We are witnessing the Indian version of a fascist game wherein political opponents have to be eliminated by hiring attackers from within the rival parties. Ideological colour also does not matter in this sinister game. What is happening in West Bengal might be the lone example in the world of democracy where an electorally defeated party is hounded like a criminal gang. Power is not enough for the victor; they want to dance on the debris of the vanquished.After the electoral magic, the magic of making the Trinamool Congress vanish has now cropped up as an additional attribute of the badly maligned electoral democracy of India. Though West Bengal showed this malaise in its ugliest form, the world saw this “magic” in Maharashtra as well. Both the rivals, Shiv Sena and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), were cut into half. In both cases, in a typical fascist intent, entrenched insiders – Ajit Pawar and Eknath Shinde – were used to perform this magic. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)’s Rajya Sabha unit’s shift to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lock stock and barrel manifested symptoms of the same disease.What has to be, however, understood is that there is nothing magical in this weird phenomenon. It’s a devious plot of cold and calculated political onslaught unfolding at a difficult time when the nation is grappling with strategic isolation in the wake of the changing geopolitical realities.Left to Right: Eknath Shinde, Uddhav Thackeray, Sharad Pawar, and Ajit Pawar. Illustration: The Wire.In many ways, it resembles the royal sport of the Roman Empire, which pitted slaves or professional warriors against each other to kill themselves. Like a brutal gladiatorial game, Mamata Banerjee’s own people are out to finish her politically at the behest of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and home minister Amit Shah. Like Mamata, Uddhav Thackeray faced the same political butchery. It is no coincidence that both have been former allies of the BJP. It only proves that what we are witnessing is the replay of Nazi politics that spared none, including their right-wing supporters. The media may not be highlighting another development but the real enemies, the Communists and minorities, are facing a terrible fascist onslaught in the streets and by-lanes of Kolkata. That is part of the overall plan of establish BJP’s hegemonic control. The execution of a fascist template is going on at all levels, from municipality to parliament. Immediately after taking over, West Bengal chief minister Suvendu Adhikari unleashed bulldozers against minorities, the poor and those who could rise to resist the new regime that came with the clear objective of disturbing the state’s syncretic culture. Also read: ‘Demographic Change’ Committee Minus a Demographer? Why Sole Focus on Illegal Immigration is a ProblemWe should not miss the point that the project of remapping the political landscape of India has gained unprecedented momentum in Bengal because of its siezable Muslim population. The new chief minister has been issuing orders daily to make their lives miserable. The orders do not spare any part of their life, including the religious one. The orders cover food, prayers, benefits from welfare schemes and public celebrations. Actions in the name of preventing infiltration are the most harassing for Muslims because they threaten their citizenship rights. There is a tendency to consider the decimation of opposition parties and persecution of minorities as two separate issues. The truth is that they are interlinked. No fascist project succeeds without an enemy who can be targeted as the other. So, minorities are the main target in the scheme of redrawing the political map of the country. Whether it is Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls or the delimitation, they have been the most vulnerable. The BJP is keen on delimitation before 2029 because the SIR alone cannot ensure its return. The party also has to tackle the votes of Hindu communities who did not support the BJP in past elections. It is essential to redraw constituencies in a manner that they lose their efficacy. They may try to destroy all diversities, including religious, caste-based, linguistic and ethnic. The method has already been tested in Assam and Jammu and Kashmir, where a significant reduction in the representation of Muslims has been seen after delimitation. To prepare a case for the desired remapping, the Modi government has already constituted a high-level committee on demographic changes under the chairmanship of Justice P.P. Navlekar. The phrases used to describe the terms of the committee clearly indicate the political motive behind its appointment. It talks about “unnatural demographic changes” and “abnormal population changes at the level of religious and social communities.” The committee will submit its report in a year. Also read: Modi’s Demography Mission is Yet Another Hindutva GimmickThe speed with which defections are being engineered not only indicates the ruling party’s desperation for gaining two-third majority to pass the delimitation bill, but also its restlessness to control ground-level politics. The weakening of the opposition is essential to quell the resistance to the intended delimitation, and the people’s discontent at the bottom. The Modi government has seen how difficult it has been for the Election Commission of India (ECI) to implement the SIR.However, the execution of the fascist template requires proper contextualisation. Let us not forget that the desperation points to the disappointment from the failure to implement the Hindutva agenda. Had the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the BJP been able to polarise the nation, the Modi government would not have manipulated elections on such a large scale. Why would they send the enforcement directorate (ED) or the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) if the opponent had no chance of winning elections? The agencies, including EC, are being misused because the majority of people are naturally inclined to vote against the BJP. The ruthlessness of the present regime only proves the infallibility of the Idea of India. The Indian nation is a product of a long anti-colonial struggle. The founding ideology of India is secularism and democracy. It deters the communalisation of the nation.It will also be interesting to decode the style of extermination of the opposition in India. The game might be a prelude to the final game of the authoritarian regime. The BJP refrains from the complete extermination of a party and concentrates on sapping its political energy. The strategy is clear: members from the same party would finish the original party.Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla receives a letter from TMC MPs including Sudip Bandyopadhyay, Satabdi Roy, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, Mala Roy, Yusuf Pathan, and others for separate seating arrangement in the House, in New Delhi. Photo: Handout via PTI.The Shiv Sena is being used against the Shiv Sena, and the TMC against the TMC. The modus operandi is to engineer a split in a party by using all means, possibly money also, and make the splinters fight against each other. Institutions are in place to legitimise unethical and illicit separation. The new formation, which has to be pro-BJP in any case, takes away the name, flag, and programmes of the original party. It mimics the language of the parent party but does the politics of the BJP. The political clone follows the dictates from the BJP leadership and puts all its energy into destroying the political base of the original party.Also read: Obscure ‘Nationalist Citizens Party of India’ Divided Over Merger With Rebel TMC MPsThe Shiv Sena and the NCP have witnessed it earlier and are again waiting for another bout. The Sena, a right-wing party, was immediately attacked when it tried to shift towards secular politics under the leadership of Thackrey. The attack continues even after the party’s strength has been substantially reduced. The party is now facing a severe crisis due to challenges from its breakaway group led by Shinde. Sharad Pawar’s NCP met the same fate. To save the party for the future, Sharad Pawar is making adjustments with the BJP at different levels. Ajit Pawar’s NCP has reduced to the shadow of its earlier version and follows the BJP’s commands.Why are they replacing the original party with their shadow? It is because Hindutva cannot incorporate identities. It cannot embrace pluralism. The Bengali or Marathi identity cannot be expressed through the BJP’s ideology. They have to be channelled through other forums. The Bengali identity has to be reoriented, so the Marathi one. It has to become communal and sectarian. The association with the Shiv Sena, indeed, made it possible for the BJP to make some adjustments to the politics of Marathi identity. The process has to be reenacted in West Bengal. The shadow TMC will help the BJP to crystallise it. What Shinde’s Shiv Sena is doing in Maharashtra, Sudip Bandhopadhyay’s TMC would be doing in West Bengal. Will the experiment of shadow opposition last long?Anil Sinha is a senior journalist.