For more than six weeks, starting today, Indians head to the polls in the world’s largest general elections. Almost one billion people are eligible to vote. A country of such size is necessarily incredibly diverse, which is why it is a constitutionally secular state. India’s plural, secular democracy may not survive these elections.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist BJP are likely to win a third term in office. His victory will mark the triumph for the rising Reactionary International and sound a death knell for minority rights and many democratic freedoms in India.
But who is Modi, what is the BJP and how are they connected internationally? These questions begin to be answered by a new research consortium initiated by the Progressive International. Produced together with CLASCO and transform! europe, our research is a mask-off moment for the Reactionary International and the parties, politicians, judges, journalists, foundations, think-tanks, tech platforms, NGOs, activists, financiers, and entrepreneurs that comprise it.
After a year of preparation, we finally open the doors to our new research consortium this week, exposing the global network of reactionary forces that corrode our democracies, destroy our planet, and drive us closer to world war.
Modi and the BJP are a key node in this Reactionary International. As Prime Minister, Modi has pushed Hindu nationalism as India’s dominant political force: banning the hijab in schools, introducing “anti-conversion” laws, abusing municipal forces to demolish Muslim households and shops in cities, and pushing for a “uniform civil code” in law. “Islamophobia is no longer a fringe sentiment in India. It has become a state-manufactured ideology,” read the warning issued by Genocide Watch in 2023. The 10-year term of the country’s Hindu nationalist government has seen escalating violence and conflict against Muslims, who make up its largest minority — and a steady weakening of democratic institutions that could stand in the way.
Over the next six weeks, the Progressive International will bring you news and analysis from the electoral frontlines in India. Sign up HERE to stay up to date.
And please explore the Reactionary International database, where alongside learning more about Hindutva, you can read about Israel’s NSO, Rayzone, and Team Jorge, and how a team of Tel Aviv tech entrepreneurs fuel unrest in Latin America, meet the Grey Wolves, Turkey’s roving death squad with links to President Erdoğan and the ethno-nationalists in his governing coalition, and much more.
The news stories, case studies, and database profiles we have published this week reveal merely a fraction of the infrastructure that sustains reactionary forces worldwide. Our task is to continue building this consortium, growing the database, expanding the cases, and launching wide-ranging investigations on the illicit activities of the Reactionary International.
Last Friday, 2,000 German police officers stormed the Palestine Conference in Berlin, an event co-sponsored by a broad coalition of organisations including PI member DiEM25. Police blocked access to the building, disabled the livestream, cut power to the facility and arrested participants.
Ghassan Abu Sittah, who was meant to speak about his experiences as a surgeon in Gaza, was detained at the airport. Germany's Interior Ministry has now banned PI Council member and Palestine Conference participant Yanis Varoufakis from carrying out any political activity in Germany, including via zoom. You can read and watch the speech he wasn’t able to give to the conference and led to the German ban here.
This vicious act of repression speaks volumes to Germany's complicity in the genocide in Gaza.
As German police shut down the conference on Palestine in Berlin, Israeli settlers were conducting pogroms in the West Bank, burning Palestinian villages, while the genocide in Gaza continues.
But it isn’t just the state that can shut things down. On Monday, activists in over 40 cities around the world participated in an economic blockade, closing the Golden Gate Bridge, the offices of BNY Mellon, Lockhead Martin and others.
As PI Council member Yara Hawari said this week, “Palestine needs its allies more than ever.” The world too needs its voices for peace as Netanyahu seeks to expand further expand war. PI Council member Jeremy Corbyn warns “We are sleepwalking into a catastrophic global conflict. Our political class shows no interest in de-escalation, diplomacy or restraint — and it is always other people's children who pay the price. In a world of endless war, we need voices for lasting peace.”
On Saturday, 13 April, PI member the Peace and Justice Project, founded by Jeremy Corbyn, held a one-day conference in central London on its five demands to build a real alternative. The conference brought together speakers and activists from across the labour, environmental, feminist, anti-racist, anti-imperialist and other justice movements to share experiences and develop a plan to win. You can watch the full proceedings here.
PI Council member Karol Cariola was elected this week as President of the Chilean Chamber of Deputies. It is the first time in history a Communist Party deputy has held the post.
24 April is the 11th anniversary of the Rana Plaza disaster, in which over 1000 Bangladeshi garment workers were killed when their factory collapsed. The PI will participate in a commemoration in London that will not only remember those who lost their lives but stand with garment workers today, who face repression for demanding an improved minimum wage.
There are currently 44,000 unnamed arrest warrants circulating in Bangladesh after November’s minimum wage protests – these warrants have been designed to create a climate of fear and stop people from unionising.
With the tacit approval of major high street brands, Bangladeshi garment workers are encountering systematic punishment and retaliation, including violence, arrests, terminations, and killings. Join activists, workers and trade unionists at 1815 in Soho Square, London on 24 April to march to call for an end to the threat of mass arrest, the withdrawal of all unsubstantiated charges against workers and trade unionists, and the release of all the protest prisoners. Click here for more information.
Art of the Week: In Reena Saini Kallat’s Synonym, hundreds of names represent individuals who have been officially registered as missing. Resembling portraits, these works are a circuit board of rubber stamps, highlighting the anonymity and vulnerability of citizens within a bureaucratic system that often overlooks their individuality and rights.
