Brothers in Arms: The Tragedy of China and Tibet

1 04 2008

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On 6th March this year over 4,000 workers of the Casio Electronics Company’s factory in Panyu, China marched the streets and fought battles with over 1,000 riot police. The workers had come out in spontaneous protest when they realised that while they had been given a 90 yuan raise in their wages, the company had cut between 80 to 150 yaun from their bonuses and their “official” trade union had acquiesced in this daylight robbery. They did what any self respecting worker would and refused to work, came out of their factory and were marching towards the Mayor’s office. They were met by a wall of riot police and other security officers who dispersed them with baton charges in which about two dozen workers, including women, were injured.

This was no flash in the pan incident. Over the past decade and more workers, farmers and students are increasingly coming out on the streets to protest and often turning violent. Almost always, their protests are met with severe police action and an information black-out in the Chinese media which is dutifully replicated in the West’s free media. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : Marxism and Marxists, Media, Mobilisation and Movements, The Post Column, War and Imperialism

Evaluating China’s Role in Tibet

18 03 2008

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The recent protests in Tibet have again put the spotlight firmly on China and its politics. By global standards, both the violence and the Chinese Government’s efforts to control it are not unprecedented. More people die in the US colonies of Iraq and Palestine in a week than have been reported killed in Tibet over the past week by even staunchly pro-Tibet information sources. Even the information clampdown and externment of foreigners ordered by the Chinese authorities, pales in comparison to the track record of the US and its allies in media manipulation. Moreover, it is also likely that Governments and media in the US and Europe are encouraging a bigger coverage of the events in Tibet for clearly political reasons. It is easy to do this since unorganised citizen protestors facing heavily armed soldiers and armoured personnel carriers readily lends itself to heroic adulation. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : History, Marxism and Marxists, Media, Politics, Religion, Secularism, Secularisation, The Post Column, War and Imperialism

Left Writing Pakistan’s Elections

11 03 2008

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At the beginning of the new year, just a few days after the tragic assassination of Benazir Bhutto, this column had written about why democracy has been structurally weak in Pakistan and the threat of religious fundamentalism gaining power in Pakistan. This column had argued that the dominance of landed property, the weakness of an independent industrial capitalist class and the merging of the armed forces with the landed ruling class had created conditions where it would be near difficult for democracy to strike roots. It had further argued that this array of conditions made the likelihood of a fascist takeover of power a credible threat in the near future.

It was a gloomy prognosis to say the least and it is with undiluted glee that I have welcomed the resounding defeat of the religious fundamentalists and those political parties which were aligned to military rule. These electoral results have reverberated all over the world and have been seen as the beginning of a new chapter in the political history of Pakistan. It truly is a moment for democrats and progressive forces all over the world to savour when the people of Pakistan, braving the bombs, bullets, sundry threats and inducements of the establishment and of the fundamentalists, comprehensively voted both out. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : India - Pakistan, Marxism and Marxists, Muslims and Islam, Politics, The Post Column, War and Imperialism

“Hasta la Victoria Siempre! Compañero Fidel”

19 02 2008

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This line, which was supposedly spoken by Ernesto Che Guevara before his departure for Africa to fight with the anti-colonial revolutionaries there, is a fitting slogan to bid adieu to one of the greatest revolutionaries and Marxists of our times. This line would roughly translate as “Until [we achieve] victory forever! Comrade Fidel”. Yesterday, Fidel Castro, President of Cuba, announced his decision to step down from the top post bringing to an end an entire era which he straddled like a colossus.

Clichés often belittle a person’s contribution but it would not be incorrect to state that Fidel Castro is among those few world historical individuals whose contribution to human history will resonate long after the writer and the readers of these words have turned to dust. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : Marxism and Marxists, Politics, The Post Column

Can Socialism Survive Human Nature?

5 02 2008

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The single greatest image which captured the end of the Socialist State system of the 20th century was the sight of hundreds of thousands of Germans breaking down the Berlin Wall. The Berlin Wall had been built in 1961 to stop residents of Communist East Berlin crossing over to capitalist West Berlin. Despite the barbed wire, watch-towers, attack-dogs and gun-totting sentries a few thousand people “escaped” from East Berlin to the West over the three decades of this Wall’s existance, each successful escape producing a hero and each killing on the Wall producing a “martyr”. The Berlin Wall became a metaphor for imprisoning an entire population and it was a distressing fact that this was being done by a State which claimed to champion the ideals of Karl Marx.

This column has earlier spoken about the endemic lack of freedom in the socialist States of the 20th Century (4, April, 2007). In a sense, they had made a Faustian bargain with what Marx had called “the characterless monster of unfreedom” in their attempt to protect their revolution. It has not only been the socialist revolutions which ended up denying freedom to their people, but this has been the unhappy chronicle of almost all modern liberatory revolutions. As this column has recounted over the past three weeks, similar was the case with the revolution of Haiti too, which in 1804 achieved freedom from slavery and colonialism, but is today wracked by poverty, imperialist plunder and oppressive rulers. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : Marxism and Marxists, Politics, The Post Column

The Courage of the Traitor

7 11 2007

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By the beginning of the 20th century the world had been divided into colonies. The Western Hemisphere was a colony of the USA while Africa and Asia were divided between Britain, France and Russia. As the new industrial power – Germany – emerged on the foundations of Bismarckian rule, it found itself bereft of colonies to plunder for its growing industrial appetite. This laid the foundation for the first global war or World War I in 1914. Germany had formed a military alliance with Austria-Hungary and the Turkish empire while the older colonialists – Britain, France and Russia – formed the rival bloc.

When open hostilities finally broke out in 1914, each side hoped to win a decisive victory over its opponents which would provide the victors with the colonies and territories of the defeated powers as trophy. Fired by the most brazen national chauvinisms, people in each country rose up to fight for what was drummed up as their national rights and hundreds of thousands of young men marched happily to their death in the name of national glory. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : History, Marxism and Marxists, Politics, The Post Column

The Anti-Growth Manifesto V (The relevance of Socialism)

31 10 2007

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For the past few weeks, this column has been arguing that constant economic growth is not only un-achievable but also deeply undesirable.

Unachievable because it is impossible to have unlimited growth in a planet of limited resources. With human population creeping close to seven billion, we collectively consume about a quarter of the world’s biomass but this only satisfies about a fifth of our energy and natural resource hunger. So we are happily mining away the non-renewable resources of petroleum, coal, gas, iron and other metals. This is a situation when an overwhelming majority of the world’s human population lives on less than US $ 2 a day or in utter poverty. Imagine the extraction of natural and non-renewable resources if every one of this blessed planet’s seven billion people lived the life of a West European or North American? Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : Back-of-the-envelope Economics, Energy and Environment, Marxism and Marxists, Politics, The Post Column

The Anti-Growth Manifesto – II (The Need for Speed)

3 10 2007

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The two week absence of the Left~write column was caused by the sudden death of my brother-in-law in a road accident in the city of Baroda (India). A young man of 42, he leaves behind an uncomprehending daughter who is not yet seven, a distressed wife and distraught parents. It is difficult to come to terms with the hurt and loss this has caused, especially since it seems so avoidable and inexplicable. ‘Why?’ is the question in everyone’s mind. But even in our moment of sadness it is sobering to realise that close to a 100,000 people die in similar road accidents in India each year. Each death a catastrophe for the family. Globally close to 800,000 people die annually in road accidents, a figure that is expected to touch a million by 2010. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : Demography, Energy and Environment, Marxism and Marxists, Pop goes the Culture, The Post Column

The Anti-Growth Manifesto – I

12 09 2007

Sherlock Holmes, that immortal detective of Victorian England is perhaps among the best teachers of the methodology of research. As he proceeded to unravel one crime after the other, Mr Holmes left behind a treasure-trove of tools of investigation that stand any social scientist in good stead when he investigates human society. In the famous novel, Hound of the Baskervilles, Holmes says, “The world is full of obvious things, which nobody by any chance ever observes,” and in Boscombe Valley Mystery, he observes, “There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.” Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : Energy and Environment, Marxism and Marxists, The Post Column

The Tragedy and Heroism of 9/11

5 09 2007

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On the morning of September 11, 1973, a little before 9:00 am, US-manufactured air force planes attacked the presidential palace of the democratically elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende. This was part of the CIA-sponsored coup d’état led by the Chilean general Augusto Pinochet. In the face of a massive attack using tanks, infantry and air force planes, Salvador Allende refused to surrender or run away, defending the presidential palace and Chilean democracy with a gun in his hand. Surrounded and with no chance of defeating the enemy, Allende preferred death rather than be taken prisoner by the usurper generals in the pay of US imperialism. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : History, Marxism and Marxists, Politics, The Post Column, War and Imperialism

Nation: Another Solidarity is Possible

29 08 2007

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Over the past two weeks this column has tried to demonstrate the futility, rather danger, of continuing with the Nation and its “ism” as a political community in today’s world. While some readers may even be willing to accept the logic of this secular heresy, the common response would be, what is the alternative? What political community is possible other than the Nation in today’s world? Would it not be a costly political mistake to attempt a destruction of the Nation when there is no alternative? Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : Energy and Environment, Marxism and Marxists, Politics, The Post Column, War and Imperialism

The Narrow Domestic Walls of Nationalism

22 08 2007

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India, by most accounts, is seen as among the more successful examples of post-colonial nationhood. Former leader of the Non-Aligned Movement, a working democracy which has managed to retain the secular nature of its state, a successful economy which is now an “emergent superpower”, India is being feted globally on completing 60 years of its independent nationhood. Even a look at the colonial period indicates that the moulding of the peoples living under the British rule into a nation called India was a creative exercise in achieving freedom. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : India - Pakistan, Marxism and Marxists, Politics, The Post Column

Six Decades of Freedom and Nationhood

15 08 2007

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This is the time for all columnists to hold forth on the achievements and shortcomings of six decades of our independence. Hundreds of thousands of trees have been sacrificed to produce the newsprint needed to print long column inches to celebrate the independence of our nations from colonialism. Much has been written about what has been good and what has been bad in the past 60 years of our independent republics’ existence; of whether the defining word for 1947 is independence or partition; of whether in the final analysis these 60 years have been a success or a failure; of who our villains and heroes have been.

So can this columnist save himself from the temptation to jump into the ring with his own list of high and lows? Perhaps I can, and I will do this by arguing for the necessity of the death of the nation in the era of the success of globalisation. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : History, India - Pakistan, Marxism and Marxists, Politics, The Post Column

The Inevitability of Piracy

8 08 2007

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We are all pirates today! Specially those of us who live in what is called the Third World. One would be hard pressed to find a person who has not bought an “illegal” copy of either music, films, books or software. But these are only those who can afford the luxury of both surplus income to spend on entertainment and the luxury of surplus time to partake of leisure. Even the poorest of the poor would have sustained “piracy” when they bought medicines which infringed patents drawn in the First World or similarly, bought seeds to cultivate their half acre plot. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : History, Marxism and Marxists, Politics, Pop goes the Culture, The Post Column

Authenticity: Hypocrisy’s Evil Twin

1 08 2007

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The mark of industrial society is the mass produced commodity. The abiding motif of the factory is the assembly line, the heartless whirring machine that works relentlessly to produce thousands, if not hundreds of thousands or even millions of the same product with dependable regularity. Regularity both in manufacturing a certain quantity in a given time as well as in the quality of the product – its attributes.

One pair of shoes will be identical to the thousand others of the same model, one piece of paper will be of the exact same texture, size and colour as the million others, one spoon will be the exact replica of all others from the same factory. One bar of chocolate will be identical to the million others in colour and taste, a McDonald’s burger claims uniformity of taste in all its global outlets, while the authentic Coke (Coca Cola) aspires to the same tang anywhere in the world. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : Marxism and Marxists, Pop goes the Culture, The Post Column

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