left unity

Are we living under fascism already?

Newsletter this Week..   In the latest post on the LeftWord Blog, Vijay Prashad points towards his rejoinder to Jairus Banaji's ad hominem attack on Prakash Karat. Karat makes a distinction between a fascist and an authoritarian regime, and Banaji, rather than engaging with the substance of Karat's argument, makes an ill-toned attack on what he considers 'Stalinism'. In fact, Banaji displays the very sectarianism he asks the Indian Left to shed.Vijay Prashad's rejoinder draws from his[...]

The Left and the BJP

On 6 September, CPI-M Politburo member Prakash Karat wrote an essay in the Indian Express. Here Karat, in a few hundred words, made the distinction between an authoritarian and a fascist regime. He argued that the BJP-led government is not fascist but authoritarian. The point of the essay was to show why there was no heated urgency to make a general alliance – from above – with the Congress Party and others against the BJP. What was needed was to create solidarity from below and to create an[...]