These
are some core theoretical concerns that need to be addressed.
Unfortunately it has become a habit among radical activists and
intellectuals to attribute base motives to, or treat with contempt
those who criticise established doctrine. Their mode of debate is
polemical - coloured by personal remarks and sarcasm. This practice
is detrimental to a genuine exchange of ideas. It re-inforces
factionalism and is a waste of time. It also signifies complacency.
Firm adherence to dogma may be psychologically comfortable, but it
can only ensure permanent political marginalisation.
3.
History and Paradox
Nothing
underlines the need for theoretical rejuvenation so much as the
appearance of historical paradoxes. Let us look at some of these:
1.
Integration and Fragmentation:
We are supposed to be living through a period of globalisation.
Actually, the emergence of a world economy began a few centuries
ago, although the process has moved through specific phases. Yet it
is also accompanied by increasing geo-political, ethnic and social
fragmentation. Antagonisms based on ethnic and cultural identity
proliferate, whilst at the same time capitalist institutions and
capitalist relations acquire uniformity and integration. Political
formations specialising in the preservation of ‘tradition' and
‘national uniqueness' encourage the colonisation by MNC's of
mineral and forest resources, the commercialisation of common lands.
The Czechs do not want to live with the Slovaks, but both desire to
be part of the European Union and NATO. India and Pakistan hate each
other, but both are desperate for American approval.
These
apparently divergent phenomena may be understood within a theory
that combines the particular characteristics of culture with the
universal tendencies of capitalism. Thus, every nationalism
celebrates particularity, yet the nation-state remains the general
form of political association, common to all continents. Every
monetary currency possesses validity within certain boundaries, yet
money as such remains the universal language of capitalist commerce.
Nationalist particularism performs the function of ideological
control and discipline. Another way of presenting this problem is to
conceptualise the lag between the interdependent character of the
world economy and the fragmentary nature of its political
constituents. This is manifested as the inadequacy of global
regulatory structures to contemporary economic and political
requirements. Given the inherently conflictual nature of capitalist
production relations, this should not surprise us. Global economic
life includes policies of world financial institutions that affect
the lives of millions of people denied a say in the decision making
processes of these bodies. In a nutshell, not only is there no
direct co-relation between capitalism and democracy, it appears that
capitalism as a global system is structurally undemocratic. The
preservation of democracy will ultimately require humanity to
transcend the capitalist system. Or else the capitalist system will
end up destroying democracy.
2.
Democracy and Equality: Another
problem relates to the tension between political equality and social
inequality. The dominant common-sense of our times often
counterposes political liberty to social and economic freedom. What
issues arise out of such a juxtaposition? Without the movement of
the repressed and exploited sections of society, feudal
particularisms and barriers of capitalist accumulation could never
have been overthrown. At the same time, the destructive impact of
the capitalist market on traditional livelihood had become apparent
by the early decades of the industrial revolution in mid-nineteenth
century. It is noteworthy that the institutions of political
democracy were not handed down by the ruling elites, but were a
product of class struggle. Adult suffrage, the right to combine, and
the right to social security were gains of the labour movement. In
brief, the movement for political democracy was potentially always a
movement for social democracy as well. In this sense the modern
democratic state system has its origins as much in the aspirations
of workers as in the requirements of capital. That is why its
internal contradictions are always latent, and come to the surface
periodically, when the consensus breaks down.
I
would like now to address the logical tensions inherent in the
concept of democracy. Democracy is a political form embodying
certain principles of association. When considered within the
context of a specific socio-economic system, the history of
democracy raises the question - how compatible is capitalism with
human equality? I believe there is an incompatibility between a
political form based on the ideal of equality on the one hand, and
an economic system grounded on the subjugation of labour, on the
other. However, since capitalism came into the world flying the flag
of equality of opportunity and opposition to caste / feudal status
and hierarchy, and since capitalist wealth takes liquid (monetary)
rather than fixed (landed) forms, it is easy to confuse capitalism
with democracy as such. However, the exploited elements of society
are bound to struggle for deepening political democracy, and
realising its social-democratic potential. When citizenship and
equality before the law become dangerous for the sustained growth of
capitalism, the elite's committment to democracy can and will be
withdrawn. This is what is happening in India today.
The
above argument provides us an occasion to reflect on another
paradox. Three decades ago, a section of the Indian communist
movement took the ‘Naxalite' turn. At that time it denounced the
electoral process as a fraud on the people, and aimed at the
overthrow of the constitutional order. The ruling elite took
political refuge behind the Constitution and the rule of law. Today,
significant sections of the radical Left and its well-wishers have
emerged as staunch defenders of the democratic rights and liberties
enshrined in the Constitution, while the Indian ruling elite has
repeatedly shown its discomfort with constitutional rights and
proprieties. The protagonists have switched positions. Those of us
who desire social change must think of a coherent explanation for
this 180-degree turn. The analysis must focus on the following
questions: 1./ which political currents and social forces want to
undermine democracy;
- which social groups most require the preservation of
democracy;
- whether democracy may be protected by arousing the conscience
of the social-political elite or whether this object entails an
explicit effort on the part of oppressed social groups; and finally,
4./ whether the defence of democracy requires a commitment to basic
democratic values
Democracy
and Identity: The idea and
practice of democracy is linked to the concept of identity. The
"rule of the people" carries the implicit, logical
presupposition that we know who "the people" are, even before we
speak of their right to "self-determination". Definitions of the
‘self', the ideologically defined boundaries of "the people"
are presupposed in the practice of democracy. This issue is related
to the birth and development of the nation-state and the notion of
sovereignty. Identity is an ideological construction and therefore,
a matter of political power and class interest. For example, the
slogan that the Kashmiris have a right to "self-determination"
implies that the identity of Kashmiris is self-evident. The moment
the issue of the identity of Ladakhis or Dogras is brought into the
argument, the latent violence of unilateral definitions becomes
evident. We also need to distinguish between various streams of
identity - religion-based, ethnic and linguistic, etc. Thus whereas
communalism is one type of identity politics, all identity politics
are not communalist in orientation. The question of communalism will
be discussed further below.
The
exploitation of labour has always been linked with certain
co-ordinates of identity. This is true with regard to the African
slaves of the American cotton plantations, Tamil tea-garden workers
in Sri Lanka, Irish builders of British railroads, and the thousands
of Indian indentured labourers, mostly of the so-called Depressed
Classes, who were sent all over the British Empire to work on
plantations. Identity has played a crucial role in extra-economic
oppression, serving to intensify the exploitative process.
Historically, the communist movement in India underplayed the
question of caste-oppression and looked upon it as an ideological
rather than structural issue. This alienated it from the most
significant social group with a vested interest in democracy, and is
one of the basic reasons for its political marginalisation and
theoretical stagnation. (This matter needs a separate discussion).
Mobilisation
around identity can be a powerful magnet in politics, but it is a
double-edged sword. If the vision behind any specific politics of
identity is that of human liberation, its language will be an
inclusive one, seeking allies on the ground of similar existential
experience. Thus, social humiliation, which is characteristic of the
life experience of Dalits, and which formed the basis for the
emergence of a "Depressed Classes" estate, has also been the
experience of other groups. Opposition to systematic humiliation can
become a basis for building bridges between all oppressed people,
Dalit and non-Dalit alike. Furthermore, a radical social-democratic
politics must try to understand the links between social oppression
based on caste and race, and the capitalist system as a whole.
Without this, identity politics runs the risk of speaking an
exclusive language and thereby losing its liberatory potential.
Although a focus on identity is necessary for workers who have been
socially humiliated, its future depends on the evolution of a
democratic programme speaking a common language of human liberation.
We
must address the nature of identity politics. It cannot be dismissed
or wished away, and it contains a potential for human betterment.
But it is vulnerable to the problems of definition, of generating
authoritarian tendencies towards its own constituents (needless to
say, this has happened in the communist movement as well), of
reducing itself to a vacuous radicalism of little benefit to the
oppressed in whose name it speaks. It is also subject to the
never-ending logic of internal fragmentation, as more and more
identities are generated within the confines of the community which
is being constructed. We may also note that those who speak the
language of "minority rights" often ignore the rights of
minorities within the
minorities, or individual rights.
In
its exclusivist form, by attaching virtue and vice to entire
communities, identity politics enables India's savarna-capitalist
elite to erode the rights and status of the individual citizen and
thereby to subvert Indian democracy. For example, when communal
violence is condoned by the police and legal system, this implies
that all of us do not enjoy equal protection under the law.
Citizenship is also undermined by the class/caste biases of the
elite, including the senior bureaucracy, who are duty-bound to
uphold the Constitution rather than interpret it.
Identity
politics also contains the risk of repressive political tendencies.
The shifting and overlapping nature of Indian identities - regional,
linguistic and caste-based, makes this a complex and contentious
matter. It is high time that we give it the attention that it is
due.
4.
Some Landmarks of Modern History
In
this section, I will briefly recount selected aspects of twentieth
century history that are relevant to my argument. This exploratory
exercise is meant to place our immediate and local predicament
within a larger context. The period from 1789 till the second decade
of the 19th century marked a revolutionary change in
human affairs, with the appearance of the ideals of democracy, the
nation state and republicanism in the political sphere and
industrialism in the sphere of economic life. It is noteworthy that
the establishment of capitalist society was not a smooth process,
nor was that of democracy. Nor should the two be confused. The
French revolution was succeeded by Napoleonic imperialism, itself a
highly ambivalent historical process, which set off severe political
and military convulsions all over central and eastern Europe, not
least in Germany and Imperial Russia. The English industrial
revolution was marked by state interventions to establish the
so-called free market economy, the very gradual retreat of the
landed aristocracy, and massive struggles by the working class for
enfranchisement and the right to combine. It was the reformist
trends in the English and German labour movement, combined with
revolutionary and syndicalist groups in France and southern Europe,
that produced the International Working Men's Association,
otherwise known as the First International. For practical purposes,
the latter came to an end after the failure of the Paris Commune of
1871. The memories of 1789, of "the people" in motion, and of
barricades and urban uprisings hung like a shadow through the events
of the 19th century, prompting Marx to begin his famous
manifesto with the image of a spectre. Although the much spoken-of
worker's revolution did not occur, the fact remains that it was
the pressure of the emergent labour movement that led to the
staggered appearance of universal franchise and democratic
institutions.
The
unification of Germany in the 1870's, its emergence as a great power
in central Europe radically altered the balance of power. Along with
this, the competitive scramble for empire in the last quarter of the
19th century laid the seeds for some of the most profound
and disturbing developments in human history. Steam engines, coal,
steel and telegraphy transformed the face of the earth and enabled
Europe to colonise most of the globe. Powerful labour movements,
some of them influenced by anarchism and syndicalism, spread ripples
of class antagonism among the ruling classes, who were themselves
divided by factional power struggles. The political tensions
accompanying this process led to the conflagration of the Great War,
or the First World War, which saw the massive deployment of modern
industrial processes, state-controlled economies and the
mobilisation of entire populations for the war effort. It also broke
forever the unity of the socialist movement
Between
1911 and 1918, five dynastic empires collapsed - the Manchu, the
Hohenzollern (Germany), the Tsarist, the Hapsburg (Austro-Hungary)
and the Ottaman (Turkey). This was the historical equivalent of an
earthquake of the highest magnitude. The events of those seven years
contain the key to the geo-politics of the twentieth century. The
re-description of international boundaries at the Paris Peace
Conference of 1919, and the establishment of international
institutions such as the League of Nations and the International
Labour Office, were some of the new developments originating in
those years. By far their most significant outcome was the Bolshevik
Revolution and the appearance of two competing visions of the new
world order - the Wilsonian (after US President Woodrow Wilson)
ideal of co-existing capitalist nation-states, versus the Leninist
ideal of international socialist revolution.
The
Russian Revolution: Bolshevism
was the first major challenge to capitalism and imperialism. The
debate about the historical experience and legacy of Bolshevism will
continue for decades. In this essay I merely wish to present an
outline of an alternative approach. Firstly, the events of 1917 were
possible only by the confluence of a peasant revolution against
landed property with a workers revolution against capitalism - in a
marxist sense, this combined the beginning of the bourgeois era with
its end. The "peasant question" thereby became a major problem
for the regime. Second, there took place not two Russian revolutions
in 1917-18, but three - the third being the upsurge of oppressed
nationalities. It is noteworthy that today, the members of the CIS,
the successor states of the USSR, signify by their existence the
most lasting legacy of 1917. As one insightful historian has
remarked about the First World War, "(It) had been a war of
nationalities throughout; and the Russian Revolution had acted as a
solvent of imperialism for the benefit, not so much of Communism or
even of socialism, as of nationality" (Elie Halevy, The
Era of Tyrannies : Essays on Socialism and War,1967).
Despite the ideological impact of Bolshevism, the 1920's witnessed
greater membership growth for the moderate social-democratic parties
than the communist parties affiliated to the Third International.
The
third point I would like to stress is the need to look at the
Stalinist regime and its hegemonic power in Central Europe after 1945
as an outcome of certain trends in Russian national history, and not
as an example of Marxism in practice. (For example, the contest over
Afghanistan between Russia and the Western powers began in the early
decades of the 19th century). Russia was devastated by
German expansionism twice in the short space of twenty-five years,
the first time as Tsarist Empire, the second time as the USSR. The
second occasion found her more prepared to face the onslaught than
the first. The USSR fought alone for three years against a three
million strong army that Hitler unleashed upon it in 1941, and lost
over twenty million (two crore) lives in the process. The battle of
Stalingrad alone cost 5 million (50 lakh) lives. We should not forget
that the Red Army and the Russian people bore the brunt of the human
cost of saving the world from a Hitlerian victory. If we consider the
impact of the First World War on Russian national life, we can see
that the need to counter the second Germanic invasion (everyone
expected this, especially after Hitler's rise to power which began
in the late 1920's) was a major motivating factor behind the
accelerated industrialisation and collectivisation of the 1930's. And
the establishment of puppet regimes in Central Europe after 1945 was
a defensive reflex of a state that had paid the maximum price in two
world wars. The history of German imperialism (and Russia's
resistance to it) helps explain developments in Eastern and Central
Europe for most of the 20th century. The decline of the
military-bureaucratic state system that was the Soviet camp during
the second half of the 20th century was a historical
necessity, and should not be seen as the end of the socialist
challenge.
The
Crisis of the 1930's: Another
major development in world history was the 1929 financial crash,
which highlighted the inner tensions of the emerging capitalist world
economy. The economic decline that followed (known as the Great
Depression), resulted in factories and machines lying idle,
job-losses for millions of workers and the spectacle of foodstuffs
rotting or being destroyed while people starved. Suddenly the Marxist
critique of capitalism became more respectable, especially as the
USSR seemed to be poised on an industrial take-off. Around this time
John Maynard Keynes presented his General Theory of
Employment, Interest and Money,
which advocated state intervention in the economy (via employment
generation) over and above the mere regulation of financial activity.
Keynes was by no means a socialist, and his intentions were to save
the capitalist system from financially generated crisis and collapse.
And we may analyse Keynesianism as the product of the impact of
social democracy on bourgeois economic doctrine. Howsoever we look at
it, Keynes' departure from the dogma of laissez-faire economics
showed a way out of mass unemployment and provided a theoretical
basis for social-democratic participation in European governments. It
also influenced American President Roosevelt's New Deal of the
1930's. Workers' distributional demands within capitalism could
now be articulated without revolutionary rhetoric. The
social-democratic class-collaborationism inspired by Keynesian
economics became the basis for the emergence of the so-called welfare
state of post-war Europe. We may name this phenomenon "capitalism
with a human face".
I
have mentioned elsewhere (see below, section 5) the characteristics
of fascism and nazism, in the 1930's. In part this was a consequence
of the politics of militant nationalism and revenge, engendered by
the aftermath of the First World War, in part of the Great Depression
and mass unemployment. The mass-psychological and symbolic causes of
the rise of fascism are crucial to an adequate understanding of this
phenomenon. Its victory was not inevitable - Hitler could have been
electorally defeated right up until 1933, had the German
social-democrats and communists fought the Nazi party unitedly. For
several reasons, this did not happen, and the world was dragged into
the most violent conflict in humanity's history, culminating in the
criminal acts such as the genocide of European Jews and the nuclear
bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Following
the triumph of Nazism, the policy of the Third International (or
Comintern) turned in the direction of anti-fascist united fronts.
Major developments took place in France, where a Popular Front
ministry took power in 1936. In Spain, the monarchists, the Catholic
Church, and the generals launched a coup d'etat against the Popular
Front. This resulted in the Spanish Civil War (1936-38), in which the
right led by General Franco were supported by Germany and Italy. The
USSR intervened to support the Republic, but the policy imposed by it
upon the republican forces, of confining the revolution within the
constitutional framework even after the ruling classes had launched a
military coup, led to inner division and final defeat in 1938. The
governments of Britain and the USA remained neutral, and subsequent
research has shown that they preferred to see the victory of the
fascists than risk the emergence of another red republic. The tragedy
of the Spanish Civil War was overshadowed by the outbreak of the
Second World War in 1939.
The
significance of the Second World War:
The second world war could be seen as a continuation of the first,
given the many unsettled issues arising from the crisis of 1914-18.
Although much opprobrium has been directed at the USSR for the
so-called Nazi Soviet Pact of August 1939, the fact remains that
Stalin had attempted an alliance with the western powers right up
until a few weeks before that pact, but Britain did not want to
guarantee the security of the USSR. Moreover, the British had
conceded Hitler's domination of central Europe at the Munich
Conference of October 1938. However, the micro-politics of the war's
origins do not concern us here. In terms of war losses, the USSR was
the greatest sufferer - as I have mentioned above. The following
points are worth recounting.
First,
in terms of the struggle against Hitlerism, the second world war was
a Soviet-German war with some peripheral action by British and
American forces. At the height of the hostilities, in 1942-43, there
were 186 German divisions in the Russian theatre, and only six
stationed in France. The USSR fought the war with its own resources,
war ordnance, and aircraft - American assistance was limited to
clothing and transport. It was only in 1944, when the Red Army was
pushing the Nazis out of central Europe, that the Anglo-American land
offensive against Germany began. Second,
it was the Moscow agreement in late 1942 between Stalin and Churchill
on their respective "spheres of influence" that set down the
foundations for the partition of Europe. Third,
the determination of the British and French to retain their colonial
empires gave the lie to Allied propaganda about freedom and democracy
- this is why they re-armed the surrendered Japanese army in Vietnam
in 1944 in order to obtain manpower for the war against the communist
party and the Vietminh, who had fought the Japanese occupation.
There are many such examples, including Indonesia, the Philippines
and Korea. Fourth, the
war led to a tremendous growth of communist parties and the left in
various countries from Europe to Asia. In
Europe the CP's were in the forefront of the anti-Nazi underground,
in China and parts of East Asia, they led hegemonic nationalist
movements. Thus, in 1939 membership of the CP's was estimated at 1
million, (ten lakhs). The Comintern was abolished by Stalin in 1943,
but despite this, by 1945 the membership of worldwide communist
parties had risen to 14 million. Once more, a spectre was haunting
Europe, even the world. Fifth,
the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was undertaken to warn
the USSR about American intentions to dominate the United Nations and
the post-war global system. The refusal by
the USSR to accept a subsidiary role or to vacate central Europe
without adequate guarantees for her security and of the
neutralisation of Germany, plus the refusal by the Vietnamese,
Indians, Indonesians, etc to tolerate the continuation of colonialism
by the Allied imperial powers formed the background for the advent of
the Cold War. Finally,
at the end of the war there was a tremendous popular groundswell in
favour of peace. This led to the establishment of the United Nations
(for which plans were laid in the summit meetings of the allies from
1942 onwards), and the beginnings of a system of global governance.
One of the earliest decisions of the UN, the partition of Palestine
(the USSR had voted for the creation of Israel in 1948), also turned
out the most dangerous for world peace.
The
Cold War and the Second Half of the 20th Century
The
British intervention in Greece in 1944-47, inaugurated the Cold War.
It was intended to secure the western sphere of influence agreed upon
by Churchill and Stalin. It led to Soviet neutrality even as British
troops assisted the Greek monarchist forces against the left-wing
National Liberation Front, which wanted a democratic republic and
land reforms. Concentration camps and press censorship were freely
used by the leaders of the "free world" to crush a moderate
democratic movement in Greece. It was during this period in 1946,
that Churchill made his famous speech in Fulton (USA), in which he
spoke of an "Iron Curtain" that now divided democratic from
totalitarian regimes. Thereafter ultra-right wing dictators became a
favourite with Anglo-American policy-makers, as these were the most
devoted anti-communists. Vietnam, Indonesia and Chile are a few
prominent examples of this policy.
The
Vietnam war was inaugurated by British Indian troops sent there in
1944 in order to accept the surrender of the Japanese and hand over
the country back to the French. In this sense it was the last
colonial war in 19th century style. It was also a
nationalist struggle more than a communist one. General Giap, who
presided over the defeats of three colonial powers, is certainly one
of history's greatest generals - it is a pity that few people know
that he is still alive. The war led to an American determination
never again to intervene with land forces in Asia, it radicalised an
entire generation of western youth, and gave occasion to the US
rapprochement with China. The radicalisation of civil society in the
western world led to a renewed critique of capitalism, which was
expressed most forcefully in the May 1968 uprising in France, when
ten million workers went on the largest-ever lightning strike. There
were other signs of global radicalisation - including the crisis of
Soviet domination in Eastern Europe (the Prague Spring and subsequent
Soviet invasion). and the anti-war movement in the USA. The late
1960's could be named the third moment of radical utopia in the 20th
century, the others being the periods 1917-21 and 1945-47, when the
desire for revolutionary transformation actually gripped millions of
people the world over. Utopia always recedes, but utopian moments
leave their mark on history.
The
rise of Solidarity and the Polish workers movement in the 1980's
contributed to the end of the cold war, by bringing about the
collapse of state-socialism. Regardless of their ideological stance,
it was the working-class that fought for democracy in Poland. It is
true that the western powers and the Vatican used the opportunity to
undermine Soviet influence in Eastern Europe - but the roots of the
problem lay in the grossly undemocratic and unpopular nature of the
"socialist" regimes. It would be simplistic to blame it all on a
CIA conspiracy. The Soviet bloc collapsed under its own weight,
leaving us with the enormous task of comprehension.
The
above is a scanty outline of some facts and interpretations - there
are a great many issues that I have left untouched. I must stress
once more that we have lived through a very significant historical
period and that popular struggles have contributed to some very
positive developments. For example the European Nuclear Disarmament
movement of the 1980's (END), one of whose inspirational leaders was
the English historian E.P. Thompson, played a major role in defusing
nuclear tension over the Star Wars and MX missile programmes of NATO,
and building public nuclear awareness. The collapse of apartheid in
South Africa was another great popular victory for democracy - the
strong presence of communists in the anti-apartheid movement
demonstrated the stark links between social democracy and political
democracy. The disappearance of the USSR and the rise of right-wing
triumphalism came hand in hand, but today it is no longer possible
for capitalist ideologues to explain the global crisis by a simple
reference to the failures of socialism. Capitalist society is now
face to face with itself.
5.
Fascism as a Global Phenomenon
The
history of fascism and nazism deserves separate treatment which I
will not attempt here. (I shall use the word ‘fascism' to refer
to both). After the violent events of the 1930's and 1940's, fascism
can no longer be defined as purely European. I will sum up the
overall defining characteristics of this historical tendency which is
the very antithesis of socialism and democracy. These characteristics
are as follows:
-
fascism
is radicalised conservatism - a fearful ideological response to
democracy;
-
it's
hatred for equality and citizenship is disguised by exclusivist forms
of identity;
-
fascist
ideology depicts selected communities as the source of all social and
political ills;
-
it
generates the militarisation of civil society, with constant
preparation for civil war;
-
it
reduces the discipline of history to the legitimation of symbolic
memory; to a record of victory and defeat;
-
fascism
glorifies violence as a ‘masculine' virtue, evokes sentiment to
justify violence;
-
fascism
joins criminality to political activity, uses democracy to destroy
it.
6.
Indian Fascism - The Century-Long Communal Mobilisation
The
disastrous events of the 1930's and 40's had a global impact, not
least because they dragged the whole world into an anti-fascist war
that cost nearly six crore lives. We are still living through its
after-effects. Communalism is the Indian version of fascism. The fact
that some people use the term "fascist" rhetorically does
not mean that it can never be used with rigour. Indian fascism, like
Indian capitalism, has been staggered in its development.
Unfortunately the Indian left failed to understand the profound
significance of communalism, and at one stage (through the Adhikari
resolution of 1942) the CPI endorsed the idea of Pakistan by
artificially equating the national question in colonial India with
the Bolshevik theory of Tsarism as a "prison of nations". By
supporting the idea of a Muslim nation, the CPI ended up unwittingly
bolstering the equally dangerous theory of Hindu Rashtra. For many
years thereafter, the communist movement tended to treat so-called
‘minority' communalism as something less dangerous than so-called
‘majority' communalism. Not only was this an example of a
doctrinal retreat - by accepting the arithmetic of communities rather
than that of caste/class differentiation - it also demonstrated a
fundamental analytical failure.
Fascism
bases itself on fabricated and exclusive ethnic identity. The complex
and multifarious nature of ethnic differentiation in India gave
Indian fascism its segmented character, which is its greatest
strength. It must therefore be stressed that communalism is one
phenomenon with different manifestations rather than an arithmetical
total of Hindu, Muslim or Sikh communalisms.
Its self-sustaining tendency derives precisely from this apparent
binary structure, with each reproducing the other. To understand it,
we must abstract from its compartment-like appearance, and
concentrate on its generic uniformity, ie., on elements common to all
types of communalism. Indian fascism's ideological method defines
democracy in arithmetical rather than institutional terms, while
despising democratic values; accords superiority to sentiment and
hateful ethnic mobilisation over the requirements of civic order and
criminal justice; uses so-called traditional values to express a fear
of women and hostility to gender equality; and glorifies violence as
a ‘masculine' virtue. Once we have comprehended the fundamental
unity of all communalisms, we may understand that Partition was the
achievement of Indian, rather than Hindu or Muslim communalism. V.D.
Savarkar was as much a believer in the Two Nation theory as Jinnah.
The theory of Hindu Rashtra, (whose roots lie in the late 19th
century), apparently geared towards a unitary state, fueled the
demand for a Muslim homeland. And the success of this demand
strengthened the politics of Hindu Rashtra. Conservative social
forces are obviously each others' best allies. In short, if Indian
independence (as conceived of in the pre-1947 period) were to be
imagined as an authoritarian state constructed around religious
symbols, the logic of fragmentation (rather than unity) was always
the likely outcome. This is why the emergence of Pakistan was the
first step on the road to the partition of Pakistan itself. By the
same logic, Hindu Rashtra and Akhand Bharat are mutually exclusive
ideals. The political successes of Hinduttva will push India towards
further division and fragmentation.
Some
persons are deceived by the presence of agreeable demands in
right wing politics. This is not logically an indication that it
is not fascist. Demands to eradicate unemployment or corruption (etc)
are essential to fascism. Some are implementable, some purely
rhetorical. The RSS will do disaster relief, and the Shiv Sena will
provide subsidised lunches. They might also demand the punishment of
the guilty of 1984 (and never do it when they are in power). But the
communalists will not hesitate to undermine legal processes with
regard to their own vicious activities. The fate of criminal
prosecutions after the Babri Masjid demolition, the Delhi Riots of
1984 and the Bombay Riots of 1993 demonstrate this.
There
remains an important matter that I should mention - that is, the
similarities between Nazism and Stalinism in the matter of the
repressive aspects of these regimes. The mainstream Indian left has
thus far not even acknowledged the widespread violence that took
place in the USSR during the 1930's. We cannot dodge this question
forever without the risk of moral cowardice. However, it must be said
that a Marxist politics does not locate human evil in an ethnic
community nor even in the capitalist class, but in certain iniquitous
social relations. There have indeed been murderous marxists, but the
physical elimination of a whole class of persons, (howsoever
defined), by degrading them to a sub human status, does not
logically flow from Marxist positions. This is not an apology for
stalinism but an underlining of the difference between stalinism and
nazism An interesting argument on this matter may be found in the
preface to the Czech edition of J.P. Stern's book The
Fuhrer and the People, (Fontana,
1990). The further marxists move from humanism to ethnicity as an
approach towards ordinary people, the closer do they resemble
fascists. I have no hesitation in describing the activities of Pol
Pot as genocidal. Certain communists, being doctrinally contemptuous
of ethical philosophy, and wedded to "scientism", never
commit sins, only "errors" and "mistakes", even
if those mistakes involve millions of dead bodies.
Since
India has not yet been fully hegemonised by fascist politics, some of
us hesitate to recognise its presence. This is because we refuse to
see fascism as a political process, an outcome of socio-economic
developments. The specific political expressions of this trend have
their own fluctuations. Some fascists are successful some not, some
halfway there. Some are completely marginal. They cannot be judged
solely by their successes. To recognise them for what they are only
after they have murdered thousands is not a fruitful procedure.
Elemental ingredients of fascism are present in political currents
other than fascism, just as all human beings possess the capacity to
indulge in highly destructive behaviour, (even if it remains
unrealised or controlled). The reduction of the question of violence
to the level of a tactic is the first sign of degeneration, followed
by the elevation of violent instinct to a virtue. I speak of politics
in the sense of a mass project, a developmental process. The presence
of these elements does not mean that such and such political activity
is already fascist, just as futile would it be to say that all
participants in communal rioting are fascists. Their growth into a
stable political project is the defining moment.
The
normalisation of brutality and the preparation for and installation
of civil war as a fact of life are the consequence of fascist
politics. Civil war has been taking place in South Asia for decades.
Partition was an escalation of communalist civil war to geo political
dimensions. Parts of independent India have been under armed
occupation for most of 50 years, Sri Lanka is in the midst of civil
war. Pakistan underwent civil war in 1971, and is today in the grip
of what is called the "nationality problem". These are examples
of staggered fascism at work. But the Indian left still does not have
an understanding of fascism. Some of us are fixated by European
paradigms. Since we think civil war is the only way to combat
fascists, and since we are in no position to launch civil war, we
come to the simple conclusion that there is no fascist movement to
combat. This attitude was prevalent in the mainstream left for years.
Thus, collaborating with fascists was impossible for communists after
1945. But if the CP's wanted to collaborate with the RSS political
fronts or with the Muslim League on an anti Congress platform,
all they had to do was to refuse to acknowledge their fascist
character. They did this until 1989. Indian fascism has already
indulged in civil war spread over decades and we surely do not need
any more civil war to resist it. But resist it we must.
Communalism
is one project with several faces, a veritable hydra headed
monster. Its object is not upholding Hindu or Muslim "culture
and traditions". To the contrary, if indeed there is any Hindu
or Muslim culture as popularly practiced, communalism is destroying
it. Its object is to undermine democratic politics and to forestall
the potential of social democracy. Given the lakhs of people killed
in the riots before and after Partition and the wars over Kashmir and
Bangladesh, the tens of thousands killed in massacres such as those
which took place in 1969, 1979, 1982, 1984, 1990 and 1992 3
etc., this project has had many successes, and is still unfolding.
Communal violence reinforces communal identities. Its function is to
undermine citizenship in order to maintain the ‘traditional'
recruitment and regulatory structures of informal labour. It has
undermined the evolution of civic culture, citizenship and a
functioning regulatory apparatus that might benefit millions of
labouring poor. It has almost completely demolished the criminal
justice system. Vast numbers of army and policemen in Pakistan and
Sri Lanka and India think communally for them the concept of a
citizen with inalienable rights regardless of religion would be
unthinkable, and a secular state an example of deracinement.
What
concerns me is a realistic understanding of the function of communal
politics. It signifies the destruction of rational discourse, and an
erosion of democratic values and institutions to the detriment of
those who most need a democratic constitution to protect themselves.
Its method is that of the protection racket give us power or
we shall keep on murdering innocent citizens. Like all criminal power
seekers, they will appeal for public order after they attain the
throne. It is the brutalisation of human conscience that is most
tragic. I still remember the carnival atmosphere that gripped the
middle class colonies in Delhi while their residents watched Sikh
citizens being beaten to death or burnt alive in 1984. Muslims of
Pakistan paid the maximum price for "their" version of a
victorious communalism. They are still doing so. The historical price
of Hinduttva's
victories has yet to be gauged.
7.
The Necessity of Social - Democracy
If
I were to summarise the mobilisational needs of Indian socialism, it
would be in the following simple requirements:
- Formation of unions of rural workers, artisans and so-called
"informal sector" labour for struggles around minimum wages,
equal pay for men and women, and against acts of extra-economic
exploitation and oppression
-
Articulation of the demands of urban poor and middle classes around
both working-class and ‘stakeholder' issues concerning transport,
housing, energy, education and environment.
- Formulating and agitating for social-democratic programmes on land
relations, working conditions and workers control of industry, and
ecologically sound policies on water, toxic waste disposal, food
production and forestry.
- Defence of citizenship and development of democratic institutions at
all levels of society; resistance to communalist, chauvinist and
hate-mongering politics; to caste and gender based discrimination.
These
elements, to my mind, are the lowest common denominator of a
social-democratic programme for the Indian left. A united front of
democratic forces committed to social justice, economic
redistribution and cultural pluralism would be immensely popular with
ordinary Indians. But unity around a common programme has become
impossible for the several factions of leftists, who have yet to
produce an explanation of their own marginalisation in a country
whose conditions cry out for a socialist movement. I have tried to
indicate why this is so - but we are still far from a clear
understanding. I will now state some propositions towards that end.
These will be more contentious than the above.
There
are three ways in which the word ‘socialism' may be used; the
first refers to the doctrine of the liberation of labour, the second
refers to an existing socio- economic system, and the third refers to
a movement. Confusion arises when we unconsciously employ
interchanging usages. The doctrines of socialism are in crisis
because of their failure to explain events of recent decades (except
in terms of ‘betrayal' etc). The crisis need not be permanent -
but socialist theory has to face the challenge. The social system
known as the ‘socialist bloc' has all but disappeared. China,
Vietnam and Cuba, the countries still under the rule of communist
parties, hardly see themselves as the vanguard of world revolution.
It seems that the first phase of ‘transition' has ended, and the
experience has to be interpreted. Was this the pre-history of
socialism, a phase of militant nationalist resistance to imperialism
rather than the emergence of an alternative to capitalism? We have to
digest and learn lessons from this rich and painful history. Finally,
socialism refers to a social movement - the need for which is
constantly generated from the very ground of capitalist society and
oppressive social relations. A new social movement of opposition to
capitalism is already in formation, and it is self consciously taking
international forms. How it will develop depends on all of us.
The
crisis of revolutionary doctrine has one root in the history of
leninism with its programmatic presumptions of absolute truth; and
its dubious concept of the Outside. The ossification of critical
thought in the Indian Left is partly the product of the resonance
between brahmanical and leninist epistemology, both of which presume
a social division between those who possess knowledge (seen as an
entitlement to power), and those who work. An absolutist starting
point also generates the approach of using theory as a means of
sectarian demarcation, rather than understanding and changing social
reality. The purveyors of this outlook may be named the "aristocracy
of the intellect". The view that a certain caste or a group of
theoreticians are naturally qualified to produce the truth for
society is at heart antithetical to "the democracy of the
intellect", which alone can develop the resources for social
transformation.
This
dogmatic approach to knowledge was the reason why left-wing theory
could not deal with categories of caste and gender as they operate in
Indian society. Thus, it is apparent that the Indian population
during the years of nationalist mobilisation tended to align
themselves along class-oriented as well as
conventional lines, making confederations of caste. Organisations of
class interests emerged, but so did estates (as I suggest we name
them) of caste-interest. What is significant is that these estates
were not the traditional forms of caste society, but novel means of
political organisation. They were traditional in name, but modern in
function. Among the tasks of a rejuvenated Indian socialism would be
the analysis of how class interests are represented in
caste-federations, such as the Dalit, OBC and savarna
estates. New organisational methods would stress inclusion rather
than exclusion, theoretical exploration rather than final, absolute
truth. This would help achieve maximum unity on a minimum platform,
in contrast to the approach of "minimum unity on maximum
programme", which has only resulted in fragmentation.
The
crisis of the radical sensibility (this is not merely an Indian
phenomenon) is exemplified by ethical nihilism (generated by
post-modernist relativism), the glorification of smallness, a belief
in economic autarky (swadeshi), and confusion over the politics of
identity, violence, and nationalism. Whereas Marxism's best known
slogan used to be, "Workers of all countries, unite!", today the
platform of internationalism has been vacated by the socialist
movement and occupied by MNC's and finance capital.
There is an urgent need to revitalise the critique of capitalism, to
analyse the mythic notion that capitalist relations are natural, and
that ‘growth' will eventually lead to universal peace and
prosperity. On a global scale, the capitalist system generates
violence and conflict, not prosperity and growth. Most of all, it
endangers democratic institutions and undermines human equality.
Social
democracy involves the emergence of an ethically defined community, a
community based not on ethnic but normative elements. The central
features of these socialist values are: human and gender equality,
the dignity of life and labour, and social justice. To these we must
add ahimsa and karuna,
which are Gandhiji's contribution to the vocabulary of humanitarian
politics, of respect for human life. Violence is the underlying
grammar of every type of oppressive social relation. Devoid of the
value of ahimsa, the
socialist movement will remain caught in a vicious cycle defined by
the traditions of the past, rather than the needs of the future.
Finally, it must stop habitually confining itself within adversarial
politics and adopt the posture of owning democracy and
whole-heartedly participating in the development of democratic
institutions.
Historical
reality has always challenged theory. It is time once more for theory
to challenge reality. We are not the fortunate witnesses of History's
end. Can our ideals, thought processes and imagination keep pace with
history? If not, we may only look forward to nuclear war, communal
conflicts and onslaughts on the rights and living standards of
working people. If we can, we may yet embark upon designing the
history of the future.
Addendum
on cultural provenance of fascism:
On
the matter of whether there are any traditional ingredients of
fascism in Indian culture, this was a very important question which I
failed to answer in the aftermath of my lecture. Upon consideration,
I have the following comment. It is this: certain norms and
conventions of Brahmanic culture militate against the ideals of human
equality. Prominent among these are legal doctrines (or values
stemming therefrom) which delineate crime and punishment within a
hierarchical universe, according to the status of the wrong doer
rather than the crime committed. Texts such as the Manusmriti, the
Satapatha Brahmana and the Arthasastra, make it clear that concepts
of truth, wrong doing and punishment are relative to the caste
of the persons involved. Brahmins were repositories of truth, were
exempt from corporal punishment, and along with Kshatriyas, from the
payment of taxes. Gautama's Dharmasutra even permits a Brahmin to
help himself to the money of a sudra by force to defray the expenses
of a marraige or ritual... Sudras (in some texts the very
representation of untruth), were excluded from the pursuit of
knowledge, condemned to a life of hard labour, could expect no civil
or religious rights, and liable to severe corporal punishments. Real
life often deviated from these clear cut norms, but the fact remains
that the prescriptions governing individual conduct differed
according to rank, as did punishments for the same offence. The
stamina of these ideals caused much irritation to the administrators
of the East India Company in the late eighteenth century. Thus,
Brahmins in Benaras were exempt from capital punishment till 1813,
after which too, they could not be hanged within the city precincts.
In addition, Macaulay's draft penal code of 1837, permitted judicial
discretion on the length of the sentence for rape, (two to fourteen
years), on grounds of the status of the victim. The rape of an upper
caste woman by a low caste man was deemed more grievous a crime
than the molestation of low caste women. More information on this is
available in Radhika Singha, A Despotism of Law: Crime and
Justice in Early Colonial India,
O.U.P., Delhi, 1998, pp. 101 102.
To
this I will add Ambedkars' comments on Brahmanical ideology, which
he refers to as the "negation of liberty, equality and fraternity".
He likens it to Neitzsche's philosophy, which he identifies with
"power, violence and debasement of the common man", and is
"capable of producing Nazism". My point is that there are indeed,
philosophical traditions in Indian culture that can feed a modern
fascist ideology. They conflict with the ideals of the Constitution,
which is based on a notion of human equality. Even though this
Constitution is not implemented, we should note that it is under
siege precisely by those forces which wish to replace it with a more
authoritarian structure. I have not referred to them here, but
undoubtedly, there are iniquitous tendencies in conservative Islam as
well, that can militate against democratic values. I accept that
these points need to be debated more fully, nevertheless, I feel that
they are important enough to be publicly placed for discussion.
