Tuesday, April 04, 2006

The Marxist Betrayal

These are random thoughts of mine based on previous reading. I do not refer to any specific text per se.

The history of the Marxists in India has been one of repeated betrayal of the country. They have let India down time and again when it came to the clash of interests with the Soviet Union or China. Their political loyalties lay outside.

M.K. Gandhi broad-based the Indian National Congress to include the teeming masses belonging to all ethnic, caste and religious groups in the anti-colonial freedom struggle. To quote B.R. Nanda "From a three day Christmas week picnic of the upper-middle class in one of the principal cities of India, it became a mass organization with its roots in small towns and villages". The Indian Marxists never had this rural base. There's was an urbanized elite leadership.

Stalin entered into a pact with Hitler in 1939. The understanding reached between the two was for Germany to annex western Poland while the Soviets annex eastern Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and parts of Finland. It was a territorial demarcation of war spoils between Europe's two most expansionist and authoritarian regimes. The Community Party of India then supported the independence struggle with a series of blitzkrieg trade union action, shut downs, gheraos, strikes and sabotage which crippled industrial activity. The railway workers, the sailors, the dockers and the textile workers belonging to the Marxist trade unions led the strikes. The intent was to weaken the colonial hold on the Indian economy and open a third front against Britain given that Stalin and Hilter had joined on an anti-western platform.

However, Hitler attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941. German troops had reached the outskirts of Moscow by December that year. The Soviet Union had suffered unparalleled destruction and did an immediate policy reversal to join the allied war effort. The Communist Party of India changed track in tandem. It decried the Indian freedom struggle as weakening the international struggle against fascism, a movement which the Marxists had initially allied with. The Communists pulled out of the freedom struggle. M.K. Gandhi had launched the Quit India Movement in the summer of 1942. The Communists turned informants and helped the colonial authorities to identify and imprison the entire leadership of the freedom struggle. The Indian Marxists supported the British in this crucial interlude given the new Soviet-British alliance against Hitler.

M.K. Gandhi and the Congress hierarchy were behind bars between 1942 and 1945. The Congress had convincingly won the 1937 elections while the Muslim League had suffered a devastating defeat at the hands of the Congress in all Muslim majority provinces of pre-partition India except East Bengal. While the Congress leadership had been imprisoned, Jinnah was free to organize the Muslim League and strengthen its holds over sections of the Muslim population of British India. The fortunes of the League rose between 1942 and 1945. The Marxists meanwhile supported the ideological case for partition arguing that the Muslim population was entitled to self-determination. This was interesting given the Soviet Union's own suppression of Muslims in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Stalin had deported the Chechens and Tartars to Siberia en-masse!

The British partitioned India in 1947. Pakistan immediately expelled its Marxists who fled to India!

Nehru, a self-proclaimed socialist, did not oppose Communist China's annexation of Tibet in 1950. Tibet had an area of 471,700 square miles. China was then fighting the United States in the Korean war and Nehru could have easily retained the colonial-era Indian military presence in Lhasa and consolidated it further in order to ensure Tibetan independence. Furthermore, Nehru supported Peking's cause in the United Nations. China responded by annexing the 15,000 square mile Aksai Chin in what remained of Indian-held Kashmir in 1957. Pakistan had earlier annexed Baltistan, Gilgit, Hunza and Muzafarabad that had an area of 32,000 square miles.

The Nehru administration was not even aware of that development in Aksai Chin while his Marxist Minister of Defence, Krishna Menon continued to support China in international fora such as the United Nations. Taiwan then occupied China's seat at the Security Council. The Indian Marxists later defended Chinese actions in Aksai Chin pointing out that enclave's historical links with Chinese-held East Turkestan, now called Xinjiang.

China invaded the North East Frontier Agency with an area of 32,000 square miles in 1962 and then quite as suddenly withdrew its troops. The road to Assam was open and Nehruvian India lay prostrate. The Indian Marxists defended Chinese actions on the alleged grounds that NEFA had historical links with Tibet. Not one of them questioned China's initial hold on East Turkestan and Tibet on historical grounds to begin with. China had no valid territorial claim on either under modern international law. China detonated the nuclear device in October, 1964. The Indian Marxists welcomed that step as part of the global war against international imperialism! Yet, when India exploded its second nuclear device in May, 1998, the Indian Marxists opposed that as an unnecessary belligerence.

The Indian Marxists have repeatedly let India down. They do not have Indian national interests at heart. They currently control the Departments of History in major Indian universities such as JNU. With that platform, they are able to twist the past to suit their nebulous aims in the present. I refer here to Habib Irfan, Harbans Mukhia, K.N. Panikkar, R.S. Sharma, Romila Thapar and Sarvapalli Gopal. Other individuals such as Arundhati Roy, Barkha Datta, Brinda Karat, Mani Shankhar Aiyer, N. Ram and Praful Bidwai in India, and Meera Nanda, Sarmila Bose, Sugato Bose and Sumantro Bose overseas continue to occupy the intellectual and media space in a disproportionate manner. They leverage this vantage point to weaken India!

31 comments:

history_lover said...

@Jaffna one may have differences with the leftists in India but to to accuse them of not having Indian interests at heart is rather too much.One could say that they are blinded by ideology but to accuse them of being anti national !
In fact one could argue that that elements of the rightwing by alienating minorities are weakening India rather than strengthening it.

Anonymous said...

Jaffna

Bravo! Agree with you 100%.

We need to expose the Indian Left's true colors as often, and as widely as possible

Anonymous said...

absolutely well written...very well done..

it is a sad thing indeed that indian media has a cacophony of marxist noises (from ndtv and the likes)..I believe the birth of our own Fox News is closeby..we need a O'Reilly and a Brit Hume....these idiots (barkha/arundhati) currently occupying space in the indian media need to be driven out...

doubtinggaurav said...

Jaffna,

I agree with Anon. India need its version of Fox.
(I am not going to say anything about marxist, I think you know where I stand :-))

Regards

Anonymous said...

Jaffna,

You might want to read a book review I posted on this subject looooooong ago: http://www.sandeepweb.com/2004/12/07/the-only-fatherland/

Better still, buy the book.

Sandeep
www.sandeepweb.com

Anonymous said...

Jaffna:

Excellent post. But why are you restricting yourself to the
historians. Even more insidious are the Marxist economists at Institutes like the JNU, Delhi School of Economics, Bombay University and even IIM-A.
Sebastian Morris, Eroll D'Souza, Amaresh Bagchi, Partha Sen, Romar
Correa among many others immediately come to mind. These Marxist economists still hold on to their failed central planning model of economic development. They provide the "credibility" toi the arguments to "obstruct" India's development. A case in point is their opposition to the sale and privatization of the failed PSU's!

Anonymous said...

Excellent post, Jaffna. Congratulations for having the courage to call it as you see it (as it should be seen IMO).

In addition to the political shenanigans of the communists, we also face more insidious dangers in the form of militant communism across the country today. Whole areas of AP, Orissa, Jharkhand and Lalu-land have been terrorised by Naxalites/Maoists. Though they are now bitter enemies of the Marxists, one cannot forget they were an off-shoot of the opportunistic communist mongrels of West Bengal.

As for institutions being hijacked by agenda-driven communists, nowhere is this more apparent than Bengal. Entire academia and civil institutions like police swarm with communist cadre. One lady, whose sole achievement was to write a hagiography of Jyoti Basu, was appointed VC of Calcutta university, if I remember correctly. Even the ABP group papers refrain (possibly out of fear) from criticising the CPM wholeheartedly.

Anonymous said...

Jaffna,
I'm curious as to your opinion of Mani Shankar Aiyar as the Union Petroleum Minister. It would seem to me that his policy seemed one of national interest ahead of anything else, and I'm curious as to why he would be classified in the category of traitors. For the most part, I'm not sure the names on the list you give are classified as traitors because of their actions or because they're simply left-leaning/hardcore left. This isn't a criticism of the list, simply a lack of knowledge as to what the various individuals named have done that their actions can be classified as treasonous. I really doubt whether you intended for all of them to take collective responsibility for the various incidents you have cited in the post, since they all seem to have disparate backgrounds.

-hitesh.

history_lover said...

As Hitesh said pray tell me how leftist historian Irfan Habib (incidentally of the Aligarh School of History) is a traitor ?
Or for that matter Romila Thapar ?
They are academics pure and simple.
One may have legitimate differences with thier interpretation of history but..
Similarly how is Mani Shankar Iyer (former IFS officer and Minister) a traitor ? I too find his craven loyalty to his Doon school chum Rajiv Gandhi extremely irritating but calling him anti-national ?

Anonymous said...

The Historians omissions and commissions are well-documented by Arun Shourie in 'Eminent Historians' - not just the scamming on 'history' bu also looting the ICHR.

kautilya said...

Excellent Post Jaffna. Way to go !

Anonymous said...

"Tibet had an area of 471,700 square miles. China was then fighting the United States in the Korean war and Nehru could have easily retained the colonial-era Indian military presence in Lhasa and consolidated it further in order to ensure Tibetan independence"

That is wrong. India had absolutely no capability to resist China in Tibet. Indian army generals at that time said that they could not imagine confronting China (which was then fighting the mighty US army to a standtill) over Tibet. India simply lacked the logistical capacity to intervene in any meaningful way.

And Menon was clearly a terrible defense minister, the worst in Indian history, but he was not a Marxist as far as I know. Incidentally, it is also false to say that Nehru did not know of Aksai Chin, he most definitely did.

Anonymous said...

Jaffna -- where did Menon say he was a Marxist ?

I have read several books on 1962. The 'Guilty Men of 1962' for one, and there are a few others (although not recently).

I also recollect reading a quote from 2 top Indian generals at that time that India absolutely had no capability to resist Chinese incursion in Tibet. It just wasn't even on the horizon. The Indian army of the 1950s (heck even the Indian army of 1962) possessed no logisitical capability to project power into Tibet.

Regardless of China's other battles, it still possessed a formidable army, with a great deal of skill in guerilla fighting. And its air force, while no match for that of America, was considerably superior to India's air force. There were 80000 Chinese troops in Tibet. For India to send troops to Tibet capable of resising that kind of force over massive logistical handicap was close to being an impossibility. Bad roads, troops without high altitude warfare experience. 10 years after the Chinese invasion of Tibet, India could barely maintain posts in its own border territories and we have people talking about resisting China 10 years prior to that far away !!

Nehru most definitely knew about the road in Aksai Chin. Army Intel communicated this information

Anonymous said...

Marxists have always been anti-India and anti-Hindu.
Infact they have been kicked out whereever they have been. Right from Afghanistan to Eastern Europe, or even Iran where they have been exiled, why even our Pakistan and Bangladesh, where they are driven to India.
India is the only country where Marxists have participated in a democracy and have turned WestBengal and Kreala into tragedies.
They have been anti-India from days before Independence. They called the first war of Independence as Mutiny, they opposed Independence calling it 'jhooti azaadi'. They supported British, supported Partition and after partition supported Pakistan and China, even when China attacked India. They supported all idiotic policies and also pro-China suicidal policies. Because of them our history teaching is distorted and also our media is fully controlled by them esp. the english language media and the idiotic bollywood.
We have their fourth columnsts in the form of dubious NGOs, which often shout for the wrong reasons. They often support terrorists and naxals and internationally are in friendly ties with jehadis. (Pakistan and China, Saudi etc.)
We need to kick them out soon or marginalise them to a point where nobody takes them seriously (like how nobody takes seriously a madman on the road)
They are a blot on the Indian culture of Hinduism and Indian pluralism.

Anonymous said...

Jaffna

The big picture is made up of lots of small items. Exaggerating or distorting some makes your case much weaker. You seem to be too willing to classify anyone as a Marxist based on some dabblings or an occasional statement. Not that I have any liking for Marxists or Menon, but you are as guilty of distoring history as Marxist historians when you do that.

Finally, it is bizarrely false to say that the Red Army was inexperienced. The Red Army had been fighting with Chiang Kai Shek (and the Japanese) for 15 years. They were extremely experienced, and had beaten an American backed Chiang Kai Shek.

And while the courage of Indian army soldiers is undisputable, victory in warfare is not a matter of courage (otherwise native Americans would still occupy the Western US), but a matter of training, leadership, logistics and military science. And if Chinese troops were tied down elsewhere, so were the bulk of the Indian troops tied down facing Pakistan.

I will try and find Brigadier Dalvi's book. Dalvi is one of the few Indian military senior officers who performed well in 1962, and so deserves a hearing. But the notion that India (with little experience in high altitude warfare) could have resisted the Chinese 80K man force strikes me as a fever dream. The same Chinese army was able to tie down the mighty US in Korea.

Now, still continuing to support China after Tibet was idiocy, and Nehru is guilty of that.

It is important to put some of these actions in perspective though. For Nehru (and indeed for many other British educated Indians), the fight was all about colonialism. That was part of the reason why they gravitated towards socialism -- because British socialists were the only people willing to support Indian independence. Churchill had no interest in Indian independence and was willing to let millions of Indians starve in the great Bengal famine. And of course, at that point, it was not obvious that socialism was the economic basket case that it later turned out to be.

Nehru's support for China had everything to do with the idea of supporting a fellow Asian country against former colonial powers. THis was of course, a mistake, since Mao and Chao En Lai made no distinction between former colonial powers and not -- they were intent of establishing China as a world power and satisfying their somewhat (but not totally) paranoid fears of invasion.


-- Raj

Pankaj said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

"I provided you facts on Mani Shanker Aiyer and Krishna Menon. You have not been able to deny that. Besides that, I personally know that Krishna Menon was a Marxist - he was a close associate of my own maternal grand father who had been a Trotskite himself before turning a Theosophist - quite a change in his life - but I suppose change is the essence of life."

I don't care about Mani Shanker Aiyer. I never even mentioned him. As far as Menon goes, you can only say that you know that Menon was a Marxist personally if you met him personally and he told you that. Mere flrtations during college should not count.

You are also wrong when you say that the Japanese had devastated the Kuomintang. Both the Kuomiatang and the COmmunists fought the Japanese and in fact Chiang Kai Shek received massive aid from America [ The Red Army did receieve some aid from Russia, but nowhere near as much as Chiang Kai Shek did from America].

The Chinese Army was capable of fighting the mighty American army to a bloody standstill in Korea just 1-2 years later. I still don't know where you get the idea that the India of 1950 could have stood up to such a formidable force in a logistically remote land, Western support or no. China did not suddenly generate the ability to throw back the UN forces in late 1950, they had been training and planning for quite a while.

Now you say that you are talking of resisting in 1949, not 1950. Well, in that case, the Korean war had not yet started so China would have been able to deploy a larger force here. Even if India had a military mission in Tibet, the idea that it could repel China in 1949 is just fantasy.

No, we DON'T see eye to eye. You seem to have a tendency to play armchair general 50 years after the fact and use perfect hindsight (and imperfect history to proclaim what should have been done)

Raj

doubtinggaurav said...

Raj,

Jaffna is saying that if there was a Indian presence then China would not have invaded Tibet.

Further you may be willing to excuse "flirtation" with Marxism, others are not.

Again Nehru ignored Indian interest for Third world solidarity.

I would say that considering the hegemonic nature of Marxism, Indian should have been alert, whether or not there was military intelligence for that.

Regards

Anonymous said...

Raj: I think that you are insulting the Indian Army which had several achievements in the two World Wars - as Jaffna had described. Please do not insult us further with your pro-Chinese propaganda!!!

Anonymous said...

Jaffna

Excellent post despite the vigorous defence of China by one commentator. Keep it up.

Anonymous said...

Jaffna

Good work and very stimulating. The post is both informative and provocative. I would have been very excited if the chronological history and facts of the Marxist Betrayal is placed in the right socio political perspective. What we have to further probe is why is the Marxist ideology still capture the imagination of the 'so called pseudo illectuals' and why the ism is still surviving in India. Besides, its idelogical backwarndess in the context of changing India which often retard the economic prosperity of the country, its contribution on agricultural reforms in India, particuarly in Kerala and West Bengal could not be ignored. It is also important to recognize that in the changing modern world fueled by capitalism and urban ecology, a sensible balance which focus on the welfare of the marginialized people is essential for a balanced growth. May be invertantly the Maxists have done a good jobn to balance economic growth with distribution. The main challenge is that these fellows donot know where and when to draw the line due to their ideological backwardness or may I say obstinacy.

Good work Jaffna, continue to provoke the minds.........

Regards
Budhi

Anonymous said...

Raj: You shamefully defend China and are so dogmatic. Why???? I heard that the Kuomintang or what ever was bloody corrupt. All the American aid apparently was pocketed. China fell like a rotten apple to Mao. I agree with Jaffna - Nehru's position on Tibet was bloody stupid.Admit it!!!

Pankaj said...

Hello Jaffna,

Your post and the comments has been very informative and provides very important references for one to follow up. Thanks and best regards.

Note: I thought my earlier comment was a little off the point.

Anonymous said...

The Commies may be stuck in the past,but they're certainly not antinational, they're parroting a viewpoint you dont agree with. In Kerala they did have a hand in a couple of good things like land reforms etc. And being a Christian in India, with the chauvinistic BJP around, I'll pick the Left any day

Anonymous said...

injunjoe: what's christianity to do with this. you obviously place religion above country. didn't the commies try to nationalize christian schools in kerala??/

Anonymous said...

Anonymous:

Yes the Commies did try to nationalize christian schools in kerala, they had their rationale for it, my point is being a Christian in India I would never vote for the Sangh parivar brigade, who are openly anti minority. The Commies only care about their outdated ideology, not religion

And I never placed my religion over my country ,ever, I am an Indian, I am a Christian, these are two identites, both are seperate and I am proud of both

Anonymous said...

Jaffna:

I apologize if I deviated from the post topic, you're right, a centrist party which isnt tied down by loyalties to any particular idelogy or community is the best choice. Ideally this could have been the Congress party, but sadly that one is a lost cause. But if land reforms were successfull in other countries , done by non commie gvts; why hasn't it happening in most parts of India, why was it left to the reds to get it done in Bengal and Kerala. So maybe they're still relevant in modern day India.

doubtinggaurav said...

Injunjoe,

You however have no problem flirting with an openly anti majority ideology.

Anonymous said...

I am reading Shourie's "Only Fatherland". The book is scary. The communist scum did not merely side with the British during Quit India (because then USSR was in alliance with Britain against Germany) but they also actively sabotaged the freedom struggle and reported on Congress party's activites to the colonial government. The book is full of documentary evidence from National Archives. Communist scum like PC Joshi sent glowing accounts to the colonial government of the "good" work they were doing in destroying the freedom struggle. In fact, they called the freedom-fighters "fifth-column" and those supporting the British government as "patriots"!

Make no mistake. Communists will sell their mother for a few pennies if it means advancing their "cause". It is the nature of communism (which according to Black Book, killed 80 million people) to dehumanize its practitioners and make them unethical beasts.

Anonymous said...

Somebody here says Irfan Habib, Romila Thapar etc are just "academics". Yeah, right. academics following an ideology that murdered millions of people. If Hitler managed win the war, I'm sure there would be Nazi "academics" too. Read this excellent artilce by French historian Alain Besancon:

http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3a97d71b77ca.htm

Anonymous said...

Thanks Jaffna, I totally agree with what you said, an open minded society is the need of the hour. Today in India there is feeling of distrust between people of different religions and communities. And sadly these divisive thoughts have increased over the years. Riots and caste killings today go hand in hand with the arrival of multinationals lured by our nation's ecomomic potential. But I'm confident that India will get through this mess , our country has seen it all. Thanks and keep up the great posts.

doubtinggaurav-80% of those who vote for the reds in kerala and bengal are from the majority community, are these members of the majority community also against their own ilk?

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