IT IS NECESSARY TO STUDY THE THOUGHTS OF KARL MARX ABOUT THE INDIAN HISTORY, Indian people, culture and Hinduism. Because he established the school of thinking, that later came to be recognized as Marxism. Hence it is necessary to know his concepts about India and Hinduism to understand the psyche and writings of Indian Marxists. Karl Marx was an extraordinary scholar, but his knowledge had limits and was not free from serious prejudices.
Unfortunately for us, it was Marxist scholars who generally undertook or claimed to undertake a detailed study of Karl Marx, Marxism and Marx’s views about India in the context of social science studies.
Whatever the reason, those who wrote in detail about Marxist thought were those very people who a priori, sympathised with his thought one way or the other If there were Indian scholars who seriously, continuously and with an open mind, had studied the writings of Marx, Engels and Lenin they did not do a good job of it. This has been a major drawback in the current Indian scholarship. The result was that Indian students, teachers and the common readers did not have adequate information and critical analyses about what Marx thought of India and Indian civilization.
The reason is obvious. The spirit of political activism to bring about revolution is integrated in the Marxist viewpoint. Therefore, to influence present politics is an inalienable part of any Marxist scholarship or analysis. In the words of Marx, ‘instead of explaining, changing the world’ is inseparable from Marxist discourse. Hence every Marxist, consciously or otherwise, ensures that whatever he writes or says has a calculated influence that favours the Marxist political movement.
Whether the Marxist writer is a communist propagandist, a university professor or a journalist, he is not free from this propensity to influence people politically. There may be differences in degree but the attitude is uniform and consistent. The same attitude prompts innumerable Marxist professors to engage in political activism on different issues. Even those Marxist writers and professors who are not active in political movements cannot keep their writing free from political propaganda.
What is the significance of this characteristic? It is this: Marxist writers and professors generally fail in providing complete information and all-round perspective on any given subject. Their political sympathies make them look at any and every subject with a view to promote ‘progressive’ politics. The most interesting example of this can be seen in the attempt by the Indian Marxists either to desist from presenting Marx’s views on India or to rehash and present it in a round about way.
Our Marxists have done this deliberately so that the common Indian readers might not instinctively form a negative opinion about Marx’s views. In other words, to make our people sympathetic to Marxism, Indian Marxists tried to conceal Marx’s views on India and presented them in incomplete or in a totally incorrect frame.
For example, no Indian Marxist writer or historian will include in his book the fact that Karl Marx intensely hated Hindu Dharma, philosophy and traditions. He did it out of total ignorance but the fact remains that his hatred was real. This is not connected with the avowed atheism of Marx. The issue is that in Marx’s opinion, Hinduism was so degenerate and hateful that he criticized the English rulers for not giving the Christian missionaries a freer hand in their work of converting Hindus and destroying Hinduism. This is how Karl Marx scolds the British Government:
"did they [the British], who combated the French revolution under the pretext of defending “our holy religion”, not forbid at the same time, Christianity to be propagated in India, and did they not, in order to make money out of the pilgrims streaming to the temples in Orissa and Bengal, take up the trade in the murder and prostitution perpetrated in the temple of Juggernaut?"
This is the opinion of that great Karl Marx! He not only wanted a massive expansion of Christianity in India but also believed that the famous Jagannath temple was mainly a centre of ‘murder and prostitution.’
This is not the only example, which proves how strange, and foolish were Marx’s observations about Hinduism. There are many comments in his writings about India which support the fact that he did not have any knowledge about Hindu philosophy, Hindu classics, customs and traditions. It is worth considering that if Marx had no knowledge about Indian philosophy and tradition how hollow is the claim that Karl Marx had propounded his philosophical theories after evaluating all philosophy, thought and history available at the time!
His comments on Hinduism instantly give rise to the suspicion that how many such baseless information he might have had regarding the past and present of the world, on the strength of which he formulated his ‘scientific’ theory of social progress. Evidently, Karl Marx’s knowledge about Hinduism was based on the derogatory propaganda of the Christian missionaries which they had been spreading for quite some time in Europe and America for getting generous political and financial support for their work to expand Christianity.
It is clear that Karl Marx’s aforementioned comment on the Jagannath temple is a total reproduction of the missionary propaganda.
To be continued
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