Anchal Soni In Conversation With Dr. Brahma Prakash, Author Of Body On The Barricades, On Folk, Crisis, Resistance, And More

An idea that I see emerging in your writings strongly is that of debris. Debris of popular notions of justice, secularism, and even universal notions of humanity. It seems that it is just the debris of counter-hegemonic discourses that we are left with. Do you agree with this?

I am not sure if we should understand them as debris. The said discourse of debris comes when you have a building, structure, or something like that. We never had one. Therefore, in a simple turn, nation was still in making, the building was still in making. We are a society full of filth and dust,  fractures. We were trying to build something from the dust.. There was a repetition attempt to make a construction to come together to create some kinds of structures of feeling or solidarity even if you are thinking in terms of idea of the nation itself there was an attempt in bringing diverse communities but also very fragmented communities together, to bring some idea of the nation, some idea of the institution. But again, it has come back to perhaps ground zero. We can say that we are now moved to this post-truth or post-justice society for some communities. For a small minority, those ideas were working in a very Nehruvian kind of sense. But this idea of debris and ruptures throughout our south asian continental history or even in indian history even in indian history has always been there.

The last rupture, the very recent one, is the pandemic in all our memories. And Arundhati Roy wrote this beautiful essay, which described the pandemic as a portal with an alternate world in its aftermath it. The post-pandemic world is certainly not any better, if not worse. But it seems normality keeps getting snatched away with the strengthening right regimes and continued acts of dispossession around the world. How do you see this rupture?

The pandemic Covid-19  came as a shock and surprise for us. It got enshrined in our memory. We can say that we are generation who have survived Pandemic the way older generation used to talk about plague and Spanish flue. become part of our memory. Pandemic has exposed the neoliberal world order–remember patients not getting beds and bodies falling from ambulances. It shows us human vulnerability as well as the precarious situations we are in- remember people were left out. But you are right to say that the post-pandemic world is certainly not better. I would add that it has gone worse. It led to further curtailments of rights and freedom, formation of precarious workers and war going on. This shows that the current neolliberal regime can also mobilize the risk and crisis. This is what I have discussed in Body on the Barricades. I would like to quote it from there.  Risk is central to thinking about totalitarian regimes and freedom. The ultimate defence that works in favour of the state and the authritarian regime is the ideology of risk—attack, threat, emergency. The threat of COVID-19 was very much there. The collapse of health system was very much there, precariousness of lives was very much there. Indeed, it threatened the capitalist world order. That stands exposed. Yet, neoliberal capitalism soon contained the virus in favour of the ideology of risk. As virus spread, the regimes across the world performed the risk to curb rights and dissents. Let us note that the market ideology of risk always favours the authorities and their securitarian appratus. Therefore, they keep giving us rhetoric: life without risk, love without risk, sex without risk. Unsurprisingly, the coronavirus soon became the ally of neoliberal and authoritarian regimes. While the disease exposed the medical system of the market regime, this same regime sold the risk and bought consent to augment the authorities’ power. It is not surprising that amidst the pandemic, the authoritarian regimes of the world became more powerful. 

Pandemic and themes of death and mourning are something you closely work with towards the end of Body on the Barricades, especially the idea of how mourning is politically potent to become a resistance. I want to link it with your other essays on Palestine. Is the mourning of those dying in the colonised Palestine by the global community not strong enough to be transformed into a solidarity movement?

Let me say that mourning getting curtailed, people are not allowed to mourn, bodies are not allowed to get buried are extreme situations. Earlier it happened in Kashmir, it happened recently in Bastar, The state and authorities did not allow funeral of Maoist rebel leaders. The colonial government did the same with the dead body of Bhagat Singh and the same happened with the dead body of Rosa Luxemburg. This shows the authorities fear with the dead who can symbolically led the procession protest. We are talking about the extreme sense of curtailment and the extreme sense of courage. It is ultimately fight between two forces one who wants to ends the basic sense of humanity, the others who want to save at any cost. Finding courage and solidarity even in the situation of death and destruction makes us human. We often find deepest courage, strength and soladarity in those situations. 

You are to an extent right to say that Palestinian are perhaps not getting the global solidarity even in their mourning and death. Many times, as a poet, as a writer, we talk about these connections in idealized sense. And that has its own power. But we should be also need to aware that even in those situations hierachies played out, whose life is more precious and whose life is more vulnerable becomes the question. Either we are talking about apartheid situation or caste society, even the sense of mourning and dignity to body carry the hierarchies. At the same time, I feel that people across the world have stood Palestinians and they are morally standing with them even their military are killing them. 

The same concerns come around solidarity. Who gets solidarity? We do not see solidarity for the people who are getting lynched in out streets, in fact, more aggressive sense of solidarity is coming for the violent mobs and rapists. It becomes more difficult to generate solidarity when minority and marginalised communities are already criminalised, they are already branded and framed in the language of terrorism. It happens with nomadic communities who are perceived as the “born criminals”, it happens with dalit communities whose lives are considered not that grievable or valuable, it increasigly happening with minorities whose living itself is considered as threat. In those situation, neither mourning, nor solidarity remain generic terms. If, in an ideal situation, solidarity happens for the across the sections, that would be radical solidarity…solidarity not on who you are but the solidarity based on pure vulnerability.  

In your essays on Palestine, the act of resistance is discussed as a linguistic-political act, but there is also a romanticisation of this defiance. Have academics gotten somewhere settled on this romanticisation?  Is there a risk of diluting the political urgency of resistance through academic discourse?

I agree but also disagree with you. First, when in some cases, I discuss resistance as a linguistic-political act then I am not saying that other concerns are not important. In other wods, we should read it as “resistance is also a lingustic-political act” besides so many other things. It cannot be reduced to one. It cannot be essentialise to one. The beauty and power of resistance and protest lies, more than knowing, in their unknowbility.  I write in Body on the Barricades how a protest does not end in immediacy. It travels unknown paths. It leaves footprints. It leaves its shadow. […] A protest [and resistance] is the name of the folding, unfolding and holding of bodies together. It is the name of the assembly that exists outside of the parliament. […] It is about reclaiming the past, not the glory of war and conquests, but of the dissents and discontents. Of course, there is a sense of romanticization, but in the prevailing condition of passivity, immobilizing ideology, permanent loss, words become the redeemer. When a great resistance leader, Yahya Sinwar was getting read as the figure of terrorist by the western media, I try to sitaute him on paths of Frantz Fanon. This is what The Times reported after the death of Hamas leader, Yahya Sinwar: “Last Gesture of Defiance that Condemned Yahya Sinwar to Death”. What was commendable was read as condemned. We need to defend when resistance figures are getting demonized. When protests are getting criminalized, when Palestinian resistance movement is seen as terrorist acts, when our debates are resistance are criminalized through the linguistic-political acts, it is our duty to idealise them, romanticize them. We also neet to romanticize them on their very ontological existene, because they are indeed beautiful. As a writer, as an artists, we necessariliy need to idealize them to create an utopia. We cannot always measuring the protests and resistance to what they are in their real empirical sense. They are the dreams of life that cannot be measured. Whether we lose our or we win, we should not get defeated in our imagiantion, they should not kill our dream. While one can agree with your concerns, it is the idealist, it is the romantic, it is the rebels that led the resistance. Many times, it also depends on the genres you are writing in. I am neither a historian, nor a war strategists, my language is the langauge of art and poetry, that also brings a sense of romanticization. Let me put in other words, hope and utopia are not privilige here, one cannot have provilige not to have hope and utopia. In this crazy times, when our all ideals are getting shattered, when romance are getting shrouded, we need be idealistic and romantic. While one needs to be wary about romanticization of history and resistance, we cannot be unromantic and be resistance. We need utopia, we need ideals, we need to defend the language of resistance that is getting demonized. 

Incarceration, as you’ve noted, does not affect all bodies equally. Do you see a contemporary echo of this in the way carceral systems target subaltern bodies today? How do they resist? 

Yes, so think about Gulfisa and Umar, Sharjeel. Such an open and shameless violation of justice. We all know that they are  facing the incarceration  because they come from minority communities. They are getting targeted precisely because of their identity. Some of their writings have come in open. What we see that while Sharjeel’s words are becoming prophetic, Gulfisa has come with poetry, Umar is finding solace in Dostoevsky’s words. They are facing enormous sense of injustice, their experiences are profound, their words poetic and prophetic on the questions of hope, life and injustice. G.N. Saibaba came to poetry. But why, ultimately, poetry? What is poetry doing to incarceration? And I think poetry still provides you with some kind of hope in one way, but also some kinds of zeal to not to feel hopeless. . Because one of the things that any authoritarian regime or any dictatorship does is that they try to break your confidence. They  create a sense of fear, I agree  with you that  not all the bodies are getting incarcerated in the same ways. You have  differential treatment of the bodies, differential treatment of the punishment. Punishment carries the cultural logic- which form of punishment is going to hurt you more. Adivasis are not getting treated or punished the same way Muslims are getting punished. 

You have to give us five recommendations for our readers. Anything you want to, books or movies, or podcasts. Anything you want to recommend to our readers?

Okay. Let me start with one of literary ideals, Ngugi wa Thiong’s who passed away recently. His Decolonizing the Mind but my favourite is his Penpoints, Gunpoints and Dreams. If you are interested in novel, then The River Between, Ernaux’s Simple Passion and A Frozen Woman, Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric, the poetry of  Mahmood Darwish, Marathi poet, Namdev Dhasal. My new favourites are Maumita Alam and Parvati Tirki besides Jacinta Kerketta and Meena Kandsamy. My all-time favourite is Phanishwar Nath Renu, Susan Sontag and Arundhati Roy. I am more interested in literary essays.  I like Anurag Minus Verma’s Cultural Cafe and podcasts. I also listen either Blues, Bhojpuri and Magahi songs. 

What is new you are writing about? 

I will announce it very shortly. It is going to be on Hindutva and Aesthetics.