[Reader-list] Prabhat Patnaik on Nandigram Letter Debate

[sukanya ghosh]

It is amazing how these so called academic responses to the issue of the 
Nandigram protests seem to turn the entire thing into a  petty battle 
ground between a group of intellectuals and the left. Perhaps they would 
be better served if they would take the time to question their 
association with the broad happy nexus called the 'Left' which they 
presume exists in our country. Perhaps they would like to examine the 
lumpen idiocy that goes by the name of the West Bengal government. 
Nobody, least of all the government itself, has any pretensions to any 
kind of leftist ideology. We who have watched and listened and yes voted 
for these people time and again into office have been subject to the 
barrage of their imbecilic verbiage for decades. And what of the Left 
front in the centre - these are the people in the politburo who have 
neither inclination or the backbone to take a stand on something that 
will after all endanger their seats in parliament.

The actual people who have any vestige of leftist thought is actually in 
the people who are being  labelled 'intellectuals' (how weird that this 
has become a  kind of swearword in some recent debates), 'enemies of the 
people', 'anti-left', 'communist haters' etc etc. In fact the group of 
intellectuals who reacted violently and 'turned against the party' are 
in fact not a such a small group. They are in fact the entire of city of 
Calcutta. I don't intend to be parochial by this observation or to 
dismiss the protests that have come from all other quarters -  but it is 
worth taking a moment to ponder the significance of the change in public 
opinion that has been precipitated by Nandigram. For those who are aware 
of the incredible malaise and ennui that has dogged our city and it's 
people for decades, the importance of this will become clear. For the 
first time, 'the people' i its truest sense of the term are awake. and 
protesting. in the manner that they can. The prominent intellectuals who 
for years have shared, if not party tickets then many a happy 
partnership with the CPI (M) government, have at first been bewildered, 
confused and then have had to make their peace with loss of faith. 
Perhaps it's worth taking a look at the number of party memberships that 
have been returned. The ordinary indulgent middle class underbelly of 
the city which has taken to ignoring bandhs and other irritants in our 
daily lives, who for once marked their protest in a marked no-show. Who 
would have thought that mamata's strident call for a bandh would have 
garnered this nature of silent success. The thousands of the people who 
took to the road that afternoon in protest cutting across age, idea and 
class. And the newspapers and media taking a breather from trivial 
pursuit to carry prominent articles and strongly worded editorials. 
These are the enemies of the people.

And for what? There is really no point in theorizing or writing papers 
about the loss of a political sense or disdain for political thought. 
Sometimes it is imperative to call a spade a spade. The government 
action in Nandigram was barbaric and uncalled for. The crisis in 
Nandigram is a manifestation of this same government's policy in the 
district West Bengal in the last few decades. West Bengal has no option. 
there is no other party which we can choose over the existing one (and 
believe me the nasty old BJP will take this very opening to come into 
Bengal in a big way). The chief minister is a goat (with due apologies 
to the animal), who believes that industrialization is informed by 
building shopping malls across a state which has yet to provide 
electricity and water to most of its parts. And who has a government  
full of people like the the jackass Biman Bose who might not have two 
coherent thoughts to rub together at any given time. I am ashamed to 
even associate these people with any kind of leftists thought. These are 
really not the kind of people you want to write 'friendly criticism, and 
open letters to'. And as for poor misguided Chomsky and Tariq Ali and 
friends who 'sought to introduce a political perspective to the 
anti-left agitation' it was no such thing. They chose to flap about a 
bit, no doubt misdirected by our highly suspect so-called-leftist 
intellectuals.

There is no dearth of people with leftist ideology in possibly it's best 
and most progressive form in our country (thank god). But these are 
certainly not the the people who need to carry a badge which calls them 
'The Left' or a bonafide party membership. And they are certainly not 
those sitting in the Politburo or Alimuddin Street. And really, the next 
bewildered academic who wants to write about Nandigram should please 
come a feel the pulse of the city for a change.








Naeem Mohaiemen wrote:
> THE LEFT AND ITS "INTELLECTUAL" DETRACTORS
>
> PRABHAT PATNAIK
>
> With normalcy returning to Nandigram, and with the heat generated over it in
> intellectual circles somewhat subsiding, it is time for us to ask the
> question: why did so many intellectuals suddenly turn against the Party with
> such amazing fury on this issue?
>
> This question is important because joining issue with them on the basis of
> facts on the specificities of Nandigram, which is what we have been doing
> till now, is not enough. It is not enough for instance to underscore the
> fact, implicitly or explicitly denied by virtually all of them, that
> thousands of poor people were driven out of their homes into refugee camps
> for the only "crime" of being CPI(M) supporters; it is not enough to argue
> against them that there was no semblance of an excuse for keeping Nandigram
> out of bounds for these refugees and for the civil administration even after
> the Left Front government had categorically declared that no chemical hub
> would be built there; it is not enough to point out that the so-called
> "re-occupation" of Nandigram in November was an act of desperation which
> followed the failure of every other effort at restoring normalcy and
> bringing the refugees back to their homes. All these facts and arguments
> have been advanced at length, and are by now passé. But the phenomenon of
> several intellectuals who till yesterday were with the Left in fighting
> communal fascism but have now turned against it requires serious analysis.
>
> There is no gainsaying that the Left Front government made serious mistakes
> in handling the Nandigram issue; and Buddhadeb Bhattacharya has said so in
> as many words. But disagreement with the LF over this could have taken the
> form of friendly criticism, articles, and open letters, and not of such
> outright hostility that even put the LF on a par with communal fascism.
> Likewise disagreements over the LF's industrialization policy could have
> been aired in a manner that had none of the ferocity which has been recently
> displayed. Differences with the LF, even basic differences, therefore cannot
> suffice as an explanation of what we have just witnessed.
>
> Likewise, the fact that most of these intellectuals are in any case strongly
> anti-organized Left, especially anti-Communist (and in particular
> anti-CPI(M)), belonging as they do to the erstwhile "socialist" groups, to
> NGOs, to the ranks of Naxalite sympathizers, to the community of "Free
> Thinkers", and to various shades of "populism", would not suffice as an
> explanation. After all, despite this basic hostility to the organized Left,
> they did make common cause with it on several issues till recently. Why is
> it suddenly so different now?
>
> The context clearly has changed. With the perceived decline in the strength
> of the communal fascist forces, a certain fracturing of the anti-communal
> coalition was inevitable and has happened, and this no doubt provides the
> setting in which it becomes possible for these intellectuals to express in
> the open the hostility which they might have felt all along against the
> Left. Indeed, this perceived weakening of the BJP may even encourage
> attempts, on the part of intellectuals hostile to the Left but aligned to it
> earlier owing to the pressure of circumstances, at establishing a sort of
> intellectual hegemony over society at large at the expense of the Left. But
> while the recession of the communal fascist threat certainly creates the
> condition for these intellectuals to come out openly against the Left, the
> manner of their coming out cannot be explained only by this fact. It
> indicates something more serious, namely the process of destruction of
> politics that the phenomenon of globalization has unleashed.
>
> The crux of political praxis consists at any time in distinguishing between
> two camps: the camp of the "people" and camp hostile to the interests of
> "the people". This distinction in turn is based on an analysis of the
> prevailing contradictions, and the identification of the principal
> contradiction, on the basis of which the composition of the class alliance
> that constitutes the camp of "the people" is determined. And corresponding
> to this constellation of classes, there is a certain constellation of
> political forces among whom relations have to be forged. It is obvious that
> the relationship between the political forces representing the classes that
> constitute the camp of the people at any time, and the nature of criticism
> among these forces, must be different from the relationship and criticism
> across camps. Not to distinguish between   the camps, not to distinguish
> between alternative constellations of political forces, but to club them
> together on the basis of the identical nature of their presumed moral
> trespasses, is to withdraw from politics. What is striking about the
> attitude of the intellectuals arrayed against the organized Left at present
> is their complete withdrawal from the realm of political praxis to a realm
> of messianic moralism.
>
> Such messianic moralism is not just politically counter-productive. The
> withdrawal from the realm of politics that it signifies, strengthens
> politically the camp of the "enemies of the people". (In India for instance
> the attack inspired by messianic moralism that has been launched on the
> organized Left at a time when the latter is in the forefront of an extremely
> crucial but difficult struggle against the attempt of imperialism to make
> India its strategic ally, weakens that struggle, and thereby plays into the
> hands of imperialism). But messianic moralism, quite apart from its palpable
> political consequences, is smug, self-righteous, self-adulatory, and, above
> all, empty. An attitude that does not distinguish between types of violence,
> between the different episodes of violence, that condemns all violence with
> equal abhorrence, that places on a footing of equality all presumed
> perpetrators of violence, amounts in fact to a condemnation of nothing. To
> say that all are equally bad is not even morally meaningful.
>
> This messianic moralism, this withdrawal from politics, is based
> fundamentally on a disdain of politics, of the messy world of politics,
> which is far from being peopled by angels. It constitutes therefore a mirror
> image of the very phenomenon that it seeks to resist, namely the "cult of
> development" spawned by neo-liberalism. Manmohan Singh says: politics is
> filthy; rise above politics; detach "development" from politics. The
> anti-Left intellectuals say: politics is filthy; rise above politics; detach
> the struggle against "development" from politics.
>
> This disdain for politics, this contempt for the political process, is what
> characterizes substantial sections of the middle class in India today. It is
> visible in the absolute opposition of the students of elite institutions to
> the legislation on reservations passed unanimously by parliament. It is
> visible in the persistent resort to the judicial process to overturn
> decisions of legislatures, and the exhortations to the judiciary to act as a
> body superior to the elected representatives of the people. This middle
> class contempt for politics and politicians is apparent in the rise of
> movements like "Youth For Equality" that make no secret of it and whose
> avowed aim is to combat "affirmative action" which they consider to be the
> handiwork of "opportunist" politicians.
>
> The rise of messianic moralism is a part of the same trend, which is nothing
> else but a process of "destruction of politics". Middle class moralism
> upholds causes, not programmes. It flits from cause to cause. And it
> apotheosizes the absence of systematic political alliances. Some may call it
> "post-modern politics", but it amounts to a negation of politics.
>
> Messianic moralism always has a seductive appeal for intellectuals. To avoid
> systematic partisanship, to stand above the messy world of politics, to
> pronounce  judgements on issues from Olympian moral heights, and to be
> applauded for one's presumed "non-partisanship", gives one a sense of both
> comfort and fulfillment. This seductive appeal is heightened by the
> contemporary ambience of middle class disdain for politics which the
> phenomenon of globalization, subtly but assiduously, nurtures and promotes.
>
> The answer to the question with which we started, namely why have so many
> intellectuals turned against the Left with such fury, lies to a significant
> extent in the fact that this fury against the Left is also fed by a revolt
> against politics. The revolt against the CPI(M) is simultaneously a revolt
> against politics. The combination of anti-communism with a rejection of
> politics in general gives this revolt that added edge, that special anger.
> It is the anger of the morality of the "anti-political" against the morality
> of the "political", for Communism, notwithstanding its substitution of the
> "political" for the "moral", has nonetheless a moral appeal. The venom in
> the anti-Left intellectuals' attack on the Left comes from the fact that
> this struggle, of the "morality of the anti-political" against the "morality
> of the political", takes on the character of a desperate last struggle, a
> final push to destroy the latter, since "our day has come at last!".
>
> Ironically it was a group of US-based academics led by Noam Chomsky who
> sought to introduce a political perspective to the anti-Left agitation of
> the intellectuals on Nandigram. It is they who pointed out that in the
> anti-imperialist struggle, which is the defining struggle of our times (the
> struggle around the principal contradiction), the organized Left was an
> essential component of the camp of the "people", and that nothing should be
> done to disrupt the unity of the camp of the "people". But the response of
> the anti-Left intellectuals to the injection of this political perspective
> was a barrage of attacks on Chomsky et al for taking a "pro-CPI(M)"
> position. A political position ipso facto was identified as a "pro-CPI(M)"
> position. There could be no clearer proof of the proposition that the revolt
> of the intellectuals against the Left was simultaneously a revolt against
> politics, a disdain for politics that has become so prevalent a phenomenon
> in the era of globalization that it affects as much the proponents of
> globalization as its avowed critics. In fact these critics and the votaries
> of imperialist globalization share in this respect the same terrain of
> discourse.
>
> The hallmark of the organized Left lies precisely in the fact it rejects
> this terrain of discourse, that it accords centrality to politics, that it
> does not substitute an abstract Olympian moralism for concrete political
> mobilization. It is for this reason therefore that the Left's attitude to
> these intellectuals must be informed by politics; it cannot be a mirror
> image of their attitude to the Left.
>
> Prabhat Patnaik
> Professor, Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru
> University, New Delhi
> Vice Chair, Planning Board, Government of Kerala