Book Review | Sahodaran Ayappan: Towards A Democratic Future | Chandramohan Sathyanathan

                                             

THE RADICAL SPEAKS: Documenting Sahodaran Ayyappan

This intellectual biography of Sahodaran Ayyappan by Dr. Ajay S. Sekhar* is a much needed attempt at documenting the most radical strand of social renaissance the state of Kerala had witnessed in the late 19^th century and the first half of 20^th century. This is even more pronounced at this point in time when we are at the crossroads of history; with the saffron fascists and other regressive forces on a mission to reset the rights won by the subaltern sections of the society after centuries of struggle.  A major distinction between renaissance movements in Kerala and other parts of India is that the most pronounced voices of radical social reform have come from within the Dalit-Bahujan communities in the southern state. Thus a process to restructure the society based on notions of egalitarianism and democracy was initiated by a bunch of visionaries – Ayyappan being the tallest in terms of his philosophical foresight.

I believe that just like the militant strand of social renaissance that Ayyappan epitomizes, this book hasn’t received the due attention  of Dalit-Bahujan thinkers.

Before studying history, one should  study the historian. If we were to briefly survey Dr. Ajay S. Sekhar ‘s writings, we will find that they have pioneered the revival of cultural Buddhism through cultural excavations of various customs of erstwhile Buddhism. His work has provided new insights into various specificities of Buddhist culture before the advent of Brahminism in 8^th or 9^th century AD.

Sanskritization of Ezhavas

The community that Ayyapan hailed from is now being rapidly Brahminised. Ezhavas,  a former untouchable caste who are today politically and economically powerful but continue to be socially backward were the torch bearers of social renaissance in Kerala. They also happened to be the  most loyal followers of the left forces. Relative accumulation of economic resources over a period of time has resulted in their being Sanskritized. This regressive step has reinforced social hierarchy based on graded inequality and blunts the resistance now being spearheaded by Ambedkarite Dalits. A closer scrutiny of Ayyappan could result in the revival of a glorious tradition of resistance against this ubiquitously permeating Brahmanism within a community that can also boast of other radicals like Arattupuzha Velayudha Panicker.

The author steers clear of deification at every step of his impeccable research into a personality like Ayyappan who was a visionary decades ahead of his time.  The biographer unravels how Ayyappan had preceded the Marxist thinker Gramsci in many aspects of cultural criticism.  The observations made by the author can help students of cultural criticism develop newer insights concerning issues that were tackled by both Ayyappan and other 20^th century critics (like Gramsci).

A New Manifesto for Ambedkarites
Another exemplary feature of this book is that it can help contemporary Ambedkarite activists draft a manifesto for the process of building an Ambedkarite public. Many of Ayyappan’s actions and writings like calling for widespread propagation of Buddhism, eulogizing non- Brahminical aesthetics and mythical characters, his critique of Gandhi - and some of his verses with profound political insights  - are invigorating for activists immersed in a quest for social justice.

The later part of this book contains translations of Mr. Ayyappan’s poems which are very much suited to his radical reformist mission. His poetics is one consisting of a charged political idiom, and a complete disregard to the conventional aesthetics of poetry where content and slogans reign supreme (superior even to the form.) In my opinion, this book should be on the library shelves of cultural theorists/critics along with intellectual biographies of Ambedkar(Christopher Jeffrelot, Elinor Zealot), a biography of Kanshi Ram (by Badri Narayan) and various texts by Ambedkar and others.

TSC Book Reviews | The Burning Forest – Nandini Sundar

The Burning Forest, Nandini Sundar, Juggernaut Books, Rs 488 

TSC Book Review by Abhimanyu Kumar

The Burning Forest, a treatise on Bastar and its raging civil war, by the sociologist and human rights activist Nandini Sundar, is certainly not the first book to be written on the subject nor will it be the last. 

Sundar says herself in the book that this will be a long-drawn war. Hence, we may expect other tomes in the days to come. As far as previous output is concerned, several writers have turned their attention to this war which carries on without any end in sight: the Maoists continue to claim Bastar or Dandakaranya, the actual name of the forest in which it lies, as a Liberated Zone while the State continues to tighten the screws, with more forces, arms and ammunition.

Among notable works in the past which merit a mention, one can count Satnam’s Jangalnama, an insider’s account of how the Maoists operated. The late writer known for pronounced sympathies for the Maoists, spent enough time inside the forests of Bastar to emerge with a narrative which  chronicled the great odds  overcome by the comrades on a daily basis to keep going, in order to remind the country that a substantial section of its population lives in degrading circumstances, with no hope of improvement. Red Sun by Sudeep Chakravarti was more wide-ranging in its scope but had fewer insights, compared to Jangalnama. Jan Myrdal, the Swedish writer also spent a fair amount of time with the Maoists – who had invited him to visit – and managed to engage the Maoist top boss Ganapathy in a lengthy conversation about a number of issues, all of which is dutifully narrated in his book Red Star over India. Journalists Rahul Pandita and Neelesh Mishra also wrote about the subject in The Absent State. 

Then there was Arundhati Roy’s longish essay in Outlook titled Walking with the Comrades which Sundar credits with being responsible for creating the maximum buzz.

What differentiates Sundar’s book is its scope: focussed primarily on the sinister role played by the so-called people’s militia also known as Salwa Judum, but examining all the related issues in great depth.

It helps that Sundar has had a long association with the area. She has been visiting it over the last decade regularly, and has accessed locations which most have not. Her criticism of the Salwa Judum is based on meticulous observation of their modus operandi and she exposes the State’s complicity and its hypocrisy in propping it up, violating the Constitution utterly. In the process, she also demonstrates the cynical role played by other vested interests – corporate houses, institutions that are supposed to act as the watchdogs of democracy like National Human Rights Commission and the media, and of course the police and para-military forces.    

Without a book like Sundar’s, one would not be able to see the grotesque irony of reports such as the one which appeared in a national daily recently about a woman para-military officer being posted in Bastar and how this was a PR scoop for the state government. A picture of the smiling officer holding a gun duly accompanied the report, with villagers looking on, some amused, some wary.* Sundar's sincerity is further proved by the fact that she fought a lengthy court battle to have Salwa Judum banned. She was also recently targeted by the state government for her efforts.

Where she fails, however, is that she reserves most of her praise for those who belong to mostly the same class and 'tribe' as hers- the left-liberal ‘saviours’ fighting the good war. The good Samaritans are ex-bureaucrats, Supreme Court  judges, senior lawyers, and urban media personnel and activists.

Out of the tribals, CPI leader Manish Kunjam gets a generous mention for his brave work amongst his community. His party is also praised for doing what a communist party should be doing, and that is heartening. However, others only get brief and sporadic mentions. Their grit, and tenacity comes in for praise, and political correct statements about their agency are made but the thrust remains that without the civil society they would be doomed. She does note the caste – upper – of non-tribals who control the affairs and side with the State but never or rarely if at all, does that in case of the members of the civil society who come across as entirely selfless warriors - this is not to say they are all driven by selfish interests altogether but there are gains for the privileged when they intervene in a conflict situation. In fact, the case of activist Soni Sori who suffered a lot of brutality at the hands of the security forces, does not seem to impress Sundar much who notes, grudgingly, that Sori did not have much of a history of activism when the police picked her up. Her insinuation is that she was thrust into the role of a firebrand activist through mere circumstances.  

Other than this inherent flaw, the book is a worthy addition to the existing literature on the subject and is a compelling and harrowing read, a must indeed for every student of Indian democracy, as a citation on the cover says. 

*http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/meet-usha-kiran-the-first-woman-crpf-officer-in-maoist-hit-bastar/story-buYrWuwz7yymM4dbivWybJ.html