Of Imperialism, Revisionism And The Culture War:
A Critique of ‘Laal' And The Official ‘Left'
By Democratic Students' Union
14 May, 2012
Countercurrents.org
“The native is declared [by the coloniser to be] insensible to ethics; he represents not only the absence of values, but also the negation of values. He is, let us dare to admit, the enemy of values, and in this sense he is the absolute evil. He is the corrosive element, destroying all that comes near him; he is the deforming element, disfiguring all that has to do with beauty or morality; he is the depository of maleficent powers, the unconscious and irretrievable instrument of blind forces… In the colonial context the settler only ends his work of breaking in the native when the latter admits loudly and intelligibly the supremacy of the white man's values.” — Frantz Fanon
Even after more than ten days after the May Day programme organised by JNUSU with Laal band from Pakistan, the debate centring it refuses to die down. DSU's critique of the manner in which the last May Day programme was organised by the AISA-led JNUSU and our observations on the underlying politics of Laal has elicited many responses including that from Taimur Rahman, the leading artist of Laal. AISA-led JNUSU – and also SFI, another promoter of Laal in JNU – however, have so far maintained a calculated silence on the entire debate, while their individual activists have been expressing their opinion on public forums. This indicates that AISA organisationally has nothing to say in defense of its own politically bankrupt acts of that night. Why did AISA-JNU invite a self-proclaimed ‘communist' band like Laal which is furthering the ideological agenda of US War on Terror under patronage not only of corporations like ‘Times Music' but of the Pakistani and Indian comprador ruling classes? Why did it extend red carpet to the anti-worker JNU VC to address the May Day gathering while shouting ‘VC Murdabad' just a few hours ago in the May Day Rally? And last but not the least, why did it allow the singing of a Sanskrit hymn praising Hindu god Ganapati by an artist who seems to have no idea of or concern for the historic legacy of May Day? AISA's silence on these questions speaks volumes of their political bankruptcy.
Laal has been perceived as a progressive group of musicians who claim to adhere to Marxism / Communism . Their ideological commitment has been reflected in the songs they had composed in the past, most notably in their 2009 debut album Umeed-e-Sahar . It was therefore not unusual for the widespread enthusiasm and expectation among the students and teachers of JNU as well as other parts of Delhi in attending their concert organised in the campus, supposedly also to commemorate the International Workers' Day. Laal has rendered the International – the anthem of the communist movement – and have adapted the poems of revolutionary writers like Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Habib Jalil. Even though commercially marketing their music (their first album was released by Geo TV group of Pakistan), Laal maintained a spirit of rebellion in the songs and performances, critiquing the comprador ruling classes of Pakistan as well as their master – US imperialism. This expression of popular discontent – from workers, peasants and the youth – which has made the band a household name among the urban middles classes in not only Pakistan but also in India.
By now, however, Laal has remained a mere shadow of its past . The failure of Laal to grapple with the semi-feudal semi-colonial reality of a society like Pakistan, where the people are facing relentless aggression from US imperialism in the garb of ‘War against Terror', has brought to the fore the hitherto dormant but basic ideological disorientation afflicting the band from the beginning. This failure, which stems from an inability or unwillingness to correctly analyse the nature of the class struggle and the primary contradiction within the society, has led Laal and its party CMKP on the path of revisionism and opportunism. Their failure is all the more telling in the context of the ongoing imperialist war of aggression on the people of North West Frontier Province and Waziristan, and the US occupation of neighbouring Afghanistan. Laal's politics has resulted in its alienation from the fighting masses, their lived reality and their aspirations. Indeed, the band and its music seem to have increasingly turned against the oppressed and exploited majority of the people of Pakistan and Afghanistan. As a result of its ideological bankruptcy, we find the band now performing in up-market fashion shows and programmes/tours promoted by corporate houses. In its desperation to ‘convey the message of the revolution' in whatever way possible, Laal has even subordinated their art to commercial companies like Times Music, a rabidly reactionary Indian media conglomerate. With their new song titled ‘Dehshatgardi murdabad', Laal's break from the labouring classes and its going over to the side of the oppressors – the Pakistani, Indian and Afghan comprador ruling classes and US imperialism – seems to be complete. It is therefore natural that Laal collaborates with the Times Group, which never gets tired of branding the armed resistance movements in India, Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine or Kashmir as ‘terrorism'. One must not forget that Times Group has been at the forefront in profiling the Muslims in India as ‘fundamentalists' or the Maoists as ‘terrorists', thereby justifying their persecution by the Indian state.
DSU has criticised Laal for promoting US sponsored propaganda of Islamophobia and ‘War on Terror' with its song ‘Dehshatgardi murdabad' (Death to Terrorism), which was performed in JNU as well. When the people of Iraq, Afghanistan and even parts of Pakistan are being devastated by US attacks in the name of fighting ‘Islamic terrorism' and ‘religious extremism', to chorus against the same only goes to justify such wars of aggression and occupation. The song says: “ Bomb blasts at every corner/ The ignorant march to ‘sacrifice' themselves/ After having lashed women/ They take the name of Islam/ Then bomb market places/ Burn down girl's schools/ And reduce our dignity to dirt/ America's puppets, Since when did they become our friends?/ All together now! Death to terrorism, Death to barbarism …” Who are these ‘they' referred to here? Above all, ‘they' signify organisations like Taliban and Mujahideen of Afghanistan as well as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). But ‘they' could also mean the millions of people in Afghanistan and Pakistan whom these organisations are today leading in their anti-imperialist/national liberation struggles. By the same logic, ‘they' could also mean Hizbollah, Hamas or the armed resistance in Iraq, who are leading the people of their respective countries against imperialist aggressors. It is true that these organisations uphold Islam as their political ideology and mobilise the people for defending their land, faith and society against foreign imperialist forces. It is true that many of them, like the Taliban, took support and aid from US imperialism to oust Soviet social-imperialism and its puppet ‘communist' government in Afghanistan. But it is also an irrefutable truth that much like fighting the invasion of USSR and defeating it through an armed struggle, the people of Afghanistan and North-West Pakistan are today fighting US invasion under the leadership of this same Taliban.
In spite of their ideological/political limitations and feudal social outlook, it is a fact that Taliban is leading the anti-imperialist struggle from the front, and to crush it the US-led imperialists are spending billions of dollars and deploying lakhs of armed forces. No doubt the ideology and actions of Taliban cannot be supported or followed blindly by communists, which will amount to the grave error of surrendering the leadership of the labouring classes to feudal forces or the bourgeoisie. However, if we accept that in Afghanistan (and Waziristan) today the main contradiction is between foreign imperialist forces and the vast masses of people, the task of every genuine revolutionary/ communist is to unite with the struggling masses and their organisations which are genuinely fighting their primary and immediate enemy - imperialism. Struggle against such organisations/forces is necessary. But in the context of an ongoing fight for national liberation against external enemies, unity with them becomes primary as opposed to struggle, which becomes secondary. History provides ample examples of such unity by communists, without the latter ever giving up or compromising their principles and politics. Communists of China under the leadership of Mao successfully built a joint front with the reactionary Kuomintang of Chiang Kai Shek during the Anti-Japanese War. Buddhist religious organisations actively participated in Vietnam War under communist leadership.
Moreover, to win over the basic classes from the grip of a feudal and backward ideology or organisations representing such ideology, the communists must work among the people , be a part of their struggles, win their trust and confidence by standing with them, and thereby emerging as the vanguard of their struggle for emancipation – not only from imperialism but also from feudalism and capitalism. Instead of doing or suggesting any of these, Laal (and all revisionist ‘Left' parties of Pakistan and India) shout abuses at Taliban or other such fighting forces by calling them ‘fundamentalist', ‘Islamist' and ‘terrorist'. Denying even the possibility of solidarity and support to the Afghan people led by the Taliban, they indulge in the vilest kinds of propaganda against it in the name of upholding ‘secularism' and ‘progressive politics'. With such acts, they only end up helping or plays into the hands of imperialism, and in the process alienating themselves from the oppressed masses. Clearly, when the class struggle sharpens, there is no neutral ground to equally condemn both the oppressor and the oppressed. But by castigating the oppressed, Laal has inadvertently sided itself with US invaders, notwithstanding their empty slogans of “Death to imperialism!”
In a series of articles titled ‘Dehshatgardi Murdabad' in The Express Tribune last November, Taimur Rahman, the leading artist of Laal, elaborated his understanding of ‘terrorism'. He calls the social-imperialist USSR's invasion of Afghanistan a mere ‘intervention', and in fact justifies it by saying that “Soviet intervention was a response to the CIA's plans of aggression against the revolutionary government of Afghanistan”! Taimur is silent on how US imperialism and Soviet Social imperialism in their tussle for redivision and geo-strategic supremacy of the world have exterminated the genuinely revolutionary forces in Afghanistan, thus creating a political vacuum in rural Afghanistan. Najibullah's government, which Laal considers ‘revolutionary', was in fact a Soviet puppet representing the interests of the Afghan landlords. Taimur also makes an outrageous and dangerous connection between ‘Jihaad' and Madrassas in Pakistan, reminiscent of CPI(M)'s Bengal CM Buddhadeb Bhattacharya's notorious statement that Madrassas are dens of terrorists. Among the so-called ‘terrorist' armed actions by the Taliban in Pakistan recounted by Taimur are included “coordinated strike in Lahore against buildings used by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), the Manawan Police Training School and the Elite Police Academy”, i.e., legitimate military targets.
For Laal, even the targeting of government's army becomes an act of ‘terrorism'! Then he goes on to parrot Pakistan government's statistics on ‘terrorism' by stating that “The government estimates that more than 37,000 people have been the victims of terrorism in Pakistan (30,000 of these are civilians)”, and concludes that “Hence, it is clear that religious fundamentalists are in an all-out war with the rest of society”. Laal therefore mistakenly tells the masses to fight ‘religious fundamentalism' and ‘Islamic terrorism' as their primary enemy. For Laal, “today these forces have become the most important impediment to the emancipation of the people”! In doing so, Laal ignores the fact that many of these killings were engineered by intelligence agencies. It also conveniently forgets the lakhs of lives extinguished by US attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan in the name of fighting ‘Islamic terrorism'. Interestingly, the paper in which he has written this article, The Express Tribue , is said to be “the first internationally affiliated newspaper in Pakistan, in partnership with The International Herald Tribune , the global edition of The New York Times ”. Only the sycophants can forget the role of New York Times as a propaganda tool of US imperialism which broke the news of the non-existent ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction' in Iraq – a piece of news that was utilised as a justification for the Iraq War and the total destruction of that country.
Laal has endeared itself to the Indian/Pakistani ruling classes subservient to US imperialism who allowed it to freely tour the country while being promoted by the Indian comprador bourgeoisie who owns Times Now. Such ‘favour' and ‘benevolence' from the reactionary classes have been bought by Laal at the price of becoming the paid piper of imperialism, by identifying ‘Islamic terrorism' to be the main enemy of the Afghan/Pakistani/Indian people while relegating the fight against imperialism to the margins. Would the ruling classes ‘tolerate' a truly revolutionary / communist cultural group, unless it is considered to be entirely ‘harmless' to their interests, or worse still, perceive it as an ideological/cultural weapon to further their own interests? After all, the war against ‘Islamic terror' seems to be the common agenda of Laal as well as the US and their local agents in Afghanistan/ Pakistan/India!
Laal could perform even in Pune, the same city where another cultural group – Kabir Kala Manch – has been hounded out by the Indian state for allegedly being Maoists, forcing them to go in hiding . Why does the state allow Laal to perform while KKM is not even allowed the democratic space to spread their message of land to the tiller, annihilation of caste, social justice and emancipation through their songs? Why is it that the same Indian state pronounces death sentence on a cultural activist like Jeetan Marandi of Jharkhand Abhen, who used only music as the means of social transformation? The answer lies in their respective politics and class outlook: while Laal serves the interests of the rulers and exploiters, KKM and Jharkhand Aven are opposed to them and stands with the exploited and oppressed masses. While Laal or its art stands for status-quo, KKM and Jeetan's art stand for social change, thereby becoming a part of peoples' culture and struggle. No wonder Laal was careful not to utter a word against the Indian ruling classes in its entire performance in JNU on May Day, against the policy of exterminating entire populations through Operation Green Hunt, Indian state's persecution of cultural groups, against Hindutva communal forces and the massacre of minorities.
Ideological degeneration stemming from collaboration with the reactionary classes landed up Laal with ‘Tritha' on May Day who sang paeans to the Hindu god Ganapati – the mascot of Hindutva, RSS, communal fascism and brahmanism – which has been historically utilised by Bal Gangadhar Tilak to Bal Thakre for communal mobilisation . The same blinkered pseudo-secularism of Laal and their hosts in JNU – AISA and SFI – make them accommodate Hindu brahmanical ideology in the garb of ‘Marxism'. When it comes to the vilification of Muslims, they all reproduce the Orientalist notions of ‘barbarism' and ‘fundamentalism' now drummed up by the US against the Islamic world. A Pakistani band that spews venom against the anti-US resistance by Islamic organisations and the Muslim people is a handy tool in the hands of imperialism. For the Indian state and the Hindu communal-fascists, such a band provides the much-needed legitimacy for unrestrained minority witch-hunt and pogroms. Not surprisingly, Laal was allowed to perform in fourteen concerts in various Indian cities whereas it originally planned for only four!
Vocal protests from the audience forced JNUSU president to ask the singer to cut short the Ganapati prayer, but AISA-JNUSU or SFI has not even said a word on this ‘mishap' . Rather, a ‘debate' has been launched by some ‘progressive' members of AISA on whether it was correct to stop the singer in the middle of her Ganapati song! While a ‘secular' Delhi University teacher terms this interruption as “an incident of murdering cultural expression though common consensus”, an AISA activist and former JNUSU councillor calls it “an act of unbelievable intolerance” from JNU students, even the ‘censoring' and ‘silencing' of freedom of expression! This however is not an isolated opinion, nor is it confined to only individual members of the revisionist ‘Left'. Indeed, such ‘tolerance' and ‘soft corner' for Hindutva communalism and brahmanism – which are the instruments of feudalism and imperialism in India – are the hallmarks of degenerate parliamentary parties like CPI(M)/CPI(ML) Liberation or their student outfits like AISA and SFI. These revisionists nevertheless reject the liberation struggles led by Islam-adherent groups and people the world over accusing them being ‘religious' and ‘fundamentalist'. Is it not on similar grounds that they oppose the liberation struggles of the Kashmiris calling it ‘Islamist', or the Naga freedom struggle branding it as ‘Christian'? It is the shared politics of revisionism, status-quo and reaction that makes the convergence of AISA-SFI-Tritha-‘Laal' possible. They are all united in the opposing the genuine life-and-death struggles of the masses, albeit at times couched in religious idioms. Uncompromising and unsparing ideological struggle against such forces is a necessary precondition for the victory of revolutionary, democratic and anti-imperialist peoples' struggles.
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