The Socialists without a Manifesto.
Zizek says, “…I am a good Hegelian. If you have a good theory, forget about the reality.” This describe the left across the globe but most surely in India.
It is easier to put people into boxes as someone who is aware of how reducing people into smaller identities erodes the merits of their opinion, I am against it. But that is what we see happening all around me with phrases like Aaptard, Libtard and Bhakts, that way they remain in our cellular minds as people with legitimate bias and hence easier to ignore when they argue. Makes for a simpler existence; doesn’t it?
Should the left in India, be blamed for succumbing to this business of petty name calling that is a trademark of the conservative right movement across the globe. [Reference: Donald Trump; Erdogan] is a debate that we need to have, but when the name calling obstructs a genuine argument to come through it definitely makes it difficult for the ‘arguably’ more nuanced left stand (definitely more verbose though;) to be understood .
India today, is a clash of two ideologies one of traditional nationalism that governed the nation states of Europe for many many years and which frankly is a little out of date and the other which is a socialist liberated ideology that the current Nordic countries employ but one which is probably a bit too radical for even a country like US. The debate between these ideals and the more popular and useful of these two paths, with a certain give and take; would determine where India moves to in the future. So, this is a very important debate that every nation has to go through, after all only one who is too ignorant and too arrogant can claim that the other side has nothing to offer at all. But as luck would have it, the debate is being reduced to rubbles of accusatory words.
Was it always like that? perhaps not, but not because the means of exchanging opposing views were more erudite, but for the opposing view was considered to uncouth to be even considered an opinion at all. The Lutyens South Delhi crowd always was more fascinated with their own ideals and ideas that they never encompassed any other point of view into discussions at all. These ideals were obviously always the Ox-Cam Liberal, semi-Atheist, and Socialist ideals.
Had the right wing ideals in India, of confirming to authority and set definitions been recognized as a legitimate thought process that many people do hold, it would have been so much easier to accept and accommodate it with the debate of what should constitute the pillars of a secular India. Perhaps we would even have gone through this phase with no eviscerations of our ideals.
Liberal left in India was for as long as we can see, keeping warm in their collective echo chamber that basically overlooked the reality that was transpiring on the ground, look at the polit-bureau and tell me what is their collective popular following as compared to the current Indian establishment.
It helps the right wing to label these ideas as traitorous because it saves them the mental work-out of trying to figure things from the French revolution, defining what a nation state should constitute, and keeps them safe into their safer narrative of cinematic patriotism that has been served to us in India for decades without any attempt at a popular counter narrative of civic nationalism with universal.
For the left, to term a whole group as Bhakt makes them comfortable in their belief that a whole sub-section is stupid and follows authority for the lack of a nuanced understanding, a thought process that has made the social left the pariah it is in India today, when they have not tried to educate and organize the masses to understand their idea of liberalism, how do they expect them to follow it?
And this is where the problem is, as long as the left ideals do not rise from bottom up, not just from the forests and the liberal arts universities but from the middle class homes, it shall never be a potent force beyond textbooks and some varsities and the assertive more rooted right shall always be more powerful and the game shall always be played in their backyard of name calling and easy labels.
As a left liberal, I do respect the enthusiasm and overall sense of happiness at the student movement across university campuses in India, especially JNU. Though, I personally cannot claim to share the same amount of joy as many of my liberal brethren do. In the garb of glittering intelligence, I can still see that smirk of ‘my philosophy more educated than yours’ in those young eyes.
But much before Youtube and social media came in, the idea of socialism-communism was as strong across universities in Bengal, Delhi and many universities across the world. All the CPM Polit-Bureau members were fire brand student leaders once, who did not even need a constant camera to get where they did.
So, I humbly have to disagree with people who say this isn’t something new and novel that has never happened before. Anecdotes from the 70’s from Bengal state that so many young men went into Socialist-Naxal wars with the state in India, that there were not enough men for the women to get married to.
And yet what surprises me is that left liberalism is still such a limited force in India, in a country that is so unequal and getting more by the day. The more I think of it, the more I realize that socialism is a very university centric idea without any mass support in India.
In fact what we need is a path way to sculpt the socialist discourse in such a way that it is more meaningful to the billions of Indians today rather than sloganeering, a game where our adversaries are far ahead of us in terms of movers advantage. While JNU chants ‘lal salam’ go and look at an RSS path sanchalan at any small town in Madhya Pradesh.
We take pride in us being better read, more understanding of the philosophies that run the world and yet that and pardon me ‘arrogance’ of feeling that we know so much is what limits these movements to grow out of JNU and into heartland. The language of left is not the language of mass and that is a failure of the hubris that is left intelligentsia in India.
The establishment is not scared of JNU as much as some of us think it is, because they know that Das Capital and subaltern are books and words that have no meaning for the people beyond JNU and TISS and a few other places. I am looking at all this with a very cautious and skeptical point of view.
This easy to understand idea that change shall not be precipitated through books in a country like India is a difficult concept for the social liberals to get. As Ludwig Von Mises said, liberalism can only fight through mind and never by brute oppression, this statement becomes a problem as soon as the level of debate is debased to a game of abuse hurling. It seems like we the people on the left in India are not just giving into it but falling for this, after all, all the trappings of TV cameras and cult following is rather appealing.
But as a wise man once said, please remember the revolution shall not be televised.
