COMMENTARY

Against the Assault on Thought

A Lesson for the Left
Rohit Azad

When the state cannot hide behind

a faade of national performance,
the government has to look for
an alternative category of us
versus them based on religion
and caste. This can be employed
to divide people and rule to nip
the transformative discourse in
the bud. Progressive-minded
people should stand together to
challenge this with our own
us versus them.

efore the last general elections,

two supposedly contrasting images
of Narendra Modi were projected
by the media: Modi, as the development
man and Modi, as the Hindutva crusader.
It was argued that he won the elections
because of his development agenda,
which dominated the Hindutva agenda.
A dichotomy was, therefore, created in
the minds of even the most liberal of the
intellectuals between these two images
of Modi. Many of them have argued that
the second image of Modi as a Hindutva
crusader dominates or comes only to the
fore when the first does not deliver. I
would like to first dispel this notion of
two contrasting images because that
lies at the core of blunting any resistance
to the assault on thought that is being
forced upon in India today.
Us versus Them

Rohit Azad (rohit@jnu.ac.in) teaches

Economics at the Jawaharlal Nehru University,
New Delhi.
Economic & Political Weekly

EPW

april 23, 2016

It is easier to explain how these two

images of Modi go together by looking at
his pet project, Make in India, which
was launched in Mumbai on 16 January
2016. This model is premised on India
gaining, at the cost of its competitors, a
share in the international market. This
can only happen if the costs of production in India are made relatively cheaper
than its international counterparts like
China. This can be done in many ways,
some of which India is targeting: suppressing real wages and/or increasing
the productivity of labour (labour market
reforms); making natural resources available at throwaway prices (land acquisition bill, etc). So, even if such a growth
were delivered, it would be invariably
exclusivist as it is premised on tilting the
distribution of income and wealth against
the working people of the country.
Such a development by encroachment
of resources from the working people by
its very definition creates fertile political
grounds for a discourse of us versus them
which has a transformative potential,
vol lI no 17

the best example of which was the 99%

(working people) versus 1% (ruling elite)
slogan of the Occupy movement in the
United States (US). But what is transformative for the working people, for the
same reason, is disruptive for the ruling
elite. Therefore, the latter looks for an
alternative category of us versus them
based on religion, caste, colour, race,
country, which can be employed to divide
the working people and rule. The creation of a Hindutva crusader is essential
for such a development man.
While these two images go together,
from time to time one of them might
dominate the other, for example, the
Hindutva crusader becomes more dominant, especially if the development man
does not deliver. And it seems to be the
case not just for the first two years of his
term but for the rest as well, since the
international markets remain elusive as
the global crisis continues unabated.
Such a possibility increases the need of
the state, which cannot even hide behind a facade of national performance,
to nip the transformative discourse in
the bud. Hence, the assault becomes
even more pronounced. This is what is
happening today in India.
With the lack of a facade of high
growth, a false symbol of pride needs
to be resurrected, which in this case is
jingoism parading as nationalism. Such
jingoism never ends well. In history it
has either ended in fascism or a war or
both and the scary thing is that both are
possible in the case of India. If this situation continues, which is what it is headed
towards, for getting a second term, this
government can even orchestrate a war
against its neighbours. Such a political
discourse might get further strengthened, if the politics in the US moves even
more to the right with a Donald Trump
coming to power against odds, so that
the political discourse is not set on these
lines; it is imperative on the progressiveminded people to challenge this us versus
them with our own us versus them.
From Lal Salaam
to Jai Bhim Lal Salaam
This can only be done when we get
over some of our ideological baggages,
one of which is giving primacy to a
17

COMMENTARY

self-declared principal contradiction

based on just the issues of class. There are
many contradictions in the political system
we live in, as they have existed earlier,
and the need of the hour is to give them
all equal primacy because no ones contradiction with its solution necessarily
solves the others. Let us take the case of
caste or gender or religious- or other
identity-based contradictions. Would they
disappear or even get muted if the class
contradiction is resolved? Many erstwhile
socialist countries are a living testimony
to the fact that this was not necessarily
the case. In fact, by making such an
argument about a principal versus nonprincipal contradiction, we undermine
the transformative possibilities that our
us versus them might throw up.
If the them can be aptly captured in
various combinations of an image of a
Brahmin upper-class male, the us

should surely be a combination of a Dalit,

an Other Backward Class, a non-Hindu,
a female and the working class and notthem segregated along these categories.
And I think it is primarily a theoretical
lacuna because all political praxis after
all flows from a particular theoretical
construct. Let the political opposition
both in theory and praxis be a genuine and an organic combination of these
theoretical constructs which has the
potential of producing a powerful resistance. I saw this with my own experience
in the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).
The slogan of lal salam of our days has
been transformed into Jai Bhim lal
salam, which has a huge potential for
the progressive movement in general.
But I think, so far this opposition, at
least in its intellectual discourse, seems
more like a common minimum programme rather than a genuine amalgamation

The Persuasions of Intolerance

Janaki Srinivasan

By branding every critique of

development policies as an
anti-national conspiracy to stall
investments and growth, not
only are arrests, threats and
murders of social activists and
journalists justified, development
itself gets defined as a fact. It is
telling that truth is the weapon
used to close off primarily three
categoriesnation, development
and religionin public discourse.

Janaki Srinivasan (janakisriniv@gmail.com)

teaches political science at Panjab University,
Chandigarh.

18

s violations of freedom of expression pile up, how productive is it

to defend freedom on the ground
of tolerance for dissent? Marking out
an opinion as dissent paradoxically
enables the consolidation of the mainstream consensus. There is a clear shift
in the arguments deployed to curtail
free expression of ideas from hurt sentiments to truth. Such a shift is taking
place in a public culture which requires
individuals to have opinions, but is incapable of sustaining critical dialogue.
The political resolution adopted at the
recent national executive meeting of the
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) declared
that refusal to hail Bharat was tantamount to disrespecting the Constitution.
Party leaders and ministers have consistently qualified their support for freedom
of expression to exclude any activity
critical of the country and the only utterance of the Prime Minister Narendra
Modi on this issue was to castigate the
agitations over the clampdown of dissent as distractions from the agenda of

of ideas flowing from these different

strands of thinking, some of which are
Marxist or subaltern or feminist in nature. A common minimum programme
has taken us thus far but no more.
With time and engagement, it has the
potential of becoming an intersecting
unity as opposed to an alliance. The job
of the opposition is to creatively engage
with these debates, and instead of seeing them as fissures in the advance of
their respective movements, see them
as having a transformative potential
even for their own respective agenda.
The ruling establishment realises that,
so, they want to nip it in the bud, something that became amply clear in JNU
earlier and Hyderabad Central University (HCU) now. It is time that those who
stood with JNU should stand with HCU
as well if they want this political project
to materialise.

development. Convinced that the JNU

(Jawaharlal Nehru University) moment
is to its advantage, the BJP intends to
play the game of anti-nationalism and
simultaneaously blame victims and opponents for creating diversions. While the
list of violations of freedom of expression
in India over the past two decades runs
long, the breakneck speed with which
instances are now piling up makes it
imperative to look beyond the violations
and ask what is distinctive about the
current debate over freedom and dissent.
Why do these attacks on individuals and
institutions have such popular traction
as can be ascertained from the public
response at offline and online forums?
Right to Dissent
Op-ed columns and editorials of (primarily
English language) newspapers seem to
run on a track parallel to the debates on
television channels and social media
platforms. On the one hand, leading
commentators as well as editorials have
reiterated the classic liberal argument
for tolerance, that is, no idea, however
offensive, marginal or unconventional
in the face of public morality and discourse ought to be restricted unless
there is a clear risk of tangible harm to
others in society. On the other hand,

april 23, 2016

vol lI no 17

EPW

Economic & Political Weekly