Dear Dilip and Ranjit
Reading your exchanges, can't help feeling both you are right -- and maybe
what you're saying isn't so contrary to each other. I agree that moralism
is a poor political strategy -- pointing out that someone else isn't
politically correct will harm the prospects of forming alliances if it is
taken too seriously. But it is indeed a fact that so-called samskaarika
naayakar in Kerala will do anything to grab media attention and many would
bend their knees willingly for political favour! The saamskaarikanaayakar I
mentioned in my earlier mail were eager to see that Pinaraayi and co.
aren't troubled beyond a point by the newspapers. But few of them are
willing to take the trouble to do a regular analysis of what the media has
been doing to public life in recent years. All that is the job of lowly
riff-raff like us! I don't know if you noticed, in the TVM edition of
almost all newspapers, the death of a young woman from a plane crash was
roundly 'celebrated'. OK, I can see that this was a sad incident and the
parents must be going through the worst time of their lives -- but well,
why did the death, the mourning and the funeral take front page space for
3-4 days? This was the time when the Udayakumar murder trial was going on
-- that was an innocent young man, murdered by the criminalised state -- I
noticed that this didn't make headlines!
Becoming a public intellectual -- above a 'cultural leader' -- is hard work
-- you can't rest on a couple of passable novels, or a score good short
stories written ten years back. That job isn't enjoyable as it involves
intense focus on the public, the ability to retain one's critical relation
with the state. No wonder this govt has put several 'potential public
intellectuals' in Kerala into various committees of cultural and
literary committees of the state -- this is probably a move to curb that
potential (certainly not foolproof!).
And knowledge that has critical potential is sidelined in subtle ways .To
talk of a field I know, history, mainstream historians in Kerala seem to be
mesmerized by the ancient and medieval wonders of Kerala. Well, there's
nothing wrong with studying either of these, but these are times when
history has been recognized as a powerful tool that can make the present
less self-present, the silence about any critical history writing on
modernity -- on the various axes of power that were shaped in modernity and
continue to inform contemporary life here -- is curious indeed. As for the
bunch of us doing gender history, the history of modern caste oppression,
and others, we have all been safely deported to the realm of cultural
studies! No wonder, then, when the KCHR conducted a major seminar it stuck
with the now-obsolete 1960s habit of differentiating history into 'social',
'cultural', 'political' and 'economic'! I was promptly slotted in the
'social' and since my work is also political (it looks at gender politics),
cultural (deals with the realm of discourse), besides bein relevant to both
'social' and 'economic', I chose to opt out.
There is no way out except through building alliances with others located
outside Kerala -- all given the strength of the diaspora and the fact that
many located outside are more sensitive to non-statist politics, it is time
we reverted to the early name 'Malayalam' in preference to 'Keraleeyar' to
refer to ourselves as a people. I don't think ranjit would have worded his
observation with a tinge of moralism if he knew the history of 'cultural
leaders' -- an identity that somehow points to a position beyond
politics,and therefore 'pure', 'interest-free', and a 'neutral arbiter' of
social and political issues. It is indeed a pity that neither ajita or sara
joseph see how they are being depoliticized ....I would die before someone
made me a 'saamskaarika nayika'...
warmly
Devika
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