Hindutva Social Contract

Bhabani Shankar Nayak

The Hindutva euphoria in legitimising 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 polarisation, 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 normalise systematic exploitation and subjugation of lower caste, working classes, gender and religious minority communities. The Hindutva populist government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is trying to create further centralised 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 fascist forces are reshaping and institutionalising 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 marginalised communities in India. The divisive Hindutva social contract is representing bourgeois social contract that articulates and institutionalises medieval 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 marginalisation and exploitation in the name of nationalism. The political co-optation of nationalism by the Hindutva regime helps to empower capitalists and marginalises 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 depoliticisation breaks the legal contract between Indian citizens and their state. It weakens all institutions of social welfare and governance. The Hindutva social contract is naturalising 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 fascists 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 Hindutva forces are imposing Hindi, Hindutva and Hindustan to create a monolithic society under a centralised state that empowers caste and class elites at the cost of common Indians. The integration and centralisation 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 centralisation runs without any risk because of the caste based Brahminical social order based on hierarchy. It naturalises 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 privatisation of state-owned resources, liberalisation of economy and laws for the growth of monopoly corporations. The rise of Adanis and Ambanis are 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.

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Frontier
Vol 54, No. 44, May 1 - 7, 2022