স্বাভিমান:SWABHIMAN

Arup Baisya

(Published in Frontier) 

       

   During initial post-independence formative phase of nation building, Congress could maintain its hegemony over the Indian masses through ‘economic development policy’, by maintaining certain characteristic traits of welfare state. A crisis of hegemony occurs when a force that has formerly exerted political, economic and ideological leadership over society is challenged from below and is no longer able to sustain a cohesive bloc of social alliances. Within the garb of a welfarist and import substitutionist approach, the Indian economy was never delinked from global imperialist thrust and as such policy of income-deflation of majority of Indian masses was followed to serve the interest of the imperialist metropolis. The uneven development of Indian economy which has never been adequately addressed in the post-independence state formation has been operational through the class-caste-community and urban-rural cleavages, and the graph of inequality has always revealed an increasing trend despite ameliorative measures like poverty alleviations. This has become more prominent in the case of religious minority community which, unlike the other various caste groups, was deprived of the benefit of reservation by the state in a bid to compromise with communal pressure from within in the post-partition social milieu. When a substantial middle class has emerged in big cities and medium sized towns, mass poverty and illiteracy have remained permanent features of much of the landscape of rural India. A growing urban underclass, especially susceptible to communal incitement, has also appeared in countless slums and shantytowns.

              The structural deficiency in the history of twentieth-century nationalism is embedded in the fact that religion played a central role from the beginning in organising those movements. The most significant cases are, those which eventually founded stable parliamentary democracies. The three leading states of this type in the world today are Ireland, Israel and India. In all three, the nationalist party that came to power after Independence—Fine Gael, Mapai, Congress—distanced itself from the confessional undertow of the struggle, without, however, ever being able to tackle its legacy head-on. In each case, as the ruling party gradually lost its lustre, it was outflanked by a more extreme rival that had fewer inhibitions about appealing directly to the theological passions aroused by the original struggle—Fianna Fail, Likud, BJP. The success of these parties was due not just to the faltering of the first wave of office-holders, but to their ability to articulate openly what had always been latent in the national movement, but neither candidly acknowledged nor consistently repudiated. In each case, the setting was a parliamentary system, in which they operated constitutionally.

            Though the long history of parliamentary system of Indian democracy played a vital role in mitigating certain weaknesses of the Indian independent state at its birth, the deformities at the birth have its bearings on the future statecraft. Perry Anderson in his book 'The Indian Ideology' has very aptly described the character of the Indian independent slate at the time of its birth in 1947. At the time of Indian independence, only 12 percent of population could read or write. As for poverty, per capita income in India was abysmally low and is not very significant till today. It is these magnitudes that make Indian democracy so remarkable a phenomenon. But the colonial bureaucracy and army was left intact, minus the colonizers. In the mid-30s Nehru, denouncing the Indian civil service as 'neither Indian nor civil nor a service', declared it 'essential that ICS and similar services disappear completely'. By 1947 pledges like these had faded away as completely as his promises that India would never 'under any circumstances' become a dominion. In the last year of the Raj, its upper ranks had been Indianised and there was no other corps of native administrators available. But if this was true of the bureaucracy, it was not of the army. Indigenous officers and soldiers had fought bravely, arms in hand, against the Raj in the ranks of the Indian National Army. What was to be done with them, once the British left? Their record, a potential reproach to Congress, they were refused any integration in the armed forces of the former colonial power, veterans of domestic oppression and overseas aggression fresh from imperial service in Saigon and Surabaya, that now became the military apparatus of the new order. Nor was there any purge of the police that had beaten, jailed and shot so many in the struggle for independence: they too were kept intact. Some 250 out of its 395 articles were taken word by word from the Government of India Act.

             On the ideological front, Indian post-independence statecraft has also failed to maintain a safe distance from religious symbols and vocabularies. Barring the constitutional provisions for allowing the autonomy of minority institutions, the rampant use of Hindu religious symbols in almost all the institutions of the state and the state-sponsored functions leaves an indelible mark on the muslim minds about the biasness of the state and alienate the minority section from the process of building a secular state.

The Decline of Congress

          These weaknesses of the Indian state during its post-independence formative period make it vulnerable to occasionally succumb to the pressure from religious bigotry from within. The 'Hindu nationalist' campaign which was an undertow within the freedom movement has been, in the main, a war of position with a long-term vision of Hindu state. The hegemony in competitive party-politics was reflected first in a dramatic decline in support at all-India, regional and provincial levels at the first general election after Nehru's death in 1967 followed by the split of Congress party in 1969. This is the time when Kynesian welfarist economy in post-war global capitalism has also entered into crisis of kondratiev cycle. It was the decline of the old Congress that explained the rise of Mrs Indira Gandhi. The emergency was nevertheless a watershed in Indian politics since popular reaction against it broke for the first time the monopoly of government in Delhi enjoyed by Congress since independence. After massive backlash against Mrs Gandhi's Emergency regime (1975-77), Indira Gandhi stormed back to office in 1980, but her mandate did not mean renewed stability, rather it was an electoral rejection of dysfunctional Janata coalition. Drifting away of popular support for Congress in various provinces was formidable by next general election due by end-1984. Mrs Gandhi then resorted to placate Hindu votes by campaigning on Hindu communal line and that the Hindu BJP supporters shifted allegiance to Congress was reflected in J&K and Delhi election. Communal appeal, ultra-nationalist rhetoric and centralisation of power were the game plan Congress resorted to woo the Hindu vote base influenced by the RSS organisational network. In the social turmoil in northern India on caste line, Congress also exposed its upper caste bias by sending the Mandal Commission report in cold storage. Congress was vacillating between its original organisational policy of maintaining coalition character and the soft Hindutva and casteist bias at a time when the structural adjustment programme as neo-liberal policy drive, had its sway on economic front. The soft Hindutva and the uppercaste biases have shattered the Congress character of representing the rainbow coalition of various identities, and the Congress was ousted from power in 1989. The upper-caste consolidated behind the BJP, a party rhetorically committed not only to the indivisible, organic unity of the 'Hindu Nation', but also the political affiliate of an organisation, RSS, which has consistently displayed unflinching hostility to the idea of 'reservation'. The announcement made by V P Singh in 1990 to implement the recommendation of Mandal Commisssion report opened up the Pandora's Box. The timing itself was largely coincidental, and was the culmination of a long process of alienation of Kashimiri Muslims from Indian state due to the denial and subversion of their basic democratic and human rights. The Kashmir uprising has however supplied the Hindutva movement with an unrivalled propaganda weapon. For here was 'evidence' of the diabolical design of a group of Muslims living in India to destroy India's unity in conjunction with the historical enemy, Pakistan. The 'enemy within' and 'enemy without' conspiracy theory, a longstanding staple of 'Hindu nationalist' worldview, was ostensibly finding some vindication. In these circumstances, the Hindutva forces found it as an opportune moment to make a tactical shift from their long drawn out war of position to war of movement. Ramjanambhumi issue which was hitherto played by the Congress regime as a low intensity propaganda tool to assuage so-called Hindu sentiment was snatched by BJP with aggressive posture and nationwide movement. This culminated into the demolition of Babri Mosque, and in the post-independence period, in the 1990s communalism has once again taken a centrestage in academic and political debates seeking to preserve or capture centralised state power. The Congress, and particularly PM Narasimha Rao, before and after December 6 appears so disastrous, indeed suicidal, even from the point of view of narrow party interest, appears to be an attempt to compete with the BJP for the 'Hindu Card'. Successive Congress regimes in the 1980s surreptitiously invoked a nebulous form of Hindu majoritarianism which has been crafted into a more potent political ideology by the forces of Hindutva. In the post colonial scenario in general, and the conjuncture created by the Ayodhya controversy in particular, the Indian secular response has been to tar both Hindu majoritarianism and Muslim minoritarianism with the brush of communalism. While exploring the nexus of culture and political power the argument avoids presuppositions which erroneously link a religiously informed cultural identity with the politics of cultural nationalism. By contrasting the muslim politics in the sub-continental context, it aims at demonstrating the largely arbitrary and exclusionary nature of the term 'communal' as it has been applied to individuals and political groupings claiming to represent Indian muslims. The dominant Hindutva majoritarian campaign with a desire to build a monolithic Hindu social unity and a Hindu state finds no difficulty to interpret this binary of secular response, inter alia, in their favour.

Nazism in Germany

            Though comparative studies is not very effective in judging a phenomenon which has a past historical setting, but it sometimes gives a clear vision of a model that can predict what is forthcoming. Moreover, rise of fascism in one country cannot be sui generis; there must be some resemblances and a common law of motion everywhere. If we ignore the similarities and dissimilarities of the historical and civilisational past of the Indian sub-continent and that of Western Europe, we can safely delineate the certain aspects of the phenomenon of rise of fascism in Germany in the 1930s to understand present day Indian socio-political and economic turn of events.

              By the time of the Social Democratic Party's (SPD) successful 1928 election campaign, socialists and representatives of capital alike had come to believe that the weekly wage was a political wage, dependent on the political representation of labour. Incremental social and wage gains lay at the centre of labour's strategy—capital's fears. Indeed, successful social democratic reformism appeared as more of a threat than communist agitation. Wage and social welfare policy became the sine qua non of left politics in Weimer.

              Although capitalism was by far the dominant mode of production in Weimer Germany, other modes also existed—the family peasant, small commodity, and even feudal modes coexisted with industrial capitalism. The economic, political, and ideological practices of all these partially amalgamated sub-societies constituted the German social formation. Both Germany and Italy were societies experiencing accelerated capitalist transformation, through which entire regions were being visibly converted from predominantly rural into predominantly urban environment. In both cases the process was extremely uneven with large region trapped into social and economic backwardness. This situation produced complex political effects. The pace of social change outstripped the adaptive capabilities of the existing political institutions.

If one delves into the Indian reality post eighties, it becomes apparent that the somewhat welfarist character of the Indian state has been anathema to the neoliberal economic policy. The austerity measures to cut the social expenditure of the state and unbridled privatisation to dismantle organised labour and to maximise private profit have been most sought after policy drive of the neo-liberals world-wide. The urbanisation and pauperisation are the fallout of the implementation of the policy officially adopted by the Indian state in 1990. Though the capitalist mode of production is in the driving seat of the Indian economy, all other pre-capitalist relations do exist to keep the level of income of the vast Indian masses low under duress. India, like the Weimer period of Germany, has been suffering not only from its development of capitalist production, but also from its incompleteness.

             In the context of the Weimer crisis, adjustment within the existing institutional arrangements looked increasingly untenable, and more radical solutions beyond the boundaries of the existing political system consequently became more attractive. The problem of defining fascism is therefore not exhausted by describing its ideology. Fascism was not just a particular style of politics; it was also inscribed in a specific combination of political conditions. The political crisis of war and revolution between 1914 to 1923 and the crisis associated with the great depression after 1929 is the objective reality on which fascist movement arose.

          German communist party's erroneous perception on fascism and its role from 1928 to 1935 contributed indirectly and substantially to Hitler's victory. The conservative and authoritarian governments of Chancellors Henring Bruning, Franz von Papen, and General Kurt von Schleicher in Germany between 1930 and 1932 described as already fascist, thus trivialismg the danger of Hitler's accession to power. And social democrats were branded a twin of the moderate wing of fascism.

Alternative Discourse

             The Indian status distinction between mental and manual workers is much wider than that of the then German society. The presence of professional managers and administrators among Nazi activists is now well attested, and the similar phenomenon cannot go unnoticed in India too. The Indian caste system created a structural and functional barrier against working class unity to resist fascist upsurge in the backdrop of launching an all out onslaught on labour rights.

              The lack of clear vision about the rise of Hindutva forces in India and the strategic dilemma to face this menace keep the secular and democratic forces in doldrums. Instead of analysing the socio-political and economic reasons responsible for the rise of Hindutva, the discourse on the basis of majority vs Minority appeasement obfuscates the real danger of fascist takeover of the Indian state.

             One major distinction between the Hindutva of today and European Fascism, particularly the Nazi variety, lies in a very different relationship with established religious traditions. Nazis sought to ground identity on race, not religion, and called on youth to build a new civilisation which could at times sound openly anti-Christian. The Sangh Parivar, by very definition, has to preach total adherence and deference towards Hindu traditions even while fundamentally transforming them. That this has been a source of tremendous strength hardly needs to be stated; just possibly, it could also be transformed into a weakness given effective counter-strategies.

             In India fascist tendencies are currently at work in two forms, one direct, other more insidious. The more direct form consists chiefly in the mobilisation of a communal mass base which fluctuates in intensity but is clearly seen by the RSS as the organic strategy, and the one most directly linked to its ideology of extreme nationalism. Mass communalism and sustained communal propaganda have been supplemented by more insidious subversions of democracy that combine the elements of a war of position with a war of movement. The Ramjanambhumi movement and the recent cow vigilantism are such fascist mass movement to build monolithic Hindu culture with one supreme heroic one-dimensional characterisation of Lord Ram and religiously codified common lifestyle by destroying and replacing the diversity ingrained in Indianness and even in the Hinduism itself. The economic ramifications of ban on cow and buffalo do not deter the fanning of cow nationalism to steer the fascist ideology to grab the masses as it mostly effect the muslims and lower castes Hindus who cart cattle, labour in tanneries and make shoes, bags and belts including for big name brands such as Zara and Clarks. These fascist movements are preparing the ground for the rise of fascist forces because communalism is on the rise not so much because large numbers of communal riots are taking place, but because large numbers of people who not only keep away from communal riots but also sincerely condemn them, become participants in kind of communal consensus in which series of assumptions and myths have turned into common sense.

          In the absence of an agenda and force for radical change of crisis-ridden Indian society, the passive revolution of fascist variety is taking place. The passive revolution which Gramsci also calls 'revolution-without-a-revolution" is a historical situation in which new political formation comes to power without fundamentally reordering social relations, bit rather by adapting to and gradually modifying the status quo.

           The objective aims of fascism are largely irrational in so far as they contradict the material interest of those whom they try to embrace. Since it would be impossible for fascism to win the masses through rational arguments, its propaganda must necessarily be deflected from discursive thinking; it must be oriented psychologically, and has to mobilise irrational unconscious, regressive processes. Theodor W Adorno in his essay 'Freudian theory and the pattern of fascist propaganda' explained that under the prevailing conditions, the irrationality of fascist propaganda becomes rational in the sense of instinctual economy. For if the status quo is taken for granted and petrified, a much greater effort is needed to see through it than to adjust to it and to obtain at least some gratification through identification with the existent—the focal point of fascist propaganda. This may explain why ultra-reactionary mass movements use the 'psychology of masses' to a much greater extent than do movements which show more faith in masses. However, there is no doubt that even the most progressive political movement can deteriorate to the level of the 'psychology of the crowd' and its manipulation, if its own rational content is shattered through the reversion to blind power.

                 An alternative discourse challenging the allegiance to blind power and based on working class perspective—on cultural diversity endorsed by our civilisational past—and on united efforts of all oppositional forces to resist the rise of communal politics can only defeat fascism.

References :

(1)   The Indian Ideology, Perry Andersion, 2014, Three Essays Collectives.

(2)  Fascism : Essays on Europe and India, Edited by Jairus Banaji, 2016, Three Essays Collectives.

(3)  Radical Perspectives On The Rise of Fascism In Germany, 1919-1945, Edited by Michael N. Dobkowski & Isidor Walliman,,2003, Cornerstone Publications.

(4)  Nationalism, Democracy, Development : State and Politics in India, Edited by Sugata Bose & Ayesha Jalal, 2012, Oxford University Press.

(5)     The Culture Industry, Theodor W. Adorno, 2001, Routledge Classics.

Frontier

Autumn Number

Vol. 50, No.12-15, Sep 24 - Oct 21, 2017

Arup Baisya

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(This article has been written by the author in early March, 2014. Recently lot of new data and their theoretical interpretations by many experts in the field of economics and sociology are pouring in for further review on this issue) 

            A leading section of the left circle mechanically delineates the path of establishing the working class hegemony as the war of maneuver in the East in contradistinction to the war of position in the west. Both the traditional parliamentary left and the extreme left strategically placed themselves in practice completely in a war of position and the war of maneuver respectively in the post seventies. Though this phase is heavily burdened with their past legacy, the post seventies period demands special attention in view of the neo-liberal phase of capitalism which differs in significant way from the post-war boom and welfarism. This phase is marked by many new dimensions in the scene of global capitalism due to the far-reaching consequence of the process of centralisation-cum-globalisation of finance capital, but it does not perforce indicate a radical break from Lenin’s prognostication on monopoly capital and imperialism. The mere counterposition of “war of position” to ”war of maneuver” in any Marxist strategy in the end becomes an opposition between reformism and adventurism. In the history of communist movement, once the united front had become equated with the war of position, against maneuverist strategies of adventurist period of all-out confrontation, it threatened to slide towards a gradualist reformism that was the mirror image of the ultra-leftist immediacy of the positions it proposed to replace.

Misconstrued notion

           The crisis of the traditional left is ingrained in a serious political error. The left’s implicit and explicit politics was that capitalism was standardising Indian society, that proletarianisation would reduce rural “idiocy,” that, like the freedom struggle, class struggle would reduce obscurantism, communalism and casteism, and, finally the community fabric of society would be more and more transformed into a class fabric. The parliamentary or mainstream Indian left like CPM and CPI has been visibly changing the strategy in practice from the seventies to war of position alone and started equating this with the united front activity and thus losing the zeal to build mass movement. Theoretically they accept the semi-feudal character of the Indian state, but with an understanding that the national bourgeoisie is at the helm of affairs moulding the capitalist formations.

           However, the development of capitalism in India has not resulted in submerging the communities in great socio-political development. Rather, dormant communities have now woken up, awakened communities have become restive, and a competitive polity based on a regime of subsidies and patronage has created communities out of sub-communities. The left offered neither non-violent resistance at Ayodhya, nor did it order a halt to Mr. Advani’s march at Purulia. More importantly, the slogans and methods to preach secularism were imprisoned by the rhetoric of the Nehruvite liberal age.

           On the other hand, the extreme left like the Indian Maoists are engrossed in a static mindset and fail to notice the internal dynamics of societal change under the influence of the global capitalism and Indian Democracy even in the hinterlands within the over-arching semi-feudal structure.

             Land reform was undertaken haltingly through the 1950s to the end of the 1970s. NSSO survey report, 2003-04 shows that the landless household is 31.12 per cent and the percentage of households having more than 3 hectares of land is only 5.19 per cent (of this, 3.06 per cent  has 3-5 hectares and 0.52 per cent has more than 10 hectares). Agricultural statistics, 2013 published by Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India, reveals that in 1951, agricultural cultivators was 71.9 per cent of total rural population and agricultural labourer was 28.1 per cent, but these figure changed to 45.1 per cent and 54.9 per cent respectively in the year 2011. The total amount of land operated by big farmers has decreased by roughly 38 per cent, accompanied by a very substantial jump in the area under small and very small operational holdings (Ministry of Agriculture 2013). The NSS data also show that the share of agricultural workers among all male rural workers declined steadily from 80.6 per cent in 1977-8 to 71.7 per cent 1989-90 and for rural females this share dropped from 88.1 per cent in 1977-8 to 81.4 per cent in 1989-90 (as noted in Jha 1997). These figures imply that non-agricultural sector absorbed about 70 per cent of the total increase in the rural workforce between 1977-8 and 1989-90 (Social Development report 2012, Council for social development). These changes in the rural landscape have substantially changed the balance of forces in the semi-feudal relations of production, and this itself demands special attention to formulate new programme for left movement.

Different phases of transition 

               The series of successful revolutionary upsurge that had been first witnessed in Russia and ended with the last revolutionary victory in Vietnam in May 1975 was based on the premise of the workers-peasant alliance built in the backdrop of rising peasant militancy. But widespread peasant militant movements like Tebhaga, Telangana could not be transformed into revolutionary social movement in India under the leadership of working class. The objective barriers existed in India, as Utsa Pattanaik pointed out, were : “for one, the strength and efficiency, honed over two centuries, of the repressive apparatus of the unitary British colonial state, as compared to moribund tsarism in Russia or the internal bickering of rival imperialist powers in seni-colonial China. For another, the relative strength of the English-educated Indian bourgeoisie which seized the leadership of the national movement particularly after Gandhiji’s returm from South Africa and his brilliant political innovation – the satyagraha, which perfectly suited the requirement of a movement which wished to stave off revolution while taking over the legacy of power.”  In addition to her diagnosis of objective difficulties, it would be pertinent to say that the Indian peasant movement of that period had seldom crossed the caste-community fault lines built into Indian semi-feudal hierarchical caste-structure and could not change the upper-caste moorings of the English-educated class who acted as the colonial intermediaries.

In the country like India with emerging market economy, there occurred many changes in the structure of workers and peasants over the period from colonial rule of de-industrialisation to the dirigiste industrial development to the present phase of imperialist globalisation. It can be claimed that the de-industrialisation was merely a decline from a development which had been specially stimulated by the activities of the European merchants themselves in buying Indian cloth for export to other countries. Hence the major part of the de-industrialisation must be attributed to the displacement of traditional manufacturers as suppliers of consumption goods to the internal Indian marker.

                Characterising the colonial de-industrialisation, Amiya Kumar Bagchi wrote : “Capitalist industrialization up to the phase of maturity is attended by at least three types of changes : (a) an increase in the proportion of the population engaged in secondary industry  (b) a sustained increase in per capita income and (c) a continual rise in the degree of mechanization in industry  -- and to lesser extent perhaps, in agriculture. The reversal of any of these conditions over a long period of time can be characterized as de-industrialisation. Indian experienced the reversal of the first two conditions from probably 1820 up to 1914.”

            During the post independence period up to the seventies, a new industrial policy of import substitution of manufactured consumer goods with a view to catching up the developed western world was followed. But that policy was heavily dependent on the import of heavy machineries and thus remained completely entangled with vicissitudes of the global market and the policy framework of global capitalists. The capitalist classes of the India cannot step up their rates of accumulation without running into inflationary, and balance of payments, difficulties, because they have to reckon with the formidable influence exerted on world economy by the advanced capitalist classes, and also due to the fear of the unrest of the Indian peasantry and the proletariat, the capitalist classes of India have to adjust to the demands of the property-owning strata in control of sector characterized by pre-capitalist relations. The neo-liberal policy framework that was initiated by the Indian Government in the backdrop of balance of payment crisis let loose an onslaught on the labour at the behest of Global capitalist class. The left in power in the Indian states especially in West Bengal also succumbed to this pressure with a policy paralysis.

Dilemma of the left

             The total abdication of its role by a supposedly pro-labour government in West Bengal further worsened the situation. In 1988, for example, of the total 228 work stoppage, lock-outs accounted for 85 per cent and strikes 15 per cent: 88 per cent of mandays were lost because of lock-outs and 12 per cent because of strikes. Of the 246,053 workers affected, a majority (60 per cent) suffered owing to lock-outs. The average duration of a strike was 33.4 days and a lock-out 169 days. Lay-offs increased from 510 in 1985 to 1,572 in 1988. (Samaddar, Ranabir : 2013). The unions and the state both remained mute witness to the onslaught on workers during the decade. In fact, the unions often became part of a structure that resulted in managerial hegemony – just as the policies of the so called pro-labour State government did.

          The left, in principle, must always strategically place themselves in favour of the strike by labour on the capital with tactical variations during the period of boom and of recession of global capitalism marked by underdevelopment, restricted home market, stagflation, a large unorganized sector and technological restructuring of industry as argued by Lenin long ago. But the left in power in Bengal became mere witness of the strike by capital in the ‘80s. Left could have sided with the labour by initiating a policy of social security, co-operative management of the existing industries, building social infrastructure that also generates employments, and the support to increase in demand for indigenous commodities through state purchases, and also pushing the achievement of operation Barga further ahead progressively through land reform and boosting agricultural commercialisation and cooperation. But they dared not pursue this pro-labour path with a fear to face the hostility of the global capitalist class and reluctance of global investors who are interested in profiteering and in ensuring super-profit through the existence of pre-capitalist social relations with a skewed development model. The extreme left, especially the Maoists, on the other hand, failing to realise the change in the urban and rural social classes and the balance of forces evolved during the long period of post-independence capitalist re-construction and the existing parliamentary democracy put much emphasis on the immanence of the seizure of state power and on the combat with the coercive apparatuses of the state following the argumentation of the mechanical division of strategy in the Eastern and the Western countries.

             The change of agrarian social classes has diverse ramifications in the diverse geo-political regions of Indian nation. The distress condition in the cash crop areas shows the sign of landlord capitalism and strengthening of pre-capitalist relations and the caste-communities cleavages under the influence rentier financial and merchant capitalism. But the region like Bengal where left had undertaken land reform to a certain extent has unleashed the forces to carry forward agrarian commercialisation through the path of peasant capitalism. The proletarianisation of rural peasantry would have opened up the new vistas for working class unity and consciousness in both rural and urban sector, had the left in power not given much emphasis on the path of development basing on global capitalist investors, and the extreme left not marginalised themselves with the combatant role relying much on the politics of the barrel of the gun. Both the mainstream left and the extreme left have missed the opportunity to build the sustained struggle for social security, weakening of caste based pre-capitalist structure to ensure working class unity and consciousness. But the traditional left forces like CPI and CPIM  have been pursuing the misplaced legacy of strategic and tactical path of second communist international and Stalinist determinism without taking into cognisance the here and now of the post-independence Indian reality.

Marxism and Binary categories

             

        

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   In defense of the Marxist dialectics, E P Thompson wrote :  “Marxist theory…… can become a false consciousness if, instead of being used for the methodical investigation of reality through theory and practice, it is misused as a defence against that very reality……. Those who wish to deprive Marxism of its critical, subversive power and turn it into a affirmative doctrine, generally dig in behind a series of stereotyped statements which, in their abstraction, are as irrefutable as devoid of result.” Citing the Indian Marxist, he further reiterated : “…..If one considers for a moment the possible consequences if the Communist Party of India (One of the most unreconstructed Stalinist parties in the world) were to reinforce its existing anti-libertarian tendencies and contempt for ‘petit-bourgeois’ masses – tendencies amply displayed in its partnership in the recent emergency – with a dose of Althusserian arrogance; and if its largely bourgeois and intellectual upper cadres were to become theoretical practitioners; and if the opportunity to practice, not only in theory, but upon the body of India, should return  -- then we could expect nothing less than the re-enactment of the full repertoire of high Stalinism within the raging inferno of Indian ‘scarcity’.”

This argument is also applicable to CPI(M) to a great extent. The left front role in West Bengal in post seventies was guided from the premise that the Party is able to decide the best interest of the working class on the basis of Marxist ‘Science’, and to serve this interest through ‘ideological state apparatuses’. In this understanding, Marxism becomes an inert tool only to be handled by the Party to judge working class morality and in this framework working class becomes a passive onlooker who is only to be led and guided. Thus Mraxist science degenerates into deterministic formulae to be used to predict the future. Following this approach, both the variants of Indian left, the CPI-CPIM and Maoist, have conceptualised the reality in binary framework of opposite categories of war of position versus war of maneuver. Another such category is the civil society versus the political society. The interconnectedness of these two categories and their dialectical relation with the state are missed while strategising the revolutionary movement. When the broad-based strategy to build united front of all forms of movements for the rights of civil societies and the movements to resist the onslaught of the ruling classes of political societies are not mooted, it becomes apparent that the content of diverse mass-movements in India in this neo-liberal phase of economy against both the consent and coercion of the existing state is undermined. The two aspects of ruling class hegemony and domination, the consent and coercion, have been segregated by the two variants of the lefts in their formulations of actual practice. A new approach needs to be developed for the new left to emerge with a view to resolve the conflict between the forces of production and the relations of production in this neo-liberal phase of capitalism in the country like India.

References :