Fascism is an Italian word.

In an article titled the Rise of Fascism In Indian Politics, one Mr Kanti Bajpai accuses regional political parties of fascist tendencies. " India is halfway to becoming a fascist state - halfway because the central government is still relatively liberal and tolerates checks and balances while the states are increasingly in the grip of fascist political parties," he writes. By central he of course means the Congress because it is the largest party in government supported by a number of the same regional parties that Mr Bajpai calls fascist. The questions that immediately arise are 1. Why do people vote for such parties? When Nehru was alive you could put up a chair as a candidate and it would win, such was the reverence for the Congress. Now it is despised and wins elections by bribing the electorate with trillions of taxpayer money bringing the economy to its knees. 2. Why is the Congress hand in glove with these fascists? A lot of these parties are dependent on the Congress for survival, having been wiped out in their respective states, and a lot of these regional thugs are supporting the Congress in return for their crimes being suppressed. Indeed so keen is the Congress to somehow hold on to power that they have created 47 ministries when the US has only 22 people of cabinet rank and China actually reduced the politburo membership from 9 to 7. " Everything they do is ostensibly in the name of the people..." Mr Bajpai writes of the regional parties. They have learnt from the aam aadmi slogan of the Congress. While Korea, Taiwan and China have become immensely rich we are still a poor country because without hundreds of millions of hungry aam aadmi to bribe with freebies they would be thrown out. The Congress or those who started life in the Congress and then left it to join the Janata Dal have ruled India for 59 out of 65 years of independence. Out of the 14 Prime Ministers we have had only Mr Vajpayee was never in the Congress, having started in the Hindu Mahasabha and then forming the BJP. " A fascist party must have an all-powerful, charismatic leader before which party members, and later everyone else, must bow," he says. Absolutely. Every party has just one such person but the Congress has The Family. To rise in the Congress everyone has to genuflect to The Family and acknowledge its absolute right to continue in power forever. So powerful is The Family that the BJP, when in power, did not dare to investigate the Bofors scam even though the Argentine government had detained Quattrocchi for extradition. The BJP also gifted a free government accommodation to Ms Priyanka Gandhi with security at taxpayer expense even though her husband is an immensely rich businessman with properties worth at least Rs 3 billion around Delhi. Mr Bajpai should be careful before accusing people of fascism. After all " fascismo " is an Italian word.