Author Arundhati Roy has said that “fascism has led to a situation where people are of the opinion that only four people are running the country — two are buying, two are selling ”.

Speaking on the third day of the CPI-ML congress in Patna on Friday, Roy added: “The four people are the Prime Minister, the Union home minister, Ambani and Adani.”

“However, there is a difference between the fascism of Germany and that of India. Hitler came to power when Germany was economically in shambles after World War I. He built his country and raised an air force. But the fascists here are just destroying everything,” she added.

Roy pointed out that “Hindutva” was a soft word being used for fascism and even the Left parties were shying away from calling the bluff.

“This violent Hindu fascism is underwritten by big corporate houses and this is the Gujarat model of development. Will we call fascism as fascism only when a continent is destroyed? The anti-caste and anti-capitalist protests will have to come together to resist fascism,” the author of The God of Small Things said.

The Booker Prize winner called for a better understanding of the caste system in which the principles of equality and fraternity did not exist.

“Thousands and thousands of people became Muslims, Christians and Sikhs to escape this caste system. The paradox is that 80 per cent of these Muslims are ‘Pasmanda’ (Dalit or backward) Muslims and the BJP and RSS are accusing them of having ruled us,” Roy added.

Attacking the BJP-led government at the Centre in the context of the Hindenberg report that alleged accounting fraud and stock market manipulation by the Adani group and the income tax surveys at BBC offices, Roy said the country’s policies favour Adani.

“This is a very big crisis. The international banks are refusing to give money to Adani, but a large number of projects are in his hands. What will happen to them? The government will put pressure on banks and LIC to give him money. While all this is happening, where did the income tax raid take place? It happened on the BBC,” she said.

Roy said she had seen the two-part BBC film on Modi, which examines his role as chief minister during the 2002 Gujarat riots and later as Prime Minister.

“I am also present in one of them. We want to put on record in history that there were many people who did not agree with what happened in the country,” she said.

Talking to The Telegraph later, Roy asserted that the Left parties alone cannot defeat the BJP and it was imperative for the other parties like the Congress and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal United to come together to take on the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.