by NIHARIKA MANDHANA
Sociologist and Political psycologist Ashis Nandy PHOTO/Wikipedia
Ashis Nandy, an eminent Indian sociologist and political analyst, now finds himself in what he described as an “astonishing and ironic position,” in an interview Tuesday.
He has championed the rights of India’s lower castes and tribal groups for the better part of half a century, he said, but is now being accused of making remarks that some have cast as “anti-Dalit,” a reference to India’s lower castes, formerly known as “untouchables.”
Speaking last week at the Jaipur Literature Festival, an annual gathering of writers, thinkers and commentators, Mr. Nandy acknowledged that what he was about to say was “undignified” and “vulgar,” but then said, “It is a fact that most of the corrupt come from the Other Backward Classes and Scheduled Castes, and increasingly the Scheduled Tribes. And as long as this is the case, the Indian republic will survive.”
(For our readers outside India, the Indian government classifies some of its citizens according to socioeconomic status, grouping them under the labels Backward Classes, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.)
His comments followed those of the journalist and editor Tarun Tejpal, who characterized corruption in India as a “class equalizer.” Mr. Nandy’s statement was instantly picked up by television news channels, often in an abbreviated form, and many portrayed his words as a slur against lower castes.
“Ashis Nandy says OBC, SC, ST most corrupt,” the Press Trust of India reported.
After his comments were publicized, small demonstrations broke out in Jaipur, and a complaint against Mr. Nandy was filed with the police under a law that aims to prevent and punish crimes and atrocities committed against Scheduled Castes and Tribes.
India Ink spoke Mr. Nandy about the recent furor, the correlation between caste and corruption, and the state of free speech in India, at his New Delhi apartment on Tuesday as the 75-year-old waited to receive a warrant from the police for questioning.
The current controversy arose as a result of a statement you made where you suggest that most of India’s corrupt belong to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes. What did you mean when you said that?
That’s not what I wanted to say. That can’t be empirically supported, because there’s no real survey.
The point I was trying to make was this: if you remove all corruption from society, that’s good. But that will take decades. In the interim period, those who are on the brink of desperation, those who have been deprived of access to power for centuries, deserve to get a share of the loot. Their corruption is a sign of their empowerment and the growth of the Indian republic. In fact, it should be encouraged.
Why do you believe that corruption should be encouraged among some parts of the population?
As a society, we are pushing some communities to the brink of desperation. And the Maoist movement substantiates what the desperate can do. It is in effect a tribal movement. It wouldn’t last five days if the tribals didn’t support it. I don’t think 90 percent know what Mao read or said or did. Everybody knows that; it’s an open secret.
That level of desperation comes when you’re absolutely cornered. I don’t want them to be absolutely cornered. So let them also get a part of the loot.
So you see corruption as a tool for social mobility?
Corruption is a socially equalizing force. People who are in desperate situations probably need, if not desperate remedies, some kind of a short-term intervention. It is the only means through which some of them can make money of the kind that others do.
The New York Times for more
(Thanks to Robin Khundkar)
From the Ludic to the Ludicrous: The Affair of Ashis Nandy
by VINAY LAL
The Jaipur Literary Festival is known to stir controversy. So is Ashis Nandy, often celebrated as India’s most arresting and provocative thinker. For well over three decades, Nandy has been in the business, shall we say, of unsettling received ideas, controverting the most established opinions, and deploying the tactics of a street fighter against institutionalized forms of knowledge. He scandalized many in India who view themselves as progressive when, in the mid-1980s, he published ‘An Anti-Secularist Manifesto’, though it is no exaggeration to say that the substance of his critique of secularism has now become part of the new commonsense of informed scholarship.
Appearing in this year’s edition of the Jaipur Literary Festival, one should have expected that Nandy would come up with one of his startlingly fresh insights –– more so when the discussion at a panel in which he was participating veered towards corruption, a matter which has greatly agitated the country, particularly its middle classes, since at least the time Anna Hazare launched his movement to deliver India from this menace. The fact that Anna Hazare, however well intentioned he might be, is nearly clueless, and that the popular movement which he initiated generated, in intellectual terms, little more than platitudes made Nandy’s remarks seem all the more radical and even incomprehensible.
Commencing his remarks with the critical observation that he was going to make a ‘vulgar statement’, Nandy added: ‘It is a fact that most of the corrupt come from the OBCs, the Scheduled Castes, and now increasingly the Scheduled Tribes. And as long as this is the case, the Indian Republic will survive.’ Not surprisingly, the first line alone has been replayed in the media over and over again. Nandy’s fellow panelist, the TV journalist Ashutosh, immediately pilloried him as a representative of ‘elitist India’, characterizing his remarks as ‘the most bizarre statement’ he had ever heard ‘in this country’. Mayawati has called for Nandy’s arrest, and a FIR has been lodged against him under the Schedules Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. In Patna, members of organizations of SCs and STs marched from the High Court to Dak Bungalow Square, where they burnt an effigy of Nandy.
Lal Salaam for more
by GARGA CHATTERJEE
Stir against Ashis Nandy exposes laziness of elite anti-casteism
This is not a good time to be Ashis Nandy. In this age of ether when words travel faster than sound leaving comprehension behind, it is not surprising that some ‘casteist’ words of Ashis Nandy, spoken by him at a literary festival, have traveled fast and far. Token anti-casteism like token anti-communalism is one of the easiest paths to salvation for the elite chatterati. But even in the month of Magh, the Kumbh mela is too plebian for such folk. No wonder, so many have chosen to sanctimoniously pounce on his statement, as a Plan B.
Ashis Nandy did not say that people from the OBC, SC and ST communities are the most corrupt. He said: “Most of the people who are doing corruption are people from OBC, SC and ST communities and as long as it remains Indian republic will survive.” The difference between most of the corrupt and corrupt-most is crucial. An audience whose interaction with the OBC, SC and ST communities is limited mostly to house-maids and drivers made sure that his comment did not go unchallenged.
DNA for more