Arundhati Roy’s vindication seems soon to come

 August 15, 2022

I came across Arudhati Roy again, and her lecture at the University of Texas this past spring. She comes within a hair's breadth of calling the Hindu Nationalist "BJP" Party, which is the ruling coalition since the Congress Party was deposed several years ago, a fascist regime. The only problem with laying that blame squarely at the feet of Indian Prime Minister Modi, is that no particular minority can be identified as the one singular whipping post for propping up the regime - instead, it's all the minorities in particular, using old and ancient grudges stemming from creed and caste, that are being scapegoated by the Hindu Nationalist operatives, to give their project public credence. The only remaining difficulty with calling the BJP regime overtly fascist in itself, is that somehow the BJP can still somehow claim that they have some of their own people that "desire to be" oppressed internally by a regimatic organization that has become nearly completely outwardly the oppressor. That the BJP still claims that it's operating on some internal secret and not on the oppression of Muslims, Sikhs, and those of low caste, is the only thing that is keeping it legitimate as a political party. But if this is true, as Ms. Roy points out, that would now mean Mr. Modi would be some heterodox Messiah figure, which is far from likely. Its late policy of downsizing the army, creating thouands and hundreds of thousands of disaffected military-aged men with combat training, is another troubling sign of its true intentions. The same blockages will remain in out-and-out calling the BJP regime a fascist regime, above all the classical difficulty of ascertaining the consent in its internal relationship with women. The problem of caste, unique to India, will be another difficulty in applying the label. The "tradition" of cast has been so long present there that it is too hard to tell oppression from people having known nothing else. Despite that, there will be no difficulty, barring some Messianic revelation, unlikely to come, in ascertaining that Mr. Modi's BJP regime is illegitimate; contrary to his own claims. 

Just like Mr. Trump's coalition here, Mr. Modi's coalition will succeed only if it proves to be literate at its core, and fail if it proves to be illegitimate. And, like Mr. Trump, all indications point to Mr. Modi's government being built around a core of illiteracy. Even in the essential but non-lettered elements, that was proven to be truly illiterate here with Mr. Trump, and it seems to be soon proven the same with Mr. Modi in India.