Well, I don’t know about you, but I am
constantly surprised by the high-quality radicalism among some Indian
women. Of note, on Monday Kashama Sawant
of Socialist Alternative was sworn in as the first socialist city counselor in
Seattle for
almost 100 years. She is a community college professor, yet is dedicated to the
working class. She represents a tiny
crack in the monolithic structure of Democrat/Republican control of all
political power, joining people like Bernie Sanders, a more moderate socialist,
and Greens in various offices.
Leftist intellectual figures such as Arundhati
Roy and Vandana Shiva are world-class activists and writers. Roy has
written a number of journalistic articles and books attacking repression in India
- books like “Notes on Democracy” and “Walking With the Comrades.”
(Both reviewed below.) She has been threatened for her writings and activism. Shiva, a
scientist, has been a long-time activist around agricultural and food issues,
and is globally known. Her many books
include “Water Wars,” “India Divided” and “Soil Not Oil.” She is a pioneer in efforts for sustainability
and organic agriculture and against GMOs, the corporate ‘green revolution’ and
bio-piracy. Others include activists and writers like Saru Jayaraman, who leads
the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROCU) organization here in the U.S., which fights for
the rights of food workers and the $15 an hour minimum wage. Javaraman
and ROCU are one of the main sources for the $15-an-hour campaign waged by
socialists, SEIU and others. (Her book,
“Behind the Kitchen Door”, reviewed below). And academic leftists like Meera Nanda, who
analyzed the reactionary Hinduism suffusing Indian neo-liberal politics, in “The
God Market.” (also reviewed below.) She
is a professor in India
who teaches the history of science.
Or activists like Kavita Krishnan,
secretary of All India Progressive Women's Association, a group affiliated with
the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation. She heads an organization combating the rape
epidemic and oppression of women in India. Tens of thousands of Indian women and men
have turned out to protest the avalanche of sexual attacks. As part of this, P.J. Kurien of the Congress Party (their
Democrats), a deputy chair of the Indian Upper House, has been accused of
multiple rape and abduction charges.
Female members of Parliament of the Communist Party of India, Marxist,
from the southern state of Kerala, have threatened to boycott the parliamentary
session if action against Kurien is not taken.
Why?
These women are mostly from the educated middle-classes. They have been radicalized by their contact
with the misery of the Indian masses and the notable oppression of Indian women,
which mostly affects the poor and working class, but also the middle-class. India
is ranked as one of the most chauvinist societies on earth - though no match
for Saudi Arabia, Yemen or Afghanistan. While some are not Marxists, they have been
drawn to anti-capitalist perspectives by the very nature of Indian and U.S. capitalism.
Let us celebrate progressive Indian women
and all those women from the global “South,” especially those living in
fundamentalist Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, Christian or Buddhist countries who
combat religious obscurantism, classism and female oppression. In many of those countries their lives are in
danger just from speaking out. In Afghanistan a
whole layer of progressive Afghani women and men were exterminated as teachers
of girls by the Mujahedin in the 1970s.
This was part of a sexist war waged with help from the U.S. CIA under the
Democrat Carter and the Republican Reagan.
Of course, this doesn’t change the
character of whole ethnicities. Class
still prevails. Reference the Indian
Embassy employee Devyani Khobragade, who was recently arrested for falsifying documents in order to pay her captive
live-in maid and nanny less than minimum wage. Or take upper-class bigot “Tiger Mom” Amy
Chua and education deformer and privatizer Michelle Rhee, who remind us that
reactionary politics are not limited to white people – or men.
Red Frog
January 8, 2014
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