At Bharat Summit, Global Leaders Call For ‘Unity of Progressives’ Against Far-Right Forces

Hyderabad: Last week, the Congress-led Telangana government hosted one of the biggest gatherings of global progressives across the world in Hyderabad. The two-day conference on April 25-26 saw 1,336 Indian and 293 foreign delegates discussing possible measures to contain the surge of far-right forces across the world, with an understanding that India, too, has been one of countries where authoritarian and fascist tendencies have peaked over the last decade. 

Top Congress leaders like Rahul Gandhi, Salman Khurshid, Digvijaya Singh, and former Union minister M.M. Pallam Raju attended the meet, while opposition leaders like Rashtriya Janata Dal’s Manoj Kumar Jha and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s NVN Kanimozhi Somu also addressed the gathering.

Forging expansive solidarities between liberal, social democratic, socialist and Leftist forces across the world emerged as the biggest theme of the meeting. In doing so, participating activists, academics, policy makers, and politicians – a large section of who were members or supporters of the Progressive International, an international association – came together who discussed how their own political goals could come together in restricting the far-right forces. 

“Our attempt is to build bridges both nationally and internationally with an eye on changing both the global and domestic political order,” Congress leader M.V Rajeev Gowda told The Wire.

The 26-year-old Maria Alejandra Panay, Minister for Women Affairs from the Republic of Panama, said, “The advancements (in the direction of ensuring justice for all) is not guaranteed or linear. So solidarity and cultural awakening is needed, not isolated talks. Every issue of justice has to integrate intersectionality of all sections of marginalised people.”

The event focused particularly on issues of justice, those that the participants believed could bring together a cross-section of marginalised people in stemming the spread of the right-wing forces. 

A panel on economic justice at Bharat Summit in hyderabad, Telangana. Photo: Ajoy Ashirwad

The theme of justice (as an antidote to growing authoritarianism) resonated with the participants in every session that centred around economic, political and social justice, climate justice, social media and technology, pluralism and freedoms, and multilateralism. The Revanth Reddy government said that the event was conceptualised to mark the 70th anniversary of the 1955 Asian-African Bandung Conference, an event organised in Java, Indonesia, to oppose colonialism and neo-colonialism and which eventually paved the way for the Non-Aligned Movement. The Congress leaders also claimed that the Summit sought to amplify Rahul Gandhi’s “steadfast commitment to Nyay (Justice)”.

“We need to sit at the same table and work towards shared goals,” a Brazilian Leftist politician said. 

If Swedish leader Anne Linde believed that welfare advocacy for child care can bring together a cross-section of people, Monica Fein, an Argentinian politician, believed that an equality movement that could bring together women, workers and sexual minorities can be effective in restricting authoritarian leaders. 

Similarly, Linde, also a member of the Progressive International’s Trust, said that one now needs to devise ways to employ “intersectional” lenses in policy making. “We really need to think of feminist foreign policy and feminist trade policy, and have greater representation of women in government’s diplomatic delegations. Aspects of gender justice can’t merely be domestic issues,” she said.

Ann Linde, Progressive International Trust member, at Bharat Summit. Photo: Ajoy Ashirwad

Other delegates discussed how to tackle the growing menace of disinformation and hate on the internet. Most pleaded that the progressives should actively agree on a fundamental principle that guides freedom of expression. “What is illegal offline should be illegal online,” said Miapetra Kumpula – Natri, a Finnish social democratic leader. She also advocated for the need to have media literacy programmes. “Whom to trust is a question that surrounds us all.” 

Yet, a number of delegates shared a common understanding that the progressives may have failed to address the immediate and common concerns of people, leaving a political vacuum that is getting occupied by the far-right. 

“We need to reclaim the language of justice to challenge this politics of domination. We need to tell people that feminism is not a threat, anti-racism is not a threat. We need to understand that if the far-right can organise, we can do too. We need people to understand that our cultures are rooted in diversity and mutual respect, and that is the only way forward,” said Portuguese academic and politician Maria Joan Rodrigues. 

While European participants focused on employing intersectionality, the Latin Americans were more vocal about uniting factions within progressives. “We need unity of progressives in every respect; man-woman, workers of all colours and creed, Hindu-Muslim-Christian,” said one Brazilian participant.  

A trade unionist Todd Brogan pushed the idea of economic justice for workers, and emphasised that no justice can be delivered without bringing workers to the discussion table. “We think that there is an alternative. We need to assure the working population of the same. The Trump tariffs have disrupted the trade flow, but we as progressives can’t be now demanding for a status quo, which was an unfair system,” he said.

Brogan added, “Trade unions are rarely at the discussion table. We have locked them out of those discussions. If we are really thinking about economic justice, then it requires democratic practices. Workers need to be where their hands are on the wheels, as equal participants. They can’t be mere consumers of a status-quoist economic policy that may be seen as liberal but remains exploitative.”

German politician Armand Zorn said that one now needs to “question an international system as we know it. We need greater multilateralism that could rethink our international financial architecture.” 

Indian economist Jayati Ghosh said that the Trump tariffs have made all the global assumptions on how economies work redundant. “For instance, assumptions like export-led growth as drivers of the national economy, trickle-down effect, or manufacturing sector as the biggest employer are all gone. Financial globalisation has been a disaster. Trump has of course blown it over but it is not entirely his doing,” she said. 

“What we need now is good quality employment growth, universal access to basic services like good quality education and health care, not merely universal basic income. We need to enable the capabilities of people. All of it means better and bigger public resources, which will mean moving away from indirect taxation towards a progressive taxation system.” Ghosh said.

“A 4% tax for 965 richest Indian families can double the entire health spending,” she said, adding that her suggestion is to think of ways to generate fiscal resources internally instead of depending heavily on global trade and finance. 

Economist Kaushik Basu asked how long can humans “tolerate” such inequality. He said that the big corporates could be split up, and the share of MSMEs in the private sector needs to be drastically increased. 

The plenary session saw Rahul Gandhi speaking as well. He said that democratic policies across the globe have fundamentally changed. “Now, elected governments want to crush the opposition, not bring them on board. Tools that worked a decade ago don’t apply anymore. The old politician is dead, a new type of politician has to be constructed,” the Congress leader said.

Gandhi spoke about his Bharat Jodo Yatra, a unity march that he carried out from September 2022 to January 2023 from Kanyakumari to Kashmir. 

He said that the Narendra Modi government’s politics spread “anger, fear, and hatred”, and that “you can’t beat them that way”. He said that the Yatra taught him that by “listening” intently and carrying the message of love is the only way the Congress can build an ideological counter-narrative to the BJP.  

“I realised that I didn’t know how to listen deeply. I only knew how to speak. I also realised that I never told people that I love them, in spite of being in politics since 2004. I asked myself why haven’t I said this before?”

“I realised that our lens to look at politics should be of love. If their lens is anger, ours should be love,” Gandhi said.

The Bharat Summit ended with participants agreeing to a common charter called the “Hyderabad Resolution”, centred around the themes of global justice. The resolution was also the first for the Congress to espouse concerns of environment and climate justice at an international stage.

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