The word, ‘intellectual’, has a very simple meaning in the Oxford English Dictionary. It denotes a person possessing or supposed to possess superior powers of intellect. Like many other words in the English language, the noun, intellectual, has lost its simple meaning. It has come to describe, especially in radical circles, men and women who provide moral leadership in civil society, intervene in the process of making and changing civil society, and often act as its conscience. Thus Jean Paul Sartre, when he wrote plays and novels, was described as a writer, when he wrote on existentialism was a philosopher, but when he marched with the students in 1968, he became an intellectual. Similarly, Noam Chomsky ceases to be an eminent grammarian and becomes an intellectual when he protests against American imperialism. An intellectual has thus come to mean a Jack or Jill of many trades. The common thread running through the various glosses on the word is the idea that an intellectual is a person who is able to see things in a wider perspective and is not partisan.

Unfortunately, the history of the 20th century shows that many intellectuals failed to live up to the high demands that their superior intellects made on them. Sartre, to take a particularly notorious example, failed to utter a single sentence of condemnation against the oppressions of the Stalinist and Soviet regimes. Joseph Needham, the celebrated Sinologist and scientist, hardly ever expressed any criticism against the excesses of Mao Zedong. There are many intellectuals who are quick to condemn the violence perpetrated by the Palestine Liberation Organization but are silent about the violence carried out in the name of Zionism. An element of doublespeak has come to be imbricated with the activities of intellectuals. Intellectuals have acquired for themselves a radical chic and have thus become parti pris.

What is happening in West Bengal now bears out this analysis. For the better part of the long rule of the Left Front in the state, intellectuals have been remarkable for being silent. The word, silent, could, in fact, be replaced by consent, explicit or implicit. The conscience of the Bengali intelligentsia suddenly woke up to the Left’s atrocities during the violence in Nadigram. The protest of civil society against that violence was a noteworthy event, given the long history of silence/consent. That conscience is active again in protesting against the state’s measures to bring Lalgarh under control. Lalgarh has been subjected to extensive violence by Maoists who have no respect for the rule of law. Intellectuals have not categorically condemned that violence. All violence is bad: this Gandhian position is understandable. But an intellectual, unless he is a sophist, cannot argue that one kind of violence is better than another. Intellectual activity must be free of fear and prejudice.