Devika said it right. The keralite middle class(and the indian as
well)has become suspicious of these landless people who fight for
their survival and for CPM and all other parties, it is more
profitable to align with the middle class than with the landless poor
folks.
The recent statements of Pinarayi on the so called 'second land
reforms' and on land and its utility, clearly state that land is for
the real estate people and SEZ protagonists and never for those who
fight for that. Even the chief advocate of this second land reform,
the fiery VS. What did he do in Moolambally and now in Chengara? What
did he do with those lands which he cunningly sold to those smart city
boys? And now, on whose behalf he talks? Never for the landless dalits
and backward downtrodden people.
But one thing too is much more important. The chances of being such
struggles being hijacked, as is slowly showing in Nandigram, where,
people like mamta, who have much higher ambitions about land and
estates, had taken over the charge of the struggle. And now, all set
to sit and talk with the great budha of our times. Both know each
other well. Both are brokers. Real and virtual.
Meanwhile, all those people who fight for justice and land for
survival, and the marginalized political fronts labelled as maoists
and terrorists and naxalites are more and more sidelined. For media,
bureaucracy and all others, including the left, these naxalites and
maoists are mere terrorists.
But fortunately, even some of the middle class segement are now being
slowly affected by the land grab of the government. In fact it is not
the government who is doing the plundering, but the benevolent
corporates and consortiums, all in the name of development.
Fight for the landless, fight against these revisionist lefties, and
fight againt the imperialist and neo-liberal corporates and their
brokers.
Regards
On 20 Aug, 18:31, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Dear Dr Aravindan
>
> Thanks for your response to my post on kafila.
>
> As you say, 'abuse is cheap, solutions are difficult'. That's
> precisely the problem. I'm so used to being abused by old friends as a
> "well-heeled revolutionary" -- in fact in a world where the ill-heeled
> revolutionaries are hounded as maoists and criminals. In any case I
> regard renunciation as a strategy of power -- the renouncer gains such
> moral power over everyone else that they keep shut. So no, I'm
> unapologetic about being "well-heeled" (whatever that means!) and
> indeed will not keep my mouth shut. And yes, I haven't been a PPC
> activist. But that doesn't mean that I can't study it. If that is the
> case, we all better keep our mouths shut about deprivation. Only the
> deprived should speak of deprivation. I try to listen to the deprived.
> I don't try not to sit on judgement about their words.
>
> I who find the trade unions' blockade (please don't say that the CITU
> is the least of these)appaling, am not arguing for one-shot solutions
> to landlessness at Chengara or elsewhere. Certainly, the question of
> finding land, of deciding who deserves and who doesn't, of planning a
> strategy for farming the land, all these are complex and need to be
> thought out in detail, by all concerned including the government and
> the political parties. But is that happening? This struggle has been
> on since one year. Why has the process of deliberation not started
> yet?
>
> More importantly, why are we the middle class so bothered when poor
> people demand to have a say in how land should be utilised? Why can't
> have someone have an opinion different from the progressive middle-
> class consensus on SEZs? Of course we are delighted with our SEZs
> (that's where our kids, raised on Eureka and Sastragati,to go and
> work, ultimately, like good "well-heeled" middle class kids). So the
> rise of the middle-class isn't something happening out there --it is
> happening through us. The difference is between middle-class who think
> that the poor have a right to advance demands and fight for them in
> their own right and under their own name in a democracy, and the
> middle-class which is suspicious of the poor.
>
> If the CPM claims to be leftist, it should do better than call the
> people at Chengara criminals; it should certainly do better than turn
> workers on them (well, please don't say that the CITU is just a minor
> presence among the workers!). What would have AKG done in this
> context, I'm forced to think? Certainly he wouldn't have threatened
> the people at Chengara with "police armed with horns and thorns" (VS
> to Laha Gopalan). Again, I'm not at all opposed in toto to liberal
> welfarism and Kerala's 'third-way' . I think small capitalism is much
> better than the neoliberal ugliness we have to now confront, and that
> it could finally free people from being governmental categories
> eternally subject to state welfare. But that does not mean that we can
> let the left forget that the 'first' land reform agenda remains
> incomplete -- and the very incompleteness does show that caste is very
> much alive in Kerala,in secularised form. By all means, let us
> integrate citizens into the market on terms favourable to them -- but
> that is no answer to the question of caste injustice. And minimum
> entitlements to house plots or housing don't resolve that.
> Irrespective of whether the second land reform is to come or not, the
> first should be completed.
>
> "Honest efforts to empower the poor should not be scoffed at" -- true
> indeed. But I beg to differ about the meaning of 'empowerment'. If the
> poor were integrated into the market advantageously, as the PPC
> promised, I'd say that this was a step towards empowerment towards
> full citizenship. But better scholars than I -- and indeed the
> government itself -- reveal how the local bodies in Kerala have
> focused not on furthering production but on welfare handouts. That
> helps survival -- poverty management -- but not necessarily
> citizenship. That is, unfortunately, the World Bank's interpretation
> of Amartya Sen's ethical individualism. And indeed, a strategy that
> preserves the wealth of the middle-class elite, and indeed, the moral
> superiority of the ("medium-heeled"?)development activist. Chengara
> troubles the leftist middle class not because it is against the left
> agenda -- it seeks its completion. It troubles the leftist middle-
> class intelligensia because those who are expected to be silent are
> talking. What could be worse?
>
> Devika
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