From Western fascist movements to various Hindu nationalist and Islamist groups, the instigation of violence alone defines their being
In the 1980s, when I was a student at a state-owned college in Karachi, I had a friend who was always ready for a fight. Though not too interested in politics, he was affiliated with the progressive student outfit that I was a member of. The outfit’s leadership did not mind his presence as such because he would come in handy as our main muscle man, especially during brawls against the much more organised opposing student party.
Nevertheless, the nature of campus politics sometimes necessitated co-operation between opposing student outfits, especially during negotiations with the college administration on various academic issues. Or when occasionally the police would take action against student groups on the instructions of the dictatorship in Pakistan at the time.
But quite often, talks with the opposing student group on issues which required cooperation would break down because my friend would suddenly decide to instigate a fight with the members of the other outfit. He also had a habit of picking up fights outside the college, so much so that one day, I angrily asked him, “Amir, why on earth are you always causing brawlsIJ” He would just shrug and reply, “Because peace bores me.”
From that day onwards I kept asking him the same question, knowing well that there was more to this need to always flex his muscles in a violent manner than just boredom. One fine day, numbed by some heavy drinking, out he came with an answer that made a lot more sense. “Paracha,” he said, “yaar [mate] why do you keep asking me this stupid questionIJ” Then after a pause, he said, “Isn’t it obviousIJ Action defines me.”
“You mean violence defines youIJ” I persisted, to which he replied, “Call it whatever you like, it is who I am. Who am I without itIJ” He had made up his mind that violence alone is what made him known to others, and, more so, to himself. Maybe he felt he was not much else without it. So he would take every opportunity that came his way to get into a fight. And when there was no such opportunity, he would create one, because in some twisted manner this gave his existence meaning.
Such a condition is not entirely unique. Novels of the famous American novelist Charles Bukowski were often studies of characters who, despite being highly intelligent, would address their existentialist angst through alcoholism and acts of physical violence. Bukowski’s characters, though cynical, usually emerged from a left-liberal core. But when the above-mentioned condition, in which violence begins to define a person’s existentialist calling, actually becomes the basis of the ideological disposition of a group or a movement, then it usually takes a more fascistic shape.
Two of the most glaring examples in this context are Adolf Hitler’s Nazis in Germany and the ‘black shirts’ inspired and created by former Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. Both of these large fascist movements glorified violence. Professor of Philosophy, Felix O Murchadha, in his book, Philosophy and Political Engagement: Reflection in the Public Sphere, wrote that the fascists greatly valued violence for its own sake. RS Chaurasia in his book, History of Political Thought, informed us that fascists “hero-worship those who use violence.”
Fascists see violence as an act that replenishes the body and the soul. So it becomes necessary for a fascist movement to express itself through violence and (when in power) to be in a state of perpetual war — as if, without it, the movement would lose its ideological meaning and raison d’etre. Thus, having enemies becomes vital, even if through myths of past glories or imagined slights, they are to be created. In South Asia, some two decades before the Partition of India, various Hindu nationalist groups and Islamic movements were greatly impressed by this disposition. In his 1928 book, Who is a HinduIJ, Veer Savarkar wrote that only war could demonstrate a Hindu’s identity — to avenge the violence that the Hindus had faced from ancient Muslim marauders.
On the other hand, according to historian Aziz Ahmad’s 1967 book Islamic Modernism in India and Pakistan, 1857-1964, Inayatullah Mashriqi’s Khaksar movement (a paramilitary organisation) romanticised violence as an essential ingredient in the making of a true Muslim man, which young Islamic scholars Mian Muhammad Saifi and Abdul Sattar Niazi further described in their 1930s booklet, The Scheme, as the “Khuda Mard.” Muslim poet and philosopher Allama Muhammad Iqbal studied revolutionary communism and fascism and commented on it in a rather intriguing manner. Aziz Ahmad wrote that Iqbal supported iconoclastic action but one which had the potential of evolving into a modern, progressive system of good morals and governance.
Ahmad wrote that Iqbal, by using the essential Muslim article of faith la illa ha illallah (There is no God but God), wrote that ‘la’ meaning ‘no’ is a negative response to tyranny but that such a response is not complete without evolving into the positive ‘illa ha.’ Iqbal lamented that most Muslim and non-Muslim movements get stuck in the iconoclastic ‘la’ stage, never to evolve towards a more positive and progressive ‘illa ha’ stage. The thing is, they can’t. From Western fascist movements, Hindu nationalist and Muslim radical outfits of the early 20th century, to today’s Hindu nationalist and Islamist groups, the instigation of violence against largely imagined and created enemies alone defines their existence. Their existential raison d’etre is defined by violence against these magnified enemies, which is why a government or state tries to appease them by marginalising their enemies, thereby creating a new set of enemies. States and governments must understand that these groups must be tackled and can never be fully appeased.