Marxism in the Indian Context:

Marxism in the Indian Context: The principles of Marxism in the Indian communist movement (A summary)

Ish N. Mishra

“The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, consequently also controls at the same time the means of mental production, so that the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance. The individuals composing the ruling class possess among other things consciousness, and therefore think. Insofar, therefore, as they rule as a class and determine the extent and compass of an epoch, it is self-evident that they do this in its whole range, hence among other things rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch.” -- Marx in German Ideology

This is bicentenary year of Karl Marx’s birth and 170th year of the publication of the Communist Manifesto with a call to the ‘workers of the world’ to unite to lose their chains of wage slavery and eventually lead to creating a society, free from exploitation and domination, i.e.to the end of alienation, to a state of human emancipation – the Nirvana in the Buddhist parlance. In fact, the only parallel as a thinker, teacher and activist in the history to Marx in the history is Buddha of ancient India in terms of envisioning a society free from miseries and pain. Here there is no scope to digress into Buddhist intellectual revolution or Brahmanical counter revolution .The purpose of reference to Buddha is to allude to the similarities in terms of scientific comprehension of society and commitment to create a world free from sufferings and pain, irrespective of distant the time and space. Like Buddha, Marx too was not only interested in interpreting the world but also in changing it. .

19th Century Europe witnessed many revolutions in the realms of social and intellectual movements. The common people, who entered in the arena of political theory through Rousseau in the 18th century, found a profound spokesperson in the genius of Karl Marx in the 19th century as the new protagonist of the history, the proletariat . In that age of inventions of knowledge, in the words of Louis Althuser, Marx invented a “new continent of knowledge” . But the word continent is associated with imperialist colonization; in-fact he invented a new galaxy of knowledge in the form of historical materialism, key to which is the economy. His ideas are as relevant to comprehend the dynamics of the neoliberal age of capitalism and the ongoing politico-cultural discourse, as in his contemporary liberal capitalism, though capitalism has taken many turns different from his projection.

Engels had commented in 1891 about some doctrinaire Marxists that a Marxist is not one who quotes from Marx’s or his writings but one who reacts in a particular circumstance, the way Marx would have reacted. Marx in delineating the historical epochs based on mode of production has repeatedly emphasized the uneven development of stages and variations of method of development.

Rosa Luxemburg, in her celebrated essays on Russian revolution, after praising the Bolsheviks under the leadership of Lenin for their accomplishment in the peculiar, particular conditions then prevailing in Russia, had cautioned that the policies; strategies and principles should to be advanced as universal principles of international proletarian revolution . But most of the parties founded under the auspices of Comintern did not heed her advice and instead of looking at it as a method adopted Russian Revolution and Marxism as models.

Application of Marxism involves, first to grasp the existing contradictions, major/minor and hostile/non-hostile and the composition of existing social forces, in accordance with the Marxist principle, i.e. the principles of historical materialism. Then the related, important and in my opinion, most difficult task is to translate; adopt and adapt these principles into a particular historical context and work out strategies to organize and agitate the oppressed for their emancipation. Among the old generation Indian Marxists, Acharya Narendra Dev made genuine attempts to translate and interpret the principles of Marxism in the Indian context with reference to Buddhism.

Marx’s critique of capitalist political economy is based on his readings of contemporary capitalism as it was developing in Western Europe, where the bourgeois democratic movement had already abolished the feudal relations of birth qualification and economy had become the only basis of the social division.

But in India, for historical reasons, the Renaissance-kind social and intellectual movement launched by Kabir and carried forward by Bhakti movement with the central theme of social and spiritual equality could not reach its logical conclusion. Also, India did not witness any bourgeois democratic movement mainly as the colonial intervention did not allow the natural growth of capitalism .

The failure of Indian communists to fulfill the unaccomplished task of bourgeois democratic revolution, subsequently led to the growth of the identity politics. In India’s present political scenario the invocation of the caste identity by a section of the forces of social justice is as big speed-breaker as the invocation of religious identity by communal forces, in the radicalization of the social consciousness.

Marxism in the Indian Context

Unlike other political parties, a Communist Party lays more emphasis on theory, a theoretical system of ideas known as Historical Materialism. The evolution of theoretical and pragmatic Marxism has gone through immense internal stress, encountered multiple contradictions and faced various questions, the answers of which it has failed to provide, or it has simply reduced them into black and white categories,{ in a way, the international Communist movement witnessed many tragic situations when history overtook them with an unimaginable pace and} “official” revolutionaries sought immediate, and almost un-Marxian answers to highly complex situations.

Marx wrote in Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte:

“Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.” .

What were the circumstances, given and transmitted from the past in the beginning and the journey of the Indian Communist movement? What were the major and minor contradictions? There were and are 3 major contradictions. 1.

Contradiction of colonial rule and Indian people as a whole. In today’s neo-liberal age of capitalism, colonial exploiting and domination has been replaced by those of imperialist global capital coordinated by international financial institutions like World Bank; 2. Of Between caste and class, economic domination combined with socio-cultural domination and subjugation sanctioned by religion, a sizable section of people was treated and are being treated untouchable, now by publicizing on-camera meal at a Dalit’s place. 3. Contradiction of capitalist and proletariat; and of landlord and peasants. Many of them overlap; the ruling castes have been the ruling classes also.

The Communist Party of India was formed in 1921 in by MN Roy in Tashkent with Indian immigrants. On invitation of Lenin, Roy wrote an alternative thesis on colonial question. Roy was against joining the movement and proletariat on its own will carry out the anti-colonial and the proletarian revolutions simultaneously. Lenin characterized the anti-colonial movement as democratic and progressive in the given situation and recommended communists to join the movement while maintaining their separate identity and should try to wean away its radical elements . Communists, formed Workers and Peasants Party (PPP), joined the movement and were able make their presence felt. But then came the 6th Congress of the Comintern (1928) that decided against the united front tactic and the CPI, instead of analyzing the concrete situation and decide accordingly, followed the Comintern dictate and withdrew from the movement. In the context of anti-colonial social sentiment, this action dented its credibility. Many prominent leaders of the party and trade unions including 2 members CP of Great Britain were in jail in Meerut conspiracy case .

7th Congress of Comintern in 1934 resolved in favor of united front and as already mentioned, same year was founded the CSP by some young Congressmen who claimed Marxism to be their ideological source. Communists were allowed to join in individual capacity. As already mentioned, 1934-42 was the golden period for the Indian left. CSP with its student’s organizations; trade unions and Kisan unions had become a power to reckon with in the movement. It was able to ensure the victory of Subhash Chandra Bose, twice, once despite Gandhi’s open support for the opponent with emotional appeal that his defeat shall be his (Gandhi’s) personal defeat. Its neutrality led to the passage of Pant resolution that made the Congress President dependent on Gandhi for any substantial action. Without going into the merit or demerit of neutrality, this implies that united front of left was able to defeat the united force of the right wing in the national movement.

Change of CPI’s line from anti-war to war platform also dented the credibility of the party, though seeing the imminent danger of fascism; it was a very difficult matter.

“In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a complicated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold gradation of social rank. In ancient Rome we have patricians, knights, plebeians, slaves; in the Middle Ages, feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs; in almost all of these classes, again, subordinate gradations” .

In India, there was no ‘epoch of bourgeoisie’ to split the society in two hostile camps’; ‘a manifold gradation of social ranks’ in the form of hierarchal Hindu caste-order, effectively caste slavery that still exists, though in the process crumbling down under the pressure of continuously accentuating march of Dalit scholarship and the consequent assertion, hence the audacity of arrogant and violent reaction . The cracks had begun in my early student days, in 1960s-70s, but were only microscopically visible. I use the term Dalit in its literal meaning – the oppressed, which is inclusive of all the erstwhile, socio-economically and educationally deprived and culturally dominated sections of society. Hence the appropriate application of historical materialism would have been, to take note of this existing realty. Caste and caste-conflict for of manifestation of class-struggle are not just imagination are things of the history but a living reality. There is no scope in terms of time and space to deal with caste-class debate. This is just to point that the vacuum left by communists was filled by Ambedkerites of various varieties and process of the radicalization of identity politics which played a positive role in instilling the self confidence among the oppressed castes. But it has already played its historic role, it must march ahead from class-conflict into class-conflict.

In 1938 in the congress of Independent Labour Party Ambedkar had said that politically closest to his ideas were he communists. Had the CPI included the caste question in its agenda, may be Ambedkar might have joined hands with it. In retrospective it was imperative on the communist movement to undertake the unfinished task of bourgeois democratic revolution and to include the caste-contradiction as one of the major contradiction along with the class and colonial contradiction. To demarcate the character of European and Indian feudalism Marx propounded theory of Asiatic Mode of Production (AMP) .

By mid 1980s the movement against inequality got divided into the social justice stream, basically a dignity movement and fractioned; fractured Marxist stream.

The slogan of Jay Bhim – Lal Salam emanating from JNU agitation is symbolic expression of this illusive unity . Substantial success of the land movement by Dalits of Punjab, who combined the question of economic rights of land with the question of dignity, is a model at a micro level for generalized theorization of the unity of Jay Bhim and Lal Salam slogans . “There can be no caste annihilation without revolution (on Marxist principles) and no revolution without caste annihilation”. A Brahmin communist or a Dalit communist are paradoxical and un-Marxian notions. The leadership not only did only not take up the caste question seriously but many of them themselves have not got rid of caste prejudices emanating from the biological accident of birth.

In parliamentary democracy people have right to decide which section of ruling classes is going to oppress them for the next five years? Lenin had responded to the revisionist critique of the concept of the proletarian dictatorship and support of “pure democracy.”

“The Scheidemanns and Kautsky's speak about "pure democracy" and "democracy" in general for the purpose of deceiving the people and concealing from them the bourgeois character of present-day democracy. Let the bourgeoisie continue to keep the entire apparatus of state power in their hands, let a handful of exploiters continue to use the former, bourgeois, state machine! Elections held in such circumstances are lauded by the bourgeoisie, for very good reasons, as being "free", "equal", "democratic" and "universal". These words are designed to conceal the truth, to conceal the fact that the means of production and political power remain in the hands of the exploiters, and that therefore real freedom and real equality for the exploited, that is, for the vast majority of the population, are out of the question. It is profitable and indispensable for the bourgeoisie to conceal from the people the bourgeois character of modern democracy, to picture it as democracy in general or "pure democracy", and the Scheidemanns and Kautskys, repeating this, in practice abandon the standpoint of the proletariat and side with the bourgeoisie.”

Over hundred years of experience, beginning with the emergence of revisionism in the Second International from mid-1890s , Euro-Communism experiments and the parliamentary history of Indian Communist movement have proved that socialism not only cannot be brought through parliamentary participation but it gives legitimacy to bourgeois institutions and leads to dilution and complication of the question of class struggle.

The key to revolution is class consciousness, i.e., radicalization of social consciousness, first by getting rid of false consciousness of caste and community by sharpening the edge of major contradiction, the economic contradiction. This could have been done by participating in their struggle and leading them and political education that these parliamentarians and progressive intellectuals failed to do.

One of the fundamental problems which the Indian Communist Movement has been facing is evolving a correct, analytical explanation of the Indian State, the Congress, or, the “bourgeoisie” or the political elite. Unable to place the European context of Marxism directly in the Indian situation, the dilemma of a plausible definition, and thereby a strategic attitude towards it, continued to plague its theoretical ideologues. The Indian bourgeoisie and its leadership practiced policies which could not be explained in straight forward Marxist postulates – even in its most generalized form.

In fact, the Congress determined the articulation of political decisions and channelization during periods of crisis and otherwise, whereas the Communist leadership was forced to a position where it could only react or adapt, or adopt counter positions. While they participated in the mainstream of the struggle – the leadership and strategy of the movement was firmly entrenched in the hands of the Congress. It was believed that the congress, though a mass umbrella organization with various shades of political philosophies, was essentially led by big business, feudal interest groups – who will further reinforce the class divided exploitative structure of the polity if able to acquire political power. All future categories of the CPI are derived from this premise. And the contradictions increased many fold. Confused and pushed into the wall, the movement immersed in repeated exercises of self-introspection – but mostly, emerged, with a deeper sense of confusion. Thereby the need for reductionism and pragmatism became stronger. Rigorous analysis was discarded.

It would be appropriate to sum up with veteran communist leader A. K. Gopalan’s statement of resignation from the parliament:

“A new life, a new environment, a new alliance – I found myself in an environment calculated to ruin a man. First class travel, comfortable chambers in the parliament, a surfeit of money, magnificent quarters – and a life devoid of heavy responsibility. All circumstances favorable to a life of pleasure. The overall framework was such that we did not feel hopeful about this much eulogized parliamentary democracy.”