The Maoists are the only “left” who are actively and significantly present in the areas of adivasi resistance to massive disposession. They are certainly not leading or really involved in the struggles against POSCO, VEDANTA or TATA. But they have always recognized the histroical strength of adivasi struggles and the relative failure of the Indian state at hegemonizing them. It is very fine (or is it?) to talk about “proper left politics” — “building a revolutionary praxis is one in which all oppressed sections are politicized and made truly conscious of the contradictions that keep them chained and divided” — but this praxis needs to have started a little while ago, didn’t it? Does it not sound a little to “collegiate” to be still talking in such cliches? The new struggles against dispossession — Singur/Nandigram or Posco/Arcelor — have certainly changed a great deal of the political atmosphere of fatalism in this land. It has forged open a new space for the left to rebuild again away from the dreary alternatives of CPI(M) and the Maoists. That space is an inspiration, an inspiration to learn a new language of politics and the will to struggle. It is a place to begin from. It is also a reminder — to the revolutionary, who really should not be needing this — to go to the struggling people. The struggles are here in Delhi, as much as they are in the devastated rural countryside. But they need the left politics to be with them with some humility and not with projects of “producing true consciousness” among the peasantry and the proletariat. One needs to have the courage and the good sense of asking “Who is conscious and who is not? Who is going to produce which consciousness in whom?” Thus these spaces of popular struggles today are not spaces of opportunity, like the Maoists and other moribund leftists may think. “Opportunity” implies a form of politics where the theory is all worked out and now only strategy and opportunity is left. Sadly, that is fundamentally “bourgeois thought,” which the left has passionately embraced. It is the authoritarianism based on the bourgeois fear and need to reduce the uncertainty of its authority in the future (just like the fear fed upon by the state and “risk” capitalism). So, we need to learn from the Maoists to leave the living room of the “party office,” but also, and now in negation of the Maoists, learn not to treat people’s struggles as opportunistic entry points to propagate the tragic and authoritarian politics of “consciousness raising of the masses.” It is an opportunity, but the historic opportunity for the Left bourgeoisie to lose its chains. To misquote Engels for the sake of the realities of 2009, “in order that the Left may understand what is to be done, long persistent work is required.”

I support your cause and share the same thoughts on this subject. Evils of capitalism are slowly coming to the fore and I hope people wake up to the reality and speak up.

Thanks and Regards,
Robin