saroj giri is always writing about the anti-liberal content of maoist
politics-the hope for future..it challenges the liberal democratic frame work
to create an alternative society.
whither
the radicalisation of resistance?
+
--- On Fri, 10/7/09, Sukla Sen <[email protected]> wrote:
> From: Sukla Sen <[email protected]>
> Subject: [GreenYouth] Re: Fwd: Lalgarh and the Radicalisation of Resistance:
> From 'Ordinary Civilians' to Political Subjects?
> To: [email protected]
> Date: Friday, 10 July, 2009, 5:04 PM
> "Radicalisation" or
> "Suicidisation"!?
>
> Seven month long massive resistance struggle crumbled in
> less than seven days.
>
>
> What obscene stupidity packaged as
> radicalism!
> For a
> detailed account, look up 'A Brief
> Note on Lalgarh (West Bengal, India) and Implications of
> Maoist Role' at:http://www.marxmail.org/msg64354.html
>
> Also: thefishpond.in/satya/2009/manmohan-and-the-maoists/
>
> Sukla
>
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 2:16 PM,
> Anivar Aravind <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>
> From: sandy bajeli <[email protected]>
>
> Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 09:48:12 +0530
>
> Subject: Lalgarh and the Radicalisation of Resistance: From
> 'Ordinary
>
> Civilians' to Political Subjects?
>
> To: Free Binayak Sen
> <[email protected]>
>
>
>
> Lalgarh and the Radicalisation of Resistance: From
> 'Ordinary Civilians' to
>
> Political Subjects?
>
> by Saroj Giri
>
>
>
> One image stands out from the Lalgarh resistance.
> Chattradhar Mahato, the
>
> most visible leader of the People's Committee Against
> Police Atrocities
>
> (PCAPA), distributing food to ordinary villagers -- not as
> a high-up leader
>
> doing charity but as one among them. Is this the
> 'new' image of the
>
> Maoist? But maybe Mahato is not a Maoist -- he himself
> denies being one.
>
> But if he is not, given his power and influence in the
> area, the
>
> 'dictatorial' Maoists must have eliminated him by
> now? Then maybe he is
>
> only being used by them, following their 'diktat'
> out of fear. But a man
>
> with the kind of popularity and love from the masses would
> fear the
>
> Maoists? So, is he a Maoist, or *like a* Maoist, after
> all? But a Maoist
>
> who is this popular among the masses and who does not seem
> to terrorise
>
> them?
>
>
>
> These questions are tricky, almost baffling to many. For
> the resistance in
>
> Lalgarh is a unique experiment, not following any formulaic
> path or given
>
> script. The Lalgarh resistance not only rattled local
> power relations and
>
> state forces but also challenged accepted ideas and
> practices of resistance
>
> movements, their internal constitution, and above all
> opened up radical
>
> possibilities for the initiative of the masses -- partly
> symbolized in the
>
> unscripted image and contested political identity of Mahato
> and indeed of
>
> the PCAPA vis-à-vis Maoists. Crucially, Lalgarh
> undermines conventional
>
> ideas about the relationship between 'peaceful' and
> 'violent' forms of
>
> struggle and inaugurates possibilities of resistance
> unfettered by given
>
> notions of political subjectivity or by subservience to the
> 'rule of law'.
>
>
>
> Lalgarh defied the long-standing shackles on social
> movements in the country
>
> that would ultimately restrict their forms of struggle
> within the confines
>
> given by the lines of command emanating from the Indian
> state's monopoly
>
> over violence. Lalgarh showed that, when the democratic
> struggle of the
>
> masses runs into conflict with the repressive apparatus of
> the state which
>
> has lost all democratic legitimacy, the struggle assumes
> the form of a
>
> violent mass movement. This violent action, being the
> expression of
>
> heightened mass democratic struggle, bringing down
> structures that anyway
>
> have lost all basis, is in every sense a political
> struggle, an armed
>
> struggle if you like, but has nothing to do with a
> so-called 'conflict
>
> situation' where ordinary civilians are shown as only
> trapped and suffering.
>
>
>
> Take the violent
>
> Dharampur<
>
> http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/4-killed-9-missing-in-Lalgarh-turf-battle/articleshow/4656772.cms
>
>
> >mass
>
> action of June 19, an event many on the left and right
> decried as a
>
> Maoist take-over and an end to the democratic struggle.
> When this action
>
> triggered an offensive by security forces to
> 'reclaim' the area, did the
>
> situation turn into a conflict zone between the state and
> the armed Maoists,
>
> with 'ordinary civilians' trapped and waiting for
> outside aid? This then is
>
> the crucial point: Lalgarh refused to lend itself to the
> usual narrative
>
> which presents every armed struggle into a depoliticized
> 'conflict
>
> situation' with images of suffering women and children
> waiting for the
>
> international community and NGO aid workers to come and
> save them.
>
>
>
> The image of the 'ordinary civilian' here was not
> one of 'refusing to take
>
> sides' and rushing to grab the first bit of relief
> supplies, but one
>
> exemplified by someone like Malati. Clearly showing where
> her political
>
> sympathies lay, Malati stayed on in the PCAPA-run camp and
> refused the
>
> administration's medical help as she gave birth to a
> baby -- the ambulance
>
> waiting for her went back empty (*The Statesman*, Kolkata,
> June 30, 2009).
>
> Malati's 'humanitarian needs' were fulfilled
> by the very struggle which
>
> carried out the 'violent mass action' -- no space
> for NGOs and the welfarist
>
> state, exemplifying the autonomous character of the
> resistance. What
>
> happened was not just that 'ordinary civilians' and
> adivasis supported the
>
> Maoists; the very image of a Maoist underwent a change so
> that anybody,
>
> including women and children, could be a Maoist.
>
>
>
> *'Ordinary Civilians', Maoists*
>
>
>
> The question then: do ordinary civilians stand opposed to
> and separate from
>
> the Maoists? This point becomes pertinent from another
> angle. Large
>
> sections of democratic forces in the country opposing the
> security-centric
>
> solution to the upsurge in Lalgarh proclaim the need to
> always separate the
>
> ordinary villagers/adivasis from the Maoists. The chief
> minister, Buddhadev
>
> Bhattacharya, is attacked for conflating the two and using
> the 'bogey of
>
> Maoists' to victimize ordinary civilians and crush the
> democratic struggle
>
> of the masses.
>
>
>
> Lalgarh thus throws several questions: Is the tribal
> morphing into the
>
> Maoist? Is the groundswell of support for the Maoists
> such that the
>
> adivasis will mostly be Maoists? In today's
> situation, is it possible to be
>
> other than Maoist and still assert the kind of political
> resistance and
>
> autonomy that the masses of Lalgarh are presenting today?
>
>
>
> The question really is: where and how does the adivasi in
> resistance stand
>
> vis-à-vis the Maoist? What if the separation of the two
> is integral to the
>
> present statist approach to the Maoists, so central to it
> that it has to be
>
> invented and enforced where one does not exist? Then, the
> democratic rights
>
> approach calling on the state to make this separation, and
> spare 'innocent
>
> civilians', may be a dangerous double-edged sword.
>
>
>
> *Now what Lalgarh showed is that separating the adivasis
> from Maoists is no
>
> great democratic act, but is in fact what allows the state
> to undertake
>
> severe repression and at the same time claim that it acted
> in the interests
>
> of ordinary civilians.* Thus where this separation cannot
> be made, the
>
> state in fact invents it. This was clear from the
> responses of state
>
> officials. When the West Bengal home secretary Ardhendu
> Sen admitted that
>
> "it is tough to distinguish between the PCAPA and the
> Maoists", it was clear
>
> that the separation does not hold (*The Statesman*,
> Kolkata, 19 June 2009).
>
> And yet, even though ordinary people cannot be separated
> from Maoists, the
>
> State chief secretary invented this separation, when he
> stated, in the same
>
> news report, that security forces would "ensure
> security for ordinary
>
> people". Further, "he stated that common
> villagers are not involved
>
> directly involved with the violence but they are the
> victims of the violent
>
> activities of the Maoists".
>
>
>
> There were reports of the "Maoists support base in
> women and children" (*The
>
> Statesman*, 28 June 2009). This support base meant that
> state officials
>
> could hardly find locals for gathering crucial intelligence
> inputs about the
>
> Maoists after the CPIM network collapsed; a senior state
> officer was quoted
>
> stating that "unless we have local sources, it is
> going to be extremely
>
> difficult to identify the Maoists, who have mingled with
> the villagers.
>
> Although these (new) men are from Lalgarh, we haven't
> got people from the
>
> core area. Those villages are still out of
> bounds"(*The Telegraph*, Friday
>
> June 26, 2009).
>
>
>
> In this light, as in the case of Malati, it is not really
> the armed Maoist
>
> who is most dangerous in Lalgarh; it is the 'ordinary
> civilian', the PCAPA
>
> supporter who is indistinguishable form the Maoist
> supporter. Is Malati a
>
> Maoist? If she refuses health care offered during her
> most vulnerable
>
> moment, then what is the state supposed to do to win back
> her support? If
>
> 'ordinary civilians' do not want to get out of the
> 'conflict situation', and
>
> want to take sides, maybe not in any dramatic manner but at
> least by wanting
>
> to err on the side of the 'violent Maoists', then
> the task of separating the
>
> Maoists from the civilians becomes tough -- and in fact
> politically
>
> reactionary.
>
>
>
> What the state realized in Lalgarh was that if anyone can
> be a Maoist, and
>
> if the separation does not hold, then the way to go, under
> a democracy, is
>
> to technically enforce a 'separation'. A
> technical solution: reports tell
>
> us that the security forces in parts of Lalgarh would
> sprinkle a special
>
> kind of an imported dye from a helicopter in areas where
> Maoists are
>
> present. This dye makes a mark on the skin which stays
> for almost a year.
>
> Well, now you can clearly separate Maoists from the
> 'ordinary civilians'!
>
>
>
> Inventing and enforcing a separation therefore allows the
> state to repress a
>
> popular movement in the name of winning over or defending
> ordinary
>
> civilians. This enforced separation is such that even
> when the adivasi in
>
> Lalgarh stands with the Maoist or is a Maoist it is
> regarded not as the *
>
> condition* of the adivasi in the given conjuncture, as part
> of what it means
>
> to be an adivasi, his *being* or life, but negatively
> understood as the
>
> fallout of government policies. Thus an adivasi Maoist is
> treated as just
>
> waiting to be rescued or won back into the democratic
> mainstream by benign
>
> policies and favours.
>
>
>
> *Images of Adivasi and Forms of Struggle*
>
>
>
> Now the Maoist cadre can and must be distinguished from the
> 'ordinary
>
> villager' or adivasi. However some quarters are not
> just making this
>
> distinction but heavily invested in proactively separating
> the two -- trying
>
> to understand Lalgarh through it. This is happening since
> this separation
>
> is sustained by at least two other long established images
> of the 'ordinary
>
> villager' and in particular of the adivasi.
>
>
>
> In one case, this separation is sustained by presenting a
> now familiar image
>
> of the ordinary villager or adivasi as the victim, the
> displaced, a negative
>
> fallout of the Nehruvian belief in science and industrial
> development. In
>
> the second case, there is the image of the adivasi
> resisting 'modern
>
> development and industrialisation' and engaging in
> democratic forms of
>
> struggle, engaging in non-hierarchical and autonomous
> welfarist activities
>
> outside the state and statist logic.
>
>
>
> The first image informs some 'pro-poor', welfare
> policies of the state, for
>
> the 'upliftment of tribals and displaced', the
> kinds declared in
>
> rehabilitation packages or 'poverty alleviation'
> programmes. The second one
>
> comes from the dissident, anti-state left where being the
> marginalized and
>
> the subaltern ('outside' of modernity and capital)
> in itself is supposed to
>
> form the basis of 'political' struggle. These two
> images, often running
>
> counter to each other, however start converging as they get
> invested in and
>
> start deriving their rationale and intensity from their
> ability to
>
> ideologically pit the benign, democracy-loving
> 'ordinary villager' or
>
> adivasi against the supposed violence, top-down terror
> methods and
>
> repressive character of the Maoists.
>
>
>
> However the events in Lalgarh have shown that this
> separation pushes back
>
> the 'ordinary villagers' into political infancy,
> not allowing them to break
>
> with the statist logic and the morass of parliamentary
> democracy. For once
>
> the 'ordinary villagers' or adivasis break with
> being mere victims and act
>
> autonomously as political subjects, they very soon come
> into conflict with
>
> the logic of not just the state but also of oppressive
> power relations more
>
> generally. Deep-rooted power structures that have found
> their expression in
>
> the abstraction called the state do not fade away
> progressively through
>
> democratic practice and rational deliberation; they exist
> with a necessity,
>
> a knotted base which cannot be untangled unproblematically,
> without a
>
> rupture.
>
>
>
> Dharampur marked this rupture where the use of force
> bringing down the now
>
> decrepit power structures was anticipated by the democratic
> struggle and
>
> marked its intensification and qualitative expansion.
> From the perspective
>
> of the longer struggle, the use of violence at this stage
> is only a gentle
>
> push to bring down terribly weakened but knotty oppressive
> structure -- a
>
> push to eliminate the now even more intolerable limits
> imposed on the
>
> democratic practices of the masses. The mass violence at
> Dharampur was such
>
> an intensification of the autonomous practices of the
> Lalgarh adivasis.
>
> This 'ordinary villager' or adivasi who refuses to
> limit his democratic
>
> practices and struggle within the lines of command given by
> the state and
>
> its oppressive relations, at this point, emerges as the
> Maoist. *In the
>
> given conjuncture, the 'Maoist' is the articulation
> of the ordinary villager
>
> or adivasi as the political subject.*
>
>
>
> What Lalgarh showed is the interplay and interrelation
> between the
>
> 'peaceful' and 'violent' methods of
> struggle. This means that it is not
>
> possible to separate the democratic struggle from the
> Maoist moment in it.
>
> However the state as the defender of oppressive relations
> in its most
>
> generalized form, isolates the violent methods of the
> Maoists and tries to
>
> show it in isolation from the larger struggle of the people
> against
>
> oppression. In a bid to force 'ordinary
> villagers' to restrict their
>
> democratic struggle and practices within the limits set by
> the state and its
>
> agencies, by the limits of parliamentary democracy, the
> state wants to
>
> target Maoists. This is where the state and, perhaps not
> surprisingly, the
>
> democratic rights activists make the separation between
> ordinary villagers
>
> waiting to be uplifted and the violent Maoists exploiting
> their plight.
>
>
>
> *It is against such deft ideological operations that it
> needs to be pointed
>
> out that the 'violent Maoist' is actually an
> emergent quality of the
>
> democratic struggle and autonomous political practices of
> the 'ordinary
>
> villager' or adivasi in Lalgarh.* For, the moment you
> separate the two, you
>
> are back to enclave democracy, NGOisation. It is here
> that we have to ask
>
> what it means to oppose the state for using the 'bogey
> of Maoists' in order
>
> to kill and repress ordinary villagers and ordinary
> civilians. Now, the
>
> state does not always kill civilians; nor does it right
> away go after anyone
>
> who calls himself a Maoist (didn't the Bengal
> government arrest Gour
>
> Chakraborty1 <http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/giri090709.html#_edn1>
> only at
>
> an opportune time?). The state invariably kills, as we
> see in Lalgarh, when
>
> civilians, ordinary villagers, adivasis, enter into a
> symbiotic relationship
>
> with the Maoists; or when the Maoists enter into such a
> relationship with
>
> ordinary villagers. *That is, 'ordinary
> villagers' now are no ordinary
>
> villagers engaged in 'participatory democracy' or
> 'rural empowerment' but
>
> are challenging the very framework given by the state as
> the generalized
>
> expression of power relations*; similarly the Maoists are
> not a small band
>
> of abstract believers in violence roaming the countryside
> recruiting
>
> children and poverty-stricken tribals for a Cause but are
> now engaged in a
>
> real struggle on the side of the masses.
>
>
>
> Therefore the state does not really kill ordinary villagers
> in the name of
>
> killing Maoists; it kills those who are
> 'supporters' of the Maoists, those
>
> who are part of the larger, longer struggle which at some
> point or other
>
> assumes the name of Maoist. *To be sure there are armed
> Maoist combatants
>
> and unarmed civilians and one needs to differentiate the
> two*. However if
>
> the democratic struggle and the 'violent' struggle
> so often get intertwined
>
> and intersperse each other, if the Maoist moment is an
> integral moment of
>
> the overall struggle, then unarmed civilians are an
> integral part of the
>
> Maoist movement.
>
>
>
> To say that the Maoist is the name for the articulation of
> the ordinary
>
> villager/adivasi as a political subject is to say that
> autonomous democratic
>
> practices do not close shop once the repressive state moves
> in, the form of
>
> struggle often alternates between 'peaceful' and
> 'violent' ones, and armed
>
> revolutionaries as much as unarmed civilians form part of
> the struggle.
>
> Thus the resistance in Lalgarh was such that it was
> extremely difficult to
>
> sustain the separation between the Maoists and the adivasi
> population.
>
>
>
> *Benign Government*
>
>
>
> Even as there is mounting evidence that ordinary adivasis
> are part of Maoist
>
> politics in the area, the government today is forced to
> somehow act as
>
> though the adivasis are waiting to be won over through the
> right development
>
> policies, employment opportunities. First security forces
> were sent in to
>
> flush out Maoists. With hardly any encounters with the
> Maoists, the armed
>
> forces basically marched endlessly from one village to the
> next, across
>
> empty fields and villages whose male members had mostly
> fled. It is
>
> anybody's guess where the male members had escaped to!
> After the 'success'
>
> of this 'flushing out' operation, sincere attempts
> are being made to reach
>
> out to the people there with all kinds of development
> plans, employment
>
> generation, food and medical provisions. Under express
> directions form the
>
> chief minister, the secretaries from different ministers
> are posted in the
>
> different villages finding out the problems and needs of
> the people there.
>
>
>
> One should not here doubt the sincerity of the CPIM to
> really follow the
>
> democratic rights perspective here in separating ordinary
> villagers and the
>
> Maoists. In fact it declared that it wants to fight the
> Maoists
>
> politically, grudgingly accepting the centre's ban on
> the Maoists. So much
>
> so that the state government declared that it does not want
> to apply the
>
> UAPA, except in rare cases and that too the police will not
> have the
>
> authority to decide its use which will be decided by the
> government at the
>
> highest level.
>
>
>
> Now all these welfarist proposals derive their rationale
> from the belief
>
> that ordinary villagers/adivasis stand opposed to the
> Maoists or got
>
> temporarily duped into supporting Maoists. However in a
> total reversal of
>
> this separation theory, in Lalgarh ordinary villagers not
> only rejected the
>
> welfarist state but upheld the Maoists precisely in their
> supposed violent
>
> avatar.
>
>
>
> That is, while, on the one hand, you had the case of Malati
> rejecting the
>
> most benign offer the state can ever make, the 0ffer of
> medical care to the
>
> mother and new-born baby, on the other hand, you had
> 'ordinary civilians'
>
> cheering and celebrating (ululate) the mass action at
> Dharampur, destroying
>
> the house of the CPIM leader Anuj Pandey. Where does one
> draw the line
>
> between ordinary villagers and 'violent Maoists'
> when women who reject
>
> welfare measures offered by the state are more than
> participative in violent
>
> programmes of the Maoists? The *Hindustan Times* reports
> from Dharampur, "A
>
> huge crowd gathered below in the area now under Section 144
> lustily cheering
>
> each blow that fell on the white two-story house, quite out
> of place in this
>
> land of deprivation under Lalgarh police station. By
> sundown, the hammers
>
> had chopped off the first floor, leaving behind a skeleton
> of what was a
>
> 'posh' house in the morning" (*Hindustan
> Times*, 16 June 2009).
>
>
>
> *Conclusion*
>
>
>
> Thus the approach of trying to defend the human rights of
> 'ordinary
>
> civilians' by arguing that they are not with the
> Maoists allows the state to
>
> justify repression of the Maoists in the name of defending
> the rights of
>
> these civilians. Far from this separation being something
> which the state
>
> must be forced to adopt, the state in fact was seen in
> Lalgarh to enforce
>
> it. Lalgarh showed that when the 'ordinary
> civilians' rejected the state
>
> even at its welfarist best and made it difficult to
> separate them from the
>
> Maoists, the state was forced to invent a technical
> separation (a particular
>
> dye mark on the body identifying a Maoist). This however
> did not work.
>
>
>
> Those on the left who support the democratic struggle in
> Lalgarh but deplore
>
> its supposed Maoist takeover, too, vociferously uphold this
> separation.
>
> What this separation does is prevent the interplay between
> different forms
>
> of struggle, 'peaceful' and 'violent', and
> constrict it within the limits
>
> set by the decrepit structures of state power. In the
> name of defending the
>
> democratic struggle from the authoritarian Maoists, it
> actually precludes
>
> the autonomous emergence of this struggle, a full-fledged
> political struggle
>
> against and beyond the limits set by state power.
>
>
>
> Lalgarh showed that the Maoist is the name for the
> articulation of the
>
> democratic struggle which now refuses to give up even when
> it comes face to
>
> the face with the state exercising its monopoly of
> violence. Opening a
>
> novel chapter in the interrelationship between the
> 'Maoist party' and mass
>
> resistance, the Maoist 'take-over' of the
> 'democratic struggle' was actually
>
> the latter's articulation beyond the last limits set up
> by given structures
>
> of power, the refusal of the struggle to recoil and rescind
> in the face of
>
> this power, refusal to remain merely another enclosure of
> democracy, the
>
> site of 'primitive accumulation' for capital and
> its democratic claims. It
>
> is a movement and a resistance where ordinary civilians no
> longer appear
>
> ordinary, and where the Maoists do not appear crudely
> vanguardist. Lalgarh
>
> today helps us rethink the entire question of political
> subjectivity, party,
>
> and the masses -- but above all of democracy and its
> concrete realisation
>
> through mass action.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> 1 <http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/giri090709.html#_ednref1>
> Gour
>
> Chakraborty, a veteran and widely respected Communist in
> his early 70s, had
>
> been a leading figure of the Ganapratirodh Mancha
> (Democratic Resistance
>
> Front), a coalition of left revolutionary groups in
> Kolkata. On December
>
> 26, 2008 West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee
> said that the
>
> government wished to deal with the Lalgarh rebellion
> "politically." Gour
>
> Chakraborty then announced that he had quit the Democratic
> Resistance Front
>
> to become the public spokesperson for the Communist Party
> of India (Maoist)
>
> in West Bengal, offered to meet with the chief minister,
> and said "we are
>
> giving the CPM a chance to deal with us politically."
> But despite efforts
>
> from other constituents of the Left Front in West Bengal,
> the leadership of
>
> the CPM refused to enter into political discussions with
> Chakraborty. On
>
> June 23, 2009 the West Bengal government arrested
> Chakraborty, using the
>
> provisions of the draconian anti-terrorism Unlawful
> Activities Prevention
>
> Act, as he was leaving a talk show on a TV channel.
> [*ed.*]
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Saroj Giri is Lecturer in Political Science, University of
> Delhi
>
> _______________________________________________
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Sent from my mobile device
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Love Cricket? Check out live scores, photos, video highlights and more.
Click here http://cricket.yahoo.com
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