CHAOS: THE FACE OF TODAY'S IDEOLOGY

Vijay Sai is a writer living in Bangalore. He may be contacted at vijaysai.vs@gmail.com

Born in a remote village in Andhra Pradesh, Gummadi Vitthal Rao, a Dalit student, discontinued his engineering course from Osmania University, took up singing as a career and travelled to remote villages all over India spreading social messages through his songs and writings. What spans as a career of over four decades came to represent the voice of revolution, and thus emerged balladeer comrade GADDAR. Living a life in hiding and under constant threat, he has been silently operating underground, believing that even if the person is not seen, the voice must be heard.  In an exclusive interview with Vijay Sai, conducted when he paid a secret visit to the JNU campus in Delhi,he reflects on the state of affairs with the rise of global imperialism, on Third World countries and on the failure of social movements.

You have been involved in the peace talks between the Naxalites and the Andhra Pradesh government from the very beginning. How did these come about and why did they stop, just when everybody thought that a historical dispute was coming to an end?

The peace talks were a strong demand from the public, the media and a few intellectuals who wanted to strengthen the democratic process. In the beginning there were so many issues, from increase in wages to health issues to banning liquor. So, the people who started these dialogues thought that this would be a platform to sit and discuss people's issues. In the first round of discussion in the Chandrababu Naidu Government, people came forward with good will. There was no set agenda for either party. It was like an informal Panchayat's talk. But then suddenly, without any provocation, the police conducted fake encounters and killed hundreds of innocent villagers assuming they were Naxalites. This put an end to the peace talks.

…And the Congress?

The Congress came into power by using the Naxalite issue to gain votes. They pronounced in the state assembly that the Naxalite issue was not one of law and order   but was a socio-economic problem.  Once in power, they were in two minds about holding talks.  They created an internal debate in the party to show how sympathetic they were to the whole issue. When it came to negotiations, however, they decided not to sign the deal. Though all the demands made in the contract were democratic, not a single one was granted: reservation for minorities, for women, for tribals and for the separate Telangana State, increasing the wages of Police constables. That effectively ended the dialogue process.

Separate Telangana has been an issue for a while now. Can you elaborate on that?

The whole issue of having a separate Telangana state started off only as a desire. But one must realise that it has a historical background. The people of Telangana realised that all along in history outsiders have always ruled them. They never ruled their land. They have always worked as slaves in their own land. This is an emotional issue for them as it should be for anybody. Even the landlords took up this issue for their selfish personal reasons. No one has ever come forward with a pure and a true feeling to fight for the people of Telangana. The Left parties were the worst. Not only did they not help, but they opposed the formation of a separate Telangana and are proposing a samaikhya (United) Andhra Pradesh. What the people of Telangana want is not just physical rights over their land but economic, social, political and cultural ones as well.  This has not been a recent demand but dates from 1969. And right from the beginning, parties like CPI-ML and Janshakti have always opposed the idea of a separate state. Then the Telangana Rashtriya Samiti (TRS) was formed. Once again, the people of Telangana were fooled that this would be a democratic party. The party even got critical support from revolutionary sympathisers like the great Kaloji Narayana Rao. But people realised that what started off as a people's movement was leading the opposite way.

In what way?

Currently there is no ideological unity within the TRS party.  And even if a separate state happens, the elite will rule it again. This is the truth. The leader K Chandrashekar Rao is like a cat on the fence, a thorough opportunist. He is willing to get the support of anyone and everyone, including the BJP, just to keep his seat secure as the chief minister once the state is formed. Now, does that not show how unstable you are in your own ideology? So the formations of these small states like Telangana or Vidarbha have no ideological grounds, no political philosophy and are basically exploiting the sentiments of people to gain votes.

Then what hope is there for such small social movements if they are always going to end up as victims of elitist politics?

Let me quote Marx, who said "Opportunistic leaders in the history of any ideology cannot take the ball to the board". Any form of social struggle will only be successful if it is tied up with a revolutionary zeal. Otherwise, it is not even a struggle in the first place.

And is violence the only tool to bring about change as witnessed in many social movements in the past?

Now the concept of ‘violence’ was always debated upon in history. Who perpetrates violence on whom? It is important to get into these intricate details to understand violence.

Explain. 

Violence happens when one person exploits the other. So one can take ‘exploitation’ as a parameter to measure violence. As Kaloji Narayana Rao has said “Violence happens only once”. Which means that the other side of this is never realised. The legitimacy to violence goes unrecognised. If you see in history, 99% of the people who participate in production have always been non-violent. It is the 5% that participates in ‘consumption’ that silently perpetrates violence. And this becomes an emotional issue for the other 99% that has actually put their sweat and blood into their hard work. And that is one reason they take to arms.

You were called to be one of the members to carry forward the peace talks between the Naxalites and the government …

… and I was told that I should be ‘mentally armed’. See how clever the oppressors are? They want the sufferers to be mentally armed so that they can continue with their domination. I told them that once you stop encounters, you will get 50% peace
and then there is a space for talks. In the first place it is the police that take to violence. Now can you tell me from which point of view you will define ‘violence’?

What do you feel about the current social movements? Does today’s youth share the zest of people from your generation?

Today’s youth is cultured in such confusing conditions that they are clueless about the future.  Chaos has become the face of today’s ideology for the youth. Students today have grown up in very unfortunate circumstances. They have become globalised and their minds have become corporatised. Everything comes to them ready-made and so they have no time for thinking of anything. Education and health have become corporatised. And this is the result of globalisation. My neighbour, Malli had a mild headache. That fool, instead of popping in two pills went to Apollo Hospitals. There they conducted a series of tests, gave him the same two pills he would have got and sent him off with a heavy bill of ten thousand rupees. He came to me and asked me for money. I thought I will help him and gave him money. Since then he has been absconding. The last I heard of him was that he joined the Ayappa Swami cult. So see how our health system drives one to such points of desperation because it has been affected by globalised politics. A similar state of affairs exists in the education system. Since EAMCET (engineering and medicine common entrance test), CAT (common admission test) and other such exercises have been endorsed by the State education system, young minds have stopped thinking. All the doctors and engineers take quality education in and go out to earn. The state unfortunately does not recognise this sycophantic approach towards global powers. So what happens to those hardworking students who are doing their PhDs and who are thinking of making a serious change in this world? Where do they go? Look at the salaries. Someone does his PhD and gets underpaid and a student who has failed tenth class earns a five-figure salary in an American company. This is the backlash of corporatisation.

Then how do the youth of today get themselves out of this chaos?

One thing the youth must realise today is that they must not become slaves of imperialist powers. The has always employed a single strategy with third world countries like ours. “Market is their philosophy, getting cheap labour is their birthright and Profit is their goal”. The youth need to realise this American mantra. See what they are doing in for oil. They are rogues who will stoop down to any level. They will pretend to be Muslims, grow beards and if possible even get circumcised to fulfil their selfish needs. It has been so many years since the World Trade Centre was attacked. George Bush wanted Osama Bin Laden dead or alive and so he decided to wage a war. Hundreds of innocent people have died and there is still no sign of Osama.

What are the possible routes the youth can find and possible leaderships they can form of their own to take a political stand on the state of affairs?

The youth need to strengthen their ideological stand. Many young students who pretend to be Communists today have no sense of what is communism. They don’t read and they don’t debate. They grow up in a confused society with neither ideology nor proper leadership. And amidst all this they fall prey to ’s blandishments Consumerism creates such unrest. According to me, every Indian educated in must be loyal to work here. I might be sounding a little Gandhian but this is a fact. We don’t need to import systems that are already in place here with us. If we can stop exporting our knowledge, our resources and our manpower, we would have done half the job.

What is the role of the media in projecting social issues?

In the current times, media has a large role to play. But unfortunately the media has adjusted itself to the global politics. So the new definition for power is a combination of money, media and mafia. This is not a good sign. But to every action we have a reaction. So now we have the emergence of alternate media spaces that have been working on human rights issues and people’s issues. And the people’s movements will support the growth of these new forms of democratic media.

How useful or harmful have NGOs been in strengthening social movements?

NGOs have gone corrupt. The amount of funds pouring into NGOs in the name of development is huge. And it is very obvious as to whose development it is!  Tell me one NGO where the boss does not travel in a car or does not use flights? In fact many NGO heads own multiple cars and don’t care about the common man. After the RSS and the Shiridi Baba Temple,it is the NGOs that get big funding from foreign agencies. That is why we had organised a Mumbai Resistance against the World Social Forum in Bombay. NGOs have lost their philosophy, their ideology and have become good moneymaking ventures. Now-a-days it is a fashion statement to be associated with some or the other NGO.

All these tools like the media and the NGOs should be used not abused. It is like giving a wooden stick to the drowning man. The stick cannot do much if the man does not know how to utilise it and help himself get out of that situation. Therefore I have always appealed to my media friends to help in creating awareness. Creating awareness among the youth, the academia and the citizens is the only way social movements will survive and the only way in which we can achieve a true democratic state. Till then a democratic state will remain a utopia for all of us. 

Interview Courtesy Prithvi Theatre Notes, Prithvi Theatre Mumbai.