When philosophers come face to face with present, the last
thing we expect is irresponsibility and disdainful approach to
details Sheer lack of 'rigour' and insensitivity toward the known
descriptions make this particular post from Sanil more appalling
I challenge him to rearticulate the arguments after taking the following
details into consideration To me, this is a basic responsibility
that anyone writing on phenomena involving 'beings' as committed and
ontologically real
like you are on the terminal points, trying to make their voices heard.
> The morally upright pro-civil society champions of chengara are no less
> life denying and unimaginative than the traditional parties.
>
This is incorrect. There exist no such clean and compartmentalised divide
between theory/practice in this instance. What makes Chengara struggle
beautiful is the imaginative theorisations built (on and in) the struggle by
some Dalit activists/theoreticians. I don't know whether Sanil has come
across names like Sanni Kapikkad,K K Koch , and Rekha Raj . They are not
'champions" craving for media coverage. All of them are part of the
Solidarity committee of Chengara struggle from the very beginning.It was
thier 'work' / ya, theoretical practice which connected the bare fact of
the assertion of political subjects living in Chengara with the failure of
land reforms and the question of citizenship . It was not an easy task at
all.
But that combined effort of theorisation and praxis has gained much success
, both strategical and essential by now. Even to the pont that
somebody could speak on Chengara as if such theory mediated
descriptions are "given' and taken for granted.
If Sanil is trying to isolate non Dalit intellectuals who tried to
understand the present against Chengara struggle, why don't he
engage with the texts thus written than 'naming' them in a blanket manner?
Which arugument put forward by "pro-Civil society champions' are
unimaginative , and how? Why do Sanil resolve not to engage with such
endeavours? Is it because he has some magical imaginative alternative ready
with him, or he is no more interested in arriving at truth
through combined scholraly engagements?
I do volunteer to be interpellated by Sanil's blanket 'description" {It will
help in making the "reference" less a theoretical connundrum (the sort we
come across in discussions around "King of France is bald" type) } Is it a
crime to be pro- Civil Society champions while you are providing enough
academic reasons? Well, nobody is living or struggling with "knowledge'. But
why should one refuse to engage with the reasons already provided?
Let me clarify that my position in this regard is that both Dalit and non
Dalit intellectuals sympathetic to Chengara strugggle are equals as
intellectuals or writers and that the engagemenst among them are not
uncritical. I wish sanil read Sanni Kapikkad's speach delivered at the
infamous Night Vigil. ( In Sanil's 'rich' imagination, is it a complete
logical
impossibility that Dalit urban/ middle class intellectuals could be present
at such impure sites?)Nor do I believe that Sanni, Koch or Rekha are lesser
or higher (pure) intellectuals to be termed 'organic". They are
common/citizens who take extra effort to be sensitive and supportive toward
ongoing struggles. Let me acknowledge my debt to them
,particularly to Sanni in learning about the situation. It is an acdemic
acknowledgement ( with usual disclaimers like I, not them will be
responsible for the poverty of imagination in whatever I write on
Chengara!) .
No, I am not idealising something/somebody. I am just complaining that their
work is left unengeged and unrecognised, whih indeed is a representational
violence.
Sanil seem to be 'imagining" Chengara struggle with very little information.
( Not because it is unavailable, but he don't find it necessary)
Ya, one's imaginative power has to be extraordinarily 'rich' to conceive
putative pictures of the strggle at the first instance, and an imaginary
divide between support and practice. Who is willing 'pure' boundaries and
"pure' selves into existence? Sanil or civil society champions?
As sanjayan said, there is scope for class struggle in the realm of ideas.
there exist huge discrepency in terms of imagination. Majority remain poor
in imagination while some exceptional individuals possess more than enough!!
How to resolve this issue without relying on liberal 'equality' paradigm or
'socialist' redistribution model?
A problem demanding imaginative solutions!!
They flock to chengara because, there, they find the purest of the pure
victim – the tribal. Unlike the worker who is complicit in welfare schemes,
the tribal is a pure victim who has a monopoly on moral capital.
Sanil, this pure victim or powerful agnet viz" the Tribal exist in you
imagination only.
There are triblas in the struggle as there are Muslims, Thiyya and other
landless people.But what make Chengara significant is the fact that more
than 80% of the activists are Dalit and Dalit Christians.
You miss the basic detail-- who is struggling-- and go on making all sorts
of conclusions.
The demands of the pure victims must be self evidently legitimate. (Marx did
not put his bet on workers because the later were purest of the pure or
poorest or the poor victims.). "marginalization" has lost its critical edge
and become a category of moral imputation. Once you have a pure victim,
moralists of various hues folk together to form brotherhoods and
sisterhoods of victimhood.
The Liberal democratic enthusiasm of the neutral observer is infectious and
anticipates a "we". The rebellious enthusiasm of chengara dispel all "we".
Those who make the lived experience of being a tribal. Dalit or woman the
basis of struggle, miss this point. The NGO funded "we" can't anchor
political struggles for long.
"We"in this instance was not a given, but the result of political action.
Drawing on Bourdieu, I would suggest that the first and foremost 'success'
of the movement is the movement itself. It came into existence out of
nothing, questioning the invisibility. Is it fortutious that CPIM is
organising "Scheduled caste Conventions" in "progressive' Kerala?It clearly
is a (failed) attempt at co-opting Dalit assertion.
The communitarian civil society they invoke is a theoretical regression.
They want to retain a civilised opposition in place of the bloody conflict.
This is the old State in new bottle. The universalist aspirations of our
struggles can no longer be thought in terms of society. The withering away
of State from theory has torn asunder society in reality. It is unreasonable
to expect that our "society" has the symbolic resources to legitimize the
struggle of tribal people. Its does not have enough symbolic power for its
daily sustenance! No wonder the pro-civil activists clamor for media
attention. They hope that attention of media can fill- in the real deficit
in social meaning.
Why do you preclude the domain of political practice and social movements
while looking for imagination? If you look at the recent past of Kerala's
social movements, one of the striking features is the emergence of several
land struggles by Adivasi sections and organisations. It was highly
imaginative in terms of interpreting their needs and finding styles of
struggle. They 'exposed' the inflated rheterics of left on land struggles
and pointed out concretely that there is land in Kerala to be redistributed
No. it is not the 'worker' who is saturated in welfare recipient
subjectivity, but Dalits , women and Adivasi 'population'.Struggles for land
evidences the rejection of such governmental subjectivities through active
reinterpretations of their needs . For the first time in Kerala history such
activists are refusing all patrons. And look, how easlily Sanil 'gift' the
agency to NGOs!!!
Sorry to say this , but Sanil..but this is highly insulting and
irresponsible on your part...
Ya, even if the leadership decide to call of the struggle now, it will
remain a success.
Not because it will go down as a chapter in Truth seeking, but because it
already succeeded in making the 'main stream' including advanagious citizens
like us recognise that our citizenship is implicated on denial of the same
to some others, for historical and contingent reasons, which are
, for the same reason, alterable.
I do look forward to a (non violent) class struggle in the field if
imagination! ( though the adjudicating tone in Sanil's post leaves little
scope for that)
Traditional parties say: Interest of those tribals are legitimate. But why
make a big fuss about it? The pro-civil guys reply: We want a big fuss. Do
you have a pure interest to out in front of the "magnifying glass" of our
camera or our blogs?
The fate of these pro civil society defenders of tribals will be no
different from that of the secularist defenders of minorities. The energy
of minority politics has gone beyond the legitimacy seeking politics of
demands and interests. Today both the supporters and the traditional parties
want a decent way out of Chengara struggle. A compromise will translate the
enthusiasm of inebriated song, dance and necking into a language of
legitimate demands and objectives. Death has another name – win-win
situation.
Perhaps it is time to remember Gandhi's tactics. Whenever he suspected that
a struggle is reaching a win-win situation where its agenda is set by
demands and interests, he abruptly called it off. He had a name for what is
at stake in such self aborted struggles – truth!
Even if the tribals choose to call off their struggle for the sake of
upholding the truth, I do not think their enthusiastic supporters or jealous
competitors will allow them to do that. This lack of interest in
experimenting with truth and its traumatic enthusiasm explains the
unimaginative nature of our struggles.
(None of the above should come in the way of expressing my unambiguous and
unqualified contempt for the CPM sponsored hooliganism in Chengara.)
sanil
Sanil.V
Dept of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology
Hauz Khas, New Delhi 110 016
>
> >
>
--
Dileep R I thuravoor
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