ANALYTICAL MONTHLY REVIEW
Samir Amin in “The Democratic Fraud and the Universalist Alternative” in our issue of October 2011 sets out the fundamental process of the “democratic” fraud:
[A]ll hitherto existing societies have been based on a dual system of exploitation of labor (in various forms) and of concentration of the state’s powers on behalf of the ruling class. This fundamental reality results in a relative “depoliticization/disacculturation” of very large segments of society. And this result, broadly designed and implemented to fulfill the systemic function expected of it, is simultaneously the condition for reproduction of the system without changes other than those it can control and absorb — the condition of its stability. . . . Elections by universal suffrage under these conditions are guaranteed to produce a sure victory for conservatism, albeit sometimes a “reformist” conservatism.
While this system has proven of immense power in stabilising the ruling classes of the imperial core, and as well in destabilising propaganda directed at the previously “really-existing” socialisms of the Soviet bloc, its record in the periphery — and therefore for the great majority of humankind — is problematic. When elections have brought to power anti-imperialist leadership in the third world, the “free world” has always had ready the CIA and its tools for the required murderous coups, as in Iran in 1953, Chile in 1973, or Honduras in 2009. The recent experience of Venezuela has shown that even continuously repeated victories in elections by universal suffrage will not protect an anti-imperialist governing movement from attempted coups and incessant destabilisation through economic warfare. Nonetheless, Samir Amir reaches a complex and demanding conclusion: “So should we give up on elections? Not at all. But how to bring together new, rich, inventive forms of democratization through which elections can be used in a way other than is conceived by the conservative forces? Such is the challenge.”
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Virginius Xaxa of Delhi University in the article “Politics of Language, Religion and Identity: Tribes in India” (Economic and Political Weekly March 26, 2005) has set out the contours of the issue:
To begin with, whether tribes are to be treated as Hindus is a debatable question. There are both similarities and differences in the religious practices of the Hindus and tribes. The protagonists of Hindutva have, however, conveniently overlooked the differences. Even on similarities, it is not tenable to treat tribes as Hindus. The similarities have been drawn based on two sources. One is the influence of Hinduism on tribes and the other is similarity due to the fact that both are, to a greater or lesser extent natural religions. There is no doubt that there has been much give and take between the two religions. However the influence of Hinduism on tribes, though present, is not an adequate ground for describing tribes as Hindus. The other aspect that is alluded to is the dimension of natural religion. As a natural religion, tribal religion shares many attributes in common with Hinduism as with the religious practices of tribes in Americas or Africa as well. Yet, it is doubtful if the religious practices of tribes in Americas or Africa can be described as Hinduism or that these tribes can be alluded to as Hindus. To categorise tribes as Hindus in India therefore smacks of cultural and religious expansionism.
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