[Reader-list] Kunal's response to the statement issued by Chomsky, Tariq and others

[Sampath G]

Dear All,


It was heartening to read Kunal Chattopadhyay's sane response to the
statement issued by Chomsky, Tariq Ali, Zinn and others. I keep running
into, and have never understood, this argument about the Left having remain
'united' – be it against US imperialism, or whatever else. I sometimes think
it is Left's obsession with itself that was critical in its decline. Its
obsession with itself, and with its past and with the future, cost it its
connection with the people in the present. The moment you make your own
institution (the 'Left') of greater importance than that of the people you
supposedly 'represent', then its tata-bye-bye to people's concerns. The most
telling banner in the recent protest rally in Kolkata was "Not in the name
of Marx". The more I think about it, the less and less I trust any kind of
representative politics – either democratic or socialist or otherwise.
Nobody can represent my interests better than me – not my father, not my
wife, least of all my God or Marx, whichever applicable. And yet, politics
by and large in India, even 'progressive' politics, has been based on a
surrender of the person to the representative. Political practice in our
country is, for those of us still interested –  limited to changing our
'representatives' once in five years. And in the meantime, if a
representative of your representative comes around to tell you to pack your
belongings and surrender your land for your own development, you are, as per
the law of the land, supposed to do as told. Or else, you have Singur and
Nandigram.



Before they issued a signed statement, the least Chomsky et all could have
done was to visit Bengal, so that they did not have to go by what the
representatives of Bengal (in their political circles) told them was
happening there. If they could not do so, then they should remain quiet. A
statement such as theirs, which could be interpreted as a tacit endorsement
of a criminal government — for how else can the Left remain united unless
all those on the Left are willing to support the CPI (M) and its
criminality? — could be hugely damaging. Damaging to the villagers in whose
support they presume to speak.



The worst and the easiest place to be in, in today's India is in the
so-called middle class, (which is actually an affluent class if you go
by averages of consumption across income categories, but never mind). If you
were 'properly rich', you can say, nothing matters to me as long as I can go
to bed with my bottle of Scotch. And then wake up and breeze through your
city in your air-conditioned car with tinted windows, and sign some more
deals. You might occasionally have to agonse about 'down-sizing', but thats
inevitable. On the otehr hand, if you are poor and destitute, well, I don't
know about the destitute. If there is anyone out there who is destitute and
reading this, and, well, dying to contribute to this conversation, I look
forward to it. But being in the middle class, and being caught in the
struggle to remain there even as forces beyond your control want to push you
lower – to lower middle, then poor, — this is not the worst. What is worse
is to obey your class enemies so that you don't get pushed off your
precarious perch round about the middle of the class hierarchy, and knowing
that every single thing you do to maintain your perch is going to help put
more and more people at the bottom. Living with this knowledge –as I have
discovered – is very easy. All you need to do is just watch lots of TV and
keep going to the movies. And when you're not doing either, shop, visit
malls. By the time you're done with all this, it will be time to get back to
'work'. And if you are a 'media professional', thats easy: peddle some more
lies — the latest, newsiest, and the most entertaining of them.



Sampath