The campaign speeches for the General Elections of 2024 tells us that fascism, when it comes to roost is a general phenomenon and not restricted to a single party or ideology. The attribute of fascism, like a pandemic is that it affects many colony microbes and viruses, mutating them into more horrific forms of themselves. While attacking the fascism of the BJP, each political party in the running have revealed the worst side of their intents. Let us take them one by one.

The campaigns of the Congress led by Rahul and Priyanka have repeated how members of their family have died martyrs for the country and how shabbily Modi treated them in the Parliament, making false accusations and false cases. Hence, we should vote for them. This is to demand from the electorate, loyalty towards the protagonists of the Congress because of their personal sufferings. This is also what a fascist does, makes one become part of his/her own trauma circle. Rahul Gandhi is thus no less a fascist since he demands loyalty to his person. It is the less educated, less articulated, the very whatsapp consumers who actually are saying on the streets that Modi’s treatment of political leaders spells danger for democracy. But this is not what Rahul said, he said that he was the victim, and we were to stand with him, not for what he did but because of what his family has done and claims, therefore entitlements through the family legacy. This is where he plays the dynasty card. Here Rahul produces the similar effect as Modi who goes to the exact opposite position to say that he has no family at all, not even his wedded wife. Both play on the same dynasty card, one who has one and one who is bereft of one.

Rahul Gandhi is so immersed in self-pity, which is also a form of self-aggrandizement, that he has taken the CPM as an ally to fight the big Modi without even batting an eyelid to see how damaging and endangering this party is to the democratic universe. Speeches from the CPM is all of envy, in today’s India its candidates, especially the young women are lauding the torn underwear of their fathers. How obscene can that get. Enduring poverty is pornographically alluring; the imagination of the woman is that of a maidservant and hence they oppose all the cash transfer projects, essential tool of economic development worldwide as alms to beggars. This is not only daft considering that they say that Bengal has produced two Nobel Laureates from Economics and here they have absolutely no idea of the essentials of public policy. During the CPM ruled Bengal, the syllabi of schools and colleges were so backdated that even in Jadavpur University, I felt like a dinosaur. The CPM’s great game plan is to keep everyone poor; envious of success, they bear the mentality of the “Little Man” of Wilhem Reich. The little man is the foundation of fascism, weak as he is, he cannot tolerate the successful, for he desires the success and yet incapable of achieving it. Communism relies on the little man as much as fascism does, it’s the envy of those who cannot for those who can. CPM minded intellectuals made defeatist cinema, wrote defeatist literature, wrote poetry of doom, raised into high art through closed network of nepotism of critics and journalists. Fascism and communism cannot survive without nepotism, not always for cornering resources, but more to build circles of trauma.

The TMC campaign continued as usual, it with nervous panic mode, paranoid and scared. With the best potential against fascism, with the most wonderfully governed state, TMC could nothing against BJP’s malicious maligning of them. Those videos were fake right from the beginning, everyone knew and waited for them to contest the visuals. campaign against it. When Sandeshkali happened, it very gingerly said that it was fake. When Partho Chatterjee was arrested the TMC should have got their own investigators, so many retired police officers are lolling away in the foyers of clubs, they could jolly well stalk the lobbies of the machinery. Authoritarian in structure, the TMC does not believe in democracy within the party; it protects its contribution to politics as a sacred shrine, neither speaking about is good work, nor allowing people to participate in its process. It is like God, a giver from the unseen space of Nabanno. It arouses human desire to be counted as equal and yet denies anyone entry into its closed circles. All anger with TMC emanates from its paranoid huddling in exclusionary spaces. Hitler did that in his last days, so Nazis did well before they were caught and executed. If TMC is hunted down, it imbibes the imagery of the victim so much into itself that it willy nilly surrenders to the hunter. It shows a venomous intolerance for opposition in its slogan birodhider borjon; why in a democracy should the opposition turn into an untouchable is a question that one must ask.

Each party has emerged as a fascist undermining the Indian democracy relentlessly. Social media influencers and even a panel of Supreme Court judges have noticed the rise of hate speech, but they have not connected this to fascism namely the game of democracy that ends up in foul. This election, it is foul play, foul as the rule of the play. It is not important that Modi has spewed venom officially and on camera; it is a matter of graver concern that the opposition has not been able to respond with any greater measure of reason.

The question arises then why has Democracy been compromised just as we have turned 75 years of age? The solution to this puzzle lies in the tenuous labyrinth among liberalism, individual agency, technology, and capitalism. Democracy’s success lies in juggling among these paradoxical elements. A disbalance in any one of these plunges it back into varying forms of authoritarianism in case of weaker democracies and fascism if democracies like India are strong to begin with. The task of politicians is to be able to constantly veer through the maze, like AI tools, managing the right balance all the time. Political discourses, civil society activism, intellectual discussions and academic investigations must take all of the above into account to help democracies survive.