http://thefishpond.in/damodarprasad/2010/civil-society-victim-industry-and-keralam/ Civil Society, Victim Industry and Keralam-Damodar Prasad
“Chithralekha is a symbol and sign of the marginalization that Dalits face in modern Kerala”, notes the solidarity mission in its report after visiting Payyanur to ascertain the facts about the hoodlums stigmatizing and victimizing Chitralekha. It is salutary that some of the civil society activists and groups in Keralam after some initial fabrication like “we versus aliens” came out actively in support of -Chitralekha. The issue has also become a rallying point for the defunct civil society movement in Keralam to resuscitate itself from its visible departure in the wake of Chengara land struggle. The civil society movements in Keralam had its glorious time in the 1980s and 90s. Violations of rights were rampant even after the withdrawal of emergency. They were part of the Leviathan methods of State craft. The surplus value these violations generated were a boon to the media struggling to reclaim the credibility it had lost during emergency. The nature of violations was such that the elite amongst the emergent middle class were quick in understanding that the extension of the violation may hinder their own private interests. There had been such a brahmanical excitement in the decades just after the British formally left India with the nation-building idea that the displacement of aboriginals and dalitbahujans in the name of mega projects were only sacrifices at altar of the emergent Nation-God. But the saga of nation building progressed in a way that road to its promised land had to necessarily eat into the holy terrains of middle class masses. Civil society did not dither in properly apprehending the concerns of the middle classes that roundly made it. Ecology got its primacy since then. Meanwhile, the alienation of different classes from the “inliers” of nation-hood facilitated emergence of singular social groupings demanding particular benefits like fisher folk associations. Nevertheless, the benefits were not like the rights demand as it always lacked assertions from the people. 1980s and 90s witnessed political salience of civil society groupings. Many of the groups have its legacy in the Naxalite movement of the previous decade. The individuals who had entrepreneurial acumen and negotiation skills transformed the groups aligned to them as distinct entities prioritizing and minimizing its concern to some basic issues that can rock into the core of urban middle class with political sensitivities. The pitched battles it fought brought sufficient dividends for both civil society activists group as well as the State. A win-win for both! The ambivalent engagements of State and civil society activism was progressing with a mutuality sometimes co-engineered, some times aided by the judiciary, some times guaranteed by the media. But the days were numbering and its grind halted with the irruption of the march of Adivasis to the precious zone of the state capital in 2001. The civil society sisterhood and brotherhood then split along several lines. The aboriginals lost the innocence the eco- mothers of Keralam had been celebrating for long. During the time Congress-led UDF was in power and hence for the same reason, the forum had cause-sympathizers ranging from the primitive Left to *past-*modernizing Left. Past-modernizers, the real ex-centers dual aim was of sustaining one-self through the changing times by free- marketing seventies nostalgia concocted with some secular free-riders and also act as double-agent for one of the “absent ruling class” when the Adivasi struggle was going on. Now the waning of the civil society is more than visible. The Adivasi movement was the last-straw. New social shakers and movers emerging from the distant remote and disbanded territories led by un-recognizable faces absolutely drain the reserve energy for the enduring of the civil society groups. The emergent new movements prioritized a different set of issues. It subverted the older agenda of “unity and opposition” contracted between State and civil society groups. Even while not receiving the due publicity, the new subjects did not demand any facilitation from the civil society gathering. On the contrary, it only offered its support to civil society actors to get in touch with the reality as evident in the locale of political action. Clueless about the turn history has taken, some activist and journalist-promoters of the civil society groups transformed their role from “activist” to “mediators” disrobing themselves from the previous avatar of “self-less” civil society service personnel. Years later the Chengara land struggle diminished the valiant presence of old lords of civil society groups. The most visible aspect of the struggle was the new actors’ refusal to play victim. The patron–client relation that the civil society groups had with the strugglers broke since Chengara. The victim industry stock value dropped. The promoters were left in deep lurch after this great crash. The Marxist party, as usual, had a different understanding about its relation vis-à-vis new political mobilizations. It did not share the “victim” industry evaluation of new political subjects. The Marxist party was intact in its primordial belief in “public sector monopoly”. It agitated against the idea of Dalits or Adivasis or Muslims organizing themselves for resource sharing. The belief of the Marxist party is firmly rooted in its understanding of new political subjects as ‘Amoral” agents of social change. Marxist party permitted and entertained civil society “causes” in enabling appropriate technology solutions, ecological minimalism, some small little steps in anti-dam posturing etc. But when it came to greater causes like distribution of land, it was unrelenting in its opposition. The simple, parental, governmental ego of the Marxist party knows what “progressive” is and it could not even think of “Amoral” agents countering the party which had introduced land reforms for the first time in post-colonial Indian history. Adivasis do not count as ‘victims” in Marxist party agenda since they could not even singularly constitute as active participants of change. Hence with a parental authority its magnificent “working class” or “de-classed” leaders will lead the tribal march to land occupied by private persons. However, deeper is the problems of the conventional civil society operators. The civil society operands have met with severe challenges. Firstly devoid of a moral victim in pursuant of a justice facilitated by the civil society actors, it could not centre-stage its old agent-provocateur role. Secondly, despite its best efforts in aligning to new political subjects, the fifth estate actors were reduced to much diminishing role as the new agents have calibrated the movement on their own strength. Thirdly, the new political subjects have redrawn the contours of political society as new subjects subverted the old paradigm of civil society clientilism with an influx of new social energy. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To post to this group, send an email to greenyo...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to greenyouth+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth?hl=en-GB.
