Workers protest Indian fascism

CHICAGO, January 19—Mass South Asian organizations protested against the increasingly sharp attacks on Muslim workers in India by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Two members of Progressive Labor Party distributed CHALLENGE to 50 of the 200 marchers. We held up the paper so people could see the backpage headline, “India: Capitalist Turmoil Rears It’s Fascist Head.” Protesters responded warmly.
In addition to occupying and shutting down the Muslim-majority region of Jammu and Kashmir, BJP created a National Register of Citizens (NRC) in the eastern state of Assam, forcing workers to prove that they’d arrived in India before the mid-1970s. Since most workers lack the required documentation, over two million people, mostly Muslims, have been stripped of their citizenship. They now face placement in detention centers or deportation to neighboring Bangladesh (Time, 12/20/19). Most recently, the BJP government drafted a Citizenship Amendment Bill for fast-tracked citizenship—except for Muslim workers.
Although the leading slogans were in defense of “liberal secular democracy,” the group also chanted “Narendra Modi you can’t hide, you committed genocide!” Calling for a secular democracy is a meaningless term under the capitalist dictatorship of the bosses; the phrase assumes there is democracy for workers to begin with.
Self-critically, the PL comrades could have done a better job to engage with these South Asian protesters. Putting a paper in their hand is a start but the personal connection is essential. We also need to learn some of those chants in Hindi. Due to the language barrier, we were unable to evaluate their politics.