General Elections, 2024 and after.

Editorial (Mazdoor, June, 2024)

Ordinarily the bluster should have gone but no, the Pradhan Sevak is incorrigible, and nothing is going to hold him back from claiming the non-biological (read divine) status that he claimed during one of his scripted dates with godi media. One would have expected him to be chastened with the way off-the-mark number of Lok Sabha seats that the BJP could win. Even the host of scams and failures that the new government faced on its first day in parliament did not deter him from pontificating to the opposition. Just on the eve of the elections the electoral bond scam came to light, after the polls came the train collision in West Bengal leading to loss of life and limb of hundreds exposing the callous disregard for safety and a focus on vacuous brand building through elite Vande Bharat trains and so on, the stock market scam around exit polls leading up to fingers being pointed at Modi himself who had counselled regarding buying of stocks and last but not the least the NEET scam followed by NEET PG, UGC NET, UGC CSIR examinations cancellation and postponements telling a story of corruption and crime and of course governmental inefficiency, lack of transparency and crass incompetence. The scandalous situation created by the roof leakage in the symbolic Ram Mandir and the subsidence in the Ram Path seemed not to deter the one "who had brought Ram Lalla to his abode". All these would have deterred a biological being but not Modi, the non-biological marionette of our rapacious big bourgeoisie. So, he of all people, the pradhan sloganeer of 'acche din ayenge' and 'ab nahi berojgari ki maar, abki baar Modi sarkar' and such empty and hypocritical slogans admonished the opposition that it was substance that mattered and not slogans? Our Master bluster is not ashamed of anything, not even embarrassment itself but what we are concerned with is what goes behind the bluster.

The BJP has the temerity to refuse to look at the Lok Sabha results in the eye, a refusal to see what they portend. The elections were fought between the BJP-led NDA ably supported by the IT, ED, the CBI and the election commission on the one hand and the opposition on the other. The Election Commissioners were in a way mandated to do what the powers that be wanted through the change in the rules for their selection which effectively ruled out any opposition and saw to it that the government's will prevailed. In a quid pro quo, the Election Commission turned a blind eye to the utter falsehoods, the toxic scurrilous hate speeches given by the non-biological figure himself. The Supreme Court refused to intervene and wanted the make-believe sanctity of the electoral process to be maintained so that Indian democracy could preen its feathers to glory. The freezing of accounts of the main opposition party by the Income Tax department and such manoeuvres helped to give the BJP an edge. And of course, the ruling party was heavily bankrolled by the big bourgeoisie to ensure its win. After all, money calls the shot in bourgeois democracies. From the stock markets to the foreign investors all knew their interests would be best served by the ruling party. Even so, the results showed that the masses weren't amused at all this and inspite of all the machinations of the BJP they voted it down. Today it is a coalition government in the real sense of the term and any turn of events can bring down the government. Let us not forget how the farmers agitation made it necessary for the Akali Dal to quit the NDA and how the farmers ire led to the JJP withdrawing from the coalition government in Haryana. All the same for the last three decades we have had coalition governments at the centre and all of them swore by neo-liberal economic policies. We should not be under any illusion that the opposition is pro-people. This continuity has to be expected and it is only the resistance of the people that can beat back such policy changes as we saw during the farmers agitation. This relation should be understood so that we do not fall prey to parliamentary cretinism and hold that the coalition is precarious and would not push through the agenda of fascist rule. Mere reference to numbers without understanding the inner dynamics which make for the coalition is just parliamentary speculation and gossip which goes on endlessly in the name of political discussion. This is something rampant in radical left circles too showing how we too are hostage to parliamentary prejudices.

There is discontent among the masses brought about by unemployment, expropriation, displacement, inflation and a host of anti-people moves. This can be best illustrated by the failure of the BJP to win the Ayodhya seat and the drastic fall in the margin by which the Prime Minister won in Varanasi. The Prime Minister who had won by 4.5 lakh votes in the 2019 general elections saw his margin reduced by 3 lakh votes. This showed that the impact of the 'Modi model' of development had hit the locals and they were protesting against it. The reaction of the andh bhakts who trolled the people of Ayodhya for their 'ingratitude' and their 'anti-Hindutva' showed that this defeat held much importance in the fascist Hindutva project. It was a reaction to the failure of the ideology of Hindutva which was being challenged by mundane temporal issues. This also showed that the anti-Muslim template applied as much to all dissenters whether Hindu or not. Hindutva was finally trolling Hindus and that too the people of the holy land, the symbolic land of the Ram Mandir project which had propelled the fascists to power. In a way, this also shows us on what plank we should counter the whole fascist project which masquerades as Hindu power. This we can do only by focusing on the issues facing the people and countering the capitalist onslaught. The gigantic machinery of utter falsehoods, trolling IT army, the godi media and Whatsapp university for all its influence was at last being subject to a reality check and being checkmated. It is from here that we should take up our anti-capitalist tasks with renewed vigour for the masses have shown discontent with this government's rule. When we say masses here we mean the masses who have seen through the game and it is they who matter as of now. Our own experience during campaigning and other anecdotal evidence point out to the fact that people and more so the dalits and the bahujan have not voted en bloc on the basis of caste but voted for change, for the democratic processes constitution) and against the neoliberal policies. The election results have given a jolt to the pessimism of the naysayers and the feeling of helplessness has given way to hope. From here it is for us, the radical communist forces, to renew our revolutionary propaganda and further the class struggles of the working class and other toilers. At the same time, we should fight the parliamentary prejudices of the masses and also make them see the chicanery of the revisionists. In fact, the dismal performance of the parliamentary Left has got much to do with their being entangled in a time warp which refuses to recognise the class changes in Indian society that have come about, their refusal to leave their comfort zones of peasant movements (properly rich peasant movements), their concern for the salaried and organised labour marked by slothful routinism and lately their pandering to the forces and ideologies of identity politics. That leaves behind the majority of the Indian population, the proletariat and the semi-proletariat almost unrepresented as a force. This also has resulted in a denial of working class agency. If the fascist forces are to be fought and uprooted only this class has the capacity to do it but it is still not a significant factor in Indian politics. It is the reformist platform of the Left and the prettifiers of capitalism of the radical left which has discounted the only force which can take on the might of the big bourgeoisie upfront. All others are tied in so many ways to the bourgeois order that paltry reforms coming their way can pacify them. The same is to be said of identity politics which wants to just ensure a small share in the bourgeois scheme of things.

Be that as it may, to expect any let up in the depredations of the fascist forces is to expect too much and lower our guard. For one they are firmly ensconced in the various organs of state power and the deep state. State institutions are in the hands of RSS loyalists and its cohorts. So, it will be back to the old game. If one goes by what the big bourgeoisie wanted from a new BJP government which they thought would get a roaring mandate one can safely conclude that an all-out attack on the lives and livelihoods of the people is in the offing. To give an ideological cover to these attacks and create a smokescreen we might expect a renewed and perhaps a repackaged Hindutva. Already few days into the third term of the Modi government we have witnessed a series on attacks on Muslims from lynching in Aligarh of a Muslim youth, ransacking of a Muslim man's shop in Himachal Pradesh by a cheering and jeering crowd, similar actions in Madhya Pradesh, 'Gorakshaks' being asked to buy arms in Haryana and several other such incidents. The National Security Act has been invoked against those accused of keeping beef in Madhya Pradesh. This is really tragi-comic? The National Security Act for such an accusation! The state's security comes under strain through such acts! This is the extent to which Hindutva rabble rousing and hate can go. So, things are back to the new norm put in place since 2014 notwithstanding the jolt the elections have given to the fascists. The bulldozers are back for the Muslims and for the poor who are to be removed from their home and hearth for 'development'. The CAA was already being implemented before the elections with the framing of the rules under it. The determination to build a fascist state which countenances no dissent can be seen in the action of the Lt. Governor of Delhi's grant of sanction to prosecute famous author Arundhati Roy and Prof. Sheikh Showkat Hussain under the draconian and utterly undemocratic preventive detention law, the UAPA, for a speech delivered on the Kashmir situation as far back as 2010! The state's reaction is truly tragi-comic and borders on the hysterical. NSA for beef and a 14-year-old speech causing the Indian state to tremble!

The overreaction on the part of the fascists should be condemned and ridiculed and shown to be the result of a fevered imagination. This also shows the need to counter all such anti-Muslim and anti-minority propaganda and the overreaction of the state. While countering anti-muslim propaganda we should show how the anti-muslim template would also be applied to dissenting and discontented Hindus too as in Ayodhya. The farmers witnessed it when they were subjected to malicious and false propaganda in order to defame their struggle and so will every section of the so-called Hindu majority too when it differs from the powers that be. All displacement affected who protest are branded as anti-development and anti-national and vilified. This election showed the waning influence of Hindutva machinations but at the same time, we should note its success in places like Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat. So, it is not for us to lower our guard against the toxic communal atmosphere that has been built up clouding any independent judgment. The smokescreen of Hindutva hides the rabid anti-people pro-capitalist agenda of the fascists. This is where we should turn our attention to and fight this agenda which they hope to implement notwithstanding the discontent that has been vented by the people in this election. The agenda was already being set by the foreign and Indian bourgeois 'experts' clamouring for more pro-capital, anti-people measures. This bourgeois support clearly led to the Pradhan Sevak's hubris.

Let us turn our attention to the agenda set by big capital –

The BJP's political agenda will be to push through and consolidate anti-democratic laws curtailing rights. Even special preventive detention laws are being normalised and have become part of the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita under the pretension of safeguarding the unity and integrity of India. What was sedition has become revolt against the nation when previously it was held to be revolt against the state. What the Britishers had enacted as penal laws, the IPC, has pompously and hypocritically been named as Nyaya (justice) sanhita. The provisions of the new criminal codes will strengthen the hands of the coercive machinery of the state (i.e. the police) leading to further victimisation of the poor and the affected. It will massively add to corruption too. And of course will give the state a hand to deal summarily with protests and political dissent. In the name of decolonisation we have a drastic change, severe and undemocratic. In the old IPC there was no specific penal provision against terrorism. A new penal provision against terrorism has been added which has purposely been broadly defined and left vague in order to prepare the transition to a fascist state. It has incorporated features of the UAPA in the penal code itself. "Strikes on economic security" come under the definition of terrorist action. Loosely interpreted worker strikes can come under its ambit. As it is we have seen that mere possession of beef can invoke the NSA. What we are in for can be judged from such drastic provisions.

Apart from this we should note the many laws curtailing democratic freedoms and strengthening state surveillance passed by the last Lok Sabha. This makes it incumbent upon us to continue the fight for the restoration of democratic freedoms and a campaign against the new criminal laws.

Economically the new government will push through its neo-liberal agenda and has the following in mind as per the statements of its 'experts' --

Framing of rules under the four labour codes so as to ensure minimum protection to the workers and giving a free hand to the employers or capitalists. Labour codes have also been pushed in the name of mitigating unemployment for which the protectionist labour laws were held to be responsible. According to neo-liberal economists the institution of a hire-and-fire labour law regime is said to be of great importance in increasing employment opportunities. This has not been corroborated by facts and in fact numerous studies have shown that there is no such correlation as we have noted in some previous issues of Mazdoor.

The experts want the government to push through a land acquisition law which can bulldoze all hindrances to infrastructure and other projects. This type of law was brought soon after the 2014 installation of the Modi government in the form of ordinances but enactment failed due to the lack of numbers in the then Rajya Sabha.

The advisers also want to bring back the repealed farm laws in whatever form possible. The appointment of Shivraj Singh Chauhan as Agriculture Minister is being lauded as he is expected to do the needful in this regard with his experience of ushering in neo-liberal reforms in this sector in Madhya Pradesh as Chief Minister.

Also on the anvil is the drastic curtailment of the domain and oversight of regulatory bodies giving a free hand to various service sector providers. So, electricity, telecom, insurance and other service sector providers will be enjoying a laissez faire, laissez aller, laissez passer system. This is indeed oxymoronic for it means only further enhancement of the tentacles of the monopolies in these sectors and not free competition as was there under capitalism of the nineteenth century when this term became current. The customers would of course be at the receiving end leading to profiteering by the firms operating in this sector.

We can expect further dilution of environmental laws in the name of accelerating growth. Already we have had the amendment to the Environmental Impact Assessment Notification in 2020 which inter alia allows post-facto approval of projects begun without environmental clearance and exclusion of certain projects from public consultations. Similarly, there is the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Amendment Act, 2023 which has done away with the requirement of forest clearance for mine prospecting, reconnaissance etc. All this can have deleterious environmental consequences, but nothing matters to these fascists as we have seen in their stubbornness in pushing forward the Char Dham yatra project in such an eco-sensitive zone in Uttarakhand.

These bourgeois experts are also rooting for further concessions to foreign investors in the name of a level playing field for them? All of the above would be rammed through by the fascist party in power and shows the singular political will of this party to serve the big bourgeoisie.

We should note that the type of neo-liberal economy that we have gives strength to the BJP. It has brought forth extreme inequality which means extreme concentration of wealth helping the corporates to freely bankroll the BJP. On the other hand, this extreme inequality and unemployment along with poverty has helped foster a new welfarism of measly doles to the pauperised helping prop up the image of Modi as the caregiver. From the culture of a rights based understanding of welfarism the country has moved to patron-client welfarism which partly takes the extreme sting out of poverty and unemployment.

In order to move ahead we will have to make inequality and unemployment as our planks. Anti-capitalist fights should form the basis of our fight against the agenda of the fascist forces and help push them back. The absence of any use of anti-capitalist rhetoric by the Indian fascists and their unabashed championing of neoliberal capitalism should give us leverage in this field. We should aggressively promote propaganda and agitation against the depredations of capital and pro-capital policies.

As we noted the biggest thing these elections have done is to raise the confidence of the anti-BJP forces. The masses have reposed confidence in these forces which can be further leveraged to build up mass movements. The pessimism that people showed shoring up the 'There Is No Alternative' rhetoric has been shattered. Mass movements which give all-round fight to the agenda of the fascist forces are the only way out.

We should build broad based unity wherever possible in order to fight the fascist forces economically, politically and socially. Thus, women's rights movements and anti-caste fights also become very important for Hindutva ideology champions Brahminism and all sorts of regressive practices in the name of tradition and decolonisation. At the same time we should fight for the unity of the oppressed and take a nuanced stand against identity-based movements which have shown their extreme vulnerability to bargaining for the loaves and fishes of office offered by the fascist forces. Class struggles on the anti-capitalist plank should form the pivot of the anti-fascist movement. This is their Achilles heel, and it is here that we ought to concentrate our attack. For this we should concentrate our forces on making the working class a political factor in the Indian polity.