2008-06-23 15:36
The ingredients of the making of a political confrontation between the CPI (M) and its detractors and opponents took centre-stage a few days ago in Kolkata. Once again, it revolved around the role of the police, media outrage followed by political witch-hunting – an all too familiar sequence of events that makes its way into the mainstream media coverage on West Bengal today.
Let us briefly recount three incidents in the recent past that in some way or the other centred around Jadavpur University, Kolkata:
Incident 1: On April 6-7, 2007, some people set fire to the Jadavpur University Science Club and then went ahead to ransack the Karmachari Sangsad, the office of the Union of nonteaching employees in Jadavpur University after the opponents of the SFI won the Science Faculty Student Union elections under the banner of We the Independents (WTI).
Both the Science Club and the office of the Karmachari Sangsad signify the presence of the SFI and the CITU, the two mass organizations affiliated to the CPI (M) in the university campus.
Incident 2: On June 7, 2008, five women, all either former or present students of Jadavpur University were subjected to a police search of their rented accommodation in Palbazar, Jadavpur on allegation of links to Maoists.
Incident 3: Within 24 hours of the second incident, a young academic in Jadavpur University who also lives in the same area and whose affiliation to the CPI (M) is widely known was accused of orchestrating the police harassment in connivance with his wife, an AIDWA supporter.
At the outset, let us be very clear on the role of the police. The police have been repeatedly playing a heinous role in the last one year in West Bengal. From Nandigram, to the death of Rizwanur Rehman, to the Dinhata firing to the harassment of the political activists from Jadavpur University, police action in each of these incidents calls for unequivocal condemnation. The police not only have tarnished the image of the Left Front government, but also have ensured that there should be no illusions about one of the most repressive organs of the bourgeois state.
Let us also be very clear that if one or more CPI (M) activists are even tacitly involved in orchestrating the incident in Jadavpur in connivance with the police as has been alleged, they are doing great disservice to the party and the Left cause. If the allegations are true, then such 'insiders' are gratifying the opposition by manufacturing issues that can then be used as a battering ram to discredit the CPI (M). It is up to the Party to establish the truth on the ground and take action on the matter.
Begging the Questions
However, there are certain developments around the incidents cited above that deserve closer scrutiny. The second incident triggered off an immediate chain of events and reactions. Some student activists, a few members of the academic staff from Jadavpur University and members of various organizations arrived on the spot. So did the media. Local CPI (M) supporters were not only alleged to be present but also held responsible for the incident. The media channels repeatedly showed footage of the women giving statements through a window. Finally after a few hours, the women were 'rescued' after intervention by '…activists from the Bandi Mukti Committe, Association for Protection of Democratic Rights and social worker Anuradha Putotundo…' (according to the Indian Express).
The general tenor and representation in the mainstream electronic and print media did not differ very significantly. There was unequivocal condemnation of the police and the CPI (M) equated as one and the same by a section of intellectuals and human rights activists in West Bengal. A rally was organized in the Jadavpur area on 9th June to condemn 'the role of police and the ruling party (a party of police informers, in the opinion of the speakers)' and also express concern 'over the increasing fascist tendency of the government' (News Watch Bengal, Sanhati).
The same report tells us:
'After the program the news channel "Star Ananda" organised a open talk show in Town Hall in this matter. Some of the persons (intellectuals, third stream activists, human rights activists) from the program joined the talk show. They pointed out the above mentioned matters and similar instances which were unuttered in mainstream media'. (authors' emphasis)
This is where the first set of doubts appears. What kind of politics defines the so-called resistance to neoliberalism in West Bengal that espouses the Murdoch press in Bengal, Star Ananda, as alternate media?
This brings us to the third incident. What the report cited above fails to mention is that the faculty member of Jadavpur University affiliated to the CPI (M) was invited to the Star Ananda show and was subjected to what only can be best described as 'trial by media'. What it also fails to mention is that the concerned women admitted on camera that they had not seen this academic in the vicinity on the day and had no grounds to allege that he or his wife was related to the incident.
Have we heard any of the 'human rights' and 'third-stream ' [1] activists speak up publicly to defend the 'human right' of these two individuals affiliated to the CPI (M)? Hounding of individual CPI (M) activists is probably not a human right violation! This is where the second set of doubts appears. What is this human rights activism in West Bengal which is so selective about what it considers 'violation of human rights'?
This brings us to the first incident. The recent report of the one-person commission has failed to find any evidence to nail the arsonist(s) who engineered the burning down of the Science Club and the vandalizing of the premises of the trade union office in Jadavpur University.
But let us just recall the reactions to the incident when it took place. From triumphant celebration of the vandalism to absolute silence, the reactions were far ranging. Some members of the intelligentsia suggested dialogue and reasoning with the perpetrators instead of retribution and punishment. Now, if no one knew who the miscreants were, where did this opinion to protect vandals and arsonists from any form of punishment originate?
Of late, West Bengal has witnessed an intensification of political violence. The CPI (M) workers and supporters have been at the receiving end of this violence almost on all occasions. The targeted murder of CPI (M) activists predates the so-called 'resistance to neoliberalism' in Singur and Nadigram. In 2005-06, 89 CPI (M) activists were murdered.
The relentless attacks on CPI (M) supporters in Nandigram led to the killing of 27 CPI (M) supporters. This year, between 10th March and 19th May, in a span of two months, 29 CPI (M) activists and supporters have been murdered in different districts of West Bengal.
Between 12th and 22nd April 2008, 5 CPI (M) activists were gunned down by Maoists. A schoolteacher, Sridam Das who was a well-known campaigner against corruption in the Tantipara Gram Panchayat run by the grand alliance of the Congress, Trinamool Congress and the BJP was one such person among these 29 people. On June 16th, 2008, a local peasant leader of the CPI (M), Biswanath Mandi, was gunned down at Goaltor, West Medinipur district.
The Maoists have celebrated these murders and have not minced any words to declare that 'the historic struggle in Nandigram could be sustained because of the resistance of the armed militias' (Document of the CPI (Maoist) evaluating the 'Anti-SEZ Historical Nandigram Struggle', Februrary 2008). The Maoists also routinely leave leaflets and threats in the scene of crime after gunning down CPI (M) activists.
The mainstream media often does not report the systematic killing of CPI (M) supporters. When it does report these death-counts, it does so in a manner that completely dehumanizes and desensitizes the murder of CPI (M) supporters. When the murder of CPI (M) activists is not celebrated and justified outright, laconic presentation of such news ensures that it is regarded as an everyday event that need not bother the readers or the viewers.
But what about the telling silence of human rights activists? Are CPI (M) supporters subhuman or are they outside the 'framework of rights' that define what causes they will
espouse?
Of course, activists like Medha Patkar find time to visit the boiling scenes of Nandigram, Singur and even Darjeeling, but don't find time to even utter a single word of condemnation when the Gujjar protestors are gunned down by a BJP government, that too in very large numbers, the death-tolls being much higher than the outcome of the police firing in Nandigram. Neither have we heard of any protest from by these activists against mass scale felling of precious trees at Auli, Uttaranchal for a world ski competition to be held next year!
The guardians of 'human rights' in West Bengal clearly have a defined agenda. The next issue that has emerged once again is the question of women's security in West Bengal. Once again parallels are being drawn with Gujarat. The whole incident in Jadavpur has been depicted as 'victimization of women' who had to be 'rescued' while suppressing the question of political agency. One of the first persons to reach the venue was Anuradha Putotunda, a leading activist of the Party for Democratic Socialism and that is her public identity. However, the Indian Express suppressed this and described her as a 'social activist'.
We will come back to this later.
The five women who were subject to questioning by the police are committed political activists with distinct political affiliations. They have not denied their political connections. The subsequent counter-accusations have been directed against the All India Democratic Women's Association and an AIDWA activist has been singled out for witch-hunting. Indeed if there is no democracy and only 'fascism' in West Bengal how are such levels of political mobilization by women possible?
The guardians of women's rights in West Bengal also seem to have a very clear agenda.
The Real Agenda of Bourgeois Vitriol
That the multiple hues of anticommunism are uniting yet again to form a common platform against Communists is neither unfamiliar nor surprising. The anachronistic Maoists have once again resorted to a de-contextualised analysis based on the concept of 'social fascism' borrowed from the Comintern in the 1920s and 1930s. With the understanding that it is not the bourgeoisie or the semi-feudal ruling class, but the "social democratic" CPI (M) which is their main and only impediment in the course of the path to revolution, the "social democratic"
CPI (M) is the main target to be annihilated by acts of individual terror. For this, they can forge alliances with even the reactionary Trinamool (an ally of the BJP, the political face of the fascist RSS), the fundamentalist Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, crimson red SUCI[2] and everyone else under the sun on the basis of the so-called dynamic principles of "unity-struggle-unity" to liquidate the CPI (M)! The series of cold blooded murders of CPI (M) workers and sympathisers in the past one year is a clear example of this liquidation strategy.
The so-called deep red gentry among the academia, especially in Jadavpur University, theorize this strategy of singling out the CPI (M) as their target by endorsing the 'social fascist' thesis. Of course sections of this deep red gentry from academia help diluting this theory through their carefully confused statements of calling the CPI (M) simply fascist, dropping the word "social" and thus equating Bengal with Gujarat.
The BJP and its ally the Trinamool often propped up by the Congress at the grassroots level take this theory one step further by completely deleting the term "social" from their dictionary and calling the CPI (M) fascist and Stalinist at the same time.
The Murdoch media steps in with its propaganda machine running overtime to champion this idea of painting the CPI (M) as a Stalinist/fascist political formation and thus legitimising any attack on CPI (M) workers or sympathisers. Their vision is to manufacture a consensus that liquidation of the CPI (M) is a cause that every citizen should espouse. The cold blooded murders of the poor peasants, labourers, primary school teachers by the Maoists in the name of liquidating "social fascists" become legitimate acts of vengeance by peaceful people against Stalinist fascists, a very carefully manufactured consensus by the Murdoch media in connivance with the deep red gentry in academia.
The real agenda in all the assertions and accusations seems to be geared towards reaffirming the very familiar liberal imperialist vitriolic based on a thesis of 'totalitarianism':
Communist/Stalinist = Fascist. The long history of this liberal imperialist agenda is beyond the scope of this article, but let us just point to one historical consequence of this formulation.
The so-called Cold War against Communism in the post World War II period perpetrated by US and British imperialist policy were justified by this formulation [3]. The immediate fall-out was McCarthyism in the USA with the witch-hunting of Communists and Communist sympathizers.
The witch-hunting of the academic affiliated to the CPI (M) from Jadavpur followed by his trial by media certainly reeks of proto-fascist xenophobia.
The 'Discrete Charm' of the Coalition of the Willing
In the current context in West Bengal, what we have seen emerging is a rainbow 'coalition of the willing' – forged by a single obvious common precept – anticommunism. The common preoccupation that binds them together is CPI (M) bashing.
This coalition operates at various levels. At one level, a section of intellectuals and academics straddle the Murdoch Press. At another level, 'independent' and 'apolitical' fronts form motley alliances that can easily accommodate various ultra-left groups, as well as activists from the Congress, the Trinamool Congress along with the Hindu fascists and minority fundamentalist groups. The US Deputy High Commission has stood 'shoulder to shoulder' with the coalition and the US government has obliged by recording its disapproval of what it considers 'human rights violation' in West Bengal.
At the level of student politics, this 'coalition of the willing' has been the preferred form of organization in most liberal elite institutions against political formations that upheld the class agenda for almost two decades now since the 'anti-reservation' forums of 1989 that mobilized upper-caste students. At the level of grassroots politics, the grand alliance is more transparent in the collaboration of the Congress, the Trinamool Congress, Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, the BJP and the SUCI. The similarities with the political build-up in West Bengal in 1972 that led to the reign of five years of semi-fascist terror under the Congress and Vimochana Samaram in Kerala that led to the fall of the first Communist state government in 1959 are uncannily similar.
However, in the neoliberal context, there are two other levels at which this coalition is at work. With liberalisation and the subsequent restructuring of higher education, universities like Jadavpur are being pushed towards private sources of funding to sustain and extend research and course content. At the first level, this has meant that the preoccupations and predisposition of donors and funders become decisive in what kind of research is dominant.
Here human rights, politics of identity and the third-stream find pride of place. Thus a dialectical relationship between shaping politics and world-views and the nature of pettybourgeois political praxis gets reinforced through academic training and intellectual engagement. Upwardly mobile petty-bourgeois social 'networks' spanning the media, academia and not surprisingly the US Embassy prop up the 'openly political' grand alliance with claims of an 'apolitical social concern'. To sustain this, at the second level, one has to resort to hypocrisy and economies with truth. It is these kinds of compulsions that need to underplay the political roles of organisers in the anticommunist opposition and project them as 'social' activist. The 'social' is charmingly pristine while the 'political' is morally tainted.
Two examples should be sufficient to illustrate our contention:
First, Jadavpur University became a hotbed of 'resistance' to the Tata factory at Singur. Some students demonstrated their radical moorings by demolishing the glass facade of a Tata showroom in Kolkata. However, there has been no resistance to Tata funded projects in Jadavpur University. A section of academics and intellectuals who have either led or lent credence to the 'campus resistance' against big capital in Singur have actively sought, negotiated, and academically benefited from Tata funds.
Second, following up from the Star Ananda show, other media channels jumped in to the televised propaganda. Young well-known journalists and rising intellectuals discussed the 'lack of democracy' in West Bengal in a fashionable Park Street cafeteria. While each participant has a long history of activism either in ultra-left student organizations or the anti- CPI (M) 'independent' forums, they re-iterated their concerns as 'ordinary people who had no link with politics' and 'were forced now to take up moral cudgels because of the excesses by the CPI (M)'.
The discrete charm of our bourgeois intelligentsia negotiating social climbing with 'social concerns' lies in its blatant hypocrisy, rank opportunism, and ideological bankruptcy. Behind the gloss of the Murdoch press lurks a vicious and murky political agenda.
Everything is Connected
Whatever be the internal fault lines of the anticommunist coalition, the collective agenda of the Murdoch media with the right reactionary political formations is to topple the democratically elected Left Front government by replicating a 'vimochana samaram,' on the lines of what happened in Kerala in 1959. This very well funded anti-left platform is ready to go to all extremes to create a division between the CPI (M) and its core support base, using the growing chink that has been created of late through the sharpening of class contradictions under neoliberalism. Under no circumstances would they like to let go of this golden opportunity that has been in some ways handed to them on a platter. The ultra left with their opportunist politics make common cause against the communists, holding the hands of the reactionary forces, using Mao's "unity-struggle-unity" as their fig leaf.
However, the discerning people of West Bengal have tested and rejected such discretely charming appeals repeatedly since 1977. They will keep separating the wheat from the chaff based on their political consciousness shaped by a long history of struggle and resistance.
History after all does matter.
Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past. (Karl Marx)
Notes:
[1] Third stream activism has developed as a blanket marker for all political formations that seek to distinguish themselves from the dominant streams of politics in any given context. In general it has been associated with the forms, content and methods of 'civil society orgnisations' and 'new social movements'. In the Indian context, it has generally entailed a disavowal of left democratic politics. For an advocacy of such activism for Dalits, see http://www.sacw.net/2002/gatadeFeb03.html [2]. For an ultra-left endorsement, in the context of Singur and Nandigram, see http://www.cpiml.org/liberation/year_2007/February/singur_nandigram.html
[3]
[2]The Socialist Unity Centre of India (SUCI) is the self-proclaimed torch bearers of the 'glory of the international communist movement'.
[3] Norman, Markowitz, 'Totalitarianism': Fact or Fiction,
http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/5812/1/49/; [4] Ellen Schrecker, The Age of Mccarthyism: A Brief History with Documents, 2nd Edition (The Bedford Series in History and Culture); Eleanor Bontecou, The English Policy as to Communists and Fascists in the Civil Service, Columbia Law Review, Vol. 51, No. 5, Security and Civil Liberties (May, 1951), pp. 564-586;
Source URL: http://www.pragoti.org/hi/node/1523
Links:
[1] http://www.pragoti.org/hi/node/1522
[2] http://www.sacw.net/2002/gatadeFeb03.html
[3] http://www.cpiml.org/liberation/year_2007/February/singur_nandigram.html
[4] http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/5812/1/49/;