Dilip Simeon's blog

Theory as History Essays on Modes of Production and Exploitation :  by  Jairus Banaji;  Winner of the 2011 Isaac and Tamara Deutscher Memorial Prize Reviewed by Kerem Nisancioglu Spanning thirty-odd years of academic endeavour, Jairus Banaji’s  Theory as History  is a collection of essays exploring the role of labour and exploitation within the wider research programme of historical materialism. Having become the latest recipient of the prestigious Isaac Deustcher Prize, this ambitious and rich monograph has already made a splash in the seemingly never ending debates surrounding the historical transition to capitalism, as well as crucial Marxist concepts such as ‘mode of production’ and ‘relations of production’…. …The breadth and depth of Banaji’s historical research is nothing short of staggering, making extensive use of primary archive material while also avoiding an overreliance on solely English-speaking secondary sources. In this rega...

Spanning thirty-odd years of academic endeavour, Jairus Banaji’s Theory as History is a collection of essays exploring the role of labour and exploitation within the wider research programme of historical materialism. Having become the latest recipient of the prestigious Isaac Deutscher Prize, this ambitious and rich monograph has already made a splash in the seemingly never ending debates surrounding the historical transition to capitalism, as well as crucial Marxist concepts such as ‘mode of production’ and ‘relations of production’. If this all sounds like the jargonistic and esoteric stuff that is only of academic interest to Marx nerds, then it is no accident – Theory as History is not exactly bedside reading material. The biggest challenge for the reader is that at times the book appears to assume an extensive prior knowledge of a seemingly daunting array of subjects, from the finer details of Das Kapital to Byzantine legal terminology. It might also be argued that its numerou...

The following conversation took place in December 2020. On the occasion of Jairus Banaji’s latest publication,  A Brief History of Commercial Capitalism , Sheetal Chhabria and Andrew B. Liu spoke to contextualize his work within a multi-decade trajectory of history, theory, and labor organization, across Europe and Asia. We noted the particular significance of an original intervention developed by Banaji in the 1970s, taking aim at the orthodox Marxist equation between capitalism and ‘free wage labor.’ Whereas the wage constitutes a particular ‘mode of exploitation,’ he argued in 1977, ‘capitalism’ points toward an epochal ‘mode of production,’ which is more capacious and universal. The distinction thereby enables scholars to expand their vision of capitalism’s history, from the classical story centered on the urban north Atlantic to other societies and periods fueled by agrarian, unfree, and the nominally independent working classes.  Sheetal Chhabria and Andrew Liu also tou...

http://www.threeessays.com/books/fascism-essays-on-europe-and-india/ The victory of fascism in Europe between the wars was an incalculable human catastrophe. This collection of essays contains the first-ever English translation of Arthur Rosenberg’s fascinating analysis of the emergence of fascism in Europe, as well as a short introduction to the essay that explains its significance, and then four contributions that extend the framework to India – dealing in turn with Savarkar and the politics of the Hindu Mahasabha (Srinivasan), communalism as the Indian version of fascism and its roots in the majoritarian ideologies of the nation-state (Simeon), and the fascism of the Sangh Parivar as this had emerged by the early ’90s when concerted communal mobilisations unleashed a spate of violence, foreshadowing the even more horrific events of 2002 (Sumit Sarkar). Unlike most left-wing theories of fascism, Rosenberg’s work made the mass base of fascism central to its political success. ...

The life-impulse can exist without fascism, but fascism cannot exist without the life-impulse. Fascism is the vampire leeched to the body of the living, the impulse to murder given free rein, when love calls for fulfilment in spring..   Wilhelm Reich in The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933) : The essays below are part of a printed volume  Fascism: Essays on Europe and India  Edited by Jairus Banaji (Three Essays Collective: 2013) . Some introductory extracts are presented in this post.    For more information on the hard copy of the book see:  http://www.threeessays.com/books/fascism-essays-on-europe-and-india/ ************************************************************ The law of killing: a brief history of Indian fascism by Dilip Simeon The permanent militarisation of society requires a permanent enemy Hoodbhoy & Nayyar Politics is the plastic art of the state, just as painting is the plastic art of colour. This is why po...

From Jairus Banaji’s Facebook post, December 20,  2019 India’s ruling duo live on a different planet from the mass of Indians, so completely divorced are they from the lives of the vast majority who struggle to make ends meet. They love the company of Mukeshbhai and Mehulbhai, love to dress expensively and to strut around like peacocks, waving to cameras. One loves to travel and is obsessed with embracing powerful male heads of state (as long as the cameras are watching). The other obviously eats very well, unlike 85% of Indians, and tells us human rights are irrelevant. This sets the clock of modern society back several centuries, to before the days when the rights of the individual began to matter.  They both seriously think they can arrogate the power of life and death over many millions of their fellow citizens by having the right to decide who is and isn’t a citizen, who will and will not be stateless. Basically this is because they see their citizens (*all* c...

NB -  The Delhi Historical Materialism Conference  (Convention Centre, JNU, 3-5 April 2013) has a morning session on the first day, under the title  “Authoritarian Politics in S. Asia, 1st panel: The Question of Fascism” See the 9.30 am panel for Wednesday April 3, at   http://sacw.net/free/hmdelhiprog.html The panel will be chaired by  Mukul Mangalik.  Subhash Gatade will present on ‘Communal fascism in action’  Jairus Banaji will present on ‘Arthur Rosenberg’s essay Fascism as a Mass Movement and its relevance to us in India.’    The following two essays contain the background of my presentation  ‘Understanding Indian fascism’ Armies of the Pure:   The Question of Indian Fascism  (Sept/Oct 2012)  A Hard Rain Falling: private armies & political violence in India (July 2012 ) Jairus Banaji's edited volume, Fascism: Essays on Europe and India , ( Three Essays Collective ) contains m...

NB : Attempts to rewrite history with the use of political power are taking place in India as well. Ironically, the infamous habit has been connected to communist regimes, but is quite clearly popular with anti-communist ones as well. As George Orwell remarked in his dystopian novel 1984: " He who controls the past controls the future; he who controls the present, controls the past ." How true. Unfortunately the rectification of the past is an impossible task, even for Supermen. Equally misfortunate is the popular fascination for neatly-laundered versions of the past; a fascination that I can only explain by comparing it to being perpetually high on a particularly potent dose of medical cannabis. DS For three decades, Memorial has delivered the facts that have enabled Russians to seek the truth about the Soviet past. Without its research, international accounts of the GULAG would also have been impossible. The attempt to close the NGO is the latest move in the Putin regime’s ...