Debates

Against Corruption = Against Politics: Partha Chatterjee

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Guest post by PARTHA CHATTERJEE

Shuddhabrata Sengupta has done a great service by opening up the question of corruption which lies at the heart of the Anna Hazare movement but which has been, surprisingly, accepted quite uncritically as a universally known and universally condemned evil. It is actually quite puzzling how this effect has been achieved. It is a question which, I think, touches the core of the populist mobilization brought about by the Anna Hazare movement.

Think of it. Who are the beneficiaries of corruption? The entire middle class in India (lower, upper, aspirant lower to upper, whatever category one wants to use) seems to think that it is the victim of corruption. “It touches the lives of everybody”, as Nivedita Menon said in her recent piece in Kafila. But then who are the engineers, the accountants, the babus in the offices, the touts who surround the courts and the hospitals and the railway ticket counters? Aren’t they our uncles and nephews and sisters-in-law? The corrupt people of India are blood relations of those who are flocking Ramlila Maidan. But, needless to say, no one you meet there will accept that.

Continue reading Against Corruption = Against Politics: Partha Chatterjee →

Capitalism, Centre watch, Debates, Movements, Politics, Right watch, Scams

Are We Talking to the People Who Are Out on the Streets? – Kavita Krishnan

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Guest post by KAVITA KRISHNAN  (Editor, Liberation)

The people saying ‘I am Anna’ or ‘Vande Mataram’ are not all RSS or pro-corporate elites. They’re open to listening to what we have to say to them about corporate corruption or liberalization policies. The question is – are we too lofty and superior (and prejudiced) to speak to them?

Throughout the summer, student activists of All India Students’ Association (AISA) and Revolutionary Youth Association (RYA) engaged in this painstaking exercise for months. They campaigned all over the country, in mohallas, villages, markets where there is no visible Left presence. No, these were not areas of ‘elite’ concentration – mostly middle, lower middle or working class clusters, or students’ residential areas near campuses. In most places, people would begin by assuming they were campaigners of Anna Hazare. When students introduced their call for the 9 August Barricade at Parliament, they would be asked, ‘What’s the need for a separate campaign when Anna’s already leading one?’ They would then explain that they supported the movement for an effective anti-corruption law to ensure that the corrupt don’t enjoy impunity. But passing such a law could not end corruption, which was being bred by the policies that were encouraging corporate plunder of land, water, forests, minerals, spectrum, seeds… They learnt to communicate without jargon, to use examples from the state where the campaign was taking place. They would tell people about the Radia tapes, and the role of the corporates, the ruling Congress, the opposition BJP, and the media in such corruption.

Continue reading Are We Talking to the People Who Are Out on the Streets? – Kavita Krishnan →

Bad ideas, Capitalism, Centre watch, Debates, Government, Left watch, Media politics, Mirror Worlds, Movements

Hazare, Khwahishein Aisi: Desiring a new politics, after Anna Hazare and beyond corruption

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Hazare, khwahishein aisi, ke har khwahish pe dam nikle
bahut nikle armaan, lekin, phir bhi kam nikle

Hazare, so many desires, that every desire takes our breath away
so many hopes, and yet so few

(with due apologies, for liberties taken, to Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib, sometime poet and native of Delhi)

On the ninth of april, this year,  I wrote a posting on Kafila titled – ‘At the Risk of Heresy : Why I am not Celebrating with Anna Hazare Tonight‘. A little more than four months later, I have to say I have not yet found reasons to celebrate. But I am not in mourning either. What follows is my attempt to think this through, in all its contradictory character. For once, I am not even trying to be consistent. If my argument occasionally faces two directions at once, it is probably because I feel the needs to be double faced in order to understand a double-faced moment. When all the talk is only of the need for honesty, one might want to stake a claim to being double-faced, if only for the sake of breaking the moral monotony.

Continue reading Hazare, Khwahishein Aisi: Desiring a new politics, after Anna Hazare and beyond corruption →

Debates, Identities, Law, Mirror Worlds, Movements, Politics

The Lokpal debate from a Dalit-Bahujan perspective

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The video above shows a protest in Delhi demanding a Bahujan Lokpal Bill, and protesting against Anna Hazare. This was hardly given any coverage in the media. The video was made and uploaded by KHALID ANIS ANSARI, who writes at the Round Table India:

A supra-parliamentary Jan Lokpal and a very interventionist and unaccountable judiciary are a horror for the dalit-bahujan masses. All said and done the legislature is most respectful of social diversity as far as the three organs of government are concerned. The executive is bad and the judiciary is the worst in this regard. So I am presently in favor of taking the ‘political’ route than the civil society one which is in any way a club of the chattering classes. [Read the full post]

Given below is a note expressing a Dalit-Bahujan perspective on the Lokpal debate. The note has been put out by DINESH MAURYA: Continue reading The Lokpal debate from a Dalit-Bahujan perspective →

Centre watch, Debates, Frontiers, Language, Mirror Worlds

A Response from the Harud Literature Festival

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In response to the open letter expressing a set of concerns about the forthcoming Harud Literature Festival, the festival organisers have responded:

We wish to categorically state that the Harud literature festival is not government sponsored. It has been conceived with the intent of creating a platform for free and open debate, discussion and dialogue through contemporary narratives, literary fiction and poetry.

The festival seeks to showcase writing in urdu, kashmiri, dogri and english from the region and other Indian writers. We seek support for the spirit of the festival which is plural, inclusive and supports freedom of speech and expression. [Link]

Identities, Images, Language, Law, Left watch, Mirror Worlds, Movements, Politics, Right watch

Some Thoughts from Ramlila Maidan

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Images, Movements

Some people at Ramlila Maidan

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Bad ideas, Centre watch, Debates, Left watch, Politics

Response to Gail Omvedt: Nirmalangshu Mukherjee

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Guest post by NIRMALANGSHU MUKHERJEE

First of all I strongly object to the various insinuations posted in several comments. However, with due respect to a veteran activist, I think the older generation of left activists are by and large failing to come to terms with an unfamiliar form of protest in the IT-age. For them perhaps, Tahrir square looks full of promise at a distance from where all the finer dark spots get blurred; not so when it is happening in the neighbourhood.

The janlokpal campaign has three broad components: the core group with Anna in front, the bill itself, and the people. The Maoist campaign also has these components. There are serious problems with the first component in either campaign insofar as the condition of “democratic elections” are concerned. In the Maoist case, it is just an upper caste and largely upper class coterie of people thrust on the adivasis. The programme of proctracted war to establish “new democracy,” i.e., the second component, is also deeply flawed. Yet, the Maoist campaign is routinely advertised as a just campaign because it is supposed to be a people’s campaign driven by a people’s army. The current terminology is “bottom-up.” The reality of this proclamation is not the issue here, the structure of justification is. The Maoist campaign with its flawed first two components is justified because “people” have accepted and wanted them, contrary to fact as indicated. But the same commentators are terrified when the same structure is offered for the janlokpal bill. Or is it because Dandakaranya, likeTahrir Square, is safely remote while these “middle-class people” are dangerously close?

Continue reading Response to Gail Omvedt: Nirmalangshu Mukherjee →

Capitalism, Debates, Left watch, Movements, Politics, Right watch

What is right-wing about the anti-corruption movement? – Saroj Giri

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Guest post by SAROJ GIRI

 

A draft for discussion

A ruling class contradiction is being played out as anti-corruption movement. It is however politically articulated as ‘a movement of the people’ with possibly a space for the left to intervene. Can the tide be turned against the right-wing upper classes?

“What we are witnessing (the anti-corruption movement) is nothing short of a revolution. Only on two earlier occasions in recent memory such grand scale people’s participation was recorded. The first was under Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan in mid-seventies. The second was during the Ayodhya movement, in the early nineties, propelled by L K Advani’s historic Rath yatra.” This is the RSS Organiser magazine (August 21-28, 2011).

“The anti-corruption movement must resist repression in every form and align itself with the struggles for democratic transformation in India. Only then can it defeat the UPA Government’s efforts to defend corruption and unleash repression, and expose the BJP’s false claims of championing democracy and resisting corruption.” This is the CPIML Liberation (ML Update, 07-13 June 2011)

Continue reading What is right-wing about the anti-corruption movement? – Saroj Giri →

Bad ideas, Debates, Left watch, Mirror Worlds, Movements, Politics

The People

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Not enough people are asking what is motivating people to go to Ramlila Maidan in such large numbers. People like Ghazala Jamil and Anish Ahluwalia are not asking this question because for them the whole thing is an elite, middle-class conspiracy that is anti-Dalit, anti-OBC, anti-Muslim, anti-justice, anti-equality, anti-peace, anti-love and anti-sex.

These saviours of the marginalised, the poor and the vulnerable make the point that Anna Hazare’s means are showing contempt for the people by not letting people’s chosen representatives delay anti-corruption measures. They are making the point that unless Anna Hazare’s movements takes up issues of land reforms and justice for Gujarat’s Muslims, he should not be supported.  Continue reading The People →

Bad ideas, Centre watch, Empire/ Imperialism, Frontiers, Language, Violence/Conflict

An open letter on the ‘Harud’ literary festival

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Srinagar-based photojournalist Showkat Shafi is seen in this photograph being assaulted by the Jammu and Kashmir Police on 19 August 2011. He was carrying out his professional duties, as is clear from the camera in his hand that the police is trying to snatch away. He and his Mexican photographer colleague were detained at the police station and beaten up, allowed to go and be hospitalised only five hours later. The police said they mistook them for stone-pelters. Photo credit: Faisal Khan

*
Given below is an open letter signed by fourteen of us. Should you want to add your name to it, please do so in the comments section of this post. I shall update the names of the signatories on the post itself. Please clearly indicate that you want your name added, and write your full name and profession.

Continue reading An open letter on the ‘Harud’ literary festival →

Bad ideas, Debates, Left watch, Mirror Worlds, Movements, Politics

Three Questions to Friends

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I have been taking my time to reflect on the positions that have emerged in the fairly polarised debate on the on-going anti-corruption struggle in Delhi. I take very seriously the questions raised by critics on the right-wing inclinations evident in the movement’s leadershi, but I think it is both a strategic mistake and a disawoval of responsibility on the part of those of us on the left of the political spectrum to stay out of it. We should engage with the movement from the inside, strategically and persistently, and this means thinking afresh on the means by which we may support the larger binding issue with clear awareness of the risks involved. In this connection, I want to raise three questions:

First, when did we start to be so reluctant to acknowledge the fact that any civil social movement is bound to be contaminated by regressive positions and ideologies and so we cannot avoid thinking of ways of participating in them guided by awareness of the risks? I have recently been trying to collect narratives remembering the fourth national conference of the Indian women’s movement held at Kozhikode, Kerala, in 1990. The participants who spoke to me often pointed to a contrast between the dominant left parties who opposed the conference from the outside, and many, many groups who participated in the conference fully, but raised sharp criticisms which were quite like those of the former. They remarked that these critics were listened to with considerable respect because they were inside, unlike the dominant left.The participant who mentioned this, a well-known radical activist here, still remembers their arguments vividly. Another participant remembered sharp disagreements between urban feminists and rural participants on the question of justice to rape victims. While the former were opposed to the ‘solution’ of marrying the victim off to the rapist, a senior participant from a rural area who spoke up approved of it. This was shocking and unexpected to the urban feminists, but then purity of positions wasn’t, apparently, an overwhelming concern then — and at that place.

Continue reading Three Questions to Friends →

Capitalism, Government, Law, Left watch, Media politics

Beyond ‘Middle Class’ and ‘Corruption’: Jeebesh Bagchi

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Guest post by JEEBESH BAGCHI

I have been thinking that If we drop “corruption” and “middle class”  we may find some other way to understand what we sense unfolding from Ramila grounds and television studios.

The term middle class has bloated so much that it now holds within it Narayan Murthy to Shekhar Gupta via Nandan Nilekani to a student in Sonepat to all people in this list and on facebook.  And on the other hand corruption seem to have bloated much further in which commissions from infrastructure deals (in lakhs of crores), commissions for arms deals, someone delaying papers, to admission costs, to a hawker buying some uninterrupted time in the street (20 rupees) is all melted down.

Could one start from some other point? Continue reading Beyond ‘Middle Class’ and ‘Corruption’: Jeebesh Bagchi →

Capitalism, Centre watch, Left watch, Movements, Politics

New Trade Union Initiative on Anti-Corruption Struggle

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We are reproducing below a statement issued by NTUI

NTUI Statement On the Fight Against Corruption

Workers’ life and work experiences are very different from those of the middle class and the ruling elite; so is their experience with corruption. For the middle class, corruption is a mechanism to accelerate government procedures in the public or private sectors. For the working class, corruption deepens their experience of subordination. Instances of corruption that are directly experienced by the working people are the result of the unequal power relations that govern workers’ daily interaction with public institutions and is therefore contributing to a sense of distrust and loss of faith in these institutions. There can be little doubt that corruption affects the working class disproportionately more than it affects economically more privileged sections of society.

Continue reading New Trade Union Initiative on Anti-Corruption Struggle →

Debates, Movements, Politics

Tired of Democracy? – Gail Omvedt

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This guest post comes from  GAIL OMVEDT

Why are such masses of people (apparently: in our village some came out for a morcha organized by the Maharashtra Navnirman Samiti) following Anna Hazre, when it is now clear that his Lokpal is an authoritarian, centralized and undemocratically pushed proposal?

Several articles, including those by Arundhati Roy and Aruna Roy, have made this clear by now.  I can find only one point to disagree with in the otherwise excellent article by Arundhati:  that, like the Maoists, the Jan Lokpal Bill seeks the overthrow of the state.  It does not.  The movement wants to keep the state, in an even more centralized form, but replace its current rulers with a new set.  And Ranjit Hoskote’s comment that “Anna Hazare’s agitation is not a triumph of democracy [but] a triumph of demagoguery” deserves to be remembered.  The increasingly authoritarian, even fascist forms of activities are disturbing even many of its supporters.

Continue reading Tired of Democracy? – Gail Omvedt →

Debates, Government, Law, Movements, Politics

The office of the Jan Lokpal and some thoughts on Nivedita Menon’s post: Anish Ahluwalia

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Guest post by ANISH AHLUWALIA

The Jan Lokpal

A problem lies at the very core of Anna Hazare’s anti corruption campaign. This campaign wishes to march ahead by defining ‘corruption’ in the narrowest possible sense. Monies illegally made by politicians, members of judiciary, babus while remaining dreadfully silent on corporations, upper middle classes, middle classes who form the bulk of bribe payers…

Continue reading The office of the Jan Lokpal and some thoughts on Nivedita Menon’s post: Anish Ahluwalia →

Bad ideas

The Fallacy of Progressive Yearnings: Ghazala Jamil

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Guest post by GHAZALA JAMIL

I suppose some clarifications are in order. I do doubt that Anna’s Lokpalmobilisation is a movement. Just as Anti-Mandal was, just as Ramjanmbhoomi is, but not the way Dalit Panthers was or NBA and MKSS are.  I also want to clarify that my position is not of frivolous dismissal of this mobilisation as a middle class picnic but one of grave concern against what I feel is a uni-dimensional, one point demand around which an entirely regressive and casteist politics can be and is being wrapped up. A collectivity of SC/ST and Minority groups yesterday organised a protest march in Central Delhi. It was reported in many dailies- highlighted as having affected traffic in the area for 45 minutes thus dismissed as not being any valid counterpoint to ‘I am Anna’ wave.

Continue reading The Fallacy of Progressive Yearnings: Ghazala Jamil →

Debates, Law, Left watch, Movements, Scams

A Great Opportunity, A Serious Danger: A Statement

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A Statement Issued by some individuals and friends in social movements

The Anna Hazare situation invites two common reactions: many dismiss it as a middle class driven “urban picnic”; and others, notably the mainstream media, describe it as just short of a revolutionary movement to establish “people’s power.” The same divide exists among progressives and those concerned with social change. Strategies differ on the basis of where one stands on this divide. The problem, however, is that neither of these reactions fully reflects the reality of what is happening.

Continue reading A Great Opportunity, A Serious Danger: A Statement →

Bad ideas, Culture, Debates, Politics

Anna’s ‘Second Azadi Movement’ via Satyakam and Rang De Basanti

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At first Anna reminded me of this very unreasonable, uncompromising, ‘dry honest’ (a delicious Indianism, I guess) character of Satyakam in the eponymous film created by Hrishikesh Mukherjee in the late Sixties. He is so pathologically and pathetically honest that he does not even borrow the chair from the office downstairs when his boss, Sanjeev Kumar visits him. Dharmendra climbs stairs to meet Sanjeev Kumar at his residence only after having finished his work.

Transposed in the current scenario, the equation would be something like this:

Sanjeev Kumar = any one of us; Anna = Dharmendra. Historically of course we know that only Gandhi could be Gandhi, and not even Nehru could ever aspire to that special position in the people’s hearts even while we remind ourselves that a whole mass of little (good, bad, ugly) Gandhis contributed to the making of the one and only, most famous, Gandhi. Continue reading Anna’s ‘Second Azadi Movement’ via Satyakam and Rang De Basanti →

Bad ideas, Debates, Movements, Politics, Right watch, Theory, Violence/Conflict

Reading Ur-Fascism in our times

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When people are marching to barricades, I go back to my library . I know that streets across India are now re-educating many of us and we are keen to get enrolled in this university of action. Yet I want first to understand this moment of action we are being advised to be part of.

Continue reading Reading Ur-Fascism in our times →

Debates, Government, Identities, Law, Movements, Politics

Why Jai Karan supports Anna Hazare

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Jai Karan in The Times of India

My own feelings about the Anna Hazare movement are mixed, or you could say confused. I like the way the movement is bringing an arrogant government to its knees, and though I don’t know if their version of the Lokpal Bill is the best way to fight corruption, I appreciate how they have exposed the UPA’s farce of a bill. I get the point that fellow-travellers Nivedita Menon and Aditya Nigam are making about democracy and political movements, but as one unit of ‘the people’, I don’t see why I should support a movement just because it is popular. Perhaps it is my elitism and naivete and cynicism. Or perhaps I’m just confused by now. The taste of the pudding is in the eating, and I’d like to see where this takes us.

While I sort out my confusion, I see a message on Facebook, attributed to Anu Ramdas, that says:

Continue reading Why Jai Karan supports Anna Hazare →

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