[Reader-list] Nandigram-Time for an Alternative Left inBengal-Aditya Nigam

[Taraprakash]

Thanks for pointing it out. I had completely forgotten about 2007 JNUSU 
election results. I googled for them just now. It was of course a befitting 
response to the complacency of SFI, who could not manage to be called 
runners up this time.
I am sure SFI argot would have found about the RSS and TMC support to AISA 
even in JNU elections.
I am not sure if CPM ever was, but I never found SFI having anything to do 
with ideology. It was "machinations of power" which they could use in a very 
organized way that they ever won JNU elections.
Congrats to AISA
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Aarti Sethi" <aarti.sethi at gmail.com>
To: "prakash ray" <pkray11 at gmail.com>
Cc: <reader-list at sarai.net>
Sent: Tuesday, November 13, 2007 4:29 PM
Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Nandigram-Time for an Alternative Left 
inBengal-Aditya Nigam


> Dear All,
>
> Fascism appears to be the flavour of the month. After Tehelka's
> terrifying expose of the meticulous planning that went into the
> Gujarat genocide in 2002, we have before us, in the form of the CPIM,
> a timely reminder that totalitarian violence is not the sole preserve
> of the far-right. The news emerging from Nandigram is very disturbing
> indeed. Even more disturbing is the silence of the majority of the
> liberal intelligentsia of this country, barring Calcutta where huge
> numbers of people have borne the brunt of police violence to protest
> the killings in Nandigram. Having directly suffered the sleaze,
> corruption, and bloated moral bankruptcy of the CPIM for over two
> decades now, it is far more difficult there to sustain the illusion
> that there is anything progressive about the CPIM any longer. You say
> Prakash that you look forward to the day that we will have a CPIM
> government at the center. I'm not sure what you are waiting for. It
> will look no different from the government we currently have. The CPIM
> has turned, through the slow accretion of the accouterments of rule,
> into the Congress. This probably explains the hysteria with which it
> reacts to the TMC: the narcissism of minor difference. It even employs
> the same logic that the Congress does "We are the only bastions
> against the right." But thankfully, this spurious logic doesn't seem
> to be working anymore.
>
> [As an aside, I hope our Hindu-apologist friends on this list notice
> that the "pseudo-secularists" are as critical of the violence
> unleashed by the left as they are of the right.]
>
> Vivek has already remarked on this, but just to re-iterate the point,
> your use  of "anti-communist" is precisely the same as others on this
> list have employed "anti-national". Namely to brand as "oppurtunists"
> all those who can continue to keep a critical distance from the
> machinations of state power. But we should not be surprised. Because
> in fact "anti-communist" and "anti-national", when it comes to
> swearing CPIM style, are only euphemisms for each other, to be used
> interchangebly. The CPIM provides yet another salutory example of what
> happens when preserving its hold on state power becomes the raison de
> etre of a communist party.
>
> If we are to take seriously at all the radical legacy of the
> international communist movement, then now is when the emergence of an
> alternative left position and voice, both in electoral politics and
> outside, is critical. And we must give up on the misapprehension that
> the CPIM can any longer represent for the "Left" in India in any true
> sense of the term.
>
> I would urge you to seriously consider what it means to continue
> parroting the "party line" of a formation which has so clearly
> abdicated even the basic tenets of liberal democracy, let alone
> radical social reform. This re-thinking and self-reflection might even
> benefit you closer to home. It might enable you to understand, for
> instance, SFI's sorry performance in the JNUSU 2008 elections, and
> AISA's landslide victory. Clearly large numbers of people have moved
> away from a center which is represented by SFI. (I dont think anyone
> suffers from the delusion in JNU at least that the SFI is anything
> other than a centrist formation. SFI voters on planet JNU will
> eventually be Congress voters in the Rest of the World).
> Interestingly, from the way the votes went in two key schools, it
> seems SFI lost cader votes to the YFE. This is not in the least bit
> surprising. At the heart of them the two formations work with the same
> basic assumptions - that politics is inimical to growth. And a
> "communist" party, through the definitional fiat, obviously doesnt
> have to bother with democracy. Its a straight road to totalitarian big
> capital nirvana. Buddhadeb has worked it out to a T.
>
> best
> Aarti
>
>
>
>
>
> On Nov 13, 2007 1:46 AM, prakash ray <pkray11 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Dear all, I have posted this letter to Mr Aditya Nigam some months back 
>> on
>> kafila.org. I am re-posting it here in response to his latest write-up.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Prakash
>>
>> Dear Adityaji, I know a bit about your stint in the Communist Party.
>> Unfortunately, you happen to belong to a generation of disillusioned
>> Communists, who harboured illusions about the Soviet Union when it 
>> existed
>> and basked in its glory and then turned into an anti-Communist after its
>> downfall, like the whole lot of post-modernists in Europe. Your problem 
>> is
>> that your subjective feelings about shattered dreams of socialism in the
>> USSR have overwhelmed your capacity to analyse the developments from an
>> objective and Marxist point of view. Luckily for all of us, the ideology 
>> and
>> praxis of Marxism and Scientific Socialism continues to survive, despite 
>> the
>> fall of the USSR and opportunistic renegades like you. Marxism and 
>> Socialism
>> continues to be the most formidable challenge before US led imperialism 
>> and
>> a ray of hope for the millions of exploited people across the globe.
>>
>> At a personal level, I belong to a generation of Communists who joined 
>> the
>> Party in the 1990s. I don't harbour any illusions about the USSR. My
>> conviction regarding Marxism has developed through my association with 
>> the
>> struggles waged by the CPI (M) in defence of secularism and democracy in
>> India. I firmly believe that the CPI (M) is the best place to be for all
>> those who believe in progressive social change and revolution in our
>> country.
>>
>> As far as the Left Front government of bengal is concerned, my admiration
>> for it arises especially because i don't come from bengal, but from a 
>> state
>> (Bihar) which is the worst example of economic backwardness and 
>> Brahminical
>> social oppression, in the absence of land reforms as was carried out in
>> bengal under the aegis of the Left front Government.
>>
>> You may continue to revel at the idea of the Left front government being
>> defeated in Bengal one day. May be it'll happen in future, although going 
>> by
>> current developments, I don't see that happening at least in the next
>> assembly ele ctions. As long as Mamata Banerjee and the assorted naxalite
>> idiots are dominating the opposition discourse, the future of the LF
>> government is secured.
>>
>> However, even if the LF is defeated in bengal one day, how does it 
>> matter?
>> The LF has lost elections in Kerala and Tripura several times; that has 
>> not
>> led to the decline of the Communist movement. They have fought and come 
>> back
>> to power again. That is the beauty of Indian democracy.
>>
>> I look forward to the day when we'll all see a CPI (M) led LF government 
>> at
>> the Centre. That will be a great moment for the Indian people, especially
>> the working class and the peasantry. That will also be a day when the LF
>> government in Bengal will not have to depend upon big capital to
>> industrialize - it can be acieved through Public Sector investment. 
>> Perhaps,
>> cynics like you would also come back to the communist fold that day.
>>
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