Archive for December, 2019

राज्य क्या है?

Saturday, December 28th, 2019

राज्य के लिए हमेशा उसका सबसे बड़ा दुश्मन उसके देश के लोग होते है. राज्य चाहता हे ज्यादा से ज्यादा नियंत्रण समाज और इनसान के हर अंग पर, और लोगों को अमूमन ये हरकतें पसंद नहीं आती.

इसका हल अच्छी शिक्षा और मीडिया में मिला – ये लोगों को सिखा देते हे कि क्यो समाज मे गैर-बराबरी के बारे मे हम कुछ नहीं कर सकते और केसे राज्य लगों का गुलाम नहीं लोगों को राज्य की हर जरूरत पूरी करनी हे. राज्य जब बोले लाइन मे लगों, राज्य जब बोले बुके मरो और राज्य जब चाहे आपने घर और जमीन खाली करो.

और जब ये व्यवहार नियंत्रण के औजार काम ना आये तो राज्य अपना असल रूप दिखाने से नहीं झिझकता: वहशी जोर और हिंसा. नियंत्रण का सबसे साफ रूप.

आज पुलिस की हिंसा और उसको वाजिब करार देने वाले राष्ट्रीय झूठ को कई लोग पहचान रहे है.

कई लोग समझ रहे है की सरकार अपनी ताकत बनाए रखने के लिए डर पैदा कर हिंसा इस्तमाल करती है.

सवाल ये भी है की फिर जिस डर के आधार पे ये सरकार अरबो-खरबो रुप्पे फौजिकरण पे लगा रही है क्या वो भी ऐसे ही सरकारी झूठ के कारण है?

क्या पाकिस्तान असल में एक “दानव” हैं जिससे बात-चीत के माध्यम से कुछ हल नहीं निकाला जा सकता?

और अगर धर्म जाती के आधार पे लोगो को बांटना गलत है तो एक लकीर के किस पार पैदा हुए उसपे बाटना कितना सही हो सकता है?

बांग्लादेश में फिर फैक्ट्री में मजदूर मारे गए, पाकिस्तान में भी और दिल्ली में भी. सब देशों के मालिक वर्ग ने साथ में बेठ के वर्क-कंडिशंस पे नियम बनवाए है – IMF-WTO के साथ.

अगर सरकार मीडिया की मदद से लोगों के आँखों के सामने क्या हो रहा है उसको झुठला सकती है तो ये बंद कमरों में और दूर बॉर्डर पे या बस्तर और कश्मीर की सच्चाई और हिंसा पर कितना विश्वास किया जाना चाहिए?

“Kashmir crisis in sharp focus”: Crisis Group

Friday, December 27th, 2019

After years of being off radar of international conflict monitoring groups, Kashmir is ranked 8th in Crisis Group’s “10 Conflicts to Watch in 2020”; above Ukraine and just below US-North Korea conflict.

“After falling off the international radar for years, a flare-up between India and Pakistan in 2019 over the disputed region of Kashmir brought the crisis back into sharp focus. Both countries lay claim to the Himalayan territory, split by an informal boundary, known as the Line of Control, since the first Indian-Pakistani war of 1947-48.

First came a February suicide attack by Islamist militants against Indian paramilitaries in Kashmir. India retaliated by bombing an alleged militant camp in Pakistan, prompting a Pakistani strike in Indian-controlled Kashmir. Tensions spiked again in August when India revoked the state of Jammu and Kashmir’s semi-autonomous status, which had served as the foundation for its joining India 72 years ago, and brought it under New Delhi’s direct rule.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, emboldened by its May re-election, made the change in India’s only Muslim-majority state without any local consultation. Not only that: before announcing its decision, it brought in tens of thousands of extra troops, imposed a communications blackout, and arrested thousands of Kashmiris, including the entire political class, many of whom were not hostile to India.

These moves have exacerbated an already profound sentiment of alienation among Kashmiris that will likely further fuel a long-running separatist insurgency. Separately, the Indian government’s new citizenship law, widely regarded as anti-Muslim, has sparked protests and violent police responses in many parts of India. Together with the actions in Kashmir, these developments appear to confirm Modi’s intention to implement a Hindu nationalist agenda.

New Delhi’s claims that the situation is back to normal are misleading. Internet access remains cut off, soldiers deployed in August are still there, and all Kashmiri leaders remain in detention. Modi’s government seems to have no roadmap for what comes next.

Pakistan has tried to rally international support against what it calls India’s illegal decision on Kashmir’s status. But its cause is hardly helped by its long record of backing anti-India jihadis. Moreover, most Western powers see New Delhi as an important partner. They are unlikely to rock the boat over Kashmir, unless violence spirals.

The gravest danger is the risk that a militant attack sets off an escalation. In Kashmir, insurgents are lying low but still active. Indeed, India’s heavy-handed military operations in Kashmir over the past few years have inspired a new homegrown generation, whose ranks are likely to swell further after the latest repression. A strike on Indian forces almost certainly would precipitate Indian retaliation against Pakistan, regardless of whether Islamabad is complicit in the plan. In a worst-case scenario, the two nuclear-armed neighbours could stumble into war.

External actors should push for rapprochement before it is too late. That won’t be easy. Both sides are playing to domestic constituencies in no mood for compromise. Resuming bilateral dialogue, on hold since 2016, is essential and will necessitate concerted pressure, particularly from Western capitals. Any progress requires Pakistan taking credible action against jihadis operating from its soil, a non-negotiable precondition for India to even consider engaging. For its part, India should lift the communication blackout, release political prisoners, and urgently re-engage with Kashmiri leaders. Both sides should resume cross-border trade and travel for Kashmiris.

If a new crisis emerges, foreign powers will have to throw their full weight behind preserving peace on the disputed border”.

Anarchism, Pure and Simple

Thursday, December 26th, 2019

Sixty four years ago a small periodical from Allahabad wrote:

“Now that India has obtained independence, the old combatant for liberty has given up his last gasp in the most complete poverty.”

Writing about the same “old combatant for liberty” Hem Day later recalled that ” he is not well known to all, even to our own people, for he has neither the fame of Gandhi, nor the fame of Nehru, nor the popularity of Vinoba, nor the notoriety of Kumarapa, nor the dignity of Tagore. He is Acharya, a revolutionary, an agitator, a writer.”

M.P.T. Acharya was born on 15th April 1887 in Chennai into a Bhramin family. From early years he was involved in the nationalist struggle. He edited a nationalist magazine for his uncle. When the periodical was suppressed by the colonial authorities Acharya had to escape to French controlled Pondicherry. Sensing he was not safe there he left India and landed in France. He soon moved to London and joined the Indian House with V.D Savarkar, Madan Lal Dhingra and other Indian nationalists. When in 1909 Dhingra assassinated Sir William Hutt Curzon Wyllie the Indian House soon disintegrated.

In next few years he visited Berlin, Munich and in November 1911 was in Constantinople to gain Muslim support against the British. In 1912 he moved to New York and in 1914 to San Fransisco, where he edited the Tamil edition of Gadar Party’s periodical. Gadar Party was set up a year ago, with help of his friend and IWW member Har Dayal. Har Dayal had spent time with Emma Goldman and when in 1914 Dayal was deported for being “an anarchist” Emma protested and wrote about it in Mother Earth.

It was during this time Acharya saw the real face of Western Democracies and stood against the notion of nation states. “Is it to make large cities with miserable people, barely eking their existence that we want to have ‘Swaraj’?” He asked.

”I consoled myself by answering that the misery was due to foreign Government, but under Indian Government, it would all vanish, because our countrymen will be friends of the poor when they come to rule. Late on, however, when i went to Europe and saw misery there, my illusions about “National” rule were shattered.”

Acharya spent the World War period in Middle East and in 1917, with Virendranath “Chatto” Chattopadhyaya, attended a socialist peace conference in Stockholm. Where he met prominent Bolshevik leaders and in 1919 met Lenin. In 1920 Acharya helped form and became Chairman of the Communist Party in exile, with M.N.Roy as Secratary. Acharya was kicked out in 1921 for his criticism of the direction CPI was taking under the Comintern and Roy’s autocratic behavior.

In 1922, with Rudolf Rocker, Augustin Souchy, Alexander Schapiro, Acharya was present at the founding meeting of the IWMA. Where he set up an Indian committee with an aim to send anarchist literature in India. Acharya’s involvement in international anarchist movement was set-off by his disillusionment with the USSR and the whole edifice of Marxist priesthood. He wrote:

“We are Anarchists, because we do not want authoritarianism outside or inside, because to us anti-Marxists, life and society must be, immanently – one indivisible whole impossible of mechanical separation – as the Marxists inorganically think and believe.” “Communism can come only through and beyond Anarchism not before and behind it, as Lenin predicted and died broken-hearted and mad.”

From 1923 onward, Acharya was in communication with Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, Taiji Yamaga, Lu Jianbo, Rudolf Rocker and many other anarchist, but most prominantly with Albert Meltzer – whom he met only twice but maintained a regular correspondence till his death. Acharya wrote for American, Russian, French, German, Spanish, British anarchist journals and newspapers on the topic of economics, India, anarchism among others.

When he returned to India in 1935, he also started writing for Indian publications, including Gandhi’s Harijan. About Gandhi, he wrote that “Gandhi is more opposed to the violence of the mass liberation than the violence of governments.” He admired Gandhi as a tactician and also independently formed his own “logical pacifism.” Acharya set up the Libertarian Socialist Institute and published many anarchist classics and new material in Bombay.

Acharya contrasting himself with the Indian communists wrote that “[w]hat is needed for the Indian proletariat is new workers’ organizations, of a revolutionary syndicalist character, which alone can tear it out of the misery in which it grows. Only federalist organizations, given their complete independence, can create a solid foundation for class struggle in India.”

Commenting on Acharya and Indian Left, Meltzer wrote that “it was impossible to comprehend the difficulty in standing out against the tide so completely as was necessary in a country like India. It was easy for former ‘nationalist revolutionaries’ to assert their claims to the positions left vacant by the old ‘imperialist oppressors.’ This Acharya would not do. He remained an uncompromising rebel, and when age prevented him from speaking, he continued writing right up to the time of his death.”

Acharya warned as early as 1945 that Nehru and Patel “goes around like emperor, and speak like emperor.” And that “[w]ithout an anarchist movement this country will go Fascist and go to the dogs.”

Penniless, sick and alone, this old combatant for liberty died in 1954. Albert Meltzer in Acharya’s obituary wrote:

“Despite all of his efforts Acharya remained an isolated Anarchist in India and failed to create a movement. Whilst nationalists like Har Dayal and Bhagat Singh had a knowledge of anarchist texts, they merely incorporated what they felt to be useful to the struggle against British rule into their thought. Nationalist, and to a lesser extent Communist Party orthodoxy, had too much of a grip on the Indian masses, and unlike elsewhere in Asia, an anarchist movement did not develop, much to the chagrin of Acharya”

“With a growing interest in anarchism among Indian students, a Bombay publishing house reprinted many classical Anarchist works, but Acharya did not succeed in building a movement before his death, nor do I think one exists yet.”

‘What is Anarchism?’ first appeared in Withering India edited by Iqbal Singh and Raja Rao in 1948. Most of the texts in the volume were written exclusively for it and other author included Nehru, Jinha, J.P. Narayan. ‘How Long Can Capitalism Survive?’ was published in The World Scene From Libertarian Point Of View by the Free Society Group of Chicago in 1951. In 2018, it is sad to note that all the aspect of capitalism that Acharya pointed to while predicting its’ end, in this essay, have given it the strength by which it today stands: financialization, international trade deficits, and institutions. In fact in this essay, which was written just three years before his death and when he was very ill, Acharya made many errors which he had criticized Marxists of in earlier writing and it is not a consistent libertarian text. For example, attempting to find almost a form of wage-centric-determinism in capitalism and calling anarchist economics “scientific” are not very appropriate from Acharya’s own earlier views. Claims such as “outside economic freedom there can be no freedom” are very anti-libertarian, if meant literally.

Some words that might cause confusion have been updated to current usage, while others that are still understandable are kept as they were. Writing in 1940s Acharya was using non-gender-neutral terms while talking about the species as a whole. Comments in square brackets are by me.

I would like to thank Ole Birk Laursen and other scholars who have helped dig up and bring back to light MPT Acharya’s life and ideas. A collection of Acharya’s works will be published by AK Press in 2019, thanks to Mr. Laursen.

The Fraternity of the Red Flag

Thursday, December 26th, 2019

 

The Fraternity of the Red Flag was a revolutionary organization established in California around 1912. Har Dayal, an anarchist, Secretary of the Oakland IWW branch and Indian expatriate, founder of the Ghardar Party, which militantly opposed British colonization of India. The fraternity ran the “Bakunin Institute,” an anarchist “monastery” in Oakland based on the ideas of the Spanish educator Fransisco Ferrer. Any radical over twenty years of age could join the Fraternity. A prospective member would spend a year of “moral and intellectual preparation” under the guidance of an existing member, and then pledge to uphold “the eight principles of Radicalism”, including:
4. The establishment of communism, and the abolition of private property in land and capital through industrial organization and the General Strike.
5. The establishment of free, fraternal cooperation, and the ultimate abolition of the coercive organization of Government.
6. The promotion of science and sociology, and the abolition of religion and metaphysics.
7. The establishment of Universal Brotherhood, and the abolition of patriotism and race feeling.
8. The establishment of the complete economic, moral, intellectual and sexual freedom of women, and the abolition of prostitution, marriage, and other institutes based on the enslavement of women.