When Ideology Replaces Violence : Hiduism Unmasked

As is well known, it is one of the fundamental tenets of Marxism that the hierarchic structure of society with some classes producing use values and some other classes appropriating a surplus out of it and distributing it among themselves is held together in the ultimate analysis by violence. We advance as a hypothesis that this particular role in Indian history was played not by violence but by ideology. Ideology no doubt plays the role of smoothing over frictions in all societies : the ruling class ideology is meant to thwart. muffle and confuse class struggle in all class societies. In that there is nothing special about India. What is special about India is the stupendous success that was achieved by ideology in India in this role. Violence has of course been not in the least lacking in Indian history. But that is violence as between different claimants to political power all belonging to the same ruling class. We are talking of the absence of violence between the exploiting classes and the exploited classes. We are suggesting that it was never found necessary by the exploiting classes to use violence to make the exploited classes accept their exploitation and oppression. We are suggesting that the result was achieved by the use of ‘dharma” which, it may be recalled, literally means “something that holds together””. The Sudra was indoctrinated to accept without protest the Sudra-Dharma and the Chandala lived his life according to the canons applicable to his station. Dharma put the highest premium on the acceptance of one’s station in life and the existing social order and precluded any idea of rebellion. If Marx talked about the history of mankind being the history of class struggles he had before his mind the history of Europe which is full of instances of slave revolts and serfs fleeing from their lords. Indian history, however, does not provide any evidences of the Untouchables revolting against the upper castes. We are not vergetting the much cited and little-known Instance of the ‘Kaivartta revolt’ of the Pala period in Bengal but surely every one will concede that one may scrape the sources and yet not produce many other instances of the same kind. We may, in this connection, note that the substitution of physical violence by ideology is recognised even by the strong protagonist of Indian feudalism, R. S. Sharma, who writes : ‘But where was the need for military service if the people could be persuaded to behave themselves and to acquiesce in the existing order” ? It is not only in the relation between the direct producers and the appropriators of surplus that the Brahmanic ideology with its Jati Dharma and the theory of ‘Karma’ eliminated the need of violence ; the same is true of every other social relation of oppression. A glaring example is the way women have been made to accept not just an inferior status but a degradation unparalleled in any other society. The Indian male however never had to invent any such horrible contraptions to ensure his mentel peace. The ideal of ‘Patibratya’, driven deep into the very marrows of the Indian female, made her follow the examples of Sita and Savitri while her husband could indulge himself with any number of wives and concubines and cheerfully mount his funeral pyre after his death, What we are talking of is physical violence, corporal punishment and in extremity. annihilation. It goes without saying that in moral terms the ideology we are talking about is violent to an utmost degree. To the best of our knowledge, this particular role of ideology as a substitute for violence has not received the attention of historians and social scientists it deserves. As is well known, unlike Christianity and Islam. Brahminism never conquered by annihilating or by forcefully converting people worshipping non-Brahranic gods Tribes were, not eliminated. They were assimilated. The functional divisions within the tribal society were preserved and given caste denominations. The local gods and goddesses were incorporated into the Hindu pantheon by equations being invented between them and established Hindu gods. The essential point which we are aiming at is the absence of physical violence made possible by an ‘ astute manipulation of ideology. The question becomes even more intriguing when one reminds oneself that originality has never been a strong point of Indian Marxists, their Marxism being little more than a collection of undigested and unsynthesised propositions taken from the writings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin and treated as so many immutable laws. The truth is that Indian feudalism is a product of the Stalinist revision of Marxism. Indian Marxists have with very few exceptions learned their Marxism not directly “from Marx but from the bowdlerized versions produced by the hack writers of Stalin’s time. The thesis that we are advancing regarding the overwhelming Importance of ideology in Indian history has an extremely important implication for practice. It is that the struggle against reactionary elements of the Brahmanic ideology has to constitute a most important part in any struggle for progress in this country. In this particular matter the record of political parties committed to the idea of progress has been extremely poor. The leftist movements in the country have been mostly concerned with economic struggles ; they have acquired even political dimensions only as exceptions: (Courtesy: Economic &’ Political Weekly 26-12-81)