MN ROY ON THE DANGER OF FASCISM
MN Roy ( born on March 21,1887),the founder of the Communist Party of Mexico and the Indian Communist Party in exile (1920) was dedicated to human freedom .He had a first hand experience of fascism and his understanding of the phenomenon was far in advance of his Indian contemporaries .After the failure of the the Comintern mission in China ,he returned to Berlin in 1927 .Roy loved Germany and had a native like fluency in German .As he was deeply grounded in the German intellectual tradition ,he could trace the growth in greater depth .Unlike Marxist determinists such as R Palme Dutt ,he didn't see it merely as a crisis of a dying capitalism but a more complex phenomenon- a new barbarism threatening all the great achievements of the Western civilization and liberalism - all that is free ,tender and beautiful .Much before Lukacs's Blum Theses (1928 ) Roy put forward the idea of a United Front against fascism .He was convinced that only such a front of those who were committed to democracy and freedom could resist the recrudescence of the new barbarism .This went against Comintern's policy of discrediting and maligning social and Liberal democrats .Actually Stalin's sectarian policy helped the rise of fascism .While in jail Roy wrote Fascism (1933) which was the first full length study of fascism by any Indian .It is markedly different from Dutt's "Fascism" in so many ways .Yet Indian Marxists would always refer to Dutt's book as a Bible and curiously remain hostile to Roy's more nuanced and sophisticated analysis .
Indian nationalists lacked this wider vision .Their only aim was the wrestle the power from the British which for them was an unmitigated evil .Comprised entirely of upper caste elite ,they were hardly bothered about caste ,class or gender oppression .So they came to admire Hitler and Mussolini and found the belligerent ultra nationalism more attractive than tame Liberalism of British variety . .The RSS worshipped Hitler and their nationalism was consciously modelled on fascism .They identified the Hindu with Hitler's pure Aryan and henceforth their politics would be directed towards creating a Hindu India purged of semitic ( here Muslim) and other corrupting foreign influences .But most in the Indian National Congress also looked to Hitler as their possible ally .Subhas Bose was one such deluded person .This brought Roy in conflict with the Congress and the fascist sympathisers within it .He was all for supporting the war effort .How could India be free under a new order based on tyranny ,genocide and destruction ? He saw it clearly that an Allied victory would only hasten India's freedom .He called Indian nationalism " an antiquated creed " - blind and self defeating .His opposition to the INC and Bose's INA (a propaganda ploy of the Japanese) ,alienated him from the masses and sealed his political future .The victory over fascism ,as Roy predicted ,led to more freedom in Europe and dismantling of the Empire .
However, Roy did not have any illusion that fascism was dead .In a perceptive essay " Religious Revivalism and the Danger of Fascism" (1952) Roy saw how "religious revivalism in India and similar countries becomes an ally of fascism ....Therefore fascism in India need not - and I believe will not take the shape and form it took in Europe ..Fascism in India ,and the fascist danger in India ,is associated with religious revivalism " .The absence of human and humanistic values and the predominance of an authoritarian mentality among the people ,makes India a fertile ground for religious fascism .He also saw where it would come from - the RSS and its allies ." This kind of mentality can be galvanised by a movement of religious revivalism ,which in our country is sailing under the colours of a cultural movement .For instance the RSS will nor admit that it is a religious revivalist movement ." Roy was convinced that this religious fascism could not be fought with the European experience alone: ." So anti fascist movement or any movement for resisting the growth of Fascism ,will also have to take a different form to meet the danger " .Alas we are yet to develop the resistance in the domain of culture and consequently the political resistance is so unorganized and weak .Roy could not fully foresee how this form of fascism would ally itself with crony capitalism and use the mass media to manipulate the public mind and manufacture consent in the most devious manner .We are therefore moving fast towards a Third Reich situation - the total subversion of democracy paradoxically through democratic institutions and conventions .More than ever ,we need a united front of different political parties and movements which ,despite all differences ,believe in secular democracy ,freedom and the autonomy of democratic institutions .Beware of the left intellectual mafia ( Karats ,Patnaiks et al) within the CPIM and CPIML groups - all perversely Stalinist and pursuing the same sectarian policy that brought Hitler to power .
B aur
MN Roy ( born on March 21,1887),the founder of the Communist Party of Mexico and the Indian Communist Party in exile (1920) was dedicated to human freedom .He had a first hand experience of fascism and his understanding of the phenomenon was far in advance of his Indian contemporaries .After the failure of the the Comintern mission in China ,he returned to Berlin in 1927 .Roy loved Germany and had a native like fluency in German .As he was deeply grounded in the German intellectual tradition ,he could trace the growth in greater depth .Unlike Marxist determinists such as R Palme Dutt ,he didn't see it merely as a crisis of a dying capitalism but a more complex phenomenon- a new barbarism threatening all the great achievements of the Western civilization and liberalism - all that is free ,tender and beautiful .Much before Lukacs's Blum Theses (1928 ) Roy put forward the idea of a United Front against fascism .He was convinced that only such a front of those who were committed to democracy and freedom could resist the recrudescence of the new barbarism .This went against Comintern's policy of discrediting and maligning social and Liberal democrats .Actually Stalin's sectarian policy helped the rise of fascism .While in jail Roy wrote Fascism (1933) which was the first full length study of fascism by any Indian .It is markedly different from Dutt's "Fascism" in so many ways .Yet Indian Marxists would always refer to Dutt's book as a Bible and curiously remain hostile to Roy's more nuanced and sophisticated analysis .
Indian nationalists lacked this wider vision .Their only aim was the wrestle the power from the British which for them was an unmitigated evil .Comprised entirely of upper caste elite ,they were hardly bothered about caste ,class or gender oppression .So they came to admire Hitler and Mussolini and found the belligerent ultra nationalism more attractive than tame Liberalism of British variety . .The RSS worshipped Hitler and their nationalism was consciously modelled on fascism .They identified the Hindu with Hitler's pure Aryan and henceforth their politics would be directed towards creating a Hindu India purged of semitic ( here Muslim) and other corrupting foreign influences .But most in the Indian National Congress also looked to Hitler as their possible ally .Subhas Bose was one such deluded person .This brought Roy in conflict with the Congress and the fascist sympathisers within it .He was all for supporting the war effort .How could India be free under a new order based on tyranny ,genocide and destruction ? He saw it clearly that an Allied victory would only hasten India's freedom .He called Indian nationalism " an antiquated creed " - blind and self defeating .His opposition to the INC and Bose's INA (a propaganda ploy of the Japanese) ,alienated him from the masses and sealed his political future .The victory over fascism ,as Roy predicted ,led to more freedom in Europe and dismantling of the Empire .
However, Roy did not have any illusion that fascism was dead .In a perceptive essay " Religious Revivalism and the Danger of Fascism" (1952) Roy saw how "religious revivalism in India and similar countries becomes an ally of fascism ....Therefore fascism in India need not - and I believe will not take the shape and form it took in Europe ..Fascism in India ,and the fascist danger in India ,is associated with religious revivalism " .The absence of human and humanistic values and the predominance of an authoritarian mentality among the people ,makes India a fertile ground for religious fascism .He also saw where it would come from - the RSS and its allies ." This kind of mentality can be galvanised by a movement of religious revivalism ,which in our country is sailing under the colours of a cultural movement .For instance the RSS will nor admit that it is a religious revivalist movement ." Roy was convinced that this religious fascism could not be fought with the European experience alone: ." So anti fascist movement or any movement for resisting the growth of Fascism ,will also have to take a different form to meet the danger " .Alas we are yet to develop the resistance in the domain of culture and consequently the political resistance is so unorganized and weak .Roy could not fully foresee how this form of fascism would ally itself with crony capitalism and use the mass media to manipulate the public mind and manufacture consent in the most devious manner .We are therefore moving fast towards a Third Reich situation - the total subversion of democracy paradoxically through democratic institutions and conventions .More than ever ,we need a united front of different political parties and movements which ,despite all differences ,believe in secular democracy ,freedom and the autonomy of democratic institutions .Beware of the left intellectual mafia ( Karats ,Patnaiks et al) within the CPIM and CPIML groups - all perversely Stalinist and pursuing the same sectarian policy that brought Hitler to power .
B aur
