[Reader-list] About the list

Fri Nov 14 13:55:38 IST 2008

Dear Tapas, Dear Inder, dear all,

I would strongly urge you and everyone to temper and moderate your  
language. Nothing is served by you or anyone calling anyone a  
'fascist creep'. The point about abuse has been effectively made.  
Let's move on now. Please do not continue to exacerbate the situation  
by calling people fascists. No political formation in India today is  
free of authoritarian and fascist tendencies. And yes, I strongly  
believe that the only way to confront fascism, wherever it exists, is  
with an open democratic culture that privileges dialogue and reason.  
We cannot use fascist methods to combat fascism, because then we  
become their mirrors and gradually we become exactly like them.

Please safeguard and protect the democratic nature of your own  
commitment to this space as a space of openness, dialogue and reason  
where all points of view are welcome and can be debated in an open  
way. Lets not gang up on anyone now, not even on those who may have  
ganged up on others before.

regards

Shuddha

On 14-Nov-08, at 10:45 AM, Pawan Durani wrote:

> On 11/13/08, Tapas Ray <tapasrayx at gmail.com> wrote:<<<<<<<<<<<< in my
> opinion - is that these members are (as we have stated recently)  
> part of the
> fascist creep we have seen in India, which is becoming a thrust  
> with every
> passing day.  >>>>>>>>>>>>
>
> Tapas,
>
> Thank you for your wonderful statement, to which non of the member  
> reacted.
>
> Pawan
>
>
>
>
>> Monica,
>>
>> It is, of course, your prerogative to decide whether the likes of  
>> Pawan
>> and Aditya should be expelled or not. But I would like to repeat -
>> because I would request you to consider - a couple of things I  
>> have said
>> recently and had said two or three years ago (maybe earlier) when  
>> this
>> whole thing started with Vedavati (as far as I remember) throwing  
>> in the
>> cow slaughter issue out of nowhere, refused to stop repeating the  
>> same
>> "arguments" ad nauseum, and was soon joined by a few others in that
>> enterprise.
>>
>> After this had gone on for what then seemed like an eternity and  
>> now in
>> hindsight seems like a few minutes, I had said that the expulsion of
>> these people should be considered, because it was clear they had no
>> interest in rational critical debate and were determined to  
>> disrupt such
>> debates with their discourse of hate. As this list (in my  
>> understanding)
>> had been set up precisely as a space for such debates, they had no
>> business to be here. I was told that reasoned argumentation was  
>> the only
>> possible response to whatever they had been doing, and coercive  
>> measures
>> like expulsion were not acceptable.
>>
>> I had pointed out that the Nazis had used democracy to disrupt  
>> democracy
>> and communist parties had been taking part in elections and getting
>> elected in multiparty systems with the long-term goal of replacing  
>> that
>> very system with dictatorship. In other words, there ought to be a  
>> limit
>> up to which such forces can be allowed to operate freely. If not,  
>> that
>> freedom - for others - will become a casualty.
>>
>> The situation escalated over the years. It is worse on this list  
>> today,
>> but that should be the least of our concerns (or not). It is worse
>> globally and internally (in India) in terms of the economy as you  
>> have
>> noted, and is likely to deteriorate politically, again as you have
>> noted. I agree with you - if we go back to the Great Depression  
>> and the
>> rise of fascists and Nazis, we will see why. And it's there that  
>> we come
>> back to the question of our list.
>>
>> Let us pause for a moment here to think why Vedavati, Pawan, Aditya,
>> Chanchal, etc., have joined this list in the first place. Does their
>> discourse show any interest in history or reason or theories or
>> concepts? No. Do they expect those of us who engage them, to  
>> change our
>> minds? No. Then why are they here, and why do they continue to  
>> flood the
>> list with their inanities and their hate and their spit? What do they
>> want to achieve? My answer is, to coerce us into submission, force  
>> some
>> of us to unsubscribe in disgust, and effectively take over the  
>> list. Why
>> do they spend so much time and energy on this? My answer is, they see
>> some value in it - they know that this list has earned respect as a
>> liberal/progressive forum hosting some high-quality discussions  
>> (along
>> with their venom) and they want to snuff it out for that very reason.
>>
>> The question remains, why? The simple answer - in my opinion - is  
>> that
>> these members are (as we have stated recently) part of the fascist  
>> creep
>> we have seen in India, which is becoming a thrust with every passing
>> day. If we did not see that in Babri, not even in Gujarat, or in the
>> recent anti-Christian riots, not to speak of smaller riots and  
>> pogroms
>> during these years, we should perhaps see it in the revelation  
>> that some
>> army officers have been involved in terrorist activities. Some of us
>> will probably object to my characterization. For their benefit I am
>> quoting from the definition of "fascism" in the Collins Dictionary of
>> Sociology.
>>
>> "... anti-intellectualism is a constituent element of the  
>> ideology ...
>> The following are some of the main constituents in fascist  
>> writings and
>> actions: extreme racist nationalism linked with territorial  
>> expansion;
>> virulent anti-communism combined with intolerance of most other
>> political ideologies and independent working-class organizations; the
>> open use and glorification of physical violence and terror against  
>> these
>> groups; a reliance on a mass party organized around a powerful
>> leadership, and once in power engaged in most areas of civil life and
>> depending on continual mass mobilization to sustain support for the
>> leadership; the glorification of militarism, the cult of the presumed
>> masculine virtues, with women defined mainly as mothers and  
>> supporters
>> of men; predominant support from the middle classes who are the main,
>> though not exclusive, mass support."
>>
>> The question for us is, can we fight these forces with reason  
>> alone? My
>> answer is an emphatic no, on this list or outside it.
>>
>> Tapas
>>
>>
>>
>> Monica Narula wrote:
>>> Dear All
>>>
>>> I think its rather cute the way dear everyone is asking for an
>>> intervention from the admin - now increasingly feeling like a class
>>> monitor!
>>>
>>> The coming years are going to be a difficult ones. There is going to
>>> be a massive drop in employment opportunities, liquidity will fall,
>>> infrastructure will remain half-built etc. There will also be an
>>> increasing shrillness of speech. This, I am guessing, will lead  
>>> to an
>>> aggressive acceleration in both inclusive and exclusive
>>> authoritarianism. So the future trajectory of the language game and
>>> the rhetorical quotient on the reader-list will be something that I
>>> am a little ambivalent about.
>>>
>>> I request list members to be aware that making charges without
>>> substantial ground is more to do with incitement than to do with
>>> discussion. It is odd that when the world is trying to come to term
>>> with global seismic shocks that seem to come at all of us from all
>>> directions, archaic accusations about the "foreign" seem to find  
>>> some
>>> votaries.
>>>
>>> Let us think a little harder. The world is not legible. In an
>>> increasingly blurring reality, understanding the grounds of
>>> accusations and rhetorical posturing will be necessary. Let us think
>>> how to deal with language, and what it says, in what can feel like a
>>> crumbling world, rather than merely becoming the dust that arises
>>> from this process.
>>>
>>> best
>>> Monica
>>> List Admin
>>>
>>> Monica Narula
>>> Sarai-CSDS
>>> 29 Rajpur Road
>>> Delhi 110 054
>>> www.sarai.net
>>>
>>>
>>> _________________________________________
>>> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
>>> Critiques & Collaborations
>>> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with
>> subscribe in the subject header.
>>> To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
>>> List archive: &lt;https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>
>> _________________________________________
>> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
>> Critiques & Collaborations
>> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with
>> subscribe in the subject header.
>> To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
>> List archive: &lt;https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>
> _________________________________________
> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> Critiques & Collaborations
> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with  
> subscribe in the subject header.
> To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
> List archive: &lt;https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>

Shuddhabrata Sengupta
The Sarai Programme at CSDS
Raqs Media Collective
shuddha at sarai.net
www.sarai.net
www.raqsmediacollective.net