Analysis| Is Modi neo-fascist or an aspirant? CPM says just wannabe, Brinda says OG

The confusion on the nature of the BJP regime at the Centre seems to persist in the CPM. Is the government led by Narendra Modi 'neo-fascist' or one that only 'displays neo-fascistic characteristics'; a Satan or an indeterminate being on whose head are minor bulges that may or may not grow into horns.

In April 2025, during the 24th Party Congress in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, the CPM was clear. The BJP government has not developed into a neo-fascist regime.

Here is what the CPM Politburo said in a note on March 2, 2025: "We have stated that the present political set-up under the BJP-RSS is a Hindutva-corporate authoritarian regime which 'displays neo-fascistic characteristics'. We are not saying that the Modi government is a fascist or neo-fascist government. Nor are we characterising the Indian State as a neo-fascist State. What we are pinpointing is that after ten years of continuous rule by the BJP, which is the political wing of the RSS, there has been a consolidation of political power in the hands of the BJP-RSS, and this is resulting in the manifestation of 'neo-fascist characteristics'.

This political line starkly differed from other Left parties. The CPI, for instance, has unequivocally called the Modi regime 'fascist' and the CPI(ML) has stated that Modi has established the Indian version of fascism like Hitler had done for Germany and Mussolini for Italy.

However, on Thursday, while speaking at a memorial for former CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury in Thiruvananthapuram, CPM Politburo member Brinda Karat seemed to adopt the position that the BJP government was not just displaying tendencies but has become neo-fascist.

Brinda regretted that the CPM's use of the term neo-fascist in the 2025 political resolution had caused some misunderstanding in the secular camp. "When we spoke of neo-fascist characteristics, sections within secular society believed the use of the term neo-fascist characteristics instead of fascist trends was somehow diluting the danger of what India faces today. In fact, it is absolutely nothing of that sort," Brinda said while delivering a lecture on the topic 'Challenges faced by Indian Democracy and Secularism' at AKG Study and Research Centre in Thiruvananthapuram.

Actually, the provocation was not the substitution of the word fascist with neo-fascist, as Brinda seems to hint. The criticism from secular quarters stemmed from the CPM's refusal to call the BJP neo-fascist. "We are not saying that the Modi government is a fascist or neo-fascist government," the CPM had officially declared in March 2025.

Brinda seemed unaware of her party's description of the BJP as a 'potential satan' and not a real one. In her speech, though she still used phrases like "neo-fascist characteristics", it is clear that she is convinced that the BJP regime is already neo-fascist and not an entity that is on the way to becoming one.

Unlike her party, Brinda is not interested in a coming-of-age story of a neo-fascist regime. For her, the BJP has long matured. Brinda’s objective, on the other hand, is to demonstrate that neo-fascists like Modi are as evil as fascists like Hitler and Mussolini. "Communalism is one of the aspects of neo-fascism. Just as classical fascism developed by Hitler and Mussolini in the 1930s use the concept of the other, the internal enemy, to develop that fascist framework, here in India the targeting of minorities, the targeting of Muslim and Christian minorities, the demonising of minorities is one of the crucial reflections of the politics of neo-fascism and is one of the characteristics we refer to," Brinda said.

She said that the dozen years of the BJP-RSS rule had witnessed some of the worst attacks on the minority communities of India. In other words, in her telling, the deliberate marginalisation of minorities in India makes Modi not a 'Hitler wannabe' but a fully developed Indian version of the Fuhrer.

Brinda said that in classical fascism, the fascists destroyed what was left of parliamentary democracy the moment they seized power. But according to her, the neo-fascists work differently. They retain democratic institutions but hollow them out from the inside. "The framework will be there, but it would be just a hollow shell, "Karat said. If democracy still seems to exist, it is not because the Modi government has failed to destroy it but because it has a more devious plan.

"So you have a situation today where a government which is dead opposed to the idea of a democratic vote wins elections through that vote and uses its majority to destroy from within the institutions that hold up that constitutional framework of parliamentary democracy. And, therefore, one of the most important aspects of the present (Modi) regime and its characteristics is precisely the big attack on not just parliamentary institutions but on democracy itself," Brinda said.

There was nothing in these words to suggest that the Modi government was merely taking baby steps towards becoming a neo-fascist model.

There is yet another factor that prompts Brinda, unlike her party, to view Modi as equal to Hitler. "An aspect we see in common with classical fascism and neo-fascism is the role of capitalist ruling classes," the CPM Politburo member said.

"In Germany, the capitalists were the backbone of Hitler's rise to power. And today in India, when we talk of corporate Hindutva, when we describe the regime as corporate Hindutva, we refer to the fact that not only is the regime the protector, the patron and the defender of corporate exploitation and interests, it has also received the almost unanimous support of corporate India," Brinda said.

Fundamentally, neo-fascist Modi had long arrived. What Brinda saw, the CPM has failed to notice.