Ek revolutionary ki mauth…

I took some time to write about Kanu Sanyal, one of the fathers of what is arguably the only genuine revolutionary insurrection in post-independence India. I took some time to write about his death not only because it was a suicide but also because writing about the death of a revolutionary means bringing in his life as well…

Kanu Sanyal was found hanging in his house, at the same place that saw the break of the Spring Thunder in 1967. The end seemed almost poetic, but then you need a Neruda for to make poetry. All that the old warrior had was a few columns in newspapers, one of whom actually described it his death as the “death of a top Naxal leader”, as if he was still in the neo-Naxalite movement…

In the end, all he had become was a blurry myth and a sad present, repudiated by those who carry his legacy and casually ignored by those who once feared him…the fate of all great men who did not die in the blaze of glory and whom history passed by in search of fresher and more photogenic heroes…

His death came a few days before the Naxalites massacred 76 CRPF jawans in an ambush, the biggest attack by them to date. The government and the Naxals have declared open war, in which for now, the government seems to be on the backfoot.

So, at a time that the Naxalites have become, officially, the biggest threat that this country has ever faced (J&K terrorism pales by comparison), with them having a presence in a quarter of the country, with their tentacles reaching out into urban centres as well, you would expect the symbol of the Naxalite movement to be satisfied. At least, the last thing you would expect him to do is to go hang himself…

But then you got to ask yourself – was he a Naxalite anymore? Maybe in his last moments he would have muttered to himself paraphrasing Marx who once famously said “If that is Marxism, then I am not a Marxist”…maybe he was aware that no matter what he did, the media and the society would fail to spot the difference between what he believed in and what the Naxalites today believe in.

The Naxalism that arose from the simple need to fight for dignity slowly became a movement in which violence, not justice (which is an abstract term anyway) became the priority for maintaining momentum. It became a movement in which poor must remain poor in order for having a raison d'etre for the movement.

If an insurrection goes on for too long, it begins to look like what it intends to supplant. Maybe that's what Kanu Sanyal saw and realized.

When Naxals make pacts with dodgy politicians and when they start to blow up schools, when Naxals become the tipping factors in elections by way of fear, when they begin to claim glorious victory by killing CRPF men who have been pushed to be cannon fodder, maybe he realized that it was a war for its own means – a never ending war in which the people to be killed will be the ones whom he wanted to give a different life all those years ago…

Maybe the end came for him much before the noose tightened. Maybe at the end he had had enough of the power that flows out of the barrel of the gun…

Maybe its time to mourn him as we mourn those great visionaries who dreamt big and tried to live upto that dream, no matter how much the rug was pulled under them.

That takes courage…so does preparing a rope for yourself…

RIP Kanuda…

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Rebellion's prophet

I finished "The Motorcycle diaries" yesterday, a book I enjoyed immensely. The sense of adventure, of discovery and of development of thoughts became evident from the first page. Of course, this book being written by Che made it all the more fascinating, more so because the movie is one of my all time favourite...

However of all the words in the book, the last page is the most haunting. I had first come across the words in Jon Anderson's biography of Che Guevara but it was still had the awesome power to move. I think the power was multiplied because it was the perfect epilogue to the book.

But the most astonishing fact is the prophetic nature of the words. Since Che was himself writing the book, he could not have seen the 'use' that would be made of him, his ideals and his mystique by the generations coming after him. He could not have foreseen the tragedy of co-option by a society that hankered after images.

At the end of the book, as the book draws to a close, Che meets an old man, a refugee from 'somewhere in East Europe' who seems to be a victim of persecution by the communist regimes. As their conversation draws to a close, the old man says -

"The future belongs to the people and gradually, or in one strike, they will take power, here and in every country.

The terrible thing is, the people need to be educated , and this they cannot do without taking power, only after. They can only learn at the cost of their own mistakes, which will be very serious and will cost many innocent lives. Or perhaps not, maybe those lives will not have been innocent because they will have committed the huge sin against nature: meaning a lack if ability to adapt. All of them, those unable to adapt - you and I for example - will die cursing the power they helped, through great sacrifice, to create.

Revolution is impersonal; it will take their lives, even utilizing their memory as an example or as an instrument for domesticating the youth who follow them. My sin is greater because, I, more astute and with greater experience, call it what you like, will die knowing that my sacrifice stems only from an inflexibility symbolizing out rotten civilization, which is crumbling. I also know - and this wont alter the course of history or your personal view of me - that you will die with a clenched fist and tense jaw, the epitome of hatred and struggle, because you are not a symbol (some inanimate example) but a genuine member of the society to be destroyed; the spirit of the beehive speaks through you and motivates your action. You are as useful as I am, but you are not aware of how useful your contribution is to the society that sacrifices you"

The words are chilling in its prescience...

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Fidel...Absolved?

With Fidel Castro’s sudden illness and the huge controversies and speculations that immediately erupted, the focus sharply turned towards Cuba and the man who has come to symbolize everything Cuban for the last half a century.

Among the various responses, which were needless to say, sharply polarized ones, I found this following article which truly spoke in the way I felt.

Though an admirer of Fidel as a man and an admirer of his courage, his honesty, and his charisma and the sheer pull on imagination that he has exerted ever since he triumphantly entered Havana in December 1959, I detest people who act as apologists for the regime….Che Guevara died young and handsome and instantly became an iconic martyr but Fidel, undoubtedly more able of the two, grew old and has perhaps, in many people’s eyes, betrayed many of the ideals that his revolution stood for….we would not rendering those ideals any service if we desist from criticizing him or his methods. If a better way is to be found, it in fact, must be done…..

Of course, of the other kind of response, the Miami-Cuban-in-exile type of response, an ill-informed point of view expectorated with an almost fiendish glee, tainted with an absolute incomprehension of the history of the region and denial of the positives of the revolution is almost too absurd to point out here….

So cutting long story short, here is the article by Fred Halliday (which appeared on Open Democracy) that really reflects what I feel…..

Click here for the article

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