Maia Ramnath - Decolonizing Anarchism.pdf - Libcom

Echoes and Intersections I 103
on the state, would he say that he was "at variance with
most of the present forms of government in the administration
of the judicial and ... executive branches of government"?
He replied: "I am a critic, but I should not say 1
am entirely at variance . . . . 1 certainly think that the social
organization of what is called government is very liable to
be perverted from its proper operation when there is a great
difference of economic conditions in a community, because
in a community where there is a small class of very rich people,
they generally manage to control these institutions."
Har Dayal continued that in some countries, the situation
could be rectified by the gradual "persuasive abolition" of
the institutions in question, but that in others, the only
possibility was through "upheavals called revolutions."O)
His answers regarding his intentions in the United
States clarified his dual role and dual audience. One of his
tasks was to raise the Indian people's revolutionary consciousness:
in this context, he considered himself an active
participant in the social/political struggle and "an organizer
of a movement." But in the U.S. context, the role he had
assigned himself was more as a "thinker and philosopher,
if 1 may be so vain as to use that word, than as an agitator
participating in any temporal social movement. 1 always
lecture from the academic and educational standpoint to
the white people in this country, because, being a foreigner,
I cannot directly influence social movements:'56
In the end, the case for deportation hinged on proving
that Har Dayal had been a confirmed anarchist at the time
of entry and had come to the United States with the premeditated
intention of violently overthrowing the British