One of the greatest thinkers of the Universe, Karl Marx’s biggest contribution can be debated by many. Great that in India all those who agreed with him but not agreed with those who claim to be following him, greeted. As a philosopher, he gave us the tool of scientific and rational thinking and most importantly, that there is nothing called sacrosanct and intellectuals have to be ruthless in their critique. Unfortunately, in our parts of the world where intellectuals had deep rooted prejudices based on their birth, language, caste, gender and religion, people found it easy to denigrate Marx. The worst thing that happen in our society is that people jump into comparison mode. There is no need to compare historical figures. Each one has a role. Some have influenced more people, others have particular people but we must understand their socio-cultural locations and time period too. You may disagree with Marx ( I am not sure what may be the disagreement) but you cant ignore his huge contribution to influence our consciousness. There are very few who have been able to change the course of world history as Marx did. Ofcourse, we can disagree with those who claim to follow him but actually created ruthless state structures to control people, their political freedom and right to choice. The state that governed under the pretext of Marx denied the liberty of conscience to people which he espoused for.
Though the capitalist world and their pen pushers have been denigrating Marx and insulting him through various means but there is a realisation of growing reality that the capitalist module has failed. It has aggravated inequality and discrimination. Democracies today are hijacked by big private corporations who are virtually running the world without any fear. There is no doubt that we need critical thinking but in the name of a marxist government people are not ready to leave their personal freedom and choices which many of the states in the name of following Marx’s order did and hence a negativity grew up among the youngsters that Marxism means which deny you political freedom and meant for a totalitarian state.
Marx is very relevant today but yes every state and society has huge issues and solutions. Great philosophers never wanted to be made as Gods but the followers convert them into and shy away from a debate based on reasoning. Marx will remain one of the greatest philosophers of the world and the need is not to make his Dascapital into another religious book violating which become blasphemy but use the tool to resolve ,the current crisis that we face. Many things may not be there but then we have the think beyond them too.
There is no denial of facts that western demonisation of Marx has been exposed. In India the religious rights of the brahmanical manuwadi variety never liked him because his ideas could be a challenge. All the rationalist thinkers are a challenge to religious rights and capitalism. Their ways may be different in handling the crisis but all of them considered both religious right wing, supremacy of the priestly classes as well as exploitation by the private people as the biggest challenge. Nobody explained it better than Dr Ambedkar for Millions of Indians oppressed by the pernicious caste system devised by the brahmanical jugglery of controlling your minds through denial of education to all the people and disallowing others to study the ‘religious’ text in ‘Sanskrit’.
We hope that new generation of intellectuals and activists will carry the ideals of rationality, socialism, elimination of caste , religious, gender and racial prejudices and importance of welfare state to save the humanity. It is right time to revisit Marx and use his tools to strengthen our movements against socio-economic-cultural injustice and understand the other similar perspectives that influenced people in different part of the world, somewhere more than him, elsewhere like him. Remember, it is important, the world can not be governed by unilateral and unified ideas but an amalgamation of the like minded ideas. Diverse forces of social justice, human rights, secularism, economic inclusion must converse and work together to defeat the biggest monsters of our time the looters of our national and natural wealth actively supported by the priestly classes world over. The masses oppressed by the private businesses as well as priestly classes need to rise in revolt and defeat them to protect their sovereignty and integrity of their nation as well as exploitation of the poor.
Vidya Bhushan Rawat is a social and human rights activist. He blogs at www.manukhsi.blogspot.com twitter @freetohumanity Email: [email protected]