Strategic leadership for the future of India

[ravar]

Regarding soft approach : it can be a bit of a quicksand. Remember "Ashoka"? what was highlighted - give up the arms, and then the very subtle image cue of someone from the revealed tradition play the lead character of Ashoka, his consort of course played by someone from Indic faith origin who desperately fights but ultimately submits to him. We are not careful about the subtle ways in which propaganda works. How real life and image is carefully mixed up so that a certain line of thought and action is superimposed. I know there will perhaps be criticism of my observation as being parochial and narrow/bigoted. But this is not about one person, whose sincerity towards India I am not questioning at all. It is what he represents, and in a film like Ashoka, what he projects and superimposes through the script - to a viewing population who has little idea of the controversial and hotly debated real historical Ashoka and his activities, or even that of the role of one of his wives - Karubaki/Charubaki.

Exactly. But did Santosh Sivan's version of 'Ashoka' reflect anything on nationalistic lines? I doubt. His emphasis was again on how Ashoka repented, renounced and became the apostle of love and peace. If you read Francois Gautier's article on Ashoka and Buddhism in general, it will give us a new insight on how Ashoka's reign was actually the beginning of the demise of a powerful Bharat Varsha due to his renunciation-> http://www.hinduwisdom.info/articles_hinduism/116.htm . Ironically, then onwards, he went meek on all defence aspects of his country (forget about offence), disengaged defence R&D, strategies and doctrines, for which India was a leader at that point in time -> http://www.indohistory.com/nine_unknown_men.html Though I disregard the occult and other ambiguous aspects mentioned in the link, it is a pointer to the wealth of knowledge that the nation had and was deliberately left to decay due to his pacifist policies.

Considering this, Ashoka, per se, is a bad example to propogate nationalism. But, there are innumerable other towering heroes who can be depicted. Needless to say, the script should be carefully crafted to minimize ambiguity and misinterpretation by 'wag the dog' critics.

As an after thought, why can't we make a film exactly on the above shortfalls of Ashoka itself? A lesson in history as to what went wrong with his outlook. A good learning curve for younger generation and the current breed of ‘pacifists’!

[brihaspati]

I would rather niot jump too hasty a conclusion about Ashoka's peaceful "antics". There are some alternative viewpoints : one in the direction that history has confused two different Ashokas and the second, espousing which at the school brought me a huge amount of trouble was that almost everything that we know about "Ashoka" comes from the Buddhist authors, who might have had their own agenda in representing Ashoka's "transition". There are parallels in the transitions in Constantine or Charlemagne. The more we know about their times now, we realize that their adopted "transition" had little effect on their lifestyles or their military-state chracteristics. Mauryan Ashoka could have adopted certains aspects of Buddhism as an unifier and counterweight to non-Buddhist faiths (we have some possible indications of severe dislike for the Mauryas from certain Sanskritic authors), while retaining state and military machinery. I am not convinced about the so-called evidence about Ashoka's pacifism as currently presented.

[Keshav]

I am not convinced about the so-called evidence about Ashoka's pacifism as currently presented.

Thank the Gods someone said this. India has been blessed with many moral stewards so some people have this fuzzy idea that somehow they were above being human, but just consider this.

Ashoka was not a king, but a politician.

Now tell me you believe all his pious nonsense about "religious awakening". I don't think we'll ever fully know how much of his Buddhist over-expenditure was for empire building or a true testament of faith (whatever that means with respect to Buddhism).

[brihaspati]

This perhaps goes OT - but not perhaps entirely irrelevant for leadership questions in India: Asoka apparently was not seen as or believed to be "non-violent" even after "conversion". The legends about the life of Ashoka contain many supporting points - just one example would be the story of "Kunala's eyes". Here (a) inhabitants of Takshashila believed Asoka to be capable of "violence" and full of "passion", and (b) "Nevertheless King Asoka, enraged against Tishya-rakshita, caused her to be thrown into the place of torture, where she died by fire ; and all the inhabitants of Takshaila Asoka caused to be massacred." (Legends of Indian Buddhism; (1911) Burnouf, Eugène, 1801-1852; Whale, Winifred Stephens ).

The reason such reconstructions are placed in the public discourse, is perhaps to prevent the rise of leadership who can rise above the hesitation to adopt militant and "other"-destructive strategies when necessary. This is why, Ashoka's apparent statements in favour of "religious" "winning over" is highlighted. But what if we choose to interpret his epigraphical claim of replacement of "conquest by war" with "conquest by religion" in a different sense? What if we apply Asoka's "conquest by religion" in the modern context? It is ofcourse recognized tacitly to be the unchallengreable right of non-Indic origin faiths - but never to be allowed for Indic faiths!

Maybe, Ashoka was indeed a visionary leader in a certain sense. And we could explore his "ideas" as applicable in the modern context

[Abhi_G]

Brihaspati ji,

One of Ashok's edicts in Sarnath actually "warns" Budhdhist monks against creating schisms in the sangha. I somewhere saw a photo of a board of the ASI containing the translation of the edict. I think most importantly Ashok preserved his military might during his reign and that should be in focus in the context of nationalism.

This may be off-topic but the writing by Koenraad Elst also points to the so called non-violence of Ashok. The numbers may be exaggerated but none the less it is interesting.

http://koenraadelst.bharatvani.org/arti ... mitra.html

"At that time, an incident occurred which greatly enraged the king. A follower of the Nirgrantha (Mahavira) painted a picture, showing Buddha prostrating himself at the feet of the Nirgrantha. Ashoka ordered all the Ajivikas of Pundravardhana (North Bengal) to be killed. In one day, eighteen thousand Ajivikas lost their lives. A similar kind of incident took place in the town of Pataliputra. A man who painted such a picture was burnt alive with his family. It was announced that whoever would bring the king the head of a Nirgrantha would be rewarded with a dinara (a gold coin). As a result of this, thousands of Nirgranthas lost their lives." (S. Mukhopadhyaya: The Ashokavadana, Sahitya Akademi, Delhi 1963, p.xxxvii; in footnote, Mukhopadhyaya correctly notes that the author "seems to have confused the Nirgranthas with the Ajivikas", a similar ascetic sect; Nirgrantha, "freed from fetters", meaning Jain) Only when Vitashoka, Ashoka's favourite Arhat (an enlightened monk, a Theravada-Buddhist saint), was mistaken for a Nirgran- tha and killed by a man desirous of the reward, did Ashoka revoke the order.

[Keshav]

To tie this whole discussion back to the original purpose of the thread, lets keep this one thing in mind:

Politicians can and will feign piety to win votes and expand their power.

In "being strategic", we should be wary of such prostrations. No one believes Sanjay Dutt went to those temples because of some new found faith.

[brihaspati]

The reason leaders or aspiring leaders prostrate themselves for "piety" is because there is a societal regard or expectation of such behaviour. In a sense perhaps, this is typical of societies which feel they are increasingly deviating from their "dharma" and therefore the need for public display of conformity with "dharma". Many in such societies perhaps see someone like themselves in that leader - someone with whom they can identify with. Most importantly, Indians have forgot to dream - they are so cynical now that they don't even dare to hope for something better than screen images. Dreams are risky but exhilaratingly potent to change reality - and a proper leader's task is to make people face that eventuality.

[brihaspati]

I had speculated some time ago that the western powers and others interested in preserving TSP will see to it that the current GOI and the regime behind it returns to power in the next round of elections. For this they will need to give something to GOI to make it look powerful and active agianst Jihad at least temporarily. Thus there will be a great deal of pressure by the USA, UK, and PRC on TSP to provide a sop that refurbishes the image of GOI and the political forces behind it save their seats. I guess this plan of action is moving forward. In this sense, the strategic leadership of India for the immediate future has moved somewhat into the hands of US+UK+PRC. The common people will be voting for their immediate material gains and they have no reason to share in the concerns of a minority in the elite about long term and apparently abstract larger strategic issues even if they understand the potential consequences. For most parts, probably for them, the entire elite is self-centred and highly dupliticious and completely unrelaiable when they talk of "principle" and "nation".

Thus if there is no electoral reflection of the majority's strict stance on "national threats", US+UK+PRC+EU (UK kisses both PRC and US a** as they have laways done for their own geo-strategic power games) can very well combine with the GOI (which will be glad for the rescue) for strategic leadership of India, at least until the elctions roll over.

[svinayak]

I had speculated some time ago that the western powers and others interested in preserving TSP will see to it that the current GOI and the regime behind it returns to power in the next round of elections. For this they will need to give something to GOI to make it look powerful and active agianst Jihad at least temporarily. Thus there will be a great deal of pressure by the USA, UK, and PRC on TSP to provide a sop that refurbishes the image of GOI and the political forces behind it save their seats. I guess this plan of action is moving forward. In this sense, the strategic leadership of India for the immediate future has moved somewhat into the hands of US+UK+PRC. The common people will be voting for their immediate material gains and they have no reason to share in the concerns of a minority in the elite about long term and apparently abstract larger strategic issues even if they understand the potential consequences. For most parts, probably for them, the entire elite is self-centred and highly dupliticious and completely unrelaiable when they talk of "principle" and "nation".

Thus if there is no electoral reflection of the majority's strict stance on "national threats", US+UK+PRC+EU (UK kisses both PRC and US a** as they have laways done for their own geo-strategic power games) can very well combine with the GOI (which will be glad for the rescue) for strategic leadership of India, at least until the elctions roll over.

How do you members of the current GOI having relationship with western govt, western leaders etc. Tony Blain was endrossing Rahul Gandhi

[brihaspati]

One of the great psychological and public dramatic advantage the Cong enjoys now is its projection of "young" leadership as a team. They have cleverly tried to shield RG from taking all flak by putting up OA as an young "face" of Indian Islam who appears to act as an ally (the classic JLN+FA image to pull the wool over rest of India) and in the "youth brigade" and his sister also doing the rounds to diffuse the focus a bit. However the dynastic thinking has one great shortfall - it cannot tolerate abilities that surpass that present in the bloodline. OA was selected only because he was politically weak in the national context. Any future additions to the dynastic team has to based on the strict criteria of politically weaker, glamorous enough to mesmerize "young" Indians (I am hazarding a guess that the more photogenic, and camera charming they are the better their chances of selection - have not had a poll about this, but "handsomeness" of both RG and OA apparently turn a lot of the "better half" youth to jello!), and not more intelligent than RG, neither more crowd pulling than RG. So a host of weak, less competent, charming and ruthless young ambition will be pushed up - all who would be forced to be dependent on the name/heritage represented by RG for their power. The Indian state machinery will probably help - as it is not unlikely that it remains under deep penetration from USA+UK from right after the days of transition at Independence.

For the west, a weak leader dependent on western powers to a great extent even to neutralize internal opposition is a good thing to happen. I will gues that even PRC will lower its aggressive tone for the moment, at least until the Cong returns to power. None of the gang of four UK+EU+USA+PRC wants a force to come up in India that does not rely on outside-of-Indian-ness as an integral part of its acceptability locally and globally. Just as for the Cong+Left, it is also important for the gang-of-four to prevent any strongly nationalistic and culturally independent core leadership to form in India.

[Atri]

But sadly, there are not many young faces with BJP. The face of Pramod Mahajan which was promising is gone. Arun Jaitley lacks national appeal. Narendra Modi alone has national appeal, but he is kept at bay by LK Advani's ambition to sit on the throne. Furthermore, the Sickularist brigade of India will out loud, if he contests the election as Prime-ministerial candidate. IMO, even Advani lacks the appeal which Modi has in minds of people. While Modi has statistics to claim the throne, Advani himself has done nothing as compared to what Modi has achieved in Gujarat. This makes it easy for the big four powers.

The biggest drawback which nationalistic parties in India have is they do not have a dedicated popular news channel to propagate the nationalistic ideology in right essence. Furthermore, all the established intellectuals are political appointees of Kaangress and are marxist-sickularist brigade. The intellectuals like Arun Shourie, B.Raman, Brajesh Mishra etc do not get fair share of air space as the Kaangressi appointees get on popular media.

This webpage, although partially inaccurate about the few details, very succinctly catches the jugular vein of Hindu psyche. Sad, but true..

In this scenario of the fight between religions (war on terror) and the following fight to get rid of the weakened religions, the Hindus are the least capable of being active players in the scenario of the demise of religion, since Hindus cannot battle anybody with their open-ended theology. And so most Hindus will not fight Islam, but advocate peace with Muslims, while Muslims call for the destruction of all religions, including Hinduism.

Hence the Hindus are most ineffectual and in fact most Hindus would effectively be obstacles in the process of destroying Islam. Most Hindus would be sterile spectators of this process and some of them (psecs and pacifists) in fact would be trying to defend and save the Muslims. Such Hindus would themselves have to be actively destroyed, if not by the Muslims in their fight with all religions, then by the any anti-Islamic agency.

[Keshav]

Chiron -
I hate to impersonate the moderators but do not post genocidal rantings. Please delete that portion of the post.

One of the great psychological and public dramatic advantage the Cong enjoys now is its projection of "young" leadership as a team. They have cleverly tried to shield RG from taking all flak by putting up OA as an young "face" of Indian Islam who appears to act as an ally (the classic JLN+FA image to pull the wool over rest of India) and in the "youth brigade" and his sister also doing the rounds to diffuse the focus a bit. However the dynastic thinking has one great shortfall - it cannot tolerate it

Part of it is image and only image. For example, you put on a young face and use him as a puppet. Of what I've read, Rahul Gandhi doesn't even have half of what someone like Obama projects.

Instead of a "rags to Raja" story, his is a "Yuvraaj to Raja" story.

[Atri]

Chiron -
I hate to impersonate the moderators but do not post genocidal rantings. Please delete that portion of the post.

Just because I quoted the particular paragraph, does not mean that I attest the means suggested by the writers of that paragraph. In fact, I have stated my reservations about the authenticity of that source. The emphasis was on the observation of those authors, that pseudo-secularist Hindu people will go out of the way for inhibiting the process of assimilation of Muslims in mainstream Hindu society and Indianization of Islam. This is undeniable fact.

I believe that only way of achieving lasting peace in subcontinent is Indianization of Islam and subsequent assimilation of muslims into a mainstream society which considers India as motherland and most revered land and have the feature of peaceful coexistence with other philosophies/religions of Indian origin. This has to be achieved by the means of Saam, Daam, Danda and Bhed over the period of few generations.

Furthermore, I cannot delete or edit the post since that option is no longer available. I guess, we can edit OR delete our posts for few hours, thereafter, we don't have the option of editing it.

I apologize if it hurt your's or anybody else's sentiments; but IMHO, India, Hindus and subcontinental Muslims will have to make this choice in near future.

[brihaspati]

Since this is a "leadership" thread, with repect to the previous few posts - any leadership for the future of India has to deal with the question of re-establishing India as the source and origin of "Indianness". For the survival and consolidation of the nation, any ideology that claims and looks towards sources and centres outside of India can be treated with reciprocality but not accepted as part of the fabric of the nation. We do not always accept and allow features to continue simply because they developed at some time point in the past - same goes for religions that appeared to have won converts by force or persuasion depending on the standpoint of the narrator. If we catch infectious diseases we do not always say that we should allow it to continue simply because they have affected a significant portion of our body.

In any case, any future leadership for India must assert the state's right to intervene when nationally recognized individual human rights (excepting right to faith) clash with faith claims, in favour of the state recognized individual rights. Further, any faith will be treated according to strict reciprocality : if a faith claims right to convert others but a ban on conversion by others - then such a faith will not be given the right to convert, and conversion into that faith will not be legally allowed.

There is something anyone who places Islam and say "Hinduism" or "Buddhism" on the same bracket as to allowing the same freedoms to be practised, should keep in mind - Hinduism/Christianity/Buddhism have proved weak enough to be unable to resist criticism/deconstruction/militant internal dissension to be reformed and reformulated as a subsidiary and not primary/dominant social force. There is little or no indication of a guarantee that the barbarism of the Sharia or the Hidaya and the Hudood will not be eventually imposed on all non-Muslims in India if Islam under its theologian netowrks is allowed the same freedoms as other faiths. We see none of the violent/militant/activist opposition against Islamic theologian leadership and decosntruction of its core ideological texts as we have seen over the last 200 years against so called "manu-vadi" Hinduism or Church-dogmatic Christianity. All so called IM alternative anti-Jihadi prattle never ever criticizes/deconstructs/demonizes/denigrates the core texts of Islam - thereby never weakening the fundamental authority of the theologians - a process enthusiastically carried out against Christianity and Hinduism. This is the danger for any potential leadership - confusing the very real differences between the existing agenda and capabilities of the various faiths and treating them equally.

[Akshut]

Everyone here is concerned about the future leadership of the country with respect to religion. Yes only and only religion.

Please also share a thought that which leader will do something about population, corruption, infrastructure and 400 million poor un-fed people. Ya I know same old rhetoric and rant, but it's urgent. Very urgent. India is not as much shining as we are might like to believe.

Guess we hindus have lost the idea about what type of leaders we need to choose, after centuries of slavery.

[Atri]

Everyone here is concerned about the future leadership of the country with respect to religion. Yes only and only religion.

Please also share a thought that which leader will do something about population, corruption, infrastructure and 400 million poor un-fed people. Ya I know same old rhetoric and rant, but it's urgent. Very urgent. India is not as much shining as we are might like to believe.

Guess we hindus have lost the idea about what type of leaders we need to choose, after centuries of slavery.

Firstly, what we call today as Hinduism is not a single monolithic religion.. It is a conglomerate of all the Non-Abrahmic philosophies of Indian origin which do not mind accepting the nominal authority of Vedas. This includes rabidly atheist philosophies like Samkhya and Mimamsa as well.. So, when we talk about future leadership of India, it is NOT WITH RESPECT TO RELIGION.

The Indian philosophies are strictly personal endeavour. Future Indian leadership is expected to remove the concept of Religion from India, which IMHO is foreign one and make people realize that Religion is different from Dharma and Spirituality.

Most of Indian religions, especially those who accept the complete OR partial authority of Vedaas have been dominant in India since dawn of history. The followers of this conglomerate typically show strong affinity towards the region which they refer to as Bharat. The main opponents of all the foreign invaders, from Alexander to British, were most notably people following the philosophical schools which accepted the authority of Vedas (Aastika schools). This does not mean that Naastika schools do not show affinity. Just stating the trend which is observed by all the famous historians, right form Vincent Smith till Veer Savarkar and Prof. Jaiswal.

So, why is it outrageous to expect a future leadership which reinstates the affinity of all the Indians towards Bharat, IRRESPECTIVE OF THEIR SPIRITUAL BELIEFS... This has been a typical trend of Indians, especially Astika Indians that they are always tend to assimilate and Indianize everything that is foreign. Due to deep rooted concepts of Varna and Ashrama, this behaviour is seen among Indians. Everybody from Greeks to British were derided as outsiders and hence impure by Indians. This does not mean that Indians do not entertain any foreign elements. Nor am I implying that today's Hindus should consider outsiders as impure barbarians, because it will be a stupid and racist thing to do so. Hinduism has already ideologically defeated and reformed the concept of birth-based caste system. Even the historical Indians did not call outsiders as impure only based of their birth. It was primarily because of foreign origin of the ideological principles which they regarded as holy.

There is no denying reason to the fact that Indian religions accepted quite a few concepts from foreign ideologies. But they did so only after Indianizing them sufficiently. This is how Greeks, Kushans, Scythians, Huns, and many others were assimilated in Indian society. The objection was not towards their different faiths or differential perception of divine. The opposition was to the foreign origin of those perceptions.

Important leaders like Chandragupta Maurya (Greeks), Pushyamitra Sunga (Bactrian Greeks), Chandragupta-2 Vikramaditya (Scythians and Kushans), Yashodharman (Huns), Skandagupta (Huns), Rana Sukhdev (Gaznavids), Bappa Rawal (Arabs), Krishnadevray (Deccan Sultanates), Shivaji (Mughals), Bajirao-1 (Mughals), Ranjit Singh (Pathans) and many others lead this very movement of replacing the socio-political supremacy of foreign origin OR people following foreign ideology in India.

Around the time of each of these rulers, the Hindu (=Indic religions) population of India, completely or substantially, was enthralled with increased affiliation towards India and/or Indian religions. The concept of Bharata, its underlying cultural unity and Indian-ness was reiterated by most of these rulers or by popular scholars in their regime.

This trend is seen so many times in India. So why is it outrageous to expect that this trend will have to occur again, if there is to be a lasting peace in subcontinent. Only after complete defeat of these invaders, politically, militarily and culturally, was the peace achieved. Hence it is perfectly logical to expect from a future leadership of India to defeat, assimilate and Indianize all the foreign religions and philosophies in terms of Military conquest, followed by cultural conquest and assimilation.

The thing about identity is that it is always in making and is never completely made. In present times, the identity of Hindus and India has become a lot more crystalline than it was 2000 years ago. This is primarily due to long fight they had to put forth against followers of Abrahmic religions to maintain the Hindu identity of Bharat for almost 1300 years. Hence, both fortunately and unfortunately, the identity of Hindus today is not as open-ended as it was prior to advent of Islam. Future leadership of India must fix this problem and facilitate the assimilation of Muslims in Indian mainstream society.

The problem of corruption will decrease when the majority of people take this concept of Bharata seriously; it is impossible to eliminate corruption altogether. Corruption is a stratified problem. A common havaldar asks for bribe because he has a family to feed and the salary is not sufficient. This can be reduced by increasing the salaries of such people along with strict enforcement of anti-corruption laws. People on higher posts in offices do so out of greed and most importantly irreverence towards India, Indian system and Indians. Here again, this problem can be fixed if anti-corruption laws are strictly followed. Why aren't they followed strictly? Because of apparent irreverence towards Bharat and Bharatiya people and Bharatiya system. Indians should be made to take his Indianness and his sense of belonging and responsibility towards his fellow Indian seriously.

If people are made literate with concept of Bhaarata imbibed in their mind, the huge population will be an asset, instead of liability. This is slowly showing today itself. The family planning drive of government has somehow decreased. Because, with advent of education, this large population is becoming an asset for India. Same is with poverty. It can't be eliminated, but surely can be reduced. The trends are already showing positive results.

All this is in vain, until, a strong leadership inculcates in all the people following the Indian schools of though, a strong sense of affinity and belongingness towards Bharata and also exert the pressure on people following foreign religions to Indianize their religion and themselves. Diversity of faith was never an issue for Indian religions. Loyalty and religious reverence towards foreign lands and foreign people was always a non-acceptable issue for Indian philosophies.

Hence future Indian leadership should emphasize on Indianization of all the religions and Philosophies prevalent in India. Because in Indian context, religion/philosphy is strongly related to nationalism.

[brihaspati]

we are talking about the leadership of the whole of the nation. Therefore it naturally includes all aspects of national life - including that of poverty and social inequalities, deprivations and injustices. The problem is that all these are integrated together with "religion" or faith as one of the issues involved which stand in the way of modernization and progress.

I guess the basic items and agenda for modernization in India will be a matter of not too difficult-to-obtain consensus. Socially : (1) compuslory common education and at least one common language (2) compuslory social security measures including healthcare (3) self-sustaining energy and food sufficient mixed rural-urban development (4) electrification and energy surplus (5) digitization of information networks. Constitutionally : (1) common civil law (2) instrument of accession of new states as a provision. Militarily : (1) naval dominance of the Indian Ocean, and expansion into the Pacific (2) dissolution and incorporation of most of the territory of TSP (3) liberation of Tibet and retreat of PRC from Indian borders (3) missile capabilities to neutralize PRC (4) recovery of all occupied territories belonging to India.

It will be clear, that many of these steps will come into direct or indirect conflict with "faiths" or our attitudes towards faiths.

[Keshav]

Materialism is the one great enemy of faith and religion. Give the people the ability to buy what they want and religion will automatically be pushed to the side.

[Atri]

Materialism is the one great enemy of faith and religion. Give the people the ability to buy what they want and religion will automatically be pushed to the side.

True.. I am sorry if I am digressing here, but there is difference between concept of Dharma and concept of religion/faith. Materialism without Dharma (righteousness) is hedonism. Materialism is in fact one of the principle achievements prescribed by Indian philosophy in form of Artha. As long as the means are righteous, attaining material wealth is in fact considered as a mandatory achievement in the road towards liberation.

Yes, materialism reduces the importance of belief in supernatural. But belief in supernatural was never a primary pre-requisite in Indian system of religions/philosophies. Before Islam, most of Indian people were following Agnostic and Atheist schools of Indian philosophy.

One has to be careful while applying concept of nation and religion to India. The terms which are commonly used - Rashtra and Dharma as synonyms of Nation and Religion are tricky ones and do not convey the exact meaning of original Sanskrit terms.

[brihaspati]

Keshavji,

Materialism is the one great enemy of faith and religion. Give the people the ability to buy what they want and religion will automatically be pushed to the side.

By that argument we should not have had the most fanatical Christian sects and irrationalities like Creation science cropping up in the Bible belt of the USA in some of the most prosperous communities found on earth. Materialism could actually lead to a reverse reaction and lead to fanatical rejection of new knowledge and realizations. This has happened before and perhaps even in India in the historical past. In fact one of the reasons for the delay in resurgence of Indic faith based unifications or leadership from such forces, could be the delayed spread of prosperity and material well-being in Republican India. Only with increased propserity and materialistic consumption has the seed of "Hindu" consolidation been sown. Too little to consume coul absorb a large part of societal energy in guaranteeing that bare minimum. When prosperity comes, it provides time to think of other things - and ideas begin to play their role.

There are many psychological factors that play apart from material consumption - and a powerful one is group esteem and the desire to gain membership of and approval of groups. Materialism to a certain extent disrupts this tendency of collectivization, and historically we always see the reaction in a reformulation of ideology that brings back the collective. From the leadership angle, any leadership that can become the focus of such collectivization - homogenization, can be a key factor in transformation of societies.

[Abhi_G]

Materialism is the one great enemy of faith and religion. Give the people the ability to buy what they want and religion will automatically be pushed to the side.

Saudi Arabia and Wahabism?

[brihaspati]

Sometime ago the question came up of whether "leftism" could have any role in the future leadership of India. My firm conclusion so far is that leftism cannot have a constructive role for India. I will give my reasons in a sequence of posts. There are postors here who believe in the possibility of "moderate leftism". I guess what they mean is "parliamentary raod to socialism" stream within "left". My starting point will be therefore a brief deconstruction of the "mother-of-parliamentary-road-to-socialism" theorist - Engels.

part 1: Social Democracy and the Parliamentary Road

The parliamentary road to socialism is a long and hotly debated topic. Though having its origins in the European convulsions of 19th century and in the polemical battles that raged within the ranks of scientific socialists, it is gaining in prominence throughout 20th century as a central question in strategy arid tactics. Although social democracy cannot strictly be dubbed a by-product of it, the two have been shown to be intimately related by the history of the socialist movement.
(1) What are the roots - social, economic and political behind the formulation of this path ?
(2) Once adopted, even at the level of short term tactics, what are and can be the effects on the socialist movement itself ?

In short we shall refer to 'parliamentary road to socialism' as PRS.
In the history of the socialist movement, the question of PRS was raised on many occasions. Engels, in his Introduction (1895) to Marx's Class Struggles in France, deals extensively with PRS, and we take his 'unedited' version as published by the CPSU, in 1933, as our starting point. In a letter to Lafargue on April 3, 1895, Engels vehemently protests that he 'recommend(s) these tactics only for the Germany of the present time and that too with essential reservations'. But as his Introduction itself shows, his assertion of his intentions cannot be unquestionably supported, even on the basis of his unabridged text. This Introduction first appeared in Vorwarts, 1st April, 1895 with substantial editing and purging by Liebknecht. Kautsky's Neue Zeit published a more substantial extract but still not the full.
Before going into a detailed treatment of the significance of Engels's main points, his primary contention can be summarized as follows :
(a) The parliamentary form of struggle inevitably strengthens the Socialist movement, and the bourgeois state machinery is powerless before it.
(b) Direct military confrontation retards the movement.
The first historical experience that goes against the first part of Engels argument is the rise and coming to absolute dominance of the Nazis. Even 38 years after Engels's Introduction, the German socialists were unable to prevent the Fascists from becoming the single largest party in the Reichstaag. The combined vote share of the SPD and the KPD was less than that of the NSDAP's, in the 1933 elections. Contrary to almost all of Engels's expectations, the vote share did not convert itself into strength in real terms, i.e. when it became a question of defending even the hard won democratic rights.

The salient points as made out by Engels in this article are as follows :
(a) In Germany, industry was developed ("in positively hot house fashion") with French war indemnity as input capital. Here SD had a 'much more' ( more than France, where 'it took years to recover from the bloodletting of May, 1871') 'rapid and enduring growth'. The German workers used universal suffrage to grow rapidly. According to Engels, it was this growth, which overcame initial resistance in the form of the Anti-Socialist Law.
He writes 'Thanks to the understanding with which the German workers made use of the universal suffrage introduced in 1866 the astonishing growth of the Party is made plain ... 1871:, 102,000; 1874, 352,000; 1877, 493,000 Social Democratic votes. Then came recognition of this advance by high authority in the shape of the Anti-Socialist Law: the Party was temporarily disrupted; the number of votes sank to 312,000 in 1881. But that was quickly overcome, and then , though oppressed by the exceptional law, without press, without external organization and without the right of combination or meeting, the rapid expansion really began: 1884, 550,000; 1887, 763,000; 1980, 1,427,000 votes. Then the hand of the state was paralyzed. The Anti-Socialist Law disappeared;-socialist votes rose to 1,787,000, over a quarter of all the votes cast. The government and the ruling classes had exhausted all their expedients.'
Here Engels gives us, perhaps unknowingly, two crucial observations:

(1) the growth of SD was synchronous with a very rapid expansion of capitalist growth; this recurs in all later periods of rapid capitalist expansion. Marx, puts this more concretely, 'With this general prosperity, in which the productive forces of bourgeois society develop as luxuriantly as is at all possible within bourgeois relationships, there can be no talk of a real revolution. Such a revolution is only possible in the periods when both these factors, the modern productive forces and the bourgeois production forms, c6me in collision with one another'.
(2) Engels used the expressions 'rising strength of the Party' and 'rising vote share' equivalently - a typically social-democratic line of thought whereby it is assumed that the vote share in a parliamentary election indicates political 'strength' - a strength that can be relied upon, that can be used in other arenas of political action.
Here also appears Engels's contention, that recurs throughout his Introduction, that 'the hand of the state is paralyzed' before the legal 'socialist onslaught'. He overlooks the possibility, that the state knowingly and in a very calculated fashion, allows certain reforms of a superstructural nature, to contain dissent and its conversion into a radicalizing force. The state could do this, as the capitalist base was still weak, and the state enjoyed 'relative autonomy' to apparently go against the bourgeoisie's immediate interests in order to consolidate capitals long term grip over the society.

(continued)

[brihaspati]

(continued from part 1)
part 2:
(b) The German workers 'supplied their comrades of all countries with a new weapon, and one of the sharpest, when they showed them how to use universal suffrage... they have used the franchise in a way which ... has served as a model to the workers of all countries... they have transformed it from a means of deception ... into an instrument of emancipation.'

In this, Engels not only extols the German workers for their 'skillful' use of the universal suffrage, but posits this as 'model' to be followed by workers of all countries. He also acclaims the parliamentary struggle as the sharpest weapon in the hands of the proletariat. Historical events prove him wrong - the capture of power by the Communists in Russia, China, Cuba, Vietnam, did not occur through PRS. Engels here is trying to generalize the experiences in a single country, over a relatively short historical period, without going into a concrete analysis of underlying class and economic relationships - a vital part of analysis before drawing any political conclusions or prescriptions. In fact, throughout the entire article, he never undertakes to analyze the ongoing class struggle, the impact of changing economic relationships on the ideology of the socialist movement, etc.

(c) 'in election agitation it provided us with' the best means 'of getting in touch with the mass of the people, where they still stand aloof from us; of forcing all parties to defend their views and actions against our attacks before all the people; and further, it opened to our representatives in the Reichstaag a platform from which they could speak to their opponents in parliament and to the masses without; with quite other authority and freedom than in the press or at meetings'.

Engels now is concerned with winning over the 'mass' - note that no longer is he talking in terms of class - and he is worried at their aloofness. He considers election agitation to be the best means of getting in touch with the 'mass'. This may have been due to two very real and objective conditions : the peculiar situation in Germany where state repression 'precluded' any other form of agitation; and the leadership of the SPD were initially alienated from broad sections of the German society - either because of their intelligentsia origins or because of. their earlier exclusive preferences for the 'proletariat'.

Note that participation in bourgeois institutions or even power sharing is deemed a sign of strength, by neutralizing a part of the repressive power represented by these state institutions. This however raises serious questions. If the economically dominant class's power can be subverted within the very framework (superstructural) of bourgeois state institutions by representatives of the dominated class then the Marxist concept of power as class power becomes invalid.

Still further questions that remain unanswered are - How much subversion of the bourgeois power does bourgeois state institutions allow ? Can it or does it allow subversion to such an extent that the entire edifice of bourgeois domination is shaken? If it does, then can such state institutions be any longer called bourgeois ?

(d) universal suffrage, according to Engels, was 'an entirely new mode of proletarian struggle ... and quickly developed further' - state institutions, in which rule of the bourgeoisie is organized offer still further opportunities for the working class to fight
these very state institutions.

(e) They took part in election to individual Diets, to municipal councils and to industrial courts;... and... the bourgeoisie and the government came to be much more afraid of the legal than illegal action ... of the results of elections than of those of rebellion... rebellion in the old style, the street fight with barricades... was to a considerable extent obsolete'.

(f) 'Let us have no illusions - a real victory of an insurrection over the military in street fighting, a victory as between two armies is one of the rarest exceptions...' if the insurgents can make 'the troops yield to moral influences...then the troops fail to act, or the commanding officers lose their heads, and the insurrection wins'...if they fail 'then, even where the military are in the minority, the superiority of better equipment and training, of unified leadership, of the planned employment of the military forces and of discipline makes itself felt'.

Engels contends that at the most, insurrection can achieve in tactical practice, the correct construction and defense of a single barricade - coordination among various detachments spread over a wide area, and other requirements of regular military organization - are defective, and mostly 'not attainable at all', further - 'concentration of the military forces at a decisive point is , of course impossible'. The military also have resources which the insurgents lack - an important consideration here being the fact of modern military equipment becoming increasingly products of sophisticated large scale industry which are in the total control of the bourgeoisie. Upto 1848, whenever insurgents won, there was.an intermediate body of citizens guard which remained indecisive, or took the side of the insurgents, or supplied them with arms - 'because the troops failed to obey,...the officers lost their power of decision or because their hands were tied'

(g) He shows that 'soldiers no longer saw people behind the barricades...they saw the scum of the society' and the officers were getting used to non-conventional tactics. Does that mean that in the future the street fight will play no further role ? Certainly not. It only means that the conditions since 1848 have become far more unfavourable for civil fights, far more favourable for the military. A future street fight can therefore only be victorious when this unfavourable situation is compensated by other factors. Accordingly, it will occur more seldom in the beginning of a great revolution than in its further progress, and will have to be undertaken with greater forces. These, however, may then well prefer... the open attack to the passive barricade tactics.

(h) "If the conditions have changed in the case of war between nations, this is no less true in the case of the class struggle. The time of surprise attacks, of revolutions carried through by small conscious minorities at the head of unconscious masses is past. Where it is a question of a complete transformation of the social organization, the masses themselves must also be in it, must themselves already have grasped what is at stake, what they are going in for with body and soul...in order that the masses may understand what is to be done, long persistent work is required, and it is just this work which we are now pursuing."

Points (f), (g) and (h) are concerned primarily with the military side of capture of power.

[brihaspati]

part 3:

All the disadvantages as raised by Engels, the problem of coordinating over a wide area, facing upto a military opponent with superior organization, morale and resources - are all problems of mobile guerrilla warfare, as the Maoist and Cuban experience show. However, Engels here is writing on the basis of his experiences in a west-European, advanced capitalist, urban milieu. He could not be aware of conditions obtaining in the vast rural tracts of undeveloped Chinese interior in the 1920's to 40's, but he universalizes his prescription.
(i) 'An insurrection with which all sections of the people sympathize will hardly recur; in the class struggle all the middle sections will never group themselves round the proletariat so exclusively that the reactionary parties gathered round the bourgeoisie well nigh disappear. The "people" therefore, will always appear divided, and with this a powerful lever, ...is lacking'.

Marxism's search for an appropriate historical agent for the social transformation in the era of capitalism - started with the proletariat. However, Engels is already writing of a situation where the proletariat is unable to win power for itself on its own - that too in an advancing capitalist system ( a system which by Marxist assumptions should have resulted in increasing strength of the proletariat).

He can no longer rely entirely on a particular class for a historical transformation - inadvertently he acknowledges in contraposition to classical Marxism, that more than one class can get involved (without losing their class distinctions) for the overthrow of a class rule and such coming together may even become necessary. That such a viewpoint could give rise to 'class-collaboration' theories, is a possibility which Engels was not perhaps unaware of. In a letter to the Danish socialist Triers (Dec 18, 1889) he says that he is not averse to allying with other non-reactionary forces, but only if the long term class interests and goals are not compromised, and the gains of such alliance are really 'direct' or 'incontestable' or the class character is not 'put in question'.

'For the proletariat to be strong enough to conquer on the day of decision, it is necessary, and this view Marx and I have upheld since 1847, that it should form its own party, separated from all others and opposed to them, a class conscious, class party. That does not imply that this party cannot for a short time make use of other parties for its aims. Nor does it imply that it cannot support other parties for a short time in measures that are either immediately advantageous to the proletariat or which are advances in the sense of economic development or political freedom.... I am, however, for it only if the advantage for us is direct, or if the advantage for the historical development of the country, in the direction of the economic and proletarian revolution, is incontestable and worth the trouble. And presupposed that the proletarian class character of the Party is not put in question thereby. This represents for me the absolute limit'. This in turn raises further questions as to the standard applicable to measure the degree of directness or incontestability, and the appropriate body to do so, etc.

According to him, in France 'the ground has been undermined by revolution after revolution', 'where, as a result, the government is by no means sure of the army'. Even here , where 'in general, the conditions for an insurrectionary coup de main are far more favourable than in Germany ... the Socialists are realizing more and more that no lasting victory is possible for them, unless they first win the great mass of people.' 'German Social Democracy has...a special task. The two million voters whom its sends to the 'ballot box, together with the young men and women who stand behind them as non-voters, form the most numerous, most compact mass, the decisive "shock force" of the international proletarian army. This mass already supplies over a fourth of the recorded votes... Its growth proceeds as spontaneously, as steadily, as irresistibly, and at the same time as tranquilly as a natural process. All government intervention has proved powerless against it. We can count even today on two and a half million voters. If it continues in this fashion, by the end of this century we shall conquer the greater part of the middle section of the society, petty bourgeois and small peasants, and grow into the decisive power in the land...To keep this growth going without interruption until of itself it gets beyond the control of the ruling governmental system not to fritter away...in advance guard fighting, but to keep it intact until the day of the decision...is our main task...there is only one means by which the steady rise...could be momentarily halted, and even thrown back for some time: a clash on big scale with^the military' 'we, the "revolutionaries", the "rebels"...are thriving far better on legal methods than on illegal.'
Engels here presents us with a strange contradiction - on the one hand he emphatically asserts that in the class-struggle - the 'people' will always appear divided, and thus 'insurrection' will not succeed. However he is hopeful, that by the parliamentary struggle, the Leftt inevitably wins over the intermediate classes and becomes the most decisive force. An indecisive intermediate class which partitions into one supporting part (amenable to persuasion) and a hostile part which can only be amenable to coercion - does not do away with the need of provision for counter-repressive and coercive military measures.

[brihaspati]

Part 4:
The importance of Engels's Introduction lies in the fact that he supplies almost all the arguments raised till today in favour of PRS, and later authors have been unable to contribute anything substantially new.
Engels's observation that, the time for revolution 'from the top', unconscious masses led by a conscious minority was past - is perhaps based on his experience of the Bourgeois revolutions. According to him in the future any revolution must take place with the conscious mass actively participating. But then why were earlier 'from the top' revolutions successful and suddenly in the era of advancing capitalism the situation changes drastically ? Is the bourgeois state significantly more organized or more absolute than its historically predecessor forms ? Were the earlier forms weaker in repressive powers vis-a-vis the ruled ? The answer lies in the fact that in capitalism, the various components and classes in society are much better integrated with the state than in precapitalist forms. If vast sections of the society are not integrated with the state authority, it is easier for a conscious minority to lead these sections in revolt to overthrow the state. It is this integration in capitalism which necessitates conscious masses to carry out historical revolutions - the masses first must be broken away from the state, de-integrated, before they can be turned against the state.

This integration in its turn takes place mainly through bourgeois democratic institutions, of which the parliamentary procedure is the most important component, which through universal suffrage incorporates the masses into the political system of the bourgeoisie, on terms and conditions of the bourgeoisie, a process which ultimately leads to ideological subjugation of the masses, and an acceptance of the system which is the basis of the regimes legitimacy concepts.

Thus nowhere the parliamentary road has resulted in the proletariat and its allies growing into a decisive power - but rather the strengthening of the right. The masses, instead of continuous active political participation to change the society, have rather been drawn into a non-participatory political activity, where the involvement is restricted to the election day, to the casting of the vote. From this grows a negative alienation - whereby the system is accepted ,and expected to continue inspite of frustration and disillusionment with it. (By positive alienation I mean an alienation whose result is a positive reaction or activity aimed consciously or unconsciously against the perceived cause behind alienation. In contraposition, a negative alienation is an alienation whose result is absence of reaction or activity aimed as in positive alienation).

That the modern capitalist, imperialist state's power and stability is based on this integration and the first step in destabilizing such a state is the de-integration of the masses from the state is amply borne out by modern history. Wherever in the colonies, the leadership of national liberation movements ultimately gained success, they started by de-integrating the masses from the imperialist state. The impact and success of the various non-cooperation movements of M.K.Gandhi attain particular significance when seen as attempts at de-integration.

The parliamentary method's first and foremost disadvantage ( for the Left) is thus obtained - it subverts the Left's search for power by integrating the masses with the capitalist state. History shows that wherever communists have succeeded they successfully weaned away the greater portion of the non-dominant classes from the existing state - applying invariably a combination of persuasion and coercion - substituting state institutions and non-institutional superstructures with their own. Thus the Bolsheviks used the Peasants and Workers Soviets, the Red Army, legal and illegal propaganda etc, - the Chinese communists attempted and did reorganize rural society and life by promoting base area administration, etc.

Objections here could be, that even in the stable parliamentary democracies of advanced capitalist west, voter participation is low. However the non-participation can be seen as a result of the negative alienation spoken of above. The longer the stability, the greater the non-participation - except periods of general or significant crises.

The second disadvantage centers round Engels's proposition, that the strength of the socialist movement can be accurately gauged from the- vote share. In the arena of political action, 'strength' can mean different things in different situations. What appears to be 'strength' in one particular direction, may be 'weakness' in a different direction. Voting by universal suffrage, under secret ballot, is a nominal action which does not demand of the voter anything more committed than the casting itself - in societal transformations active involvement, action by the supporter of socialism is necessary. Thus situations recur, where socialist or leftist vote share increases, becomes significant enough for a socialist or communist party to influence or play a decisive role in the bourgeois state machinery. But this regime or the socialists, communists find themselves unprotected, without allies, undefended by the 'people' against rightwing onslaught.

[brihaspati]

Part 5:
What can be the main factors behind such improper assessments ? These could be errors in organization, and in theory. The theoretical error lies here, that even assuming that the entire proletariat is class conscious, and from that consciousness understands and acts according to the importance of universal suffrage; a voting share above that of the actual proportion of the proletariat indicates vote by sections of intermediate and perhaps even economically antagonistic classes. The error lies in equating the motivation behind voting for the left of different classes. This vote may not and often does not represent support for overthrowing the system - this vote in fact indicates pressure for reform within the capitalist framework - a typical tendency of the intermediate classes, who hate capitalists for their monopoly of benefits, not capitalism itself, and desire to make these benefits their own.

The reformist tendencies in left parties who have adopted various forms of PRS arise out of this pressure. Ofte'n, this or that leader or faction is sought to be made responsible. But the root cause lies in PRS itself. An attempt can !be made to check this tendency through the organization itself, but if the organization is successful, .then the vote share goes down, and PRS suffers a setback, and if PRS is to be maintained, reformist pressure has to be accommodated in the organization.

The third disadvantage of PRS lies in the fact that parliamentary politics is politics on bourgeoisie's terms and conditions. If all the apparatus of capitalism ( ideological, judicial and executive) is unable to contain the proletariat, then the armed forces of the state are there to defend capitalism. Thus PRS suffers from the inevitable weakness of legal recognition. As discussed in the second disadvantage, reformist pressure and its accommodation can even lead to some form of power sharing. Engels's exultation that a few ministries and presidents could be overturned can lead to a false sense of power in those less experienced. Ministries or governments could be changed - but as long as proletariat is unable to overthrow the system itself, it does not prove itself strong enough. Thus Marx's comment about the bourgeois parliament's similarity to residential quarters of certain animals remains true even if socialists or communists share power within the bourgeois state machinery. Since the system remains intact, no real change occurs in the lives of the proletariat and the pauperized parts of other classes, and the alienation grows. This does not naturally become positive, since the organization of the proletariat itself is involved on behalf of the bourgeois system. Being a single class, antagonisms within this class cannot take the acute form as in inter-class conflict -and hence the alienation turns negative. Here, if any other ideology is available that can utilize this intra-class contradiction, such as religious and caste stratifications which tend to emphasize religious and caste divides rather than class, then of course we have an escape route from negative alienation which however becomes a weapon in the hands of the right.

The positive benefits for the organization is undeniable - getting in touch with broad sections of the society,
taking class struggle to the hearths and homes. But. it is exactly here that organizational problems also start. The dialectics of this process also shows that while the organization tries to impose its ideological hegemony on the masses, increased contact also facilitates the possible imposition or contamination by the existing ideological hegemony - under whose grip the entire society lies in a well-integrated capitalist state. Combined with the reformist pressure which arises solely out of PRS, this creates a process of internal transformation of the organization itself - which proceeds in certain well-recognizable stages.

In the first stage : the organization tries to expand rapidly by forming so-called mass fronts, and trying to recruit new members into the parent organization from these mass fronts. It tries or attempts to recruit on the basis of performance and aptitudes, degree of ideological commitment etc. At this stage the leadership is still that from the pre-PRS period, and attempts, perhaps genuinely to strike a balance between reform and revolution.

In the second stage, vote share rises due to increasing favour from the intermediate classes, and the organization is in a position to share power within the capitalist framework itself. The proximity to bourgeois state power starts two processes, which ultimately, in the long run, leads to the disintegration of the original organization. In the first process, the pressure for immediate relief increases - necessitating accommodation by the organization ideologically to provide cosmetic reforms, and in the process gradually being forced to ape the other bourgeois and petit bourgeois parties and groups.

In the second process, the leadership, in order to dispose of state power to win over sections of the populace, are forced to compete with each other over organizational resources. This competition is fostered by bourgeois politics and political tactics which the organization is forced to adopt in the face of competition from bourgeois political groups. From this, factions appear around cores of leaders, who are in turn forced to recruit followers in increasing numbers - who will support these factions and leaders in internal struggles. The most appropriate followers will be those, who are alienated from the greater sections of the masses, or best, alienated even from the rank and file - for it is these very followers, who lacking rank and file or base support, are more vulnerable in internal struggles, and hence more dependent on superior leaders for holding onto their organizational posts and privileges - and hence more likely to remain faithful to their patrons. The higher leadership at each level thus promotes this sort of followers into the next rung of leadership and gradually this leads to a replacement of the entire organizational hierarchy by a structure full of sycophants, time-servers and inept opportunists lacking in ideological commitment, efficiency and dedication. This leads to the alienation of the entire organization from the masses it claims or wants to be the vanguard of.

In the third stage, the leadership forms a well identified elite within the organization itself - an elite which maintains itself entirely through bourgeois political practices, and hence serves openly or indirectly as an instrument of reaction. At this stage the influence of the intermediate classes has reached its maximum within the organization. Henceforth, the existence and furtherance of the organization can only be assured to the degree to. which it serves the interests of capitalism. This trend is also generated internally by the interests of the intermediate classes, which as mentioned before, is not against the benefits of surplus value but against its monopolizing by the capitalist elite.

Periodic attempts to reform or restructure the organization to maintain its original ideological direction and
purpose are gradually wiped out through ruthless purges, isolation of possible reformers from the organizational resources using a 'carrot and stick "' policy, - the rebellion of sections of members against leadership elite can be neutralized easily and the adherents of reformers can be won over or detached by the promise of share of capitalist benefits. It is at this point, that we can trace an important link to modern Bonapartism or fascism. Briefly, the disgruntled sections of intermediate classes, realizing that they can expect nothing more substantial any longer from leftists in PRS, switch over suddenly to fascist tendencies.

[Keshav]

Brihaspati -
Living in America, you would be surprised at how non-religious people really are. Most of them are simply Sunday Christians, meaning, that they pray on Sunday, but don't let religion interfere with their daily lives the rest of the week.

Fanatical they may be, but they're harmless. They have been reduced to voting against abortion and gay marriage as well as talking to snakes and getting angry on Sundays.

Abhi_G-
Saudi Arabian society is generally dirt poor. Only the upper echelons are the ones who can afford to buy white virgins and party in Dubai. My guess is that they aren't that religious.

[Keshav]

Keshav, What value has that posted added to the knowledge base of the forum? Brishapatiji posted five long well thought posts and you answer with non sequitors?

I wasn't responding to his five long posts. There were two posts before made by him and Abhi_G that I responded to.

[brihaspati]

Just to wind up on my "5 long posts", the major in-system representation of the Left happens to be the "Parliamentary road to socialism". They had raised great hopes of social and economic justice, but have proved themselves incapable ideologically and organizationally to bring about such promised changes according to their methods. As I have tried to show in my sequence of posts, it is their very methodology that fails them. In India they simply reproduce older exploitative forms and are no improvement over the "faults" they themselves claim as endemic and root cause of India's suffering. Ultimately I see them reduced to the very Rightwing methods they decry so much in public. They have failed on the crucial tasks for leadership of India (a) unification and consolidation of all sections of the society (b) overcome "caste" and other social divisions which are used for retrogrssive effects [look at the predominance of "forward caste"s in the upper echelons of the party committees - and I would say show a concentration of the ugly features themselves which they shout about such "forward castes"] (c) been unable to show an alternative to the capitalist path of economic development (d) instead of fostering intellectual exploration and innovation they have stifled growth in these areas. This is the reasons that I feel the parliamentary Left have no role and place in India's future, and they have to be helped along in their path to extinction and oblivion.

Will take up Naxalites next!

[brihaspati]

Gandhi represented the political tactics of active promotion of deintegration and Subhas Bose represented the military path of deintegration. Both had realized, but not in the terminology used here, that active promotion of deintegration was possible. But their deintegration was deintegration from the imperialist powers. The British had ironically helped to create the conditions for deintegration by partially integrating the pre-colonial social forces in a political system not fully integrated with colonist country - as also maintaining the non-integrating factors within the Indian society itself, i.e., the classical bureaucracy-producer divide or potential for deintegration within Indian society itself. Gandhi and Bose's deintegration meant deintegration from the British and thus both were faced with the problem of solving the deintegration existing within the colony itself - each tried to integrate the society in his own way - one culturally the other militarily.

The communists of the period seem to have missed the essential dynamics of this integration deintegration process and thus were isolated from the political undercurrent or main thrust of the historical trend. Thus their efforts and debates became virtually frustrating searches for parallels between the European experience and the Indian one - as the whole framework of analysis had been transferred almost unaltered from the European scene. Practical experience gradually forced the communist movement to face the inherent integrating and deintegrating forces within Indian society as a concrete problem of political strategy and tactics. Here the classical pattern of deintegration movements conceived and led by the alienated intellectuals and joined by the potentially deintegrated - the producers, and their gradual infiltration by integrating elements ( not necessarily physical but as also ideological) from the traditional ruling bureaucracy, and final degeneration into an integrating process with the existing system, followed.

The communist movement split into three trends mainly according to their position within the integration-deintegration spectrum. CPI took the integrating position, CPI(M) the dialectical middle road of deintegration-integration, CPI(ML) the extreme position of total and immediate deintegration. The different experiences of the three trends indicate further the importance of the deintegration concept and its specific features in the Indian context. CPI succeeded to maintain close contact with state power, CPI(M) succeeded to capture regional state machinery but was unable to capture overall state power, CPI(ML) was nearly annihilated in most regions but succeeded to stabilize and even in certain cases grow in certain regions.

Without further accelerating deintegration, any party opting for the middle road will be forced to join forces of integration to reach state power. Without such integration, the party will have to remain satisfied with regional power - regions where local conditions for deintegration from the central system helps to maintain the party in regional power. It is worthwhile to note that the CPI(ML) could maintain itself only among population segments and geographical areas traditionally potentially deintegrated from the Indian state.

The communists can reach state power in two ways - one is by integrating with the existing state, the path partially adopted by CPI.

The other way is to use dialectically the integration deintegration duality to promote actively deintegration of the whole society before it can be reintegrated to a new societal transition. Along this strategy, recognition of non-uniformity of deintegration among various sections of the society and various geographical areas have to be taken into consideration. Here it may be interesting to glance at the pattern of certain regions in the Indian subcontinent to show a certain tendency or proneness to secede, to rebel against, from a centralized state machinery. The three regions are the Punjab, Bengal, the North East and the Deccan. Historically, these areas seceded when the central authority then existing weakened, such as towards the end of the Mauryas, the Kushans, the Guptas, after Harsha, under the Palas, Rashtrakutas, during weak Turko-Afghan sultans, during weakened Mughals. This trend continued even in the colonial period. Of these three, especially Punjab, Bengal the Assam Valley have only their general geographical pattern in common, with a compact close knit, riverine local subsystem. Geography, which controls economy and hence society in general, thus provides a separate local undercurrent of deintegration from the central authority.

This was the path tentatively adopted by the majhjhim panthis- the CPI(M), and landed up squarely in the trap of Parliamentary-road-to-socialism. The CPI(ML) or Maoists in general, have chosen the path of extreme and immediate, total deintegration. To make this successful, they have had to retreat to subzones and subpopulations. Their ignorance and lack of understanding of the overall process of deintegration-integration dynamic for the entire subcontinent leading them to deintegrate parts from the whole is against the basic trend of Indian history. They therefore simply intensify fractures and actually prevent the societal deintegration from the current impasse that will be needed to change the paradigm. This is the political historical reason why Naxals have no place in the future of India. I know many youth lost to the Naxalite cause in its resurgent phase in the 90's whom I mourn. These brains and dreams were a loss to India. This has to stop, and for good.

Our society needs a different transition, and a society wide one, not of bits and pieces.

[brihaspati]

Just a curiosity - both RG (junior) and his sister have been sent to BD over the recent times. Now Somnath the "destroyer" (of Left calculations) has also been sent to BD overtly in connection with mother-tongue day and some parliamentary context. Why is BD becoming such an important grooming ground for projected "leaders" of India? The cultural context of BD, religion and language wise is not a crucial dominant feature within India - the Islam of BD is different from that which exists as dominant strand within India, and experience or sympathies gained there may actually work against the agenda within IM. All this just for votes in the contiguous area of WB and Bihar - seems far fetched and of doubtful efficacy. Could be part of a greater framework mediated by Unkil and UK that paved the way for AL coming to power and the recent talsk about transit etc. But still remains a mystery.

[brihaspati]

If we look back at the history of the anti-colonial movements in Asia, we see that most of the seeding leadership of these movements had an early soujourn for education or other reasons, sometimes connected to political exile, outside of their countries of origin. The returning individuals appeared to have come to their political ideology and vision while abroad, and been crucial in how the eventual nationalist movements shaped up. Although the conditions are partially different, what should be the context for modern India? One of the advantages that diaspora has is that in general they belong to more or less fewer subdividions of socio-economic status. We have much larger and broader social groups which cross regional and linguistic boundaries compared to point of origin in India. One of the main reasons that the Jihadis all over Asia and Africa so quickly developed inter-country and inter-regional cooperation and affiliation or crystallization into a an umbrella front - was because most of them fought together in AFG against the Rus and their linguistic or other barriers disintegrated. The contextual submergence of subidentities lead to a greater identification with the nation facing hostile or more uniform treatment (out of less knowledge about Indian subdivisions in host populations). It is possible that any such returning individual will be subjected to jealousy or jealousy can be used by local leadership to prevent competition from such individuals. But on the other hand the future prince of India is in some sense also returnee from abroad. His famous ancestors all spent time as NRI's in their formative stages. If they could be accepted what prevents current generations of NRI's? At least they would not be under the compulsion to filch public money to maintain their livelihood!

[brihaspati]

A theme that keeps cropping up in the threads on TSP and Indic perception of Islamic extremism - the question of Indianization of Islam. From the leadership viewpoint, this is a deep problem. Basically it has to be a social ideological process, and therefore at some stage will be mediated by some core of a leadership, Muslim or non-Muslim. There are many interesting aspects to this leadership process, will try to expand later. But as a brief starting take - suppose it is feasible, what is the nature of the leadership that can make the process feasible? Can it be a mixed leadership of both Muslims and non-Muslims? Or does it have to be under purely Muslim or purely non-Muslim leadership, but not overlapping? For a mixed leadership to be successful, it means the pre-emergence of a common convergence of views from both Muslims and non-Muslims towards such a transformation. But if already there is a convergence of views on the nature and necessity of such a transformation among sections that can mobilize the entire IM society, doesn't it already mean that society wide convergence of views are possible - which weakens the ncessity of such mixed leadership anyway. A mixed leadership could also undermine the transformation in a subtle way - for there could be accusations of "selling out" to the "other side" on both sides, leading to distrust of the leqadership in the larger society.

Is it likely to be successful under purely IM leadership? Not completey unlikely, but most probably very unlikely. Ther reason for this is the basic structure in which IM has grown up - with the theologians making non-Indianization the fundamental defence and reason for existence of IM. Indianization will be seen and represented as dilution, corruption and contamination of Islam. And realistically speaking the non-Indianization is a theme that has plenty of support in the core texts of Islam (not specifically in the Indic context, but on many fundamental aspects of Islam it differs in complete antagonism to the corresponding Indic aspects) and propagated continuosly through the Islamic educational and cultural networks.

That leaves leadership by non-Muslims. Conceptually possible but most difficult. This is a leadership that will generate virulent resistance by the Ulema. However if the resistance by the Ulema can be overcome, or the Ulema neutralized - this is one of the feasible ways forward. However to do this successfully, such a leadership has to treat the common IM as Indian first (not Indic) and IM only second. Social pressure of expectation and reward for conformation have to be blended in most carefully with enegendering schisms and exposing and isolating the Ulema. The common IM has to be treated with a great deal of pampering as an Indian but not as Muslim or for Islam - emphasizing the Indic part and ignoring the Islamic part. The non-Muslim leadership should make it clear that the Ulema or their cohorts are unwelcome but the IM is most welcome and as Indics.

[brihaspati]

A question for BRFites to suggest trajectories on : we are already quite close to the elections, and the Elections thread is filling out details of the emerging picture. However, my main question is about what happens after the elections are over - not merely in terms of the nitty gritty of formation of the actual government. What I am trying to aim at is look at the three possible shapes and alignments (agreed, some more likely than the other) and what their impact is going to be for the next decade as afar as leadership of the nation is concerned. The three combinations I have in mind are the BJP+allies, Cong+allies, "fuherer"+allies (in the sense of a vague but generic "leader" but not with the explicit Nazi context). We will denote them for short by BJPA, CONGA, and FUHA.

How are each of these leaderships going to change or not change the nation or national prospects for the next decade? Mainly in the area of foreign policy, conflict with TSP, tackling terrorism, internal insurgency, economy, social, legal and constitutional reforms? What will be their impact on the territorial integrity and regional stability? Can we think of a sequence of governments or regimes over the next 10-15 years and analyze the different possibilities?

[Atri]

Here are my two cents.

NDA government will definitely court effectively with both Israel and Iran. Vajpayee did it miraculously. UPA ****** up with both of them.

Third Alliance (FUHA) will have dominance of commies and SP. They are and will be spineless creatures who will mess up everything in enemy's favour.

NDA leaders will talk tougher than UPA leaders.

UPA will handle the media efficiently and the projection of India in the west will be more favourable under UPA than under NDA.

Most probably, there will be an unstable government under NDA which will last for 2-3 years before UPA returns. I don't think NDA govt under Advani will try and do something radical and fulfil their core issues like Uniform civil code, article 370 and Ram mandir.

NDA will ensure better relations with Vietnam and other ASEAN members.

NDA will increase the sphere of Modi steadily. It has started now. He is handling western India. In case of Hindu renaissance, it will originate from Western and South India. North and East have become exceedingly apologetic towards Muslims. The reformation will originate from Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Karnataka. Central India will be next with MP and Chhattisgarh.

Modi has a potential of becoming the leader India needs. The one we are discussing about in this thread. But, he will be more effective if he is genuinely liked by most of the Hindus from Western, Southern and Central India. Advani will and should start increasing his horizons and ensure that he becomes leader of Hindus and Indians and not just Gujarat.

I guess, the third general elections from now, whenever they are, Modi will (rather, should be) be the prime-minister of India.

My wish - Modi or someone like Modi should be PM of India with complete majority from 2020-2025. This is when all the current military developmental projects of Indian army, navy and airforce will be complete and thoroughly inducted.

[brihaspati]

In the modern period, any leader in India who showed signs of becoming potential focus for independent national consolidation, aways and against foreign interests, has been removed at crucial junctures - either through "unfortunate fatal illness or accidents - in or out of jail", or "assassinations". MKG heads the list, and the others I imply can be figured out. Just a thought for Modi. We should be mentally prepared to be disappointed in case of single individuals who stand very much the risk of being removed in a similar fashion. The strategic mistake that the West of India made in not being able to prevent the impressions of "marauding" during the later periods of Maratha predominance, on the North and the East, should also not be repeated. There should have been more serious attempts at wooing the North and the East to the "cause", a sublimation of linguistic and regional "imperialism" could go a long way!

[Rudradev]

We should be mentally prepared to be disappointed in case of single individuals who stand very much the risk of being removed in a similar fashion.

Brihaspatiji, I think of one Rajesh Pilot and another Madhavrao Scindia when you say this

NDA will increase the sphere of Modi steadily. It has started now. He is handling western India. In case of Hindu renaissance, it will originate from Western and South India. North and East have become exceedingly apologetic towards Muslims. The reformation will originate from Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Karnataka. Central India will be next with MP and Chhattisgarh.

Chiron ji, if things are handled right, it is my fervent hope that those whom we now know as "Naxals" may become the grassroots agents of change who advance this process eastward and northward through what is now called the "Red Corridor". From Karnataka through Andhra, and thence into Orissa (which may be the key to the East just as it was for the Marathas under Raghoji Bhosle... though as Brihaspatiji says, they sabotaged their own prospects for further expansion by conveying an impression of brigandage).

If you read about the splitting of the M2 from the Orissa Naxals in protest against the missionary-sponsored murder of Laxmanananda Saraswati, there does appear to be some promise in the idea.

[brihaspati]

Rudradevji,

I am curious - do you think the Naxals can manage to digest the Jihadis, and when in state power be able to tackle TSP? Marxists and communists have spectacularly failed all over the world where they faced significant Islamism. In fact they appear to have accelerated the establishment of Jihadi or Islamic totalitarian regimes by first wiping off all middle/"bourgeois democratic" alternatives, and then proving "paper tigers" (a favourite Maoist term) against the Ulema.

[Rudradev]

Rudradevji,

I am curious - do you think the Naxals can manage to digest the Jihadis, and when in state power be able to tackle TSP? Marxists and communists have spectacularly failed all over the world where they faced significant Islamism. In fact they appear to have accelerated the establishment of Jihadi or Islamic totalitarian regimes by first wiping off all middle/"bourgeois democratic" alternatives, and then proving "paper tigers" (a favourite Maoist term) against the Ulema.

Brihaspatiji,

Not if they are motivated by Naxalism-Marxism-Leninism. One should not confuse the movement with the ideology... what the Naxalites represent is a section of the young Indian population so discontented with the status quo, that they've gone to the extent of eschewing life within the system and organizing to effect change at a grassroots level.

I postulate (optimistically) that their energy can be directed like the flame of an acetylene torch, from one object to completely another. All it needs is a wise and powerful guiding hand.

Let's remember that once, Mussolini and Gramsci were comrades-in-arms!

[brihaspati]

Rudradevji, yes I think we discussed this awhile back.
But while agreeing with you about the possibility, I am now thinking that probably we will have to grapple with the same questions and methodology we have been discussing in several threads about IM. I am partly within the position of Shivji that "convincing" is possible, but I also feel additionally that we will need a tremendous amount of "pressure" and ruthlessness to wean them away from their current path.

Coming to think over it, I have the feeling that in fact similar methods will appear to be needed in both IM and ICOM, for probably the essential dynamics of both are very similar (not necessarily the same agenda), as the pscyhology and power relations are very similar. We have the ideologues at the top, who claim to be the arbitors of an ideology that can explain everything and provide guidance for everything. It poses a "devil" who has to be relentlessly fought. It poses continuous struggle, both ideological and military to replace existing state power. It divides society into two antagonistic classes primarily, and looks upon the state machinery as a repressive apparatus that should be used to impose the "new" ideology. It sees nothing wrong in the fusion of ideology, political power, and military power in the same core authority to which all must submit. It poses a small vanguard swelled mostly by selection rather than election.

I personally have already mentioned before that I mourn the loss of many youth whom I have seen being lost to this "cause" in the later '90s as a loss to Indian society as a whole. In one institution I could "recruit" 12 for the "moderates" out of a class of 48, whereas 2 went over to the "extreme". Had excellent relations with the latter until left all of it behind, and I would still give up all 12 to get those "two". Both "liquidated" as far as I know now. From many such "classes", I have a pretty good picture of what attracts them, and this is what agonizes me even years after. I would rather have the ICOM leadership and ideologues "liquidated", eliminated completely so that they cannot carry out their own traditional elite search for power behind the mask of ideological sophistry. I have seen the corruption, the ideological as well as material dishonesty in both moderate and extreme ICOM leadership - from very close quarters - and nothing good for the nation can come from them.

The weights that shopkeepers use for weighing get eroded by excessive use - and the sly shopkeeper uses that eroded weight to filch his buyer. The Indian communist ideology is like that eroded weight, which is used by the peddlers of communist dreams to filch from the lives of eager young Indians. Just like the IM theologians they have to be eliminated, exposed and destroyed first before you can think of weaning their followers.