Blooms to Bury
A day after the Hindu right wing decides to launch its pack of lies as an ‘untold story’ by Bloomsbury. In fact, the story is not untold but told too many times — on the prime time, on official documents, reports which scream lies out loud to bury the sound of their own feeble conscience. This sparked a social media outrage and rightly so, that which was branded as an ‘untold story’ represents the mythical report which threads a narrative of false victimisation of a dominant social and political force in society. It reflects a series of stories that were conjured up to implicate and incriminate Muslim victims of North East Delhi, students, and protesters of the CAA/NPR/NRC regime.
A day after that, Bloomsbury was pushed to first dissociate from the public event of the book launch and later, owing to public pressure, distanced itself from the book, withdrawing its publication. It is a significant victory to have pushed them back! Yet, this disavowal is by design.
Soon after that, social media was again ablaze with messages from bleeding heart liberals who resorted to upholding their value neutral commitment to everyone’s ‘right’ to publish true-lies. So much libidinal investment went into Bloomsbury as if their ratification is all that was needed to render sacred, the myth of the ‘evil conspiracy,’ which in itself doesn’t change society but further reifies the ideological constructions of the ‘Muslim, Burkha-clad women, Left Wing Extremist’ Other. Those who were making impassioned speeches in defence of the publication forget that the entitlement to free speech on an island of presumed equality is not worth defending. Any recollection of the silenced speeches of the victims of the violence in North Delhi or the workers who died silent deaths during the pandemic?
Tangentially, this brings me to ask: What is free speech? Is any speech unmediated? One happening on this platform right here, is this some free exchange of views? Does the mediating platform on which we exchange not hold any politics? Its sublime quality self effaces its mediation and yet, it persists as an invisible presence. Only a couple of days have passed since we were outraged over Facebook’s exposure to shadow bans being imposed on dissident voices and the deliberate shielding of right wing folks. How committed does one have to be abstracting freedom from its social context of structural inequality and antagonism to preserve self comforting delusions about it?
After a heated spate of hot-takes, suddenly the discourse shifted to one on regulation of speech and the justifiable restrictions on theoretical absolutions of freedom of expression. This conversation replaced and repressed the fundamental servility of freedoms that belies the need to perpetuate and propagate political myths and Goebbelsian lies that Bloomsbury was carrying. Like always, the legislating discourses crept in to conceal by seemingly resolving systemic contradictions to no avail. In sustaining an illusion of freedom by attaching us to the sound of our own voice, we are made individuals vested with ‘Rights!’
Viral Speech and Abstract Rights
In response to Bloomsbury’s decision to publish the books, from Anurag Kashyap to Vir Sanghvi, all have expressed their commitment to free speech — upholding it as a right available for all — irrespective of their ‘views.’ At one level, they are right, not for their principle commitment to free speech but in undervaluing the weightage accorded to speech itself. It is not abstract views that shape society and we’re battling a machinery which prides itself for its factory of mass production of deceptions and lies AND occupies State power while enjoying social hegemony, so to imagine restricting their speech as the primary site of battle is to concede too much to their antics and not enough to their base.
The battle of perceptions is not waged on the merit of views alone but on the conditions in which they are formed. The views we express are only the most visible outputs of a well oiled machinery and nexus of corporations and States enables and regulates this speech even in the absence of legislation. Perception, although important, is not the sole turf on which the struggle is waged, lest we define our historical role and function as that of a ‘managerial class’ of protests. While holding Bloomsbury accountable is understandable, the sense of betrayal is not. The subtext throughout the outrage was that people could concede to OpIndia what Bloomsbury India was doing, there was something unfathomable about this liberal ‘betrayal’ which is but the reality of capitalism.
It was almost as if those critiquing Bloomsbury were offering apologies on its behalf by assuming this was their standard of ‘objectivity’ a la both-side-ism. By starting a non-debate on ‘Freedom of Expression,’ it is Bloomsbury that really got away with the least damage. The take back was that one must side with ‘truth.’ We must confront the reality of the pretence of neutrality of these platforms as having fallen off. Why should we expect ‘better’ of Bloomsbury which produces and preserves the hegemony of the ruling class — whether explicitly right wing or mildly so? As if publishing otherwise, besides its dubiousness, has no ideological function in society? Why must we confer authorising power of fact, truth and lies to profit-driven publishing houses? The sacredness of written word needs to fall.
Today Bloomsbury is saving face under public pressure. If the hegemony in academia shifts in the coming days, so will its morality as also, the ‘ethics’ of capitalism. We need to stop acting ‘as if’ this is a conflict between abstract rights and wrongs that can be won by ethical conduct. We are in a political struggle that can’t be won by gestural and ad-hoc victories.
Explicit Lies and Concealed Ones
How explicit does a lie have to be to provoke and consolidate the last vestiges of class power of a rapidly diminishing value of liberals who quickly mobilised to demonstrate their stakes and shares in the public sphere? Apparently now, the choice is between the conscientious liberals and the puritans for the sake of some abstract unity which manifests in social media storms and fades as quickly as it erupts. The fault is not theirs, but all of ours in substituting the desire for a lasting alternative for quick supplications. What after all, does it take for someone to stir everything and shake nothing? Let’s ask ourselves how we ended up here? Even after opposing lies. How did we end up reaffirming a facile debate on free speech?
Today it is Bloomsbury, yesterday it was NCERT, day before Geeta Press. There are enough lies in the public domain, generally and particularly about North East Delhi but Bloomsbury ratifying it becomes curiously preposterous? It feels like famous authors are more invested in an anticipatory clearing of their own names on account of their ‘complicity.’ I’m not suggesting that anyone is acting in bad faith or that they need to be ‘cancelled,’ but precisely that fear seems to be the primary impetus for political action. I just want to ask if our culpability is not overwritten in our failure to account for the overdetermined interests of the corporate media and publication industry? Why must we place our ego at the centre of the political around which the struggle circles? Did we redeem the social basis of capitalism in our attempts to mobilise the social clout of writers against that of the political right-wing forces — armed with an entire machinery of ideological apparatus at their disposal — to show them their place on the academic turf?
If the hegemony in academia shifts rightwards in the coming days, (which it will thanks to preferential appointments, contractualisation and casualisation of the workforce and privatisation, etc) so will its moral compass as also, the flavour of ‘ethics’ of capitalism. How long will the dissidents remain relevant to the public when they have no base or public support to which to correspond to? Therefore, mine is not a principled opposition to online engagement as such but an address to a lacuna that instructs ad-hocism, a lack in strategy and subjective forces that seems to be driving the wheels of oppositionary politics — which is responsive and at times, even reactionary — owing to its lack of a programmatic and theoretical analysis of the present social predicament.
How did we, in our attempts to ‘call out’ the ‘sold-out’ media that has sworn to remain faithful to their leader, end up getting caught in their straw man fallacy? In times like these, when the media is openly and brazenly unethical and loyal, only to money. How useful is it to try to ‘shame’ and to ‘guilt-trip’ them into doing their job of non-partisan journalism? The shaming must happen but beyond and not only amongst the cosy quarters of society. Fact that anyone with money and power can publish, preach lies and brandish it as freedom, doesn’t bother us. Is the free reign of entitlements of the rich the epitome of freedom? How do we quit engaging with free speech at face value, for it presumes equality that does not exist and attributes freedom to structural inequality?
We must stop being arrested by the present and respond to the moment when it’s already late for some quick catharsis only to wait for another day to combust our energies on platforms that reinscribe us into a field which is oppositional in form and not content.