RSS, BJP are indeed fascists, says CPI leader Binoy Viswam

CPI State secretary Binoy Viswam opening an event in memory of U. Kalanathan in Kozhikode on March 9.
| Photo Credit: K. Ragesh

At a time when references to the “neo-fascist tendencies” of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the draft political resolution of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] has sparked off a controversy, Communist Party of India (CPI) State secretary Binoy Viswam has categorically clarified that the former can indeed be called “fascists”.

Mr. Viswam was attending an event organised by the Kerala Yukthivadi Sangham in memory of rationalist U. Kalanathan here on Sunday (March 9, 2025). He said that the BJP had been trying to make India a theocratic State, which was evident from the fact that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the main ‘pujari’ during the consecration, or ‘pran pratistha,’ of the Ram Temple at Ayodhya last year.

Mr. Viswam pointed out that this was the same path followed by the Fascists led by Benito Mussolini in Italy and the Nazis led by Adolf Hitler in Germany. They had used communalism for political gains and promoted corporate profit-making, he said. “In these circumstances, some people are still discussing whether we have full fascism, neo-fascism, or half fascism in the country,” Mr. Viswam added.

The CPI leader called for honest interactions between rationalists and religious believers to help the latter extricate themselves from the clutches of fascist forces that use religion to spread communal hatred. He said believers should be rescued from extreme religious fanaticism. Mr. Viswam claimed that some of the current religious heads were not concerned about God but were driven by profit and greed.