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Here is the preface of the book.
A pall of gloom has descended upon India. An all pervasive fear grips the nation. When the state puts its nose into your food plates you know that fascism is here. When vigilante squads roam the streets lynching people you know that fascism is here.
Robert O Paxton in his classic book “The Anatomy of Fascism” writes “I propose to examine fascism in a cycle of five stages: (1) the creation of movements; (2) their rooting in the political system; (3) their seizure of power; (4) the exercise of power; (5) and, finally, the long duration, during which the fascist regime chooses either radicalization or entropy.” It seems to me that India is at the fifth stage – the radicalization of Hindutva, which is the Indian version of fascism.
This radicalization of Hindutva is taking place at different levels. Through engineered riots or low level skirmishes that divide society vertically to massive social engineering programmes like the ‘beef ban’. Beef ban gives blanket license to Gau Rakshaks to lynch people. It is also not just an incursion into our food rights but also will affect the livelihood of millions of already stressed farmers. This beef ban will wreck the cattle sector and also will break the backbone of the farmers, driving them to suicide.
This book contains articles that Countercurrents.org published on the topic of beef, the oldest of which is Dr Ambedkar’s seminal essay “Did Hindus Never Eat Beef?” which we republished on 5th May, 2003, to the lynching of 16 year old Junaid in a train on 22nd June, 2017.
When fascism knocks on our door we have only two choices. 1. To succumb to our fate and surrender meekly. 2. To fight back with all our means. It’s time India took a decision. To surrender or fight back is the question. Surrender is not an option and it is also against human nature. Our reflexive action is to fight back. We’ve to go back to the basic nature of the Republic and fight to win back the Idea of India that the founders of this nation imagined. Let’s stand up for the idea of India we learnt to love as children and we want to pass on to our children. Let’s do it by holding the constitution of India in one hand and the tricolour in the other hand. If we rise up as one, this emerging fascism will, as Robert O Paxton said, dissipate into entropy. I hope that this book will help in our fight for the idea of India we all stand for.
Authors
Articles by Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. B R Ambedkar, along with contempory writers viz. Afroz Alam, Aftab Alam, B.F.Firos, Binu Mathew, Cynthia Stephen, Dr Akhileshwari Ramagoud, Gaurav Jain, George Abraham, Imran Khan, K.P. Sasi, Kavita Srivastava, Manali Chakrabarti, Megha Bahl, Sharmila Purkayastha, Mohammad Ashraf, Neha Saigal, Oliver Dsouza, Parul Verma, Parvez Alam, Prof. Shah Alam Khan, Ram Puniyani, Sally Dugman, Samar, Satya Sagar, Shamsul Islam, Sheshu Babu, Subhash Gatade, Suhail Qasim Mir, Sukumaran C V, Susmit Isfaq, T Navin & Vidya Bhushan Rawa
