Heightened Nationalism in Times of Emergency

A month ago, some friends and I got into a heated discussion on the necessity of partition and the role of Islam in Pakistan politics. Both Amir and Bilal, students in Germany, argued for the necessity of partition and the role of Islam in law and politics. Many other Pakistanis also vest their trust in the centralized executive power and the Pakistani military. Last week the Taliban in Pakistan led several attacks that targeted Shia Muslims. One of the Pakistanis here lost a dear relative in the most recent attacks in a Peshawar mosque. While many friends consoled him in wake of the tragedy, it did not seem to change much in their outlook on politics. During the consolation, many of the discussed fervently about their views on terrorism in Pakistan, all of which seemed to be a dissatisfaction with the current situation, and demand immediate action and reaction. The military or the executive branch seem to be the go-to solution. I have heard about crises in a political philosophy (e.g. Carl Schmitt), but no other place seemed to be more crisis-ridden than Pakistan. In classes, I am also reminded of the omniscient energy of nationalism that seeps into every day life in India. In both countries, there are not enough restrictions on the demand for action and reclamation, especially in times when a group considers defending oneself. 

The political identity of "Hindus" rose in the 19th century partly in response to the threat of Christianity, social Darwinism and the growing consciousness of Otherness. Islam in South Asia also adapted to different times, which I have written about in Islamic Reform, South Asia, and Self-Reflection. These religious identities that adapted to new labels and contexts play an influential role in 20th century politics, including Hindu nationalism. In 1990, BJP politician L.K. Advani's Rath Yatra sparked riots that left many dead in Gujarat. In 1992, the demolishing of the Babri Masjid led to sectarian violence in other Indian provinces as well in which many Muslims were massacred. Documentaries Ram Ke Naam, Boy in the Branch and Men in the Tree show the ideological roots of Ayodhya conflict and the new wave of Hindu nationalism. Many Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) volunteers known as the kar sevaks (servers-in-action) were mobilized around the country. Even though the men could not keep up their RSS activities after Ayodhya due to pressures of earning a living, They still believed in the cause and felt proud having participated in the momentous event, with statements like “I was on the dome” or “I cleared the debris.” The temple had been a source of political contest between Hindu and Muslim communities since the 1940s. Why did the movement happen in the 1990s? Even though there are theories of elite conspiracy, other factors also contributed to the acceptance of Hindu nationalist ideology. 

Arvind Rajagopal’s Politics after Television documented the political effects on popular opinion from the widely followed commercial television series Ramayana. The book highlighted the role of the television and mass media in shaping peoples’ understanding of society. We have learned in class that the TV adaptation that started playing in 1987 is a uniquely North Indian and Sanskritized interpretation of a story that actually has many versions. But it clearly influenced many viewers. For example, more than one interviewee in Politics of Television, Mr. Jha, longed for a moral rule by Lord Ram-- "At the time of the Ramayan people used to say that everything is truth. Now there is truth in nothing. All 'departments' [sic] are corrupt. It wasn’t like this before – and this is the difference. Of course, even then there was poverty, but even the poor were knowledgeable and honest. Today, the wealthy and educated men are the most corrupt." Hindu nationalist thus “used religious appeals to distinguish itself from the unscrupulous majority of politicians in returning to politics a long-awaited dharma, a sense of duty and righteousness.”

The opening of Ram Ke Naam also shows how video clips serve as a good source for sharing religious experiences as well as political messages, mixing truth with myths. Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and co. clearly take advantage of the rise of mass communication, which has becomes a tool of expression as well as propaganda for the resourceful. In the documentary, court appointed priest at the disputed Ramjanmabhoomi Temple Pujari Laldas is interviewed at length. He replies to “What do you think of the VHP’s plan to build a temple?” --

Screenshot of Laldas from Ram Ke Naam

This is a political game played by the VHP. There was never a ban on building temples (during the Mughal times). Besides, according to our tradition, any place where the idols of God are kept, is a temple. That's the Hindu custom. ... And even if they wanted to build a separate temple, why demolish a structure where idols already exist? Those who want to do this are actually more interested in creating tensions in India in order to cash in on the Hindu vote. They don't care about the genocide that will occur, how many will be killed, how much destroyed, or even about what will happen to Hindus in Muslim majority areas. ... Muslim rulers granted land for Hindu temples, like Janki Ghat and parts of Hanuman Garhi were built by Muslims.

Just like what Laldas has observed, in previous riots, there were many Hindu politicians that stress differences and cut cleavages between the two communities to gain votes. Sadhus would defend and legitimize politicians with their spiritual currency and profit from political allies. Steven Wilkinson has shown that riots and deaths tend to "cluster in the months before elections, and then drop off sharply in the months after an election is held.” The Gujarat elections were scheduled in 2003 and the BJP just lost two cities' municipal elections in 200. While the documentaries did not depict the riots in 2002, previous incidents had similar context. Like the kar sevaks interviewed in The Men in the Tree, Naredra Modi is also a former RSS cadre member. Jaffrelot shows that then Gujarat chief minister Modi orchestrated a retaliation to the Godhra train incident in 2002 and even ordered police officers not to contain the consequent Hindu backlash. Yet Modi refused to acknowledge his role in inciting riots by making the dead nationalists a spectacle on TV and argued that the Hindu backlashes were spontaneous. (The VHP even published a manual to teach its activists to make planned riots appear as spontaneous acts of violence.) Several anonymous civil servants leaked to human rights investigators that Gujarat ministers directed the advance of the assailants from the “city police control room” of Ahmedabad. (p5) During the backlash, local BJP and VHP leaders also were out in the streets alongside the attackers and suffered no consequence afterwards.

In contrast to his actions that effectively absolved responsibility of Hindu rioters, Modi stated that the train attack was a pre-planned act of terrorism, even though evidence showed otherwise: the train only stopped after repeated harassment of the Hindu nationalists. Jaffrelot points to another political strategy: the thorough diffusion of Hindutva in reaction to a fear of Jihad. Jaffrelot shows that the Indian state has encouraged and indulged the use of labeling (Muslim) reactions to Hindu violence as "terrorism." The deployment of anti-terrorism discourse is distinct from the "communal" character of riots in the 1990s.

Not only was the BJP campaign rife with anti-Muslim references, but it was also based on an obvious equation between Islam and terrorism. One of the BJP's television commercials began with the sound of a train pulling into a station, followed by the clamor of riots and women's screams before the ringing of temple bells was covered by the din of automatic rifle fire. After which, Modi's reassuring countenance appeared, hinting to voters that only he could protect Gujarat from such violence. The BJP Election Manifesto pledged to train Gujarat youth, particularly those living on the Pakistani border, in anti-terrorist tactics. Self defense militias would beset up in border towns where large numbers of retired servicemen would be brought in. Special gun permits would be issued to the lifeblood of a nation under siege.

Yet even if the parties and organizations like BJP, VHP and RSS instigated and organized many of these riots, this fact does not exonerate the "ordinary Hindus" nor does it explain Hindutva's hegemony at this time. In Mass Movement or Elite Conspiracy? The Puzzle of Hindu Nationalism, Basu argues that "ordinary men and women were informed by their antipathy toward the state," previously mostly represented by the Congress Party. (p56) Indeed, as one of the leaders in Congress Party, Rajiv Gandhi undermined secularism when he supported very conservative Muslims in a decision denying alimony to a divorced Muslim woman, Shah Bano. Rajiv Gandhi pandered to a clerical elite and Muslim orthodoxy rather than a more feminist and secularist decision. This political mistake was exploited by the Hindu right and termed this as “pseudo-secularism” and favored minorities The BJP only addressed sections previously neglected by Indian politicians and could not be reduced to a simple allegiance to Hinduism. Basu argues that "the middle classes may support the BJP because they favor a stronger, more authoritarian state with more ambitious foreign policy objectives, whereas slum dwellers may support the BJP because it promises to legalize their dwellings." I was shocked when I got to know a Gottingen student who is an Indian Muslim BJP supporter for Modi's pro-development stance, but now I am understanding his alliance since he is from a middle class.
In the end, defending a group identity seems to be a great response to crisis, even though I would prefer to mourn and heal. Yet a violence response can also serve as an answer to many contradictions and uncomfortable questions---The Pakistani government indulged in calls for hanging the culprits of the Peshawar military school attack (Sharif lifted the ban on death sentences for acts of terrorism), while the Jordanian one executed the female bomber prisoner in response to the tragic death of the Jordanian pilot under ISIS. 

Reliance on Landlords: From the Colonizers to the Congress Party

Why did India never have a class-based revolution or stark social transformation? In a letter to Engels, Marx suggested that the arrival of British free trade brought the only social revolution in India. He starts by invoking the imagery of the static village-- 

These small stereotype forms of social organism have been to the greater part dissolved, and are disappearing, not so much through the brutal interference of the British tax-gatherer and the British soldier, as to the working of English steam and English free trade. Those family-communities were based on domestic industry, in that peculiar combination of hand-weaving, hands-spinning and hand-tilling agriculture which gave them self-supporting power. English interference having placed the spinner in Lancashire and the weaver in Bengal, or sweeping away both Hindoo spinner and weaver, dissolved these small semi-barbarian, semi-civilized communities, by blowing up their economical basis, and thus produced the greatest, and to speak the truth, the only social revolution ever heard of in Asia.

Tehri village paddy fields, Uttarakhand

But in Reinventing India, Stuart Corbridge and John Harriss have shown that the British left many pre-existing structures, such as the zamindari system or the village caste relations, untouched or even retrenched. Some have suggested that this was their strategy of divide and rule, since it would be to the British rulers’ advantage if supra-village structures were weakened and villages were strengthened. Others have also argued that the British colonizers could have been thinking only in terms of “Western” and “Indian” terms, saw India as a divided society, and strengthened preexisting divides in the process. Anti-colonialism sought to adapt western institutions while also understanding India as distinctly different than Western societies. Spiritual values and private practices can remain “Indian” while the public sphere becomes Western, which created new identities and contradictions. Economics definitely fell under the public sphere and has been a politically contested issue in India throughout the 19th and 20th century.

The authors provided many critiques of the Congress Party-led nationalist movement. Historian Barrington Moore suggested from a Marxian view that Gandhi provided a link between landed classes and peasants through satyagraha and ahimsa movements. Gandhi and his followers advocated for class conciliation while others saw a need for class struggle. But the Congress Socialists were divided and weak and eventually established their own party--CSP.  Therefore even though Jawarhalal Nehru’s position towards socialism was sincere, as Pramit Chaudhuri has pointed out, Nehru did not push for nationalization of land seriously within his own party for the sake of unity. He also felt personal loyalty to Gandhi’s positions. As soon as Congress Party came into rule after independence, according to David Arnold, they have strengthened rulings of the Raj, such as the civil administration and refused the interference of politicians. Some would say that the Congress Party became the Raj to some extent.
Corbridge and Harriss follow Gramsci, Partha Chatterjee and Sudipta Kaviraj’s idea of Nehru’s “passive revolution” to explain developments in the 1950s that substituted any real social revolution. Nehru wanted to uplift the poor through development led by a centralized state. Nehru proposed that top-heavy industrialization could reduce dependence on agriculture. He resisted conservative tendencies in the Party but he did not have the power to institute industrialization as much as countries like South Korea or redistribution of land like China. Furthermore, Nehru’s Congress Party garnered support through regressive taxation, in which the state did not tax rich Indian farmers much. This contributed to Nehru’s inability to implement agrarian reform and contributed to the 1970s’ “crisis of planning.” Due to these demand-side requirements, the state could not raise resources domestically. Used to the many concessions by the state, the New Farmers’ Movement in the 1970s also championed lower input costs such as the reduction of irrigation charges and more subsidies. This arrangement impeded planning and the passive revolution.
Partha Chatterjee and Karivaj identifies Nehruvian ideals as “high modernism” that was distant from popular support. For example, secularism through education was also an alien concept to the broader public. The English-educated elements in Congress Party realized in 1947 that in addition to these ideals, they also had to struggle and compete for local control of party organizations. They gradually lost ground to networks of important individuals with bonds to business patronage.

If nationalism had certain problems, how should we assess India’s (nationalistic) claim that it is the biggest democracy? Ambedkar, social reformer and champion of lower caste rights, criticized the lack of change over the caste-class issue. He posed the contradiction that from 1950, “In politics we will have quality and in social and economic life we will have inequality. In politics we will be recognising the principle of one man, one vote, one value. In our social and economic life we shall, by reason of our social and economic structure, continue to deny the principle of one man, one value.” (p34) Nehru understood democracy from the Raj and Westminister models, which nowadays people consider overly idealistic. Yet at the time mostly everyone in the Constituent Assembly agreed with him to form a centralized Parliamentary constitution rather than something close to the ground, like a panchayati government. Barrington Moore also identified the weak bourgeois class for a functioning participatory democracy in India. Karivaj proposed that due to the weak bourgeois, India requires state bureaucracies for social justice and redistribution. These institutions have been less funded since privatization led by Indira Gandhi and the Indian economists of the 1990s, which Corbridge and Harris criticize in a later chapter.

In an international context, state planning and rule by economic experts were two hegemonic ideas among much of the Third World Nationalists, such as Egypt’s Nasser and India’s Nehru. There was a brief honeymoon period between the Communist leadership and economists in China as well before Mao Tse Tung started movements to purge many intellectuals, economist and others, and consolidate in 1952, 1956-57 and 1966-1976. In India, Congress Party could not execute social justice through land reform and redistribution. Rather, the Party continuously distributed subsidies to rich farmers throughout post-independence. For example, fertilizer subsidies only strengthened the dominating landholding farmers. This strategy was also in line with the “demand side” Keynesian economics that sought to increase spending in the economy. Yet as Beverly Silver has pointed out, the Keynesian prescription was meant for the “developed” countries. High mass consumption and full employment were deemed to be beyond the reach of “underdeveloped” economies. (Silver, Beverly. Forces of Labor, 154.) Only the upper classes in India had money to spend and and rich farmers were taxed regressively. Since the money was not flowing to the state through taxed consumption, the subsidies partly caused the crisis in state finances in the 1980s and 90s. 

Banana tree in village near Rishikesh

Since rich peasants have been one of Congress Party’s main constituents’ interest, and may continue to serve as a powerful constituent of the BJP as well. Rich peasants obtained votes often vertically by coercing their tenants or dominions to vote with the rich's interest, this tendency may continue even as Congress Party support in current elections.  Rupa Viswanath argued in class that the phenomenon in which rich do not vote as much as the poor is because nowadays the rich are confident of their control over rural power. Thus it does not matter which political power is at the center. New taxes would be protested and fended off by the rich peasantry since there was a precedent of low to no taxes. More readings need to be done on the relationship between rural interests and electoral politics.

The City's Reliance on the Village

This blogpost will explore the relationship between the city and the village by first examining the everlasting material effects of caste in India. Then it will introduce the similarities of India's city with China's city: both countries' urbanization relies on the village and even subordinates the village to the city. Finally it will introduce some attempts to address this issue in China.

Does caste exist only as a religious category? Historical studies on India show that caste is a result of material institutional arrangements as well. Castes should not just be understood as the most commonly cited four varnas in popular explanation but also exist as jatis (job categories). Orientalists have proposed that caste only exists as religious and thus static; but it also constantly adapting as some jobs appear and while other jobs disappear. But to what extent does caste change with the time? Certain proponents of liberal modernization theories think that caste will only be practiced in a “backward village” and cities have successfully become caste blind. (Similar problems can be pointed about the "post-racial" American society so many people believe, but that is for another blogpost.) To quote Prof. Rupa Viswanath, "Most factories in India have divisions of labor. Every factory in India a particular caste is limited to particular kinds of work. The most dangerous and filthy work is usually relegated to Dalits." In the similar vein, scholars have suggested that industries cannot rely on stable labor supply due to the migrant workers attachment to rural lifestyle and their traditional culture. According to these scholars, India has the lowest speed of industrialization for this reason. 

But unlike what some modernization theorists expect, industrialization has not erased caste. Caste and religious practices have taken up new forms and adapted to post-colonial institutions. The importance of labor history in understanding rural urban links is crucial. One of the readings have mentioned the historian Raj Chandavarkar. He studied Bombay textile workers in the period of 1900-1940 and is known for conducting research at the workers’ neighborhood rather than just the workplace. He noticed that the ties with the village is not just cultural, but also rooted in economic necessity. Dr. Chandavarkar linked business strategies with instability of workforce: Businesses keep wages low by outsourcing the healthcare and retirement costs to the village. Tasks of reproduction are also transferred to the village. Thus only young men become migrant workers and contribute to the household without keeping the household.

The danger with comparing also could produce ahistorical misunderstandings. One Chinese scholar, while speaking at a college in the U.S., once pointed to the lack of women joining the workforce in India as India’s disadvantage in competing with China. His perspective is common among political scientists and development organizations who like to view India and China in competing terms. He may have been unaware of that this phenomenon was implicit in the patriarchal development logic of India’s capitalist accumulation.

Once the workers in India grow sick or old, they become social burdens and would be levied to the village, while supplemented with additional income from the city. Workers who have strong village ties can sustain the strike whereas workers who cannot return to the village cannot hold out during a strike. The worker's link with the countryside is not broken for pragmatic reasons. In light of these discoveries, the cultural explanation does not suffice to explain India's low industrialization speed. 

A cow herder possibly from the Yadav caste guides the cows across a road that connects Rishikesh with Dehradun, 2014

Although Dr. Chandavarkar studied Bombay workers in the 1900-1940, this theory is extremely relevant for China's migrant workers who are not protected by the same rights as urban citizens. Compared to many factories in India that have a long tradition of casual labor force, Chinese migrant workers are more stabilized and often live in community housing. Yet the hukou system formally discriminates against migrant workers and many do not have adequate access to resources other than the bare necessities. Chinese migrant workers thus also drift between the rural and the urban for both cultural and economic reasons. Migrant workers often work as couples, and once they have children they also rely on the child's grandparents to raise their children in the village. Their children cannot become legal residents of the city and have access to the city's public education. I am not very familiar with the land policies, but similar to India, many Chinese migrant workers return to the alternative option by becoming a peasant. As the economic advantages of the city decreases, some choose to return. However, recently there have been massive buyouts of rural land in regions surrounding Chinese cities. Even though the situation is different for migrant workers from different areas, some migrant workers are distressed with the cut off of options once they sell their land. This year, the Chinese state has tried to address this by expanding unemployment benefits to lure migrants to cities--

This would help migrant workers, who lack urban hukou, and are cut off, along with their families, from access to education and social welfare outside their home villages. Lack of a local registration should no longer be used as a basis for denying unemployment benefits, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security said, according to a government website. Local governments must also provide free career counseling and job-seeking services, and subsidize career development and skill-building, it added.

But the effects of these policies are yet to be observed. The outsourcing relationship between the city and the village exists in both China and India, often by subordinating the village's interests for industrial needs. But China's subordination is perhaps more severe than India's case, since China has urbanized at a much rapid pace and much larger extent than India. The Party’s danwei system allowed for mobilization of people beyond their original hometowns and contributed to the severing of rural relations.

Since the Open and Reform policies prioritized Chinese cities, much has been said about the assumed inferiority of Chinese villages and the existential crises of people with village roots. For example, Liang Hong's books on Liang Zhuang document her alienation from her ancestral village. There have been efforts that address these issues. Chinese intellectuals and activists, like Ou Ning and Chang Kun, also link both the cultural and economic needs of the countryside. By fostering book stores, public interest internet cafes, and activity centers, activists pay attention to cultural activities. At the same time, they also notice that the lack of culture is linked with the monopolization of economic resources in the city. Ou Ning has tried to think about alternative methods that are not necessarily out-right commercialization and reification of the village culture through tourism. For more about this subject, I will have to watch his new documentary first. 

Rice field in rural Rishikesh, 2014

The Old Revolution

If the Egyptian Revolution happened in 2008 I would have been much more familiar with the political actors. I had been very concerned with democratic freedoms around the world, especially China's, and even staged or joined politically charged performance art in Beijing. But times have changed and my personal opinions regarding the discourse of democracy and human rights have also been complicated since. Ethically, a crucial point occurred when an opportunistic entrepreneur and alumni gave a speech at my college. To put it bluntly, he got rich during the privatization of the former Soviet Union's state sector the 1990s. During the speech, he was very unabashed about the fact that he took advantage of an unraveling country's state sector. He married a Czech wife and lives in Czech now as a millionaire. When I asked something along the lines of whether he sees the same happening to China, he was unconcerned with the moral dimension but rather focused on the "How to Get Rich" factor. He recommended people who have the ambition to go to Burma for the next liberalization windfall and invest there. I still remember this event, but this is my first time recounting it and I still feel indignation that there will always be these type of people who take advantage of political changes in other countries and encourage others to do the same. I see opportunistic actors gaining material benefits in China if liberalization occurs, and I hope that when people discuss "democracy" arriving they would also recognize this moral (if not legal) hazard. In and out of China, I am more concerned with AIDS rights, feminism and specific labor movements.

As a historian in training, I also know that certain cases have specific contexts and democratic experience of one country is not necessarily transferable to another country. However, these issues appear in discussions when I am in studying in Germany, since I met people who are from different parts of the world (and many who are anti-American). I have recently befriended an Egyptian, called A., who is my age. He comes from a Muslim family but he himself is non-practicing (no fasting during Ramadan, drinks and eats pork.). He is not very anti-American but he is sufficiently skeptical of neoliberal discourses. I have shared my favorite book that critiques the idea of "economics" as this objective subject that can necessarily promote development through top-down means, The Rule of Experts, by Timothy Mitchell with A. last month. 

More on this incredible book later, which was not the core of our discussion today over coffee. (A really tall and clumsy German sat next to us in the Balzac cafe, spilled his tea and then his stuff. When he settled down with his handwritten notes papers, he was probably also listening) I learned that A. was part of the revolutionary wing in Egypt and on and off with the Socialist wing from Jan. 25th 2011 and stopped a few months after his female cousin M. got arrested around the time after the military took power through a coup the second time, around July 2013. M., according to A., along with a group that consisted of half girls and half boys, were left in a desert for some time. None were fed for some days. The girls were released because it was very controversial. The boys were sentenced to 15 years in jail. M. is still active in pro-democratic organizations but A. thinks that it is too dangerous and that there is no hope. He does not want to return to Egypt, for both political and social reasons (he finds them too materialistic. I recommended him to check out the scene in China. Arabs in this city still regard A. as an Egyptian, regardless of how disaffected he is.).

A. still wants to take part in leftist groups in Germany and he thought about groups that help refugees. We have only arrived for 2 months so we have yet to find our "组织." I have tried talking with some Socialists here, references I got from the U.S.,  but my German is not at their level yet to be of any help. A. also attended Socialist Alternative meeting in New York, near Zuccotti Park, and was invited to talk about the Egyptian Revolution in 2012. He thinks that this invitation would not happen again these days. The enthusiastic side of American politics is that people are genuinely outraged by racist police brutality against African American males, but Egypt under the undemocratic leadership of al-Sisi does not seem to have a lot of hope in A.'s opinion.

Here's a song by Leonard Cohen about personal loss and political defeats, also the title of this post.

I fought in the old revolution
on the side of the ghost and the King.
Of course I was very young
and I thought that we were winning...

Yes, you who are broken by power, 
you who are absent all day, 
you who are kings for the sake of your children's story, 
the hand of your beggar is burdened down with money, 
the hand of your lover is clay. 

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

Islamic Reform, South Asia, and Self-Reflection

I revisited the thoughts of Islamic reformers such as Abul A'la Mawdudi (or Maududi) after two years, albeit in different contexts, and the material still very riveting. I first read Indian-born Pakistani Islamist scholar Mawdudi in a Theocracy to Democracy course. The course discussed ranging opinions on the state of religion and politics in Europe, the U.S., and Islamic countries. The course did not specify which Islamic country, since the authors we read, including Sayyid Qutb, had enormous international influence on how people viewed Islam and politics. Based on the theme, we focused on sharia law and the question whether our "rights" come from a divine justification (in Chinese there is also the saying "天赋人权," God-given rights), and if so, what will justify our rights after secularization. I saw many shared anxieties between the Islamic reformers and the Chinese reformers of the early 20th century. The readings gave me the impression that Islamic reformists focused creating societies governed by Islamic mores as opposed to the "Western lifestyle." The Islamic reformers are very relevant and champion many supporters, some which became terrorists such as Osama Bin Laden. Since the Theocracy to Democracy course placed terrorists in a transnational context, I did not think of any country specifically. 

Only today after reading the 2008 article Islamic Reform and Modernities in South Asia did I realize how the transnational exchange between Islamic reformers could not have happened without the reification of Islam, or how Islam became to be conceptualized as a system. Mawdudi was one of the first to describe Islam as a system and this idea also became popularized through subsequent "how-to-be-a-good-believer" guides. In the sharp analysis Robinson points out 

this reification process stemmed in part, too, from two additional influences: the distancing impact of print that enabled Muslims to stand apart from their faith, analyse and conceptualise it, and their growing consciousness, which was especially strong in India, that they were living alongside other faiths, at times real competitors, which were also reified, or being so. For the first time, in the late nineteenth century, Muslims begin to use the term ‘Islam’ not just to describe their relationship to God but also to describe an ideal religious pattern, or a mundane religious system, or even just Islamic civilisation. (276)

I also saw the close connection between Mawdudi and South Asian realities. This is not a coincidence, since one of my Modern Indian Studies course assigned this article written by British scholar of Islam, Dr. Francis Robinson. Islamic reformers in South Asia sought to root out "indigenous customs that had come to be incorporated into Islamic practice, for instance, following the Hindu custom of not marrying widows." (262) In the 1920s, the Sunni Islamic reform school of Deoband and its political counterpart pressured "the colonial state to remove all elements of custom from the personal law." (275) Only in this light can one realize the oversimplification that sees reformed Islam as the sole competing force with Western secularism and "rationality." In the South Asian context, Islam has been in competition with the modern versions of Hinduism. 

Robinson argues that the spread of Islam as a system depended on the circulation of print--

the introduction of print and the translation of the Qur’an and large numbers of important texts into the regional languages of India. The reforming ‘ulama were amongst the very first to use the printing press; rightly, they saw it as the means to fashion and to consolidate their constituency outside the bounds of colonial rule. Reform, moreover, reached beyond the world of the literate. From the 1920s, it was carried forward by the Tabligh-i Jama‘at, or preaching society, in which the devout set aside a period each year to work in teams that transmitted the reforming message orally to small town and village communities.

Circulation of printed texts was one of the two ways in which Islamic scholars of the Deoband school advocated for itjihad (independent reasoning) over taqlid (tradition of precedent). Before, person-to-person transmission of ‘the golden chain of sincere Muslims’ was a model, which expanded to "embrace sufis, the Shia and the descendants of the Prophet" generally. Spiritual

authority is derived from linkage to the origins of the tradition through an unbroken chain of personal transmission. Central is the belief that truth does not reside in documents... but in ‘authentic human beings and their personal connections with one another’. (266)

The second way was to contact directly with the Qur’an and Hadith without former interpretations and make "them relevant to the modern world." Deobandis "cast aside a thousand years of intellectual effort in fashioning a Muslim society," with Mawdudi taking the lead (267). This turn was possibly considering that the Muslim intellectual world saw a crisis at the end of the Turkish Khilafat between 1919 and 1923. Robinson believes that since the past decade, Islamic reformism has achieved success for coming to terms with modernity and answering modern anxieties, after surveying much evidence that shows how "Islamic reform both opened the way to modernity and then worked with it." (279)

Darul Uloom Deoband is an Islamic school in India where the Deobandi Islamic movement was started. It is located at Deoband, a town in Saharanpur district of Uttar Pradesh, India

Robinson's article also shows the less politically-charged aspects of these Islamic reformers' thoughts, such as the emphasis on an individual's daily self-reflection and ethics. Individual reflection grew increasingly significant in a modern Muslim's religious life. In order to be a good believer, "Muslims had to ask themselves regularly if they had done all in their power to submit to God and to carry out His will in the world. " (272) Deobandi reformer Ashraf ‘Ali Thanwi called for regular self-examination, morning and evening, "to ensure purity of intentions and to avoid wrongdoing." (272)  New trends emerging in the Prophet's biographies oppose to my impression of Islamic reform as "political Islam"--

Muhammad is depicted not as the ‘perfect man’ of the Sufi tradition, but as the perfect person. Less attention, as Cantwell Smith has pointed out, is given to his intelligence, political sagacity and capacity to harness the new social forces in his society and much more to his qualities as a good middle-class family man: his sense of duty and his loving nature, and his qualities as a good citizen, his consideration for others and in particular those who are less fortunate. ... the concern is less with what the individual might have contributed to Islamic civilisation and more on his life in his time and his human qualities. (273)

This aspect of Islam is not directly related to either courses' themes, one which discusses separation of religion and politics and one which explores 20th century religious movements relation to nationhood. But I personally found it very intriguing since I reflect a lot. My Muslim friend Maaz also said that he looks into the mirror often and asks himself if he had done the right things that day or week. I once thought it was just like Confucius who once said that he reflects three times a day (吾日三省吾身). After reading Islamic Reform and Modernities in South Asia I also saw the link between Islam and this practice.