walking with the comrades

this book's really upsetting because i think pacifism's the way to be, and this book's an argument for violence in the wilderness, because what else can you do. the argument goes thus: if a pacifist dies in the wilderness in an illegitimate state with a collaborationist press, should they have had a gun? also, double down by saying that that wilderness is sacred to them, and that living in it is the only way they know and want to live.

i had no idea india was such a rotten place. i mean, i'd heard there were a lot of wretched people, but i didn't realize the government was so corporatist and murderous.

still, doesn't violence necessarily destroy democracy? doesn't this rebellion consign the people in these regions to total militarization? roy's pretty romantic about the guns slung over people's shoulders and the nightly thousand star jungle hotel, but i'm dubious. at best, if they win, isn't that doubtless going to lead to a lot of horror a la khmer rouge? violent revolutions are the pits.

from my rich white western perch: surrender the weapons and fight with unmoving bodies. cede the bauxite flat tops for a couple years, go to the cities, overwhelm them with the horror of your lives, start the peaceful revolution in the Public World. can't win a popular revolution in the jungle.

somebody wrote somewhere about haute liberals preferring people'd commit suicide than fight against genocidal armies, and it's uncomfortable close to home for me. i think it has more convulsive, revolutionary power. pacifism's a way humbler, more difficult thing to follow. what could be easier, more feel-good, than fighting back? but when you phrase it like suicide, what a hideous self-abnegation to ask of people. but just get yourself jailed! there's that delightful idea that if 2% of everybody drafted refused to go, all the jails in the world couldn't hold them.

but it's convincing that, yes, they'll lose the land, lose the way of life if they protest without guns. different story in a city square than in a jungle. is it worth fighting for? does fighting derail, or complicate, the broader potential for mass, peaceful revolution?

if the alienation, the utter immiseration is so massive, they've gotta be this close to a mass movement. also, roy spends much time enumerating the weaponry of the indian army, and the out and out dedication of the government to its violent ends. the rebels literally cannot beat the violence.

but would the state just kill all of them? it could dump millions in the wilderness, just like that imagined pacifist. but who's doing the killing? chiefly people an awful lot like the people they're killing. they couldn't do it to a mass, peaceful movement. at least not that much. humans are human!