Skip to main content

Towards monolithic society, centralized state? ‘Imposing’ Hindi, Hindutva, Hindustan

By Bhabani Shankar Nayak* 

The Hindutva euphoria in legitimizing authoritarian state power with the help electoral democracy is another success story in the history of fascism. The liberal, constitutional and secular democracy is falling apart with the ascendancy of authoritarian waves led by Hindutva politics of hate.
The Brahminical social contract based on Hindu caste order, propaganda, populism, relentless indoctrination led religious polarization, and neoliberal capitalism are five pillars of Hindutva fascism. These five pillars are integral to each other in establishing full fledge Hindutva fascism and capitalism in India.
The evolving neoliberal Hindutva has managed to establish a new form of social contract, which has shifted citizenship to a secondary position to normalize systematic exploitation and subjugation of lower caste, working classes, gender and religious minority communities.
The Hindutva populist government led by the BJP is trying to create further centralized and powerful government in Delhi to facilitate crony capitalism. The authoritarian model of Hindutva governance promises good days to Indians but failed to deliver the basic health, education, food security and health to its citizens.
The Hindutva forces are reshaping and institutionalizing a new form of social contract, which is primarily based on caste based Brahminical social order. The Hindutva government is articulating and advancing an ideology of social contract based on othering of religious minorities and marginalized communities in India.
The divisive Hindutva social contract is representing bourgeois social contract that articulates and institutionalizes mediaeval ideas of Brahminical social order based on caste and class apartheid. The ascendancy of Brahminical bourgeoisie, the Hindutva social contract, is evolving by diminishing secular constitutional democracy in India.
The Hindutva social contract is obscuring everyday marginalization and exploitation in the name of nationalism. The political co-optation of nationalism by the Hindutva regime helps to empower capitalists and marginalizes masses. The agenda is clear.
The Hindutva social contract instils fear and perpetuates economic crisis which destroys citizen’s confidence in state and government. Such a process of depoliticization breaks the legal contract between Indian citizens and their state. It weakens all institutions of social welfare and governance.
The Hindutva social contract is naturalizing crisis and imposing its legitimacy to serve the global and national capitalist classes. Such an organised social, political, cultural and economic engineering create a social structure of conformity that is concomitant with the requirements for the expansion of capitalism and its market society.
Modi-led BJP government is creating policies, structures and processes to put the interests of crony capitalists above the interests of Indian masses. The economic policies pursued by the Hindutva forces reflects the nuances of its social contract that accommodates subordinate and superior caste structure on the basis of consumerism as its operational ideology. Under such a structure of Hindutva social contract, the state citizenship relationship is replaced by patron client relationship.
The hegemony of the Hindutva social contract is subservient to the requirements of the global capitalism in India. The agenda is not hidden anymore. It is clear that the Hindutva fascists are restructuring Indian society, culture and politics to harmonise the primacy of corporates in the everyday lives of people.
In pursuit of neoliberal Hindutva social contract, the Modi led BJP government is subordinating India to imperialist economic structures of global capitalism. Hindutva social contract is corporate social contract.
The rise of Adanis and Ambanis is part of the neoliberal project and Hindutva social contract
The Hindutva forces are imposing Hindi, Hindutva and Hindustan to create a monolithic society under a centralized state that empowers caste and class elites at the cost of common Indians. The integration and centralization are twin pillars of neoliberal capitalism. It thrives under fascism. Hindutva provides perfect conditions to accelerate and accomplish such an objective. Hindutva is an ideology free zone where corporate profit determines its political future.
Hindutva nationalism is a myth that determines the national life in India based on the frameworks of corporate social contract. The essence of Hindutva social contract is to destroy Indian diversity and its federal polity. It does not believe in individual liberty and citizenship rights.
The unbridled growth of Hindutva social contract based on integration and centralization runs without any risk because of the caste based Brahminical social order based on hierarchy. It naturalizes exploitation, inequality and repression.
It demolishes any conditions that challenges such an arrangement between Hindutva and neoliberal capitalism in India. The withering away of secular politics, Indian social, cultural and religious diversity and constitutional state helps in the wholesale privatization of state-owned resources, liberalization of economy and laws for the growth of monopoly corporations.
The rise of Adanis and Ambanis is part of this project called Hindutva social contract and its strategies. The systematic dismantling of existing constitutional institutions helps in the growth of illiberal Hindutva social contract and its exclusive dominance led by RSS, BJP and all its affiliates. These forces provide oxygen to a dysfunctional capitalist system.
In this way, Hindutva social contract is taking India and Indians in a ruinous path. The forward march of such an agenda needs to be halted at any cost for the unity and integrity of India and for the present and future survival of Indians.
---
*Glasgow University, UK

Comments

Anonymous said…
You talk of Modi's attempt to turn the society into a Monolithic one... meaning that in which you have only one God and one belief system. The point is isn't that exactly what the Religions are propagating? Where do you draw the line?

TRENDING

India's chemical industry: The missing piece of Atmanirbhar Bharat

By N.S. Venkataraman*  Rarely a day passes without the Prime Minister or a cabinet minister speaking about the importance of Atmanirbhar Bharat . The Start-up India scheme is a pillar in promoting this vision, and considerable enthusiasm has been reported in promoting start-up projects across the country. While these developments are positive, Atmanirbhar Bharat does not seem to have made significant progress within the Indian chemical industry . This is a matter of high concern that needs urgent and dispassionate analysis.

A comrade in culture and controversy: Yao Wenyuan’s revolutionary legacy

By Harsh Thakor*  This year marks two important anniversaries in Chinese revolutionary history—the 20th death anniversary of Yao Wenyuan, and the 50th anniversary of his seminal essay "On the Social Basis of the Lin Biao Anti-Party Clique". These milestones invite reflection on the man whose pen ignited the first sparks of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and whose sharp ideological interventions left an indelible imprint on the political and cultural landscape of socialist China.

Remembering a remarkable rebel: Personal recollections of Comrade Himmat Shah

By Rajiv Shah   I first came in contact with Himmat Shah in the second half of the 1970s during one of my routine visits to Ahmedabad , my maternal hometown. I do not recall the exact year, but at that time I was working in Delhi with the CPI -owned People’s Publishing House (PPH) as its assistant editor, editing books and writing occasional articles for small periodicals. Himmatbhai — as I would call him — worked at the People’s Book House (PBH), the CPI’s bookshop on Relief Road in Ahmedabad.

Urgent need to study cause of large number of natural deaths in Gulf countries

By Venkatesh Nayak* According to data tabled in Parliament in April 2018, there are 87.76 lakh (8.77 million) Indians in six Gulf countries, namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). While replying to an Unstarred Question (#6091) raised in the Lok Sabha, the Union Minister of State for External Affairs said, during the first half of this financial year alone (between April-September 2018), blue-collared Indian workers in these countries had remitted USD 33.47 Billion back home. Not much is known about the human cost of such earnings which swell up the country’s forex reserves quietly. My recent RTI intervention and research of proceedings in Parliament has revealed that between 2012 and mid-2018 more than 24,570 Indian Workers died in these Gulf countries. This works out to an average of more than 10 deaths per day. For every US$ 1 Billion they remitted to India during the same period there were at least 117 deaths of Indian Workers in Gulf ...

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

History, culture and literature of Fatehpur, UP, from where Maulana Hasrat Mohani hailed

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat*  Maulana Hasrat Mohani was a member of the Constituent Assembly and an extremely important leader of our freedom movement. Born in Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh, Hasrat Mohani's relationship with nearby district of Fatehpur is interesting and not explored much by biographers and historians. Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri has written a book on Maulana Hasrat Mohani and Fatehpur. The book is in Urdu.  He has just come out with another important book, 'Hindi kee Pratham Rachna: Chandayan' authored by Mulla Daud Dalmai.' During my recent visit to Fatehpur town, I had an opportunity to meet Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri and recorded a conversation with him on issues of history, culture and literature of Fatehpur. Sharing this conversation here with you. Kindly click this link. --- *Human rights defender. Facebook https://www.facebook.com/vbrawat , X @freetohumanity, Skype @vbrawat

As 2024 draws nearer, threatening signs appear of more destructive wars

By Bharat Dogra  The four years from 2020 to 2023 have been very difficult and high risk years for humanity. In the first two years there was a pandemic and such severe disruption of social and economic life that countless people have not yet recovered from its many-sided adverse impacts. In the next two years there were outbreaks of two very high-risk wars which have worldwide implications including escalation into much wider conflicts. In addition there were highly threatening signs of increasing possibility of other very destructive wars. As the year 2023 appears to be headed for ending on a very grim note, there are apprehensions about what the next year 2024 may bring, and there are several kinds of fears. However to come back to the year 2020 first, the pandemic harmed and threatened a very large number of people. No less harmful was the fear epidemic, the epidemic of increasing mental stress and the cruel disruption of the life and livelihoods particularly among the weaker s...

Muslim women’s rights advocates demand criminalisation of polygamy: Petition launched

By A Representative   An online petition seeking a legal ban on polygamy has been floated by Javed Anand, co-editor of Sabrang and National Convener of Indian Muslims for Secular Democracy (IMSD), inviting endorsements from citizens, organisations and activists. The petition, titled “Indian Muslims & Secular Progressive Citizens Demand a Legal Ban on Polygamy,” urges the Central and State governments, Parliament and political parties to abolish polygamy through statutory reform, backed by extensive data from the 2025 national study conducted by the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA).

Farewell to Robin Smith, England’s Lionhearted Warrior Against Pace

By Harsh Thakor*  Robin Smith, who has died at the age of 62, was among the most adept and convincing players of fast bowling during an era when English cricket was in decline and pace bowling was at its most lethal. Unwavering against the tormenting West Indies pace attack or the relentless Australians, Smith epitomised courage and stroke-making prowess. His trademark shot, an immensely powerful square cut, made him a scourge of opponents. Wearing a blue England helmet without a visor or grille, he relished pulling, hooking and cutting the quicks.