Demonetization – Black Money and the Hindutva Obsession

Demonetisation is not merely  a  shocking miscalculation by  Prime Minister Narendra  Modi and his troupe of sycophants and followers,  but is also a new and dramatic  manifestation of the obsessions and obscurantism that is intrinsic to the genetic makeup of Hindutva. Perhaps it is the sheer scale of this exercise of unreason, where the entire economic activity of one of  the world’s largest nations and economies, home to almost a fifth of the world’s population, should be seized and disrupted by such a move, that has kept attention away from this dimension of demonetisation. The traditional  obscurantism of Hindutva, thus far restricted to the glorification of mythology as science, has had serious consequences for education.  Hindutva’s majoritarian communalism relies in a fundamental  way on obscurantism, particularly in the realm of history, and has been the source of much  suffering ever since it emerged on the political scence in current form. But with demonetisation, both these manifestation pale before this new dimension of Hindutva obscurantism that has opened up before us.

Why Trump Matters to Us All

I realised today that my generation has lived through, in our lifetime, three major lurches to the right in the politics of the United States – the elections of Nixon, Reagan and now, Trump – each one of these of global significance.  If one adds George Bush, Jr. to make a fourth, the latter three  have each shown themselves to be dumber, more divisive, than the one before them.  But all their presidencies have marked a shift of the politics of their  country and the world decisively to the Right. The  term  “ratcheting up” perhaps applies better than shifts, for the contributions of each of their presidencies to the world of global capital have resulted in permanent changes to this world, and the way its politics and economy works. Even while each has preserved the legacy of his predecessor.

Response to Jairus Banaji on Fascism

REJOINDER TO BANAJI – WRITTEN ON 13TH SEPTEMBER, 3 POSTS.

POST – 1

Facebook prompts when I click on the share button – “Say something about this” – and well I am sure going to.

So we have the learned professor, Banaji, from London explaining fascism to Prakash Karat, and us by the way. So please note at least three German references and of course two German words (without translation) that establish the learned professor’s credentials to lecture.

But Jairus Banaji ko gussa kyon ata hai? Truly. The trouble is 1) he thinks he is the expert on fascism and how can anybody not agree with him, 2) he doesn’t like Prakash Karat at all and 3) he has to disagree with everything that Stalin ever said and did and to top it all he has a hard time choosing between 2 and 3 in order of priority. 1 is not relevant at all (what do we care!). 3 is foolish because whatever Stalin’s wrongdoing, and they were many and profound, he was also, obviously and undeniably, the leader of the global struggle against fascism (yes, global and not only of the Soviet Union). And even the capitalist/imperialist states that had tried to instigate the Nazis to focus on the Soviet Union and failed, had to acknowledge the role, the bearing of the brunt of the fight, that Stalin played in leading the fight against fascism and acknowledge the Soviet Union as a partner in the formation of the United Nations after the war. But Jairus Banaji is a Trotskyite (if you dont know what that is dont worry – pharak nahi padta hai for the rest of the argument) and hating Stalin is a genetic requirement to be one. As to 2 also, that he doesn’t like Prakash Karat, we cant help him, because, unfortunately many of us think that Prakash Karat is a much better Marxist thinker and not Banaji, so bad luck on that one.

So what are the real issues or debates from which Banaji draws on, to launch this personally derogatory and abusive critique?

First, in dealing with fascism, many ideologues of the right tended to argue that Nazism was a peculiarly German cultural product and so fascism (and its Italian variant) was some kind of fault in German character while the good guys (Britain, France, US, etc ) had no such cultural baggage. Left out of this story were all the other fascists in town (Franco in Spain – who was a jolly good member of NATO after World War II, the guys in Portugal who were in power for quite a while until the mid-70s, Admiral Horthy in Hungary prior indeed to even Franco and so on and so forth, not to mention Japanese fascism across the oceans, etc). The caricature version of this “unique culture” argument is indeed to be found in the Lord of the Rings where Mordor is Nazi Germany while the Hobbits are from jolly good England. So clearly cultural arguments are a bit useless in explaining this diversity of locations where fascism emerged in power. So the communists were clear that the essence of the appearance (of Fascism – ah a good dose of dialectics is helpful here) is actually the need of the bourgeoisie to effect a change in the form of the state, to one that suspends brutally all regular functioning of bourgeois democracy. And this need arose as part of dealing with the deep-rooted crisis that pervaded the major capitalist nations, especially in Europe, where the socialist alternative was very substantial in its strength.

Obviously, this was not understood in a deterministic way. Whether the fascist alternative was indeed realised by the bourgeoisie depended on a number of contingent factors or specific conditions that varied across countries. There had to be a clear danger from a strong socialist alternative (there was no such resistance in the US, nor perhaps really in the UK where the bulk of working class was after all mobilised politically by the social democratic Labour party), there had to be a movement based on a reactionary mobilisation which could sway a section of the masses at least for a brief period, or the ruling class could count on external assistance (as in Spain where direct military assistance was provided by Nazis and the Italian fascists to the rebel Franco and the British and French indirect assistance by refusing assistance to the elected Republican government ) and so on and so forth. Successful mobilisation of an anti-fascist alternative was also important, successful in France (the Popular Front of 1936) and unsuccessful in Germany (well known to communists and we really dont need Banaji’s lectures on this). The German communists paid for it with their lives in concentration camps (all the fault was not only theirs) and there is also the inspiring story of the small but extraordinarily courageous resistance that they put up.

But the real issue is whether the ruling class faces a genuine political crisis (where the masses no longer want to be ruled in the old way and the ruling classes can no longer rule in the old way) that pushes forward the need for an alternative that leads to a change in the form of the state leading to the suspension of bourgeois democracy itself. Without this underlying crisis there is no real threat of a fascist alternative.

This is the basic point that Prakash Karat pithily expressed in contrast to our wordy Mr. Banaji whose rhetoric overwhelms his reason. Of course there is a thorough-going movement, authoritarian in character, that is present now, but whose writ does not run unchallenged in our society (bully for us). And of course there is a very important use of cultural and social resources arising from the backwardness of our socio-cultural sphere that provides the basis for Hindutva’s mobilisation. The Left has always pointed this out and has made and is making significant efforts to combat this (of course much more and much better is needed – who doubts that!!) as Hindutva itself recognises, even if Mr. Banaji, ensconced on his academic perch in London cannot.

But what provides the basic fertility to the soil on which Hiindutva grows? Clearly this is the economic deprivation that vast masses of the people face under the neoliberal dispensation and the precariousness and uncertainty that afflicts even those who benefit from this dispensation. Mr. Banaji explicitly denies this, He thinks that neoliberalism’s impact is merely “economic” whereas Hindutva is more “insidious” and dangerous. Sorry, we disagree. Mr. Banaji thinks there is some preordained and preexisting sense of solidarity amongst the working people that then works to challenge their economic condition, and it is this solidarity that Hindutva damages. Unfortunately real life shows that solidarity only emerges from real material conditions, (where the material includes both the economic deprivation that the working people share and the social conditions that oppress them) and the struggle to overcome these. Hindutva’s opportunity arises when the struggle against these conditions are not well-developed and where then the population seizes on any alternaive. But even then this does not happen everywhere!!

Obviously Prakash Karat did not explicate much of this in his article, but then he was writing to make a specific point and not a damn book to satisfy all of Mr. Banajis’s confusions.

There is one point left to consider namely why Mr. Banaji’s piece never once mentions the Congress Party and thereby hangs a short tale that we will take up in the following post.

Response to Prof. Prabhat Patnaik’s article of July 26, 2016 in The Hindu

Following Venktesh Athreya’s invitation in his post to launch theoretical critiques of the incorrect views on what the Left strategy should be, we begin with an attempt to deconstruct the piece by Prabhat Patnaik in The Hindu of July 26, 2016. The key novelty in the piece by Prof. Patnaik is the notion that the class character of the Indian state has changed and that it now represents “global capital and the domestic corporate-financial oligarchy aligned with it”. Prof. Athreya has argued elegantly how erroneous such conceptions are and how the naive cry of “neoliberalism” (which is not per se wrong) without a dialectical (as opposed to one-sided) view of what happened under reform is incorrect. But apart from these core issues that have been dealt with by Venktesh Athreya there are further problematic assertions in Prabhat Patnaik’s s piece.

For one, the character of the state, according to Prof. Patnaik is supposed to have changed “spontaneously” as a consequence of the reforms and NOT consciously. How a state that is representative of one ruling class and its interests should be able to modify its nature to represent another ruling class and its interests without conscious effort and “spontaneously”, seems somewhat difficult to imagine. Indeed such spontaneous change is only possible if really (whatever the rhetoric) one thinks of the state as above class interests and defined only through its day-to-day policies.

That this is indeed the view of the state is made clear when Prof. Patnaik talks of the state before reform when it was supposed to be protecting peasants and workers, from the “encroachment” of capital, even while pursuing capitalist development. The use of the word “apparently” or the reference to the words “bourgeois state” in the same sentence must be judged to be mere hedging or literal feints, perhaps to ward off later criticism. Indeed one may be puzzled by how in various other writings Prof. Patnaik speaks of the nature of the neoliberal state etc while at the same time advocating on various occassions a Left-Congress alliance. Such apparently inconsistent stances can only be resolved in a viewpoint where the State is characterised by its short term policies rather than a more fundamental class character.

Response to the Habibs’ Letter to CPM leadership

Prof. Irfan Habib and Prof Sayera Habib, have written an open letter to the PB and CC of the CPI(M) critical of the party line vis-a-vis the question of the CPI(M)’s electoral alignment with the Congress

I will not comment on the propriety of eminent academics using their professional prestige and their recognition by the Left movement itself as Marxist scholars to publicly challenge the Party leadership on a question that has been extensively debated within the party as a whole. It is obviously not a question of democratic intra-party discussion, since the Professors Habib could well have written to the leadership without the letter being made public. It is also the majority view of the party that they challenge, since the line of the CPM on the question of electoral alignment with the Congress was broadly laid out in the Visakhapatnam Congress and therefore reasonably represents a decision arrived at after much consultation and discussion.

How the leadership of the CPM chooses to deal with this publicised difference of opinion, is a matter outside my competence. But the substance of the issues raised by the Professors Habib certainly merit critical attention and in my view, sharp criticism and rejection.

What are these issues? These issues have in fact been dealt with at much greater length and depth in the political resolution of the 21st Congress of the CPI(M), available on the website of the CPI(M), but since the letter pointedly ignores that document, some points may be worth re-iterating.

Capital, Global warming and the Paris Agreement

(Published in The Marxist, XXXI 4, Oct-Dec 2015 here )

Introduction:

The climate summit at Paris concluded on 12^th December, 2015, with a new agreement on climate action accepted by more than 190 countries, an agreement that has been hailed by all world leaders, with very few exceptions, as a great achievement. According to Barack Obama, president of the United States, the Paris Agreement and the accompanying decision, passed by the 21^st Conference of Parties (COP21), the supreme body that administers the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), “establishes the enduring framework the world needs to solve the climate crisis.” Other leaders have hailed the agreement in similar language. India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, tweeted, “Outcome of #Paris Agreement has no winners or losers. Climate justice has won and we are all working towards a greener future.” Similar sentiments have been expressed by many other leaders from different nations.

There is no doubt that the problem of global warming due to human activity that uses fossil fuels is one of the most significant global environmental problems facing the world today. So when leaders across the world hail this agreement as paving the way to solving the problem, we need to critically understand what were the real outcomes of the Paris summit and to what extent it paves the way towards resolving this crisis that threatens human well-being on a global scale.

What is the origin of the problem of global warming and what are its consequences? Fossil fuels, including coal, lignite, peat, petroleum and its derivatives such as petrol and diesel, natural gas, and so on, that contain carbon, when used in any kind of industrial process lead to the release of carbon dioxide. This carbon dioxide leads to the warming of the atmosphere, leading in turn to a rise in the Earth’s average temperature, causing changes in the Earth’s climate, which will have serious negative impacts. Such impacts include more erratic rainfall, increase or decrease in rainfall in various regions, extraordinarily hotter summers and winters that will not be as cold as before, more extreme weather such as cyclones, rising sea levels that may inundate coastal areas and may cause many islands across the world to be submerged, melting of glaciers that may affect river flows and so on. Such changes will be more dramatic if more and more carbon dioxide is pumped continuously into the atmosphere. These changes in climate, if not controlled, will in turn lead to lasting damage to the Earth’s biosphere, affecting forests, biodiversity, animal and plant life and agricultural production in a number of ways. Some of these changes are already occuring today, though not yet on a scale to create large-scale disruption of human society and its activity, but if global warming is left unchecked such disruption is bound to follow. Global warming also occurs whenever there is interference with the global carbon cycle, such as through deforestation, and also through other gases such as methane. All gases causing global warming are known as greenhouse gases (GHGs), of which the most important is carbon dioxide.

There can be no doubt that crisis is indeed the correct term to describe the situation that the world is facing due to global warming. The reason is that a large part of modern industrial production is based on the use of fossil fuels. Our dependence on fossil fuels certainly cannot be labelled a historical error, as some environmentalists do, since without fossil fuels the expansion of productive forces would have destroyed the world’s bio-resources (including wood from trees and oil from animal sources, such as whales). And the discovery of fossil fuels and their uses in turn promoted an unanticipated advance of human productive capacities. And yet it is this very fossil fuel use that now threatens humanity itself, both in the sense of the physical existence of human society as well as the advance of its productive capacties¹ . This threat is real, especially if there is an absence of advanced technologies that liberate us from the use of fossil fuels.