[Reader-list] Ram Guha on Left+Right

[Rahul Asthana]

>From the article-
"Let me now offer this thesis — that because they
played such an insignificant part in the social
movement which brought India political freedom, the
saffron right and the Communist left feel obliged to
wear their “nationalism” on their sleeves — to
express, with such force and vehemence, their
opposition to what they regard as alien and
contaminating influences. The RSS shall demonstrate
their Indianness by demanding that the preacher, Benny
Hinn, has to “Quit India”; the Marxist professors will
demonstrate it by demanding that a small, shabby
coffee outlet owned by Nestlé must “Quit JNU”. "

I think this premise is flawed. The behaviour of the
left and right can be classified as any number of
"isms", but nationalism it is not. In fact, the
significant similarity between the left and right is
that of lack of a coherent national ideology.The
leftists will cheer when America refuses Modis visa
and the rightists will welcome MNCs,so the xenophobia
that the writer of the article talks about is
incidental.
Their behavious is based on othering of a section of
people and appealing to their own respective niche
markets at an organisanional level. 
On an individual level, people are natural born
leftists or rightists. I cant think of any natural
born nationalist politician.Apparently, having a
coherent nationalist strategy, a precursor to which
would involve not othering any group of people, might
not be a succesful strategy in politics. Not that nice
marketing is a bad thing in a democracy. 

Regards
Rahul
--- shivam <shivamvij at gmail.com> wrote:
> WHERE LEFT MEETS RIGHT
> An irrational fear of the foreigner
> 
> Politics and Play / RamaChandra Guha
> 
> 
> 
> Earlier this year, I was at the Jawaharlal Nehru
> University in New
> Delhi, where I had been asked to give an
> after-dinner talk to the
> students. I reached ten minutes before schedule, so
> my hosts took me
> for a coffee while the audience was being rustled
> up. While we drank
> the coffee, at a modest open-air outlet run by
> Nescafé, they explained
> that their forum was wholly "non-political", unlike
> the other,
> party-affiliated groups that dotted the campus. To
> get a sense of
> their activities I asked how often they held these
> meetings. Once a
> month, they answered. I then asked who the previous
> speaker was. They
> named a Marxist economist. And what did she speak
> on, I enquired. On
> how multinational outfits such as this one should
> not be allowed to
> contaminate the purity of the JNU campus.
> 
> I reeled back in shock. The surprise was occasioned
> in part by the
> triviality of the topic chosen by my predecessor. I
> was speaking on
> "The Contribution of the Congress Party to the
> Nurturing and Degrading
> of India's Democracy", and I had thought that those
> who had come
> before me had spoken on similarly grave — not to say
> boring —
> subjects. But the surprise was also caused by the
> topic being so much
> at odds with the speaker's own biography. "Why does
> your professor
> oppose this Nescafé outlet?" I asked. "Because she
> feels we should
> encourage indigenous initiatives," they answered.
> "Do you know where
> her own doctoral degree is from?" I asked. They
> didn't know, so I
> supplied the answer — the University of Cambridge.
> "When you next meet
> your professor," I said sarcastically, "ask her one
> question on my
> behalf — when she travels by plane to international
> meetings, does she
> carry a south Indian filter and Coorg coffee powder
> with her, or does
> she quietly drink the beverage offered her on the
> flight?"
> 
> 
> 
> >> The rest of it is at
>
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1050430/asp/opinion/story_4681311.asp
> 
> 
> Cheers
> Shivam
> 
> -- 
> http://mallroad.blogspot.com
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