Disruptive Noumena
Siddharth Soni I. Linda Gascrif’s visual poem appears in a September 2005 edition of the Times Literary Supplement: “… I give you blank space { } to protest.” Only a few weeks from then, a Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten had run a series of cartoons that depicted the Muhammad in a satirical manner. Islam has always had a strong tradition of aniconism, and the cartoons were expeditiously labeled as blasphemous, based on which a fatwa was issued against the cartoonists. The incident ensued a fashionable debate between creative expression (or expression per se) and inclemency of religious (and social) proscriptions. The newspaper denounced the reaction to their cartoons claiming that they were not to disenfranchise Muslim population or to belittle god, but to make them an equal part of the Danish satire tradition. A bigger debate about self-censorship in the modern world was also born. Deeper south in the restless Israel-Palestine, poetry is impulsive and loud, but manages to be theologically blind, to articulate a phenomenal depth of personal and political experiences that are forced upon by circumstances of violent conflict. A deadening struggle of ‘being’ becomes the thematic preoccupation of Mahmoud Darwish’s poetry: “I have a name without a title / and the color of poetry is coal-black.” Even when the poetry is not about Islam or Judaism, or when its religious convictions are oversighted, it remains incontestably political, as if its aspiration is to ‘do’ something for proper peace between Israel and Palestine. An echo of the same kind of aspiration is found in the literature written in the earliest of our three considerations: Jewish novelists, poets and war-reporters from the World War II and cold war era, whose trusts and sympathies were inexorably linked to the Jewish in the Soviet Union. Their work glistened with reality, delaminated Soviet practices and demanded emancipation of the Soviet Jewry. The politburo found the political nature of their work so threatening that Mikhail Suslov explained to Vassily Grossman; the ideological chief at politburo to the novelist who spearheaded the Jewish Anti-Fascist Movement: “Why should we add your book to the atomic bombs that our enemies are preparing to launch against us?… Why should we publish your book and begin a public discussion as to whether anyone needs the Soviet Union or not?” 1 At some point, what was incipiently only a kind of ‘resistance literature,’ becomes in an unwarrantable manner, a kind of ‘resistance towards literature’ – a kind of censorship. It is essential to outline what behavioral counteraction is responsible for creating that ‘resistance towards literature’. Is that counteraction explainable in a heteronomous world? Is censorship ethical? To answer these questions, it is also critical to enquire what created the action for the counteraction to be made possible: What is the nature of this resistance literature? It may be worthwhile to recall here those ideas of enlightenment that reasoned for freedom of expression with a certain litheness and tact. One of its principal tacticians, Immanuel Kant is relevant for a modern trial yet again. We will rephrase and transfer our question to him: Is it possible to fancy absolute freedom of expression in the modern world, as it involves essentially uncensored views on religion, state and society? Does the Kantian freedom of expression depend on its ability to resonate with what domain of consciousness, private or public, it’s applied to? If so, is that freedom any freedom? The readily acceptable answers are no, yes and it isn’t. In Kantian terms, an argument henceforward will introduce a case for the counteraction as due to disruptive noumena– a definitive category that could be appended to every such action that is a political expression not based upon mathematical or logical reality, and that disrupts or disagrees with a norm or an ideological touchstone. Danish cartoons in Jyllands-Posten,Darwish’s poetry and Soviet Jewish literature are all examples of political expressions that both shake an ideology, and is based out of pure intellectual intuition. 2 All kinds of expressions against a norm or an ideology is generated by what Kant would call alterations in someone’s perception or “sense-cognizance towards its object.” 3 Knowledge for him, was a “phenomenon” that was built upon “non-objectionable” (and reasoned) derivatives of interactions with anything that appeared to the senses. This knowledge was derivative, and was therefore based on a priori (or what was precedently composed). A judgment of reason, thereupon, became inapplicable to everything that was in the realm of “indescribable” or “metaphysical” which he called “noumenon.” 4 All noumena were unknowable as they were not observable occurrences but “ideas of a philosophical mind.” 5 Poetry, pamphlets, cartoons, novels, critical theory and almost every discipline under philosophy become noumenal actualities of the world, to which the salient ‘non-objectionableness’ of his definition of human knowledge is irrelative. Even by Kant’s own rigorous trials of human understanding, the deficiency of his enlightenment theory to explain what to do with polemical judgments of reason with unorthodox-intellectual-political-expression, or disruptive noumena, is the bane of why absolute freedom of expression is an unyielding enterprise. An interesting observation here is that Schopenhauer, one of Kant’s foremost critics also fails to answer how a state should deal with disruptive noumena. However, he undertakes a facultative project to establish his meaning of the term ‘noumena’ against Kant’s: “But it was just this understood difference between abstract knowledge and knowledge of perception that [Kant] ignored: What is thought (noumenon) to what is perceived reality (phenomenon).[…] Kant, who […] entirely neglected the thing for the expression of which those words phenomena and noumena had already been taken, now takes possession of the words, as if they were still unclaimed, in order to denote by them his things-in-themselves and his phenomena.” 6 Our definition of ‘noumenon’ consorts more closely with Schopenhauer than with Kant, and remarkably so, as ideological exercises in poetry, novels and cartoons are inarguable to be seen as ‘things-in-themselves’ since their antecedental existence isn’t defined. There was no ‘poetry as black as coal’ before Darwish thought
The Nineteenth of May and I
Shaktipada Brahmachari (Translated by Arjun Chaudhuri, from উনিশে মে ও আমি, Dainik Jugosankha, 20th May, 2001) ————————————— 19th May, 1961. My employed life had started by then. But my college life wasn’t over yet. When I passed my ISC examinations in 1958, immediately after that I acquired a job as a teacher in a high school at Silchar. And I was getting ready to appear for my B.A. examinations as a teacher-private candidate. Then came the Nineteenth of May. My finals were to begin only a few days after that. I was never involved in active politics. But there once had been in me a youthful curiosity for politics. And it was this curiosity that ultimately led me to become a believer in Marxism. I also discovered a connection between my literary thinking and Marxist thought. Thusly, I am a communist at heart. At that time, there was only one party that could be called Marxist-Communist. The CPI or the Communist Party of India. There used to be an office for the Communist Party in Silchar at around that time. It was a small two storeyed wooden building in Nazirpatty. The highly respected Comrade Gopen Ray used to live in that office itself. That place was almost a one-man commune by itself. The other leaders used to come there in the day or in the night, for work or even when there was no work to be done. Achintya Bhattacharjya, Digen Dasgupta, Dwijen Sengupta, Mani Ray and many others used to gather there. The party office had a Bengali newspaper subscription. The publication was called “Swadhinota” (Freedom). It was, of course, the mouthpiece of the Communist Party. I wasn’t a regular at this office. But I used to go there in the company of student-friends of my age, people who had been initiated in the ideology of Communism. I remember two of them especially. Chintaharan Das and Asit Aditya. Asit was a college mate of mine at G. C. College. We lived together for some time in the same house. It was through him that I came in touch with my other friend Chintaharan. Both of them were far ahead of me in their socialist ideas. They were both informed readers of literature, as well as voracious critics. Chintaharan went a step ahead. I have seen few such good orators as he was. This brings to mind that incident in 1959 when the Left led state government of Kerala was dismantled. The central government was a Nehru led Congress one. Indira Gandhi was the president of the AICC. The ‘red’ government was dismantled quite unethically. The communists were naturally very strident with their protest against this. A protest meeting was organised in Silchar as well in the form of a public convention right next to the round pond at Nazirpatty. The fiery address Chintaharan delivered in that meeting remains, in my opinion, almost unparalleled. Anyway, living amidst some close friends, with the reading of relevant literature, the adda at the tea shop, and other things, I continued to mature in my practices of writing poetry, and in the principles of socialism. And at around this time the year 1961 arrived. In the Assam State Legislative Assembly (then located at Shillong), they passed the State Language Bill. The language of this state would be only Assamese. The non-Assamese, especially the Bengalis, could not accept this easily. But the Assamese speaking crowd was numerically dominant in the Assam State Legislative Assembly. Purely on the basis of this numerical strength did Assamese become the official language of the state. The Bengalis were naturally quite displeased. Bengali must be given equal status as the official language alongside Assamese – this demand gradually gathered pace. The Bengalis in the Brahmaputra valley could not come clean with their objections to this bill, of course. But the Bengalis of Cachar (now Barak Valley) began to prepare for a protest movement. There was no support extended to this movement initially by any political party. Like it was in the rest of the country, the ruling party in Assam at that time was the Congress. It was this Congress government that had passed the Language Bill. Even though some of the Bengali Congress leaders of Barak Valley might have been secretly annoyed at this act of the government’s, they did not say or do anything by way of protest out in the public. As a result, there was an attempt to shape up an organisation to further the cause of the Bengali language movement by positing some nonconformist political figures at the helm of affairs. Even though there were quite a few senior leaders in the organisation, the primary driving force was a slew of young leaders from a middle income or a lower income background. It was then that the name of an entirely unknown young man began to emerge from among the ranks of the organisation. Paritosh Pal Choudhury. A child of an emigrant family. After leaving East Bengal, he had been busy in the Brahmaputra valley trying his luck. After that, he came to Silchar and soon achieved some renown as one of the leading organisers of the Bengali language movement. We began to hear of names like those of Rathindranath Sen of Karimganj, Harish Chakravarty of Hailakandi and others. They were engaged in consolidating the preparations for the Bengali language movement. But it seemed that the movement was not becoming forceful, or effective enough anywhere at all. That something so momentous would happen on the Nineteenth of May was not something anyone could have even thought of at that time. But there was a special reason behind that. The Congress was all in all in the political arena of the state of Assam at that moment. In the national context, the PSP (Praja Socialist Party) had acquired only some significance. The Communists were well known, but the party
Salaam Boi-mela!
Utpalkumar Basu The 11:40 local. I was returning on it. Possibly this is the last train for returning to Kolkata from the suburbs. Wintry night. Biting chill. Only a few passengers in the dimly-lit compartment. The stations are even more deserted. The train could have just skipped these stations since there is hardly any boarding or alighting. I don’t think anyone will de-board our compartment ere the train reaches Kolkata. But, ah, presently from a tiny little unknown station, on hops a hawker. Brown trousers, blue pullover, monkey-cap—rolled-up as headgear.And a bundle of books with him. “Have you read these, anyone here?”—he begins to holler, and the compartment wakes up with a start. “Have you read Phoolbala Devi’s latest, yes, have you?”—as the train jumps over and clears a viaduct, the young man’s voice is deluged by tremendous noise. Yet a middle-aged man, lying onthe middle bunk, sits up—“Let me see. Here, come over.” We all know this game, don’t we? He is a player from the same team, masquerading as a passenger. This joker will take the first stab at the incense-stick bundle, locks and keys, combs and wallets.So that the interest of the others in these items is aroused. But today the wind is blowing in a contrary direction. I end up buying the first book from the young man’s collection. Title: The Badass Ghost (ভুতের মস্তানী). Price: Rs. 2.50. Colourful cover. Hazy picture. Scores of printing errors inside. But what incredible stories! So, I buy a few more books without batting an eyelid. In the Clutches of the Ghost (ভুতের পাল্লায়ে), The Ghost’s Music-Room (ভুতের জলসাঘর), Mysterious Murder on the Ship (জাহাজে আজব খুন)Daughter-in-law does the Mother-in Law in (বউ এর হাতে শাশুড়ি খুন)—the last one in poetry form. So, let me come to the main point. These are my best reads of 1988. I consider all these books collectively as one book. There are lots of thematic crossings and currents within the books. Just like one encounters in bot-tola books, there is a running familiar pulse—whether it is to do with some cooking manual or with as esoteric a subject as learning Santhali in 30 quick steps. These are, of course, superficial similarities. Within the literary entrails of Phoolbala Devi’s 2.50 rupee book, appear stories of class exploitation,of hunger and death, stories of spectres and apparitions—their foul smelling subtle bodies are enough to create havoc at the annaprashan (rice-eating ceremony) of the roy-bahadur’s grandson: “And in a sudden flash, the beggar’s hands turned longer and longer. And they became skeletal. Holding up and shaking Roy Sahab’s and Dutta Sahab’s necks, those hands were striking one head against the other and with a strange nasal twang, he said “Nasty, yeah! Nasty? First clear the nastiness within your souls. You fellows find it below par to hand over a morsel of food to the poor beggar, eh! You could not stop, could you? So much food has now vanished into thin air! Where are the missuses? Not in sight! No one came with an iota of help, eh?” [স্যাঁত করে ভিখারির হাত দুটো প্রকান্ড লম্বা ও হাড়ের কংকালে পরিনত হয়ে, দুহাতে রায়-সাহেব ও দত্ত-সাহেবের ঘাড় ধরে প্রবল ঝাঁকুনি দিচ্ছে; দুজনের কপালে- কপালে সজোরে ঠোকাঠুকি করছে, আর অদ্ভূত নাকি সুরে বলছে “ন্যাস্টি!না?ন্যাস্টি!আগে মনের ন্যাস্টি দূর কর|গরিব ভিখারীকে এক টুকরো খাদ্য দিতে আঁতে ঘা লাগে|রুখতে পারলিনে?অত গুলো খাবার উড়ে গেল উধাও হয়ে? মিসসেসরা সব কোথায়ে গেল?সাহায্য করলোনা একটুও!”(ভুতের পাল্লায়ে)] This is literature’s undergrowth. The life blood of the jungle—weeds. Ghentu flower and Babla thorns. These books you would find on trains, footpaths, at fairs unknown. But not at book fairs or festivals. Those who buy and patronize such books with the money that they save from their meagre salaries or bonuses—many of them cannot even read yuktakshars (dipthongs) properly. Still they buy these books because in these they find stories of human love and emotion, tales of doting parents, the heroism of the local ruffian, the undoing of scheming political netas. There is love—but very little. More of sordidness and suffering. But within the cloud, the sun does shine. And all these are the ghost’s accomplishment. This is the purana of the spectral world of infinitesimally mysterious humans who hover around us—but are not noticed so easily. A bit like the beggars. From where they arrive, where they disappear to—who knows. [Translation by HUG. Title Photograph: Aritra Chakraborti] adminhumanitiesunderground.org
What Next ?
Brinda Bose Kochi was the flashpoint, charged with rebellion after a violent police crackdown. Since then, Kiss of Love has danced, hugged, walked, sung, shouted, held hands, cheek-pecked, kissed and french-kissed in solidarity protests that have reverberated through many Indian cities in diverse locations, from around or on university campuses to streets outside RSS headquarters and places between. What Next? is the question already fermenting in protestors’ minds, perspicaciously enough. It’s a vital question for us to stop and think about, especially because the protesting must not, cannot stop – even while the fear of a wider movement congealing and de-fusing, through repetitive motions of protest, looms greyly on the horizon. However, such timely and pertinent self-questioning may be poised to be tripped up by what in football parlance is known, I believe, as ‘own goals’, losses conceded by one’s own team members that threaten to woefully undermine, if not willfully derail, the larger – and yes, dare I say it, political – impetus of the current chain of protest ‘events’. Hurdles are being placed along these already-always-treacherous paths of nascent youthful insurgencies not just by rabid ‘rightists’ (which we all expect, and know by now to field) but by the wise and the cautious and the skeptical in the very broad spectrum of ‘the Left’, all of whom one would have hoped were allies. This is the place, of course, where the Left has repeatedly begun to fail itself – and the reason why right-wingers will sit back and rub their hands in glee and wait for the opposition to self-destruct while they consolidate and close ranks in a frightening, calm repressiveness. And the broad Left has been consistently displaying a remarkable ability to self-destruct, splitting political and philosophical hairs ad nauseam and seemingly unperturbed about throwing out baby, bathwater as well as bathtub all in a single swing of the arm, perhaps content for having nuanced the argument sufficiently in the process. How does one alert one’s fellow-team-travellers to the urgent need of the hour: a huge, diverse, potent, sustained and ‘terrible’ coalition against the Right – one that will strike terror, not amusement, within their closed ranks –and lure one’s friends away from the dubious pleasure of being endlessly-argumentative Indians, chasing their own tails while the enemy watches, waiting to pounce? We have recently witnessed a round of this with Ranabir Samaddar’s critiques of the Hokkolorob protests at Jadavpur University, in which he dismisses the student protestors as the “articulate [read elite] class” who will remain irrelevant to the masses in West Bengal, comparing the present unrest unfavourably with student participation in the Naxal movement of the 1960s and 70s. Even as many (articulate) challenges to Samaddar’s left-conservative formulations have just been successful in decimating much of his contentions, a wave of strident evaluations of the Kiss of Love protests is clearly beginning to rumble and heave around our shores – in which the parameters of analysis are perhaps different but the upshot remains the same: this is not revolution, for revolution is something else, revolution is elsewhere – and of course, revolution is forever ‘to come’ even while revolution is desired now, today, this minute. In fact it is intriguing to seethe last kind, those invested in hastening a chiliastic, apocalyptic moment, worry about the spontaneous and morphing nature of movements and contribute toward a certain deferral on the grounds of preserving the purity of a movement.Of course we may well take constructive heed of some of the criticisms leveled against the Kiss of Love events. Leaders and participants of the protests are themselves reflecting and questioning and revising and planning; they are not unthinking players in a series of dumb rituals. But what we must consider now is the moot debate, which is double-pronged.First, that it is not about a divergence between the seriousness of issues of labour/class and the frivolity of the sexual transgression of public kissing, it is about how one may deploy a diverse range of political, social, cultural and aesthetic strategies in the long, arduous battle we have to wage now in the current censorious regime and climate. And second, since a pattern of protesting has begun to be adopted by a growing range of actors and the frequency of protests has increased, we must take into cognizance the scholarly evaluation that such protests are under threat of moving out of the sole purview of social movements and becoming ‘mainstream’, a part of everyday politics – because none of us would want the edge of rebellion to be blunted. We know that protest politics must not become the politics of ritual. But the point remains this: that while we should all put our heads together to devise new and fresh strategies of resisting the onslaught of the moral police, we must not self-flagellate or accuse each other of failing the ‘true’ test of revolutionary politics – because politics and its measures may be as diverse as its triggers, and responses must be variously sharp and immediate, contingent and rapid, passionate and sustained; they can, and perhaps should, twist and turn and morph daily but they must not fade or fall or fail until the task is done. The goalposts must not be allowed to be shifted. Yes, it is time now to ask some tough questions of ourselves. The Facebook page for the Delhi Kiss of Love protest outside RSS headquarters near the Jhandewalan metro station is instructive, both about the aggressive antagonism and condemnation from ‘the Sanghis’ and the continual strategizing, visualizing and implementation of plans by the protest’s organizers and supporters. The page is suffused as much by a sense of embattlement as by uncertainty, excitement, conviction, doubt – which is how it should be. A post-protest update by one of its organisers congratulates those who came to protest and reaffirms solidarity but cautions that the fight has merely begun as the oppressions start closing in. There is there, if I am not reading it incorrectly, a