A mythic consciousness is on the rise. Deciphering the figure of Homo Mythos today means recognizing surplus populations as powerful agents acting in open territory, free from the determinations of capitalism, liberalism, democracy, and right-wing populism. They spawn a notion of the mythic which foregrounds social contradictions and engenders visions of a communist future. Saroj Giri traces the contours of such a paradoxical figure in Bhima Koregaon, India: the celebration of the mythical powers of an army of Untouchables fighting Brahmin rulers in the Battle of Koregaon in 1818. This commemoration led to the widespread arrest and detention of activists by the Modi regime in 2018. Mythopoetic tales and memories of a brave and independent pre-Buddhist totemic People-of-the-Snake, called Nagvanshis, intertwine with communist battles of indigenous adivasis against large capital and the modern state. Here is a class struggle which, as Walter Benjamin once imagined, is nourished by the image of enslaved ancestors rather than that of liberated grandchildren. Homo Mythos anticipates and animates class struggle in the Information Age.
Homo Mythos : Class Struggle in the Time of Culture Wars