Marxism, Hinduism and Literature

It has become a fashion these days for some self-styled professors and social activists to criticise Hinduism and its various facets often using abusive language on some castes associated with that religion. This is nothing but a travesty of truth and an attempt to forcibly impose their views on others.

Having come from an orthodox–agriculture family, with a predominant rural background, born and brought up in in a remote village in Khammam district of Telangana state where I spent a major portion of my childhood, as also early education, I learnt the earliest and the fundamental lessons either in “literature” or in “humanism” or in “Hinduism,” amidst a unique

The essence is, whether it was a ‘Ramarajya’ or ‘Gramarajya,’ or ‘Karmikarajya,” the concern should be human being and that is humanism. Struggle for humanism is a continuum. It is iterative and recursive

geographical and historical background of the area where my village exists. Several of them are still fresh in my memory. All these made me understand in my early and formative years itself, about the philosophy of Vedic “determinism” (the theory of Karma Siddhantha).

“Hinduism,” whether a religion or not, but, as a way of life influenced me a lot. I am a born Hindu and still believe in chanting Gayathri, anytime, anywhere and in any body position I am in when I want to chant. However, none of these influences on my early childhood, and later too, could prevent me from turning my eyes to “Marxism and Communism,” which according to me is the landmark theory on humanism.

“Karma Siddhantha” – the philosophy of Vedic “determinism” – propounds that everything in the universe, from creation to destruction, is all pre-determined. Every living and non-living creature plays its assigned role in the universe in the form of a lengthy drama (Jagannatakam) written, produced and directed by the God Almighty.

The Marxist philosophy of determinism too says similarly. The anti-thesis, thesis and synthesis of this philosophy leading to establishment of Rule of the Working Class-Dictatorship of Proletariat, is born out of dialectical and historical materialism as also out of the theory of surplus value. Is this too not a pre-determined theory as much as the “the karma Siddhantha”?

Karl Marx is, undoubtedly, one of the greatest thinkers of all ages and of all schools. Though his writings were mainly directed to the critical analysis of capitalist development and ultimate transition to socialism, they were all depicting humanism in some form or other. The originality of this thought lies in his immense efforts to synthesise, in a crucial way, the entire legacy of social knowledge since Aristotle.

His purpose was to achieve a better understanding of the conditions of human development, and with this understanding, to accelerate the actual process, by which mankind was moving towards an “association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.” The desired system would be a “People’s Democratic Secular society” based on rational planning, cooperative production, equality of distribution, and, most important, liberated from all forms of political and bureaucratic hierarchy.

Dialectical Materialism, a philosophical approach to reality derived from the teachings of Karl Marx, holds that all phenomena exist objectively and independently of human perception and that reality is reducible to matter. In explaining human history by the application of this theory,

Marxism suggests that men’s mental and spiritual life, their ideas and aims, reflect their material conditions of co-existence. The relations that men enter, in producing the means of life, determine the class relations in society. Social and political institutions and their accompanying patterns of ideas arise as a superstructure on this economic base.

The history of society is the history of class struggles. History progresses from one stage to its diametrically opposite, and moves further to a higher level. All things contain contradictory sides or aspects – tensions and conflicts are the driving force of change. Thus, according to this theory, the inherent contradictions of any society will lead eventually to its overthrow by the rural workers. The final synthesis will be a classless society.

Didn’t Valmiki write the Ramayana, ahead of all these happenings, and foresee the birth of Rama as god incarnation? Did he also not predict the existence of Ravana, a cursed devotee of Lord Vishnu destined to be born as a Rakshasa? Ravana, the strongest (may be like the mighty, in the metaphysical sense, though in a different way) was ultimately overpowered by the combination of weakest forces – the human beings and monkeys – led by a tactful Rama, his brothers and Hanumanth. The final synthesis is establishment of Ramarajya.

Humanism is the name given to the intellectual, literary and scientific movement of the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries, a movement that aimed at basing every branch of learning on the literature and culture of classical antiquity. We heard of Christian Humanism, Cultural Humanism, Literary Humanism,

Political Humanism, and Religious Humanism and so on. The essence is, whether it was a ‘Ramarajya’ or ‘Gramarajya,’ or ‘Karmikarajya,” the concern should be human being and that is humanism. Struggle for humanism is a continuum. It is iterative and recursive. The message is struggle leading to recognition of humanism. Literature is one of the means to achieve humanism.

(Writer is CPRO to the Chief Minister, Telangana)

By Vanam Jwala Narasimha Rao