TIRUVANANTHAPURAM : The current situation in India has more in common with Adolf Hitler’s ideology than the Emergency period, noted social activist Ram Puniyani said here on Thursday. An undeclared emergency exists in the country, he said, delivering the 13th C Pinto memorial lecture on ‘Challenges faced by Indian nationalism.’ The last four years have witnessed a subtle undermining of the values of Indian democracy and an all-out attack on the Indian Constitution, he said. Puniyani pointed to the following phenomena in BJP-governed India to draw the similarities with 1930s’ Germany: The encouragement of corporate powers, trampling of the rights of workers and peasants, ultra-nationalism, the flaunting of patriotism and the persecution of minorities.
‘’Germany and Hitler said that they had a glorious Aryan past which is being revived. A similar claim is a major constituent of the Hindu nationalism that is evident today,’’ he said. ‘’Workers and peasants are being weakened. All over the country, minorities - Muslims and Christians - live a life of fear. Whenever a community is gripped by fear, the process of reform within that community takes a beating,’’ he said.
He underlined the crucial difference between Indian nationalism and ‘Hindu’ nationalism. ‘’Neither Gandhi nor Maulana associated their nationalism with their religion,’’ he pointed out.
He defined ‘Hindutva’ as the politics of the declining section - the old landed gentry and ruling class of Indian society who want to maintain caste and gender hierarchy. While the RSS and Hindutva ideologists speak of a glorious Hindu past, the fact remains that the Hindu and Muslim kings were concerned more with power than religion, he said.