Sacrifice and who sacrificed how much is a dominant trope in discussions within (largely urban) left organisations. As experience suggests, it is usually invoked to sideline important self-reflections. Priya Ranjan problematizes the notion of ‘sacrifice’ in the revolutionary discourse.
Tag: Indian Left
Dalit students talk not only of their social alienation in these elite spaces, but of their intellectual alienation. Why is it that we do not use moments like this to reflect on the very nature of our social sciences? Why is our academic and intellectual culture such that, despite writing of subaltern subjects, social stratification, caste, nationalism, resistance and oppression, it is not able to speak to a section of students in the class?
Come Wednesday night, Jawaharlal Nehru University in the country’s capital will witness another session of the much awaited presidential debates. If the analyses and estimations from last year’s elections – which said that Kanhaiya Kumar’s speech swept all the floating votes toward his favour – are anything to go by, the night of the debate indeed is not a mere spectacle of wit, oratory and rhetoric, but also serious electioneering. But, this year’s elections look riveting and engrossing for another reason—the clear emergence of the Birsa Ambedkar Phule Students’ Association (BAPSA) as a force that has been systematically sussing out and exposing the casteism practiced by the Indian Left, particularly the parliamentary Left parties. With its call for the unity of the bahujan on a platform of ‘shared reality of different oppressions’, BAPSA is hoping to scrape together all such votes that have not been represented and respected by the erstwhile Unions.
September 2, 2016 will see one of the largest coordinated labour strikes ever in India, possibly in the world. Trade unions cutting across political affiliations will shut down key sectors of the Indian economy against the pro-corporate anti labour Modi Government
Newsclick spoke with trade union leaders on the reasons for the strike and their plans beyond Sep 2.
The Left has always and probably will always be powerful in the realm of ideas. But this is not good enough
We have to acknowledge that the Dalits and other marginal groups have a more intense and nuanced understanding of the rules of Indian politics than the left-liberal intelligentsia. The latter’s pragmatism, we might say, has led to their failure in even understanding what constitutes Dalit politics.
The fear of criticism breaking solidarity is an enveloped fear; well cushioned in caste hierarchies and privileges. It is an arm chair fear, resulting from the fear of doing the boring but radical work of patiently explaining, convincing and converging.
We have heard a variety of opinions from the Left about the events surrounding JNU, Kanhaiya, Umar and Anirban, the Patiala House assault etcetera. Our…
the national/anti-national debate has some relevance to it only when the informed Indian citizenry, and particularly its progressive opinion makers, learn to be sensitive to the plight of its oppressed people; learn to treat the Dalits and other marginal communities with dignity, not as favour, but as their genuine human right; accept the Indian Muslims as a people, who do not always need to put up a ‘progressive’ stance; and allow the Kashmiris their legitimate right to determine their political future,
Can there be Left-wing populism in India?
In the context of the rise of Corbyn and Sanders and the rise of left-wing populist movements like Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain, this article asks, through an engagement with Chantal Mouffe’s writings on left-wing populism, whether there can be a left-wing populism in India that can counter the right-wing populism of the Bharatiya Janata Party. The article explores the conditions for a “populist situation” that exist in India at present.
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