Current Trends in Indian Politics

The Center for Modern Indian Studies hosts weekly colloquiums that host engaging speakers who analyze history or current events. Yesterday's topic on democracy and current trends in Indian politics was also very thought provoking and incited many comments. This post is an attempt to summarize the points and questions raised by visiting professor Ajay Gudavarthy's presentation, titled "Maoism, Democracy and Globalisation: Cross-Currents in Indian Politics." The talk is based on chapters from his new book Maoism, Democracy and Globalization. He teaches Political Science at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi. 

What is the new middle class discourse?

In the 1960s and 1970s, series of social movements such as feminism, Dalit, and Other Backward Class (OBC) and their leadership, agenda and social base are drew from middle class, and they met at places such as the Calcutta Coffee House (aka College Street Coffee House). In the past two decades, a new middle class emerged in the context of social "mobility with insecurity."

Calcutta's India Coffee House on College Street, place where many leftist intellectual discussions took place

There is an increase in popular participation with increasing centralization of the state, as well as more technocrats and state surveillance. Recently, despite critics, Gujarat has made voting compulsory, which stems from these pressures. In an interview with the Indian Express, a election commission officer said in disagreement that "forcible voting is against the Constitution. Right to vote is a statutory provision, and compelling (voters) may not work. The basic feature of our electoral system is free and fair elections. Compulsory voting is not free. You can’t herd people into polling booths and make them vote.” Gudarvarthy said that if one reads David Harvey's A Brief History of Neoliberalism and look at India, "nothing matches." Contrary to the decline of the state, he sees a resurgence of surveillance and welfare as well as increasing notion of human rights language. (Dr. Ahuja later disagreed and does not see India as a case of exceptionalism from Harvey’s observation of neoliberalism. Welfare is not necessarily the same as the 1970s.)

In Dr. Gudavarthy's opinion, Anna Hazare's years of protest is the political and social face of the old Indian middle class. Hazare-led protest movements focuses on anti corruption, anti-sexual violence issues. But Gudavarthy observes that the protest against of corruption is empty and socially-displaced category. Corruption has a scope so wide that any act, regardless of size or whether it is committed by the poor or middle class, can fit into this category. 

Now, the new middle class have transformed “social justice” discourse, shifting the focus from social justice to representation, from contestation to negotiations. First question the backward caste leaders ask Modi was, "How many Dalit ministers have you appointed?" He has appointed three Dalits in contrast to five in the previous leadership tally. Secularism and left/right/center stances do not make sense in Dalit politics. They are concerned with representation. Reservation as the catch-all policy preference and subsequently supplanted land reform, rural urban divide, and questions of poverty. However, Dr. Viswanath points out that it is because there are increasing presence of Dalits in politics and this is left out of the account."When was there even this mass of Dalit politics for us to distinguish between left, center, and right?" She also points that there are formal complaints and political interventions regarding land in Tamil Nadu, showing a resurgence in land issues. Furthermore, NGOs are taking up the poverty and land issues, which is why there is a decline in political mobilization for these concerns.

How does the old left view the Dalit, OBC and Maoist movements? There seems to be a new preoccupation with caste stigma and reservations.

Traditionally, people in Maoist leadership were from (the newly created state of) Telangana. (Dr. Gudavarthy related a joke in which Telangana Maoists were caught due to a complaint in the north, Orissa, and they were all speaking Telegu despite being in the Hindi belt. The police were confused and asked, "Why did this happen in Orissa?") Nowadays, Maoist sub-command and district areas have organic tribal leadership and they speak in their own tribal language. When Dr. Gudavarthy visited, he had to bring a translator. 

This arrangement is in contrast with the Dalit movement that has middle class leadership. This group does not talk with the Maoists and these two groups do not share the same political language. Maoists only see Dalits as the new social elite, and they do not see caste as a significant political factor.

Subalterns like Maoists have vacated the streets and they are caught between powerlessness and militancy. There are no trade union movement and migrants are demobilized while at least 3,146 farmers committed suicide in Maharashtra in 2013. Theses streets now are occupied by new middle class such as Gujjars, Jats, Rajputs, but they are clashing with each other when taking protests onto the street. Furthermore, the old revolutionary spirit is dying out in Maoist movement. Similar to the trend of Dalits focusing on reservations, tribals also focus more on concrete issues such as their forest threatened by mining companies, mobilizing under the slogan for "Jal, jungle, jameen (water, forest, land)."

File photo from Muzaffarnagar riots. AP

There are growing inter-subaltern conflicts in Indian politics, such as conflicts between OBCs and Muslims (see Muzaffarnagar riots) and Dalits v. Muslims in Dehli and Western Uttar Pradesh. What used to be a collective, wide-scale  farmer’s movement movement has now become an OBC-led movement that targets other competing rural interests.  Gudavarthy observes, “The RSS is reaching out to Dalit politics. There are larger representation for Dalits in politics of the right. We see the de-Brahminization of the right and a renewed Hinduization.” In relation to these comments, I found this similarly eye-opening analysis in The secret of BJP's success in Uttar Pradesh--

The BJP-RSS combine adopted a special strategy for appropriating Dalit and backward caste votes. Amit Shah, the coordinator of the UP chapter, along with RSS preachers took more than an active interest in such caste associations. Shah projected backward and Dalit faces and engaged in Hindu polarisation in the wake of the Muzaffarnagar riots. The message disseminated among Dalits and backward castes was that the Congress, BSP and the SP were so busy polarising Muslims, they had no concern for Hindus.

I was not quite sure how heatedly contested current Other Backward Caste politics were until I looked up and found this dire analysis in the one of the English reports in 2007 Caste in Conflict--

In Rajasthan, if a caste feels better off and secure within any reserved category, it opposes inclusion of any other caste that might threaten their monopoly. So if Jats faced resistance from existing OBCs while attempting entry in that category, Gurjars are opposed by Meenas. Off the record, political parties admit to Meenas' political clout and even the need of reservation for Gurjars in certain pockets, but none will admit this in public.

In 2008 protests occurred again and clashes with security forces ended with 36 deaths.

Thus, Dr. Gudavarthy proposes that inter-subaltern conflicts signal a new kind of subaltern agency. Using middle man with culture capital, the subalterns undermines traditional Patron-client relationship with hegemonic forces. When he mentioned that Dalit movements have moved from contest and conflicts to pragmatic negotiations to scholar Partha Chatterjee, Chatterjee replied that: I noticed this 20 years ago. 

5 Points that show the breakdown of different groups' social contract with the state.

1. As aforementioned, the old middle class is withdrawing its consent with the state, with Anna Hazare's movement as the front. He has contempt for representative politics, he sees that people are giving their votes for drinking and smoking. Thus, by deriding representative politics, Hazare has gained a moral consensus outside of the political representative domain. 

2. The new middle class also undermines state’s sovereignty that calls international organizations for understanding “caste as race” through human rights discourses.

3. Maoist movements also undermine state sovereignty.

4. The Right to Information Act, while positive, also undermines parliament and state institutions.

5. (BJP supported supposedly democratic idea of) small states, but this has also produced a strong center. We understand the catch in public knowledge. What political language can we use to analyze this? 

Media as a site of understanding middle class democratic values

Gudavarthy joked that,TV anchor host Arnab Goswami, who is famous for his bombastic presentation style, "has made our lives very easy, we know what is wrong in the view of politics just by watching him." But Dr. Srirupa Roy also finds the media downplaying leftist movements that could have national potential to just a local scope. She questions, "Why is there no organized formation of left on a national level? One reason is that, "It’s easier for local movements to link up globally rather than locally."

Related to the media and law, there is also a shift from investigation to the construct of popular pressure, what Gudavarthy calls "the demonstrative effects of popular democracy"  and “encounter killings.” Often, suspects are charged and convicted with no legal evidence, such as the suspect in the 2001 Parliament attack case.

Some remaining questions

1. What will the current regime do to welfare? Modi is cutting down on MNEGRA but welfare is still at the center of politics. Dr. Chandra also points out that one should beware of neo-welfarism as connected to the labor-thirsty nature of capitalism: MNEGRA reproduces colonial schemes from the past: you have to work in order to get food. Welfare becomes a new way to manage of labor.

2. How to explain regional differences in movements and party formations? Why do some right-wing parties emerge in some regions and and not parties similar to the Aam Admi Party?

Every talk stimulates a lot of ideas and things to further investigate or revisit. Here are some I have organized:

1. Read Moyn's The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History

2. Understand religious polarization in Telangana

3. Rewatch film about media phenomenon and Indian farmer suicide Peepli Live

Recollections from My Calcutta Trip, January 2013

murals of a subway stop. first two blocks are the stanzas in Bengali, second two blocks in English

The same voice murmurs in these desultory lines 

which is born in wayside pansies

letting hasty glances pass by. 

- Fireflies, Rabindranath Tagore

I never had a chance to write about my trip to Calcutta / Kolkata because it was not part of the organized class trip. I have made a couple of Indian Bengali friends in Madison and I have been reading Jhumpa Lahiri's The Lowland lately. The novel has a lot about Calcutta and it brings back a lot of memories. Here is a best attempt at reconstructing the three days that happened 1.5 years ago at the home of Ravi Shankar and Tagore and former capital of British India.

On the way to Delhi Airport, I passed graffiti that said "I hate my life" on highway wall. I didn't know I had to print my itinerary required for entering the Delhi airport. Armed police check at every entrance gate in fear of terrorists. I had to pay 100 rupees for using the services to print. It occurred to me that airports should be used for homeless people during the nights. But then that would also require needless security. On the plane, two Indian men sat next to me. I took a copy of the free newspapers. When I put my newspaper in the backseat pocket, the man next to me decidedly picked it up a few minutes later and started reading it. I liked the street-like tacit agreement between the two of us and his assumption that I wouldn’t mind. He put it back in my section of the backseat pocket after he was done.

The Kolkata Airport was much smaller than any other second tier city’s you’d see in China, but political scientists warn against judging a region by its airports, so I didn’t mind. I looked for my host and friend from college Vedika at the baggage pickup area. I didn’t have an Indian phone so I was super anxious that Vedika wouldn’t find me. After 2/3 of the Delhi group left, she appeared and waved. Vedika was wearing a black polka-dotted white shirt and hugged me. She looked classy. I remember the joke she told me that she always dressed better in India than in the U.S. because her mom makes sure she looks nice before she leaves the house. Usually at our SoCal college she wore a t-shirt or a sweater, but looked very pretty in anything, in my opinion. She walked with me to her driver, who was a handsome man in his 30s.

Vedika

We passed ads for the rising female politician Mamata Banerjee (Chief Minister of West Bengal to this day). Transexual hijras with spiritual power tapped the car window asking for money.

Vedika’s class/caste would soon stand out for me more and more over the next few days. Her house had several (Bengali) servants; her father is a Marwari businessman and her mother a housewife. Her grandmother was a stern woman from Allahabad who adored Swami Vivekananda and questioned judgmentally me about religion in China. (“India has spirituality!! Everything is one! We don't negate any religion. Christ. Buddha.”) I didn’t bow down to touch her feet ritually when saying hi, which probably irked her. I managed to do so when saying goodbye. As Marwaris, they were all vegetarians. The house was spacious with several marbled rooms and some vintage black and white wedding photos.

The servants were in awe of me throughout, but in an endearing and warm way and I even drew a card for them when I left. I also gave the driver a tip, per suggestion of Vedika. He was also bashful but happy about accepting it. I never got to know the driver’s name. He did not hang any talisman on the car’s rear window, because Vedika’s dad told him not to. He was a nice man, though he got into a fight with the neighbors one day and knocked on the family door in anguish. Vedika’s grandmother opened the door and ushered us quickly to other parts of the house. Eventually Vedika’s dad told him to stop the fight.

During my stay, the family also hosted some form of puja. I witnessed five pandits chanting slokas, two who are Sanskrit university professors from Banaras. I asked, "How come professors can do this kind of work?""They have vacations." Then I saw the pandits bless Vedika and her brother (in between phone calls). Before we left the house for the Kali Temple, the private, home pandit sprayed water around the house as well as on our heads--don't get tricked by the pandits at the Kali temple."

The Tollygunge

The novel The Lowland’s plot is centered around Maoist insurgencies in India, yet it opens with the Tolly Club in Calcutta, which is very apt. Started by Englishmen in the 1800s, it is the colonial vestige of Calcutta and the country-club signifier of elitism. Although the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front governed West Bengal for many decades, it never eradicated that part of society. Vedika’s father insisted on taking me there with the family and told me how it took him years to get exclusive access membership. They are used to drinking before dinner. I refrained from drinking entirely that night because I was in my sanyasi (renouncer) phase in terms of drinking; still kind of trying to keep it up today as well. The interior and food was underwhelming and I didn’t get to see the garden because it was already night time. We had stale conversations, probably because I felt uncomfortable with the privilege. I didn’t like Vedika’s younger brother, who was arrogant and and drank alcohol and drove us back home. (I recalled this event later when we found out that Tamar, CMC class 2014 died in a car accident in Bolivia during the India trip.) He probably didn’t like me either.

Excerpt from The Lowland:

"Thanks to Cruickshank the villa was restored, and a country club was established in its place. Cruickshank was named the first president. It was for the British that the city’s tramline was extended so far south in the early 1930s. It was to facilitate their journey to the Tolly Club, to escape the city’s commotion, and to be among their own. 

... 

Now if they happened to pass the Tolly Club together on their way to or from the tram depot, Udayan called it an affront. People still filled slums all over the city, children were born and raised on the streets. Why were a hundred acres walled off for the enjoyment of a few? 

Subhash remembered the imported trees, the jackals, the bird cries. The golf balls heavy in their pockets, the undulating green of the course. He remembered Udayan going over the wall first, challenging him to follow. Crouching on the ground the last evening they were there, trying to shield him. 

But Udayan said that golf was the pastime of the comprador bourgeoisie. He said the Tolly Club was proof that India was still a semicolonial country, behaving as if the British had never left. 

He pointed out that Che, who had worked as a caddy on a golf course in Argentina, had come to the same conclusion. That after the Cuban revolution, getting rid of the golf courses was one of the first things Castro had done."

My stomach disagreed with me on Friday so we didn’t do much. I thought it was a lagged Delhi belly from the stuff I had in Delhi, but who would know. I had copious amounts of chai and biscuits. I drank a lot of water, though Vedika’s sweet mother said, “This is India, you don’t need to drink that much water.” So I stopped and still felt fine. But I didn’t dare try the street food vada pav and made only one exception for the syrup dipped ice gola, but didn’t like it so gave the rest to a street kid.

Outdoor Shrine for Shiva

Over the following days, we went to a mandir and we both made offerings; we saw a banyan tree with deities and Vedika made an offering. I later learned that these are for / constructed by dalits who are not permitted to enter mandirs. We saw a Vivekananda Sport Club that also had a statue honoring Anagarika Dharmapala, "a Ceylonese Buddhist revivalist and writer. He was one of the founding contributors of Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalism and Buddhism. He was also a pioneer in the revival of Buddhism in India after it had been virtually extinct there for several centuries, and he was the first Buddhist in modern times to preach the Dharma in three continents: Asia, North America, and Europe." 

We played board games with other vegetarian college students-home-for-the-winter--

Veg burgers as snacks

We patronized a shisha parlor and a dance club along with Pretti, unfortunately on a quiet Sunday night. Pretti, a recent graduate from a three-year college, had many wild stories about watching David Guetta live and taking care of drunk people in England. I asked if anything like hooking up happened, and she was amazingly stunned silent by the question and whispered “no.” I realized that the diaspora still kept up with social mores of their home in that way.

Ganesha guarding Pretti's house

We also went to the marble Victoria Memorial building. The tickets were very cheap for locals. Everyone in the extremely long line was amazingly patient, and Vedika led me to cut in line, both when entering the main gate and entering the building. I felt kind of embarrassed but no one seemed to care. We laughed at the pretentious quote of Queen Victoria about how her empire looked out for the interests of Indian dominions inside the building. 

weren't allowed to take pics but this big lie just had to be documented-- "We shall respect the rights, diginity and honor of the Indian princes as our own and we desire that they as'well as our subjects should enjoy that prosperity and that social advancement which can only be secured by internal peace and good government"

On the most westernized Park (King) Street, we went to the Oxford University Press Bookstore, which looked just like the bookstore in Swades. The collection was officious and it wasn’t as good as the bookstore I saw in a Delhi mall, which had Arundhati Roy and Han Han. We also bought a delicious rum ball at Flury’s. 

Rum ball

This is the well-known bakery that gets a lot of honor mentions in Bollywood films, though my recent friend still thought American stores had more varieties. The bakery also had a cafe, and I saw a Sikh drinking tea with a businessman there, as well as several white foreigners. We had (badly imitated, overly fried) Chinese food with two fellow international CMCers also traveling in India at Flavors of China. There was a security scanner for weapons, but the someone said that it would be easy sneak a gun in anyways. (Similar situation for Wisconsin--a lot of Madison shops ban concealed firearms but it is allowed by the state.) While we waited on a red light after we exited, a girl-beggar approached us and we both had to look away. A flute seller also played music next to us.

flute seller on Park Street

I saw faded Communist symbols. I visited the College Street famous for second-handed books, but most English books were too technical and I regretted not understanding Bengali to buy the interesting looking comics.  Vedika sad that University of Calcutta was nearby but didn't regard it as the best school for students.

I also posed next to this epic slogan near College Street, and another slogan that said "Struggle to Study. Study to Change Society." Another hand-made poster said "Culture Sanction of Rape must stop!"

We visited the Asiatic Society that had an incredibly shoddy interior and bureaucratic process for visitors (probably because rarely did anyone visit). A man served as a docent and had to be translated by Vedika. Later an English-speaking female professor of history also introduced some of the old exhibitions items--sutras written on pattra leaves--to us hastily. 

Asiatic Society

After we left, people started going to work (12pm). I was so amazed and I still recount it again. That memory probably has merged with other street scenes I have seen in films. We ate lunch at famous Indian chain Cafe Coffee Day, and I liked the food. A lot of tourist sites closed for several hours in between each day as well as on my last day, including the modern art museum, typical of the unavailable Calcutta. So we walked around and I saw a few boys playing soccer and a lot of beautiful trees. and there was even a Ravi Shankar cover show that night, but Vedika wasn’t that interested. I also bought a table cloth from the bougie fabric store Fab India.
Later on the plane back to Delhi, the two men sitting next to me were those kind of airplane friends, who complained about the Calcutta’s slow pace and red tape. They started saying how the people were so lazy and never got their work done. I was surprised no other person came to their objection on the plane. The more I read about it now, let it be from writer Amit Chaudhuri or some other source, I wish to visit Calcutta again for longer periods of time.