There is a big puzzling question. As we notice communists are generally anti-religion but they seem to love and favor Islam in India. Whichever state, e.g. West Bengal and Kerala, where communists have been in power, they have supported Islamic radicalism and have always sided with Muslims organizations and politicians. On the other hand, communist historians have been painting Indian pre-Islamic history (before Islamic invaders came to India) as a dark phase in our history. So why do Indian communists support Islamists when they are expected to be opposed to all religions?
A friend shared this and I think he makes good points. Please note that all can be said to be personal opinion and intent of sharing is nothing but opinion-sharing and brain storming:
I have just a few things to say, and most of these observations are of a very general nature, so might seem off-topic. They are more of a commentary of the state of affairs in India.
First, we must understand that Shourie / Goel / others are of a different breed altogether. And therein lies a duality. A duality between what happens outside India, and what happens within. It is this duality that is to blame for most of our problems.
The best example (and an old one) of this would be the word “secular”. Outside India, this word has two meanings.
One, it refers to words outside the domain of religion. For instance, we may say that “Mathematics is a secular subject”, or that “French law is secular (in that it does not derive from any religious code)”.
Two, as a matter of public policy, it refers to an explicit ignoring of religion. It is in this sense that France is a secular country, in that the state is made blind to religion, to the extent that no government form can have a column for religion.
Now in India, what is secular? God only knows, but the best definition that we get is “equal respect for all religions”. Now that amounts to an abuse of the English language you see. I’m not saying at all whether religions should equal respect or not – all I’m saying is that if you wanna use a new definition, decency, and basic respect for the language demand that you use a different word. Nowhere in the world does the word secular have that meaning!
More insidiously (and this is the true intention of the these word inventors), we would be correct in saying “France & India are secular countries”, but the secularism of France is as much separated from that of India, as the two countries are apart geographically! But by using such curious definitions, an illusion (of authority / modernism) is built, and then it is very difficult for anyone to oppose such things. Even today, when BJP says “pseudo-secular” how many Indians understand what is being talked about?
This is exactly what George Orwell warned us about when he said, “Political chaos is connected with the decay of language… one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end.” Sita Ram Goel has an entire book on this “The Perversion of India’s political parlance”.
Now that was a small, largely well know example. There are even some fun things here: For instance someone discovered a few years ago that the particular English translation being used in India of the French novel “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” had a few chapters missing! And no-body had noticed that for at least 60+ years (since independence)! (Turns out that these few chapters had a few anti-British statements, so the British deleted them) It is indeed a sad commentary on the sorry state of affairs in Indian universities.
And so now I come to the question you ask.
First, what Shourie writes is true. The Soviets had no love lost for religion, and they were not above using it for political motives. But at the same time, I would disagree that all Soviet literature was politically motivated. Soviet analysis of old Russian paganism, or of Hinduism or even of Islam is quite spot-on. Also beyond, say 1931, the Soviets were firmly in power, so I would not believe it that the Soviets were really trying to “please” anyone with their analyses. Yes there was a certain communist bent to whatever they wrote, but trust me, they did do some serious scholarly work too.
But thats not quite the whole story just yet! For just like the word “secular” means different things within India and without, so too does the word “communism” or even “soviet”!
Let me give you another example. The soviets were pretty damn frank about what was happening in their country. So if you read the soviet government reports, and these were available from their embassies – it was that easy – one could easily figure out that (say) collectivization was a colossal failure. Or that the Soviet language policy was Russianization in disguise. But what did people like Nehru say? He said that collectivization was a great success, and it is a fact that the India’s language policy is modeled after the Soviet one!!!
Now its obvious to ask – how is that possible? Well, the answer is simple. Nehru was dumb, his advisors were dumber, so they would at the max, listen to Stalin’s speeches or listen to Soviet envoys. Thats like buying a soap based on ads, and not scientific reports. And given the brutal honesty of the Soviets themselves in their official reports, you could hardly blame them! And what even funnier, if not tragic, is that when Sita Ram Goel pointed this out, he was declared enemy of state!!!
So coming back to the point, the species “Indian Communism” is as different from “Marx’s / Lenin’s / Trotsky’s / Mao’s Communism” as a dolphin is from a TV. They are two different things entirely.
It is this “Indian Communism” that CPI(M/ML/XXX) follow. It is this that the jholawalas of JNU follow. And it is this that attracts Iqbal. Bottom line is: Indian intellectuals, such as they are, are born and brought up on second hand British literature, and that is the source of their inspiration and understanding of the world. Few of your JNU types could even recite the soviet five year plans if you held a gun to their head. 99% of them can’t even read Russian or German (the language of Das Kapital).
In India, communism is basically hatred of Hinduism, period. No original theoretical contribution to communist theory has ever been made by an Indian, and this despite the fact that 99% of our social scientists wear communism like a second skin. In essence, they are posers, and little else.
My basic point is : the duality of political concepts within India and without. And this extend to everything. Essentially, what I want to say is (1) Soviet (or Chinese) Communism is not Indian Communism, and consequently, (2) Inferences from Soviet writings are no pointer to the attitudes of Indian communists.
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