Religion, Homophobia and the Aftermath of 377: Some notes from Jamaat-e-Islami Hind's “protest against homosexuality”

I was walking past Azad Maidan on my way to CST when I saw something that caught my eye. It was, as most things at Azad Maidan are, a protest. But the nature of the protest is what intrigued me: it was a “protest against homosexuality”, organised by Jammat-e-Islami Hind (JIH), which appraised the Supreme Court verdict of December 11^th, 2013, which effectively criminalized consensual same-sex between adults under the archaic Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code. This wasn’t surprising since Jamaat-e-Islami Hind (JIH) has been very vocal in its support of the Supreme Court verdict. Against my better judgement, I decided to stay there for a few moments, and try to understand what this “protest” was really about. Never before, have I been in an atmosphere that was so intolerant and venomous. I sat amidst JIH volunteers holding placards like: “GAY: God Abhors You!”, “Homosexuals are selfish”, and “Gay rights are not human rights!” It was, also, an atmosphere fraught with fallacies, hatred and misinformation.

Before I proceed with an overview, and criticism of the JIH “protest”, let me clarify a few things: firstly, I write as a student of gender studies, so my views are more concerned with JIH as representing a patriarchal ideology, than they are as a religious organisation. There are homophobic and irrational views across the political and religious spectrum—and most of them are as worse, if not more, than the others. In this case, as it just so happens, Jamaat is an Islamic organisation. In fact, they had even roped in a sadhu to speak out against homosexuality. Secondly, in this article, my argument is against the misinformation, lies and inaccuracies about homosexuality that the JIH presented. Finally, this article attempts to examine how differing ideologies (religious, political) coalesce under patriarchy and, in that respect, it also presents a critique of such pervasive patriarchal structures.

“Homosexuality is a Western idea; it is against Indian culture; it will lead to population decline”

First of all, there is no evidence whatsoever to indicate that homosexuality made its way from the West to India—even during colonialism. That India has its own legacy of homoerotic representations in literature and art, and that there are prominent queer themes in Hinduism, too, is entirely (and purposefully) absent in their discourse. As Devdutt Patnaik writes:

“…homosexual activities – in some form – did exist in ancient India…its existence was acknowledged but not approved. There was some degree of tolerance when the act expressed itself in heterosexual terms.”

Indian “culture”, therefore, for organisations like Jamaat and the political Right, exists purely in a rhetorical space, and is divorced from historical facts. Their limited and myopic reading of history of the West also fails to see the moral panic over homosexuality, even in the United States and Britain, and Europe. As Abhay Kumar points out:

“The argument is made in such a way that Indians – both Hindus and Muslims – are opposed to homosexuality, while Indian culture is painted as morally sound and Western culture is morally repulsive and corrupt. The difference between Hindus and Muslims, seen as the source of perennial ‘Hindu-Muslim’ conflicts, suddenly disappears.”

Thus, events like the persecution of homosexuals by the Third Reich, the Stonewall riots, the assassination of Harvey Milk, Proposition 8, and the present-day persecution of homosexuals in Russia—to state a few examples—cannot at all figure in their interpretation of the “West”. It, like their definition of an “Indian culture”, is an empty category to be used for political mobilisation. In fact, what both Jamaat and the sadhu forgot was that Section 377 is an explicitly colonial legislation, based on Victorian morality and control over sexuality. To put it simply, had it not been for the West and British colonialism, there would be no Section 377, and by extension, there would be nothing for Jamaat to protest against.

Likewise, there is no evidence to suggest that it is homosexuality that’s affecting population growth in the West; and the same would hold true for India. An examination of the population growth and total percentage of homosexuals in the United States of America, for instance, lends no credibility to the claims of the JIH. The population of the USA in 1970 was 205.1 million, and in 2012 it was 313.8 million—a population rise of approx. 65.3% in 42 years. At the same time, according to a study conducted by the Williams Institute in 2011, an estimated 3.5% of adults in the USA identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual. On the other hand, as of 2013, the contraceptive prevalence rate in the USA is 76.4%. This, coupled with factors like increased costs of livings, declining family size, capital-intensive labour, and so on, have possibly contributed to a slower growth rate – and, most definitely, not homosexuality.

“Homosexuality is a disease; it causes AIDS; it can be cured”

As with their earlier claims of homosexuality being a factor causing population – and thereby, civilizational – decline, these claims of the JIH, too, are untenable. First of all, in 1973, the American Psychological Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-II) eliminated ‘homosexuality’ as a mental disorder. Through this elimination, argues Dr Robert Spitzer, who authored the paper:

“…we will be removing one of the justifications for the denial of civil rights to individuals whose only crime is that their sexual orientation is to members of the same sex.”

Clearly, then, homosexuality per se is not a deviance, or a disorder, and much less a disease (However, the ASA’s usage of the term ‘Sexual Orientation Disturbance’, too, is extremely problematic. But that’s an argument for another discussion). Further, questioning the givenness of gender and sexual identities, anthropologists have presented compelling cases wherein several indigenous cultures (and, even biology) do not conform to the binary model of gender. Anne Fausto-Sterling, for instance, has presented a historical overview of “intersex” identities and argues for a need to think of five sexes, and not two. Sharyn Graham, studying the Bugis in Indonesia, too, presents a case for five genders, as well as a ‘meta-gender identity’.

Their arguments on HIV and AIDS, too, are ill-founded. The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is transmitted by only four means—of which, homosexuality can account for only one, i.e., unprotected sexual intercourse with an infected partner. It is estimated that 85 to 87% of all HIV transmission is through unprotected sex. And while anal sex does increase the chances of HIV transmission, it is difficult to estimate exactly how much of it is through homosexual sex. Thus, homosexuals who have sex without using condoms would be at no more, or less, risk of contracting HIV, than heterosexuals who do the same.

According to the Supreme Court verdict, HIV prevalence among MSM (Men who have sex with men) is approximately 7%, and that there are about 25 lakh MSM in India presently. This, however, is a contested figure, as the category of MSM does not just include gays, but also men who are married, and do not identify themselves as homosexuals. According to the Behavioural Sentinel Surveillance (BSS) report in 2006, “three percent” of all respondents “indulged in sex with males in the last one year”. And, in the states with high awareness on the issue “the involvement was also reported to be the highest”; among these, “only one-fifth used condoms during the last occasion of sex with a male partner” (BSS, 2006: p. xix). The BSS 2006 report on MSM further estimates that, on an average, consistent condom use among MSM is approximately between 35 to 36% (this includes both, with commercial and non-commercial partners, in 10 Indian cities) (ibid, p. 42).

Thus, on a practical note, the dynamic (and dangerous) nature of HIV transmission makes it extremely difficult to chart out an exact statistical figure of risks. Instead, it is more feasible to understand the notion of “risk” through vulnerabilities—that is to say: communities that are socially, economically and culturally vulnerable are at a greater risk of contracting HIV. By forcing the question of AIDS on only homosexuals, we run the risk of misunderstanding how it affects other marginalised groups, like drug users, female sex workers, AIDS widows and orphans. Furthermore, as Shivananda Khan of Naz Foundation (one of the petitioners in the SC) argues, factors like stigma, discrimination, violence etc. are responsible for driving the disease underground, and these seriously harm intervention efforts that are trying to address issues like transmission, prevention and building support systems for people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHAs). This persecution of homosexuals—and, those who work on health issues of MSM—is, thus, framed under the misguided assumption that social ostracism can deal with AIDS.

In fact, JIH wants these people to hide, and be underground—to live in khauf (fear), as one of their speakers put it.They said, that after the 2009 verdict, gays “came out on the street and marched fearlessly”. This, for the JIH, is in absolute contravention of patriarchal norms. Homosexuals, further to being persecuted, must also be deeply shamed for being who—and, what—they are. More to the point, not only is this attitude being deeply dehumanizing, it is, I argue, also one that seeks to entrench them in the worldview of the dominant patriarchal discourse.

The questions that I have raised above, however, are of no concern to the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, and other patriarchal ideologies. They are resistant to viewing social reality, and problems, as complex; for them, the force of their arguments comes from simplifying issues of sexuality, reducing it to a notion of patriarchal control over bodies, and stems from the concern—or obsession, more correctly—over control of sexuality and property rights. For instance, their supposed “cure” for homosexuality is early marriage. In older days, they said, people were married off precisely because this “prevented them from getting homosexual desires”. So, for people to get these “desires” in the first place, would not the homosexual desire be “natural” in all of us?—which must, then, be “prevented”?

Further, they claimed: “If we legalise homosexuality today, then tomorrow will we also legalise crime, rape, sodomy, bestiality, incest, and so on?” Once again, the Jamaat speakers displayed their ineptitude at understanding Section 377. In cases of rape and sodomy, insofar as there is evidence to indicate that it was non-consensual and/or coercive, Section 377 can, in theory, be applied—and the victims of such sexual assaults could be women, minors and even other men.The merit of the Delhi High Court verdict was that it presented such a nuanced reading. But nuances, for Jamaat, and other like-minded organisations, are almost incomprehensible, it would appear. In fact, they would rather cite the “historical evidence” of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, to justify their view that homosexuality is a sin, that it is immoral, and so on. I won’t even try providing any credible references to refute these claims because that would only insult my intelligence, and that of the readers’. Their entire “protest” was rife with such logical inaccuracies. This evidently demonstrates that the JIH did not have the first clue about what homosexuality actually entails; theirs was, from the beginning, a prejudiced view—nothing more, nothing less. However, the crux of Jamaat’s protest, I suspect has more to do with their desire to portray themselves as a masculine, chauvinistic outfit, than one actually concerned with religion.

“The government must not amend Section 377, or they will lose our votes”

I confess, they did not use the exact same words; but, their sentiments were apparent. Indeed, this was their primary reason for holding the “protest”. They said, Congress ministers who are supporting the amendment of Section 377, and thereby “decriminalising homosexuality”, should think twice about it, given the 2014 General Elections are only a few months away. There was also a vague, and snide, speculation over Rahul Gandhi’s (prolonged) bachelorhood, and the Congress’ desire to amend the said Section. Jamaat’s criticism of the Congress, thus, was an implicit projection of their support for the BJP (as if the presence of the sadhu was not enough)—whose president, Rajnath Singh, “welcomed the Supreme Court verdict”, making their stance on homosexuality quite clear.

Jamaat-e-Islami Hind’s intolerance of homosexuality, and its alignment with the Hindutva Right on this, therefore, is much less a coincidence, than it is an indication of a condition that gives them power and legitimacy in the dominant patriarchal nature of politics in India. This kind of political machismo and parochialism aims to ’emasculate’^* a certain section of the population, and is perhaps the most prevalent form of power-mongering in Indian politics—the MNS’ tirade against the “north Indian migrant”; Shri Ram Sene’s and the VHP’s assaults on women in pubs and public spaces; the violence directed on individuals by the Khap Panchayats in the form of “honour killings”; and, now, this renewed persecution of homosexuality. These are, all of them, indicative of a masculine politics of domination in a system of the patriarchal moral-political economy. Patriarchy, more than being a redundant concept, is widespread in contemporary society, institutions, and politics in renewed and pervasive forms. It functions on the subordination and persecution of sexualities (and other caste, religious etc. identities), and aims to punish the transgression of patriarchal norms.

Moreover, what I found particularly infuriating was one speaker’s reference to Ambedkar, and how, he added, the constitution must “prevent homosexuality from spreading”. As an admirer of Ambedkar, this statement was offensive to me personally, and it also undermined and insulted Ambedkar’s legacy, and all that he stood for. Ambedkar was a revolutionary—if not the most revolutionary—thinker of 20^th century India. Besides his struggles against Brahmanical hegemony, it was Ambedkar’s Hindu Code Bill that not only challenged Brahmanical patriarchy, but also gave civil liberties to Hindu women, such as rights over property, divorce, and so forth (see Sharmila Rege’s Against the Madness of Manu, Navyana, 2013, pp. 204-243). As with the championing for the rights of marginalised communities, the legacy of Ambedkarite political thought underscores the contemporary struggles against the homophobia and sexism of (patriarchal) organisations like Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, and the Hindutva Right-wing. Homosexuality—as with giving property rights to women—is precisely the target of such masculine politics of domination, because it deeply unsettles the notion of power that comes to be defined in terms of, and gains privilege from, a hegemonic masculinity.

By the end of the “protest”, I wanted to speak out, and question their claims.

But, to be really honest, I could not take that suffocating and venomous atmosphere anymore. I left. And then, I Tweeted this whole incident—a pointless exercise, really. Not entirely because I failed to say this to the JIH “protestors”; but because they—like other organisations are trying to assert a patriarchal moral superiority—did not possess the acumen or sophistication to engage in any kind of debate, especially one that would undermine their masculine imagery. Their attack on homosexuals is an empty exercise to gain masculine capital in a patriarchal moral-political economy. To conclude, therefore, Jamaat’s “protest” was no more than a self-congratulatory exercise; a desperate bid to keep itself—and its sense of morality and patriarchy—relevant in a charged political scenario.

This post first appeared in the secular humanist website, Nirmukta.org, under the title ‘Jamaat-e-Islami Hind’s Homophobia.’ I am thankful to the editors for their feedback on the post, and for publishing it on their platform. You can read the original post here.

Notes

^* The term “emasculation” is used here very specifically. In case of analysing violence against homosexuals, and especially gay men, it is important to see how entrenched patriarchal and homophobic attitudes work insidiously to deny them a “gay” masculinity—because, that would mean the constitution of a masculinity outside of the hegemonic and patriarchal moral-political context. ‘Masculinity’ is a reified category precisely because it is such reification that gives it power in certain contexts. Thus, something as ubiquitous as using the term “gay” or “faggot” as an insult, seeks to undermine (and, in more serious cases, deny) masculinity to even (presumably) straight men, until they conform to the notion of hegemonic masculine identity. I have explained this in detail in an academic research paper on masculinity in the critically acclaimed TV show, The Wire. Access it here.

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. 

  

Subversive scribblings

I’m not a fan of theatre as such, let alone experimental theatre. But I do have an undisciplined interest in art – be it performative, written or the so-called fine-arts. Particularly so because I believe in the expressive and political nature of art; not as a wilful act of resistance, but as, Oscar Wilde would have it, a nuanced system of expressions that teases out complexities, and leaves the reader thinking, questioning and critical. So, when I read about a Chinese theatre group, Grass Stage Theatre, performing a “subversive theatre” production called Unsettling Stones (directed by Zhao Chuan) at Bombay’s National Gallery of Modern Art, my curiosity was piqued. In the light of China’s political culture of suppressing dissent, subversion, or free speech in the broadest sense, what I find worrisome – and here I’m echoing philosopher and cultural critic, Slavoj Zizek’s concerns - is the fact that we're looking to them for development paradigms (something I have satirically referred to in the essay, Shanghai-ed). Coming back to China, Zizek argues that in the west, traditionally, the rise of capitalism coincided with the demand for democracy; a system which was mutually beneficial for both. True, grave issues have plagued this alliance – colonialism for one; global capitalist hegemony, another – but with China, what we’re seeing is the existence of capitalism without the conditions of, or the need for, democracy.

When it comes to art, specifically, this phenomenon is compounded. Liu Xiaobo, the “dissident” writer, and human rights activist is currently incarcerated. Mr Mo Yan(literally: “don’t speak”), on the other hand, happens to be a party member,and widely respected across the country. His is the image of art that China wants to project. The political appropriation of art (be in for suppression or activism) is always a danger to the integrity and very operational matrix of a dynamic system of thought. The fact that Grass Stage Theatre is coming to India to perform, is itself a critique of the state and culture industry-appropriated art forms – not just in China, but, I believe, everywhere.

Needless to say, watching Unsettling Stones was an enlightening experience. As an art form – and that too, in a foreign language – it was evocative, lucid, and it pushed the mind to think, to feel; to transcend the negative space between the stage and the seats. I’m still struggling with ideas as I write this review: which theme to focus on? should I rely on description? or should I focus merely on reflections? But the fact that I am thinking and grappling with these ideas, I think, says a lot about the nature and the depth of the performance. For the sake of semblance of coherence, however, I shall divide my review into two broad sections: first, the physicality and aesthetics of the performance; and second, the philosophical and reflexive elements I read in the performance.

Aesthetically speaking, Unsettling Stones adhered to minimalism as a performative style. The stage was stark; the actors wore no elaborate costumes; the lighting, subdued and sharp; there was no music or a background score. On the other hand, the diegetic noise of their footsteps, their breathing, of the irreverent songs over the radio – were elements that came together to form a discontinuous narrative, punctuated by emotive dialogues and pauses pregnant with tension and unpredictability.

The bodies of the actors were as much props as they were instruments of expression. As they stripped under the gaze of the authority – here, the gaze of the audience; their bodies were subjected to the discourse of surveillance, masquerading as safety. The stark nakedness, the subservience, the docility – bodies policed, forever subject of the panopticon, quite literally in the Foucauldian sense.

Even as they paced across the stage, seemingly erratic and random, it resembled our everyday pace; as we settle into routinized behaviour of the office, or the commute; they grooved to the rhythms played on the headphones, oblivious to the others; breaking into dances, or bouts of masturbatory pleasures, or retreating into a shell filled with simple ones:  endlessly repetitive, uncritical, un-reflexive – relishing the products of the culture industries.

As the performance progressed from one segment to the other, the actors’ relationship with the stage changed: from “acting” they went on to creating. Arranging props became a part of the performance; elaborate patterns drawn on the floor with chalk-dust, an act of creation, destroyed in the very next moment – the very act of destruction (or, deconstruction?) becoming a liberating process. Their emphatic grunts, as they hurled stones into the emptiness, resounding in the darkness of the stage; then they lay, face down, enemies of the state. Subversion trampled. Dissent crushed. Status quo, preserved. Is this how it all ends?

Although the performance was in Mandarin, it articulated what it set out to, loud and clear – to challenge the status quo; to partake in dissent. There were no romantic overtures. This was no revolution. There would be no change. An Orwellian pessimism was ingrained in the script – which is why the language didn’t matter. It spoke volumes, be it in its moments of silence, or in the loud joyfulness brought about by the culture industries, which sought to gratify and stupefy. Unsettling Stones is a philosophically rich performance; I’ve already mentioned Foucault's panopticon and Adorno’s culture industry, elements pertinent to the inquiry in the social sciences. It uses stark elements, a language of metaphors, to paint a vivid picture – both polemical and pessimistic. Of these, the “stone”, I believe was the most powerful. In the last two years, we’ve seen people’s outrage transform into action; stones becoming the weapons of the disenfranchised, of the marginalised. But do they really bring about change? Or are they doomed to resound in the empty darkness, as it did on stage? Can it be an instrument of freedom? Or is it just another weapon of the weak? Another brick in the wall?

At the heart of it lies a question we all continue to grapple with, a question about the fundamental nature of freedom: can there be freedom – of expression? of voicing dissent? of formulating a discourse of resistance? One answer points towards the fact that this very performance is one, and that there still might be hope. But structures aren’t always oppressive. They could be Orwellian. Or, they could also be Huxleyan: providing us with an endless source of self-gratification and pleasure; replacing criticality with complacency, and then with comfort and desire. And this is not just China we're talking about; in India, we're heading towards a similar fate, maybe.  Perhaps not as bad, or perhaps, worse. But we're heading there. Not totalitarianism. But a crass form of governance marked by corruption, decadence and ever in paranoia over the preservation of power. That said, I think it’s important to observe that as strong and rigid and iron-caged as structures can be, there is always space for dissent and subversion; they are, if I may say so, structural; or perhaps, inevitable. Structures are defined by their temporariness. They don’t last forever. In a way, Unsettling Stones left us with yet another question – a question that I don’t think I can articulate, but one which would ask us the possibility, nature and direction of change. Is there a chance, as The Who put it, for us to not be fooled again?

A Governance of Paranoia

It's not as if the UPA wasn't in enough trouble already – following the Coal allocation block scam and a host of other past debacles haunting it – they clearly got more than what they bargained for when they prodded, albeit indirectly, another hornet's nest: by arresting cartoonist Aseem Trivedi, under the colonial  charges of sedition. Trivedi’s crime: he drew a caricature of the Parliament as a commode, replacing the lions with rabid wolves on the National Emblem. And apparently, that's seditious.

Obviously, his arrest is politically motivated: Trivedi is known to have been associated with India Against Corruption – the NGO headed by erstwhile Team Anna member Arvind Kejriwal. And the government clearly has a bone to pick with IAC. 

This is not the first time the Indian political class has displayed an inexplicable and illogical paranoia over a cartoonist’s works. Back in April, WB chief minister, Mamata Banerjee got Jadhavpur University professor, Ambikesh Mahapatra, arrested and beaten up by her party workers for posting “objectionable” material regarding her on a social networking site; he was slapped with absurd charges, which included “outraging the modesty of a woman”. Of course, the UPA and other political parties reacted vehemently against it – as expected. Now that the current administration has found itself in a similar position, it is actually defending its action, albeit riddled with contradictions.

Before I go any further and risk offering a merely symptomatic analysis of the situation, I’d like to make my stance on this issue clear. I do not agree with Trivedi’s “freedom of expression” (i.e. of him drawing what he did), and I do not do so in a Voltaire-esque fashion of “defending his rights while I may disagree with what he has to say”. Neither do I think his cartoons "offend" anything; for it's ridiculous to even assume that. At the same time, I think the whole patriotism/nationalism discourse is balderdash. If anything, the more-than-generous usage of words like "nationalism", "true patriot" and the likes, just goes on to show the arbitrariness of these constructs. 

I may stir a hornet’s nest myself by saying so, but I see a disjuncture in Trivedi’s harsh polemic against the government (something I understand), and in his representation of it. By making these icons the focus of his critique he has, invariably, reduced the meanings of the Asoka Pillar and the Parliament to a single signifier: the present UPA government.

Personally, I found his cartoon rather distasteful. For one, while I understand his attempt to proffer a critique of the current and abysmal state of Indian politics and affairs, I disagree with his target: the Parliament and the Asoka Pillar. These icons, I believe, are institutional symbols and thus, represent something far more than the current political class – who, I believe, are (and one may disagree) not really in a position to invest meanings in these icons; and secondly, because, these icons represent something more important, and if I can use the word, sacred, than present governance and coalition politics, and are as much victims of the current administration’s apathy and corruption (as an example, look at the two Rajya Sabha MPs who got into a fist-fight some days back), as perhaps the common man is – symbolically at least.  

These icons are situated in a historical context and have significantly more meaning that what Trivedi assumed them to have. The Asoka Pillar, for example, has its own rich history, an economy of meanings; while the inscription of ‘Satyameva Jayate’ may not mean much to the government today – I doubt very much if it means much to the people, either – I don’t think the government has ever made a conscious effort to appropriate its meaning or significance; the Parliament, on the other hand, is far more contentious a symbol, making it that much more difficult to analyse. It has been the target of recent anti-corruption movements, yet to many, it represents a legitimate mechanism - as pointless as it may sound.

However, my purpose is to not interpret an iconoclash here; within this discursive framework of (anti) nationalism-sedition, iconoclash, and free speech, I believe there is a more malignant, a more insidious problematic embedded – which has, unfortunately, become central to the culture of politics in India.

I absolutely, and in the strongest words, condemn the government’s violent reaction to this issue; it’s archaic, it’s crass, and politically motivated; most importantly, it is representative of a deeper problem in Indian politics: paranoia. Elsewhere, I have critically commented on what I call the anti-ideology of contemporary Indian politics, of its hypersensitivity indealing with criticisms. One reason, I think, is because politicians have come to represent the entire domain/culture of politics in a way. Following Bishnupriya Ghosh’s work on bio-icons, politicians in contemporary India have become a fragile species; at once, an embodiment of their party ideologies – be it the Thackeray cousins, or the Gandhis, their very image becomes a way for their supporters to rally around, and is also on the crosshairs of dissenting voices; both, within and outside the political realm. Sonia Gandhi’s Italian origins, Mamata Banerjee’s austerity or, as we saw recently, Digvijaya Singh’s claim that the anti-migrant Thackeray’s are originally from Bihar, these genealogies, and thus narratives about these bodies as bio-icons, serve as a terrain to contest politics. Very rarely does it turn out that issues of policy and governance are sites for contestation.

That’s precisely why they (politicians) take offense to caricatures regarding political figures. For a healthy democratic system to function (I shall reserve my critiques of democracy for a later time), it is imperative that the rights of freedom of expression, right to participate in a democratic process – and I mean so even non-electorally – are maintained. Sedition is hardly the word to be used against cartoonists and intellectuals, and it reflects the decadence in a legal system, and in attitudes, which refuse to keep up with times. 

With Aseem Trivedi’s arrest, the message that the administration (even though the government has now dropped the sedition charges) is sending out to its people, and indeed the world, is fraught with very serious problems; it is indicative of a political system’s sheer ineptitude in dealing with pertinent issues maturely in via political, legal processes. I tend to agree with Justice Katju when he points out, rather critically and in his usual verbose style, the systemic failure on the part of the governance mechanism, the state, the legal system, the police, as a whole.  And that’s precisely why I think his criticism is highly insightful: it is a critique of the system and not an institutional symbol. Individual institutional symbols like the Parliament or the Asoka Pillar – I restrict my view of it as an entity invested with symbolic/historic meaning, rather than its political inhabitants (an equally true, but one-dimensional perspective) – are located in a system of processes, of a pattern of governance, which has become decadent, apathetic, anti-ideological and corrupt.

Increasingly, this process of governance is being influenced by paranoia, a tendency of knee-jerk reactions, of recourse to archaic notions of morality and anti-nationalism, blurring the lines between India’s democratic present and it’s colonial past. With each such incident, the government is making a fool of itself. Maybe, in the words of the Opposition, the government has lost its moral authority to rule. But in a warped democratic system like ours, you need numbers to rule; "morality" is for cultural policing, to invoke rhetoric, an attempt of the political class to fool the people, and in the process, itself. 

I have traversed across many ideas here, and perhaps, at the cost of argumentative coherence, but I hope you’ve managed to grasp the general themes. We live in confused times, marked by a breakdown of coherent governance. Usually, I tend to be sceptical of the risk of slipping into totalitarianism; our current political class is far too concerned with images - a process which creates regimes of loyalty. Then again, looking at the way life is regimented, with a penetrative authoritarian gaze, and more seriously, it's arbitrariness, it's dilly-dallying and an apparently visible lack of direction (towards achieving totalitarianism; perhaps, I am wrong, looking at the way governments censor the internet, arrest cartoonists), it is precisely this scepticism, and this governance of paranoia, which worries me.