Book Review of Clare Solomon and Tania Palmieri edited, "SPRINGTIME: THE NEW STUDENT REBELLIONS" published by Verso Books

If one leafs through the book “Springtime: The New Student Rebellions,” s/he cannot resist the temptation of reading it. It has an extensive collection of photo essays that show what happened recently. The flashbacks in midst of the essays, written during and within the movements of the past (like France '68), by authors like Eric Habsbawn, Fritz Tuefel, Ernest Mandel, Vittorio Riesser, Andre Glucksmann and Angelo Quattrochi show what had happened earlier. Together with the essays, articles and reports it shows, ‘this has happened, this is happening and this will be happening, till…’

Books of this sort have been published in the past but what makes this book unique is its time of publication and the multiple perspectives it presents against capitalism. At this time when there are talks of “end of history,”, “there is no alternative” and anti-capitalism ridiculed in circles of so called academics and intellectuals that have constructed and taken over the ideological problematic of the people of the world, this books comes as a spear to shatter the subversive problematic into pieces. For the forced blind by the media, it comes as light. It shows how flesh and blood can instrumentalise ‘networking,’ electronic media and even create new media. Most importantly it shows, itself included, what can be done at war time and in the war zone. 

The book is divided into six parts explicating the six contemporary movements. In the first part that deals with the student protests of UK in November-December, 2010 contains articles by known and, more importantly, unknown figures of the resistance movement.  Every article is within the scope of the movement but each gives particular perspective to see it.  The first essay by University of London Union President, Clare Solomon, shows how distorted images of students’ zeal on the day of the Millbank Towers were presented by the media and the brutalities of police on students. James Meadley’s essay is an attempt to locate the (cause of) student rebellion in the British economic policies. Kanja Sassay deals with the issue of racism through an engagement with the issue of black students. Ashok Kumar shows the transformation of the London School of Economics into a site of student revolt. Nina Power, a senior lecturer reveals of threats that she had been receiving from Scotland Yard Police for supporting the movement. Her article also deals with the commodification of education. Susan Matthews, parent of a student injured in the protest shows her solidarity with the movement a la, what she calls, ‘Blake’s hackneyed image in a new way.’ Hesham Yafai shows how the movement was able to place itself within larger struggles like those in Gaza and elsewhere. Peter Hallward, in his article, shows how the students had acted in discipline and restraint till the containment operations by police began. John Rees’ article is a theoretical contribution to the book. Elly Badcock writes how the students’ movements of 2009 of SOAS Universities against Israili atrocities was an useful experience that enabled the2010 protests to tak up the right tactics. James Haywood stresses on the explosive spontaneity of the Millbank protests.  Jo Casserly, in her essay, “the art of occupation,” shows her vigilantism against the bureaucratization of the movement and poses that occupations are not an end in themselves. Jody McIntyre gives a first hand report of her experience from the 'thrashed' headquarters(she is someone who went up the building in a wheelchair; her article is called “My wheelchair is the beginning.”)on the day of action. A short piece by four teenage, college going students(Adam Toulmin, Kaity Squires, Stuart O’Reilly and Adam Toulmin) show their illusions of the State and University being welfarist, shattered. Amy Gilligan reports what happened in Cambridge throughout the movement. In the end of this section, there is a list of links to websites which show videos of the protest movement.

The second section is a collection of a number of previously published essays and a few new ones on the demonstrations in Italy. Contributors include Guilio Calella, Marco Bascetta and Benedetto Vecci; Giacomo Russo Spena, and  Elisa Albansi (a letter to Berlusconi), who deal with political economy contextualizing the demonstrations. First hand reports of demonstrations follow thiese. Apart from the pieces by individuals, there are a few interesting pieces by collectives. The ‘Book Block,’ presents a narrative of the emergence of the movement and its ways of propaganda that included holding large sized placards looking like books. It also gives a recipe of how to make such books and photographs of students holding the book-placards. The ‘Autonomous University Collective,’ gives a meaningful insight of the “Black Block.”       

The third section is on protests in California. Introduced by Evan Calder Williams, a writer, theorist and a doctoral candidate in literature from Santa Cruz University California; followed by a chronology of events it shows potentialities that are not made apparent by the bourgeois ideologues. The section has a collection of essays by anonymous people and by collectives. The first essay explicates how ‘the student’ has been in a process of subsumption whose realization comes in ‘the terminus of student life.’ There is the statement from the occupation of Graduate Students Commons, UC Santa Cruz; and statement from of Campbell Hall UCLA. These statement to speak for and about themselves. Then there is an essay which its anonymous author titles, “the beatings will continue.” Written in 18 October 2009, following the occupations of UCSC Humanities II, this piece gives importance to militancy by students to sustain their ‘rights.’ Then there is ‘the anti-capitalist projects: Q &A’ which is presented by its author in the form of questions that include ‘why occupations?’ etc, and his answers to them. The section ends with an ‘assessment’ of a movement UC from within the movement showing the brutal face of authorities. Jose Laguarta, President of Peurto Rican Association of University Professors(APPU) gives a narrative of the movement, its problems and prospects.

The fourth section deals with the revolts in France from May, 1968 through and to 2010. It includes essays by Sebastian Budgen, Richard Greeman, Lea Guzzo and Larry Portis.

The fifth section has articles/essay from the revolts in Greece, from 2006 to 2010. Spyros Dritsas, now a Resident Physician in Surgery was a member and spokesperson of Coordination of Students’ Unions General Assemblies and Occupations in 2006-2007. Georos Kalampokaswas also a member of the same during 2006-2007. Together they give an elaborate narrative of the ‘stage becoming unstable.’ Ilias Kafelas, Eirini Giatanou write about the period of 2010. Panagiotis Sotiris writes about economic crisis, and education as a site of struggle. This is followed by a section called ‘the movement speaks for itself,’ where various students’ associations and Unions write their perspectives of the movement.

The last sections deals with the anti-authoritarian movement in Tunisia aimed at overthrowing the Ben Ali regime. Leila Basmoudi, a painter; Toufik Ben Brik, a journalist and writer; Moncez Marzouki, author of Dictateurs en suris; Sadri Khiari, an activist exiled under Ben Ali write against the authoritarian regime of Ben Ali that had support of US and French State. Yasim Temlali, an Algerian writer and researcher, writes how the socio-economic grounds of the Tunisian and Algerian revolts of 2011 had a logical unity. More on Algerian movement is written by Omar Kitani, an activist and supporter of Aboishion ofTthird World Debt Committee. Yassin Temlani, an Algerian researcher, writes of dangers that loom over the movement. The section ends with Amin Allal’s open letter to all.

The postscript of the book by Adam Shatz , written at the time when, Mubarak regime was facing troubles why his fall was desirable and most probable. Well, today we know what happened to that regime. The paradoxical incompleteness of the book shall progressively disturb those subjugated throughout the world.    

Interaction V: Ganja smoking unemployed engineer speaks

The person with whom this interaction has been taken was one of the best students in his school days. Apart from being a good in academics, he was the Captain of a local cricket team. He started taking ganja(weeds), as he says, from highschool. In engineering colleges in Orissa, of which I happen to be a part, there are groups that take ganja regularly. The following is an interaction with a person who has completed his engineering  and is back ‘preparing’ for jobs. He shares, through a narrative of his own, his existential trajectory with an emphasis on ganja. The following are in his own words.

I was introduced to ganja when I was in high school (12^th standard). I was about eighteen years old then. A friend of mine heard about it and asked me and six of my friends that would we like to have a try. We were all tobacco smokers. We said yes and he said that, he would try to find out where it was available. He got one ‘joint’(ganja and tobacco mixed and rolled like a cigarette) for us that cost us Rs.5 and all six of us took a couple drags each approximately. This was the first time we tried ganja. As far as I remember, people who had anxieties in their lives (then that was chiefly related to love) started becoming, sort of, what I would call, paranoid. Others enjoyed it. I was finding it very funny. All of us were laughing. Some of them were trying to get out of the hit as soon as possible.  We were all laughing, at our own condition as well as at others. I remember it like it happened yesterday. I believed the amount that we had taken could produce panic that some others were showing.
Then occasionally we used to take ganja. The usual amount was one ‘joint’ per three people. And usually it was the same effect produced. The second time we noticed the external physical effect. Eyes were red, etc. We enjoyed what we did. We laughed away anything that appeared then. It was a small amount that we took and the effect didn’t last long. In that sense it was better than alcohol. Our beautiful atmosphere was confined to the boundaries of our brain. No one could have any idea of what was going on inside our heads and passerby’s could guess that we are under dope. We realised this after the passing away of the ‘dope mood.’ Unlike after taking alchohol, we could socialize after sometime. We were discussing these things amongst ourselves.
Then some of us went to do our undergraduate degrees. Some were preparing for entrance tests to get into govt. medical colleges(there was tough competition and usually people dropped out of academics in order to prepare for entrance tests). One of my six ganja friends got a seat after dropping out for three years. I too dropped  for a year and went to this coaching centre[1]. I again doped in the later part of this year and it was once or twice that I did it. Unfortunately I did not clear the tests and got into an engineering college. After making friends with them, I asked a few people who were into ganja or not. Few people said that they had tried it and few were acquainted with it. So, I asked if we could do it there. They agreed. We realized it became a ‘symbol of fraternity,’ for those who used ganja. We went on outings there and it was easy to find ganja there. By then, I needed two ‘joints,’ for going high. I felt ganja near the college was a little worse in quality than Cuttack ‘joint’. Then I made joints together with better quality of tobacco mixed.  I have never disappointed myself with the joints that I rolled myself. I could go really ‘high.’
I adored someone who was a very good student and an excellent cricketer. Academically, he was one batch over me. When I discovered that he was also into ganja, we had joints together. He had the craft of an artist in rolling the ‘joints’. We started taking ‘joints’ together, say, about two to three times a week. Then we started using the chillam*. When I first tried ganja in chilam, I threw up but later I got acquainted with and I realized it makes one high quickly. By the time I was in my third year we used to take ‘joints’ or ganja in Chillam regularly in along with freshly admitted juniors into the ‘fraternity.’ Towards the end of final year I can’t recall how many times we doped daily.
In the final year, when there are campus recruitments, my college didn’t bring any core** companies. As I was not interested in software, I didn’t sit for them. Only one core company came later in which I was not eligible because I had a backlog. Only one student out of 318 students could make it through to Vedanta, who, paradoxically wasn’t of core branch. But that is immaterial here. I have left Rayagara since mid 2010. Now I’m back with few of my old friends. We use Chillam rarely but in the evening we get together take joints. Have some good time and get back.
Rest of the day, I study. I am preparing for public sector. My aim in life is satisfaction and not just earning and so I chose private sector over public sector. The lifestyle in public sector is different from private sector where they screw for 12 hours. I’ve been inspired by my father. He does work, takes care of us. I want life to be complete. I rejected software jobs that paid about two lakhs per annum in Bhubaneswar. Though my trade doesn’t allow me to stay near home, given a chance, I would love to stay near home. 

*A funnel traditionally used to smoke ganja.

** A term used popularly used to represent mechanical, electrical or construction related studies in  Engineering college. It excludes Computer Science and Information Technology. 

    

[1] There are a number of coaching institutes in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack where tens of thousands of students go to prepare for entrance exams. The coaching includes regular exams and every coaching institute stresses for preparing by intensive study for at least 12-14 hours a day. During the period, this person appeared for his tests, there were about 300 seats and 70,000 aspirants in Orissa.

Interaction IV: An auto driver speaks of his occupation

The term auto is(popularly) used in Bhubaneswar for a three wheeled vehicle that is the major mode of conveyance of passengers within Bhubaneswar. According to institutional norms, it can carry three passengers and the rates are fixed (except if a passenger volunteers to reserve the auto). For about three kilometers, a passenger has to pay Rs.9. The rate of diesel is around Rs.43 and an auto shows an average mileage of 30km/l. The following is an interaction with an auto driver (name: Jogi Das; age: 45) of Bhubaneshwar which I have translated from Oriya.

I was born and brought up in Bhubaneswar, though I have a paternal house at Jatni, Khorda District. My father used to have a Oriya fast food shop. Initially I worked as a helper in Bus services*.  Then with some accumulated money I bought an auto and had been driving the auto for two years. Then, due to maintenance problems, I had to sell it off. Now I drive on a contractual basis. The owner gives me the auto for the whole day and I pay him Rs.130 (whether I have earned that much or not doesn’t matter). It depends on the auto drivers to decide whether he can earn that much from the auto he  hires; rates vary from 130-200 in Bhubaneswar. It depends on where  there is more chance of earning, condition of vehicle, etc. My earnings are around Rs.150 to Rs.200 per day.
We have eighty autos in our stand. The one who reaches the stand in the morning first has to write his name in a register that is maintained by our stand. According to the numbering, when passengers come we take them. In Bhubaneswar, there is an association called auto Mahasangh, organized by Sibananda Ray and other leaders, where auto drivers and auto owners go and meet once in a month, though it is not mandatory. Under this association there are several smaller auto associations like ours dispersed over the whole of Bhubaneswar. We individually pay Rs.50 per month to the Mahasangh. The Bhubaneswar auto Mahasangh’s work is to sort out disputes between auto owners and drivers, to take care of drivers if there are any fights or accidents, etc. We go to the stand to sort out problems/fights that might have taken place amongst ourselves. Also in festive occasions, the Mahasangh’s advice is taken. There are certain rules set by the Mahasangh like drivers from other auto stands (located elsewhere in Bhubaneswar) cannot take passengers from our stands. The traffic commissioner of Bhubaneswar has a rule that every auto driver needs to have have and Identity Card, without which the auto driver will be fined Rs. 100. The Mahasangh makes it mandatory that every auto driver has his I Card with him. The driver pays the fine, not the owner.
Iif suddenly, the auto hiring rate is hiked by auto owners, the driver has to decide whether he can continue driving with the hiked price or will he have to quit driving that auto. Mahasangh doesn’t interfere in such matters. Usually we agree because if we don’t get any other auto, we’ll have to sit at home without earning.
The Mahasangh decides the rate chart on our behalf. When there are hikes in prices of oil, we go on strike under the Mahasangh that demands a re-structuring of prices for driving from one place to another in Bhubaneswar. If the strike is strong enough, the prices are hiked or else it is kept as it was. It depends on how the leaders of the Mahasangh deal with the matter and their relation with bigger leaders of Political parties. 

My interruption: You never ask for reduction in oil prices?

How can we ask for that? Once the price of something has gone up, it is useless to ask for reduction in price. It is not in our hands.
In Gandamunda, I have build a two room thatched house on Government land. See, we can’t afford private land. There are 60-70 similar houses in our region.
We do not belong to any political party but are afraid to take our autos out on the days when any party BJP, BJD or Congress calls for strike. There are hooliganisms on the road and we fear that our autos might get damaged in those.  So, we sit in our stands but do not take passengers. Except concerning autos, we never indulge in any daliya (organisational) calls for strike. Some of us might individually go for his political interests but we don’t go.

*Later he said it was a private bus. Helpers are low paid in private buses.    

Interaction III: A household worker speaks of the trajectory of her life

The following is an interaction that I had with a household worker in a residential area in Bhubaneshwar. I asked her to come to my place so that she could share whatever she thought was relevant for her and about her life. I asked her to sit on the sofa beside my chair where I was typing on the computer. She continuously hesitated and said ‘babu, mu tale basibi’(sir, I’ll sit down on the floor.) When I asked her why was she reluctant, she gave a smile that to me appeared that me asking her to sit beside me was sort of absurd. Ultimately, she sat down on the floor and narrated the following. I asked her to pause in between her flow of sentences so that I could translate what she was saying (in Oriya) into English. She ended the conversation/interaction by saying that she had work and was getting late.

I have come from Banki, Cuttack District and it has been ten years since I am in Bhubaneshwar. I had to leave my place because my husband harassed me. He works as an agriculture labourer and we have a house there but I haven’t met him ever since. I meet my ‘jaas’(wives of husbands brothers) though. Initially, when I came to Bhubaneshwar,  I was an attendant in a girls’ hostel for a couple of years. My work, there, included bringing stuff for girls, and attending them if they are ill. In the first year I was paid Rs.1200 and then Rs.1400 for the next year. One girl was ill and I just went out for some time when the supervisor was complained and I was forced to leave the job. Then for two years I worked as a cook in one house. They paid me Rs.1200. Since then I have been working in several households, moving from one to other house if I lose my job. Now I get Rs.2000 per month. I work in five households, two shifts each. My work includes cleaning dishes, washing clothes and other household work.
 Here, in Bhubaneshwar, I stay in Tarini Basti(slum) with about ninety other families in thatched roof or asbestos houses. I stay in a two room asbestos house with two other families. I pay Rs. 600 (will have to pay Rs.700 from next month) to the owner of the house who works as a cook in other households. The house is built on Government land. There are problems in my life but everyone has problems. Who has time to think about them ? And also, it is fruitless.I will have to work as long as my hands allow me to. Then, I’ll have to leave for Banki. I have two children. The younger is ill. I do not know what disease he has. He often vomits blood. He has attended primary school. My elder son hasn’t been to school and is now unemployed. I do not know what will happen after I stop working, but, I guess, things will be sorted out by then.
  

Interaction II: Student of ITER, Bhubaneshwar, speaks of his experience in a protest

Students of Orissa have always been abused by the popular media, especially those studying in private Engineering Colleges and the picture that anyone external to these students get is a view that they are, “bade baap ke bigde hue aulaad” (spoilt children of rich people). On the 20^th of April, Institute of Technical Education and Research, Bhubaneshwar, saw something that can be said to be one of the first concerted protest against the impositions of the institutional bureaucracy on the second year students of the college (B.Tech Programme). Sidharth Mohapatra, one of the protestors shares his experience of how it all began and what all happened.  The following are in his words.

On the 19^th of April, at around 5 p.m. there was a notice on the notice board where the names of students having shortage of attendance and the dates for examinations were given. I had 60% attendance in every subject and expected that I won’t be having any problems of being unable to attend the semesters. But, to my surprise, one of my friends, Raunak Raj, called me up and said that I had attendance shortage in all six subjects that I was to appear in the semesters. At that time I was with one of my friends. We immediately decided to go to college and reached there at about 6. There was a crowd gathered in college and no one was bothered about whether anyone got attendance shortages or not; rather, the question that everyone was asking everyone else, “In how many subjects did you get a shortage of attendance.” There were also jokes as to how the college screwed us. Initially I didn’t want to think any longer about the issue as I wanted to be calm – I thought nothing could be done. I went to my place and picked up a novel to divert my mind from the trouble that lay ahead. Sometime later, I got an SMS from a friend which read, “God curse ITER…Friends, we are heading for a strike tomorrow against the atrocities of the institute regarding attendance problem and exam schedules. So, we expect cordial support from all my friends to support the strike wholeheartedly and reach college gate by 12p.m. Please send this to everyone you know to help the needy.”  My first reaction was something like, analyzing the language and finding flaws in it, and the whole text appeared ridicules to me. Then I moved on with my novel.  Then I got a call from one of my friends called Anshu who asked me to come to the college gate at 12p.m. and asked me to bring as many people I could. I said yes and then I thought of forwarding the SMS I had received to few friends. I forwarded it to three to four friends. I got reply SMSs instantly with questions like, ‘where exactly?’ ‘how many?,’ etc. Now let me tell you something about myself. This had happened to me before in the 1^st year and I was really irritated. I was thinking of dropping out from college. I write poetry and thought I better do that. My parents forced me to stay. Now, moving back to where we were, I called Raunak Raj and started chatting about why the college was upto such things. We discussed we are not at all comfortable with what the college is famous for, namely, discipline. Then the old thought surfaced in my mind – “I should quit.” Then I thought why should I quit. I hung up with rage against college. So I wrote this new message, “guys, we are being fucked because we are lying down with legs wide open and it’s time to use our dicks to fuck them back. If you are a man, be a man and show up at 12 noon and join us in our protest against the college.” I sent the SMS to around twenty boys. I thought that this message might be very inappropriate to girls. So, I forwarded the message I received to the girls I knew. Within an hour or so at around 9:30 in the night, I was receiving the same message from friends and unknown numbers along with eight other messages from friends and unknown numbers. Then I called Pratik Mohapatra who sounded really angry. I found out, he, along with another of his friends, started this SMS thing. We abused the college and we thought it was all because of money that the college does this thing. Then we were talking about problems we might have to face with family when they came to know about what happened. Ultimately we decided to go on a ‘do or die’ move. Then I called a friend of my college after talking to whom, I stopped being impulsive and got down to thinking. Something that this friend was able to explain was that how the compulsory attendance was completely absurd. I hung up and started thinking again. Then I called Pratik again and told him that we needed to organize ourselves. I was hyped that night and on my bed, lying down, I was thinking “tomorrow was the day.” I took up the novel again and was asleep by about 2:30a.m. When I woke up at about in the morning, the passion had all evaporated and I wanted to go back to sleep. Then Pratik called again and I was casual about it. I went to college in a tranquil mood. When I reached there Pratik Mohapatra was the only guy standing there. We were supposed to have at least 500 students. One problem that had taken place earlier was that in our SMSs we had given different places to meet. We did not know where anyone else might be. That might have been a reason why we were alone there.  Then we called people and came to know that some students had their tests and so they would show up at 12 as exactly decided. Some of the students had gone to make fake medical certificates, the name of the source I can’t disclose because that would lead to problems we might face in future. They would return after getting them and join us. After about half an hour, there were five of us standing in front of the college expecting more company when Rahul(name changed), came and informed that there were students inside who were awaiting us. We went in front of the Academic Block of our college from where we expected more students to come out. In an hour we were about sixty only and in rage we decided to go with whatever strength we had. We went to the Dean’s Office where we were not allowed to enter. We started shouting and abusing the institute.

              Students protesting in front of college administration

After some time Prof. B.K. Sarap, Deputy Chairman of our institute showed up and said that we could talk. We agreed, though not instantly.  There were also about fifteen girls accompanying us though their main grievance was regarding examination rescheduling. Prof. Sarap said: “give me your demands in written. Then I’ll see what can be done.” We wrote an application where we put down our two demands: cut-off of a minimum attendance should be reduced and, exams should be properly rescheduled with gaps between consecutive  exams. One of the girls, who wanted rescheduling threw up that there was a rule in UGC that exam dates are to be announced fifteen days before the commencement of exams. We were all in the peak of our zeal then. While writing the application, we were sixty but the number of signatories became hundred and ninety-eight. Two of us, including me, were sent to submit the application. We were stopped by the guards. I was furious at him and called my friends back who came back yelling. Prof. Sarap came to us and asked for the application. We handed it over to him. We then had a conversation with him. Then, finally he agreed to reschedule the exams and see to it that minimum students get an attendance shortage. There were cries of joy and the crowd dispersed.   

Interaction I: Worker in Atos Origin India Pvt Ltd.

The following is the reflection of a worker (software developer) in Atos Origin India Private Limited(Mumbai), a part of Atos Origin Global , an European MNC. The worker desired to share certain things with other workers and the people in general. The following are in his words:

First of all, I can not disclose my name because I apprehend if this is found out then I’ll be thrown out of the job. What instigated me to stop and reflect on the company was a sudden decision that was imposed on us. We were supposed to work for eight and half hours out of which half an hour was for lunch. One day suddenly, we got instructions that we were to work for nine and half hours. I, and many of my co-workers were really irritated but we couldn’t undo the imposition. This imposition, probably forced my confrontation and reflection of certain other aspects of my work. It takes two hours in transportation (an average for all), even three to four hours for some. We are left with no time to fulfill our basic needs. I don’t know about others, but I feel like being used as if I am not a human being but a machine. Increase the time for which it runs and you obviously don’t ask a machine whether he would like to run or not. After about a month of the imposition, every project manager summoned meetings to ask us about our views on the increase in time of work. The outcome of the meetings was nothing, as is evident from the fact that, in spite of a complete disagreement on our behalf to work for the increased period of time, there were no changes made. It is also notable that we were made to sit in groups of four or five (under project managers) and not together. Any initiative on our behalf to sit together would have eventual results in ousting from jobs. Naturally, no one took the initiative. The meetings fulfilled its duty in handing over to the company the question, “why were the work’s time suddenly raised?” The answers included, increase in profitability and to enable the company to compete better with other IT companies. And yes, no wage increase were there during his period. It is frustrating that still we are unable to even say these in public. And we cheer the fall of some dictatorial empire in some country.       

Labour and Academics: From absence of "Springtime" to beyond

There have been continuous debates on the problems of education in recent times. From opposing privatization of education to opposing fee hikes that shall make studying impossible for the ‘poor’. Loans for higher education offered by banks seem to be solving problems related to finances relating to education. Today, the ‘business friendliness’ that education in capitalism has acquired has led to, and will be leading to, a set of consequences that is continuously becoming alien and subversive to human needs.

The most important of these consequences is what I call Taylorisation of education which is very similar to the Taylorisation of production in the late 19th century. In the process of Taylorised production, a continuous labour process that should ultimately lead to the production of a commodity was broken down into discretised fragments, the integration of which resulted in the same commodity. Today’s education “system” (and it is a proper “system” operating within the social factory) is similarly in the process of discretisation ad infinitum. The analogy needs to be grasped to see how higher education has become an integral part of the capitalism. Harry Braverman, in his Labor and Monopoly Capital, gives a lucid explanation of how Taylorisation contributed to growth of capitalism. He gives three basic contributions of Taylorisation. The first, the discretisation of the labour process creates small fragments each of which requires a more functional uniqueness. The lengthier labour process carried by the labourer requires a time for shift of function which disappears with discretisation of the labour process that requires a set of functionally unique labour(power). Second, the smaller the labour process becomes, the easier it becomes for the labourer to acquire dexterity over it. Third, with the discretisation of the labour process, the workers tend to lose understanding of, and control over, the total labour process that leads to the appearance of the commodity as a fetish. The first two result in reduction of labour time for the completion of a task and hence a larger bulk of use-values can be produced in a smaller time. The third is the pivot of dominating workers.

‘Scientific’ managers of the globalised economy might very well reject Taylorism as full of flaws but students and teachers do feel its presence in their everyday labour processes and hence in their articulations of the world. It is noteworthy that the disciplines of institutionalized education develop/discretise in accordance to the development/discretisation of the labour processes taking place in the industries. The confrontation between the ‘academics’, and its interiorisation by the working class, is necessary for becoming available in the market as labour-power to be sold. This perpetuates as a subverting practice that claims an undisputed or even sort of holy name – education. But the term education, here needs to be deconstructed, a task that Istvan Meszaros(2006:110) pictorially “illustrate(s) [with] the positions of Ethics, Political Economy, and the “abstractly material” Natural Sciences in relation to the alienated and reified social relations of production” as follows:

M = abstract concept of “man”

P = Private property

L= Wage labour and worker

N= Nature

AN = Alienated nature

I = “Industry”

AI = “Alienated industry” or alienated productive activity

What is necessary to be added to the diagram, if deconstructing education for radical political purposes is to be achieved, is a multilayering/multilining of the (P)—(AN)—(AI) and (L)—(AN)—(AI) relations. The process (of multilining), the appearance of disciplines as P, AN, AI and L are continuously transformed as the requirements of the social factory keep on developing. This is the subversion that capitalist education (or banking education to borrow a term from Paulo Freirie) enforces through its cannonisation/discretisation in its institutions that has to produce labour-powers. The subversion is double edged. Through the discretisation of labour-processes and hence their understanding, there is a continuous violent fetishisation of use-values. Hence, an establishment of a bourgeois theory and practice of passive consumption is made possible. It is to be noted that consumers can not be equated to an elite class but as the possessor of a certain value (that is not capital) for consumption/reproduction of labour-power. Lebowitz(2003:161-170) explains, what he calls, socially developed needs and shows, though implicitly, how these shall be perpetually be created. These again enter into the factory, and hence into academics, where the labour processes comprise of practice of (pre)production. The cycle is not problematic in itself. What is problematic is their subsumption by capital, where the division of labour is coerced to enhance production and circulation for the production extraction of more and more surplus value.

The bourgeois educational institutions are sites of struggle of labour against capitalist social relations because of the enforcement of (Taylorised) academics-as-work. Hence, it is a site of political praxis and demands radical intervention. The political praxis has to be academically counter-academic and anti-bourgeois domination. These are taking place today and these throw some light on our blurred road to socialism if understood in context of the critique of capitalism.

To site an example is the recent protests in London where those engaging with academics as work, students and teachers, came down to the streets in numbers that London had not seen in over a decade. What sparked the movement was the decision of the ruling classes to remove philosophy from certain university syllabi and cuts in higher education. One might question about the role of “labour” in the movement. Certainly it is not apparent at the phenomenological level. The removal of philosophy, or any discipline, is articulated as the removal of a domain of activity for the masses because academics is not only a passive object of consumption, it is also “done actively” (something that Althusser tried to explicate). At the same time, cuts in education hints at exclusion of a section of the masses from doing this activity. London, in this “springtime”, did challenge capital at one of its attempts of domination. The question, however, is how long will labour be able to subvert capital.  If the movement remains at the “guerrilla” level of anti-capital, that is, not allowing removal of disciplines or not allowing cuts, the spontaneous development of capitalist social relations shall ultimately lead to “withering away” of certain disciplines resulting in the same domination by capital. The challenge to capital has, therefore, to be at the logical level. The ‘collective worker’ has to see how a control over academics is also a control over the whole working class and its activities.

As cited above, capital’s domination over labour can be, if one wishes, indirect through the controlling of labour processes of academic disciplines. In India, the scenario is somewhat different. Here, capital attempts to dominate (re)production of labour-power by a direct control over the education system. “Discipline and punish” are its major weapons. We can find that in institutions(of “natural science”(including technology) and  of ethics) where there is the semester systems with examinations in every month, 75% compulsory attendance failing which students are not allowed to sit for exams(scarcity of jobs requires students to obey) and recently the placing of the Education Tribunal Bill (Prasanta Chakravarty and Brinda Bose(2011)). The Orwellian blaming, that has crept into much of radical political practices today, serves its purpose only to progressively disturb the masses and maybe, very soon, India has its own springtime. But in the absence of understanding its ‘glocal’ location as labour, the springtime will soon fizzle.

There was no urgency before for the engagement in radical politics in their location for those associated with academics (teachers, students and non-teaching staff) as it is today. There is a need to fight the petty bourgeois tendency to leave academics, romanticize and enter into other domains of struggle. Bourgeois visions of the (wo)man of the future can be seen in some sci-fi movies where (wo)man appears as a robotic mass of flesh and blood and it shall become true if academics is not rescued from its capitalist discretisation and domination. Only those who are in this concrete labour process can understand and rescue it

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Notes:

1. Meszaros, Istvan, Marx’s theory of Alienation, Aakar books, New Delhi

2. Lebowitz, Micheal A., Beyond Capital: Marx’s political economy of the working class, Palgrave macmillan, New York

3. Chakravarty, Prashant and Brinda Bose, in The Hindu, http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thehindu.com%2Fopinion%2Flead%2Farticle1588491.ece&h=a40b4