While addressing a seminar on 20th March in Indore, the well-known social activist, Shabnam Hashmi, said that not only the democratic space is drastically shrinking in India but the private spaces are also shrinking because of the encroachment by the nationalists. She shared with the audience many examples of infringement of the private spaces of citizens and dictating to them what they should eat, what they should wear and what they should see and even what they should think.

The statement of Shabnam Hashmi was corroborated when the Free Press newspaper reported on March 21 that a group of Bharatiya Janta Yuva Morcha (BJYM), the students’ wing of the BJP, vandalized a movie hall in Mhow for not showing the movie The Kashmir Files based on the flight of Kashmiri Pandits from Kashmir. As per the news report, the BJYM activists barged into Planet Theatre situated at Agrasen Square of Mhow even as the show was going on. They forced the audience watching the movie to leave the cinema hall and then threw stones and vandalised the hall. The operator of the cinema hall told the activists that for five days they were screening the The Kashmir Files but the collection was poor and that is why they replaced it with Bachchan Paandey. But the BJYM activists were not ready to listen to him. The police did not arrest anyone, but have only started investigations.

Unfortunately, none of the political leaders, either from the BJP or from the main opposition party Congress, condemned the incident. The right wing groups are not sparing even Hindus. The horizon of hate is being expanded to all Hindus who do not endorse the Hindutva ideology and do not dance to the tunes of the Hindutva forces. When the citizens do not speak up against the blatant violation of the fundamental rights/human rights, the goons get boosted. The owner of the cinema hall has the freedom to show the movie that he wants, and in the same way people have the freedom to choose what movie they want to see. This incident is one among the hundreds of incidents taking place when the governments miserably fail to protect the rights of citizens.

It is clear that the movie The Kashmir Files is patronized by the BJP, and the Sangh Parivar members are using it to increase hate and further polarize the Hindus in view of the 2024 election. Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut described the movie as a “Sangh Parivar inspired movie released to win the next elections”. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Amit Shah praised the movie. Amit Shah described it as a “bold representation of truth”. Film critics are of the view that facts are distorted and the movie is produced as propaganda means of the Sangh Parivar. The title of an article on the movie in The Wire is “As a Film, The Kashmir Files Is Both Laughable and Frightening in Its Relentless Communalism”.

What we see in India today is the result of not responding to the slow and steady growth of a dangerous ideology very systematically and vigorously promoted by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) for decades, said Hashmi. Even before the independence of India there were two competing ideologies which resulted in the two-nation theory: one for Hindus and another for Muslims. After Independence India adopted a secular democratic Constitution which is inclusive while Pakistan became an Islamic state with Islam as the state religion. Even though the RSS was not very visible and strong for about two decades after independence, its ideology began to influence more and more Hindus and the Ayodhya movement was a turning point in the expansion of the saffron ideology. When the genocide in Gujarat took place in 2002 nobody thought that India would become a Gujarat, and what happens in India today is worse than what happened in Gujarat in 2002.

The transformation that took place in India after Modi became the Prime Minister is responsible for changing a constitutional democracy into an electoral democracy with rampant violation of human rights and deterioration of the democratic institutions. Hindu consolidation has been promoted by projecting Muslims and Christians as enemies of the nation. The narrative presented before the Hindus is that the Muslims are dirty, uneducated, anti-national and terrorists whereas Christians are presented as agents of foreign powers to convert Indians into Christianity. The narrative also says that all problems India faces are due to the Muslims and Christians. The Hindutva forces have succeeded in capturing all public spaces and to some extent private spaces too. That is what happened in Mhow when the BJYM vandalized the movie hall. Legitimizing crimes committed under the guise of nationalism and even honouring those who commit heinous crimes have become quite normal.

The hate speeches made at the Dharam Sansad at Haridwar recently, calling upon the Hindus and even the police and the Army to indulge in the genocide of Muslims was something unthinkable a few years ago. Only nominal actions were taken against these criminals, whereas the social activists who have dedicated their lives for the empowerment of people are languishing in jail without bail. According to Hashmi, there is a pattern and a design behind the crimes committed in the name of nationalism.

The democratic institutions have been systematically dismantled along with communalization of the minds and hearts of millions of Indians. The Parliament has become a rubber stamp asthe Bills are passed without any discussion or referring them to the Standing Committees or Select Committees of the parliament. Passing the 3 controversial farm Bills, the Citizenship Amendment Act and the Abrogation of Article 370 were nothing but a mockery of the Parliament, she said.

Another vital institution that has the crucial role in protecting democracy and the Constitution is the judiciary. Unfortunately, the judiciary often fails to fulfill its tasks. The Supreme Court is sleeping over a few cases that are fundamental to the Constitution of India. A few examples are petitions challenging CAA, Abrogation of Article 370, Sabarimala case, and petitions of those arrested in Bhima Koregaon Case for bail. In other words, the Judiciary has become pliable apparently because of the infiltration of majoritarian ideology among the judges, and many judges do not have the stamina to resist the pressure from a dictatorial executive.

Judiciary is the custodian of the fundamental rights of citizens. The government blatantly makes use of the investigation agencies like National Investigation Agency (NIA), Central Bureau of Investigation Agency (CBI), Enforcement Directorate (ED), Income Tax Department etc against the opposition party leaders and the critics of the government. The draconian laws like UAPA and NSA are used to arrest and incarcerate the critics of the government,and the judiciary does not seem to be serious about protecting the fundamental rights of citizens.  

Media is considered the fourth pillar of democracy. Media plays a significant role by critiquing the policies and actions of the government and creating public opinion. Besides the Doordarshan and the All India Radio becoming the propaganda wings of the government and of the ruling BJP, most of the private media also have become the spokespersons of the government and the ruling party. That is why often the Indian media is called godi media. The corporates who are the ardent supporters of the present government control the media to a great extent. Reliance Industries Limited alone reportedly owns 72 TV channels with viewership of 800 million.

The words of a journalist, Satyendra Singh Rajpurohit, reflect the pathetic situation in which the Indian media is. “Yesterday the country was a slave, a journalist free, but today the country is free and a journalist a slave. When slavery was a law in the country, the work of creating a revolution was done by the people by starting journalism. Today when our country is free, our words have become slaves”.

Only a few journalists have the courage to speak and write against the government because of the fear of harassment and use of draconian laws against them. India remained at 142 out of 180 countries of the world in the World Press Freedom Report 2021. As per another report released by Reporters Without Borders in the same year, India continues to be in the category of countries considered ‘bad’ for journalism along with Brazil, Russia and Mexico. “India is one among the world’s most dangerous countries for journalists trying to do their job properly,” stated the report.

Civil society is deemed to be the fifth pillar of democracy. There is an overall atmosphere of state coercion and intimidation in the space of civil society. Arrest and incarceration of social activists, branding them as Maoists and Tukde Tukde gangs are part of the attempt to silence the Civil Society.  Choking the resources of Civil Society Organizations is another tactic used by the BJP government. 20,600 NGOs lost FCRA registration during the last 10 years and most of them took place since 2014. The Amendments to Foreign Contribution Regulation Act 2020 was meant for blocking funds for the NGOs. In other words, Civil Society Organizations are emaciated through threats, persecution, choking funds, and making laws stringent.       

If one applies the 14 defining characteristics of fascism according to Ms. Justice and Mr. Demianiw to the Indian situation, it can be said that India has become 70 percent a fascist country, according to Hashmi. The 14 characteristics of fascism are: 1) Powerful and Continuing Nationalism; 2) Disregard for Human Rights; 3) Identification of Enemies as a Unifying Cause;  4) Supremacy of the Military; 5) Widespread Sexism: the government becoming almost exclusively male dominated; 6) Controlled Mass Media; 7) Obsession with national security; 8) Religion and government are intertwined; 9) Corporate power is protected;  10) Labour power is suppressed; 11) Disrespect for intellectuals and arts; 12) Obsession with crime and punishment; 13) Rampant cronyism and corruption; and 14) Fraudulent Elections.

As responsible citizens all Indians have the moral obligation to protect democracy and safeguard the Indian Constitution. The consecrated women and men in the Catholic Church cannot take exception from this responsibility. In fact, because of their commitment to Jesus they have a prophetic role to play at this juncture. They may adopt the following measures to fulfill their prophetic responsibility.             

•    Critically observe and analyze the functioning of the state and its actors and make their own opinion on various issues affecting people.

•    Make people aware of the corruption, deviations and distortion of constitutional provisions by the state and non-state actors.

•    Educating people about their rights and duties and motivating them to actively participate in the political process. Hashmi specially mentioned that the thousands of educational institutions run by the Catholic Church in India and crores of young people studying in these institutions is a wonderful opportunity for the consecrated women and men to educate youth in the constitutional and democratic values as an antidote to fascism.

•    Practice the constitutional values within the Church institutions and organizations and in the people’s organizations formed by them.

•    Take the issues of people to the officers concerned and people’s representatives.

•    Form and strengthen people’s organizations consisting of people of all faiths, castes and occupations to defend the rights of people, especially when they are violated.  

•    Train leaders, especially women leaders who are committed to the constitutional and democratic values, especially through educational institutions and community-based organizations.