Review of Partha Chatterjee’s ‘I am the People’ (2020)
Posted on : May 2, 2021Author : Raunak Bhattacharya
Chatterjee, Partha (2020). I Am the People: Reflections on Popular Sovereignty Today. New Delhi: Permanent Black. Price: Rs. 595
If the 20th Century was marked by the two World Wars and a Cold War borne out of bipolar competition, then 21st Century shall be marked as the ‘Age of Populism’. It is indeed the new spectre that is haunting Europe, or in other words, the West and its idea of Liberal Democracy.
This ‘populist authoritarianism’ has certain marked processes associated with it, and infuses components of xenophobia, nationalism and Fascistic tendencies to rile up masses invoking majoritarian and totalitarian values.
This piece of work by Partha Chatterjee is based upon the Ruth Benedict Lectures that he had delivered in 2018. Associated with the Department of Anthropology, Columbia University, New York, USA, he is an acclaimed Postcolonial theorist and one of the founder members of the Subaltern School. He is deeply influenced by the works of Antonio Gramsci and Michel Foucault, and the reflection of this is clearly visible in his works. Being trained as a Political Scientist and an International Relations Theorist in his early days, his research interests have grown more multidisciplinary and now, he is specifically described as a Social Scientist. He is a multifaceted talent, as an actor (played the role of The Reformed Hindoo in Mira Nair’s The Namesake, based on the book by Jhumpa Lahiri) as well as a musician.
To provide a theoretical background of the work, it is imperative to mention his Marxist and Postcolonial leanings. This particular piece is based on three particular theories: Gramscian concept of Hegemony and the Integral State, distinction between the Political Society and the Civil Society, as well as Passive Revolution; Foucauldian conceptualization of Governmentality and Biopolitics as enshrined in his Society must be Defended lectures; and Laclau’s theorization of Populism. Based on the Ruth Benedict Lectures delivered at Columbia University, New York, USA in April, 2018, Chatterjee analyzes the growth of Populism and unlike Liberal theorists, does not lament it, in fact, he goes on to provide the antecedent of counterhegemony to be led by Organic Intellectuals, drawn from the Gramscian framework. The Laclauian approach to populism, the one propounded by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe focuses on three particular points:
- the ‘sheer heterogeneity’ of ‘differential and equivalent’ demands and its unification along an ‘equivalential chain’;
- ‘the constitution of an internal frontier dividing society into two camps’, i.e. the constitution of ‘us’ versus ‘them’;
- ‘the consolidation of the equivalential chain through the construction of a popular identity which is something qualitatively more than the simple summation of the equivalential links’. (Laclau, 2005: 77) These theories are of great pertinence with reference to this particular piece.
The book consists of three primary chapters and an afterword. In the first chapter entitled, ‘Even Justice’, which was also the first lecture of the Ruth Benedict series, began with the postcolonial leanings of Chatterjee getting reflected in his review of Benedict’s work, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, that goes on to provide an American understanding of Japanese culture, on Benedict’s distinction of shame cultures and guilt cultures, and how Japan features in it. He points out the specificity of ‘intellectual naïveté’ displayed in the analytical work undertaken by Benedict and how the reconstructive effort was guided by a certain sense of the entitlement of victory and the ensuing suzerainty. But, this surmises to a prelude, that gives way to the judgments delivered at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East or the Tokyo Trials, as they were more popularly called, that continued for a period of two years from, 1946-1948. Of primary importance to Chatterjee, was dissenting judgment by Justice Radhabinod Pal, from India who absolved the crimes of all the accused. He refers to the analyses of the judgments by Ashis Nandy and Nariaki Nakazaro to provide an epistemic boost to his analysis.
Justice Pal’s stance that the war victors do not have the right to push for international law to punish the vanquished and that “even justice” requires all Nations, even those subjected to Colonial Rule, have an “equal right of sovereignty” that needs to be recognized. He provides analytical distinctions in the ideological standpoints of Justice Pal and Benedict, as to how Benedict’s assertions were based on ‘national cultures’ and Pal’s on ‘nation-states’. These distinctions in the moral stance is explicated by Chatterjee using Johan Gottlieb Fichte’s fourteen addresses to the German nation delivered in 1808, when Germany was under French occupation. Fichte asserted the presence of a certain spiritual existence of a true nation that is cultivated through a form of national education and the growth of a veritable national culture through the modicum of a national image. Interestingly, it should be noted that this issue has been analyzed by Chatterjee in his two other works, Politics of the Governed and Lineages of Political Society.
He provides a similar conclusion in the other works as well, which pertains to the fact that internal sovereignty flourishes in the inner domain of a nation or its internal borders. Colonial subjugation or any other form of External domination does not take away the particularity of the essence of this sovereignty.
In the second chapter, entitled ‘The Cynicism of Power’ also happens to be the second lecture of the series. In this particular chapter, he goes on to introduce the theories of Gramsci and Foucault that are of extreme pertinence to his present work, and launches a thorough investigation into ‘the high point of modern liberal democracy in the welfare states of Europe’. He provides a scope to view how Hegemony was created in the Integral State, through the modes of employment, housing, healthcare and education guaranteed to the Citizens by the State, while consent was built through the modes of mediation initiated by the Political Parties and Trade Unions. Chatterjee, then, commences with the description of a process of how the Integral State was subjected to a flurry of criticisms that have been referred to, by Foucault, as the neoliberal critique of the Welfare State, wherein the Citizen-subjects as the bearer of rights enter into contention with the individual members of populations having their own interests. This contention affected the existing framework of the Welfare State and gave rise to a discourse of optimality that requires greater technological surveillance and technical administrative prowess that got reflected in the 1980s and the 1990s leading to a Neoliberal Governmentality which led to the differential satisfaction of demands of the multiple interest groups in the populations, leading to consent getting created in newer ways. Events such as the 9/11 attack on US soil; the conflicts and tensions in the Middle East and North Africa; the global spread of Islamist terrorism; massive influx of refugees; the Financial Crisis of 2008-09, and the fall in living standards among the lower middle class and the lesser educated sections led to a surge in Populism. Using Laclau’s theoretical formulation of Populism that Chatterjee had also previously used in his work Lineages of Political Society, he goes to explain and explicate the processes by which chains of equivalence were created.
It is in the third chapter, entitled “I am the People”, that Chatterjee finally addresses the growth of Populism in India. This also happens to be the final lecture of the series. Herein, he provides a detailed chronological analysis of the 50 year old process of Populism and its practices in India, and how it differed from the Western experiences. He identifies two important aspects with respect to the left wing populism practiced by Indira Gandhi, namely the distribution of targeted benefits to current and potential voters, and without the presence of a strong ideological base, it leads to competitive populism with political parties making promises for distribution to targeted population groups. Secondly, the process of creation of ‘the people’ and the otherised version of the same, ‘the enemy’, by invoking rhetorical assertions shifting the compositions of these aforementioned population groups, is another important aspect of Populism in the Indian context. Another important point noted by Chatterjee is the rise of populism in India following the tactical expansion of the State, a complete inversion of the Western context, and he goes on to argue how the same shall lead to an initial congruence, to an absolute convergence in terms of features like centralization of power in the hands of a charismatic authoritarian leader, growth of technocratic totalitarianism with repression of opposition and the degradation of institutions.
He also provides an in-depth analysis of the autonomous modes of power available through the means of visual media and melodramatic communication, using R. Madhava Prasad’s work, Cine-Politics: Film Stars and Political Existence in South India (2014) that looks at the role of movie stars and actors assuming the mantle of politics in the states of South India. He goes on to put forward a discourse that despite the rise of Populism, ‘the utopia of popular sovereignty has been a favorite object of the cynical manipulation of power’, in fact, the Passive Revolution of capital continues and Populism is the most tactical resource to handle it. The rise of the Syriza in Greece, the Aam Aadmi Party (Common Man’s Party) in India, the Podemos in Spain surely jettison to power promising radical change, but do deflect from their path upon coming to power, thereby maintaining a certain status quo while indulging in a veritable degradation. He ends by quoting Carl Sandburg’s famous poem, and almost giving a sigh that the ‘people have still not arrived’.
In an extended Afterword to the lectures, titled ‘Afterword: The Optimism of the Intellect’, Chatterjee provides an alternative, and as the title suggests, an almost ‘solution’. He describes the processes by which BREXIT (Britain’s exit from the European Union) has been subjected to continuous delays before its ultimate formalization, Emmanuel Macron’s nuclear rise to become the French Prime Minister etc. Then he shows the auspiciousness of the situation as the ‘Populist moment’ based on Chantal Mouffe showing the fact as to how there is a multiplicity of heterogeneous and differential demands that have arisen. He uses the Laclauian theorization of populism to ultimately reach the conclusion of a left wing populism derived as an ‘organic ideology’ that shall be propelled by the Organic intellectuals of the Progressive classes. He looks in greater depth, the styles of governance of Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India and Donald Trump, the President of USA. He looks into the Right wing Populism in India with greater depth. In this respect, mentioning Ajay Gudavarthy’s analysis in India After Modi, the works of Christophe Jaffrelot and Thomas Blom Hansen, amongst others become of particular importance. Chatterjee points out the ‘Hindutva’ discourse and its equivalential nature, while otherising the minorities, particularly the Muslims.
The narrative in Chatterjee’s work is neither chronological nor too linear. It is didactic and vibrant and cannot be enclosed in a particular temporal or spatial structure per se. His explanation is lucid, and despite his academic tone, his work shows the least sign to be esoteric. Personal adages and experiences from the side of the author add a further punch to the writing. His treatment of populist figures like Narendra Modi and Donald Trump is unbiased and the genesis of populism to the historical origins of popular sovereignty, replete with its understanding as the crisis of Bourgeois hegemony is indeed something that serves as a very impressive discourse.
Chatterjee’s personal stance against demagoguery is well represented and so, is the fact that he does not indulge in elitist snobbery. He refers to the factors associated with populism as something toxic but does not view the idea of Populism as something that is alien and rejects it. In fact, it can be bluntly said that as a social scientist, he does not adhere to the facile ‘Cancel Culture’ that has engulfed the West. In fact, this gets reflected in his stance on Populism as well. Being one of the very first amongst the scholars who have engaged in the understanding of the Populist discourse in India with theoretical base derived from the works of Laclau and Mouffe, Chatterjee’ work surely emerges as a beacon of hope and a trailblazer in the fight against totalitarianism, majoritarianism and authoritarianism.
However, Chatterjee’s work has left the door open for certain questions especially along the ideational and theoretical lines. The Bourgeoisie is benefitted by the existing structures of the Market and the State, as perpetuated by Liberal Governmentality. This class is the largest beneficiary, however, through the modicum of competitive populism, whether there is a fracture along the files of the Bourgeoisie, is something that could have been addressed. The next point is with regards to the treatment of Hindutva. A more in-depth analysis of the same, replete with its epistemic, ontological and etymological understandings would have made the work much more accessible. It also misses out on the various social stratifications in the form of caste, gender, religion and class that stand in the way of the development of equivalences in the Populist discourse in India.
Besides the aforementioned points that could have made it to the piece, it needs not be reiterated that this is a scholarly work par excellence, and is a must read to understand the seemingly difficult concept of Populism in a very lucid manner.
Raunak Bhattacharya
Intern, AGA
REFERENCES
Chatterjee. (2018). The State. In N. Jayal, & P. Mehta, The Oxford Companion to Politics in India (pp. 3-14). New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Chatterjee, P. (1999). Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Chatterjee, P. (2004). Politics of the Governed. New Delhi: Permanent Black.
Chatterjee, P. (2011). Lineages of Political Society. New Delhi: Permanent Black.
Chatterjee, P. (2020). I am the People: Reflections on Popular Sovereignty in India. New Delhi : Permanent Black.
Gudavarthy, A. (2018). India After Modi: Populism and the Right. Bloomsbury Publishers: New Delhi.
Laclau, E. (2005). On Populist Reason. London: Verso Books.
Nice review