Arundhati Roy’s Embedded Essay
Sudhanva Deshpande comments on the "embedded journalism" of Arundhati Roy in Maoist territory. A shorter version of the article is appearing in the Outlook Magazine.
‘Embedded journalism refers to news reporters being attached to military units involved in armed conflicts. . . . Gina Cavallaro, a reporter for the Army Times, said, “They’re [the journalists] relying more on the military to get them where they want to go, and as a result, the military is getting smarter about getting its own story told.”’
— Wikipedia on ‘Embedded Journalism’
It was early morning, about 5, and I was waiting at the station for the train to arrive. As the book stall opened, I dove into the Hindi pulp fiction section. Surendra Mohan Pathak’s first two Vimal thrillers, in a single volume, beckoned me. As I paid for the book, Arundhati Roy’s name leapt out at me from the cover of Outlook. It was her long essay on the Maoists.
Whether we agree with Roy or not we read her because she surprises us. There is always some statistic, some quotation, some ironic observation, that makes one say, ‘Hey, I hadn’t thought of that before’. This time though, I found myself being disappointed by her. It is almost a cliché of such reportage (of a writer’s encounter with an underground group) to begin with the rendezvous and end on a note of wistful longing. Roy does both. Come on Arundhati, I wanted to say, surprise us – for clichés I can read Surendra Mohan Pathak.
One is of course glad that voices like hers exist, and that she commands enough star value for Outlook to bill their issue a ‘collector’s item’. Roy writes with feeling, and she is superb at catching irony – e.g., the description of Dantewada as a border town smack in the centre of India, or the Indian rulers’ adoption of China’s path as their own path. Her writing is poetic, it seduces. Even when you are not persuaded by the argument, you want to side with her.
In this essay, she introduces us to a veritable cast of characters: Comrade Maase, who ‘seems to have to swim through a layer of pain to enter the conversation’; the senior Comrade Venu (Sushil, Sonu, Murali) who ‘looks for all the world like a frail village schoolteacher’; Comrade Sukhdev, ‘a crazy workaholic’; Comrade Kamla, who prefers watching ‘ambush videos’ to Hindi movies.
Er . . . ambush videos? Roy describes one, which starts with ‘shots of Dandakaranya, rivers, waterfalls, the close-up of a bare branch of a tree, a brainfever bird calling. Then suddenly a comrade is wiring up an IED, concealing it with dry leaves. A cavalcade of motorcycles is blown up. There are mutilated bodies and burning bikes. The weapons are being snatched. Three policemen, looking shell-shocked, have been tied up.’ Roy was outraged and shocked, as all of us were, when Hindutva goons reportedly videographed violence against Muslims in Gujarat and these videos then did the rounds of lending libraries. Comrade Kamla, who only likes watching ‘ambush videos’ of ‘mutilated bodies and burning bikes’, is marching, Roy wants to persuade us, ‘to keep hope alive for us all’. Some ironies escape the best writers, it seems.
Consider the joke she recounts at the end of the essay. Sukhdev asks her if she knows what to do if they come under fire. ‘Yes,’ she says, ‘immediately declare an indefinite hunger strike.’ Sukhdev laughs so hard he has to sit.
So what is Sukhdev laughing at? At Roy’s writerly wit? Or at her scorn for ‘indefinite hunger strikes’? In an earlier day and age, Roy helped focus the world’s attention on a massive, peaceful, neo-Gandhian protest against destruction in the name of development. On countless occasions, hundreds of thousands of people took part in ‘indefinite hunger strikes’ and other forms of non-violent and moral resistance. One may or may not have agreed with every aspect of their, and Roy’s, critique. But the moral force of their argument was unquestioned. By recounting her joke without irony, however, Roy mocks her own past, her commitment to a movement she was (and is?) so passionate about.
Reading Roy, one is struck by her refusal to debate. She sees nothing wrong in the Maoists becoming a handmaiden of the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal to exterminate cadres of the CPI (M), mostly tribals, Muslims, and other rural poor. Well, ok. But what about the critics of the CPI (M) who are also the critics of the Maoists? Recently, several articles in the Economic and Political Weekly posed probing questions about whether we have reached the limits of bourgeois democracy in India, about the Maoists’ belief in violence as the only instrument of change, the sheer brutality of their violence, their penchant of taking over peaceful resistance, their intolerance of dissent and debate, their programmatic understanding of the Indian revolution, etc. Aditya Nigam wrote a thoughtful essay, and Sumanta Banerjee had a fascinating exchange with a spokesperson of the CPI (Maoist). These are criticisms from the left – not by Gandhian pacifists. All that is water off Roy’s back. In rubbishing powerful critiques by cocking a rhetorical snook at them Roy demeans herself.
On every criticism of Maoist tactics and methods, she responds with rhetoric, not reason. Charu Mazumdar fetishises violence and gore – but, says Roy, look at the beautiful dancing tribals. The Maoists believe in protracted war – naturally, counters Roy, because the really protracted war is being waged by the Indian state. The Maoists do not take part in non-violent protest and mass politics – why should they, asks Roy, what did non-violence win the Narmada Bachao Andolan? The Maoists dish out summary justice in kangaroo courts – but they don’t kill everybody, Roy tells us earnestly, and in any case we all know how skewed our judicial system is. And so on.
In the end, though, the problem with Roy’s essay is that it is a piece of embedded journalism. Trekking day and night with gun-wielding rebels is doubtless a reporter’s fantasy. We need to get more such accounts, which give us a sense of the dreams and desperations that drive young women and men to the gun. What she does not do is question the Maoists’ conceptual framework.
Reading her essay, one is struck by the binary oppositions that frame it – brutal state repression versus ruthless armed rebellion; mining corporations versus innocent tribals; rampaging industrialism versus primitive communism. There is no middle ground, there are no other players. There is no conception of militant mass protest and resistance that does not take the shape of armed insurrection. I am not coy about the necessity to resort to violence, especially when you are under attack. The Maoists, however, are a different kettle of fish – they resort to bloodshed at the first instance, not the last, and the nature of their violence is also particularly gruesome.
The Maoists and the tribals, according to Roy, are one entity. If you have any sympathy for tribals and other poor, you must, ipso facto, support the Maoists. This is the terrain where the interests of the Indian ruling classes and the Maoists converge perfectly. In this framework, the only alternative to the violence of the state is the violence of the Maoists. Either you are with the one or you are with the other.
It is in the nature of embedded journalism to get close enough to the ‘action’ to give us an authentic sense of the smells and the sights. Roy does that. It is also in the nature of embedded journalism that it remains prisoner to the conceptual framework of the embedder. A truly critical intelligence would cut through it and assert itself. Roy, however, chooses to be smitten.
Sudhanva Deshpande is an actor and director with Jana Natya Manch, Delhi. He works as editor at LeftWord Books.
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branded clothes
just as an aside, isn't arundhati roy wearing branded clothes and footwear in the photograph? what hypocrisy!!
To Arundhati Roy and all her
To Arundhati Roy and all her political (??)supporters
making a revolution is not about writing bestsellers. its about perseverance and a lot of dedication and hard work. what an irony that the "revolutionaries" she is arguing for have not even been able ti make an impact on either the common people or the ruling classes of this country except in some selected pockets and sporadic incidents which boil down to killing people and destroying public property.
I will request Pinaki to read
I will request Pinaki to read this piece of article and comments. In fact I will request in Pragoti to read this piece and the comments associated with the article.
http://kafila.org/2009/10/22/complicating-the-naxalite-debate/#comment-8892
@kafila readers
i read the piece and liked it a lot. i will also request kafila readers to visit this link and comment:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/south-asia/Nepals-Prachanda-hoo...
Sudhanva D on Roy
I think Sudhanva has made the point quite well - one does not have to choose between two sets of banditti!! If the maoists have anything other than martial objectives and achievements - it does not seem to bear out in terms of better health and education and justice -- while "power- all political power- flows out from the barrel of the gun - and the party must control the gun and the gun must not be allowed to control the party" -- looks like the Maoists have not really stuck to the credo in any meaningful way.
Arundhati Roy
I guess there are 2 aspects which need to be looked at independently .
One is Arundhati's general sense of revulsion against the oppressive social order which has stirred her sensitive soul. Let us appreciate this aspect in an age when crass materialism and pursuit of consumerist goals have become the order of the day.
At the same time, we can question her politics which finds nothing wrong in senseless violence indulged in by forces which have otherwise taken up cudgels for the oppressed, however misguided and misplaced it might be.
It is her lack of politcial awareness which nees sto be questioned. Violence has historically been justified by Marxists only when democratic avenues have exhausted - at the inflexion point where bourgeois democracy is thown to the winds. Even at that stage killing of individuals in Che Guevara - Al Qaida - Charu Majumdar style amounts to romantic Anarchism and Terrorism , not Revolution .
Upal
Misses the mark, and ricochets back
Utterly unconvincing. If the author had actually engaged with Roy's arguments, perhaps there would have been something worthwhile here. Instead, he compliments Roy's eloquence as if that proved the emptiness of her argument. Look, son: just because you can not write as well as her does not mean that your arguments are better. Facility with wordplay does not have an inverse relationship to intellectual soundness. (If anything, the relationship is direct.) The remainder is elaboration on the obvious. Roy was 'embedded', so the view she got of the Maoists was one that was favorable to them - really, d'ya think? (For someone throwing accusations of using cliches, this is a tad hypocritical.) And the Maoists' violence is brutal? As opposed to gentle, soft and cuddly violence?
And: "[Roy refuses] to debate. She sees nothing wrong in the Maoists becoming a handmaiden of the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal to exterminate cadres of the CPI (M)." If that's true, then the next time I write a friend about the latest football match, then I too am refusing to debate and see nothing wrong with the epidemic of rape in Australian cities. Roy doesn't mention this issue anywhere in her essay, possibly because she went to Chhattisgarh, not West Bengal, and that wasn't the point of her piece. Anyhow, I'm going to go back to writing an email to my sister about how her weekend was, thereby proving that I don't give a damn about global warming.
But first, I'd like to see a critic of Roy's come up with a compelling response to this line of questioning: "I feel I ought to say something at this point. About the futility of violence, about the unacceptability of summary executions. But what should I suggest they do? Go to court? Do a dharna at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi? A rally? A relay hunger strike? It sounds ridiculous. The promoters of the New Economic Policy -- who find it so easy to say "There Is No Alternative" -- should be asked to suggest an alternative Resistance Policy. A specific one, to these specific people, in this specific forest. Here. Now. Which party should they vote for? Which democratic institution in this country should they approach? Which door did the Narmada Bachao Andolan not knock on during the years and years it fought against Big Dams on the Narmada?"
To Uncle Josephus
Uncle Joe,
You obviously are unfamiliar with what the Maoists are doing in West Bengal. Perhaps you should get a hold of facts and what even Maoist sympathisers such as Sumanta Banerjee are saying about it. And then there are others from the Left who have examined the Maoists' work in Chattisgarh as well - scholars such as Nandini Sundar. They don't get all mushy and romantic about Maoist soldiers watching film of killing state security forces.
One can't be enamoured by what the Maoists suggest as political praxis without looking at their praxis at work in its entirety. Its almost like Truman Capote admiring Perry Smith's brilliant art work and writing paens about it ignoring that Smith used his hands for some other purposes as well (such as killing Herb Clutter's family) (Trying my hand at an American example).
As for your later part, those very same Dharnas and relay hunger strikes have also resulted in alternates to the New Economic Policy (by which you mean the neoliberal policies) in terms of codified rights of forest people. Ever heard of the Tribal Forest Act? Why couldn't the Maoists work in the forest (here and now) and see to it that the Act is implemented in both letter and spirit? Why can't they exhaust the democratic process and defeat the inimical forces and become the accountable democratic body that the tribals have recourse to? Why should the tribals be reduced to watching films of ambushes and murders?
While Sudhanva has written a
While Sudhanva has written a well articulated rebuttal of the pseudo-revolutionary Arundhati Roy, the actual analysis of her brand of revolutionary firebrand politics, from the perspective of class, had been done in 1920 by a man named V.I. Lenin, when he said,
"A petty bourgeois driven to frenzy by the horrors of capitalism is a social phenomenon which, like anarchism, is characteristic of all capitalist countries. The instability of such revolutionism, its barrenness, and its tendency to turn rapidly into submission, apathy, phantasms, and even a frenzied infatuation with one bourgeois fad or another—all this is common knowledge."
Ms. Roy's claim that all forms of democratic struggle within the Indian State has become obsolete and therefore the need for armed revolution is on the agenda is another example of the infantile whims of the author. it is through democratic struggles that the organized left in the country ensured land to the tiller in three states, established panchayati raj, propagated and implemented alternative set of policies....again, it is through consistent mass work and struggles that the marginalized sections, dalits, adivasis have ensured that reservation is ensured, untouchability be shunned by the state...again, it is through consistent democratic movements that the women organizations have ensured that the Women's Reservation Bill is kept alive and formally passed in the Parliament...contrary to these small achievements of the organized movements of the left and other people's movements, the movement led by Ms. Roy's comrades have achieved absolutely nothing. moreover, they have never raised their voices against imperialism or communalism or other reactionary trends in the Indian polity. But Ms. Roy overlooks them because she does not care. sitting at the top echleon of the society she need not bother. but to show her revolutionary ferment exposing her petty-bourgeois class background she has to demand the end of capitalism. the method or the praxis that she advocates is little more than romanticism and cynicism for the democratic left movement in the country.
it is undoubtedly the case that the present economic and political structure has to be overthrown but it is also undoubtedly the case that the Maoists are the last ones to actually do it.
cpi-m and the other cpi-m in west midnapore
dear readers
some times it is very difficult to judge what is wrong and what is right, more so when the debate surrounds some social event, i am sure for every supporter of marx and lenin there is at least one Detractor .
but if you look into the reality of the marxists and maoists at midnapore, you would see that, whether we support or not, the mayhem the maoist are creating is the only possible outcome of things that happened here.
land reform did take place here, until the middle peasantry joined cpim, and soon the landless and marginal farmers were forced to join them, cpi which once led the rural proletariat became a marginal force.
when left and cpim overwhelmingly won the first three tier panchayet, it is the middle peasantry that took control over the local self government, and i am not ashamed to say my father was one of them.
as time went by, our party has completely lost its political character, in the villages those who run the party are more powerful and greedy than the earlier landlords. in the towns there is no division between party, police, administration , promoters and mafia.
village after village go without safe drinking water, lesser number of pipes been used while boring tube-well.
primary schools go without teachers, they are busy otherwise, doing party work.
health centres are run by contingent and gr IV staffers.
agricultural loans are issued to dead and fictitious persons.
public procurement is done with the active assistance of hoarders and cold storage owners.
appointment in schools and offices are given against money.
state fund for development is shamelessly plundered, even nrega payments.
and you cannot protest.
you can not question the new found opulence of the leaders.
to get any rightful claim, be it a job, a bpl card, widow pension anything, you have to abide by the dictate of the leaders.
my head hang in shame when i see, this is the party for which my uncle sacrificed his life, for which my father had no time to look after his family, which at home we still call 'our party'.
is prakas karat listening? he should resign if he has any conscience left.
no, i still don't support mamata and her clan, neither i support the maoists, but living in a place called midnapore, i know arundhuti roy is not telling lies, and i suspect people who deny the plain truth that we are forced to acknowledge, are either virtual revolutionaries before their computer or liars paid by someone to lie.
bibhabasu sen, rangamati, midnapore
@bibha basu's deception
dear bibha basu,
i know your father and family well. why are you spreading canards in public forums. your father or uncle were neither peasants nor have they ever been a part of the left movement, let alone making any sacrifices. who has heard about a basu being a peasant in bengal - middle or otherwise!! rural elites like yourself have always resented the cpim because your social power and hegemony was demolished during the left front regime. today you are trying to ride piggy back on the shoulders of maoists and TMC to regain your class power and status, so that the rural poor from our communities can be once again subjugated and exploited. in this diabolic game, our community members, most of whom are cpm supporters are being killed on a daily basis. but our resolve is strong. we will die but not abandon the red flag that has given us dignity and taught us to fight for justice.
dipak tudu
binpur, paschim medinipur
Embedded journalism
What is conspicuous by its absence in Roy's short novel is the sense of history and an understanding of revolutionary politics in India. How can it be otherwise when her mother clearly spells out at the outset what India needs now: A revolution.
I don't know if Roy knows the historical fact that the founders of the so-called mainstream left once wielded rifles, made bombs and led dalams. They shifted to parliamentary poliltics after having treaded the path of armed revolution and realising its futility in the objective conditions prevaiing in post-Independence India. Their renunciation of armed revolution is not absolute.
The question is whether the "mainstream left" has strayed too much into parliamentarism and the so-called Maoists have left the parliamentary arena to the predatory politcians of the bourgeois parties.
The answer lies somewhere in the middle.
While the pulls of parliamentary politics are proving to be too strong for some leaders of the 'mainstream left" to think of living with and learning from the masses, the adventurist thrills of armed revolution are keeping the "Maoists" within the tribal belts of India.
Left in the lurch (no pun intended) are the majority of Indians who live on just Rs.20 a day in the villages, small towns, and urban slums of India.
The debate continues. In the meantime,
"In this room, writers come and go/ Talking of Mao". Sorry I got T.S. Eliot wrong. He wrote: "In this room women come and go/Talking of Michaelangelo"."
Well articulated rebuttal??
Well articulated rebuttal?? Since when did sweeping, unfounded, blatantly prejudiced statements such as "The Maoists, however, are a different kettle of fish – they resort to bloodshed at the first instance, not the last, and the nature of their violence is also particularly gruesome" - constitute well articulated rebuttals? But the debate here is a bit pointless: what else would an essentially CPM person have to say about a Maoist sympathiser? The CPM has huge stakes in the very same industrial juggernauts that are financing Operation Green Hunt; are we seriously going to expect it to say anything else?
As for the quote from Lenin (this would be a serious case of the Devil quoting the scriptures, except for the sheer inappropriateness of the analogy), it was the very same Lenin who wrote extensively about the use of the army and police by bourgeois democracies to brutally suppress the revolutionary impulse - and that the parliament in bourgeois democracies will never be anything more than the illusion of democracy, and the instrument by which that illusion is maintained.... things have not changed much in a hundred years....
I could go on, but I realise also that this is not a debate, this is a judgement and an execution I am responding to ("Pseudo-revolutionary??!! - isn't this as bad as the BJP-RSS labelling everyone who had the slightest secular credentials, 'pseudo-secularists'??!!), and the only reason for the response, is to indicate the profoundly judgmental quality of the discourse here - and to remind all readers that when political discourse begins to sound like moral catechism, it's time to pull back and wonder what's being hidden - in this instance, the CPM's stakes in perpetuating Operation Green Hunt.
@musafir
you are upset about "sweeping, unfounded statements" in Sudhanva's article...well in a short comment that you have posted you claim that CPI(M) has huge stakes in the industrial juggernauts who are financing Operation Green Hunt...if this is objective factual statement, then nobody yet has written about fiction.....the maoist fantasizing about the cpim being a part of the ruling classes in India is as distant from reality as Lenin was from the Tsars....before pointing fingers at CPI(M) you should at least read what the CPI(M) has to say
"The CPI (M) believes that the battle against Maoists cannot be carried out successfully merely on the strength of security forces. Banning them is not a solution to tackle violence and the spree of killings that Maoists armed squads indulge in." (http://www.cpim.org/documents/2009-maoist-violence.pdf)
Now, coming to Lenin, you have vociferously argued that Lenin pointed out the limitations and oppressive nature of bourgeois democracies...well, you have half-read Lenin...let me quote him again,
"How can one say that "parliamentarianism is politically obsolete", when "millions" and "legions" of proletarians are not only still in favour of parliamentarianism in general, but are downright "counter-revolutionary"!?" [in India millions and millions of poor vote and participate in parliamentary democracy and maoists claim that it is obsolete. It is clear on whose side Lenin is]
Again to quote Lenin:
"...parliament has become most odious to the revolutionary vanguard of the working class. That cannot be denied. It can readily be understood, for it is difficult to imagine anything more infamous, vile or treacherous than the behaviour of the vast majority of socialist and Social-Democratic parliamentary deputies during and after the war. It would, however, be not only unreasonable but actually criminal to yield to this mood when deciding how this generally recognised evil should be fought. In many countries of Western Europe, the revolutionary mood, we might say, is at present a "novelty", or a "rarity", which has all too long been vainly and impatiently awaited; perhaps that is why people so easily yield to that mood. Certainly, without a revolutionary mood among the masses, and without conditions facilitating the growth of this mood, revolutionary tactics will never develop into action. In Russia, however, lengthy, painful and sanguinary experience has taught us the truth that revolutionary tactics cannot be built on a revolutionary mood alone. Tactics must be based on a sober and strictly objective appraisal of all the class forces in a particular state (and of the states that surround it, and of all states the world over) as well as of the experience of revolutionary movements. It is very easy to show one’s "revolutionary" temper merely by hurling abuse at parliamentary opportunism, or merely by repudiating participation in parliaments; its very ease, however, cannot turn this into a solution of a difficult, a very difficult, problem."
the Maoists in India going by Lenin's terminology suffer from infantile disorder coming from a petty bourgeois class position...therefore instead of building up solid class struggles they are killing poor tribals in Lalgarh in the name of revolution....to show their revolutionary temper they hurl abuse at parliamentary democracy with ease...but as Lenin said cannot turn this into a solution....this variety of rhetorical barren revolutionary ferment is no revolutionary ferment at all and hence should be termed as pseudo-revolutionary....
lastly, please, please please, someone from the Maoist bandwagon please cite one achievement of the Maoist movement in the country, for the tribals/dalits/women/minorities or any other downtrodden sections in India.
PS: if you are wondering from where I am quoting Lenin, please refer to his booklet, Leftwing Communism: An Infantile Disorder, http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/index.htm
Arundhati Roy's lament "But
Arundhati Roy's lament
"But what should I suggest they do? Go to court? Do a dharna at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi? A rally? A relay hunger strike? It sounds ridiculous. The promoters of the New Economic Policy -- who find it so easy to say "There Is No Alternative" -- should be asked to suggest an alternative Resistance Policy. A specific one, to these specific people, in this specific forest. Here. Now. Which party should they vote for? Which democratic institution in this country should they approach? Which door did the Narmada Bachao Andolan not knock on during the years and years it fought against Big Dams on the Narmada?"
I wonder why it is so ridiculous to go to court, to take out rallies and using forms of protest that do not involve guns and ammunition. What is the purpose of resistance? For any communist it can not just be a tool to set right the immediate wrongs. It can not be a quick fix of the problem. A larger purpose of resistance is to politicise the masses and bring them in to cohesive unit of resistance that would fight for a better society. A court battle or a rally or a strike may not always achieve their immediate purpose but they are very effective tools of propaganda and mobilisation for communists. By Calling these methods of resistance ridiculous, Arundhati Roy only exposes her own immaturity and utter stupidity.
By indulging in mindless violence and ill timed armed struggle, Maosits have deprived themselves of more effective means of popular mobilisation and resistance showing similar political immaturity and lack of understanding.
Congrats Author for
Congrats Author for discarding Ms. Roy's opinions,
I haven't read Marx, nor Lenin,,but what I find falacious is----The same league of 'activists' (I would call them patriarchal charitists) so far were seen dancing with principle of 'non-violence' o their heads...now the same bandwagon seems to have found way in 'violence'...In my opinin, without knowing the nature of the struggle-weapons/means cannot be decided...essentialism, be it of violence or non-violence is superficial....
Lets not forget, the people like Roy are absolute darlings of NGO agents, and class(es) of people who like to see reforms happening, without once questioning their own ideological and cultural capitals...let alone the material capital.....
Congrats once again
Ruhaan
ps. It wud be better not to consider people like Ms. Patkar almost the same as Roy....direct political participation (though non-electoral) and mass base make a huge difference....
On outsider intellectuals
First, congratulations to Sudhanva for an insightful article. The rebel Trinamul MP, Kabir Suman has aptly pointed out in a song in his latest album 'Chattrodhorer Gaan' (Chattrodhor's Song): "Jongol tumi kaar? (Jungle, who are you for?) Bairer tatwik naaki jonmo shutre jaar (for outsider theorists/intellectuals, or for sons of the forests)". Perhaps, Suman could not realise that he is actually speaking against himself and his own fellow passengers whom he has sympathy and support---the outsider intellectual and the educated middle class leadership of CPI(Maoist)---all desperately trying hard to become the saviour/messiah of the poor, exploited and oppressed tribals. Almost like the film, 'Avatar', the agent of class enemy becoming the leader of the movement against corporate land grabbing with the only exception that these outsider intellectuals still cannot renounce the class symbols of branded Fab India clothes, Gucci sunglasses and Nike shoes. While, Jake--the messiah (avatar) in the Hollywood film do not wish to become the so called civilized American marine any more, our outsider intellectuals supporting the Maoist cause are neither taking up arms in their own hands with a military outfit like the Maoist guerillas nor becoming the quintessential 'authentic' tribal.
These 'outsiders' can be called in Leninist terms as 'a petty bourgeois driven to frenzy by the horrors of capitalism’. However, it is worth pondering over the idea that whether the ‘outsider’ as a theoretical concept was also important to the Leninist imaginary of the vanguard party for it would try to bring in the socialist consciousness among the toiling masses from ‘outside’ where the Marxian concept of ‘class in itself’ would transform to ‘class for itself’ [For a detailed theoretical analysis of Leninist concept of consciousness see Ajit K. Chaudhury, "In Search of a Subaltern Lenin", in Ranajit Guha (ed.), 'Subaltern Studies V: Writings on South Asian History and Society' (New Delhi: OUP, 1987), pp. 236-251]. But we also need to distinguish here two distinct kinds of ‘outsiders’---the vanguard party as an outsider is always with the people, in its happiness and sorrows and becomes a part of its everyday struggles, while giving leadership to the political resistances against the very discriminatory and unequal policies of the state, against the wrath of its repressive apparatuses and wage ideological struggles, which try to justify such an unequal, oppressive and exploitative order. In this context, the vanguard party ceases to become an ‘outsider’ and hence become an ‘insider’ both in context and content, since, the Leninist imaginary was that the future leaders of the vanguard party would be coming from the toiling masses itself.
Now, our outsider intellectuals are not living with the tribals on a daily basis. Neither they are giving leadership to their everyday political resistances and struggle to achieve certain democratic demands of socio-economic and political nature. At best, these outsiders are more interested to ideologically support the Maoist cause rather than critiquing the mindless Maoist violence. Today, the Maoists are neither targeting the class enemies rather killing poor tribals, ordinary CPI[M] workers, school teachers etc. who can well be the part of a larger anti-imperialist and anti-establishment struggle. The Maoists are in fact less interested in articulating the demands of the tribals. In this respect, Suman is 'exceptional' since he has on record in a Star Ananda interview criticised the killings of even CPI[M] members, tried to articulate the issues of poverty, development and oppression of the Tribals, tried to expose the limits of parliamentary democracy by equating it with Montessori school even if he himself is a parliamentarian and differentiates between Chattrodhor Mahato--the tribal leader representing the "poor and oppressed people" according to his version and the Maoists. He claims that his views and songs are "neither against Trinamul, nor against the CPI(M) but against the arrogant state power." But at the same time, his wish is "to defeat the Left Front in Bengal and Mamata as CM" but nonetheless supports the Maoist cause by opposing Operation Green Hunt and banning the Maoists or for that matter, opposed to ban any party. Evidently, Suman is confused but still he had some guts, who openly challenged the autocratic attitude of Trinamul Congress and thus exposed the utter dictatorship of Trinamul chairperson, which even the anti-Left newspaper, 'The Telegraph' could not hide to report.
But we don’t know what the tribals actually want. The media is hardly bothered about the voice of the tribals. In this way, the voice of the true victims of an unequal system--the tribals have been repressed. Instead what we get to know everyday is about the daily dose of ‘expert’ ‘gyan’ (enlightened knowledge) from these high profile ‘outsiders’---the media savvy Roy, Suman and Kishenji (albeit hiding his face from the camera). What a shame for a Maoist leader who hide himself and his plans, whose organisation claims that it is ‘communist’. Perhaps, Kishenji should pay due respect to Marx and Engels: “The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare…”— The Communist Manifesto, 1848.
maoist, roy and their followers
the present maoist crisis reminds me of one novel by Dostoevsky- 'devils', there the immoral terrorists were actually a by product of potentially immoral liberals, in present indian scenario too, maoism is the natural corollary of what cpi, cpim etc professed for a long time, but now avoid as history has irrevocably proved that revolution achieves little except a huge death toll. look into the history of russia, china, east europe, cuba, it all seems to be a costly and lengthy path to capitalism.
if we consider what marx said is true and scientific, even then, one cannot show the inevitability of evolution of a classless society, the social dynamics of historical materialism and supremacy of matter surely ensure another higher state of class and class struggle.
then, why attempt if you cannot achieve?
beside this super religious goal of establishing communism, there is another aspect of marxism, it attempts to explain the routine social upheaval that is caused by exploitations and discrimination s of different degree, and social discontent, revolt etc predate marx and all such theories of revolution. when the earlier line of defense(ie, the mother of all revolutions) fails the second fails too.
believe it or not, this is an endless cycle, a cantor set, essar's painting, that is why mathematicians like to call it a complex system, till date a complex system has no global solution.
when we were students we endlessly debated these things, so many people enlightened us about the fallibility of revolutions, those who spoke against it and those who spoke for it, theories of paulo freire and gramsci and that of popper and friedman, both equally undermine the the possibilities that are said to be hidden in proletarian revolution.
25 years after those days people are still debating the matter. with the same vigour, newer actors have joined the debate, meanwhile a few crores have died wanting minimal necessities, cadres have become leaders, leaders millionaire,(look into net for assets of the left contestants), marxists maoists, maoists gandhians without any outcome, any decline in death toll or poverty, whose who have eaten to their fill, speak to the hungry of the wonderful time to come.
we who blog, chat, write over this issues are no worse than arundhuti roy who being an award winning storyteller of dirt and suicidal confusion has taken up a new past time.
but my worse fear is whether marx also did the same having found nothing else to do.
You have nothing else to do
Dear Alok ranjan,
You wasted your precious time. You could have use this time to read one more Dostoevsky's book or any other author you like.
You could have gone for a matinee in any of the multiplex nearby. Or you could have gone to any NGO to do some charity work.
Why do you discuss Marxism and its futility after your 25 years of intense discussion?
to alokranjan
the fears that you have are not new or unique, especially, in the post-90’s era. the middle class typically behaves this way – it talks about equality and justice if revolution seems imminent and discusses the inevitability of exploitation if the going seems tough.
looks like the horrors of capitalism have driven roy to the frenzy of anarchism, but have driven you to the depths of despair and cynicism.
please read marx again – “philoshophers have interpretted the world in various ways, the point, however, is to change it”.
If you are really concerned about the poverty and misery of crores, please do something about it. if you believe that your contribution to building a better world is discouraging others from doing something….well….the only words of consolation I can offer you is that atleast your conscience seems to be pricking you still…
As long as you are not turning your back completely on the condition of millions, there is hope for you still…please keep on reading such articles…maybe you would find a way...
To Mr. Alokranjan
I think you have been completely immersed into pessimism. And some of your facts are also incorrect. Marx was never doing a pass time. Rather he was writing in utter poverty and bad health. Why would a person write volumes of work for his pass time without getting enough bread for his family in exile. Certainly, it did not give any material benefits to Marx. And the issue of leisurely pass time only comes when someone has nothing to do because he/she already is secured in monetary terms and can afford to have such a pass time. Surely, it was not the case for Marx. Marx wrote because he was a visionary, who wanted to unearth the scientific truth behind the economic institutions and socio-political organisations that governs our economy and society and how to change/transform the unequal and discriminatory society into an emancipatory one for the oppressed, exploited, excluded and marginalised. In this big/great world, we are all lesser mortals trying to survive with dignity. Marx gave a programmatic agenda, a meaningful way of life for how to change the world to have a life of dignity with equal opportunity.
There were many failed slave revolts but Spartacus was possible. Similarly there were many failed bourgeois uprisings but French revolution was possible. Similarly, if Soviet Union was a failure or even if Chinese revolution finally turned towards a capitalistic path or what David Harvey calls neoliberalism with Chinese characteristics, we should not come to pessimistic conclusions that socialist revolutions or in Indian case, the people's democratic revolution is impossible or we should not expect/dream of such a possibility. If we do not think in terms of a possibility to change the prevalent exploitative neoliberal order then we eventually become conformist to the present order. Mind it, the neoliberal order thrives on disillusionment and de-politicisation like your kind of viewpoint. The disillusioned and de-politicised masses only secures neoliberalism because it cannot think of changing the system. So what if there were early failures. The revolutionary task is to learn from those failures and even take lessons from present mistakes like the Maoist violence or corporate industrialisation without broad consensus from the affected people in order to have a better future. After all, “failure is merely another opportunity to more intelligently begin again”---Henry Ford and “optimism is the content of small men in high places”---F. Scott Fitzgerald.
pessimism and marxism
dear jyoti, dr islam,
you two, have really touched my heart, and when an erudite person like maidul tells to keep hope, we can not really defer. moreover the sacrifice made by the innumerable communists all over the world, can't really be worthless and sheer past time.
but the doubt larks from a different corner, we all know that 2oth century saw a huge rise of the middle class, the so called renaissance of bengal to formation of left democratic front in 77 is the history of empowerment of middle class,( binoy ghosh) and with the opening of educational and job opportunities, the same middle class is bound to believe in a new class ideology,( gramsci), the class that once endorsed marxism in its fullest form would and are actually out to undermine it within and without the left movement, whereas a new class struggle to free itself and others is no longer the prerogative of the class. and the class that must now come forward, the 77 percent of prakash karat is yet to take up the candle from the old progressive class, or when it at all takes up the cudgel, it strikes the wrong door, as chomsky has said on division between two lefts in india in recent past.
we have seen a successive divisions in left movement in india, in 64, in 67 and now, while the left struggled with itself the mscs and their indian agents slowly and steadily gained ground.
it is true that the main point is to change the world, but here the bone of contention seems to be the supremacy of interpretation one believes in.
To dear alokranjan
I agree with your assessment about the dangers seriously posed by the middle class in the communist movement. However, saying so we must also acknowledge the fact that the post-1977 Left front regime was not only about the empowerment of the middle class but also about the empowerment of peasantry and working classes with land reforms, panchayati raj, implementing the right to minimum wage, right to strike etc. Of late, some of the issues of basic classes of working classes and peasantry and have been neglected by the Left front in Bengal and some of the policies were also antagonistic to the interests of working classes and peasantry. But that is not to say that the Left Front is not willing to take lessons from those past mistakes particularly after the electoral debacle in a series of elections from 2008 onwards in its own citadels. If the Left front cannot learn its mistakes, I don't have an iota of doubt that it would be history like many naxalite/CPI(M-L) groups. But the point is that it is still the largest communist party in India, who have understood correctly about the nature of the Indian state, indian ruling classes, its democratic institutions and the path of carrying forward the agenda of people's democratic revolution. The Indian Maoists, on the other hand, could not actually understood the Maoist agenda itself and in the name of Mao, it is doing all sorts of adventurist politics, often acted in past and in present acting as armed cadres of bourgeois ruling class parties in Bihar, Jharkahnd, Andhra and Bengal. Similarly, their lack of any vision and organisational politics among the majority section of toiling masses---the rural peasantry, the urban working classes, the dalits, minorities etc. only speak volumes about their non-Maoist tactics. The Maoist agenda, which is definitely a sharp political agenda to learn for Third World Marxism is about organising different sections of subordinated/ruled classes and groups into a common platform to wage a 'united people's resistance', which I call a kind of 'leftwing populism'. In a paper, which is forthcoming in an academic journal, I have argued on those lines of 'leftwing populism' as a better mobilisational strategy by expanding the people's democratic front. By contrast, the Indian Maoist support for all sorts of secessionist movements in the North-East, LTTE and even terrorist movements like Taliban and other forms of armed Islamism without analysing the nature of society that these secessionist and terrorist movements strives to achieve speaks about two things: either the Indian Maoists are utterly opportunistic or they are casual in analysing the existing political realities of our times. In both cases, they cannot be communist only because they have a name 'Communist' in their party name. These are not only my own criticism but also criticisms coming from the Left of CPI(M) ranging and as diverse from Sumanta Banerjee to Aditya Nigam to Jairus Banaji to Arindam Sen of CPI(M-L) Liberation. I further would add that the Indian Maoist programmatic understanding of 'primary contradictions' between 'feudalism' and 'Indian people' while pointing towards 'capital-labour contradiction' as secondary, even in a neoliberal India with major productive capital investments, industries with the historic presence of working classes and trade union movement, and the presence of huge unorgainsed sector labour force is just a simplistic understanding of Indian reality. They seem to copy the Communist Party of China programme of 1930s and 1940s into their own programme! This is awfully poor mimicry where the mimicked does not even closely related to the mimic. For example, the Bengali anchor Mir or comedian Johny Lever tries to mimic Big B Amitabh Bachan but the voice comes out that of Dadamoni Ashok Kumar!
On a serious note, the Trinamul-Naxalite terror is against innocent victims comprising of ordinary party members of CPI(M), farmers, Tribals and school teachers. In the case of Trinamul-Naxalite violence, it is interesting to note that the participants of political violence were none other than varied sections of the ‘people’, like common peasants, Dalits, Tribals, and Muslims etc. Therefore, political mobilisation on the part of Trinamul-Naxalite combination is targeted on one set of ‘people’ against the ‘other’ than killing members of the ruling classes. This is not to argue in favour of politics of violence ála classic Naxalite formulation of ‘annihilation of class enemy’ but only to expose the hypocrisies of a politics that claims to stand for the ‘people’ in the guise of rightwing populism and Naxalism. The politics of violence is essentially the crisis of a political hegemony. A politics which cannot democratically mobilise ‘people’ behind its project, takes refuge to violence. Politics as an art of transforming the impossible to possible is thus intricately connected to the art of hegemonising. This is the precise challenge of contemporary politics: how to mobilise ‘people’ via democratic means? On the other hand, the egoistic nature of Bhadrolok leadership among Naxalite groups makes hindrance for a united people’s resistance to neoliberalism by fragmenting the Left space in India. The Naxalite opposition to mainstream parliamentary Left often aligning with bourgeois populism only sustains the neoliberal status quo by dividing the Left movement on sectarian lines. By contrast, it would have been a much fruitful idea, if the Naxalites could think of becoming a part of the Left Front to widen the scope of united Leftwing resistance to neoliberal power bloc. By becoming a partner in the Left Front, it can also make constructive criticisms of certain policies of mainstream Left, which in turn can also put the mainstream Left within democratic scrutiny. This democratic engagement of dialogue than mutual hatred and undemocratic culture of violent politics is more helpful for self-introspection for both Leftwing politics and Naxalism. This can make them rectify their own respective mistakes to open up a possibility for rebuilding relationship in near future. This coming togetherness of Left and Naxalism is absolutely crucial for leading a united people’s resistance without being manipulated by neoliberal power bloc, which is now using both the Left and Naxalism to have fratricidal fight against each other so that a Leftwing space of opposition to neoliberalism is further shrinked. Coming back to the middle class question, I have already put my comments on the comments section and body text of 'Empire and its Double Standards' article in this pragoti webpage. But I seriously think that an important challenge of the left leadership in India is to actually de-class itself both economically and culturally so that the masses they represent can identify with them. Otherwise, a condition of possibility is always open for an omnipresent crisis of the Left just like the 'crisis' of capitalism and bourgeois order goes hand in hand with its own internal contradiction. But that does not mean that we would not dream or wish to change the world for a better alternative future just because our previous experiences were horrific.
to mr maidul islam
dr islam
your exposition is splendid, it is so neat and at the same time so close to the truth. but a few shades of doubt as well as lurking pessimism may be discovered in such a brilliant exposition too, specifically in the last lines.
in our life time we have already witnessed an unprecedented social and technological revolution, apart from the comfort, the other derivative of the change is a psychological one, a complex feeling, a feeling of satiation in the present form, which is not merely a personal feeling, it is ultimately political and reactionary, work of brain circuitry and hormone, i am told, and very difficult to get rid of.
getting declassed is no longer an easy idea, even political consciousness is grounded in economics, when our party comrades suffered during emergency period, our elderly friends from the old party were having a nice time under the protectorate of indiraji, with sons and daughters in patrice lumumba university.
and at the same time, corruption is also rooted in economic expectation and uncertainty, the culture of corruption that paralyzed soviet system with the pervasive parallel economy, we are told, is a product of soviet economics itself.
the culture of omission and commission has contaminated our party too, but far from being a leftist vice, this is a bourgeoisie one that spawns from the middle class elements and middle class ambitions.
it would have been better if you could enlighten this aspect with a proper stress on the revolutionary praxis rather than wishing positive roles from the communists.
sometimes a wish is a sigh of resignation.
and from such despair, it should be remembered, present form of indian maoism draws its lifeblood. maoism is foreshadowed by a particular sociocultural milieu of resignation.
alokranjan
To comments of Alokranjan
First of all, who disagrees about the fact that getting de-classed is not easy. Revolutionary politics in any case is a difficult project, precisely because it has to counter a hegemonic ideology of status-quo. Secondly, no rationale communist can argue (if he is not an orthodox soviet fundamentalist) that whatever happened in Soviet Union was right and it was just a tragedy. On the contrary, we have to learn from the grave mistakes of Soviet project and also the mistakes of Indian communist movement in the past to construct a new socialist project. Technological innovations particularly that of information technology and communications systems, however, made the lives of middle classes more easy, but it can be also used for revolutionary praxis which Negri and Hardt has already argued in terms of 'multitude'. Although I agree with Laclau's criticisms of Hardt and Negri's 'Empire' and 'multitude' as if some 'God' or in your terminology 'hope' and 'wish' would provide that 'multitude' of varied political struggles coming together to fight the 'power bloc'/empire. Of course, we have to bring back the political agency of 'people' and 'vanguard party' to fight the 'power bloc'. Now, in terms of political agency playing the role of opposition to power bloc while providing counter-hegemony, the Leninist concept of democratic centralism has to be followed. If the principles of democratic centralism with a dialectical relationship between the 'people' and the 'vanguard party' is not properly followed or rather tampered, then both kinds of rightwing revisionist and ultra-leftwing deviations are possible. The history of Communist movement including India has in fact showed that. To be precise, if the democratic aspirations of the people are not ably represented by the vanguard party then the crisis of democratic centralism starts and it can either evolve into Indian Maoist authoritarianism or revisionist tendencies. So, the 'gap' between the 'representative' and 'represented' needs to be minimised as far as possible for the correct working of democratic centralism. I think a communist revolutionary praxis cannot work in favour of the 'people' if democratic centralism in its pure Leninist version of the term is not properly practised. In this context, a 'wish' would not be a 'sigh of resignation' if that wish is backed by revolutionary praxis of democratic centralism. In other words, a wish to change the status-quo for a better alternative would only come true if the party activists and leadership could 'mix' with the 'people' just like 'a fish swim in the water'. So, in that context, the question of people's 'identification' with the party is very important, which I have already put it in a different way in my last comment. In that case, a 'wish' cannot be a 'sigh of resignation' but on the contrary it generates the will power/strong determination to fight the class enemy and its apparatuses. The Indian maoists could only emerge because the mainstream Left could properly articulate the democratic demands of the 'people' in very backward and underdeveloped regions of the country. The 'ontological question' of Indian maoism is related to the inability of mainstream Left's lack of political and organisational work among a section of tribals in forest zones. The 'existence' of Indian Maoism is only a refracted form of anger de-channelised not against class enemies but against potential class allies like common innocent people constituted of landless peasants, tribals, students and school teachers of non-Maoist background. This is why it is such a dangerous threat to the left-democratic movement and revolutionary politics of India.
I have already mentioned how the Indian maoists have fragmented the leftwing oppositional space on sectarian lines and their problems of party programme and organisational politics. Then they engage into criminal activities like armed extortions, which are miles away from something to be called as 'revolutionary praxis'. Now, in this situation, the mainstream Left needs to overcome its politico-organisational problems in order to politically defeat Indian Maoism. However, as I have pointed out in my last comment, how the neoliberal power bloc is using both the Left and Naxalism to have fratricidal fight so that the politics of opposition against neoliberalism gets weakened. In this respect, it is also achieving another motive by the rhetoric of bourgeois media and its very deliberate construction of a particular political discourse, where the debates are polarised along two actors: the Indian State and Indian Maoists. This simplistic binary is very dangerous as it snuffs out any other critical space of opposition, which might fundamentally differ with both the Indian State and the Indian Maoists. The Indian state, very well know that the Maoists are not a major threat as far as capturing political power is concerned because it is still restricted into few forest pockets. It can crush this movement like it did previously in 1970s and in recent past in Andhra. The only thing that is hindering it is that the maoists have often been used against the mainstream left, who pose danger for the Indian state with mass mobilisations on various people's issues and resisting the imperialist master, to which the Indian state is currently subservient. The tactics of the Indian state to not deal with the maoist problem with strong hands on hand and the united rainbow opposition along with the corporate media collectively standing against the mainstream Left amply shows, to whom the Indian state is more bothered about and who carries the revolutionary legacy of alternative politics.
to dr maidul islam
dear dr islam
i fully agree with your comments later part, you have exposed the tacit understanding between the ruling class and the so called ultra left. and at the same time it should be kept in mind, what gramsci had said, when classes become detached from their parties, a political vacuum is created that pave the rise of self proclaimed men of destiny.
but i expected from you a balanced as well as critical analysis of this difference between the represented and representatives in indian left movement with suggestion of a revolutionary path to surmount this crisis.
while mentioning the book EMPIRE you have left me a little stupefied, i don't understand why Negri wants to replace class by multitude, and what is that multitude, almost a decade has passed since the first appearance of the book, but the multitude is yet to show the special mode of resistances, struggles and desire Negri expected, though i read the book when it came out with much expectation, yet i am bound to say it is a piece of nonsense, not worth mentioning in academic circle. the content may please a certain class of people, who would love to be identified as the MULTITUDE, but for any serious reader of marx class, with its several connotations is still the moving force in history and the most important class of our time is the proletariat-industrial and rural, any attempt to dilute this idea would throw you in complete ideological jeopardy.
when you replace WORKING CLASS by multitude, consisting the new middle class, the difference between the representatives and represented, the difference between what you say and what you do is bound to occur. and i warn again, between these gaps, anarchism enters, fascism enters.
A misunderstanding of my comment on the part of Mr. Alokranjan
Dear Mr. Alokranjan, I think you have misunderstood my comments. I never argued in favour of Negri's 'multitude', rather I pointed out that I agree with Laclau's critique of Negri's 'multitude'. In fact, I have argued on the grounds of 'people' and 'vanguard party'. However, for me the 'people' does not only constitute of working class. In fact, the 'people' in 'people's democratic front' (PDF) of any Indian communist party ranging from mainstream Left to the ultras is a combination of several sections of the Indian population, and not simply working class. I certainly do not subscribe to replace 'working class' by 'multitude' but surely in favour of giving a greater revolutionary role for the 'people' as a collective political actor. As I have mentioned earlier, an essay is forthcoming in an academic journal, where I have argued in terms of expanding the 'people's democratic front' by reformulating the concept of the 'people' and including many apparently non-class identity groups like Dalits, Tribals, Women, Muslims, lower OBCs etc. as the overwhelming majority of Left's basic classes of workers and peasants come from these above mentioned five marginalised groups. Since, these marginalised groups themselves form an overwhelming majority of India's working classes and peasantry, we need to connect our class struggles with that of many identitarian struggles as well like struggle for equal opportunities and representation for these groups and struggle against socio-economic deprivation, discrimination, exclusion and political marginalisation of these groups. As a clarification, I don't mean 'people' as 'population' rather via Laclau, I mean it as 'plebs', 'underdogs', 'underprivileged' since those who are are responsible for the deprived and marginalised conditions of plebian sections of the population i.e. the 'power bloc' cannot be the 'legitimate part of the people'.
Now, the party programmes of major communist parties in India obviously state about the necessary struggle for Dalits, Tribals, women and Muslims but the ‘people’s democratic front’ as described in those party programmes is essentially class defined. That is to say, who would be part of PDF is essentially recognized by what kind of ‘class identity’, a person is identified. Since the Left has traditionally defined the ‘people’ along class lines, in the current context, can we reformulate/redefine the concept of ‘people’ beyond class lines? One might argue for introspection on the question of reorienting PDF, and whether a rigid class based understanding of PDF is at all suitable for today, when we cannot just ignore the sedimented political discourses of marginalized groups already gaining prominence. In this respect, the Left might rethink to reformulate its concept of the ‘people’ and reorient the PDF by shunning any kind of class reductionism. In this context, for a redefinition of PDF, the overwhelming question is that whether Dalits, Tribals, women, lower OBCs and Muslims can also be part of PDF? Besides the specific classes identified as the core constituencies of PDF and the allies of PDF, can we also think of incorporating the above mentioned marginalized groups as potential allies of PDF given the significant overlap and blurring of these marginalized identitarian groups with working class and peasant class backgrounds and the specific disadvantage/deprivation/discrimination/exclusion/antagonism they face every day under a neoliberal bourgeois-landlord state? One might argue that without making the marginalized groups as potential allies in PDF, perhaps there would be a half-hearted approach that would neither resolve the problems of marginalized groups nor help the Left to grow as a hegemonic political force in India.
Mind it, only focusing on working class without noticing and addressing 'other' marginalized sections of the Indian population (like peasants, Dalits, Tribals, women, Muslims, lower OBCs) would no where lead us to our cherished goal of 'people's democratic revolution' precisely because India has only 8% of organised (working class) sector, where our Trade Union movement is based. Now surely we have to also mobilise the informal sector cum unorgainsed labour force as well. But can mobilising the working class alone would ensure our victory against the ruling class state? History has also shown that how the centrality of the working class also had its limits even in the western capitalist countries where the proportion of urban and semi-urban industrial proletariat is much higher. So, we need to make an equivalential relation/chain between various forms of struggles and subordination against the 'power bloc'. Again, please do not misunderstand me here that as if I have tried to scuttle/ignore the working class question. No. I am simply saying that today, we live in a world of heterogeneous struggles and we need to link up those very many different struggles without sacrificing our core class agenda of anti-imperialism, people's democracy and new socialism. Now, to achieve those purposes, the working class can surely have representation in leading the struggle but it cannot solely become the 'vanguard' of such struggles precisely because it is also a particularity within the larger universality of the 'people'. In other words, the 'working class' is just a part of the 'people' and not 'the only people' or not 'the people' itself. 'People' is a much wider category and indeed the success of people's democratic revolution depends on how the Indian Left expands the 'people' and 'people's democratic front' and how far the Indian Left successfully mobilizes the 'people' by taking up issues of varied sections of plebeian population with both parliamentary and militant extra-parliamentary struggles.
Now, in terms of connecting the parliamentary and extra-parliamentary struggles, the Left is mature enough to be cautious. As we know, when the Left won 61 seats in the Parliament, how the Stock Market and corporate world to Wall Street journal reacted. I personally think that if the Left sometime manages to get 272 seats of its own, there would be probably tanks of Indian army in the streets of Delhi. In fact, the CPI(M) party programme talks on those lines to be prepared for any such situation of "various twists and turns that are bound to take place in the course of the revolutionary movement." (Art 7.16) I would be rather surprised if the Indian ruling classes would not react in a violent manner by trying to hinder the Left to form its government by whatever means. Otherwise, we have to believe that the Left is completely sold to the Indian ruling classes where the ruling classes are not at all panic to see the Left in central government. But to reach that figure of at least 272 seats in the parliament, the need to focus upon militant extra-parliamentary struggles are absolutely crucial. However, to reach the magic figure, there needs to be also a broader Left alliance all over India. We have already seen such an alliance in Bihar in last 2009 Lok Sabha election. But these alliances cannot be just electoral. The Indian Left movement collectively needs to chart out its own common minimum programme and make out a strategy of how to wage struggles and on what issues. It is in this respect that we need to urge several M-L groups and even the Indian Maoists to join the Left front for a larger task of people's democratic revolution. After all, the party programmes of most communist parties including the largest M-L group, Liberation and largest Maoist group, CPI(Maoist) like CPI(M) programme has an agenda of 'people's democratic revolution'. Now, if our political goal/objective is same, it is rather foolish to give fragmented resistance to neoliberal bourgeois-landlord state and all the more to have fratricidal fights among the Left. This does not help the Left to grow, rather weaken the Left movement in India and strengthens/secures the neoliberal power bloc. If we just now calculate our relative strengths in terms of mass base and add up---the CPI(M) in Bengal, Kerala, Tripura and parts of Andhra, Tamilnadu, Rajasthan and Maharashtra, the Liberation in Bihar, and parts of Eastern U.P., Jharkhand and Assam, the Maoists in Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, and parts of Bihar, Andhra and Maharastra---then just imagine the level of political impact. But even after all these, a large section of Indian population particularly in upper North, Western and North-Eastern India is still beyond the reach of any significant Left influence. In order to rally the 'people' in those regions where the Left is weak, the Left movement needs to collectively act together and engage into both parliamentary and militant extra-parliamentary struggles. But the tactic of 'armed struggle' however is simply flawed and costly. The arms and ammunitions needed to fight out the Indian state is simply unimaginable and you have to be like the LTTE or Al-Qaida to do that. And here is the problem. Once you become an entity like LTTE and Al-Qaida, for whom the Maoist documents think high of their 'revolutionary credentials', you would fall in trap of the state. First of all, because of its 'puritan' attitude, the LTTE and Islamism have first of all eradicated all progressive and leftwing forces in Sri Lanka and the Muslim world. After the violent erasure of progressives by both the state and non-state actors like LTTE and jehadi Islamist parties, the only binary opposition would remain is a mighty state terror versus 'terrorism of the weak' to use Chomsky's terminology. In such a situation, the state terror would only find easy to eradicate the remaining dissenting voice of what it calls 'terrorism' and there would be no strong force left to challenge the power bloc. The contemporary history of Sri Lanka and the Muslim world amply shows this picture. Since, the Maoist tactic of 'armed struggle' has a fundamental structural problematic of buying up huge arms and ammunitions to fight out the state, the cost of resistance both in terms of money and valuable lives is very high, which the Indian Left movement perhaps cannot afford for opting out such a romantic suicidal policy. This romanticism comes from the rhetoric of Indian Maoists, 'we are not fear of sacrificing our lives', or 'the Indian state might kill us, might kill Maoists, but not kill Maoism' as recently pointed out by Govindan Kutty (editor of People's March) in NDTV Big Fight. Who would tell these people that it is simply foolishness and not a tactical mastery to sacrifice valuable lives, which will only weaken the revolutionary movement in the long run. Those valuable lives which were sacrificed would have been used to mobilise large sections of people. Just think what if the Maoists, who claim that 4 lakhs of adivasis are with them today marches on the streets of Delhi, organise gherao and picketing of major government ministries/offices. I think the Indian democracy even if it is instrumental would perhaps have to satisfy the legitimate democratic demands of its people if united leftwing resistance with non-militaristic struggles are waged. The excluded and unheard would not be heard if they take up guns and try to wage an armed war whether 'defensive' or 'offensive' against a paranoid state power. On the contrary, since the state power is paranoid it could violently crush/repress such a movement, while 'sacrifice of valuable lives' and 'martyrdom' coupled with some killings on both sides would not automatically lead to a transcendence to an emancipatory order. In other words, the call for Maoist 'protracted war' needs to be replaced with a 'protracted non-militaristic militant struggle' both inside and outside Parliament.
dear dr islam, i fully agree
dear dr islam,
i fully agree with you if you are in search of political allies among dalits, tribals, religious minorities and women as a matter of tactics, but would part my way when you incorporate them in ideology. even in his own time marx saw a world rift apart by class as well as non class conflicts, however his scientific acumen pointed the paramount importance of class analysis in delving the mystery of social evolution, call it teleological, deterministic, reductionist, in what ever term you like to coin it the fact remains that class is a process of producing and appropriating SURPLUS LABOUR, with all their social and evolutionary values non class identities are not. just like the fact that it would be vulgarization of marxs thought if we claim class analysis can be applied to all situations irrespective of their peculiarities, it would be a rightward deviation to think that the class that produces and is bereft of its rightful share of SURPLUS LABOUR is shrinking due to the revolution of new technology, had that been true, capitalist economy would have collapsed immediately. i would certainly agree to the fact that technology has complicated the process of exploitation, it is more round about now, and with it the definition of working class, but that does not mean, ' whether a rigid class based understanding of PDF is at all suitable for today'
or
'it (working class) cannot solely become the 'vanguard' of such struggles'
such ideas stink of middle class fear of a proletarian revolution, you must have acquired it ffrom your too much protective environment.
but otherwise i applaud you for you idea of a broad left forum to fight feudal vestiges, budding indian capitalism and neo imperialism.
i would love to work with you when you come back to india.
sincerely yours
alokranjan
note: i could have elaborated the relation of class, technology,exploitation and social surplus, having a degree in mathematics, but i dont think it is the proper place to do so.
again a misjudgement of Alokranjan
Dear Alokranjan, First of all, please avoid calling me Dr. I am just a doctoral candidate/student and currently writing my thesis followed by an interview to defend my thesis, after which I would be able to write Dr. in front of my name. Coming back to your comments, I have nowhere denied the importance of 'class analysis' but only argued in terms of tactic and mobilisational strategy when arguing for widening/expanding the people's democratic front to achieve people's democratic revolution. Secondly, we need to differentiate between 'Proletarian revolution' and 'people's democratic revolution' as these are two distinct terms connoting different meanings and distinct political imaginaries. After a 'proletarian revolution', the proletariat should ideally be the ruling class with complete nationalisation of major means of production but with people's democratic revolution, there would be class biasness in policy making for all marginalised groups including the peasantry and the proletariat and the proletariat might not be the sole ruling class in such a situation. I don't have any problem with proletarian revolution and neither am I averse to the idea of 'proletarian revolution'. In that case, it is rather unkind of you to allege that I have 'middle class fears of proletarian revolution acquired from my protective environment' after going through all my arguments on collective resistance, building broader leftwing alliances against neoliberal exploitation and imperialist oppression and my call for a transcendence from the present neoliberal status quo to people's democracy and later on to 'new socialism'. As you must be knowing that no major communist party in India whether it is CPI(M), CPI(M-L) Liberation or CPI(Maoist) believe in Marxian understanding of 'proletarian revolution' in its 'purest form'. Marx's theory was more related to advanced capitalist countries and his 'prophecy' (if I can use this word) of a 'proletarian revolution' in Europe has not yet occurred. But that does not mean that it won't occur at all nor it means that Marx is irrelevant for us. Surely that is not the case. However, history shows us that Marxist revolution for the overthrow of existing status quo actually happened in relatively 'backward' economy of Russia, China and Cuba where capitalism and technology were less developed and where it was not solely participated by 'proletarians', but also by large sections of underdogs like peasants, students, women, a section of middle-class etc. which collectively form the 'people'. Similarly, as I have pointed out earlier that Indian situation is different with a significantly less number of 'proletariat' and hence, communist parties in India does not stress on 'proletarian revolution', rather focus upon 'people's democratic revolution' because the unfinished democratic tasks of the bourgeoisie had to be first carried out by such a state of 'people's democracy'. Here, it must be clear that 'people's democracy' and 'socialism' are not the same thing. The proletarian class definitely would be a part of people's democratic front and might also earn the confidence of the 'people' to be significantly represented in the leadership but that does not mean that it would automatically be a 'proletarian revolution'. A 'proletarian revolution' in content, form and with its proletarian aims and objectives might occur during the transitional phase from people's democratic state to socialism or what I call 'new socialism' as we cannot afford to repeat the mistakes of earlier/old socialism of Soviet and Chinese variety. Thus, please try to understand that 'proletarian' and 'people's democratic revolution' are conceptually different and it is better to understand the nuanced differences before we try to engage in serious debates.
accepting your logic
dear comrade islam
i accept your explanation, and am willing to work with you in future, you show a great promise as a good theoretician. but never forget that maxism while explaining a complex phenomenon called social evolution, is itself a complexity theory and a metatheory, as you know quite well that any short run judgment of a chaos is a bias, for example the 'just market price' of neoclassical economics always ends up in a deep recession due to 'market failure', in the same manner many petty bourgeoisie deviations have been proved to be detrimental to the cause of the working class movement, as well as many ultraleft misadventures like todays maoism.
instead of following non marxist theories at the time of searching friends, i personally prefer to go back to marxian economics for the right answer. with slight upturn in the market the neocons have started to shout that marx is all bogus. it is our duty to show that present day mockery of democracy or technology, nothing can refute the basic tenets of marxism. it is also true that there's a lie in the space between what is spoken and what is done.
au revoir.
alokranjan
some clarifications to alokranjan
It was rather good to see your changed position 'to back to marxian economics' and 'basic tenets of marxism' after you posted your first comment by apprehending that whether Marx was doing a 'past time'. However, we need to have a clarity on the terms that we often use casually like 'Marxism', 'Marxian' and 'Marxist'. These three terms are often put interchangeably, however there are important differences among them. For example, 'Marxian' can be only used when we are referring to the ideas/writings and practices of Dr. Karl Heinrich Marx and his intellectual collaborator friend Friedrich Engels while 'Marxist' is generally used for the leftwing tradition that follows and uses the 'Marxian' framework. In that case Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Gramsci, Mao, Fidel, Che up to E.M.S., B.T.R., David Harvey and Prabhat Patnaik are 'Marxists' but not 'Marxians' for that is exclusively for the duo Marx-Engels. Similarly, 'Marxism' is the entire epistemology or the large body of knowledge that came into being by following the 'Marxian' framework. Although sometimes people call 'Marxism', 'Leninism' and "Mao Zedong thought' as different terms, Leninism and Mao Zedong thought certainly falls within the tradition of 'Marxism' for they only expanded the Marxian ideas, contributed important/original/new ideas to the Marxian theory and implemented Marxism into practice in very different conditions. Marxism believes in 'concrete analysis of concrete conditions' because it claims to be scientific. Thus it is ever expanding. Since the realities of very different countries are dissimilar to each other, we cannot just stick to every Marxian idea for the assessment of our own reality. Nonetheless, there are important insights of Marxian ideas, which is helpful but since Marxism does not believe in the 'omnipotence' of any figure, we should not place Marx as the 'new God' or new 'prophet', who has an absolute authority or who knows 'absolute truth'. If that is the case, then I am afraid, it would be 'orthodox' Marxism and would definitely hinder the path of revolution. If we agree that Marxism is a 'scientific understanding' of society, politics and economy then every knowledge in Marxism is temporary and it can be replaced by a better theory within the Marxist tradition. In that case, we have to learn from many non-Marxist theories as well. As recently argued by Prabhat Patnaik in a lecture on 'Is Marxism Relevant' (the page is available in pragoti) that Marxism is not only some 'closed ideas of Marx' but it has to be 'continuously reconstructed' as it is 'fundamentally open ended and not a closed box of doctrines'. Here, we can use something which is just 'scientific' as a 'building block' but has nothing to do with 'Marxism' like Lenin used J.A. Hobson and similarly we can learn from a liberal like Keynes. We also know how Louis Althusser called for using the works of psychoanalysts like Freud and Lacan because their approach was scientific and how the orthodox Marxism rejected them as 'bourgeois theories' to be only appropriated by reactionary non-Marxists. Thus, I also believe that the innovative philosophy of Wittgenstein and Nietzsche, existentialism of Kierkegaard and Sartre and post-Marxism of Laclau and Zizek definitely can help to reconstruct Marxism. This is not to say that we have to also treat them as 'omnipotent' but how they can throw light on our contemporary reality and how to fight out or how to mobilize 'people' etc.
Arundhati and her rhetoric: Unintelligent and illogical
My friend, your piece says in words what I felt on reading the article and on hearing Arundhati read. I am ashamed to say that she was sharing the stage with Noam Chomsky, that she was supposedly saying things on a forum on behalf of concerned Indians. I am Gandhian who will never agree to gun, but I will rather have Arundhati shot during her trips to Maoists than read her discourse that is biased, incoherent and as Rushdie once described her words, "unintelligent".
Arundathi et al
Any takers left for the CPM's ideological critique of the Naxalite, or for that matter, its political program ? I wholeheartedly endorse the CPM 's long standing criticism of the objectively counter revolutionary role the misguided Maoists are playing in the country . I express solidarity with the hundreds of party comrades and their families in West Bengal who are making daily sacrifices for the party and the people on the face of unprecedented violence against them .
I am not a member of the CPM . Therefore , I am under no pressure to be a non party partisan. I was drawn to the CPM because I accepted the party's Marxist - Leninist political understanding on the Indian road to Socialism, including the outright rejection of left extremism. If I have some reservations on the program and the practice of the party , they have nothing to do with its ideological and programmatic understanding of the ultra left.
For me there is no half way house in evaluating the objective role writers and activists like Arundhatrhi Roy and Medha Patkar are playing in such crucial conjectures like the present one , when Marxism - Leninism is still in a historical phase of temporary retreat and CPM ,the only mass revolutionary party committed to it, is under all round siege. I even wonder how in the first instance ,any CPM supporter think of Arundathi , Medha et al as reliable political allies in advancing the Peoples Democratic Revolution ? The blood of innocent adivasis and brave CPM workers can not go waste . They will overcome . You don't need a Gramsci to tell you that .
Days and Nights in the Heartland of Rebellion
"[In January 2010, leading democratic rights activist Gautam Navlakha accompanied Swedish writer Jan Myrdal to the jungles of Central India, and engaged in conversations with the leadership of CPI(Maoist). In the following essay, being published exclusively at Sanhati, he explores further the various facets of Maoist politics and the socioeconomic and cultural life in the Dandakaranya region]"
http://sanhati.com/articles/2250/
Excerpts:
"I raised questions about the killings of CPI(M) party workers. Why was it necessary to
kill them? Were they corrupt and oppressing people? Did the party go along with
people’s demand for revenge, if so, did they try to restrain them by pointing out that
reckless killings will harm them as well not win them friends? If urban middle classes
are wrong in shedding tears over such killings how do they intend to win them over to
the side of the revolution? If the soldiers of the revolution cannot maintain discipline
and engage in revenge killings how does the party intend to win over the support of
people? They listened but warded off answers by saying that we do not believe in
mindless violence. A senior leader (read Ganapathi, G.Secy of CPI (Maoist)) to whom I threw all these questions said that he couldn’t answer without reading report of the state committee. It is good that they refused to succumb to accepting criticism at face value, even from one “quite supportive” of them, without verifying facts. But what I did note is that he did not dismiss my criticism. When I told the senior leader, that if the party could not maintain
discipline they ought to re-think whether their forces are politically equipped to fight a
“people’s war”, he inquired if this was my opinion or one shared by others. When I said
that I was sharing what many felt, he nodded."
But I still wonder at what level does it get decided when, where and how an action is to
be carried out? Does the party or the squad decide it? If squad carries out an action
without party’s permission what punishment is meted out? For instance who okayed
Jamui massacre of 17 February, 2010? Or use of detonators in the Tata Bilaspur
passenger train on November 27, 2009? And why did the party fail to restrain people
from carrying out executions in Lalgarh, if they, the party, was opposed to it. Many a
question I posed I was listened to but no response was forthcoming except telling me
that they would certainly consider my criticism. Although I was also told that public
might not know but disciplinary action is always taken. I did not get any wiser about the
specific incidents I raised and what was done. But they also insisted that there was no
need to engage in Dandkaranmya versus Bihar-Jharkhand comparison and that I must
not jump to conclusion. Indeed some of them appeared quite upset that I kept bringing
up these incidents that had occurred in other areas."
....
"Nevertheless, while projecting their own system as superior or better they can not afford
reckless killings, of the Jamui kind, followed by apology, which are unconvincing.
Beheading, for example, trade union leader Thomas Munda of Kulta Iron Works in
Koraput district, affiliated to CITU for defying a bandh call by Maoists, can hardly
endear them to those people who are not with them, yet who need to be won over."
Deshpande's disingenuous 'critique'
People like Deshpande like to score points by cheap shots, not by sustained critiques. 'Embedded journalism'? This silly analogy to the US media in Iraq would be apt, if Maoists were not a marginal political force much maligned in the mainstream media. It would pass muster if, rather than being constantly misrepresented and compared to cockroaches, theirs was the only viewpoint propagated in our ever servile and ever corporate media.
Deshpande's lack of sincerity in seriously engaging with Roy's essay is patently obvious.
"Whether we agree with Roy or not we read her because she surprises us. There is always some statistic, some quotation, some ironic observation, that makes one say, Hey, I hadnt thought of that before. This time though, I found myself being disappointed* *by her. It is almost a clich of such reportage (of a writers encounter with an underground group) to begin with the rendezvous and end on a note of wistful longing. Roy does both. Come on Arundhati, I wanted to say, surprise us for cliches I can read Surendra Mohan Pathak."
So Deshpande wishes to be entertained and surprised, rather than understand. Roy may be a tad hyperbolic in her prose, and may get carried away with the verbal magic she weaves at times, but at least hers was a sincere endeavor to understand who the Maoists are, and to hear their story from their own perspective. This does not mean that she romanticizes them or that she glorifies violence or that she is oblivious to ironies that only Deshpande is refined enough to see, although I must say that his comparison of gun-toting tribals, who have been at the receiving end of the most brutal state violence, to upper caste Hindutva fascists, who are mollycoddled by the state and who operate with complete impunity, is quite telling.
Not satisfied with spewing venom at Arundhati Roy, the person, rather than address her arguments, Deshpande also has the chutzpah to misrepresent her, and to create and happily demolish strawmen. Roy never once alludes to Trinamul Congress in her essay, so whence this gratuitous insistence that she sees nothing wrong with "Maoists becoming the handmaiden of the Trinamul Congress". Roy never says that Maoists and tribals are one entity. She simply counters the oft-repeated cliche that Maoists are an outside force, who have manipulated the 'naive tribals' to do their bidding, or that 'hapless' tribals are unfortunate victims of a protracted war between the state and the Maoists. This 'sandwich theory' is what Roy challenges, and challenges effectively in her article. But this does not mean that she thinks all Maoists are tribals, and all tribals are Maoists. Deshpande needs either a lesson in elementary logic or a modicum of integrity. Is putting words in people's mouths, whom one is jealous of, currently in vogue among certain sections of the left?
@Mahajan
"Tad hyperbolic". How can one be a "tad" hyperbolic, if one is hyperbolic. But lets not debate semantics.
If Roy had not been glorifying or romanticising the Maoists' veneration of IED tactics or violence, she would have told that in so many terms in her essay. She never does. She, obviously privileges this "praxis" over any other that dissidents against the Indian state have used and continued to use.
It doesn't take Sudhanva to realise this, but anyone who is refined enough to understand the goriness of such violence can understand it.
As for "Hindutva Fascists", you are obviously unfamiliar with the fact that there are many among tribals and Dalit communities who have been used by Hindutva-vaadi forces as foot soldiers in their political drive. Were all Kar sevaks, upper caste, rich and urbanised people? There were many among the "oppressed" communities as well.
Which precisely brings us to a similar comparison between the Maoists and the Hindutva-vaadis. Both target the oppressed communities for their political project; for the former - it is the overthrow of the Indian state, which is said to be a militarised repressive apparatus with a democratic facade and for the latter; the overthrow of the secular, liberal colour of the very same Indian state. One can find fault with both, while empathising with the concerns and fighting for the rights of these oppressed people - as Sudhanva Deshpande does, through his own work - as a street theatre activist.
Deshpande is not misrepresenting A.Roy. It is A.Roy who is misrepresenting the Maoists as a "revolutionary force" that works with idealism written all over it. Anyone who has been following the gruesome murders that these terroristic outfit has carried out with rising impunity (because of a shameless your-enemy-is-my-enemy-so-you-are-my-friend alliance with the opportunistic right wing Trinamul Congress) will scoff at such claims. The MCC component of the CPI(Maoist) has historically used caste wars and caste based violence as a means to achieve opportunistic ends. Today that form of opportunism and criminalism is being witnessed in Jharkhand (where the Maoists are a rampant extortion outfit in cahoots with "mineral developers" and other assorted miners) and in Bengal as well. Roy clearly wants to hide all this and paint the Maoist in an idealist tone as if the Maoists are the only legitimate response to the neoliberal nature of the current Indian state. Obviously she is not reading or following the history of the Naxalite movement in the country as well. And neither are you.
to Sanjeev Mahajan
Sudhanwa’s essential point about ‘embedded journalism’ is a devastating critique of Roy’s essay and not some ‘silly analogy’ as you choose to call it.
To use an analogy, an equally effusive account could also be written about a visit to a ‘jehadist camp’. The author could live under star studded skies for a few days, meet unlikely heroes willing to give up their lives for a cause, get lessons in history and repeat them for a wider audience, experience the power of songs and poetry that are rooted in fundamentalist ideology, encounter individual stories of pain and repression, uncover personal motivations behind collective endeavors, cherish little joys of ‘culture’ in the face of danger, feel pampered and flattered by the care shown towards a valuable visitor, encounter tales of service and dedication towards the local population, get more convinced about the unfairness of media stereotypes and imperialist propaganda, develop an endearing awe for the hardship facing fighters, and generally feel more alive during this little edgy adventure. Of course, all excesses could be explained away as unavoidable defense tactics in the face of repression by the powers that be. The world could be reduced into simple dichotomies, where the reader is faced with a simple choice – either side with US imperialism or with the ‘jehadists’.
However, such a blinkered view would not be evaluated by the strength of its prose, but by its content, and the ideology of the cause it espouses. It would also face legitimate criticism for its point of view involving simple binaries, as opposed to the reality of a far more contested ideological and political terrain.
Arundhati Roy, in her essay on the Maoists in Dantewada, shies away from any critical examination of the theory and praxis of her subject. She romanticizes their cause without providing any convincing argument for finding inevitability in the Maoists’ path which in her own words creates a situation wherein “Villagers are too frightened to stay at home…..In this tranquil-looking forest, life seems completely militarised now…”
Her petty bourgeois outlook is best exposed from a line in her own essay – “The day before I left, my mother called, sounding sleepy. “I’ve been thinking,” she said, with a mother’s weird instinct, “what this country needs is revolution”.”
Just as an aside, don’t go around complaining now that the analogy between the Maoists and the ‘Jehadists’ is an unfair one. After all, it is the Maoists who celebrate the ‘Islamic upsurge’ and ‘want it to grow’ (please read Kishenji’s interview to HT on 9th June 2009 as well as Politbureau statements of the CPI - Maoists)!
to mr sanjeev mahajan
your defense of Arundhati Roy seems to rely more on name calling and trying to show Sudhanwa his place, rather than on ‘elementary logic’ and the actual merits of Roy’s essay.
It is true that Roy begins her essay on a promising note by posing some interesting questions:
“Who are the Maoists? Are they just violent nihilists foisting an outdated ideology on tribal people, goading them into a hopeless insurrection? What lessons have they learned from their past experience? Is armed struggle intrinsically undemocratic? Is the Sandwich Theory—of ‘ordinary’ tribals being caught in the crossfire between the State and the Maoists—an accurate one? Are ‘Maoists’ and ‘Tribals’ two entirely discrete categories as is being made out? Do their interests converge? Have they learned anything from each other? Have they changed each other?”
But, after posing these questions, she promptly forgets all about finding the answers.
In the course of her long essay, she DOES NOT critically evaluate the ‘ideology’ of the Maoists.
She DOES NOT provide us with any concrete reasons as to why the forest based Maoist guerilla insurrection can succeed in overthrowing the Indian state and why we should be most hopeful about them? Maybe… if the forest cover is expanded manifold to envelop the length and breadth of India!
She DOES NOT enlighten us about any ‘lessons’ that the Maoists have learnt from their past experience.
She ridicules all struggles that are not ‘armed struggles’, but that is hardly proof of the intrinsic democracy of the Maoist method.
She DOES NOT obtain any view of the State and the Maoists from any ‘ordinary’ non-Maoist tribal in order to test whether the ‘sandwich theory’ is true or false.
She engages in shadowboxing by making the limited point that some tribals are also Maoists, but that does not make ‘Maoists’ and ‘Tribals’ entirely integrated categories either.
Her impassioned plea for noting points of convergence between Maoist and tribal interest could have carried some credibility, has she bothered to note at least some points of divergence!
The learning and changing ‘each-other’ relation that the tribals share with the Maoists is equally true for their relation with the Salwa Judum? However, can that make the Salwa Judum any more justifiable?
Roy undoubtedly romanticizes the Maoists in her essay and never genuinely investigates their motivations, methods or actions. By turning a blind eye to Maoist-Trinamul hobnobbing, Roy makes a deliberate and convenient choice. It is certainly not a case of simple oversight.