Opinion The Kanhaiya mirage

While many educational institutions and groups have expressed solidarity with JNU, we are still seeing a movement that is preaching to the proselytised. It is another instance of the largescale shortcomings of the Left and liberal class of India. Barring Kerala, West Bengal, Tripura and JNU, the Left and the left liberals have been an astounding failure in popularising their weltanschauung in contemporary India. An even greater indication of their failure is that despite having a stronghold in JNU, they have been unable to make a dent in the politics of areas outside the JNU campus, leave alone the city/ state of Delhi. They only have to consider the organisational nous of the Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi to teach themselves a lesson. This is a party that took — in good measure — a lot of ideas that the CPI and the CPM hold dear and managed to convey them in a language that Delhi’s denizens understood. The AAP came to power without the resources of the BJP or the Congress. It took the Left’s wine and delivered a winsome message to the Delhi folks in an AAP bottle, without spiking it with leftist abstraction.

Apropos Left mobilisation, the JNU fracas may have become a national event but it is useful to see it as a local development. The events in JNU may be more about contemporary Delhi than the whole country. The Left, then, has to find ways of imaginatively utilising the happenings in JNU, as a victory for the people of Delhi. The mood outside JNU, by most accounts, has turned hostile and critical of JNU. If that has to change then, the happenings in JNU, the detention of JNUSU leaders must be interpreted as a moment of triumph for Delhi’s people and not just the Left. The Left and the liberal class must speak of a larger local identity they want to embrace rather than speak and preach from their own turf.

Movements tend to succeed when they have identifiable names and faces. Movements also throw up individuals who turn into leaders. Arvind Kejriwal is the clearest precedent before Kanhaiya Kumar. In the Indian public’s imagination, a set of hard-to-break stereotypes already exists. The larger mainstream discourse lionises Narendra Modi for the “development” of Gujarat, its investment-friendliness and vilifies the anti-free market philosophies of Left-led state-level governments. The Left and the left-liberals have to refurbish that perception using the same tools of mass media to subvert questionable stereotypes.

Consider this. Veteran communist leader A.B. Bardhan passed away in January. One image that did the rounds online captured his belongings (and personality) over the years — a suitcase, some clothes, some shoes and some books. That was it. These were a lifetime’s worth of materials that Bardhan had accumulated in his long attrition-ridden career as a politician. Compare that with your average politician of any mainstream party. Sure, Bardhan’s spartan living may not fully symbolise the party cadre in toto, but it is a fairly accurate marker of the most active leftists. Stories of socialist abstemiousness and probity are legion. The Left and the liberals must mount a campaign venerating the relative simplicity of the socialist/ communist politician in today’s age of excess. Give young India the counter-narrative to the mainstream image of politics.

In his return-to-campus speech, Kanhaiya Kumar made it clear that the Left will take the fight to the hardline Indian right even outside the JNU campus. Finally. The Left has taken for granted its bastions in a few states and some universities in India. It can learn about mobilisation from the capitalists and the rightwing forces of this country. The capitalists and the Hindu rightwing are strong in this country simply because they have seeped into the pores of the countryside and the collective unconscious of the nation. There are RSS shakhas in different corners and bylanes of Indian cities, let alone the rural countryside. And this happened under the UPA’s watch. The ABVP has won seats in JNU. The BJP has made inroads in West Bengal during the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

Can we say the same about any of the Left parties and their electoral performances in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra or Tamil Nadu? Can we say the same of the SFI, AISF or AISA? Have they won elections in Banaras Hindu University or Allahabad University or Nagpur University?

The Left has to move completely out of its comfort zone to make a dent in the enemy territory — just the way the AAP took on the BJP and the Congress in the assembly polls in Delhi.

A point the organised Left has found hardest to fathom is that most of the Indian middle class, even if it believes in values like secularism and unity in diversity, does not agree with the Left’s understanding of capitalism and neoliberal economics. Why do Indians love capitalism despite the fact that the record of capitalism — or the watered down, Indianised version that has included crony capitalism — has been spotty?

It is a question that has confounded the Left and the critics of capitalism everywhere. Notwithstanding such a report card for Indian capitalism, many parts of the country display an unabashed embrace of the philosophy.

How does the Left attract young Indians of this century — born in the cradle of liberalisation — towards its state-driven egalitarian concerns? It is here that either the Left gets into a critical understanding of capitalism or mounts an all-out campaign against free-market capitalism nationwide.

In the day and age of home-delivered consumerism, the Left must convincingly celebrate the past, present and future of socialism in ways young Indians understand and relate to. If the Left is so correct about its politics, economics, democratic understanding and egalitarian ideology, why has it not been voted to power for so long?

The Left and the liberals must admit that they have let down the Indian masses before they build on the momentum gained from JNU.

We need a new Left review.