Author: Devendra Swarup
Publication: Organiser
Date: July 15, 2007
URL: http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=192&page=18
Introduction: Kosambi was of the view that:
"The adoption of Marx's thesis does not mean blind repetition of all
his conclusions (and even less, those of the official party line. 'Marxists'
at all times)." Referring to Marx's chronological notes on Indian history
Prof. Sarkar laments, "The most serious omission here is the passing
over of the entire Hindu epoch of our history, though it was being recovered
by the European scholars of Marx's days".
When serious scholars like D.D. Kosambi tried
to apply Marxian approach to Indian history, they found themselves in great
difficulty. In 1951, Kosambi tried to examine Marxist approach to Indian chronology
(Annals of Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Vol. 31 pp. 258-66) as
presented by a Russian scholar D.A. Suleiken in 1949 and found it 'dangerously
misleading' (Kosambi's Omnibus, OUP 2005, p. 49). In his seminal work, An
Introduction to the Study of Indian History (first published in 1956, sixth
reprint 1993) Kosambi rejected many of Marx's statements about India. Kosambi
wrote: "India had never a classical slave economy in the same sense as
Greece or Rome" (p. 11). Kosambi was at a loss what to make of Marx's
famous theory of the "Asiatic Mode of Production". He says, "What
Marx himself said about India cannot be taken as it stands." Kosambi,
who is considered to be the father of Marxist historiography on India, emphatically
rejects Marx's view of Indian history. He writes: "We cannot let pass
without challenge Marx's statement, "Indian society has no history at
all… unchanging (village) society." Kosambi says, "In fact,
the greatest periods of Indian history, the Mauryans, the Satavahanas, the
Guptas owed nothing to intruders, they mark precisely the formation and spread
of the basic village society, or the development of new trade centers"
(ibid, pp 11-12). Kosambi was of firm view, that: "The adoption of Marx's
thesis does not mean blind repetition of all his conclusions (and even less,
those of the official party line Marxists at all times)" (p. 10). That
is why Kosambi wrote a ruthlessly critical review of S.A. Dange's India from
Primitive Communism to Slavery, People's Publishing House (PPH), Bombay 1949).
Irfan Habib in his well documented essay,
Marx's Perception of India, [written on the occasion of Marx's death centenary
in the year 1983 and published in the inaugural issue of The Marxist, an official
journal of the CPI(M), reprinted in his "Essays in Indian History, Tulika,
Delhi, 1995), reproduced again in Iqbal Hussan (ed); Karl Marx on India, (Tulika,
2006)] holds the view that "In 1853 he seems to have taken up his starting
point the (1830) descriptive elements in Hegel's interpretation of Indian
civilization" (ibid, p. 58). Marx almost echoes Hegel's words: "The
Hindoos have no history, no growth expanding into a veritable political condition".
Marx blindly repeated Hegel's view that the admitted diffusion of Indian culture
has been 'a dumb, deedless expansion' and 'the people of India have achieved
no foreign conquests but on every occasion were vanquished themselves."
Similarly, he repeated Hegel's description of Indian village community. Habib
points out that Marx's knowledge of India in 1853 was mostly confined to Bernier,
Fifth Report and current British Parliamentary debates. He says that after
1867, references to India became relatively infrequent in Marx's published
writings.
In fact, Marx's much advertised "Notes
on Indian History", (posthumously published from Moscow in 1947 on the
basis of some handwritten manuscripts found among Marx's papers,) were prepared
in the last years of his life about the year 1880. These Notes are based on
two books-one, Elphinstone's History of India first published in 1841, but
Marx got its reprint of 1874 and the second one was Robert Sewell's The Analytical
History of the British Conquest of India. (London, 1870). The notes begin
at the year 664 AD, i.e. coming of the Muslims and close at Queen Victoria's
Proclamation of August 1858. There is no evidence that Marx was ever able
to use these notes. Marxist historian, Prof Sushobhan Sarkar in an article
"Marx on Indian History", (written on the occasion of Marx's 150th
birth anniversary in the year 1968) was constrained to admit that "Marx
did not leave behind any systematic presentation of the history of India,
that was never his main preoccupation. He set down his observations on certain
current Indian questions, which attracted public attention." (P.C. Joshi
(ed), Homage to Karl Marx, (PPH 1968, p. 93).
Referring to Marx's chronological notes on
Indian history Prof. Sarkar laments, "The most serious omission here
is the passing over of the entire Hindu epoch of our history, though it was
being recovered by the European scholars of Marx's days" (ibid p. 98).
Gangadhar Adhikari, one of the top theoreticians of the CPI, in his essay
"Marx and India" (A Communist Party Publication, 1968) says, "Writing
to Engels in those days (1853-59) Marx had somewhere said that his knowledge
of India was inadequate." (p. 17). Adhikari may be referring to a letter
from Marx to Engels dated August 8, 1858, where Marx writes: "I have
written a lot for the Tribune of late so as to replenish my account a bit
but I am getting damnably short of material. India isn't my department."
(Karl Marx and F. Engels, Collected Works Vol. 40 Progress Publishers Moscow,
1983 p. 335). This letter shows that Marx had no interest in India and whatever
he wrote was written not out of conviction but in a mercenary spirit to meet
his financial needs. Therefore, one is inclined to agree with the opinion
of the noted historian A.K. Warder that "Marx here is embedded in the
ordinary European outlook of his day which had been codified by Hegel"
according to which "Asians are barbarians and the ancient Greeks miraculously
created civilization, inherited by the later peoples of Europe", that
"the real history and social progress, along with the philosophy, art,
etc, begin with the Greeks and is essentially the history of Europe."
(R.S. Sharma and Vivekananda Jha (eds) Indian Society Historical Probings:
Essays in Memory of D.D. Kosambi, ICHR, New Delhi, 1974, p. 159).
In the light of the above, is it not pathetic
that Indian Leftists should still place their blind faith in Marx's inadequate,
borrowed and now outdated knowledge about India?
