tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1023809150725835717.post2116499433817776504..comments2023-11-05T01:05:38.453-08:00Comments on chespeak: Assessing E Balanandan: Worker, Trade Unionist, Marxist PoliticianAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08922847649122074587noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1023809150725835717.post-47444297790958734482009-01-21T22:31:00.000-08:002009-01-21T22:31:00.000-08:00N P Chekkutty writes:Damodar is raising a very pe...N P Chekkutty writes:<BR/><BR/>Damodar is raising a very pertinent issue, but it is tough to tackle it because the links between the internal divisions in CPM and the development strategy of the dominant groups in the left are not easily identifiable. <BR/> <BR/>My feeling is that the divisions were mainly on the lines of personal clashes and personal interests in the post-CITU phase, and what decided the course was the ambitions of each person who was in position of power in the party. It would be futile searching for a semblance of ideology, or a fig leaf for that matter, in a place where it is non existent. <BR/> <BR/>RVGs comment in the other thread about the curious case of no serious critique of the Modi development model and its links to economic interests of the new capitalist classes is very pertinent in this regard. Modi's politics and Modi's economics are not separate, they are two sides of the same coin. <BR/><BR/>(Comment courtesy: fourth-estatecritique@googlegroups.com)Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08922847649122074587noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1023809150725835717.post-3964447838732876462009-01-21T22:27:00.000-08:002009-01-21T22:27:00.000-08:00Damodar Prasad writes:1. Che and RVG have indicate...Damodar Prasad writes:<BR/><BR/>1. Che and RVG have indicated about the "developmentalist" agenda of the CITU fcation in the CPM. After the Palakkad conference, as we understand from the reports and journalistic sources, the TU had lost its grip over the party. True that the TU leadership had lost the ideological supremacy but the 'developmentalist' agenda prevails. Not only prevails. But it has overwhelmed with little dissent. <BR/><BR/>The supposed 'dissent', if there is any, is in anyway theoritical or ideological dissent? Is status-quoism considered as dissent? <BR/> <BR/>2. In M P Paramsewaran's work on KSSP history- Jankeeya Sathra Prasthanathinte Charithram- published last year, there is a reference of the rift between high-developmenatlists represented by the TU faction (KSEB-) and environmentalism of the KSSP particulalry in the context of Silent Valley agitation and later.<BR/> <BR/>3. Now everything has come a full circle. It is interesting to note that those members who had sided with KSSP's alterante view on development have in recent times appropriated the developmentalist agenda of CITU.<BR/> <BR/>4. Earlier, the TU's ideology of developmenatlism had its moorings on the assumed 'Soviet socialist state capitalist' path of development. But now the high-developmenatlism promoted by the party has its foundation in the new ideology of free market dynamics(through farmers's debt relief commission, social securty measures- a mixed political ideology is being promoted).Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08922847649122074587noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1023809150725835717.post-9680798996599421262009-01-21T22:13:00.000-08:002009-01-21T22:13:00.000-08:00N P Chekkutty replies:Dear Damodar, Thanks for rai...N P Chekkutty replies:<BR/><BR/>Dear Damodar,<BR/> <BR/>Thanks for raising these pertinent issues in your criticism. <BR/><BR/>I decided to circulate the note because I was feeling a bit uncomfortable with the way our political debates were revolving around such non issues like Abdullakkutty's perceived probelms with CPM. Looking at Balanandan, we could get a more balanced and nuanced picture of the developments in our politics in recent past. We need to take a hard look, whether we agree on all the points or not. <BR/><BR/>First, let me say though the trade union movement and working class are two different things, it is the TU movement that actually gives them a face and a voice. TU represents the working class, whether they are marching behind the TU or not. They represent the effective voice of the class. <BR/> <BR/>Second, this TU movement was practically hijacked by the middle class organisations in the public sector. Exactly, this is my point too. It was a very convenient arrangement or a facade of working class movement for the TU Ieaders and the party so long as the unorganised sections did not create troubles. When I say unorganised sections, I do mean even the headload people who received all the brickbat, because for all practical purposes they were only in the peripehry of the movement, the real core being those powerful groups you have mentioned in your note. <BR/> <BR/>Third, I do feel the TU understanding of the environment movement and mechanisation process was not without fault. It was not a Manorama creation, though Manorama might have played it up to make political capital. For me, this question is directly related to the problems of failure of the leadership in applying Marxism in the actual situation, understanding it simply as a static system and not a n organic way to take the society forward.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08922847649122074587noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1023809150725835717.post-19431645271093770682009-01-21T22:11:00.000-08:002009-01-21T22:11:00.000-08:00Damodar Prasad writes in an email:Dear Che,In your...Damodar Prasad writes in an email:<BR/><BR/>Dear Che,<BR/><BR/>In your assesement, it seems that TU movement in Kerala and the so-called working class are synonymous. Some time back, I had seen a reference to the 'archetypal marginalized'. <BR/>In this conetxt, who is our 'archetypal working class'. Does such a 'class' exist? Though all the brickbats were recieved by the headload workers, the direction of TU movement in Kerala was largely defined by the University employees, BEFI, KSEB Officers Union, SETO, etc, etc. They were/are the vanguard revolutionaries of the TU movement.<BR/><BR/>2. And on the issue of mechanization and the working class, you are only confirming a long-hled view propagated by Manorama. How mechanization affects society, how the society responds to it is completely erased from this 'judgement' of social change. This anti-computer agitation is over-palyed to instill some kind of gulit feeling in the mainstream Left movement which has become too "pragmatist" in the wake of changes brought in by the technological changes.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08922847649122074587noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1023809150725835717.post-22572346712942155212009-01-21T22:05:00.000-08:002009-01-21T22:05:00.000-08:00RVG Menon writes in an email:My encounters with Sr...RVG Menon writes in an email:<BR/><BR/>My encounters with Sri Balanandan were limited to the Silent Valley and Nuclear Power Plant debates.<BR/><BR/>While fully honouring his commitment and the sacrifices he made for the cause in which he believed, I tend to agree with Chekkutty that he was unaware of the larger issues of environment and development.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08922847649122074587noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1023809150725835717.post-43943695805694720882009-01-21T06:22:00.000-08:002009-01-21T06:22:00.000-08:00K Govindan Kutty writes in an email:i knew balanan...K Govindan Kutty writes in an email:<BR/><BR/>i knew balanandan pretty well. i could not keep in touch with him<BR/>for the past few years. he was a nice man. modest. self-made. and<BR/>he was good to me. <BR/><BR/>but that is not to say he knew what was good for the people in whose name he led so many struggles. balanandan represented a limited vision which threw people up to leadership.<BR/><BR/>i have heard from him umpteen times a self-same commentary on <BR/>what used to be called the deepening crisis in capitalism. there was a certain repetitiveness about it. maybe revolution in the old sense of the term is an eternal recurrence, as nietzche would have put it.<BR/><BR/>i recall talking to balanandan about the torture he suffered and survived. he talked about it rather unfeelingly. i did not see him seething with vengeance. he used to tell me, perhaps with a spiritualist note, that the <BR/>human frame is a work of wonder, it can resist battering in an incredible manner, just as his body had resisted it. no one would have taken him for alive<BR/>after what he went through. but he came back, every time he was abandoned for dead. was it the durability of the human frame, or was it the deathlessness of something invisible within it? <BR/><BR/>in impossible situations, he held on to his faith. often, while thinking of him, and those like him, i find myself mumbling an old line from bachan, not the actor<BR/>but his dad, harivansh rai bachan: <BR/><BR/>mere poojan aradhan ko/mere sampporna samarpan ko/<BR/>meri kamzori kahkar/jab mera poojit pashan hasa/tab rok na paya main aansoo..<BR/><BR/>my worship, my devotion<BR/>was all my weakness:<BR/>when my idol said so, and laughed,<BR/>i couldn't hold back my tears.....Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08922847649122074587noreply@blogger.com