Is the Indian Left Anti-Marx?

Evolution of history occurs in dialectical ways, with consecutive phases of thesis, antithesis and synthesis. This framework fits well in today’s world . The synthesis is to reform democracy in such a way that citizens have greater true authority. That’s not simple, and there have been many false starts and promises of immediate democracy with the stroke of a button. Democracy refers to a community’s ability to decide who is allowed in and under what conditions. The more enthusiastic proponents of the thesis frequently try to overrule democracy, treating free movement as an ultimate concept, even if it has always been qualified in practice. Without the culmination of thesis and antithesis, the world cannot evolve in a constructive way . So what happened in LSR is a failure of this culmination and reflective of the exclusionary practices of the Left , also an attempt to silence a voice from the margins.

Lady Shri Ram College for Women, one of the most revered colleges under the University of Delhi had one such event organised by their SC/ST cell. The Speaker was Guru Prakash Paswan, an assistant professor of Law at Patna University. The infamous cancel culture advanced quite unexpectedly when the SFI unit of LSR barred the scholar from attending the webinar.  For people wondering why, Guru Prakash Paswan is an author of the book, “Makers of Modern Dalit History”, a columnist at daily nationals and the national spokesperson of BJP in India. It is not the deficiency of credits or fame that got him on the bandwagon of cancelled lists. It was entirely because of his political affiliation. What happened due to this shallow decision of the student body was, the blockage of dissemination of knowledge through the point of view of a Dalit man. Why does our society consider heavy kohl eyes intellectuals and armchair elite activists, fluent in jargons, as the only ones deemed fit to be heard or called in an academic meet?

Before delving into the various ways of analysing this action, we should take a moment to question whether SFI is staying true to the words of Marx. Marx’s methods of dialectics believed in the establishment of a dialogue. A dialogue is also the ability to listen to different perspectives to make attempts at understanding the thoughts of others. But is there a space for dialogue in the left regime’s areas of interest? Or is it only going to be their narrative of class identity and egalitarianism over all other components of stratification? If dialogues cease to exist, all that will be left is the assertion of the two, the left and the right, narratives which will not only hamper the ethos of the educational institution but also pollute the rich atmosphere that these academic discourses provide.

But even before we get into abstract ideas, let us take into consideration real life examples. West Bengal had the longest democratically elected Left Government in the world. The CPI(M) was in power for three long decades and a few more years. The yesteryears of Bengal bear testimony to CPI(M)’s appropriation of the Namasudra community, in their efforts of winning against the Congress party. The Dalit refugees of Bangladesh, who had to reposition after the partition, were promised homes, and once the elections were done, what awaited them was police brutality and sexual harassment, against those who opposed the State’s Government’s plan of action, of sending them to the states of Dandakaranya and even Andamans. If you think the policies of yesterday of the party who claims to be the friend of the poor were problematic, you are yet to grasp the massacre that went unnoticed and deliberately hushed under “biodiversity concerns” of the Government. News spread that the tigers of Sundarbans were in an ecologically unbalanced state because of people encroaching upon their lands. These were the same people, the Namasudras, infamously known as the Marichjhaanpi Massacre, the incident was a genocide that was carried out by poisoning tube wells, setting huts ablaze, shooting boats carrying ration and raping women. The truth about Bengal being a casteless State and its façade of being progressive, and the left regime’s tireless efforts towards achieving class equality in the State, is blatant whitewashing of history, which hid the well-oiled machinery encouraging caste-based segregation and biased empowerment of the upper echelons. Left always points towards class equality and in the process erases other stratifying factors like caste. One cannot ignore the caste realities and brutalities of Indian society and an identity of an individual cannot be understood in absolute terms as it is intersectional in its nature with multiple identities and is not one-dimensional.

Academic discourse must be inclusive of all the narratives that our diverse society has to offer. The cultural and intellectual hegemony cannot have an overarching effect on the young minds of our country. The BJP has been trying to bring negation to this hegemony by bringing into forefront Dalit intellectuals and several other voices from the margins. There is an urgent need to make the shift in this hegemony in a true Socratic method of dialectics where people engage in debates and discourse that helps them develop a criticality and formulate ideas to help in the betterment of the nation. Does anyone own Ambedkar? Why does the left always manoeuvre his ideas and fit their own ideology for their selfish gains?

In a democracy, voices should not have to be curbed, especially of those who have been in the periphery for far too long. What this incident can be analysed to was that a man from a marginalised community was tried to be silenced under the garb of ideological differences.

About The Author

Aditi Narayani Paswan

Aditi Narayani Paswan is an assistant professor at Lakshmibai College, University of Delhi, and founder of the Dalit Aadivasi Professor & Scholars’ Association.

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