Just published: Prasenjit Bose is the editor of the contributed volume "Maoism: A Critique from the Left" (LeftWord Books, May 2010):
www.leftword.com/bookdetails.php?BkId=279&type=PB
Publisher's description: "What is 'Maoism'? What are its roots, and who are the forces waging a war in its name? The Indian Prime Minister characterizes them as our gravest internal security threat. The Maoists, on the other hand, claim they are the only revolutionary force in India today. The debate in India seems polarized between the hardline advocates of a military response to leftwing extremism on the one hand, and those who sympathize with the Maoists on the other. There is need, however, to look at the roots and origins of left sectarianism and critique it from a Marxist standpoint. In articulating a Left critique of 'Maoism', this book adds a crucial dimension to the ongoing debate in India. [...] P.M.S. Grewal makes a detailed, careful critique of the Indian Maoists' history, their programme and praxis. Nilotpal Basu unravels 'Maoism' as an anti-thesis of Mao Zedong thought. Vijay Prashad takes a critical look at the international experience of left extremism, especially in Latin America."
From the introduction: "Following independence, alongside the emergence of the Communist party as a major opposition force to the ruling Congress party within the parliamentary democratic set up, ideological debates also intensified within the Left on the road to revolution in India. [...] The Communist Party of India (Marxist) [...] arrived at a programmatic understanding that the [...] revolution, directed against the big bourgeoisie, landlordism and imperialism, is to be achieved by combining parliamentary and extra-parliamentary struggles. This overall understanding, however, was questioned by a small section, which considered participation in the parliamentary democratic process – just as the left sectarians did during Lenin's time – to be revisionist and non-revolutionary in principle. [...] Nilotpal Basu's essay [...] makes a robust critique of the anti-democratic practices of the Maoists and their hypocritical sympathizers. He also argues that Maoists can be effectively dealt with, not by means of imposing bans or security measures alone, but by ensuring their political isolation and addressing the developmental needs of the tribal areas where the Maoists operate."
Prasenjit Bose is Convenor of the Research Unit of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).
Showing posts with label India. Show all posts
Showing posts with label India. Show all posts
25 May 2010
13 May 2010
Article: Has Indian Democracy Failed?
Smitu Kothari's article "Has Indian Democracy Failed?" was published on 6 August 2007 on the website of Intercultural Resources (ICR), an Indian-based organization "for research and political intervention on issues related to the impacts [of] and alternatives to destructive development".
The article can be read free of charge here:
http://icrindia.org/?p=170
Excerpts: "From whose vantage point do we assess our democracy? The minority that celebrates our 'economic miracle' and has found the means, both legitimate and devious, to enhance its comforts and privileges? Or the over 70 per cent who live on less than Rs 80 [Rupees] a day, some striving to improve their lives against grave odds and others living a life of penury and humiliation? [...] Integral to democracy was the commitment to strive for social and economic justice. Any assessment of our democracy must start with an assessment of that commitment. [...] Can we call our country democratic when, in the past few years, there have been a hundred thousand farmer suicides – a hundred thousand families devastated? [...] This reality points to our being integrated into an undemocratic global economic system dominated by institutions which are silent when the US and Europe heavily subsidise their farmers undermining the very survival of millions of farmers in countries like ours – one of the reasons for the suicides. [...]
"Should we admit failure when the police or the army fire on democratic protests often in the presence of district collectors and senior members of ruling parties? Are the firings and repression in Nandigram and Kalinganagar scattered incidents or are they part of a pattern where 'development flows from the barrel of a gun'? Even a cursory look at what is unfolding in the Northeast highlights how projects ranging from uranium mines to scores of large dams are being implemented with minimal public discussion using lies, subterfuge, armed force and blatant bribery. [...] Despite nine per cent growth, less than one per cent of the national budget goes towards public health spending? We have child malnourishment levels that are higher than sub-Saharan Africa. Highlighting this, a recent government of India-UNICEF study found that 56 per cent of women and 79 per cent of children below three years old were anemic – a situation worse than seven years ago. [...] So you have a classic situation of widening expectations created by a populist image of resurgent India and a reality of disenchantment. It is inevitable in this situation that Maoist movements are finding resonance among despairing populations. Vast areas in Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand and Orissa are now under their influence."
The late Smitu Kothari (1950-2009), a social and environmental activist, was Director of Intercultural Resources (ICR), New Delhi, and Visiting Professor at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.
The article can be read free of charge here:
http://icrindia.org/?p=170
Excerpts: "From whose vantage point do we assess our democracy? The minority that celebrates our 'economic miracle' and has found the means, both legitimate and devious, to enhance its comforts and privileges? Or the over 70 per cent who live on less than Rs 80 [Rupees] a day, some striving to improve their lives against grave odds and others living a life of penury and humiliation? [...] Integral to democracy was the commitment to strive for social and economic justice. Any assessment of our democracy must start with an assessment of that commitment. [...] Can we call our country democratic when, in the past few years, there have been a hundred thousand farmer suicides – a hundred thousand families devastated? [...] This reality points to our being integrated into an undemocratic global economic system dominated by institutions which are silent when the US and Europe heavily subsidise their farmers undermining the very survival of millions of farmers in countries like ours – one of the reasons for the suicides. [...]
"Should we admit failure when the police or the army fire on democratic protests often in the presence of district collectors and senior members of ruling parties? Are the firings and repression in Nandigram and Kalinganagar scattered incidents or are they part of a pattern where 'development flows from the barrel of a gun'? Even a cursory look at what is unfolding in the Northeast highlights how projects ranging from uranium mines to scores of large dams are being implemented with minimal public discussion using lies, subterfuge, armed force and blatant bribery. [...] Despite nine per cent growth, less than one per cent of the national budget goes towards public health spending? We have child malnourishment levels that are higher than sub-Saharan Africa. Highlighting this, a recent government of India-UNICEF study found that 56 per cent of women and 79 per cent of children below three years old were anemic – a situation worse than seven years ago. [...] So you have a classic situation of widening expectations created by a populist image of resurgent India and a reality of disenchantment. It is inevitable in this situation that Maoist movements are finding resonance among despairing populations. Vast areas in Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand and Orissa are now under their influence."
The late Smitu Kothari (1950-2009), a social and environmental activist, was Director of Intercultural Resources (ICR), New Delhi, and Visiting Professor at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.
12 May 2010
Pamphlet: Democracy in Crisis: How the Islamic Political System ensures Good Governance
On the day of the general elections in the United Kingdom (6 May 2010), the British branch of Hizb ut-Tahrir, the pan-Islamist revolutionary party active in many Muslim as well as western countries, released a pamphlet titled "Democracy in Crisis: How the Islamic Political System ensures Good Governance".
The full text of the pamphlet can be read free of charge here:
www.hizb.org.uk/hizb/images/PDFs/Democracy_in_crisis_may2010.pdf
Excerpts: "Democracy [...] is the established order in a chaotic and unstable world, where every critic of democracy is viewed with heretical suspicion. [...] For every civilization, for every country for every tribe, for every time – goes the mantra – democracy is the claimed answer to all our ills. [...] In addition to elections, Western democracies also champion a separation of state and religion, liberal values towards personal conduct, as well as capitalism, with its policy of unbridled free markets. Western societies promote individualism, hedonism and utilitarianism, with faith and morality kept strictly to the private arena. There is very little evidence that the people of Kabul (never mind Kandahar), Baghdad or Cairo support or accept that Islam should be marginalised in society and kept solely to the confines of the mosque, nor would most accept that a person has freedom to view pornography or commit adultery. Nor would most agree with laws permitting alcohol, gambling establishments or free market capitalism with all its adverse impacts; yet these are all norms in Western democracies. [...]
"Yet the problem of secular democracies originates not from bad implementation but shaky theoretical foundations. The view that laws become superior to other laws based on the number of people voting for them is as absurd as it is dangerous. We certainly don't decide scientific progress based on the number of people who support a position, if we did then Galileo, Copernicus and the hundreds of scientists who spoke truth to power and who struggled against public opinion must have been wrong. We decide trials based on the quality of evidence not on the numerical superiority of witnesses on any particular side. If people, as they did in the 1930's, vote for a populist leader who would later kill millions of Jews and start a world war, does this validate their choice just because they constituted a majority at a point in time. No it doesn't. [...] It is the active promotion of secular democracy abroad while simultaneously abandoning it at home that is the brazen hypocrisy. In rolling back democracy at home, the West has lost its moral leadership to preach to countries abroad, seriously undermining the pro democracy activists abroad it claims to support. [...]
"Theocracies at their heart believe that there is a group or leaders who are infallible and who have an exclusive right to interpret the word of God, where no one is allowed to challenge their interpretation and anyone doing so is condemned. Muslims believe Prophets are selected by God but that subsequent political leaders are not. Their legitimacy must emanate from the authority of the people. The Islamic political system is not theocratic in nature with anyone allowed to challenge any ruling by either scholars or the head of state. [...] The Islamic system would take the money out of modern politics. The electoral circus every four or five years [...] in the West positively encourages the growth of money in politics forcing politicians to either raise grotesque amounts of money for re-election or maximise their own wealth before they get booted out. The Islamic system, though not immune from the temptations on offer, seeks to actively detach both finance and the interests of corporations from politics [...].
"No one – including the head of state, their family, or any religious scholar – is above the law. And unlike the West where justice is skewed to those that are more powerful and wealthier, Islamic courts have historically – and will do so in the future – exercised justice for the weak, minorities and the less well off. [...] We do not believe in arbitrary arrest or torture or rendition or internment. Every person has the right to a presumption of innocence, a right to privacy and a right to a fair trial. Secular democracies do not have a monopoly over respecting the rights of its [sic] citizens. [...] There are also clear constitutionally enshrined Islamic prohibitions on torture and abusive behaviour amongst other things – applied to the police, armed forces and security services as well as the general population – as a protection from such forceful rule [....]
"The failure to acknowledge the Khilafah State as an alternative, despite its resonance with hundreds of millions of Muslims is not surprising. Western political leaders are more at ease comparing their way of life with the low benchmark of brutal dictators of the Middle East (despite propping up these same leaders for years) than in actually arguing the substantive issues of which political system would be better for the Muslim world. [...] In practice there is a huge gap between the reality of democratic countries and the rhetoric. [...] Debt is rising as democratic states continue to pander to their populations for short-term electoral considerations. The financial crisis of 2008 driven by the unholy trinity of democracy, capitalism and liberalism brought the world to the brink of disaster. We should learn the lessons before its [sic] too late. [...] What we need today is fresh thinking, not another model of secular democracy or some diluted set of reforms. It is a system so bankrupt that the world needs radical new alternatives, intertwined with new values and a new ethos of politics serving the public not a wealthy elite. This is the essence of the Islamic alternative."
The pamphlet includes case studies on the United States, United Kingdom, India, and Afghanistan, as well as a Q & A section on the Islamic Caliphate (Khilafah) system as an alternative to democracy.
The full text of the pamphlet can be read free of charge here:
www.hizb.org.uk/hizb/images/PDFs/Democracy_in_crisis_may2010.pdf
Excerpts: "Democracy [...] is the established order in a chaotic and unstable world, where every critic of democracy is viewed with heretical suspicion. [...] For every civilization, for every country for every tribe, for every time – goes the mantra – democracy is the claimed answer to all our ills. [...] In addition to elections, Western democracies also champion a separation of state and religion, liberal values towards personal conduct, as well as capitalism, with its policy of unbridled free markets. Western societies promote individualism, hedonism and utilitarianism, with faith and morality kept strictly to the private arena. There is very little evidence that the people of Kabul (never mind Kandahar), Baghdad or Cairo support or accept that Islam should be marginalised in society and kept solely to the confines of the mosque, nor would most accept that a person has freedom to view pornography or commit adultery. Nor would most agree with laws permitting alcohol, gambling establishments or free market capitalism with all its adverse impacts; yet these are all norms in Western democracies. [...]
"Yet the problem of secular democracies originates not from bad implementation but shaky theoretical foundations. The view that laws become superior to other laws based on the number of people voting for them is as absurd as it is dangerous. We certainly don't decide scientific progress based on the number of people who support a position, if we did then Galileo, Copernicus and the hundreds of scientists who spoke truth to power and who struggled against public opinion must have been wrong. We decide trials based on the quality of evidence not on the numerical superiority of witnesses on any particular side. If people, as they did in the 1930's, vote for a populist leader who would later kill millions of Jews and start a world war, does this validate their choice just because they constituted a majority at a point in time. No it doesn't. [...] It is the active promotion of secular democracy abroad while simultaneously abandoning it at home that is the brazen hypocrisy. In rolling back democracy at home, the West has lost its moral leadership to preach to countries abroad, seriously undermining the pro democracy activists abroad it claims to support. [...]
"Theocracies at their heart believe that there is a group or leaders who are infallible and who have an exclusive right to interpret the word of God, where no one is allowed to challenge their interpretation and anyone doing so is condemned. Muslims believe Prophets are selected by God but that subsequent political leaders are not. Their legitimacy must emanate from the authority of the people. The Islamic political system is not theocratic in nature with anyone allowed to challenge any ruling by either scholars or the head of state. [...] The Islamic system would take the money out of modern politics. The electoral circus every four or five years [...] in the West positively encourages the growth of money in politics forcing politicians to either raise grotesque amounts of money for re-election or maximise their own wealth before they get booted out. The Islamic system, though not immune from the temptations on offer, seeks to actively detach both finance and the interests of corporations from politics [...].
"No one – including the head of state, their family, or any religious scholar – is above the law. And unlike the West where justice is skewed to those that are more powerful and wealthier, Islamic courts have historically – and will do so in the future – exercised justice for the weak, minorities and the less well off. [...] We do not believe in arbitrary arrest or torture or rendition or internment. Every person has the right to a presumption of innocence, a right to privacy and a right to a fair trial. Secular democracies do not have a monopoly over respecting the rights of its [sic] citizens. [...] There are also clear constitutionally enshrined Islamic prohibitions on torture and abusive behaviour amongst other things – applied to the police, armed forces and security services as well as the general population – as a protection from such forceful rule [....]
"The failure to acknowledge the Khilafah State as an alternative, despite its resonance with hundreds of millions of Muslims is not surprising. Western political leaders are more at ease comparing their way of life with the low benchmark of brutal dictators of the Middle East (despite propping up these same leaders for years) than in actually arguing the substantive issues of which political system would be better for the Muslim world. [...] In practice there is a huge gap between the reality of democratic countries and the rhetoric. [...] Debt is rising as democratic states continue to pander to their populations for short-term electoral considerations. The financial crisis of 2008 driven by the unholy trinity of democracy, capitalism and liberalism brought the world to the brink of disaster. We should learn the lessons before its [sic] too late. [...] What we need today is fresh thinking, not another model of secular democracy or some diluted set of reforms. It is a system so bankrupt that the world needs radical new alternatives, intertwined with new values and a new ethos of politics serving the public not a wealthy elite. This is the essence of the Islamic alternative."
The pamphlet includes case studies on the United States, United Kingdom, India, and Afghanistan, as well as a Q & A section on the Islamic Caliphate (Khilafah) system as an alternative to democracy.
29 April 2010
Trend: Public offices for sale in Indian villages
The "Times of India" reported on 28 April 2010 about a trend in Indian villages and small towns to get rid of democratic elections and sell their public offices to the highest bidder instead (article "Doing away with GP polls is undemocratic" by political correspondent Rishikesh Bahadur Desai).
The article can be read free of charge here:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hubli/Doing-away-with-GP-polls-is-undemocratic/articleshow/5869628.cms
Excerpt: "People of Nayi Tegur have not voted in a Gram Panchayat [local government] Election for 23 years now. Residents of a Mandya village elected a gram panchayat member who vowed to donate money to the temple of the village deity. Villagers of Gumageri, Bhagya Nagar and Huchaganur in Koppal have awarded GP seats to the highest bidders. Such incidents raise an important, yet uncomfortable question: Are elections evil? Worse still, is that the government seems to be supporting such ideas. In an interview with the 'Times of India' some time ago, RDPR [Rural Development and Panchayat Raj] minister Jagadish Shettar said the government was considering rewarding villages where people chose their representatives unanimously and avoided elections. Elections, he believes, cause a lot of discord in the villages and avoiding them is the way to harmony. An officer on special duty to a minister has announced panchayats forgoing polling will be rewarded Rs 1 lakh [100,000 rupees/approx. 2,250 US dollars] from the government."
The article can be read free of charge here:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hubli/Doing-away-with-GP-polls-is-undemocratic/articleshow/5869628.cms
Excerpt: "People of Nayi Tegur have not voted in a Gram Panchayat [local government] Election for 23 years now. Residents of a Mandya village elected a gram panchayat member who vowed to donate money to the temple of the village deity. Villagers of Gumageri, Bhagya Nagar and Huchaganur in Koppal have awarded GP seats to the highest bidders. Such incidents raise an important, yet uncomfortable question: Are elections evil? Worse still, is that the government seems to be supporting such ideas. In an interview with the 'Times of India' some time ago, RDPR [Rural Development and Panchayat Raj] minister Jagadish Shettar said the government was considering rewarding villages where people chose their representatives unanimously and avoided elections. Elections, he believes, cause a lot of discord in the villages and avoiding them is the way to harmony. An officer on special duty to a minister has announced panchayats forgoing polling will be rewarded Rs 1 lakh [100,000 rupees/approx. 2,250 US dollars] from the government."
12 March 2010
Article: The Politics of Development
Brij Mohan, "The Politics of Development", Journal of Comparative Social Welfare, 25 (3), October 2009: pp. 255-67:
www.informaworld.com/smpp/1244700700-65537240/content~db=all~content=a916030631
Abstract: "Global poverty and inequality, in the context of current capitalist crisis, will remain a daunting challenge in the twenty-first century. This reality will unleash an era of post-democracy bedeviled by multifaceted meltdowns in political, cultural and economic structures. The outcome will be a catastrophe that will be beyond any human intervention unless we think self-critically and fast. This article seeks to theorize the main processes that thwart the rational-humane logic of development in the 'post-American world'."
Some excerpts: "A hedonist culture wallowing in hubristic delusions is bound to crash. The contradictions of a society based on unprincipled consumption and consumerism is bad news for the future of humankind. [...] All political roles are implicated in a culture of deceptions and depredations until proven not guilty. Will there ever be an acceptable rationale and due compensation for the Iraq war that was launched by neo-cons based on lies? Can anyone on this planet rewind world history and undo India's partition that created a phony – now a failed – state named Pakistan, which has become the womb of world terrorism? [...] A cultural meltdown reflects on the nature of social contract that serves as the foundation of modern society. The rusted fabric of social institutions is in disarray. Social institutions are losing legitimacy and their leaders are guilty of bad faith. Banks cheat; schools do not teach; hospitals sometimes kill; prisons dehumanize; markets collapse; ideologies mislead; academe sucks; and faith corrupts. [...] It is cultural meltdowns of varied hues that destabilize systems of sustenance that render democracies vulnerable to the creatureliness of reptilian behaviors. From the Wall Street to Rwanda, the gluttony of greed and gloom has produced widespread dysfunctionality that thwarts all democratic institutions."
I venture the opinion that the acceptance of this incoherent little piece that reads as if it had been written on speed was greatly helped by the fact that the author is himself Editor-in-Chief of the journal it was published in.
Indian-born Brij Mohan is Professor of Social Work at Louisiana State University.
www.informaworld.com/smpp/1244700700-65537240/content~db=all~content=a916030631
Abstract: "Global poverty and inequality, in the context of current capitalist crisis, will remain a daunting challenge in the twenty-first century. This reality will unleash an era of post-democracy bedeviled by multifaceted meltdowns in political, cultural and economic structures. The outcome will be a catastrophe that will be beyond any human intervention unless we think self-critically and fast. This article seeks to theorize the main processes that thwart the rational-humane logic of development in the 'post-American world'."
Some excerpts: "A hedonist culture wallowing in hubristic delusions is bound to crash. The contradictions of a society based on unprincipled consumption and consumerism is bad news for the future of humankind. [...] All political roles are implicated in a culture of deceptions and depredations until proven not guilty. Will there ever be an acceptable rationale and due compensation for the Iraq war that was launched by neo-cons based on lies? Can anyone on this planet rewind world history and undo India's partition that created a phony – now a failed – state named Pakistan, which has become the womb of world terrorism? [...] A cultural meltdown reflects on the nature of social contract that serves as the foundation of modern society. The rusted fabric of social institutions is in disarray. Social institutions are losing legitimacy and their leaders are guilty of bad faith. Banks cheat; schools do not teach; hospitals sometimes kill; prisons dehumanize; markets collapse; ideologies mislead; academe sucks; and faith corrupts. [...] It is cultural meltdowns of varied hues that destabilize systems of sustenance that render democracies vulnerable to the creatureliness of reptilian behaviors. From the Wall Street to Rwanda, the gluttony of greed and gloom has produced widespread dysfunctionality that thwarts all democratic institutions."
I venture the opinion that the acceptance of this incoherent little piece that reads as if it had been written on speed was greatly helped by the fact that the author is himself Editor-in-Chief of the journal it was published in.
Indian-born Brij Mohan is Professor of Social Work at Louisiana State University.
24 February 2010
Book: A Mass Movement Against Democracy: The Threat of the Sangh Parivar
A short announcement for a book about which I can find almost no information: Shankar Gopalakrishnan, "A Mass Movement Against Democracy: The Threat of the Sangh Parivar" (New Delhi, India: Aakar Books, 2009):
http://aakarbooks.com/bookdetail.php?book_id=304
According to the publisher's website, "Shankar Gopalakrishnan is an activist of the Campaign for Survival and Dignity, a national platform of tribal and forest dweller mass organizations struggling for the rights of forest communities. He has written on forest policy, tribal rights, law development, communalism, Special Economic Zones and neoliberal economic policies. His academic training is in development studies and mathematics".
The book was published in association with the Society for Rural, Urban and Tribal Initiative (SRUTI) in New Delhi, on whose website I found only one reference to it: "Shankar Gopal has finalised the booklet [77 pages] on understanding the functioning of the Sangha parivar and its fascist programs". On the website of a university library in the US which acquired the book, it is described thus: "On the ideology of Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh, sociopolitical organization".
According to a quick online search, Rashtriya Swayam Sevak [or: Swayamsevak] Sangh (RSS) is a Hindu nationalist volunteer organization. Sangh Parivar denotes the family of more than thirty organizations, with millions of members, associated with the RSS, among them national unions of labourers, farmers, fishermen, teachers, students, artists, lawyers, and financial consultants, and the World Hindu Council, but also the BJP, the political party that led the National Democratic Alliance coalition government which ruled India between 1998 and 2004.
http://aakarbooks.com/bookdetail.php?book_id=304
According to the publisher's website, "Shankar Gopalakrishnan is an activist of the Campaign for Survival and Dignity, a national platform of tribal and forest dweller mass organizations struggling for the rights of forest communities. He has written on forest policy, tribal rights, law development, communalism, Special Economic Zones and neoliberal economic policies. His academic training is in development studies and mathematics".
The book was published in association with the Society for Rural, Urban and Tribal Initiative (SRUTI) in New Delhi, on whose website I found only one reference to it: "Shankar Gopal has finalised the booklet [77 pages] on understanding the functioning of the Sangha parivar and its fascist programs". On the website of a university library in the US which acquired the book, it is described thus: "On the ideology of Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh, sociopolitical organization".
According to a quick online search, Rashtriya Swayam Sevak [or: Swayamsevak] Sangh (RSS) is a Hindu nationalist volunteer organization. Sangh Parivar denotes the family of more than thirty organizations, with millions of members, associated with the RSS, among them national unions of labourers, farmers, fishermen, teachers, students, artists, lawyers, and financial consultants, and the World Hindu Council, but also the BJP, the political party that led the National Democratic Alliance coalition government which ruled India between 1998 and 2004.
15 February 2010
Article: The Charisma of Autocracy: Bal Thackeray's Dictatorship in Shiv Sena
In 2002, the Indian journal "Manushi: A Journal about Women and Society" published an article by Julia Eckert titled "The Charisma of Autocracy: Bal Thackeray's Dictatorship in Shiv Sena" (130: pp. 13-9). Shiv Sena is a regional far-right/Hindu nationalist political party in the Indian state of Maharashtra (of which Mumbai is the capital), that more recently has been seeking to go national. It was part of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance coalition government that ruled India between 1998 and 2004.
The article can be read free of charge here:
www.manushi-india.org/pdfs_issues/PDF%20ISSUE%20130(1.4)/3.%20The%20Charisma%20of%20Autocracy.pdf
Excerpts: "The autocratic control of Bal Thackeray over the Shiv Sena is probably the party's most notorious feature. [...] [T]he movement's founder [...] is said to rule the organisation with dictatorial powers. It is his charismatic appeal that is assumed to inspire his followers, and it is his 'remote control' which is said to govern Mumbai. [...] Bal Thackeray has time and again advocated a 'benevolent dictatorship' as the most beneficial form of government for India. [...]
"Accordingly, dictatorial rule and anti-democratic structures within the Shiv Sena are [...] part of the projected counter-politics of 'getting things done' and justified by the failure of other forms of decision making, namely the parliamentary one. [...] Corruption is in this construction intrinsically linked to democratic procedure, and democratically legitimised power. [...] The theme of 'betrayal by democracy' as well as that of the dangers of party rivalry holds sway far beyond the Sena's constituency."
In 2003, Oxford University Press published Eckert's monograph "The Charisma of Direct Action: Power, Politics and the Shiv Sena":
www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Politics/ComparativePolitics/IndiaPakistan/?view=usa&ci=9780195660449
Publisher's description: "This book is a study of the Shiv Sena, a minor but most influential affiliate of the Hindu nationalist movement. It discusses the politics and appeal of the party which has been governing Mumbai and has achieved electoral success in a democracy that it often dispises [sic]. Through an analysis of the Shiv Sena, the book attempts to understand anti-pluralist movements of voilent [sic] direct action in particular."
Julia M. Eckert is now a Professor in the Institute of Social Anthropology at the University of Berne, Switzerland.
The article can be read free of charge here:
www.manushi-india.org/pdfs_issues/PDF%20ISSUE%20130(1.4)/3.%20The%20Charisma%20of%20Autocracy.pdf
Excerpts: "The autocratic control of Bal Thackeray over the Shiv Sena is probably the party's most notorious feature. [...] [T]he movement's founder [...] is said to rule the organisation with dictatorial powers. It is his charismatic appeal that is assumed to inspire his followers, and it is his 'remote control' which is said to govern Mumbai. [...] Bal Thackeray has time and again advocated a 'benevolent dictatorship' as the most beneficial form of government for India. [...]
"Accordingly, dictatorial rule and anti-democratic structures within the Shiv Sena are [...] part of the projected counter-politics of 'getting things done' and justified by the failure of other forms of decision making, namely the parliamentary one. [...] Corruption is in this construction intrinsically linked to democratic procedure, and democratically legitimised power. [...] The theme of 'betrayal by democracy' as well as that of the dangers of party rivalry holds sway far beyond the Sena's constituency."
In 2003, Oxford University Press published Eckert's monograph "The Charisma of Direct Action: Power, Politics and the Shiv Sena":
www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Politics/ComparativePolitics/IndiaPakistan/?view=usa&ci=9780195660449
Publisher's description: "This book is a study of the Shiv Sena, a minor but most influential affiliate of the Hindu nationalist movement. It discusses the politics and appeal of the party which has been governing Mumbai and has achieved electoral success in a democracy that it often dispises [sic]. Through an analysis of the Shiv Sena, the book attempts to understand anti-pluralist movements of voilent [sic] direct action in particular."
Julia M. Eckert is now a Professor in the Institute of Social Anthropology at the University of Berne, Switzerland.
02 January 2010
Book: Arundhati Roy turns on democracy
Even renowned Indian novelist and anti-globalization activist Arundhati Roy has come to perceive "The Dark Side of Democracy" – so the title of a text in her most recent collection of previously published essays, "Listening to Grasshoppers: Field Notes on Democracy" (Penguin, Hamish Hamilton, 2009):
www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780241144626,00.html
The book is described by its publisher as looking "closely at how religious majoritarianism, cultural nationalism and neo-fascism simmer just under the surface of a country [India] that projects itself as the world's largest democracy", but is now being turned "into a police state", threatening its "precarious democracy" and sending "shockwaves through the region and beyond".
An adapted version of her introduction to the book was published under the title "Democracy's Failing Light" in "Outlook India" magazine:
www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?250418
She has since used this introductory essay as her opening speech at the ninth International Literature Festival in Berlin, Germany (September 2009), thus indicating that her critical thoughts on democracy address a global rather than merely an Indian audience.
Polemically, Roy asks: "Is there life after democracy?", once it "has been used up? When it has been hollowed out and emptied of meaning? What happens when each of its institutions has metastasised into something dangerous? What happens now that democracy and the Free Market have fused into a single predatory organism with a thin, constricted imagination that resolves almost entirely around the idea of maximising profit? [...] Could it be that democracy, the sacred answer to our short-term hopes and prayers, the protector of our individual freedoms and nurturer of our avaricious dreams, will turn out to be the endgame for the human race?"
Democracy, according to Roy, "can perhaps no longer be relied upon to deliver the justice and stability we once dreamed it would". Her collected essays, some new, some dating back to the turn of the millennium, are "not about unfortunate anomalies or aberrations in the democratic process. They're about the consequences of and the corollaries to democracy; they're about the fire in the ducts".
India's parties spent two billion dollars on the 2009 general elections. "That's a lot more than the budget of the US elections. According to some media reports the actual amount spent is closer to ten billion dollars. Where, might one ask, does that kind of money come from? [...] Clearly, without sponsorship it's hard to win an election. And independent candidates cannot promise subsidised rice, free TVs and cash-for-votes, those demeaning acts of vulgar charity that elections have been reduced to".
German media reported Roy's Berlin speech (the German translation of her essay) as depicting democracy-that-is, in India and elsewhere, as a milder form of civil war.
www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780241144626,00.html
The book is described by its publisher as looking "closely at how religious majoritarianism, cultural nationalism and neo-fascism simmer just under the surface of a country [India] that projects itself as the world's largest democracy", but is now being turned "into a police state", threatening its "precarious democracy" and sending "shockwaves through the region and beyond".
An adapted version of her introduction to the book was published under the title "Democracy's Failing Light" in "Outlook India" magazine:
www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?250418
She has since used this introductory essay as her opening speech at the ninth International Literature Festival in Berlin, Germany (September 2009), thus indicating that her critical thoughts on democracy address a global rather than merely an Indian audience.
Polemically, Roy asks: "Is there life after democracy?", once it "has been used up? When it has been hollowed out and emptied of meaning? What happens when each of its institutions has metastasised into something dangerous? What happens now that democracy and the Free Market have fused into a single predatory organism with a thin, constricted imagination that resolves almost entirely around the idea of maximising profit? [...] Could it be that democracy, the sacred answer to our short-term hopes and prayers, the protector of our individual freedoms and nurturer of our avaricious dreams, will turn out to be the endgame for the human race?"
Democracy, according to Roy, "can perhaps no longer be relied upon to deliver the justice and stability we once dreamed it would". Her collected essays, some new, some dating back to the turn of the millennium, are "not about unfortunate anomalies or aberrations in the democratic process. They're about the consequences of and the corollaries to democracy; they're about the fire in the ducts".
India's parties spent two billion dollars on the 2009 general elections. "That's a lot more than the budget of the US elections. According to some media reports the actual amount spent is closer to ten billion dollars. Where, might one ask, does that kind of money come from? [...] Clearly, without sponsorship it's hard to win an election. And independent candidates cannot promise subsidised rice, free TVs and cash-for-votes, those demeaning acts of vulgar charity that elections have been reduced to".
German media reported Roy's Berlin speech (the German translation of her essay) as depicting democracy-that-is, in India and elsewhere, as a milder form of civil war.
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