Noted mediaperson and public intellectual Sashi Kumar has said though India has not yet become a fascist State, a king of proto-fascism has come into being in the country thanks to the interventions in politics and society by Hindutva forces.
Inaugurating a three-day national seminar on ‘India, State of the Nation: 2014 General Election and After’ organised by the Kerala University Department of Politics here on Tuesday, Mr. Sashi Kumar said what was problematic about contemporary politics in India was the detachment of liberalism from democracy although the two were supposed to go together. Political realities were today ‘mediated’ and the real was always put on the backburner. Because of the intense media gaze, legislators were compelled to “perform,” not in the substantive sense but in the “actoral sense.” This form of “tele-democracy” concealed the flip side of India, he said.
