Fascists Attack the Communist Party Office

The Sharpening of Ideological Contention

By Badri Raina | ZNet, March 18, 2008

I

Ever since the Hindutva right-wing, led by the top leadership of the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), demolished the Babri mosque in Ayodhya on Dec.,6,1992 in brazen defiance of the Constitution and the rule of Law, the question has been asked whether, after all, the BJP can be regarded a legitimate participant in India’s parliamentary democracy.

A litany of subsequent pogroms since then have, if anything, lent force and urgency to that poser.

These have included violent vigilante attacks on artists, art products, films, text books, institutions, minority religious establishments, and the unforgettable carnage of muslims in Gujarat in 2002.

That this party has no more than a scant and expedient relationship with parliament is borne out again by the fact that eversince the defeat of the BJP-led NDA coalition in 2004, the BJP has done one of two things as the leading opposition in the house of the people—either disrupt or boycott its proceedings.

And if it has raised its voice there, nothing has been farther from its intentions than to underscore issues that touch the vast pauperized mass of Indians.

These circumstances have yielded a rather unique consequence—that of obliging the Left parties which support the UPA government from the outside to function in crucial ways as the most credible opposition within the House.

The overarching fact that it is within the Left that the chief antagonist of the BJP resides has thus tended to be sharply emphasized.

The axes of that antagonism become apparent if one were to encapsulate the major planks of the right-wing BJP agenda for the nation:

--Majoritarian hegemony;

--Hinduisation of culture in toto;

--Minority bashing;

--Privatisation of national wealth;

--Militarisation of the state;

--“strategic partnership” with neo-imperialism of which Zionism is seen as crucial part;

to name just the principle coordinates.

Continued . . .