radicalblogger

One of the major ways in which the politics of India has shifted is the total restructuring of the mainstream media. This is what makes serious alternative media so urgently necessary. And by that, I do not mean just a series of websites and blogs and facebook groups. I am quite aware of the value of these, and have often quarreled with friends who reject these. But their rejection, erroneous though it is, has some real basis. Websites and blogs and Facebook groups are mostly in English. Even when they are in the Indian bhashas, they are available only if you have enough time to sit in front of a computer, enough money to have a computer and internet or at least access regularly to net connected computers, and so forth. That is why an alternative media also, and above all, means serious journals and newspapers. Not that such have not been attempted. In Bangla, I can think of efforts like Manthan etc in recent times. But the fragmentation of the radical left, the zero sum game mo...

Professor Sugata Marjit has written an article in the Times of India , attacking students' participation in politics. Having started with a disclaimer that since the issue is sub-judice it would not be right to comment about the specifics of the Jadavpur case, he goes on to make ample innuendos, and while the article heading talks about banning gheraos, in fact goes much further to demand: “first strategy will be to ban politics among the teachers, officials and non-teaching staff with exemplary punishment in case of violation”. (ToI, Sept. 27, 2014). Professor Marjit has been quite well known as a right wing scholar, a supporter of all the standard neo-liberal positions, and given his stature (former Director, CSSSC, editor of academic journals, a wikipedia article on him which is basically his publication list), one of the more well known academic faces of the current Trinamul Congress regime in West Bengal. Having served as a chair of the State Higher Education Counci...

Speech in Solidarity with the People of Gaza --21st July [I spoke for the first time in my life in a meeting organized by the SFI. I had gone to listen, not to speak. Because it was a protest over Gaza. But some of the students requested me to speak. So I did. Below is an edited version of what I said.] Thank you for inviting me to speak. I had not come at all prepared, so I may be less than ful ly coherent. I want you to excuse me if that happens. My first and crucial point is, such protests need to recognise that we live in a different world than the one I inhabited when I was a student in this very University. In those days the left was stronger, anti-imperialism and anti-racism were stronger. Today, the right is stronger by far. As a result, its ideology has reached out to vaster masses and confused them. When we protest over Palestine, as I have been doing, we must pay heed to this reality and respond to false issues and non issues that they raise, because not everyone spouting t...

Edited version of my speech at the Calcutta Press Club during the National Seminar on Communal Fascism seminar on 12 th April. In view of Hindu’s garbled report, all the more necessary. This incorporates things I said in response to questions, but omits certain responses to Nazrul, who went into very complicated identity politics. Friends, It is necessary to be passionate about the issue of Modi being projected as PM, but also to reflect coolly. Let me start with a few common positions that have been developed. I want to start by saying that we have to be careful in using the term fascism. It is often used indiscriminately. When the police beat up striking workers or agitating students, ultra left groups issue leaflets talking about “the barbaric fascism of the police”. What is a bourgeois democratic baton charge, please? I remember when I was a student, graffiti on Calcutta walls could be seen condemning Jyoti Basu as a new Mussolini. And of course, we have the regular att...

I had come to this meeting, not to speak, but to express my solidarity with those of you who are protesting. I agree with you that racism, casteism, are among the most frightening forms of hierarchies, oppressions, that still exist among us. It is necessary for each of us to stand up and be counted in our protest, our resistance to such oppression. We all like to think that racism, like halitosis, is something only others have. We are quick to point fingers at US and European whites at all real or perceived cases of racism. But we ignore the racist behaviour found among us. In India, all Indians are not equal. Apart from issues of class and gender, though intersecting with them, there is the issue of who is a real or proper Indian and who is not. If you are an adivasi from almost anywhere in India, you are less of an equal Indian. And if you are from the North East, you are less of an Indian. Those of you who are by birth Indians from the non-North East – all of you studied histo...

Speech on 5 September at a public meeting in Jadavpur University to oppose the threat of US war on Syria Kunal Chattopadhyay Thank you for inviting me to speak here today. And thank you all for being here. We are assembled here to protest the US intervention, or threat of that, in Syria. But let me put that in context. I will begin by reading out extracts from two very different write ups. The first is by a group of revolutionary organisations on the ground in Syria and nearby regions – Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, etc. In a statement issued on 31 st  August, these comrades have said, among other things, the following: Over 150 thousand were killed, hundreds of thousands injured and disabled, millions of people displaced inside and outside Syria. Cities, villages, and neighborhoods were destroyed fully or partially, using all sorts of weapons, including warplanes, scud missiles, bombs, and tanks, all paid for by the sweat and blood of the Syrian people. This was un...