Tag: caste

Study Circle 19 of 2019 – Is Fascism Imminent?

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DYFI CUC organised the nineteenth study circle of the year yesterday. We concluded our series on fascism by reading “Is Fascism Imminent?” by P. M. S. Grewal.

The article analyses the current political system in India to understand whether it is fascist or whether fascism is on the anvil. It refers to the Communist International’s understanding of fascism as the ‘most terroristic dictatorship of capital.’ It goes on to show how our parliamentary system is working quite well at furthering the interests of the Indian ruling classes and so, in essence, they do not have a need to bring about fascism. The article speaks of examples of pre-WWII and post-WWII fascist regimes. The former consisted of countries with a well established developed monopoly bourgeoisie (Nazi Germany, Italy and Japan) while the latter came about in the form of imperialist intervention as well as a section of the indigenous bourgeoisie, in response to a perceived threat of growing mass support for the communist party and elected left government in Indonesia and Chile respectively. In both these cases large scale massacres of leftists occurred.

The question of whether fascism has overtaken all Indian institutions is important because it determines what the Left parties should do in response. If the regime was truly fascist, a united front of all anti-fascist parties and forces would be necessary. The article argues that in India today such a strategy does not make sense, because Left parties have to fight both communalism and neoliberalism, and allying with neoliberal (and even communal) opposition parties weakens the fight against conditions that create fascism. That does not mean, however, that the RSS is not a fascistic organisation.

We discussed strategies in overcoming the barrage of imagined threats, divisive rumours and exploitative superstition being promulgated by the propaganda machinery of dominant parties. We discussed the importance of using newer forms of organising workers, unemployed people, and the pervasiveness of caste. We spoke of the role of social media and what the Left ought to do about it, and debated about whether most Indian people were really secular as the article claimed – and what this would mean for how the Left understands secularism.

Next week, we will read more about Marxist economics.

Study Circle 17 of 2019: On Fascism

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Dear comrades and friends,


DYFI CUC organised the seventeenth study circle of the year yesterday. We were joined by Comrade Subhashini Ali, communist leader, member of the Politburo of the CPI(M), and former president of the All India Democratic Women’s Association.


We read most parts of The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle of the Working Class Against Fascism, by Georgi Dimitrov. The speech covers the political economy of fascism in the European context, and German fascism in particular. It talks of the class character of fascism, what it promises and what it actually brings to the working masses. It then lays out the need for a United Front against fascism, and the tasks of this united front. 


We discussed how different the situation in Europe at the time (1935) was, and how little applicability there was to contemporary India, and thus the futility of drawing too many parallels. The part we found quite relevant was the one called The Ideological Struggle Against Fascism. It speaks of what nationalism and internationalism mean for communists. We also discussed the role that caste plays in the ideology promoted by fascistic organisations.
Next Sunday, we will read about fascistic tendencies in India. Comrade Subhashini will join us again, and we hope to see a lot of you there!


Revolutionary Greetings,

Central Unit Committee,

Democratic Youth Federation of India – Delhi

Study Circle 11 of 2019 – Caste, Class and Property Relations

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DYFI CUC organised the eleventh study circle of this year today. Last week we had started our readings on caste and class, and this week (on Ambedkar Jayanti!) we continued. We read nearly all of BT Ranadive’s Caste, Class and Property Relations. 

The essay has had three primary strands so far:


1) Caste in feudalism and colonialism; how the existence of caste was beneficial for the British

2) Caste as understood and grappled with by the leaders of the freedom struggle, and how their class position meant that they did not seek an annihilation of caste, but moved through cultural revivalism (even support for the caste system) and merely social reform. Yet, they were able to build a mass movement under bourgeois leadership. 

3) Phule and Ambedkar’s complete rejection of caste, and how the project was co-opted by feudal and capitalist interest, and thus did not reach its logical conclusion in agrarian revolution and upending land relations. Periyar’s life is an example of what happens when the anti-caste movement delinks itself from the anti-imperialist movement.


Ranadive also speaks of how the communist party was the only party to link the question of caste with that of land relations; how the formation of new classes through industrialisation meant that the unity of the toiling masses was impeded by the existence of caste. He stresses the importance of attacking casteist ideology, and the folly of thinking that caste will disappear when class disappears. 


At the same time, without a change in the production relations, caste can never be fully annihilated. In Ranadive’s own words on the Congress leadership,


“Unable to think of a basic liquidation of land relations the national bourgeoisie adopted social reforms as their watchword in the struggle for national unity. Education, social mixing, inter-caste dinners, statement in public meetings that ‘We are Indians first and last’ beyond this the class alliance of the bourgeois leaders did not permit the national movement to go.”


Our discussions focused on the land redistribution that was supposed to take place in India, how there never was substantial land redistribution, how in places like Bengal, where it did take place, the incidence of caste atrocities was lower. We spoke of the changing nature of the demand for reservations in the background of the public sector being throttled. Upper caste resentment is being weaponised to divert attention from the fact that jobs and public education are themselves receding. 

Next week, we will complete this essay, and then vote on what to read next. 

Study Circle 10 of 2019 – Caste and Class

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DYFI CUC organised the tenth study circle of this year today. Many of us wanted to read more about the left approach to caste, and so we started by reading Anand Teltumbde’s essay called “The Caste and Class Dialectic – The Way In and the Way Out” from a compilation called Republic of Caste.


Teltumbde lays out the differences between the Marxist and Ambedkarite understandings of caste, its emergence, and strategies to annihilate it. His main point, however, is that a unified understanding of caste and class will serve both communist and anti-caste movements. 


Teltumbde charts Ambedkar’s attempts to organise people on the basis of class (such as through the Independent Labour Party) and how he did not have much success. He points out that Ambedkar’s views on Marxism had two influences: one, the Fabian Socialists in England, who preferred gradual reform over revolution; and two, the trade union movement in Bombay, which in some cases supported untouchability being practiced in factories and mills.


Here, discussions led to the emergence of many examples before the aforesaid practices in Bombay, where communist-led trade unions had mobilised against untouchability and other casteist practices, both in Bombay and in the rest of the country. Therefore Ambedkar’s Mahad satyagraha, for example, was also about the assertion of the humanity of Dalits, something that Teltumbde thinks Indian communists arrogantly dismissed. 


Teltumbde also speaks about how Marxists have taken the base-superstructure distinction too literally, and that caste needs to find its place in both, and not just in the superstructure as an institution that will die when capitalism is smashed. Here, we had some differences with Teltumbde on theory; we talked about how there was a dialectical relationship between the base and the superstructure. Teltumbde’s thrust in the article, however, was that Ambedkar’s “pragmatic” approach was reactive and Marx’s scientific approach was the correct long-term one. With that background, Teltumbde believes a meeting point between Marx and Ambedkar is necessary in India.


After much discussion – which we wish we could reproduce in its entirety here – what we took from the article was that communists had engaged insufficiently with the question of caste, and that had done a disservice to the movement, and had ceded ground to solely identitarian movements. Next week, we will read BT Ranadive’s Caste, Class and Property Relations to understand the relationship between the three.

 
Revolutionary Greetings

Central Unit Committee,

Democratic Youth Federation of India – Delhi