[Reader-list] CPI (M) and West Bengal CM's Statements on Nandigram

[Tapas Ray]

Shuddha,

Here are one or two more thoughts in addition to my earlier note in 
response to your post. These are nowhere near your arguments in depth, 
but I hope they will still add some value to the discussion.

I think your call for a million transformations, for "pay(ing) some 
attention to these un-named and un-namable areas of life", is, sadly, 
"aronye rodan" (crying in the wilderness). Our political parties, 
including the CPI-M, are deeply suspicious of, if not openly hostile 
towards, anything decentralised. This has to do with their authoritarian 
psychology and commitment to hierarchy, which you have noted.

I would say that they have firmly positioned themselves within what can 
be called the machine ("technique" in Ellul's terms) and are unable and 
unwilling to leave its security. The Leninist enthusiasm for Fordist 
production is an obvious manifestations of the technical nature of that 
politics, and of parties like the CPI-M, which draw inspiration from 
that era. With their deep-going links with capital, one cannot even 
expect parties like Congress, BJP or CPI-M to take an alternative 
approach. Trinamul, with its sporadic protest actions against such 
things as land acquisition in Singur and Nandigram, and the removal of 
squatter colonies, seems to be operating at least partly outside that 
paradigm. However, one wonders whether, or to what extent, its actions 
are driven by opportunities that present themselves - such as Nandigram 
- and to what extent by any well-thought-out policy against the model of 
development exemplified by Nandiram and Singur.

(For the benefit of those who draw their sustenance principally from 
party literature and would like to jump in with comments to the effect 
that West Bengal is a model of "decentralised governance" - a claim we 
have heard ad nauseum - I wish to point out that: a) the 
decentralisation I am referring to is of an order different from 
panchayati raj, and could be referred to as decentring if that term with 
its postmodern association were not anathema to parties like the CPI-M. 
And b) It is known that West Bengal's "decentralised" panchayat system 
is riddled with inequities and worse, and is a model of centralisation 
in the hands of "the Party", i.e., the CPI-M. Had this not been the 
case, West Bengal would not have faced Naxalite violence in West 
Midnapore, Bankura, Purulia and some other areas, and the CPI-M would 
not have faced a Trinamul challenge in East Midnapore.)

Finally, you have offered some examples of areas in which the CPI-M 
could have intervened or experimented for the sake of a new way of life, 
but has not. Let me add one or two of my own. I am not aware of any 
campaign undertaken by the CPI-M, during its three decades as a ruling 
party in West Bengal, against petty corruption in day-to-day dealings in 
government offices, the casteism openly flaunted in matrimonial 
advertisements, or the immense expenses incurred and considerable public 
inconvenience caused by "Sharbojanin Pujas" (community pujas). If there 
have been such campaigns, I would appreciate some information on these.

Tapas



Shuddhabrata Sengupta wrote:
> Dear Tapas, and Taraprakash,
> 
> Many thanks for your posts. I am sorry that I did not notice that the 
> official CPI(M) position had in fact been carried earlier on the Reader 
> List already. Thank you for pointing that out. But I am glad that the 
> redundant act of re-posting old material has provoked an interesting 
> conversation. And apologies in advance for a post that I think will be 
> somewhat rambling.
> 
> I agree with Tapas. It would be interesting to politely request the 
> ladies and gentlemen who publish 'Peoples Democracy' or even 
> 'Janashakti' to carry articles, reports and texts about Singur, 
> Nandigram, West Bengal, or Joseph Stalin that are not necessarily in 
> consonance with the official line of the CPI(M) - entirely in the 
> interests of CPI(M) cadres being exposed to the diversity of positions 
> that can and indeed are being taken on the left today. So that our 
> comrades in the CPI (M) can be better informed about the way that others 
> think about their party's actions and policies. Perhaps PD could carry a 
> 'How They See Us' Box.
> 
> I am skeptical as to whether such a demand would be assented to, but I 
> would welcome it if it were to happen, and since I am aware that there 
> are CPI(M) members and sympathizers on this list, I would be happy if 
> they were in fact to take this request to the party HQ, just as this 
> list has unhesitatingly carried their point of view. Of course, a 
> mailing list is not a party, and should never become one, or even 
> pretend to be one, ('just as a 'revolution is not a dinner party':) ). 
> But a party can occasionally find something of use in the manner in 
> which discussions are carried out in a mailing list. Maybe?
> 
> Having said that, I would like to add that an authoritarian political 
> culture is not necessarily the monopoly of the CPI(M). It is present, as 
> far as my understanding goes, in almost the entire parliamentary and 
> extra-parliamentary left, not only in India, but elsewhere as well. Of 
> course it is a central feature of all political currents in India, and 
> no formation, neither ML, nor Gandhian, nor Socialist, nor of course the 
> Congress or the regional parties, not even Dalit formations, can claim 
> immunity from the malaise of a deeply hierarchical, patriarchal and 
> authoritarian style of politics. I am not even discussing the inner 
> political culture of the RSS and the Sangh Parivar. I am also aware that 
> this runs deep in the voluntary and NGO sector. As far as I am 
> concerned, in the matter of the ethos and style of politics, it does not 
> really matter as to whether you are Gandhian, or Maoist, or CPI(M) or 
> Congress or BJP or a functionary of an NGO.
> 
> Perhaps this is because the objective of seizing power (or a thin slice 
> of power) or of holding on to power (or a thin slice of power) is all 
> that motivates us all on the left. Social transformation, the work of 
> creating and sustaining different ways of acting, producing, relating to 
> others is seen as a secondary activity - somethign to be left for 
> generations to come. This is what we are told can happen in the sunrise 
> that follows the sunset of Capital.
> 
> Notice, that I am deliberately saying 'us', rather than creating a 
> purist distinction between - them - the CPI (M) and others ('us'? - 
> affilated, or unaffiliated) on the left.
> 
> For now, we are told, the important task is the seizure, (not the 
> dismantling, but the seizure) of the organs of political power. Having 
> done that, all that needs to be done is the 'nationalization', or 
> 'statization' of production, all else can be as it was before. In the 
> 1930s -  factory in the erstwhile USSR was never very different from a 
> factory in the USA. The Leninist enthusiasm for Fordist assembly line 
> production techniques is an indication of actually how similar they were.
> 
> The rhetoric of 'Peoples Armies', 'Peoples Polices', 'Liberated Zones', 
> 'Parallel States', 'New Democracies' et al, only replicates the 
> institutional mechanisms and mores of the state and capital. The 
> tranformation that occurs is more nomnclatural (or Nomenklautural?) then 
> substantive.
> 
> It is interesting to reminisce at this point of time that one of the 
> forgotten central demands of the revolutionary working class movement in 
> the nineteenth and the early twentieth centruy was the abolition of 
> standing armies.
> 
> This is a demand that was actualized in the Paris Commune and in the 
> heady early days of Soviet power. This demand was made based on an 
> understanding that the attempt at forming a new form of social 
> organization required a departure from earlier forms of control in 
> politics and society. It was not seen as a peripheral, or marginal part 
> of the programme of revolutionary politics, but was seen as central. It 
> is interesting to speculate as to what shape the legacy of the communist 
> movement would have taken if the insistence on not having standing 
> armies had won the day. The police action in West Bengal, and the 
> actions of 'Armed Cadres' by the parliamentary and the 
> extra-parliamentary left in West Bengal, or a day later in Chattisgarh, 
> are the acts of the 'standing armies' of the left, or in the service of 
> the left in India. They are both signals of the distance that the 
> imagination of the left in our milieu has travelled from the originary 
> revolutionary impulses that sustained the international movements for 
> the emancipation of working peoples everywhere.
> 
> All that the left wants now is power. The consequences of this desire 
> are thattoo little attention is being paid or has been paid on how we 
> might live and act in the present in a manner that corresponds to our 
> desires for a million revolutionary transformations in every sphere of 
> life. In a manner that runs counter to the logic of power.
> 
> Perhaps if we pay some attention to these un-named and un-namable areas 
> of life, perhaps if the left were as attentive, or more attentive to the 
> task of creating libraries, attending to and thinking about health, 
> thiking about the relationships between men and women and generations, 
> thinking about and actually becoming active in the sphere of production, 
> experimenting with technology and knowledge, than it were to the task of 
> amassing either money, or arms, or votes - then situations such as 
> Nandigram would be fewer. Doing this does not necessarily mean that the 
> entire left rediscovers itself as a bunch of NGOs. Because NGOs do not 
> aim at the revolutionary transformation of life, they aim at making life 
> as it is, more bearable, and most often they act at the interstices of 
> failed state action, and there is nothing wrong or right with that, it 
> is just not a fundamentally political objective. What I am hinting at 
> means a rethinking of what it means to be political on an everyday 
> basis. For instance, (to give a small example) it means thinking about 
> the nature of work and work spaces, about whether or not offices have 
> creches for workers with children. When was the last time you heard a 
> trade union make a demand for creches for workers in India? And as far 
> as I know the vast majority of working people in India, especially, but 
> not only working women, do have some responsibility for the care of 
> their young. When was the last time you heard about an organized trade 
> union think about the state of toilets in factories. When did you last 
> see a library run by a left organization for workers, students, the 
> general public, that did not only have party or 'progressive' literature?
> 
> The heritage of the first international, (which Marx was a key part of) 
> actually envisaged a direct intervention in the fabric of social and 
> cultural life - hence the fundamental transformations in the everyday 
> life of working peoples that took place in the nineteenth century - were 
> the left were more busy thinking about food, day care, libraries, 
> transport, pedagogy, health and even sexuality than they were about 
> winning elections, making loud noises in parliaments and courts, 
> protecting SEZs or killing police constables (I am deliberately talking 
> about Dantewara, in the same breath as I am about Nandigram), then we 
> might actually see the formation of a different kind of politics
> 
> I am trying to invoke a kind of politics that requires patience and 
> care, not glamorous revolutionary rhetoric and spectacles of action and 
> staged resistance or martyrdom. But I do believe that it is a kind of 
> poltics that is fundamentally more revolutionary.
> 
> Perhaps, the events of Nandigram can focus some thought in this direction.
> 
> regards
> 
> Shuddha