The muck of the past:revolution, socialtransformation, and theMaoists in India*AlpaShahLondon School of Economics and Political ScienceThis article analyses revolutionary social change by exploring how people attempt to create aradically different future by taking action in the present, and the challenges that beset thistransformation. Examining the relationship between the future, the present, and the past, the articletakes the case of the spread of armed underground Maoist guerrillas in India to ask two questions:First, why does India hang on to this form of utopianism when the rest of the world appears to haveabandoned it? Second, how and why does the muck of the past inuence the production of aradically different future? In answering these questions, this article suggests that for both processesof radical social change and our theories of them, we need to reinsert our analyses ofpolitico-economic conditions into our ideologies of social change.Both for the production on a mass scale of ... communist consciousness, and for the success of thecause itself, the alteration of men on a mass scale is, necessarily, an alteration which can only take placeinapracticalmovement, arevolution;thisrevolutionisnecessary, therefore, notonlybecausetheruling class cannot be overthrown in any other way, but also because the class overthrowing it can onlyin a revolution succeed in ridding itself of all the muck of ages and become tted to found societyanew.Marx & Engels I8o [I,,o]: ,-,, original italics, bold addedAnthropologyhasspentmuchtimethinkingaboutthepresent, andthepastinthepresent: that is, the extent to which the past has affected and is reected in the present.The future has also increasingly troubled scholars (see, e.g., Guyer :oo,; Maurer :oo:;Munn I,,:; Zaloom :oo,). But the question of how people create a radically differentfuture in the present through revolutionary action, and the challenges that beset this,the subject of this Malinowski Lecture, demands greater attention.1Towardstheendof hislife,Malinowski wasdeeplyconcernedaboutthefuture.Disturbed by Hitlers National Socialism, he lectured on the disastrous consequences oftotalitarian regimes for humanity. At the time of his death, he was writing Freedom andcivilisation (I,,), laying out the dangers to democracy and freedom in modern soci-eties. Their advanced political organization, he argued, always came with the potentialto abuse power for the benet of the few and the denial of freedom for the many. In* Malinowski Memorial Lecture, :oI:.bs_bs_bannerJournal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) io, ,,,-,,o Royal Anthropological Institute :oIcontrast, freedom in its form par excellence, for Malinowski, was found in the earliestcultures primitive or tribal societies which as yet had no concentration of power, norich or poor, no monopolies in wealth, no people who were oppressed, no exploitation.It is perhaps, then, hardly surprising that although troubled about the future under theshadowof theSecondWorldWar, Malinowski paidlittleattentiontowhethertheTrobrianders had a concept ofa different possible future. Fixing dates for the futureplayed an important role in the practical necessities of the Trobrianders: for instance,gardening yams (Malinowski I,:,). But Trobrianders concern for a radically differentfuture was maybe not necessary if, as Malinowski saw them, they were already free.Perhaps this paucity of concern with the remaking of a radically different future inthe present is a manifestation ofthe fact that our informants were not as perturbedabout conceptual horizonsastheywereabout thepast inthepresent. Thisisnotentirelysurprisingifhistorywasseentoevolvewiththepastrepeatingitselfinthepresent, in a homogeneous or empty time; or if, as was the case with the MelanesianKaravaran people and their cargo cults, time and transition were episodic the indi-vidual was not thought to be creative, to be capable of making history (Errington I,,::,,). Indeed our informants may not have had a notion of time except for a genealogi-cal one beyond which everything was tradition and myth (Evans-Pritchard I,,,). Or,like the Balinese, they may have seen social life as taking place in a motionless present(Geertz I,,,: o). Maybe, though, many of our accounts depended on analyses whichsawsocietiesas cold,asundifferentiated,timeless,andstatic,defendingthemselvesagainst radical social change which was itself too hot to touch (Lvi-Strauss I,oo).To be sure, revolutionary social transformation did make an appearance, if slight, inthe history of anthropological theory. From the I,oos, anthropologists who were inu-encedbyMarxismmotivatedthis interest.2EricWolf (I,o,), most famously, wasconcerned with how historical forces created the conditions of peasant wars in Mexico,Russia, China, Vietnam, Algeria, andCuba. Hearguedthatthespreadofcapitalismundermined traditional social institutions, and that the resulting psychological, eco-nomic, social, and political tensions mounted towards peasant rebellion and involve-ment in revolution. Moments of such rupture also gured in a literature on millenarianor prophetic movements (see, e.g., Fuchs I,o,; Worsley I,,,). But, as with the literatureonresistanceandprotestwhichdevelopedintheI,,os,thisinterestinmillenarianmovements and peasant wars focused above all on reactive measures: peoples responseto rapid and oppressive social change.Though rarely addressed in anthropological theory, the circumstances under whichpeople could actively change the world in which they lived was the underlying concernof Maurice Blochs (I,,,) Malinowski Lecture. Exploring the problem of the past andthepresentinthepresent,Blocharguedthatouranalysesof social changearetooconned to the terms used by people and thus cannot explain how it is that we canchange those terms. He therefore called for us to examine a second system of cognitionthat is more universal to us all, which reveals strong similarities between cultures: ourpractical interface with nature. It is this encounter with nature, through labour in theproductive process, which carries the seeds to realize exploitation and thus challengesocial structure, argued Bloch.Two years later, in his Malinowski Lecture, Talal Asad (I,,,) pointed out that Blochsanalysis could not show how people in direct contact with the same nature come tohave very different concepts within the same society, and how they are able to engagein ideological arguments about the basic transformations ofthe social conditions inAlpaShah 338Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) io, ,,,-,,o Royal Anthropological Institute :oIwhich they all live. Asad criticized anthropology for placing too much emphasis on theroleof ideologyasembodiedinthecategories, actions, anddiscoursesof givencultures arguing that ultimately the societies we work with are transformed not bysome essential human concepts, ideology, or culture, but by the changing political andeconomic conditions which impinge on them (Asad I,,,: o:).Despite this important debate in the late I,,os, Asad turned to Foucault, and Blochsmove to cognition left behind his earlier concerns for radical social change.3Later, arangeof ethnographicstudiesemergedonpost-revolutionarycontexts(mostoftentermedpost-conict) or events building to revolutionary change. However, with somenotableexceptions (seeDonDonhams exemplaryI,,,study), afocus onpeopleactively seeking to bring about revolutionary change once again took the back seat inanthropology. The effect was that Joel Robbins (:oIo) recently felt he could claim thatanthropology has mostly been a science of continuity, dedicated to showing the force ofcultural reproduction not change.4Forgotten are the debates oftheI,,os on radicaltransformation, and Robbins once more has placed ideology foremost on the theoreti-calagendaof changeinanthropology, arguingthatthemotivesforculturalchangemust be analysed in terms of the culture that is transforming.Our lack of attention to attempts at shaping radically different visions of the futurein the present is perhaps a reection of a more general disillusionment with conceptsof utopia as being untenable. From the mid-I,,os, the notion of the utopian a visionof afuturewithradicallynewvaluesandformstoconceiveahumancommunityfundamentally questioning the presuppositions of present-day society was virtuallyin suspension in many parts of the world (Anderson :oo).On the one hand, we had the idea that there is no alternative to capitalism, that wehave seen the End of History,5that a single global system, the free market, can imposeitselfon the most diverse cultures and cure all their ills (Eagleton:oII). People werepersuaded that this regime was eternal, there was nothing beyond its horizon (SingerI,,,), thatthefuturewassimplymoreofthepresentbetterthanthepresent, butcomfortably continuous with it (Eagleton :oII). On the other hand, we had an increasein dystopic and even anti-utopian thought, familiar in science ction, with a passion todenounceandwarnagainstutopianprogrammes(Jameson:oo,). ThiswasanideapremisedonthecentralmessageofGeorgeOrwellsNineteeneighty-fourorAnimalfarm that social movements or programmes entail an inevitable desire for corruptionand lust for power.State socialism as part of a march to a new society has few defenders now. However,in the last decade, underground armed Naxalite or Maoist guerrillas in India organ-ized as a Marxist-Leninist party6 have intensied a more than forty-year-old violentstruggletoseizepoweroftheIndianstateaspartofaninternationalmovementtodevelopcommunism. TheseMaoists seethemselves as aclass struggle, anarmedrevolutionoftheexploitedpeasantsandworkingclasses, foraclasslesssociety. TheIndian state considers them the countrys most formidable internal security challenge.Alleged to be affecting more than three-fths of the subcontinent,7ofcially banned asterroristsin:oo,, theMaoistsarecurrentlysubjecttounprecedentedcounterinsur-gency measures with several thousand security forces surrounding their strongholds.8The presence on our news channels and in our broadsheets of Maoist guerrillas inIndia is surprising in a context where organized transitions to communism as in theSoviet legend and Maos vision of China seem to have virtually collapsed in the restof the world. It is surprising in a time when in many parts of the world class struggleThemuckofthepast 339Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) io, ,,,-,,o Royal Anthropological Institute :oIappears to have been replaced by ethnic or identity politics.9It is surprising when therevival of communisminEuro-Americaistakingplacethroughanarchist-inspiredmovements promoting direct action that will somehow overturn the system (Graeber:oI,), and away from organized party politics. And it is surprising when those lone butinuential philosophersresurrectingMaoism, likeAlainBadiou, haveturnedtheircommitment to Maoism into waiting in the margins for some miraculous event.10Inthe process, communism is rendered to the purposes ofmere speculation about thecommunist hypothesis, a hypothesis unburdened by past experiences and theories ofrevolution, socialist states, and parties (Badiou :oo8; :oIo). In this context, the IndianMaoists act as aforceful reminder of thenal lines of Marxs (I8,)Theses onFeuerbach, Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; thepoint is to change it (original emphasis).If this international milieu sets the Maoists in India apart as a political struggle, sotoo does the national milieu. This movement for radical equality has persisted in theland of Homo hierarchicus what has often been described, albeit controversially, as thequintessential exampleof asocietyorganizedaroundtheprincipleof hierarchyasfound in caste. Strangely, in these dystopic times of the West, or in the dark ages of theKali Yug of India in which any change is consigned to an age of decay,11for the IndianMaoists the future is not bleak. For more than four decades they have held on withconviction to the hope of producing a better time to come. Moreover, in the process ofthe revolution, in founding society anew, they have attempted to re-create that future inthe present by trying to get rid of the muck of the ages, the muck of the past.In this lecture I analyse the case of the Indian Maoists to emphasize the signicance ofthe dialectical relationshipbetweenideology andthe politico-economic forces of historyin our theoretical analyses of radical social change. I do so by asking two questions.The rst: Why does India hang on to this form of utopianism when the rest of theworld has abandoned it? Howand why has Maoismpersisted in India? I will answer thisquestionbyconsideringtheconvergenceofthevanguardofthemovement(mainlyhigh-caste Hindu men) with the rank and le joining the underground forces today(mainlyAdivasis, Indiastribal populations). I will arguethat thepersistenceof amovement committed to radical equality exists in India in part because of the subver-sion of the ideological signicance of the gure of the Hindu renouncer for the goal ofcommunism. Iwillalsoarguethatthisideologicalforceissustainedbyaparticularpolitico-economy which has severely marginalized Adivasis and has meant the Maoistshave been able to provide a home away from home for the rank and le who are joiningtheir armies today.The second question I ask is: What are the forces that are persistently underminingMaoist political mobilization? This is a question about how and why the muck of thepast, the muck ofages, to evoke Marx and Engels (I,,o [I8o]), inuences the pro-duction of a utopian future. In the case of the Maoists, I show that an inability to takeinto account the material changes encouraging class differentiation in their guerrillazones undermines their production of a better future.This case, I argue, calls for us to reinsert the political and economic forces of historyinto our theories and praxis of social change. Radical social transformation needs to beunderstood through the conjuncture of culture or ideology with the material forces ofhistory.My arguments are based on ethnographic research conducted since I,,, in the hillsand forests of central and eastern India, to which the guerrillas have retreated from theAlpaShah 340Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) io, ,,,-,,o Royal Anthropological Institute :oIcaste-divided agricultural plains in the last twenty years. I have lived in remote parts ofthe country in the state of Jharkhand as an anthropologist for more than four anda half years. My last long-term spell of eld research was conducted with the anthro-pologist George Kunnath and lasted eighteen months from September:oo8 to April:oIo.12Radical social change: ideology and political economySo, rst, who are these people who maintain this tenacious commitment to a radicallydifferent future? Why, when the odds seemto be stacked so high against them, have theypersisted for more than forty years in India? To answer these questions, I must give youa very brief social history of the Indian Maoists.13In the late I,oos, reecting the more general fervour of protest of opposition to theVietnamWar,thestudents andworkers uprisingsinMayo8inParis,thevariousanti-colonial strugglesuniversitystudentsandintellectualsinIndiajoinedhandswith radicals who had split off from the mainstream parliamentary communist partiesto engage in violent uprisings in the Indian countryside. Peasants were mobilized toattack landlords, cancel old debts, burn records, and forcibly occupy land. The strugglesare commonly traced back to an uprising in the West Bengal village and CommunityDevelopmentBlockof Naxalbari, fromwhichtherevolutionariesgettheirpopularname, Naxalites. As they spread, the Chinese Communist Party celebrated the uprisingsas the Spring Thunder over India.14Massive police repressionensuedinthe I,,os. Many of the revolutionary movementsleaders were killedor incarcerated, andfactionalismfollowedwithinthe ranks. However,fromthe late seventies, as activists were released fromjail, the revolutionary communistsregroupedinvariouspartsofthecountry. TheyformedMarxist-Leninistpartiestocontinue underground armed struggle to overthrow the Indian state. They once againattractedmiddle-class andhigher-caste students fromthe colleges anduniversities of themetropolitan centres Calcutta, Delhi, Patna, Hyderabad, Warangal who went to thevillageswithaprogrammeof revolution.DrawinginspirationfromMaosChineseprogramme, theyanalysedtheIndianeconomyassemi-feudal andsemi-colonial,15developedastrategyrelyingonpeasants,16andsoughttoestablishbaseareasinthecountryside fromwhere protracted armed struggle could advance and capture the citiestoseizepower. Inthedecadeswhichfollowed, themovementsspreadandshrank,factionalized and united. However, in the rst decade of the newmillennium, the largestgroupsof Indiasmostradical communistscametogetherunderthebannerof theCommunist Party of India (Maoist) to escalate their war against the Indian state.In the long course of the struggle, many died and some left the movement. However,it is those highly educated students of the I,8os, I,,os, and sometimes even I,oos, frommiddle-class and clean-caste families, who are leading the CPI (Maoist) and its PeoplesLiberation Guerrilla Army today. In the I,8os, in the landlord-dominated plains, theseleaders had mobilized Dalit or untouchable landless labourers and middle-caste peas-ants in furious anti-feudal struggles.17In the I,,os, police repression pushed the partyinto the forests and hills of central and eastern India, and many of the Dalits and middlecastes left.18The revolutionary leadership found the new terrain settled predominantlyby Indias Adivasi or tribal people. Since the I,,os, it is primarily these forest dwellers extremely poor, largely illiterate men and women who rely on subsistence farming,hunting-gathering, andwage labour whohave joinedthe rankandle of themovement.19Themuckofthepast 341Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) io, ,,,-,,o Royal Anthropological Institute :oITounderstandthepersistenceof amovementcommittedtoaradicallydifferentfutureinIndia, wemust analyserst therevolutionaryleadership, whohavebeenunderground for more than twenty, if not thirty, years. This is important because whilemany cadres have come and gone in the different phases of the movement, it is theseleaderswhohaveremainedtoguidethenewcrop. Itisontheconvictionof theircommitment in the face of all the adversities of life underground that the armedstruggle for communism has spread and stayed in India. Second, we must understandwhy this leadership and its message have been appealing for the people who have joinedthe movement I focus here on the Adivasis and other low castes who are swelling therank and le of their Peoples Liberation Guerrilla Army today.The vanguardTo turn to the leadership, or vanguard, rst. Meet Gyan,20who is in his fties and in jail.But I would like to introduce you to him when he was I,. From an upper-caste lineagethatonceownedlargetractsofland, hisfamilylivedwhatwaslocallyconsideredalower-middle-class life-style on his fathers government engineer salary. His friends hadalways thought he was a bit different. They teased him for being uninterested in girlsand proclaiming celibacy. They laughed when he would not cross a line of ants withoutchanting mantras in case he mistakenly stepped on one. They chided him for endlesslyporing over Vedic texts and sitting on the Ganges banks, gazing for hours on end intothe sun, waiting to be enlightened by God.Gyanwas already onthe Hindupathof renunciation, of liberationfromtheendlesscycleof rebirth, of escapingtheregenerationof theself, time, andcosmos(ParryI,,), whenhemetaninuentialteacheratuniversity. Amidsthoursofdis-cussion, the teacher gave him his rst tasks ofdistributing a pamphlet on the deathof God among fellow students, listening to the problems of slum dwellers at the edgeof thecity, andintroducedhimtoMarxism. Soonafter, fromonetracktorenun-ciationinwhichhecouldnotharmanant, Gyanmovedtoanother, whichnecessi-tated carrying a .,o, rie, and joined the communist revolutionaries. The nuances ofGyans turn to communism have their own story (I choose here only those aspects ofthe story that Gyan told me which I think cannot harm him or his associates). More-over, knowing and telling the stories of clandestine activity in this context as one oftheworldsmostpowerfulcounterinsurgencyoperationsisunderwayischalleng-ing, to say the least. But the point I wish to make is that Gyans story is not unique,and that of the few Maoists we met who were the most senior leaders responsible fororganizing the movement, I am aware that a signicant proportion had once been onthe Hindupathtorenunciation. This trajectoryis important not because of theliteral translation from renouncer to revolutionary. Rather, it is important because ofwhat the possibility ofrenunciation in the Hindu cosmos that is, the gure oftherenouncer suggests for the production ofcommitted political subjects. To be clear:I do not wish to suggest that Maoist leaders were all once renouncers. Rather, I wishto draw attention to the ideological signicance of the gure of the renouncer for themakingofdedicatedcommunistrevolutionaries.India in fact has a very long tradition ofputting renunciation to use for politicalpurposes. Inthecontemporaryeratherearetwosignicant traditions callingonrenunciation. One is fairly well known, the pracharaks or saints of the extreme Hinduright-wing Sangh Parivar (the family of organizations of the Rashtriya Swayam SevakSangh) (Anderson & Damle I,8,: 8:; Jaffrelot I,,o: o-,). The second, which is revealedAlpaShah 342Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) io, ,,,-,,o Royal Anthropological Institute :oIperhapsfortherst timethroughthenarrativesof menlikeGyan, isthat of theMaoists. Though Gyan and his friends would deeply dislike my analysis, what I wish toargue here is that it is the ideological underpinnings of Hindu renunciation which, Ithink, in part explains why India preserves class struggle.21While their numbers are small, the gure of the renouncer has played a very specialrole in the Hindu cosmos, setting it apart from all other ascetic and religious institu-tions(DumontI,,o: I8-o). Anyperson(fromanycasteorgender)canbecomeanascetic (see Khare, I,8, for instance on untouchable renouncers), although generally itis men of clean-caste origin who are found renouncing.At one end ofthe spectrum there are monks in ochre robes with shaven heads orsemi-naked gures with ropes of uncut, matted hair living austerely only on alms andmeditating hours on end alone, as described by Christopher Fuller (I,,::I,). At theotherendthereareJonathanParrysesh-eating, excrement-consuming, prostitute-fornicating Aghori ascetics of Banaras (Parry I,,). These ascetics seek to acquire thetranscendental knowledge that will liberate themindividuallyfromtime andtheendlesscycleofsufferingandrebirth. Theeffectofthistheologyisthattheasceticsproclaim radical equality in which there is no distinction between the Brahman and theUntouchable.22In contrast to individual ascetics, organized groups ofrenouncers have long beennotedfortheirsearchtocreateaparallel society, whetherit isthepeasant monksdescribedbyWilliamPinch(I,,o), theNagasof DirkKolff (I,,I), ortheGosainsexplored by Bernard Cohn (I,o). Romila Thapar (I,,8) has argued that these groupsof renouncers, existing since as far back as post-Vedic times, were neither attempting tonegate society (as in the individual ascetic who isolates himself totally), nor seeking toalter it radically. These were individual renouncers joining entire groups who opted outof society in order to create a parallel society.I suggest that the Indian Maoist leaders can be seen as part of this long tradition ofrenouncinggroupsinHindusociety. Thedifference, of course, isthat theparallelsocieties of Hindu renouncer groups had a tacit recognition of the futility of changingthe larger society (ThaparI,,8:o:) they marked dissent not by a desire to changesociety, butbystandingoutsideof ittocreateanalternativesystem. Incontrast, Isuggest that when renouncing merges with the ideology of communism it can lead togroups, as in the case of the Indian Maoists, who see themselves as part of changing notonly an Indian, but also a global, community.The parallels between the Maoists and these renouncer groups are stark. In turningtheir commitment from Hindu renunciation to communist revolution, men like Gyansubverted the search for equality via an individuals autonomous escape fromthis worldintoacommitmenttotransformingradicallythebondsofsocialexistencetoattainequality for everybody in the here and now. The lone Hindu renouncer denied hierar-chy by repudiating the opposition between the pure and the impure and representedthe equality of those who were liminal (Parry I,,: :o,). In contrast, these revolution-aryleaders sought totransformthewholeof societynowsothat theirliminalitybecame the norm and not the exception. Rather than icons of individual liberation inthe transient world, the Maoist leaders became liberators of the whole of society in thisworld, creators ofa world ofradical equality in the present. Through the process oftheir emancipation as political subjects (cf. Rancire I,,,), they worked towards devel-oping a society within the Communist Party in which the human community wouldsubsume the individual him- or herself.Themuckofthepast 343Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) io, ,,,-,,o Royal Anthropological Institute :oIIndeed, becoming a Maoist necessitates the idea of a radical transformation of theperson and his or her social relations.23It involves the idea of a total break with the pastfor the creation of the utopian future in the present. In this kind of evental transfor-mation, in fact, the revolutionary leaders are representative of the quintessential subjectof Badious event, constituting themselves as subjects of that truth, as militants for theircause. They represent Badious (:ooI) vision of ethics in their seless devotion to thecause, their delity and commitment to that truth, a task which they see as compellingandtranscendingall petty, privateconcerns or personal deprivations. Gyanoftencommented that it was their collective responsibility in the party to work towards thistruth which would liberate all of society. In this process he saw himself as performinga historical role set out for him for the progress of society as a whole, sacricing himselfas an individual to the cause of making history.To become this subject of evental change, the rst task of those seeking to be idealMaoists is that on joining the party, they declass themselves by giving up their worldlypossessions, ownership ofany form ofproperty. This means cutting off all ties withfamilies. It is inthe newsocial relations withinthe Communist Party, inconjunctionwithandthroughthe self-realizationof others, that the newsubject is born. There is nosalary;basic needs are met by the party food, clothing, books thoughcomrades must practiseausterity and refrain from worldly pleasures. A new name is given to each comrade,which, asidefromobvious securityadvantages, is part of thebirthof theclassless, castelessrevolutionary subject. The new men or women are now the subjects of history, involvedinanopen-endedproject of their ownself-development andthat of others aroundthem,based on the revolutionary values of voluntarism, selessness, and public service.Declassicationispartofthepraxisoftherevolution, inwhichtheidealsofthefuture society are promoted through living by doing. Leaders try to break down thedivisionof labour, whichtheyfeel nurtures thedevelopment of privaterights inproperty and the development of the propertied classes. They make a conscious effortto undermine the division of mental and manual labour in the party. It is expected thateveryone(regardlessofclass, caste, gender, andposition)willtaketurnsorrotasincooking, digging out pits in the earth for make-shift toilets, erecting temporary camps,liftingheavyloads, engaginginsentryduty, butalsoleadingeducationandphysicaltraining classes for those junior to them.24The hope is that new social relations will beforged between people in the party that supersede the caste, class, and gender divisionsof village societies and become the basis for further revolutionary mobilization.Crucially, revolutionaries need to subordinate any form of individual interest to theinterestsof thepartyandthepeople, sacriceeverythingincludingfamilyforthecause,sothat eventuallytherewill benocleavagebetweenparticular andcommoninterests. Theultimate sacrice, the paradigmatic act in the birth of the revolutionary subject, is, ofcourse, the willingness to give up your life for the cause, the sacrice of the self.25In the Kali Yug or Dark Ages, the current Hindu epoch which situates all change ina repeated cycle of degeneration and decay, asceticism is prescribed as a surrogate forsacrice as both are intimately associated with abandonment (Parry I,,: I,o). For thefuture of the Maoists, however, asceticism is replaced by the sacrice of the self for thecollective production of a new society.Contrary to Andr Bteille (I,8o), who argued that the relationship between indi-vidualismandequalityiscontingent, bysubvertingthegoal of renunciationasanescape fromthis world, Indias communist revolutionaries, prioritizingtheir self-sacrice, become creators of the ideal world in this world, eliminating the dependenceAlpaShah 344Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) io, ,,,-,,o Royal Anthropological Institute :oIof equality on individual autonomy. They thus become the emancipated subjects of aradical equality which is beyond equality as equivalence based on a measurement ofequal individual rights.26The revolution, then, is not just a march towards a notion ofradical equality that underwrites their utopia, it is not just an act which precipitates theproject ofcommunist emancipation, but it is a constitutive act ofthat emancipationitself.Theimplicationsareratherstartling. Incontrast totheDurkheimiantradition,which represents the world of the sacred as replicating a social order which is inviolable,Jonathan Parry has suggested that in order for a world to be immune to change, thesacred domain must in part be constructed as an antithesis to the world of everyday life,and that the former therefore suggests possibilities which are profoundly unsettling tothe latter (Parry I,,: :,I). On the one hand, Hindu renunciation serves to legitimatehierarchy by being an escape from it, an antithesis to it; equality is attained only bythose who leave it. On the other hand, what we see here in the case of the revolution-aries is that the gure of the renouncer also carries the seeds to undermine the hier-archical ordering of society profoundly, to challenge it fundamentally.If, as in the case of the renouncer turned communist, those on the Hindu path ofrenunciation realign their commitment to the goal of attaining equality by liberationfromthis world to liberation within this world, then the ideological underpinnings of therenouncer in the Hindu cosmos can enable the production of radical equality in thisworld. Theparadoxof thesituationis that whereas theclassicIndianrenouncerextinguishesthefuturebyleavingtheworld,therenouncerturnedrevolutionaryiscommitted to creating a newfuture in the present. Traditional India is often seen as themost privileged instance of hierarchical ordering. However, what I suggest here is thatthe subversion of the long tradition of renunciation to communism also enables Indiatoproducethecontemporaryworldsmost pertinent exampleof theght fortheprinciple of equality.The rank and leIfthe ideological force ofrenunciation gives the revolutionary leadership its convic-tion, what enables the sustenance of this conviction? In the forests and hills where therevolutionarieshaveheldtheirstrongholdsforthelastfteentotwentyyears, theirMaoist ideals of radical equality have made them appealing to the Adivasi inhabitants.Here, Adivasis have a long history of being consideredby all other outsiders (especiallystate ofcials) as the lowest of the lowinstatus. Theyhave facedsevere discriminationandhave been treated as jangli: that is, wild, savage, and barbaric (Shah :oIoa). Their regionshave been long neglected by the developmental Indian state, treated as solely spaces ofextraction. These are the regions which contain Indias richest mineral reserves, nowattracting the worlds largest multinational corporations, but which were also the sourceof railway sleepers for colonial expansion (cf. Sivaramakrishnan I,,,), and wood for thebuilding of Britishmilitary ships andof the antique furniture covetedinmuchof middleEngland.27ThestateherecameasarapaciousoutsideagencyforciblyappropriatingAdivasi lands andforests for commercial purposes of forestry andmining inprocesses ofprimitive accumulation. It tried to settle the predominantly hunting-gathering popula-tions for revenue collection and introduced exploitative contractors and money-lenders(Devalle I,,:; RothermundI,,8). The result is that the colonial andIndianstate here hasbeenexperiencedpredominantlythroughthebrutalityof thepoliceandforest guards,andmediatedbytheequallybrutal high-casteoutsidersit brought.It is,then,hardlysurprisingThemuckofthepast 345Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) io, ,,,-,,o Royal Anthropological Institute :oIthat, with signicant parallels to James Scotts (:oo,) societies eeing from the state,Adivasis here, under a series of exploitative regimes, have sought to keep the state awayfrom the intimacies of their everyday life (Shah :oIoa).28Sustained by this politico-economic context, the Maoist message against the Indianstate addresses a long history of Adivasi desire to keep the state away (Shah :oIoa). Thusactions such as the Maoists reclaiming the forests for the people by bombing the stateforest rest houses, burningforest jeeps, andchasingout theofcers, coupledwithMaoist replacement of outside contractors with locals, and raising the wages of forestproduct collection, have been extremely inuential in gaining Adivasi support. If thesechallenges to the state are important for Maoist local credibility, so too are their idealsof radical equality, which have predisposed the revolutionaries to treat the Adivasis withrespectanddignity. Unlikeallotheroutsiderswhocametotheseareas, theMaoistsgained the trust and respect of the Adivasis because they embarked with the principlesof treating them as equal human beings.It is perhaps, then, hardly surprising that over time, defying the arguments of greedor simple material grievance that are dominant in theories of revolutionary mobiliza-tion (see Shah:oI,a), the most common reasons why Adivasi youth joined the guer-rillas was because of the relations of intimacy that developed between the revolutionaryparty and the people, enabling the underground armies to become an alternative familyin the area, a home away fromhome. The young men and women who came to live withthe guerrillas and join their armed squads in these regions most typically came becausethey were escaping various household village tensions: a ght with a parent, a prohib-ited love affair, an arranged marriage. Many Adivasis travelled with the guerrilla squadsforsometimeandreturnedbacktothevillages, somerepeatingtheprocessseveraltimes. Afewstayed longer, left their village homes to commit to the revolutionary party,and slowly rose up the hierarchy. After more than two decades of the Maoist presenceintheseregions,kinshiprelationsweavedinandoutof thevillagesandtheparty,blurring the boundaries between the revolutionaries and the people.29I do not wish to remove the possibility that Adivasis (like Khares [I,8] untouchableascetics)canalsobedrawntotheMaoistsbyavariantoftherenouncersideology.Indeed, historicallytherehavebeenarangeof millenarian-typemovementsintheAdivasi forests and hills led by gures whose style is signicantly inected by that of theHindurenouncer(Shah:oI). However, myevidencesuggeststhat theideologicalunderpinnings of the renouncer have not been the main attraction for the Adivasi rankandle, inpartbecausetheMaoistshavewantedtokeepatadistanceanykindofappeal to their cadres that looks like it is religiously inspired (Shah :oI).The effect is that, on the one hand, the leadership the renouncers turned revolu-tionaries are attracted to and driven by a compulsion ofradical transformation, abreak with their past. On the other hand, most of the rank and le of the contemporarymovement theAdivasi cadres feel comfortablemovingwiththeundergroundarmies because the revolutionaries and their ideals present relative alignment with, andnot radically different alternatives to, Adivasi social relations, which are sustained by theparticular politico-economic histories of extraction in the area. The tradition of renun-ciation in the Hindu cosmos, which has given the revolutionary leaders their convictionto shape a different ideal of the future, is thus maintained by its relationship with theparticularmaterialconditionsinwhichitndsitself. Torunaheadofmyself, thesepolitico-economic forces ofhistory, while at one level sustaining the movement, canalso, as I will show, lead to its unravelling.AlpaShah 346Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) io, ,,,-,,o Royal Anthropological Institute :oIThe muck of the past: ideology at the cost of political economyUtopian politics depends on inserting the ne wedge of an emancipated future throughradical transformation into the heart ofthe present. It represents a link between thepresentandthefuture, apointatwhichthetwointeract. Foranyprojectofradicaltransformation, a different future has to be forged fromthis particular present and mostof thepresentismadeupof thepast.Towhatextent,though,toturntomysecondquestion,cantheMaoists intherevolutionsucceedinriddingthemselves of all themuckof thepast to paraphrase Marx and Engels and become tted to found society anew?One of the toughest demands of breaking with the past is that of renouncing oneskin. Apart from the emotional bonds, family links are important because those outsidethe underground party provide essential support such as safe houses for recuperation,storage of essentials, and sometimes the provision of food. If kinship ties are importanttosustainthestruggle, theyarealsodangerousbecausetheydependonrelationsofreciprocity which are to be superseded in the new sociality of the movement: a socialitybeyond the distinctions of kin.Even those who have undergone the most radical of transformations, the renouncersturned communists, who in all other aspects declass themselves for a classless societywithin the party, may at times nd it hard to resist prioritizing the expectations andneeds oftheir families above those ofthe ideals ofthe struggle. It is this inability tobreak with families that often leads to their individual fall. For instance, after more thanthirty years underground, other leaders analyse that it was Gyans weakness to attend tothe needs ofhis wife, who was outside the movement, that led him beyond the safeconnes of the guerrilla zones and into the city, where he was arrested.Kinship ties are part of the muck of the past that will inevitably haunt the advent ofradical social transformation. Withcloseparallelstotheconfessionof sin(Harris:ooo), the Maoist rituals of criticism, self-criticism, and rectication are crucial to theformation and re-enactment of revolutionary subjectivity; they are part of an ongoingbattle to get rid of the muck of the past. These rituals re-enact revolutionary ideals onthe premise that revolutionary conversion is a permanent or endless process (Badiou:oo,: o,),constantlyrenewedintheconfessionanddenunciationof individualisticbehaviour.But to focus only on the existence of tensions between particular circumstances andtheprojectof radical transformationistomissthesignicanceof whytheconictbetween the two is salient at specic historical moments. This, I will show, requires apolitico-economic analysis the changes in processes of production and reproduction which the Maoists, set on their analysis of the semi-feudalism and semi-colonialismof the Indian economy, have largely left behind (cf. Lerche, Shah & Harriss-White :oI,;Shah :oI,b).Although breaking with the ties of kinship is a problem that faces all revolutionaries,ithasacquiredaparticularimportanceinrecentyears. AsIhavearguedearlier, theelective afnity between the Maoists and the Adivasis, a result ofthe conjuncture ofrevolutionary ideals ofradical equality and politico-economic forces, has meant thatthe Maoist squads have easily become a second home. In recent years, however, familyandkinshiparenot simplyacontradictoryor conictingdomainof loyaltyandcommitment toradical transformation, but arealsothesitethroughwhichanewprocess of class differentiation is being experienced in the guerrilla zones. These pro-cesses, which lead to upward mobility for some, entail very different ideals of the futureto those which are promoted by the revolutionaries.Themuckofthepast 347Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) io, ,,,-,,o Royal Anthropological Institute :oIHowis class differentiationtakingplacehere? As inmanyparts of theworld,capitalist development in agriculture has not initiated the classic processes ofpolari-zation.30However, though there is little to support the case for the Maoists insistenceon an analysis of semi-feudalism in these guerrilla zones, there have been a number ofsignicant changes in the forces of production and reproduction (Shah :oI,b).One is that the cumulative effect ofthe expropriation ofland, demographic pres-sure, and integration into commodity relations has meant that the majority of house-holdsintheregionstruggletoreproducethemselvestoday. Theyarecompelledtocombine subsistence farming and hunting-gathering with wage work and petty pro-duction. A second signicant change is that a very slow process of class differentiationis being initiated amongst Adivasis by the state encouraging capitalist accumulation a development taking place outside of agriculture in these guerrilla zones (Shah :oI,b).Theexpansionof educationcombinedwithsomeafrmativeactionpoliciesbythestate has meant that although literacy rates are still incredibly low, a few householdshave government jobs which bring in a monthly salary, or have acquired bank loans tostart up small trades. These jobs, trades, and, increasingly, government developmentand procurement contracts are no longer simply the preserve of the outsiders who fordecades maintained control over the state. Whereas once their ancestors sought to keepthe state away (Shah :oIoa), some of the new generations of Adivasis and other lowercastes are slowly seeking a share of the pie and diversifying their means of reproductionbeyond subsistence farming and wage labour (Higham & Shah :oI,).Themuckof thepast, intheformof theseforces andrelations of production, is shiftingin the region. The effect of these material forces of history is to produce class differen-tiation, which is experienced in the party through the continued ties with village kinshiprelations. The inability to break with village social relations becomes particularly chal-lenging in the changing political-economic context of the forces of production.Of the many who have joined the Maoists, a few are increasingly concerned aboutimproving the status of their families away from a future of working with nature: thehard labour of digging the elds, foraging in the forests, and carrying heavy loads thatfacedtheir parents. For them, siphoningoff therevolutionarypartys taxof statedevelopmentschemes, forestcontracts, andminingoperationsbecomesonewayofmobilizing resources, of accumulating capital, for the upward mobility of their families.The party is for all, but these processes dangerously threaten to undermine its universalmessage by turning its assets into a kind of private ef.31Propelled by these processes ofclass differentiation in the area, the danger that besets the revolutionary party is thus akind of privatization of the commons.Take, for instance, the case of Amitabh Oraon. Eulogized as one of the bravest, mostloyal, and most formidable warriors of the Maoist Peoples Liberation Guerrilla Army,hewas asenior platooncommander whenI met him. However, onedarknight,Amitabhburnedhisolivegreenuniform, andleftthepartywithfourteenmenandsome of the best weapons that the party had painstakingly looted from the police (oneAK-,, three self-loading ries, one light machine gun, one INSAS rie, and ve .,o,s).He formed a gang out to kill the Maoist leaders, with a mission to terrorize the villagersinto opposing the guerrillas, and seek his fortunes with the guns.Representing a common trajectory of the ways in which splinter or factional groupsareformed,hegavebirthtooneMaoistfactionthatwouldrulethroughgunsandextortion.32Groups such as this are devoid of ideological underpinnings, participate inelections, and are viewed as gangs by the vanguard of the CPI (Maoist).AlpaShah 348Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) io, ,,,-,,o Royal Anthropological Institute :oIAmitabhs defection was a shock to everyone. The Maoist leaders were distraught;therehadbeenhighhopesforthisrevolutionaryinthemaking. Hehadjoinedthemovement when he was only Io and was one of the most trustworthy of the youngergenerations. The immediate incident which led to his departure was a dispute betweenAmitabh and another platoon commander which involved a long-standing jealousy ofstatusandpowerbetweenthetwo. But it latertranspiredthat forseveral monthsAmitabh had in fact been embezzling party funds for a lavish second wedding and ahouse for his new bride.Thosewhohavepartedwaysusuallyleavequietly. ButAmitabhsdefectionwasparticularly upsetting to the Maoist leaders, who, though always concerned about hislack of political education, had failed to notice the changes that hadcorrupted him tosuch an extent that he formed a gang in opposition to the party to seek his riches.Soon, however, theywerecompelledtorisebeyondtheirfeelings of betrayal Amitabh had become the partys greatest threat in the area, suspected to be supportedbythestateinhis defection. Theregions guerrillaforces weremobilizedfor hiselimination. After several close military encounters withAmitabhs gang, whichresulted in not much more than a few minor injuries and those, too, not in battle it was ironically the emerging individualism of village sociality promoted by processesof class differentiation which came to the rescue.The Maoists recruited a person who had been dismissed from the movement someyears before on grounds of corruption to inltrate Amitabhs gang. What Amitabhdidnot knowwhenheacceptedthis manintohis groupis that theMaoists haddeployed the inltrator because of the personal hatred and envy they knew he held forAmitabhs success and rise within the party. Indeed the very principles of individualismthat preventedAmitabhfrombecomingtheideal revolutionarysubject andwhichfostered his defection were the ones which ultimately led to his annihilation.Amitabhs defection was so serious that it was beyond remedy, but the eliminationof individual interests is an ongoing challenge within the Maoists. The most commonsubject of self-criticism and rectication that faces the party now is corruption. Partycadres have been accused of personally proting from the transfer of levies collected bythe party from state development schemes and outside contractors,33which are meantto be redistributed for public interest to buy ,G phones or Hero Honda motorbikes;toturntheir modest muddwellings intotwo-storeybrick-and-mortar houses; toimprove the economic status of their families.WhattheMaoistsareunabletotackleisthatthesechargesofcorruptioncannotsimply be addressed through processes of self-criticism and rectication. The privateuseof partyresources meant for thepublicgoodis emblematicof theprofoundchanges of emerging class differentiation, a process that the revolutionaries are unin-tentionally even party to in these areas.In this context of changing relations of production, the Maoists seem to be workingagainst the grain of history, and their constant attempt to reformrevolutionary subjectsleads easily to betrayal by these subjects, and ultimately the formation of inltrators,covertagents, andinformantswhichenablestheIndianstatetoarrestandkill therevolutionaries.34ConclusionFocusing on the case of the underground armed Maoist guerrilla insurgency in India,inthislectureIhavebeenconcernedwithhowwetheorizetheattemptsof peopleThemuckofthepast 349Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) io, ,,,-,,o Royal Anthropological Institute :oIseekingtocreatearadicallydifferent futurebytakingrevolutionaryactioninthepresent. This important agenda once made a small mark in the history ofanthropo-logical theory but is now too easily forgotten. In the turn to ideology and culture withinanthropologicaltheory, Ihavesoughttoreinstatetherelationshipbetweenideologyand the politico-economic forces of history in our theories of cultural change.My analysis of the Maoist guerrilla insurgency suggests that the renunciatoryMaoists havetakeninsufcient account of thequotidianworldof theproductiveprocesses around them, even if their emancipatory world is undermined daily by thesevery processes. The transformations in politico-economic conditions leading to chang-ingrelationsof productionhaunttheiremancipatoryfuturebecausetheMaoistsremainingcommittedtoananalysisof Indiaasasemi-feudal andsemi-colonialcountry almost as if it were ritual have not accommodated for them.35Thismuckof thepastthechangesinpolitical economyhauntsourevents,projects, and programmes ofradical transformation. In this case, the Maoist revolu-tionarystrugglerisks beingtrappedbytheveryutopiathat is supposedtobringemancipatorytransformationforall. Thedangeristhattheoriesofsocialtransitionwhichremainconnedtoideologyriskbecomingmereritual.Thisisthethreatofprioritizing the creation of the utopia itself at the cost of the quotidian analyses of thematerial challenges facing the productionof that utopia. The politico-economicchanges of history cannot be subordinated to timeless structures.36The point, it seems,is that fantasies of the future need to be linked with the prosaic material workings of thepresent in order to analyse and resolve the contradictions in the present which preventradical transformation from coming about.So,intyingthesethemestogether,howdoweaccountforpeopleattemptingtocreate a radically different future and the challenges that beset the transformation, thequestions I began with? The case of the Indian Maoists shows us the signicance of theconjuncture of ideology and the material forces of history. Here an underground armedcommunist movement, which seems antique to the world today, has persisted with suchstrength in India because of both the subversion of the ideological signicance of therenouncer in the Hindu cosmos and the politico-economic context which sustains it.I have also argued that radical social transformation is always haunted by the muckof thepast.Inparticularweneedtoaccountforthepolitico-economicchangesofhistory that alter class relations (and kinship through class). Ignoring these materialforces ofhistory, and prioritizing ideological representations, in the end risks under-miningtheforceof ideology. Here, theparadoxis that amovement that has anemancipatory agenda in the name of class is most undone by class. The point, it seems,for both processes of radical transformation and our theories of them, is that we needto reinsert our analyses of political economy into our ideologies of social change.NOTESIamgratefultotheDepartmentofAnthropologyattheLSEfortheinvitationtodeliverthislecture.Conversations with Maurice Bloch, Stephan Feuchtwang, Jonathan Parry, and Joel Robbins have helped mework out the ideas developed here. I am indebted to two anonymous reviewers at JRAI and to Uday Chandra,Chris Fuller, Tobias Kelly, Barbara Harriss-White, and Rob Higham for helpful comments; and to JonathanParry for detailed readings and suggestions on drafts of the text. Special thanks are due to George Kunnathfor embarking with me on the journey that took us to pursue some of the eld research that has nurtured myideas here. Responsibilities for the end product are, of course, entirely my own.1Indeed, Thomassen (:oI:) has recently argued that Worsleys (I,oI) claim for the absence of analysis ofrebellion or revolution-in-the-making still stands in anthropology.AlpaShah 350Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) io, ,,,-,,o Royal Anthropological Institute :oI2The social experience of dramatic change was also the concern of the Manchester school (Gluckman I,,8;Mitchell I,,o [I8,,]). Abrief but signicant attempt to theorize social change was made in the I,,os and earlyI,8os by anthropological structural Marxism (cf. Nugent :oo, for a review). However, arguably, much of thetheoretical force of these ethnographies did not move signicantly beyond structural functionalism. Parry,for instance, argues of Maurice Blochs Marxism and anthropology (I,8,),What, surprisingly, did not appear to trouble him [Bloch] was that much of this work Terray(I,,,) is a good example sets out to demonstrate that in this kind of worldclasses in themselveswere unlikely to become classes for themselves conscious of their interests in opposition to thoseof other classes. Since in Marxian theory it is class conict that provides its dynamic, that leavessuch societies stranded by history. Marxian tools are made to serve structural-functionalist ends:the analysis centres on the way that they reproduce themselves (Parry :oo,: ,,o).3Inacritical appreciationof MauriceBlochslifeworks, JonathanParry(:oo,: ,,)hasarguedthatrepresentations which were the product of political economy in Blochs earlier essays later reect constantsin the human condition, human nature in general. Like Asads (I,,,) earlier critique, Parry is concerned thatthe danger to anthropology in focusing on these essential conditions is that the subject will drift even furtheraway from a proper concern with political economy ... and with the structure of society (:oo,: ,oo).4The original Malinowski Lecture, as delivered, had a more elaborate critique of Robbinss (:oIo) turn toleftphilosopherslikeBadioutoexplainradicalchangeinacontextdevoidof politicalconcerns. Ifeltitunnecessary to develop the arguments here.5This is a dening feature of post-Thatcher times (Fukuyama I,,:) and a period in which we have alsoseen a sabotage and commoditization of utopian thinking (Anderson :oo).6They are thus Marxists who have accepted Lenins contributions to revolutionary Marxism, in particularthe signicance of the seizure of power for and by the proletariat, via a party, for the building of a socialistsociety. Marxism is here a revolutionary class praxis, action by the party working on behalf of the workingclasses, organized on the principles ofdemocratic centralism, and with the aim ofbringing revolutionarytheory and political organization to the exploited masses. Organization by the party is key and differentiatesMarxist-Leninists from those who have argued for the spontaneous activity of the working classes, or thatsocialism can be achieved by evolutionary means.7Twenty-one of Indias twenty-eight states are allegedly under Maoist inuence (http://blogs.reuters.com/india/:o:,/o,/:,/who-are-indias-maoists-and-why-they-are-in-the-news/, last accessed : February :oI).Such gures ofcoverage change frequently and I believe are prone to extensive exaggeration for differentreasons from government, media, and Maoist sources alike.8Coincidentally, as we began our extended eld research, in the summer of :oo,, the Indian governmentlaunchedamilitaryoffensive, dubbedGreenHunt, of anunprecedentedscaletoeliminatetheMaoistguerillas. In June:oo,, the central government issued an all-India ban, declaring the Communist Party ofIndia(Maoist)asaterrorist organizationunderSectionIof theUnlawful Activities(Prevention)Act.Extensive military operations against the Maoists are ongoing as this article goes to press.9For Latin America, see Gledhill (I,,,); Hale (:oo:); Petras & Veltmeyer (:oo,). The NPA in the Philip-pinesdeclinedintheI,,os. NepalsMaoistsarenowdiscreditedbytheirIndiancounterpartsforhavingadopted the parliamentary route after :ooo. It is interesting to note that the most pertinent question for theNepali constitution-making process was that of ethnic federalism.10Curiously, in reviving the dream of a world free from the law of prot and private interest, many leftthinkers, from iek (:oo,) to Agamben (:oo,), have turned recently to Saint Paul. Saint Paul is recordedsometime in the year,, or, AD to have undergone a radical rupture from Judaism in his conversion toChristianity on the road to Damascus. Although a self-proclaimed Maoist (Badiou :oIo: :o:), Badiou rejectsorganization by a party as the harbinger of change, sidelines revolutionary or reformist models of a plannedtransition towards a desired utopian future, and prioritizes instead an analysis of the arrival of radical changein the form of an unexpected event. Saint Pauls sudden conversion becomes here a device for left thinkerstoimaginehowanindividual can, throughaleapof faith, committobecomingacommunistwithoutengaging in organized change: revolution.11The Hindu theory of time advocates four endlessly repeated epochs, a changeless order. Duration andchange are recognized within this scheme, but placed within a timeless frame of repeated epochs. The KaliYug, the fourth epoch, in which actual historical time unfolds, is the degenerate age (Pocock I,o).12A whole range ofethnographic techniques were followed (life histories, interviews, archival research,household surveys, etc.), among which participant observation was crucial.13The best history till the late I,,os is that of Sumanta Banerjee (I,8o).Themuckofthepast 351Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) io, ,,,-,,o Royal Anthropological Institute :oI14SeeMohanty(I,,,) for ananalysis of theimpact of theChinesepronouncements ontheIndianrevolutionaries.15This, of course, is an analysis that has been much criticized. For my own critique of the Maoist analysisof semi-feudalism in a guerrilla stronghold, see Shah (:oI,b).16Theywerealsotoformallianceswiththoselabelledtheproletariat, thepettybourgeoisie, andthenational bourgeoisie.17The best accounts of this mobilization in Bihar are from Bela Bhatia (:ooo), George Kunnath (:oI:), andPrakash Louis (:oo:).18TheDalitshadmainlybeeninvolvedinthemassovergroundorganizationsandrarelyinthearmedcadres.19It is important to note that the Maoist move to these forested hilly areas was on sheer tactical groundsfor better terrain for guerrilla warfare and not, as is often mistakenly thought, because of the attractions ofan exploited tribal peasantry. In the forested areas, there are also Dalits and some higher castes and Muslims.Although the Adivasis and Dalits join the Maoist armies, it is extremely rare to nd the middle or high castesor Muslims joining the rank and le. These latter groups consider the labour of carrying arms beneath them,though they will get involved in supporting the movement as couriers and contractors.20I use pseudonyms for all names of people encountered during eld research.21Sudipta Kaviraj (:oo8), in some interesting reections, notes that though Indian Marxists do not wishto emulate or continue brahminical traditions of cognitive practices, some of their practices of Marxism intranslation appeartobestrangelybrahminical. Rajarshi Dasgupta(:oI,)goesfurtherinaninsightfulrevisionist reading of communist politics in India, exploring the ways in which the body-politics of asceti-cismis constitutiveof theself-makingof communists inthesubcontinent, despitethefact that mostcommunists cannot tolerate holy men.22By inaugurating the individual who can attain equality outside of this world, the renouncer enables themaintenance of the very hierarchy in this world that he renounces, subverting the hierarchy of that system ofstrict interdependence in which the individual is ignored (BurghartI,8,; DumontI,,o; FullerI,,:; ParryI,,).23However, of course, the guerrillas have a range of supporters and sympathizers in the countryside andthe cities who are not Maoists, or professional revolutionaries, as the Maoists call them.24Leaders themselves work by setting an example and are impressive for the range of skills they display ona daily basis: diagnosing and treating common ailments (including malaria); wiring light ttings; erectingmake-shift tables; teaching and writing political articles; cooking for hundreds of people; as well as stitchinguniforms and hairdressing. The Maoists are, of course, guided here by Marx and Engels analyses, whereby,with the development of the division of labour, a mans deeds become prescribed to him; they become analien power opposed to him, enslaving him instead of being controlled by him, so that each man would beassigned a particular, exclusive sphere of activity which was forced upon him and from which he could notescape he would become a hunter, sherman, shepherd, or critic and he must remain so. (The genderedlanguage in the preceding sentence reects Marx and Engels original text: Marx & Engels I,,o [I8o]: ,.) Incontrast, in the new relations in the party, the Maoists are seeking to establish that vision of a communistsocietywherenobodywouldhaveanexclusivesphereofactivitybuteachpersonwouldbecomeaccom-plishedinanybranchheorshedesired, becausesocietywouldregulategeneral production, makingitpossibleforapersontodoonethingtodayandanothertomorrow, tohuntinthemorning, shintheafternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, without ever becoming a hunter, sher, shepherd,or critic. These processes often involve an active subversion of village norms: so, for instance, men cook andwomen carry arms.25The death of a martyr regenerates the principles of the revolution (cf. Bloch &Parry I,8:;Lecomte-Tilouine :oIo; Suykens :oIo). In fact the resurrection of the sacrice of those who have died for thecause has an entire week devoted to it each year martyrs week one of the most important rituals withinthe guerrilla squads.26It is useful to recall here Marxs perspectives on equality as based on the principle of equal individualrights, which he saw as a bourgeois right:Rightbyitsverynaturecanconsistonlyintheapplicationofanequalstandard; butunequalindividuals (and they would not be different individuals if they were not unequal) are measurableby an equal standard only in so far as they are brought under an equal point of view, are takenfrom one denite side only, for instance, in the present case, are regarded only as workers andnothing more is seen in them, everything else is ignored ... To avoid all these defects, rights insteadof being equal would have to be unequal (:oIo [I8,,]: ,-Io).AlpaShah 352Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) io, ,,,-,,o Royal Anthropological Institute :oIMarxs perspectives on justice are perhaps most lucidly analysed by Norman Geras (I,8,).27These processes met with a series of local rebellions in the nineteenth and early twentieth century (cf.MacDougall I,8,; Shah :oI; Singh I,oo; I,8:).28Note the difference with tribal areas inuenced by the Christian Missions, where, from the lateI8oos,there was a concerted effort to educate Adivasis to make demands of the state. It is interesting that the twoguerrillastrongholdsof theMaoistsinIndiaarenot inareaswithasubstantivehistoryof missionaryinvolvement. In the Maoist strongholds, the difference with Scott (:oo,) is that societies did not run awayinto the hills to escapte being governed, but under a highly extractive state presence in the hills the Adivasissought to keep the state away.29This analysis is dependent on ethnographic research in a Maoist stronghold in the state of Jharkhand. Wedo not have comparable detailed ethnographic research in the other major Maoist stronghold in the neigh-bouring state of Chhattisgarh, but I believe that the insights of journalists (e.g. Choudhary :oI:) show thatthere were signicant parallels until the emergence of the state-sponsored vigilantes called Salwa Judum, whoperpetrated brutal massacres which left entire villages with little choice but to go to the Maoists or live in theroadside camps constructed by the security forces.30The agrarian transition was supposed to deliver polar classes of free labour and capitalist farmers, butthe question of the persistence of a peasantry drove Lenins analysis of The development of capitalismin Russia(I,,o). For a lucid comparative analysis of the different paths to agrarian transition in the USSR, England,Prussia, America,France,Japan,Taiwan,andKorea,seeByres(I,8o).Indiahasperhapsseentherichestdebates on the development of capitalism in agriculture, the modes of production debates of the I,,os andearly I,8os, the best reviews of which are those of Thorner (I,8:) and Harriss (I,8o). I do not have space heretoaddressafull-scalepoliticaleconomyanalysisofthisguerrillazone(asubjectofShah:oI,b), butthetransformations of these hilly and forested regions are rather different to those of the plains, which the I,,osdebates focused on.31This is, perhaps unsurprisingly, a problem similar to that which, as Peter Brown (I,8I) describes, wasfaced by the Catholic Church in the Dark Ages when instituting the message that the church was equallyfor all.32See Shah (:oo,b) for an analysis of a comparable factional group, the Jharkhand Liberation Tigers.33These are processes that I have elsewhere calledmarkets of protection (Shah :ooo), but if we are to takethe Maoist political project seriously, they should be seen as taxation (Shah :oIob). The state schemes whichare taxed are those considered useless for the people and destructive for the struggle (like roads which anywayget washed away because they are so poorly built, community buildings which are never used in these areas except as places to dry rice, etc.: cf. Shah :oo,a). The taxes are used by the Maoists for redistribution to thepeople: in the form of health, education, agriculture, defence. From the Maoist perspective, these systems oftaxation are necessary only for this stage of the struggle if a base area is formed, the Maoists will directlycontrol the processes of production and redistribution, making such taxation superuous.34Incontrast, whetherwittinglyornot, itseemsthattheHinduright, inworkinginlinewiththeseprocesses of history co-opting rather than undermining the transition of subsistence farmers and wage-labourers to become petty producers, contractors, and traders seeking to rise up the caste and class hierarchy have an easier project of transition for their utopia (see also Shah :oI,a).35Theyremainconnedbyanotherexampleofmuckofthepast: analmostreligiouscommitmenttoanalysing India akin to pre-revolutionary China as a semi-feudal, semi-colonial country that demandsrevolutionary strategy in the form of a protracted peoples war from the country to the town (CommunistParty of India (Maoist) :oo). It is very difcult, even for those leaders who wish to challenge this analysis,to make a case for a different one. The risk is that ones commitment to the cause is called into question andthe only real choice is to leave the movement. In this situation, the burden of the thousands of martyrs whohave sacriced their lives in the last forty years weighs heavily on the partys emancipatory project. 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Public Culture i:,:,-oo.iek, S. :oo,. The puppet and the dwarf: the perverse core of Christianity. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. La crasse du pass : rvolution, transformation sociale et maostesen IndeRsumLauteure analyse le changement social rvolutionnaire en tudiant la manire dont les gens tentent decrer un futur radicalement diffrent en agissant au prsent, ainsi que les ds de cette transformation. Enexaminant la relation entre futur, prsent et pass, larticle aborde le cas de la propagation de gurillerosmaostes clandestins arms en Inde et sen sert pour poser deux questions : dune part, pourquoi lIndereste-t-elle accroche cette forme dutopisme que le reste du monde semble avoir abandonne ? Dautrepart, comment et pourquoi la crasse du pass inue-t-elle sur la fabrication dun futur radicalementdiffrent ? Pour rpondre ces questions, larticle suggre quaussi bien pour le processus de changementsocial que pour nos thories le concernant, nous devons resituer nos analyses des conditionspolitico-conomiques au regard de nos idologies du changement social.Alpa Shah is Reader in Anthropology at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She is theauthor ofIn the shadows of the state (Duke Universtity Press, :oIo). She has written articles and co-editedseveral volumesdealingwithinequality,indigenouspolitics,andrevolutionarystruggle.Sheiscurrentlywriting a book on Indias Maoist movement.Department of Anthropology, othFloor, OldBuilding, LondonSchool of Economics andPolitical Science,Houghton Street, London WC:A :AE, UK. a.m.shah@lse.ac.ukAlpaShah 356Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) io, ,,,-,,o Royal Anthropological Institute :oI