Maia Ramnath - Decolonizing Anarchism.pdf - Libcom

114 I Ramnalh
them, those old Hindus. Once in a while I have read a scrap
of their writings, and I have telt then that they were the primordial
anarchists. Isn't it one of your ancestors who said,
'This world is not, is not, is not ?'" In other words, to Jerry's
mind, "those old Hindus" were primordial nihilists, achieving
the apotheosis of negation and rejection that he himself
somewhat inconsistently aspired to. Jerry was revealing here
an idea ofliberation that resembled not collective social
utopia but instead moksha, release from material existence
and restraint of any kind.
In a later discussion ofHenrik Ibsen, Shakespeare, and
Sophocles, Jerry again alluded to the notion that Asian
civilization already possessed the secrets to a utopian countersociety
without needing to pass through the steps of
industrialization and modernization: "But, Mukerji, your
ancestors knew all this and never were troubled about it.
It is strange that you should come to us to find out what
you had at home. It's time for you to go back." Again he
hectored, "Why in hell do you wam to be an anarchist? I
am an anarchist because I am a leader. I am not an anarchist
because I am an example."
"What do you lead us into?" Mukerji probed.
"Into a greater sense of social danger;' Jerry replied.
"I want to lead you from security to bravery." Jerry's and
Leo's was an individualist interpretation of anarchism,
each rejecting any authority over himself without rejecting
authoritarianism in principle. This was an unshackling
of ego rather than (a Swadeshi militant's) annihilation of
ego, with a whiff of the Ubermensch's disgust for the herd.
There was another acquaintance present, a socialist (though