Class Relations,Material Conditions,and Spaces of Class Struggle in Rural India

Abstract

For historical-geographical materialists, making history and geography means that existing conditions of life are not acceptable because they are exploitative and oppressive, and that new and better conditions of life can, and must, be created through political struggles against the class/classes responsible for the existing conditions. The act of making history (and geography) in a class-society is class struggle. This paper is about class and class struggle in the historical-geographical context of post-colonial India. It discusses how relations of class as well as caste- and gender-based social oppression have created extremely difficult conditions of living for workers and peasants in rural and tribal areas, which the post-colonial capitalist-landlord state has, more or less, failed to significantly mitigate. The conjunctural combination of unjust conditions of living and state failure has created a historical-geographical situation ripe for class struggle, one instance of which is the Naxalite movement, a part of the worldwide Maoist movement. Its growth and spatial spread are examined. Also discussed is the extent to which the Naxalites provide some immediate relief to poor people. Although this is a movement which has much appeal among the rural poor in many areas, it is not without some serious problems. The paper, therefore, discusses some of the major limitations of the Naxalite movement that partly grow out of (a specific interpretation of) the same historical-geographical conditions that have prompted it in the first place. In particular, the paper is critical of the Maoists underplaying society's capitalist character and of the use of violent method by some Naxalite groups as a means of class struggle.