Not just RED
January 26, 2020
The Chennai book fair
concluded on the 21st of January. Reports say that around 15 lakh
people visited the fair which had more things to offer than just books. It had
a number of food stalls, small cloth shops on the platform, toys and playing
equipment for children and what not, there was also a perfume stall somewhere
there. I have no case against the fair itself which was kind of a picnic to
families but the fact that Chennai does not have a literature festival of its
own is just awful (The Hindu Lit for Life did not happen this year). But the
primary thing that worried me in the fair was two-fold: ubiquity of Joseph
Stalin & Mao and absence of rational Right-wing opinions, especially in
Tamil.
This one-sided dominance of
intellectual space by the Left-wing intellectuals is the story of India,
especially in the Tamil land. This essay essentially seeks to assert the need
to have differing opinions to enrich the political marketplace.
Mass
Murderers or Symbols of Peace?
There were books like Stalin: Symbol of Bravery, Hitler’s other
Side among others and posters idolizing Comrade
Mao and Comrade Stalin. Comrade
Stalin even posed with white doves and Chairman Mao Zedong’s “golden era”
appeared to be the content of many books. Many stalls looked like we were in a
dystopian novel where one single narrative is held up as history.
I don’t think anybody needs
convincing that Hitler was a genocidal maniac whose fascist ideas are still
recipes of disaster, so we skip straight to Comrade Stalin. Joseph Stalin was
the leader of the Soviet Union from the late 1920s till 1953. His policies
killed more than 5 million citizens of the Union in the name of Communism and
equality. Chairman Mao’s estimates exceeds both Hitler and Stalin. During
1958-62, his forward leap policy
killed up to 45 million people! It is that either people don’t know these facts
or that they turn blind to adverse opinions and facts by exposing themselves
only to ideas they already adhere to and letting confirmation bias cloud their
rationality.
Why
Socialism and Communism are popular?
By taking at face value,
the idea of socialism is easy to convince and it works in two ways- positive
and negative. The positive way to convince is by using compassionate words like
equality, helping the poor, Rights and such to put themselves in a moral high
ground from where they can look down on others. The negative way is to spew
hatred. It is easy to hate someone who has something more than you. It is easy
to convince people to hate something claiming that it is unfair even when it is
not.
Socialism also poses to be
a movement against oppression- class on class, community on community, etc. It
catches the imagination, especially of the youth, as a romantic struggle
against oppression of the haves on the have-nots. But is that all true? If
that’s true, why hasn’t socialism created equal societies wherever it has been
tried? Why has it killed more people in mass and pushed so many others into
starvation? Why are all Socialist countries corrupt? Critiquing the idea of
Socialism and Communism is not the motive of the essay and it is best left to
deal with another day.
The
Great PR problem
The word Capitalism is a misnomer. It was termed
by Left-wing intellectuals with their cynical interpretation of the existing
economic system. It puts Capital at the center of the entire system. As much as
capital is important, Liberalisation does not just mean Capital. Free Market
ensures freedom for anyone to create wealth. It advocates against government
intervention in anything and everything from condoms to aviation. Liberal
(Classical) ideas stand against intrusion of government into private lives of
individuals and advocates against high taxes.
Jerry Rao in his book the
Indian Conservative reflects the Thirukkural
and its advocacy for free markets and low taxes. Tamil history is one of great
trade and business, domestic and international. To perceive Free Markets as an
evil deed in such a country is not fair. India post LPG (Liberalisation, Privatisation, Globalisation) is a clear
example what Market oriented reforms can do to a country. World Bank estimates
around 270 million have been lifted out of poverty in the past ten years. Tamil
Nadu’s GSDP (Gross State Domestic
Product) grew from $4.4 billion in 1990 to $238 billion currently- around 50%
growth in just 20 years. If reluctant Liberalisation can bring in that much
growth, imagine what market-oriented reforms can do to the poverty levels of
Tamil Nadu.
The only thing it lacks is
the ability to convince people who don’t want to see plain hard facts. Media,
movies and books have made the word Capitalism synonymous with oppression and
unfair treatment but fails to see that anyone who is willing to put in the
effort can create wealth provided fair market practices. A small vadai shop at the end of the street by a
Paati is also product of what they
call Capitalism. If another Paati
opens a vadai shop in the same street
with lower prices, the end gainer is the customer who can now eat a vadai at lower prices. This may induce
the first entrepreneur Paati to
diversify her shop or to bring in new technology, say a LPG stove instead of
old stone kerosene stove thereby increasing efficiency and decreasing the
factor cost. Now she will be able to sell at even lower prices. This is Free
Markets at its lowest simple level- Freedom, Competition and innovation.
The
World Order
Free Market Globalisation
has brought the world closer, inter-dependent and collaborative. This opens up
an avenue for growth in peace as countries stays relevant to each other. Stalin
and Mao’s ideas may seem attractive but only until you like and advocate it.
Once you start disagreeing with their terms, then comes out their true colours.
Agree to Disagree is the best principle for a maturing democracy but when there
is no room for dissent, it makes no sense. By crushing dissent, Stalin and Mao
held control during their time and their followers would perpetually neglect
other schools of thought. It is always better to remember that America is the
citadel of Free Speech and Liberty, not Russia or China.
The only Right-Wing in India
is the cultural Right- no different in Tamil Nadu. The book fair had many
stalls with posters of spiritual leaders and pontiffs. The religious
conservatives like their Left-wing counterparts are living in the past. It is
important to recognize rational Right wing views as an intellectual space and
more books should be written in Tamil advocating Free Market Capitalism. More
debate around basic fundamentals should be encouraged thereby promoting
different colours of the spectrum rather than just painting the country Red or
Saffron or Green or Black or whatever.
To end on a lighter note, I
think Stalin and Mao misunderstood the Tamil proverb “தனி ஒரு மனிதனுக்கு உணவில்லை எனில் இந்த ஜகத்தினை அழித்திடுவோம்”
which means even if one individual is
allowed to starve for food, we will destroy this entire world because the
Communists killed so many individuals just because they ate one more Idly.
By Admin
This is one for the Culture series where we talk contemporary Tamil Nadu
and its culture.
2 comments
Amazed by the innovative part of your mind which nails the thought of,"increasing efficiency and decreasing the factor cost!" Awesome!!
ReplyDeleteThanks!
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