[Reader-list] what is 'ready-made' in politics?

[inder salim]

WHAT IS READY-MADE IN POLITICS ?

Felix Guattari's use of  term 'readymade' is endless…and numerous
other ways in which this term has been used to define politics even.
The term itself is a ready-made now. I am thinking of Kashmir and
other such sounds which have gained a ready-made status in the present
and can be mixed with other ready-mades quite freely.  Although a
little vaguely, but it does boarder on various other connected issues,
simultaneously. Unafraid of ambiguities arising out of such
approaches, here, first, an amateurish beginning into the pedagogy (
readymade )  of 'readymade'.

The term found art—more commonly found object (French: objet trouvé)
or readymade—describes art created from the undisguised, but often
modified, use of objects that are not normally considered art, often
because they already have a mundane, utilitarian function. Marcel
Duchamp was the originator of this in the early 20th-century. He
submitted a 'urinal' as an art object for an art exhibition, which was
rejected by the organizers that time. The moment the urinal was
dismissed as work of art it quickly gained the reputation of an act of
subversion.  It succeeded to generate a huge discourse on art and
aesthetics of 'the times' then, which art critics find cognitive even
in the present.  Here, the unpredictability of the most un-aesthetic
object functioned as radical against the overproduction of (aesthetic
) art objects. It was not aimed to dislodge aesthetics, but a
courageous placement of the most relevant.

If 'the birth' means that we have been almost thrown into a ready-made
world, which is nevertheless changing, then the body in-itself becomes
a site called ready-made.   Flex Guattari says that the body is the
target of  IWC ( Integrated World Capitalism ).   If the whole
humanity is in some sort of 'flux', then IWC is gearing us to a
destination without us.

 Everything thing is culturally and economically valued and passed on
to the next generation as a virtue. However, the next generation
automatically verifies it and revalues each and every object and
concept. But it often takes an artist like Duchamp to point out that
the value making mechanisms can go unwittingly wrong if we don't fix a
critical gaze on each and every thing which we are made up of.

So what are we made up of? Biologically, there is 'shit' in each one
of us besides some blood, some bones. In the past, both in art and
literature, there was never any such need felt to see some metaphor in
'shit' but our times are so shitty that even a direct representation
of 'shit as shit' fails to measure the quantum of our chaos.
Therefore,  that 'out of frame' thing is in demand, which can restore,
to some extent, that buried vital, necessary for the continuity of
survival on this earth. Isn't this about politics as well?

Derrida circulates a discourse, of what is and is not of art. 'Writing
out of frame', is something that is hovering at the edge of the
painting and beyond.  Earlier, the real function of read-made was
perhaps limited to the sphere of art only, but what we can not ignore
is the fact that production of an Art object often reflects the
political nature of a particular time. Be it economy or aesthetics,
the art and cultural expressions swim through the waters of every
kind. Certainly read-made as a concept could not have happened during
Renaissance, and therefore, when the sweetly dissolvable character of
aesthetics reached its saturation point, it automatically began to
justify the concept of ready-made. The ready-made was already
happening while the alchemy of art was busy churning newer forms of
art as per the conventional norms, which were significant ( that too
can function as ready-made in a different sense).   So a readymade is
usually found in the public space, which is heavy with historicity
,and therefore, a ready-made battle zone. A ready-made is visible and
also invisible , in matter and conceptually as well.

So ready-made in politics can only happen if politics,  both
creatively and willingly,  allows itself to be used as ready-made.
Politics, conventionally has been generating 'the other' as waste
material which is almost similar to e-waste in the present context. So
if the e-waste is considered a necessary recycling component of the
technology by environmentally conscious masses,  then the mountains of
political waste material too can be recycled. This way it can
disseminates its commitment to our society with a fecundity which we
have not witnessed before. If Politics is an automatic machine like
thing then it is the function of a ready-made to guide us in such a
way that other hierarchies too fall in line.

Upon this earth, if there is a ready-made Paradise it is in Kashmir,
only in Kashmir.  But can we enter it without going through some
challenges ?   Yeh 'ready-made' nahin assan,  bus itna samaj leejaya,
Ek Aag ka darya hai, aur doob kay jana hai (  This ready-made is not
easy, just consider the fact that it is a river of hell, and we have
jump in it to cross it ).  Having replaced 'ishq' ( Love ) with word
'ready-made', from a famous Firaq couplet, I have perhaps, replaced
'the desire' from this ready-made paradise with something even more
intense: let us say ' one minus territory'. It might lead to the
intensification of the desire itself, which is the desire. So, many
hierarchies, including 'politics as casually understood', might
undergo a change of face. And that can happen only if we look
critically into our 'ways of living '.

My mother who died few years back, once told me a bed time story of a
habitual found-object-lifter who one day found a dead rat ( as a found
object), while returning back home from his work. The poor man
instantly threw the dead rat on his small thatched roof. Sooner an
eagle who had earlier lifted a diamond necklace from the garden where
a princess was having a bath, swapped it with the dead rat. Sooner the
poor family was duly rewarded by the King. So the found object, here a
dead-rat, worst than a 'urinal',  gave us a moral that everything has
a value. Even nuisance has a value called nuisance value. Perhaps, we
need to listen to even what we think as idiotic.

Jean Baudrillard, says that once we used to say why there is something
rather than nothing, but now we think about why there is nothing
rather than something. Ways of Living on this earth are facing some
stark realities- of environmental degradation and social inequalities.
 If the ready-made, paradise as landscape is disappearing as fast as
day light at the dusk, then what are the ways of redefining the
political?  Can we introduce 'word 'environment' in any current
struggle for freedom?  Will this paradise in Kashmir become a centre
for discourse for new politics in the world. This can happen only if
we look into the order of things with a creative eye. Thus, everybody
is significant in this restoration of paradise upon this earth.
Anybody can enter followed by a humble exit.

 Needless to say, that present day civilization is a human journey
directed by series of wars in the past. A simple soldier's helmet with
a hole functions as a readymade on the pedestal that mocks the whole
machinery of war. Both the fear of  'war' and 'the war' is the
greatest controller of human beings, and therefore, the greatest
manufacturer of 'readymades' both visible and psychological. This is
perhaps , why there is no one to tell us what actually happens in a
war.  And whatever is there in the form of a literature and art, is so
insufficient that we are tempted to repeat it again. So the question
is how to abandon the violence, or throw it out as trash, so that it
becomes READYMADE. It is a  desire  Warmongers have still not granted
the status of WASTE to WAR which could have enabled it to enter ART
and our understanding of ready-made, which is politics.
 One needs an impulse to return to the dead, to lift the discarded, to
realize the potential of a trash, which was hidden earlier.  Great
philosophers, saints, musicians, poets did the same by speaking on
themes on peace and love.  But as they say, who cares. It will be
naïve on my part if I expect them to abandon war projects suddenly.
So these days,  one can notice, how the guerrilla war techniques
unnerve the ruling elites who like  real war games. I presume so. One
can talk about their success in Nepal where the King ( 'Right winged'
Lord Vishnu ) has been compelled to abandon his throne. But we have to
be careful about the pitfalls of imitations. Only sheer creativity in
our  approach to ready-made-as-paradise can function purposefully. It
is a desire.

 DESIRE has uniquely helped the human beings to shape the politics
around herself/himself. If the signs  have lost control over the rapid
transactions taking place between signifiers and signified it is
because DESIRE has achieved the status of TRUTH to guide the humanity
to some future destination. The images, signs, symbols function
endlessly only where the desire is struggling to come out from
previous  modes of oppression.  If to curb the desire is the agenda of
religion, the capitalist's agenda has been to invent some territories
and control it. Not surprising that without the active understanding
of sexuality, here, we are hardly able to begin a discourse on
mysticism even, which is cherished by neo-feminists and artists alike.
  Although with variations, this approach to DESIRE is oriental in
design and has its own powerful thought mechanisms of the past, which
we constantly revisit as readymade(s), as and when we are stripped
bare by the capitalists and religious bigotry.

One instantly thinks about Meera Bai while reading Luce Irigaray who
talks about feminist mysticism  "autonomous", "remain within herself",
and "communicate and return home".  What is home ?   Here,
one-ready-made-home, somewhere, upon this earth and beyond. 14th
century Kashmiri mystic saint poetess, Lal Ded  says that I am
crossing a big sea in a boat with the support of an un-spun  thread. I
feel death approaching me, I yearn to go back to home.  My exile and
all the earlier exiles are demanding an instant transformation. There
is a death wish, which one needs to internalize if one finds some
readiness to enter the signifier of a 'readmade' in discourse. At that
moment, the readymade however will cease to behave as readymade, even,
as Derrida suggests in the 'writing out of frame'. This all begins
with the notion that body in fact has a frame but it always crosses
its own territory to merge with the other's territory. The merging is
Desire.   Love, ( he) watching this game of territory merging from a
closer distance, too gives in, to acclaim the mystic qualities to
immortalize the core human spirit. That is ontology as well.

In our socio-political set up we have endlessly encroached upon the
territories of the other. That is our history of tears which we have
written but sparingly. The saddest part of it is that we keep on
inventing newer and newer 'others' to tighten our grip on 'power'.
Here, Indian society is unfortunately riddled with a tragic continuity
of caste system which justifies oppression in the name of religion.
The struggle of Dalits is on,  and no saner person on earth can deny
their right to dignity and social elevation on the basis of equal
distribution of resources. Please note that Dalit assertion has been
non-violent, with some success, and the credit goes to Dr. Ambedkar
whose thoughts emerged from the non-ritualistic Buddhism. Also, note
that recent success of Tibetian protests against Chinese aggression
and occupation is also because of creative means that are non-violent.
How to measure the achievement is entirely another question. So, is
non-violence a readymade which we can re-enter?

But again the saddest part of it that that we keep on discovering
newer forms of Dalits to tighten our grip on power.  If we consider
that an artists, a poet, a musician an actor is a Dalit in that sense,
then the first Dalit is The TREE, voiceless, and therefore, with out
power. So we need to cut thousands and thousands of trees to make a
sports happening in 2010 common wealth games in Delhi.  ( I talked
about Artists and poets  as Dalits, because that breed is visible only
when they are bought by the corporate(s), otherwise where is the
artists or a poet ? ). This happened alongwith the removal of  lakhs
of poor labourers and migrants living on the Yamuna River  bank. The
river in Delhi is already dead. Dead in the living, and a return to
life, that is our reality…

So what is to be done. Can these freedom struggle movement become
creative in their pursuits and abandon violence. There must be a way
out to achieve the goals. If there is a will, there must be some
possibility which they have need to explore. The trouble is that this
violence in the present form is strengthening the hands of those who
are at the helm of affairs. So, the movements meant for realizing
goals turn into  excuses for the State to suppress the same lot in the
name of Law and Order. So there has to be  some rethinking on
struggles based on conventional stands which will keep on rolling
lethargically unless some fresh thought is inserted at the core.

Let us take an example. Kashmiri Pandit Sangarash Samiti (KPSS),
Sanjay Tickoo who said that Kashmir is a "disputed territory"  . "Law
says that if the number of persons who rejected to vote exceeds the
number of persons who cast their votes, the polling gets cancelled.
This could be used as a referendum against India in international
forums, if Kashmiri leaders know it," he said, adding, "He will make
people aware about the law, as part of election boycott campaign."

Now, I am wondering why this idea has not come from Hurriyat party
itself. We know whenever an election is held in Kashmir, all the
protest ( militant ) parties in Kashmir strictly demand a complete
bund from  traders and office goers. The people fear them, and abandon
their trade and duties. Now this new kind of thinking can make a real
change in the valley, if there is a real awakening within the people
of Kashmir, people should know what a struggle demands from them. The
'shahadat' sacrifice written with blood is violence.
So, can a freedom movement become a 'readymade'. How, and with what
changes in their agenda.  Can environment and freedom of thought
become part of their manifestos. If yes, then this 'inder salim' stuff
too can join a freedom struggle in the changed format.  Sufism has all
the ingredients of a radical 'thought' if politicized creatively. That
too is desire.

I quote Michel Foucalut " As the archaeology of our thought easily
shows, man is an invention of recent date. And one perhaps nearing its
end" , and with some optimism to that,  i also quote Nund Rishi /
Sheikh Noor-u-din Noorani ( sheikh-ul-alam), the saint poet in Kashmir
who once said, " as long as there are forests, there is food". This
slogan which is widely used by different agencies in Kashmir to
highlight the environmental awareness too can be internalized for some
real effects.  I am wondering about the communication gap between
those who love freedom ( Azadi ) and those who love environment.

I guess, that can happen only if the separatists and gun wielding
people club the issues to create a new agenda, a new politics, a new
art, a new awareness for a new life…
The slogan can be Sazrah, Pazrah te Azadi. ( Simplicity, truth and freedom )

Love
is






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