‘Like Mussolini, Hitler ideaology, Hindutva will fail too’

Talking about his latest book, Aakar Patel says extremism in India will not long last as it is unsustainable

Falah Faisal | NT

Bengaluru: Aakar Patel has written numerous books over the last few years dealing with the effects of the Modi regime. But his latest, The Anarchist Cookbook is different for a couple of reasons.

One, it contains illustrations by artist PenPencilDraw that add an element of humour to it, and second, it is dedicated to Bhima Koregaon 16, especially Father Stan Swamy. “What people don’t release is that the people who were arrested had nothing to do with the violence and still remain in jail,” he said when asked about the reason for the dedication.

One of the campaigns Amnesty worked on during his time there was the use of pellet guns in Kashmir. “These are birdshot shotguns that spray bullets and have blinded over 1000 people in Kashmir with pellets being lodged in people’s eyes, which can’t even be surgically removed.

Nowhere else in the country where they used to control crowds even during riots. That’s the social media posts by Kashmiris, the judiciary took note and this was stopped,” said Patel, who as an optimist still believes there is room for good judgments in India which is imperfectly authoritarian, unlike China.

Talking about Shaheen Bagh and farmers’ protests, he said it gave people an easily replicable model of people, which was one of the reasons for its success. Even after 3 years since the bill passed, CAA and NRC have not been implemented.

“Those people sat in defiance of the ‘designated protest area’ and held a public space peacefully. Instead of going to Jantar Mantar which is where protests go to die,” he said. He added that Shaheen Bagh was only possible because of the forced ghettoization of Muslims, which created a safe space.

Talking about the situation in Karnataka with the hijab row, he said, “Hindutva is a series of negative thrusts. It’s not about what I can do for my people, but what I don’t want you to do. They want to limit what people wear, what they eat, and who they marry.

But it won’t last long because it’s unsustainable. You have to remember that Hitler and Mussolini failed too.” “Social media has given us the power that people 20 years ago didn’t have, and we must use it,” he concludes, stating that anarchy means being leaderless where communities are wise enough to manage their affairs and hopes we get to see a world like that sometime soon.”