When Karl Marx Meets Indian Communists

Here is the some part of Article which is published in economical and political weekly in 1990 !

A BEARDED man, aged, dressed in nineteenth century western style, a broad lapelled jacket with a crumpled neck-tie of faded colours, with narrow bottomed trousers reaching up to the knees, landed at Santa Cruz airport one chilly morning in December 1989. Though a bit wan, he had a dignified mien, a sage like look that confused the officer greeting him at the Indian immigration. "Sir, are you the great Maharshi Mahesh Yogi, the spiritual leader of transcendental meditation fame? What can 1 do for you?" Karl Marx somewhat jaded and disoriented, reaching the gateway to the orient quizzically looked at the officer and Shrugged his shoulders. Not knowing what the officer was conveying,, Marx softly replied "I know spirits but not spiritualism. Pardon me, will you please guide me to Raj Bhavan, Sandhurst Bridge, Bombay, where Indian communists have their headquarters. I am Karl Marx, and I want to visit them as they are my disciples, preaching my doctrines in your country for the last eighty years!' The officer had heard of communists but not of Karl Marx.

Messages were transmitted to the West Bengal chief minister. Jyoti Basu, that Guru Karl Marx was on his way to visit him and his other comrades to discuss some important matters. At first Jyoti Basu was flabbergasted. How could Marx, long dead, come back to life? Then he possibly thought that India was a land where miracles had happened. He knew many of his comrades visited temples rather covertly, asked for boons from the gods and goddesses and often consulted astrologers. Who knows, there may be life after death, as Hindu religion has dinned in their ears. Marx, having seen his whole communist universe in ruins, must have been reborn to save it like Lord Krishna. Comrade Basu immediately sent urgent messages to all his close comrades. He hesitated for a while. Could not his erstwhile friend and comrade Ashok Mitra also be invited, even though his acerbity and rapier-like pen denouncing renegades like Gorbachev might create an unpleasant situation? But he shrugged off the thought and brought together the phalanx of his colleagues to confront Marx. He prepared a long litany of complaints against Soviet Russia and other East European countries who had dropped their communist systems in the ocean like dead rats.

Karl marx's speech to Indian communists meeting :-

After the initial exchange of courtesies, Karl Marx started slowly but with great deliberation to explain the purpose of his visit to his Indian comrades: "I have been feeling unsafe in England for a long time. You know, the Englishmen, though they hated what I wrote and preached, immortalised me with a statue—an imposing one I must say—in High Gate cemetery. Until recently, quite a number of people used to visit me for affirming their faith. With the communist system disintegrating all round, the number of visitors has begun to dwindle. But Madam Pateman, a selfless and devout admirer of mine, is raising money through sale of coffee mugs, postcards and paperbacks with my pictures. But how long would this last? I am afraid, my statue would be demolished as those of Lenin and Stalin in East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia and even in Soviet Russia. I thought before my turn comes to be homeless, I should sec some of my faithful disciples to explain what I meant to write and speak during my time, particularly because I am so misunderstood.

"I chose you, of all my other; disciples, only because I am told you have remained my staunch supporters through thick and thin and held my banner high. It seems you are hopping mad about Gorbachev and the whole lot of those European communists who have betrayed my creed. I therefore felt that I should have a dialogue with you to find out where we went right and where we could have gone wrong. Mind you I want to have a dialogue and not a dialectical discourse which has now become old hat.

If now communists in Eastern Europe and Russia are lamenting their vanishing em-pires, it is because they did not practise democracy as you (Indian communist)  did. You fought elections first in Kerala. But your prime minister, Nehru, whose synthetic socialism fooled you, dismissed you on trumped-up charges. The same trauma you went through in Bengal under Nehru's daughter. Yet you persisted and today you not only rule two states, but have also won enough seats in your national parliament to influence national policies. And all this through the democratic-process. You gave democracy a chance and made achievement of socialism through democracy a reality. Engels had recognised in his preface to my Class Struggle in France that universal suffrage would render the insurrectionary method obsolete. You proved his prophecy right by your example. If only the communists in other countries had followed you. You sanctified Eduard Bernstein without knowing it.

"So adieu and good luck to you. Before returning to England, I would stop briefly in China to tell comrade Deng that he should learn a bit of democracy from his Indian friends!'

Marx slowly stood up and walked away without so much as snaking hands with Basu or his comrades

Refrence :- EPW