Where can one look for the origin of this Left perception if not in the life and teachings of Karl Marx? If you read any article, book or research paper written by any Indian Left intellectual you will find it overloaded with references to Marx'swritings and correspondence. If you happen to overhear any debate between different shades (because there are so many) of Indian Communists, you will be amused to find each side quoting Marx or Engels to support its own contention. In fact, Marx is to Indian Leftists what Jesus or Muhammad are to their devotees. Marx has moulded the minds of Indian Leftists in the same way as the Bible or the Koran has moulded the minds of their faithfuls. During the last one and a half century, world Communism has passed through many vicissitudes, many prophesies and experiments of Marxism have failed, big powerful Communist countries have crossed over to the Capitalist mode of market economy, science has opened new frontiers in our knowledge of the nature and origin of man and universe, but for Indian Communists, Marx still continues to be the only reference point. For them Marx'severy quote is an infallible gospel. Therefore if we want to reach the roots of the pre-1957 Leftist perspective on 1857, we must try to examine Marx'sperception of India. How did he look at the economic, social and religious institutions of India? How did he compare Indian civilisation with western or European civilisation? How did he view India'sjourney in history? How did he react to the British conquest of India? What role did he visualise for British imperialism in India?
Answers to all these questions can be found in Marx'stwo signed articles published in an American daily paper New York Daily Tribune (henceforth NYDT) in the year 1853, i.e., only four years before the 1857 Revolt. First of these articles, ?The British Rule in India? carrying the London dateline, June 10, 1853 was published in NYDT on June 25, 1853 and the second article ?The Future Results of the British Rule in India? with London dateline, July 22, 1853 was published on August 8, 1853. Those days British Parliament was debating the renewal of the Charter to E.I.C. for 20 years beyond 1853. Marx, the London-based paid correspondent of the NYDT, wrote a series of eight newsletters between May 7 and July 22, 1853. Out of these eight letters the two articles, mentioned above have been accorded special importance in all the anthologies of Marx'ssporadic references to India. The first official collection of Karl Marx'shistorical writings prepared by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism, Moscow (founded in 1919) and published in the year 1933 had included only two articles on India. All subsequent anthologies of Marx on India such as, edited and published by BPL Bedi (Lahore 1937), Mulk Raj Anand (Allahabad, 1938), CPI (Bombay 1943), On Britain (Moscow, 1953), On Colonialism (Moscow 1959), First Indian War of Independence (Moscow 1960) and lastly, Iqbal Hussain'sKarl Marx on India (Delhi, 2006) carry them. Only these articles present a comprehensive historical view of Marx on Indian society, civilisation and history.
These articles show that Marx had a very adverse opinion of Indian economic, social and religious institutions. At the outset he declared, ?I share not the opinion of those who believe in a golden age of Hindustan?. (Karl Marx'sHistorical Writings. Moscow 1933, Indian reprint, PPH Bombay 1944, p. 591). He says, ?That religion is at once a religion of sensual exuberance, and a religion of self-torturing asceticism, a religion of the Lingam and of the juggernaut, the religion of the Monk and bayadare.? (Historical Writings Vol. I, Bombay 1944, p. 591).
Similarly, Marx was very critical of the village community system prevalent in India from times immemorial. Unlike other foreign observers Marx did not consider these village communities as bedrock of grassroot democracy or republicanism, rather he dubbed them ?solid foundation of oriental despotism.? He wrote, ?Since the remotest times, a social system of particular features?the so-called village system, which gave to each of these small unions their independent organisation and distinct life. (ibid, p. 594)… These idyllic village communities, inoffensive though they may appear, had always been the solid foundation of oriental despotism, that they restrained the human mind within the smallest possible compass, making it the unresisting tool of superstition, enslaving it beneath traditional rules depriving it of all grandeur and historical energies.? (ibid, p. 596). Marx saw an organic relation between the village system and religion. He says, ?We must not forget that this undignified, stagnatory and vegetative life, that this passive sort of existence evoked the other part, in contradistinction wild, aimless, unbounded forces of destruction and rendered murder itself a religious rite in Hindostan?. (ibid, p. 596).
Denigrating further the Indian social system and religion he continues. ?We must not forget that these little communities were contaminated by distinction of caste and by slavery, that they subjugated man to external circumstances, instead of elevating man the sovereign of circumstances, that they were transformed a self-developing social state into never changing natural destiny, and thus brought about a brutalising worship of nature, exhibiting its degradation is the fact that man, the sovereign of nature, fell down on his knees in adoration of Hanuman, the monkey, and Sabbala, the cow.? (ibid p. 596-597).
(To be continued)
