Archive for the ‘alienation’ Category

Review of: ‘Global Warming In India: Science, Impacts and Politics’, Nagaraj Adve, Eklavya, 2022.

Monday, March 4th, 2024

[Published in November 2022, volume 46, No 11 of The Book Review India]

Nagaraj Adve’s Global Warming In India is a brief and practical guide that enables the reader to engage with the discussions, debates and actions about the most pressing social and moral issue before our generation. It is written with a sense of hope and compassion for the “ordinary people” that is largely missing in similar and popular books, which tend to focus more on the specialist and technocratic solutions handed over from above and to which most of us are expected to assent to and participate merely as a consumer or observer. The first chapter about the science of global warming is presented without unnecessary jargons and covers all the concepts necessary to clearly grasp the phenomenon. But where this books differs the most from other popular climate change books is in Chapter 2 where the author identifies the “systematic drivers” of the crisis.

The root cause of climate change is capitalism’s DNA, argues Nagaraj. A society which organizes its most important tasks and goals around the maximization of profits cannot address the needs of the ecosystems or its poor and working people. It produces more and more goods by degrading quality of work and the environment through cost cuttings in pollution prevention and casualizing jobs. Lets recount two (out of many) recent incidents that support this claim. One day after Putin invaded Ukraine the LNG Allies a oil and gas lobbying association wrote an open letter to Joe Biden asking him to expand the fossil fuel infrastructure to fill the export gap in Europe created by the war and also by the sanctions against Russia1. And as a result new gas and oil pipelines have been sanctioned along with $300 million in funding by the US government for the new fossil fuel infrastructure.2 And in India, the Economic Times reported that, “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has opened arbitrage opportunities so enticing that Reliance Industries Ltd deferred maintenance work at the world’s biggest oil refining complex to churn out more diesel and naphtha after prices surged.”3

It is often claimed that it is taking us so much time to switch from fossil fuels to greener sources of energy because of all the inertia built in from previous decades of planning. But as these cases illustrate the cause of delay is not only past inertia but active investment and development for more fossil fuel dependence in present and for future.

Also, related to this is the Indian government’s policy positions on climate change. The Indian NDCs for the Paris Agreement almost entirely depend on reducing the share of fossil fuel in the energy mix. Nagaraj addresses with the deficiency of such approach in the later chapters. He points out that for actual and meaningful reduction of greenhouse gas emissions the fossil fuels must drop in absolute terms. But this demand is rejected by the Indian government and also by much of the liberal and left critics and environmentalist. They object that why should India, a “developing” nation give up on its opportunity “to grow” for mitigating a crisis created by the richer nations? One answer is being provided by the leaders of the most venerable and island nations. They have been repeatedly saying that India and China are among the top emitters and emerging economies and “while they (India and China) develop; we die; and why should we accept this?”4 The self-image of India created by the Indian intellectuals is very self serving, shifting from a “powerful” nation to “developing poor” nation as the needs of the business and political elites demand. India is the third biggest emitter of greenhouse gases and when it claims its right to more “carbon space” to develop at the cost of islands and coastal communities then, how different is the notion of “carbon space” from Nazi “living space”?

Moreover, as Nagaraj distinctly points out the policies that lead to climate crisis have also led to unparalleled inequality both globally and in India. The NCRB 2021 report reveals that in 2021, 1,64,033 people committed suicide in India, including 5 daily wage earners every hour.5 While, “during the pandemic (since March 2020, through to November 30th, 2021) the wealth of billionaires increased from INR 23.14 lakh crore (USD 313 billion) to INR 53.16 lakh crore (USD 719 billion). More than 4.6 crore Indians meanwhile are estimated to have fallen into extreme poverty in 2020 (nearly half of the global new poor according to the United Nations.) The stark wealth inequality in India is a result of an economic system rigged in favour of the super-rich over the poor and marginalised.”6 So how justified can a business as usual let-India-develop position be when only development seems to be of the top 1% and top 10% of Indians.

The final chapter on solution is filled with thought provoking ideas that are just the right balance of specific and general to help come up with concrete plans while allowing creativity and local needs to be assimilated. But, the solutions have to acknowledge and recognize the faces and the forces responsible for the economic and climate crisis: the billionaires and their corporations.

This book is an essential reading for anyone who wants to make sense of the changes taking place before us and to be a positive part of it.

1https://lngallies.com/energy-security/

2‘How the gas industry used the Ukraine war to secure new fossil fuel infrastructure’ Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

3‘Billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s refinery makes millions from war windfall’ Economic Times, May 09 2022

4Quoted in Karin Bäckstrand, Ole Elgström (2013) ‘The EU’s role in climate change negotiations: from leader to ‘leadiator’, Journal of European Public Policy, 20:10, 1369-1386, DOI:10.1080/13501763.2013.781781

5https://frontline.thehindu.com/social-issues/ncrb-2021-report-dying-young-and-jobless-in-india/article65894493.ece

6https://www.oxfamindia.org/press-release/inequality-kills-india-supplement-2022

A source of BJP power.

Thursday, April 21st, 2022

PART I.

जैसे जैसे इस देश में चीजें और ज्यादा घिनौनी और वेह्शियना होती जा रही हैं, इस घिनोने समाज और राजनीति के पीछे की कुछ सचाई बाहरी रूप के पीछे छुपती जा रही हैं. यह की, 2014 में बीजेपी के जीतने का एक बड़ा कारन (शायद सबसे बड़ा काऱण) बड़े उतयोगपति और अरबपति वर्ग की फंडिंग, और उनके न्यूज़ नेटवर्क का बीजेपी को समर्थन था.

यह की, इस उद्योगपति और अरबपति वर्ग को कुश रख कर ही यह पार्टी ताकत बनाए हुए है. अरबपतियों और बड़े उद्योगों के लिए टैक्स माफ़ी, ‘इज़ ऑफ़ डूइंग बिसनेस्स’ के नाम पर कानून खोखले करना, मजदूर वर्ग की बची कुछ ताकत को भी कुचल देने वाले नए श्रम कानून लागु करना, वगेरा वगेरा।

यह अरबपति वर्ग और बीजेपी की सांठगांठ के आलावा हिंदुत्व संगठनो और अरबपति वर्ग का एक और आम उदेश है: माइनॉरिटी और गरीबों के लिए बानी पोलिसिओं को हटाना, ताकि सरकार की जगह कम्पनिया ले सकें मुनाफे के लिए. जब हिंदुत्व संगठन नेहरू पर कीचड़ उछालते है तब वो इस देश के अरबपति वर्ग को बड़ी ख़ुशी देता है, क्यंकि वो कीचड एक ऐसी आर्थिक विवस्था जो गैर-बराबरी काम करने की कोशिश करती है और कंपनियों पर सामाजिक न्याय के चलते कुछ रोक लगाती है, उस विचार पर भी वो कीचड़ गिरती है.

हम संविधान को चाहे कितनी भी बार सीधा पढ़ लें या उल्टा करके, ये पैसे और राजनैतिक ताकत की सचाई है, जिसको आज की उथल-पुथल में याद रखना ज़रूरी है. जबतक अरबपति वर्ग को ये सरकार खुश रखेगी, उनको और अमीर बनाती रहेगी, और ताकत देती रहेगी, और लोगों को आर्थिक मुद्दों से दूर रखेगी, तब तक इसका ही राज रहेगा.

यह भी सच है की यह इस्थिति बनी ही इस्सलिये थी क्योंकि जादातर मुद्दे जो काम करने वाले वर्ग के जीवन पर असर डालते है उन् पर बात करना बंद कर दी गई थी, क्योंकि वो कंपनियों को, उनके न्यूज़ चैनल्स को पसंद नहीं. तो ऐसे में ये कोई चौकाने वाली बात नहीं है की जब सारी राजनैतिक पार्टिया जनता को आर्थिक मुद्दे से दूर रखना चाहती है थो पेचान की राजनीति में सबसे कट्टर पहचान की राजनीति करने वाली पार्टी की सबसे आगे रहेगी.

अरबपति वर्ग की तरफ से भारत को नए साल की शुभकामनाएँ

Tuesday, January 4th, 2022

पिछले हफ्ते कुछ अखबारों ने बड़ी खुशी से ये खबर दी की भारत में डॉलर अरबपति की संख्या में बढ़ोत्तरी हुई है. 2021, का साल जो दुनियाभर के ज्यादातर लोगों के लिए एक खौफनाक वक्त था उस साल भारत में 40 नए अरबपति बने.अब इस देश में 126 डॉलर अरबपति है. इन् 126 लोगों की पूँजी मिला कर रु.55 लाख करोड़ की है. इसका मतलब है की इन 126 लोगों के पास इस देश के 80 लाख परिवारों की कुल सम्पति से ज़्यादा सम्पति है.

यह उस 2021 के आंकड़े है जिस साल इस देश में पहले कभी ना देखी गई तेजी से लोगों ने लम्बे समय नौकरी ना मिलने के बाद नौकरी खोजना ही बंद कर दिया। और यह सिर्फ कोरोना महामारी और उसके आर्थिक असर के कारन नहीं है. 2016 से लगातार इस देश में लोग नौकरी मिलने की उम्मीद छोर कर बाजार से बहार जा रहे है. जिसका एक असर यह है की भारत के ज्यादातर परिवारों में एक से अधिक सदस्य के पास रोज़गार नहीं है. 2016 में सिर्फ 34% परिवार थे जिनमे एक से ज़्यादा लोगो के पास काम था. 2021 में यह संख्या 24% हो गई है. 2020 के लॉकडाउन के दौरान यह 17% थी.

तो जिस समय इस देश के ज्यादातर परिवार भुखमरी के करीब जा रहे है उस ही समय कुछ मुट्ठी भर लोग इस देश की पूरी सम्पति अपने पास समेत रहे है.

यह 126 डॉलर अरबपति वर्ग में सबसे ऊपर है मुकेश अम्बानी. मुकेश अम्बानी ने पिछले साल हर एक मिनट रु. 2 लाख अपनी सम्पति में जोड़े. जो हम में से ज्यादातर लोगों को जोड़ने में कम से कम 2 साल लगेगा.

फेयरवर्क इंडिया की नाई रिपोर्ट के अनुसार 2021 में ज्यादातर सामान और खाना डिलीवरी वर्कर्स की आमदनी में गिरावट आई है, पेट्रोल के दाम में बढ़ोत्तरी और कंपनी के कमीशन भड़ने की वजह से.

रिपोर्ट ने यह भी बताया की हर एक डिलीवरी कंपनी अपने मजदूरों को एकजुट हो कर अपनी बात रखने से रोकने के लिए बहुत मेहनत कर रही है. उनका एक बडा मकसद यूनियन ना बनने देना है. बॉस वर्ग यह बात जानता है की एक कर्मचारी एक बड़ी कंपनी के सामने मोहताज और बेबस है.

लेकिन बॉस वर्ग और बॉस वर्ग में भी अरबपति वर्ग आपस में एकजुट है और रोज़ इस देश को लूटने की मशक्कत कर रहा है. और इसका अंजाम हम अपने आसपास की गरीबी, बेबसी और ना-उम्मीदी में देख रहे है.

WHY DOES THE WORKING CLASS SUPPORT BJP? (To whatever extent it does.)

Monday, May 24th, 2021
Why are most people in urban and rural India skeptical about the existence, nature, or origins of the coronavirus? Why do they mistrust the vaccines – whether developed in India or not? Because for most working people the people in power (“bade log”), whoever they may be, do not have their interests in mind, most have little understanding of the forces that seem to govern their life – from decisions about livelihood, health, education and even death.
 
The talk of the whole covid catastrophe in India being the result of increasing sins (“paap”) in the world is also common. When I asked a woman what they mean by “paap” she responded by saying that it is the increasing selfishness, diminishing human decency in society – “just look at how dead bodies of covid casualties are being treated.” Some people might reply differently but the feeling that “we have changed for the worse” is pretty common and with little effort can evoke a sense of longing for a mythic “better past and tradition” that is lost. A sense of alienation and powerlessness combined with mistrust of social forces and corrupted people is the ideal ground for the seeds of power worship to grow. They are just waiting for a messiah to appear, convince them it’s their interest he or she represents and they will surrender.
 
These people are a victim of neoliberalism and the shrinking possibility of even a mediocre life. Most young people of my generation who grew up in a middle-class have fallen out of it and almost half of them are unemployed. This is why in the opinion polls globally the so-called right-winger supporters usually favor progressive economic policies. That’s why parties fight elections on “cultural” and”identity” issues almost exclusively.
 
The question more important now is will the working class continue to support BJP (again, to whatever extent it does) even after BJP demonstrated that it is one of the worse party and government in the world when it comes to dealing with any sort of crisis and has no interest in poor people’s lives? I think the answer (quite obviously) is: Yes if the majority of the working people do not find a real alternative that can show it cares about its interests – including economic interests. Only a campaign for economic justice that speaks to the needs and aspirations of the masses can defeat BJP.

State of Labor

Tuesday, October 20th, 2020

Around 60% of the Indian working-age population is effectively out of the job market (the labour participation rate is close to 40%.) Those who have some kind of job in the informal economy work close to 14hr a day making less than Rs.10,000/month (going by the best of days estimate). Even the part of the working people in the formal economy are working at least 52 hrs a week and most of the time doing over-time, still making less than minimum wage.

A study released last week found that Indians from the time of entering colleges to the age of 35 are the most anxious and depressed bunch of people in India and probably the world – a sign of a lively labour market according to most economists and policymakers.

And now we have policies to exaggerate this fantastic condition. Like replacing all employment with a fix-term job and creating Foxconn jobs in India with tax money. Foxconn and their friends are, of course, the manufactures of iPhones who have to tie nets around their plants to catch the workers trying to commit suicide by falling from the roof. Similar new policies of despair to aggravate the agrarian and farmers’ crisis are also not missing.

All this on top of growing inequality where our true overlord – Lord Mukesh, makes Rs. 90 crore every hour. Even less severe inequalities have conclusively been shown to cause mental disorders.

Business Standard reported that “India has generated over 5% per annum real economic growth with less than 1% employment growth for three decades.” And that to raise labour participation rate to the average 43% India needs 5 crore jobs as soon as possible but Mahesh Vyas believes Indian policies and trends are not on the path to realistically generate 80 lakh jobs. Every month 1 lakh new workers are being added to the Indian disposable labour force.

Since the lockdown, the number of women workers (195 million of whom are in the informal sector) losing their jobs has been disproportionately higher to their participation in the labour force – almost 50-60% higher. This includes formal, salaried workers. The primary reason for disproportionate job losses during the crisis has been the far-off and unsafe location of the workplace. If the risks outweigh the benefits women workers drop out. Which means the most financially venerable ones stay.

 

ANARCHISM AGAINST BRAHMANISM

Tuesday, June 9th, 2020

Caste is, as Ambedkar said, “not just a division of labour but, a division of labourers.” Wherever this institution went, it tried to freeze the society into a fossilized rulership and a fossilized disposable and disciplined labouring class. And just as division of labour alienates the workers from her work, product of her labour and life itself; the division of labourers alienated the whole of society and deeply fractured the spirit of human morality and solidarity. The caste structure gave birth to the caste society which has outlived the mode of domination it was invented to serve.

The straitjacket of caste did not emerge in isolation. It is one part of the centuries old project of societal control – Brahmanism. This entry is an attempt to find an anarchist orientation towards Bhrahmanism and its annihilation by looking at some episodes in its history and mutations.

Brahmanism, primarily, is and always has been a socio-political ideology and not a religious movement. The ideology consists in the believe that Brahmans have established links with the higher realms, they are the natural advisors to the rulers on social and political matters and, that they hold the highest place in the social hierarchy. The hierarchy consists in a four tier system of Varna and those who are out of this hierarchy forming the Avarna strata, based on Brahmans principles of standardized purity. Within this image of the Brahmanical society the caste becomes the essential of realizing the dominance of Brahmans as the priestly caste. To insure the success and reproduction of this institution every aspect of human life from the cradle to the grave are governed by strict laws codified in various books and laws of local kingdoms.

This vision of society was largely realized in significant parts of the sub-continent with varying degrees of success, modifications and compromises with other power system. This was not an easy task and beginning with the invasion of Alexander of Macedon, the Brahmans were prosecuted in the north-western region of what is now called India, the only region where they had influence. This continued with Ashoka’s and later his son, Kunala’s murdering of the “treacherous” Brahmans who were fueling anti-Maurya sentiments in local courts. The situation was so bad for the priestly caste that they were sure that the end of the world has finally arrived – the end of Kali Yuga. But Brahmanism not only survived but thrived and the impacts of its unfortunate success to this day are leaving bloody marks on human body and spirit.

Brahmanism conquered not by the blade of the sword but with the succor of the myth. Brahmans spread stories of their demigod like powers, the benefits of befriending and dangers of crossing them. Most importantly they provided to the rulers a divine lineage and right to rule till the end of time and the practical knowledge of statecraft. The Brahmans without ever becoming a threat to political power gave rulers a lineage they can link back to the Puranas and the Vedic era. They were not only able but necessary for the prosperity of the land, making the ruler the permanent and necessary fixture in the mind of the masses.

The benefits flow both ways. Kshatriya and the other ruling castes were essential for realizing the Brahmanical society. It was the duty of the warrior class to institute Danda for its maintenance. In essence, Brahmanism is statism. The kingly class is so essential to the ideology that the end of Yugas are marked by the Kshatriyas becoming incompetent in maintaining the Varna vyavastha and that the evidence that the end of time had not yet arrived was the fact that most king’s lineage maintained their thrones.

This perfect union of the priestly caste and the ruling class is no accident. Humans, when incapable of making sense of the untimely flood, failed crops or plague conjure up unseen forces that help us make sense of the unpredictability and meaninglessness around. Through the combined effect of general ignorance and the need for self-preservation the first seed of authority and power is sown in the heart. God becomes the Supreme Ruler. Once formalized enough, we try to tame the forces through rituals and sacrifices. In initial stages this practice is individualistic. The relation of these forces or gods is direct and intimate, but soon these practices become socialized and a specialized class of sacrifice experts emerges. The link of individual to the god is broken and a flesh and blood human becomes a new center of social power. The same phenomenon repeats itself in sphere of social organization and to tame the social forces in our favor we learn to surrender to the Ruler, sent on earth by the Supreme Ruler. To the extent we submit to a power for self preservation, from corporate bureaucracies to nation states and families, all forms of rulershipare religion.

It was during this period of renewal of Brahmanism, returning from the brink of extinction that the pantheon that is now recognized as Hindu deities was gradually created. First by casting the individualistic, semi-socialized religious cults of Krishna, Shiva etc into the mold of Brahmanism and later by making the newer gods the incarnation of the former. In this process of absorptionreplicating the hierarchy of the Brahmanical society into the realm of gods. Through economic and political coercion the religious power now served the interest of the Brahmans and states.

I skip the changes this Brahmanical temporal authority ordained by the divine authority underwent over the next few centuries and under the Mughal rule and turn to its first interaction with capitalism, the Company Raj, colonization and modern nation states that shook the roots of the old project. In the preceding decades the merchant caste, with its control over rural finance and land displaced the Brahmans from the top of social hierarchy. In Bengal province by the end of the nawab rule fifteen families controlled 60% of the land and in Punjab the British administration had to introduce a law to regulate the acquisition of land by the money lenders on failure of payment of debts. And with the changing nature of sovereignty from the village level to the new national imagination Brahmanism had to mutate once more to survive.

The core of this mutation was the deep-seated hatred of the individual – her free development and initiative. Faced with European capitalism, in its vulgarized disguise of individual freedom the reformers, who had taken up the task of reviving the Indian culture by going back to the Vedic sources, were united in there contempt for the individual. They found in the Varna system the solution to the modern problems of nations. Caste does not necessarily have to be based on heredity but the proper division of labour and social activity based on natural hierarchies which was necessitated by the needs of social organization. Caste with natural leadership of Brahmans, was no longer justified by the metaphysics of religion became the outcome of the theology of social sciences, its theory of race, competition, gender superiority and survival of the fittest. Its aim was to serve the New God of “national interest”.

In search of this nation Brahmanism morphed into Hindutva. This new outward expression of the lust for power also explicitly presented itself as a political project and not a religious movement. Within the Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan that is to bring glory to the nation state, the Hindu is a casteist structure. This was novel. The Hindu identity for a political project was necessitated by two factors. First, the apparent feebleness of the social unity – togetherness and second, the essential principle of nationhood – unity through separation.

Savarkar understood this principle well – “nothing can weld peoples into a nation and nations into a state as the pressure of a common foe. Hatred separates as well as unites.” A nation is that artificial and arbitrary unit of territory and subjects that a political power has acquired for controlling and fleecing. It destroys the natural love and association with the place of birth and our immediate communities through its industrialization and directs that human feeling towards the worship of this abstraction, its symbols and submission to its policies. This form of rulership finds its fullest expression in Totalitarianism of Nazism, Bolshevism or Brahmanism.

The national identity of Hindu provided the aspect of togetherness through idea of blood, culture and language, modification of Shudhi, etc. and its separation through the idea of the Muslim. Whether the state takes refuge in the ideology and shape of Hindutva or secular nationalism – two face of the same coin, its true nature remains the same, that of attuning all human expressions to the beat of this soulless political machine in the name of “national interest”. This technical term does not include the interests of the population – free and quality education and health care, well paid jobs or free or cheap housing for all, it means the interest of the market, the interest of the war machine that is the life blood of the state – its defense from other competing states, its source of expansion outside and control within.

After the transfer of power in 1947, India has remained a fractured community with its apartheid of caste and material conditions furnished by generations of deprivation and violence. In the rural regions it maintain the old structure of control and coercion while in urban setting it modified mildly and justified the stratification by logic of hygiene and merit – that is justifying privilege with privilege itself. The new Indian state did not start a project of actively constructing a casteist state but through its passivity towards caste issues it perpetuated the caste society within the shell of a capitalist state system, each feeding off the other. The maintenance of hierarchical corporate structure that is the Hindu family and segregation through the institution of marriage. The upper castes continued their take over of bureaucracy and managerial positions in state and cultural institution, practically, without any reservation mechanism and that continue to define the Indian society till date.

If we anarchists say that sanctity of the temple of the parliament and its new priesthood just like the temple of the old gods and the Brahmans is a lie and deception then, what do we have to say about reservation and other methods of achieving equality within the current state of things? To this we say that even the ritual of horse sacrifice must have yielded results for the masses, not from the blood drawn but from their organizing for themselves, taking things into their own hand and shaking things up. This assertive self-organization of the masses in each epoch of history has realized to the extent possible the moral and social progress. And within the modern nation states this progress, which is the collective wealth of our humanity has received a degree of formalization.

The erosion of this progress and regression will always be a possibility as long as there is a power whose control it weakens. And when this social progress is at its highest the instruments of domination have also become sharper, deadly and now threaten us with the possibility of ending the only known experiment of life in the universe. Anarchist believe that through continuing this assertive self-organizing for securing more and more moral progress we not only improve our immediate condition but also prepare ourself for the final destruction of social, political and economic rulership. A liberal welfare state can be an holding ground that reduces the impact of the blows from the state and the caste society and gives us opportunity for further progress. But the ultimate safeguard from Brahmanism or any other form of absolute domination over human body and spirit is Anarchism.

In an hierarchical society, certain individuals at particular historical junctures can play a catalytic role in either accelerating the progress or dragging it back for decades. If the former, then too, it is the social organization of individuals based on values of equality, mutual aid and decentralization of power that maintain it. There is further limit of the strategy of “having the right faces in the high places”. Once in position of power, the prerogative of the institutions dictate their actions. Having women, dalit-bahujan or queer people In position of power, like other holding strategies can make some limited gains but in the end the only interests these individuals represent are their own. No person can “represent” another person, a whole community lesser still. It maintains the relations of dependence and submission and further dulls the instincts for self-initiative and fosters moral passivity – a perfect condition for Brahmanism or any form of authority to exploit.

Even if the major decision of life and society are now made by the captains of industry and states-persons, and even if these decisions are not primarily driven by Brahmanical interests (and how different are these differences after all?) Caste is still alive. Some aspects of caste have been weakened and at the same time others strengthened. The general economic inequality, access to housing, well paid jobs – which means class – is graded on caste lines. As one historian noted, “it is striking how many of the country’s billionaires today are, though not direct descendants of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century magnates, certainly originate from the same communities which began to accumulate wealth and influence at the end of the Mughal period and during the rise of the English East India Company.” The social stigma, practices of untouchablity and the Brahmanical institution of marriage flourish. Two great forces are gravitating towards forging a new Brahmanical-Hindutva order and a hazy road for taking in the opposite direction also gradually becoming visible. Both possibilities, like always depend on one thing – Organizing.

The force of social reaction to the neo-liberal bloodbath which turned a preventable health crisis into an global pandemic and in India made 12 crore people unemployed in a single month is the decisive factor in the fate of Brahmanism. 10 crore young Indians have given up all hope of finding a job and had stopped searching for work long before the current economic breakdown. Half of the youth of this country are unemployed. And those who have work are working 12 hours shifts to survive hand to mouth. In this constantly changing external world the individual loses her equilibrium. These uprooted millions turn into a mob seeking a source of stability and finding themselves incapable of self emancipation look for external power that would uplift them and give life a new meaning. Along with religiosity, in some cases the caste relations are strengthened as they are seen as a source of nourishment.

This combined with RSS’s mobilization and organization is the path towards strengthening Leader worship and Hindutva. The breaking up of the process of class reproduction and the erosion of the middle class, and with it the hopes and aspirations of millions in front of their eyes is accelerating. By some estimate at least half of the children born in middle class do not remain in it when they reach adulthood. The concentrating boss class is eager to exploit the people on caste lines. This is where one possibility of going in the other direction lies – poor peoples’ revolutionary unionism. The traditional unions that replicate the caste structure due to its hierarchical nature will only represent the interests of the minority leader class and not the workers themselves.

Its only through Anarcho-Syndicalism that we can achieve the threefold task of achieving progress in living and work standards, wages, expansion of reservation to compensate for the generational subjugation of dalit-bahujans in private and public sector, expanding the public sector that enables creation of new and greener jobs, progressive taxation and day-to-day struggles at workplaces; confronting the caste issue face to face as members of working class as well as part of oppressed communities through minority committees, along with local union branches to address caste at workplace and within the unions and; shedding away the elaborate etiquette of submission of this casteist society through rediscovering our instincts for self-initiative and direct action rather being dependent on this or that leader, the despot of tomorrow. This rediscovery and the development of this instinct and culture in the organized form within these alternative institutions form the essential ingredient of the society that shall replace the current disorder.

John R. McLane noted that, “since an individual’s obligations and privileges were specific to his or her family, jati, and age, universal standards of political-moral behavior rarely galvanized people into cooperative political effort.” Any intellectual current or form of practice that exclusively promote inward inquiry at cost of building broad solidarity of all oppressed while understanding the various inner relations in practice, unintentionally replicates the essential of the nation and Brahmanical order and play into hand of our enemies like in 2019 general election where Jadav-Yadav dynamic was a major determining factor in BJP’s victory. We do not wish to repeat these past mistakes, neither of the Marxist left that minimizes the importance of non-economic cultural and social factors at work and in society and address them within their organization and programs nor, of the narrow identity politics that in the long-run poses no threat to the status quo that it apparently wishes to destroy and has no space for broad solidarity based on shared needs and values in genuinely democratic and workers controlled organizations.

Revolutionary unionism is only one part of the struggle. Anarchists and other individuals must engage in cultural struggles towards elimination of the caste society. I cannot pretend to have a solution to this problem, I can only note that we know that the forces of alienation aggravates it and that we have a legacy of experiments by the people from dalit-bahujan castes to build upon and with anarchist emphasis on the abolition of marriage, dismantling the corporation of family and building a society based on free love and societal responsibility of child rearing, we have the impetus to motivate action in direction of liberation.

Caste being a particular configuration of hierarchy and the method of its reproduction, it finds affinity with all forms of dominations and latch on to the one it finds. While through the autonomous and varied cultural struggles and fighting back the class war as working class dealing with caste antagonism we make conditions better for both our class and dalit-bahujans, Anarchism is Brahmanisms only permanent solution. As long as there is a state or a economy based on private property, RSS has the possibility of achieving its desired position of the Raj Guru to the State. Following in the footsteps of the Saudra-attishudra Dakaits and their direct actions against capital and domination we organize not to end any particular form of authority but Rulership itself.

For a Casteless Society! – For Annihilation of Brahmanism! – For a Free Humanity!

For Anarchy!

Short note on Inequality

Thursday, August 15th, 2019

UPDATED: 12th Oct 2019

The Indian boss class has come out with the new list of richest Indians. The richest 100 individuals (the top 0.0000006% of the population) in India own 8% [Rs. 32 Lakh Crore] equivalent of India’s wealth [Rs. 4 Crore Crore]. In which, within last year Mukesh Ambani, Gautam Adani, and Uday Kotak earned Rs. 3 Crore each – every hour.  For the Indian working class, this has been a decade of criminal theft.

While more than 80 cr. people have a wealth of less than Rs 60,000.

In 2016, 55% of national income was received by the Top 10% earners in India, against 31% in 1980.

This IS class-war.

More data can be found here.

 

Philosophy of Marxist Sociology – Part 2

Tuesday, July 30th, 2019

[This article was supposed to be about ontology but I dropped that idea because it gradually morphed into this discussion.]

“If the new technology lowers production costs it will be adopted, and if not it will be rejected. In this respect Sraffa and Marx made the same assumption about how individual capitalists go about deciding to adopt or reject a new technology, which is also what other economists have always assumed.”

“Marx was well aware of, and even expressed admiration for, the fact that compared to all previous economic systems capitalism had greatly increased the pace of technological change. He assumed that individual capitalists are hard driven to adopt any new technology that lowers their cost of production because this would give them a temporary advantage over their competitors, who, in turn, would be quick to adopt cost-reducing changes for fear of being driven out of business.”

(Robin Hahnel, RADICAL POLITICAL ECONOMY: Sraffa Versus Marx, 2017)

There is nothing original in what I will be saying. It has all been said before with much more clarity, evidence and rigor by people like Stephen Marglin, David F. Noble and others. I want to say two things:

  1. It is not the case that capitalism has “greatly increased the pace of technological change” or that capitalism necessarily increases “productive capabilities”.
  2. It is also not the case that capitalists necessarily adopt a technique or technology that “lowers production costs”

In point 2, I use the terms techniques, more specifically work organizational techniques and technology interchangeably. This might not work for some cases but I believe and trust most will agree that same principles must apply in choice of production process technique and deploying a new technology in form of a machine. Significant number of the automation techniques and now digitization ones are in fact, mostly change in production process rather than new machines deployment in unchanged setting.

Returning to the first point. In England in the second half of the 18th century the spinning-jenny was one of the first machine to be used in the factory. And as one 19th century historian noted:

“The technology of wool-spinning for many years after the
factory made its appearance was the same in factory as in cottage; in both the “spinning jenny”; was the basic machine well into the nineteenth century.”

Not much technological advance there. So what was different in the factory? One 18th century factory owner commenting on the advances wrote:

“One reason for this extra advance is Mr. Harrison (the
mill manager) bought 4 handkerchiefs one for each machine value about 1/2d p. each and hung them over the engine as prizes for the girls that do most.”

I have not cross-checked but I believe the technology of handkerchief was not novel to 18th century England.

The important advantage of factory over cottage from point of view of the boss was not its “technological advantage” through new machines or harnessing the power of water sources (most factories were not using water generated electricity at all) but the increase in surveillance and discipline.

“If the factory Briareus could have been created by mechanical genius alone, it should have come into being thirty years sooner. It required, in fact, a man of a Napoleon nerve and ambition, to subdue the refractory tempers of work-people accustomed to irregular paroxysms of diligence.”

“To devise and administer a successful code of factory discipline, suited to the necessities of factory diligence, was the Herculean enterprise, the noble achievement of Arkwright.”

Much of the technology was already laying around before industrial capitalism took hold. Even today, this narrow demand for controlling the workers has hindered technological advances. This has been studied by Noble and many other historian of technology after him. And the advances that actually do develop and in the form they develop are not through capitalist innovation or private capital – it is almost entirely through state funded research and development in form of dual-use military technology.

So the whole argument about uniqueness of capitalism in technological realm is unfounded. The uniqueness does lie in the control the boss class has over design of new technologies and the narrowness of reasons of deployment: discipline and control.

These are all human choices, and they are regularly challenged by workers. From the Luddites to the current struggles against robots. These factors too affect the course of change but unless the  control over means of production and dependence of wage slavery does not end major changes are impossible.

2. The following quotes are from a 1994 New York Times article.

“We are also concerned about having only one place where a product is made,” he said. “There could be an explosion or labor problems.” If the Boston workers struck, for example, Gillette would supply the Sensor XL to Europe and the United States from the Berlin plant, and vice versa.

“Some of those workers are making blades at Gillette plants in Poland, Russia, and China, where production costs are less than in the United States. But that is not the case in Germany. “You could ship the blades from here, but you set up there for insurance,” Mr. Vernon said. “And the justifications for this approach are not so clear cut.

The scholar might not be clear about the justification of adopting a costly method of production because maybe he had not grasped the “successful code of factory discipline.”

In the long run this control over the class enemy of the factory owner might give profit opportunity but at the same time it could be argued that the profits only gives possibility of more control – over the workforce and society generally.

Closer to home, in Chakan and  Pantnagar, Bajaj Auto Ltd. deployed 40 co-bots per-plant just prior to a wage agreement in Chakan after 3 years of on and off struggles lead by young contract workers.

The company claims increase in productivity and it might partly be due to the co-bots but many workers attribute it to increased work intensity due to the atmosphere of fear and terror from the idea of job loss.

But the timing and other factors suggest that rather than productivity gain or immediate increase in profit – in fact the robots from Universal Robots might have costed a lot in short term – the reason are more social than economic. It is hitting the class enemy with the boots in order to maintain profits and control over society – that Herculean enterprise that started in the 18th century.

The struggle is against the lack of control and the alienation of wage system. No alienating methods of so called Marxist “revolution” can ever free the working class.

In fact, Engles even said that, “[w]anting to abolish authority in large-scale industry is tantamount to wanting to abolish industry itself, to destroy the power loom in order to return to the spinning wheel.” (On Authority.)

There can and should be no end of alienation and discipline for some of the Marxists.

The Feudal Mind

Monday, July 22nd, 2019

The latest (2017) PEW survey gives weight to the thesis that Indians (mostly educated but not exclusively) tend to be very authoritarian. No other nation with comparable economic indicators comes close to Indian support for autocracy and technocracy.

With 65% support of “rule by experts” 55% for Strong Leader and no less than 53% for military rule, Indian elites should be proud of their education system which has inculcated such tendencies: meritocracy, competition, context-less thinking. This plus the patriarchal family relations and modern caste structures, I believe, are the most important factors that make India any commissar’s wet dream.

85% of Indians believe that the institution of government by its nature, more or less, always works in favor of its citizens – a view in exact opposition to the views of individuals who formulated the theories and institutions of modern representative democracies. Indians are well trained and “conditioned” to lust for political authority. The apparent complete lack of enlightenment values leads people like Chomsky to call, I believe correctly, the Indian mindset feudalistic. Any anti-authoritarian movement in India first needs to challenge this mind set and relationship and institutions that maintain it and form libertarian alternatives.