:: Saturday, October 12, 2002 ::

Dalitism:

Conrad, I am sympathetic to your desire to distinguish between Dalit struggles and those of OBCs (Other Backward Castes). However, I wonder to what extent the theoretical radicalism of Dalit ideas that you have outlined translates into actual political action. To what extent have Dalits resisted being coopted by the Indian political machine and particularly the policy of reservations? Why should we have faith that radical movements which seize positions of influence will behave according to their original principles? (For example, the Indian nationalist movement claimed it would develop a moral and ethical foreign policy once it gained independence, what happened to that vision even a few minutes after independence was achieved?). And what other ends are served by severing the ties and commonalities between different oppressed groups?

Although I know that you, Conrad, are a genuine supporter of the Dalit cause, I must say that many of the people that I have encountered who juxtapose Dalit struggles to OBC struggles do so as a way of delegitimating the latter's cause. I think that the Indian middle class is much more afraid of OBC's particularly those occupying the fringes of the petty middle class, as these groups are much more likely to take advantage of the policies of reservation and provide strong competition in a few generations.

This strategy of delegitimating the political demands of those groups which are most in a position to take advantage of social justice laws is a common strategy in many societies. In the US for example, one never ceases to hear stories of how poor "white" students were discriminated against by a quota system that gave scholarships to middle class or rich "black" students. The dominant factions in society are usually quite willing to grant concessions to the lowest classes but feel most intensely challenged when a group that can actually utilize the laws to their advantage demands concessions.

Certainly, we should listen for, amplify, and second those with the least voice in the political system. However, allowing the subaltern to speak need not require the marginalization of other victims of historical/caste oppression.

Desire and Repression:

I am not sure that I accept the repression hypothesis that is outlined in the post below. The idea that we are desiring subjects upon which power acts as a repressive force is an incomplete analysis of power. Desire is also produced by power; power is productive. Capitalism produces desire in subjects who come to see themselves as subjects of capital. Sexuality produces desire in subjects who come to see themselves a subjects of sexuality.

I do not accept the idea that non-violence to the extent that it entails the disciplining of desire is an inappropriate strategy for the poor and marginalized. There is not a limited quantity of desire in the subject; it is never the case that those who suffer have no desire left to discipline or "sacrifice." Desire can be and is produced through the subject from multiple discourses at any given moment. To say that we should not ask those who suffer to discipline their desire (i.e, to practice non-violence) is to underestimate and diminish the power of the oppressed. It also grants licence for violence.

I do agree that there are limits to when and where non-violent strategies can be operative. However, I do not agree that the Holocost was an unproblematic example. There is much documented evidence that German troops had a great deal of difficulty in sending German Jews to concentration camps. Would non-violent struggle work against a genocidal state? I think it depends on when the struggle commences. There is most likely a point at which appealing to the conscience of subjects of the state is unlikely to be effective and other tactics will necessarily have to be adopted.

:: Vikash Yadav 5:16 PM [Permanent Link] :: ::
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Gandianism, Non-Violence and the Dynamics of Change:

Vikash, in his post below, is quite right to focus on non-violence as a key part of Gandhi’s strategy and moral philosophy and also probably that which has the most relevance and interest to us today. When looking at Gandhi or the legacy of Gandhi one must distinguish between several different elements: there is the man himself and his political/historical role, there is then his moral philosophy and social theory and lastly there is Gandhianism – or rather what his self-professed disciplines, institutions actually did after his death when supposedly following his teachings. Now the first is quite easy to criticise as Vikash has alluded to some of Gandhi’s attitudes towards Dalits and the caste issue can be questioned – actually in my view they are just plain wrong and there is no getting around this fact. Then also as for what I term Gandhianism it is unfair to attack any thinker purely on the basis of what his followers did after his death and how people may have (mis) interpreted his ideas – though as well all know this is a tactic used by the right ad nauseam to attack oppositional ideologies like Marxism (how many times have we stood in a forum/discussion to bring up Marx to collective groans of “Oh no, just look at what happened in Russia”). So we should concentrate on his moral and social philosophies and thinking, of which non-violence is only a part; I still remain critical and unconvinced of much of the claims made for Gandhi in this sphere but they deserve a serious examination.

The Economy of Desire and Non-violence:

Vikash is quite right to bring out the radical aspects of Gandhian non-violence – specifically the way it forces the subterranean structural violence that under pins the social order to come out into the light of day. Also I concur fully that non-violence is a misnomer – it is not non-violent per se what it does do is displace violence from the external sphere to the internal. For Gandhi, the conflict in the physical external one was only a very pale mirror of the true conflict –that which takes place within the soul. The real battle is between our internal selves as we struggle to control our own propensity to reacting to violence with violence, as Vikash argues it takes some courage to withstand blows and not retaliate. It is really a Kurushektra of the soul – and for Gandhi it does no good to win the external battle if one loses the internal one and that it is not mere passivity but a way of countering the “will of the tyrant” with one’s one force. Yet I want to move beyond traditionalist understanding of Gandhian non-violence and any implicit dynamics of power and violence under which they can be examined and look instead at the problem through the economy of desire. Both the use of non-violence and violence are ways of expressing and channelling desire – desire can be shaped and given vent to and even resisted or denied but it can never be ignored or controlled completely. In this sense violence and non-violence are simply different ways of expressing desire and finding it an outlet – as Gandhi acknowledged the discipline of non-violence needed tremendous self-control, and will power and tamed normal outlets of desire that resulted in external violent action into internal resistance and struggling with oneself. But that is a displacement of the struggle from one sphere to another and where the combat that takes place is within one subject rather than being between different subjects – the struggle or expression of desire itself does not disappear.

This accounts for the curious relationship between non-violence and violence; as already remarked non-violence was actually first developed not by Gandhi but by the Extremist wing of the Nationalist movement, Aurobindo Ghosh in his tract “ The Doctrine of Passive Resistance” written after 1907 developed the idea further saying that such a course was the most realistic for the Indian freedom struggle at that time and counselled how it was not a mere surrender to the enemy but an active way of resisting him. The great difference for the Terrorist wing and the Gandhian wing in the Nationalist movement was one of tactics – for Gandhi non-violence was a creed though he offered it as a policy to others, for the Terrorist wing it was merely one way amongst many of participating in active resistance to colonial rule. In the Extremist philosophy what was of vital importance was the active nature of resistance to colonial rule and the undertaking of any method that would bring about its end sooner –they were quite willing to adopt non-violence as a tool and saw it as a form of active resistance, participating in large numbers in the 1920-22 Civil Disobedience movement. But as it was merely one form of resistance they were just was willing to switch to violent methods when deemed necessary – this points me to the heart of my argument, essentially Gandhian non-violence and Extremist violence follow the same economy of Desire. That is that they deal with desire in the same fashion, real terrorists in organisations like Jugantar and Anushilan Samiti were instructed not to hate the enemy in personal or collective terms, in fact they were to be as dispassionate as possible about the struggle. Any feeling of personal vendetta or settling scores looked suspiciously like Romantic Anarchism to Extremists which they disliked; rather like Leninist party workers, the Cause was the all and all ends including one’s own subjectivity would be made subordinate to that fact. Not dissimilar in several ways to the same logic of desire that Gandhian self-control advocated with its exhortation not to seek self-aggrandisement, how in serving others one should remove any personal hubris from one’s actions and how hatred of any opponent or enemy was not to be sanctioned.

I also think this is why there a close relationship between those who practise self-disciplinary methods of resistance and the use of non-violence. For example we know how Malcolm X was impressed with non-violence and used it in his movement, despite the fact that one could hardly call him a Gandhian. Other tactics like the fast to the death was used by other terrorist groups – I remember the case of Bobby Sands the IRA gunman who when imprisoned, undertook a fast to the death, when the British prison authorities decided to stop treating IRA prisoners as political prisoners and class them as ordinary criminals. Sands was elected as an MP from prison and continued his fast, he died in prison from starvation despite attempts top force-feed him. Other examples do not come to mind immediately but I do think it is interesting how non-violence can be used by those who one would not normally think of as being non-violent – again I think because they subscribe to the same economy of desire. They also perform the same object of bringing out or calling out the hidden violence in society – the massacre of 123 French settlers at Phillipeville by the FLN on August 20 1955, was an act carried out by a small guerrilla organisation with little support and no mass base. The massive and indiscriminate retaliation by the French authorities served to eliminate most of the moderate Muslims and popularise the FLN and cause internal divisions within the French side. In Algeria it marked the start of a bloody civil war where the hidden and structural violence upon which the French colonial state rested was brought out into the open further polarising the Algerian community along ethnic and nationalistic lines. There is also the insistence on the means justifying the ends in Gandhian thought – good ends cannot justify bad means and Gandhi frequently called out non-violent demonstrations if he thought that there was even a small chance of violence breaking out. This is a laudable aim, but it is dangerous to privilege means over ends in such a way. Any approach which claims that means must prefigure ends can be criticised for ignoring the beginnings that all means have. For means do not only reflect their desired ends but also their origins – and are doubly determined both by their starting point and their putative destinations. For example the justice of the Palestinian cause cannot be negated or nullified by the iniquity of the means used to further such a goal. This does not mean one should condone terrorism or that certain causes have an ahistorical element of justice about them but that when fighting against an established system such as slavery or fascism the means used will have some relationship to the mode of exploitation and oppression it seeks to resist.

Of course there are limits to what non-violence could do, I mean even Gandhi acknowledged that it was the particular legal-rational framework that British rule rested on that made it such an effective tool, as did media exposure and demographic. In an alternative scenario like totalitarian society non-violence as a creed would be self-defeating and even as a policy unworkable (I think it is unfair to quote Gandhi’s advice to the Jews in Nazi Germany on this regard, but indicative of the limits). Furthermore I think it is a weapon that is most effective at achieving political goals not social or economic transformation. For example when mobilising the poor/marginalised I feel a little uncomfortable at putting the onus of suffering again onto groups that have already endured some much of it – the whole concept of sacrificing and channelling one’s desire in non-violence already has some class element implicit in it; for an individual who regularly experiences physical violence, is half-starved and suffers from recurring morbidity there is no sacrifice of desire to offer, as involvement in a non-violent agitation would just mean more of the same daily experience. For the experience of hardship non-violence entails to mean something there is an implicit assumption that one does not suffer and endure these indignities in the normal daily life of the individuals – for the middle-class executive it is a self-disciplining exercise to go on a demonstration to agitate where one might experience police brutality, confinement in unhygienic conditions and malnutrition – for a rickshaw puller or sweeper to participate in such an agitation would simply involve encountering disabilities and violence that happen in daily life anyway –where is the sacrifice here. The burden of adjustment is not quite the same.

For Gandhi moreover, non-violence was not just a policy or a tactic but a creed to live by. This also fed into his rather incorrect interpretation of Hinduism, which was quite orthodox laying stress on elements such as the need to avoid cow killing and the belief that somehow meat consumption promotes violence. The influence of vegetarianism and the concept of ahimsa can be traced back to the impact of Jainism on Indic thought; indeed many of Gandhi’s ideas were derived from Jainism. More specifically the Jain concept of not drawing on other life forces – this was taken to great extremes, as many Jain saints and recluses actually starved themselves to death, given that even consumption of plants and mineral drew on energy and life sources outside themselves. Gandhi echoes this in his reluctance to consume even vegetarian fare adequately and his comment that he would consume nothing if possible (his daily diet meant that he had a calorific intake of only 800kcal, well below the 1,100 recommended by the WHO for normal adult males who don’t do manual labour). Of course this runs into several problems in Gandhian notions of society as it undermines the logic of capitalism and of any system of social stratification – as it is considered immoral to enjoy the fruits of the labour of others, something Dalit thinkers have taken Gandhians and Hindu thinkers to task for.

The Panopticon and Strategies of Resistance:

Like Vikash, I think that the architecture of the Panopticon casts its ominous shadow of much of what we write and think when looking at problems in our own era of late modernity. Vikash also maps out the potential pitfalls in any simple strategy of confrontation very well; however, I think it is a mistake to elide the discourse of the OBCs in the Backward Caste movement from that of the Dalit discourse –the two are very different and have different aims. In particular I think we should differentiate the Dalit discourse from the others as it contains certain elements not really found in the discourse of other anti-establishment movements in India. For the Dalit movement and the Ambedkarite one, the aim is not move up or to invert the caste hierarchy but to destroy it, and any social mobility or change is only the first stage of a complete transformation of Indian society. This is why in Ambedkarite and Dalit thought the origins and historical interpretations of caste society is very different from that of the Backward castes – rather than seek to invent constructed histories whereby they were originally upper castes who by warfare or trickery moved down the caste hierarchy, Dalit thought locates the position of Dalits in the past as members of a society that was antagonistic to Vedic and Indo-Aryan society and which was ordered on a different basis. Looking back to the ancient epics such as the Ramayana or Mahabharata, Backward castes such as the Yadavs or Kurmis would seek to construct their heritage within the Sanskritic tradition whereby they could linked to the Kshatriyas or other dwija social groups; the Dalit interpretation on the other hand is far more interesting as they locate their origins within precisely those groups that have been traditionally vilified in the epics – eg the Asuras, Rakhshas, forest dwellers etc. In the Buddhist and Jain versions of the Ramayana for example, the Rakhshas are not demonised but seen to follow a very different pattern of society from the Sanskritic Gangetic culture of the Indo-Aryans – characterised by loose patterns of authority, nomadic lifestyles and different notions of sexuality and morality. In many synonymous with what one could imagine differences between the Amerindians and the early white settlers in North America was; the Rakhshas are not linked to any clear political entity or state, there is no concept of boundaries in their lands and they wander freely and interminably – the city of Lanka is bounded by water and the area under Ravaan’s control unlike the Kosala kingdom is never clearly defined, Rakhshas lineages are distributed over a very wide area with kinship rather than territorial proximity linking them and in place of a strong monarchical system Rakhshas function as an oligarchy with the term gana often associated with them. Though there is no shortage of wealth amongst the Rakhsha society of Lanka there is never any mention of caste among the Rakhshas. Many historians feel that the epics juxtapose two different systems the monarchical and the chieftainships, loose federations – obviously endorsing the former against the latter. In the Jain epic, Ravaan is actually celebrated as a defender of Jain shrines, is brave and handsome and has the ability to fly; brahmanas are seen as heretics and frauds and the most respected social groups are the merchants and princes, with maximum reverence reserved for Jain munshis, forest dwelling ascetics and Buddhist preachers. The point of this lengthy historiographical detour is that the Dalits and the OBCs have very different projects in mind and this reflects their interpretation of history and their politics. Ambedkar saw the dilution of direct political representation and safeguards as a serious defeat to the Dalit movement after the Poona Pact and the problems in passing the Hindu Code bill through Parliament; reservations in the public sector were a second best prize and his speeches and writing are replete with warning to the Dalit movement that it cannot rely on job representation in the public sector alone but must also attack directly political inequality and economic inequality. Nationalisation of industries, land reform and wage regulation are an important part of Ambedkar’s thinking; by contrast OBC movements have concentrated on winning reservation in the Public sector, through the Mandal report simultaneously with gaining increasing representation in state legislatures in key states, the agenda for other economic or social reform is not a primary issue in this movement. Dalit discourse also is very important for its cultural thinking and denial of what are termed as Brahminnic influences on culture – such as the expensive penchant for rituals, expenditure of money for conspicuous consumption at public events like marriages, expression of language – use of greetings that do not mark out another persons ascriptive status: all these do have a desire to change the ethical and personal lives of individuals directly. This is also why there is a Dalit movement in literature which aims to capture some of these elements in Dalit thinking through poetry and prose and exploring themes of oppression, freedom, reform, loss and the lived experience of so many of the toiling masses. A last element that should be mentioned is the serious critique of patriarchy made within Dalit discourse specifically attacking the bias against women in inheritance and family structures, patriarchical notions of women in marriage and sexuality and the lack of control women have over their own lives and bodies. All these I feel mean that the Dalit discourse deserves to be treated separately from most other movements aimed at reforming/changing the nature of Indian society. With regards to the Backward Caste movement, we should draw a distinction between a movement which is by nature a rebellion/revolt and seeks to replace one set of rulers with another and movements like the Dalit one which are really revolutions in that they seek not just to replace the existing rulers but to change the whole base and structure of social and economic relations within society. In the metaphor of the Panopticon, they seek not to replace the watchers in the tower but to destroy the architecture of the Panopticon itself. Of course a Foucauldian could argue that this is illusory and that any freedom is only temporary, as no sooner is one Panopticon destroyed that sooner or later another will be constructed in its place. This may be true, though one would still need to differentiate those movements, which seek to destroy existing panopticons from those, which seek to capture them, and that there would still be that moment of freedom when the old Panopticon has been destroyed and the new one not yet constructed – a small rupture in the edifice of remorseless control. Needless to say I think an alternative approach is required to move out of the shadow of the panotpicon but that is something again we can discuss at a later date.

:: Conrad Barwa 1:48 PM [Permanent Link] :: ::
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The Nature of Naturalized Citizenship

I am increasingly upset at the way in which the media is covering domestic incidents related to the war on terrorism. There seems to be a new telegraphic code for "brown people" and this is the word "naturalized citizen" or else "a citizen of XYZ descent." I find these code words to be incredibly insulting when mentioned in media reports as they project/reify a serious bias in society. By mentioning the birth or heritage of a suspect/victim one seems to implicitly explain why the incident happened -- without discussing the word "race" or "racism." The mention of nationality almost seems designed to reassure or reconfirm people's suspicions. For example, when suspects are detained in Buffalo for no actual crime, we are told that they were of Yemeni descent/birth. Why is this an important fact? Why is it mentioned? Am I supposed to excuse the violation of these people's rights because I am told that they were born outside of this country. When medical students are pulled over in Florida because of the hysterics of a waitress, am I supposed to assume that the heritage/religion/dress of those young men gave the police probable cause to pull them over and harrass them for hours?

Either someone is a citizen or they are not a citizen. By mentioning that a person was naturalized, one reduces the process of naturalization from a legal status to a quasi-probationary status. By mentioning the ethnic heritage of a suspect one essentially accuses an entire immigrant community of disloyalty. In essence, the media is attempting (perhaps unwittingly) to revoke the citizenship of naturalized citizens and the children of recent immigrants.

It is unfair to attempt to explain a suspect's political views on the basis of their birthplace, nationality, or heritage. It is reductionist to assume that because a person is from country X it is plausible to believe that they subscribe to ideological position Y. This amounts to little more than an intellectual form of racial profiling.

The media is engaged in a very shallow form of pop-psychology. The fact that reports were circulated in reputable news outlets that the "American Taliban," John Walker, may have been a homosexual seems to be a shallow attempt to personalize and demonize political action rather than engaging the person's political beliefs.

The most objectionable aspect of this discourse is the asymmetric way in which it is applied. I do not ever recall any journalist discussing Timothy McVeigh's heritage, even though it is plainly evident from his last name. Most Americans would find the suggestion that a last name like McVeigh explains a person's political view to be an absurd line of reasoning. And this is precisely the point. If it would have been ridiculous to draw linkages between McVeigh's European ancestry and his radical beliefs, it is equally ridiculous to draw the same conclusions about any "naturalized" citizen or descendent of recent immigrants.

:: Vikash Yadav 12:28 AM [Permanent Link] :: ::
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Dr. Rajcoomar to Sue:

According to news reports and the Florida chapter of the ACLU it looks like the doctor who was arrested and jailed for watching air marshalls too closely will sue the US government. Here is the story from CNN - Asia:

The marshals brought the passenger, who had been sitting in economy class, to first class, where Dr. Rajcoomar and his wife were seated. Then one of the air marshals brandished a gun and told all passengers not to leave their seats until the plane landed. (News reports indicate that the whole event had a Rambo-like feeling.) When the plane landed, the unruly passenger was taken off the flight. So was Dr. Rajcoomar, who was yanked from his seat, handcuffed and thrown into jail. The marshals did not tell his wife what was happening; she wandered around the airport for hours, not knowing what had become of her husband. Later reports from the Department of Transportation Security -- the agency that supervises marshals -- said that Dr. Rajcoomar was jailed because he had "watched the event too closely" or "observed the event too closely." But it seems hardly surprising that he -- and indeed, any other passenger -- would have paid close attention to what was occurring. After all, their lives seemed to be in danger. [read more...]

:: Vikash Yadav 11:34 PM [Permanent Link] :: ::
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Gandhi vs. Romantic Gandhianism:

Conrad's general critique of the appropriation of Gandhi is on target. Even though I consider myself an admirer of Gandhi, I agree that some of his positions in regard to women and dalits deserves critical scrutiny. Gandhi should not be worshipped or iconized, he should be studied. I agree that Romantic Gandhianism (i.e, Volunteerism) is a diluted and utterly conservative (i.e., "pwo-gwessive") strategy utilized by the middle classes to resist social and economic change.

However, I must take issue with the insinuation that Gandhi's idea of non-violence was an acceptable form of protest in relation to the colonial or post-colonial state. Gandhi's non-violence must not be equated in the least with passivity. Non-violence is active resistance to social and economic structures in order to force change. Non-violence means confrontation. Non-violence requires even more strength than violence as one must be willing to seek out and take blows from one's adversary rather than inflict them. The idea of non-violence as articulated by Gandhi is the most impressive reworking of the economy of violence since Machiavelli attempted to make the use of violence by the Prince "efficient." Gandhi's strategy elicits and excites violence and thereby forces the ossified violence in society to become manifest. Non-violence sublates structural violence by summoning it forth.

I am also not comfortable with the idea that a personal ethic is ineffective as a strategy for change. First, I am skeptical that a confrontation to capture positions of power is actually the proper path. In fact, I would argue that the state is like the Panopticon, it functions through a similar set of strategies regardless of who occupies the tower. Would social justice really improve if only Dalits or OBCs, or other minorities were in charge? I am not so sure, except that some old wrongs might be inverted. Second, I think that capillary or micro-strategies such as the development of one's ethics (i.e., one's relation to oneself), are useful in transforming the world. Although I probably have a very different conception of what ethics are and how ethics can work to transform the political. We could discuss this more at a later point.

I do however share Conrad's disgust with the now popular "myth of Hindu passivity" that is being bandied about by BJP and RSS types. This is a pernicious lie that is used to justify the most fascist attitudes and behaviors. It is not surprising that this anxiety about passivity is a common trait amongst militarist (e.g., contemporary Israeli) and fascist (e.g., Germany post-WWI) societies.

:: Vikash Yadav 5:24 PM [Permanent Link] :: ::
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Re: Gandhi's Anniversary

Vikash’s post below and reminders elsewhere of Gandhi’s 55th anniversary have made me go back and think about my own view of this influential figure. I recall some comments I had made in another forum on the same topic:

When I look at Gandhi’s debates with four interlocutors: Jinnah, Tagore, Ambedkar and Subhas Bose I cannot help but feel he came off worse in all of these debates – read the correspondence between these figures much of which has been published and is accessible. With Jinnah, I feel in many ways Jinnah’s fears have come true in asserting that it was not possible for Muslims or dangerous for them to live in a Hindu majority India. The situation today increasingly makes Jinnah look less foolish and paranoid – now, I am no supporter of Jinnah but it was a crucial failure that in the rather limited elections that took place before Independence, the Muslim League was able to gain ground, obviously it was up to the Congress at the time to gain the confidence of the Muslim electorate – in this they failed. I personally feel that Partition was a great tragedy and any other alternative would have been preferable. Moreover, on issues like the use of religion in politics, Khadi, swadeshi etc. I cannot but help that Tagore was far more perceptive than Gandhi. Similarly on the issue of the Dalits, social discrimination and the nature of the polity I think Ambedkar again has been proven more insightful by history. A lot of Gandhi’s programme also strikes me as utopian and unrealistic – the idea of independent village republics; well this debate has already been done with Gandhi and Ambedkar, needless to say I think Ambedkar was far more perceptive in capturing the reality of Indian villages at the time than Gandhi was. With the arrival of Modernity and Capitalism I just don’t think many Gandhi’s plans for India after independence would have worked and this is forgotten in the many paeans sung in his name. Not that Nehruvian Socialism worked any better necessarily for India – but then Nehru again was clearly the chosen successor of Gandhi, left to themselves I think the Congress would have rather chosen someone like Vallabhai Patel as PM.

Looking back I despite arguments to the contrary by those who have a high regard for Gandhi, I still feel the same way. I think Ambedkar’s tract after the Poona Pact – “What Gandhi and Congress have done to the Untouchables” was a masterpiece of political analysis for the Dalit community and the last 50 years have largely borne out Ambedkar’s view and stand. Gandhi’s uses of the fast unto death also makes me uncomfortable as it strikes me as a very unpleasant form of moral blackmail. And his “faddism” for various things is also something overlooked by many admirers though it was well known to followers like Nehru at the time.

I suppose though what rankles me most is the traditional leftist critique of all such moral leaders – I am always reminded of Charles Dickens and his crusade against the seamy side of Victorian England in its moral hypocrisy, extreme poverty and inequality, shabby treatment of orphans, single women, indigent families and basically anyone who didn’t have wealth or pedigree to buy societal approval. Anyone who reads his novels can see that he was a harsh, one of the harshest critics of the socio-economic system and moral values of his time. Yet he was also just as harsh on reformers and those came up with what were in his view grand schemes for the upliftment of the poor, society oppressed etc. all such figures are somewhat caricatured in many of his works – eg in Bleak House the boarding lady who houses orphans and organises poor relief doesn’t even know how many children live in her mansion or what they are doing. Other examples escape me at the moment but much of Dickens’ criticism rested on the argument that such attempts tended to reify the objects of help – who then lost their humanity and became de-subjectivsed and more ominously that all such attempts for a host of reasons were doomed to eventual failure. The main reason for this being the fact that the root cause for Dickens was not the social structure or system but what he saw as human nature and individual morality – until this changed he felt other reforms were merely addressing the symptoms not the malady itself. So Dickens, though seen by some as a conservative, in my eyes was really a moral crusader not dissimilar in his attitude to the social and moral problems of his day than Gandhi – both focused on the need for personal and individual change as the way to revitalise and reform society.

Now my response to this is quite jaundiced, and is the same response given by Marx and Engels in the Manifesto – essentially that this is the oldest and most misguided trick in the book – the belief that somehow individuals can morally reform themselves and thereby effect social change – especially in the long term. By concentrating on the individual and by elevating the moral over the political, social and economic I think any progressive energy is dissipated and prevented from coalescing in a powerful collectivities for change. In some sense I think Vikash’s point about how Gandhism can be appropriated by Capitalism is precisely the danger inherent in its own conception – isn’t this the kind of opposition Capitalism wants to its own value system – all nice and fluffy and non-violent and sanitised; there as the “official opposition” to show that the system as a whole does permit freedom to its subjects but in reality is a dependent opposition with no hope of ever actually gaining power or posing a serious threat to the foundations of the existing social structure. Now I am not impugning Gandhi’s intentions or Dickens for that matter but I think this is the ultimate nature of all such individual-moral-spiritual movements. The performance of the Congress after independence and even the Constituent Assembly debates which formulated the Constitution reflects this. There were nods towards Gandhian ideals like Khadi industry, village uplift programmes and the like but the essential thrust of economic and political policy was very different. The white Khadi pyjama kurta uniform of the Congress politician once meant to symbolise poverty, self-discipline and incorruptibility quickly became a joke as it became associated with the exact office in public life – even notoriously corrupt and morally bankrupt politicians today make it a point to appear in such attire though everyone knows how hollow the symbolism is. This is also another reason why I respect Ambedkar so much as if you see any picture of him he is always dressed in a western suit with a shirt and tie – Ambedkar who actually came from a very poor and deprived background understood that to offer hope and the promise of change to the masses who live in poverty, adopting their lifestyle on a purely symbolic level was ineffectual at best. Ironically, Gandhi, Nehru and much of the Congress leadership came from anything but poor backgrounds. This is also why I think Gandhi is so beloved by the moderate Hindu middle-classes; who genuinely don’t want any open conflict with Muslims/Dalits but who will not give up any of their established socio-economic privileges to allow changes in the inegalitarian nature of Indian society. Gandhi salves their troubled consciences without threatening them with the danger of forcible redistribution or actual socio-economic change from below or from above. It is in short a doctrine of romantic voluntarism.

Another rather disturbing trend of opinion that I have noticed being voiced by middle-class Hindus – is the view that while Gandhi was a great man and should be honoured that somehow India espoused his non-violent doctrine in the realm of foreign affairs and in its general dealings with other nations and thus was the ever tolerant Hindu always taken advantage of by unscrupulous outsiders – I frequently hear this in connection with India’s betrayal by China over Aksai Chin and tolerance towards Pakistan’s support of terrorism. Needless to say India’s own provocations to China (like Krishna Menon’s irresponsible statements and Nehru’s ill-planned forward policy) and failure to democratise Kashmir is ignored. This is again I think the projection of an insecure Hindu middle class both within and outside India, who feel threatened and use the excuse of a Gandhian India wronged by all and sundry as a way of explaining India’s current beleaguered position and diverting attention away from actual mistakes that were made as well as the highly inegalitarian nature of India society and the limited role the state has played in tackling this. The solution for them is plainly a more assertive and strong (obviously Hindu) India – I think we all know what this means in reality.

…Still I feel I may be too harsh on Gandhi, if not on Gandhianism….


:: Conrad Barwa 9:58 AM [Permanent Link] :: ::
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