[Reader-list] Kunal Chattopadhyay to Tariq Ali on Nandigram

[Abhishek Hazra]

thanks shuddha for the post,
reading it i was reminded of one of E.P. Thompson's essay (collected i
think in Writing by Candlelight) where he narrates his experience of
visiting india during the emergency and repeatedly facing the same
question from fellow indian communists: "why has the labour party
decided to support mrs. gandhi?"

On Nov 23, 2007 4:09 AM,  <shuddha at sarai.net> wrote:
> Dear All,
>
> Some of you may have read the letter signed by Chomsky, Zinn and others,
> prevaricating on Nandigram, primarily at the behest of Vijay Prashad.
>
> I am posting below a response, addressed to Tariq Ali by Kunal
> Chattopadhyay (he teaches history at Jadavpur University, Kolkata). Tariq
> Ali and Kunal Chattopadhyay were both comrades in the Fourth International.
>
> This informative post may be of interest to those following the continuing
> debate on West Bengal
>
> best
>
> Shuddha
>
> ------------------------------
>
>
> An Open Letter to Tariq Ali
> Posted on www.sanhati.com
>
> By Kunal Chattopadhyay, Radicalblogger
> http://kunal-radicalblogger.blogspot.com/
>
> Dear Tariq,
>
> When I was a very young radical, still a Maoist rather than a Trotskyist,
> it was your name, rather than that of Ernest Mandel, or of anyone else,
> that we came across, here in our part of India. There are still older
> comrades in West Bengal, who talk about a certain period of Fourth
> International history, in terms of "in those days of Tariq Ali". This
> is why, a statement, even though signed by Chomsky, Zinn and others, along
> with the man who seems to have carried out the coup, a gentleman named
> Vijay Prashad, becomes most painful because you are among the signatories.
> As you once wrote in one of your wonderful books, about another comrade of
> yours, 'there was fire in his belly in those days'. Perhaps we have all
> grown older, but some of us have refused to grow "wiser".
>
> I read, and re-read, with a growing sense of wonder, shame and above all
> anger, "the statement that some of you have signed. If you are
> uninformed, what gave you the authority to issue a pompous statement based
> on that lack of information? I write to you, because I consider you a
> comrade who has committed a mistake in signing this statement.
>
> Right at the beginning, you write:
>
> News travels to us that events in West Bengal have overtaken the optimism
> that some of us have experienced during trips to the state. We are
> concerned about the rancor that has divided the public space, created what
> appear to be unbridgeable gaps between people who share similar values.
>
> Who are these people who share similar values? Just what do you know about
> the values shared by those in governmental authority in West Bengal? You,
> and those others amongst you, who made trips here, met some of the
> CPI(M)'s intellectuals, who put on a special face for foreign
> delegations. But as someone who has known Marxism for longer than I have,
> you know well that it is never possible to judge people solely by what they
> say about themselves. When someone uses words like democracy, even
> socialism, anti-imperialism, unless you know the context, unless you know
> exactly what their political practice is, you cannot assume that they say
> those words in the same way that you, or someone else does.
>
> So let us begin by looking at values. Just a small example of values. When
> the Singur –Nandigram issues began blowing up, Medha Patkar, who happens
> to be one of India's most respected social movement activists, someone
> who has therefore been vilified by parties and governments across India,
> extended her solidarity for the militant people. CPI(M) leaders took
> umbrage. CPI(M) State Secretariat member (and Central Committee member)
> Benoy Konar, in a speech, called on women to show Medha Patkar their
> buttocks. When Medha tried to go to Nandigram, her car was blockaded, and
> some people, supporters of the CPI(M), indeed followed Konar's advice and
> showed Medha their buttocks. I could quote dozens of newspaper and
> television reports, but most clippings I have are in Bengali, so I give you
> the url of Medha's own report.
>
> I dare you, or any of your co-signatories, with the exception of Mr. Vijay
> Prashad, to come forward and assert that you share similar values as these
> people.
>
> I am sure, that once this open letter is circulated, it will also be
> trivialized by the murders who are posing as leftists and persuading you to
> sign on behalf of them. So let me say that this is not the only issue I am
> talking about when we say values. I will be talking about political outlook
> and values in other ways. But Tariq, in the most extreme days of the IMT
> line, when talking about guerilla warfare, did you ever call on your
> comrades to do unto political opponents, that which Benoy Konar suggested
> and that which his followers obliged by doing?
>
> If by values you mean left wing values, you would have to define more
> precisely what sort of leftism you are talking about. CPI(M) leaders and
> their government here in West Bengal are deeply wedded to a very
> authoritarian form of bourgeois democracy. I will be able to mention only a
> few cases below. But perhaps the clearest evidence is this – despite the
> fact that in the period 1971-1977, the Congress in power used utmost
> brutality, had people illegally arrested, tortured, many actually killed,
> in three decades in power, the CPI(M) led government has failed to carry
> though the prosecution of a single police officer of that era.
>
> In your statement, you present a euphemistic comment, saying that you are
> concerned about the rancor that has divided the public space. The
> "rancor" that you talk about is the result of a long period of
> violation of civil liberties, of brutal repression of political opposition
> and massive use of party cadres as thugs. The most respected civil
> liberties organization in West Bengal , the Association for the Protection
> of Democratic Rights, has recently been targeted by the chief minister, who
> claimed that the APDR is a Maoist outfit. The crime of the APDR was that it
> has consistently argued that everyone has political and civil rights, and
> these cannot be circumscribed without threatening all of us.
>
> Let me again give some illustration. Attacks on the Maoists, especially the
> organizations CPI(ML) Peoples' War, the Maoist Communist Centre, and
> after they merged, the CPI(Maoist) have been massive. Anyone suspected of
> being a Maoist has been arrested, even without real charges. And why is
> someone suspected? In Medinipur district, an activist of the APDR was
> arrested as a suspected Maoist, on the strength of material found in his
> possession. Such material included a copy of George Thompson's From Marx
> to Mao-tse Tung. I still have a copy at home, and I am wondering when it
> will be my turn to be arrested. In Kolkata, a man was arrested on suspicion
> of being a Maoist, and he was so traumatized by police action, that he
> committed suicide. (Ananda Bazar patrika, 9.7.2002). Four days after Ananda
> Bazar Patrika wrote about this, the CPI(M) daily newspaper, Ganashakti,
> reported that Benoy Konar told journalists, in reply to a question on
> whether the police had overstepped the boundaries of human rights, that it
> is difficult to determine the boundaries of human rights. In addition,
> Konar treated the media to the homily that the baton of the police is used
> as a repressive apparatus. (Ganashakti, 11.7,02). In 2002, the Chief
> Minister said that the KLO in North Bengal or the Maoists elsewhere were
> holding up development. So the priority for development was used to justify
> violence on them. The Home Minister's budget speech for 2002-2003 seeking
> additional funds for the police highlighted the commitment of the state to
> modernisation of the police for counter-insurgency; at a time when the
> government's debt burden had risen to 7500 billion rupees. (Amit
> Bhattacharya, 'Duhsomoy: Ganatantra, Manabadhikar O Paschimbanger
> 'Sangbedanshil' Sarkar', in Bartaman Lokayatik, 2002-2003, Nos. 3-4
> and 1-2, pp. 238-270 . See especially pp. 245-7; and also Ananda Bazar
> Patrika, 7.8.2002) .
>
> There has been a long, very long trail of state and party sponsored
> violence. The APDR has regularly listed cases. Two comrades, members of the
> Nari Nirjatan Pratirodh Mancha (Forum Against Oppression of Women,
> Kolkata), Mira Roy and Soma Marik, have written a booklet, Women Under the
> left Front rule: Expectations Betrayed, where violence on women have been
> discussed extensively. Not all are cases of political violence. In many
> cases, we have seen how rapists have been defended by leaders of the ruling
> party. For example, in August 1991, a young woman had been arrested from a
> hotel in Kanthi, where she had registered with a male friend. She was then
> raped by the police. Virtually defending the police, Acting Chief Minister
> Benoy Chowdhury told the West Bengal Assembly that she had registered under
> an assumed name with a male friend. In other words, since she was a
> presumably unmarried woman "gone bad" it was fair enough if the police
> had a little fun with her. Values I share with them? No thanks.
>
> Violence over Singur and Nandigram are not unrelated to the foregoing. At
> one level, they reflect the culture of violence supported by the ruling
> party. At another level, they reflect the submission to neo-liberal
> globalization, even while a huge rhetoric is floated abroad for the
> consumption of international left-wing intellectuals. After all, we boast
> of an intellectual chief minister capable of quoting noted poets as part of
> his political spiels. So he needs the endorsement of intellectuals.
>
> You write, "We continue to trust that the people of Bengal will not allow
> their differences on some issues to tear apart the important experiments
> undertaken in the state (land reforms, local self-government)." Since the
> signature is mostly of leftwing persons, and since in particular I am
> writing to you, a well-known Marxist, I trust the signatories, and
> especially you, know that there is no unified and homogeneous people. I am
> sorry if I have to spell out such truisms. But in these days of triumph of
> neo-liberalism, this kind of woolly-woolly, non-class language is being
> resorted to, even by those whom I have always treated as charter members of
> the class struggle camp. West Bengal is part of India, and India is a
> bourgeois state with an economy where extremes coexist. From the latest in
> Information Technology in Sector V of Salt Lake, it will take you just
> about two and a half hours by car to get to Nandigram, where you have
> plenty of poor peasants eking out a living much as their grandparents did.
> Not that there has been no change, no development, but that has been
> limited development in a backward capitalist economy. Since the current
> conflicts seem minor to you, compared to the "important experiments",
> let us look at those experiments briefly. As I am not writing a treatise, I
> do not intend to write for long pages, nor to provide extensive footnotes.
> It is however necessary to question fundamentally the false claims of the
> West Bengal Government, that you seem to have swallowed hook, line and
> sinker.
>
> Some years back, when the PRC had just started its trek back to class
> collaborationist politics, a comrade in the PRC named Franco Grisolia wrote
> to two of us, asking for a note on the CPI(M) led government, as well as
> CPI(M)'s support to the UPA at the center, because this model was being
> held up by supporters of Bertinotti to justify their turn to the right. So
> Soma Marik and I wrote a longish essay, The Left Front and the United
> Progressive Alliance, one version of which was published in Italian, and
> another version, in English, was put up in the website of our comrades of
> Socialist Democracy, Irish supporters of the Fourth International.
>
> Just one paragraph from that essay will reveal an interesting story: "The
> key issue of land distribution, in fact, tells an interesting story. In
> 1967, and again in 1969, two short-lived United Front governments had been
> formed. There had been a mass upsurge, and huge land seizures and
> distribution. OF ALL the ceiling-surplus land vested with the state since
> 1953 (when the West Bengal Estate Acquisition Act was passed) and the year
> 2000, as much as 44 per cent of this land (6 lakh acres) was obtained in
> the five-year period between 1967 and 1972, thanks to the energetic
> initiatives of the two United Fronts; another 26% (3.5 lakh acres) had been
> acquired earlier. In the last 20 years of Left Front rule only 1.53 lakh
> acres were acquired, which amounts to almost a quarter of what was achieved
> during the very short UF regime and almost a half of what was obtained
> during the 14 years (1953-1967) of Congress rule." The two United Front
> governments saw an active left, and one moreover facing a serious challenge
> from the emerging Maoist forces who eventually became the CPI (ML). Land
> reform at that time was based on popular initiative, not bureaucratic
> measures. The collapse of the governments clearly taught the CPI (M) a
> lesson – to wit, do not rock the boat of the bourgeoisie and their
> partners if you want a long stint.
>
> As for the important local self government experiments that you talk about,
> what, really, is significant? The three tier panchayat system has been in
> operation in other provinces as well. Digvijay Singh, the Congress chief
> minister of Madhya Pradesh, took measures to extend it to the level of the
> individual village. Despite much talk about panchayats being organs of
> self-rule of peasants, rich peasants and teachers formed the bulk. And
> given the fact that the poorer classes seldom were able to let their
> children finish secondary education, let alone college, teachers came from
> rich peasant families, or from non-agricultural families. A survey in one
> of the districts, Purulia, further showed that real help was received from
> the government's developmental projects by a significant part of the
> rural rich, using their positions in the panchayats. (Prabir Bhattacharyya,
> ed, Anva Artha 19: Bamfront Sarkar—Ekti Mulyayan, Calcutta, May 1985,
> pp.11-14.)
>
> You next write:
>
> "We send our fullest solidarity to the peasants who have been forcibly
> dispossessed. We understand that the government has promised not to build a
> chemical hub in the area around Nandigram. We understand that those who had
> been dispossessed by the violence are now being allowed back to their
> homes, without recrimination. We understand that there is now talk of
> reconciliation. This is what we favor."
>
> This paragraph was drafted by/ is based on arguments by someone who is a
> dab hand at creating confusions that eventually aid exploiters, but is at
> the same time able to pull the wool over the eyes of leftists who are a
> little away from the scene. "We send our fullest solidarity to the
> peasants who have been forcibly dispossessed." Exactly which groups are
> you talking about? Evidently not those of Singur, since the next sentence
> clearly talks about Nandigram. In Singur, a colonial era law was used to
> dispossess peasants, to hand over land to one of India's major capitalist
> concerns, the Tatas. Even if we accept, (as I do not, as I hope you still
> do not), the logic of the "free market", why should a supposedly
> progressive government use a colonial law to dispossess peasants for the
> benefit of a capitalist group that is so rich that it can bid for and win
> in a battle to control a First World company? Why did the government not
> tell the Tatas to go and negotiate directly with the peasants so that they
> could get whatever benefits they were able to wrest? Moreover, perhaps your
> informants forgot to tell you, that there were vast numbers of share
> croppers, agricultural labourers, as well as people in various industries
> and transportation sectors in and around Singur, for whom the rich
> agricultural land of singur mattered. Thus, people in the potato industry
> (for Singur grows potato) lost out. People transporting potato lost out.
> Wage labourers lost out. And these, the proletarian sections, have received
> what compensation? The answer, dear Tariq, is zilch.
>
> So let us pass on to Nandigram. There, your statement is extraordinarily
> damaging. If it had come from comparable intellectuals in India, I would
> have used stronger language. I suppose that ignorance lets you partially
> off the hook. What is sad is that you think it perfectly legitimate to
> issue a statement even though you are ignorant about the details.
>
> There have been two charges of being dispossessed. On 6th January, 2007,
> CPI(M) thugs attacked peasants, and the retaliatory violence drove out a
> number of them. A further lot left of their own, fearful of the situation.
> They all stayed in a place called Khejuri. The CVPI(M) has claimed high
> figures – sometimes mentioning 1500, sometimes 3000. No independent
> investigation has proved this. Several of us went to Nandigram after the
> CPI(M) attack of 14 March, when 14 persons, at least, were murdered, and at
> least four women were raped. At that time, our investigations suggested
> that the total number of CPI(M) supporters forced to leave Nandigram were
> around 300. The APDR twice sent teams to Khejuri, and suggested a figure of
> around 350. Out of these, some 35 had clearly been identified by peasants
> in Nandigram as active elements in the so-called cadre force of CPI(M) ,
> i.e., the gun toting criminals who eventually carried out the November
> attacks to "reconquer" Nandigram. Now, in the first days, tens of
> thousands fled. Over the last few days they have trickled back, after
> having pledged loyalty to the CPI(M). So there is no recrimination,
> provided you have the 100% support for the CPI(M).
>
> You write that you understand that the government has promised not to build
> a chemical hub around Nandigram. This specific reference comes as a
> surprise. Because it is actually once again a case of your walking into a
> trap. First, the chemical hub, and a number of similar proposals, are all
> of the same type – calls to build SEZs. If SEZs are built, who will they
> benefit? They will not follow even India's far from excellent labour
> laws. Secondly, the chemical hub, wherever built, is going to be an
> environmental disaster. Finally, and most crucially, the West Bengal
> government never formally promised not to build the chemical hub in
> Nandigram. What they said was that it will not be built in Nandigram if the
> people do not want it. Now, after the CPI(M) conquest,( for that is what it
> was, it was not even the state apparatus going in, but armed forces of the
> major party of the Left Front), what if people are compelled to say that
> yes, they do want the chemical hub? Let me remind you, that the CPI(M) is
> among the world's largest surviving parties of Stalinist origin, and
> while the Moscow tie is long gone, the Moscow style has been retained —
> but in the service of capitalism. Today's (21st November) newspapers
> already carry a news about how peasants have been forced to give written
> apologies to the CPI(M) in order to go and work in their fields.
>
> You talk of reconciliation. Between whom do you wish for reconciliation?
> Now that the CPI(M) has actually conquered the territory by force, would a
> humble acquiescence, given the inability to do anything else, be treated as
> reconciliation? Perhaps a little more detail about who the cadres were and
> how they fought the peasants would come in handy. Cadres — local
> criminals mostly involved in robbery cases — for the operation were drawn
> from Chandrakona and Garbeta zonal committees. Also, cadres were sent from
> Narayangarh and Keshiary areas. Another group of around 250 armed CPM
> supporters and criminals came from the villages of Punishol at Onda and
> Rajpur, Taldangra in Bankura.
>
> Sources said criminals were given money in advance and given a free-hand to
> bring whatever they could from the empty homes once the operation is
> complete. Sources said one such group that has returned to Onda came with
> motorcycles.
>
> The Bankura group reached Nandigram after travelling by train and then
> road. The group boarded trains and allegedly got off at Balichak, four
> stations after Kharagpur, and then headed towards Nandigram via Khejuri in
> the guise of daily wage earners. They take the same disguise when they go
> to Bihar and Jharkhand to collect arms, sources said.
>
> Most of these people are suspected to be running arms smuggling rackets.
> The arms used in the recapture operation are believed to have been supplied
> from these suppliers.
>
> Another cache of arms came from Purulia where party workers had received
> arms to combat Maoists. It is also suspected that the arms gone missing
> after the Purulia arms drop are with CPM supporters and were smuggled to
> Nandigram.
>
> The coal mafia from Burdwan is also believed to have played a key role in
> the operation. The money from the mafia is believed to have supplied funds
> for the operation, helped in procuring ammunition and hire vehicles that
> carried the armed men to the interior areas as the attack progressed.
>
> In your final paragraph, written in bold type in the version I received,
> you write:
>
> "The balance of forces in the world is such that it would be impetuous to
> split the left. We are faced with a world power that has demolished one
> state (Iraq) and is now threatening another (Iran). This is not the time
> for division when the basis of division no longer appears to exist."
>
> So here we get the motivation that led you to write the letter. You do not
> wish for a split in the left in the face of resurgent US imperialism. Let
> me go back several years. As you are aware, the Fourth International had
> been great supporters of the Nicaraguan Revolution, and we, here in
> locally, tried our best to campaign for Nicaragua. At one stage, when
> Halima Lopez Sarkar was appointed the Nicaraguan ambassador to India, the
> CPI(M) decided to take up the campaign for Nicaragua. Of c ourse, with
> their incomparably bigger force, they could do much more. But when I had a
> talk with a Sandinista comrade who came here, he accused us of being
> sectarian to the CPI(M). I pointed out that our problem was simple – the
> CPI(M) would not even let us do any united front work while retaining our
> independent political stance. So even if we accept, as you obviously do,
> that the CPI(M) is a legitimate part of the left, how would we be able to
> avoid a split? In emails where what passes for debates, CPI(M) supporters
> are not only abusive towards us, but even to RSP or forward Bloc, partners
> of the CPI(M) in the Left Front who have been critical about Nandigram as
> well as the CPI(M)'s sudden volte face over the Nuclear Deal.
>
> Yet you are confident, that it is we who are impetuously causing the split.
> Tariq, the split is decades old. The CPI(M)'s idea of political hegemony
> is simple – bash everyone on the left till they genuflect before you. But
> according to you and your fellow signatories, the basis of divisions no
> longer appears to exist. If by this you mean that Nandigram's resistance
> has been smashed, that armed terrorists of the CPI(M) have silenced the
> peasants, you are of course right. The basis however exists, because we
> have been unable to accept what was done.
>
> Your argument, that in the face of the US, we must not fight the CPI(M),
> can be extended to every tin pot dictator who takes a formal anti-US stand.
> Meanwhile, the CPI(M) led government constantly strives to welcome
> multinationals, it fights tooth and nail in defence of globalization. In
> lieu of several more pages of details, I offer you the URL of Sanhati
> (Solidarity), an anti-globalization website. Here you will find plenty of
> discussions about the Left front government and globalization.
>
> Nonetheless, you will say, what about the Left and its ability to influence
> the Government of India, or its ability to bring out millions in
> demonstrations? Once more, even accepting your premise that when you say
> CPI(M) you still say Left (would you make the same concession for the right
> wing of the old Italian CP?) , why can we not oppose the CPI(M) on other
> issues? Or are you saying, that in the face of the US war threat, all class
> questions inside India disappear? Are you saying that those who are in
> government and are implementing World Bank-IMF dictated economic policies
> are such valiant fighters against imperialism that we must accept the
> loving pats they give us, even through their guns? Would demobilizing
> militant fighters be then the best road to militant anti-imperialism? I
> never learnt that from Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Luxemburg or Mandel.
>
> Long years of defeat and retreat have made many of us cautious. I agree
> that the power of US imperialism is greater than it was. But I firmly
> believe that we can best contribute to the anti-imperialist struggles by
> consistent anti-capitalism at the point of our existence. When I joined the
> Trotskyist movement, nearly three decades back, this was clear to me. This
> was clear to me even before that, when I understood the meaning of Che's
> call to create two, three, many Vietnams. And yes, on 14th November,
> despite attempts to turn the protest demonstration into an "apolitical"
> show by some high profile figures, there were banners and posters, like the
> one that said, Nandigram is Bengal's Vietnam, or the poster where Marx
> says, "Not in My name." Don't, please, call for a cession of the
> struggles of toilers in Marx's name, and don't claim that bourgeois
> reformism, like some land distribution, some registration of sharecroppers,
> or panchayat elections, make West Bengal a planet apart. Stand by those who
> have been murdered, and their comrades, and don't call for a
> reconciliation between defenders of the ruling class who use sophisticated
> Marxist sounding jargon, and the crude, unsophisticated, but militant
> fighters who resist them.
>
> With comradely greetings
>
> Kunal Chattopadhyay
>
> Professor of History
> Jadavpur University
> Fourth Internationalist since 1980
>
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