Tag: Margaret Thatcher

Sitaram Yechury Stayed the Course Through the Rise and Decline of His Party

Perhaps JNU played a small part in making Sitaram what he was – an affable democrat who was widely admired.

I met Sitaram Yechury soon after I joined the Jawaharlal Nehru University for a PhD programme in 1977. The Emergency was over and the Janata government had taken over. The first thing to hit me was the amazingly democratic culture in campus. The spirit of dialogue and debate prevailed. There was no ragging and no goondaism during elections. This was the result of a democratic culture fostered by the students union. Various student bodies vied with each other to get the attention of the newly admitted students so that they could be drawn into their fold.

The issue of the ‘Guilty Four’ was festering then. The student body wanted the top functionaries of the University – including the Vice-Chancellor and the Registrar – to resign since during the Emergency they had collaborated with the government and had allowed the students to be arrested. To press their demand, the students unanimously decided to go on strike. Sitaram was the president of the Students Union and actively mobilised the students.

The Library was captured by the student body and run by them 24×7. Later on, it was said not a book was lost. Senior students held classes for the new students. So, while a strike was on, there was a semblance of academic normalcy. Simultaneously, there were discussions and debates on how the situation was to be handled. Some students went back home but most stayed on. All this was a contribution of the student leadership in place. The SFI under Sitaram played an important role in this unique episode where learning and agitating went hand in hand.

The ethos in campus was anti-establishment.

A photograph showing Sitaram Yechury and Indira Gandhi during the former’s JNU days.

Sitaram as the president of the Student Union was in the lead and perhaps these were his formative experiences which stayed with him all through his life. Those were the days when students did not reveal that they were preparing for the Civil Services examinations. It is only in 1980 that a notice was seen on a Library notice board announcing availability of material for preparing for the Civil Service examinations. There was consternation and it was widely discussed on campus. During the 1970s, so many democratic practices got adopted in JNU. Like, representation in decision making bodies, student faculty committee, running student elections and say in admission policies.

Not only was the student body against Indira Gandhi for the Emergency during which many active students were arrested but also against the Morarji Desai government. The Janata government saw JNU as a bastion of the Left and wanted to put it in its place. JNU’s expansion was stalled. Funding for the Library was curtailed. The Library was supposed to get two copies of every book printed in India. That stopped because there was no place to store them and/or display them. 

The 10-storey new Library building stood as a shell for many years because the funding had been cut. The shift of the campus from what was built for the IAS Academy to its own campus called the ‘up campus’ was stalled. Departments functioned from the hostel rooms which were meant for IAS probationers. Fortunately, there were good lecture halls near the library and reading room, called the ‘L’ and the ‘S’ Halls – for large and small – lectures.

Also read: A Fighter and a Thinker, Sitaram Yechury Leaves Behind a Towering Legacy

Sitaram, an economics student, had joined the PhD programme after completing his MA. In the small first batch of MA Economics, he was considered to be one of the best students. He demonstrated that one could be a good student and also an activist. He was also in the first batch of PhD in Economics and got a fellowship. His supervisor professor Krishna Bharadwaj, the founder of the Centre, used to be at her wit’s end to get Sitaram to write something to show progress in the programme. The Economics faculty realised that given Sitaram’s commitment to student and national politics, it was going to be difficult for him to write a dissertation. The department did not give up hope since he was a bright student who was also polite and respectful to teachers.

Sitaram’s anti-establishment framework in life resulted in his becoming a whole timer for the party. Most of his class fellows got good jobs and earned well but that did not lure him. Many of the JNU student leaders after leaving JNU joined established parties. Many changed sides and joined the mainstream and became critical of the Left. This happened especially after the New Economic Policies were launched in 1991. Sitaram took all this in his stride and remained committed to the Left even though it must have been tough to see so many comrades change side. He did not show disappointment and remained affable. Perhaps, it was his connect with people on the ground and the understanding that there was a larger fight in the world.

Photo: X/@SitaramYechury.

His party, CPI(M), was in the ascendency in the period up to the 1990s. That kept him engaged. The emergence of the National Front with support of the Left and the Right from 1989 led to hectic activity in the opposition ranks. He was a part of that. There was hope of building an alternative to Rajiv Gandhi’s Congress.

That hope was quickly belied with the fall of the National Front government, the economic crisis that engulfed the economy and the launch of NEP in 1991. These policies were introduced under the conditionalities set by the IMF and the World Bank. That was also the time of the emergence of the Dunkle Draft, proposing the creation of WTO. Sitaram was actively engaged in opposing these diktats from outside.

He participated in the National Patent Working Group’s activities to oppose the Dunkle Draft and the proposed Patent Laws under the aegis of the WTO, created in 1995. He was a part of the Preparatory Committee for Alternative Economic Policies (PCAEP) which worked on drafting Alternative Budgets 1993-94 and 1994-95 as vehicles of alternative policies. He argued that the Congress introduced NEP saying that ‘there is no alternative’ or ‘TINA’ – a term coined by Margaret Thacher in 1978. He argued that we have to show that an alternative is feasible in India.

When the Congress was the main national force of the establishment, he worked against it and as the BJP rose to power in the 1990s on the back of raking up communalism, he worked for the unity of the anti-BJP parties. There was the United Front (UF) and then the UPA. More recently he has worked to bring the opposition together under what became the INDI Alliance. While as a General Secretary of the CPI(M) he opposed Congress in Kerala (earlier also in West Bengal), at the national level he worked to build an anti-BJP front.

CPI (M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury at party congress in Kannur, Kerala. Photo: Facebook

In JNU it was clear, he could get along with a diverse set of people and worked towards convincing people rather than adopting a strident and dogmatic view. Many of the student leaders in JNU belonging to other parties were his good friends and respected him in spite of the wide differences that existed due to what was seen as Stalinism.

This art of working with a diverse set of people while maintaining his ideology served him well in alliance building. He learnt a lot from his mentor, Harkishan Singh Surjeet, who was a master of the art of building alliances in Delhi. But Sitaram was doing it at a time when alliance building had become far more difficult than in the earlier period. The disarray in the opposition had become greater and authoritarianism had scared many of the opposition leaders who were not coming out openly to oppose the ruling party. They were not mobilising the people to come out in the streets on critical issues. This was unlike in the 1980s and 1990s when there was strong public mobilisation.

It must have been tough for Sitaram to be heading the party when its strength had greatly diminished. West Bengal and Tripura were lost. Strength in parliament was minimal. He was a part of a small band of parliamentarians who raised critical issues. He was heard with rapt attention in the House. At a recent panel discussion he pointed out how he had opposed the issue of electoral bonds. Earlier he had raised the issue of attack on institutions of higher education, especially the characterisation of JNU as anti-national and home to the ‘tukde-tukde’ gang. He raised the issue of Rohit Vemula’s death at the Central University Hyderabad. 

He constantly raised the issues of conditions of workers, women, farmers, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes – all the marginalised. His command over public policy was exceptional and he could quickly get to the heart of the problem. So, his responses were sought by the media. This was because of his clarity about the way the establishment functions and how it pushes its narrow interest at the expense of the marginalised. He understood that power play was for pushing narrow interests. Even policies seemingly for the marginalised had an ulterior motive and delivered little to the supposedly intended beneficiaries.

It is easy for a leader to work with hope when the party is on the rise and things are going well. It is far more difficult to maintain equanimity when the party is in decline. It is not easy to build alliances with those with whom one has ideological differences while maintaining one’s ideology which is contrary to that of the others. As it is, being Left in a capitalist system is difficult at the best of times. Perhaps JNU played a small part in making Sitaram what he was – an affable democrat who was widely admired.

Arun Kumar is retired professor of economics, JNU.

Private Eye at 60: The Prime Ministerial Parodies That Tell a History of Modern Britain

When the magazine launched, it helped initiate the “satire boom”, and, more profoundly, the increasing lack of deference those in positions of authority could expect from the press, television, and, consequently, the public.

The fortnightly magazine Private Eye turns 60 this year. When it launched, it helped initiate the “satire boom”, and, more profoundly, the increasing lack of deference those in positions of authority could expect from the press, television, and, consequently, the public.

One of the magazine’s most popular and longest features has been the prime ministerial parody. Commenting on the state of politics, it provides a potted political history of Britain.

The life and times of a Downing Street housewife

Though Harold Macmillan was prime minister when Private Eye appeared in 1961, and Alec Douglas-Home soon succeeded him, the first to become the subject of a regular satirical column was Harold Wilson.

Labour had won the 1964 general election invoking a “new Britain” to replace the old establishment constraining a country on the cusp of a technological revolution. Rather making the point for him, a new prime minister conspicuously northern of provenance and accent found himself immediately patronised by the Oxbridge public-school boys in London behind the magazine.

Harold Wilson. Photo: Allan Warren/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Mrs Wilson’s Diary was the idea of Peter Cook, the most prominent of them, partly inspired by the radio soap opera Mrs Dale’s Diary. The Wilsons’ 10 Downing Street was a household of mundane domesticity, of spam garnished with brown sauce, accompanied by Wincarnis sweet wine. In skewering Wilson’s provincialism, the column also connoted Britain’s rapidly diminishing international status.

In this way, Private Eye is, among other things, a unique example of conservatism and iconoclasm. It was born of the very establishment it was created to debunk. Its defining characteristic was to parody whoever is in power.

Wilson, who cultivated a pipe and a pint persona in public despite being a cigar and cognac man in private, could hardly complain – though complain he did, even intervening to censor the script when Mrs Wilson’s Diary was adapted into a West End play.

Tetchy Ted’s memo to Heathco staff

The Conservatives unexpectedly won the 1970 general election, and the new prime minister Edward Heath’s intention was to replace Wilson’s tired government of gimmicks and cronies with a gleaming, modern, almost corporate, administration.

But Private Eye presciently rendered Heathco as a struggling medium enterprise which duly collapsed alongside the increasingly tetchy managing director’s authority.

Callaghan: a blank space

A case can be made for the 1970s parodies being the best because it was the dottiest decade, replete with singular scandals and improbable conspiracies, many of which were brought to light in the Eye.

Perhaps the most damning aspect of Jim Callaghan’s beleaguered premiership was that it, alone, went without a parody. The comic strip ‘The Brothers’ had to suffice, depicting the breakdown between the Labour government and the trades unions, the end of the post-war settlement and of corporatism.

The gripings of a golf-obsessed husband

The landmark incarnation of the parody began in 1979 with the landmark prime ministership of Margaret Thatcher.

Dear Bill, in which Thatcher’s spouse Denis wrote to his friend Bill (Deedes, a prominent conservative journalist), allowed for the comic exaggeration of a certain commuter-belt conservatism, centred on gin, tonic, golf, and reacting against all manner of modern norms. Private Eye could characterise the husband as comic because his wife was far from funny.

Suitably enough, it was the 1980s incarnation that was the most commercially-minded. The Dear Bill books were bestsellers, while audiences for the stage version Anyone for Denis? included the Thatchers, smiling unconvincingly.

Major growing pains

The shift in scale from Thatcher to her unprepossessing successor in 1990 had Private Eye cast him as an overgrown, and equally dynamic, Adrian Mole in The Secret Diary of John Major (aged 47¾).

With the widely-ridiculed Cones Hotline, which provided the public with means of redress about local traffic calming methods, a flagship policy, and the government descending into a pit of endemic corruption, the long Conservative era that was clearly ending was not unlike that of the early 60s which had occasioned the satire boom in the first place.

New Labour arrives in the parish

After 18 years of Tory rule, the column shifted from the stale to the sanctimonious in 1997, when Tony Blair’s proclivity to play guitar in overly-tight jeans inspired his depiction as a trendy vicar addressing his congregation in the St Albion Parish News.

Reverend Blair issued updates from officials such as church warden Peter Mandelson, in charge of the Millennium Tent on the village green, and from his American friend George Bush’s “Church of the Latter-Day Morons”.

Ten years later, the Prime Ministerial Decree presented Gordon Brown as a Stalin-like dictator. It was effective for no other reason than that his hapless regime showed him to be anything but Stalin-like. An appropriately narrow, joyless, iteration.

2010s: Dave and Theresa’s school days

The 2010s was a decade of scholasticism. The first multi-party government since 1940 had David Cameron as headmaster of the New Coalition Academy, the fortnightly newsletter of which foregrounded his voguish headline educational reform.

When Cameron happily shed his Liberal Democrat partners after the 2015 election, the magazine appointed him head of the even more voguish Cameron Free School, penning another newsletter.

Cameron was unfortunately soon made to resign by a disaster of his own making (Brexit), and his successor, Theresa May, took over as headmistress of St. Theresa’s Independent State Grammar School for Girls (and Boys) for two painful years before she was unfortunately made to resign by a disaster of hers (Brexit).

The Johnson years: beyond a joke?

In its 60 years, the parody has taken the form of private musing or public communication. But to work, it had to be plausible.

The best that can be said of the latest version, in which the prime minister responds to questions from the public on social media, is that Boris Johnson’s Live on Fakebook is so like its subject that, depending on one’s disposition, it’s either unmissable or unreadable.

The purpose of the Private Eye prime ministerial parody was to render its subject unserious. When the subject manages that all by themselves, satire might be seen to have died.The Conversation

Martin Farr, senior lecturer in Contemporary British History, Newcastle University.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Beyond AOC’s ‘Tax the Rich’ Dress: Sartorial Protests That Changed History

Using fashion as a tool to address wider social concerns has, in fact, long been a strategy for people seeking to make change.

Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has ignited both controversy and celebration after wearing a gown to the Met Gala emblazoned in red graffiti text with the statement “Tax the Rich”.

Appearing as a guest of the Metropolitan Museum of Art at the annual fund raiser, (for which tickets cost tens of thousand dollars), the left-wing politician wore a custom gown by fashion brand Brother Vellies, bringing with her the label’s founder, the young Black designer and activist Aurora James.

Using fashion as a tool to address wider social concerns has, in fact, long been a strategy for people seeking to make change — including wearing these clothes in spaces of influence.

From 19th century Suffragettes who pounded the streets in heels, ultra-feminine dress and large “picture” hats to refute claims that they were unwomanly, to patriot textiles in the second world war, to Indigenous Australian street clothes and accessories by a brand such as Dizzy Couture today, dress has historically conveyed political messages, creating “looks” for generations of change agents.

Here are 5 clothing acts as provocations that changed history.

1. George Washington’s suit

The founders of the American Revolution wished to break with the old codes of European aristocracy. Much of the world still had “sumptuary laws”: legal edicts that regulated the types, materials and amounts of cloth, colours, jewellery and accessories permitted to various social groups.

Houdon’s sculpture of Washington. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

In North America, the formal clothing codes of the old regime were actively resisted: men were not expected to wear the expensive and colourful embroidered silks typically worn to European courts. Their imported fabrics were considered bad for local economies, and their elite air at odds with the idea that all men might now be (relatively) equal.

President elect George Washington was sculpted by Houdon in the late 18th century with a button missing from his waistcoat. This was a deliberate gesture to show his actions were more important than his appearance. He also wore plain, home-spun American woollen cloth for his inauguration instead of the expected silk or velvet. This was a firm demonstration of North American independence and perhaps the first American “business casual”.

2. The Abolitionist handbag

Since the late 18th century, a range of objects from jewellery to printed dishes were produced to critique the Slave Trade.

British Quakers had advocated for Abolition in 1783. The Female Society for Birmingham (originally the Ladies Society for the Relief of Negro Slaves, the first such group) mobilised their anti-slavery followers with handbags printed with images and slogans designed to gain support for the Abolitionist movement.

Abolitionist bag full of anti-slavery pamphlets. Photo: Victoria and Albert Museum, London, CC BY-NC

The silk drawstring bags, made by women in sewing circles, were presented to prominent figures such as George IV and Princess Victoria. The bags contained newspaper articles and tracts supportive of Abolition.

The Slavery Abolition Act, which provided for the immediate abolition of slavery in most of the British Empire was passed ten years later, in 1833. A similar Act was ratified in the USA only in 1865.

3. No feather hats

The ostrich and exotic bird industry was massive in the 19th century: as well as plumes, women wore whole bodies of birds as accessories, such as hummingbird earrings.

The ostrich plume “double fluff” industry was centred on South Africa, where the feathers were worth more than gold. They were exported to rooms in London and New York where exhausted young girls finished and dyed them for retail.

Feather fan circa 1902. Te Papa. Photo: CC BY-NC-ND

In 1914 a massive “feather crash” saw the raw material become close to worthless. Young women interested in the growing national park and conservation movements objected to the trade on ecological grounds. They simply stopped wearing the fashion, starting a global “anti-plumage” movement.

The women involved with the Massachusetts Audubon Society were so successful that their lobbying led to the first US federal conservation legislation, The Lacey Act (1900). Taxidermied birds, feather boas and birds as earrings became largely unfashionable and were rarely seen again in women’s fashion.

4. The ACT UP t-shirt

Men wearing ACT UP t-shirts at protest.

“Act Up Oral History Project”, Photo: CC BY-NC-SA

The AIDS crisis of the 1980s-90s saw the mobilisation of a unique blend of activism born from the women’s, Hispanic, Black power and 1970s gay movements. ACT UP New York determined that only anger and civil disobedience would focus the attention of government and big pharma on the plight of mainly gay men’s health.

A series of extraordinary “zaps” or site-specific protests, often theatrical, was engineered. ACT UP’s membership included skilled figures from advertising and design who created unified and stylish T-shirts, posters and banners. The designs were clean, slick and looked just like good advertising.

As Sarah Schulman recently demonstrated in her 20 year history of ACT UP, the bold T-shirt designs both created optimum impact for ACT UP’s protests on the TV news and a new pro-gay identity. Worn with Doc Marten shoes, leather jackets, clean and tight jeans or denim shorts, ACT UP established the look of gay urban men for a generation.

Government bodies and large drug companies were shamed by the public protests into adopting better and more rational health messaging, conducting better funded and more equitable drug trials and selling cheaper retrovirals.

5. When Katharine met Maggie

In 1984, designer Katharine Hamnett wore a t-shirt that read, “58% DONT WANT PERSHING” (a reference to nuclear missiles) to a high profile fashion evening attended by conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Hamnett made her T-shirt the night before, recognising the opportunity she had, and hid it under her coat upon entry. Its graphic format owes a debt to both 1970s Punk and ACT UP. She later recalled of the widely photographed encounter with Thatcher:

She looked down and said, “You seem to be wearing a rather strong message on your T-shirt”, then she bent down to read it and let out a squawk, like a chicken.

Social change needs its visual forms. Fashion is one of them. Fashion is a brilliant communicator of new ideas. That we are reading about AOC’s clothing “controversy” shows she fully understands fashion’s power.The Conversation

Peter McNeil, Distinguished Professor of Design History, UTS, University of Technology Sydney.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Farmers Protest: Why Are Some ‘Liberals’ Invoking the Legacy of Margaret Thatcher?

In her home country today, derisive references to Margaret Thatcher are far more common than benign ones. But in India, time seems to have stood still since her glory days.

Fully 30 years after she was eased out of her job by her own party, Indian admirers of Britain’s Iron Lady are sending up fervent prayers for Margaret Thatcher Redux. Hacks are flooding the media space with froth as they sing paeans to the dear departed lady. (Their ardent hope is to be delivered soon from the ignominy of too much democracy.) And they don’t want their readers to remember that, alone among Britain’s many Oxford-educated prime ministers, it was Thatcher whom her alma mater refused to award an honorary doctorate. She was still very much in power, and her lobbyists had left few stones unturned in their efforts to secure for the PM that nearly routine honour from Oxford. And yet she was snubbed. And what a snub it was! The meeting of ‘Congregation’, Oxford’s governing assembly, convened to consider the proposed degree to Thatcher, was the most crowded assembly of that august body that most of those present could remember. And what followed was a wounding blow to the PM:

“The ‘No’ exit at Sir Christopher Wren’s Sheldonian Theatre was jammed like a London Tube station in the rush hour long after the ‘Aye’ door had taken its last voter. Dons and senior administrators decided by 738 votes to 319 against giving Mrs Thatcher the scarlet and crimson gown and velvet bonnet of a doctor of civil law.”

For the record, the only other important Oxonian to be denied that honorary degree in the 20th century was Z.A. Bhutto – for his dreadful human rights record. Interestingly, Bhutto’s report card at the Congregation hustings was way better than Thatcher’s: 191 for and 239 against. Indeed, in Thatcher’s case, a banner had even been slung across Somerville, the PM’s old college at Oxford, saying, “No degree for Mrs Thatcher”, an honour denied to the Pakistan PM. About Thatcher’s abortive degree bid, The Guardian had noted at that time that

“(t)he scale of the PM’s defeat was due to a huge turnout by scientific and medical dons, who rarely take part in academic debates but have been roused by the effects of government economic curbs on their research.”

That memorable put-down, delivered to a sitting PM, has since entered Oxford’s folklore. Indeed, in her home country today, derisive references to Margaret Thatcher (a ‘Marmite’ figure, ‘La Pasionaria of Privilege’, ….) are far more common than benign ones, even among conservative circles. But in Britain’s former colony India, time seems to have stood still since Thatcher’s glory days. So we have a senior English language journalist grandly talking about Narendra Modi’s ‘Thatcher or Anna moment’, even as the Indian PM finds himself besieged by tens of thousands of farmers protesting at Delhi’s borders against his government’s farm sector ‘reforms’. The Anna moment, in this journalist’s book, is a proxy for the ‘Manmohan Singh moment’, by which is meant capitulation and surrender: isn’t Singh famous for how he caved in to the Anna Hazare ‘movement’ against corruption? By contrast, the Thatcher moment

“would mean when a big, audacious and risky push for reform, that threatens established structures and entrenched vested interests, brings an avalanche of opposition. (Emphasis added)”

So Modi has a stark choice to make: either retreat like Manmohan Singh did under pressure, or ‘push farm reforms in Margaret Thatcher style’. And ‘…how Modi answers this … question will determine national politics going ahead’.

So far, so good. The scribe is stating his case. It is clear on which side his sympathies lie, but that can hardly be faulted. Indeed, it is a perfectly acceptable opinion piece by a journalist – up until this point. But he signs off with an extraordinary flourish:

“Our wish, of course, is that he [Modi] will choose Thatcher over Anna. It will be a tragedy if even Modi were to lose his nerve over his boldest reform.“ (Emphasis added)

This, to me, reads more like a political manifesto than a journalist’s despatch. (Note how the whole news portal has been deftly subsumed in that clever ‘our wish’. The message is: here are a couple of hundred votes to give you strength. Good luck and godspeed!) And this is not all. Elsewhere in the piece, even as he grudgingly concedes that “farmers blockading the capital make for really bad pictures”, the writer doesn’t forget to tell us why this is bad optics: after all, “these aren’t nutcases of ‘Occupy Wall Street”.  This speaks to visceral contempt for organised mass action, the kind of contempt that underlies the now-famous ‘Hard work versus Harvard’ witticism. The contempt is targeted in both these smart quotes at a common enemy: the Khan Market Gang (yes, gang with an upper-case G), or the tukde tukde Gang, if you like.

Farmers arrive in a tractor to attend a protest against the newly passed farm bills at Singhu border near New Delhi, India, December 14, 2020. Photo: Reuters/Adnan Abidi

And this is not a solo journalist waxing eloquent about the Thatcher/Modi likeness. Others are piping up, all of them in the same strain: this is the Modi government’s make-or-mar Thatcher moment, and Modi can let go of this propitious moment only at his own – i.e., his reforms’ – peril. A quick scan of the last few days’ opinion pieces in various news media gives me access to another ‘journalistic’ tirade on another news portal against “protests from a select group of farmers, who have received a megaphone from the domestic and international press, as well as opportunistic support from opposition parties, which finally see a possible wedge issue to use against Modi’s government…”. (Megaphone, indeed! What happened to the sundry media platforms who were proving to be so loud a megaphone in the protesters’ hands that these same protesters were obliged to boycott them wholesale?) And this writer proudly reminds us that the ‘Modi’s Thatcher moment’ tagline had occurred to him as early as March 2015 when he penned a learned essay on this same subject. He also closes his recent piece with this fond wish:

“Modi in 2020 is a seasoned, powerful leader. Let’s hope he fulfils the promise of the moment.”

Amen!

Neither of these men deems it necessary to argue their – i.e., Modi’s – case. It must be self-evident to all but the Gang, so. But probe it a little – and you will know that they are Crusaders against that pernicious phenomenon called subsidies. I remember having once watched the better-known of these two journalists in a TV discussion in which he frankly confessed that he found subsidies ‘vulgar’, antediluvian. Of course, he was referring only to the poor men’s subsidies – those attached to food and cooking gas – and by no means those which are reserved for the rich ( tax breaks, for example, which are meant to unleash ‘corporate animal spirits’).

So, can we take a quick look at their iron-clad case against the one subsidy that is troubling their conscience most at this point? We will necessarily need to compare these subsidies with those given by rich countries to their farmers. Surely, developed (and efficient) economies don’t entertain such antiquated, fossilized handouts as subsidies? And if they do, these must be no more than a trickle while the privileged protesters at Delhi’s borders wallow in a whole sea of them?

In a study compiled by professor Bharat Rameshwaram of IIT Delhi in March 2019 for the Fifteenth Finance Commission, he puts annual Central government subsidy to farmers at Rs 1,205 billion: made up of fertiliser subsidies (Rs 700 billion), price support (Rs 240 billion), credit subsidies (Rs 200 bilion) and crop insurance subsidy (Rs 65 billion). Parallelly, there are subsidies offered by the state governments which together work out to Rs 1,140 billion: power subsidies (Rs 900 billion), irrigation subsidies (Rs 175 billion) and crop insurance subsidies (Rs 65 billion). In addition, the state governments in 2017-18 had announced farm loan waivers of the order of Rs 1,220 billion. In all, then, farm subsidies add up approximately to Rs 3,500 billion, or to 2-2.25% of the country’s GDP. They also form about 20% of aggregate farm income, annually. Another study by the Centre for WTO Studies (part of the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade) estimates India’s per-farmer aggregate domestic support in 2018-19 at $282 (roughly Rs 20,000).

Also Read: Are the New Agriculture Ordinances an Extension of the WTO’s Agenda?

Let us now place that number beside per-farmer subsidies provided by some other economies: $5,357 (Australia), $8,588 (EU countries), $11,437 (Japan), $13,010 (Canada), and $61,286 (the US). For China and South Korea, the numbers are $1,065 and $5,369 respectively. Even Brazil ($332) and Thailand ($367) provide more substantial support to their farmers than India. Those challenging the whole concept of subsidies can derive strength for their case by looking at Bangladesh ($11) and Indonesia ($139), but will a comparison with such countries give them comfort?

A closer look at the US numbers will do no harm. Why analyse an outlier, you ask? Well, isn’t the US the neoliberals’ Mecca for all seasons? Indeed, the senior journalist we are referring to here had made quite a name for himself when, in 2003, he publicly counselled Vajpayee, India’s PM then, to send Indian troops to Iraq – as part of a George Bush-Tony Blair-Vajpayee coalition. His rationale was simple: if India could once ‘prove her bona fides as a serious democracy’ by joining that holy war, no one would ever again manage to drive a wedge between her and the US. Alas!—Vajpayee was less than enchanted by the advice. But surely Modi can be trusted to do what Vajpayee couldn’t?

So, what more do we know about what the US does for its farmers? An article published by Taxpayers for Common Sense on September 3, 2020 sheds some light. Direct US government payments to farmers during the current year are of the order of $37.2 billion. Plus, the Commodity Credit Corpn is spending another $14 billion. Together, these subsidies ($51.2 billion) form 43.8% of net farm income of the country. (Contrast this with India’s 20%.) And this is far from being the whole story. The HEROES Act passed in May 2020 provided additional COVID-19 funding of $16.5 billion to agriculture. And, in the second tranche of the COVID-19 funding – by way of the HEALS Act which awaits Congressional approval – another $20 billion in direct payments (cash subsidies) to the sector have been proposed. If this corpus is released, aggregate US farm sector subsidies this year will top $88 billion (or, Rs 6,600 bn, approximately, or roughly twice the government support to farming in India.) And that sum will cater to a community whose size is a little over 1% of India’s farming roll strength. Vulgar? Of course not. It’s the US, stupid!

And yet, at the WTO, the developed economies regularly give India a piece of their collective mind on her ‘undue’ support to agriculture. How this scandalous state of affairs persists to this day – indeed, how much more heat is likely to be turned on India on this count in the coming years by the rich countries – is a story for another day. But there can be little doubt that India’s governmental support to agriculture is a measly fraction of what richer countries routinely give to their own farmers.

A farmer works in his field. Photo: Jignesh Mistry/PAIGAM

So, are our anti-subsidy crusaders ill-informed? I don’t think so. Their problem is not informational, but ideological. To these zealots of neoliberalism, all support to the ordinary citizen is odious, and poor subsidies are pure sacrilege. Such subsidies, they are convinced, create “the culture of dependency” (Thatcher’s words) while subsidies to the wealthy are ‘productive’ support. No amount of additional information will disabuse neoliberals of these prejudices.

Margaret Thatcher once famously said there was no such thing as society: there were only individuals and there were families. In much the same breath, she added, “(P)eople have got the entitlements too much in mind without the obligations”. Her epigones in India, as elsewhere, have learnt these lessons by heart. As more farmers join the ongoing agitation in and around the national capital, therefore, we can be certain to witness more smarmy invocations of the spirit of the woman who had helped introduce to the UK what one commentator memorably described as ‘casino capitalism’.

Anjan Basu can be reached at basuanjan52@gmail.com.

UK PM Johnson’s Brexit ‘Brain’ Cummings To Leave Downing Street

Cummings’s strategy was instrumental in driving Vote Leave to victory in the 2016 Brexit referendum.

London: Dominic Cummings, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s most powerful adviser, will stop working for Downing Street in mid-December as Johnson tries to reset his premiership after a series of failures in tackling the coronavirus pandemic.

Cummings, expected to stay until around Christmas, was pictured by a Reuters photographer clutching a box as he left Johnson’s office in No. 10 Downing Street on Friday evening.

The BBC, Sky News and other media outlets reported that Cummings had left his role for good, abruptly reducing the sway of Brexit hardliners in Johnson’s government.

But No. 10 said Cummings would continue to work for Johnson until mid-December, although it was unclear in what capacity and whether he would return to the building.

Johnson is grappling with factional fighting over the future direction of the government just as he struggles to contain Europe’s deadliest COVID-19 outbreak, establish a rapport with US President-elect Joe Biden and master the delicate diplomacy of a last-minute Brexit trade agreement.

Cummings, who masterminded the 2016 Brexit referendum vote and Johnson’s 2019 landslide election win, had told the BBC that he wanted to be largely redundant by the end of this year, once Britain has left informal membership of the European Union.

Critics said that while the upheaval in Downing Street was unwelcome at a time of national crisis, the announcement marked the end of Cummins’ policy clout.

“I think that Dom now, so far as Westminster is concerned, is a busted flush,” said one Conservative lawmaker who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Johnson is under pressure from Conservative parliamentarians to recast his administration and get a grip of the pandemic which is decimating the economy.

Johnson’s ‘brain’

The exit of Johnson’s influential right-hand man marks one of the most significant changes to the prime minister’s inner circle so far: Cummings was cast by some as Johnson’s “brain”.

A committed Brexiteer, he was seen by European diplomats as a hardline influence on Johnson over Brexit and the proponent of Madman Theory – a reference to former US President Richard Nixon’s attempt to contain the Soviet Union during the Cold War by convincing Moscow that he was irrational.

Cummings, 48, educated at Oxford and married to the daughter of a baronet, scorned the British political establishment and hurled barbs at reporters and cabinet ministers alike.

He was cast in the Spitting Image satirical puppet show as an alien who repeatedly threatened Johnson with resignation.

With Johnson pondering decisions on future relations with the EU and the COVID-stricken economy that could impact British prosperity for a generation, the 56-year-old leader appeared trapped between rival factions.

Also read: Why Boris Johnson Needs the Controversial Dominic Cummings by His Side

The battle spilled into the open with the resignation of his director of communications, Lee Cain, a close Cummings ally who had been tipped as a new chief of staff.

The Westminster political bubble was awash with speculation that Johnson’s fiancee Carrie Symonds aligned with Johnson’s new press secretary Allegra Stratton to oust Cain – to the displeasure of Cummings, who then threatened to resign.

Cain will also keep working for Johnson until mid-December.

‘Take back control’

Cummings‘s strategy was instrumental in driving Vote Leave to victory in the 2016 Brexit referendum. He is credited with coining the campaign’s central slogan: “Take back control”.

Cummings believes the elites of the West – and the United Kingdom in particular – are out of touch with voters and have repeatedly neglected the interests of their people while bailing out big business.

In 2019, he told Reuters to stop asking about Brexit: “You guys should get outside London and go to talk to people who are not rich Remainers.”

His disregard for accepted norms was shown when he said he had done nothing wrong by driving 250 miles from London to obtain childcare at a time when Britons were in lockdown to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.

Cummings is seen by allies and enemies as a ruthless strategist who cares little for the conventions of traditional British politics. Known as Dom to his friends – who regard him as a visionary – he was described by former Prime Minister David Cameron as a “career psychopath”.

Asked once if he was the Thomas Cromwell of British politics – a reference to King Henry VIII’s most feared adviser – Cummings chuckled.

He scorns the accepted Westminster dress code of a suit and tie, wearing jeans and T-shirts in Downing Street.

Cummings helped Johnson navigate the tortuous follow-through from the 2016 Brexit referendum amid a hung parliament that failed repeatedly to ratify the terms of withdrawal from the EU and steer his quest for the prime ministership.

That set the scene for Johnson’s victory in the 2019 election with the biggest majority his party has achieved since Margaret Thatcher’s in 1987.

(Reuters)

British Sikh MP Seeks Probe Into Thatcher Govt’s Involvement in Operation Blue Star

The demand for an inquiry arose a few years ago when it emerged that British military advice was given to Indian forces prior to the Operation Blue Star.

London: British Sikh Opposition Labour Party MP Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi, on June 5, has called for an independent inquiry into the extent of the involvement of the then Margaret Thatcher led British government in the Operation Blue Star in June 1984.

The UK’s first turbaned Sikh member of Parliament, who raised the issue in the House of Commons on Thursday to mark 36 years since the Indian army’s operation at the Golden Temple in Amritsar, also called for a debate on the issue.

This week marks 36 years since the then Indian Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, ordered her abhorrent attack on the most revered Sikh shrine, the Golden Temple complex in Amritsar, Dhesi said.

Despite recent revelations and given the huge demand from within the British Sikh community and the support of the Labour party and other Opposition parties, an independent inquiry to establish the extent of the Thatcher government’s involvement in the attack has still not been held, he said.

Also read: UK Court Orders Cabinet Office to Declassify More Operation Blue Star Files

Leader of the Commons, Jacob Rees-Mogg, responded on behalf of the government to describe it as an important anniversary.

“I have every confidence that Margaret Thatcher, one of the greatest leaders this country has ever had, would always have behaved properly,” said Rees-Mogg.

The demand for an inquiry arose a few years ago when it emerged that British military advice was given to Indian forces prior to the Operation Blue Star.

The then British Prime Minister, David Cameron, had ordered an internal review into this discovery, which led to a statement in Parliament declaring that Britain’s role had been purely advisory and the Special Air Service (SAS) advice had limited impact on the Operation Blue Star in June 1984.

(PTI)

The Electoral Consequences of Sri Lanka’s Crisis

The campaigns of the two frontrunners represent a system in crisis. Gotabaya Rajapaksa offers a hard authoritarian solution to popular frustrations while Sajith Premadasa offers a defence of weak democracy.

Although 35 candidates are running for Sri Lanka’s presidential election – scheduled for November 16, the race is essentially between two. Gotabaya Rajapaksa, of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), appears to be the frontrunner in a head-to-head battle with Sajith Premadasa, of the United National Party (UNP).

Although Gotabaya presents himself as an ex-military man and a political outsider, he is from a family entrenched in politics. His brother, Mahinda Rajapaksa, ruled Sri Lanka from 2005 to 2015. Like Gotabaya, Sajith was a less visible member of the now-defunct coalition government that ruled from 2015 to 2018. He also comes from a political family. His father was Ranasinghe Premadasa, who was president from 1988 to 1994 and was assassinated by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) during his re-election campaign.

Gotabaya and Sajith, however, are not only avatars of a battle between two dynasties. Their campaigns also represent a system in crisis. Gotabaya offers a hard authoritarian solution to popular frustrations in the daily struggle to survive. Sajith, on the other hand, offers a defence of weak democracy. Gotabaya appears to be the frontrunner because he offers a more vindictive capitalism as the solution, promising to make the country secure for private investment. Sajith lacks an alternative vision of equally compelling breadth. Sajith’s defensive struggle on behalf of a weak democracy is a response to the breakdown of an authoritarian populist hegemony that legitimised the initial transition to neoliberalism in Sri Lanka over 40 years ago.

Neoliberalism in crisis

Sri Lanka’s neoliberal experiment was relatively advanced in the South Asian context when it began in 1977. It adapted to the outline of similar victories in Western countries around the same time. J.R. Jayewardene, who first won power as prime minister in 1977, established the executive presidency in 1978 to implement neoliberal economic policy, or the “Open Economy” as it was known locally.

The process included slashing welfare, especially the rice subsidy, and creating export processing zones to attract investment from abroad. Jayewardene’s hegemonic project was an economic programme manifest in the transformation of Sri Lanka’s political institutions. It depended on both creating a domestic constituency for competitive individualism and canvassing for international support. That included increasing the role of multilateral institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank in the island nation.

The project also had an important coercive aspect. Jayewardene tacitly endorsed racist mobs that terrorised the Tamil community. These attacks culminated in the biggest riots in 1983, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of people. Jayewardene also crushed a general strike in 1980, dismissing over 40,000 public sector workers, in what was a significant blow to the trade union movement. Still, it was the hegemony of authoritarian populism, as the late theorist Stuart Hall would put it, that legitimised the system. In the balance, consent outweighed coercion in making neoliberalism a politically feasible project in Sri Lanka.

Despite, or perhaps because of its success in redistributing wealth upwards, however, decades later, the system in Sri Lanka, as in the rest of the world, is experiencing a crisis of legitimacy. The political response to growing popular frustration appears to be the choice between a more vindictive capitalism or anti-austerity politics. In the absence of a viable competitor who could shift the debate to the latter, Gotabaya has taken the lead. In the event of his victory, Gotabaya’s government could consolidate a family oligarchy tied to the fortunes of its proto-fascist social bases. These have been responsible most recently for attacks on Muslims. The government could become a praetorian regime that guards the interests of global capital. Even if Sajith wins, however, Sri Lanka faces the similar possibility of a hard authoritarian solution to crisis, although it will have bought itself more time.

Resistance around the world shows the ubiquity of protest opposing authoritarianism and inequality. In the absence of an organised alternative, however, there is a very real danger that even Sri Lankan protests opposing authoritarian consolidation could face the limitations of similar movements in terms of their fortitude in the face of both intense repression and the return of the old guard. To confront this potential challenge, opposition rooted in progressive forces must prepare for struggle after the election by developing an economic alternative to justify not only the defence, but also the deepening of democracy.

Also Read: How the Easter Bombings Left Sri Lanka’s Muslims With No Path Forward

Having the necessary tools at our disposal – being prepared for the hard authoritarian outcome – may help the left specifically move beyond the “horizontalism” that shapes both the impressive breadth and the organisational weakness of recent global protest. Thinking ahead could help prepare a more sustainable resistance. The question remains which actors can shoulder the burden of opposing the potential consolidation of an authoritarian regime in Sri Lanka, regardless of who wins the upcoming presidential election. To provide an answer requires understanding why neoliberalism emerged, what sustained it, and why it is reaching its breaking point in Sri Lanka.

Neoliberalism’s evolution

Before Jayewardene won power, Sri Lanka was governed by a coalition government from 1970 to 1977, which included left parties. The latter, however, encountered difficulty transitioning from social democracy to socialism. Hall, writing in Britain in the aftermath of Margaret Thatcher’s neoliberal victory in 1979, argued that the contradiction was a product of social democratic governments of the time lacking the mobilising power to sustain what was popularly known as the battle “in and against the state.” The absence of a mass movement to pressure the left parties in coalition government created an opening for J.R. Jayewardene to claim the mantle of economic freedom when the government struggled to deal with the effects of global economic crisis in the 1970s.

This process follows what Hall described about Thatcher’s role in polarising people between the politics of a closed economy/authoritarianism/ and the politics of competitive individualism/consumerism. In Sri Lanka, the authoritarian populist project also took advantage of growing tension between the Sinhala and Tamil communities. Jayewardene’s government invited minority partners, such as Sauviamoorthy Thondaman’s Ceylon Workers’ Congress, while patronising Sinhala chauvinists. In addition to attacks on the Tamil community, Jayewardene wielded this power to suppress trade unions and red-bait mass forces that could claim popular appeal.

The resulting decades involved “shock therapy,” including civil war in the North and East from 1983 to 2009 and an insurgency led by the Janatha Viumkthi Peramuna (JVP) from 1987 to 1989. Both these events decimated dissidents in the North and South. The extra-parliamentary left in the South was split on the ethnic question. The JVP now participates in parliamentary politics and is running a not-insignificant third-party campaign for the presidency. Its candidate criticises the discourse of national security. But during its insurrection in the late 1980s, the party embraced Sinhala chauvinism. It gained the upper hand militarily against anti-racist forces on the left. Eventually, however, it too was defeated at great social cost by the government.

In the meantime, governments from Premadasa’s onwards balanced the privatisation of public resources, such as telecommunications, with targeted welfare programs. This was the hegemonic framework of accommodation of the 1990s as it became clear that new, poorly paid jobs in tourism, migrant work and the export sector could not sustain people’s livelihoods.

Jayewardene’s nephew, Ranil Wickremesinghe, became prime minister in 2000. He initially worked in coalition with Chandrika Kumaratunga from the SLFP, who was president from 1994 to 2005. Ranil represented the shift in the global order from free market neoliberalism to liberal humanitarian interventionism. A peace process with the LTTE was initiated in 2002 and collapsed in 2006. Although its failure was attributed to Sinhala and Tamil nationalisms – politically in the South and militarily by the LTTE in the North – the outcome can be better seen as a consequence of an expert-driven constitutional reform process that ignored neoliberalism’s undermining of the majority of people’s livelihoods.

Ranil Wickremesinghe. Credit: Reuters

The tremendous gap between the promise of attracting foreign investment and actual inflows was later partially resolved in the global boom in emerging market debt after the recession of 2008. China was the most visible actor in development after the Sri Lankan government militarily defeated the LTTE in 2009. It became the poster child for infrastructure-driven investment. Mahinda Rajapaksa’s aura as defender of the public sector against further neoliberal assault was maintained thanks to massive loans taken to build mega infrastructure under his government. Although fiscal consolidation ran in parallel, activists and researchers found it difficult to highlight the creeping austerity imposed by his government.

In terms of opposition, liberal civil society opponents to Mahinda never proposed an effective program to appeal to a mass constituency. At best, they assumed the political solution to the ethnic question came before discussion about economic reform. At worst they adopted the same neoliberal assumptions of the reigning order. Political scientists especially struggled to describe the politically-motivated, upward distribution of wealth. They used the category of crony capitalism to explain the features of Mahinda’s government in a way that ignored the core features of capitalism. Instead, they attributed the government’s failings to extrinsic forces such as “corruption.”

The same framing persisted during the tenure of the coalition government that won power in 2015. Activists chided the government for not fulfilling its promises to prosecute previous members of the administration for various crimes, in addition to indulging in its own forms of corruption. Still, we must acknowledge that the current battle between Sajith and Gotabaya is in fact the necessary outcome of neoliberalism, which has hardened into austerity. The state is increasingly obligated to private creditors in financial markets. It is also indebted to the usual suspects: “development partners” such as China and the IMF. The popular dimension of this crisis has been a growing frustration with politicians who are seen to be growing fat on public misery. This reflects what policy analysts David Dunham and Sisira Jayasuriya once referred to as the reciprocal dynamic between liberalisation and political decay.

The hard authoritarian option

The resulting choice in the upcoming presidential election is between a xenophobic, vindictive capitalism and a defense of weak democracy in rural populist guise. In terms of the former, Gotabaya Rajapaksa offers what seems to be the stereotypical mode of authoritarian engagement: cutthroat urban development at home, transactional “business-style” politics abroad. The problem though is that the contradictions in the global economy undermine Gotabaya’s potential position as a guarantor of material benefits for the Sri Lankan masses. The previous Rajapaksa government led by Mahinda initiated mega infrastructure projects. The build-up of loan obligations led to a period of aggressive fiscal consolidation under Mahinda himself that continued under the coalition government. It could very well reach a breaking point under the next government.

Gotabaya makes the Trumpian claim that he will make things easier for the little guy by cutting taxes. It is likely, however, that pursuing tax cuts will increase the vast gap between rich and poor. Gotabaya’s platform includes concessions for farmers among other constituencies. The question is whether he can offer these if he lowers corporate and income taxes as well. The latter would further undermine government revenue collection, which stands at a measly 12.5% of GDP, according to the World Bank website. Although thinkers on the left are often critical of arguments that fall back on “balanced budgets,” left spending programs are predicated on generating revenue by redistributing wealth from rich to poor in the form of direct taxation. It is impossible to imagine Gotabaya doing the same to fund his election promises. More likely than not, he will embrace austerity instead when pressured by international institutions such as the IMF and World Bank.

On the surface, Gotabaya’s election manifesto and rhetoric seems opposed to most of the recommendations of the IMF, including those its staff made before the latest country loan review in November of this year. He is opposed to cutting para tariffs, silent on privatisation, has not raised a word about labour law reform, claims to want to increase fuel subsidies, and so on. But, according to his manifesto, Gotabaya also wishes to lower rates on corporations and the highest earners to astoundingly low rates, 18% and 15% respectively. The consequence under his administration would likely be decreased allocations for social services such as health and education. This drastic reduction of revenue would intensify the process of quasi-privatisation that led to conflicts with students and public sector workers, like the opposition his brother faced during his tenure.

Still, Gotabaya intends to “decisively” implement policy. That means opposition will be contained by repression, and investment will be backed by extra-legal guarantees. Gotabaya’s manifesto puts an emphasis on authoritarian protection of the nation. He claims in the SLPP’s manifesto, for example, that under the current government “foreigners” are “able to buy lands without any hindrance”. The macroeconomic context of fiscal consolidation, however, will require increased repression. The solution could lead Gotabaya to condemn resistance to his economic reform as “traitorous.” Coupled with Gotabaya’s likely penchant for outsourcing fear-mongering to proto-fascist mobs, this would entail a regime that could very well shut down electoral space for future solutions. The alternative would be mass protest, such as a general strike.

Whether protests remain fragmented across diverse sectional groups, or whether they coalesce into opposition to the regime as such depends on Gotabaya’s skills as a politician, particularly the combination of inducements and threats at which his older brother was so deft. Still, in addition to the history of his repressive governing style and the much more fragile global situation, it seems more likely that resistance to Gotabaya will become generalised upheaval. In the absence of an organised political alternative, however, this resistance could fail to defeat repression. The old guard could take advantage of crisis by reasserting itself.

Mahinda and Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Photo: Reuters

Defending weak democracy

One could argue that vindictive capitalism represented by the SLPP means that the UNP has been forced to take up the mantle of defending weak democracy against hard authoritarian assault. Although the UNP embraces a neoliberal program, Sajith’s opposition to Gotabaya requires framing his defence of the existing order in the guise of weak tea rural populism. Sajith’s camp, however, lacks a general enthusiasm for broader economic change.

His rural populist program, which appeals to “small entrepreneurs,” lacks the deeply held convictions predicated on acknowledging the vast upward distribution of wealth. More recently, he has taken up issues put on the agenda by women’s groups, such as providing free sanitary pads. This type of lobbying has encouraged Sajith to adopt more progressive stances on these and other issues. Sajith’s rhetoric, however, obscures the relationship between increasingly financialised economy driven by speculation and ordinary people’s plight. Consequently, most people’s economic suffering will not be solved by narrow measures such as “skills training” or targeted concessions.

The danger is that because of his lack of economic appeal, Sajith tries to occupy the space of nationalist politics, dominated by Gotabaya, to shore up support among his Southern constituency. He has put out contradictory statements about ethnic reconciliation, while claiming to back the national security state. That includes maintaining the controversial appointment of military staff accused of war crimes.

Sajith is also constrained by the dynamic within his own party, the UNP, which means working with the incumbent prime minister, Ranil. Sajith’s government would likely be defined by the balance of relations in the party especially Sajith’s relationship with Ranil. The question is whether they could work out a strategic framework that balances the interests of its constituencies. The UNP under Ranil has followed an agenda broadly in line with the IMF’s recommendations. It has openly attempted to pursue labour law reform, trade liberalisation, financial liberalisation, privatisation and so on.

But in the absence of a mass basis, the UNP struggled to “get things done” under the previous coalition government, including passing bills that could advance its agenda. The question is the extent to which a potential government led by Sajith could make Ranil’s agenda more appealing by offering targeted concessions. The gap between the figure of the small entrepreneur and the daily reality of people who must survive on loans threatens to defeat any such attempt. Promising more foreign investment also would not likely solve the issue.

The question for progressives under Sajith’s government then ends up being roughly the same as under a Gotabaya government, but perhaps crucially the timeline of authoritarian consolidation would be more uncertain. The issue remains whether the left could leverage popular discontent with economic policy to push an altogether different framing of the question of political, especially constitutional reform, from the angle of economic democratisation.

The alternative would be the ever-present possibility of a turn to authoritarianism to contain popular unrest, if not by a Sajith-led government itself, then the continuing threat of the Rajapaksas and the SLPP waiting in the wings. Continuing dysfunction expressed in popular frustration with corrupt institutions could reinforce the belief that political institutions are no longer representative, which could create more space for a far-right solution to the problem.

Economic redistribution and political democratisation 

Neoliberalism became hegemonic because Jayewardene used his economic agenda to concentrate decision-making power in the executive presidency. Similarly, the political changes progressives would like to see, including long-awaited devolution to provincial councils, require identifying their economic component. To transform political institutions requires making principled arguments for universal services, along with developing a policy to confront global challenges such as climate change. That includes new global proposals for public investment in green infrastructure. Adopting this approach to democratisation could also help construct the popular majority that could win, by building a multi-ethnic working class movement.

At the same time, popular pressure requires political representation. It is imperative that the Sri Lankan left give direction to potential protests after the election. It must identify the shared interests of workers across the public and private sector, farmers and fishers, estate and agricultural workers, and so on. That requires a common program for popular struggles. Even in the absence of political party to translate this into policy and leadership to execute it, the battle of ideas could at the very least shape progressive common sense and thus the way in which opposition to the persistent threat of hard authoritarianism is framed: whether immediately in the event of a Gotabaya victory or at an indefinite point in the future, depending on the balance of forces between Sajith and Ranil.

In this regard, what should give us hope, even in the face of a potential hard authoritarian turn in Sri Lanka, is the possibility of protest turning into a much bigger challenge to the system. To initiate this transition will require going beyond sectional demands and identifying their manifold content: protests against political repression, but also the system it is designed to protect. In the case of future opposition, whether to a government led by Gotabaya or Sajith, the left must lead a progressive coalition by asking: what is the point of transforming political institutions? How will this process help ordinary people survive, by defeating austerity and combating wealth inequality?

Only by asking the right questions will we be able to offer popular frustration an effective form of expression in a potential party and movement that can challenge the system. If the left wants to defeat neoliberalism and its “morbid symptoms” in Sri Lanka, it must propose a new hegemony of economic redistribution that is manifest in the demand for political democratisation. It is a task we may face soon after the election of a new government and the formation of its opposition. We must prepare ourselves beforehand, by taking the lead in how the potential opposition to hard authoritarianism understands its purpose.

Devaka Gunawardena has a PhD in cultural anthropology from UCLA and is the Sri Lanka Coordinator of the South Asia Office of the IndustriALL Global Union.

Women in Politics: Adornments and Witches

Several world leaders present their female partners as adornments to their power display while accusing their female opponents of having transgressed traditional boundaries of ”womanhood”.

Stockholm/Rome: Some world leaders try to prove their alpha male status by presenting attractive and submissive wives as tokens won in virile scrambles with other potent stags. A recent example of such puerile machismo was exposed in a twitter battle between the Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro and his French equivalent Emmanuel Macron.

Since taking office in January, Bolsonaro has railed against what he considered to be foreign meddling in Brazilian environmental politics. Wildfires raging in the Amazonian rain forest have generally been blamed on rampant deforestation said to be endorsed by Bolsonaro’s regime.

Emmanuel Macron tweeted a photo of burning Amazonian forestland with the comment: ”Our house is burning. Literally.” Bolsonaro reacted immediately and accused Macron of supporting an international alliance intending to take control over Amazonia while treating Brazil like a ”colony”. Bolsonaro twittered:

We cannot accept French President Macron’s improper and wanton attacks on the Amazon, nor can we accept that he disguises his intentions.

Some days later, Bolsonaro expressed approval of a Facebook-posting by one of his supporters. It presented an unflattering photo of France’s First Lady, mocking her appearance and comparing her unfavourably to Brazil’s First Lady.

The post declared: ”Now you understand why Macron is persecuting Bolsonaro” indicating that Brigitte Macron is not as attractive as Michelle Bolsonaro, who is 28 years younger than Brigitte.

Emmanuel Macron is 24 years younger than his wife and in the opinion of chauvinist males, this makes him less macho than Jair Bolsonaro who has a wife that is 27 years younger than him. Bolsonaro replied to his Facebook fan: ”Do not humilate the guy, ha, ha,” while Macron retorted by stating that Bolsonaro had been ”extremely disrespectful” to his wife, adding that:

It’s sad, it’s sad first of all for him and for Brazilians. Brazilian women are probably feeling ashamed of their president. Since I have a lot of esteem and respect for the people of Brazil, I hope they will very soon have a president who is up to the job.

Also read: Macron Calls Bolsonaro’s Sexist Jibe at His Wife ‘Extremely Disrespectful’

Unfortunately, I doubt that Bolsonaro’s fans had been offended by their president’s behaviour. It is common, not only in Brazil, that people confuse competent leadership with displays of masculinity.

A macho man may in political propaganda be depicted as a guarantee for strength and security, while female leaders may, due to their gender, be presented as less determined and accordingly unfit for the presidency, defined as the most masculine institution of all.

The recent US presidential election was by many viewed as a battle between manhood and femininity, where opponents to Hillary either judged her as a proponent of ”feminine traits” making her weak and unfit for office, or as a menacing ”mannish”, maybe even lesbian lady who threatened male dominance and masculinity.

The mix-up of masculinity with politics means that women candidates to influential positions often are forced to navigate an assumed ”masculine deficit” of strength and dedication by excessively exhibiting willpower, vigour and toughness, displaying ”hawkish” attitudes, while downplaying their roles as mothers and wives, altering their vocabulary and lower the tone of their voices. This while female partners of male contenders are expected to display beauty and youthfulness, as well as an unquestionable loyalty to the virile men they ”belong” to.

To perceive strong women leaders as imbued with ”manly” traits appears to be quite common. The future Israeli prime minister Golda Meir wrote in her memoir that when she in 1956 became foreign minister in Ben-Gurion’s government a story – which as far as I know, is all it was – went the rounds of Israel to the effect that Ben-Gurion described me as ‘the only man’ in his cabinet.

What amused me about it was that obviously he (or whoever invented the story) thought that this was the greatest compliment that could be paid to a woman. I very much doubt that any man would have been flattered if I had said about him that he was the only woman in the government!

However, such statements did not mean that Meir was a feminist. In 1973, she told Oriana Fallaci: ”Those nuts that burn their bras and walk around all dishevelled and hate men? They’re crazy. Crazy.”  Golda Meir was often called the Iron Lady, as the strong-willed and outspoken Otto von Bismarck, who in his lifetime was considered to be the epitome of Prussian manhood was called The Iron Chancellor.

Also read: Breaking the Glass Ceiling: Witnessing the Rise of Women Leaders in Global Politics

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was also labelled the Iron Lady. She has been described as uniting a ”dual nature of masculine and feminine imagery” radiating ”feminine” housekeeping qualities, combined with aspects of a hard, masculine warrior and leader.

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of England is bid farewell on her departure after a visit to the United States. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of England is bid farewell on her departure after a visit to the United States. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Contrary to what is generally the case of male leaders, women’s qualities tend to be connected with their dress and looks. Thatcher kept her hair swept back from her face, giving her hairdo the impression of a helmet. She wore earrings and a necklace of pearls – not any frivolous diamonds, often wore gloves and almost always carried with her a black, square handbag, thus creating the image of a decisive and serious woman, not sexy or glamorous, but self-assured and effective.

An appearance that occasionally created fear and insecurity among male opponents, like the French president Jaques Chirac who once famously exclaimed: ”What more does this housewife want from me? My balls on a tray?”, or Labour politician Tony Banks who, in 1997, in a sexist manner described Thatcher as behaving ”with all the sensitivity of a sex-starved boa constrictor.”

A woman who through her manner and dress does not emit feelings of control and self-assurance, but adaptability, submission and accessibility may not be taken seriously and thus not be accepted as a leader.

This might be the reason why several strong and influential women leaders seem to cultivate a persona that does not make them appear as excessively feminine or sexy. The powerful Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi once declared:

I do not behave like a woman. The ”lack of sex” in me partly accounts for this. When I think of how other women behave, I realise that it is the lack of sex and with it a lack of woman’s wiles, on which most men base their views on me.

This reminds of the image Angela Merkel appears to cultivate – a political style transmitting a sharp sense of power, a scientist´s strict devotion to data projecting effectiveness and leadership qualities. Vogue has described the German chancellor as a short matronly woman […] wearing her signature black trousers and sensible walking shoes.

The same article characterised Merkel as a courageous and strong woman, for example by describing a meeting with Vladimir Putin in 2007 when the Russian president had allowed his huge Labrador to enter the room, well aware that the German chancellor since her early childhood is traumatised by dogs after having been severely mauled by one of them.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel gestures at a news conference with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg (not pictured) in the German Chancellery in Berlin, Germany, June 15, 2018. Photo: Michele Tantussi

Her aides were furious with the Russian, but she was not. ‘I understand why he has to do this,’ she said, ‘to prove he’s a man. He’s afraid of his own weakness.’ What Putin and other alpha-male politicians often miss is that Angela Merkel may be afraid of dogs, but she is not afraid of men.

Also read: Would the World Be More Peaceful If There Were More Women Leaders?

It may be denied that male and female roles remain an important part of human power games, though I assume Merkel was right about Putin´s behaviour – it was based on fear.

Fear of losing a mask of virile masculinity, something which also is apparent in the ridiculous discourses of male leaders like Bolsonaro and Trump, who brag about their beautiful and submissive wives, whom they display as hunting trophies conquered in competition with other alpha males.

At the same time, they show contempt for female adversaries. Jair Bolsonero told a female congresswoman: “I’m not going to rape you, because you’re very ugly”.

Appalling misogynist language is also a trademark of Donald Trump who labels leaders like Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Meghan Markle and Mette Fredriksen as ”nasty” women, called his one-time aide Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth ”that dog”, the actress Rosie O’ Donell a ”pig”, and famously stated that when Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly criticised him she had ”blood coming out of her wherever” and that the political commentator Mika Brzezinski was ”bleeding badly from a facelift”.

Unfortunately, these are just a few examples of a misogynist stance that still is evident within a global political discourse that deny women the right of being respected as equals to men. Several world leaders present their female partners as adornments to their power display, at the same time as they fear and attack female opponents, accusing them of having transgressed traditional boundaries of ”womanhood” to become ”hags and witches” who constitute a threat to male dominance.

The article was first published in Inter Press Service. 

Theresa May’s Handling of Brexit is a Classic Case of Bad Leadership

For two-and-a-half years misstep has followed misstep.

The gauntlet, in the form of 48 letters, was thrown down, and a vote of no confidence in Theresa May’s leadership of the Conservative Party took place. The prime minister fought and won. And yet even in that moment of seeming defiance, some of the flaws in her character and her approach to leadership were on display. It is worth taking a moment to reflect on how Britain got here.

Breakfast in The Hague, lunch in Berlin, afternoon tea in Brussels: May’s Tuesday may have sounded like a rushed luxury European tour. But it was a last-minute dash to try and salvage her Brexit deal, and pacify rebellious MPs back home.

Unfortunately, it was a bit late for the prime minister to try and form warmer, more productive relationships with her EU counterparts. This charm offensive was moribund on arrival. It is reflective of her time in office, which is looking like it will one day become a classic case study of bad leadership in practice.

Also Read: Explainer: A Vote Reversed – What Is the Path Back From Brexit?

Chance handed her the top job in the summer of 2016, in the aftermath of the EU referendum. Her rivals for the leadership destroyed each other. May stepped over their political corpses and entered Number 10.

She then had a choice. With only a small parliamentary majority, and with a country split almost in two (52:48) on the issue of Europe, she could have acted as a conciliatory figure, daring more extreme voices on either side to coalesce around a moderate, agreed path to a calm compromise over Brexit.

May did not take that path. Like a football fan who thinks that a lucky, dubious late winner has made her team champions of the world, she adopted a triumphalist tone, hugging the 52% Leave voters close, while disdaining the 48% who, like her, had voted Remain. Instead of bringing the country together she has exacerbated division and added to the confusion in her own government.

Anti-Brexit protestor Steve Bray holds placards outside of the Houses of Parliament, in London, Britain, December 10, 2018. Credit: REUTERS/Toby Melville/Files

Mistake after mistake

Her party conference speech in October 2016 denounced the internationalist, outward looking “citizens of nowhere” who, she suggested, had no feel for the country they lived in. She was cheered on by other extreme voices such as the Daily Mail, which under its then editor urged her to “crush the saboteurs”, and denounced independent judges as “enemies of the people”. The prime minister could have disowned or distanced herself from this sort of language. She chose not to.

She did not include cabinet colleagues or the wider country in her plans for the Brexit negotiations. We would get, we were told, a “red, white and blue Brexit”. When asked what Brexit would mean in practice for everyone, she said, simply, that “Brexit means Brexit”. May established hard, irrational and impractical red lines. Critical voices were ignored or dismissed.

The public – some of them at least – began to fight back. While the Conservative vote share rose at the 2017 general election – the snap election May said she was never going to call – so too did Labour’s. A 20-point poll lead all but vanished over the course of the campaign, and with it her majority in Westminster.

Here too was a moment for possible reconciliation. Brexit could have been reconceived as a shared national project. But still May pressed on, maintaining that “no deal is better than a bad deal”. Reality has gradually reasserted itself, with the final production of a compromise withdrawal agreement that has few friends in Westminster – hence the delayed parliamentary vote.

Failure to adapt

For two-and-a-half years misstep has followed misstep. Why then does the prime minister persist in using the language of duty and of honour? Does she really believe she has been acting, as she keeps saying, “in the national interest”?

May has clearly convinced herself that this is the case. Someone had to step up and be prime minister and deal with the aftermath of the referendum result. She has shown resilience in the face of constant criticism.

But her leadership has been flawed from the outset. She chose the wrong strategy and then, when it was clearly failing, failed to adapt. British politics has a management style that is is burdened with the curse of Margaret Thatcher’s 1980 party conference speech (“U turn if you want to”), which created the myth of the unflinching leader who must never take a step back or change her mind. But good leaders change course when new information demands it.

As a Remain voter May has overcompensated, trying (and ultimately failing) to convince Leave voters that she has become one of them. Hence all the solemn talk of the national interest. And yet she has never been able to declare that the UK will be better off because of Brexit – because it won’t be. She merely talks vaguely about a “bright future”.

As James Kirkup, director of the Social Market Foundation think-tank, wrote: “May thinks she honours the referendum result and Leave voters by adopting the falsehoods that underpin the Leave cause, especially the notion that Brexit is some sort of opportunity to be seized.”

I would go further. It was Brexit that delivered Number 10 to May and therefore, she has calculated, she cannot risk undermining it. But a leader truly acting in the national interest would have told the country what she knows to be true: that there is no good Brexit, only varying degrees of harmful ones.

It is bad leadership to live a lie. It is bad leadership to force a country to live through an extended period of destabilising cognitive dissonance. Some of this was avoidable. But the wreckage of Brexit and how it has been handled will continue to harm the country for many years to come.The Conversation

Stefan Stern is a visiting professor of management practice at Cass Business School, City, University of London.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

‘Chuck Chequers’: Boris Johnson Challenges Theresa May on Brexit

In a speech which delighted an audience at the Conservative Party conference, Johnson called for no new taxes and extra health service spending whilst the room erupted into cheers when he said May needed “to chuck Chequers”, as her Brexit proposals are known.

Birmingham: Former British foreign minister Boris Johnson made what was seen as a blatant pitch to replace Prime Minister Theresa May as Conservative leader on Tuesday, damning her Brexit plans while calling for his party to regain its confidence.

In a speech which delighted an audience at the Conservative Party conference, Johnson called for no new taxes and extra health service spending whilst the room erupted into cheers when he said May needed “to chuck Chequers”, as her Brexit proposals are known.

With just six months before Britain leaves the European Union, May’s precarious position at the helm of her party has been further shaken by criticism of her plans, both at home and in Brussels.

Johnson, who became the figurehead for the campaign to leave the EU, has been one of her loudest critics.

“Do not believe them when they say there is no other plan and no alternative,” Johnson told the hundreds of Conservatives who queued to get a seat in a 1,500-seat conference hall.

“This is the moment to chuck Chequers,” he said. “If we cheat the electorate, and Chequers is a cheat, we will escalate that sense of mistrust.”

May has shown little sign of moving away from her so-called Chequers plan, but after trying to display unity over Brexit at her party’s annual conference in the city of Birmingham, Johnson looked to have shattered those attempts.

“Turns out there is a plan. That plan is Boris,” Conservative lawmaker James Duddridge tweeted.

The BBC’s political editor Laura Kuenssberg wrote on Twitter: “This is what we would euphemistically call a ‘wide ranging speech’ – a blatant pitch for leadership by Johnson, right in heart of conference where May meant to be in charge.”

Johnson made no open suggestion he would challenge May, saying the party must back one of May’s earlier Brexit plans which he says she has ditched, and said one of the few predictions the Treasury department had got right was that he would not be prime minister.

While Johnson’s Brexit message was greeted with the greatest rapture, his attack on the opposition Labour Party and calls for the Conservatives return to its traditional values of low tax and strong policing were also enthusiastically received.

He also namechecked Margaret Thatcher, the Conservative prime minister from 1979 to 1990 who remains a hero to many in the party, and said it was a disgrace that no banker had been jailed after the 2008 financial crash.

May, when asked in a series of broadcast interviews earlier about Johnson’s expected intervention, said she had expected his speech would be a “lively” event but declined to make any personal criticism.

May’s team had hoped the party’s annual conference would hand her a platform to revitalise a pledge she made when she became prime minister in 2016 to help those people who are “just about managing” and try to steal the initiative from Labour.

But the conference has been dominated by Brexit, with eurosceptic lawmakers attracting hundreds of Conservative members to their events on the fringes. Only handfuls turned out to hear ministers’ speeches in the main hall.