Morichjhanpi to Singur Nandigram: Persecution of Dalits and Margin People
Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Email: alashchandrabiswas@gmail.com">palashchandrabiswas@gmail.com
The West Bengal government reacted violently to the incursion by the refugee-settlers. It alleged that the refugees had violated the Forest Acts protecting the mangrove forest. The Morichjhanpi incident refers to the actions throughout 1979 when thousands of settler families were brutally evicted from the island. The incident resulted, directly or indirectly, in hundreds of deaths, including 36 refugees killed in police firings on January 31, 1979. In spite of a pathetic fightback by some of the islanders, several thousand settlers were eventually removed over the course of the year.
The Morichjhanpi incident has been extensively documented by Dr Annu Jalais of the LSE. It also features prominently in The Hungry Tide, a novel by the well-known Indian novelist Amitav Ghosh, who drew extensively on Jalais' research for his story.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morichjhanpi"
Morichjhanpi to Singur Nandigram: Persecution of Dalits and Margin People continue thanks to the thirty years of Mrxist Brahminical Rule, committed to Post Modern Manusmriti of Globalisation!
Morichjhanpi witnessed the first genocide in Mrxist Raj and Nandigram and Singur have become the killing fields of MNC Raj promoted for Capitalist Development as per as the agenda of Zionist Hindu US Imperailism!
Nimitz
The USS Nimitz's visit to Chennai has raised the Left's hackles. But just what and why are they protesting, especially since India is asking for a seat at the Security Council high table and we are shouting out to the world that we want to be recognised as a nuclear power.
National Secretary of the CPI-M and Rajya Sabha MB, D Raja says the reason they are worked uo because he told CNBC-TV18, "We find it as a reversal of long-standing policy of not-allowing nuclear warships carrying offensive weapons in our waters."
But of that's the case, then how does one explain that since 1988, around 10 warships have entered Indian waters and have berthed at Indian ports. Former Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Prakash agrees. He says, "You are quite right. We've exercised on and off with foreign navies who have deployed nuclear submarines in the exercises. To the best of my knowledge, we had the French navy, the Royal navy, the US navy. Their submarines have exercised with our units and from time to time, they have berthed in Indian harbours withou any problem."
"To the best of my knowledge, there is no written directive to that effect. Nuclear power is ofcourse, a separate issue altogether. So, as far as I know, there is neither any directive to prevent any nuclear powered vessels to enter Indian waters and the issue of weapons have been left unsaid. I'm not sure if in the political domain if warships carrying nuclear weapons are or are not allowed into Indian waters."
Pakistan's confrontation with militants at a mosque in Islamabad has brought home the dangers of terrorism to that country and India wishes it success in fighting the menace, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Thursday.Singh's comments came as Pakistan struggled to end the face-off at the Lal Masjid after clashes that began on Tuesday with militant Taliban-style students holed up inside left 19 dead.Singh told a group of women journalists he wished Pakistan "godspeed in tackling the dangerous situation" arising out of the fighting at the mosque in the national capital, NDTV quoted him as saying. On the other hand,The West Bengal government wants the strengthening of existing laws to deal firmly with terrorism but will not draw up any legislation like POTA, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said today. Many terrorist groups are operating in West Bengal and the state government is taking measures to strengthen laws to deal with them.
National NO SEZ Convention held on 2 nd and 3rd June witnessed a major Dalit Muslim combination in Case Hindu Heartland Left ruled Post Independence Kolkata for the first time. Result uas the historical meeting of Comrade jyoti Basu and MS Mamata Bannerjee. This meeting expressed well the psyche of the Ruling classes.We know, Madrasas are often seen with doubt in India. These religious organizations are accused of only providing old religious education and sometimes it is also said that these organizations give training in terrorism.In spite of all these allegations, the Madrasa of West Bengal is flourishing continuously, and the number of Hindu students is also growing day by day.According to a recent report, one out of every four students who takes the examination of High Madarsa or High School is non-Muslim. Nearly 20 percent of the total numbers of students are non-Muslim. The percentage of non-Muslim candidates in High Madrasa examination is 20 in the educational year of 2007. Sangh Parivar takes every pain to campaign against these madrasas and then central home minister Lal Krishna Adwani got an unexpected supporter behind him, the Marxist Chief Minister of West Bengal Buddha Dev to attack the madrasas. Mind you, the nonmuslim students in the Madrasa do belong to Dalit and OBC families along with tribals.
Muslim students are in minority in a Madrasa of Mohusu in the Narath Danjapur district, and more than 60 percent of the total numbers of students are Hindu. The success of the students of the Madrasa of West Bengal in board examinations and also in medical and engineering is a major factor in changing the thinking of non-Muslims.
Accomodation of MNCs in Rural Hunting ground in India is getting very tough due to the Singur Nandigram Dalit Muslim United peasants uprising. Hence,the Group of Ministers (GoM) set up to formulate relief and rehabilitation measures for those whose land is acquired for industrial projects would examine in detail The Land Acquisition Act on July 19.The GoM, chaired by Minister for Rural Development Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, would examine the act as it concerned the compensation to be given to farmers, he told reporters.The GoM had met for the first time on June 20 but was unable to reach a consensus over the crucial issue of land acquisition that has led to a controversy over special economic zones (SEZs) and other major industrial projects.
Finance Minister P. Chidambaram wanted to know why the existing policy of one-time payment as compensation should not continue. His query came up during an hour-long presentation on the policy by the rural development ministry. In its draft, the ministry has proposed compensation methods that are multi-choice, but also sustained over a period of time in terms of benefits accruing to farmers and others whose land is acquired for the development of SEZ. These include employment in the project to stake holding in the companies.
Meanwhile, a parliamentary panel has said the government should not dilute labour laws in special economic zones (SEZs). Though section 45 of the SEZ Act prohibits such changes, the government has softened provisions while framing rules for the economic enclaves, according to the parliamentary standing committee of commerce.The committee feels that several loopholes exist which could virtually rob the right to demonstrate or strike in an SEZ unit.Rules are framed to implement an act. They are normally based on the act. Sources said at times there might be contradictions.The House panel is studying the merits of SEZs from the standpoint of labour welfare. It will soon present its report to Parliament.In its deposition before the panel, the labour ministry had said all laws that apply to industrial units in the country would also apply to SEZs. It even cited a specific clause in the SEZ Act that debars the government from introducing certain flexibilities in SEZ areas that are enjoyed by the infotech and BPO units.The panel is not convinced by the ministry’s arguments.
It's The Same Old Song
Bhaskar Dutta
The debate arising out of the tragic incidents in Nandigram has acquired dramatically new dimensions. The relevant issues, it seems, are no longer whether the state governments should acquire land on behalf of private capitalists, or the package of compensations that should be paid to the different stake-holders. Instead, Nandigram has prompted some influential Left economists to question (yet again) the pattern of industrial development followed in the country, including that in West Bengal where their own party has been in power for three decades.
In a recent article in the Economic and Political Weekly, a leading Left econo-mist writes that the "root cause" of the tragedies in Nandigram and other places is the neo-liberal policy regime followed by the central and state governments. Economists in this group assert that such a policy regime can only support a specific kind of industrialisation - one which is controlled by private capi-talists. The pursuit of private profits by the latter group must inevitably render the entire growth process "anti-people" and hence result in demonstrations and agitations of the kind witnessed in West Bengal and several other states.
This group of economists is not necessarily opposed to industrialisation per se. But, they believe that the only sensible policy option is to turn the clock back a couple of decades, and entrust the responsibility of industrialisation to the public sector. The public sector, they would have us believe, is not really inefficient. All one needs to do to restore the profitability of the public sector is proper accounting, notably the use of the right set of prices.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Opinion/Editorial/LEADER_ARTICLE_Its_The_Same_Old_Song/articleshow/2175739.cms
Meanwhile, CPI(M) local committee leader Prasanta Sadhukhan and a man linked to an arrested party leader were among seven persons interrogated by the CBI today in connection with the murder of a woman who opposed the acquisition of land for the Tata Motors's plant in Singur. Dinu Manna, who was quizzed by the CBI, drove the motorbike of CPI-M's Singur committee secretary Suhrid Dutta, who is now in the agency's custody, sources said. Others who were questioned are Bhanu Hambi, an electrician who worked at the Tata Motors' project, Kesto Barik, a canteen worker there, local businessman Sailen Sahana, the officer-in-charge of Singur police station Priyabrata Bakshio and WBIDC official Apurba Banerjee, CBI sources said.
The sources said none of the seven persons were suspects in the case and that they were being interrogated by CBI Deputy Director A K Sahay to elicit information. Last month, the CBI arrested CPI(M) activist Debu Malik as the prime suspect in the case related to the murder of Tapasi Malik. After interrogating him, it picked up Suhrid Dutta. The charred body of Tapasi, who actively participated in anti-land acquisition protests in Singur, was found at the Tata Motors' project site on December 18 last year.
A CPI-M leader, arrested for the murder of a woman opposing the acquisition of land for the Tata Motors' car plant at Singur in West Bengal, today refused in a Delhi Court to undergo a lie detector test.
"I do not wish to be subjected to polygraph (or) lie detector test," Suhrid Baran Dutta, CPI-M's zonal committee secretary from Singur, told Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Kamini Lau during in-chamber proceedings.
The court then cautioned him that his refusal to undergo the test would lead to an adverse inference being drawn against him during the trial of the case.
However, Dutta said: "I still assert that I do not want to be subjected to such a test."
Dutta and CPI-M activist Debu Mallik were arrested on June 30 for the murder of Tapasi Mallik at the site of the Tata Motors' car plant on December 18 last year. The CBI is investigating the crime.
A court at Chandanagore in West Bengal had allowed Dutta to be taken to Delhi for conducting a lie-detection test on him. Dutta has to be produced in the Chandanagore court by July 12.
The CBI has claimed that Dutta's role in the conspiracy behind the murder was evident from the confessional statement made by co-accused Debu Mallik.
The charred body of Tapasi, who was in the forefront of the movement launched by the Trinamool Congress against the acquisition of land for the Tata project, was found on December 18 last year. She was allegedly raped before being killed.
"But the Left Front government is against detaining anyone without trial. We will not formulate any law like POTA," Bhattacharjee said while replying to a quesion in the assembly.
To another question, he said his government has formed a five-member committee to review the existing police act and to draft a new one in line with the directions of the Supreme Court. The panel, which was constituted in March, has been asked to prepare the draft as early as possible, he said. To a supplementary question on the timeframe for preparing the draft, he said it would not take much time. The Central government has sent a model act to the state.
The apex court has given several directions for preparing a new police act and forming a security commission, a police complaint authority and a police establishment board to oversee transfers and to separate the investigative and day-to -day work of the police force. The apex court, he said, has stated that there should be a definite policy for selecting the director general of police and that officers should have a minimum tenure of two years in a post.
Five killed in clashes in Nandigram on January 7
Five people were killed and 32 injured in clashes at Nandigram in East Midnapore district in January this year, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said today. Of the five, four belonged to the Bhumi Ucched Pratirodh Committee and one to the CPI(M), Bhattacharjee said in a written reply to Trinamool Congress MLA Saugata Roy in the assembly. He said of the injured, 27 were policemen. Cases were registered and were under investigation.
Refugees` Plight
There is another major difference between the narratives of the refugees from west Punjab and those from East Bengal. The uprooting in Punjab occurred in one swift swipe, with a virtual exchange of the majority of Hindu and Muslim population across the borders. While some six million Muslims crossed over to west Pakistan, four and a half million Hindus and Sikhs had moved into India by 1948. In Bengal, the migration continued over decades, with the Hindu refugees coming in trickles. By 1970, their number had reached five million. As for the Punjabi refugees (who came in a one-shot migration), by the 1950s they had been more or less re-settled; their problems solved on a once-and-for-all basis. But the plight of the refugees in West Bengal became a long-standing problem because of the peculiar historical situation and developments in the then East Pakistan, which determined the flow of these refugees. It is necessary to remember that a large number of Hindus in erstwhile East Pakistan; despite the Noakhali killings of 1946 - refused to leave their homeland immediately after Partition. But many among them were gradually driven out by violent acts of religious persecution carried out against them in certain parts of East Pakistan. Their migration took the form of periodic influx. In 1950, more than one million crossed over to West Bengal. In 1964 again, following another outburst of communal frenzy there, some six lakh Hindus took refuge in West Bengal. In 1970, when the then Pakistan government was clamping down upon all Bengali political opponents, many Hindu families, feeling more threatened than Muslims, crossed over to West Bengal (their number rising, according to one unofficial estimate, to around two million). The story of the Bengali refugees therefore did not end with the 1947 Partition. It reads like an unending tale of long-suffering migrants, spanning decades; their plight was described as a 'wasting disease' by one perceptive observer.
But while documenting the experiences of these refugees, both from Punjab and Bengal historians need to explore another angle. It is from the point of view of the women who suffered the most during the Partition. The book under review gives us an extremely perceptive account of these women, as well as an authentic historical background of the developments that led to their abandoning their homes in East Bengal, on the eve of the Partition, and later. But it is not a mere litany of woes. What makes this book stand out as a major departure in the recent feminist Partition studies, is Gargi Chakravartty's zooming in on the heroic struggles of these uprooted women in the alien surroundings of post-Partition West Bengal. They adapted themselves to the demanding role of working both within and outside their homes to supplement the family income. They joined their men folks in resisting the policemen who invaded their makeshift huts in the `colonies', which the then West Bengal government considered illegal encroachments. In the course of their community-based struggles (which came to be known as the `refugee movement' in West Bengal in the 1950-60 period), their mental horizon expanded. They became a part of the wider Left political movement which united them in solidarity with the other toiling sections of the West Bengali population. Gargi Chakravartty's narrative of their day-to-day predicaments and struggles to overcome them, becomes a fascinating history of the social emancipation and political maturation of a new generation of women in exile.
http://www.weeklyholiday.net/2006/050506/cul.html
'Untouchables' left behind in booming nation
By Emily Wax, Washington Post | July 5, 2007
DALLIPUR, India -- The hip young Indians working inside this country's multinational call centers have one thing in common: Almost all hail from India's upper and middle castes, elites in this highly stratified society. India may be booming, but not for those who occupy the lowest rung of society. The Dalits, once known as untouchables, continue to live in grinding poverty and suffer discrimination in education, jobs, and healthcare. For them, status and often occupation are still predetermined in the womb.While some Indians had hoped urbanization and growth would crumble ideas about caste, observers say tradition and prejudice have ultimately prevailed.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2007/07/05/untouchables_left_behind_in_booming_nation/
India's peasants, under the enormous weight of the exploitation by capitalists, landlords, money lenders and corrupt politicians, together with the crippling burden of poverty, have been pushed to the brink of death. At any cost the peasants will have to shoulder the responsibility of freeing themselves from the jaws of destruction. But what is the way out for them?
The partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947 was followed by the forced uprooting of an estimated 18 million people. Dandakaranya scheme which was undertaken after 1958 to resettle the refugees by colonising forest land: the project was sited in a peninsular region marked by plateaus and hill ranges which the refugees, originally from the riverine and deltaic landscape of Bengal, found hard to accept. Despite substantial official rehabilitation efforts, the refugees demanded to be resettled back in their "natural habitat" of Indian Bengal. However, this was resisted by the state. Notwithstanding this opposition, a large number of East Bengal refugees moved back into regions which formed a part of erstwhile undivided Bengal where, without any government aid and planning, they colonised lands and created their own habitats. Many preferred to become squatters in the slums that sprawled in and around Calcutta. The complex interplay of identity and landscape, of dependence and self-help, that informed the choices which the refugees made in rebuilding their lives.
According to Karl Marx, the creation of surplus value is the source of economic exploitation. Capitalists convert the surplus value into money value and that is how they accumulate profit. After a thorough analysis of the capitalist economy, Marx reasoned that all profit is exploitation because profit means the denial of the legitimate right of the working class to the wealth they produce. Consequently, profit is nothing but the exploitation of labour. Marx concluded that the creation of surplus value will stop only when economic exploitation ends. However, all communist states including the USSR, China, Vietnam, etc. have rejected Marx's theory of exploitation. According to these countries, the creation of surplus value in the economy is an indispensable part of national prosperity. In repudiation of Marxist ideas, profit is not considered exploitation. If Marx made the first attempt to analyse and define exploitation, then it must be said that his work is not free from defects, and this is because Marx tried to interpret exploitation only from the economic point of view.
Manusmruti Dahan Din
Manuvadis had arranged that Ambedkar does not get a ground for meeting, but a Muslim gentleman, Mr. Fattekhan, gave his private land. They had arranged that no supplies of food, water or anything else could be bought, so everything was brought from outside by our men. The volunteers had to take a vow of five items:
1. I do not believe on Chaturvarna based on birth.
2. I do not believe in caste distinctions.
3. I believe that untouchability is an anathema on Hinduism and I will honestly try my best to completely destroy it.
4. Considering that there is no inequality, I will not follow any restrictions about food and drink among at least all Hindus.
5. I believe that untouchables must have equal rights in temples, water sources, schools and other amenities.
Dr. Ambedkar came from Bombay by boat "Padmavati" via Dasgaon port, instead of Dharamtar, though it is longer distance, because in the event of boycott by bus owners, they could walk down five miles to Mahad.
Some people later tried to say that Dr. Ambedkar decided to burn Manusmruti at the eleventh hour, as he had to withdraw the programme of drinking water from Chavadar Tank under court orders and persuasion by the Collector. That is not true, because right in front of the pendal of the meeting a "vedi" was created beforehand to burn Manusmruti. Six people were labouring for two days to prepare it. A pit six inches deep and one and half foot square was dug in, and filled with sandle wood pieces. On its four corners, poles were erected, bearing banners on three sides. Banners said,
1. "Manusmruti chi dahan bhumi", i.e. Crematorium for Manusmruti.
2. Destroy Untouchability and
3. Bury the Brahmanism.
On 25th December, 1927, at 9 p.m., the book of Manusmruti was kept on this and burned at the hands of Bapusahib Sahastrabuddhe and another five six dalit sadhus.
In the pendal, there as only one photo, and that was of M. Gandhi, so it seems, dalit leaders including Dr. Ambedkar had yet to be disillusioned at Gandhi. At the meeting there was Babasahib's historical speech. The main points of speech:
We have to understand why we are prevented from drinking water from this tank. He explained Chaturvarna, and declared that our struggle is to destroy the fetters of Chaturvarna, this was the starting point of the struggle for equality. He compared that meeting with the meeting of 24th Jan. 1789, when Loui XVI of France had called a meeting of French peoples representatives. This meeting killed king and queen, harassed and massacred the upper classes, remaining were banished, property of the rich was confiscated, and it started a fifteen year long civil war. People have not grasped the importance of this Revolution. This Revolution was the beginning of the prosperity of not only France but whole of Europe and has revolutionized the whole World. He explained French Revolution in detail. He then explained that our aim is not only to remove untouchabilty but to destroy chaturvarna, as the root cause lies there. He explained how Patricians deceived Plebeians in the name of religion. The root of untouchabilty lies in prohibition of inter-caste marriages, that we have to break, he thundered. He appealed to higher varnas to let this "Social Revolution" take place peacefully, discard the sastras, and accept the principle of justice, and he assured them peace from our side. Four resolutions were passed and a Declaration of Equality was pronounced. After this Manusmruti was burned as mentioned above.
http://www.ambedkar.org/
Tanika Sarkar writes on THE TRAUMA AND THE TRIUMPH: Gender and Partition in Eastern India edited by Jasodhara Bagchi and Subhoranjan Dasgupta. Stree, Calcutta, 2003.
In all this, Bengal had remained, by and large, a relatively minor footnote. Punjab provided the dominant frame of reference to which Bengal provided examples of departures from the norm. Of course, there was a major exception to this general trend. Joya Chatterjee had, in fact, pioneered the revival in partition studies with a focus on Bengal. She was able to weave together the experiential with the institutional, the immediate events of holocaust with histories of communal ideology and political organization. In her more recent work, she had emphasized a vitally important point: partition did not end, but began in June 1947 as the scheme for territorial separation came to be finalized. In other words, the proper life of partition begins with the displaced people and the separated lands, the new economies and state structures, as they came to take shape from 1947.
In very recent years, the probe of Bengal partition has widened. The editors of the volume under review have rightly pointed out that the nature of the Bengal partition was different from Punjab in some very crucial ways. One of the striking differences is that there was no massive concentration of violence in one or two years followed by a virtual exchange of entire populations as happened in Punjab. The partition in Bengal was a very long drawn out affair, the borders remained open much longer and the migration was both more continuous and thinner at any given point of time. There were, moreover, repeated spurts of violence leading on to recurring bouts of migration, some of it caused by threat perception rather than by actual violence, and some of it also caused by economic dislocations that made older patterns of livelihood untenable. The Indian government, determined to accord proper refugee status only to people who could prove that their flight was directly caused by communal violence, took little responsibility for the streams of Hindus from East Pakistan. There was, moreover, more than one displacement in the lives of Bengali migrants as they were torn out of the settled Bengali landscape and flung into the wilds of the Sunderbans or into the forests of Dandakaranya outside Bengal. One hardly knows where to put a closure to the history of the Bengal partition.
The recent studies of Bengal partition have, therefore, focused closely on the history of displaced people, their many dislocations and their struggles for survival, land and homes. The focus on violent events or memories of spectacular violence which characterize the Punjab studies, are, in comparison, less dominant. The present volume continues that trend.
The most important feature of the volume is that it is a mosaic made up of fragments from many different archives. A diverse range of histories, history writings and historical sources are pulled together, suggesting multiple directions for future research. The collage format also enabled the editors to bring together many of the strengths of different modes of historical reconstruction. There are recollections as well as historical analyses of policies and experiences; there are accounts of state and institutional grapplings with the ‘refugee problem’ along with literary and filmic representations of refugee self-fashioning. And, true to the peculiarities of the Bengal partition, the scope is not confined to the moment when partition began to happen. The second partition of the subcontinent brings it into recent post-colonial histories as it concerned Bengal yet again. Given the diversity of genres and themes that the volume represents, it is impossible to write adequately about each single contribution. I shall merely point out some of the strengths.
As the title of the volume signifies, the editors work with a complex dialectic of losses and new beginnings. As Asoke Mitra had observed long back, the burden of partition was borne mainly by refugee women who stepped into unprecedented roles: homemaker, breadwinner, political activist. Such struggles in a hostile environment which compounded the traumatic escape from homes and homeland nonetheless promised new, though difficult, beginnings. The book provides an excerpt from Ritwik Ghatak’s memorable film, Meghe Dhaka Tara, but, in a different vein, the excitement of inhabiting public roles and spaces, perhaps, comes out more in Satyajit Ray’s Mahanagar. The woman, forced to earn a living, was not entirely a tragic figure, even if her difficulties were massive.
Dr. Ambedkar said:
"This principle will apply not only to Marathas but all Backward Castes. If they do not wish to be under the thumb of others they should concentrate on two things, one is politics and the other is education."
"One thing I like to impress on you is that the community can live in peace only when it has enough moral but indirect pressure over the rulers. Even if a community is numerically weak, it can keep its pressure over the rulers and create its dominance as is seen by the example of status of present day Brahmins in India. It is essential that such a pressure is maintained, as without it, the aims and policies of the state can not have proper direction, on which depends the development and progress of the state."
"At the same time, it must not be forgotten that education is also important. Not only elementary education but higher education is most essential to keep ahead in competition of communities in their progress."
"Higher education, in my opinion, means that education, which can enable you to occupy the strategically important places in State administration. Brahmins had to face a lot of opposition and obstacles, but they are overcoming these and progressing ahead."
"I can not forget, rather I am sad, that many people do not realize that the Caste system is existing in India for centuries because of inequality and a wide gulf of difference in education, and they have forgotten that it is likely to continue for some centuries to come. This gulf between the education of Brahmins and non-Brahmins will not end just by primary and secondary education. The difference in status between these can only be reduced by higher education. Some non-Brahmins must get highly educated and occupy the strategically important places, which has remained the monopoly of Brahmins since long. I think this is the duty of the State. If the Govt. can not do it, institutions like "Maratha Mandir" must undertake this task."
http://www.ambedkar.org/
Pre-requisites of Communism
Dr. Ambedkar avers that there are certain pre-requisites for the Marxism to succeed. These are the society should be a "Free society", meaning it should give importance to an Individual over the society and that it should be based on equality, fraternity and liberty. [Ambedkar, "India and the Pre-requisites of Communism", (W&S vol. 3,), p.95]
These have been brought to China by Buddhism and to Russia by Christianity. The absence of these factors in caste ridden Indian society could not foster the growth of Marxism in India, and that is why Marx failed in Hindu India. Marx could not properly evaluate the importance of caste or its influence on Indian masses. Because, Marx failed here, his followers in India talk of "Class" and not of "Caste". That is the reason, the movement of Marx in India was and still is in the hands of oppressor class.
Residue of Marxism
Marx expounded his theories about 150 years ago. Most of Marxism is demolished during these years. But what remains of the Karl Marx, Dr. Ambedkar feels, is a residue of fire, small but still very important. The residue in his opinion, consists of four items:
(i) The function of philosophy is to reconstruct the world and not to waste its time in explaining the origin of the world.
(ii) That there is a conflict of interest between class and class.
(iii) That private
