 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. The past couple of years have seen substantial discussions both in the media and outside on what is seen as the emergence of the new right. Now in India, of course, we have the Narendra Modi government, but its origins and the origins of the right-wing movement it represents, like it's even in the 90s. But it's also true that in the last couple of years, across the world, we have seen the emergence of governments of this sort in many parts of the world. We have Donald Trump in the United States, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and even in Europe, many right-wing governments have come to power. To talk more about this phenomenon, we have with us Prabir Prakash and Vijay Prashan. So Prabir, could you start by defining what you see as the major characteristics of this new right movement? Well, if we could do that, we'd have really solved all our problems. So I think that's a big ask. But let's look at some of the commonalities as it were that underlines the current rise of the populist right, as some people call it, also the neo-fascist right, whatever kinds of right. And let's see, let's also say there is a mix of very ugly right with just not so ugly right, but nevertheless right in different places. We have in Hungary, we have in Austria now, also similar phenomena, we have Turkey. So apart from the countries you mentioned, these are also on the table. So to say about the phenomena of the new right. I think the new right, if we see it in longer time frame, rises along with the failure of the socialist project in Eastern Europe with the Soviet Union falling and also the socialist block coming unstuck. That this is, if you see it in a larger sense, you will also see there is also the failure, if you will, of the de-colonization project that the people who got freedom from the colonial countries thought that they would get a emancipatory country in which there would be a certain development for the poor. If you see the national movement in India, all sections apart from the right wing who didn't participate in the movement at all, as you know. All of them talked about that freedom is not going to be enough, we need to feed the people, we need to have development, we need to have education, all of that. And this I think both sort of come unstuck, if you see the 90s where the promise of the de-colonization process and the socialist project, both get into a kind of crisis that they do not bring out the fruits that they were promised. And I would say that it lasts from say the crisis of both of these, last from 70s to 90s before really the right wing starts taking over through at that time the globalization project that is called, which is really the project of global capital. That capital can globalize, we no longer need to talk about the poor, the working class, we no longer need to address the aspirations of the people, socialism having failed, all that is gone so we can have unframmeled, brutal, naked capitalism. And I think the response today, you see, is a failure of that project, but the response is not again in an emancipatory direction, but the response seems to be a kind of ethno-nationalism if you will, identity-based nationalism saying problem is not capital, problem is those guys who are coming into a country taking over our jobs, outsourcing the jobs, bringing in this new fashion, the newfangled ideas of women's rights, rights of shall we say the oppressed sections like the black communities, the oppressed castes in India. So all those kind of emancipatory projects are rejected as a part of the globalization project in order to get an even more writing expression of what is coming out of the 90s so to say. So you have the failure of globalization which claimed that globalization would solve the problems which the new in newly independent countries, the decolonization project didn't solve or which the socialist project didn't solve that this will solve through capitalism. But what we have with all this crisis, the response of the right has been, we have to go more rightwards and that is what is going to solve the problem. Is there anything? Well, you know what Prabir said is correct, I think it's a good narrative and I just want to periodize it a little bit to just break it up. I mean the issue is that capitalism entered what I see as a long-term crisis from the 1960s onward. It's a crisis of profitability, firms were not able to have the kind of rate of return that they were enjoying in colonial times even in the period immediately after the war. You know they were reconstructing Europe, there was enormous gains made by capital building freeways in the United States and so on. There was a crisis that comes around the late 1960s. The immediate surface effect of that is the change in the Bretton Wood system when the United States junks the gold standard and this period of crisis is basically brings us to let us say the first period of the post crisis or sorry the crisis era and that's the time when big companies including these multinational auto manufacturers, multinational textile companies and so on in collaboration with governments of the west and Japan, the so-called triad you know North America, Europe and Japan. These countries, these big companies drive an agenda which we know by the name neoliberalism. In other words they do a lot of asset stripping, privatization, cannibalization of society to draw profit to these big monopoly firms and they increase inequality you know and this runs from the 1970s all the way out to 2007 the major crisis you know when this basically falls apart. Now underneath this big project of neoliberalism, this cannibalization of society is the growth of a very revengeful right wing you know which attracts people whose own interests are being hurt by cannibalization. These are lower middle class populations in the west, in Brazil, wherever you know they find that the stability that they had got used to in the previous period was being undermined. Now when you create such a major churning to derive profit for multinational businesses you're going to set loose populations seeking jobs elsewhere and so on the migration starts to increase and the right wing feeds on this migration and produces a politics which is not against global capitalism, never against global capitalism but begins to understand globalization as migration and that brings us after the 2007 crisis to this new period where the people who pushed neoliberalism you know people who pushed the cannibalization of society they basically become delegitimized their legitimacy goes you know these are the so-called people that Tariq Ali calls extreme center you know whether it's the Labour Party in Britain in the Blair kind of character or it's the Democratic Party in the Clinton character or in a sense the Christian Democrats and Social Democratic Alliance in Germany all of them basically lose their legitimacy and they are outflanked on the right by parties that basically drive an agenda which they call you know protecting the sovereignty of their countries but really they only target vulnerable populations you know minority populations people who are trying to imagine new ways to live LGBT communities visionary communities that want you know cooperatives different forms of life but they also target migrants and this is the real edge of their wedge I mean they hit migrants hard so the emergence of the new right is not the emergence of old fascism you know you know old wine and new bottles I don't think so this new right that comes in is basically a consequence of the end of a you know sort of secular bourgeois attempt to suck profit from a system which no longer is able to provide huge profits. Vijay I'd like to take off sorry Prashant to take over your role a little in this I would like to take off take off from this point that what you are talking about is also something we should address which is the crisis of the state itself that state was looked upon earlier also as a measure of control over the too much of greed of the ruling class that the state appeared to be while of course subservient to the need of capital. It also pretended to be an arbitrator and had some redistributive role 90 sees that redistributive role of the state coming to an end not only in the West European countries of course United States as well where the the Blairite Labour Party sections or you know the Democratic Party certain sections take over and basically make the state relatively less of an engine of redistribution. But also when you talk about the third world countries you see the role of the state here was both redistribution and development without which there is no put possibility of redistribution that also comes into crisis so we also have the other political crisis when you talk about the economy which is really the crisis of the state and here I would also like to talk about you know we get too much of focus on Western Europe and the United States but let's look at Latin America let's look at for instance Africa and let's look at Asia and let's also look at for instance rise in the West Asia of the religious right-wing forces religion as an identity religion not as religion but religious as a political identity and I would like to make this very clear that I think we fall in prey to talking of it as if it's a religious right it's actually religious religion as an identity using religion to attack other sections as you know Isis was against the Shias against Alamites against the Alibis and you can see the sectarian nature of that religious right as you see it here for instance the Hindutva right is also using religion as an identity and you see it also in Southeast Asia so I think if you see all of it we also need to analyze these two issues of state and religious identity politics which are part of the larger right-wing identity politics it could be ethnic it could be religious it could be linguistic so all of this have to be also combined that while the right-wing is is clear about what it wants our analysis has to take into account what this right-wing truly represents attack on the state and you can see it from Trump to Modi to Bolsonaro all of them attack state in different forms public sector being attacked today over Hindustan diagnostics on the referral deal and Anil Ambani being brought in a bankrupt capitalist who has bankrupted all his companies being again brought in in this fashion but also what you see is also the attack on the minorities in the guise of religious religion identity and I think in Trump's case again clear it's not religious right of course does support him but in this case it's not religious right that he articulates but he articulates basically white male supremist identity so actually taking off from your question could you talk a bit more on what exactly this new right-wing wave actually intends to do with the state or is doing with the state actually on the one hand you talked about for instance the attack on minorities but as executing state policy how exactly does this function which is important also because I think it sort of feeds into the question of how to resist it as well say in my view the this is before the right emerges when the so-called neoliberals are in power you already see a pivot in the state you know it's not quite the case that the state is disappearing but the states you know maybe role is narrowing and sharpening so whereas the state previously you know had a monopoly on violence and also had some sort of regulatory framework to balance and maintain capitalism through laws and regulations and so on and it had this redistributive function the redistributive function is largely vanished except insofar as you don't want to have riots every day some soaps given here and there the regulatory framework is now instead of being relatively a neutral arbiter has moved entirely on behalf of corporations particularly transnational corporations and what is sharpened has been the security angle you know which is why the state sees the population is divided between good consumers and terrorists you know and criminals and so on so the security aspect is deepened you know as in any epoch as people are more and more alienated from their ability to make decent livings to build you know robust communities where resources are dwindling I think there are two ways in which aspirations and desires have been moving you know one way let's call it the aspirational road goes through the religious institutions and the mall and what I mean here is that people who are seeing the societies be destroyed you know bankrupt you know cultural communities and so on are increasingly entering piety movements you know whether this is tablighi jamaat in you know maybe in India Pakistan all kinds of countries tablighi jamaat growing as a piety movement rada swami satsang in haryana you know these piety movements pentecostalism it's a way for people to ground themselves socially because the kind of most secular national cultural life is dying out the second aspirational road is through malls where people are gaining a sense of dignity through commodity through buying through you know maybe debt fueled consumption as a way to you know make yourself feel feel less like you're drowning socially but the second road is the much harsher road and this is where you have you know the kind of fascistic gaurakshak hindutva type things you have the isis phenomena you have all kinds of violent groups emerging the return of neo-nazis with their own peculiar kind of you know theological assumptions because it's not like they are religious in the strict piety sense but they have a scatological view you know we're going to wipe out the planet of anybody who's not white and so on they have very you know strong ideas of how the cosmos must be arranged so this direction is the vicious direction but i think we shouldn't confuse this aspirational side where there's piety where there's malls with this second road although they are all reactions to the same crisis of society so there's a crisis of the economy crisis of the state and i think very deeply there's a crisis of society you know again when you talk about the crisis of society one response is a communitarian one and that could also feed into identities so let's also recognize that it's not a neutral expression and communitarian projects can be both at the level of community but also at the level of exclusionary politics so it could have both these aspects and we have to see how or what way it expresses itself no sweeping generalizations but i think it's important to think about the state again because at the end of it what you said is absolutely correct that the state at the end is essentially an instrument of violence that's the primary function of the state that it has the monopolies of violence monopoly of violence over society and therefore what the state does is always going to be important and i think it's again interesting to see what is happening to the state that given the fact there is this 50 60 70 years of national movement in the colonies decolonization legitimacy of the decolonization process to democrat the democratic forms in different ways in which the state power is also exercised by sections who earlier were completely deprived and who then are able to vote and decide who their rulers are going to be so as distinct from being a colony that as well as the welfare measures which gave in competition with the socialist countries the working class feel that they were also in command of their countries now that legitimacy of the state still remains and that is why it's interesting to see the right is not using a rhetoric which has throw away the state and we want a completely new state that this state is not able to fulfill your functions your aspirations we will have a different state which also fuelled revolutionary forces earlier but also fuelled the national socialist state quote unquote the Darcy state or the fascist state so this delegitimization of the state does not seem to be at the moment the primary intent of these forces the primary intent of this forces is to use quote unquote the constitutional existing constitutional framework and have a kind of creeping fascism now that also means that it's possible for us to find it fight differently that utilize different forms of quote unquote constitutional protection that we have it may be in the courts it may be in the you know going to the media the elections in different ways aligning at least electorally not in terms of programmatic understanding that means no common minimum program is very difficult for the left to have a common minimum program for instance with forces say in different countries whether it is England or whether it is India or other countries where we talk about opening the economy to completely external forces and you say any state in intervention is kind of a dirigist state so having programmatic alignments are very difficult but the same time because of the elections the nature of the elections and the fact that the constitution is not being proposed to be overthrown except incrementally changed it's possible to have different kinds of electoral strategies as well so i think that is wild for the right they would like to get rid of all of this and go back to untrammeled shall we say exercise of brutal power by one section may be may be white may be ethnic british as the british would like to call it i don't know what the scots and irons irons of the well should say on that etc and in India of course saying we are the original Aryan Hindus. Hinduism has been Aryan and us from the beginning irrespective of what the real history is so or bring back pure Islam the Wahhabi version which is what is coming from Saudi Arabia but i think the fact that they have to address the national liberation struggle and the gains of that as opposed to a colonial state structure and the at least reasonably shall we say welfare measures which were introduced in Europe by the working class movement and as a response to that it's not easy to dismantle those structures and therefore the space is more than what for instance would be in the 30s which at that point of time was threatening the entire state structure and militarizing it completely this is constitutional fascism if you will and by virtue of that you can see even in Brazil this is a constitutional coup if you will Latin America the coups have been constitutional coups Bolsonaro came in because Lula was not allowed to contest by quote unquote the judiciary playing a certain role so it is to my mind also a constitutional coup so these are the subversion of the institutions of the state but that also makes it possible to fight in different ways and not think of only a unidimensional fight i think that's the complexity of the scenario today some hope because yes the state still has some legitimacy the role of the state however much the post modernist may decry still is seen to be in some sense emancipatory redistributive nationalist if you will in certain societies at the same time the risk of the state being captured by this new right and then being used against the people i think these are the positives and the negatives and the current scenario i would not you know i wouldn't think that they are winning and there is a huge swing to the right i think that this is very shall we say very very much on the balance and the rights weakness is that it is not able to offer either a man emancipatory vision forget about that but it is also is also forced to act within the constraints of the existing state it doesn't have that kind of legitimacy to overthrow the state and reconfigure the state as it would like to we say how do you see what premiere was talking about the question of what sort of platforms right now exist in terms of resistance and what sort of coalitions do you build so see i mean it's a different time scales there is the immediate time scale where i think he's right that there is room within the you know say the political plane to provide some kind of robust and i think quite decisive you know platforms to defeat the right because there's space for it i mean you know there are still very progressive and and left movements around the the world which are going to give a stiff fight to the right on the political plane but i actually think the longer term problems are going to be difficult and this is where the left has been working on the social plane trying to undercut some of this despair you know when i said that the despair has gone in the direction of malls and towards piety movements on the one side and towards very harsh kind of politics on the other you know supremacist politics of one kind of the other i mean this has been possible because society is fragmenting society is being torn apart through economic processes through the breakdown of you know the stabilities of earning a living decent work and so on precarious employment i mean all this creates very morbid symptoms as gram she said so it's in this plane of reconstructing society that the left's long-term project has to be vested you know the long-term project isn't merely at the political level what one does in elections and so on but there's a longer project of reimagining society of recreating bonds of social solidarity of providing alternative utopian ways of building communities building economies you know trying to imagine a way where people are able to be active with their creativity without feeling you know lost i'll give you just one example see right now unemployment is seen as an individual failure people go they get a college degree and they come out not able to find the job and they go home they're depressed suicidal and so on i mean is there a way for us as a left to provide platforms for the unemployed who are often very creative people to come out there and work in society you know go and teach children in in very low income areas provide them with some sort of you know socially produced recompense not a salary but an on rarium and so on but to raise the dignity of people who are being cast aside who are being you know called failures they are not failures it's the system that's failing so the long-term thing is in a sense to reconstruct society so that we have creative action and we can build the foundations of a strong left you know the left is built on a foundation it's not built politically it's built socially it's built culturally so we have to work at different timescales and i i think that's a very valid point that what left lacks today along with all the other shall we say bush your forces as well as an emancipatory vision of society where greed is not the basis of all social interactions quite right which it is what it has become so therefore how do you have an emancipatory vision which is what always has held society together you cannot say becoming rich is the only objective in life so how do you build that and how do you build a socialist vision for the 21st century remains a challenge just as the sterility of the other side provides also the basis to do so right thank you that's all we have time for today keep watching