Guest Post by Dr Ravi Sinha
(Opening remarks in an ongoing discussion within New Socialist Initiative (NSI) on Left’s approach to Electoral Politics in Contemporary India)
The Speaker :
Ravi Sinha is an activist-scholar who has been associated with progressive movements for nearly four decades. Trained as a theoretical physicist, Dr. Ravi has a doctoral degree from MIT, Cambridge, USA. He worked as a physicist at University of Maryland, College Park, USA, at Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad and at Gujarat University, Ahmedabad before resigning from the job to devote himself full time to organizing and theorizing. He is the principal author of the book, Globalization of Capital, published in 1997, co-founder of the Hindi journal, Sandhan, and one of the founders and a leading member of New Socialist Initiative.
KAFILA - COLLECTIVE EXPLORATIONS SINCE 2006 
A good presentation by Ravi Sinha on warped thinking of some sections of the Indian Left on parliamentary politics. Currently, this thinking among Maoist background farmers organisation is doing a lot of harm in not supporting Samyukt Samaj Morcha group of farmers organisations that are challenging through elections the Akalis, Congress and AAP (all the three parties deeply implicated in corruption and loot of Punjab’s resources- human and natural. BJP is no force in Punjab, so does not matter). I do not, however, agree with Ravi Sinha in his uncritical celebration of modernity. The dominant view of modernity celebrates man’s conquest of nature, and through that ignores the harmful impact of that view on ecology. In today’s world including in India. an eco-socialist politics that is critical of industrialisation supporting modernity and old style socialist politics is the way forward.
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