“Who is a Communist? Someone who reads Marx & Lenin. How about an anti-Communist? Someone who understands Marx & Lenin.” - Reagan
The espousal of socialism as the Congress goal was most difficult to achieve. Nehru was opposed in this by the right-wing Congressmen Sardar Patel, Dr. Rajendra Prasad and Chakravarthi Rajagopalachari. Nehru had the support of the left-wing Congressmen Maulana Azad and Subhas Chandra Bose. The trio combined to oust Dr. Prasad as Congress President in 1936. Nehru was elected in his place and held the presidency for two years (1936–37). Nehru was then succeeded by his socialist colleagues Bose (1938–39) and Azad (1940–46). After the fall of Bose from the mainstream of Indian politics (due to his support of violence in driving the British out of India), the power struggle between the socialists and conservatives balanced out. However, Sardar Patel died in 1950, leaving Nehru as the sole remaining iconic national leader, and soon the situation became such that Nehru was able to implement many of his basic policies without hindrance. The conservative right-wing of the Congress (composed of India's upper class elites) would continue opposing the socialists until the great schism in 1969. Nehru's daughter, Indira Gandhi, was able to fulfill her father's dream by the 42nd amendment (1976) of the Indian constitution by which India officially became "socialist" and "secular".
Revolutions, famously, are devoured by their children. It was characteristic of Indian socialists that they waited until senility to gobble up the caste-and-community insurrection conceived by Dr Ram Manohar Lohia in the 1950s and 1960s. There will be many stories within and around the 2014 general elections. A principal occurrence will be the earthquake that swallows the socialists. Its epicenter will be Bihar, but the perimeter of devastation will extend across Uttar Pradesh.
The last three heirs of Lohia, Nitish Kumar, Lalu Prasad Yadav and Mulayam Singh Yadav surely know in their hearts what their minds might refuse to admit. The party’s over. Ever since they first sipped power at the fountain of coalitions in 1967, one fact has been transparently clear. Indian socialists have always been far better at politics than government. Such talent should not be underestimated in a democracy. It is difficult enough to win elections even after delivering on the promise of incremental prosperity. To do so through sheer emotional arithmetic is genius.
Since that high point of emotion in 1989, when temple, mosque and caste dominated the debate, Lohia’s children have ruled Bihar with a tenacity that remains a formidable tribute to their rhetorical craft.
Their formula began to seem infallible: the Chief Minister’s loyal castes were rewarded with a stake in power, allies were kept onside with marginal benefits, and the vital Muslim vote was patched on with a debilitating concoction of illusion and fear. Muslims got prayer and tokenism; jobs went to others. Religion became the opium of the people.
Nitish Kumar’s brief encounter with glory had little to do with the quality of governance. He was the much-needed relief vessel after the Lalu shipwreck. His years in power were primarily consumed by a relentless search of sub-castes to knead into a political dividend. It was vote bank politics, but with rural banks, a low capital base and insufficient transactions. As a long-term business model, it offered little chance of success. Now that Nitish Kumar has run out of time and ideas, the alibi game has begun. It won’t work.
His problem was compounded by the disability that Indian socialism, like its cousins across the globe, simply did not have the legs to stride into the 21st century. Nor did its leaders possess the imagination to re-invent their philosophy, and adjust dogma to new demands. Its office-bearers became its pall-bearers.
Today’s voter is sick to the stomach of deceptive jargon. Politics, unfortunately, has become a malevolent word. Indians want jobs, security and empowerment through economic growth. They are equally tired of the misuse of secularism to justify corruption, dynasty and piteously weak administration. In any case, when the opening sentence of a book on Narendra Modi’s views states that secularism is the equality of all faiths before the law, when he avers in his speeches that the only religion of a politician is the Constitution of India, there is not much left to discuss apart from riots. Voters then compare facts. They know that a former Gujarat minister is in jail, while no one has been punished for the Sikh massacres of 1984 or the vicious Mumbai riots of 1992-93.
This is why Ram Vilas Paswan, who left the BJP coalition a decade ago over riots, will become a partner in 2014 and address a rally alongside Modi in Bihar. This is why America’s ambassador Nancy Powell goes with conciliatory flowers to Ahmedabad. This is why BJP is picking up new allies each week. Once Bihar changes, you might say, there is nothing left to change.
The long-term consequences are significant. For four decades, Indian socialists have denied BJP primacy in the crucial Ganga-Jamuna belt. BJP was successful in displacing socialists in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan (Lohia’s home province), but could never quite get their act together in UP and Bihar. The party touched nadir when two years ago Mulayam Singh Yadav won UP by unprecedented margins, and Nitish Kumar chose this psychological moment to distance himself from BJP, and start a flirtation with Congress. Today, instead of being wooed, Nitish has been isolated. And Lalu Yadav, who was so certain about his own resurrection and Paswan’s subservience that he began issuing ultimatums, has been hit by a thunderbolt from blue skies.
Sixty five years of an independent India is a story of lost opportunities. Countries with far meagre resources and much difficult circumstances have marched ahead of us. The deadly duo of Socialism and minorityism meshed in a milieu of rank opportunism which constitutes the true essence of centre of left politics in India has rendered the national edifice hollow.
While competitive minorityism of the kind where Parties do not hesitate in espousing the cases of terrorists to outdo each other has deepened the religious divide, born again socialism has bled the economy dry- squandering spectacularly the gains which six years of NDA rule had made after decades of stagnation under Nehruvian socialism. But all the sins of Leftist Politics do not deter the commentators from this camp to assume a tone of self righteousness and hold forth on the “vacuity” of Right Wing Politics and “lack of vision” of Right Wingers.
Hasan Suroor, in his latest article “Indian Right is Agenda Lite” paints a picture of an intellectually challenged Right Wing (mainly BJP and Modi politics), which incidentally has a better record of governance than it’s Left counterparts. But just as his understanding of Right’s contentiousness with minorityism is marred by misgivings and prejudices, so is his general understanding of Right wing intellectualism and the depth of its roots.
I would not like to elaborate much on the “minorityism” part for two reasons. One, because a lot has already been said by better writers and second because Suroor himself concedes, albeit grudgingly, that Right has a case when “it condemns the ‘pseudo-secularism’ and ‘minorityism’ of Congress and the Left, with some justification…”
The scope of an article like this does not allow sufficient elaboration of issues such as devolvement of power, federal balance, social security, subsidies, minority welfare etc. etc. in the Right wing discourse over which Suroor seeks elucidation from Right wing ideologues. It will be naive, however, to assume that there isn’t sufficient elaboration of the issues by Right wingers. As such, I would like to limit myself to the lack of “eminences” among Right wing intellectuals as alleged by Suroor, and his accusations of a dearth of “respectable well-funded Indian right-wing think tank(s) … or high-brow journal(s) or newspaper(s)” articulating Rightist positions. Rather than celebrate the situation, one would have hoped Suroor to see, if he could beyond his prejudices, the scandal behind it.
At the outset, I will concede that there is a lack of “well funded” Right Wing think tanks, something which Indian Right should take up as a task of immediate importance. Now coming to the “eminences”, Arun Shourie has brilliantly exposed the farce of Suroor’s “respectable intellectuals”.
How their “eminence’” is manufactured; how it is a cabal of like minded people (Leftists who have made quite an enterprise out of state funding and doles) forming an incestuous mutual admiration club; how they have hijacked institutions and media; how they go about tarnishing the images of scholars and intellectuals who wouldn’t kow-tow their line. No surprise then that a formidable scholar like Prof Shivaji Singh remains an obscure figure because he taught at Gorakhpur University and not JNU or a Bank employee Shrikant Talageri, unknown beyond the pale of Voice of India readers, who would otherwise be a toast of intellectual circles if it was not for the suppression of diverging views by establishment intellectuals.
For all of Suroor’s babel over the lack of intellectual roots in Indian Right, it is in fact Indian Left which has a much recent history. It is necessary to understand the difference between Leftist presence in India and the crystallisation of an indigenous Indian Left, howsoever tentative the idea might be. Left in India for long remained a forward post of Comintern with no intellectual rigour to show off its own. It was simply acting as a forward post receiving instructions from masters in Moscow and London until Indian Leftists (both card holding and the pink communists in Congress) under the aegis of a benignly disposed Nehru cobbled up a semblance of Indian Left.
Even then, no Nehruvian or Leftist intellectual has come up with the originality of thought to match that of Tilak, Savarkar, Pal or Aurobindo. Post independence intellectual scene has only meant strangling the voices of Right stalwarts such as Sita Ram Goel and Ram Swarup by maintaining a deafening silence about them or slandering people like Arun Shourie who were difficult to ignore. I am reminded about an incident narrated by Prafull Goradia, one of the most sober Right voices, about an editor of a leading daily who had made it clear to his entire editorial team that he would not tolerate any stuff in his newspaper including innocuous letters to editor by “this communal bigot”.
Further, in the neo colonial Leftist view of “intellectualism” which relies heavily on western approval, for Indian Right to get any recognition from its Leftist counterparts, not that it should bother, is still difficult. Indian Right isn’t German Right which will find latent sympathies in common Christian values with its French counterparts, for example. Unlike Left internationalism, Pan Islamism or transnational Christian brotherhood, Indian Right is unique to India and given its peculiarity can expect zero sympathy or enthusiasm from others.
The western liberals, so far as their fleeting interest in Indian Right is concerned, have their views coloured by a downright hostile Indian media- their only window for information. So if Mr Suroor was waiting for Indian Right Wingers to get invitations in seminars at Western Universities or six column op-ed space in Western newspapers for bestowing “eminence’ upon them, it was quite unlikely to come. But this does not mean Indian Right is inconsequential as an idea or that it lacks force, it is only that its relevance lies in India alone.
Further, even if we have heard a little less from Indian Right and find the intellectual scene dominated by Left, things are going to change rapidly with the advent of new age media which does not allow the control of information and opinions as in the old game. However it is doubtful that the new intellectual Indian Right will still be able to impress Mr Suroor and his likes. That is not just because Mr Suroor and Left want their own terms of intellectual reference but also because Indian Left, ever so eager to push itself into a more centrist spot of late, is actually dogmatic in its approach. It is given to certitudes like “we know what happened in Gujarat”. They remain contemptuously oblivious to the findings of Justice Nanavati or the apex Court, believing only their own versions.
As in the past, with whatever resources at its disposal, Indian Right will continue waging its intellectual battles but not to satisfy either Mr Suroor or the Leftist standards. It will continue to appeal to the vast populace of India and its long cherished sense of “Bharatiyata”. And as Mr Suroor has acknowledged it in the beginning of his piece itself, Right is gaining and gaining handsomely in Modi’s rise. And this, not the ivory towers of Leftist intellectuals, is where it counts most.
The subtraction of Hindutva from Hinduism has proved impossible for the defenders of secularism to make, since their arguments remain at an abstract level without an analysis of the historical construction of Hinduism itself.
Out of the agony that most progressive forces in the country are feeling about the results of the Gujarat elections have come many analyses, many musings about what lies ahead.
However, we should also be ready to admit that something may be wrong with Nehruvian-Gandhian secularism or at least with the way secularism has been projected as an ideal. Editorial and analytical discussions following the elections have shown a kind of desperation on the part of most defenders of secularism. The following decades will see "a frontal attack on the concept of secularism", writes K. K. Katyal (The Hindu, December 30); but he does not acknowledge that the frontal attack has been going on for some time or attempt to evaluate the successes of varying strategies of dealing with it. Dipankar Gupta, in turn, writing in the Economic and Political Weekly (November 16), calls for an "intolerant secularism," meaning that the state must be ready to forthrightly enforce the rights of citizens against violence and terror, regardless of the religious rhetoric used to justify this. But without any suggestion as to how to convince or pressure the state to do so, this remains a pious hope.
The dominant Left analysis today of the growth of violent Hindutva and other forces of religious nationalism attributes it to capitalism and globalisation. This is also a council of despair because it does not analyse why some capitalist and globalised countries are significantly more tolerant and non-violent than others; it thus prescribes no action other than to fight globalisation and capitalism. The distinction that Marxists had once made between advanced and backward capitalism, or democratic capitalism and fascism, has almost vanished. Thus, Father Nathan can lament in The Hindu open pages (December 31) that "the voice of reason is powerless against the myth" projected by the Hindutva forces — the powerlessness is itself a demonstration of desperation. His talk of building as an alternative "people's movements on people's issues" does not suggest what these movements might be. The Left parties which have in the past built such movements have been conspicuously unsuccessful in recent years; the strongest mass movements, those of farmers and Dalits, have been outside the Left framework, while the most decisive political steps on Dalit issues have been taken by a Congress leader who is a liberal of the Amartya Sen type.
Secularism, meaning simply the neutrality of the state towards religious communities, may well be necessary in today's plural society — but it still requires a foundation, a moral vision to make such a state possible. The theoretical attack on the Left-Gandhian-Nehruvian version of secularism has been a strong one. It has come not from the virulent Hindutva crowd but from leading, sophisticated intellectuals such as Ashish Nandy, Partha Chatterjee and others. Their argument has been that the concept of secularism has been "western" (i.e. European, Christian-influenced) in the way it presumes the possibility of separating religion from politics. They argue that, in contrast, religion has been so intertwined with all aspects of life in India that this is impossible (or, as Lata Mani has poetically put it, "is a dewdrop sacred or secular?"). Their alternative is to argue that Indian tradition was inherently tolerant, that it is rather the modernising state, homogenising and interventionist, requiring a monolithic "national culture" to back it up, which has been the root cause of the rise of the various forms of violence and growing alienation of religious groups seen in India today. Mr. Nandy and Mr. Chatterjee differ in various ways, and neither would like to have his position identified with that of the Hindutva ideologues. Yet, since neither says anything concrete about Islamic tolerance, we are left with the position that it is above all Hinduism that is tolerant. The progressives want to say that Hinduism is not Hindutva; the Hindutva people say that they are the same. But the subtraction of Hindutva from Hinduism has proved impossible for the defenders of secularism to make, since their arguments remain at an abstract level without an analysis of the historical construction of Hinduism itself.
Hinduism is tolerant, Islam is not; the Congress and Left who proclaim secularism are ignoring the cultural and historical realities of India and so are "pseudo-secularists." Unless these theses can be dealt with at a theoretical and ideological level, it seems to me to be very difficult to deal practically with the Hindutva ideological challenge.
In India, communism is plain "Anti-Hinduism" . There is no doubt about this. For instance, while they maintain that their aim is to remove "social and class barriers, including religious" , only Hindu class divide is highlighted; neglecting the same among the Muslim population. Also the CPI had formed government in Kerala, along with the support of Extreme right Muslim parties. But in the veil of 'secularism' , the left parties attack the centre-left, moderate BJP as "communal". This becomes quite clear on examination of self- declared leftist attempts to malign India and it's history that has only been the attack on Hindu lifestyle and it's ancient history, completely erasing the parts of Indian history; wherein Hindus were treated with utmost disdain and infidelity, under the "Muslim raiders".
The left-leaning academics of this kind have unfortunately dominated the intellectual discourse of the country since Independence. Through their control of the academic institutions and policy-making bodies, they have ensured that India remains struck in the corrosive self-negating worldview inculcated and nurtured during the colonial times. They have obstructed the path of India recovering pride in herself, her people and her civilisational heritage; and thus, they have kept India from seriously applying herself to the task of nation-building. But, though it may be possible to stop the progress of history for a while, history cannot be kept in abeyance for all times. The people of India have been kept waiting for nearly seven decades; the time has now come for India to break free and begin moving confidently towards her destiny.
If the Left had remained truely secular, instead of continuously attacking Hindu tradition and religion solely, the young people frustration and trolling in social media might not be as unprecedented as today. For instance, they all talk against Hindutva in the disguise of secularism; often criticising Hindu gods and spiritual books. But they then politically allign with minority-based parties such as IUML and AIML. In Tamil Nadu too, the "aetheist" Karunanidhi went berserk on Hindu lords, but during elections, contrary to the secular beliefs; alligned with small Christian and Muslim parties.
Now that the left seems to have been maneuvered out of a possible post-poll third front, it may well be time for CPM and CPI to take stock of its politics. Too often their energies have been spent in cobbling up alliances and fronts at national and state levels, with little progress to show as far as their growth is concerned. They observe from the sidelines as every new political trend and idea, such as the Aam Aadmi Party, that could potentially be theirs is taken up successfully by others.
The backward classes movement, dalit upsurgence, and now the middle class renaissance campaigning for good governance and against corruption – these should have had their origins in the left or at least received their grassroots support.
The left typically starts by ignoring new ideas that spring up. Then it employs its formidable Marxist sledgehammer analysis to dismiss them. And finally when the ideas solidify into a political base the left looks for a tie up but by then the ideas have run their course.
The left was out of the Anna Hazare movement. The CPI was lukewarm toward the idea of Lokpal since the party sought to protect government employees who could be nominally part of a trade union base.
Prakash Karat has said he would like to wait and watch what positions AAP takes. Many leftist commentators have argued that AAP doesn't go far enough, or, in other words, is not Marxist enough. For instance, they critique AAP’s vision document saying it is not against private education, merely for upgrading public education. They say corruption is only an outcome of crony capitalism and it is capitalism that has to be opposed.
Karat cites a recent CII talk in which Kejriwal declared he was not against capitalism. But CPM's own leaders including the venerable Jyoti Basu had said that several times. In the party's perspective, the Indian revolution will be democratic and therefore include much of the population. It will unleash dormant productive forces (which will initially have to be capitalism, according to Marxian theory) and empower vast sections. CPM's ideologues had in the past couched Basu pitches for investment in such Marxian terms.
Without using Marxian jargon, AAP has successfully hit targets that the Indian left has traditionally claimed to be its bugbears. The left has missed the public eye when it comes to needling Ambani. Karat has said in an article in the party organ People’s Democracy that gas pricing is an issue that left MPs have consistently raised in Parliament. He may be correct. But it took the energy of a police case by an elected AAP-led government to bring the issue into sharp focus. It would be unthinkable for a left front state government to do something as daring and innovative as Kejriwal's move.
It's perhaps the organizational culture of CPI, CPM that doesn't allow new ways of political messaging or even attract new talent. Karat and Sitaram Yechury are significant exceptions to the general trend of idealistic youths not finding traditional left organizations attractive. In the 60s and 70s, many of these youths became Naxalites. Later the promise of direct action and the possibility of delivering tangible and immediate benefits to people drew them into NGO work. Karat, in an early tract as a CPM ideologue, had sneered at NGOs. He found them harmful and hurdles to the left’s progress.
These amorphous, non-organization youths driven by passion and idealism, however, have always been at the forefront of gamechanging social movements in India. Schooled in the NGO world, these activists know how to play the media and the political world. They are now flocking to AAP and similar parties and movements.
But things weren't supposed to be like this. The Soviet Union was crashing down and the Soviet bloc had vanished when Prakash Karat and Sitaram Yechury were inducted into the politbureau of CPM in Chennai more than 20 years back. At that time, many thought these two may crack the Indian puzzle -- the question of why a nation with a majority of its population crushed by poverty had little room for genuine leftist politics. They may have the breadth of vision and knowledge to come up with creative ideas, it was hoped.
But two decades later, CPM, led by these two, is a pale shadow of its original self. Economic growth has made a dent on poverty in India and the middle class is no more sympathetic to leftist politics unlike in the past. Karat's major political initiatives, drawn from Leninist classics, have largely been failures.
And the left, led by Karat, sits outside and watches as yet another churning is happening, which could provide political space for regular middle class folks and professionals
When a Right winger argues on his principle, he is called a fanatic, when a Left-liberal argues on his principle, he is called principled
The espousal of socialism as the Congress goal was most difficult to achieve. Nehru was opposed in this by the right-wing Congressmen Sardar Patel, Dr. Rajendra Prasad and Chakravarthi Rajagopalachari. Nehru had the support of the left-wing Congressmen Maulana Azad and Subhas Chandra Bose. The trio combined to oust Dr. Prasad as Congress President in 1936. Nehru was elected in his place and held the presidency for two years (1936–37). Nehru was then succeeded by his socialist colleagues Bose (1938–39) and Azad (1940–46). After the fall of Bose from the mainstream of Indian politics (due to his support of violence in driving the British out of India), the power struggle between the socialists and conservatives balanced out. However, Sardar Patel died in 1950, leaving Nehru as the sole remaining iconic national leader, and soon the situation became such that Nehru was able to implement many of his basic policies without hindrance. The conservative right-wing of the Congress (composed of India's upper class elites) would continue opposing the socialists until the great schism in 1969. Nehru's daughter, Indira Gandhi, was able to fulfill her father's dream by the 42nd amendment (1976) of the Indian constitution by which India officially became "socialist" and "secular".
Revolutions, famously, are devoured by their children. It was characteristic of Indian socialists that they waited until senility to gobble up the caste-and-community insurrection conceived by Dr Ram Manohar Lohia in the 1950s and 1960s. There will be many stories within and around the 2014 general elections. A principal occurrence will be the earthquake that swallows the socialists. Its epicenter will be Bihar, but the perimeter of devastation will extend across Uttar Pradesh.
The last three heirs of Lohia, Nitish Kumar, Lalu Prasad Yadav and Mulayam Singh Yadav surely know in their hearts what their minds might refuse to admit. The party’s over. Ever since they first sipped power at the fountain of coalitions in 1967, one fact has been transparently clear. Indian socialists have always been far better at politics than government. Such talent should not be underestimated in a democracy. It is difficult enough to win elections even after delivering on the promise of incremental prosperity. To do so through sheer emotional arithmetic is genius.
Since that high point of emotion in 1989, when temple, mosque and caste dominated the debate, Lohia’s children have ruled Bihar with a tenacity that remains a formidable tribute to their rhetorical craft.
Their formula began to seem infallible: the Chief Minister’s loyal castes were rewarded with a stake in power, allies were kept onside with marginal benefits, and the vital Muslim vote was patched on with a debilitating concoction of illusion and fear. Muslims got prayer and tokenism; jobs went to others. Religion became the opium of the people.
Nitish Kumar’s brief encounter with glory had little to do with the quality of governance. He was the much-needed relief vessel after the Lalu shipwreck. His years in power were primarily consumed by a relentless search of sub-castes to knead into a political dividend. It was vote bank politics, but with rural banks, a low capital base and insufficient transactions. As a long-term business model, it offered little chance of success. Now that Nitish Kumar has run out of time and ideas, the alibi game has begun. It won’t work.
His problem was compounded by the disability that Indian socialism, like its cousins across the globe, simply did not have the legs to stride into the 21st century. Nor did its leaders possess the imagination to re-invent their philosophy, and adjust dogma to new demands. Its office-bearers became its pall-bearers.
Today’s voter is sick to the stomach of deceptive jargon. Politics, unfortunately, has become a malevolent word. Indians want jobs, security and empowerment through economic growth. They are equally tired of the misuse of secularism to justify corruption, dynasty and piteously weak administration. In any case, when the opening sentence of a book on Narendra Modi’s views states that secularism is the equality of all faiths before the law, when he avers in his speeches that the only religion of a politician is the Constitution of India, there is not much left to discuss apart from riots. Voters then compare facts. They know that a former Gujarat minister is in jail, while no one has been punished for the Sikh massacres of 1984 or the vicious Mumbai riots of 1992-93.
This is why Ram Vilas Paswan, who left the BJP coalition a decade ago over riots, will become a partner in 2014 and address a rally alongside Modi in Bihar. This is why America’s ambassador Nancy Powell goes with conciliatory flowers to Ahmedabad. This is why BJP is picking up new allies each week. Once Bihar changes, you might say, there is nothing left to change.
The long-term consequences are significant. For four decades, Indian socialists have denied BJP primacy in the crucial Ganga-Jamuna belt. BJP was successful in displacing socialists in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan (Lohia’s home province), but could never quite get their act together in UP and Bihar. The party touched nadir when two years ago Mulayam Singh Yadav won UP by unprecedented margins, and Nitish Kumar chose this psychological moment to distance himself from BJP, and start a flirtation with Congress. Today, instead of being wooed, Nitish has been isolated. And Lalu Yadav, who was so certain about his own resurrection and Paswan’s subservience that he began issuing ultimatums, has been hit by a thunderbolt from blue skies.
Sixty five years of an independent India is a story of lost opportunities. Countries with far meagre resources and much difficult circumstances have marched ahead of us. The deadly duo of Socialism and minorityism meshed in a milieu of rank opportunism which constitutes the true essence of centre of left politics in India has rendered the national edifice hollow.
While competitive minorityism of the kind where Parties do not hesitate in espousing the cases of terrorists to outdo each other has deepened the religious divide, born again socialism has bled the economy dry- squandering spectacularly the gains which six years of NDA rule had made after decades of stagnation under Nehruvian socialism. But all the sins of Leftist Politics do not deter the commentators from this camp to assume a tone of self righteousness and hold forth on the “vacuity” of Right Wing Politics and “lack of vision” of Right Wingers.
Hasan Suroor, in his latest article “Indian Right is Agenda Lite” paints a picture of an intellectually challenged Right Wing (mainly BJP and Modi politics), which incidentally has a better record of governance than it’s Left counterparts. But just as his understanding of Right’s contentiousness with minorityism is marred by misgivings and prejudices, so is his general understanding of Right wing intellectualism and the depth of its roots.
I would not like to elaborate much on the “minorityism” part for two reasons. One, because a lot has already been said by better writers and second because Suroor himself concedes, albeit grudgingly, that Right has a case when “it condemns the ‘pseudo-secularism’ and ‘minorityism’ of Congress and the Left, with some justification…”
The scope of an article like this does not allow sufficient elaboration of issues such as devolvement of power, federal balance, social security, subsidies, minority welfare etc. etc. in the Right wing discourse over which Suroor seeks elucidation from Right wing ideologues. It will be naive, however, to assume that there isn’t sufficient elaboration of the issues by Right wingers. As such, I would like to limit myself to the lack of “eminences” among Right wing intellectuals as alleged by Suroor, and his accusations of a dearth of “respectable well-funded Indian right-wing think tank(s) … or high-brow journal(s) or newspaper(s)” articulating Rightist positions. Rather than celebrate the situation, one would have hoped Suroor to see, if he could beyond his prejudices, the scandal behind it.
At the outset, I will concede that there is a lack of “well funded” Right Wing think tanks, something which Indian Right should take up as a task of immediate importance. Now coming to the “eminences”, Arun Shourie has brilliantly exposed the farce of Suroor’s “respectable intellectuals”.
How their “eminence’” is manufactured; how it is a cabal of like minded people (Leftists who have made quite an enterprise out of state funding and doles) forming an incestuous mutual admiration club; how they have hijacked institutions and media; how they go about tarnishing the images of scholars and intellectuals who wouldn’t kow-tow their line. No surprise then that a formidable scholar like Prof Shivaji Singh remains an obscure figure because he taught at Gorakhpur University and not JNU or a Bank employee Shrikant Talageri, unknown beyond the pale of Voice of India readers, who would otherwise be a toast of intellectual circles if it was not for the suppression of diverging views by establishment intellectuals.
For all of Suroor’s babel over the lack of intellectual roots in Indian Right, it is in fact Indian Left which has a much recent history. It is necessary to understand the difference between Leftist presence in India and the crystallisation of an indigenous Indian Left, howsoever tentative the idea might be. Left in India for long remained a forward post of Comintern with no intellectual rigour to show off its own. It was simply acting as a forward post receiving instructions from masters in Moscow and London until Indian Leftists (both card holding and the pink communists in Congress) under the aegis of a benignly disposed Nehru cobbled up a semblance of Indian Left.
Even then, no Nehruvian or Leftist intellectual has come up with the originality of thought to match that of Tilak, Savarkar, Pal or Aurobindo. Post independence intellectual scene has only meant strangling the voices of Right stalwarts such as Sita Ram Goel and Ram Swarup by maintaining a deafening silence about them or slandering people like Arun Shourie who were difficult to ignore. I am reminded about an incident narrated by Prafull Goradia, one of the most sober Right voices, about an editor of a leading daily who had made it clear to his entire editorial team that he would not tolerate any stuff in his newspaper including innocuous letters to editor by “this communal bigot”.
Further, in the neo colonial Leftist view of “intellectualism” which relies heavily on western approval, for Indian Right to get any recognition from its Leftist counterparts, not that it should bother, is still difficult. Indian Right isn’t German Right which will find latent sympathies in common Christian values with its French counterparts, for example. Unlike Left internationalism, Pan Islamism or transnational Christian brotherhood, Indian Right is unique to India and given its peculiarity can expect zero sympathy or enthusiasm from others.
The western liberals, so far as their fleeting interest in Indian Right is concerned, have their views coloured by a downright hostile Indian media- their only window for information. So if Mr Suroor was waiting for Indian Right Wingers to get invitations in seminars at Western Universities or six column op-ed space in Western newspapers for bestowing “eminence’ upon them, it was quite unlikely to come. But this does not mean Indian Right is inconsequential as an idea or that it lacks force, it is only that its relevance lies in India alone.
Further, even if we have heard a little less from Indian Right and find the intellectual scene dominated by Left, things are going to change rapidly with the advent of new age media which does not allow the control of information and opinions as in the old game. However it is doubtful that the new intellectual Indian Right will still be able to impress Mr Suroor and his likes. That is not just because Mr Suroor and Left want their own terms of intellectual reference but also because Indian Left, ever so eager to push itself into a more centrist spot of late, is actually dogmatic in its approach. It is given to certitudes like “we know what happened in Gujarat”. They remain contemptuously oblivious to the findings of Justice Nanavati or the apex Court, believing only their own versions.
As in the past, with whatever resources at its disposal, Indian Right will continue waging its intellectual battles but not to satisfy either Mr Suroor or the Leftist standards. It will continue to appeal to the vast populace of India and its long cherished sense of “Bharatiyata”. And as Mr Suroor has acknowledged it in the beginning of his piece itself, Right is gaining and gaining handsomely in Modi’s rise. And this, not the ivory towers of Leftist intellectuals, is where it counts most.
The subtraction of Hindutva from Hinduism has proved impossible for the defenders of secularism to make, since their arguments remain at an abstract level without an analysis of the historical construction of Hinduism itself.
Out of the agony that most progressive forces in the country are feeling about the results of the Gujarat elections have come many analyses, many musings about what lies ahead.
However, we should also be ready to admit that something may be wrong with Nehruvian-Gandhian secularism or at least with the way secularism has been projected as an ideal. Editorial and analytical discussions following the elections have shown a kind of desperation on the part of most defenders of secularism. The following decades will see "a frontal attack on the concept of secularism", writes K. K. Katyal (The Hindu, December 30); but he does not acknowledge that the frontal attack has been going on for some time or attempt to evaluate the successes of varying strategies of dealing with it. Dipankar Gupta, in turn, writing in the Economic and Political Weekly (November 16), calls for an "intolerant secularism," meaning that the state must be ready to forthrightly enforce the rights of citizens against violence and terror, regardless of the religious rhetoric used to justify this. But without any suggestion as to how to convince or pressure the state to do so, this remains a pious hope.
The dominant Left analysis today of the growth of violent Hindutva and other forces of religious nationalism attributes it to capitalism and globalisation. This is also a council of despair because it does not analyse why some capitalist and globalised countries are significantly more tolerant and non-violent than others; it thus prescribes no action other than to fight globalisation and capitalism. The distinction that Marxists had once made between advanced and backward capitalism, or democratic capitalism and fascism, has almost vanished. Thus, Father Nathan can lament in The Hindu open pages (December 31) that "the voice of reason is powerless against the myth" projected by the Hindutva forces — the powerlessness is itself a demonstration of desperation. His talk of building as an alternative "people's movements on people's issues" does not suggest what these movements might be. The Left parties which have in the past built such movements have been conspicuously unsuccessful in recent years; the strongest mass movements, those of farmers and Dalits, have been outside the Left framework, while the most decisive political steps on Dalit issues have been taken by a Congress leader who is a liberal of the Amartya Sen type.
Secularism, meaning simply the neutrality of the state towards religious communities, may well be necessary in today's plural society — but it still requires a foundation, a moral vision to make such a state possible. The theoretical attack on the Left-Gandhian-Nehruvian version of secularism has been a strong one. It has come not from the virulent Hindutva crowd but from leading, sophisticated intellectuals such as Ashish Nandy, Partha Chatterjee and others. Their argument has been that the concept of secularism has been "western" (i.e. European, Christian-influenced) in the way it presumes the possibility of separating religion from politics. They argue that, in contrast, religion has been so intertwined with all aspects of life in India that this is impossible (or, as Lata Mani has poetically put it, "is a dewdrop sacred or secular?"). Their alternative is to argue that Indian tradition was inherently tolerant, that it is rather the modernising state, homogenising and interventionist, requiring a monolithic "national culture" to back it up, which has been the root cause of the rise of the various forms of violence and growing alienation of religious groups seen in India today. Mr. Nandy and Mr. Chatterjee differ in various ways, and neither would like to have his position identified with that of the Hindutva ideologues. Yet, since neither says anything concrete about Islamic tolerance, we are left with the position that it is above all Hinduism that is tolerant. The progressives want to say that Hinduism is not Hindutva; the Hindutva people say that they are the same. But the subtraction of Hindutva from Hinduism has proved impossible for the defenders of secularism to make, since their arguments remain at an abstract level without an analysis of the historical construction of Hinduism itself.
Hinduism is tolerant, Islam is not; the Congress and Left who proclaim secularism are ignoring the cultural and historical realities of India and so are "pseudo-secularists." Unless these theses can be dealt with at a theoretical and ideological level, it seems to me to be very difficult to deal practically with the Hindutva ideological challenge.
In India, communism is plain "Anti-Hinduism" . There is no doubt about this. For instance, while they maintain that their aim is to remove "social and class barriers, including religious" , only Hindu class divide is highlighted; neglecting the same among the Muslim population. Also the CPI had formed government in Kerala, along with the support of Extreme right Muslim parties. But in the veil of 'secularism' , the left parties attack the centre-left, moderate BJP as "communal". This becomes quite clear on examination of self- declared leftist attempts to malign India and it's history that has only been the attack on Hindu lifestyle and it's ancient history, completely erasing the parts of Indian history; wherein Hindus were treated with utmost disdain and infidelity, under the "Muslim raiders".
The left-leaning academics of this kind have unfortunately dominated the intellectual discourse of the country since Independence. Through their control of the academic institutions and policy-making bodies, they have ensured that India remains struck in the corrosive self-negating worldview inculcated and nurtured during the colonial times. They have obstructed the path of India recovering pride in herself, her people and her civilisational heritage; and thus, they have kept India from seriously applying herself to the task of nation-building. But, though it may be possible to stop the progress of history for a while, history cannot be kept in abeyance for all times. The people of India have been kept waiting for nearly seven decades; the time has now come for India to break free and begin moving confidently towards her destiny.
If the Left had remained truely secular, instead of continuously attacking Hindu tradition and religion solely, the young people frustration and trolling in social media might not be as unprecedented as today. For instance, they all talk against Hindutva in the disguise of secularism; often criticising Hindu gods and spiritual books. But they then politically allign with minority-based parties such as IUML and AIML. In Tamil Nadu too, the "aetheist" Karunanidhi went berserk on Hindu lords, but during elections, contrary to the secular beliefs; alligned with small Christian and Muslim parties.
Now that the left seems to have been maneuvered out of a possible post-poll third front, it may well be time for CPM and CPI to take stock of its politics. Too often their energies have been spent in cobbling up alliances and fronts at national and state levels, with little progress to show as far as their growth is concerned. They observe from the sidelines as every new political trend and idea, such as the Aam Aadmi Party, that could potentially be theirs is taken up successfully by others.
The backward classes movement, dalit upsurgence, and now the middle class renaissance campaigning for good governance and against corruption – these should have had their origins in the left or at least received their grassroots support.
The left typically starts by ignoring new ideas that spring up. Then it employs its formidable Marxist sledgehammer analysis to dismiss them. And finally when the ideas solidify into a political base the left looks for a tie up but by then the ideas have run their course.
The left was out of the Anna Hazare movement. The CPI was lukewarm toward the idea of Lokpal since the party sought to protect government employees who could be nominally part of a trade union base.
Prakash Karat has said he would like to wait and watch what positions AAP takes. Many leftist commentators have argued that AAP doesn't go far enough, or, in other words, is not Marxist enough. For instance, they critique AAP’s vision document saying it is not against private education, merely for upgrading public education. They say corruption is only an outcome of crony capitalism and it is capitalism that has to be opposed.
Karat cites a recent CII talk in which Kejriwal declared he was not against capitalism. But CPM's own leaders including the venerable Jyoti Basu had said that several times. In the party's perspective, the Indian revolution will be democratic and therefore include much of the population. It will unleash dormant productive forces (which will initially have to be capitalism, according to Marxian theory) and empower vast sections. CPM's ideologues had in the past couched Basu pitches for investment in such Marxian terms.
Without using Marxian jargon, AAP has successfully hit targets that the Indian left has traditionally claimed to be its bugbears. The left has missed the public eye when it comes to needling Ambani. Karat has said in an article in the party organ People’s Democracy that gas pricing is an issue that left MPs have consistently raised in Parliament. He may be correct. But it took the energy of a police case by an elected AAP-led government to bring the issue into sharp focus. It would be unthinkable for a left front state government to do something as daring and innovative as Kejriwal's move.
It's perhaps the organizational culture of CPI, CPM that doesn't allow new ways of political messaging or even attract new talent. Karat and Sitaram Yechury are significant exceptions to the general trend of idealistic youths not finding traditional left organizations attractive. In the 60s and 70s, many of these youths became Naxalites. Later the promise of direct action and the possibility of delivering tangible and immediate benefits to people drew them into NGO work. Karat, in an early tract as a CPM ideologue, had sneered at NGOs. He found them harmful and hurdles to the left’s progress.
These amorphous, non-organization youths driven by passion and idealism, however, have always been at the forefront of gamechanging social movements in India. Schooled in the NGO world, these activists know how to play the media and the political world. They are now flocking to AAP and similar parties and movements.
But things weren't supposed to be like this. The Soviet Union was crashing down and the Soviet bloc had vanished when Prakash Karat and Sitaram Yechury were inducted into the politbureau of CPM in Chennai more than 20 years back. At that time, many thought these two may crack the Indian puzzle -- the question of why a nation with a majority of its population crushed by poverty had little room for genuine leftist politics. They may have the breadth of vision and knowledge to come up with creative ideas, it was hoped.
But two decades later, CPM, led by these two, is a pale shadow of its original self. Economic growth has made a dent on poverty in India and the middle class is no more sympathetic to leftist politics unlike in the past. Karat's major political initiatives, drawn from Leninist classics, have largely been failures.
And the left, led by Karat, sits outside and watches as yet another churning is happening, which could provide political space for regular middle class folks and professionals
When a Right winger argues on his principle, he is called a fanatic, when a Left-liberal argues on his principle, he is called principled
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