How is it that suddenly, a very angry Hanuman has become the number one choice for car decor? Who is Hanuman angry at? Whose anger is Hanuman channelising? What is that anger asking us to do? A random question about it to the cab driver who fancies it might attract a simple explanation of ‘fashion’. But is there more to explain how a loyal follower of Lord Rama becomes an aggressive, masculine and ‘orange’ symbol on the cars of the Gupta/Malhotra/Sharma uncles of our time?
In Nazi Germany, the military symbol of totenkopf and the runic script signs like the wolfsangel were a common sight on walls, cars etc. The angry Hanuman, in our case, seems to have become a fascist symbol of a sort. These symbols inadvertently give out the true goal of a fascist system, i.e. the ‘Hindu Rashtra’, in our case. In this article, we trace some key universal features of fascism by analysing the most common windshield of post-2014 India, the ‘furious Bajrangabali.
The Mysticism Of A Historic Utopia
The symbolism of a mythical past and the ‘glorious’ history of a nation is the key characteristic of fascist politics. Here, ‘glorious’ means not in the furthering of institutions of justice or equality, but glorious in the nation’s authority, military capabilities and strongheld hierarchies. How many times have we heard the BJP leaders fantasising about an imagined ‘Ram Rajya’? It is necessary for fascist politics to create a ‘mythical’ understanding of the past among the masses. Addressing the fascist Congress in 1922, Benito Mussolini declared:
“We have created our myth. The myth is a faith, a passion! It is not necessary for it to be a reality… Our myth is the nation, our myth is the greatness of the nation! And to this myth, this greatness, which we want to translate into total reality, we subordinate everything.”
Bajrangabali is angry at you, for you have let invaders rip you off your culture; a culture that was meant to be ‘pure’ and whose purity is signified by the fact that it remains stagnant, unchanged. Basically, just as oppressive as it ever was.
The Holy Family
Hanuman is displeased with us, the savarna men of the ‘Hindu India’, for letting ‘our’ women lose. We have allowed them to fool around with non-believers. We have let Western cosmopolitanism misguide them into marrying untouchables and Muslims, tearing apart the ‘sanctity’ and ‘purity’ of the Holy Family.
Fascist politics looks at women as some sort of ‘reproduction machines’. They need to produce more and more sons for the nation, keeping in mind caste purity. For a patriarch, the loss of ‘zan and zamin’ (woman and land) remains the biggest blot on manhood. The Cross of Honour of the German Mother was an actual award given by the Nazi state to women who would give birth to more than four children. Fascist politics equates the father of the family to the leader of the state. The ‘honour’ of the nation is upon this patriarch to defend.
Chastity and sexual anxiety are important to fascism. That is why we saw men with lathis and saffron attire roaming around in the second week of February. That is why something called ‘Love Jihad‘ is a political issue in today’s times.
The ‘Other’
Bajrangabali is infuriated at the fact that ‘outsiders’ are living on the land that is ‘our’ pitrubhumi (ancestral land). People who do not ‘fit’ into the culture of Bharat have been living here and Hanuman is enraged at you for not fighting for your religion, which translates into your nation. Your incapability of ‘Dharma Yuddh’ makes him hot under the collar.
‘Othering’ remains the most important and the most militant tactic of fascism. Antisemitism in Germany, anti-black, anti-Muslim and anti-immigration in Trump’s USA, and Islamophobia in Myanmar and India are some of the forms of making a particular community ‘other’ from the rest of the country. An Indian Muslim will have to prove their ‘Indianness‘ to the Hindu Hriday Samrat. They will say that they have no issues with ‘good’ Muslims, like the ones who make missiles for them. But the attacks would be on the community as a whole.
MS Golwalkar, the RSS ideologue, declared that India should learn from Nazi Germany in maintaining the purity of the race. He also spewed that Muslims, if they were to live in India, would have to either get assimilated into the Hindu-fold or live as second-class citizens.
Why Is He Angry All Of A Sudden?
Bajrangabali has never really been angry. He has had no reason to be. Today, Hanuman is being showcased as an angry, masculine and orange entity because the Ambanis and Adanis of our country were no longer able to cover up their loot by keeping the Congress in power. The political legitimacy crisis in the final years of UPA-II, the crashing global finance capital, and revitalising of working-class movements are the reasons that suddenly, out of nowhere, the Chiranjivi Pavan Putra has come to forefront.
There is no Sanjeevani to be found. There is no Dronagiri Parbat to lift. The only job Hanuman is doing is staring out from your car, to keep the youth unemployed, the economy stagnant, and the crony capitalists in power. He’s sending your children to wage a one-sided war in North East Delhi, while Kapil Mishra‘s son goes to MIT. Maynard Keynes had once said, “In the long run, we’re all dead.” If Bajrangabali continues to pave his way into our cars and minds, the finishing line of that run will keep getting closer.