18TH A K GOPALAN MEMORIAL LECTURE

Imperialism, Fundamentalism and the Uses of “Terror” --- II

Jayati Ghosh

II. Markets,

Fundamentalism

and Conflict

THERE are various aspects of market-oriented economic liberalisation and imperialist globalisation that are known to be adverse for working people. But even apart from these, it is increasingly being recognised that some of the economic and social processes unleashed by markets also have other adverse consequences. In particular, they generate or accentuate tendencies of fundamentalism, sectarianism and related conflict and violence, especially towards women and more vulnerable social groups.

THE INDIAN EXPERIENCE

Let us consider the mechanisms through which this occurs more specifically in the Indian context. The past decade or more has been the period during which the Indian economy has been thrown more open to market processes than ever before, and such markets have been regional, national and international. This period has been associated with a tendency towards privatisation of state assets, reduction in crucial government investment, especially in infrastructure areas, reduced per capita public spending on health, reduced public expenditure in the rural areas generally, deregulation of and a number of tax benefits and other sops provided to large domestic and multinational capital, trade liberalisation which has affected the viability of small scale manufacturing units and agriculturalists.

These policies have in turn already had substantial detrimental effects on the economy, and more particularly, on the lives of ordinary working people. The most evident negative feature is the collapse of employment generation, especially in rural areas. The rate of growth of all forms of rural employment, including casual and part-time work and self-employment, has slumped to less than 1 per cent in the 1990s (regardless of whether one looks at the National Sample Survey data or the census data). This is not only the lowest recorded rate since independence, it is also much lower than the rate of growth of rural population. This means that the absence of productive work opportunities has become the single most important problem for large sections of the rural population.

Even those who are self-employed as agriculturalists are facing huge problems of viability as cultivators because of the combination of threats from highly subsidised imports which are keeping prices down, and rising costs because of withdrawal of subsidies. The growing crisis in agriculture, combined with the lack of other employment generation in rural areas, has created much more basic economic hardship for the majority of rural residents.

In the urban areas, the rate of overall employment generation has been slightly better, but not in the formal sector where employment has barely grown at all. There has been some growth in services employment, and especially in IT-enabled services that has reduced the rate of educated unemployment. But even in urban areas, the problem of lack of sufficient employment for all those who need to work, remains significant. For less skilled workers, and especially women, the problem of access to productive work is especially acute. Women are being drawn into the paid labour force in some more regressive ways, in the form of home-based work as part of large chains of production organised by large capitalists, or as low-paid and exploited service sector workers.

In addition to inadequate aggregate employment generation, there is the problem of reduced security of work and, generally, of incomes. Of course this is most marked for wage workers in less skilled and more unstable occupations. But it is ironically true that even in the higher ends of the job spectrum, employment has become more volatile and fragile, and the earlier security that was implicit in formal sector employment has all but disappeared in the new contracts. In addition, even non-wage incomes are now less secure and more volatile, simply because many markets, and the income accruing from them, fluctuate much more wildly than they did in the past.

OTHER NEGATIVE FEATURES

The overall depressed conditions of employment generation and greater insecurity of incomes have in turn been indirectly expressed in other negative features, notably food consumption. Foodgrain availability per head of population for the economy as a whole has been lower on average in the past few years, than even 30 years ago. And this is combined with a mountain of “excess” foodgrain stocks being held by the Food Corporation of India, raising the appalling contradiction of continuing starvation amidst apparent plenty. Per capita calorie consumption, even for the poorest 40 per cent of the population, has also declined in some states by as much as 25 per cent. This is almost unbelievable in an economy which was supposed to have been growing at more than 5 per cent per annum and where the official statistics are now being manipulated to announce that there is a significant decline in the extent of poverty!

As if the reduced access to food and lower calorie consumption were not bad enough, there have also been evident declines in the availability of basic public services in the areas of health and sanitation. The decline in public expenditure investment has not only meant that the rate of expansion of much-needed health facilities has declined. The cuts in public expenditure have also meant that maintenance and repair of such facilities, as well as basic running expenditures, are not provided, so that the actual quality of and access to public health and sanitation facilities has declined. This has affected both preventive and curative health care in the public sector, which in turn means that even poor households are forced to undertake much more expenditure on private health care, even when this cuts into the incomes necessary for sheer physical survival. India is among the worst performing countries in the world in terms of the ratio of public to private health expenditure, and the gap has grown in recent years. In several states, infant mortality has actually increased in the past few years, reversing the downward tendency since the early 1950s. The rate of decline of maternal mortality is also much lower across India.

Along with this, the growing emphasis on markets has implied the commoditisation of many aspects of life that were earlier seen as either naturally provided by states and communities, or simply not subject to market transaction and property relations. Thus, the inability or refusal of the government to provide safe drinking water has led to the explosive growth of a bottled water industry. A whole range of previously public services and utilities like power distribution, sanitation and water supply, and telecommunications are being privatised. Even the growing recognition accorded to intellectual property rights marks the entry of markets into ever newer spheres.

Of course, markets imply marketing and drawing more and more consumers into the web of purchase through advertising and attempts to manipulate people’s tastes and choices. In this effort, advertising companies have notoriously used women as objects to purvey their products. The dual relationship with women, as objects to be used in selling goods, and as a huge potential market for goods, creates a peculiar process whereby women are encouraged and persuaded to participate actively in their own objectification. The huge media attention given to beauty contests, “successful” models, and the like, feeds into the rapidly expanding beauty industry, which includes not only cosmetics and beauty aids, but slimming agents, beauty parlours, weight loss clinics, and so on. Many of these contribute to the most undesirable and backward attitudes to both women and their appearance, such as the advertisements for fairness cream that emphasise that it is necessary to be fair to make a “good” marriage (which is in turn seen as the basic goal of a woman) or even to land a good job. These regressive attitudes can quickly undo decades of struggle by the women’s movement for more equal opportunities and lives of dignity, as is only too clearly shown by the experience of women in post-socialist countries. 

LINKAGES WITH FUNDAMENTALISM

Thus far the argument may appear plausible enough, but many would argue that the link between all this on the one hand, and fundamentalism and violence on the other hand, is still not all that obvious. I will argue that in fact these processes actively operate not only to strengthen patriarchy, but also to encourage sectarian tendencies and add to factors making for social conflict and violence. Some of the mechanisms are described below.

The first mechanism comes from the sheer fact of greater material insecurity. As ordinary life becomes more volatile, insecure and unpredictable in various ways, people search for security in whatever ways they can muster. Precisely because some degree of certainty is seen as a comfort, often the more rigid a system is (whether it is a set of intellectual and spiritual beliefs, or a religious order, or a relatively close grouping claiming a particular special social identity) the more attractive it perversely becomes. This may explain why some of the more rigidly structured and sectarian religious and social groups have attracted large following in recent times. In India this is true of the growing power of the more hard-line and reactionary tendencies and groups within both Hindu and Muslim communities, for example.

These groups in turn contribute to the second mechanism, the use of such “religious” and sectarian sentiment as a means of political mobilisation. The Sangh Parivar, of which the ruling BJP is a part, has of course developed this to a fine art and science, but they are not the only ones using such particularist identities, rather than genuine class-based combinations, as a means of political organisation. The ruling parties have in turn seized on these to divert attention from their own shortcoming in basic governance, and their inability to prevent deterioration of basic material conditions for a significant proportion of the people. The pseudo-nationalism that is espoused (in which the relevant other is usually a neighbouring country like Pakistan or now even Bangladesh) serves as a way to channel and divert genuine anti-imperialist sentiments of people and convert them into simple and self-defeating war cries against neighbours.

UNDERCURRENT OF VIOLENCE

Of course there is a strong undercurrent of violence in all this, which spews out into the open every now and then, as it did in the state-sponsored pogrom in Gujarat last year. The growing tendency towards violence of various sorts --- towards other “communities” or caste groups, and especially towards women --- can be seen as another reflection and result of the economic and social processes outlined earlier. The greater insecurity and sheer difficulty of ordinary life, the complications and worries involved in providing for basic needs, all make for much greater levels of everyday irritation in people. This can only rarely find an outlet in places of work, and requires other means of expression.

In addition, the massive increase in inequality, the growth of rampant consumerism, and the explosion of new media that brings all the lavish new lifestyles into open public view, all serve to add to the resentment and frustration of have-nots. The gap between aspiration and reality becomes ever wider, and this creates a strong urge to somehow get at those who are seen as “responsible.” Of course, the real agents of these processes --- the unresponsive government, the large companies and multinationals, the foreign investors --- are all too large, too distant and too powerful to be touched. How much easier, then, to direct one’s ire against those who are seen as more easily attacked --- minority communities or lower caste groups, women within and outside the household, and so on! The substantial increase in violence against women is not just because of higher reporting of incidents, but because of this process which results in an actual increase in the number of such crimes.

Other factors also help once a climate of violence and incipient conflict has been created. Fear of retribution or of being the next target serves to ensure silence --- if not complicity --- among those who would not themselves directly engage in such violence. Such fear is all the more potent because the agencies of the state are increasingly used to protect the perpetrators of violence and to deny victims of violence the minimal degree of justice.

The other philosophy that is invoked and sought to be spread is the one that lies at the heart of the reliance on markets --- individualism. The “competitive spirit” is unleashed and used to make people feel that it is each man or woman for himself or herself, and that individuals can succeed in making gains at the expense of others in their own social group. This acts as another way of reducing attempts by people to forge groups for collective action to change the processes of liberalisation and corporate globalisation in a more progressive direction.

It is, clear therefore, that market fundamentalism breeds religious and social fundamentalism as well, with disastrous consequences for ordinary people. And this in turn helps --- both directly and indirectly --- the cause of imperialism and its domestic allies.

III. The Uses of 

“Terror”

It is in this context that current obsession with the “war on terror” assumes great significance. The Indian government has been a keen pupil of the Bush administration in this regard, and increasingly uses the fears and suspicion raised by the possibility of terrorist attacks, not only to increase divisive tendencies among the people, but also to push through undemocratic legislation and deny citizens their basic rights. We therefore have at least two forms of terror to which the population is being subjected. There is of course the sporadic terror created by extremist groups, who often find in this the only way in which their voice will be heard, and which itself emerges out of the lack of will to find political or material solutions to long-running problems or continued lack of justice. But there is the almost equally terrifying response, by governments, who use this opportunity to unleash “state terror” and deny civil and political rights of citizens even as they continue to ignore their social and economic rights.

The use of terror as a device to enlarge the encroachment of Big Brother into private lives and dominate civil society, even as governments renege on basic economic and social responsibility, is now a standard practice in many countries, but possibly more marked in India at present. Even the United States government (which in so many other matters advises or forces other countries to undertake policies which would not be acceptable within the United States itself) has used draconian legal and administrative measures to enlarge its control over ordinary citizens’ lives.

It used to be a characteristic feature of imperialist powers that they imposed or encouraged authoritarian regimes abroad while allowing some degree of “democratic dissent” within their own countries. This is no longer the case. It now seems that the United States, which openly declares that its aggressive imperialist wars are only to promote freedom and democracy in other parts of the world, is doing its best to suppress the same freedom and democracy within its own borders.

BUSH ADMN BUILDING UP A POLICE STATE

The Bush regime seems to have a real problem of confidence, since it apparently does not trust its own people at all. The process that started nearly two years ago (after the September 11 attacks in New York) has now been further intensified. Essentially the Bush administration is building up the infrastructure of a police state, with almost unlimited powers to spy on, interrogate and arrest American citizens and other residents of the country. In May, the US Senate’s select committee on intelligence voted unanimously to approve a huge increase in funding for spying activities by the US government. These include confirming the creation of a government-wide “watch list” of suspected “terrorists,” defined so broadly that virtually any immigrant from the Middle East or a predominantly Islamic country, and virtually any Left-wing political opponent of American imperialism, could fall under suspicion. In addition, under the pretext of countering so-called “terrorism,” the Bush administration has undermined the rights of those visiting the country for whatever reason. Immigrants and asylum-seekers can be detained without any cause being given, subjected to harsh questioning and interrogation, and even treated brutally, on the grounds that all of them could be potential terrorists.

The US state is also actively encouraging a change in the social and political climate, to hound those who oppose its policies. Progressive US citizens who have been active in the anti-war movement report an alarming increase in surveillance, combined with frequent death threats and aggressive behaviour on the part of neighbours and local government officials. Newspapers are increasingly unwilling to publish articles opposing the war or pointing to the human and other costs of the aggression. School teachers are being told to present the US administration’s position on the Iraq war, and to avoid trying to be “balanced.” Across the US, the attempt is to create a mood which is intolerant of any dissent and which uncritically accepts the positions being pushed out by the clique that is in charge in Washington DC. This dramatic increase in authoritarian methods of control on part of the Bush administration is unlike the typical behaviour of the victorious imperialist power. Instead, it reflects a government that is fundamentally unsure of itself, despite all its bravado; a government that does not trust its own people and needs to exercise very invasive surveillance and control over them.

One reason for the insecurity could be the very strength of the opposition to the war. The anti-war movement in the US before the Iraq aggression was unprecedented and spread across people from all communities and all walks of life. By ignoring it, the Bush government signalled its contempt for public opinion, and hoped that it would be fickle enough to turn around once victory was assured. But the basic concern remains, and with it, the distrust of the government for its own citizens.

There is another reason for the US government to be wary of its citizens.  This is because, even as the Bush administration extends itself in the form of an overseas empire, it is cutting back on the basic living conditions of people at home. Basic welfare and social security provisions are being cut, the public health programmes are being undermined, and work conditions are deteriorating. At the same time, the number of jobless people within the US continues to increase. The government seems indifferent to the plight of ordinary people who are facing these worsening material conditions. The most extraordinary measure was the cut in pensions of US war veterans and their widows, right in the middle of the campaign in Iraq. Instead, the Bush administration seems to think that by constantly keeping alive the threat of terrorism, it can keep people in a state of fear in which they will accept the decline in standards of living and the withdrawal of their democratic rights.

OUR RULERS LEARN US TECHNIQUES

Our own leaders in India have been quick to learn these techniques. Not only have draconian laws such as POTA (the Prevention of Terrorism Act) been pushed through despite widespread opposition within and outside parliament, but there is growing manipulation by the government, of the anxieties of ordinary people, to distract them from the numerous failures of public action. This has actually made life more insecure for the citizenry.

This fear of “terror” has also been exploited to make dramatic changes in the country’s foreign policy. There was a time when India was seen, internationally, as an originator and major force in the non-aligned movement, a leader of the developing world, and generally a bulwark against imperialism. In the past few years, the NDA government has systematically dismantled the entire edifice of our independent foreign policy based on non-alignment, which was created in the post-independence period. Instead of an independent international stance, the current Indian government has moved ever closer to both the right-wing Bush administration in the United States and the hawkish Sharon regime in Israel. This is expressed in terms of military cooperation and many other ways, the most inexcusable being the active consideration of the possibility of sending Indian troops to participate in the US/UK occupation of Iraq.

The prime minister’s national security adviser Brajesh Mishra recently addressed a gathering of the American Jewish Committee, a right-wing Zionist lobby based in New York. He argued that only a core of “true democracies” such as the United States, Israel and India can effectively fight terrorism, because they are the prime targets and therefore must form an alliance. This alliance, according to him, should not dither in this war by trying to define terrorism or discussing its causes. Mr Mishra ridiculed the distinction sought to be made between terrorists and freedom fighters. (What then of our own Bhagat Singh, to quote only one example?) He is also quoted as saying that "another fallacy propagated is that terrorism can only be eradicated by addressing the root causes." In other words, political solutions are a waste of time, whether in Kashmir or in Palestine.

Rather, the implicit argument would be that it is apparently enough to decide that all terrorists come from a particular religious source. This appalling conclusion was actually confirmed by home minister L K Advani in an interview with Fox News where he said, “Terrorism in so far we have seen it on September 11 or December 13 has a common source and that common source has described the US, Israel and India as its three main enemies."

It is precisely this kind of attitude that is music to the ears of imperialism, especially to the Bush administration. However, it is a position that is not only ethically obnoxious, but also completely unviable in the medium term, since it creates the conditions for breeding future terrorists. So both forms of terror need to be fought together, with popular resistance.

Across the world, the anti-globalisation and anti-war protests are actually merging, so that they effectively become a joint struggle of ordinary people across the world against imperialism. This could well mark not just a beginning but a qualitatively new phase in international capitalism, and a whole new form of international resistance to imperialism. So, this latest aggressive display of US imperialism may turn out to sow the seeds of its own undoing. There is no doubt that, already, it has succeeded in creating a global resistance of unprecedented spread and organisation. The instability that will inevitably be created by the current overextension of US power may then at least have one positive fallout, in terms of accelerating the revival of global progressive forces.

(Concluded)