Nandigram and the 'Other Left': Some Additional Thoughts

I have been trying to catch up on and keep up with the large volume of material about Nandigram and the recent letter of support from Chomsky et al. for the CPI(M)'s shenanigans. Many thanks to Rama, Dr Anonymous at Pass the Roti, and Sanhati who responded to my last post for their comments and suggestions. For those who may be interested, their blogs / sites contain a lot of valuable information on the Nandigram controversy.

As documented on Sanhati, the media resource Kafila has a response to the Chomsky letter from a number of other Indian left intellectuals, artistes, and activists. The same letter has also been published in the current issue of Outlook. The signatories, who include Arundhati Roy, Mahasweta Devi, Sumit Sarkar, Tanika Sarkar, and Aditya Nigam, appear highly critical of the Chomsky, Zinn, Prashad letter on specific issues. Their statement bears reproduction in full, before I offer a few comments on it. Here is the version from Outlook.

FOR THE RECORD
'A CPI(M) Public Relations Coup'
Response to Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn et al on Nandigram: "At this critical juncture it is crucial to articulate a Left position that is simultaneously against forcible land acquisition in Nandigram and for the right of Taslima Nasreen to live, write and speak freely in India..."

Mahasweta Devi, Arundhati Roy, Sumit Sarkar, Uma Chakravarty, Tanika Sarkar, and others

We read with growing dismay the statement signed by Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn and others advising those opposing the CPI(M)'s pro-capitalist policies in West Bengal not to "split the Left" in the face of American imperialism. We believe that for some of the signatories, their distance from events in India has resulted in their falling prey to a CPI(M) public relations coup and that they may have signed the statement without fully realising the import of it and what it means here in India, not just in Bengal.

We cannot believe that many of the signatories whom we know personally, and whose work we respect, share the values of the CPI(M)--to "share similar values" with the party today is to stand for unbridled capitalist development, nuclear energy at the cost of both ecological concerns and mass displacement of people (the planned nuclear plant at Haripur, West Bengal), and the Stalinist arrogance that the party knows what "the people" need better than the people themselves. Moreover, the violence that has been perpetrated by CPI(M) cadres to browbeat the peasants into submission, including time-tested weapons like rape, demonstrate that this "Left" shares little with the Left ideals that we cherish.

Over the last decade, the policies of the Left Front government in West Bengal have become virtually indistinguishable from those of other parties committed to the neoliberal agenda. Indeed, "the important experiments undertaken in the State" --the land reforms referred to in the statement--are being rapidly reversed. According to figures provided by the West Bengal state secretary for land reforms, over the past five years there has been a massive increase of landless peasants in the state due to government acquisition of land cheaply for handing over to corporations and developing posh upper class neighbourhoods.

We urge our friends to take very seriously the fact that all over the country, democratic rights groups, activists and intellectuals of impeccable democratic credentials have come out in full support of the Nandigram struggle.

The statement reiterates the CPI(M)'s claim that "there will be no chemical hub" in Nandigram, but this assurance is itself deliberately misleading. This is the explanation repeatedly offered by CPI(M) for the first round of resistance in Nandigram --that people reacted to a baseless rumour that there would be land acquisitions in the area. In fact, as the Chief Minister himself conceded in the State Assembly, it was no rumour but a notification issued by the Haldia Development Authority on January 2, 2007 indicating the approximate size and location of the projected SEZ, which triggered the turmoil.

The major factor shaping popular reaction to the notification was Singur.

Singur was the chronicle of the fate foretold for Nandigram. There, land was acquired in most cases without the consent of peasant-owners and at gun-point (terrorizing people is one way of obtaining their consent), under the colonial Land Acquisition Act (1894). That land is now under the control of the industrial house of the Tatas, cordoned off and policed by the state police of West Bengal. The dispossessed villagers are lost to history. A fortunate few among them will become wage slaves of the Tatas on the land on which they were once owners.

While the CPM-led West Bengal government has announced that it will not go ahead with the chemical hub without the consent of the people of Nandigram, it has not announced any plans of withdrawing its commitment to the neo-liberal development model. It has not announced the shelving of plans to create Special Economic Zones. It has not withdrawn its invitation to Dow Chemicals (formerly known as Union Carbide, the corporation responsible for tens of thousands of deaths in Bhopal) to invest in West Bengal.

In other words, there are many more Nandigrams waiting to happen.

In any case, the reason for the recently renewed violence in Nandigram has been widely established to have nothing to do with the rumour or otherwise of a chemical hub. Print and visual media, independent reports, the governor of West Bengal (Gopal Gandhi) and the State Home Secretary's police intelligence all establish that this round of violence was initiated by the CPI(M) to re-establish its control in the area. We all have seen TV coverage of unarmed villagers barricaded behind walls of rubble, while policemen train their guns on them.

With the plans it has for the future, regaining control over Nandigram is vital for the CPI(M) to reassure its corporate partners that it is in complete control of the situation and that any kind of resistance will be comprehensively crushed. The euphemism for this in the free marketplace is 'creating a good investment climate'.

The anti-Taslima Nasreen angle that has recently been linked to the Nandigram struggle against land acquisition is disturbing to all of us. However, we should remember that it is largely Muslim peasants who are being dispossessed by land acquisitions all over the state. There is a general crisis of confidence of the Muslim community vis-a-vis the Left Front government, inaugurated by the current Chief Minister's aggressive campaign to "clean up" madarsas, followed by the revelation of the Sachar Committee that Muslim employment in government jobs in West Bengal is among the lowest in the country. While we condemn the attempts to utilize this discontent and channelize it in sectarian ways, we feel very strongly that it would be unfortunate if the entire anger of the community were to be mobilized by communal and sectarian tendencies within it. Such a situation would be inevitable if all Left forces were seen to be backing the CPI(M).

This is why at this critical juncture it is crucial to articulate a Left position that is simultaneously against forcible land acquisition in Nandigram and for the right of Taslima Nasreen to live, write and speak freely in India.

History has shown us that internal dissent is invariably silenced by dominant forces claiming that a bigger enemy is at the gate. Iraq and Iran are not the only targets of that bigger enemy. The struggle against SEZ's and corporate globalization is an intrinsic part of the struggle against US imperialism.

We urge our fellow travellers among the signatories to that statement, not to treat the "Left" as homogeneous, for there are many different tendencies which claim that mantle, as indeed you will recognize if you look at the names on your own statement.

Mahashweta Devi,
Arundhati Roy,
Sumit Sarkar,
Uma Chakravarty,
Tanika Sarkar,
Moinak Biswas,
Kaushik Ghosh,
Saroj Giri,
Sourin Bhattacharya,
Nirmalangshu Mukherji,
Sibaji Bandyopadhyay,
Swapan Chakravorty,
Rajarshi Dasgupta,
Anand Chakravarty,
Apoorvanand,
Shuddhabrata Sengupta,
Nivedita Menon,
Aditya Nigam

The letter makes several important statements, including a condemnation of the thuggish and violent tactics of the CPI(M) in Nandigram and a defense of Taslima Nasreen's right to live in Calcutta and her right to freedom of expression.

But, ultimately, this reponse from other Indian Left voices, for all its claims of heterogeneity of perspective, remains trapped within the same paradigm as the Chomsky et al. piece that it criticises. With due acknowledgment of the fact that this letter cannot present a nuanced argument of the kind possible in an academic exposition, and without wishing to engage in hair-splitting and over-reading, here are the key problems with the response of the 'Other Left':

a) The invocation of US imperialism: In the response, Chomsky & Co. are criticized for their call for Left unity and their related support for the CPI(M) in the face of American imperialism. But the response also invokes US imperialism as the "bigger enemy at the gate," insisting on the necessity of a diverse, heterogeneous, Left as a bulwark against this enemy. The spectre of a larger Left unity, albeit one that is fuzzy, overlapping, and amorphous, is very much part of the picture.

Aside from the rhetorical function that it serves, it is not quite clear in the response what exactly is the role of US imperialism in the events surrounding Nandigram. I am not suggesting that the US cannot be critiqued for specific imperialist ventures or actions that clearly qualify as colonialist. For instance, the invasion of Iraq seems unequivocally to fulfil the definition of a colonial occupation, based as it is on a continuing violation of international law. American exceptionalism, the idea that America can be its own judge and jury on any and all matters, the hubristic notion that America has a special moral mission and destiny to lead the world-- all these arguments that permeate American media coverage and public space are open to critique.

But none of this explains or describes how US imperialism, in its mysterious, insidious ways, functions as the hidden hand behind the violence committed by the CPI(M), an Indian Left party, against Indian citizens? It is a curiously unhistorical argument for Leftists to make.

b) Neoliberalism, as the real villain: A similar point can be made with regard to the invocation of neoliberalism in the response. Neoliberalism operates here as what I call a 'sponge concept,' something to which anything and everything can be attributed. Again, I am not suggesting that there is no such thing as neoliberal ideology or that neoliberalism is not the source of specific kinds of violence, in India or elsewhere. But to blame neoliberalism as the deep cause for the events is to: first, curiously anthropomorphize and reify it as a force beyond the will and agency of humans; and, secondly, by implication, to give a clean chit to the CPI(M) before the era of neoliberalism, liberalization, and the free market, that is, before the 1991 reforms. Which brings me to my next point.

c) The CPI(M) gets off lightly (again): The article abstains from condemning the longer, violent, and undemocratic history of the CPI(M) and Left in Bengal or elsewhere. The violence at Nandigram is treated as an outcome of an explosive and unhealthy combination of neoliberalism, the imperialist US, and a Left government forgetting its ideals and commitments. It is only in the last decade, we are told, that the CPI(M) has begun its chameleon-like alchemic transformation to a neoliberal state. But the implied, invisible, Edenic past of the CPI(M) in Bengal and of the Left in India is an illusion, of course. It is a necessary fiction, even if subterranean, in the response, to enable the rhetorical claim that the CPI(M) has not lived up to more noble ideas of the Left and to its own possibly more distinguished heritage in the prelapsarian age before neoliberalism. Again, a peculiar historical blindness and amnesia for adherents of a perspective that would insist-- only historicize! always historicize!

And, in what is an irony that the Left has not commented on (or refuses to comment on), some of the strongest supporters of the peasants in Nandigram are liberals, supporters of the free-market, even neoliberals, if one will--- on grounds of a defence of property rights.

d) And, finally, perhaps the weakest point of the letter, is the waffling on the threats and protests against Taslima Nasreen by members of Bengal's Muslim communities. Here, the fear may be that the Hindu Right and the dime-a-dozen experts of the "War on Terror" school might coopt an unequivocal condemnation of the Muslim groups and individuals that have threatened Nasreen. It is an understandable anxiety but it translates into an incoherent and untenable position and exculpation of the aggressors against Nasreen. Judge for yourself. Here is what the letter says.

The anti-Taslima Nasreen angle that has recently been linked to the Nandigram struggle against land acquisition is disturbing to all of us. However, we should remember that it is largely Muslim peasants who are being dispossessed by land acquisitions all over the state. There is a general crisis of confidence of the Muslim community vis-a-vis the Left Front government, inaugurated by the current Chief Minister's aggressive campaign to "clean up" madarsas, followed by the revelation of the Sachar Committee that Muslim employment in government jobs in West Bengal is among the lowest in the country. While we condemn the attempts to utilize this discontent and channelize it in sectarian ways, we feel very strongly that it would be unfortunate if the entire anger of the community were to be mobilized by communal and sectarian tendencies within it. Such a situation would be inevitable if all Left forces were seen to be backing the CPI(M).

The authors imply that the violence against Nasreen can be explained solely and completely as a reaction to the actions of the CPI(M) against the peasants. Muslim disenfrachisement and systemic discrimination against Muslims are surely factors in the rise of Muslim conservatism in India, as are the anti-Muslim pogroms and riots carried out by Hindu nationalists with the blessings and support of Hindu nationalist parties and leaders, including Advani and Modi.

But neither Babri Masjid nor the post-Godhra violence nor even Nandigram justify Muslim violence and threats against Taslima Nasreen. Neither the Hindu fundamentalists nor the Muslim fundamentalists decide who has the right to say what in India or who the right to stay where.

There are other histories and factors here as well. These include: the cynical manipulation of Muslim sentiments by political parties in India; the cultivation of Muslim vote banks by the Congress, Left and other parties that invoke socialism; the tacit collusion among different political parties to legitimize the most conservative voices among Indian Muslims as 'authentic' representatives of the community; the discriminatory ideologies and rhetoric preached by Islamic groups, including the insistence on the superiority of codifications of Shariah to the Indian constitution; and the use of violence as a tool of political bargaining and negotiation with the state by all Indian communities.

There are precedents for the violence against Taslima Nasreen, notably the protests against Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, the threats and assault against Jamia Millia Islamia Vice-Chancellor, Mushirul Hasan, in 1992, for suggesting that the book should not be banned, and the Shah Bano controversy.
(See this piece by Prof C.M. Naim in his work, Ambiguities of Heritage, for a discussion of the implications of some of these events).

The letter is unsuccessful in offering any kind of coherent critique of the Bengali Muslim reaction to Taslima Nasreen. Inasmuch as it defines the urgent need of the hour as "articulat[ing] a Left position that is simultaneously against forcible land acquisition in Nandigram and for the right of Taslima Nasreen to live, write and speak freely in India," it fails to meet this goal.

The long and short of it, then, is that the response to Chomsky et al. letter is arguably no more critical of them than the Chomsky et al. letter is critical of the CPI(M). The measured criticism, simultaneously attempting to redeem the Left, still does not give voice to the victims of Nandigram.