‘Why do We oppose Reservations…?’

March 29, 2007 by 2 Comments

Rahul Varman

[Today (March 29), the Supreme Court of India “stayed the implementation of the 27 per cent quota for Other Backward Classes in elite educational institutions like IITs and IIMs for 2007-08…. A Bench comprising Justice Arijit Pasayat and Justice L.S. Panda … said the State is empowered to enact affirmative action to help the backward classes, but it should not be unduly adverse to those who are left out. The Bench further said “reservation cannot be permanent and appear to perpetrate backwardness. If the seats in the central educational institutions were increased without reservation it would have gone to the general category.” Indicting the Government for enacting such a law, the Bench said “nowhere in the world Castes queue to be branded as backward. Nowhere is there a competition to become backward. With this Act, the subject of the equality is unduly put under strain.” On the contention of the Centre that it had taken the 1931 census as basis for fixing 27% quota for OBCs, the bench said what may have been the data in 1931 census cannot be a determinative factor now. The concept of creamy layer is not prima-facie relevant as contented by the Centre. “The Bench further said there is no explanation as to why there is no firm data for determining backwardness.” As a result unequals are treated as equals”. – The Hindu. In the interest of debates on this issue of caste reservations which has crucially determined the tenor of Indian politics, Radical Notes will be publishing a series of articles and reactions on the issue, in the context of the judgement. We are reproducing here an article by a faculty member of one of the elite institutions where the SC has stayed the implementation of 27% backward caste reservations, India Institute of Technology (Kanpur). The article was written and circulated during the last year’s anti-reservation agitation. – Editors]

I teach at one of the IITs, and off late my students, colleagues, friends and relatives have been sending me mails, organising meetings, writing petitions, initiating e-tirades, etc. against the recent MHRD announcement and generally taking it for granted that I’ll join them in their protests. Each time they are taken by surprise when I decline their offer, try to mumble something as to why I do not agree with them, or sometimes simply keep quiet if I have the advantage of an impersonal medium like the email. But increasingly it has been hard to shrug the whole issue away – every time I open my mail box, or as I walk along the corridor, and even as I bid farewell to my students of the outgoing batch, the sentiment against reservations seem to be thick in the air intermixed with the feeling of unease when one does not make the ‘right’ noises. And therefore I’ll try to articulate at some length as to why I disagree with the ‘anti-reservationists’, (the issue is too complicated for a mere agree/ disagree vote); in spite of having little sympathy with MHRD and their ‘motivated’ methods.

Let me begin with an incident which occurred when I had just joined IITK way back in 1994. We were staying in the guest house then and some census officials knocked on our door one afternoon to make enquiries for filling up a questionnaire. On being asked about my caste my wife expressed her unawareness. When a brief consultation with each other trying to ‘categorise’ my surname did not yield any answer, the main person resolved the issue in an ingenious way. After confirming that I was a faculty member, he told his associate in quiet confidence, “likh do, Brahman honge”. The point that I want to stress here is that it is not suddenly that either Mr. Arjun Singh today, or 16 years earlier Mr. B P Mandal, suddenly injected the caste divisions into our society (or, for that matter, in the elite educational institutes) as is being alleged by those against the reservations. The caste divide very much exists everywhere in our society and especially so in any of these elite institutes; my claim would be borne out by the names on the doors along the corridors in the faculty corridors or during the roll call in any of the class rooms. Only thing is that those who are on the right side of the divide can choose to ignore it. This will also be borne out by various kinds of statistics if we bother to look at them.

Some say that instead of caste we should talk about the economic deprivation and by bringing caste reservations we’ll only bring in more divisiveness. I do not understand this argument; it is like saying that we should not address the gender oppression as an issue primarily concerning women, as men also have been sometimes oppressed; or that racial discrimination is not about the blacks and Hispanics in the US, as whites also are sometimes on the receiving end. Further, as if acknowledgement of this form of discrimination(s), instead of being a logical step towards affirmative action, would actually promote them. Coming back to reservations in the present context, it is true that a lot of men and upper castes are also oppressed, but here we are talking about a specific systemic historical subjugation of a massive magnitude, at present perhaps involving more than half a billion people. Reservations may not be answer to this problem but the issue cannot be addressed by bringing in every other kind of discrimination also while attempting to address this issue. Caste problem can be solved only by addressing caste issues; similarly if there are other discriminations that exist in the society (and of course they do) they need to be identified and addressed too, not substituting one form of redressal for the other. Further if the social and economic equity spreads it will not harden the caste identity but loosen it as I’ll argue further through the experience of the southern states later.

Of course the most important argument of those protesting is that it is against the ‘merit’, that it is going to keep the ‘meritorious’ students out and bring in lesser students due to reservations, which in turn will ‘lower’ the standards and destroy the excellence of such institutes, which has been so assiduously and precariously cultivated as a part of the post colonial nation building project. Now this argument is at various levels and we can examine various parts of it one by one.

The first part of the above argument is that reservations will bring students who lack merit and hence will lower the standards of the elite institutions; hence they should be kept away from such reservations. The point is that what does this merit really mean? In any exam where lakhs appear and only thousands get selected, it is not that rest are ‘bad’ but only that there are very limited opportunities. But does it mean that if we go down in the performance list of the exams, others are incapable of undergoing the training and we as an institution are incapable of teaching them in whatever it takes to make them a good professional? Remember we are talking of half a billion people when we say ‘backwards’. Can’t we find handful out of them who have the ‘capability’ to undergo the required training? To me the argument does not sound very different from the ancient times where by their birth a large number were excluded from learning Sanskrit or entering the temples. It is very much like Dronacharya refusing admission to Eklavya. Moreover, we do not seem to even recognise the odds that the children from disadvantaged face; my friend who is from a village 100 kms from Kanpur tells me that his village has just one school where hundreds study across classes with one 18 year old teacher for all the classes put together! And the point is that, even in this school, dalit children are not even allowed to drink from the public pot kept for the rest of the children. In contrast, is it merit when we see that overwhelming majority of those who clear the JEE and CAT are able to do so, only after spending huge resources, money and time, as will be borne out from the newspapers inserts everyday and hoardings at every corner in vast urban parts of the country? What this shows is the singular lack of opportunities and the desperation of educated youth to find a berth in the elite institutions that will catapult them into a different social and economic orbit. Now the point is that these berths are being reserved in one way so far, the question is are we ready to alter that process?

If something sets the elite institutions apart it is the enormous resources that they attract, both human as well as material. And I do not see what stops such individuals who enter even after reservations from becoming good professionals given proper nurturing and resources. As far as failing of students in such institutes is concerned we’ll find that students of all categories make such a list as the overwhelming reason for that is either lack of motivation and/ or the social context and not the lack of ability. Many students after clearing JEE, CAT, etc. lose the motivation to do well – they stop going to classes and studying and look for other expressions in life and simply feel alienated with the academics. The second reason is that many students simply find it hard to adjust to a westernised – elite culture of these institutions, especially those who come from rural or small town background. Since they are not able to find the right kind of supporting network of friends and peers they are not able to perform as a lot of learning in such institutions is collective. Many of the reserved category students have to further bear the stigma of coming through ‘quota’, of not being good enough and hence they get into a shell and are more likely to find themselves alienated, which finally reflects on their performance. If this is so, then what is required is more supporting systems within institutions and not stopping them at the gates.

As a teacher I have also seen cases where within a semester or two some of the so called ‘poor students’ are completely transformed. They have been able to adjust to the requirements of the system and flourish, may be with the help of a supporting friend, or a patient teacher, or through an activity where they could express themselves, or a combination of the above. Moreover if these institutes are not only abut learning inside the class as we never tire telling the fresh students, but about becoming a complete professional as so many alumni will vouch for, and transforming a teenager into a professional who is in touch with her surroundings, then of course this diversity can do wonders to the overall learning inside and outside the class rooms. I have learnt so much from those of my students who are different from my protected middle class upbringing – a village in eastern UP, a small town in Bihar, a construction site in Kerala, and so on. Though I understand nothing about the medical education, but I am sure if a student can bring his experience of a Chattisgarh village, it can contribute hugely to the real education in the class.

One can at this point ask a further question, is merit all about passing exams? After all, are the exams a means or an end? If the exams are means to look for ability to make better engineers, doctors and managers, then can there be better methods to look for such ability? After all in my first engineering class I was told that a good engineer is the one who can produce the best out of the least resources and similarly, management is supposed to find one’s way in an uncertain situation – or allocate scarce resources in the most optimal way possible. If that is so, whatever I have seen of our deprived masses (of which overwhelming majority belongs to the backward, dalit castes or adivasis), they have the astonishing capacity to make something productive from almost next to nothing! For the last few years I have been studying small industry clusters, like Moradabad brass, Varanasi silk and Kanpur leather. Put together (all the clusters in the country), they are exporting more than the IT sector and their cumulative employment will be several times of the whole of IT industry. In all these clusters they operate with miniscule resources – small investment, no electricity, forget about air-conditioning, non existent roads, lack of water, and little formal education. These clusters are primarily constituted of these so called backward/ dalit castes and are truly a tribute to the genius that our society is. But in spite of centuries of excellence these communities have hardly produced any formal ‘engineers’, ‘doctors’ and ‘managers’, and conversely these elite institutions have not developed any linkages with such industries and their people.

This brings me to a further question, what do ‘meritorious’ students from these institutions do when they pass out? I recall what Srilata Swaminathan, the noted activist, had said at the beginning of her talk at IIMA in the early 1990s (I at the time was a student there), “I am told that this is the cream of the country, and what do you do, sell soaps and toothpastes (ITC, HLL, etc. were the most coveted recruiters those days)?”. There was hushed silence in a room full of students and faculty. I remember in the mid-90s my sense of disbelief, when I was the placement coordinator for my department, the HR manager of one of the big three Indian IT companies told me, “as long as somebody can recognise a keyboard we take him” in response to my query about what they sought in a potential employee. Remember this company over the years has employed thousands of IIT-IIM engineers – managers. As a child I remember the famous surgeon in my home town, who would first cut up a patient and then renegotiate the price with the relatives, before proceeding with the surgery! Or everywhere around me I find ‘meritorious’ doctors employed in public hospitals, drawing comfortable salaries and doing roaring private practice! You are not even required to turn up in the village health centre even once if you have a rural posting. If the majority of our people usually have to do with the village quack, they would not mind a ‘slightly less meritorious doctor’ coming to take care of them, instead of finding solace in the fact that super-specialised doctors are ensuring that the elite of our country have no wrinkles, and such like grave ailments. I recall when some students from IITK, almost all of them belonging to the North from UP to MP to Orissa, went to participate in post Tsunami relief work in Tamil Nadu. After they came back the overwhelming feeling was this difference from the North that “things are different over there and they work!” My relatives and acquaintances prefer to go down south when they are seriously unwell and not to Delhi or Lucknow. Remember this is the same place which has implemented the ‘quota’ much before Mandal and much beyond it too. I hear of far less caste strife in Tamil Nadu than in UP where caste based reservations have been implemented for such a long time – it does not seem to have furthered the caste based identities in South into a full fledged war like Bihar and UP. Point is ‘merit’ is not about stopping somebody at the gates or throwing them out of these seats of learning, but in creating robust institutions which can cultivate and nurture the talent with all the complexities of a vast and disparate society that we are.

Let’s put the creamy layer argument also in perspective now. Point is that such elite education which has so many barriers – expensive and time consuming coaching, expensive education, elite culture, etc. is under the present order going to be a preserve only of a select few. All we are saying is whether it is going to be the preserve of a few higher castes or some of the other castes can also find an entry. Even if it is backward IAS’s daughter, so be it, finally many others are also IAS’s wards, so how does it make a difference? As has been rightly said by the critiques, it’s a populist measure for the votes. etc. But so is every single policy of the govt. and so it will be in a ‘vote bank democracy’ – either for the votes directly, or for generating resources for the next election. When an Ambani or an Enron is granted abominable concessions, why don’t we come on streets and say, “it is for money for the next elections.”

The difficulty perhaps is that we are only against certain kinds of reservation. When an Ambani becomes a CEO, when a Gandhi becomes a minister, we do not say it is against merit, when a professor whose son is not able to qualify JEE, is still able to send her child abroad for higher studies, we do not say it is reservation, when only Valmikis do all the cleaning work at IITK we do not say it is reservation, the point that we need to ponder is that why is it that we are only against certain kind of reservation and for certain kind of merit?

Finally for those of us who think that the present reservation exercise is ornamental and they would like to do something more basic and lasting, I recommend a reading of the Mandal report – they will find that the report goes to some length to capture the socio-economic indicators in understanding and classifying ‘backwards’. Moreover reservation is a small part of their recommendation which includes things like special coaching for the disadvantaged to basic issues like land reforms. The difficulty is that in all these years, only the naxalite movement seem to have taken up some of the radical suggestions of the Mandal Commission! Meanwhile I have a question for those whose problem is the hasty implementation, that “how can we implement MHRD’s recommendations so suddenly?” After all, the report has been available for debate, discussion, modification and implementation for all these 16 years! Why is it that we have suddenly woken up to bother about primary – secondary education as well as the economic upliftment of the masses, only when the government has started acting in its own bumbling ways? As far as I know, no academic body or business institutions like CII has debated these issues and no committees have been setup to examine the Mandal report all this while. Finally, history is catching up in its own imperfect ways. We need to ponder whether these institutions are meant only for supplying cheap labour for the American corporations. If they have to be more than that, the time has come for us to be self critical and look beyond the knee jerk response to the present quagmire.

The author is Associate Professor at the Department of Industrial & Management Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.

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Sri Lanka: The Way Forward

March 28, 2007 by Leave a Comment

Liberation of the Entire People of Sri Lanka is Possible only by Mass Uprisings

New Democracy 24, March 2007
Theoretical Organ of the New Democratic Party, Sri Lanka

[What follows is a summary paper of a recent discussion among Sinhala and Tamil Marxist Leninist activists. The discussion was aimed at carrying forward the struggle against social oppression, for the liberation of the country from imperialism and hegemony, and the resolution of the national question through solidarity among the nationalities, based on the principle of the right to self-determination. Readers are invited to make their critical observations on this paper so that the ideas contained therein could be dealt with more thoroughly and expanded upon.]

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) made in 2002 between the then Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe and the LTTE have been in effect until 2006. Armed conflicts, Claymore anti-personnel mine attacks, explosions, murders, kidnappings, disappearances, and arrests that occurred over the past year have rendered them ineffective

The national question and alien forces

In the pretext of supporting the war against terrorism and helping with the peace efforts, forces of imperialism and hegemony are determining the day-to-day conduct of the affairs of this country. Through that the US, the countries of the European Union, Japan and India are exercising hegemony. The economy of this country has been enslaved by India through the one-sided Free Trade Agreement between India and Sri Lanka which only benefits India and through Indian investments in Sri Lanka. Besides, Sri Lanka receives military support from the US, Pakistan and Israel. The CIA, FBI, RAW, Mossad and other such foreign intelligence services are carrying out their espionage activities unhindered.

It is as a result of the stand taken by Sinhala chauvinism and the errors of the Tamil nationalists that there is increased domination by foreign forces; and today the national question has become the main problem and has been left in the hands of foreign forces. As a result of Sinhala domination and its oppressive approach, the Tamil, Muslim and Hill Country Tamil nationalities and national minorities like the Burghers, Malays and the Attho (earlier known as the Veddha) have been subject to untold suffering, cruelty and oppression. The struggles of the oppressed Tamil people have become centred around the LTTE, whose armed activities have been on the rise.

Meanwhile, under the imperialist globalisation programme, neo-liberal economic schemes are being implemented in the agricultural sector as well. While the people are continuing to oppose them in view of their effects, the ruling classes are continuing with them. The programme of globalisation has killed the life cells of a national economy based on self sufficiency. The oppressed peasants, workers and the middle classes are badly affected. It is doubtful under the worsening climate of liberalisation and privatisation whether any of the resources of the country will be left behind for the generations to come.

Dissatisfaction and resistance among the people

Under these circumstances, any reasonable person will protest about the way the ruling classes are governing this country. The people as a whole have reached a state where they are willing to accept that the present anti-people form of government should be replaced by a form of government that gives prominence to the interests of the people.

The constitution, the presidential system of government, and the parliamentary system have failed to protect, among other things, the welfare of the people of Sri Lanka, their honour and self respect, their wealth, and their democratic and human rights. The police, the armed forces and the judiciary seem to be concerned with serving the ruling classes and protecting their interests, and defending the Sinhala hegemony of the upper classes. Meanwhile the workers, peasants, and the employed middle classes are getting ready to take a stand against the exploiting classes and face the challenges.

The current Sri Lankan situation demands the transfer of powers in the hands of the ruling classes to the true representatives of the people. Major changes are required in state power. The people are becoming like dried leaves and a single spark to set the woods alight. They have lost faith in the ruling classes. The old system of government and administration of the ruling classes have reached their limit of incompetence. The ruling classes have forfeited their eligibility to continue to rule the people. Under these conditions, the people of Sri Lanka are affected in many ways, directly and indirectly. Even the comfortably off middle classes and people with considerable wealth are beginning to feel insecure.

A new approach to struggle

Thus, not only the ordinary masses, but also those living in some comfort are compelled to seek changes through alternative political activity. Such alternative politics has to be revolutionary politics.

The characteristic of the ruling classes of Sri Lanka is that of a client of imperialism. On the political and social planes, the policies of the state uphold violence and war as their main approach. There are differences between the methods of struggle against such ruling classes and those against earlier political establishments. There are differences between the strategy and tactics of governance by the old exploiting reactionary classes and those of the present ruling classes based on banditry and terror. One who takes note of these differences cannot be satisfied about the adequacy of the current approaches to struggle.

Hence it is necessary to transform completely the old approaches of the people, to undertake new initiatives and to carry forward new forms of struggle in new directions. Trade union activities of workers and peasants, strikes, electoral political meetings, processions and demonstrations have only provoked harsh responses accompanied by violence, and yielded counterproductive results.

Thus several struggles that are distinct from those of the past need to be carried out, outside the scope of the parliamentary electoral arena and the confines of trade unions, unlike the struggles carried out within and outside the electoral arena, and in ways different from that of traditional propaganda. It is also a historical necessity to function in ways unlike that of NGOs that are confined to a specified framework.

Through elections and the importance given to them, the ruling classes have become more and more privileged. Meantime, even the most ordinary rights of the ruled classes are denied to them.

The armed struggle of the JVP in 1971 and 1988 and the armed struggle for the right to self determination of the Tamil people have led to a feeling of disgust among the people so that they do not want such struggles to emerge. The imperialists and the reactionary ruling class forces have succeeded in this. However, the oppressed people have no choice or alternative but to impair the existing system of government and the ruling classes through the correct form of struggle and establish a meaningful democratic government. To achieve that, new forms of mass struggle with fresh meaning should be launched. It is in that way that great mass struggles and uprisings take place across the globe.

Lessons from earlier struggles

Owing to the errors of the leadership, the hatral of 12th August 1953, despite popular participation on a massive scale, could not be developed into a mass uprising. Various strikes, including the July 1980 strike, resistance campaigns by the people, and mass demonstrations have, owing to the activities of bogus left forces and mischievous NGOs, and contrary to expectations, helped the ruling classes. The exploited and ruled classes have continued to be affected. We need to advance by learning from these experiences.

It cannot be denied that people have won some rights and that some significant political changes have been achieved through mass movements and resistance campaigns. But the leadership was captive to the predominance of anti-people forces. These struggles were, in general, used to achieve the political goals of the UNP and the SLFP, and used until the leadership was granted its opportunity.

A new mass uprising becomes necessary

Today, a political climate prevails in which the people stand face to face against the ruling classes, their political enemy. That confrontation requires no less than a fundamental social change and to that end urgently demands a new popular uprising under the appropriate radical change in political leadership. The maturing of this condition and the achievement of a victorious situation depends on the entire Sri Lankan people.

At the mention of mass uprising and mass struggle, some jump to protest that they will be ruthlessly suppressed by the terrorist ruling classes, chauvinists and fascists, and will only pave the way to further reinforcement of state power to unprecedented levels. They would also claim that the people will be subject to suffering. People who argue in this fashion do not see popular uprising as a correct path of struggle to protect the people.

Those who accept popular uprising as the path for struggle need to pay attention to the new meaning, the new form and the new workings of the popular uprising for social change. It is necessary to prepare an alternative economic defence, action and reaction, and a culture that emphasises the case for the struggle so that the popular uprising is invincible. A mass struggle carried forward with maximum popular participation could contain one or several aspects concerning the welfare of the people. Lazybones and ones who refuse to endorse popular uprisings think that such an uprising will lead to the killing of unarmed people and that it is difficult for a popular uprising to take place. Such people have no faith in the power of the people.

If it is possible for the ruling classes to militarily suppress and decimate a mass uprising, it means that the uprising is not a correct mass uprising. A mass uprising comprises a continuous sequence of mass struggles. In such a correct mass uprising, there are preparatory measures for the steps leading to social change. They have features such as strategy and tactics. Mass struggles are, simultaneously, acts of training the people and struggles generating confidence among them.

Uprisings should be carried forward with care

Any mass uprising carried forward in a state of unpreparedness is suicidal. Mass uprisings cannot be created compulsively. Mass struggles cannot be transformed into a mass uprising merely through an announcement, or appeals through leaflets and posters. Mass uprisings cannot be specified a time, place and event. When the necessary objective conditions are there and contradictions sharpen, the emergence of a mass uprising is inevitable. As much as one cannot compulsively create a mass uprising, a mass uprising once started cannot be stopped either. It will run its course until it reaches its target. After which, the uprising should be sustained to retain its victory.

Thus, we need to be alert to the prospects of such a mass uprising. We should also develop the political and organisational preparedness that could withstand that environment, and the emotional and intellectual standards that correspond to it. Such preparedness will be able to mobilise accordingly the spontaneous feelings of the people and guide them.

When such preparedness does not exist, the enemies of the people can make use of mass struggles to their advantage and render the struggles ineffective and obstruct social transformation, which is the goal of the struggles. In the history of Sri Lanka, most mass struggles have been used merely to bring the UNP and the SLFP to power in turn. NGOs have incorporated mass struggles into their programmes. That too is to help the ruling classes.

The political goal of mass uprisings

It is important to ensure that mass struggles and their purposes concern the interests of the people and are in the hands of the people rather than belong to the leaders. A struggle is meaningless in the absence of the goal of social transformation,

The people of this country have been affected by the rule of both major parties, which can neither fulfil the aspirations of the people nor be reformed into parties for the people. To create other parties in their place is not an alternative either. People should be made to realise that mass activities that are confined to elections and economic demands are of no benefit. Although it may seem that they can be confined to resolving certain problems that are in the open and to winning certain demands, reality is otherwise. There should be agreement and interest in resolving the fundamental issues.

The national oppression against the Tamil people and imperialist oppression both direct and indirect are not the same. Thus they may be viewed on different planes. But the programme of imperialist hegemony against the two nationalities is fundamentally the same. While there is a situation in which imperialist hegemony is opposed separately from the respective planes, what is opposed and what is to be won are common to both. The struggles of the two nationalities need to be confederated. They should be coordinated and carried out against the common enemy, the terrorist ruling classes locally and imperialism internationally. In the same way, the mass activities to press for economic demands of the workers in the plantation and state sector should be confederated with the struggles of the fisher folk and the peasants.

Also mass activities against the Upper Kotmale hydro power scheme, the Noraicholai and Sampur thermal power schemes, and the proposals for the Weerawila Airport and the super highway could be combined against the main enemy, namely the ruling classes and imperialism.

The confederation of struggles

It will be useless to confine mass struggles to specific demands on specific planes, without basing them on social transformation. They need to be combined. Confederation does not mean reducing the importance of any struggle or altering its aim. While each struggle is carried forward on its plane with vigour and intensity, there is need for coordination between the mass struggles and between the leaderships. The basis of confederation could be independence-consensus-dedication. If there is no coordination between struggles, it will be easy for the ruling class to set one struggle against another. It is well known that the chauvinistic ruling classes of Sri Lanka have succeeded in presenting the Tamil people’s struggle for self-determination as one against the Sinhalese and Muslim people. To defeat them, it is necessary to develop cooperation among the struggles, a common line against the common enemy and a common programme. Also, like uniting all forces that could be united in a given mass struggle, there is need for need to confederate different struggles and their leaderships.

To say that there is need for unity in mass struggles does not mean unity with those involved in the activities of the parties of the ruling classes, bogus leftists, opportunists and NGOs. It means that there cannot be unity with forces that are explicitly or implicitly anti-people. It should be understood that when, in the context of the national question, we say that broad-based unity is needed in the struggle against chauvinism, we do not mean unity with those working hand-in-hand with the chauvinistic oppressors. To ensure success of a struggle, one should ensure participation by the vast majority of the masses, maximum possible friendly forces and the smallest possible number of enemies.

Unity, confederation and struggle

Likewise, winning the support of those outside a given struggle by joining in the activities of their struggle will be most effective. Matters should be handled in a way that the support of those outside is not just moral support but one with commitment. For example, when the support of the Sinhalese to the struggle of the Tamil people takes the form of mutual linking of common struggles, it becomes strong and enduring.

The strongest power against the ruling classes is the power of the people. That power can be built only through mass struggles. Besides, it is the right thing to do to affirm the support of those not associated with the struggle by linking up with their struggles.

There is need for unity within specific struggles and between struggles. That unity should be based on confederation and be democratic. Confederation cannot only be a concept; it should also concern practice and organisational structure.

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James Petras’ critique of “progressive regimes”

March 26, 2007 by Leave a Comment

Pratyush Chandra

James Petras has been criticised for his “ultra-leftism”. Petras doesn’t need my defence, if any at all. But since some comrades have raised concerns about ultra-leftism of the leftist critique of the sarkari left in India, I thought it pertinent to use my defence of Petras as a personal exercise in understanding this ultraleftophobia gripping these genuine comrades.

In criticising Petras, what is generally put forward is a list of few statements that he made while critiquing some of the progressive regimes in Latin America, which were ‘apparently’ proven wrong. His oft-quoted statement is about Chavez in his post-2004 referendum note, where he indicated at “the internal contradictions of the political process in Venezuela”, while simultaneously asserting that Chavez’s support “was based on class/race divisions”. Petras showed the flipside of the contradictions – while considering Chavez’s referendum win as a defeat of imperialism, he asserted,

“But a defeat of imperialism does not necessarily mean or lead to a revolutionary transformation, as post-Chavez post-election appeals to Washington and big business demonstrate…The euphoria of the left prevents them from observing the pendulum shifts in Chavez discourse and the heterodox social welfare–neo-liberal economic politics he has consistently practiced.”

He also stated that referendum results showed “that elections can be won despite mass media opposition if previous mass struggle and organization created mass social consciousness.” Differentiating Chavez from other national-populist leaders in Latin America, Petras said,

“In effect there is a bloc of neo-liberal regimes arrayed against Chavez’s anti-imperialist policies and mass social movements. To the extent that Chavez continues his independent foreign policy his principle allies are the mass social movements and Cuba.”

In his apparently pessimistic assessments about Lula, post-referendum Venezuela and now about Morales, Petras’ main focus has always been to critique the euphoric assessment of these regimes and put forward a political economic perspective of the developments. Retrospectively, one might assert that his pessimism with regard to Venezuela was not well-founded, but the fact that something did not happen is not a sufficient critique of the prognostication of what could have happened.

Petras’ pessimistic judgement and his optimistic ground engagement with various revolutionary movements in Latin America and throughout the world are two sides of the same “radical” coin – “pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will”. His optimism allows him to see revolutionary potential within a particular situation, while his pessimism forces him to deconstruct the situation into various tendencies, class forces, class balance etc that may enhance or scuttle the realisation of that potential. For him as for other Marxists, history is not linear – at any given moment of time, there are various tendencies, countertendencies and social variables operating that synthetically determine the future – there is no single cause, and there is no single effect. Isn’t it a normal Marxist exercise – to identify this synthetic dynamics, while indicating possible “futures”? Isn’t it better to see the danger, which eventually may or may not realise into any mishap, and guard oneself against it, rather than not seeing any, and lead oneself willingly and with all enthusiasm to a dead-end? Another scholar-activist involved in Latin American transformation who never tires to talk about ‘contradictions along the path’ is Michael Lebowitz, when others are rolling drunkenly in optimist euphoria:

“The problem of the Venezuelan revolution is from within. It’s whether it will be deformed by people around Chavez.”

Lebowitz and Petras differ in their discursive tenor because of the differences in the loci of their political engagement, but they come from the great tradition of Marxists who have utilised Marxism to understand the day-to-day developments in global class struggle, without slipping into journalistic tinkering with appearances.

It would have been a different matter, if Petras had stopped short of presenting the revolutionary direction and started talking like radical fatalists and sectists. For them it is enough whether a leader or organisation has decried Stalin or not, whether s/he reads Trotsky or not, how many times s/he utters the word “imperialism” etc. For some of these people, allegiances to a particular sect, ideology is enough – a bible in one hand, and cross in another, drives away all counter-revolutionary devils around. What else are these convictions, if not “cabinets of fossils”! On the other hand, “metropolitan” leftists – Western (including many Non-Resident Third Worldists (NRTs)), Eastern, Southern…- who suffer from the guilt of unable to do anything concrete at the place of their being, celebrate every tokenism that fits into their utopia of progress, justice, democracy… In good faith (with a tinge of self-hatred and superiority complex), they think it’s their duty to “patronise” the Other, in most of their forms, of course only if these fit into their educated (non)sense.

Petras’ understanding of the Bolivian and Brazilian developments is from the point of view of the self-organisation and assertion of the working classes – urban and rural. The issue for Petras, even in his past assessment of Chavez, has been whether the political-parliamentary impact of the movements (accommodation of sections of their leadership in state formation) is enhancing and channelling the class capacity of the working class or it is simply institutionalising these movements and transforming them into representative lobbies, reducing class struggle to clashes of interest groups. The peculiarity of the new situations in Latin America, which also underlines their contradictions, to some extent derives from the statist component. The fact that the progressive governments are being constituted within the frame of bourgeois democracy poses new challenges for the popular movements and their relationship with the State. This situation makes it all the more urgent to recognise that, “We now have a state [which is not even formally workers-peasants state, like the Soviet] under which it is the business of the massively organised proletariat to protect itself, while we, for our part, must use these workers’ organisations to protect the workers from their state, and to get them to protect our state” (Lenin), while simultaneously heading towards a fundamental transformation of the state’s character. In this scenario, it becomes a primary task of the intellectuals organically linked to the working class to be extra vigilant and identify the various contradictions and tendencies affecting its movements, while delineating the possible directions that these movements can take in a perpetual ideological class struggle within. Petras in his critiques does exactly this.

Reading Petras in West Bengal

Petras in his recent article on Morales enumerates the implications of development strategies that “progressive” governments follow to “stabilize the economy, overcome the ‘crisis’, reconstruct the productive structure”, instead of recognising the fact that they are empowered “because of the crisis of the economic system” and their task should be “to change the economic structures in order to consolidate power while the capitalist class is still discredited, disorganized and in crisis.” Interestingly what is happening in West Bengal today is precisely this, where the Left Front government is indulging in reconstruction of the productive structure the way the Indian ruling class wants. However, definitely the internalisation of the hegemonic bourgeois needs within the Left Front (LF) is completer because of its 30 years rule in comparison to the newly elected governments in Latin America. Further, the Indian LF’s political cost for not following the neoliberal policies could have been far less, as it could have lost power in a fragment of the Indian state, where it does not have any sovereignty, while gaining political leverage throughout the country.

According to Petras, the stabilization strategy “allows the capitalist class time to regroup and recover from their political defeat, discredit and disarray”, while the working class is left on the receiving end to suffer the “costs of reconstruction and crisis management”. Also, “[b]y holding back on social spending and imposing restraints on labor demands and mobilization, the regime allows the capitalists to recover their rates of profit and to consolidate their class hegemony” Clearly, the left front’s repression of the trade union and peasant self-organisation especially since the 1990s have consolidated the capitalist class hegemony – material and ideological, while demobilising the exploited classes.

The industrialisation policies of the West Bengal government have weakened its popular social base”, strengthening “the recovery of its class opponents”, and thus are creating “major obstacles to any subsequent effort at structural change”. Its “policy revives a powerful economic power configuration within the political institutional structure which precludes any future changes. It is impossible to engage in serious structural changes once the popular classes have been demobilized, the capitalist class has overcome its crisis and the new political class is integrated into consolidated economic system. Stabilization strategy does not temporarily postpone change; it structurally precludes it for the future”.

Further, to think that if a progressive “regime ‘adapts’ to the regrouped capitalist class” it can be stabilised is just an illusion, “because the capitalist class prefers its own political leaders and instruments and rejects any party or movement whose mass base can still exercise pressure.” Aren’t these some basic lessons that we must learn – in Bolivia, West Bengal and everywhere?

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Remembering Bhagat Singh

March 23, 2007 by Leave a Comment

Saswat Pattanayak

Commemorating the historic day (March 23, 1931) that immortalized great revolutionary Bhagat Singh through his martyrdom, Radical Notes’ Journal begins its journey with quoting the comrade. Produced in full here is a letter written by Bhagat Singh to his father Sardar Kishan Singh, who in the eve of judgment submitted a petition to the trial judges for permission to produce a defense witness to save his son.

I have typed it out from a chapter written by Bhagat Singh’s friend and comrade Bejoy Kumar Sinha. For reproducing this work, I am thankful to the Delhi-based People’s Publishing House for the book “India’s Freedom Struggle: Several Streams”, edited by Sarkar, Bardhan, & Balaram, 1986.

Readers will surely go beyond the sentiments to view a glimpse of India’s freedom struggle, and yet understand that the deep seated well meaning sentiments do affect revolutionary goals negatively at many times. The line between professed selfish love and practiced social goals needs to be one of the bold revolutionary nature, sans which it becomes quite easy to tow the line of individualistic aspirations and solely personal freedoms.

There are too many distractions in the world today, from Ayn Rand to God Blessed Flags; from salary hikes to Friday parties; from getting an Oprah ticket to being ticketed for drunk driving; from life on the celebrity fast lanes to life on edge of thrilling video games; and it’s quite easy to fall prey to the “good family”, or “happy couple” theories of the heterosexist preachers and the model minority status of the aspiring educated urban youths. Too many temptations, for sure.

However, there are just a very few goals in order to attain social justice for the most, and despite that, its often invariably less taken. And they are not so difficult to head towards, if one knows that individual life is as precious as one’s convictions would lead one to believe. Bhagat Singh as an instance, clearly overlooked, ignored and trampled the individual yardsticks (and came down heavily on his ‘good-family’ background in the following letter) when it came to deciding between the individual liberty and social equality principles, and clearly upholding the need of social equality, he took the road less taken.

At the same time, its important to remember that he never acted alone, and never on an impulse. Never as a terrorist. Never as a trigger-happy war-monger. Never as a violent reactionary.

He was a great organizer and agitator, and to educate his own self and that of his comrades, he looked into oceans of progressive literatures. His was a planned commitment to attainment of freedom from imperialistic designs, not just a national liberation that would have transferred power from the colonialists to petty bourgeois. As this following letter would amply show: he was “pursuing a definite policy”.

I am always deeply moved by Bhagat Singh’s sacrifices and so have at times found his death was in vain. There have been such occasions while looking at the state of affairs among today’s youths when it has seemed so very hopeless. Yet, revolutionaries do not look backwards to proceed, they look back only to learn so as to march forward even with greater vigor. Hence the reality is that Bhagat Singh must continue to be an inspiration to many of us in our different worlds and we must feel the resonance every time there is a struggle against religious fundamentalism, against irrational superstitions, against orthodoxy, against conservatism and against narrow nationalists. Every time there is an uncompromising battle against the warlords, the police states, the rogue powerholders, a battle that has international sentiments echoing with the courage of Che Guevera and valor of Salvador Allende. All of them have represented the need of global unity against forces of injustice, against mighty powers of economic and social exploiters.

We at Radical Notes are sure the following letter is a good prologue to the example we need to exemplify:

“Respected dear father,
“I was astounded to learn that you had submitted a petition to the members of the Special Tribunal in connection with my defense. This intelligence proved to be too severe a blow to be borne with equanimity. It has upset the whole equilibrium of my mind. I have not been able to understand how you could think it proper to submit such a petition at this stage and in these circumstances. In spite of all the sentiments and feeling of a father, I don’t think, you were at all entitled to make such a move on my behalf without even consulting me. You know that in the political field my views have always differed with those of yours. I have always been acting independently, without having cared for your approval or disapproval.

“I hope you can recall to yourself that since the very beginning you have been trying to convince me to fight my case very seriously and to defend myself properly. But you also know that I was always opposed to it. I never had any desire to defend myself and never did I seriously think about it, whether it was a mere vague ideology or that I had certain arguments to justify my position, is a different question and that cannot be discussed here.

“You know that we have been pursuing a definite policy in this trial. Every action of mine ought to have been consistent with that policy, my principles and the program. At present the circumstances were altogether different but had the situation been otherwise, even then I would have been the last man to offer defense. I had only one idea before me throughout the trial, i.e., to show complete indifference towards the trial in spite of the serious nature of the charges against us. I have always been of opinion that all the political workers should be indifferent and should never bother about the legal fight in the law courts and should boldly bear the heaviest possible sentences inflicted upon them. They may defend themselves but always from purely political considerations and never from a personal point of view. Our policy in this trial has always been consistent with this principle. Whether we were successful in that or not is not for me to judge. We have always been doing our duty quite disinterestedly.

“In the statement accompanying the text of the Lahore Conspiracy Case Ordinance the Viceroy had stated that the accused in this case were trying to bring both law and justice into contempt. The situation afforded us an opportunity to show to the public whether we were trying to bring law into contempt or whether others were doing so. People might disagree with us on this point. You might be one of them. But that never meant that such moves should be made on my behalf without my consent or even my knowledge. My life is not so precious – at least to me – as you may probably think it to be. It is not at all worth buying at the cost of my principles. There are other comrades of mine whose case is as serious as that of mine. We had adopted a common policy, and have so far stood shoulder to shoulder, so shall we stand to the last-no matter how dearly we have to pay individually for it.

“Father, I am quite perplexed. I fear I might overlook the ordinary principles of etiquette, and my language may become a little bit harsh while criticizing or rather censuring this move on your part. Let me be candid, I feel as though I have been stabbed at the back. Had any other person done it, I would have considered it to be nothing short of treachery, but in your case let me say that it has been a weakness-a weakness of the worst type.

“This was the time when everybody’s mettle was being tested. Let me say, father, you have failed. I know you are as sincere a patriot as one can be. I know you have devoted your life to the cause of Indian independence; but why at this moment have you displayed such a weakness? I cannot understand.

“In the end I would like to inform you and my other friends and all the people interested in my case, that I have not approved of your move. I am still not at all in favor of offering any defense. Even if the court had accepted that petition submitted by some of my co-accused regarding defense etc., I would have not defended myself. My applications submitted to the Tribunal regarding my interview during the hunger-strike were misinterpreted and it was published in the press that I was going to offer defense, though in reality I was never willing to offer any defense. I still hold the same opinion as before. My friends in the Borstal Jail will be taking it as a treachery and betrayal on my part. I shall not even get an opportunity to clear my position before them.

“I want that the public should know all the details about this complication and therefore, I request you to publish this letter.
Yours obediently,
Bhagat Singh”

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