Opposition, Insurgency and the Quest

for a New Political Power

Rajesh Gopalan



Unlike any other event in India in recent years, the 50th anniversary of India's independence brings together the past, the present and the future generations of Indians together, to mark an occasion with a significance that transcends all divisions.


Many from the generation that had fought to rid India of colonial rule, that experienced first-hand the exuberance of independence are still alive. Today, the generation that grew up in independent India is getting ready to hand over the country to a new, younger generation. This generation of youth, like its predecessors, feels in its bones that it needs to change the conditions that it faces.


Indeed, there has not been a moment in the last fifty years when Indian society has not faced the question of change: of what is to change and how that change will be brought about. There has scarcely been a day when people did not work, agitate, struggle and fight to bring about change of some kind. Across the breadth of India, people have risen up repeatedly to fight for their rights, to overthrow their conditions of oppression, to achieve their social, national, economic liberation and affirmation. The history of the last fifty years, in that sense, is the history of an insurgent people. This generation of youth is now ascending the stage of Indian history on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of independence, enriched by a balance sheet of that struggle and drawing the conclusions warranted for the future.


It was only months after the transfer of power in 1947 when the peasant rebellion broke out in Telengana - an armed struggle that successfully gained control of several hundred square kilometres of territory, and gave rise to a vision of social liberation - of not only an end to landlessness and landlordism, but of a vision of broad liberation of society at large. In its time, Telengana gave rise, however briefly, to the instruments of a new kind of political power, of a new way in which this power was to be constituted, and of new arrangements underlying this between different collectives in society.


This insurrection was still underway in 1950 when the Naga peoples began their revolt against the new conditions they found themselves being forced into by the Indian constitution. This broke out into armed struggle by 1952, and reached full-scale military proportions by 1955 when the Indian army took charge of operations. By the end of fifties, the extent of the Naga revolt and of the attempts to crush it can be judged by the fact that fully one-fifth of the Indian army or about 100,000 soldiers were engaged in suppressing what was a total Naga population of some 300,000. Today, some 45 years later, the Naga question remains unresolved, and the armed struggle there continues to rage.


Throughout the fifties, national struggles began to break out all over the country. Apart from Nagaland, movements for national affirmation of one kind or another shook India from Kashmir to Tamil Nadu. In addition, the peoples of the Punjab, Maharashtra, Andhra, and Kerala all emerged to demand some kind of affirmation of their national identities. It was also in the forties and early-fifties when the tribal peoples movement came into prominence and when the demand for Jharkhand first arose.


This period also witnessed the rise of the Indian communist movement, which was instrumental in the birth of many mass organisations such as the large all-India trade unions, kisan sabhas and student, youth and women's federations. In places like Kerala and West Bengal, communists emerged as the most important political force.


The single landmark event of the sixties is the Naxalbari movement, which erupted in March 1967 as a peasant uprising, but which came to assume a far greater position of historical significance. The insurgents of Naxalbari gave a call for an armed agrarian revolt. They elaborated a vision of liberation that included the creation a new form of political power, like its predecessor in Telengana twenty years prior. In the history of opposition, insurgency, and the struggle for a new political power, it is Naxalbari that stands out as the singular event of the last fifty years. At its time, it dramatically and defiantly gave resolution to the question of parliamentarism that had plagued the Indian left movement since its inception in the twenties.


Many strands that draw their origin from the Naxalbari period continue to fight to this day, and have never reconciled themselves with the "peaceful and parliamentary path" to political power. Some of these trends continue to wage armed struggle, particularly in the rural and tribal belts of Andhra, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Bihar. Many others are working hard to create the conditions and prepare the ground-work for future struggles.


The post-Naxalbari period during the seventies, was witness to the phenomenon of huge mass movements. Following the railway strike of 1974, students in Gujarat and Bihar took to the streets to protest corrupt governments and price-increases. Within months, the protest movement of Jayprakash Narayan took shape, and went on to demand a fairer electoral process and for an end to all corruption in public life. These movements, which reached their peak just prior to the declaration of national emergency in July 1975, seemed determined to cause a change of government just by sheer weight of their numbers on the streets.


The period between the Naxalbari movement and the Emergency also gave rise to what is known as the civil liberties, or the human rights movement, which was to further blossom in the eighties. It primarily consisted of groups of intellectuals and prominent public personalities came together to fight against state terrorism in the form of unlawful incarcerations, custodial or "encounter" killings, and preventive detention laws such as TADA. They went on to demand the prosecution of police or army officials responsible for atrocities against civilians.


The seventies also saw the flowering and emergence onto the arena of a mass Indian women's movement. Indian women became more prominent than ever in this period, filling the streets of urban areas with agitations and demands against price increases, dowry deaths, rapes, and other feudal atrocities. It must be emphasised of course, that this was not by far, the first political expression of Indian women who have long remained active in the leadership and cadre of other movements.


By the late-seventies and early-eighties, insurgency was the order of the day in the north-west, in Punjab, and in the north-east, in Assam, where agitations against serious economic and social grievances brought forth a consciousness of the extent of the underlying political disenfranchisement. In the meanwhile, the existing national movements in Nagaland, Mizoram and Manipur continued to rage unabated. In all these areas, the movements for national liberation, or for a re-arrangement of the relationship with the Centre had taken the form of armed struggle, and these movements had varying degrees of success in elaborating their vision of liberation.


By the eighties, the increasingly notorious incidence of officially-organised communal pogroms in areas such as Nellie, Bhiwandi, Delhi, Meerut, Malliana, Hashimpura, Ahmedabad, Bhagalpur, and Bombay gave rise to public outrage, and to demands that sought an end to these massacres, and for the punishment of those responsible for them.


The seventies and eighties also gave rise to a large number of social movements - peasant movements, dalit movements, tribal movements, the environmental movement, the Chipko movement, the movements against resettlement in Narmada or Tehri, movements that fought the contract labour or bonded labour system, and against child labour.


A number of movements have sprung to life in the past six years as a direct result of the neo-liberal policies of globalisation or "liberalisation" which were introduced in 1991. These include farmers fighting against intellectual property rights, fishermen fighting encroachments by trawler fleets and workers fighting privatisation, the GATT treaty and exit policies.


By 1990, the smouldering rebellion in Kashmir had also erupted into a full-scale armed struggle. To date, an estimated 40,000 Kashmiris have been killed in a period of just seven years. One can only imagine what forty-five years of rebellion has cost in Nagaland, or what thirty years has cost in the tribal belts of Andhra.


What must be underscored is that what we discuss here in terms of opposition and insurgency is often conveniently dismissed, particularly in official-inspired discourse as mere "terrorism". At various times, this officialdom has come to categorise entire regions or communities as "terrorists". As such, their outlook differs little from their fellow-colonialists across the world who have at various times hurled this epithet at insurgent peoples wherever they have arisen, be it the Palestinians, South Africans, Kenyans, or even the Vietnamese.


But regardless, the issue of terrorism itself remains a crucial one. In Punjab, for example, the actual scale and nature of the terror inflicted over the past fifteen years, or even only in the 1992-95 period under the Beant Singh government is just beginning to surface. Whether it is state terrorism, or individual acts of terrorism, it is difficult not to condemn both in the strongest terms. In the movement of an insurgent people fighting for their emancipation, acts of individual terror (whether real or staged) have only played into divisions; have only strengthened the hands of their enemies.


Parliamentary and Extra-parliamentary struggle


But if this brief history brings out anything, it is the continuous nature of the struggle that has been waged over this period. Every successive generation has in their time, fought hard to change the conditions of their existence. They have fought against the prevailing system that has rendered them disempowered, and that has caused them to come out on the streets, so to speak with their grievances.


But it also brings out a very important fact that the locus of struggle, the locus of opposition that the Indian people have given rise to has not centred inside the vestiges of this political power - inside the cabinet, the parliament or the state legislatures. It is impossible to grasp the nature of this opposition without an appreciation of that extra-parliamentary space. The various demonstrations, hartals, bandhs, gheraos, or armed-struggle, are all different forms that this extra-parliamentary struggle has taken. Whether it is workers, peasants, women, students, dalits, tribals or Kashmiris, it is the extra-parliamentary arena where they have made their most decisive mark.


Even a cursory glance at recent history shows that this extra-parliamentary space has not been an "alternative" arena of struggle. It has, rather, been the most important and decisive one. In other words, over the last fifty years, the movement of the Indian people for their emancipation has taken place outside the existing institutions of political power. What it points to is that the Indian polity is profoundly marginalised from the existing avenues of political power. Their struggles in one way or another, have reflected their powerlessness, their alienation from the existing political power, and has therefore necessarily take place outside of it.


At the same time, every one of these movements in the last fifty years has reached a critical moment when it was faced with the question of political power: were they fighting to strengthen the status-quo (by seeking to be accommodated within it), or were they fighting to change it? Were they fighting to secure privileges and special status for themselves, or were they fighting to change the notion of privilege?


There are not a few movements in the last fifty years that were lured into becoming a part of the status-quo, into striking deals and accords to share the spoils of office in return for joining it and legitimising it. And there have also been those very much within the ambit of power, who have consciously used the potent weapon of extra-parliamentary opposition strictly as a means of strengthening and solidifying their position within parliament.


There is no movement, be it Kashmir, Assam, Nagaland, women, workers, peasants, dalits, tribals or communists, that have not faced this basic question - should they fight for a narrow aim of seeking privilege and position for themselves within the system - or should they continue to fight to change the system? What has complicated this dilemma is that the policies of those wielding power have often centred around creating divisions in the ranks of the extra-parliamentary movements.


What Vision?


Over the years, the various movements that have broken out have in their time given rise to a sense of the vision that they were fighting for. Many of the movements were national movements. Their vision of liberation was in that sense, often limited to their immediate fight - one for a restructuring of the arrangements between themselves and the Centre or with the other constituents of the union. The same can be said with even greater precision for the various "issue-based" movements that arose particularly over the past 25 years. These have been based on student issues, women's issues, dalit issues, tribal issues, civil liberties, communal massacres, the environment and so on. In contrast to these, there were others that actually brought forth very broad visions.


In summary, were these struggles aimed at weakening the status-quo? Or was opposition and extra-parliamentary struggle merely a tactical manoeuvre to negotiate a better compromise with the status-quo,? Did the seek out other fighting forces and try to come to terms with them? Or did they only seek to come to terms with those in power in New Delhi? Did they give rise to a broad vision for society at large? Or were their visions narrow and isolated?


Many struggles of our times have come to be characterised as narrow in their outlook and aim. In general, such movements only made elitist links both internally and internationally, and have been led by those who ultimately struck deals with the Indian state behind the backs of their own people.


While it may not be easy to see the above tendencies so clearly in each and every case, the Naxalbari struggle comes to stand out of all the struggles of the last fifty years. Naxalbari came to the fore precisely when the issue of parliamentary versus extra-parliamentary opposition came to a crisis point. It arose as an adamant and conscious refusal to make arrangements with the status-quo. It arose on the basis of a striving for a new type of political power.


Naxalbari also stands out in this respect because it did give rise to a broad vision of social liberation. While Naxalbari was sparked off by a peasant revolt in March 1967, nobody can accuse it of limiting its vision to that of just liberating peasants. What sets Naxalbari apart, is that it represented the only significant attempt to tackle the question of political power. While this issue ultimately pervades every other movement, it was Naxalbari that actually singled this question out. Naxalites did not talk of political power in terms of taking over the organs of the existing state-structure - but of fundamentally re-defining the nature of political power in a new manner - a manner that was a significant departure from the way political power is constituted and exercised under the status-quo.


A Century of Liberation


But any discussion of Naxalbari, or even of the notion of liberation world-wide will be incomplete without mention of the communist movement, of Marxism-Leninism. The 20th century is the century of liberation - of social and national liberation across the world, and the role played by communists in this transformation world-wide is not an insignificant one. It is only in this century that universal franchise was established, and when women were given even juridical equality to men. It is in this century that struggles for national liberation erupted against colonial slavery across Asia and Africa. It is in this century that the conception of social and economic rights has ever made headway. In all these instances, communists have made the decisive difference between victory and defeat.


It is in the context of these world-wide developments that the issue of the "left" in India, and of divisions in the communist movement takes such tragic significance. What makes this particularly troubling is that divisions in the communist movement have more often taken place on the basis of events outside India. The original split of the Communist Party of India in 1964 had to do with the Soviet Union. Later splits had relevance to events in China, Albania, Gorbachev or Eastern Europe.


Which Way Forward?


Finally, on this 50th anniversary, those of us who have fought for change in this period must ask ourselves some questions. We have an experience of fifty years, of two generations to sit back and reflect upon. The struggle for the affirmation of political, social, national and economic rights still remains ahead of us. The question really is one of where is this struggle going? What is it that needs to be done?


The main obstacle to building the unity of the people remains the sectarian and narrow aims that the rulers of India incite, promote, finance and reward as an integral part of their stranglehold on wealth and power. It is not a minor problem to overcome these entrapments.


It is this legacy of division that must be ended. This, in essence, is a pre-condition for the multitude of people fighting for change to ever achieve any advance. If the people of India are ever to find unity, then those that claim that they are fighting on behalf of the people are duty-bound to find ways and means to unite. This does not, in any sense, mean that every one should give up what they are doing, and merge into one. It means that they must together overcome the obstacles created by the existing political and economic power to their work so that their work can flourish. With the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, one major cause of division in the movement is behind us. Is it not possible now, for example, to press for the unity of Indian communists, as an important pre-condition for the unity of all the fighting forces?


Unity means that we must actively seek out others who are also fighting against their conditions of oppression. It means that all fighting peoples have an obligation to come to arrangements with each other.


An important corollary to this, is that nobody can afford any more to narrow their struggle down to merely one of securing a few concessions just for themselves. For example, when universal franchise was fought for at the beginning of the century, it was only a small number of people who worked for it. But when universal franchise was won, it benefited everyone in society. In that way, those fighting for the affirmation of their collectives, for an end to their conditions of oppression absolutely must speak for everyone. Anything short of this plays into the policy of divide and rule. For once the aim becomes narrow, it is very easy for the powers-that-be to blunt the larger movement by accommodating a few souls here and there.


In other words, contemporary struggles will have to address the question of societal gains and establish that they are fighting for a broad vision, that their successes will be gains for society at large. For ultimately, the only other option is to fall in line and join the official pantheon of "special interest" groups seeking periodic "appeasement" from the official privilege-granting machinery.


Lastly, and most importantly is the question of political power - the question of empowerment. Whether or not it has consciously emerged, the issue of political power has formed the backdrop against which everything from Nagaland to Kashmir, the women's movement to the peasant struggles have emerged. If any victory is to be achieved, this question of political power will have to be taken up in a conscious way, not out of spontaneity. The arrangements among the forces who are working for a broad vision of society will be the foundation on which the empowerment of the people can take place.


From this vantage point, on the eve of the new millennium and fifty years after independence, we ask the question, what will the next fifty years be? Will coming generations still be haunted by questions like "what went wrong?" Will the peoples of India, the peoples of South Asia at large, be able to emerge from the balkanisation that they are subjected to?


One thing is certain - the future belongs to people who are fighting for the broad aims of lifting society out of its present impasse and for opening the path for progress. This can only happen through the struggle of the people themselves. Only a conscious movement will be capable of leading the country to emancipation. Its first problem is to address the question of people gaining political power in their hands.