Undeclared War And The Politically Stupid Intellectuals

Sonali *

Rally by Manipur University SC/OBC students against implementation of Reservation Amendment Act 2012 in August 2014 :: Pix - Deepak Oinam

One walk to the Manipur University and then you are all geared up for a war. No half pants, armed guards welcoming you with their smug smile (may be thinking that it's a poor choice to think the university will offer a better life than them). Well in addition to that, if you are not a student of the university, you might as well get your wits whipped by the armed uniformed guards if you think you can take your vehicle inside the university gate. Then suddenly you see a convoy of the Assam riffles all dressed up for a counterinsurgency operation; driving into the campus with their automatic machine guns. No armed guard stops them now.

In fact, sometimes a salute! Jai Hind! A wonderful display of loyalty to power! Power speaks and it speaks much louder than any knowledge inside the Manipur University. Foucault! Foucault! Had you seen our little so called "jeweled land", probably you would have thought twice before saying "the exercise of knowledge is power".

Because in Manipur, practically speaking "the exercise of the gun barrel is power" and it stands true even inside the university which is supposed to be the "fountain of knowledge", the place whose ultimate purpose is production and circulation of knowledge has no importance of knowledge or power attached to the exercise of knowledge. The jeweled land turns out to be decorated by ornaments of lead hallmarked by the state.

And, all that you can see inside the university is the translation of the power relation outside of its walls into its spaces. Although what we call the "university" is not and could not be ever an exclusive space separated from the society, university elsewhere has had some form of space free from coercion (may be even an abstract space) for thoughts formulation where intuitive minds have developed into critical minds.

So, we read theories of revolution and radical thoughts developed as a part of the university system. Although Marx formulated his ideas as an independent researcher, he would have never made it without the primary knowledge the university gave. And Mao had his readings done at Peiking University library. So, the university is an important resource for knowledge formulation and circulation for the society as a whole.

We do read and think about the Russian revolution, the Chinese revolution, and even get temped by the thoughts of a just society. Let us do compare Delhi University for instance (or Jawaharlal Nehru University) with Manipur University. Delhi police guards the students whenever they go for a protest or a rally (although they do occasionally crack down on them if the rally is at the parliament street). Let me just jump to the conclusion and say there is a different kind of power relation in that society. There are no armed guards, no convoys. In these universities, the exercise of knowledge is indeed, power! (Maybe that's the perk of a bourgeoisie society like Delhi).

But truth be told, there is hegemony in terms of knowledge. Power relations talk in terms of the professor and the students. The research scholars and the Masters' students, the Masters' students, and the Undergrad students. But it is the knowledge system that operates not the physical coercion or physical translation of power relation. And so somehow it seems university space and resource is being used to produce systematic and institutional knowledge(Not that critical or radical thoughts produced there at the universities in Delhi has challenged the order of the society in terms of transformation of those thoughts into powerful movements of resistance and revolution).

But it has the ability to challenge the knowledge system of the coercive Indian state. And though physically the state has been able to dominate and subjugate, however in the abstract space where knowledge formulates it has not yet achieved its supremacy. And this resistance provided by the knowledge system of these universities has somehow to do with the physical space of the universities.

Imagine what Foucault calls the "Penopticon", the physical tower of surveillance being placed right in the middle of the Universities in Delhi. There at the top of the tower you have the uniformed personnel of the state, experts in counter-insurgency, putting you under surveillance 24 by 7. At the entry of the university you have the gun barrels speaking to you the language of power, dictating to you, what or what not to wear. Now the physical picture of the university is quite clear. This physical layout will translate into thought coercion and self censorship like it does inside Manipur University.

If we are to consider Gramsci's words true that the motor of class struggle is the struggle between the intellectuals representing the exploited(organic) and the intellectuals representing exploiters(traditional), I must add that we have too many of the later intellectuals inside the Manipur University. The society's resources have been poured into the University. There's the library, with all the books to empower the mind, to make the mind skeptical. Then there are the trained minds sitting on their comfortable chairs ready to provoke thoughts, huge clean gardens to discuss thoughts and ideas; and spaces for formations of associations.

Why then, the necessity for long pants? Because, wearing long pants is more important than exercising knowledge. Because the so called intellectuals inside the university has been whipped to defend the status quo. Because lest we forget "intellectuals" are by definition "elite". By their material condition "university intellectuals" are to a minimum "petty-bourgeoisie", the rats that jump off to another boat when the boat is about to sink. Well there is not another boat to jump off to in Manipur's case.

We are all drowning in an ocean of sh%t. And their sons and daughters are going to drown in that sh%t too. So, they too are needed to grasp and make sense of their material reality quickly and question their own positions as "intellectuals". It does not matter even if you are an intellectual or a brainiac, if you are politically blind or stupid it does not count! The university intellectuals at Manipur University are politically stupid morons for not raising their mind against militarization of the campus. This marking off, of the university space as an exclusive space where there are sets of codes of conduct and dressing must be challenged. University space must be freed from the layers of physical and abstract coercion. Until the resources accumulated at the university has been successfully distributed among the people, there is need to constantly challenge its hegemony as an exclusive space for the intellectuals and "would be", "about to be" intellectuals. The knowledge system must not be exclusive. If for example there is knowledge production about the "ILP", may be critical debates and discussion.

How then, do we prevent it from being an exclusive production of the "rats"? A peasant, an auto driver, a high school teacher and so on, must have access to the knowledge and be a part of that knowledge production, the debates and discussion. So this is about breaking the barrier of exclusivity; to know and to practice the pedagogy of the oppressed. It may start with as simple an exercise as the students defying the authoritarian dictates of dress codes. And if any progressive members are left of the university employee, they are expected to support such cause. It is to say in another language that safe haven that the "rats" have created an exclusive university culture where professors wear coats and students are trained to follow their lead; to dress decently like a gentleman and a lady must be challenged.

The university space must be questioned, the space where armed guards salute the men in coats, where some privileged status is given to the rule following, decent looking students. The space where a peasant would think twice about his looks before entering it, thrice before talking to anyone inside and a thousand times before attending any of their functions. We need to break this space. We need to reclaim the university and its space. The knowledge should not be produced for the state but for the people and people must be able to take part in the knowledge formulation. Intellectual masturbation by the state has had enough. A university is much more than just classes inside the four walls. "ociety's' resources have been pooled in and the rats have an exclusive affair in it.

What is so wrong if a peasant wants to sit down there and talk about his crops or an iron smith about his work? We need to create an environment where a peasant or the newspaper hawker is able to communicate thoughts with the university students and professors. Or even to the extreme where the university goes out to the peasants like the Narodniks did in Russia. This defying of the dress code may just be the first strike of the hammer towards redistribution of university knowledge and also absorption of practical knowledge that exist outside the university walls. Who knows the peasant may show the university students and teachers class struggle better than any abstract Marxist theories. After all, the stink of the fisherman's sweat will give us a better grasp of reality than any ode to the Loktak Lake.

(Indented mostly for the morons who think an army camp inside the university campus has any justification.) The writer is a nobody; just a voice among the thousands if not lakhs, who wants all army camps in Manipur to go.