How the Left liberals are failing their cause
The organisers of a literary festival in Jaipur recently came under attack from a number of Left liberal intellectuals for inviting two people belonging to a right-wing organisation as speakers for one of the sessions.
The protesters argued that by calling members of the right-wing group, they were somehow legitimising their voice and opinions. On the other hand, the organisers argued that since the influence of the right-wing organisation over the government as well as those supporting the government is visible and pertinent, it would be interesting to include them in the discourse that pertains to the country.
This incident highlights the way Left liberal intelligentsia in India often deals with political and ideological debates and the impact that has on literary, intellectual and academic spheres. One might say that right-wing politics is far more autocratic and often violent in its politics but then, they never claim to be liberal.
Therefore, it becomes important to examine the relevance of Left liberal politics and whether it can truly claim to be the carrier of the term liberal and the connotations that go with it.
The Jaipur Literature Festival debate also reminded me of the many debates happening within universities all across India, which are underlined by deepening ideological divide and lack of any debate among cross sections of these groups.
While one might question the glorification of university leaders as political heroes or revolutionaries, one cannot argue that this politics shapes the opinions of many young people who study in universities.
These young students then go on to become bureaucrats, social workers, politicians, academicians, journalists, filmmakers. In a nutshell, these opinions lay the ideological foundation of people who then go on to shape the opinions and public discourse of the country.
Traditionally, many of the major universities in India have been centres of Left liberal politics. Today, they are the centres of a growing political divide, with identity-based political outfits growing in numbers across universities.
It is the reflection of the complexity of our politics as a whole where national, regional and identity-based parties and groups bring different interests and voices to the table. At the same time, it also highlights the failure of Left liberal politics in terms of accessibility and inclusively.
Especially in the case of Dalits, women, and other subaltern groups, traditional Left liberal political parties have failed to assimilate their interests, instead focusing on the interests of the respective parties.
In many universities, Ambedkarites who earlier supported the Left to fight the common cause of defeating right-wing politics have broken off the arrangement claiming the Left only focuses on their mandate, often crushing the interests of Dalits and tribals in order to do so.
With fragmented Left liberal discourse within universities, it's not surprising that right-wing organisations have been growing from strength to strength in universities across India.
One of the major problems with Left liberal politics academically and intellectually is the question of accessibility. What books have you read? Can you differentiate means of production from modes of production?
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| It is fashionable to look down on anybody reading a Chetan Bhagat novel, despite the fact that for a number of Indians it is a big challenge to read any English language book. |
Or, let's just talk about the state as a tool of oppression. Left liberal politics inside universities and often as a whole is stuck in so many meta-narratives that it is impossible for a lot of people to relate to that. Even when they are touched by it in their daily lives, the language is so inaccessible that they are immediately isolated from it.
One may attribute all this to something called cultural capital, i.e. how culturally polished a person is. For students coming from different regional language schools, different parts of India, different upbringings who never had access to the kinds of books, music or cultural awareness that has become the vocabulary of Left liberal politics, understanding and relating to this politics becomes a difficult task.
Instead, they choose the kind of politics which they can relate to, be it identity politics or right-wing politics which is often bereft of any fixed ideological curriculum. When one scratches the surface, one finds that instead of changing, the Left liberal politics within universities is becoming even more programmatic, with a number of parties from across the Left spectrum fighting for space.
It is also no surprise, amid all the cultural capital, that the majority of students who are part of these parties are middle/upper class students who went to English-medium schools and had some access to a certain kind of literature and "culture". Not that there are no leaders with non-elite backgrounds inside the Left liberal outfits.
Some student leaders have emerged, especially out of JNU who have captured the imagination of the media and the general population. But even they have shown the inability to go beyond the vocabulary of Left liberal politics, despite their colourful language and appealing personalities.
In the national scenario too, the same cultural capital plagues the accessibility and reach of this politics. From what to read to what is published, everything is decided by a group of Left liberal intellectuals, most of them snobbish and elitist in the way they function.
It is fashionable to look down on anybody reading a Chetan Bhagat novel, despite the fact that for a number of Indians it is a big challenge to read any English language book. They chose a Chetan Bhagat novel because it is accessible to them, both in terms of price and language.
In terms of ideology too, there is a stringent category of what can and what cannot be Left liberal in nature. There are no varied voices to be read in most Left leaning newspapers or magazines. One can summarise one article by reading the previous piece that the writer had written.
There are hardly any nuanced or balanced pieces circulating in the Left liberal circles. Most Left liberal people read the same kind of magazines, same websites and even circulate the same kind of WhatsApp forwards.
Instead of flexibility, the Left liberal politics in India is trying hard to hold to its roots. Instead of expanding the debate and engaging with other bands of the spectrum there is a tendency to isolate the other side.
This kind of politics, in literary, academic and intellectual spheres, is making it more paranoid and less accessible. At this rate, far from growing in popularity, Left liberal politics might turn into a cult of sorts. That would be a tragedy for Indian politics and democratic process as a whole.
With the growth of new media, the language and discourse of politics has been changing at a fast rate. One can safely assume that the spread of populist right-wing politics all across the world is only the start of the change that this new language of politics is bringing about.
The only hope for Left liberal politics to survive and thrive is to change at a faster pace so that it can catch up with the changing politics all around. For that, they have to first come out of the bubble that they have built all around them.