Inside Gotham City: my last prose on Nandigram

Dear CM Saar, It is pathetic!

Not your, my state (pun thoroughly intended).

I am one of those misguided/misinformed/elitist member of “sushil samaj” (this coinage is killing me! your party says ABP coined it and ABP disowned it today laying the responsibility of its authorship on you; isn’t that symptomatic?) who walked in the Nov 14 rally and being currently lambasted by the pens and tongues of your party. I can take one sample lambast penned by Sakyajit Bhattacharya, in a website hosted by one of my friends and expose myself to it. The writer, while teaching us the basics of Antonio Gramsci, says

The development of capitalism helped the way of forming an enlightened group of neo-bourgeoisie that could place its demands to the state. But India has different class character. In a semi-capitalist semi feudal structure, where capital can’t develop in its full growth, where industrial strength and agrarian reform have not been fully achieved, enlightened civil society can’t be formed. If such a structure is being set up by force, it gives birth to a degenerated form of mixed class, where a section of petty bourgeoisie walks hand in hand with the lumpen bourgeoisie. This is due to the mixed character of Indian capital, where national capital coexists with its comprador counterpart.
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The extremely forced perception of forming a civil society gives birth to a caricature, ‘Sushil Samaj’. Different in class character, this structure matches with civil society in various respects, like trying to dominate mass consciousness, protecting status quo and placing itself diametrically opposite to peasants and working class.

I have developed this masochist trend these days. Could have read all those ABP publications including The Telegraph from where I quote now and then (not because I rely on them, but because I find it handy as a source of news in English) or The Statesman or numerous other blogs against the Nandigram atrocities, could have watched their pet channels 24 hours a day, but I read CPI(M)’s Ganashakti (official vernacular daily), Aajkaal (unofficial vernacular daily), watch your channel (unofficial), read your sites and get assailed. Senior Blogger Arjun Sen probably – although in a different way – is going through these pains. I am sure he is not reading the latter, rather going through the former media and bearing a heavy brunt of pain as evident in his latest posts. We are pathetic masochists, always ready to lose our points of pleasurable identifications.

In the last prose under this category I will identify with your words; I will consider everything the quoted writer writes as my portrait. So it begins with a classification of me: me, “a petty bourgeoisie” walked hand in hand with “the lumpen” in the Nov 14 rally, “trying to dominate mass consciousness, protecting status quo and placing itself diametrically opposite to peasants and working class”. Hey! I am so close to the privileged but I am not feeling it…I am uncomfortably numbed!

Should continue quoting him:

The forced perception of forming a civil society to protect the interest of the ruling class is evident in the reaction of that rally. The intelligentsia told that they don’t want any politics there. No political party should come in that rally. ABP was overjoyed in that statement. That was what they have long craved for. A society without any political consciousness, a group of individuals that would do away with all party politics. Such an arena would be ideal for the free flow of capital, for unhampered activity of open market- the dreamland of ABP. Look at the ABP reports on that rally. The main focus was the ‘apolitical’ nature of ‘Sushil Samaj’. The bourgeoisie, without all political consciousness, would command the peasants and working class about their welfare, would fight, within its limitation, for constitutional rights like right to information, peace for all, legal justice etc and we, the not so civil part of the society would be overjoyed at this new revolution! Peasants and workers can’t understand their welfare, and political parties are too corrupt to achieve that job. Hence this enlightened class would tell the peasants about their good! Bravo! What an elitism!

I maintain the rally was political, but not under the umbrella of known political parties. Of course, it is a fuzzy (because we are in a flux of history where known formations are melting away) process of building an alternative left forum. It might feature anti-leftists, because no one is in command over the formations now. Okay! No one in your party believes my conviction, should not believe it, because that is the attitude when a political formation becomes an institution. But we “command(ing) the peasants and working class”, “tell(ing) the peasants about their good”?! And not you who is doing that? I thought we were reacting against something horribly wrong, not tutoring anybody! And it is not you, but us creating “an arena would be ideal for the free flow of capital, for unhampered activity of open market” for the last decade or so?! Surprises!

But, again, specter of Gramsci goes on haunting! A major piece of Gramsci’s project is to show that civil society’s ways of establishing and organizing human relationships and consciousness are deeply political, and should in fact be considered integral to class domination. The more it pretends to maintain distance from politics, the more its practice of hegemony protects the interest of the bourgeoisie.
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Today the media houses direct our cultural lives. They purchased the chunk of intelligentsia with bundles of money. The ‘Sushil Samaj’ is now just a puppet at their hand. It will do exactly what it is being ordered. The intellectual prostitution would earn publicity, and media houses would happily employ paparazzi to snap the pictures for printing in the first page. Media, in this capitalist mode, understands only one thing, which is money. If it sees that supporting the Left Front would raise the sell, it would convert to die-hard Left-Front supporter from tomorrow. And their pet intellectuals would then laud Buddhadeb Bhattacharya as a true human face! Nothing ideology there! It is like horse-trading. The corporate that can bid the highest money would trap most of the intellectuals, and then they would utter the words of their lord.

I don’t feel being purchased by the media houses. I don’t own “bundles of money” (would have been happy if I did). I am a member of the intelligentsia, my profession defines me as being so, and I know – for the last 30 years – it is your party and its financial collaterals (I will not define it) which purchased the consent of the cream of the sphere I belong to; their flats in the Golf Greens and Salt Lake cities, their cushy positions in the committees and other bodies, their rise in the cultural ladder. I am sure the position I am taking these days will harm me in my career, block my promotions and deprive me of many privileges which I could have enjoyed! I have seen it all…I know I am not being bought, but I am devaluating my social value. And when will your writers stop pretending that you and the ABP are foes? But since you say so, this must be my predicament in the coming days, being bought by the corporate, selling my ass to them to mouth their speeches, hope the blog remain alive to witness those days of my glory!

Still, a line can be drawn between these intellectuals. One part of them are dedicated anti-lefts and we hope that they will continue to be like that for rest of their life. But there is another big section who are confused. Lost touch with reality, they are basically dependent on electronic media.Their main problem is alienation from real world, from fellow beings. Alienation in this capitalistic world gives birth to crisis of political identity. That is why the rally of Wednesday was rally of the individuals. No one could communicate with others.

That is the main character of our ‘Sushil Samaj’. They are not apolitical, rather directed by Power in order to maintain the status quo. They would not hesitate to stand against the interest of peasants if Power directs them to do so. Yes, so-called leftists would also then join that rally of hatred. They would not hesitate to vent slanders and lies against the communist party if their lords tell them to do so. They would not shake in uttering some very few big lies and repeating them again and again, if they find that to be gainful for their owners.

Ah! The final consolation: we are a “confused” bunch of clueless kids heated up by the Goebbellic (as the writer describes at the end of his article) media and one fine morning rabble-rousing! But I felt that Nov 14 was that rare day when I felt consolidated, not alienated from my fellow-beings. I became alienated from my earlier fellow-beings, your partymen, long long ago, and believe me, it was a relief! Because I started identifying with the underdogs from that moment onwards.

Because I decided that I will never appear at that pool-circled rear side of Nandan (believe me, I do have the chances and privileges to), where I watched your glitterati having a ball on Nov 14, all your stars who will appear in the next day’s ‘counter-rally for peace’ (such a predictable list, we were having another ball as we predicted those names and seeing them appear and three policemen perched themselves behind us sniffing miscreants). I watched them: they smelt wonderful I am sure, the ladies were so smoochably cuddly but boringly predictable; I watched Mrinal Sen gliding in, back from our rally, probably promising his presence in your rally; I watched how beautiful your intelligentsia were and I never felt that I am being paid by some big media corporation for not being there. When I read articles like this, where an discussion on Nandigram boils down to virulent commie-bashing (with a peculiar aside that only your party and the CII, the indigenous capitalists’ formation, are critical of the hullabaloo we created for the past two weeks) I do become confused. When I read Arjun Sen’s warnings, I do become confused. I don’t want the current opposition coming to power (a little bird said that they never will, ‘coz they define the status quo of what and how you are!) and my words and actions aiding them.

But during occasions when I see that little poolside party from the fences (literally) I don’t remain confused. Whatever your scribes say like the above I know they are lying too and they are goddamn lying! As if we are disrupting the revolutionary passage of rites undergone by party of the underprivileged and disrupting their way towards socialism. How long will your scribes go on lying? Immersing their faces inside the ponds – as if they are the next phase of Narcissus’s moment – and mouthing slanders hackneyed by themselves and hearing their own bubbled blubbers? Say that we are disrupting the process of industrialization by a liberal democratic govt and whatever boons they ought to deliver to my class and I am ready to believe you, but how long will the pretensions like I have quoted above and those poolside parties continue?

But your scribes’ language and your hardliners’ foul-mouths hurts. I am not a political writer; I am not competent in those sorts of reasoning and I never pretend to be so in this blog. I am an ordinary man dedicated to arts and love, I have my sufferings and woes and little joys like discovering a well-written piece one fine morning. But I have the ability to feel others’ pains and the inability to comprehend harsher means for some fuzzy historical ends which you took resort to in Nandigram. Therefore I reacted so vehemently without regrets. I saw wretched bodies wounded and dead and I couldn’t digest that they were class-enemies; I know they voted you to power in those constituencies. I wonder why they became pawns in the hands of the reactionaries. I know the dead and wounded whom you tout as your victims (now what does that mean?) look similar, that they were neighbors; I wonder why they fought. I understand the uncontrollable infightings and deplore both sides, I refuse to understand ‘unavoidable planned execution of violence in large scale by professionals’. I understand your headaches, but I refuse to understand your sounds like a clannish chief. But I have written my enough. Your descriptions of what I am is nauseating and I stop ranting about these issues in my blog. I will gulp my vomit instead.

So I am ending by balancing things: I have visualised them so long, this is us walking in a ‘new sunrise’ at Nandigram, as your party chieftain described it, after the scum was flushed out. It looks like a homecoming, like returning to cleaner roots.

Worthwhile, Moinak Biswas’s response to fellow-blogger Radicalhypocrite about “what to do now”:

…‘what are we to do’ is a question blowing in whispers. A ground is being cleared where we shall be able to ask the correct questions. Many of us feel that the first step should be a rethinking of the terms in which we have sought the answers so far. This is necessary since questions regarding the political, the public, or the form of mobilization are pressing themselves back into the streets. We cannot afford to lose this momentum in favour of an outworn language of politics or structures of organization that have been historically emptied of meaning. The most usual conundrum is about who comes to power if the Left Front is removed by a popular mandate. That other available parties are unacceptable seems to impose a paralysis on many. I do not think it is an irrelevant question, but this is precisely the point where we should recognize we do not have the luxury of just pressing the button of choice and solve the problem, either way. The point is, the outrage should lead us to question our inheritance of ineffectual languages and structures of politics before we come closer to the image of an alternative. In the aftermath of March 14, it was quite appalling sometimes to hear students shouting slogans staying with us since the seventies. This time the mammoth procession just walked silently. Without suggesting silence as a privileged form I would like to think, at least for now, that this was an advance. We felt the need to dissolve an exhausted idiom into silence before we shouted new slogans. One shouldn’t be wary of the apolitical slant of the demonstration on Rizwanur Rahman much for the same reason. A space is being cleared, which will have to be occupied in a creative way. Alternatives have to be forged.

20/11/2007

I was responding to an article and I wrote something really long. It goes on like this…

One should thank Badri Raina for writing something contemplative and introspective, not something offensive while being defensive.
I am addressing a typical comrade out there.
I am someone who has shown considerable impatience regarding the Marxist political party which is involved in the events and its collateral govt in my blog and am not in a position to change my views overnight(I have tried to, I have been tried and I know the arguments). This article puts me into a contemplative mood as someone who was once associated with this party’s student-wing and as someone who has voted it to power and probably, with certain bitterness, will do so again. I am trying to keep myself short trying not to repeat what the writer had already said.
The dissenters in Nandigram should be treated as ‘people’, not as beings who floated to another party. If you consider them as people, one can question oneself why did they do so. Why didn’t they have faith? Was it a backlash of several years of ill-treatment? Some writers here know more than me how the party functions to maintain its power. They might shut me down but they know more than me and I have also heard some and seen some. It is hard to convince that the BUPC supporters out there were class-enemies. If you consider them merely as political-opponents and not people whom you need to argue with politically, then after one loses patience, one can do so what had been done with gory results. It is hard to convince that it was revolutionary violence which was going on.
No one is supporting the violence and wrongdoings done by the either parties (the opponents, specially, are infamous for their political imbecilities), but a sort of organised violence by the beings who are in power sends shivers down the spines and the fear is qualified with anger when it is reciprocrated with impatient and equally violent language since we protested and participated in the Nov 14 rally. Protest is not a matter of statistics where you need to react when the BUPC was playing foul because one will also react when the CPI(M) will be “pay it back”. It is a reasoning similar to if we protested when the Kashmiri pundits were evicted to acquire the ‘right’ to protest against Modi; the powerful’s use of violence is always more dangerous.
No one regretted. Someone said that he adopted the others’ means. He justified it. Enough instances are being shown by branding us as ‘petty bourgeoisie’ out there to decelerate some holy revolutionary process. The Govt is not involved in such elevated things, neither is the party. Period. Talk in the language of damage-control, not in a language of abuse. Or if you abuse…we are free to turn our ears off next time you speak in hi-falutin languages about development and Antonio Gramsci in the same breath.
It is the party’s problem if we lose faith, not our’s. If the party is sure that it is still a party of the proletariat…then I would say go ahead…disregard us myopic urban “sushil shamajik” citizens. Treat us the way the CM, Biman Basu and Binoy Konar had done through their admonitions. If searching out a party to pin our faith on is our problem, we will remain searching for the next 50 years.
But we dislike being duped. Belief in certain things, for instance, a better collective future, involves investment of emotions. Now it is not upto the party, but upto us, who once had faith, to decide if Laksman Seth is the party’s face or someone more sophisticated up there. You decide the way you will function. We are watching you and please remember, we are not collecting informations from some callous media only…informations and impressions flow faster in the wind. Such informations can never be validated by pinpointing sources, but they have a impression. They are not always rumors, many a times they are a dejected, disillusioned man’s face who have witnessed things.
Communist Party of India (Marxist), without paying heed to any opportunistic urban intellectual…carry on!
I am sorry for a hyper-emotional reaction. These are words from someone who has lost all faith in this party and before someone loud-mouthed enough brands me as anti-left, I must say that I still have enough faith on the ideology. I had faith once on the party, don’t know why, probably because daddy told me to have faith. May I report comrade that losing it is painful but I am not waiting for the CPI(M) to heal my pain. If they offer healing, I won’t believe any more that they are doing it sincerely.

Relevant posts
• Shuddhabrata Sengupta’s Nandigram Redux: Reading Sudhanva Deshpande (also crossposted at Sanhati.org) which is a response to Sudhanva Deshpande’s defense to CPI(M) stance in Pragoti.org
• Jayati Ghosh’s and Sakyajit Bhattacharya’s invective against anti-govt “civil society” in Pragoti.org
• Aditya Nigam on Nandigram: The Silence of the Lambs, Time for Alternative Left Platform in W Bengal, Class Struggles in West Bengal.
• Moinak Biswas’s account on Nov 14 rally Dhikkar Michhil: One Lakh March in Kolkata
• Apoorvanand’s posts on Nandigram: Enough is Enough: Stop CPM’s Criminal Campaign, Nandigram Tribute to the October Revolution – CPM style, Sacrifice of Truth in Nandigram.