Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

A guest post by Vijaya Kumar Marla

 Kanhaiya Kumar, President of Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union. 

Usually any charged atmosphere with a large number of people can metamorphose in to a frenzy and mob violence. But in Vijayawada (capital city of the state of Andhra Pradesh), on the evening of 24^th March 2016, a large number of people had gathered in anticipation of hearing Kanhaiya Kumar, the rage among youth and students of this country. His posters are on display everywhere, as we reached the city from the airport.

I was accompanying him on his trip from Hyderabad to Vijayawada. When he got down from the airport bus at the arrival lounge, the appreciative glances of the policemen deployed there towards Kanhaiya could not escape my attention. Is this the same Kanhaiya Kumar who had recounted his tête-à-tête with police while he was in Delhi’s Tihar Jail on trumped-up charges of shouting anti-India slogans in his university, in his now famous address at JNU on 3^rd March? I think that conversation of Kanhaiya with a constable in the jail and the way he recounted it has an impact on policemen all over the country. After all, day-in and day-out we often come across politicians blaming police for brutality and atrocities, which are not entirely without substance. But an incisive analysis and comment by a young man just released from jail, saying that the police are also ordinary human beings like us and that they are helpless in many aspects when they had to practice their profession under heavy stress and the mention of their meager wages has had an impact on the police. Lo, here is a young man, charged with sedition and beaten up by goons in the presence of full police force and being hounded in the social media and the net, and now being accompanied by police escorts as if he is a top law maker, all the way from airport to his meeting place.

I have not seen so much love and hatred being displayed against one man in the Internet. The venomous hatred appears to be mostly manufactured in the IT office of the Hindutva (Rightist Hindu) brigade. There are no limits on indecency and anyone who objects to the foul language on display is immediately targeted. Sometimes, I wonder, all this spewing of venom and attacking everyone will not work against the Hindutva brigade? What about all the laws about decency on the net? Or do they not apply to the net-storm troopers of the ruling party? On our way to the meeting hall, we found hundreds of people lining up with garlands at many places to greet this young man. He had to stop at a few places to greet them and receive the flowers. TV cameras were hounding us throughout our journey, even as we signaled to them that Kanhaiya is not in our car. As we neared the meeting place, it was a thorough chaos. The whole traffic in the area is jammed with vehicles and we had to make our way by foot, snaking through bikes and parked cars. We heard a commotion, with two not so young men, in saffron scarves, being pushed out of the meeting hall.

By that time, Kanhaiya was safely escorted inside by a big team of red shirted volunteers. I have seen thousands of young people wearing white T-shirts with pictures of Rohit Vemula and Kanhaiya. The police were trying to halt the Leftist youth from charging on to the two BJP youth wing men, who tried to raise anti-Kanhaiya slogans. An obviously working class woman in her forties was seen shouting at the BJP men and urging the Leftist students to trash them. That was the general mood outside the hall. And such scenes are not uncommon in a politically active city of Vijayawada. As we were ushered in to the hall on the first floor, we found the huge hall jam-packed with students wearing Rohit-Kanhaiya T-shirts and redshirts. From the badges they were wearing, I could gather that they belong to various student organizations, AISF (CPI), SFI (CPIM), PDSU (CPI-ML) and a sprinkling of NSUI (Congress). There were many elderly and middle aged people, obviously from Leftist parties. The National Secretary of CPI, Dr. K. Narayana was seen standing near the wall.

I was seated near-by where he was standing and I had seen people offering him their seat. He politely refused and I had seen A.P State Secretaries of CPI and CPM sitting in the audience, as mere spectators. Then there was commotion again, as a lone BJP youth tried to shout some slogans, but he was quickly overpowered and I have seen him losing his shirt in the mêlée. He was picked up by the police and taken away. I have seen the large hall completely jam-packed, with almost half the people standing along the walls, as there were no seats. With soany thousands of people inside, he hall was hot and stuffy, with the mercury touching 43°C (110°F) outside. I am recounting this as a spectator to the event. The press had given undue coverage to the BJP youth who tried to shout slogans unsuccessfully. This sort of a political friction is not unusual at many places in India. Kanhaiya Kumar was the main speaker and as he was invited to speak, he asked whether he should speak in Hindi or English. The audience chose Hindi, which was surprising.

But from the response he got, I understood that Hindi films had their effect on the people of Vijayawada, where only Telugu is spoken, unlike in Hyderabad. He started with the attack on universities by the BJP government and charged that the upper class mindset could not tolerate poor students from backward regions and lower castes entering the portals of the hallowed institutions such as JNU and HCU and learning to question the prevalent inequalities and social discrimination. “Besides our subjects, we also learn and discuss issues that affect our lives and I believe this is a part of our process of enlightenment. We don’t want to go to the streets shouting slogans. Given a peaceful atmosphere, we would like to spend our time in class rooms and in the library. It is they who are preventing us from continuing our studies. They want to limit the intellectual space in the universities all across the country to the cage of Hindutva ideology and we are opposing this process of indoctrination.”

The ruling ideology of Hindutva wants to create binaries of ‘us vs. them’ in the name of Bharat Mata (Mother India). Whoever does not say, “Bharat Mata ki Jai” (Hail Mother India) is anti-national, they allege. But we say, our Bharat Mata is not the same as your Bharat Mata. Your Bharat Mata is a glamorous lady, bejeweled and wearing a saffron sari, symbolizing the rich. Our Bharat Mata is a Dalit  (untouchable caste) woman, emaciated, wearing rags and working in the fields under the hot sun, a mother who struggles to feed her children, a mother who works as a village social worker, a mother or sister who works in the factories, drives a bus, pilots an airplane.. This is out Bharat Mata.” He said that he had met Rohit Vemula’s mother (The Dalit scholar who had committed suicide unable to bear the brunt of social discrimination in Hyderabad Central University in January this year) and told her that he will continue the struggle until social discrimination ends. We want Left and Dalit voices to come together.

Besides this unity, we are struggling to build a broad rainbow coalition of all oppressed working people, who have to fight this communal and neo-liberal virus with all the might we could gather. This is a long fight, but the victory will be ours. He further said that India has 700 million young people and Modi had captured power promising Rs. 150 thousands in everyone’s bank account from recovered black money and 100 million jobs. This is a false promise and now he and his government have to face the ire of the youth for their deceit. Modi says that he will build a modern India with Hi-Tech industries and make India the world’s manufacturing hub, with the slogan of “Make-in-India.” I question him, when 75% of young job aspirants in this country have less than 5^th standard qualification and they cannot get a job in any modern industry, how are you going to provide 100 million jobs.

The previous government under DR. Manmohan Singh and now Modi’s government are cutting expenditure on education, cutting down assistance to poor and lower caste students. Unable to bear the cost of private education, they are leaving schools. Unless the government spends a large amount of money on public education and health, it is questionable how you can prepare the youth to work in modern industry. He stressed the need for Left Parties to come together, putting aside their differences. He said young people of his generation, those who are born after 1985 could not understand why the communist movement had to split into so many splinter groups. “Let us come together, put aside the differences of the past and start talking to the people about their problems in a jargon which they understand.”

His appeal struck a chord with the thousands who were listening to him in rapt attention. There was a thunderous applause of approval. Having seen for the last 45 years how the various Left groups fought pitched battles among themselves, it was a pleasant feeling for me to see them sitting together and listening to a young man, young enough to be their son, urging them to bury the past differences and come together to fight the bigger enemy. I have seen leaders of various Left groups embracing each other and recalling the good old days when as young men, they fought together under one flag. At the end of his hour long speech, he recited the now famous song that he sang at a meeting immediately before his arrest on February 11, 2016 at Jawaharlal Nehru University. It goes like this:

Aazadi (Hind/Urdu for freedom)

Aazadi from Hunger

Aazadi from poverty

Aazadi from unemployment

Aazadi from capitalism

Aazadi from Manuvad (BJP’s Hindu politics)

Aazadi from caste discrimination

We don’t want freedom FROM India, we want freedom IN India

There was a thunderous clapping and shouts of Aazadi (freedom) from the participants, young and old. It was electric movement, highly charged with enthusiasm, a markedly noticeable charged feeling that “WE CAN” fight together and defeat the bigger enemy, the fascist BJP.

Kanhaiya Kumar addressing his fellow students at JNU, Deli on March 3^rd 2016, immediately after his release from Jail on trumped up charges of sedition. The address was telecast live on all the TV channels till midnight and it is reported that it is the most viewed even in recent time. This speech had elevated him to national level politics and he had become a rage among youth.

Kanhaiya Kumar singing his famous Aazadi (freedom song)

A student demonstration in Delhi demanding the release of Kanhaiya Kumar and his friends.

Kanhaiya Kumar being roughed up by BJP goons in the presence of police in the Delhi Court premises on 15^th February 2016.

A BJP goon boasting about his group’s attack on Kanhaiya Kumar in the Indian Court in the presence of police. He was let off within hours of his being taken in to token police custody.

 A BJP/RSS version of Mother India                   

The Left’s image of Mother India (representative) 

Kanhaiya Kumar addressing the Vijayawada Meet of united Left Students 

 A section of the participants, with the leaders of various CPs in the foreground