Comment on "The Left and Opposition Unity..."

Nirmalangshu Mukherji

Patnaik is free to call any historical moment "fascism", but then he needs to categorically assert that the term is his own fancy invention, and has no historical content. On his 'analysis', on the one hand, almost every despicable authoritarian regime, including India's Emergency during 1975-77, was/is fascist whenever there is a "fusion of state power and corporate power", which is almost always the case for any regime during modernity. On the other hand, if Patnaik wants to use the term "fascism" ONLY to use it for "fusion" between state power, corporate power and communal forces during neo-liberal era, then it applies only to India, unless he wants to extend it to ALL islamic, buddhist, christian countries. 

Self-serving categorisation is always a sign of faulty thinking. More importantly, fascism is uniquely characterised by exactly ONE historical precedence of momentous civilisational significance--fascism in Germany and Italy during 1930s, under the backdrop of another unique historical event, the Russian revolution. Now, the self-serving attempt to separate the notion of fascism from that history seriously harms political understanding of history. 

Finally, if a motley mix of Indira-inspired Congress, non-existent left, Akhilesh Yadav, Mamata Bannerji, Arvind Kejriwal, Mayawatiji, Sharad Power, Chandrababu Naidu, Navin Patnaik, and the like are viewed as an anti-fascist opposition to the "fusion between state and corporate power", then only God can help the study of Indian political economy."  

Oct 16, 2018