The Role of Cultural Activist in Anti-imperialist Movement This earth is resting on the hoods of Sheshnag (type snake) but on the hands of working people - Annabhau Sathe, Dalit Sahitya conference 1958. It has attempts to find a solution becomes victims of this inherent contradiction – the fundamental ideology of capitalism. The basic problems remain unresolved and unending attempt to solve them also goes on in dramatic pretensions. Much familiar slogan of ‘Garibi Hatao’ (eradicate poverty), still continues to echo and the poverty and depravity continues to rise; every declaration of ending unemployment always ends in exponential rise in unemployment Then entered the capital with the advent of industrialization; and with the development of science came the of scientific thinking. The influence of scientific and rational thinking in art literature and in other field brought the ‘man’ at the centre stage of thinking. The call of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity gave birth to Renaissance movement in France. Elsewhere, this rationality and scientific thinking began to unfold the truth behind the pseudo-power of divinity. With the freedom of expression and thought the ‘human’ factor assumed more and more prominence and in art, literature, etc. - democratic, progressive, drown trodden (dalits), tirbals, etc…… trends were seen to leave behind romanticism, mysticism, brahaminical literature, etc In-fact, if democratic dalit literature is the journey of man’s thinking, then this is also a creator and originator of a new vision and perspective. Man is the center of this trend; to be more precise, even among man is, dalit, expoited, women and children. Human is the primary unit of society. Therefore, he is live, conscious, real and not an imaginary object. He is stark reality and therefore he thinks, dreams, feels agony and has a future. He has limitless scope of happiness and progress. All these facts, thoughts and emotion are scripted as subject in literature and inspired him to discover history, analyze his present so that future may be built up. It should be clearly understood how the culture of a nation and its heritage are destroyed whenever there is an imperialist invasion. The wanton destruction of invaluable and priceless heritage of man’s oldest civilization by the invading allied forces of America and Britain stands testimony to this and is an irreparable loss of human history which can never be compensated. America has no history of its own and perhaps therefore, they were so systematic in destroying the history of man’s own kind. When they did target Iraq, they must have been aware that they were going to destroy the oldest Mesopotamian and Sumer civilization and the last remains of the man’s oldest treasure in that Tigri’s Museum was lost forever. Thus the imperialism achieved a new dimension of barbaric rape of culture and civilization. In another incident the protagonists of so called progressive and cultured nations of the Western world meted out such a shameless treatment to the Iraqi war prisoners in the Abu Gareb jail that the whole world was shocked and shaken. This self-proclaimed rulers of the world who are in fact barbarous dictators have revived an argument on global scale of “Racial Superiority”.
But with all these paradoxical events the capitalism steadily moved ahead unhindered and it now reached the era of globalization manifesting itself in various forms as we find one in economic reforms. Undoubtedly, it is the era of onslaught of regressive culture and multiple ideological invasions.
In its course, it gave birth to many ideologies like post-history, post-colonialism, post-modernism, post-marxism and the end of history and so on coming from the capitalist think tank. It is not possible to draw definite conclusion on each of them here and it can be said that it has inevitably enhanced the intervention of imperialistic forced in every stage and every field of life. And obviously it is more pronounced in the cultural field. In fact, it has always been the endeavor of the ruling class to make the ‘culture’ its one of the weapon for ruling the mass. Consequently, in the sphere of art and literature upcoming voices of mere form, the formalism are seen to emerge as established norms. As if the ‘Formalism is core of everything, only ‘Medium is the message’, ‘Techique itself is an art’, Art for art’s sake, and so on. The tragedy is we too are getting ensnared in the web of language, art and artistry and begin to speak knowingly or un-knowingly in the tone of mere art followers. We give importance to the art form. But ignoring the essence of art or culture will make us
stand in the line of mere art followers, and will alienate us from the mass base. It is important to note that ‘culture’ is not free from class-distinctions and diversity and therefore people or mass based orientation of ‘culture’ assumes utmost significance. To say in the words of Hindi Literature renowned
Poet Gajanand Madhav Muktibodh –
And I was musing.
In today’s life of a poet,
It is not a problem,
That there is dearth of subjects,
Instead, their profoundness,
Make him uneasy.
And he cannot make proper selection. However, we were talking about the use of culture by the ruling class to serve their end. But the movement of resistance did not stop and even continued at this stage. The autocracy collapsed and the democracy established.
Subject of this debate was ‘Christianity versus Islam”
In this context, one has to see the content of the book “Clashes of Civilization” authored by Samuel Hutington as a part of this design. So, it is evident that these forced are attempting to turn the global mentality and thought process in their favour so that they command cultural domination over rest of the World. In India leveling of the Tomb of the famous Great Poet Wali Dakhni and building a road on it during Gujarat progrom in Spring 2002 and earlier in 1992, the demolition of Babri Masjid stand testimony to emergence and consolidation of imperialist fascist forces.
The source may be Cinema or Radio (songs on Vividh Bharati, Radio Mirchi, etc…), Television (color T.V) have made this media very effective) and other such means. But in th last decade of the last century when the crisis of the system began to deepen, the cultural onslaught also increased in the same dimension. In the name of so called liberalization channel-V, channel-M on T.V. had set in motion the degeneration of a whole generation in the last fifteen years to such an extent that the whole thought processes and value system of the nation is went to tethers. The nation is in the state of ideological obscurancy, illusion and rudderless.
We should not take these assaults lightly as they are coming from imperialist forces with full fury as per their nature and form. It is not only intense but also multidirectional. It is very difficult to determine who are its opponent and who are its supporters but in the guise of opponent. As you can see the observance of Mothers’ Day, Fathers day, Valentine day, and so on…. these may be considered as onslaught on our traditional culture. But the forces opposing them are those who are themselves inimical to the whole society because of their narrow outlook towards religion and culture. They want to carry the society in a way that will serve their own interest. It should be noted here that these forces who are creating uproar over ‘cultural assault’ are not behind anyone in imposing aggressive Hindu culture through distribution Trishul on self-sustaining tribal groups. If we regard, by mistake, the imperialistic invading forces and their antagonist the Hindu revivalist and fascist forces to be two opposite camps then aren’t we trapped in imperialistic strangle-hold? Aggressive Hindutatv, in-fact, is a form of fascism and how can fascism be different from or against imperialism? Theses so called savior of Adivasis (Triable) advocating ‘Mulniwasivad’ (aborigine-ism) also fits into the framework of Hindu-Nationalism propagated by Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (R.S.S.). One has to be cautious on this factor of Adivasis so that their issues do not get lost in the maze of these forces. There is no two opinion that these attacks on culture are very serious in nature and it has become imperative to build up a very powerful resistance on cultural front. But is is also very necessary to set every step very carefully while building up such a movement.
One thing we must make it clear that In Indian context, the voice of Dalit’s is like ‘Black’ literature, whose genesis lies in the racial discrimination between Black and White that shook the White domination by its sharp and piercing attack on the racial practice. When the wind of change is
blowing in the society how can a woman sit quiet. She also comes forward to prepare a ground for a creation that emanates not only from the agony of the oppressed, the exploited but which also sings the symphony of liberty and emancipation. A literature of struggle is a call of identity and dignity for the mankind.
Like in literature, this struggle of man is reflected in other areas also. Why it is so? This is to
reply effectively when the ruling class intercepts in the cultural arena to achieve stability to its rule and exploitation. As the capitalism advances and the ruling class deepens into crisis, its intervention also goes on increasing. In cultural arena this intervention becomes still sharper because through this the imperialist forces attempt to overshadow the thinking faculty of the deprived masses so that any scope of protest is nipped into bud.
In India, capitalism earlier also used to employ the cultural resources as per their need to divert the attention of the people from their basic needs. it would be a mistake to regard everything coming from outside, is wrong. We are for a culture that is broad, democratic and humane. The speech of great writer Munshi Premchand at the first Progressive Writer Conference in 1936 and the quote of pioneer Dalit Marathi Writer Baburao Bagul, ‘Dalit literature itself is a humane literature’ have much resemblance in essence. But the kind of literature is being imposed today in the name of ‘globalization’ ‘global family’ or ‘global village’ is based on ‘capital’ and not on ‘labour’. That is why it is not coming in a natural spontaneous way. It is an imposition by various means.
The same logic is given in the matter of language. We are not at all against any languages whether it is English or any other language. But we protest vehemently against the domination of English on our culture. But the fact remains that, we still could not free ourselves from the domination of English. How can we? Unless
we wet ourselves free from domination of Dollar, how can we leave behind English which reponderantly linked to dollar. Meanwhile, the quest for dominating the market, the ground prepared by the T.V. channels has created a new danger and that is corrupting/spoiling the language. The speed with which most of the news channels are making mockery of Indian languages, it is feared that, after a period of time the Indian languages will be bereft of their forms, structure and grammer. How will you fight this language-dominance factor?
More or less, this is the state of tribal and folk culture. In the name of science and modernity, similar culture is attempted to thrust upon them. In fact, this is a design to gobble up cultural identity and diversity and diversity of various communities and nations. We wish to draw your attention that howsoever the intensity of the attack may be, from whatever direction or in whatsoever form it may be, the weapon of its resistance will always come from our own soil and this truth is universal in the context of space and time. The weapons in conformity with one’s economic, social, political, cultural and geographical backgrounds are the only ones that are the most effective for the toiling masses to fight with. Therefore, to meet this cultural onslaught we have to turn to our own society to our legacies of the past left behind by our predecessors. But we have to be very cautious while making selections – acceptance or rejection. If there is Brahaminical current charactering exploitation, then on the other side there is also materialistic trend which provides intellectual support to the struggle of toiling masses. If the exploitative ruling class gets Shankaracharya as their philosophical guide, then for the exploited and oppressed class of toiling masses had their philosophy in Charwak and Buddha….. If the poetic era of ‘Ritikal’ induces to erase out all forms of struggle then there was also ‘Bhaktikavya’ inspiration to provide fresh lease of life and the energise those struggles. Within ‘Bhakti’ cult also, if ‘Sagun’ cult also, if ‘Sagun’ worshipping whole array of poets strengthens the Brahaminical values then there were ‘Nirgun’ worshipping poets like Kabir, who generates inexhaustible energy to raise voice of dalit and exploited against all kind of repression.
In pursuit of progressiveness, it would be self-defeating to reject our heritage. Someone asked a prominent socially conscious German aesthetician Adolfo Sanchez Vasquez that Karl Marx used to talk about poor-oppressed, exploited and destitute, and on other occasion showered praises on the Great writer and Poet Getey, Shelly and Greek Art. Why it was so? Adolfo replied that Gete, Shelly, Greek art, etc. are the childhood of human civilization. If we have to progress and carry the human civilization towards maturity, then it is as much necessary to understand the limitations of childhood as is to know its purity, innocence and simplicity, and the need for acceptance of both. Rejection does not take us anywhere. This lesson is necessary for us too. It is more so, particularly when we are passing through a very critical phase of history that, it has become imperative for us to learn lesson from those who are our predecessors in the struggle to take the mankind ahead on onward march and the carvan of civilization could reach this far. It is one thing to know their limitations but it is totally different to reject them outright.
In this context of peoples’ movement, it is necessary to related one incidence here. Renowned write Gogal was lifelong antagonist to rulers in his writings. He was always against Czarism. But the moment, direct attack began on Czarism, Gogal took side side with Czar. At this unfortunate situation a cultural activist and writer Belenski wrote a letter to Gogal in this context and sent copies to other writers and cultural activists. A secret meeting was convened in this regard by Dostovasky. Based on intelligence input about this meeting, Police arrested Dostovasky and other writers. Dostovasky was sentenced to death. But at the last moment the death sentence has to be cancelled due to the pressure of people.
To ensure the support of our other friends we cannot be less scrupulous. It is worth mentioning here that in a series of imperialistic design the group of Non-Government Organizations also intensifying their cultural activities. Knowing their real nature, we should keep a distance from them. But besides them, we have to take with us the other activists who are not part of the exploitative ruling class, but working in different groups on different social planes. We have to win them to our side. We have to keep in mind that art and culture are the medium to instill inspiration through emotion to carry the society towards ideological path. Preponderance of emotions is that importance difference which differentiates cultural process from political. Political parties conduct ‘School of Politics’ regularly but do not attach much importance to the workshops on Science and Culture, etc… although those are equally important when we fight for change. This responsibility is also to be shared by the cultural activists. Attention must be drawn to one important aspect that the democratic movement cannot be divided on political lines. It should develop on the basis of democratic values of universal acceptance. We have to carry this message to anti-imperialist peoples’ movement and intensify it so that the political workers also strongly feel its importance. Today, we can chalk out action programmed for conscientious cultural activists somewhat like this – ideological debate, struggle for people oriented education, redefining dalit/progressive values in art and literature.
And this process is going on. A cultural activists is molding himself through various process – art, drama, literature, film, etc… according to his own experiences; reconstructing Symbol, Myth and Language, setting a new trend – democratic against feudal literature, dalit and exploited against Varna system, woman’s own creative world against patriarchy. With
a new challenge, imagination, clear conscience; he is giving a clear signal in quest of creating a new aestheticism with firm determination and resolute will. The need of the time is to turn this endeavor into a creativeness and struggle for change.