A 2-day State level Party training camp camp was organized at Allahabad on 19 and 20 October 2019 in which 75 comrades including Uttar Pradesh State Committee members. Politburo member Comrade Arindam Sen spoke on the topic ‘Fascism: Methodology, Challenges and Resistance’. He said that fascism in India is not limited only to hatemongering, mob lynching, communal polarization and attacks on dalits. Equally important is the handing over of the people’s hard-earned money and the country’s resources to corporate companies. Our country is fast heading towards becoming a repressive majoritarian Hindu Rashtra. The fascists have gained a dangerous degree of success in sowing hatred and enmity and hatred towards minorities. Attacks on minorities and State repression are being disguised as a means to defeat Pakistan; and in this process of hyper-nationalism the people are made to forget the real issues such as unemployment, agrarian distress and industrial recession.
Arindam Sen said that the challenge before us today is to counter this capacity of the fascists. The resistance against corporate-communal fascism will be long-term and multi-faceted; it will include people’s mobilization and electoral fights and also an ideological fight against false narratives.
Speaking on ‘Cultural Nationalism versus People’s Nationalism’ Comrade Gopal Pradhan said that nationalism is a bourgeoisie concept born out of capitalism where the capitalist regards himself as the creator of wealth. Opposed to this, Marx said that a worker has no country of his own and is the real creator of wealth. Western nationalism identifies a particular community as the enemy and mobilizes the majority against them, as Hitler did. Cultural nationalism is the concept of the RSS where religion will be inseparable from culture (in this case, the Hindu religion). In short, cultural nationalism translates to Hindu nationalism where laws will be based on the Manusmriti. On the other hand, people’s nationalism was born out of the freedom struggle and is based on the concept of Hindus, Muslims and all communities walking, working and living together.
Comrade Ramji Rai spoke on the third topic ‘Our Perspectives on Kashmir, NRC, Recession, and the Current Political Issues’.
The training camp was then transformed into a workshop in which comrades discussed the topics, asked and answered questions. The camp concluded with an address by State Secretary Sudhakar Yadav.
