When the 1857 war of independence happened, one common thing in British and from them European media was atrocity literature about how the mutineers target civilians, women and children continuously brutalised etc

Karl Marx, who was a young reporter then, smelled a rat and wrote that while the mutineers did terrible atrocities, what the British press has conveniently missed was the decades of atrocities the East India companies did to the ryots (peasants), and the suppression of the revolt was systematically done via war crimes. Marx was the first

Some extremely angering stuff

The incoming Draft bill amending the Prevention of Cruelty to Animal Act, reverses the presumption of innocence.

It says if anyone is charged with killing an animal and parts of the animal is found in their possession, then burden of proof

1/n will fall on the accused!

The consequences of this law where seized animal parts can mean anything. Certain weaponisation against marginalised groups

Reversing presumption of innocence is the opposite of civilized law

Thanks to @nellipiercing for pointing this nonsense to me

The range of services the government wishes to issue licenses and monitor. Yes this includes everything from wa/signal/telegram to twitter dms, chat forums to zoom calls, anything and everything which can communicate

Cartoonishly evil, but at least it will end all your alts Read the entire bill. Seriously read it line by line. If this passes it ends the internet as we understand it here. Nothing anon, anywhere. Which forces you lot logoff and touch grace, but we still should oppose it
dot.gov.in/sites/default/…

I hope this was useful? My apologies for the extra half hour. Need to pace myself better

https://twitter.com/Anupam_Guha/status/1395600153457795072

Works revised or explained today

1. Principles of Communism
2. The Communist Manifesto
3. Wage, Labour, and Capital
4. Critique of the Gotha Program
5. Socialism - Utopian and Scientific

In addition the crisis of the Second International and SPD, do read Red Rosa by Kate Evans

NOTICE TO THE SOCIALIST READING CIRCLE

As you know, in September the Kosambi Circle will investigate caste from a materialist lens as well as the political history of the anti-caste movement in India and its relation to communism.

The readings for September are out!

1/n There will be two meetings this month. The first meeting on 13th September will give whoever reads the starting locations to then engage with extensive readings of several strands being touched here. The readings are:

1) Anthropology of Caste (drive.google.com/file/d/1Skjzz0…)

2/n

Again the abolition of policing in India, a generally useless state apparatus, and all the violence that accompanies it is both desirable and practical. Practical because a political platform which actually has the courage to call for radically stripping down powers of said institution will be popular in certain places. We have to do more than being angry at these incidents

What happened last night feels like a dream. Professors grasping my hand and saying they have not seen anything like this is IITB in twenty years, thirty years.

It happened right? A thousand thanks to the student organisers and everyone who came. Much better photos than what I managed to take exist. Look them up

https://twitter.com/Anupam_Guha/status/1217432239488880640?s=19

When the first @sanjayuvacha account lock happened, some people including the good lawyer himself thought it was an AI/algorithm error and I didn't open my mouth. He has been locked again due to some inanity.

Something I must stress, it is NEVER the AI's "fault". Hear me out. Do you blame your stapler for racism? Your dining table for bigotry? The public discourse on AI and algorithmic bias is a caricature which needs to be pushed back by people who know the field.

The responsibility of the act of bigotry (and it is always an act) is always human.

From my observations in the last dozen days, a surprising number of people in academia have a completely wrong idea of what "class" is.

Class isn't aesthetics, class is not just apparent wealth, class isn't "how people treat each other", and class isn't who you were born to

1/n Class is simply your relationship to the primary institution/money creating device you work for.

If you get a wage or salary, you are a worker. If you own stuff and give people a wage or a salary, you are a capitalist.

2/n

Ram Guha's recent article is bad, don't read it, and if you've read it don't bother quote tweeting it to critique it

One point though, the fellow doesn't know what basic terms mean. Will just comment on the last bit where he asks communists to become 'democratic socialists' Thing is, these are two different socialist lines with different praxis, and one cannot opportunistically become the other. That is not how politics work. I have no problems with actual democratic socialists (by which it is generally meant electoral democratic socialists)

My definitive book list (and other visual and reading material) for political education of the novice leftist.

1. Start with something simple. This video is a good description of jargon used in the left sphere, so you know what these words are

1/n 2. A very concise (and in parts incorrect) video summary of Marx's political theory from a non-Marxist, i.e. liberal-capitalist, perspective, still very useful for beginners before you start with the actual reading

2/n

There are those in the Indian progressive constellation who characterise the first war of Independence reductively as a feudal/Brahminical project.

They are wrong. As Marx correctly observed, the Mutiny was not reactionary though parts of it was. It was revolutionary.

1/n Mangal Pandey's propaganda of the deed today, on 29 March 1857 and the actual start of the rebellion in Meerut in May has a gap of a month and more. Volumes can be written about what happened in that gap.

2/n

The valley between the discourse of "ethical technology" and how companies operate in reality is unbridgeable, because that discourse is almost completely appropriated by capitalists who have no desire to reform let alone dismantle extraction.

Why am I writing truisms at 3am? As a corporate employee, as a socialist looking at the political-economy of AI, and as an AI scientist, there is an epistemological gap between these three worlds. With respect to automation these worlds want things which are fundamentally incompatible.

The wonks do not get that

"sunlight is the best disinfectant"

I've read this phrase in three different Indian political contexts recently, each time expressed with a certain degree of confidence (you would have guessed at least one and yes courts are political). It is a remarkably flawed sentiment. 1/n This sentiment is rooted in the "just world fallacy", which assumes a level playing field, a marketplace of ideas, and thus the only problem being biases, corruptions, malfeasance, incompetence, etc.

Root out the bad apples and things would be fine. Thus, "disinfectant". 2/n