Karl
MARX IN BIHAR AT 200
Ish
Mishra
Quotes
from Karl Marx’s works reverberated in the unprecedented 5-day long conference
organized by the Asian Development and Research Institute (ADRI), participated
by the delegates from 18 countries across the 5 oceans, held in Patna, the
capital of Bihar that has witnessed many revolutionary and counter
revolutionary movements and uprisings. Gist and the central message of the
conference in one sentence can be expressed in the form the well-known Marxist maxim;
Marxism is a dynamic science to comprehend the world and revolutionary
ideology of class struggle to change it. Beginning with the keynote address
by ‘Lord’ Meghnad Desai, chairman, the academic Advisory committee of the
Conference and ending with the valedictory address by Samuel Hollander
Professor, Emeritus, Toronto University, the conference vividly discoursed various
aspects of Marx; Marxism and its applications, via 38 lectures by eminent
academicians and scholars and 17 scholarly papers, spread over 5 days (16-20
June, 2018). Holding a 5 day long conference to commemorate Karl Marx’s 200th
anniversary was a historic, event, given the hostile neo-liberal milieu, in which the
neo-liberal bards are composing the songs of end of history and the end of
Marxism. Organizers do deserve the congratulation; complement and appreciation
for conducting it with incisive precision.
Marxism is an idea of human
emancipation and shall remain relevant till then – till the end of class
conflict with the establishment dictatorship of proletariat as the instrument
of creating conducive conditions for the withering away of the State.
50 years ago in
1967, a national seminar was organized in Begu Sarai, a district town in Bihar,
on the initiative of Marxist activists Dr. Pijushendu Gupta and Professor Radha
Krishna Choudhary to mark the 150th anniversary of Karl Marx and
centenary of the publication of Capital. As claimed in the broacher of
the conference: “The present conference at Patna on the bicentenary of Karl
Marx is a tribute to the organizers of that memorable initiative, and can be considered
as a sequel to that sesquicentennial event, albeit in a very much changed
global and local scenario”. In general, conference expressed concerns over
crisis of theory in the changed global scenario not only in capitalism but also
in socialism in the present context, when the reactionary forces are
aggressively vocal. It was a historic event not only in terms of span and
participants of various national-international experiences and reputed
academics, but also in terms of kaleidoscopic canvas of themes and approaches. Various
well known and not so well known scholars discussed various aspects of Marxism
– Marxian economics from neo-liberal viewpoint; history of ‘Capital’; theory of
centralization; Marxism and the Indian context so on and so forth. There is no
scope for going into any details of the lectures or papers but the conference
is also historic in that it provided a platform for various perspectives on
Marxist theory and critiques of its practices, it did not address the question,
“what is to be done?”, probably waiting for some Lenin. It ‘interpreted the
world in various ways’, but did not adequately address the question of
‘changing it.” As I say it as a
participant in the conference, who presented a critique of the application of
Marxism in Indian communist movement, it should not be taken as a criticism of
the conference or those who envisioned and successfully implemented this
program, but a self-criticism, one of the key concept of Marxism, which the
leaders of the communist parties have kept in an indefinite abeyance. Eric Hobsbawm
had asked the leaders of Communist Parties to read Marx.
Neo-liberal
capitalism is going through not only economic crisis but also the crisis of
theory. Its only viable alternative, the socialism too is undergoing not only
political crisis of marginalization but also the crisis of theory. 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. In such a situation notwithstanding the lack of
restlessness at the alarming situation of rightist onslaught against the
workers and other oppressed section; rise of racist and communal fascism, debate
on Marx and various aspects of Marxism is a welcome sign. On the question of
racism I am reminded of the young delegate, Jared, an Afro-American, PhD
candidate at Brown University (USA). He was incisively articulate and assertively
confident in his application of Marxist theory of value in analyzing Martin
Luther King’s call of “revolution of values”, but was intensely apprehensive of
getting a college or university job for being a black, in private conversation.
Capitalism has theoretically abolished the birth qualification but in practice
it very much prevails. Contradiction of theory and practice is immanently
innate attribute of all class societies; capitalism being the most advanced
class society, the duality is at highest. Professor Kipton Jensen, in his
presentation, ‘History of Black Marxism in the USA’ traces the reception
history of Marxism, primarily among African Americans. Similarly in India too,
theoretically casteism is abolished but remains as a major false social-consciousness
to obfuscate the major economic (class) contradiction, as pointed out by this
author in his presentation, ‘Marxism and the Indian Context.
All the
lecture-sessions were named after prominent, historic intellectual/political
leaders including Adam Smith and Ricardo, the classical political economists,
whose works are among the reference points for Marx’s critique of political
economy. In the galaxy of names of prominent Marxist intellectuals and
activists after whom the sessions were named, Mao Zedong’s name was
conspicuously missing along with that of Joseph Stalin. Most of the lectures
and the papers focused on their particular areas of research and an analytical
collage of them would be a panoramic and kaleidoscopic collection of varied
interpretations and applications of Marxism to analyze various issues. That is
why Marxism is dynamic science, a paradigm of social analysis with flexible
boundaries, like Newtonian paradigm in Physics that was quashed by Einstein.
Seeing the vibrant debate among the Marxists and scholars of Marxism regarding
application of Marxist principles to various circumstances like this mega
conference at Patna, I feel that for a long time to come the paradigm and
perspectives shall be enriched by new researches and movements within the
paradigm, instead of its being quashed.
It
is out of scope and unnecessary to go into details of each lecture and paper
presentation beginning with the Karl Marx Memorial inaugural lecture
speculating the future of globalization on the basis of historical experiences
followed by suggestions of correcting the misinterpretations of Marxism by
revisiting classics; search for normative elements in Marxism or discussion on
David Harvey’s concept of Accumulation by Dispossession and the neo-liberal
so-called primitive accumulation; critiques of various philosophical trends and
of historical application of Marxist principles in particular contexts; structural
ruptures and deconstruction; scholarly presentations on various aspects of
Marx’s life and works and so on, but no one raised the question or the issue of
crisis in socialism in terms of ability to theorize the character of the
neo-liberal capital and changes it brought about into super-structural
institutions and social values. Also the causes of marginalization the
communist parties world over, were left untouched. In my paper ‘Marxism and the
Indian Context, I underlined the need for dialectical unity of struggles for
social and economic justices as they mostly are concurrent but as yet I have no
theory about it. Nevertheless a mega event involving so many academic
celebrities discussing and debating Marx in Bihar on his bicentenary in the era
of social reaction, is inspiring and authenticates the all-time importance of
Marxism. Marx wrote in Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1851-52),
that men make their own history but not the way they please or the
circumstances chosen by them but in the given and transmitted from the past
with all its cultural-intellectual baggage. Marx and Engels have repeatedly
emphasized the emancipation of the oppressed (the working class) by the
oppressed itself that it could do only by acquiring class conscious against the
social consciousness shaped by the ruling class ideas and organize itself as
class for itself. The most important link between ‘class-in-itself’ and
‘class-for-itself’ is the class-consciousness, which I call the radicalization
of social consciousness; pre-condition is emancipation of workers from the
super-structural false consciousness.
To
conclude, this gathering was an attempt to rejuvenate the interest in the
discourse of class-struggle politics and an attempt towards radicalization of
the social consciousness. It was, in my opinion, a conference of scholars of
Marxism who interpret the world and not the Marxists, who apply the
interpretation to change it too, as Engels had said that a Marxist is not one
who quotes from Marx or his work, but one who reacts in a particular situation
as Marx would have. It would not be inappropriate to conclude it by a quotation
from AK Gopalan’s In the Cause of the People, which came to mind every
morning seeing the people sleeping on the pavements, on their carts or
Rickshaws, after coming out of the air-conditioned venue and lodging.
“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.”[1] The need of the hour is that
the revolutionary ideas should reach the people so that they rise in revolt for
their emancipation.
25.06.2018
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