The struggle of the Palestinian people for their homeland is a part of the unfinished agenda of de-colonisation that still remains. While post Second World War, the governments of newly liberated countries had as their agenda solidarity with the liberation struggles, with the virtual demise of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), this seems to have run out of steam. For us who still believe in solidarity with such liberation struggle, it is necessary to build popular movements in our countries to express their solidarity not with just words but with concrete action. We need to build a peoples NAM to take forward the tasks that the official NAM has virtually given up.
Expressions of solidarity however can only complement the struggle on the ground. The key struggle is therefore the one that you are waging for a Palestinian homeland. We can share the experiences of our struggle not in the belief that they should be emulated but that you may find some of them of interest. Some times, even the negative is as important as the positive -- so learning how not to do certain things may also be of some value!
The Left in South Asia has some common problems. It faces rising threats from ethnic/ religious identity based politics, as well as the deepening of neo-liberal economic policies and therefore the further penetration of imperialism. It is compounded by its own fragmentation and conflicts.
It is obvious that the ability to fight the twin challenges of identity based politics and imperialism would be a lot easier if a broad unity can be forged on both these counts. One of the problems in forging a broad front is that should the front be against one or both threats? If we forge an anti-imperialist front, should we also include religious identity based forces that are completely opposed to secular politics? If we forge a secular front, should it include sections that are secular but agree with the neo-liberal agenda? Should there be a common answer to these questions everywhere or should we think of different tactical lines based on the actual correlation of forces in each country?
It is going to be presumptuous on my part to provide an answer to all the questions for each of the South Asian countries. But I will try and outline some of these issues for India in analytical terms and then address the answers that we are trying to provide as CPI(M) in India. From this, some generalisations can be made but each political group must work out for itself what it sees as the options in its country.
The Historical Context of the Current Situation
In India, the largest bourgeois formation post Indian independence was the Congress party. Before independence, it was a broad coalition of forces, in which there were strong left currents as well as sections that were soft on imperialism. Religious identity based politics was largely outside the Congress. During the independence movement, religious identity based forces were under the Hindu Mahasbha/Rashtriya Sawamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Muslim League. After the formation of Pakistan, the Indian Muslims were largely with the Congress and did not have a Muslim identity based party. The RSS became discredited after the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi by an RSS activist and for quite some time remained a powerful force, though electorally a marginal force.
The Left forces split from the Congress after independence. The Communists emerged as the largest opposition party in the first elections after independence. Another section, which identified titself as socialist, also split from the Congress but again had limited electoral success.
Even though the Hindu identity based forces remained weak in electoral terms, it will be wrong to dismiss their influence in Indian society and polity only in terms of their electoral impact. It remained a significant force in forming public opinion and also had influence amongst sections within the Congress. It was instrumental in fomenting riots against Muslims, spreading hatred amongst the two religious communities and portraying Muslims as agents of Pakistan.
Religious Politics or Defining the Nation in Religious Identity Terms
There is a misconception regarding what the religious identity based forces in India represent. This is not limited to India but also underlies much of the discourse on political Islam as well. In the conventional left discourse, such religious forces are identified as remnants of pre-bourgeois ideology – there is a tendency to lump religious identity based politics with essentially fundamentalism. However, if we look at the RSS discourse, it is clear that they were not harking back to golden Hindu age in order to recreate a religious past. Their focus was an attempt to define the Indian nation in exclusionary Hindu terms -- it was a particular view of Indian nationalism. They were opposed to the emerging anti-imperialist Indian nationalism, which was primarily inclusive, and secular, emphasising the unity of all Indians against the British colonial “masters”.
If we want to understand the forces that are active today, we will have to go back to the national movement and how the new “India” was being defined. For that we have two different constructs that were put forward. Not as abstract concepts, but as something that had its roots to the construction of the nation states in Europe.
The two major ways of looking at nationalism as it emerged in Europe in the 18th-19th century were “civic nationalism” (French revolution), and “ethnic nationalism” (German nationalism). In civic nationalism, it is tied to an inclusive concept of a nation where all the citizens of a given state are presumed to be full members of the nation. In ethnic nationalism, a people who share a common characteristic – ethnicity, religious or race – only are included in the nation: it is a more “blood and race” formulation of the nation. This is the La Pen’s (France), or Oswald Mosley’s (UK) definition of the nation.
Historically, “modern” European nationalism created relatively homogenised nations – one language, one ethnic identity and quite often one religion. Even France, though it harked back to the ideals of the French revolution and an inclusive concept of citizenship, ended up as a unitary state.
The concept of nationalism as derived from the above narrow context of West European nation states, did not fit the emerging patterns of nationalism in countries either subjugated by imperial powers (Asia and Africa) or even European countries transforming from their medieval past (Balkans in the early 20th century).
The national consciousness here, though based on earlier identities, (Hindu, Indian, Arab, Palestinian), were formed largely out of the struggles against imperialism. There are multiple proto identities that people have; what coalesced into a national identity depended on the contingency of the struggle. Thus, while the proto identities provide the background to the struggles, it is the active struggle against imperialist domination that shaped the emerging national identity. In the colonies, it was the struggle against imperialism that shaped the emerging nation state and not the other way around.
If we look at European history, it is clear that what emerges as the nation state is far more unitary and homogeneous than most third world countries. Most post-colonial societies are far more diverse than European nations today. India is of course a striking example – it has about 20 major languages, 4 major religions and numerous ethnic groups. In that sense it’s a unique experiment.
The Indian nationalism had as its clearest articulator in Nehru. Nehru spoke of India as ‘unity in diversity’. Nehru was very careful. He did not want to define the nation too closely. What he was really trying to define is that within a certain boundary, we have to create a nation. And the basis of this nation will be its economic boundary: we will keep imperialism and colonialism out of this boundary. This is, in a nutshell, the nationalism of the Congress. Nehru and the dominant sections of the Congress maintained that the basis of nationalism was economic, and the nation was to be built on the basis of the struggle against colonialism and imperialism.
The RSS leaders -- Savarkar, Hegdewar and Golwalkar -- suggested that only religion and ethnic identity could form the basis of nationalism. And they were pointing to certain ideas of European nationalism, where the concept of the nation was not only based on language, but was also ethnic. This national identity was therefore a ‘race and blood’ kind of identity. Hindu and Aryan identity was used consciously by the RSS to create an exclusionary definition of the India nation. Therefore, it is not surprising that Golwalkar resonated with Hitler, on the question of ethnic minorities being massacred and ‘cleansed’, calling this the ‘highest form of racial pride’.
The Muslim League, which grew at the same time as the national movement, had a similar view of the nation. For it, India with its Hindu majority, would always be a Hindu nation. The concept of a secular Indian nation was not possible and therefore the solution lay in a Muslim majority nation to be carved out of India. Pakistan, chose its Islamic identity as the basis of the nation. But here again, one should not mistake the Muslim League as being fundamentalist. It was a political mobilistion based on a religious identity that characterised the Muslim League.
It would be wrong to think that the growth of Islamic forces in Pakistan is the direct result of this narrow definition of the nation. Pakistan could have developed a national identity and grown out its initial Islamic one as its founder Jinnah wanted after the partition. However, the formulation of Pakistan as an Islamic state did get its legitimacy from the Muslim League’s struggle for a Muslim majority based Pakistan. But this has little to do with Talibanisation that has taken place there. The Taliban is the direct result of using religion in Afghanistan against the progressive forces there, which at that time was supported by Soviet Union. The pan Islamic identity, “Jihad” as a holy war against the “others” is a creation of the US backed Zia regime in Pakistan.
Globalisation and collapse of the economic nation space
The advance of the neo-liberal agenda and globalisation, is seen to be generally unrelated to the fault lines of ethnic and religious violence that are opening up in various countries. However, globalisation has been accompanied by far more violent “religious” and ethnic conflicts than earlier.
Why should globalisation be accompanied by such religious and ethnic identity based conflicts? In the period of struggles against colonial regimes, in most national movements, civic nationalism with its core of economic nationalism became the dominant force as economic exploitation of people and countries was at the centre of colonialism. Once the leadership, in country after country, decided to give up their economic space under the assault of neo-liberal globalisation, they had two choices: either give up the concept of the nation itself or define the nation in terms of either a cultural, linguistic or an ethnic identity. As giving up the nation would mean accepting virtual re-colonisation, therefore the need arose for falling back on narrow nationalism with its attendant ethnic or religious fault lines. It is not surprising therefore, if we find that along with penetration of global finance capital, there is also a rise of identity based politics. By redefining the nation in religious or ethnic terms, nationalism is sought to be preserved, while giving up economic sovereignty.
The South Asian countries, with the exception of Nepal, all show a similar characteristic in this period. All have seen the rise of religious and ethnic identity based politics. India saw the rise of “Hindu nationalist” forces in precisely the period that started with neo-liberal reforms. The BJP, the political front of the RSS lead two successive coalition governments – from 1998 to 2004. Similarly, Islamic forces have gained ground in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Sri Lanka has the problem of defining itself as either a Simhala country or as a multi ethnic state. Even after the crushing of the LTTE forces, the issue of defining Sri Lankan nationalism still remains.
Faced with the problem of this divisive nationalism, some sections have been arguing against the use of nationalism or going beyond the nation state. This would be to surrender the legacy of the national liberation movements to the exclusionary nationalism of Hindu, Islamic or other ethnic forces. As long as imperialism and re-colonisation remains as threats to the countries of the third world, nationalism is also a terrain on which the left forces must battle.
The Left, religious identity based forces and imperialism
The above discussion is basically to show that the religious identity based politics has its historic roots in the same kind of politics that gave rise to Fascism in Europe. The threat of such religious identity based politics turning the country into a fascist one is all too real. The BJP and its progroms in Gujarat where thousands were killed, its links with Hindu terrorist groups makes clear that the threat is no idle one.
Similarly, the Taliban forces in Pakistan make no bones about what they stand for. Even though the forces allied to Taliban lost the elections in North West Frontier province to a relatively secular party, the ANP, it physically forced out ANP from the area using the threat of the gun. For the people, there is either the guns of the state (or use drones and missiles) or the guns of the Taliban. The fact that the Taliban is also anti US imperialist as a force, does raise the issue how we see the anti imperialist struggle in Pakistan,
The complex task therefore is how do we manage to fight for a secular and an anti-imperialist agenda? In India, things are conceptually a little simpler. The Hindu nationalist forces – the BJP -- see themselves as natural allies of the US and are also in favour of economic liberalisation. The Congress has given up its anti-imperialist agenda and is espousing economic liberalisation as its current agenda. Strategically, it also is willing to join the US camp. This shift in Congress policies is sharpest in its relationship with Israel – it has continued the pro-Israel shift in strategic thinking ushered in by the BJP. Therefore, it might appear that a broad front against both parties is possible,
However, such a broad front has to also address the question of what should be the attitude in a situation where the BJP is likely to win elections and rule for another five years? Does the Left take the position that as the Congress is increasingly collaborating with imperialism, therefore we should have no truck with it even if this means a BJP coming to power? This was the situation that the Left had to confront before the 2004 election and after.
The Left clearly understood that the BJP and its neo fascist agenda demanded a distinction between it and the Congress. A BJP government for another 5 years could irretrievably damage the state structure and institutionalise majoritarianism in the Indian nation. It would further shrink the Left and secular space. Therefore, though in the areas that Left had major influence, its main electoral competition was from the Congress, it identified BJP as the bigger threat. When it became clear that after the elections, the Congress could not form a Government without Left support, it decided to support the Government but without joining the Government. It could maintain its independent position on a host of issues including blocking a strategic alliance with the US, while keeping the BJP out of power.
For many, it was a difficult policy to implement. However, for the duration of the last Government, it was the left, which emerged as the major ideological opponent of the Congress. This was primarily as on economic and strategic issues, the BJP had a position near identical to that of the Congress. The Left did succeed at least for this period to keep India from strategically joining with the US, as well as keeping some domestic control over the economy.
The 2009 elections saw the Congress emerge stronger. The Left has lost a significant number of seats. A part of the reason for Congress emerging stronger is that secular people and minorities felt that there was a possibility of a BJP victory. This, it was felt was a major threat. They also did not feel that a credible alternative existed with the Left and other forces. Therefore, they preferred to vote for the Congress. The global economic crisis and the desire for a stable government in this scenario again helped the Congress.
The CPI(M) does not see that it is possible to bring about any major change in the Indian scenario without the Left becoming a much stronger force. It is also clear that such a left force can only emerge from mass movements taking up basic class issues. The question today is also how do we address a political scenario where the left has some mobilising strength as well as some electoral strength. If it decides to fight alone, it will be limited to a small minority with little impact on the larger polity. And that polity can shift dangerously towards fascist forces. Yet, it plays the bourgeois game of numbers, it will lose its identity. The key for us is to build a mass movement on basic class issues while trying to build a political alternative to both the Congress and the BJP.
I am not going to suggest that what we are doing is the preferred solution at all instances of time of in other countries. It is simply the correlation of forces we see currently, on the basis of which we are building our current tactical line. What is important is however, how do we fight the host of issues that are allied to either the imperialist or the fascist agenda?
For this, I believe that we will in parallel to the above, also build issue-based coalitions. These coalitions can be much broader than the political coalitions discussed above. Faced with a specific fascist threat, they may include people who believe in neo-liberal economics. Or if we build an anti WTO platform or an anti-US platform, it may include forces that might believe in religious identity based politics. These platforms can therefore be more flexible than the political ones we forge. In these platforms, we would be present but through our mass organisations, and not as political parties.
I would conclude by saying that no general line with regards to either anti-imperialist or anti fascist fronts can be formed for all south Asian countries as a whole. Even though there are broad similarities, the correlation of forces in each of these countries is quite different. What the left needs to do is to believe that its numbers are much larger than within its organised fold. It needs to build a set of coalitions that will give it much greater intervention in the policy issues of today, while building its organisation for the future. It is a long and difficult path. But why should we believe making history was ever going to be easy? Or without ups and downs?
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