“I have never
bothered to indulge in the pleasures of an abstract search for knowledge. Nor
have I written anything not based on political necessities”.
—Prof. Sunil. P.
Ilayidom
Marxist cultural
critic and a popular orator, Prof. Sunil. P. Ilayidom is one of the most
important voices in contemporary Malayalam intellectual space. His relevance
lies in his ability to develop popular methodologies for the dissemination of
academic knowledge.
His first major work
was his doctoral thesis titled The political unconsciousness of Modernism.
An analysis of the modernist movement in Malayalam, it studied O.V Vijayan’s
iconic novel Khasakhinte Ithihasam (The legends of Khasak) and K.C.S
Paniker’s paintings based on Fredric Jameson’s idea of the political
unconscious. He has also published studies on K.J Yesudas and Tyagaraja. His
book on literary criticism titled Ajnjathavumayulla Abhimukhangal
(Interviews with the unknown) won the Kerala Sahitya Academy award in
2013.
Sunil’s popularity
comes from his public speeches which are characterised by their eschewal of
aggression and polemics. Contrary to a mainstream Marxist approach, he prefers
a more inclusive and self reflexive style. This also makes him an internal
critic of Marxism. He constantly makes it a point to remind his audience about
positions that Marxism’s political forms have either abandoned or not yet fully
accomplished.
He has given important
speeches on the history of nationalism, Kerala renaissance, Sree Narayana Guru
and the Mahabharata. The five-day long series of speeches he delivered on The
Cultural History of Mahabharata is considered one of the most significant
events of recent times in Malayalam. He has so far delivered this series of
speeches on more than ten stages, and has now developed the ideas in them into
a book which will be published in March, 2020.
I would like to start with a criticism often levelled against you. You are a critical thinker whose subjects of interest range from art to music and from literature to classical dance. But you never seem to stick to one particular subject or go deeper into micro analysis. And though you often adopt philosophy as a basis of your critical thinking, you also make it a point to avoid a conventional philosophical approach that prioritises depth over breadth.
As far as I am
concerned there is only one subject: modernity’s engagements with the cultural
history. The reason behind working on so many areas is to analyse and
understand various aspects of this fundamental question. Theoretically and
methodologically, all my studies are based on this premise.
For instance, if one
were to approach art after understanding how orientalism and its methodology
influenced Indian nationalism, one can easily identify its presence in the
Bengal school. Looking at Rukmini Devi Arundale, you would then be able to see
the Theosophical Society. If you study Tyagaraja after understanding modernity
and national modernity’s conceptualization of the individual, you will figure
out why he became a patriarchal figure in Carnatic music. But if you focus only
on one specific area, this relationship between various aspects may not become
clear.
Though a lot of people
say it is irrelevant, I still consider the ideas in the eleventh thesis of
Marx’s Theses on Feuerbach to be extremely important. As he says:
“Philosophers have so far only interpreted the world. The point, however, is to
change it”. And any endeavour to change the world entails a process of praxis.
Of course, there are arguments that claim that praxis in itself is a form of
thought. But I don’t subscribe to that view. There is definitely an element of
practical value in critical thinking. But if you are going to indulge in ideas
and immerse in them meditatively, you run the risk of getting trapped in the
very framework of philosophy.
It is imperative to make the political content of knowledge a part of mainstream consciousness. Yet, often, academics is held as a holy realm, and any attempt it makes to engage with the civil society is considered second rate. The need of the hour is to overcome this divide.
Marx did not present a
new chapter in philosophy. Instead, what he did was to bring about a rupture within
philosophy. In fact, he was constantly arguing with its epistemology. So there
is always this question of whether Marx was indeed a philosopher. As Etienne Balibar points out, Marxist
philosophy is different from the philosophy of Marx.
A philosopher’s
interest in Marxism and a Marxist’s interest in philosophy are two different
things. I am more inclined towards a Marxist’s interest in cultural theory. My
conviction is that in Marxist investigations of concrete realities there is no
point in adopting a methodology that focuses only on one particular aspect of
culture. Between an epistemological realm abstracted out of a reality and a
functional reality, I will always choose the latter.
As an organic
intellectual, there are two kinds of political expressions you seem to be
interested in. In one, you function as a sort of conductor that facilitates the
transmission of academic thinking to civil society. And in the other, you are a
prolific orator who speaks fervently against religious fundamentalism.
There is a clear
connection between these two ways of functioning. Academics for the sake of
academics is not in the true spirit of academics. There is no point in being
political in epistemological content and then confining that content to an
exclusive community. It is imperative to make the political content of
knowledge a part of mainstream consciousness. Yet, often, academics is held as
a holy realm, and any attempt it makes to engage with the civil society is
considered second rate. The need of the hour is to overcome this divide.
In a recent interview,
Romila Thapar says that though she is happy with the progress the discipline of
history has made in India, we have utterly failed in taking that progress to
the common people. This presents a massive danger because if a communal sense
of history becomes an influential force in the society, it will eventually find
a way to control academics too. In fact, a lot of universities are already in
Hindutva’s firm grip. It wouldn’t be much longer before it starts to exert
complete control over the whole corpus of mainstream history. So it is
absolutely important to bridge the gap between academics and the civil
society.
In the present
context of anti-CAA protests, quite a number of academics including Romila Thapar
and Irfan Habib took to the streets...
Because they are truly
political creatures who have never abandoned their basic political convictions.
They know that it is important to come out when confronted with a critical
historical moment. Epistemological politics and practical politics should not
be viewed as antagonistic categories. While forms of expression might differ,
they share common underlying objectives. And if academicians also share that
objective, then they cannot confine themselves to academic spaces.
You say that your
fundamental interest is in studying modernity’s engagements with cultural
history. The Indian right wing has premised its common interest on the edifice
of culture. And it is a fact that political resistance movements against the
right wing, including various left liberal movements, have so far failed to
provide convincing explanations for the influence culture wields. How do you
see this contradiction?
It is true that the
Left in India has failed to understand culture as a material force. They have
not given due consideration to the role played by ideas, perceptions and
systems of beliefs in the process of material production or to the influence of
processes of material production in reshaping various facets of culture. We
might have used Gramsci as a popular intellectual icon of the left, but it’s
worth questioning the extent of effort that has been made to actualise a
Gramscian world of ideas. For instance, I believe it is important in the Indian
context to redefine the idea of class using the Gramscian conceptualisation of
the subaltern. Such pursuits might be common in academic seminars, but they
have not been translated to everyday political practice.
In fact, we have
completely failed to address many modes of ideological operations that have
deep rooted presence in our civil society. The question is not whether these
ideas are right or wrong. Rather, the point to consider is what we do have at
our disposal to address them. There is no point offering platitudes like “these
are merely the remnants of a feudatory state”. What is needed is an attempt to
address various components of our cultural life that includes both traditional
systems of values and modern systems that have emerged as a consequence of a
capitalist market economy. And this cannot just be a theoretical project, the
emphasis should be on practice.
The series of
speeches based on the Mahabharata and the book that you are now working on
based on the same text...Are these your attempts to address this failure?
To an extent, yes. There are two ways to critically engage with an ideology like Brahmanism. You can choose to wage a war from outside or you can first enter its premises and then subject it to scrutiny. And for sure, both approaches have different consequences. But if we prefer to turn our backs on the various historical and cultural forms of diversities that have shaped texts like the Mahabharata in their present form, they are likely to remain as essentialist Brahmin texts.
Now, that would not
have been a problem if the Mahabharata was a text like the Shatapatha Brahmana
which, outside the framework of ritualistic contexts, is a dead text. But epics
like the Mahabharata and the Ramayana are and have always been functional texts
that have wielded massive influence in determining our ideas of nationalism and
the present versions of Hindutva. If such texts exist as functional discourses,
then we have a responsibility to carefully examine their nature and character.
Which means we have a responsibility to place ourselves in that discourse and
study it, both historically and discursively. Only then can we talk to people
who are located in various planes of this discourse. We cannot brand them as
fundamentalists just because they are believers. The fact is they are not
fundamentalists. If we make proper efforts, we can talk to them on their own
turf, and convince them that these texts do not possess an essentialist
character. And by doing that it will be possible to fashion a counter narrative
against Hindutva which has always successfully appropriated these texts for the
advancement of its ideology.
But there is also a
criticism that you are idealising the Mahabharata.
One thing is certain.
I do not consider the Mahabharata a bad work. It is indeed one of the greatest
and most exhaustive texts that have come out from ancient India. What I have
tried with my series of speeches and the book that will soon be published is to
explain on the basis of Indian history and Mahabharata’s textual structure how
the epic derived its truly great content. In that sense, my attempt has been to
deconstruct Mahabharata’s greatness. If you have noticed my explanations on
Mahabharata’s historical evolution, or on the nature of the Naga clan, or on
Ambedkar’s analyses of the epic, I don’t think you can say I have idealised the
Mahabharata.
When looking at the
historical space occupied by the Mahabharata, what I have tried is to explain
how the epic becomes a site of embedded history. For me, the Mahabharata is a
concrete imaginary world that hosts complex conflicts between three fundamental
forces in ancient Indian history: a) the tribal tradition b) the Brahmanic
tradition that first incorporated itself into the tribal tradition and then usurped
it c) the Buddhist tradition which challenged Brahmanism.
Of course, one can
argue that there is no need at all to talk about the Mahabharata and the
Ramayana since they are part of the same Brahmanic discourse we are presently
fighting against. Such a position might even be effective at a protest site.
But in a larger sense, the methods involved in formulating a counter discourse
and untangling historically hegemonic discourses are symbiotic in nature.
Ambedkar has written a
lot about the Mahabharata including detailed plot synopsis of the Udyogaparva
and the Virataparva. Why did someone like him who had categorically
denounced Brahmanism feel the need to think and write so extensively on the
Mahabharata? In the introduction to Revolution and Counter Revolution in
Ancient India, he writes: “Ancient Indian history must be exhumed. Without
its exhumation Ancient India will go without history. Fortunately with the help
of the Buddhist literature, Ancient Indian history can be dug out of the debris
which Brahmin writers have heaped upon it in a fit of madness.”
If we have to exhume
Indian history from that debris, we have to enter the text and untangle its
grand discourse. That was what D.D. Kosambi did. How can such attempts be
labelled as acts of idealisation?
Talking about
Ambedkar, in the recent wave of anti-CAA protests, we saw Ambedkar, Marx and
Gandhi coming together in the same platform. How far do you think it is
possible to put together these three thinkers among whom there are so many
visible conflicts and contradictions?
As part of the
anti-CAA protests there was this realisation that various opposing forms of
organised resistance do not share hostile contradictions. Space for a practical
and functional co-existence also emerged. Ambedkar, Marx and Gandhi are sites
of expression of great historical processes. We must in fact see them as
processes in themselves. They should not be frozen in history. The objective
must be to figure out ways that facilitate their continuation in our times,
rather than make them static and project their contradictions.
If we can see them as
processes, it is easy to recognise that they are constantly evolving. This
evolution is a result of the many engagements they had with the social
structure of their times. For quite a while now, it has become a strategy to
project their contradictions. And it’s a strategy that needs to be resisted and
defeated. That, however, does not mean that those contradictions have to be
kept under wraps. It is important to understand that those were internal
contradictions born of their historical circumstances. Acknowledging the
presence of these contradictions does not prevent us from seeking the
possibility of bringing those thinkers together in the model of resistance that
our particular circumstance demands.
So are you
suggesting that a methodology that brings together Gandhi, Ambedkar and Marx
can successfully challenge Hindutva?
When you say
methodology, it involves quite a few complex issues. To start with, they cannot
be placed in the same theoretical plane. They were not what you would call
professional thinkers. Rather, they were great thinkers who functioned outside
universities and academic spaces. There is a fundamental difference between
professional thinkers and organic thinkers. A professional thinker starts from
existing premises of critical thought, develops them further, and in the
process comes up with new formulations of ideas. On the contrary, organic
thinkers start from their social contexts. They adopt a particular method of
conceptualisation based on the relationship and contradictions it shares with
existing social realities.
So, in the method of
conceptualisation adopted by an organic thinker we may not be able to find
continuities with its historical and academic evolution. In fact, we are more
likely to find ruptures. Which means it is a folly to understand organic
philosophers based only on what they have written. To arrive at a more rounded
understanding of them, we must also consider the interventions they made in the
social life of their times. For instance, Gramsci did not coin the term
‘subaltern’ to denote a proletariat. To expand the idea of class was not his
philosophical concern; nor was it his intention to con his jailor. That was a
word born of a concrete historical situation which demanded that ways be
figured out to formulate expressions of resistance in an Italian society that
was under the control of the Fascists.
Therefore it is not
possible to divorce these thinkers from their circumstances and confine them to
conventionally accepted frameworks of methodology. They were people concerned
more about resisting and protesting than about creating a watertight world of
critical thought.
Probably, the most
significant discourse that has occupied the left intellectual space since the
times of E.M.S Namboodiripad is the one centred on identity politics. You have
been a prominent presence in that discussion and have even stated that political
mobilisation based on identities is not a Marxist practice or for that matter
even part of the larger framework of left politics. Do you still hold that
position?
My fundamental
position remains the same. I have never completely denounced political
understandings and criticisms that have emerged from various identity-driven
paradigms of resistance. The real problem is when such paradigms shift their
focus from being articulations of resistance to platforms of essentialist
identity politics.
So, while my basic
approach to this discourse has remained more or less the same, I must also
admit that there have been changes when it comes to details. I still think
identity politics is against the Marxist ethos, but I no longer consider its
historical content and functionality to be monolithic. There are contradictions
within identity politics and I now have a clearer and more perceptive
understanding regarding what to accommodate and what to reject from these
contradictions. Unlike before, I now don’t consider all identity questions
under one large category. When various groups like Adivasis, Dalits, women and
transgenders stress their identity position, they do so from a point of view of
resistance. While it is true that such an approach carries with it the
theoretical limitations of essentialism, it has a historical justification as
its emphasis is on fighting for social rights that have been denied them. So it
is important to extend solidarity despite ideological differences.
However, I don’t think
there is any point in extending solidarity to caste organisations that function
solely on the basis of their bargaining potential or to assertions of identity
based on religion.
The question is: Does political Islam acknowledge secularism? As far as I understand, it does not. Islamists have a strategic relationship with secularism.
So, to be more
specific, how can the Left address the questions raised by political Islam in
the Indian context? What is your response to the argument that the Left should
extend its solidarity to them?
I think the Islam
question should be addressed by connecting it with questions of nationalism. We
have a responsibility to take a critical position towards Indian nationalism’s
supremacist tendencies and the various kinds of marginalisations it has brought
about.
But if we were to
translate that criticism into the language of political Islam, we will soon end
up adopting the same logic of Hindutva, thereby negating the validity of our
critique. It will trap us in a Hindu-Muslim binary that will cancel out the
rightness of our resistance.
The question is: Does
political Islam acknowledge secularism? As far as I understand, it does not.
Islamists have a strategic relationship with secularism. Of course, it is their
choice, but I don’t think it is a strategic choice to be secular or not; it has
to be a fundamental position. And as long as they don’t adopt that position, it
is just not possible to be in solidarity with them.
Yet, it is also not possible to denounce the reality of the issues they raise just because it was they who raised them. It is possible to address those issues without adopting their logic. Political Islam approaches the question of identity in a very peripheral manner. They see religion and values associated with God in a permanent form that is absolutely essentialist. But Islam came into being in its present form after undergoing various historical processes in which it assumed many different forms. When you essentialise it, you are also placing the religious identity of Hindu as its opposing force. Politically, that is self-defeating. And if the Left decides to be in solidarity with political Islam, it is only going to fortify Hindutva’s political vision.
Now we also see
various discussions on the Constitution that go beyond legal technicalities and
focus on its philosophical and ethical dimensions. Was it a failure of our
democratic movements that it took so long for such discussions to happen?
It is true that previously we never bothered to discuss the historical factors and conditions behind the formation of our Constitution. But ideas and questions that come up in a particular historical context would never have appeared in the same form in a previous context. For instance, national anthem was for decades a mere formality in this country. It was even understood as an instrument of state logic. But in the present protests, the same national anthem acquired an emotional value. The song remains the same, but its function changed dramatically.
Similarly, it is
simply impossible for the present form of awareness on the Constitution to have
manifested in the same form in a different circumstance. This is an awareness
that has now organically entered the experiential realm of citizens. And it has
transformed the Constitution into a counter narrative against a social order
prescribed by Brahmanism and the Manusmriti.
What is your take on the politics of these protests?
If you look at the history of the formation of Indian nationalism, you can find two distinct political forms. From the 1880s to 1920s, mainstream nationalism was indeed religious in its essence. There might be exceptions here and there, but it is safe to say that nationalism in this period grew around Hinduism and various discourses on it. After the 1920s, however, this religious nationalism was replaced by a more inclusive and popular form that was fashioned by various factors like Gandhi, socialist and communist ideas, trade unions and various youth and student movements. It is this phase of nationalism that later became the bedrock of modern India.
An opposing
nationalism had also come into existence which was later appropriated by
Hindutva. But at least for half a century, popular nationalism managed to
triumph over its religious version, until the tables were turned in the last
couple of decades. Now, champions of religious nationalism like Vinayak Damodar
Savarkar and Deen Dayal Upadhyaya are presented as the champions of true nationalism.
CAA, at one level, is an expression of the conflict between these two streams
of nationalism. To be precise, the secular answer to the question Who is an
Indian is one that is based on definitions of national territory. The
religious answer, instead, is premised on the sharing of a particular culture.
CAA is a demonstration of the State’s shift to the latter answer.
You have been an
orator for the last thirty years. How did you develop your style? What are the
kinds of preparations you make when you try to communicate theoretical ideas to
an audience located outside academics?
My life as an orator
started in my college days as part of student politics. It was the glory period
of modernism in Kerala. And the general style of oratory was based on memorising
Latin American and African poems and then quoting them. Just to make it sound
different from ordinary speeches. By the time I completed my graduation, I
started to go outside my college and speak.
Looking back, I can
see that my style was quite artificial. I also had a fair bit of anxiety. But
for the last decade or so, I have gotten over it. I can now give a speech with
the same calmness that I engage in a conversation. And my style has become more
natural too. There is no longer any need to memorise what I have to quote;
those things just fall in place organically these days.
I think when you speak
with calmness, your audience too will be inclined to sit and listen quite
peacefully. If we become aggressive, they will try to resist. The most important
factor behind successful oratory, in my view, is an ability to develop a
heart-to-heart connection with the audience. And the easiest way to accomplish
that is to refrain from sounding dominant. People must feel that I am one among
them. But it is easier said than done. It requires a lot of experience.
Of course, not all
theoretical concepts can be explained based on concrete realities. But as an
orator, I can only work within that limitation. Practically speaking, with
experience, you get a sense of where to stop when you are on stage.
You always conclude
your anti-CAA speeches with a lot of optimism. Can we be so certain about a
bright future?
Optimism is something
that we have to consciously uphold. Protests for justice cannot move forward in
its absence. Optimism is a part of our political will, not of our frameworks of
intellectual analysis. And political will is a necessary condition if we have
to intervene in an act of protest. Even when the reality is against us, we have
to sustain this will. It is not a dream or a vision about the future, but an
indispensible political conviction.
