Struggle Against Fascism In Gujarat
Yoginder Sikand in an interview with Mukul Sinha
04 May, 2011
NewAgeIslam.com
Ahmedabad-based trade unionist Mukul Sinha has been in the forefront
of the struggle against fascism in Gujarat. Here he talks to Yoginder
Sikand about his work.
Q: What has been the role of the trade union movement in combating
fascism in Gujarat?
A: I must admit that the trade union movement in Gujarat has been
unable to combat Hindutva fascism. Even the state units of the CPI and
CPI (M), that have a small presence in Gujarat, remained largely
silent when Muslims were being massacred here in 2002. This is because
the trade union movement has not addressed issues such as caste,
ethnicity and religion, being focussed simply on economic issues.
Also, trade unions have largely cultivated simply a trade unionist
mentality. Also, they have not given enough leadership roles to
marginalised communities such as Dalits, Muslims and Tribals.
For our part, our Gujarat Federation of Trade Unions, which is not
affiliated to any political party, and our associated civil rights
organisation, Jan Sangharsh Manch, have been involved in various
popular struggles in Gujarat, including the struggle against Hindutva
fascism. Our union workers were active in resisting Hindutva lumpens
during the genocide at some places and are also resisting the moves of
the government to demolish slums, which are predominantly inhabited by
Dalits and Muslims. We are now trying to build a political platform
through the New Socialist Movement that was inaugurated soon after the
anti-Muslim genocide in Gujarat in 2002. It isn’t simply the BJP that
we are opposed to. Rather, we see hardly any difference between the
BJP, the Congress and the Samajwadi party and even the CPI and CPI
(M), who have given up on people’s struggles. We are also opposed to
the extreme Left groups who claim that there is simply no scope for
mass political activity.
Q: The 2002 genocide witnessed attacks by Dalits, instigated by
Hindutva groups, directed against Muslims. How do you see the issue of
Dalit-Muslim relations in Gujarat today?
A: I believe that at this juncture the need for Dalit-Muslim unity to
jointly struggle for their rights is really the need of the hour. In
recent years in Gujarat, some Dalits have abandoned the Congress for
the BJP. This is because all these years the Congress sought to garner
Dalit votes without giving them any credible positions, and so several
Dalit leaders shifted to the BJP, which offered them various posts, as
president or this or that local Hindutva organisation. This gave these
Dalit leaders a sense of empowerment and importance, false although it
may have been. And that is how the BJP was able to win some support
among Dalits. It isn’t simply, as some people claim, that Dalits got
attracted to the BJP because of religious reasons. The main attraction
was the offer of leadership positions in the host of small outfits
that the Hindutva-walas have spawned.
To add to this is the fact that Dalits and Muslims live together in
slums in urban areas, so even a small skirmish can always end up in a
giant conflagration with the active instigation of Hindutva groups.
Yet another factor is the role of certain NGOs that claim to be
working among Dalits but which have totally depoliticised the Dalit
youth associated with them. Talking about NGOs, I must remark that
very few of them are working for minority rights and for promoting
dialogue and better relations between the Dalits, Muslims and other
marginalised communities in Gujarat. Several of them, as well as
groups such as the Jama’at-i Islami, stiffly opposed my proposal that
cases lodged during the 2002 violence that involved Dalits and Muslims
and related to relatively small issues such as stone-throwing, as
opposed to major cases such as murder, be dropped in order to promote
reconciliation between the two communities. They even accused me of
working for Modi!
That some NGOs, which are not really rooted in the lives of
working-class people, opposed that demand was hardly surprising.
Equally revealing was the opposition of the Jama’at-i Islami, which
was never happy with our work among Muslim workers, since they are
vociferously anti-communist and pro-capitalist, as is clearly evident
in their literature. They were also stiffly opposed to our working
among Muslim women, hundreds of who come for our meetings and rallies.
To some Jama’at-i Islami leaders we were ‘Hindus’, and, by definition,
therefore, our intentions were seen as suspect. They even probably
thought that we were ‘misguiding’ their women by encouraging them to
come out on the streets in protest demonstrations. So, they went
around telling people that we were ‘Hindu agents’. They even told this
to the family members of Muslim POTA detainees whose cases we had
taken up, but it boomeranged on them as I don’t think many people
bought that lie. Islamic fundamentalist groups like the Jama’at-i
Islami are simply not interested in Dalit-Muslim dialogue or in any
sort of progressive agenda. In contrast, although the Jamiat
ul-‘Ulama-I Hind is a pro-Congress outfit, it is more rooted in
‘ordinary’ people’s lives and, therefore, potentially more amenable to
more progressive politics. This is why the Jamiat ul-Ulama has a
working relation with us, and we, and other groups, have together held
several rallies in the last two years against POTA and the illegal
detention of a number of Gujarati Muslim youth under this draconian
law.
Q: How do you explain the rise to power of the BJP in Gujarat?
A: There are several reasons for this. One factor is the weakness of
the Dalit and Tribal movements, although Dalits and Tribals constitute
the single largest chunk of voters in the state. The Dalit movement
has been historically weak in Gujarat because of the Gandhian
presence. Then, land reforms in the 1950s led to major changes in
caste relations, leading to the rise to power of the Patels, who were
traditionally treated as a ‘low’ Shudra caste who worked as
sharecroppers in the fields of the ‘upper’ castes. Seeking to use
their new-found economic clout to rise up in the caste hierarchy, the
Patels began sponsoring a number of Hindu religious outfits and
backing Hindutva organisations in the state, thus presenting
themselves as ardent Hindus, and, therefore, as ‘high’ castes. One
aspect of that newly constructed identity as super-Hindus was a deep
hostility towards Muslims. In fact, the Patels, who comprise more than
30% of the Gujarati population, played a major role in the 2002
anti-Muslim genocide.
Till the 1980s, the newly upwardly mobile Patels were not politically
powerful. Gujarat was ruled by the Congress Party, which based its
electoral calculations on the vote-banks of the Kshatriyas, Dalits,
Tribals and Muslims—the so-called KHAM theory. So, the Patels felt
that their political fortunes lay with a non-Congress party. The
average ‘upper’ caste Gujarati Bania or Patel would not dream of
giving his or her daughter to a Patel in marriage, because, despite
their recent economic progress, the Patels were still seen as socially
inferior. And so, in order to capture political power and also to
assert the claim to a higher status in the caste hierarchy, from the
1980s onwards the Patels took to Hindutva in a big way. Many leaders
of Hindutva outfits in Gujarat are Patels and they are among their
major sources of finance. To add to this is the Patel diaspora, in
England and America, that sends enormous amounts of money to fund
Hindutva and Hindu religious groups in Gujarat and other parts of
India.
Q: What future do you see for progressive forces in Gujarat?
A: The situation is very grim. India is going through severe political
and social crises. The country is being sold to Western imperialist
powers under the garb of globalisation, leading to immense
pauperisation, which is hitting marginalized communities, such as
Dalits, Muslims, OBCs and Muslims, the most. It is bound to lead to
escalation of caste and communal conflicts as the ruling classes seek
to deflect peoples’ attention from their economic and political
concerns. Hindutva forces, agents of imperialism, are bound to become
more assertive and aggressive. They are working in tandem with
imperialist forces, including the USA, whose perceptions about Muslims
they share and whose economic agenda of so-called liberalisation, a
euphemism for market fundamentalism, too, they support, while at the
same time paying lip-sympathy to swadeshi. Gujarat today, as well as
the rest of India, is being plundered by foreign, mainly American,
multinational corporations, leading to the closure of thousands of
factories and leading to millions of workers being thrown out on the
streets. This is the Hindu Rashtra that they want to establish. But,
let me stress, the Congress and other such parties are equally guilty.
They share, broadly, the same economic agenda and vision, and have
roughly the same position vis-à-vis American imperialism.
This suggests the urgent need for mass struggles against American
imperialism, against the politics of parties such as the BJP and the
Congress, and against religious fundamentalism, Hindu, Muslim or
whatever. I am firmly convinced that the socialist movement has an
important role to play in this struggle.
Yoginder Sikand works with the Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion
at the National Law School, Bangalore.
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