I have always found the conversations around are you a leftist or rightist very meaningless. Not because I don’t care for political view points but these terminologies ring of ‘loaded’ meanings and lacking any nuance as to what the person who considers himself one or the other really means and what they stand for which is more often more complex and nuanced than these words can ever capture. Notwithstanding the pre-loaded meanings it confuses me further what then is the location of center.
As very rightly Sita Ram Goel says in his book “Perversion of India’s political parlance”
The various words which the Leftists now employ in order to applaud themselves and denigrate those who differ from them can be found in any standard dictionary of the English language. But the dictionaries do not vouchsafe for the values with which the Leftists load these words. In most cases, the dictionaries assume prior definitions derived from different universes of discourse.
I read with great interest Venky Vembu’s FirstPost article on Justice Katju and then the conversations that followed this article on the First Post site.
I offer my own interpretation of what I think will bring semblance of realization that what we are all trying to be is a nationalist. Whether that would make me a leftist (for some); rightist for others or a centrist for those who choose its their categorization and not mine. If nothing can convince you then think this, globalized capitalism today uses nation states more effectively than anyone else. In my opinion a true internationalist today cannot be one who is at the same time being some kind of nationalist.We would not have neoliberal globalization if it weren’t for the manipulation and use of nation-states. Internationalists cannot have a one-sided and unbalanced rejection of nationalism especially progressive nationalism.