Home

Follow Countercurrents on Twitter 

Why Subscribe ?

Popularise CC

Join News Letter

Editor's Picks

Press Releases

Action Alert

Feed Burner

Read CC In Your
Own Language

Bradley Manning

India Burning

Mumbai Terror

Financial Crisis

Iraq

AfPak War

Peak Oil

Globalisation

Localism

Alternative Energy

Climate Change

US Imperialism

US Elections

Palestine

Latin America

Communalism

Gender/Feminism

Dalit

Humanrights

Economy

India-pakistan

Kashmir

Environment

Book Review

Gujarat Pogrom

Kandhamal Violence

WSF

Arts/Culture

India Elections

Archives

Links

Submission Policy

About CC

Disclaimer

Fair Use Notice

Contact Us

Search Our Archive

Subscribe To Our
News Letter



Our Site

Web

Name: E-mail:

 

Printer Friendly Version

Promises Of India's 'Two Minute Revolution'

By Nissim Mannathukkaren

25 May, 2011
Countercurrents.org

You'll bring me to speak the unspeakable very soon—
Sophocles, Antigone

The last few weeks have seen some of the most amazing turn of events in India . If winning the Cricket World Cup after 28 years was not magical enough, soon the media, especially television, was abuzz with news about India 's own Tahrir Square moment. The anti-corruption movement led by the 73 year-old Gandhian social activist, Anna Hazare, which although was located in the Indian capital, New Delhi , caused reverberations across the country. Hazare went on a fast until death if the demands of the movement were not met, which included the establishment of a stronger and effective Lokpal (Ombudsman) than the one that the government proposed, and the participation of civil society in the formulation of the bill that would institute the Lokpal . Soon the social media in India , mainly used by the urban middle class youth, went viral about India 's very own revolution. In five days, the government acceded to the demand of having civil society participation in the making of the Lokpal .

But like a comedy that shifts genres and turns into the horror mode, the messiah suddenly became the blood sucking-vampire and there begin a deluge of stories in the mainstream media that portrayed Anna Hazare and his colleagues as an authoritarian cabal which was seeking to impose a dictatorship on the country. This was because of the way in which they supposedly blackmailed the government by using 'anti-democratic' tactics like hunger strikes, how they self-appointed themselves as the representatives of civil society and the draconian nature of the Lokpal (for example, provisions like the combination of executive and judicial functions in the institution) proposed by them. And their urban middle class followers became the hyper nationalist, hypocritical, anti-political acolytes seeking fascist solutions to problems like corruption, which supposedly only affect them.

In this wildly swinging pendulum of analysis what was missed was the nuances and contradictions of the movement, especially the utopian and progressive potentialities of otherwise conservative social forces, in this case, the urban middle classes. Moreover, the most important question that needed to be asked was left unasked: why would the government of the largest democracy in the world accede to the demands of a movement in less than five days when it has not been moved an inch either by the violent campaign of the leftwing Maoists, who have been waging a war for nearly four decades, or by the non-violent struggle of an Irom Sharmila, who has been on a fast unto death for a scarcely believable ten years! And why would the government bend in front of what the editor of a magazine has called the 'comical revolution of an obsolete man' consisting of 300 people (Manu Joseph, 'The Anna Hazare Show', Open , April 9, 2011 ). I guess we could live with more comical revolutions if they help reopen discussions about bills that have been stalled in the parliament for 40 years (as the Lokpal bills were)! The answer to the above questions has to lie somewhere in a certain fragility that has begun to appear in regimes the world over in the age of Wikileaks and revolutions fuelled by social media. This fragility is accentuated by the systemic rot that is characterizing even formally democratic regimes like that of India .

If the initial euphoric, television-led naming of the movement as India's revolution was totally off the mark, the later cynical condemnation of it (mainly by the print media) was even more erroneous. The latter scotched any possibility of the further radicalization of the sliver of political awareness that appeared among the mainly self-serving, much-vilified, conservative, and apolitical, middle classes. After all, rebellion and revolution do not figure in the cognitive framework of these classes (Saroj Giri, 'Where is India 's Tahrir Square ?' ( Open Democracy , February 17, 2011 ). The cynical analysis completely failed to understand the popular (not just the middle classes) mood against corruption in the country. It foreclosed the possibility of an expansion of the agenda to a more radical, and comprehensive one—to bring the drivers of India 's aspirations for global economic superpower to an understanding of the humongous human and ecological cost at which their dreams are becoming real. And it missed the opportunity of saying to the cricket and reality TV-fed classes that their act of demonstrating on the streets for the first time was not comical.

True, many of the criticisms that emerged might be on the mark: the authoritarian implications of the proposed Lokpal , Anna Hazare's history of dalliance with Hindu religious motifs, his curious mixture of Gandhi with violent methods (the anti-alcohol campaign in his village involved flogging of people who violated the code), and the middle classes' hypocrisy which would look down upon the political class but worship the equally corrupt corporate class, etc. But this is not all that there is to it.

There have been mainly two critical views on the movement, mainly falling in the liberal/left ideological divide. The first saw it as an anti-democratic force, which indulged in tactics like emotional blackmail, and completely negated constitutional methods. And the latter pooh poohed the idea of a revolution carried out by the middle classes, and that too by texting each other. Both these views are flawed.

As far as the first is concerned, it is a ludicrous to suggest, in 'Third World' societies like that of India, where deep and entrenched structural inequalities exist, that all grievances should be addressed only by adopting constitutional and parliamentary methods (see Pratap Bhanu Mehta, 'Of the Few, by the Few', Indian Express , April 7, 2011) What are the chances of a poor ordinary citizen, who is supposed to contest the elections, and win against candidates, as was shown recently, who have declared assets of more than $ 100 million? Is there a single parliamentary political formation in India in the present that can represent the aspirations of the most marginalized sections of the population? The most significant struggles for democratization in the last two decades (like ecology, right to information, and the right to employment and food movements) have arisen outside the formal and constitutional political process. This position does not have to mean that we have to have a romantic and uncritical understanding of civil society struggles. The truth is that the Anna Hazares emerge when there is an absolute vacuum in the established parliamentary politics.

India is a democracy in which the core institutions have significantly degenerated since the 1970s (even where there is evidence for increasing participation in the formal democratic process). It is one in which an astounding 30 million cases are pending in the courts, and 2, 50,000 undertrials are languishing in prisons. It is one in which the last two decades have seen the corporate plunder of national resources and the destruction of the tribal homelands with complete collusion of state power. And it is one in which the police, the most visible arm of the state, flaunt and misuse their unchecked power with impunity. Those who see hunger strikes as anti-democratic do not bother to ask in independent India how many errant ministers/civil servants/police officers have been punished using the democratic, legal procedures that are emphatically advocated by them. The number would be shockingly low even for a formal democracy. The most dramatic expression of this frustration with the elite-controlled democracy is the example of Irom Sharmila who has been protesting the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, a draconian law which has been used by the Indian state to extra-judicially deal with the variety of separatist movements that dot the north-eastern part of the country. A similar story in the same part of the nation was the one of women taking the desperate step of protesting in the nude against Indian security forces who had killed an innocent woman in one of the operations.

The farcical nature of the rigid adherence to the formal features of a democracy could not be more obvious than when during the anti-corruption struggle, activists of a political party violently attacked a prominent actor's house, and the Legislative Assembly of the state of Maharashtra moved a privilege motion against him for he apparently criticized the constitution! This is in a democracy which not only guarantees freedom of expression but also enforces it.

To believe that in societies like India , which has vast numbers of poor, that social transformation will occur through neat and orderly processes adhering to parliamentary norms is to uphold the status quo. Even the settled democracies of the West have arrived at the present through a past that has been strewn with chaotic, and often violent events. The dispossessed tribal joins the Maoists not because he likes playing with AK-47s, but because Indian electoral democracy has completely failed him. At least, it is commendable the Anna Hazare-led protest adopted non-violent civil disobedience methods (admittedly without a full understanding of the Gandhian philosophy).

At the other end of the spectrum of analysis is the belief that anything less than a bloody overthrow of the state in which thousands die by batons and bullets is useless. That is why it sees lighting candles at the anti-corruption movement as a harmless pastime indulged by the cowardly middle classes. While protest movements which have members who are willing to sacrifice their life and limbs have to be commended, it would be a forgetting of history to ignore other forms of protest that have led to social change. The Orange Alternative in Poland in the eighties is a classic example. The movement took on the Communist dictatorship with humor, satire and absurdity. Even the most violently repressive regime can only watch in meek submission when the protestors turn clowns on the street and are trying to kiss the policemen! The methods adopted by the Alternative quickly spread to other parts of Eastern Europe .

If the middle class is hypocritical then it is equally duplicitous and hypocritical for the left intelligentsia to tell the candle-holding middle class to brave the bullets when they themselves are not doing the same. The kind of pure and untainted revolutionary consciousness that the latter is seeking does not exist anywhere in the world, even among the revolutionaries fighting in the jungles. Every movement has contradictory elements. So people singing Vande Mataram (the national song of India , which is in fact a hymn to a Hindu goddess) were not necessarily Hindu fundamentalists and everybody that took up Hazare's call need not believe in his dictum of chopping the hands of the corrupt. Moreover the protestors belonged to a diverse range of ideological and political affiliations. To reduce this to a rightwing upsurge on the basis of some symbols at the protest is to thoroughly fail in understanding why the movement struck a chord among such large numbers of people with contradictory economic and political interests. Such failure is seen in the example of a critic who deridingly termed the protest as 'The Jagran at Jantar Mantar' ( Outlook , April 10, 2011 --the word jagran clearly marking it as a movement mainly informed by the Hindu idiom and lacking any wider appeal). But the same author, within a few days, writes that 'from being an absolute skeptic, I now confess to a grudging admiration for anything that rattles so many people' ('As Red as Herrings Get', Outlook , May 2, 2011) demonstrating the vacuity of analysis.

There is nothing revolutionary about sitting and waiting until the real and ideal revolution appears on the horizon. Even Marx was for reformist struggles like the ones for eight-hour working days, while laying the foundation for a revolution. And for critics who keep referring to Tahrir Square to mock the Anna Hazare movement seems to be under the illusion that the former is the greatest revolution in human history. They ignore the fact that despite its extraordinary bravery, it did not have the goal of a fundamental reorganization of wealth and power in society.

So candle light vigils may not topple a government, but they do gnaw at it, forcing it to make concessions that it would not have otherwise made. The virulent attempt by the ruling party to vilify the Lokpal activists shows that even moderate attempts to reform the system can be greatly threatening to the ruling elite.

While even a thoroughly democratic Lokpal is no panacea to all societal problems its institution will not make the state of affairs any worse than what they are now. At least some of the critics, from the left, seem to be arguing from a position that the Anna Hazare movement, being a reformist one, and focused only on the single point agenda of corruption, has acted as a safety valve for the government by scotching the movement toward a revolutionary upsurge. Frankly, anybody should be able to see that such a conjuncture is a remote possibility in India .

What the two critical views through their armchair revolutionary zeal and naive constitutionalism have done is to fail to engage productively with the middle classes and their baby steps toward some form of political activism. The intelligentsia abdicated their pedagogical role of radicalizing the middle classes beyond the concern with their immediate appetites and place in society. Instead of sermonizing Anna Hazare about the battles he should be fighting, they should be taking up the role of expanding the agenda to other fundamental issues in society, to show how the nine percent economic growth that the middle classes crave for is integrally connected to the corruption that they are decrying. To explain why India is one of the most unequal societies in the world, and how they are beneficiaries of this inequality. To elucidate why in a largely agrarian country, where land is the basis of a peasant's existence, only two states have managed to bring about any substantial land reforms. And to tell the middle classes that when the economy is pounding ahead to touch the skies, the nation is also killing its girl children at a faster rate than before.

Revolutions, especially the ones that seek to bring the most exploited classes to power, are not made overnight. They require sustained mass movements which often demand blood, sweat and tears from its foot soldiers. More importantly, they require a change in consciousness. Revolutions are not made only by the naked and the hungry; the clothed and the well-fed too have a role in them, provided they are self critically aware of their place in the exploitative chain. Probably, the bigger revolution is to make the hypocritical and apathetic middle classes understand the hypocrisy of their position in a genuinely democratic society. Of course, it is not easy, and traditionally, the left has seen the middle classes, with split allegiance between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, as the biggest enemies of a working class revolution. But then it would be a mistake to ignore the complexity of the middle classes by terming them as a monolithic whole. A structural transformation of power in India will not take place unless there is a productive engagement with the burgeoning and diverse middle classes.

To crown Anna Hazare as the savior, and call his movement as a revolution is naive and irresponsible. But equally so is to be cynical and sarcastic towards those who joined him. As that indomitable warrior of democracy and human rights, the American activist and scholar Howard Zinn, recognized: ' If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something.'

The writer is the Director of Graduate Program, International Development Studies, Dalhousie University , and the author of The Rupture with Memory: Derrida and the Specters that Haunt Marxism (Navayana).

 



 


Comments are not moderated. Please be responsible and civil in your postings and stay within the topic discussed in the article too. If you find inappropriate comments, just Flag (Report) them and they will move into moderation que.