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DISCUSSION

DECember 28, 2013 vol xlvIiI no 52 EPW Economic & PoliticalWeekly134

In Struggle, Education of theEducator

Bernard DMello

Welcoming C P Bhambris call

to debate (10 August 2013) the

propositions in the article The

Near and the Far: Why Is Indias

Liberal-Political Democracy

Rotten? (1 June 2013), the

author of this article argues

that expecting a peaceful massmovement aimed at carrying

out a revolution is only

daydreaming. A mass movement

that has revolution as its ultimate

goal will, almost inevitably,

necessarily assume a violent form

in the face of state repression.

But cruelty and brutality must

never be a part of the means ofrevolution. We educators need

to be educated, and our best

education can take place only in

struggle, for correct knowledge is

also a struggle, and can be a deep

one at that.

The process of democratisation is

based upon radical criticism of

existing society; criticism is its in-

dispensible element. Its activists should

therefore never avoid criticism or forbid

controversies. All shades of opinion within

this movement towards democracy should

make themselves fully felt. I therefore

welcome C P Bhambris (henceforth,

CPB) call that the debate should contin-

ue. In response to my essay, The Near

and the Far: Why Is Indias Liberal-

Political Democracy Rotten? (1 June

2013), CPBasserts that the Indian van-

guard parties, hopelessly divided at

present, need to form a united front of

the oppressed (United Front of the

Oppressed, 10 August 2013, pp 132-33)

to advance the process of democratisa-

tion (in his words, revolution).

Misrepresentations

He claims that DMello blames (my em-

phasis) the rulers for following the policy

of social divide to rule, while the issue

is that fragmented communists cannot

organise a revolution of any kind (p 133).

I would be the last activist to blame

the ruling classes for this or any other

policy. For me, it is useless to expect

the ruling classes to act against their

own interests. If I or any other Marxist

were to blamethe ruling classes for the

divide to rule policy, this would sug-

gest that we are under the illusion that

the rulers had an obligationnot to abuse

their position in dividing to rule over the

oppressed. It would then seem that I am

generally against the violation of the

obligations that the ruling classes have

presumably undertaken (not to do this or

that) and not against the social system as

such. What a misrepresentation of my

political position! Further, CPBsays thatI have a misplaced characterisation of

the Indian class-state essentially as

caste-ridden Brahmanical-Hindu com-

munal (p 133). I have very clearly stat-

ed that the Indian state is essentially a

caste-ridden, brahmanical-Hindu com-

munal, underdeveloped capitalist one

(p 44). Underdeveloped capitalistis at thecore of my characterisation of the Indian

state. But CPB is obsessed with Indian

social structure, whatever that means,

for different Indian sociologists seem to

attach different conceptual meanings to

social structure, and he then goes on

to claim that I do not relate this social

structure with the history of India nor

do I focus attention on its impact on the

struggles of the working classes (CPB:

133). Actually I do not use the ambigu-

ous term, social structure, but I do, in

some detail in the one-hour lecture

whose text is my essay under discussion,

provide a historical perspective on com-

munalism and caste, as regards the lat-

ter, drawing on the work of eminent

sociologists like Ramkrishna Mukherjee

and I P Desai.

Armed Political Struggles

I, for one, am a perpetual student, ever

trying to tap the existing pool of knowl-edge, not only in the classroom and the

library, but also in the field. For instance,

after many years of study and visits to

areas where Indias Maoist/Naxalite

movement is active, my first such visit in

the mid-1980sto Jehanabad (then a sub-

division of Gaya) and Gaya in Bihar, I

have found that Maoism is a carefully

thought-out system of ideas and practice

(DMello 2010: 21-54). Indeed, Maoism

defends the oppressed, and so I do not

think I can dismiss it so lightly the way

CPBdoes. I think one must acquaint one-

self thoroughly with it before one finds

reasons to dismiss it. Of course, we must

write without fear, favour, prejudice or

malice, as some of my best teachers used

to remind me. But CPBarrogantly declares:

Armed political struggle in India, whether

led by the Maoists or by other organisations

in the border states in the North-East or J&K,

have not at all(my emphasis) succeeded in

creating a social awakening (p 132).

Really? Leave aside the Maoists for a

moment, pray how then did the Naga

Bernard DMello(bernard@epw.in)is amember of the Committee for the Protection of

Democratic Rights, Mumbai.

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DISCUSSION

Economic & PoliticalWeekly EPW DECember 28, 2013 vol xlvIiI no 52 135

rebels manage to overwhelmingly win

the 1951 referendum (plebiscite) among

the Naga tribes for a sovereign Naga-

land and, later on, maintain a liberated

zone for years, this in spite of the fact that

the main component of the Indian states

strategy was to militarily crush them?

Need of Real Understanding

After many years of study and observa-

tion in the field, I am presently trying to

understand Maoism in neo-liberal India.

I believe no investigation, no right to

speak is, in certain contexts, an appro-

priate ground rule for democratic func-

tioning. And, of course, one needs to

have empathy in order to be objective;

the supercilious gaze will not lead to any

real understanding.

My observations over time seem to

suggest to me that the strategy and tac-

tics of the Indian Maoists have been/are

being continually tested in practice, and

on this basis, improved upon in the light

of experience. But CPB seems to have

concluded that the Indian Maoists are

tragic failures. I would not even say this

of the Diggers and Gerard Winstanley,

although they faltered in their methods

because of a lack of relevant experience,

which the Maoists too did when theystarted off.

I would be dishonest if I were to over-

look the extremely important contribu-

tions of Indias Marxist-Leninists (MLs)

and Maoists. In my essay on Indias rot-

ten liberal-political democracy, I high-

light, more generally, the positive social

outcomes of the violence of the oppres-

sed (pp 41-42), including the subsequent

land reforms in the aftermath of the

Telangana and Tebhaga movements of

the 1940sthat, CPBclaims, I completely

ignored. In the course of my studies of

the contemporary MLand Maoist move-

ments, I have found that Maoist and ML

practice has enriched the socialist herit-

age of the oppressed. The Indian MLs

and Maoists have spread the ideas and

practice of Maoism from its birthplace in

Hunan in 1927 to various places in India.

I find that the Maoist leaders are prod-

ucts of the people, and my observations

and studies seem to suggest to me thatcorrect revolutionary theory will emerge

in the process and in close connection

with practical political activity, especial-

ly when this is of a mass and revolution-

ary character.

Outside Acceptable Politics

The Maoists have been recognising that

the most difficult problem of a revolu-

tionary movement is how to reconcilethe needs of the oppressed for immedi-

ate improvements with the necessity

of overthrowing the whole system in

order to do away with the oppression of

the oppressed. Reconciling reform with

revolution is not an easy task that we

can glibly talk about. Here is a whole set

of aspirations, the revolutionary compo-

nent, that falls outside the narrow limits

of what may be called acceptable poli-

tics. If you are wedded to those aspira-

tions then you cannot hope to be safe,

for as Che Guevara said in his farewell

letter to Fidel Castro, one lives or dies in

a revolution (if it is a real one). And,

Che, I think, was certain that the strug-

gle was worth his life. He, and Azad and

Kishenji, the more recently martyred

revolutionaries, engaged in a political

and ethical project, for which they

fought and died. If I were to paraphrase

the 19th century Cuban poet Jose Marti,

then I would say that they were humanbeings who felt a sting when another

human being ... [was] slapped in the

face. The Indian people need dignity

even more than they need roti.

CPB, after running down Indias Maoists,

preaches that revolutions do not succeed

without mass mobilisation of the con-

scious underclasses. Did he even bother

to read Arundhati Roys celebrated essay,

Walking with the Comrades? Imagine

trying to pontificate to a Maoist about the

importance of mass consciousness! Has

CPBempathised with anything he has read

from the writings of Mao, the emphasis

the latter gives to what happens when

people become conscious of the direc-

tion of history, the liberation of their

energies as a result, and the fact that these

energies can be enormously powerful?

Indian Vanguard Parties

CPBexpresses the need for the Indian

vanguard parties to form a unitedfront of the oppressed. I am sure that all

those of us who wish for the liberation of

the oppressed would second that. But,

when one examines the possibility, his-

tory does matter. Apart from the institu-

tion of caste, and of course, the divisive

cards of religion, ethnicity and nation-

ality played by the ruling class parties,

all of which are (have been) antithetical

to any meaningful unity of the explo-ited and the oppressed, the historical

trajectory of communist politics must

be reckoned with too. We do not have

the space over here to throw light on

the latter, but the word revolution,

which CPB uses, and which is used so

often by parties calling themselves

communist, has been much, much less

acted upon.

In the latter half of the 1940s, in the

Communist Party of India (CPI), apart

from the P C Joshi line (which was to

metamorphose into the Ajoy Ghosh

line and then into the S A Dange line),

there was the B T Ranadive line; and,

importantly, the Andhra Secretariats

line, advocating the road of Maoist pro-

tracted peoples war, which was first

sought to be practised in the then unfold-

ing Telangana armed struggle. Through

what internal-democratic process did

the rightist faction gain the upper

hand and the CPIspolicy drift towardsparliamentarianism? (Frankly, following

the 1921 banning of factions within the

(All-) Russian Communist Party, com-

munist parties, generally, have, by and

large, gravely erred in their handling of

factions.) Again, when the formal party

split came in 1964, though the goal of

the Communist Party of India (Marxist)

CPI(M) was peoples democracy based

on an alliance of anti-feudal and anti-

imperialist forces, headed by the party,

and the CPIwanted to carry out a national

democratic revolution, the tactical lines

of the two parties were almost similar.

In practice, both the parties committed

themselves to the path of parliamentari-

anism. So now, if CPBsunited front of

the oppressed is to come into being, the

CPIand the CPI(M)will have to shift the

centre of gravity of their politics away

from parliamentarianism.

Regarding the All-India Coordination

Committee of Communist Revolution-aries (AICCCR) and the original Commu-

nist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist)

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DISCUSSION

DECember 28, 2013 vol xlvIiI no 52 EPW Economic & PoliticalWeekly136

(CPI-ML), I wish Charu Mazumdar (CM)

and his close comrades, on the one

side, and their opponents within and

without theAICCCRand the CPI-ML, on

the opposite side, had taken Lenins

1920 pamphlet Leftwing Communism:

An Infantile Disorder and Maos 1957

speech On the Correct Handling ofContradictions Among the People to

heart and mind. How could CMand his

followers, on the one side, and even

some of the veterans of the Telangana

armed struggle, on the opposite side,

have dealt with each other the way they

did? But of course, there has been a lot

of learning-by-doing over the years, es-

pecially in the CPI-ML (Peoples War),

which, later on, took the CPI(ML) (Party

Unity) into its fold, and then merged

with the Maoist Communist Centre of

India to form the CPI(Maoist). Never-

theless, there is an urgent need for the

CPI(Maoist) to undertake a dispassion-

ate review of its achievements and fail-

ures, strengths and limitations, and on

that basis, adapt and modify its strategy

and tactics in the light of the vastly

changed balance of class forces, nation-

ally and internationally.

Naivety in the Extreme

Today, as far as the ML parties go, the

two that matter the most in India are

the CPI(ML) (Liberation) and the CPI(ML)

(New Democracy). But as far as the pros-pects of their coming together, and that

too, alongside the CPI (Maoist), and

then, with the CPIand the CPI(M), all of

them in a united front of the op-

pressed, the tactical lines of all these

parties are so far apart that the possibility

is dim. And, of course, if CPBis expect-

ing a peaceful mass movement aimed at

carrying out a revolution, then he

must surely be daydreaming. A mass

movement that has revolution as its ulti-

mate goal will, almost inevitably, neces-

sarily assume a violent form in the face

of state repression. Here, CPBseems to

assume that the ruling classes and their

political representatives directing the

repressive apparatus of the state will

give a revolutionary party the opportu-

nity to organise! Naivety in the extreme!

However, cruelty and brutality must

never be allowed to get to be a part of

the violence of the oppressed in the

course of the revolution.

I am convinced that we educators

need to be educated, and the best educa-

tion of the educator can take place only

in struggle, for correct knowledge is alsoa struggle, and can be a deep one at that.

And, do not be so sure that the truth

unites; it divides too. Talking about a

revolution is one thing. But how do we

measure up as revolutionary intellectu-

als, those who contribute in one way or

another, to the overthrow of capitalist

society and the state institutions which

it has brought into being, as Engels put

it about Marx in his speech at Marxs

graveside on 17 March 1883? This is what

struck me on a rainy afternoon in July

2011 when I visited Marxs grave in the

Highgate Cemetery in north London

along with my friend Alpa Shah.

Reference

DMello, Bernard (2010): What Is Maoism? in(ed.), WhatIs Maoism and Other Essays by

DMello (Kharagpur: Cornerstone Publications).

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