[Reader-list] Dharna

[Jeebesh Bagchi]

dear Tarun,

It will be a mistake (and a great blunder) to stop discussing and debating in 
name of unity and fear of balkanisation.

Conversations between known and strangers brings with it multiplying 
mulitiplicity of voices and perspectives, and this is what power is always 
uncomfortable with. Managers in workplaces are very weary of many workers 
talking simulteanously, they desperately search for spokespersons., it is the 
need of management. In schools we are made to internalise this self 
destructive logic.

Power (all kinds of power) likes unified/ unity driven points of view because 
it is very easy to counter it. Actually I would say that demands for unity 
are very lethal and destroys the critical impulses, transgressive and 
dissident subjectivity, and most importantly stops heresies from being 
articulated. Tarun, i seriously think that `Ekta` based thoughts and 
practices are big `full stops` to thinking. And thought is all that we are at 
present left with. 

My problem with critiques of Gandhi or analyses from within the frame of 
`communal violence` is that the discussion will lead to a dead end. Geneology 
of Gujrat is not there. These entry points stops us from asking hard 
political economic questions about the contemporary and reduces the arguments 
into a moralist - culturalistist framework. What is the relations between 
`claims and consolidation to/of power` and `organised pogroms` needs to be 
understood outside the `cultural` framework.

Maybe we should look carefully through the `Eichmann Trials`, look at making 
of the `banality of evil` and then further making of  `more banality of evil` 
riding on `earlier banalities`. 

Pratap's posting - 'Why Gujarat makes me happy' (Wed, 24 Apr 2002) actually 
moves the discussion towards a very significant plane. It should be read and 
argued. (I am yet to fully absorb the import of his arguments).

best
Jeebesh

PS: has anybody realised the gap betweeen demonstrations are decreasing very 
fast. And they are all on different events and after events. Interesting!




On Saturday 27 April 2002 08:33, tarunksaint wrote:
> Friends,
> Please join if possible; this is a time for unity amongst antifascist
> groups/individuals, not further balkanisation. The debate on Gandhi can
> wait awhile. Apologies to those who may have received this already.
> Rgds,
> Tarun
>