The Tehelka article I referred to in my previous post has attracted some comment from the bloggerazzi, especially the laptop bombardiers for India Shining. I made the mistake of responding to one of them in Blogger News Network, written by one Yossarin, who also writes a blog called Offstumped. Instead of dealing with the substantive points made in the article, the posting smears Tehelka as a promoter of Naxalism by picking imagined inconsistencies and omissions in the reporting. My comment is followed by Dr. Munas' and of my brother Dipankar's. Yossarin copies these comments from BNN to Offstumped where others pile in.
They say one should never wrestle with a pig: it leaves one as filthy as the pig, and the pig enjoys it. The same appears to be true for most of the comment writers on Offstumped, who illustrate the warning that the so-called democracy of the internet will be undermined by anyone with a laptop and half a pea for a brain. Many of them seem unable to read or write, or concentrate on the issue. They think their attempts at sarcasm or humour will somehow either be mistaken for insightful comment and careful reasoning, or compensate for its lack. Read the responses and judge for yourself.
An exception seems to be Nitin Pai writing on Acorn, also named the Indian National Interest (perhaps thereby aligning itself with the The National Interest in the US, a flagwaver of the neocon Zionist right-wing fraternity with which many highly educated Indians living in the US seem to find close ideological affinity). He refers briefly to Dr. Binayak Sen in a review of Sudeep Chakravarti's Red Sun. Pai seems undecided whether to commend the book for its coverage, or condemn it for being an unwitting but "well-intentioned pawn" in the "Naxalites' insidious war".
His larger question - and an important one - is how to respond to challenges to the state's "normatively legitimate monopoly on violence". He condemns the left for creating the ideological climate in which Naxalism seems legitimate or is deemed an insignificant threat. The liberal human rights activists who condemn state violence however are different: although Pai concedes it's reasonable to criticize the government for human rights violations, they "inadvertantly end up batting for the Naxalites". He goes on: "In the psychological war, NGOs and human rights groups end up strengthening the Naxalites to the extent they add fuel to the fire of disillusionment and disaffection. Rights activists and do-gooders would do well to heed the old injunction primum non nocere—first, do no harm." So what should these well-intentioned do-gooders do? They should (says Pai) condemn the violence of the naxalites as strongly as they condemn state violence, and accept the state's legitimate monopoly on violence.
"...to be taken as bona fide, such individuals and organisations must unequivocally condemn Maoism and violent armed struggle. They must also unambiguously accept that only the state has the normative legitimacy to use violence.In other words, there is no room for moral equivalence: it is fair to criticise the government and government officials for their failings. But it is necessary to make the distinction between the State’s legitimate right to the use of violence and the Naxalite’s [presumably illegitimate] armed struggle."
In other words, while the government may be criticized for their violations of human rights, or for their "failings", one must not support challenges to their legitimate right to use violence, and must indeed condemn such challenges unequivocally. Failure to condemn amounts to support, in Pai's thinking. "You are either for us, or against us." Moreover, Pai's refuses "moral equivalence" between the violence of the state and the violence of those who oppose it (e.g., the naxalites). He insists on the condemnation of any opposition to state violence, but is willing to allow only criticism of state violence.
But by silencing those who are non-violent critics of government (as the state has done in Dr. Sen's instance, and there may be others), and those who advocate non-violent solutions within the laws and insist that the state operate within the Constitution, the state effectively strengthens the maoist argument that violence is the only effective remedy, and that the law is only for the rich and powerful. Lending credibility to its opponents is not what the state should be doing, unless it wants chaos and mayhem for its own cynical reasons.
This is in fact also the argument of author of Red Sun Sudeep Chakravarti. Pai himself quotes him: "Having him in jail allows the state government and police a victory in the face of organisational and security disasters on the ground. But this is a pyrrhic victory. It stifles a moderate voice, and has done nothing whatsoever to curtail or solve in any way either the raging Maoist rebellion in Chattisgarh or issues of development" (This quote has mysteriously gone missing from the article as it appears in Acorn, but appears in an e-mail version that has been forwarded to me by Chakravarti).
My response to this position is set forth in my comment on Acorn, but here I would like to examine this issue more closely.
1. Why does the state have a monopoly in the right to use violence? Presumably to carry out its function (delegated to it by popular representation in a democracy) of maintaining law and order. But if in the execution of this function, the state exercises unreasonable and unrestrained violence, can it still retain its legitimacy? Is this right an absolutely legitimate right, or is the legitimacy conditional upon reasonableness and restraint? If the legitimacy is absolute, then we are defenceless against the state's arbitrary misuse of violence, should it occur (and let's not pretend this is an imaginary hypothetical).
2. What kinds of violence does the state have a monopolistic right to use? Would rape and torture be regarded as legitimate? Destruction of property? What about starving entire villages, or forcibly removing their inhabitants into concentration camps? The massacre of large numbers of people? I have a feeling Pai doesn't want to constrain the hands of the state in the exercise of its legitimate right to violence. Yet, he insists, people who resist state violence should be condemned for their resistance, because it challenges the state's monopoly on violence. Now, I have never been subjected to any kind of violence by the state, but I'm not sure that my response to state violence would be a resigned acquiescence. What would Pai's be, I wonder, if the state security forces raided his village, raped his kin, destroyed his crops, or tortured him for information, or just for amusement? (I hope Pai doesn't resort at this point to denying that of any of these things have happened - all he has to do is read history books, the reports of the human rights organizations, or even sometimes of governments themselves. They can't all be lying! And it doesn't matter which state, because the argument is not specific to the state.) Can Pai concede that his reactions to such horrendous treatment would be the human one of either running away, or of fighting back? But I'm willing to bet it will NOT be to support the state violence directed at him and his family because he feels obliged to uphold its legitimacy!
3. Why does Pai never concern himself with what causes the violence, either by the state, or by non-state actors? Is this not a factor in assessing the state's legitimacy in its use of violence? Or is this legitimacy unconditional again? In his posting, he acknowledges the cause, but only in passing: "The Naxalite movement thrives on disillusionment and disaffection. It collects unaddressed grievances and unredressed complaints and channelises them into anger against the “Indian State”. It tells rape victims, dispossessed tribals and bullied villagers that the target of their ire is not the local landlord, policeman or politician but that abstraction called the “State”." But the state is not an abstraction for the disaffected and disillusioned: it takes the concrete shape of the protectors of their oppressors. Again, Pai reveals that he is incapable of asking himself: what should the rape victim, dispossessed tribal or bullied villager do? Is it because they are in fact abstractions for him, to the point where he is unable to put himself in their shoes?
4. Pai might wonder why I can rustle up so much empathy for the victims of state violence, but not for the state. In his exchange with my brother Dipankar, he asks whether Binayak has ever "unequivocally condemned the Naxalites, especially the use of violence and armed struggle towards the pursuit of their goals." Binayak has been reported as having favoured dialogue (I'm unable to supply the reference at this point) rather than violence in addressing the issue of maoism, and has counted both the victims of maoist as well as state violence in the report that he is supposed to have prepared with his colleagues. I don't know whether he has done exactly what Pai regards as essential to the credibility of activists like him.
But from whom would you reasonably expect a greater responsibility in upholding law and order - the state, or those who fight it? Binayak's work as a human rights activist was to insist on the application of law and adherence to the constitution. That's why when he was in contact with Narayan Sanyal, he was scrupulous in his adherence to the rules and regulations. There were no meetings with the undertrial prisoner that were not specifically approved by the jail authorities. In his advocacy of the rights of undertrials, he was insistent on the protocol set out by Justice D K Basu for the treatment of such people by the police. It is the police that is deficient in its meticulous adherence to the law. Binayak is in jail for pointing this out in gruesome detail.
5. In a reply to my comment that has appeared while I was composing this post, he accuses me of "moral equivalence" and "apology for violence". So let me be clear. I abhor violence of all kinds - both by Naxalites AND the state - just as Nitin says he does. This is why I wish the government would not act (under the guise of development, or security) in ways that force people to resort to it, and I wish the naxalites would find a non-violent way of liberating people from oppression (if that is what they are doing, which I very much doubt). But the acceptance of legitimacy of state violence cannot be unconditional, as I have tried to argue above.
Finally, I would like to make a disclaimer in order to pre-empt silly, fallacious and annoying interpretations of my criticism of state terrorism as support for the maoist or other terrorists who oppose the state: I DO NOT SUPPORT THE MAOISTS.
I do not support them because I reject their resort to violence. The only violence that I subscribe to is the reactive violence of self-defence. I do not regard the pre-emptive or proactive killings of class enemies or of those refusing to collaborate with the maoists, or killing those collaborating with the state either actually or apparently, as falling within the category of self-defence. Furthermore, the same questions that I raise in point 2 above with regard to state violence, apply with appropriate changes to maoist violence.
I also find their aim of seizing state power unacceptable because there is little evidence that their state, if established, will be any less inclined to misuse power than states that have been established in the past by similar ideologies. Nor do I find that they have articulated a vision of a society that would be preferable to comparatively benign capitalist democracies such as the Scandinavian ones. They don't even approximate a state like Cuba where, despite restrictions on freedoms of expression and association, there is a vibrant cultural life, and standards of living at least do not condemn people to a life of destitution and indignity.
I admit that it is easy for me to take this position because I have never personally been thrown off my land or house because the government wanted it for development or the landlord wanted it to repay a debt. Nor have I ever had to look for work on an empty stomach every season while I watch my children starve, nor had the women in my family been raped by passing policemen or thugs of a superior caste. But as the reactions of victims to such oppression demonstrates, a resort to violence is not often the first thought that automatically springs to their minds, but how to escape from the oppression. The violence of the maoists is, at least initially, if not always later, a response to the suffering and injustice caused by the oppressive landlord or money-lender, or the corrupt official. If there were effective non-violent means of redressing such injustice or oppression, they would would probably not need to resort to violence. Besides, the resort to violence against the might of the state, knowing the inequality of the power, cannot be easy. Although I find untenable the claim that the violence of victims of oppression and suffering is somehow justified MERELY because they are victims, the resort to violence by maoists seems by all accounts to reflect the fact that all non-violent avenues of redressing grievances and removing oppression and injustice have failed. So while I find the methods of the maoists morally abhorrent because they cause violence and suffering, I wonder what one is supposed to do when the institutional or legal alternatives to violence are so weak, scarce and ineffective?
They say one should never wrestle with a pig: it leaves one as filthy as the pig, and the pig enjoys it. The same appears to be true for most of the comment writers on Offstumped, who illustrate the warning that the so-called democracy of the internet will be undermined by anyone with a laptop and half a pea for a brain. Many of them seem unable to read or write, or concentrate on the issue. They think their attempts at sarcasm or humour will somehow either be mistaken for insightful comment and careful reasoning, or compensate for its lack.
This is so true about Yossarin's blog. That guy is a closeted communalist.
Posted by: KSR | March 10, 2008 at 12:27 PM
The obsession with calling people pigs shows an obsession to abuse rather than to reason. Maoists are inflicting physical violence on people; their defenders seem to revel in inflicting verbal violence.
Posted by: Jaisalmer | March 10, 2008 at 01:14 AM
Dear Gautam,
I've responded to your post on my blog today.
As for Sudeep's quote: there is no mystery. His quote appeared in the version published in Mail Today a couple of days after the post was published on the blog (which didn't have his quote). His quote is published in a follow-up post that announces the publication of the op-ed.
Posted by: Nitin | March 09, 2008 at 10:02 AM
I looked up the site plugged by Yossarin in the previous comment and I agree with Gautam: Beware of wrestling with pigs! Despite that wise and thoughtful injunction, I could not resist leaving an observation on that site as follows:
"I do hope that the committed anti-Sen folks in this conversation (on Offstumped) will have the wisdom and grace to open their minds to the calumny of their statements regarding Dr. Sen. The Maoists, whether good or bad, are not the issue and personally I have no dog in the fight between the Maoists and the State. The historical failure of egalitarianism in Indian society that Dr. Sen was courageously batting against is being conflated with the civil war going on in India. Dr. Sen was incarcerated because he bravely stood up for equity and justice and I prayerfully hope that good will come out of his suffering."
Posted by: Fil Munas | March 09, 2008 at 02:29 AM
My remarks in closing
http://offstumped.nationalinterest.in/2008/03/06/binayak-sens-family-friends-respond-to-offstumped/#comment-17894
May you find strength and peace in these testing times.
Posted by: Yossarin | March 08, 2008 at 06:27 PM