On the Idea of 'The People'

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the author emphasises the troubled history of state formation, in which a violent process of bourgeoisie power On the idea of capture and dominance was justified under the rubric of popular sovereignty and sustained through coercive state practices of regulation. Here, Chatterjee ‘the people’ revisits a position originally articulated in Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World (1986), where he had argued ● that the Indian freedom struggle was a derivative discourse, with nationalism I Am the People: Reflections on Popular ushering in a false sense of freedom and reproducing the exploitative structures Sovereignty Today of rule imposed by colonialism, which By Partha Chatterjee was now in the hands of a middle-class elite. Using Gramsci’s idea of a war of Permanent Black, Ranikhet, India, 2019, 212 pp., Rs 595 (HB) position, he argues that in postcolonial nations a theatre of war ensues “among “I am the people–the mob–the crowd– ISBN - 978-81-7824-553-9 social groups to achieve dominance the mass.” over the people-nation”. (p 41) He — Carl Sandburg distinguishes between the historical vidya venkat formation of the ‘nation-state’ and that he title of political theorist of the ‘people-nation’, arguing that the and anthropologist Partha ruling bloc in a state of passive revolution Chatterjee’s latest book seeks to “pull together the two different invokes an imagery of the What Partha Chatterjee does in this book is to trace histories – one of the nation-state and masses as described by a history of the idea of “the people”, providing an the other of the people-nation – that do Sandburg’s poem of the not necessarily move in step”. (p 47) same title. But the book is overview of the rise of populist politics, focussing, Chatterjee has a penchant for framing not about those people per largely on the Indian experience. He draws amply analytical categories in the course of his se, but an exploration rather of the upon the works of theorists such as Antonio Gramsci, argument. One such category is ‘political phrase.T Summoned by many a political society’, which he introduced in The aspirant on the election campaign dais, Michel Foucault, and Ernesto Laclau in the process, Politics of the Governed: Reflections on “the people” is an ambiguous construct demonstrating the manner in which the meanings Popular Politics in Most of the World after all, whose constituency keeps (Permanent Black, 2004) to refer to shifting depending on the expediency conveyed through the phrase have shifted since the the masses organising outside the state of the moment of its invocation. What end of World War II, and also prescribing ways in and the civil society in the Gramscian Chatterjee does in this book is to trace sense. This category was different from a history of the idea of “the people”, which a counter hegemonic strategy could be devised Gramsci’s (1971)1 political society that providing an overview of the rise of to address the current crisis of liberal democracy denoted a zone of force where the state populist politics, focussing, largely on extended its coercive influence. The the Indian experience. He draws amply ● actors of Chatterjee’s political society upon the works of theorists such as instead comprise the various peoples in statement of the Indian judge Radha Antonio Gramsci, Michel Foucault, could be used to claim sovereignty by a postcolonial nation-states, dependent Binod Pal at the 1946 Tokyo War and Ernesto Laclau in the process, people. The author then discusses how on state welfare and often subsisting Crimes Tribunal, in which the jurist demonstrating the manner in which the German philosopher Johann Gottlieb under a shadow of illegality. He locates dissented the punishment meted out meanings conveyed through the phrase Fichte used the idea of linguistic the rise of populism in India amidst to former Japanese political heads and have shifted since the end of World War nationalism to qualify “the people” as a this population, arguing that the state army generals, arguing broadly that II, and also prescribing ways in which construct, which again contrasted with has to cater to these groups as a means the winners of a war did not hold the a counter hegemonic strategy could be that of Benedict’s when he emphasised to sustain power by cultivating their right to pronounce the losing side as devised to address the current crisis of the need to cultivate an inner spiritual political allegiance. This leads to a sort “guilty” when the definition of their liberal democracy. life consistent with the national of mass clientelism and a suppression crime was still debated. Pal insisted that Based on the Ruth Benedict lecture character and to use that to resist of civil society characteristic of “the victorious side was now creating series he delivered at Columbia foreign invasion. populist regimes. While the category law on the basis of dubious definitions University in 2018, this book builds In Chapter Two, Chatterjee traces has analytical value, it is debatable in order to suit its political interest” (p upon the academic’s previous oeuvre the history of the moral decline of the whether its purported meaning could 16) questioning why the US was not on nationalism and colonial history nation-state. The analysis provides a be sustained in describing real-world tried in a similar manner for bombing that foregrounded the postcolonial historical reasoning for the present scenarios. As Mannathukkaren (2010)2 Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Chatterjee experience of southern nations. crisis of liberal democracy, locating has shown, the breakdown of the juxtaposes Pal’s views on Japanese Chatterjee contends that “various it in the “mechanisms of domination binaries of civil society/political society guilt during the war against Benedict’s features that are characteristic of grounded in the sovereignty of the in the instance of the People’s Plan analysis to demonstrate the uneven democracies in Africa or Asia are people”. (p 33) Drawing upon the Campaign in Kerala reveals a need to grounds on which a national culture now being seen in Europe and the Foucauldian idea of governmentality, move beyond such conceptual barriers. United States because of underlying ● Another category which Chatterjee structural relations that have long tied introduces is ‘people-nation’, a twin metropolitan centres to their colonial A category that Chatterjee introduces in the course paired with the ‘nation-state’. By and postcolonial peripheries” (Preface). introducing this distinction, Chatterjee His central argument is that while in of his argument is ‘people-nation’, a twin paired with intends to break the discursive unity the West, populism emerged as a result the ‘nation-state’. By introducing this distinction, forged between a nation and its peoples. of the contraction of the integral state, Post-Marxist philosophers Hardt and in India, it has been a survival tactic for Chatterjee intends to break the discursive unity Negri’s seminal work Multitude (2004)3 political parties expanding along with forged between a nation and its peoples. In the conceived of the people as the living the reach of the state. context of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s alternative that grows within Empire. In Chapter One, Chatterjee The multitude envisaged a revolutionary critically examines Ruth Benedict’s Hindutva project in India, Chatterjee describes people offering a counter hegemonic war ethnography The Chrysanthemum the scheme as a hegemonic struggle to converge force to neoliberal globalisation, thus and the Sword, in which the American collapsing the boundaries erected by anthropologist sought to identify a the nation-state and the people-nation, in a bid to nations and continents. In contrast, unique national culture of the Japanese capitalise on the idea that the people-nation is as Chatterjee provincialises the concept of peoples. Employing cultural relativism, the people, situating it within national, she described Japanese society as old as Indian civilisation itself. A potential counter even regional boundaries. Another emphasising shame as against guilt hegemonic narrative, therefore, could be mounted significant exploration on populism is in Western societies. The author uses Laclau’s On Populist Reason (2005)4. In this as a starting point to discuss by regional populist movements presenting the Indian Chapter Three, Chatterjee draws upon how “on the brink of decolonisation, nation-state as one found by a number of federating Laclau to note that “the people” can Benedict was imagining humanity as function as an empty signifier filled with a congeries of national peoples”. (p 5) peoples who came together to form a sovereign state a “wide array of grievances” signifying Thereafter, he proceeds to examine the This, alas, has not been mobilised as yet “equivalent, unfulfilled, popular

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demands denied by the powerful ny Indian abroad has elite that constitutes the enemy of usually had this particular, the people”. (p 83) Laclau described peculiar moment, one of populism as a process by which mixed recognition and unmet social demands entered into a unfamiliarity: seeing an relationship of solidarity or equivalence advertisement for India on with one another and crystallised the side of a bus, a subway around common symbols only to be wall, on a billboard or in capitalised by leaders who interpellated a foreign-language newspaper. How the frustrated masses to incarnate a Adoes one respond? Does one feel process of popular identification that homesick, or alienated from the image constructs “the people” as a collective being portrayed, or proud that even actor to confront the existing regime here one’s own homeland has managed with the purpose of demanding regime to establish a presence, however change (Arditi, 2010).5 But Chatterjee transitory? deviates here to argue that populism Ravinder Kaur’s Brand New varies with regards to the integral state Nation is, the author admits, born of as opposed to the tactically extended “a fascination with publicity images”, state. He uses the Indian example particularly those – like the long- of federalism to demonstrate how running ‘Incredible India’ campaign the ‘people-nation’ and the ‘nation- – that sell India itself. Kaur, an state’ are not the same and that the anthropologist at the University of conditions for invoking “the people” Copenhagen, tells a story of a nation as a collective political subject differ whose identity is being “rebranded” at the levels of the central government by multiple forces, through the Publicity material of the ‘Incredible India!’ campaign and the states. smaller stories of various advertising In the context of the ruling campaigns — from the Bharatiya Janata Bharatiya Janata Party’s Hindutva Party’s 2004 “India Shining” through project in India, Chatterjee describes to the various slogans that underlay the scheme as a hegemonic struggle the middle-class revolt that was “India Rebranding India to converge the nation-state and the Against Corruption”. people-nation, in a bid to capitalise In the process, she hopes to create ● on the idea that the people-nation a larger connection between global is as old as Indian civilisation itself. investment, capitalism, and hyper- Brand New Nation: Capitalist Dreams and Nationalist A potential counter hegemonic nationalism — an alternative to the narrative, therefore, could be mounted generally compelling claim that, in Designs in Twenty-First-Century India by regional populist movements fact, the eruption of majoritarian, presenting the Indian nation-state as anti-globalisation nationalism is a By Ravinder Kaur one found by a number of federating reflection of the manner in which peoples who came together to form a multiculturalism and capitalism Stanford University Press, USA, 2020, 346 pp., Rs 2666 (PB) sovereign state. This, alas, has not been go hand in hand. This argument, ISBN 978-1-5036-1259-4 mobilised as yet. Chatterjee prescribes while clearly outlined in Brand New two strategies in the Afterword as a Nation, nevertheless feels somewhat means to address the current crisis incomplete. Yet, on its own terms, as an MIHIR S SHARMA of authoritarian populism witnessed entertaining and enlightening history in India since the majority BJP of the links between publicity, identity, government ascended to power. One is and contemporary Indian history, this affirmative action. … The main make strides on the world stage. to extend political support to left-wing book performs excellently. thrust of the second liberation Politics itself was a space of disorder populists to favour pro-poor policies, Kaur’s eye ranges widely, and her had shaped itself around the in this worldview, a barrier to and the other is to instil a narrative of research has been thorough. Her identification of the combination of progress and development that social transformation in the popular narrative touch is particularly deft corruption and government as the could be overcome only by effacing consciousness, which will motivate when it comes to describing her years main cause of India’s deprivation and all that stands for corruption of the people into collective political action as an attendant at the various India misery. The figure of the politician, pure self. The Aam Aadmi, then, beyond populist rhetoric. Unless a new pavilions at Davos, where the India-as- the symbol of moral deficiencies is the site of the fabrication of the relation between the nation-state and investment image has assiduously been and official red tape, was the internal new political subject, the one who the people-nation is imagined, there is cultivated by successive industrial and enemy, the agent who sapped the remains uncorrupted, the symbol of no hope, the author concludes. political elites; and her descriptions of unbound energy of an innovative and unblemished and uncompromised The strength of this slim volume the various branding-India campaigns meritorious people and eventually intellectual merit and moral purity. lies in its construction of a broad she highlights are informed by her hollowed out their potential to It also stands for a barely hidden theoretical framework encompassing interviews with the brains behind both the global and the national them, such as the “India Shining” ● phenomenon of the rise of populism. campaign manager Prathap Suthan. However, this thereby necessitates the Each individual section – whether Ravinder Kaur tells a story of a nation whose need for generating more empirical on the duelling BJP and Congress identity is being “rebranded” by multiple forces, material that can illustrate the campaigns in 2004, or the Times of phenomenon of populism, zooming in India’s rebranding of itself as “the lone through the smaller stories of various advertising on the specifics of the people implied voice carrying the revolutionary flame campaigns — from the Bharatiya Janata Party’s within this framework. It is hoped as the nation was being delayed, if not 2004 “India Shining” through to the various that these thought-provoking lectures stopped altogether, on the path to would stimulate further academic work prosperity” – is both well written and slogans that underlay the middle-class revolt that in that direction. n persuasive. was “India Against Corruption”. She hopes to create References: I am drawn especially to the 1. A. Gramsci: Selections from Prison section on the various aam aadmi or a larger connection between global investment, Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci, Lawrence and common citizen protests of 2011. Her capitalism, and hyper-nationalism — an alternative Wishart, 1971 explanation of the passion in those 2. N. Mannathukkaren: “The ‘Poverty’ of protests is excellent: to the generally compelling claim that, in fact, Political Society: Partha Chatterjee and the eruption of majoritarian, anti-globalisation the People’s Plan Campaign in Kerala, The disenchantment with the India” in Third World Quarterly, Vol.31, nationalism is a reflection of the manner in which No. 2, 2010, pp 295–314. https://doi. government among the protesters org/10.1080/01436591003712007 in Delhi did not accrue from the multiculturalism and capitalism go hand in hand. 3. M. Hardt & A Negri: Multitude: War and failure to perform as such but from Democracy in the Age of Empire, Penguin the supposition that the very inner This argument, while clearly outlined in Brand New Books, 2005 constitution of the government had Nation, nevertheless feels somewhat incomplete. 4. E Laclau: On Populist Reason, Verso, transformed beyond recognition. London, 2005 This ontological crisis stemmed Yet, on its own terms, as an entertaining and 5. B. Arditi: “Populism is Hegemony is from the perceived collapse of the enlightening history of the links between publicity, Politics? On Ernesto Laclau’s On Populist government as a pure space of merit, Reason”, review essay in Constellations, Vol. identity, and contemporary Indian history, this book 17, No. 3, 2010, pp 488–497. https://doi.org/ a space that had been corrupted over 10.1111/j.1467-8675.2010.00587. the decades through caste-based performs excellently

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