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Malice Is Not Critique: A Rejoinder To Suhas Munshi

By Mithilesh Kumar

15 March, 2016
Countercurrents.org

Kis harf pet u ne gosha-e-lab ae jaan-e-jahan ghammaz kiya
Elaan-e-junoon dil walon ne ab ke ba-hazar-andaz kiya


Faiz Ahmad Faiz

Suhas Munshi in an article on Catch News(“Left Drops Kashmir: Did Kanhaiya Kumar leave his Azadi in jail?”) has purportedly critiqued the alleged betrayal by Kanhaiya Kumar, the JNUSU president. According to Munshi, the student leader has betrayed those political causes which made him the poster boy of the entire liberal spectrum. He has betrayed the cause of Kashmir and Manipur; to the slogan of Azadi and the rest of it. Munshi does not seek the causes of this betrayal in the personality of Kumar which is a very sound method. If a leader overwhelms a movement by his/her persona it is not good news. The columnist discovers the roots of his betrayal in the ideology that Kumar espouses. Such, in a nutshell, is the political voyage and discovery of Munshi. We want to demonstrate that he got his compass wrong.

Critique, as the first class of either literature or philosophy will tell you, is a very careful analysis of what is correct and incorrect in a text or system of thought. It is negative in the sense that it demonstrates the weakness but it is positive not only that it shows the strength of a text or thought but it also goes on to give possible methods of making it better. Marx’s Contribution to a critique of Political Economy is precisely that. Smith and Ricardo had achieved the best results in political economy but it was also deeply flawed hence Marx puts it on its feet. No one expects Munshi, or anyone for that matter, to attempt a Marx. Also, no one expects him to give advises on how the movement has to be carried. The leaders and the rank and file are more than capable to do that. He has every right to be only criticizing the movement bringing out its flaws rather than its unique and novel way of doing and organizing politics. However, what he cannot do or should not do is to enter into a diatribe with mala fide intentions. Munshi’s intervention is precisely that; an attempt to discredit an ideology and a movement through discrediting a man.

Let us begin with Munshi’s history lessons which should take no more than a few lines of rebuttal. Once Dipesh Chakrabarty, in a conference, said that history is complex and whatever you say and interpret about history (and this include historians) it is pretty much more complex than you are asserting. Chakrabarty was saying this to practitioners of historiography. One cannot bring that accusation against Munshi. Whatever he writes about communism and communist party of India in its several phases is clichés that have been bandied about for generations now. The nuances do not matter and it is all based on a scholarship that is distinctly dubious and overtly hostile to communism. Even if we grant that there is something to the charges one has to take into account a whole lot of issues before one can definitely say that communism and states based on that ideology were monsters. No such luck for Munshi. In fact, he goes wrong in giving us lessons in communist history.

Munshi alleges that Indian communists “bought the party line that British Imperialism was a bigger enemy than Fascism.” We will be generous to Munshi and put the blame on the editor who put the history upside down. In any case shifting blames is what the entire exercise is about. It is no one’s case that the communist movement in India and the world, in general, had a lot of problems and there have been severe critique of them within the movement. Maybe, Munshi will care to have a look into that and we are also aware that there is no guarantee that the communist movement will not make mistakes in the future. If Munshi can indeed find a system which guarantees the ideal world, well, good luck and more power to you. Enroll me in your project.

So much for history but Munshi is not disturbed by the spectre of history he is disturbed by the sociology and political science of the present. He has a lot of space in his heart and his heart is full of kindness, love and friendliness towards Kashmir, Manipur, Nagaland, Chaatisgarh, Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya. His heart experiences tremor, quite high on the Richter scale, when he realizes that Kanhaiya Kumar has gone silent on these issues. Maybe it is because of this agitation Munshi has lost all sense of perspective on politics. He alleges that Kumar Kashmir has not “said anything to reassure them and to bring them back.” Munshi is talking about those students who have fled the university fearing attacks following the events. Munshi should have also included those Kashmiri students who had to flee from places outside the university campus like Munirka. But that is not the problem. The problem is that this is a clever ruse to displace what is the responsibility of the university authorities and the state onto the shoulders of the student-leader. Protecting students, especially students of minority communities, is the responsibility of the state not only because it has the means and wherewithal to do so but also that is its moral duty. Since, when the responsibility of giving protection fell on a student union president. Let us imagine a situation that the student union president did provide security to the Kashmiri students by mobilizing other students in the campus and going out in numbers, making cordons, hell, even raising barricades. What will be the response of the state in that case? Certainly, the state will not thank the students for taking up its role and responsibility for who knows tomorrow they might say that they want to run the country on their own.

Munshi’s heart suffers more lacerations on the issue of self-determination. He should know that this particular political demand has been discussed, debated and acted upon since at least a century. One should get this straight that right to self-determination means the right to secession. Nothing more, nothing less. It came about during Lenin-Rosa Luxemburg debate and Lenin vociferously took a stand against federalism. There are several currents in left thought, as it is for everything else, on this point. Some left groups celebrated making of Telangana as a success of right to self-determination. Do I think it was the case of self-determination? No. Do some other groups think so? Yes. That does not make me more correct than them. There might or might not be the case that self-determination question has been discussed during the movement and a certain understanding arrived. It might or might not be the case that Kumar does not believe in secession but autonomy. None of this makes either Kumar or the movement rub shoulders with RSS as alleged by Munshi. This is an argument of a Philistine.

The question of Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya has been raised with fervor by Munshi. He alleges that there has not been much enthusiasm in support of them or SAR Geelani. He is a journalist so he should know. Has he covered those instances when vociferous demand for their release have been made? There were several forms that has been and is being used. Maybe it does not buzz enough. Also, Kanhaiya Kumar was great news when he was news. Whatever had to be gained from him has been squeezed out. This too shall pass. And so do the bit of interest in media about Umar Khalid, Anirban Bhattacharya and SAR Geelani. But I can assure Mr. Munshi that people who have raised the banner against state repression will continue to do so. If you come with a camera we will take a selfie.

Mithilesh Kumar is a PhD Candidate at Western Sydney University, Australia. His interest is in the issues of logistics, migration and labour, political philosophy and theory. He wants to work on the nature, evolution and innovation of the Indian state with respect to social and political movements in India. Email: [email protected]



 



 

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