The bel esprit
of ‘welfare economics’ studying, earning and living since
mid-fifties in the West, now puts a project for the ‘people’ here “Look East for Democracy.”1 No getting on your nerves please, as he
has already declared in his Autobiography:
“What was at stake, it seemed to me, in political toleration
was not just the liberal political arguments that had so clearly emerged in
post-Enlightenment Europe and America India
“The
Argumentative Indian”
elaborates on the theme. While urging people to go back in history and reason
for themselves the meaning of modern democracy, Prof. Sen says, “Silence is an enemy of social justice” and adds a word of advice – “Argumentative tradition is our heritage,
but its effectiveness lies in how we use it.” In addition, it has a “from time immemorial” tag by the politician Chief Minister
Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.2
Maybe, Mr.
Bhattacharjee, once information minister, is destitute of the historical information
that Prof. Sen’s “tradition heritage” results from the Rigveda that
counts from time memorial in that its composition by the Aryan tribes
got going subsequently with their invasion through North-West India
However, the “Argumentative” is conspicuous in “silence” about the most decisive fact that the
history of all hitherto class societies including the ones evolved in India
CLICK READ MORE FOR THE FULL ARTICLE
Oriental
Slavery
“The first prerequisite of [the] earliest form of landed
property appears as a human community, such as emerges from spontaneous
evolution (naturwüchsig): the family, the family expanded into a tribe,
or the tribe created by inter-marriage of families or combination of tribes. We
may take it for granted that pastoralism, or more generally a migratory life,
is the first form of maintaining existence, the tribe not settling in a fixed
place but using up what it finds locally and then passing on. Men are not
settled by nature (unless perhaps in such fertile environments that they could
subsists on a single tree like the monkeys; otherwise they would roam, like the
wild animals). Hence the tribal community, the natural common body, appears not
as a consequence, but as a precondition of the joint (temporary) appropriation
and the use of the soil.
“Once men finally settles down, the way in which to a
smaller degree this original community is modified will depend on various
external, climatic, geographical, physical, etc., conditions as well as on
their special natural make-up – their tribal character. The spontaneously evolved tribal
community, or, if you will, the herd – the common ties of blood, language, custom, etc. – is the first precondition of the
appropriation of the objective conditions of life, and of the activity which
reproduces and gives material expression
to, or objectifies (vergegenständlichenden) it (activity as herds
– men hunters,
agriculturists, etc.). The earth is the great laboratory, the arsenal that
provides both the means and the materials of labour, and also the location, the
basis of the community. Men’s relation to it is naïve; they regard themselves as the communal
proprietors, and those of the community, which produces and reproduces
itself by living labour. Only as far as the individual is a member – in the literal and figurative sense – of such a community, does he regard
himself as an owner or possessor. In reality appropriation by means of
the process of labour takes place under these preconditions, which are
not the product of labour but appear as its natural or divine
preconditions.
“Where the fundamental relationship is the same, this form
can realize itself in a variety of ways. For instance, as is the case in most
Asiatic fundamental forms it is quite compatible with the fact that the all
embracing unity which stands above all these small common bodies may appear
as the higher or sole proprietor, the real communities only as hereditary
possessors.. Since the unity is the real owner, and the real
precondition of common ownership, it is perfectly possible for it to appear as
something separate and superior to the numerous real, particular communities.
The individual is then in fact propertyless, or property – i.e. the relationship of the individual
to the natural conditions of labour and reproduction, the inorganic
nature which he finds and makes his own, the objective body of his subjectivity
– appears to be
mediated by means of a grant (Ablassen) from the total unity to the
individual through the intermediary of the particular community. The despot
here appears as the father of all numerous lesser communities, thus realizing
the common unity of all. It therefore follows that the surplus product (which,
incidentally, is legally determined in terms of [infolge] the real
appropriation through labour) belongs to this higher unity. Oriental despotism
therefore appears to lead to a legal absence of property. In fact, however, its
foundation is tribal or common property, in most cases created through a
combination of manufacture and agriculture within the small community, which
thus becomes entirely self-sustaining and contains within itself all conditions
of production and surplus production,
“Part of its surplus labour belongs to the higher community,
which ultimately appears as a person. The surplus labour is rendered
both as tribute and as common labour for the glory of the unity, in part that
of the despot; in part that of the imagined tribal entity of the god. In so far
as this type of common property is actually realized in labour, it can appear
in two ways. The small communities may vegetate independently side by side, and
within each, the individual labours independently with his family on the land
allotted to him. (There will also be a certain amount for the common store – for instance as it were – on the one hand; and on the other for
defraying the costs of the [higher] community as such, i.e. for war, religious
worship, etc.. The dominion of lords, in its most primitive sense, arises only
at this point, e.g. in the Slavonic and Rumanian communities. Here lies the
transition to serfdom, etc.) Secondly, the unity can involve a common
organization of labour itself, which in turn can constitute a veritable system
as in Mexico Peru India
Collating Marx’s brilliant insight above with the latest
discoveries about our “African evolution”, such as “Oldest known humans just got older”4 and other related articles we get to our “African origin” in Ethiopia
Aryans and
Dravidians
This subcontinent
not long called “India” provided home to a part of our “migratory” hunter-gatherer ancestors from “only a single dispersal from Africa most
likely via a southern coastal route, through India and onward into southeast
Asia and Australia”5 during probably the last Ice Age 30,000-40,000 years ago. The part
that settled down was the ancestor of the Dravidians. The other part
migrated through the Middle East and onward
into the steppes of South East Europe and Siberia .
Over time, they split again, some moved about Central Asia towards North East
via Alaska entered North and South America, and others roaming behind in
kinship groups naturally evolving into communities of nomadic pastoral tribes
generally called the Aryans with their main source of wealth cattle and
cows, which they used as medium of exchange with others who they met. Among the
nomadic pastoral tribes the community always remained united – a travelling party,
caravan, horde with forms of higher and lower ranks developing out of their
mode of life. Their spread resulted in larger regroupings and warlike
organizations for invasions against neighbouring tribes. Some went westward
settling on lands beyond the Alps .
Nine Aryan tribes
from Central Asian steppes under their respective leaders called Rajas
federated under a Maharaja of the greater tribe – the Bharata – intruded through the Pamirs and the Hindu Kush Mountain Indus Valley Harappa . This civilization built up a kind of
undifferentiated unity of town and country with manufacture and agriculture.
The towns had broad avenues, two-storied houses built with fire burnt bricks,
baths, water supply and drainages as discovered lately. Ruins of palaces, quarters
for the nobility and for the ordinary bear out existence of state power and
social difference comprising higher and lower classes, but no castes
like the Aryans, anyway. Findings of writing also bear witness of their social
advancement. These towns were auspicious to conduct external relations, whether
of war or barter, “or
where the head of the state and his satraps exchanged their revenue (the
surplus product) against labour, which they expended as labour-funds”. Nevertheless, at that time this subcontinent
was not an integrated empire, but split into a series of tiny kingdoms and
principalities.
“The difficulties encountered by the organized community can
arise only from other communities which have either already occupied the land
or disturb the community in its occupation of it. War is therefore the great
all-embracing task, the great communal labour, and it is required either for
the occupation of the objective conditions for living existence or for the
protection and perpetuation of such occupation. The community, consisting of
kinship groups, is therefore, in the first instance organized on military lines
as a warlike, military force, and this is one of the conditions of its
existence …The
nature of tribal structure leads to the differentiation of kinship groups into
higher and lower, and this social differentiation is developed further by the
mixing of conquering and the conquered tribes, etc.”6 “Among nomadic pastoral tribes the
community is in fact always united, a travelling party, caravan, horde, and the
forms of higher and lower develop out of the conditions of this mode of life.
What is appropriated and reproduced is here only the herd and not
the soil… [For] settled
peoples, the only barrier, which the community can encounter in its relations
to the natural conditions of production as its own – to the land – is some other community, which has
already laid claim to them as its inorganic body. War is therefore one of the
earliest tasks of every primitive community of this kind, both for the defiance
of property and for its acquisition.”7
The Aryans
annihilated some of the Dravidian population, captured, tortured, enslaved many
and coerced the rest away down south beyond the Vindhyas. Eventually the
land was divided into two segments: the Indo-Gangetic plains (‘Sindhu-Ganga-Brahmaputra’ basin) as the Aryavarta or the
land of the Aryans, while the southern mineral reach plateau with rivers and
jungle regions was called the Deccan until later Aryan campaigns (Ramayana).
All-encompassing war relations between the conquering Aryans (organized as a
military force) and the conquered Dravidians (cultivating land, fishing,
hunting, domesticating animals – sheep, pigs, buffalo, camels and elephants – and working crafts and scripts) gave rise
to the typical form of slavery in India: “all embracing unity” above, and “the general slavery of the orient” below, widespread as rule of a domestic,
patriarchal variety.
The belligerent
organizational division of labour of the Aryans already rested on “higher and lower” classes having a four-caste system: the Brahmin
or the priests, the Kshatriya or the warrior caste, the Vasya – commune peasants, artisans and traders,
and at the bottom the Sudra – hired workmen, peasants and slaves. The first three called
‘Twice-born’ (“dwija” or regenerated), the second birth via ‘purification’ and wearing the sacred or holy thread,
formed covenanted Aryan racist nobility ranks that monopolized the Vedic
religious rites reflecting caste and social order. The status between
these upper castes was to an extent like that between the ‘masters’ and ‘free citizens’ in relatively younger ancient Grecian and
Roman empires. The fundamental creed of Brahminism stood on three gods: Brahma
– the creator of the
world, Vishnu – the God of Good, and Shiva – the God of Evil, who mutually invented
the grand accord –
the Trimurti. Although the upper three castes could participate in
religious rites, the authority of interpreting the Vedas rested only with the
Brahmins. The castes were fenced with prohibition on inter-caste marriage and
children out of an illicit marriage were treated as tainted and downgraded to
lower castes. The most privileged were the Brahmins – free from taxation, conscription and
corporal punishment. Legally, a nine-year-old Brahmin boy was regarded as a
father of a ninety-year-old Kshatriya. In peace times, the Kshatriya
caste enjoyed a secure life with wealthy gifts and favours from the Rajas. In
war times, however, they were the only division of the population required to
fight. The Vaisya caste had to pay taxes: commune peasants up to
one-sixth of their produce and merchants up to one-fifth of their income, but
free from military service. The miserable was the Sudra caste having no
right but obligation only. Members of the upper castes had only to pay a fine
for murdering a Sudra equal to a fine for killing a dog. Notably, this
caste with many subdivisions had at the bottom the Namah Sudra or pariahs
or the untouchables, the prisoners of wars, the Dravidian ancestry,
forced into slavery. Decipher mystic forms of various myths and legends,
religious ceremonies, and idols worshipped in India, and you will see the long
discord and resultant divisive accord among the warring peoples. This process
eventually produced more and more complex relations stitching many faiths of
those involved in the empire raising reconstitution of society.
Buddhism
Prof. Sen claims
his “public reasoning in
democracy”
has “strong roots in India India
The Rigveda,
the oldest religious and sacred scripture in the world composed by the Aryans
in the period from 1500–1200 BC comprises more than 1000 hymns addressed to Dev-Devis or
God-Goddesses, reflecting polytheism. Upanishads, composed since 500 BC
based on preaching since 1000 BC espouse the tradition of the Vedas,
which were products of perception and intent in establishing greatness of the
name Aryan, escalating economic interests by annexing pre-occupied land
as the natural conditions of reproduction. Ramayana (c. 300 BC),
consisting of 24,000 couplets in seven books, describes the life of the
legendary hero Rama and his 14-year long campaign and exploits through the
Deccan far into Lanka (the island kingdom off the SE coast of India, a republic
since 1972 taking the name of Sri Lanka). Mahabharata, full of
philosophical and religious legends including almost 100,000 stanzas evolving
over centuries to attain its current form c. AD 400, tells the stories of the
civil war fought between the sons of Bharata – the five Pandava brothers and
their hundred Kuru stepbrothers at Kuruksetra near modern Delhi
To get at the
cause let us apply Marx’s method:
“At a certain stage of development, the material productive
forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production.
…From forms of development
of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters.”9
“The community itself appears as the first great force of
production; special kinds of conditions of production (e.g. animal husbandry,
agriculture) lead to evolution of a special mode of production and special
forces of production, both objective and subjective, the latter appearing as
qualities of the individuals. …Up to a certain point reproduction. Thereafter, it turns into
dissolution.”10
Thus, we see,
eventually, the stage had arrived when most of the Asian communities turned
into dissolution during c.1000 BC and c. 500 BC. As their
relations of production turned into fetters of the developing productive
forces, constant peasant revolts for survival and immense rise in state
expenses, etc. exhausted state treasuries giving rise to politico-religious
conflicts and forcing kingdoms wage plundering wars against one another. Thus,
the geological limits of the kingdoms to expand their territories showed that
society’s development in
accordance with the tribal territorial relations had ended leading to an era of
great empire building conquests elevating an emperor upon subdued kingdoms. As
it happened, we saw Magadha on the central reaches of the Ganges and Kosala on
the north-west (c. 6th – 5th BC), Alexander’s conquest (c. 4th BC),
Chandragupta Maurya (c. 322-297 BC) and then his grand son Ashoka (c. 304-232
BC), the last major emperor of the Mauryan Empire consolidating India first
under Buddhism.
Already,
politico-religious conflicts had given rise to Buddhism against the
sacrificial and discriminatory religion of Brahminism. This religion and
philosophy developed in northeastern India based on the teachings of Siddhartha
Goutama, born a prince of the Shakyas on the India-Nepal border (usually
c. 563 BC –
483 BC).11 He left the
palace, encountered an old man, a sick man, and a corpse, spent seven years
seeking out teachers and trying various ascetic practices, including fasting,
to gain enlightenment, the meaning of life. Unsatisfied with the
results, he meditated beneath a fig or Bodhi Tree and after temptation
by Mara, grasped Four Noble Truths: all existence is suffering
or dukha; the cause of suffering is desire; to escape from dukha
(suffering) within the endless cycles of birth, death and rebirth (a
faith taken from Hinduism) is to attain Nirvana (liberation). Thus he
became the Buddha (Sanskrit: ‘Enlightened One’) or Shakya Muni. His first sermon, the Eightfold
Path offered a middle way between self-indulgence and self-mortification
leading to the Nirvana or Nibbana. Central to this faith is the
doctrine ‘no-self’ (anatman) and the practice of
meditation. Its first Truth is: nothing lasts – everything changes. There is no rest
until Nirvana – a contradiction in itself since lastly Nirvana lasts.
The three ‘jewels’ of Buddhism are the Buddha, the
doctrine or Dharma, and the monastic order, i.e. Sangha,
customarily comprising groups: monks, nuns, laymen, laywomen, so-called
celibate clerics divided into Bhikhu sangha for men and Bhikhuni sangha
for women involved in Dharma, living on elm, since engaging in commerce
or agriculture was discouraged. They also adopted the doctrine of ‘karma’ from Hinduism but rejected many of its
doctrines and all of its gods.
Interestingly, ‘celibacy’ being the ideal, once the humanity as a
whole turns ‘celibate’ just one generation would end the endless
cycles of birth, death and rebirth of human species forever. Having so
simple a solution to suffering at hand why suffer with so difficult spiritual
belongings about ‘enlightenment’ at all?
Buddhists opposed
the monopoly of the Brahmins, sought to abolish caste-based inequality, and
stimulated aspirations amid the Vaisya caste for equality,
obviously in individual’s spiritual life and not in real life. It was out of
question, because at that stage of evolution of society when facts appeared
mysterious emergence of economic class interests from within its material
substratum had to remain an insurmountable obstacle.
Due to the
reified constitution of consciousness, a thorough change on viewpoint was
impossible. In pre-capitalist epochs, class-consciousness was inept to attain
complete clarity to control the course of history consciously. Since interests
of classes in pre-capitalist societies could never realize full economic
expression.
“Hence
the structuring of society into castes and estates means the economic elements
are inextricably joined to political and religious factors. … The
division of society into estates or castes means in effect conceptually and
organizationally these ‘natural’
forms are established without their economic basis ever being conscious. It
means that there is no mediation between the pure traditionalism of natural
growth and the legal institutions it assumes.”12
Not castes – but estates, and no escape
Ashoka, the emperor (c.269-232 BC) adopted Buddhism
after his bloody conquest of Kalinga, roughly present-day Orissa, furthered the
expansion of that religion throughout India Ceylon Syria India
The Buddhists held
“religious councils” on doctrine and practice, repeatedly at
Rajagriha (modern Rajgir) to compile Buddha’s remembered words, including Sutras
and monastic rules, second at Vaishali to dissolve disputes within the monastic
communities with two major traditions or ‘vehicles’ Mahayana (or emerging as Vajrayana) and Theraveda
(often called Hinayana) having distinctive practices. A third council,
called by Ashoka resolved doctrinal disputes in favour of Theraveda..
Others continued up to the mid-20th century.. Actually, Buddhism
rested on distinction of ranks instead of discrimination between castes
in Hinduism. Such “virtue
of listening to others and that of public discussion” through “religious councils” has nothing to do with the task which
history has conferred upon the working class today.
Nevertheless,
there is still no escape in sight from Dukha (sufferings) – “poverty and famines”, bloody wars and senseless destruction of
provisions of life, crime and killing, no ‘enlightenment’ about how we live and how we could live,
and no Nirvana either. Religious councils wanted to resolve disputes over a
manifest nonsense about life after death, a never-resolved dispute in all
religions around us. Nobody disputes that suffering of one ends with one’s death, but the suffering of the living
exists with the existence of classes in society up until today. So much of ”public discussion” in religious councils.
Banish Gods
from Skies and Capitalists from Earth
The working class
will also hold councils, i.e. revocably delegated working bodies that will
begin resolving disputes via criticism of the world beyond truth and action to
establish the truth of this world, as advised Marx:
“Man makes religion, religion does not make man. …The struggle against religion is therefore
indirectly a fight against the world of which religion is the spiritual aroma.
Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real
distress and also the protest against real distress. Religion is the
sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of the heartless world, just as it is
the spirit of the spiritless conditions. It is opium of the people. To
abolish religion as the illusory happiness is to demand their real
happiness. The demand to give up illusions about the existing state of affairs
is the demand to give up a state of affairs which needs illusions. The
criticism of religion is therefore in embryo the criticism of the vale of
tears, the halo of which is religion. …Religion is the only illusory sun which
resolves round the man as long as he does not resolve round himself. The task
of history, therefore, once the world beyond truth has disappeared,
is to establish the truth of this world. … Thus the criticism of heaven turns into
the criticism of the earth, the criticism of religion into criticism
of law and the criticism of theology into the criticism of
politics. …
Criticism no longer appears as an end in itself, but only as a means.
Its essential sentiment is indignation; its essential activity is denunciation.
… The weapon of
criticism cannot of course, replace criticism by weapons, material force must
be overthrown by material force. …The criticism of religion ends with the teaching that man is
the highest being for man, hence with categorical imperative to
overthrow all relations in which man is debased, enslaved, forsaken,
despicable being, relations which cannot be better described than by the
exclamation of a Frenchman when it was planned to introduce a tax on dogs: Poor
dogs! They want to treat you like human beings!”13
The “Argumentative
Indian” enjoys his hyped ‘eminence’ telling “people” to look backward to an antiquated social
system with classes elevating one ‘great’ emperor above many kings and rank estates top-down resting on
slavery underneath. The entire he refers us to with “tradition heritage” is merely ‘past is golden’ dose viciously pseudo-tolerant
politico-religious opium that belonged in the pre-capitalist economic
formations with prevalent slavery of a household, patriarchal
variety.
What kind of “traditional values of tolerance and
plurality” do
we see in the violent idols of Devi Durga (Goddess) with her sons and
daughters killing the Asura (Demon) and his buffalo as derived from the
25th poem of Ch. 10 of the Rigveda and subsequently
incorporated into Devi Bhagbat Puran (one of the ancient mythologies of
the Hindus)? The worship of the idol clearly demonstrates the worldly
interests of the Suras (Aryans) that lurks behind an unworldly myth.
Historically, these 'pujas' here relate to the Vedic religion of the
Aryan tribes who entered NW India c.1500 BC. It demonstrates the violent
and horrific executions perpetrated by the intruder Aryans (the 'Suras' -
distinctly divided into four classes) over the inhabiting non-Aryans (the
'Asuras' - as called by the Aryans) who, after the Aryan 'bijoy'
(conquest), were dehumanized as the oriental slave class called
'namah-sudras' [the untouchables] as the end part of society at the
bottom line below even their [the Aryan’s] own slave class the 'sudras'. And
in Bengal the 'pujas' began to spread with
Raja Nabakrishna Deb organising 'Durga Puja' in 1757 to celebrate his victory
in collaboration with the East India Company over Nawab Shiraj in the Battle of
Plassey. His guests of honour were Robert Clive and his wife, and Clive was
later tried by the British Parliament on charges of 'colossal corruption'.
Why worship a
murderous picture at all? Does anybody like a killing anyway? Because
capitalism needs it.
Socialists
understand that all these rituals will become irrelevant with the
advent of Socialism.
What kind of “traditional values of tolerance and plurality” did we witness in the cruel
discriminating relations between the castes, and in the Brahmins falling out
against Sankhya philosophy (founded by Kapil Muni, c.7th
BC) that countered other philosophies? The Sankhya defined ‘reality’ having ‘cause and effect’ relation
placing ‘cause’, however, outside the ‘effect’, the ‘real self’ as the interaction between ‘purush’ (consciousness) and ‘prakiti’ (eternal unconscious and unchanging
principle), hence unable to cross the idealist limit. What kind of “traditional values of tolerance and
plurality”
did we witness when the Brahmins burnt up all writings and records of their
dissident skeptic Charvaka Philosophy, early oriental materialism, like
Epicureanism of Epicurus (341-270 BC) in Greece
All we humans
belong to the one and the same human species – homo sapiens sapiens – which, according to the two fossil
findings in Ethiopia, made its appearance about 195,000 years ago and in
course of time evolved and spread out of that original habitat under various
circumstances to survive and populate their mother Earth's lands. We will
have to celebrate some day – the sooner the better – our achievement of the great social reunion as
against the great social divisions into religions, races,
classes, nation states and all other anti-human – hence anti-social prejudices.
BINAY SARKAR
Notes:
1 “Look East for Democracy: Sen”, New Delhi ,
The Statesman, Aug. 2,
2005
2 The
Statesman, Kolkata, July
31, 2005
3 Marx, Pre-Capitalist
Economic Formations, International Publishers, New York , 1975, pp.68-71)
4 Jeff Hecht, 16 February 2005 , NewScientist.com
news service
5 CSE/Down to
Earth Feature Service
6 Marx, Pre-Capitalist
Economic Formations, pp.71-2
7 Ibid.
p.89
8 The Sunday
Statesman, Aug 7, 2005
9 Marx, Preface, A
Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Moscow , p.21
10 Marx, Pre-Capitalist
Economic Formations, p.94-5
11 Simon Blackburn,
Oxford
12 Lukács, History and Class Consciousness, pp.55, 56-7
13 Marx, Contribution
to the Critique Hegel’s Philosophy of Law
[Right], CW. 3, pp. 175-82
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