generalizations of Indian politics.

throwawayIndian6• 10 years ago

it's really funny to see outside columnists trying to paint broad generalizations of Indian politics.

It is anything but funny. In ways similar to the rhetoric "Should everyone else go to Pakistan?".

jangid4• 10 years ago

Funny. Rhetorics are being referred to call a state "fascist".

danharaj2• 10 years ago

A wave of right wing nationalism and protofascism is sweeping over Europe, too.

sfifs2• 10 years ago

Don't forget that if you look at the spectrum of provincial and national politics in India over the last 60 years, we've seen literally everything - linguistic regional movements for state formation, religious voting blocks, caste based voting blocks, thug-rule strongmen, regionalism (Bal Thackery etc) communists, dictatorship in all but name as we as well as educated socialists & professionals. These things have gone in cycles & overall all things considered the current set of political leadership in provinces & center seems to be a marked improvement over history (except possibly in Uttar Pradesh - but that's coming up for elections in Feb 17)

Zpalmtree• 10 years ago

Why is there such a circle jerk around fascism? Some people are commies, some people are fascists, what's the big deal?

Just because you support fascism doesn't mean you want to genocide people. Yes, it's happened in the past, but so has it happened with democracy, communism, and any other political ideology you can think of.

Fascism in some places has been very effective, for example Park Chung-hee. You might disagree with some of the things he did, but he made South Korea very prosperous.

negamax• 10 years ago

Narendra Modi and his party are not alt-right. That's really sad conclusion to draw.

dublinclontarf• 10 years ago

The collective left are losing their minds, seeing fascism around every corner.

jangid4• 10 years ago

This article is completely biased.

NotACongitard2• 10 years ago

This article a load of crap. Modi is the best thing to happen for India after decades and decades of ultra-corrupt and insanely criminal Congress rule. Congress ministers/MPs never actually did any work and were involved in few of the greatest scams in the history of India.

pkd• 10 years ago

Yeah, no. I guess yes, if you consider any implementation of a far reaching policy in a democracy to be fascist.

I have thought a lot about this. And I think that the western media seems have a genetic dislike for popular leaders. I guess the UK/US media expects their country's leaders to be Eton/Harvard boys who maintain an air of separation from the common population. Anytime a leader tries to get close to the public opinion, they are roasted for being populist/jingoistic etc.

Narendra Modi has been an extremely popular leader, even before he became the Prime Minister. He was re-elected twice for the post of the Chief Minister of the state of Gujarat (and this was after the opposition tried to brand him as the key perpetrator in the 2002 riots.). Under him Gujarat became the fastest growing state of the country, and a lucrative destination for industries. His inclination towards industrialization was later used against him as an argument for his collusion with the "crony capitalists".

But Modi has ignored all the rubbish against him and carried on working. He works 18 hours every day. The greatest change in his rule has been the focus on making the bureaucracy to work instead of sleep, as it has been doing for the last 40 years.

I am not a huge supporter of his party, and I hate fascists with all my heart, and I can say that Modi has been good for the country. His policies have broken through a lot of bad fungus that had settled on the country in the multiple decades of INC lead rule. And it is refreshing to witness.

Western media can go court their Trumps and Farages. We are fine here.

legolas2412• 10 years ago

"and this was after the opposition tried to brand him as the key perpetrator in the 2002 riots."

TRIED? He may not have started it, but he let riots run for three days.

"Under him Gujarat became the fastest growing state of the country," Any facts here? I keep hearing this "Gujarat Model", but statistics put it in the same range as Haryana, Punjab, Delhi, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indian_states_and_unio... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indian_states_and_unio...

"He works 18 hours every day." please recognize propoganda when you see one.

"The greatest change in his rule has been the focus on making the bureaucracy to work instead of sleep, as it has been doing for the last 40 years." We'll talk when we see actual results.

"and I can say that Modi has been good for the country". To some extent, I'd agree, atleast it has spirited people up.

diogenescynic• 10 years ago

So is America.

photonwins• 10 years ago

Is it possible that the quoted news site has its own agenda? India as a country is so diverse, within each state we have different dialects/languages, food habits. <s>If someone can pull off a fascist stunt in a country like India, he must be really good </s>

I am actually laughing at the article and many of the comments here.

known• 10 years ago

How can Govt fight Corruption when the Govt aka Lawmakers/Judges/Officials are Corrupt? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_India

India is displaying classic signs that foreshadow fascism

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