There was an "anti-colonial Victoria Day" book launch in Montreal on May 21, where Maia Ramnath presented her new book Decolonizing Anarchism, published by AK Press and the Institute for Anarchist Studies (and available from leftwingbooks.net). What made this launch special, and different from most such events, was that the Ramnath spoke on a panel with Ponni, a radical activist from India, who used her intervention to level a detailed and outstanding critique of the book, from an anti-authoritarian and anticolonial perspective.
Given the strength of this critique, i asked Ponni if i could upload the transcript here to my blog. She graciously agreed, though wanted me to make it clear to readers that this is not a "review", it is a talk given at an event, and so is not structured or intended as a written piece would be. Here it is:
I am an activist with the queer movement, feminist movement and labour
struggles and a student of history. I also work on conflict related
issues in Sri Lanka primarily in the north and east of Sri Lanka. I have
studied modern Indian history - which means 1757 to 1947. But later I
have come to be involved in a range of different research projects on
social movements in post-independence India including archiving the
women’s movement in some parts of India in the 70s. I am also part of an
informal network of queer feminists across the South Asian region.
This introduction is important not to establish my authenticity; in fact
I am mildly annoyed by the authenticity that is read on to me in the
global west even by the closest of comrades. It is to explain the
background from which the following comments are coming. In many ways
the book is too close to home, to say the least.
What I enjoyed in the book are the snippets of information about related
social movements in the ‘diaspora’, if I can read that modern category
on to another period and the limited channels of solidarity that exist
today among activists in South Asia and groups based in the global west.
Here are a few points of criticism for the book.
1. Tracing the story of Veer Savarkar as part of a revolutionary
history - you might have your reasons and frankly I am only partially
curious about them - but it goes against at least two generations of
historians if not more, working to write his and others’ such as his
stories out of the ‘nationalist’ history. The story is told through
Bal-Pal-Lal by Congress and left historians alike. All three of them had
problematic stances towards a Hindu identity and a nationalist identity
from our vantage point today, but did not go on to found the Rashtriya
Swayam Sevak Sangh - the Hindu fundamentalist body, a right-wing,
nationalist, paramilitary, volunteer and militant organization that
still exists - in 1925, a mere few years after where you stop with the
story of Savarkar in this text. Savarkar supported among other things
the Jewish state in Israel in 1947. The next generation is of course
Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Chandrasekhar Azad. Their story the author
addresses to some extent. If the idea was to tell the story of the
‘extremists’ as the Indian National Congress dubbed them, I see the
relevance of that. But we do not have the privilege yet of looking at
Savarkar as anything more than a self-identified, Hindu fundamentalist
leader. India is a Hindu country and State-run massacres of thousands of
Muslims are going unpunished and at this stage complicating the history
of the founder of Hindutva is like complicating the story of the
establishment of the Jewish state. While we can acknowledge the marginal
significance of both of these projects as long terms theoretical
concerns, we do not have that privilege yet.
2. The book has fallen into every trap that historians in privileged
institutions in India are in. It is a view from Delhi and it is centered
on Bengal. Neither of which are surprising to me given that I have been
trained in these very institutions. But this becomes problematic in
this context as the claim of being from an anarchist tradition is
thoroughly debunked if the author could not see beyond the obvious
privileged halos of the nation she’s writing about. It is of course not a
question of simple exclusion; it is a question of a severely inadequate
and often fallacious representation of thinkers and traditions which
would have fit very nicely within the author’s project. The only
reference to a person based in Madras in the late 19th and early 20th
century is that of a Brahmin thinker and writer Acharya at the same time
when the likes of Ayothee Daasar the anti-Brahmin Buddhist thinker and
philosopher was writing extensively and rationalist groups such as those
who ran the magazine Sudesamitran were functioning and had a broad
range of connections with their counterparts in Europe.
3. Speaking of the author’s project - needless to say there is one -
there always is. But the author claims in the beginning of the book
“instead of always trying to construct a strongly anarcha-centric
cosmology- conceptually appropriating movements and voices from
elsewhere… as part of our tradition, and then measuring them against how
much or little we think they resemble our notion of our own values - we
could locate the western anarchist tradition as one contextually
specific manifestation among a larger - indeed global tradition of
anti-authoritarian thought… something else being the reference point for
us, instead of us being the reference point for everything else.” The
author has not done a few basic prerequisites in order to be able to
achieve this decolonizing - for example to conceive and frame a working
definition of anarchism for the context she is studying and writing
about.
The different ‘a’s, small or big are not a working definition
for South Asia. Declarations of not being able to mention these terms to
folks there and the problems with that are understandable but not
excusable in a research project. In fact, an explanation of your own
political trajectory and the words you are attached to in your tradition
might have led to more engaging and maybe more illuminating
conversations there. Further, there are ways to make the story South
Asian in the pre-independence period by telling the stories about
thinkers and movements that are shared across borders that were drawn
later. The revolutionary poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz or the stories of Sadat
Hasan Manto would have been useful as they span at least the regions
that are now India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Khan Abdul Gaffer Khan or
Frontier Gandhi a person of marginal presence in the nationalist story
is told in India and completely erased in the story as told in Pakistan
would have been a fascinating figure. Traditions of separatism in
Baluchistan and their history would have been another story to tell. Or
just the description of the actual geographical and cultural entity that
is Punjab would have made the story more inclusive. And of course, at
least anarchists should acknowledge the small fish in South Asia, be
they Sri Lanka, Burma, Bhutan and so on and their unique position and
the shadow of the other 3 nations that looms large over them. The
hegemony of India in south asia means weapons for the fascist government
in Sri Lanka, unchecked control on the economies of Bangladesh and
Pakistan, double standards on Tibet and lip service to struggles for
democracy in Burma. It is not one that can be done away with in a
disclaimer, at least not by us who trace our roots to antiauthoritarian
radical political traditions.
4. It is this lack of a working definition for herself that leads to
statements such as ‘the narrative is still dominated by male upper caste
voices whereas anti- authoritarian… has to confront the malignant
realities of caste and patriarchy. Yet this is not a history of caste or
patriarchy or the movements to dismantle the structures of oppression
based on them. So for the purposes of this project, it seemed better to
offer what is actually there rather than simply to condemn or discard
the record on account of what isn’t there’. The problem with this
statement is that it is there. It required another pair of eyes to look
in order to find them. It is like, I am told by trusted political allies
here, telling the sotry of the civil war in the Us without talking of
how Indigenous people were brutally affected - because that information
is ‘not there’.
5. Then it is not surprising that the author ends with ‘in this way,
the warp and the weft of the ongoing process of South Asian
decolonization beyond formal independence on into the 21st c are
tantalizingly analogous to those of western anarchist tradition’. It is
not analogous. And as someone who is part of the movements the author
is referring to, I do not think there is an adequate critique of
nationalism or for multiple forms of protest in India. There isn’t a
context in which to state the limitations in our movements in order to
move us forward to bring thousands on to the street as is happening so
inspiringly in Montreal every night. Anarchist thought can help us
through these questions. But this author has missed the bus and
eventually simply given us the anarchist tick mark.
What is missing in this book is not to be raised here just as exclusions
but have a profound effect on the political universe the book inhabits
from my vantage point. Here are the stories I would have told:
(Before that a quick note about my vantage point: it is an important one
because this book is about my history as an activist and historian
engaged in progressive research and activism in various movements. This
book is clearly not written for the people about whom the book is. And
somewhere the decolonization project has to begin with being able to
write texts that are written in the global north that can be of some
relevance or of significance in terms of bringing in fresh perspectives
to those who the text is about. If we don’t do that we are not different
from those who we stand against in our political work.)
- Periyar - on August 15th, 1947, the day of independence, he said is
the first day of the beginning of the slavery of all those who were not
north indian, Brahmins. A translation of that speech is available
online and I will be happy to provide the details. This is the same
thinker who, in his last speech before he died literally said ‘smash the
state’ in Tamil.
- I would have included the story of Savitribhai and Jothirao Phule
who for me embodied the anti-authoritarian tradition of going against
the state and society in order to provide knowledge to young minds while
being critical of the power of knowledge itself. They did this by
leading groups of young Dalit men and women, boys and girls into the
hallowed spaces of education.
- I would have told the story of Ambedkar’s conversion to Buddhism
and his use of Buddhism as a tool of dismantling the very basis of
Brahminism. If Aurobindo’s engagements with radical traditions and then
his engagements with spirituality can be part of the story I don’t see
why Ambedkar’s relationship with Buddhism cannot be. I see it as a
moment of a leader who believed in the state and the law, so much to
draft the constitution of India, turning towards an anti-authoritarian
thread that he saw to be much more powerful than any constitution can
ever be.
- I would even have used the partially idiosyncratic travails of
Subhas Chandra Bose whose story can be told a million ways. He believed
in reclaiming the arms of the state and its bureaucracy, more
specifically the armed wing and went about it in multiple ways.
- I would not have forgotten Telengana the peasant’s land struggle in
rural Andhrapradesh in 1949, two years after formal independence.
- I would have told the story of the Emergency of 1975 through the
intense context of political turmoil but also critical thought,
discussion and debate that existed inspired by the 1968 student revolts
in France and later by Maoist struggles in China and also the
mobilization against the Bangladesh war in 1971. The 70s saw an
overwhelming radicalization of many who joined various political
streams. The JP movement spread throughout the country as did Lohiaite
socialism. The Dalit Panthers of the 60s inspired directly by the Black
Panthers in North America and the ultimate end of their heyday by the
late 70s would have been part of this story.
- Irom Sharmila the Gandhian who has been on fast for the past 12
years against the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, the Kabir Kala Manch,
the Dalit cultural troupe that have been arrested by the Maharashtra
government for singing songs of Dalit liberation are all for me the
streams of thought and action that are inspired by anti-authoritarian
traditions.
- Given the myriad reservations about violence as a means of struggle
I would have included the debates within the ultraleft parties such as
the formulations of Chandrasekhar of JNU, a student leader who was
brutally murdered by the police, or the articulations of numerous other
leaders of the far left as well as commentators including the likes of
Gautam Navlakha and Arundhati Roy.
- I would include the cultural history of the theatre of Safdar
Hashmi or Habib Tanvir, with all the problematic aspects as well as the
songs of our own Ghadar of Andhrapradesh who has inspired generations of
revolutionary thinkers across political lines.
- And last but not the least; I cannot for a moment swallow the
absence of women as well as the women’s movement in this story. The
autonomous women’s movement emerged as a reaction against party-based
left spaces as well as the State itself. So in a sense against two kinds
of authoritarianisms. This then lead to numerous conversations about
what a movement space looks like in which were numerous conversations of
the minute details of anti-authoritarian feminist politics. I would
have included the story of Anuradha Gandhi, a left thinker, activist and
feminist. I would have included the work and thoughts of Sudesh Vaid
who was one of the founding members of the civil liberties strand of
politics and was also a self-avowed feminist. I would have spoken on the
anti-State thought of the feminist struggles against forced
contraception during Indira Gandhi’s time or the national network of
women against state violence. If an anarchist scholar wherever she may
be from had looked at the story of the women’s movements, pointed out to
the anti-authoritarian strands and pointed out to the lack thereof in
some places even, I would have used that text to have conversations back
home.
6. The project is an ambitious one. Any attempt at writing a
‘history of India’ is fallacious as it is not a cohesive unit and has
never been. Neither is it a collection of several units. It exists in a
complicated web of power that has to be laid out before one embarks on
such a project if at all. It has been done with a narrow expanse of
secondary reading and primary research being constricted to my friends
and professors in Delhi it seems, who themselves know of their
limitations. The crux of the problem with this text may be in its
intention and in its lack of shifting the lens away from the political
tradition that the author hails from. For example: “mushairas” is not
spoken word. ‘Direct translations’ such as these are problematic as the
author herself points out in her disclaimers. Stepping out of the
frameworks we are in is very difficult to do for any of us. But we can
only address this by rigorous reading of all that is available and by
unabashedly spending sizeable amounts of time living and working while
observing the movements in a context that are foreign to you. Without
that rigour in methodology, the anti-colonialism cannot even begin.
Otherwise one can write about moments of conversations between different
political traditions and have us read between the lines of those
conversations and see how they can inform our solidarities in the
present. The author does that every now and then and I personally think
she should continue on that track. It is a useful one and no one else is
doing it that much. Until we figure out the nitty gritty of how we can
do this, as the author says ‘look to your own house, work at and from
your own sites of resistance.’
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