Once in a way we receive letters from readers who are not Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes or Muslims/Sikhs complaining that our writings are polemical, provocative and prejudiced. These letters come not from the “persecuted nationalities denied human rights” to whom DV is the only journal in India. They have no complaint against DV because being the victims of the existing system they relish our writings as it echoes their pains and pangs. Over 85% India’s population like the DV writings. These complaints are from non-SC/ST/ Muslims/Sikhs. Occasionally some brahminesses Christians also write letters. Years back – an upper caste Christian woman from Nagpur discontinued DV alleging that our “writings are polemical and not constructive.” Most of these critics are innocents though upper castos, the problem with them is their “Marxist background”. And these critics will understand only if we use the Marxist jargon to reply them. The editorial we wrote at that time (Nov. 16, 1986) is reproduced because we have again started getting similar letters. – EDITOR.
We are often being accused of polemical writings. Our critics say we take pleasure in kicking up controversies. They say that there is very little of “constructive suggestions” but a series of abuses. We preach hate. They say that they did not expect this from a journalist who has worked for over two decades in “national” English dailies. To such of these critics we want to answer in this piece. A journal of persecuted nationalities is unthinkable without polemics because its very birth is in the campaign against forces that hamper historical development. No working-class publication can overlook polemics, inasmuch as “one cannot develop new views other than through polemics”. (Lenin: A Talk on Cadet-eating, Collected Works, Vol. 18, pg.297). Our critics say that we should be “constructive”. Can this not be done without engaging in “excessive polemics,” without offending anybody, they ask. Here again we want to answer our critics in the words of Lenin. “One cannot develop new views other than through polemics”. (Ibid). In an autocratic feudal-capitalist country like India a working-class paper “cannot present their practical conclusions in a constructive form for reasons beyond our control.” (Ibid) We in India live today at a time of acute ideological struggle between different caste and religious groups with the opinion-making weapon controlled by the mass-media owned by the upper caste property-holders. A sort of a Nazism of Indian brand is fast taking shape. It is here that the Leninist school of journalistic polemic acquires invaluable significance. The Leninist school teaches us that polemics shall be our weapon because it excites readers interest, draws attention to vital facts, events and problems of social, economic and political life.
Hate Teachers: Our critics say Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, Periyar E.V. Ramaswamy and Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia, the three greatest personalities of independent India, preached hatred. Since the DV and our Dalit Sahitya Akademy books follow their philosophy, we are also accused of emitting hate. This accusation is not necessarily true. We want to answer these critics in the words of America’s great Black leader Stockeley Carmichael:
“There are two types of philosophies in the world; there is metaphysical philosophy and there is dialectic philosophy, Metaphysical philosophy is archaic. I don’t want to waste time with that Now dialectical philosophy is the one that deals with opposites. It says that for every action there is a reaction, and every emotion has an opposite emotion, etc. For example: for hot there’s cold: for wet there’s dry; for laughter, tears; boy, girl, white, black – they’re opposites We live in a world of opposites. And dialectic philosophy says that the way the world changes is when those opposites react with each other, they polarize. Now, a lot of people say, “I don’t hate folks: you’re not supposed to hate”. Well, if you don’t hate you can’t love-unless you’re only one- sided. But you agree that you live in a world of dialectics, then if you love you must at least have the capacity to hate. And you must know hate in order to differentiate love. Il there’s no such thing as hate, then there’s no such thing as love”
Stockeley said this is his address to young American Black students who are being brainwashed by the Whites saying that Black leaders have no other business but to preach hatred against the Whites and that hatred is bad. We are experiencing the same thing here in a much worse way.
Let us imagine a situation: two upper caste/Hindu landlords come to our huts in a village in the dead of night with burning torches. If you believe in this false philosophy that we should not hate anybody, will you sit quiet and allow them to burn your huts? Or will you alert others and retaliate? Will you allow your landlord to rape your sister in front of you saying I don’t hate anybody? You try to attack the landlord because you love your sister. You try to attack the people who come to set fire to your huts because you love your people. It is not that we hate anybody. It is only because we love our people more. If you are not capable of love, you are not capable of hate and vice-versa. (Read: Mao Tseung: On Contradictions, Selected Works, Vol. 1)
Ethics: India’s big business-owned “national press” run by upper caste journalists is a weapon for consolidating the power of the ruling class. This is glaringly apparent when that power or its hallowed right of private ownership is threatened. Everyone in the press gangup against the toiling masses of India – its Dalits, BCs, minorities and women. And yet this “national Press” boasts of journalistic ethics, while its only ethics is to protect and promote its class/caste interests. No less a person than the Prime Minister of India had recently commented about the nasty role played by this “national press”. (Hindustan Times, Oct.3, 1986).
The publication of a newspaper or magazine in a feudal-capitalist society is a normal commercial undertaking requiring the investment of a huge capital on modern printing equipment and paper and for maintaining high-paid staff. If the corrupt businessmen alone can afford such an investment, the journalists come only from the upper castes. So, both ways it is a class-caste gangup against the propertyless Dalits and other lower castes and religious minorities. Such a press will work only for profit as its motive.
The monopoly of mass-media is made possible composes for purposes of blackmail and extortion.
Days of Dwarfs: To put it in Lenin’s words it has become a symbol of “apostasy, renegacy and sycophancy”. (Ibid – p. 275). Gone are the days of Frank Moreas, Pothan Joseph, Chalapati Rau. This writer had the opportunity of working with walking encyclopaedias. Dwarfs have taken over Indian journalism. The days of towering titans are over. Today’s journalist reads nothing better than Enid Blyton or some such yellow stuff. This is proved in the shallowness of these papers, the absence of any reference to the serious issues of the day in both dailies and magazines. These upper caste journalists, who when asked to bend started crawling, avoid painful issues. Speeches of petty politicians are pissed over columns and columns but burning problems of the people are glossed over.
Wanted destruction before construction
P. Lakshmi Narasu, author of the famous book, The Essence of Buddhism, writes the following in his foreword to his book, “A Study of Caste”
He who fights social intolerance, slavery and injustice need offer neither substitute nor constructive theory. Caste is a crippling disease. The physician’s duty is to guard against disease or destroy it. Yet no one considers the work of the physician as negative. The attainment of liberty and justice has always been a negative process. Without rebelling against social institutions and destroying custom there can never be the free exercise of liberty and justice. A physician can, however, be of no use where there is no vitality. Similarly, argument, philosophy, ethics, religion, legislation will not avail to transform a people who have not developed the will to live. Truth and freedom are the motive forces for the highest development of moral health, and on truth, virtue and knowledge depend all progress. Politicians, swayed by exaggerated creature comfrots, fight for wealth, power and success, but give no thought to the psychological revolution so necessary for the progress of India. I have taken my stand on truth, unbound by convention and untrammeled by anxiety. I have nowhere attempted to tickle vanity or excite sentiment, nor have I resorted to compromise and equivocation. I have everywhere stated plain facts in a plain manner, but I mean no affront to anybody. It is not my desire to force progress on those who are unwilling to bear it, but I hope to render aid to those whom experience has taught the necessity of forging a new life …. “
because of the financial power of the capitalists who are generously subsidizing these publications through advertisements. Advertisement is the principal means by which the big business could exercise a decisive influence on the press and this entire mind-manipulating machine and dictate its conduct.
India’s premier English daily, Times of India, owned by the Sahu Jains has almost become a Hindu Nazi mouthpiece (DV – Nov.1, 86). On Punjab, this “national press” has consistently taken an anti-Sikh stand, barring honourable exceptions. It is simply not possible for this “national press” to echo the wishes and aspirations of the poor because both caste and class-wise it represents the interests of the opposite forces. That is why it has become notorious for its scandalous lack of principle, purblind perverted views and the shady deals surrounding the satirical pieces which it often India’s “national press” often drummed up petty issues, and sometimes even pseudo-issues in lieu of profound and serious analysis of the vital questions of the day. Except the Statesman, an English daily published from Delhi and Calcutta, we have not come across any other daily providing us with any in-depth analysis. But even the Statesman takes up a hostile stand when it comes to the question of “reservations” to Dalits and backward classes.
Caste Ideology: Phrase-mongering is a habit deliberately cultivated by the press to hoodwink the readers. Such phrases usually masked its emptiness, its divorce from reality and the vagueness. It has hardly any ideology. Its only ideology is caste ideology. Their pompous editorials have no relationship with the corrupt life- style of the editorial writers. Just because they have a paper to write, they feel they can write anything they want. Through these empty phrases and phrase-mongering, asses are made to appear as race-horses and race-horses are painted as donkeys. A person is called Mahatma, Lok Nayak or Lok Manya not because he has transformed the society but because of his power to mislead the gullible.
Extraordinary importance is given to elections because it is during these elections the “poor” get divided and the rich consolidate. Look at the publicity given these days to TV and computers in the name of technological development. But does this “national press” talk of “human development?” Never. It is not interested in human development. That is why it uses technological development to crush human development.
Trade union bosses: The Statesman is the only English paper in India having a civil rights correspondent. But even this column is not regular and when it appears it seldom takes up the question of Dalit, tribal, Muslim or other persecuted nationalities. Most of these civil rights people were exposed on the Muslim women Bill.
On the trade Union front, hardly any daily has exposed the imperialism of the Left party bosses on the workers. Trade union leaders, lawyers and courts together make monkeys out of workers and their disputes are kept pending for years. Strike, lockout and other agitations are carried on in the name of Marxism. But these “Marxists” are only Interested in wage-rise and economic demands but seldom advocate fundamental changes in society. Newspapermen and women seldom leave the cities. So much so the villages, comprising 80% of the country, do not find any coverage in the “national press.” Untouchability is “abolished” but it Is widely prevalent all over – even in cities. But no paper has cared to launch a campaign on that. Newspapers are not expected to take any interest in the burning social problems because such reports do not sell. Readers don’t like to read such a dull and drab story. So, a journalist will have to be guided by the demand and supply rule. Readers get the papers they deserve. Readers want entertainment, eternal entertainment. And papers give it in plenty. That is why “book reviews” are getting a back seat.
Poison in national press: The flow of lies and slander in the “national press” normally increased when the class/caste struggle intensified, and the ruling class faced a critical situation. For example, in 1984, before the “Blue Star Operation” and after that the entire “national press” banded together in a chorus of slanders and collective lying alliance against the Sikhs. It shut down the truth, to prevent it from being heard, to drown it in a torrent of invectives and shouts. Hundreds of black lies were invented to prejudice readers. Besides lies and slander, the “national press” also resorted to the method of scaring the public with the “Khalistan” danger which was equated with anarchy, disorder, violence and disruption. Scare them as much as you can. This is the slogan of the whole “national press.” Even this writer was called a terrorist!
When this is the case there is no point in attempting to cure this “national press” of any ailment, to cleanse it of its deficiencies or morally improve it. If we want to put an end to these evils, including the chronic habit of lying, character assassination, we have to put an end to the existing feudal-capitalist setup based on caste system which is sustaining this “national press.” Until then we should as much as possible try to avoid reading them, particularly its journals-both English and language.
Freedom of Press: So much is made out in India about the “freedom of the press” which is assured in the country’s Constitution itself. But what happened to this editor when he exercised this freedom? He was arrested under the Terrorists Act, handcuffed and dragged all the way from Bangalore to Chandigarh, and jailed. Krishna Raj. editor of India’s only intellectual weekly, Economic and Political Weekly, had to face sedition charges for publishing an article on Punjab (Statesman, Oct. 18, 1986).
What freedom of the press for the Dalits and religious minorities and working-class people can there be in the present caste-based society where the printing, publishing, advertising business and so on are all in the hands of the upper caste property-holders? We cannot think of any “freedom of the press” for people in such conditions, one can only talk of the freedom of the Press for the propertied classes. This is so all over the world. “Freedom of the press” means freedom to own newspapers, to hire journalists, to manipulate public opinion for the benefit of the ruling class. The myth of India enjoying full freedom of the press is created by our mind-manipulators to mask its class/caste nature. Public opinion cannot exist independently of class/caste contradictions within the existing society. The “national press” is the mouthpiece of the ruling class. We cannot eliminate the ruling class without first eliminating this “national press”.
Lenin’s Motto: Coming back to the charge that DV is indulging in polemics, we want to repeat the two arguments in defense of polemic advanced by Lenin. First, he underlines, “one cannot develop new views other than through polemics”. (Ibid p. 297). Secondly, the Marxist Press was obliged to operate in autocratic, bourgeois-landowning Russia or for that matter, in any bourgeois country. In such an arena the Bolshevik papers “cannot present their practical conclusions in a constructive form for reasons beyond our control” (Ibid). Lenin therefore thinks those who charge him with indulging in polemics are using it as a propaganda to discredit the Marxist Press. This is exactly our position in India today.
Lenin’s motto was not to wait for an attack, but to go into action oneself, not to defend but to attack. Not to be on the defensive but always in the offensive. Offence is the best form of defense.
Lenin had his own militant and aggressive style of polemicising and therefore quite naturally he could not bear the slightest manifestation of cowardice in the ideological struggle and attempts to evade questions no matter how painful. “A newspaper must itself seek out, itself discover in good time and, at the appropriate moment, print certain material. Collected Works Vol.35 p. 64). Delay means losing half the polemical battle. We are committed to the same line of thinking. The ruling class press often manipulates truth and mixes it with lies. As days pass this press is becoming our single biggest problem. Even Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had to give vent to his feeling’s other day in Nagpur at the Hit Avada function.
We have to learn a lot from this Enemy. We should know how to read a daily paper, where to find truth, where to find lies and where to locate garbage. We should keep a watch on the Enemy press. If the Enemy praises a person, he must be bogus. If a person is attacked, he can be trusted. We should cultivate the art of reading the enemy Press. This is called reading between the lines.
Our “socialist press” is an even more dangerous foe than the “communal” press. Therefore, to fight against counter-revolution with the pen, would mean, first and foremost, to expose those disgusting hypocrites and when we do it our writings are dubbed polemical. However, we admit that such a polemic is not an end in itself. It is necessary as a major and integral part of the overall struggle for the destruction of class/caste monopoly and establish socialism. We cannot build up our people unless we ruthlessly fight every lie that is told about our people. Therefore, it is essential to indulge in polemic though we take care to see that we are positive, constructive, proving by results the veracity of the arguments.
Facts are sacred: Lenin said: “Only in order to be harsh, one must have the right to be so and the right to be harsh is given by one’s words not differing from one’s deeds.” (Vol. 27, pg. 192). So those who critcise us for polemics must tell us where we have gone wrong in our facts.
DV and the DSA literature are meant not for the ruling class but the Dalits and persecuted peoples.
In our own humble way, we are trying to educate them in Dr. Ambedkar, Periyar, Lohia thoughts towards a class and caste struggle. We don’t claim that we only are right and others are wrong. There may be lots of mistakes in what we do. But if we commit mistakes and lead our readers to wrong path, it is our readers who will punish us. If the readers don’t like our writings, they will ask us to shut up. Why should the ruling class use its police and press to attack us? We don’t come in the way of the ruling class criticisms against us. When the ruling class says that “freedom of the press” is assured, why is it launching prosecutions against Editor Krishna Raj of EPW, editor Pritish Nandy of the Illustrated Weekly, Editor Sukhdev Singh of Dignity, Chandigarh, Editors of Radiance and DV?
