Of ‘Hate Hags’, Witch-hunts, and the Orwellian Woman

The term ‘hate hag’, used to describe “women supporters of Narendra Modi” in an Outlook Magazine article recently gained currency, especially on social media. Vrinda Gopinath, who authored the article, clearly referred to three women—Madhu Kishwar, Tavleen Singh, and Sandhya Jain—as ‘Modi’s mausis’ (Modi’s aunts). Describing these women as what “Libs call Hate Hags or Hacks”, she states that they:

“have swung into the national debate ever since the media’s imbalance in promoting Modi tilted favourably towards him, feverishly affirming their faith on television, Twitter, Facebook and in their columns. They dismiss contrarian, inquiring views as archaic and wimpy; and club those who question them as com­m­unists, feminists, and socialists. They’d love to be hailed as right-wing reactionaries but are now famously known as Modi’s Mausis.”

She further explains how Kishwar—dubbed as ‘Madhu Mausi’—“has taken her Modimania to newer heights of emotional fervour”; how Singh “constructs ‘secularism’ as a dirty word”; and finally, Jain, who “apart from covering [Modi’s] rallies and quoting every pearl that rolls off his tongue…endorses Modi’s views on population control and religious demography, and chants with Modi on ‘Third Front, Third Rate’ and other mantras”. Perhaps, I am too quick to judge her piece (given that ‘a longer version’ of the article appears in print). However, even by the standards of criticisms levelled against Kishwar, or other apologists for the Sangh Parivaar, Gopinath’s pieces resonates with the crass tone one would normally find in an amateur, anonymous handle-led blog, and certainly not in a publication like Outlook (However, given Manu Joseph’s equally crass piece on the Tarun Tejpal sexual assault case, it is perhaps not so unsurprising).

While there’s no problem in writing a sarcastic article on these women, what I found more disconcerting was the over-judicious appropriation and usage of the term ‘hate hag’ by the anti-Modi and anti-BJP voices on social media to target women, especially on Twitter, who are either sympathetic to the BJP and Modi, or themselves are BJP workers. This attack on women—irrespective, or in this case, because of their political ideologies—I argue, is unprecedented, crass and unbecoming. In using the term ‘hate hag’ the risk is in reaffirming a notion of ‘ideal’ woman, whose political views have to be in full agreement with so-called liberal, secular (or religious, fundamentalist) ideal. This is not to say that there are no contradictions whatsoever in women’s support for the BJP, RSS, and the Sangh Parivaar—indeed, these contradictions, I think, are irreconcilable. However, there is a difference in expressing ones disagreement with these, and using a term that is inherently sexist, misogynistic and demeaning to women.

In this essay I critique the term ‘hate hag’ through three broad arguments: first, I argue the term ‘hate hag’ is inherently sexist and misogynistic, and in using the term to ‘shame’ women because of their political ideology, we reinstate another form of a the medieval witch-hunt. Second, I look at the irreconcilable contradictions in the ‘women’s question’ and the Political Right, especially in light of the Janus-faced patriarchy that the BJP and the Sangh Parivaar represent. Here I underscore the role played by real, symbolic and semiotic violence that is directed against women’s bodies and ‘honour’. Finally, I present the idea that the term ‘hate hag’ conforms to the same form of semiotic violence that the Political Right and conservatives use to ‘shame’ women to reaffirm a patriarchal politics. This, I argue, is creates the Orwellian Woman as the ‘other’—that is, the notion that “some women are more equal than other women”, when it comes to being objects of such attacks.

“‘Hate hags’? So what’s the problem? Don’t these women deserve to be shamed anyway?”

As expected, since its introduction, the term ‘hate hag’—not so much ‘Modi’s Mausis’—was widely discussed, shared, and was met with both opposition and appropriation over social media. The way this unfolded, at least on Twitter, was interesting. On the one hand, we had the ardent anti-BJP, anti-Modi (or pro-Congress crowd), who, quite unproblematically, appropriated the term, and used it to deride well-known women BJP-Modi supporters on Twitter (besides the three mentioned in Gopinath’s article). Said this Congress spokesperson:

“Hate Hags perfect term coined by Outlook magazine for NaMo’s women supporters on social media. Sue me now for saying this.”

Several other anti-BJP/Modi counter-propagandists have celebrated the usage of the term because of its “shock value”. Here’s another example:

Some have argued that “such behaviour must be shamed” (a line of thought which could give the Khaps a run for their money).

“Attach Shame”

These counter-propagandists, it would seem, see a war coming. “Political correctness”, they say, is of little use when “the dogs of war are here”.

‘The Dogs of War/Political Correctness'

For these counter-propagandists, it is a case of fighting fire with fire; of fighting hatred with hatred; countering one act of shaming with another. They speak of “shaming” women supporters of the BJP, but fail to see their own language as unbecoming, uncivil, and, ultimately, regressively patriarchal. I lack the space here to undertake an archaeology of the term ‘hate hag’. But let’s rely on the dictionary meaning of the term ‘hag’. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines ‘hag’ as:

1. An ugly, slatternly, or evil-looking old woman;

2. Archaic

a: a female demon,

b: an evil or frightening spirit;

3. Witch

‘Cucking Stool, used in the “trial” of witches’ (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Thus, by its very constitution the term ‘hate hag’ is demeaning to women, and is inherently sexist (Although, many supporters of Modi are quite proudly, and sardonically, wearing the title of ‘hate hag’—as was with the term ‘slut’, which led to numerous Slut Walks). By underscoring the ‘internal/external’ ugliness (of women), people who support the term are supporting a perverted logic that assigns ‘value’ on womanhood based on a notion of beauty/ugliness and purity/pollution. This underscores an import point about the insidious function of discipline/punish that’s embedded in the notion of shame and honour (I will discuss this point in detail in the concluding segment).

‘External ugliness/internal ugliness’

Coming back, it would seem that Gopinath’s piece, and the so-called ‘shaming’ the counter-propagandists engage in, occupy a curious space in this on-going tirade against women expressing their political opinion on media. We are well aware of how journalists and activists have been viciously abused on social media by Right-wing fanatics. A BBC Hindi report revealed how women journalists and activists, like Sagarika Ghose, Kavita Krishnan, and Meena Kandaswamy, who have been critical of “caste and Hindu nationalism” have been singled out as victims of misogynistic attacks online. Ghose was abused on Twitter by right-wing chauvinists who called her a “high-class prostitute”; Krishnan, speaking at a Rediff.com discussion when someone with the handle @RAPIST posted abusive comments, and asked where he could “rape her using a condom”; Kandaswamy was threatened with “live telecasted gang-rape and being torched alive and acid attacks”.  These are among the many instances where women are abused and humiliated online, usually by anonymous handles. While Gopinath’s piece, and the usage of the term ‘hate hag’, does not use the abusive language of the anonymous Right-wing troll, it still perpetuates a language of misogyny, sexism and hatred. For her and the anti-Modi/anti-BJP crowd, these ‘Modi’s mausis’ are nothing but apologists for the Sangh, who find fault with the “secular, liberal media” on the one hand, and “have all been steadfastly loyal to the idea of their Hriday Samrat, emperor of India, Narendra Modi”. Gopinath’s argument is one which infantilizes these women for their “blind devotion” to Modi, and yet occupies the moral high ground. But it is unclear as to what she’s based her assumptions on. Going by her arguments, there is nothing to indicate that what people like Kishwar, Singh and Jain write about Modi is qualitatively exceptional in its content. Sure, Madhu Kishwar occupies a piñata-esque position, when it comes to “Modi-worship”. Many of Singh’s columns in The Sunday Express, and on NitiCentral are terrible excuses. And, to be honest, I don’t know enough about Sandhya Jain to comment on her. That said, I do know several people, of both genders, who appraise Modi—from enumerating merits in his so-called ‘Gujarat Model’, and admire the vast and burgeoning propaganda surrounding the man. But why single out these three women? I mean, if one is thinking of women insofar as talking about their role in the Sangh’s moral-political economy, there are women in the Sangh Parivaar who occupy a more dangerous role.

The Janus-faced patriarchy and the Women’s Question

On the face of it, it’s not entirely inaccurate to assume that there can be grounds for one to have sympathy with Gopinath’s piece. It is well-known that the Political Right in India produces, harbours, and espouses misogynistic and sexist ideologies, and, by any standard, is a text-book case of what I have previously described as a patriarchal moral-political economy. Women, however, occupy a more tenuous role in this matter: Should they conform to an ideal notion of universal feminism where they condemn all forms of misogyny and sexism?[1] Or, does their support of individuals or ideologies put them at odds with these so-called universal feminist ideals? Can the so-called “women’s question” be reconciled by constructing an inner, spiritual domain, free from the trappings of western modernity—and yet, is ‘modern’ in a more functional way?^[2] If indeed so, are Kishwar, Singh and Jain exemplary in this regard? I don’t think so. For one, none of the three women are being castigated explicitly for ignoring/endorsing a feminist question. In fact, Gopinath’s sole criticism seems to be their hero-worshiping of Modi. She, it seems, couldn’t care less about actual irreconcilable problems and contradictions between equal rights for women, and the inherently patriarchal ideology of the Sangh Parivaar.

Before I proceed, however, let me clarify some things. I am very definitely critical of the BJP-Sangh and Narendra Modi. I have argued elsewhere that the BJP, RSS, and Sangh Parivaar, with Modi as its face, represent a Janus-faced patriarchal moral-political economy, and have underlying fascist tendencies. I have also categorically stated that apologists for the patriarchal Sangh—and these includes women “supporters”, as well as members of the Sangh’s women’s wing, Durga Vahini—espouse an idea that is fundamentally inimical to the goal of achieving equal rights for women. There are glaring contradictions in the support women give to Modi. For one, I find it irreconcilable that one can support Modi—no matter how awesome his visions of ‘development’ are—and not be bothered by the violence perpetrated by the Sangh on women: be it the brutal gang-rapes of Muslim women in the 2002 post-Godhra riots, or rapes of nuns in Kandhamal in Orissa during the anti-Christian riots; or the Bajrang Dal’s and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s (VHP) moral policing and beating up of women and young couples; or even the Rashtriaya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat’s claims that “rapes happen in India, and not in Bharat”.

Thus, when Modi speaks of the Nirbhaya case, and promises “security” for women, does he also promise them safety from the vile, misogynistic elements within the fold of the Sangh? In her article Gopinath doesn’t ask if we expected Modi, or his “mausis”, to speak up after Pramod Muthalik, the Shri Ram Sene chief was inducted, and subsequently expelled from the BJP (Muthalik and the SRS is infamous for the 2009 attack on women in a Mangalore pub) Apparently, Muthalik joined the BJP with the objective of “making Narendra Modi the prime minister”. More pertinently, she does not raise any questions about other women within the Sangh’s fold—women who do not enjoy the celebrity-like status of Kishwar, but women who nevertheless believe in, and espouse, the ideologies of the Sangh Parivaar, violently so, if required.

Take, for instance this clip from Nisha Pahuja’s documentary, The World Before Her, which examines two contrasting scapes: first, the camp of the RSS’ women’s wing, Durga Vahini, and the assaults on women and couples in public places, and pubs (the latter by the notorious Shri Ram Sene); and second, the selection round of the Miss India pageant. The instructor at the Durga Vahini camp goes on record to say that women are “biologically weaker than men”, and must, therefore, shun any hopes for gender equality. The more shocking aspect about this “brainwashing at the VHP’s Durga Vahini camp”, according to Pahuja, is what Prachi, a 20 year-old trainee at the camp, has to say about her father, (and, thus, the moral-political economy he and the RSS represent). Says Prachi about her father:

 “In a traditional family they don’t let girl child live. They kill the child. So this is the thing. I get angry; I have quarrels with my dad. But this thing, when it comes in my mind, I feel like crying… he let me live. That is the best part.” 

Clearly, if we highlight the issue of women’s rights—and, thus the contradiction of women supporting Modi and the Janus-faced Sangh Parivaar-BJP—what Pahuja’s clip shows is more inimical to the question of gender equality. This, evidently, is what deserves our attention, and perhaps is worth filling column inches. Instead, what we get from Gopinath is a pointless tirade and caricaturing of three women, who aren’t even big names in the BJP. On Twitter itself, several counter-propagandists have highlighted several female members/supporters of the BJP who have espoused a variety of illiberal balderdash—from casteism, to (ironically) misogyny. Incidentally, it would appear that the preoccupation of these counter-propagandists is to find women who fit into the bill of the ‘hate hags’.

‘A random, unverified handle vilifying Dalits deserves to be labelled “hate hag”?’

Before I conclude, let me offer a clarification: While I am critical of the contradictions between the question of violence against women perpetrated by the Right-wing, patriarchal Hindutva organisations and the women who support these ideologies, I am equally cautious about the risk of reducing violence against women and misogyny to the crucible of ‘culture’. This risk is of patronising women, and given the colonial discourse of paternalistic intervention, there is a risk of reinstating what Gayatri Spivak has described as “saving the brown woman from the brown man”. Anthropologist Kamala Vishwesaran in her book Un/Common Cultures: Racism and the Rearticulation of Cultural Difference, too, highlights this point in the case of refugee women seeking asylum to the United States, where the lands these women come from—usually the Middle East—is seen as inherently misogynistic, sexist and inimical to women’s freedoms. She points that this perception draws from precisely the colonial tension Spivak highlights, and obfuscates (if not entirely erases) the question of violence faced by women in the west, and in United States.

Thus, to reiterate the question I asked earlier: can there be a version of feminist thinking that emanates from the political Right-wing Hindutva discourse that is in line with the feminist goal of equal rights for women? By relying of the praxis of Hindutva politics in the last two decades—and not merely on scriptures—I am inclined to say I don’t think so. I would, very self-reflexively, say that the ideas women like Prachi and the instructor at the Durga Vahini training camp espouse in fundamentally inimical to the language of equal rights. They are based on an insidious logic of demarcating, and targeting, women based on certain notions they have of the ‘other’. This is based on the double-bind disciplining function of women’s ‘emancipation’ and their ‘punishment’, which can be achieved only by conforming to the hegemonic idea of what is deemed as appropriate in the patriarchal moral-political economy. This is the same notion the French, and so-called liberal western discourse has of the Muslim women. And this is at the heart of using the term ‘hate hag’ against women supporters of Modi, and the BJP.

Conclusion: A twenty-first century witch-hunt and the Orwellian woman

In this essay, I have attempted to present two broad critiques of the term ‘hate hag’, which was used target “women supporters of the BJP”. First, I argued that the term ‘hate hag’, etymologically and discursively, is inherently sexist, misogynistic, and demeaning to women—in this case, since it is used to target, and ‘shame’, women because of their ideological standings. Secondly, I stated that there are indeed several contradictions in the sexist, misogynistic, and regressive patriarchal politics of the Sangh Parivaar, and the RSS, and the question of equal rights for women, and their security—and, the patina of Modi’s “development” does little to hide that fact. This also underlines an insidious Orwellian ploy that “some women are more women than others” and thus, the latter are more deserving of abuse, castigation, and so on. Given these two contexts, the effect of ‘hate hags’ is exacerbated as it functions on an insidious patriarchal logic of discipline/punishment, wherein the woman is assigned space in the dichotomy of virtue/wickedness. In other words, it’s perfectly alright that a particular type of woman is the object of misogyny and sexism and violence (semiotic and/or real) since she—her very being reduced to her appearance, or other marker (like her political belief)—represents the other. She may be a woman, but her ‘marker’ (and that she’s casteist/sexist/bigoted etc.), makes her a less equal one.

‘The language of shaming has universal resonance in patriarchal discourse’

Admittedly, perhaps, I am overstating things, and drawing too many conclusions. In all likelihood, like most things on Twitter, this will probably blow over (if it hasn’t already). Unfortunately, Vrinda Gopinath’s piece will still exist. And I will still live with the memories of the crass, misogynistic and sexist language used by people I follow on Twitter. Probably a good thing, too: a closet misogynist, for me, is more dangerous than an obvious bigot. 

Acknowledgements

I am indebted to some of the wonderful feminists I follow on Twitter for their interventions during this debate; to Ketaki for a conversation we’d had long back on women and the Hindutva Right; and, to Nolina, for her constant encouragement, love, and support. This post originally appeared in the secular humanist website, Nirmukta.org. I would also like to thank the editors, especially Satish, for their feedback and for publishing it. You can access it here.

Notes

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[1] This also holds true in the case of Islam and feminism. In western liberal circles most debates on Islam and feminism have centered round the ‘veil’, or the hijab or burqa (these terms are used interchangeably). However, many other scholars and academics, like Lila Abu-Lugodh, have argued that this debate reinstates the colonial tension of “saving the brown woman from the brown man” (to use Gayatri Spivak’s phrase), and ignores the systemic oppression of women in Islamic regions due to colonialism, and more recently, the ‘war on terror’. See, Lila Abu-Lugodh, ‘Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? Anthropological reflections on cultural relativism and its others’, American Anthropologist 104/3, 2002. Accessed from: http://webbox.lafayette.edu/~alexya/courses/readings/Abu-Lughod_Do%20Muslim%20Women.pdf; see also, Val Moghadam, ‘Islamic Feminism and its Discontents’, Steal This Hijab, 8 June, 2011. Accessed from: http://stealthishijab.com/2011/06/08/islamic-feminism-and-its-discontents/

[2] Historian and Subaltern Studies scholar Partha Chatterjee has explored this in his essay, ‘The Nationalist Resolution of the Women’s Question’. Chatterjee argues that in the 19^th century Bengali bourgeois nationalism, nurtured the idea of the bhadramahila—that is, the ideal Bengali woman, who is formally educated, but also well-versed in the traditional etiquettes of the household. The distinction Chatterjee traces between the home and the outside, ghar and bahir. See, Partha Chatterjee, Empire & Nation: Essential Writings 1985-2005, pp. 116-135, New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2010.

Notes on the Patriarchal Moral-political Economy: Hindutva, Fascism & the masculine politics of domination

“Politics is the continuation of war by other means.”

Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended

In my previous post, my central argument was to explore how the patriarchal moral-political economy is Janus-faced; that is, how, through “collective conscience”…the moral-political economy “legitimates violence against the bodies of criminals, not because of the crime they commit, but because who they commit it against; and…in doing so, through its various institutions, it creates and reinforces network of hegemony, that defines criminality…and its (selective, and often brutal) punishment.” In this post, I attempt to offer further explanation on what I call the “masculine politics of domination”, in the context of the political Right-wing Hindutva in contemporary India.

Thus, to reiterate my other two conditions of moral-political economies: there is no one model of a moral-political economy; there are moral-political economies. That is, networks of hegemony, patronage and violence; networks that fall outside the ambit of government, but are insidious components of governance. And one way these networks of violence are operationalized (and legitimated) is through what I call the masculine politics of domination. This ‘politics’ invests its power in the category of the masculine as the dominant trope of organising power relations. However, this does not work in, or limited to, the rigid binaries of gender, or even sexualities. It is located at the intersection of political ideologies, spaces, economics, and, more importantly, in engendering violence, and manufacturing the legitimacy for the same.

Therefore, our discussion on moral-political economies also has a lot to do with the events that unfolded on our television screens the same day that the Saket Sessions court awarded the death sentence to the Delhi gang rape-murder perpetrators: Narendra Modi’s anointment as the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate.

Masculine Politics of Domination: More forms of legitimating violence

That there’s a lot being said about Modi is an understatement. And it is indeed quite a task to sift out contradictory and divergent strands of thought, or ideas that can elucidate what the deal with him is: Is it purely economics? Based on the merits of his so-called Gujarat Model of development? The belief that he can deliver “maximum governance, with minimum government”, where the corrupt UPA has failed?

Or, is it about his complicity (if not direct involvement) in the genocidal riots that rocked Gujarat in 2002? – That are, by any account, one of the worst instances of communal conflicts in India. Clearly, his refusal to talk about 2002, and his usage of metaphors (for when he does) – that the riots were like a “puppy coming under the wheels of a car” and that, naturally, he is sad – is, to say the very least, problematic But, what then? And let us not forget the spate of fake encounter killings between 2004 and 2007, that were, undoubtedly, a quasi-policy of the state in dealing with the sublime threat of Islamic terrorism.

Personally, I do not think that dwelling on 2002 purely on the basis of rhetoric gets us anywhere (which degenerate into petty exchanges). The proof against Shiv Sena leader, Balasaheb Thackeray, in the 1992 Bombay riots was as damning, if not more. And that man, on whose watch one of India’s greatest cities burned, got a state funeral. Will Modi ever be held accountable for 2002? I am not sure. In fact, if anything, the question of the 2002 riots vis-à-vis the patriarchal moral-political economy begs a pertinent intervention in discussing what Ward Berenschot calls “riot politics” in his book Riot Politics: Hindu-Muslim Violence and the Indian State.

For Berenschot, the violence in Gujarat was possible not because it was an explicit government pogrom, or because the riots were uncontrollable; they were possible because of several factors, like the decline of traditional mediation networks in the communities, decline of trade unions, and the rise of virulent Hindutva politics. Older structures, like Pol Panchayats had but lost their influence in the communities of Ahmedabad; in lieu of them, politicians, goondas, and chamchas were now extended patronage networks, to which people (the Gujarati middle class) turned to. And it is these social actors that served as “riot networks”, and the riot, ultimately, was a way of “maintaining power relations” (read his paper here). A feminist reading of Berenschot’s arguments thus renders a conception of a “working” moral-political economy: the question of macro- and micro-spaces, making Berenschot’s work indispensable in our understanding of masculine politics of domination.

Following Judith Butler’s idea of performativity and violence, politics of domination would refer to not only the legitimation of violence – “rape-as-punishment” & “rape-being-punished-by-death” – but also the very nature of the violence perpetrated (the appalling description of violence and rape chronicled by Human Rights Watch’s report on Gujarat). Moreover, this form of violence is a perverse process of creating the bodies of the “other” – women, Muslims, Dalits – as a site which engenders a fundamentally Right-wing politics of violence. Thus, the violence enacted on Muslim bodies during the riots, of allowing Hindus to express their anger”, of “putting the Muslims in place”; as well as the violence perpetrated on Dalits, and women, engenders the legitimacy of violence, and more so, the necessity of it, in the creation of moral-political economies.

In this essay, however, I also explore another fundamental idea: the intersection of fascism with the Right’s moral-political economy. It is my argument that, by representing Modi as the dominant trope of masculinity, and, through his own attempts to forge more secular or tolerant credentials for himself, Modi’s image as “the governator” is essential for the creation of the Sangh’s moral-political economy. Secondly, I also extrapolate how the Sangh itself embodies or represents what Italian philosopher Umberto Eco calls “Ur-Fascism”. [Note: the term ‘Sangh’ is shorthand for mainly the RSS, and its associated organisations: the BJP, VHP, Bajrang Dal & Durga Vahini].

Modi, Hindutva and image of the “governator”

It is no secret or great big revelation, that the RSS, the VHP and other right-wing outfits associated with the BJP are regressively patriarchal. They, and their assorted misogynistic codswallop, represent what I have earlier described as a culture of violence. Misogyny, policing of sexualities, a pervasive rape culture, are actually normalized fields of violence for them. In Masculinities, R.W. Connell differentiates between different masculinities, and the relationship between them – these being, hegemony, subordination, complicity, and marginalisation (see the previous post for a discussion of Connell’s work on hegemonic masculinity).

The masculine that Modi comes to define and inhabit is, to refer the arguments above, a penultimate form of hegemonic masculinity. The resurgence of the right can also be seen, in part, as a re-masculinization in reaction the emasculating politics of the soft, corrupt UPA regime. It also functions to emasculate and marginalise the masculinity of the Muslim “other” – which has always been the Sangh’s object of attack (more on that later).

That might offer some preliminary explanation on why Hindutva figures so virulently in the political agenda of the BJP specifically. I mean, on the one hand, they are desperate to show that they are not entirely dominated by the regressive patriarchy of the VHP, and much less, the RSS. And on the other, they are equally desperate to reverse the emasculating policies of the UPA, to reassert, and reinstate, what Michael Messner has called the “masculinity of the governator”.

Messner argues that the rise of Arnold Schwarzenegger in American politics was done so by him forging a credible, hybrid masculine imagery as a “kindergarten commando”. This, he says, “represents an ascendant hegemonic masculinity…foregrounding toughness, and the threat of violence and following the situationally appropriate symbolic displays of compassions”. This utilisation masculine imagery, for the Republicans, was necessary in national politics to gain voters’ trust in times of fear and insecurity. What the BJP and Modi are trying to achieve, is a similar process. Both, the so-called Gujarat Model and Modi’s masculine imagery, his “56-inch chest” included (he was dubbed “Rambo Modi” with news of his rescue of 15,000 stranded Gujaratis in Uttarakhand after the floods) represents both, a kind of Janus-faced politics, and the constitution of a hegemonic category of masculinity. The shrill cry of Hindutva – his claims of being a “Hindu nationalist” – contrary to being (just) a communal assertion, is actually a masculine assertion. It is, among many other things, an attempt for the BJP to forge the Hindutva patriarchal moral-political economy with the image of Modi as governator at its helm (if the claim of “Ram-rajya”  is not a plea for more patriarchal control, then I don’t know what is). 

Many of these arguments on Hindutva politics, masculinity and male embodiment are explained in Joseph Alter’s Moral Materialism: Sex and Celibacy in Modern India. Alter locates the discussion on celibacy in the milieu of nationalist discourse of post-Independent India, where to contrast the hegemonic, western masculinity of the colonisers, there was a revival in the Indian (more so, the Hindu) conception of celibacy and sexuality.  Incidentally, however, the RSS' recent claim that Hindus should scrap the one-child norm and have more children to “balance” the demographic imbalance (i.e., to counter “rising” Muslim population) represents yet another patriarchal attempt at biopolitics—the most notorious being the mass-sterilizations and family planning under the aegis of Indira Gandhi and Sanjay Gandhi.

Thus, apart from being Messner’s “governator”, Modi also serves as the epitaph of popular Hindutva for a vast majority of Hindus (predominantly, male youth) in the country. His stance on the economy (especially, the Food Security Bill), the armed forces, the border, and India’s (emasculated) relationship with China and Pakistan, are fantastic ideological tools that have, and pardon my use of floral language, captured the hearts and minds of the masses. For, as sociologist Shiv Visvanathan rightly points out in his essay, ‘The Remaking of Narendra Modi’: “He [Modi] is a cultural dream for Hindus tired of softness and gentleness who welcome his technocratic machismo.”

Modi, Hindutva & Ur-Fascism

Modi’s hard, masculine stance is, for obvious reasons, highly problematic. Further to Connell’s understanding of the “relation between and within genders”, a closer and more nuanced examination of Modi also begs extremely pertinent questions on fascism, and its relation of the patriarchal moral-political economy. In an interview with Modi when he was an RSS prachalak in the 1980s, social scientist Ashis Nandy described him as “a classic, clinical case of a fascist” and that for the first time in his life he had “met a textbook case of a fascist and a prospective killer, and perhaps even a future mass murderer”. [Note: it should be clarified that I do not have access to Nandy's original statement]. 

Now, I am wary of throwing around a term like ‘fascist’ – partly because Digvijay Singh’s (or, more recently, Nithish Kumar’s) more-than-judicious use of the same bothers me; and also because I do not possess Nandy’s qualifications. However, situating the discourse of Modi in the larger scheme of the Sangh, some of the fascist iterations become evident. Also, Nandy’s later writings on Modi – for instance, in which he claims that politics has “blunted him and made him less dangerous” – are interesting. He writes: “Modi's earnestness has declined...he has become more instrumental [and] is at once less threatening and more dangerous”. Modi, now, can balance his power ambitions, and project the RSS’ (and the Sangh's) patriarchal ideologies in a manner that hides their regressive patriarchy in the patina of “development” and “governance” (Janus-faced). And, while Nandy may seem reluctant to revisit his diagnosis of fascism, I would agree with Shiv Visvanathan, when he writes that we must understand “the remaking of Modi, the modernist as fascist…if we wish to unmake it”.

Umberto Eco’s essay, Ur-Fascism, is extremely pertinent in this regard. Eco, who as a boy survived the Fascism of Mussolini in Italy in the 1940s, has offered the most compelling, exhaustive and chilling explanation of what he calls “Ur-Fascism”, or “Eternal Fascism”. He writes:

“…fascism [did not] contained in itself…all the elements of any later form of totalitarianism. On the contrary, fascism had no quintessence. Fascism was a fuzzy totalitarianism, a collage of different philosophical and political ideas, a beehive of contradictions.” 

But despite of this “fuzziness”, Eco outlines a list of 14 features that are typical to “Ur-Fascism”. A more contextual reading of Eco would thus render a lot of sense to the insidious politics of the BJP and, more importantly, of its allied bodies in the Sangh Parivar (more so when we put Modi in the picture). However, due to constraints of space it is difficult for me to explain and extrapolate entirely Eco’s points on Ur-Fascism to the discourse of the BJP & RSS’ Hindutva politics. However, I shall retain some of the points that I think are extremely relevant in my analysis. 
[Note: I would urge the reader to read Eco’s essay more closely to understand the points he raises about fascism; see also, Sumit Sarkar's essay on The Fascism of the Sangh Parivar, which he wrote after the 1992 Babri masjid demolition, and the subsequent riots that followed].

Thus, with regard to the BJP-RSS in general, and to Modi in particular, my understanding of fascism, and its intersection with the patriarchal moral-political economy, is based on seven fundamental points that are raised by Eco in Ur-Fascism. The first is the “cult of syncretistic traditionalism” which “rejects modernism”. Although Modi’s Gujarat model is, supposedly, pro-development, the Ram janmabhoomi debate features vociferously the BJP’s election agenda. An argument can also be made about the Janus-faced nature of the BJP’s political agenda here: their claims on development, and a regression to their idea of Hindu Rashtra. In fact, it would seem that only in the discourse of patriarchy and fascism can such glaring contradictions coexist.

Second, is the fear of difference, and the obsession with a plot (which is an appeal to xenophobia); this grows with an appeal “against intruders”, which is why Eco terms Ur-Fascism as racist. Third, in relation to the second point, is pacifism is trafficking with the enemy…because life is permanent warfare—be it against the threat of our neighbours, or ISI-sponsored terrorists within the country – who, then, are killed in fake encounters, for display to the world. Tehelka journalist, Rana Ayyub’s exhaustive coverage of the fake encounters in Gujarat is exemplary in this regard.

Fourth, is will to power to sexual matters…this is the “origin of machismo”, and perhaps, the most important point insofar as we are looking at the relationship between patriarchy and fascism. As a woman, a friend of mine once commented, she is uncomfortable with what sees about the BJP’s rise to power; and as a feminist, I share her concern: I find it disconcerting too, that Modi, being a part of a supra-patriarchal institution like the RSS—whose chief, Mohan Bhagwat, claimed that “rapes don’t happen in Bharat; they happen in India”—can appropriate the voice of protests that were witnessed post-December 2012 gang-rape murder (the supreme irony of Modi being anointed the same day as the accused were given a death penalty).

If you require any more evidence, there is none more clear, or shocking, than this clip from Nisha Pahuja’s documentary, The World Before Her. The clip examines two contrasting scapes: first, the camp of the RSS’ women’s wing, Durga Vahini, and the assaults on women and couples in public places, and pubs (the latter by the notorious Shri Ram Sene); and second, the selection round of the Miss India pageant. The instructor at the Durga Vahini (women's wing of the RSS) camp goes on record to say that women are “biologically weaker than men”, and must, therefore, shun any hopes for gender equality. The more shocking aspect about this brainwashing at the camp, according to Pahuja, is what Prachi, a trainee at the camp, has to say about her father, (and, thus, the moral-political economy he and the RSS represent):

 “In a traditional family they don’t let girl child live. They kill the child. So this is the thing. I get angry; I have quarrels with my dad. But this thing, when it comes in my mind, I feel like crying… he let me live. That is the best part.” 

 Modi, for all his claims on development, for all his talks on the “Gujarat model”, ultimately, represents (and, comes from) the same oeuvre and ideology that is espoused by the Durga Vahini camp instructors when they claim “women are weaker than men”; by the Shri Ram Sene when they attack women in pubs; by the Ranveer Sena when they attack Dalits trying to reassert their rights; and, ultimately, by misogynists like Prachi’s father, who claim to mould her as “their product”. My stance as a Leftist often unsettles many of my critics (who happen to be supporters of Modi), inviting jibes of “Stalinism/Maoism”; but, as a feminist, I have more than enough reason, and am more than justified, to be critical of him, and the Right. And I’d dare any apologist to prove so otherwise.

The fifth condition of Ur-Fascism is an appeal to the frustrated middle class – who are (rightly) tired with ten years of the UPA’s corrupt regime and soft policies on terror, the economy, and so on. In continuation, the sixth is selective populism, where the people (in this case, the Hindus they represent) are only a theatrical fiction. Eco says, “…there is, in our future, a TV or an internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.”

Ramachandra Guha’s experience with such “Hindutva Hate Mail” – what journalist Sagarika Ghose has termed “Internet Hindu” – perfectly illustrates this facet. Terms like “Sickular”, “paid-media”, and, my personal favourite, “anti-national”, are in fast currency amongst these anonymous handles on Twitter. Nowhere, however, have these anonymous Twitter handles provided enough proof to counter any arguments, or to back up the accusations they hurl. And this brings us to the seventh and final condition of my interpretation of Ur-Fascism: it [a syncretistic faith] “cannot withstand criticism”. Eco sums up my thoughts, when he says that the modern community “praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge. For Ur-Fascism, disagreement is treason.”

“Development” and the “Gujarat model” are, for apologists and supporters of Modi alike, sanctimonious; any criticism of the same is tantamount to treason. And, they very conveniently forget the fact that any true development must happen through an informed process, through scientific argument, and critical reasoning. These are qualities whose glaring absence is not only conspicuous, but also (I suspect) deleted in the discourse on Modi: because, unlike capitalism for Marx, the masculine politics of domination cannot afford to sow in the seeds of its own destruction. It needs to be fought, and resisted, unceasingly, and without respite. More than anything, a deeper understanding of patriarchal moral-political economies is required to reassert, and refashion feminist politics.

Understandably, my argument is too little, and perhaps, too late, to convince anyone (his supporters, most of all) that it is a very dangerous place for country to resort to desperation to want an authoritarian persona as Modi. His persona – for the lack of a better term – is situated at the intersection of so many discourses of violence and exclusion: and his elevation as a potential prime minister only escalates some of these concerns. However, this discourse is not about Modi: he just happens to be the dominant form of hegemonic masculine in the patriarchal moral-political economy that the Sangh is projecting.

We must remember that the patriarchal moral-political economy is more than just one person; it is an ideology, and an insidious, brutal network of hegemony, dominance, violence and exclusion. It is a system which valorises a persona like Modi, because for the BJP’s (and the Sangh Parivar’s) moral-political economy to come to force, it needs a Modi. An older figure, like Manmohan Singh – or even Advani, for instance – is spent, exhausted, if not entirely emasculated. Moreover, Modi’s image gives legitimacy to the underlying fascist tendencies of the political right, reasserts its core (fascist & patriarchal) values, and constructs what is perhaps the most powerful, and ideologically virulent, form of the patriarchal moral-political economy.

And that is precisely why we will need feminist politics. Always.

Afterthoughts

My criticisms of Modi, and the 2002 riots, are in relation to a particular and specific argument I am making on the nature of patriarchal moral-political economies. And it stands to reason that any kind of genocide or mass violence engenders a masculine politics of domination. Of course, on the other hand, the Congress would represent a different, “softer” kind of hegemonic system altogether—a more Janus-faced one, as my previous post argued; one that cannot tolerate dissent, or criticism. This is reflective of a larger problem of intolerance in the political space—a governance of paranoia. However, an objective measure cannot be adopted for the two forms; and a discursive criticism becomes necessary.

Any counter-argument, stating that Modi and the BJP represent the lesser evil, and therefore, are the necessary evil, is reflective of intellectual laziness; and so is defending the UPA’s Janus-faced policies. Both forms require incessant criticisms. And I believe I have provided enough critiques on both, in previous posts and on social media platforms. Understandably, this presents a dilemma for less nuanced minds who tend to see and organise realties in binaries.

In this post, I have, to the best of my abilities, tried to infuse a degree of analytical rigour, and provided references to back my arguments. At the end of the day, however, this is a blog post, and lacks the expansive research required for a more academic work; any suggestions regarding the arguments are more than welcome. Conversely, I do not make any claims to being an intellectual; I write. But writing, while not entirely cathartic, is a political act. And, with that, I stand by the by-line of this blog, and the feminist adage that has inspired it: the personal is indeed political.  

  This post is a dedication to the brilliant women, and men. I admire, and follow on social media; many of them feminists, activists & enthusiasts, but more importantly, people who value reason & argument. I am thankful to their engaging debates, exchanges & criticisms. 

I am especially thankful to Shubhra Rishi, Ketaki Haté, Vaishali J, Malathi Jogi, Arundhati Bhattacharya, and Vivien D'costa, for their comments, feedback & criticisms on the earlier drafts of this essay; and to Nolina, for her constant encouragement, support and love.