[Reader-list] Be ready for a fascist onslaught, says CPI(Maoist)

Tue Jun 10 22:06:58 CDT 2014

This point made by Nagraj is very important: "even as incomes rise, their
quality of life declines because everything is now under the market
including some things  for which they may have depended on their community
or the commons."

One perverse fact about India's recent growth is that even as incomes have
risen, calorie-intake is still falling (from an already low level).
We have found in NSS data that for rural India as a whole, expenditures
have increased in real terms in the past 25 years, but that entire increase
has gone to non-food items (like fuel, education, health, consumer
services). E.g. fuel that was part of the commons is being replaced by
purchased fuel, non-market sources of healthcare are being replaced by
market sources. Some of this may reflect an increased quality of life, but
not all of does. And a significant consequence of increased non-food
expenditures, is that food expenditure is stagnant in real terms (adjusting
for inflation). That is, incomes are not rising enough to allow people to
increase their expenditures on both non-food and food items and they are
prioritizing non-food. The squeezed food budget combined with the fact that
people are purchasing more expensive calories also (like milk, meat,
processed foods instead of grains), means that calorie intake is falling.
See more here:
http://triplecrisis.com/why-is-calorie-intake-falling-if-incomes-are-rising-in-india/#more-9727

Amit

On Wed, Jun 11, 2014 at 6:28 AM, Nagraj Adve <nagraj.adve at gmail.com> wrote:

> I agree Jyoti.
> There's another point that has some bearing on current voting, which is the
> changed context from even perhaps the previous NDA regime 15 years ago.
> Which is the penetration and spread of capitalist relations in Indian
> agriculture, barring a few pockets, capital and capitalists market
> relations have penetrated areas to a degree unprecedented in India. You
> might know that I am interested in climate change in India, and this point
> about market relations in agriculture comes across in many conversations
> and meetings with people from different states. That old and famous debate
> in the EPW in the 1970s about the mode of production in India is in my view
> by now a settled question: India is firmly capitalist, and I think that
> influences voting patterns as well. Actually this latter is a commonplace,
> the question is how,
> The second point relates to the spread of capitalism in India, because it
> then changes the way in which exploitation plays itself out. It is no
> longer that brutal extra-economic coercive exploitation; though the latter
> does not disappear in a caste-ridden society like India, there is a greater
> shift to what I suppose, pace Marx, can be called relative surplus value.
> Which also means that even as people's (or some people's but quite wide)
> incomes may actually rise (still at 1996 real levels, as RUPE's superb post
> some weeks back pointed out), even as incomes rise, their quality of life
> declines because everything is now under the market including some things
> for which they may have depended on their community or the commons. And
> they are working longer hours or faster, basically running to stay in the
> same place. But the nature of exploitation is different from what it used
> to be. Which also changes the way that people look at the world.
> My apologies for the length of the post again.
> warmly,
> Nagraj
>
>
> On 10 June 2014 21:31, Jyoti Punwani <jyoti.punwani at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > thanks nagraj, agree with most of what u say only to add that modi's
> > projection of someone steeped in the hindu religion, and also someone who
> > represents a clear break fm the congress -style-including nehru; and his
> > projection of a strong, nationalistic, sardar patel style, also worked.
> >
> >
> > On 10 June 2014 17:58, Nagraj Adve <nagraj.adve at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Having commented rather severely on the CPI (Maoist) statement, it's
> only
> >> fair that I put across what I think. At the cost of some repetition of
> >> earlier mails from me, here's what I feel, briefly:
> >> 1. People at large have largely voted for a mainstream pattern of
> >> development. This runs against much of what activists like us have
> argued
> >> for politically for years. This vote for 'development' is much wider
> than
> >> the 31% vote share cornered by the BJP. This message is accentuated by
> the
> >> fact that for the first time in a number of elections there were a
> number
> >> of candidates from social movements - Medha, Lingaraj, Uday Kumar, a
> number
> >> of others in different states - who presented at least a clear critique
> of
> >> the dominant trajectory, had a very high reputation for integrity, had
> >> worked hard among people for years and decades, and yet were all
> decisively
> >> not voted for. There are complex reasons why this is the case besides
> >> people opting for mainstream development, but we cannot be blind to this
> >> rejection.
> >> 2. The vote was more a vote for Modi than the BJP per se and is
> >> reflected, contrarily, in a number of BJP candidates winning who
> otherwise
> >> would not have.
> >> 3. As much as his and the BJP's Hindu majoritarian history and politics,
> >> even more so people voted for what they perceived as Modi's role in
> >> governance and 'development'. Much as fine empirical analysis by Dreze
> and
> >> others pointed out that the Gujarat model was at best mediocre,
> millions of
> >> voters - and the over 100 million young first time voters in particular
> >> possibly - voted based on their sense of his experience, however
> limited or
> >> flawed their reading may be. This was a wave but it was not generated by
> >> MNCs or landlords alone or other social forces the CPI (Maoist) quoted
> >> statement mentions. Much as we may not like Modi's message, his
> >> articulation of what he stood for on a number of issues was remarkably
> >> lucid. The people at large were very clear about what they were voting
> for.
> >> 4. It is EXTREMELY disturbing that people at large in India seem to vote
> >> broadly for the Right rather than the Left at times of economic crises.
> It
> >> is particularly disturbing as economic crises are going to accentuate in
> >> the near future as capitalism is possibly in its worst crisis ever,
> >> economic, in resources (peak oil and minerals constraints) and
> ecological
> >> (climate change, loss of biodiversity, etc), all of which are going to
> >> worsen.
> >> 5. Our situation (by 'our' I mean the broad Left in this country, both
> >> non-Party and Party left across the Left spectrum) is made even more
> feeble
> >> by the fact that there seems to be no *economic *alternative on the
> >> scale necessary. Political alternatives exist (like in Latin America and
> >> elsewhere) but they do not pose economic alternatives to capitalism and
> its
> >> logic.
> >> This mail is already too long so I will keep it short though much
> remains
> >> to be said. If true, the above - and the fact that repression on
> >> resistance, on workers and the Left in general will surely increase (it
> >> already has: Rajasthan govt's new take on workers' rights; possibly
> greater
> >> military role against Maoist movements) - should influence our future
> >> politics. At the bare minimum, it merits serious introspection and
> honest
> >> but frank, non-polemical discussion among all of us even as we recover
> from
> >> this and plunge back into our political work.
> >>  Nagraj
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On 10 June 2014 17:05, Nagraj Adve <nagraj.adve at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>> This press release as has been quoted just misses the point in hiding
> >>> behind the Party's old rhetoric. I can never fathom why the Maoist
> party -
> >>> and much analysis by others - assumes that people are naive fools. No
> >>> number of "MNCs, imperialists, big landlords" can generate a wave.
> Putting
> >>> one's head in the sand may be good policy for an ostrich, but it does
> not
> >>> make for good analysis.
> >>> Nagraj
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On 10 June 2014 13:13, Vivek Sundara. <viveksundara at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> Date: 10 June 2014
> >>>> Subject: Be ready for a fascist onslaught, says CPI(Maoist) - The
> Hindu
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/be-ready-for-a-fascist-onslaught-says-cpimaoist/article6099546.ece#.U5a2TwFXJmA.gmail
> >>>>    Today's Paper >> NATIONAL
> >>>>   RAIPUR, June 10, 2014
> >>>> Be ready for a fascist onslaught, says CPI(Maoist)
> >>>>
> >>>> Pavan Dahat
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> The outlawed Communist Party of India (Maoist) has said that the new
> >>>> National Democratic Alliance government will be no different from the
> >>>> previous United Progressive Alliance government and will implement the
> >>>> "same neo-liberal policies."
> >>>>
> >>>> In its first reaction to the formation of a new dispensation at the
> >>>> Centre, the CPI (Maoist), in a press note signed by its central
> committee
> >>>> spokesperson, Abhay, said: "The victory of the BJP under [Narendra]
> Modi
> >>>> indicates the intensification of exploitation, oppression and fascism
> in
> >>>> the country."
> >>>>
> >>>> "The real meaning of the Gujarat Model, which will now extend to the
> >>>> whole country, is the suppression of all forms of dissent, including
> that
> >>>> of workers, peasants, religious minorities, particularly Muslims, and
> other
> >>>> exploited and oppressed sections of society," the note said.
> >>>>
> >>>> "The NDA's clear majority in Parliament, the absence of a strong
> >>>> parliamentary opposition, and most importantly, the RSS-BJP's Hindutva
> >>>> agenda are indications of the coming fascist onslaught."
> >>>>
> >>>> The note appealed for building "a widespread struggle to fight back
> the
> >>>> threat from Brahmanical Hindu-fascists by uniting all revolutionary
> and
> >>>> democratic forces."
> >>>>
> >>>> The BJP won "by using the people's pent-up anger against the
> Congress."
> >>>> Criticising the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the note said: "The RSS
> played
> >>>> a central role in orchestrating anti-Muslim attacks and stirring up
> Hindu
> >>>> religious chauvinism, particularly through the attacks in
> Muzaffarnagar."
> >>>>
> >>>> The CPI(Maoist) said the election manifesto of the BJP did not forget
> >>>> to present its anti-Muslim, anti-Kashmir and Hindutva agenda, and
> promised
> >>>> to scrap Article 370, impose a Uniform Civil Code and build a Ram
> temple.
> >>>>
> >>>> The Modi-wave, the CPI(Maoist) said, "has been put forward by the
> >>>> imperialists, the MNCs and big landlords to divert the people's wrath
> >>>> against the neo-liberal policies of the ruling classes and usher in
> fascism
> >>>> as Hitler did to serve their interests more effectively."
> >>>>
> >>>> Cautioning people on their "illusion of good days under Modi," the
> >>>> party said the condition of the masses would deteriorate further on
> all
> >>>> fronts.
> >>>>
> >>>> *The real meaning of the Gujarat Model, which will now extend to the
> >>>> whole country, is the suppression of all forms of dissent*
> >>>>
> >>>> --
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> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>  --
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> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > rgds
> > jyoti
> >
> > --
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-- 
Amit Basole
Assistant Professor,
Department of Economics,
University of Massachusetts,
Boston, MA
http://vidyaashram.org/
http://sanhati.com/