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Technocratic Managerial Political Assertion, Zizek And Some Lessons For The Indian Left      

By Joe.M.S.

24 May, 2014
Countercurrents.org

 The political spectacle sponsored by the media which resulted in the rise of Aam Admi Party (AAP), championed a technocratic and managerial sanitisation, buttressed by the middleclass, aspiring for untrammelled progress and development in their rhetoric of anti-corruption, unleashing in the process India's own version of Arab spring. Though initially it looked suspicious for it's association with Anna Hazare's brand of politics, rooted in a right wing village economy model, it soon influenced many people including some  leftists  and ecological activists. Yet, within one month of them in power, AAP's credibility was shattered, in the allegedly racist attack on Africans, and their top leadership's unashamed defence of the same, which demands a relook at their politics. Their ambitious foray to take on the national politics too came a cropper, with them garnering very few seats in the national elections, ending up as a negligible force at the national scene, despite rhetoric to the contrary. It was baffling to see the way in which supposedly leftists, Gandhians, neo nativists and even post ideological intellectual sympathisers, bending over backwards, invested hopes in it at various stages of it's existence and defended the party's excesses, like a classical Leninist party structure would have apparently responded.

Leninist party structure

 Such a reaction brought home the truth that an idealistic critique of Leninist structure, advocated by the left liberal intelligentsia, is hypocritical. Leninist party structure had many pitfalls and his leadership can genuinely be criticised for incidents like Kronstadt and for  substitutionism.  The very same cultural habit can explain the deep dictatorial tendency in some of the Marxist parties in India and the world. Even recently, the supposedly sophisticated Trotskyist party of Britain, Socialist Worker's Party, under the leadership of Alex Callinicos, faced criticism for defending party members against rape allegations, for their Leninist defence of the sanctity of the party structure and for badmouthing dissenters. Even some anti-Trotskyist Marxist parties in London criticised only the female complainants and feminism. This hints at the deep rooted structural problems in all such political movements . Yet, an outright rejection of all structures, which was itself a product of historical circumstances, by mere celebration of non hierarchy as in AAP spring is futile, since it may culminate in a sort of mobocracy, anticipating a ‘Leninist' defence on their part. Lenin, after all, was the not the crude villain, as he is made out to be, and Leninism was as much the product of his age and social structure, as is his personal idiosyncrasies.  And the surprising fact is that the self proclaimed Gandhians in defence of AAP ended up as Leninst in their defence of post ideological structure less structures.

 So the problem is not mere Lenin, but the power relations which exists in society, which makes it necessary, to fiercely democratise Leninist party structures than it's outright rejection, since mere idealistic wishing away does not evaporate power relations. So a  democratic  neo- Leninism deeply inspired by ecology, and if possible even non violence, is the need of the hour in India and abroad and the search for resources of critique and theoretical premises for the new direction to be taken, are to be seriously considered by the  left , rather than getting wonder struck by the so-called popularity of AAP.

Lessons for the left

The frame work for understanding the AAP's rise to power may be had from a reading of Zizek (2012), which, probably, can provide some clues as to the issues with leftist understanding and practice as such . Here one has to tread cautiously, since the criticism levelled against Zizek that he draws his philosophical energy mainly from European sources to the neglect of other cultures (Nigam, 2013), is valid to some extent.

Moreover, one can rightfully be suspicious of the teleology of a procedural reason in modernity as such. Nevertheless participation in a leftist politics with a capital P (Bauman, 2000) is the only possible option left. In other words, pessimism of a Foucauldian vein is not without it's merit, but it undoubtedly deserves a Marxian humanist rebuttal as Kevin Anderson (2005) does, which is against an uncritical celebration of third world cultures. Thus, a Marxism deeply enriched by ecology is the need of the hour, as the burgeoning human population when pitted against a fragile nature is unsustainable, in contrast to the unlimited progress dreamed in classical doxa. So, along with Walter D. Mignolo (2011), one can share the passion for non European theoretical perspectives which, to a certain extent, is practically realised in the autonomous praxis of the Zapatista.

Therefore, a one sided critique of Post colonialism as attempted by Vivek Chibber (2013) and supported by Zizek, though not without some merits in raising certain important points, culminates sometimes as an attempt to reduce  the experiments and experiences of all Marxist practice in the world to English  Trotskyism alone. It has rightly been criticised by Chris Taylor (2013) from a post colonial Marxian standpoint; may be anticipating in the process Marxism with a difference- a non Eurocentric and probably more eclectic . However, Zizek  along with Terry Eagleton(2011) and Fredric Jameson (2009) , though outstanding  in their Marxist theorising, in some sense fall short of addressing the urgency and gravity of ecological crisis, by their, in a way, a kind of blind faith in a stagist  developmental fantasy, bordering on mild technological determinism.  Yet, since the capitalist neo liberal economics and the world it penetrates is a concrete reality all over the world, though howsoever unsullied one may assume the life world of third world proletarian is potent enough to combat the onslaught of capitalism, as the assertion of Dipesh Chakrabarthy (2000) tries to testify, a comprehension of capitalist neo liberal economics in it's complex dynamics is necessary. Thus James Petras (2013), was right in pointing out the limitations in the policies followed by Eva Morales, which despite his ecological high rhetoric, ends up as harmful for the environment and pro-corporate. However, it is sad to see Zizek and Eagleton themselves  remain a bit indifferent to Marx's own letters to Vera Zasulich which fore grounded a more eco-centric approach, than upholding a somewhat linear and stagist understanding of progress.

Zizek's apparent disdain for non European philosophical thought and an atheism informed solely by Christian ethos, was correctly pointed out the by post colonial intelligentsia (Menon, 2010). Yet, Zizek's repartee to that claiming his status as Europe's marginalised other from Eastern bloc is equally relevant.  Thus, for a third wordist  and yet universal left politics, new approaches are needed.  Here, Sundar Sarukkai's (2012)   projection of the importance of Indian philosophical thought in social sciences remains very timely and apt, the only concern being that, the Charvaka tradition too be adequately highlighted, to avoid the folly of falling in to right wing majoritarianism. This is especially so when neo-Derridian's like Martin Hagglund (2008), is reinterpreting the new radical atheistic side of Derrida in a new perspective, where he argues that the desire for immortality itself “dissimulates a desire for survival that precedes it and contradicts it from with in”, as against the popular understanding of Derrida's religious turn in the postmodern circles. Moreover, the most unique role Periyar played in using atheism as an emancipatory philosophy for social upheaval is unparalleled in the world. Such an understanding is largely missing in the postcolonial circuits. Apart from this, though post colonial inputs and ecological concerns are indeed important and remains as resources of critique to the linear developmental designs of a state centric left, such a view sometimes falters in its defence of the static binaries of the east and the west. Further more, in the light of the studies of disenchantment of the world by Marcel Guachet (1997), the fact that it is early Christianity which conceived and anticipated modern secularism and human rights, complicates the issue.

Having raised these cautions, it is still not unfruitful to the use the brilliant psychoanalytical framework of Zizek,(in an eclectic vein or perspectivalist juggle) which may be helpful in understanding the recent confusing scenario of middleclass assertion through the political growth of AAP in India, though the Indian context is quite different. Yet, it is worth study, at least to provide some light on the general pattern of developments under capitalism and to understand the complex dynamics of the workings of international economics. 

Zizek and economics as the absent cause

As the AAP tries to stand above all class, they themselves allegedly mobilised a violent mob, in a lumpen manner to attack the African, as the other. In Zizek's reading of Lacan (2012), class antagonism render a total representation of society materially impossible; and the “class means there is no neutral All of a society- every ‘All secretly privileges a certain class”. This understanding can be posed to question the claim of AAP to represent all classes. To quote Zizek (2012) “the standard way of disavowing an antagonism and presenting one's own position as the representation of All is to project the cause of the antagonism onto a foreign intruder who stand for threat to the society as such, for the anti-social element, for its excremental excess”. This could explain the anti-corruption brigade's xenophobic attack on foreign nationals. It is a relevant in this context, to remember Zizek's (2012) comment on anti-Semitism, which is the only ideology, that “embodies zero level (or the pure form) of ideology establishing it's elementary coordinates: the social antagonism (‘class struggle') is mystified so that its cause can be projected onto the external intruder”.

Zizek (2012) also argues, that like  Napoleon III's small peasants -a class which needed representation, in an executive which subjects society- are resembled  by the present day middleclass and it's way with politics in an apolitical,  ‘peace loving' way,  which, on the other hand, appears as  right wing patriotic moral majority like Tea Party Movement in America. The growth of AAP phenomenon reminds one of  all the above features.  Zizek (2012) further adds that in the discourse of University, the new technocratic financial expert tries to administer in a neutral post ideological way, without any specific interest which is similar to what we see in the growth of the appeal of Arvind Kejriwal, who never forget to vax eloquent on building an American style administrative system.

But AAP, in their anti-corruption stand, which sometimes even target corporates, seems to be not enjoying the direct support of any corporate recently or poses that capitalistic economics does not concern them, if one just thinks empirically.  This is because, as Zizek (2012) observes, since big capital's influence “is the ultimate reference, the ‘absent cause', but it exerts it's causality precisely through series of displacement” and, the Lacanian Real is the absent cause inaccessible and distorting screen that makes us miss the Thing, or is ultimately the very “shift of perspective from first to the second stand point”.  Thus the Real is not mere distortion, but the very distortion of reality and for Zizek (2012), economics is not the actual causative factor, but a virtual cause or “is the absent x that circulates between multiple series of the social field....distributing them in their specific articulations”. So, a direct relation between economics of corporate houses controlling the politics of AAP need not be visible, which misleads many. This virtual economics, according to Zizek (2012), is different from actual economics “when virtual economics encounters itself in its ‘oppositional determination', in the guise of it's actual counterpart” and a cause is something that intervenes where the network of causal chain ruptures, and thereby remains a distant cause or absent cause, which acts in interstices of direct causal network, like a slip of tongue, determined in the last instance as a distant cause, “intervening in gaps of direct social causality”.  Zizek (2012) adds further that, the common understanding that a cultural struggle is the terms in which politics is fought, which in turn is determined by economics , is not economy as an absent cause, but “economics inscribes itself in the course of very translation of political struggle in to cultural struggles that is displaced”. Thus, one can legibly guess that, the case of xenophobic outburst of middleclass moral majority in Delhi, has an absent cause in economics, which is not decipherable directly, though actualised through its interventions in the interstices of the breakage of causal chains, in an “asymmetrical” and displaced way. The class phenomenon itself, if taken empirically, can be culturally misleading, with the rightwing politics sometimes appearing as progressive and pro-poor, gentle and even leftist for many. It is a displacement, where the economy as ‘absent cause' operates, since “the economy is the absent cause that accounts for the displacement in representation.......there is politics because the economy is ‘non All', because the economy is an ‘impotent', impassive, pseudo-cause” (Zizek 2012).

Conclusion

Thus one can see that the technocratic managerial politics embraced in the assertion of middleclass in the times of neoliberal predatory capitalism , is realised in the rise of political formations like AAP. This requires new theoretical perspectives and praxis, on the part of left, rather than mere admiration for them, which even now is entertained by many among the leftists, even after their dismal performance in the national election. This could be made possible through much more democracy, reflexivity and eclecticism in the left, informed by their rich third world political tradition, as blind imitations of Marxism from the west won't serve their purpose. Yet, the mysterious ways of workings of capital may require a cautious application of the theoretical frames developed by the Lacanian  Zizek, which may help in understanding the growth of the Kejriwal phenomena and AAP's xenophobia, despite it's apparent pro-poor stance and appeal  even among the left, wrought by a kind of displacement,  through which the absent cause  of economics in the last instance is actualised.

Joe is a social science teacher from Kerala. Worked in various places of India, now residing in Ireland.

REFERENCES

Bauman Zygmunt (2000): Liquid Modernity (Cambridge: Black Well Publishing Ltd).

Chakrabarty Dipesh (2000). Provincialising Europe. Post Colonial Thought and Historical Difference (New Jersey: Princeton University Press).

Chibber Vivek (2013): Post Colonial Theory and the spectre of Capital (London: Verso).

Eagleton Terry (2011) Why Marx Was Right (U.S.A: Yale University Press).

Gauchet Marcel (1997): The Disenchantment Of The World A Political History of Religion (New Jersey: Princeton University Press).

Guru Gopal and Sundar Sarukkai  (2012). The Cracked Mirror An Indian Debate On Experience and Theory   (New Delhi: Oxford University Press).

 H agglund Martin, (2008). Radical atheism Derrida and the Time of Life  (California: Stanford University Press).

Jameson Fredric (2009) Valences Of The Dialectics (Verso: London).

Menon Nivedita (2010): “The Two zizeks” Kafila, 7 January, Viewed on 9 February 2013 ( http://kafila.org/2010/01/07/the-two-zizeks/ ).

Mignolo Walter D. The Darker Side of Western Modernity: Globlal Futures, Decolonial Option (U.S.A: Duke University Press).

Nigam Aditya (2013) “End of Postcolonialism and the Challenge for ‘Non-European' Thought”, Critical Encounters, 19 May, Viewed on 9 February 2014 ( http://criticalencounters.net/2013/05/19/end-of-postcolonialism-and-the-challenge-for-non-european-thought/#more-150 ).

Petras James (2013): “The Most Radical Conservative Regime: Bolivia under Evo Morales”,  The James Petras Website , 30 December, Viewed on 9 February 2014  ( http://petras.lahaine.org/?p=1968 ).

Taylor Chris (2013), “ Not Even Marxist: On Vivek Chibber's Polemic against Postcolonial Theory”,  Of  C.L.R.James , 29 April, Viewed on 10 February ( http://clrjames.blogspot.ie/2013/04/not-even-marxist-on-vivek-chibbers.html ).

Zizek, Slavoj (2012): The Year of Dreaming Dangerously (London: Verso).



 

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