Independence Without Emancipation: Caste, Class and the Betrayal of Social Transformation

 

-Ramphal Kataria

From Nationalism to Neoliberal Hindutva: How Class Politics Was Defeated in India

Abstract

This article critically examines why Marxian class politics failed to become the central axis of India’s anti-colonial struggle and how this failure continues to shape contemporary India. It argues that the nationalist movement secured political independence while preserving caste hierarchy, capitalist property relations, and elite dominance. Through a comparative analysis of B.R. Ambedkar, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Bhagat Singh, the paper demonstrates how caste-centric reformism, moral nationalism, Fabian socialism, and the suppression of revolutionary Marxism fragmented the emergence of a unified proletarian movement. The marginalisation of peasant and worker uprisings in the 1930s–40s ensured a negotiated transfer of power rather than a social revolution. The article further links this historical compromise to the present conjuncture, where neoliberal economic restructuring and Hindutva nationalism converge to discipline labour, depoliticise inequality, and redirect class anxieties into cultural and religious identities. The paper concludes by arguing that the absence of a synthesis between caste annihilation and class emancipation has enabled authoritarian capitalism in contemporary India.

1. Introduction: Independence Without Social Emancipation

India’s independence in 1947 marked a decisive rupture with colonial rule but not with colonial social relations. The political transfer of power occurred without a corresponding transformation of property relations, caste hierarchy, or the structure of production. Unlike revolutionary upheavals in Russia or China, India’s freedom struggle culminated in what may be described as a bourgeois-nationalist settlement, preserving indigenous elites while replacing foreign rulers.

This paper contends that the failure of Marxism to become the central ideological axis of the anti-colonial movement was not accidental. It was the outcome of deliberate political choices, ideological compromises, and structural constraints rooted in caste society. The suppression of class struggle—whether through moral nationalism, constitutionalism, or identity-based reform—produced a postcolonial state that could accommodate capitalism, landlordism, and eventually neoliberal authoritarianism.

2. Marxism and the Indian Context: A Fragmented Proletariat

Marxism offered a universal theory of exploitation grounded in control over the means of production and the extraction of surplus value. In colonial India, the conditions for such an analysis were stark: deindustrialisation, agrarian feudalism, urban proletarianisation, and imperial extraction.

However, Indian society was not structured primarily through class alone. Caste preceded capitalism and outlived it, fragmenting labour into graded hierarchies. The Indian proletariat did not emerge as a unified historical subject; it was divided internally by ritual status, social exclusion, and inherited inequality.

This structural reality complicated Marxist mobilisation but did not render it impossible. Peasant and worker movements across India demonstrated that class consciousness was emerging, particularly in the 1920s–40s. Yet these movements were consistently marginalised by the dominant nationalist leadership.

3. Ambedkar and the Centrality of Caste

3.1 Caste Before Class

B.R. Ambedkar’s greatest contribution lies in his uncompromising exposure of caste as a system of structural violence. He argued that Indian society was not organised into classes but into “enclosed classes”, making proletarian unity impossible without annihilating caste.

While analytically powerful, this position had a political consequence: class struggle was deferred, subordinated to caste reform. Capitalist exploitation, landlordism, and imperial extraction remained secondary concerns.

Ambedkar’s critique of Marxism—most fully articulated in Buddha or Karl Marx—rejected violence, dictatorship of the proletariat, and economic determinism. His turn to Buddhism sought ethical transformation rather than revolutionary rupture.

3.2 Poona Pact and Constitutionalism

The Poona Pact (1932) secured reservations but dismantled independent Dalit political assertion. By integrating Dalit representation into a Hindu-majority electorate, the Pact transformed a potential class-caste alliance into constitutional containment.

Ambedkar’s later success in embedding reservations within the Constitution undeniably improved Dalit representation. Yet it also institutionalised social justice as state-administered inclusion, not mass mobilisation. Over time, reservations became susceptible to elite capture and depoliticisation.

4. Gandhi’s Moral Nationalism and the Neutralisation of Class

Gandhi’s leadership was decisive in mobilising the masses, but his philosophy was profoundly anti-Marxist. He rejected class struggle, denounced violence, and opposed any movement that threatened property relations.

The doctrine of trusteeship preserved capitalist ownership while offering moral reassurance. His campaign against untouchability sought reform within Hinduism, not its destruction, thereby preserving caste under the guise of harmony.

Gandhi’s consistent opposition to militant labour struggles, peasant uprisings, and revolutionary politics ensured that economic exploitation was moralised rather than politicised.

5. Nehru, Fabian Socialism and Elite Consensus

Jawaharlal Nehru represented a modernist, socialist-inflected nationalism. Influenced by Marxist analysis, he accepted planning and state intervention but rejected revolutionary politics.

Nehru’s development strategy—heavy industry, public sector expansion, Five-Year Plans—created growth without redistribution. Land reforms were half-hearted; capitalists were reassured; feudal remnants persisted.

By projecting socialism from above, Nehru defanged the Left, fragmenting the communist movement and absorbing its rhetoric without its substance.

6. Bhagat Singh and the Suppressed Revolutionary Alternative

Bhagat Singh articulated the most coherent revolutionary Marxist critique of Indian nationalism. He warned that political freedom without economic transformation would merely replace British rulers with Indian capitalists.

His execution in 1931 symbolised the defeat of revolutionary socialism. The Congress leadership distanced itself from his ideology, fearing mass radicalisation beyond its control.

7. Peasant and Worker Movements Outside the Nationalist Canon

The 1920s–40s witnessed powerful mass struggles:

Kisan Sabha Movement (Bihar): Against zamindari

Mappila Uprising (1921): Anti-landlord revolt

Tebhaga Movement (1946): Sharecroppers’ struggle in Bengal

Telangana Armed Struggle (1946–51): Against feudal oppression

Worli Peasant Movement (Maharashtra)

Royal Indian Navy Mutiny (1946): Anti-imperialist insurrection

The Congress leadership withdrew support from these movements, viewing them as threats to negotiated independence. In doing so, it ensured that independence would not become revolution.

8. The Postcolonial Settlement and the Road to Neoliberal Hindutva

The suppression of class politics produced a postcolonial state that retained:

Capitalist dominance

Caste hierarchy

Elite control of institutions

Neoliberal reforms since the 1990s intensified inequality, dismantled labour protections, and dispossessed peasants. Yet instead of producing class resistance, this crisis enabled the rise of Hindutva, which redirected popular anger away from capital and toward religious minorities and cultural enemies.

Hindutva thrives precisely because class consciousness was historically aborted. Caste identity, religious nationalism, and cultural grievance now substitute for economic struggle.

9. Neoliberalism and Hindutva as a Political Economy

The Modi regime does not represent a rupture from postcolonial political economy; it represents its logical culmination. What was achieved through compromise in 1947 is now enforced through coercion, spectacle, and majoritarian consent. Neoliberalism and Hindutva are not parallel forces—they are mutually reinforcing strategies of rule.

9.1 Labour Law “Reforms”: Class Defeat Codified

The consolidation of 29 central labour laws into four labour codes (2020–21) marks the most decisive rollback of workers’ rights since independence. These reforms:

Weaken collective bargaining

Make unionisation more difficult

Legalise informalisation and contractualisation

Increase working hours while reducing job security

This assault on labour was carried out without consultation, during a pandemic, and amid a lockdown that rendered resistance impossible. It reflects not merely neoliberal efficiency but class war from above.

Crucially, the working class response has remained fragmented. Why? Because class consciousness never replaced caste consciousness. Informal workers—over 90% of India’s labour force—remain divided by caste, region, and religion. The historic failure to integrate caste annihilation with class struggle now enables capital to extract surplus with minimal resistance.

Marxism warned that capital requires a disciplined, depoliticised workforce. Hindutva supplies precisely that—a cultural identity strong enough to override material deprivation.

9.2 Crony Capitalism: Nationalism as Cover for Accumulation

Modi-era capitalism is not merely neoliberal; it is crony-monopolistic. Public assets—from airports and ports to coal, telecom, and power—have been transferred to a handful of corporate conglomerates under the banner of “national development.”

This process mirrors what Marx described as primitive accumulation, but with a nationalist twist:

Dispossession is reframed as infrastructure

Inequality is rebranded as aspiration

Corporate power is equated with national strength

The state no longer pretends to balance capital and labour. It openly functions as the executive committee of dominant capital, while deploying cultural nationalism to suppress dissent.

Here lies the historical irony: the bourgeoisie that Gandhi protected through trusteeship and Nehru accommodated through planning has now shed all pretence of social obligation.

9.3 The Caste Census: Recognition Without Redistribution

The renewed demand for a caste census exposes another contradiction inherited from the nationalist compromise. While the census promises statistical recognition, it stops short of addressing the material basis of inequality.

Caste data without:

Land redistribution

Employment guarantees

Control over capital

risks becoming a technocratic exercise in managing inequality rather than abolishing it.

Ambedkar’s insistence on annihilation of caste was radical precisely because it challenged Hindu social order. Yet in contemporary India, caste enumeration is increasingly absorbed into electoral arithmetic, divorced from class politics.

The ruling dispensation resists the caste census not because it threatens Hindu unity alone, but because it could expose how neoliberal growth has disproportionately benefited upper-caste corporate elites.

Yet even this demand remains limited if it is not coupled with economic restructuring. Recognition without redistribution reproduces hierarchy in statistical form.

9.4 Hindutva as Anti-Class Ideology

Hindutva functions today as the most effective anti-Marxist ideology in India’s history. It achieves what colonial repression and nationalist compromise together could not:

It converts economic anxiety into cultural resentment

It replaces class solidarity with religious identity

It turns the exploited into foot soldiers of capital

Workers are encouraged to see Muslims, migrants, or “anti-nationals” as enemies rather than employers or landlords. Dalits are symbolically elevated while materially excluded. Peasants are invoked rhetorically even as agrarian distress deepens.

This is not accidental. Fascist movements historically emerge where class politics fail. Hindutva thrives because the Indian Left never succeeded in building a mass movement that could integrate caste annihilation, economic justice, and democratic struggle.

10. Re-reading Ambedkar Against His Appropriation

Ambedkar is increasingly appropriated by the very forces he opposed. His image is invoked to legitimise a regime that:

Weakens labour protections

Privatises public assets

Criminalises dissent

Reinforces social hierarchy through market mechanisms

Ambedkar’s tragedy lies not in his critique of Marxism, but in how his legacy was decoupled from economic radicalism. His constitutionalism, while historically necessary, has become a substitute for mass politics.

Reservations without redistribution, representation without power, and dignity without material security now define the limits of Ambedkarite politics in neoliberal India.

11. From History to Today: Farmer Protests, Labour Strikes and the Politics of Resistance

The unresolved contradictions of India’s nationalist settlement did not vanish after independence; they have returned with renewed urgency in the 21st century. The structural failure to integrate caste annihilation with class emancipation now surfaces in farmers’ struggles, new waves of labour militancy, and electoral politics shaped by identity and economic anxiety.

11.1 The Farmers’ Protests (2020–22): Identity, Class, and State Power

The massive farmers’ protests that erupted in late 2020 against the three farm laws represented one of the largest sustained mass mobilisations in India’s recent history. Millions of cultivators—predominantly from Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and western Madhya Pradesh—occupied Delhi’s borders for over a year, demanding repeal of legislation they saw as corporate capture of agriculture.

These protests drew global attention not only for their scale but for what they revealed:

A widespread anxiety over market liberalisation and loss of price supports.

A sense of economic insecurity that transcended caste, uniting small and marginal farmers.

A mobilisation grounded in land and livelihood—core sites of class conflict.

Yet, the farmers’ movement also illustrated the limitations of class politics in India:

The base was overwhelmingly rural and agrarian, not industrial or organised by trade union power.

Caste played a role in leadership and mobilisation strategies.

Urban workers and organised labour offered only selective solidarity.

Despite its power, the movement did not transform into a broader labour–peasant alliance, nor did it develop a unified socialist alternative. Instead, it was absorbed into electoral politics, especially by regional parties, diluting the anti-capitalist thrust into demand-based bargaining.

The government’s eventual repeal of the farm laws in 2021 confirmed the efficacy of sustained mass pressure, yet without a parallel labour uprising or party realignment, the victory remained partial and defensive, not revolutionary.

11.2 New Labour Strikes: Fragmentation and Promise

Since the late 2010s, India has witnessed a resurgence of worker protests across sectors:

Strikes in manufacturing plants

Protests by informal workers demanding minimum wage protections

Teacher and university worker campaigns

Migrant workers’ demands during and after the pandemic

These movements reflect mounting discontent with contractualisation, exploitation, and precarious work—all outcomes of neoliberal labour-market restructuring.

However, several structural obstacles limit their transformative potential:

1. Fragmented Labour Force: Informalisation, gig work, and subcontracting dissolve collective identities that could unify struggles.

2. Weak Trade Unions: Traditional unions remain limited in reach and often aligned with political parties rather than workers’ autonomous interests.

3. Rising Identity Politics: Workers mobilise around caste or religion as often as around economic demands—precisely because caste was historically allowed to trump class in Indian politics.

This fragmentation mirrors the historic blunting of class formation analysed earlier. Workers’ struggles express real anger at exploitation, yet without strategic unity, they remain defensive eruptions rather than systemic challenges to capital.

11.3 Electoral Politics: Populism, Polarisation, and Capital’s Legitimacy

The nexus of Hindutva and neoliberalism that underpins contemporary Indian politics translates into a dominant electoral ideology. Political parties compete not on redistributive promises but on:

Majoritarian identity politics

Symbolic nationalism

Welfare schemes that sidestep structural redistribution

Cultural narratives that mask economic exclusion

This electoral landscape advantages the ruling coalition for several reasons:

1. Neoliberalisation Reduced Class-Based Voting: As economic inequality widened without redistributive politics, voters became more responsive to social identities than class interests.

2. State Patronage and Welfare Populism: Subsidies, cash transfers, and targeted welfare create dependent constituencies without altering the underlying economics of dispossession.

3. Criminalisation of Dissent: Protests are delegitimised as anti-national, reducing the political effect of labour and farmer movements.

In this context, electoral politics becomes a battleground not for economic justice but for who can best mobilise identity narratives—a direct inheritance of the failure to unify caste and class politics historically.

12. Critical Synthesis: Why Today’s Movements Cannot Succeed Without Class Integration

To move beyond episodic resistance, India needs a politics that:

Bridges farmers’ economic insecurity with urban workers’ exploitation.

Connects caste-based struggles for dignity with class-based struggles for material transformation.

Challenges capital accumulation rather than merely its abusive excesses.

Transforms protest into political force, not just collective grievance.

Such a politics would represent the realisation of the unfinished revolution identified earlier. It requires:

a) Strategic Alliances Across Sectors: Farmers, workers, informal labour, Dalit movements, and students must build solidarity premised on common material interests, not merely ad hoc coalitions.

b) Organisational Renewal: Independent unions and mass organisations must break from party patronage and build democratic spaces of resistance.

c) Re-articulation of Ideology: A synthesis of Ambedkar’s caste critique and Marx’s analysis of capital—what might be called a Dalit–Marxist praxis—can challenge the current bifurcation of identity and economy.

d) Electoral Alternatives: Political formations committed to redistribution and structural transformation must offer viable alternatives to identity-driven populism.

13. Conclusion: History in the Present and the Unfinished Revolution

The farmers’ mobilisation at Delhi’s borders, the recurring strikes of precarious labour, and the steady electoral mobilisation around identity are not disconnected events. They are contemporary expressions of a historical contradiction that has remained unresolved since the freedom struggle. Independence delivered political sovereignty without social emancipation, producing a polity structured by caste without class, identity without redistribution, and nationalism without economic rupture.

This unresolved settlement continues to shape the present. Neoliberal restructuring has deepened informalisation and precarity, while the consolidation of capital has proceeded with minimal resistance. Hindutva provides the ideological framework through which economic anxieties are redirected into cultural and religious identities, enabling accumulation without redistribution. Protest is accommodated but contained; resistance is fragmented and absorbed; electoral politics increasingly legitimises the very forces that reproduce inequality.

The tragedy of India’s freedom struggle lies not simply in the failure of Marxism, but in the conditions that ensured class politics never became central. Class struggle was subordinated to caste reform severed from material redistribution, to moral nationalism that displaced economic conflict, to elite-led planning that preserved property relations, and to constitutionalism that substituted formal equality for social transformation. Independence was achieved without dismantling the structures of exploitation.

Ambedkar’s call for the annihilation of caste remains incomplete because it was not integrated with a sustained critique of capital. Marxism failed to take root as a mass politics because it was fragmented by caste and constrained by nationalism. The result is a political economy in which workers vote against their material interests, Dalits are symbolically represented but economically marginalised, and democracy persists without social justice.

Modi’s India is not an aberration; it is the culmination of this historical compromise. Neoliberalism requires depoliticised labour, and Hindutva supplies the consent necessary to secure it. The unresolved question confronting India today is whether a politics can emerge that unites caste annihilation with class emancipation. Until such a synthesis is forged, protest will remain episodic, resistance will be contained, and independence will continue to be a promise deferred rather than a freedom realised.

References

1. Ambedkar, B R (1936): Annihilation of Caste, Government of Maharashtra, Bombay.

2. Ambedkar, B R (1956): Buddha or Karl Marx, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Writings and Speeches, Vol 3.

3. Marx, Karl (1867/1990): Capital, Vol I, Penguin Classics, London.

4. Chandra, Bipan et al (1988): India’s Struggle for Independence, Penguin, New Delhi.

5. Sarkar, Sumit (1983): Modern India, Macmillan, Delhi.

6. Guha, Ranajit (1983): Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India, Oxford University Press.

7. Singh, Bhagat (1931): “Why I Am an Atheist,” in Selected Writings, LeftWord.

8. Namboodiripad, E M S (1984): History of the Indian Freedom Struggle, National Book Centre.

9. Patnaik, Prabhat (2016): “Neoliberalism and Fascism,” Economic & Political Weekly, Vol 51, No 34.

10. Breman, Jan (2019): Capitalism, Inequality and Labour in India, Cambridge University Press.

11. Ministry of Labour and Employment (2020): Labour Codes, Government of India.

12. Gill, Sucha Singh (2021): “Farm Laws and Agrarian Crisis,” EPW, Vol 56, No 5.

13. Deshpande, Satish (2013): Contemporary India: A Sociological View, Penguin.

14. Banaji, Jairus (2010): Theory as History, Haymarket Books.

 

 

The Unmaking of Composite India: Sport, Citizenship, and the Expanding Grammar of Exclusion

 

-Ramphal Kataria

Cricket Diplomacy, Communal Mobilisation, and India’s Self-Inflicted Reputational Crisis

Abstract

The uncertainty surrounding the 2026 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup has revealed the growing fragility of sports diplomacy in South Asia. Bangladesh’s refusal to play matches scheduled in India, following the withdrawal of cricketer Mustafizur Rahman from the Indian Premier League (IPL), signals a deeper crisis than a mere sporting dispute. This article argues that the episode exemplifies the increasing subordination of ostensibly autonomous institutions to majoritarian political pressures in India. Situating the controversy within the history of sports boycotts and diplomatic signalling, the article examines how communal mobilisation, selective outrage, and institutional retreat have damaged India’s regional relations and global sporting credibility. By linking the Bangladesh episode to broader patterns of social exclusion—religious, racial, caste-based, and regional—the paper contends that the erosion of “Composite India” poses a long-term threat to democratic cohesion, diplomatic trust, and India’s international standing.

1. Introduction: Cricket as Political Index

Cricket in South Asia has long been entangled with politics, but recent developments suggest a qualitative shift in this relationship. The uncertainty surrounding the 2026 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup—specifically Bangladesh’s refusal to play its scheduled matches in India—cannot be explained through logistical or security considerations alone. Rather, it reflects a deeper crisis in which domestic political dynamics have begun to dictate the terms of international sporting engagement.

At the centre of this rupture lies the Mustafizur Rahman episode in the IPL. The abrupt withdrawal of a duly auctioned Bangladeshi cricketer, following pressure from communal fringe groups, transformed a franchise-level decision into a bilateral diplomatic controversy. Cricket, once a key instrument of India’s soft power and regional engagement, has thus become a barometer of the republic’s internal political health. The episode forces a reconsideration of how far institutional autonomy has eroded under majoritarian pressure—and at what cost to India’s regional leadership and global credibility.

2. Sport, Boycott, and Diplomacy: Historical Perspectives

The politicisation of sport is not a contemporary aberration. Sporting engagement and disengagement have historically functioned as instruments of diplomacy and moral signalling. Ping-pong diplomacy in 1971 facilitated dialogue between the United States and China, while apartheid South Africa’s prolonged exclusion from international sport reinforced global condemnation of racial segregation. The Olympic boycotts of 1980 and 1984 further demonstrated how sport could become a theatre for geopolitical confrontation.¹

In South Asia, cricket diplomacy has been particularly fragile. India–Pakistan cricketing ties have repeatedly collapsed following political crises, normalising neutral venues and suspensions. Bangladesh’s present stance must therefore be understood within this tradition. Boycott here is not an emotional overreaction but a calculated diplomatic signal, deployed when sport is perceived as unsafe, politicised, or discriminatory.

3. The Mustafizur Rahman Episode: Procedure, Power, and Perception

Mustafizur Rahman, one of Bangladesh’s most accomplished fast bowlers, was included in the IPL auction list after clearance by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). During the auction, multiple franchises—Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals among them—placed bids before Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) secured his services.

The subsequent withdrawal of Rahman, reportedly following BCCI intervention citing vague “broader circumstances,” marked a significant procedural rupture. The IPL auction process is governed by rules and approvals designed to insulate sporting decisions from extraneous pressures. Retroactive interference, absent transparent justification, undermines institutional credibility.

In Bangladesh, the episode was widely interpreted as evidence that cricketing engagement with India is vulnerable to non-sporting pressures, particularly communal mobilisation. Whether or not this interpretation fully captures the BCCI’s internal reasoning is ultimately secondary. In diplomacy, perception often carries more weight than intent.² The damage lay not only in the decision itself, but in the message, it conveyed: that contractual sporting arrangements in India can be overridden by political sentiment.

4. Selective Outrage and the Communalisation of Sport

The public outcry against Mustafizur Rahman’s inclusion did not emerge organically. It was selectively mobilised and symbolically targeted. Although KKR is co-owned by Juhi Chawla and Jay Mehta, both Hindus, the controversy was personalised around Shah Rukh Khan, the franchise’s Muslim co-owner. This targeting was amplified by the broader context of West Bengal’s polarised electoral politics.

A critical counterfactual question exposes the communal logic of the outrage: had Rahman been finally purchased by Chennai Super Kings or Rajasthan Royals, would a similar protest have occurred? The absence of agitation during earlier bidding rounds strongly suggests that the issue was not the player’s nationality or the auction process, but the symbolic association of a Muslim owner with the inclusion of a Bangladeshi Muslim cricketer.

This selective outrage converted a routine sporting transaction into a communal narrative, collapsing the distinction between franchise autonomy and religious identity.

5. From Sporting Dispute to Diplomatic Crisis: Bangladesh’s Response

Bangladesh’s response was swift and unprecedented. Reports indicated the suspension of IPL broadcasts, formal communication to the ICC seeking venue changes, and a clear declaration that its team would not travel to India under prevailing circumstances. This escalation transformed a domestic controversy into an international diplomatic problem.

The timing compounded the damage. Only days earlier, India had sought to stabilise ties with Dhaka through high-level diplomatic engagement, including External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s visit to convey Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s condolence message to Bangladesh Nationalist Party leader Tarique Rahman following Khaleda Zia’s death. Cricket diplomacy thus unravelled what formal diplomacy had just attempted to repair.

Bangladesh’s placement, de facto, in the same administrative category as Pakistan for cricketing purposes reflects a significant erosion of India’s regional standing.³ The loss here is not Bangladesh’s alone; it is India’s institutional and diplomatic failure.

6. Institutional Retreat: BCCI, ICC, and Governance

The irony of the episode is striking. The ICC is chaired by an Indian national, and India positions itself as a responsible global sporting host. Yet the handling of a single IPL contract escalated into a reputational crisis threatening a major international tournament.

This outcome was not inevitable. Transparent procedures, clear communication, and political insulation could have contained the controversy. Instead, the BCCI’s apparent capitulation to fringe pressure signalled institutional retreat. The episode raises troubling questions about governance: if sporting bodies cannot uphold their own procedures against political mobilisation, their credibility as neutral arbiters collapses.

7. Beyond Cricket: The Expanding Grammar of Exclusion

The Mustafizur Rahman episode must be situated within a broader social context marked by expanding forms of exclusion. The killing of Angel Chakma, a student from Tripura, in Dehradun in December 2025—after he was racially abused as “Chinese”—illustrates how physical appearance has become a criterion of belonging. Citizens from the North-East routinely face racial profiling, compelled to publicly assert their Indianness.

Parallel dynamics operate elsewhere. Bengali-speaking Muslims in Delhi are labelled “Bangladeshi”; migrants from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are treated as outsiders in Maharashtra; caste divisions are actively mobilised for political consolidation. The cumulative effect is a narrowing definition of citizenship, structured around religion, appearance, language, and region.

8. Political Rhetoric and the Normalisation of Suspicion

Political leadership plays a decisive role in legitimising social attitudes. Remarks made in the name of Swadeshi—such as Prime Minister Modi’s reference to imported Ganesh idols with “small eyes” as “Chinese innovations” at a public event in Gandhinagar in 2023—were widely interpreted in the North-East as racial caricature rather than economic critique.⁴

During the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Muslims were repeatedly identified through markers such as clothing, beards, and food habits, while gendered symbols like the “mangalsutra” were deployed for electoral mobilisation. While such rhetoric may yield short-term political gains, it normalises suspicion as a mode of governance and deepens social fragmentation.

9. Caste, Gender, and Electoral Fragmentation

Fragmentation in contemporary India is not incidental; it is strategic. Electoral politics increasingly mobilises caste binaries—Jat versus non-Jat, Yadav versus non-Yadav, Rajput versus Jat—while even Scheduled Castes are subdivided for political gain. Women, meanwhile, are reduced to symbolic categories rather than substantive political agents.

This managed disintegration undermines social solidarity and erodes the foundations of democratic citizenship. The logic is consistent across domains: division is instrumentalised to consolidate power.

10. Diaspora, Global Image, and Security Implications

Domestic majoritarianism carries external consequences. As racial fringe movements gain traction in countries such as Australia and the United States, India’s internal conduct becomes a point of reference. If Indians themselves deploy racial and religious hierarchies to define belonging, there is little reason to expect restraint from xenophobic actors abroad.

Attacks on Indian students and migrants in Western countries underscore how domestic narratives can translate into external vulnerability.⁵ The erosion of India’s plural image thus has tangible security implications for its diaspora.

11. Conclusion: Composite India and the Stakes of Sport

The Mustafizur Rahman episode is not merely a sporting controversy; it is a diagnostic moment for contemporary India. It reveals how deeply majoritarian impulses have penetrated institutions once assumed to be neutral, and how quickly domestic polarisation can spill into foreign policy setbacks.

Composite India—plural, diverse, and inclusive—is not a rhetorical ideal but a constitutional necessity. Undermining it for short-term electoral consolidation risks long-term national disintegration. When sport becomes sectarian, diplomacy falters. When diversity is framed as invasion, unity becomes untenable.

The question is no longer whether India can host a cricket tournament, but whether it can sustain a republic capable of commanding trust—at home and abroad.

References

1.     Allison, L (1986): The Politics of Sport, Manchester University Press.

2.     Murray, S (2012): “The Two Halves of Sports-Diplomacy,” Diplomacy & Statecraft, Vol 23, No 3.

3.     Majumdar, B and Bandyopadhyay, K (2006): A Social History of Indian Cricket, Pearson Longman.

4.     Media reports of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Swadeshi speech, Gandhinagar, 2023.

5.     Human Rights Watch (2018–2024): Reports on racial violence against South Asian migrants.

Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century: Venezuela, Oil, and the Crisis of Sovereignty in a Unipolar World

 

-Ramphal Kataria

Lenin in Caracas: Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century

Abstract

The extraterritorial abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro by United States forces and Washington’s declaration of intent to administer Venezuela during a so-called transition period marks a decisive rupture in post-Cold War international norms. This article argues that the Venezuelan episode represents not an exceptional deviation but a structural expression of imperialism in its contemporary form. Drawing upon Vladimir I. Lenin’s Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism, the article situates the intervention within the political economy of monopoly capital, finance capital, and resource extraction. It demonstrates that oil—rather than democracy, narcotics control, or human rights—constitutes the material basis of intervention. By tracing historical continuities of U.S. regime-change operations across Latin America, West Asia, and beyond, the article shows how the unipolar world order has hollowed out international law while retaining its rhetorical vocabulary. The responses of global actors—including China, Russia, Latin American states, and Western allies—are analysed to reveal fractures within the so-called “rules-based international order.” Particular attention is paid to India’s silence, which is examined as a crisis of democratic credibility and post-colonial foreign policy. The article concludes that the Venezuelan intervention exemplifies imperialism’s parasitic and decaying character and poses a fundamental challenge to sovereignty, multilateralism, and global stability.

1. Introduction: The Reappearance of Naked Imperial Power

The abduction of a sitting president of a sovereign state by a foreign military power represents an act so extreme that it destabilises not merely diplomatic relations but the conceptual foundations of international order. When the President of the United States publicly announced that Washington would “run” Venezuela following the seizure of Nicolás Maduro, the statement signified a return to a political vocabulary long believed to have been buried with formal colonialism. This was not humanitarian intervention, nor peacekeeping, nor multilateral enforcement. It was imperial trusteeship articulated without disguise.

That the act was justified through allegations of drug trafficking, electoral fraud, and authoritarianism is significant not for its persuasiveness, but for its familiarity. These justificatory narratives have accompanied imperial interventions for over a century, serving as moral alibis for material objectives. As Lenin observed, imperialism cloaks economic domination in ideological forms suited to the prevailing historical moment. In the twenty-first century, these forms include democracy promotion, counterterrorism, and anti-narcotics enforcement.

This article advances the argument that the Venezuelan intervention cannot be adequately understood through legalist or moral frameworks alone. Instead, it must be analysed as an expression of structural imperialism, rooted in monopoly capitalism, finance capital, and the strategic centrality of natural resources—particularly oil. The abduction of Maduro represents not a breakdown of the international order, but its logical culmination under unipolar conditions.

2. Imperialism as a Structural Stage of Capitalism

2.1 Lenin’s Theoretical Contribution

Lenin’s Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism remains among the most influential analyses of global political economy. Writing in the context of inter-imperialist rivalry preceding the First World War, Lenin identified imperialism as a distinct stage characterised by five interrelated features: the concentration of production and monopolies; the dominance of finance capital; the export of capital; the formation of international monopolist associations; and the territorial division of the world among great powers.

Crucially, Lenin rejected the notion that imperialism was a matter of policy preference or moral degeneration. Instead, he argued that it arose from capitalism’s internal contradictions—overaccumulation, declining profit rates, and surplus capital seeking external outlets. Imperialism thus represented capitalism’s attempt to postpone crisis by spatial expansion.

2.2 Contemporary Relevance

Despite claims that globalisation has dissolved imperial hierarchies, contemporary capitalism exhibits intensified monopoly power, unprecedented financialization, and heightened militarisation. Energy conglomerates, defence contractors, and financial institutions wield enormous influence over state policy, particularly in the United States. The Venezuelan episode demonstrates that imperialism has not vanished; it has merely adapted its ideological forms.

3. Oil and the Material Foundations of Intervention

Venezuela possesses the largest proven oil reserves in the world, estimated at over 300 billion barrels. This fact alone renders implausible any analysis that foregrounds democracy or narcotics control while marginalising resource politics. Historically, oil has constituted the strategic lifeblood of modern capitalism, shaping imperial interventions across regions and eras.

From Iran’s nationalisation of oil in 1951 to Iraq’s invasion in 2003 and Libya’s destruction in 2011, energy sovereignty has repeatedly triggered imperial retaliation. Venezuela’s nationalisation of its oil sector under Hugo Chávez represented a direct challenge to global energy monopolies historically aligned with U.S. power.

Trump’s assertion that Venezuelan oil had been “stolen” from the United States is revealing. It articulates an imperial ontology in which resources beneath another nation’s soil are treated as legitimate property of capital if monopolies are obstructed. Lenin described precisely this logic when he noted that imperialism reduces sovereignty to a negotiable instrument.

4. Sanctions, Scarcity, and Economic Warfare

Prior to overt intervention, imperialism typically operates through economic coercion. Venezuela has endured one of the most comprehensive sanctions regimes in modern history, targeting its financial system, oil exports, and access to international markets. Numerous studies have documented the humanitarian consequences of these measures, including shortages of medicine and food.

Sanctions function not merely as punitive instruments but as tools of political engineering. By inducing scarcity, they aim to delegitimise governments and fracture social cohesion. When popular discontent fails to produce regime change, sanctions escalate into direct intervention. The abduction of Maduro represents this escalation.

5. Regime Change as an Imperial Modality

5.1 Historical Continuities

The Venezuelan intervention fits a well-established imperial pattern observable across U.S. foreign policy history:

Iran (1953): Overthrow of Mohammad Mossadegh following oil nationalisation

Chile (1973): CIA-backed coup against Salvador Allende

Panama (1989): Invasion justified by narcotics charges

Iraq (2003): Fabricated claims of weapons of mass destruction

Libya (2011): NATO intervention resulting in state collapse

In each case, the rhetoric of democracy concealed economic and strategic objectives.

5.2 The Venezuelan Escalation

What distinguishes Venezuela is the explicitness of imperial assertion. Unlike earlier interventions cloaked in multilateral legality, this episode openly discards international norms. The declaration that the United States would “run” Venezuela marks a qualitative shift toward overt imperial governance.

6. International Law and It’s Hollowing Out

Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter prohibits the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. The abduction of a head of state and declaration of administrative control violate this principle unequivocally.

The selective enforcement of international law reveals its subordination to power. While weaker states face sanctions and interventions for violations, hegemonic powers operate with impunity. This asymmetry undermines the legitimacy of the global legal order.

7. Global Responses and the Fracturing of Hegemony

The international reaction to the Venezuelan intervention reveals deep fractures within the unipolar order. Latin American states—including Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, and Uruguay—condemned the action. European allies such as France and Spain expressed grave concern. China and Russia characterised the intervention as aggression.

Support came primarily from Israel and a small number of ideologically aligned regimes, highlighting the narrowing base of imperial legitimacy.

8. Palestine, Iran, and the Geography of Imperial Violence

The Venezuelan episode must be situated within a broader pattern of imperial violence. U.S. support for Israel’s destruction of Gaza, coupled with proposals to transform the territory into a commercial enclave, exemplifies the same logic of dispossession and resource control. Similarly, attacks on Iran under unverifiable security claims reflect imperial prerogative rather than collective security.

Lenin’s insight that imperialism relies on force to protect private interests finds renewed relevance here.

9. Unipolarity, Rivalry, and Systemic Instability

While the world remains formally unipolar, it is increasingly contested. Russia’s war in Ukraine and China’s economic expansion challenge U.S. dominance, though neither represents a fundamentally anti-imperialist alternative. Venezuela’s alignment with these powers heightens its strategic significance.

Unipolarity, however, breeds recklessness. Without effective constraints, hegemonic powers increasingly substitute coercion for consent, accelerating systemic instability.

10. India’s Silence and the Crisis of Democratic Credibility

India’s muted response to the Venezuelan intervention represents a significant departure from its historical anti-imperialist stance. As the world’s largest democracy and a leader of the Global South, India’s silence undermines its moral authority.

Non-alignment was not merely a diplomatic posture but an ethical commitment to sovereignty and self-determination. By failing to condemn the abduction of a sovereign leader, India risks eroding both its constitutional values and strategic autonomy.

11. Imperialism as Parasitism and Decay

Lenin characterised imperialism as parasitic capitalism, sustained by extracting surplus from abroad while stagnation deepens at home. Trump’s claim that Venezuela’s occupation would finance itself through oil revenues exemplifies this parasitism.

Imperialism today offers neither development nor stability. It produces permanent militarisation, humanitarian crises, and political decay.

12. Conclusion: Sovereignty or the Law of the Jungle

The Venezuelan crisis confronts the international community with a stark choice. Either sovereignty remains a universal principle, or it becomes conditional upon submission to imperial power. Either international law retains meaning, or it collapses into rhetorical ornament.

Maduro’s authoritarianism and economic mismanagement—real as they may be—do not legitimise external abduction or imperial administration. The struggle for Venezuela’s future belongs exclusively to its people.

Lenin warned that imperialism intensifies contradictions until the system itself becomes unsustainable. The Venezuelan episode suggests that this warning was not merely prophetic but diagnostic.

References

1.     Lenin, V I (1916): Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism.

2.     United Nations (1945): Charter of the United Nations.

3.     Galeano, E (1971): Open Veins of Latin America.

4.     Harvey, D (2003): The New Imperialism.

5.     Chomsky, N (2003): Hegemony or Survival.

6.     Prashad, V (2007): The Darker Nations.

7.     Amin, S (1977): Imperialism and Unequal Development.

8.     Arrighi, G (1994): The Long Twentieth Century.

9.     Reuters (2025): Reports on Venezuela and international reactions.

10.  New York Times (2025): Coverage of U.S. actions in Venezuela.