Indians on Marx and Engels on India

Pradip Baksi
India appeared in the writings of Marx and Engels over a period of about four decades: from the 1840s to the 1880s. The first reference to India to the Indian gymnosophists, to be specific appeared in Marxs doctoral dissertation.1 The Indian caste system is mentioned in The German Ideology.2 The division of labour under the caste system is distinguished from division of labour in the modern workshop, in The Poverty of Philosophy.3 Then came the famous India-related despatches to the New-York Daily Tribune (henceforth, NYDT).4 India figures in the rough drafts and clean copies of the various volumes of the Capital,5 in various letters of Marx and Engels,6 in The Origin of the Family Private Property and the State,7 in Marxs notes on ethnology,8 history of land relations,9 and Indian history.10 The possibility of some more references to India in the remaining volumes of MEGA2 cannot be ruled out, in view of such long drawn out interest of Marx and Engels in India. The published works of Marx and Engels arrived in India in various stages, mainly in their English rendering, via England, the USA and Soviet Russia. Subsequently, some of these have been translated and written about in a number of codified literary languages of the sub-continent.11 A survey of the entire Indian output in the field is beyond the scope of a single paper or monograph.12 In what follows, I shall first attempt to provide an outline of the background of arrival of the writings of Marx and Engels (I), then a chronology of the arrival of their India-related writings (II) and finally, some notes towards a Rezeptionsgeschichte of these writings (III), in India. The present effort is mainly based on publications in Bengali and Indian English, within my reach.13 I Some capitalist-type enterprises were established in some pockets of British ruled India by the 1830s. A colonial working class was born. Its members came mainly from the traditionally labouring lower castes and tribes of India. Colonial commerce and education produced a fresh class of Indians, endowed with the requirements for government and imbued with European science.14 Its members came from the traditionally literate and socially dominant upper castes of India. In Bengal they are called bhadralok, well-mannered people. They had irregular and episodic exposure to some of the current European ideas. In the course of their development a conflict arose, between those of them who took a more active, rational and future-oriented approach towards the internal problems of development but were more loyal to the foreign rulers, and those who took up a militant fight against colonialism and imperialism but were passive, past-oriented and negative in their approach to the problems of internal social transformation. At times a single person changed his/her approach at different phases of his/her life.

Raja Rammohun Roy, a contemporary of Hegel, and the first prominent Indian exposed to some aspects of European Enlightenment, espoused the cause of religious, social and educational reform, since his youth. He thought that though the British rule in India was a foreign yoke, yet it would lead more speedily and surely to the amelioration of the native inhabitants of India.15 He was also the first Indian to be exposed to some of the current socialist ideas of Europe. In the year 1833, he came in contact with Robert Owen in England.16 A couple of decades later Marx expressed the opinion, that in spite of all its barbarism, the British rule was creating and would create the material preconditions for the future regeneration of India.17 At a time when Marx was sending his first India-related dispatches to the NYDT, the first railway lines were being laid in India. Within a decade the railway workers began resorting to collective action. In 1862, some 1200 workers of the East Indian Railway struck work at the Howrah station, near Calcutta, demanding 8 hour working days, which was already granted to their colleagues in the locomotive department.18 In the same decade, some persons of Indian and European origin jointly established the Bengal Social Science Association. The proceedings of this Association contain some papers pertaining to the conditions and interests of the toiling people of India.19 Marxs excerpts from Kovalevskijs book on communal landownership (see n. 9) contain a reference to a paper read at one of the sessions of this Association. 20 Marx also took notes from a book by a member of the same Association 21. These notes contain a reference to another paper read at another session of the Association.22 A member of the fresh class of Indians, Shashipada Banerji, organised a Shramajibi Samiti (Labour Union), at Baranagore, near Calcutta, in 1870. In 1871, some people from Calcutta wrote to the General Council of the International Working Mens Association, expressing their desire to start an Indian Section of the IWMA. The GC of the IWMA advised them to make their section self-reliant and, to include local people in it.23 The fate of this initiative and, the identity of the people associated with it still remain unknown. Shashipada Banerji brought out the first journal for the working class of colonial India, the illustrated monthly Bharat Shramajibi, in 1874. At around the same time, a pioneer of the Romantic trend in Bengali prose, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyaya wrote a series of articles under the title Samya (Equality). 24 Bankim had some acquaintance with the socialist literature of Europe, prior to Marx. He wrote:
The great tree which Rousseau had planted, through his theory that the land belongs to the common people, bore ever newer fruits. Europe is full of the fruits of that theory till date. Communism is a fruit of that tree. The International is a fruit of that tree.25

The question of common ownership of land engaged the attention of 19th century scholars in a big way. Marx also dealt with the question a number of times, between the 1850s and 1880s. It is an interesting coincidence, that the name of Marx first appeared in the Indian press, in an article by Jogendra Chandra Ghosh on communal landownership.26 It dealt with the bhaiachara (caste / clan brotherhood) land tenures
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and, gotra (gens) relationships topics that figured in Marxs excerpts from Kovalevskij (1879).27 It contains references to the reports of the Collector of Azimgarh, James Thomason also studied by Kovalevskij and excerpted by Marx.28 Ghosh compared the land relations within the Russian mir and, the German clans at the time of Tacitus, with the same amidst the Indian gotras, and wrote :
An attempt to trace the social history of a time anterior to the formation of the village communities, and that, too, in a country where historical records are almost unknown, may, I fear, provoke ridicule if not contempt. And I shall not meddle with antiquarian researches of this description, but certain vital questions of our own day, seem to be connected with the subject. I would not, however, press the point more than to observe, that there is every possibility of a Gotra community having once existed in the country and before the days of some of the most widely prevalent laws of our society . . . And we may thus come, in fact, to obtain a faint glimpse of a probable historical connection between the communism of Russia and Germany, of Lassalle and Marx, on the one hand, and on the other, the communism of our own society a communism which has become so much like the atmosphere we breathe, that it is my own countrymen who are most incredulous even about the logical identity of the two social phenomena.29

Ghosh was, of course, unaware of the fact that Marx had underscored these historical connections, a clear quarter of a century before him, when he wrote:
Communal property has recently been rediscovered as a peculiarly Slavic curiosity. 30 But in fact India offers us a pattern card of the most diverse forms of such an economic community, more or less decomposed, but still entirely recognisable; and more thorough historical study finds it as the starting point of all cultured people.31

Throughout the 19th century a series of efforts were undertaken to stimulate the rising political aspirations of the fresh class of Indians. These efforts culminated in the founding of the Indian National Congress, in 1885. A part of this fresh class was taking interest in the questions of socialism. The young poet Rabindranath Thakur (Tagore), wrote an article titled Socialism.32 It was based on a treatise on socialism by the British socialist Earnest Belfort Bax (possibly his Religion of Socialism, 1886). Swami Vivekananda (original name Narendranath Datta), the Hindu reformer, declared that he was a socialist.33 Vivekananda thought of socialism in India as the rule of the Sudras, the people of the labouring Varna, out of which grew the labouring castes of India. The problems of emancipation of the castes and tribes and those of capitalism and socialism remain inter-twined in this sub-continent till date. Prominent Indian political figures like Dadabhai Naoroji and Madame Bhikhaji Rustom Kama came in contact with the British socialist Henry Mayers Hyndman, in the first decade of the 20th century.34 Though there was no socialist party in India, Dadabhai Naoroji attended the International Socialist Congress at Amsterdam in 1904.35 Madame Kama and Sardar Singhji Rana attended the next Congress at Stuttgart in 1907.36 The name and teachings of Karl Marx began to draw the attention of sensitive Indians residing in Europe. In 1910, Naginlal H. Setalvad, then residing at London, wrote an article on socialism in an influential Indian journal.37 It was based on a book by Werner Sombart.38 It contained the first major reference to the ideas of Marx and Engels in the Indian press. It mentioned the Manifesto of the Communist Party
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(1848), and suggested that a study of the teachings of Karl Marx can provide a vivid idea of the special characteristics of the new socialism of Europe. Exactly two years later, the same journal published a biographical sketch of Karl Marx, wherein he was called a Rishi a sage, a seer.39 Its author Lala Hardayal was a prominent emigre Indian political activist and scholar, then teaching Indian Philosophy at the Stanford University. He was personally acquainted with Marxs grandson Jean Longuet, and had read the American admirer of Charles Fourier and social reformer, Albert Brisbane on Marx, as well as a biography of Marx by John Spargo. In his sketch, Hardayal referred to some letters of Marxs wife Jenny and, to the Capital. The first Indian monograph on Marx was also published the same year, in the Malayalam language.40 Its author K. Ramakrishna Pillai was a democratically oriented journalist. Both Hardayal and Pillai knew that Marx wrote for the NYDT, yet they were not aware of the fact that some of these dispatches were about India. After the Russian revolution of October (November) 1917, the ideas of Marx and Engels began to appear in the Indian press together with the news of Bolshevism and its progress.41 The Communist Party of India was founded at Tashkent in 1920. The All India Trade Union Congress was established in 1921. The first Indian monograph contrasting the politics of Gandhi with that of Lenin,42 contained references to Marx. The first migr Indian communist analysis of the Indian situation appeared next.43 The migr communist journals began to arrive clandestinely. The first communist journals from within the country also made their appearance. In all these publications Marx and Engels appeared as the ideological ancestors of Bolshevism. Since then, the communists and their followers were the principal propagators of the teachings of Marx and Engels in India. Some non-communist members of the academic profession also took some initiative. Who were and are these people? Historians of the communist movement of India have, so far, identified several antiBritish-imperialist trends which went into its formation. These are : the migr patriotic trend44 operating from Germany, the USA, Turkey and Afganistan; the Pan-Islamic Khilafatist Muhajirs45 operating from Afganistan; the Sikh and Punjabi migr labour movement in the USA and Canada organised around the Ghadar Party (some of its members operated from the Latin Americas)46; and finally, the left wings of the Indian National Congress, the various Hindu terrorist organisations and groups,47 the Khilafat movement,48 and the Akali movement of the Shikhs,49 inside the country.50 The members of these trends carried with them their already acquired castist, parochial, communal, religious, xenophobic, national, patriotic, anarchist and socialist understanding of India and the world. Often their ideology was a hybrid of one or more of these worldviews, mingled with their newly acquired Bolshevik understanding of Marx. These hybrid forms of consciousness arose from a social soil, where, following the European colonial interventions, a whole series of economic systems grew upon the social formations based on decomposed communal property. 51 Our politicians and members of the academic community, interested in Marx and Engels, share these multi4

faceted forms of modern Indian consciousness. But there is an important difference among them. According to one view, the academic profession in modern India came into existence in a society which was not a civil society, it could not develop a sense of affinity with
the other sectors of the elite alien and Indian which ruled the Indian polity, economy and culture. And being more advanced in scale on which it was carried on than the economic and social structure of the country, it could not function as an effective training stage for the central and lesser elites of the country . . . The attrition of civility and superfluity in the performance of its function in the Indian economy have inhibited intellectual ardour and hampered the growth of intellectual traditions.52

According to another view, the Asiatic mode of production did have a civil society, though it appears less articulated when compared with its counterpart under capitalism. 53 Within the overall dominance of the varnic / caste-wise division of labour, a kind of civil society grew in the ancient Indian towns. The Arthashastra (c. 300 B.C.-150 C.E.) of Kautilya54 and the Kamasutra (c. 300-400 C. E.) of Vatsyayana55 reflect the existence of rule-governed contractual relations. Later on this civil society was crossed with several Central Asian and peripheral Persian strains. Finally, the European colonial powers Portugal, France and England crossbred some Eurasian civil societies in some towns. The present Indian governments are at once extending and limiting their domains. Instead of a civil society giving rise to a corresponding political society, it is a case of a hybrid political society introducing and controlling several hybrid civil societies from above. In ancient India, academic activity was the sole preserve of a thin layer of Brahmans. Indian Islam kept it limited among the Ashrafs Saiyads, Sheikhs. In the Mughal, colonial and post-colonial periods members of a couple of other upper castes the Kayasthas, Vaidyas entered into the academic profession. It is still predominantly an upper caste preserve. They have also effectively appropriated the media, the executive, the courts, the political parties, including the communist parties, and the parliament. Be it noted that not a single Indian author referred to in the present article belongs to any of the lower castes and tribes of India. The market is the domain mainly of the Banias. The currently dominant fresh class is a cluster of coalitions of the partially westernized sections of these upper castes. The contractual relations they enter into are still largely determined by their caste status in the society. Right to property, though a statutory right, is not a fundamental right in India today. 56 Even in the post-colonial period, the industrial worker is a peasant manqu, a peasant at heart.57 Marriages among the majority community of Hindus are still largely casteendogamous and gotra-exogamous at the same time. This militates against vertical social mobility, right from the level of child rearing practices, governed by caste-specific paradigms. It appears that like the crossbred strains in the plant world and animal kingdom the crossbred civil societies also require continuous backcrossing, for the retention and enhancement of their vitality. In the absence of such backcrossing they falter, stagnate; the linkages among the academic, central and lesser elites get fractured. The history of reception of Marx and Engels in India is unfolding inside this larger history of further articulation of the civil societies in this sub-continent, straddling several socio-historical time-zones from that of the hunter-gatherers to that of the netizens here and now. A founder of the Communist party of Mexico in 1919, and of the Communist Party of India at Tashkent in 1920, Manabendra Nath Roy (original name, Narendra Nath
5

Bhattacharya), wrote, when no longer a communist, that he had accepted socialism in 1916, but not its materialist philosophy.58 Another early Indian admirer of Bolshevism, Maulavi Mohammad Barakatullah wrote in 1919, that Karl Marx founded the lofty structure of socialism in the 19th century basing himself on the basic principles propounded by Plato, the divine man, in his book called the Republic.59 Barakatullah saw in Bolshevism the fruitition of the spirits, not only of Plato, but also of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.60 Yet another admirer of Bolshevism, who later on became one of the leaders of the Communist Party of India, approvingly wrote in 1921 :
Bolshevism is not, like other sciences, simply a science of politics and economics, submitting itself to changes due to criticism, a true Marxian or a Bolshevik will admit of no change in the body of the theories of his faith. Karl Marxs Book the Capital is to the Bolshevik what the Geeta [Bhagavad-Gita] is to the Hindu, or the Bible to the Christian. Day by day the very inspirer Karl Marx is passing into a Mythical Being. Bolshevism has come to acquire a force of religion, and all that inspired unflinching belief, that a religion demands.61

This registration of the religious moment in Bolshevism, of the theologization of the Capital and, of the mythologization of Marx, immediately reminds one of Engels statement, that
The history of primitive Christianity presents peculiar points of affinity with the modern labour movement.62

Speaking of later Christianity and later Marxism, a radical Christian historian of Marxism-in-India observed that:
Marxism came to India in its generalized catechism form of Marxism-Leninism.63

And that:
[T]here is a similar relation between the historical and political economic writings of Marx and Stalins doctrinal system, as between the biblical texts and some scholastic system of church doctrine. Both developments are connected with the process of institutionalization and exercising power.64

One may add, that similar relations are also observed in respect of the Vedas and the later codification of brahmanic Hinduism in the Smrtis and in the subsequent commentaries65, as well as in the case of the teachings of Buddha and their subsequent transformation, culminating in the history of Buddhism in Tibet.66 II Engels Der Ursprung der Familie, des Privateigentums und des Staats was the first text that was translated into an Indian language, before any other work of Marx or Engels. An activist of the anti-British freedom movement, and widely travelled economist and sociologist, Professor Benoy Kumar Sarkar prepared a free Bengali rendering of it, while residing at Lugano in Switzerland, and got it published from Calcutta, under a changed title.67 Sarkar defended the change in title with the argument that private property is not the main issue in Engels text; the main issue there is the history of three centres of human life : the family, the gens and the state. 68 However, he observed that questions related to private property are close to Engels heart69;
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hence, perhaps, the subtitle : (An Economic Interpretation of History). Sarkar did not provide any editorial remark or note on the various India-related references found in this text (see n. 7 above). Same is true of the later exact Bengali translations of this text. 70 Sarkar noted, that Marx and Engels are being worshiped by the workers and poor people all over the world, as the greatest preceptors of the age; 71 that the second and third volumes of Marxs Capital, the Gita of Marxs principles, everywhere shows the marks of Engels free editorial hand.72 He wrote, that the opinions and words of Marx and Engels are not to be treated as the Hindus treat the Vedas; these are to be tested against facts.73 And that
The axioms propounded by Marx and Engels are like the axioms of the other sciences. Every axiom has its domain. . . . [T]he axioms of economic interpretation are relative. However, the bigoted followers of Marx-Engels are not ready to accept the relativity of these rules. These people are stubborn monists.74

In the following year the migr communist journal Masses reprinted Marxs NYDT article titled The Future Results of British Rule in India.75 One does not know how many copies of it reached the readers in India. A year later, Rajani Palme Dutt of the Communist Party of Great Britain used some of the India-related writings of Marx and Engels in one of his books on India.76 Its Bengali translation was serialised in the journal Ganabani, from its 12th issue dated 28 April, 1927.77 The first free Bengali rendering of the Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848) was also partly serialised in the same Ganabani, organ of the Bengal Provincial Branch of the Workers and Peasants Party of India a legal mass political party that provided cover for the members of the illegal Communist Party of India. Later on, it was published as a monograph, under a changed title.78 The translator, who was then a communist, did not provide any remark defending the change in title. This edition does not contain Engels footnote to the famous first sentence of the first section of this text:
The history of all hitherto existing society* is the history of class struggles.79

This footnote was added to the 1888 English and 1890 German editions of the Manifesto. This is the only India-related footnote added to this text. It draws our attention to the pre-class and non-class social relations and conflicts observed in many parts of the world, India included. Lack of awareness about or, glossing over of this aspect of the world-historical concerns of Marx and Engels led to many of the later Marxist, Universalist, mechanical and dogmatic imposition of the class-struggle schemata, on any and every sector of any and every society. In 1929, the leaders of the Communist Party of India were accused of conspiring to violently overthrow the colonial government of India. By this time, the leaders of this party had either read or heard about : the Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), Peasant War in Germany (1850), Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1851), Revolution and Counter-revolution in Germany (1851-52), The Critique of Political Economy (1859), three volumes of the Capital (1867, 1885, 1894), The Civil War in France (1871) and, the Anti-Dhring (1878).80 The list of exhibits presented by the government, before the court, included R. P. Dutts Modern India (see : n. 76) and, the Colonial Thesis of the Communist International (1928), containing references to Marxs
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writings on India, together with a large number of other texts, which the communists of India were yet to read.81 This gave the accused an opportunity to ask for more books, which they had never read or seen, as these were confiscated in the customs under government orders. These books were then brought from England, under special orders of the court, and given to the accused to read in jail. 82 It appears that the British rule in India was an unconscious tool of history,83 also in respect of the introduction of Bolshevism and Marx. The Comintern was its only historical rival in that area. A selection of the India-related writings of Marx and Engels, became available in India for the first time in 1938.84 Its Appendices contained : Marxs Revolution in China and in Europe (NYDT, June 14, 1853),85 some letters of Marx and Engels dealing with Ireland,86 Joseph Stalins The Capitalist System and the National Question and, excerpts from the reports of the 6th Congress of the Comintern titled Effects of Imperialism in the Colonies. A similar selection came out in two editions, within a few years.87 It contains an Introduction culled from different passages of a second book on India by R. P. Dutt, 88 which was, and still is, popular among the communists. Though the title suggests that it is a selection of Marxs articles, it contains excerpts from the volumes I and II of the Capital, from Engels Anti-Dhring and The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, as well as from some letters of Marx and Engels dealing with the development and decay of the economy of the village communities of India and, with the predatory methods employed by early imperialist capitalism in India. After a gap of about 15 years, some more of the India-related writings of Marx and Engels were brought out, not in India, but from the USSR.89 These publications were then translated into several Indian languages,90 both in India and in the Soviet Union and, were widely distributed in India. Related western publications of the same period 91 achieved somewhat limited circulation. A soviet publication of the late 1970s92 was more accessible to a larger section of Indian readers. Different volumes of the MECW (1975-) were available through a large number of communist-run book-stores. The Selected Works of Marx and Engels were also available in many Indian language editions. The collapse of the USSR has closed that supply channel. A few copies of some Dutch publications93 arrived in some Indian libraries in the 1980s. A somewhat abridged Bengali translation of Marxs excerpts from John Budd Phears Modern Village Life in Bengal, The Calcutta Review (July and October 1874), was published in a journal in 1987.94 The editorial introduction to this translation underscored the fact that Marxs study of India did not remain static at its 1850s level. It was pointed out that these excerpts of Marx are important for a study of the questions related to the Asiatic mode of production, the difference between this mode and European feudalism and, the changes introduced by the British rule in landed property in India. Similar considerations prompted a Bengali translation of Marxs excerpts on the history of land relations in India, from Maksim Maksimovich Kovalevskijs Obshinnoe Zemlevladenie i.t.d. (Moskva, 1879), published in 1999.95 These excerpts of Marx were
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first published in a Russian journal in 1958.96 Some 25 years have elapsed since the inclusion of their English rendering in a Dutch publication.97 Indians, however, remain almost silent (there appeared only two reviews of the publication indicated in n. 95) about them till today.
III

The first Indian response to an India-related article of Marx figured in an migr communist journal. A month before the first all-India conference of the communists on the Indian soil, held at Kanpur, U.P. in December 1925, the monthly Masses, issued by M. N. Roy from abroad, introduced Marxs NYDT article titled The Future Results of the British Rule in India, with the words :
Apart from its theoretical value the article shows how remarkably well-informed the writer was at that remote epoch when India was a fabulous terra incognita even to the leading statesmen of Britain. All through its bloody history British domination of India has been either praised or condemned. To some it is an unmixed good and to the others an unmixed evil. As far back as 1853, when so little was known as to the state of affairs in India, the critical mind of Marx grasped the historical significance of British conquest of India. While bitterly condemning the imperialist robbery, Marx indicated the great revolutionary effect that would result from British conquest. He declared with his characteristic boldness that effect would not in a mean degree make up for the evil done to India by the British conquerors. Today we see how correct was the forecast made by Marx. British conquest has had in India the significance of a great revolution. Having accomplished an historical mission British rule in India became a positive hindrance to the normal progress of the forces let loose by the revolution.98

The first Indian language summaries of Marxs NYDT articles appeared in the early 1940s. The authors of these summaries appreciated Marxs deep insights 99 and scientific spirit.100 A leader of the Indian National Congress, later on the first Prime Minister of independent India, Jawaharlal Nehru published his study of Indian history101 in the late 1940s. In his own words, his worldview was a mixture of some aspects of the idealism of monist Vedanta, Marxs general analysis of social development and, a somewhat pragmatic concern about the immediate issues of life.102 He also believed that Lenin successfully adapted the Marxian thesis to some of the later developments.103 However, in this widely popular tour de force on Indian history, from the period of Indus Valley Civilization (c.2500 B.C.) to the early 1940s, one does not find any mention of the already published India-specific writings of Marx. Evidently, he did not associate the name of Marx with studies in Indian history. Even today one finds a partial awareness of Marxs India-related writings, only among some specialists and, some members of the older generation of more literate communists. S. A. Dange drafted his study of Indian history, 104 between October 1942 and January 1943, while in Jail. He claimed that his text closely followed Engels The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.105 In reality it was more effectively inspired by the codified historical materialism of the History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), Short Course (Moscow, 1945).106 Dange was aware of the facts that India did not have labour slavery of the Greek or Roman type,107 and that
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Marx had not come to a final conclusion about the questions of land relations in India. 108 But he held fast to his belief in the existence of slavery and feudalism in India. Dange posed but did not pursue the question : why the merchant capital of medieval India could not grow to the point of giving birth to the bourgeoisie and set bourgeois development going in our country?109 Dange did not revise the later editions of his book in the light of subsequent critique of his work. In the words of a later communist critic: Danges book
. . . [E]licited wide interest and very severe criticism both in India and abroad. It suffers from all conceivable defects. It has more mythology than history. It deserves all the criticism that any historian can level against it. But it has two merits which should not be overlooked. Firstly, it is the first work of its kind by an Indian communist who is not a professional historian. Secondly, it is written by a trade unionist, a leader of the working class. On a more pragmatic ground, which is not the best ground, its merit lies in the tendency to dispel some traditional Hindu notions and superstitions from the political and trade union activists? It has this negative merit although it cannot positively teach history. But these very defects have provoked many critical minds to do a better and more systematic study of ancient India.110

The next such study came from the pen of Dr. Bhupendra Nath Datta, younger brother of the Hindu reformer Swami Vivekananda. Bhupendra Nath was a political extremist in his youth. Later on he studied in the USA and, did anthropological research in Germany. He was active in the Berlin committee of the Indian patriots around 1914. He was influenced by the Russian revolution of 1917, went to Moscow as a member of an Indian delegation in 1921, but did not join the Communist Party, as he found it to be too tightly under the direction of the Comintern.111 Dattas study112 offers a birds eye view of the land tenure systems in India from the Vedic age (c. 1500 B. C.) to the 1950s. He was not aware of the fact that a part of Marxs excerpts from Kovalevskijs book on communal landownership covered a part of the same ground (from c. 200 B.C. to 1850 C. E.). He was aware only of the selection: Karl Marx, Articles on India (see n. 87).113 Datta thought that Marx was in doubt regarding the institution of private property in land in India.114 He held that Marxs opinion about Muhammedan responsibility for the principle of no property in land throughout Asia,115 was not tenable in the light of modern Orientology.116 In his opinion:
. . . the scanty material collected in English regarding the pre-English History of India and the misdirection of Maine have led Marx and Engels to accept the idea that tribal communism or communistic villages, which Marx characterized as idyllic republics, existed in India, and that feudalism did not develop in India.117

Most of these criticisms, emanating from non-exposure to the India-related historiagraphic118 and ethnological 119 excerpts of Marx, have been repeated by many later authors. Dattas charge that Marx and Engels were misdirected by Henry Sumner Maine, however, cannot be explained away even at the level of Indian scholarship of the 1950s. Maines book on the village communities120 appeared about two decades after the India-related NYDT articles and letters of Marx and Engels. Even Capital, Vol. I predates it. How could the authors of earlier publications be misdirected by a later publication? What is more, Maine owes an unacknowledged debt to Marx and Engels, in respect of his belief that
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he had made a colossal discovery when he said that our entire progress in comparison with previous epochs consisted in our having evolved FROM STATUS TO CONTRACT, from an inherited state of affairs to one voluntarily contracted 121 a statement which, insofar as it is correct, was contained long ago122 in the Communist Manifesto.123

The Communist Manifesto (1848) predates Maines Ancient Law (1861) by more than 12 years. The next major marxian study of Indian history124 was authored by Damodar Dharmanand Kosambi, a mathematician by training and occupation and, a numismatist, linguist, archaeologist, anthropologist and historian by preoccupation. Though not a communist, he was broadly influenced by . . . a definite theory of history known as dialectical materialism, also called Marxism after its founder.125 Kosambi knew that Stalin had omitted the Asiatic mode, mentioned in Marxs Preface to the Critique of Political Economy (1859), in his list of socio-economic formations. 126 He cautioned that while applying Marxs approach to Indian history, it should be kept in mind
. . . [T]hat Marx speaks of all mankind where we deal only with a fraction. For short periods in restricted localities, a dead end, retrogression, or evolution by atrophy are possible . . ..127

According to Kosambi,
. . . The really vexed question is what is meant by the Asiatic mode of production, never clearly defined by Marx.128

He knew of some inconclusive discussion on the theme, in the Pod Znamenema Marksizma, and wrote:
India showed a series of parallel forms which cannot be put into the precise categories, for the mode based on slavery is absent, feudalism greatly different from the European type with serfdom and manorial economy.129

Kosambi did not accept Marxs statements about a generalized notion of the selfsufficient and unchanging Indian village community. 130 He pointed out that metals and salt, not produced in most villages, were exchanged as commodities; that the introduction of ploughs in agriculture changed the structure of villages; and that the forms of state and other aspects of the superstructure changed relative to the density of village units in a given region.131 Kosambi also did not accept Marxs dramatic statement that the
Indian society has no history at all, at least no known history. What we call its history is but the history of the successive intruders who founded their empires on the passive basis of that unresisting and unchanging society.132

In rebuttal Kosambi wrote :

. . . the greatest periods of Indian history, the Mauryan,133 Satavahana,134 Gupta,135 owed nothing to the intruders; they mark precisely the formation and spread of the basic village society or the development of new trade centres.136

Having levelled all these criticisms on matters of historical detail, Kosambi asserted that the theoretical basis of his work remains Marxist. According to him:
11

Marx had a scientific theory, which might have to be extended like those, in other fields of his contemporaries, Gauss, Maxwell, Darwin, Mendeleev, but which still has the equal merit of working in practice, of yielding verifiable predictions.137

He expected the students of Indian history to remember that no single mode of production and distribution prevailed over the whole country at any one time.138 A few years after the publication of ISIH, Kosambi wrote :
The real difficulty here (not in China) is the misleading documentation. Ancient Indian records derive from the brahman caste and those who read them pay no attention to the function of caste in ancient (as well as modern and feudal) Indian society. Indian history is, to me, a very fine example of Marxist theory working very well in practice. Unfortunately Marx had only the solitary report of Buchanan-Hamilton on Karnatak villages,139 not even the Foral of 1640 by the king of Portugal guaranteeing the rights of Goa village communities, which existed in a much more primitive form, and which could not be called hydraulic in view of the torrential rainfall.140

Kosambi was evidently unaware of the fact that Marx had some more information about land relations in pre-colonial and colonial south-west India, where Goa is situated.141 Though Kosambi refused to periodize early Indian history within the formats of Slavery or Asiatic mode of production, he freely used the term feudalism in respect of precolonial India.142 This usage is in tune with the dominant practice of the Marxist, Leninist, Stalinist, Trotskyist and Maoist politicians, historians and economists of India till date. A strident dissenting note came from the eminent epigraphist and historian Dinesh Chandra Sircar, who wrote :
With the exception of certain late medieval records of Vijayanagara143 speaking of the Amara tenure involving enjoyment of royal land by persons on the condition of supplying soldiers to the king or landlord when necessary, there is no trace, in ancient and medieval India, of any tenure even remotely resembling any aspect of the socio-economic system called feudalism that was prevalent in much of Western Europe in the Middle Ages. But some writers are inclined to confuse Indian landlordism with European feudalism. They should note that even the Amaranayakas of Vijayanagara were not tied to the soil in the feudal sense.144

Publication of the English translation of Marxs manuscripts on the Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations (see n. 91) led to some more Indian interventions. Professor Irfan Habib suggested that:
. . . Marxs own failure to publish anything out of the MS of the Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations must be construed as evidence of his hesitation to put forward as his firm opinion what was little more than speculations.145

Habib was of the opinion that Marx and Engels modified and ultimately abandoned their earlier theory of the Asiatic mode.146 Why? Habib suggested two reasons. One: Marxs 1850s remarks on India
had been based on a reading of English parliamentary papers and Berniers Travels. Among the British administrators at that time there was a strong tendency to emphasize the institution of the village community in order to justify a paternalistic form of government. It coloured very deeply most of the official 12

reports and it ultimately found its most systematic and exaggerated expression in Sir Henry Maines works.147 On the pre-British history of India proper, Marx appears to have done little reading except towards the last years of his life, precisely in the period when his own references to the Asiatic mode of production disappear altogether.148

Two: Besides the weakness in the information available to Marx and Engels during their earlier years,
there was the equally important question whether the acceptance of the theory of the Asiatic mode would not make the vast majority of mankind an exception to the materialist conception of history, as set out in the Communist Manifesto and summed up in the celebrated passage of the Preface to the Critique of Political Economy.149 Habib concluded, that for these two reasons, but particularly for the second, Marxs revolutionary followers did not generally accept or stress the Asiatic mode.150 And finally, The last word was said on the matter by Stalin in his classic essay on Dialectical and Historical Materialism, 1938.151

Subsequently Habib has been less categorical in his statements about the Asiatic mode or about Marxs alleged abandonment of it, nor did he continue to seek support for his views from Stalins classic last words on the matter.152 From among the leaders of the Communist Party of India, Gangadhar Adhikari conceded that:
It is now established that Marx spoke of an Asiatic mode of production . . .153

And that:
Some time back there was a tendency to dismiss this as a distinct social formation . . . This poser of an Asiatic mode of production as a distinct social formation serves to explain some of the peculiarities of ancient and medieval social history of India, though of course many problems remain unsolved.154

Professor Susobhan Sarkar observed that:

Marx did not leave behind any systematic presentation of the history of India, that was never his main preoccupation. He set down his observations on certain current Indian questions which attracted public attention, or drew materials from Indias past and present conditions to illustrate parts of his more general arguments. These passing reflections cannot therefore be taken as a finished study of the subject in any dogmatic sense.155

Sarkar then grouped Marxs remarks on India under the following five heads:
. . . the nature of Indias ancient society; the general framework and chronology of the history of India; the role of the [British] East India company; the character of the [Indian] Revolt of 1857; and the consequences of the British rule in India.156

On Marxs views about the stagnatory nature of the Indian societies prior to the British conquest, Sarkar wrote :
The economic presentation of an unchanging Indian past has been critised as undue simplification. But in any historical generalisation, in European history also for instance, detailed study will always reveal various facets which have been ignored in the long-range view. The central issue is whether the generalisation is basically wrong, and if so what is the better alternative general formulation. The mere existence of urban life or considerable commerce in the interstices of an agrarian society will not be enough to negate the picture of the domination of the village community and agriculture in ancient India, a 13

picture which, however, must have been much more complex and less durable than Marx imagined. As for the possible social transformations in ancient India, no solid periodisation has yet been worked out in the fuller light of a century after Marx.157

Sarkar noted that Indian opinion is often outraged by Marxs evaluation of the Indian society, yet
In fairness to Marx, one has also to remember his viewpoint of the ardent advocate of a sweeping social revolution, to remember his scathing attack in the even earlier Communist Manifesto on the vaunted bourgeois civilisation of his own Europe, or time and again on the British rule in India. Some of the best minds among the Indian Westerners, contemporaries more or less of Marx, would have [expressed] or did express themselves on similar lines about traditional Indian life.158

Sarkar was of the opinion that :

Marxs concept of an Asiatic society, of which India was a part, was by no means an established concept like his [concept of] bourgeois society. He was exploring the idea undogmatically for years . . . without coming to a final authoritative formulation. Simple hearts forget all this.159 Sarkar observed that: Marx never repudiated the concept of an Asiatic society and, that he did not make a fetish of the Asiatic society, but certainly presented its theory for further exploration . . . Marxs concept is most important in the sense that it draws attention to the social conditions in the East and helps to dissolve the facile idea of an unilinear historical evolution all over the world of a somewhat Hegelian pattern.160

Not being aware of Marxs excerpts from Kovalevskij on the History of the Land Relations in India at the Time of the Indigenous Rajas there,161 Sarkar wrote, that Marx passed over the entire Hindu epoch of our history. 162 Sarkar noted, that regarding the chronology of later Indian history (664-1858), Marx relied heavily on the accounts of Elphinstone and Sewell, the accepted authorities of his time.163 Regarding Marxs characterisation of the general nature of the British East India Companys regime in India, Sarkar wrote that Marx provided the keynote to it in the expression, European despotism, planted upon Asiatic despotism,164 and then again this was only an imitation of the Dutch165 model as described by Thomas Stamford Raffles.166 According to Sarkar:
Marxs comments on the Revolt of 1857 constitute an original contribution to the study of contemporary Indian history. They are in sharp opposition to the established orthodox theory of regarding the rising as essentially a military mutiny, disfigured by native atrocities, put down by British valour. It is interesting to reflect that modern research is at long last veering round to the viewpoint of Marx.167

On Marxs statement that the British conquest blew up the economic foundations of the village communities in India and, thus produced the greatest, and to speak the truth, the only social revolution ever heard of in Asia,168 Sarkar wrote:
It is difficult to deny the fundamental truth in this, however over emphatic the simplification might appear in the light of detailed and intensive research.169

14

Marx had listed the forces of future regeneration of India and, the possible consequences of the introduction of the railways in India.170 Sarkar observed that: It is difficult indeed to improve upon either list the forces of regeneration and the possibilities of the railways.171 The question of the Asiatic mode of production continued to surface in the 1970s. A leader of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)172, E.M.S. Namboodiripad opined that Marxs reference to the Asiatic society was nothing more than the analysis of the conditions under which that society was being subordinated to capitalism, and that it should not be viewed as the key to the understanding of the entire course of our historical development.173 On the same theme, S. Naqvi observed that:
Marx and Engels were categorical and altogether unambiguous in their thesis that the Oriental societies did not evolve private property in land, and feudal formation did not develop there, and what did come into existence and was perpetuated, causing stagnation in economy and social institutions, was the Asiatic Mode of Production, with a system of built-in equilibrium which remained more or less stable and undisturbed due to the absence of antagonistic classes and class struggle.174

And that:
There is no basis in the claim that either Marx or Engels, at any stage abandoned their concept of Asiatic Mode or that their views were beginning to be re-considered by themselves.175

Naqvi was partially acquainted with Marxs excerpts from Kovalevskij on the land relations in India under Muslim rule.176 He examined two sources referred to by Marx and Engels : the Travels of Bernier177 and, the Fifth Report on India presented to the British Parliament in 1812,178 to show that these sources do not warrant the conclusions derived by Marx and Engels on precolonial Indian geography, economy and society.179 Naqvi suggested that Marx and Engels did not study Berniers full text, including his letters to Colbert180 and others; nor did Marx study the (Fifth) Report of the Committee of the House of Commons (1812) in the original. He concluded his paper with a series of counter-factual conditionals of the form : had Marx read this or that part of Berniers text or of the Fifth Report in the original, then he would not have arrived at such and such conclusions. Professor Tapan Raychoudhuri observed that:
The concept Asiatic mode of production has generated considerable interest among Marxist historians from time to time . . . From the point of view of Indian history, two important contributions to the subject were Daniel Thorners Marx on India and the Asiatic Mode of Production in the Contributions to Indian Sociology (Vol. IX, 1966) [see n. 91 above] and Irfan Habibs Problems of Marxist Historical Analysis, Enquiry, Monsoon, 1969) [see n. 145 above]. Both the scholars, who contributed to the discussion from the Indian angle, pointed out that the references to the concept are absent in the later writings of Marx and Engels. Habib went further to state that the concept was abandoned by Marx, especially after he had read Kovalevsky, and that it was basically fallacious.181

Raychoudhuri himself is of the view, that the concept of an Asiatic mode of production
15

[E]laborated in the light of modern research as has been done by Godelier,182 has considerable explanatory value for the dynamics of social change in India in the long period. . . . the paradigm fits the Indian case as much as any such generalisation can, . . . it does so better than any other alternative that has been suggested . . . it explains satisfactorily the social processes at work in the greater part of the subcontinent (regions like Tamilnadu and Malabar excluded . . .) in the precolonial India.183

Rejecting Habibs characterization of the precolonial Indian society as a form of feudalism, Raychoudhuri observed that in the case of precolonial India we are left with a situation,
. . . where society is by no means homogeneous, but the surplus is extracted mainly by the state from outside the system of production. Within the system of production, exploitation relations correspond to a gradation of rights over the means of production, somewhat muted by the low articulation of property rights. The characteristic conflict in such a society is between the state and the peasant producer almost certainly the land-owning producer. We have as yet no record of conflict between the owner and nonowner or between the different grades of rights in land within the system of production. The agrarian unrest in the Mughal Empire is hence very different from the feudal conflict of classes. Hence, inter alia, the relevance of the Asiatic mode of production to an analysis of Indias pre-colonial society.184

Raychoudhuri is of the view, that in the context of the Asiatic mode of production, trade is not an expression of merchant production internal to the life of the community; it is simply a means for the transformation of surplus into commodities for the market. And
Since this is the form in which surplus in cash or kind was eventually expropriated by the state, the trader appears as virtually a state functionary. From the stand point of long-term change, trade of such nature cannot act as a dissolvent of existing production relations.185

Raychoudhuri went on to show, that under such circumstances, even the significant changes produced by the coastal trade in 17th century India failed to alter the existing relations of production and exploitation. The
[R]elationships of exploitation, operating through the political and social system reinforced the existing property relations and ensured the continuity of the existing organisation of production. The conflict between the exploiter and exploited could in such a situation contribute to the dissolution of the political superstructure, but the socioeconomic order remained virutally unaffected.186

Raychoudhuri, thus, in a sense reinforced, with the help of data generated in the course of later historical research, Marxs view of 1857 that the transformation of the traditional oriental society is hardly possible, except as a result of wholly external influences.187 Dwelling upon the problem structural transformability of the Asiatic societies, Diptendra Banerjee wrote, that since 1857 Marx was trying to picture:
a more complex form of the AMP [Asiatic Mode of Production], with its unity of agriculture and handicrafts ensuring a direct identity of man and nature, with its unity of the individual and community holding back the growth of man as the subject of history, and with its unity of politics and civil society holding back the clarification of the latter.188

Banerjee then went on to show that two levels of analyses are implicit in Marxs conceptualisation of the AMP.

16

The first is related to the use of the concept of capitalism as a methodological paradigm to study the AMP along with other prebourgeois forms. This becomes particularly clear from a reading of the Introduction of 1857 and the section on the original accumulation of capital in the Grundrisse.189

The second level contra posits

the AMP itself with the other prebourgeois forms, the ancient and medieval European formations of slavery and serfdom.190

Here the Asiatic Mode of Production

[R]epresents for Marx a nonwestern sociohistorical paradigm. Marx himself underlines this point when he rebukes Mikhailovsky191 for the latters attempts to metamorphose the West-European form of capitals genesis into an historico-philosophic theory of the general path every people is fated to tread. 192 Surely Marx is here concerned with the differing paths of human development, which none can explain by using any super-historical master key. Marx makes a similar point in his letter to Vera Zasulich.193 . . . although the AMP is close to the ancient and medieval modes of the West in matters of quality, Marxs Asiatic paradigm implies a different path of development, unlike the western.194

Banerjee then examined the positions of Engels and Marx on the problems of transformability of semi-Asiatic Russia, and found that:
Engels does not allow any independent role to Asiatic societies in the work of their societal transformation. Only a successful revolution in the west can do the trick, serving as a model to be imitated.195

For Marx the problem of Asiatic transformation does not boil down to such a singletrack formula:
Marxs personal examination of semi-Asiatic Russias noncapitalist path of evolution makes it a perfectly valid theoretical possibility before capitalism could assume a dominant role in the economy. The possibility . . . is dependent for its fruitition upon two factors: removal of the deleterious influences which assail them from every quarter; and appropriation and utilisation of the positive results of western capitalism without taking on its modus operandi.196

Banerjee was of the opinion that :

Such a transformation is of course possible in this era of world-capitalism, which brings about the rationalisation of the entire world. But the world-universal stage of capitalism is also that stage in which the nonidentity of capitalist theory and capitalist practice becomes acutely sharp. Hence the possibility of terminating capitalism itself. Hence also the logic of the western socialist movement, which aims to cross the boundaries of capitalism. Since, at the same time, capitalism leads to asynchronic and uneven developments in world-history, there must be an objective interconnection between the developed and undeveloped spheres of the world. That is to say, commotions in the Asiatic spheres of the world are apt to react on the socialist movement at the capitalist end, and vice versa.197

Finally, and specifically on India, he wrote:

If it is asked whether Marx had not given up his 1853 position on the question of AMPs transformation, the answer would be both yes and no. An answer which cannot be just this or that . . . although in 1853 Marx underlined the dissolution of the AMPs communal conditions of life and existence in India under the impact of world capitalism; he never said that this work of dissolution was already a fait accompli. The implication is nothing else but that of the present continuous tense. In other words, the process of AMPs disintegration in India was not at all complete.198

17

As Marxist historiography gained momentum in India, its auto critique also generated newer hind sights and insights. In the words of Professor Niharranjan Ray:
Historically speaking, academic intellectuals in India, particularly social scientists and historians, have been, generally, products of positivist thinking as obtained in England during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, an England that had a strong empiricist tradition from the late eighteenth century onwards. The interpretation of the scientific materialism of Marx that came to shape and form the thinking of contemporary social scientists, historians and philosophical thinkers in India was very largely coloured by this strong positivist and empiricist tradition, which by itself is antithetic to Marxian dialectics. But it was an interpretation which our academic intellectuals came to accept and adopt for their intellectual exercises and which, slowly but surely, percolated down to the general leftist intellectual levels.199

Ray lamented the fact that the new creative avenues opened up in European Marxist thought in the twentieth century did not percolate down to India.200 He also observed that the Indian Marxists are not abreast of the epoch making discoveries in the sphere of natural science that have taken place in the twentieth century.201 Sociologist G. R. Madans attempt202 to summarize Marxs India-related writings may be viewed as representative of the empiricist reading of Marx, referred to by Ray above. Madan grouped Marxs views on various aspects of Indian society under the following heads:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Indias woes more under British rule than in the past Principles of laissez faire and neglect of irrigation No responsible authority to look after peoples welfare Undue burden of Indian princes Destruction of hand industries Village communities and their role in historic development Property rights in arable land Indian land tenure Indian revenue and taxation Dual role of England destructive and regenerative Indian social structure and human progress.203

Madan summarized Marxs views under each of these heads, basing himself on: Marxs 1853 NYDT articles on India; the Marx-Engels correspondence reproduced in Karl Marx, Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations; Marxs Notes on Indian History; and Capital, Vol. III.204 Madan also offered some empirical data and differing opinion on some issues. For instance, he noted that from the 1860s onwards the British government of India made some attempts to improve irrigation facilities. However, it failed to recognize the traditional role of the local self-governments at the village level and of their higher organs, in the repair and maintenance of the irrigation facilities in South India, and replaced them with the newly set up, less effective, district boards, thereby destroying the initiative of the people in organizing irrigation in that part of the country. 205 The princely houses of Baroda and Mysore were exceptions to Marxs observations on the
18

Indian princes : they had a broader outlook and took active part in the development of their states.206 Madan is of the view that some of Marxs observations on the village communities of India are correct, some are partly correct, while others are incorrect. For instance, Marxs observation that the villagers wholly depended upon central government for irrigation purposes leading to despotism is not wholly correct. Some irrigation facilities were maintained by the village panchayats or their higher organs. If some great irrigation projects were left to the government, as these were beyond the control of local initiatives, how it led to despotism is not clear. Government ought to perform such functions and providing irrigation facilities is now recognized as one of the important functions of a modern democratic state. Isolated village communities were not a uniquely Indian phenomenon; to some extent such communities prevailed even in Europe before the industrial revolution. Marxs observation that the village communities were disappearing under the impact of steam power and English commerce is not wholly correct. The cheap, British, machinemade goods mostly affected the urban centres. Marxs observation that the village communities restrained the human mind is true to some extent. Marxs observation that the villages were unconcerned about the towns or about the country as a whole is only partly true. None of the pre-British invaders could subjugate the entire country. There was always some resistance. This was particularly tough in the South. The villagers cooperated whenever their king gave such a call.207 Madan is of the view that Marx was not clear about the property rights in arable land in India. It was really a complex question.208 The Britishers also did not have any clear idea on this question. During the Hindu period the land belonged to the tillers of the soil; whether it was held separately by each cultivator or jointly is a different question. The king had no right to disturb the ownership of the cultivator unless he was in default of payment of rent due to him. Views differ as to whether the arable land was held on an individual basis or jointly by the villagers. Among the supporters of the former view, Madan included such authorities as A. S. Altekar,209 B. H. BadenPowell210 and M. Elphinstone, 211 while he listed the names of Sir Henry Maine212 and Dr. R. K. Mukherjee213 as supporters of the latter view. Altekar was of the view that the Vedas, Jataka stories and the Smrtis bear testimony to the prevalence of the system of peasant proprietorship in India since very early times. The separate record of each landowner in the village, kept by the village accountant during the Maurya period (c. 321-184 B. C.), as mentioned in the Arthashastra is proof of the same. The joint holdings of the villages in the North, where a group of persons constituting the village community held the village land, not in joint tenancy but in tenancy-in-common, appeared in the medieval period, when the Punjab and the United Provinces were subjected to invasions, both under Hindu and Muslim rule. A daring chief conquered and occupied a tract of land, which he assigned to his followers by way of reward. Each assignee became the owner of the village land. In course of time the family of the assignee multiplied and, in a century or so, instead of one owner there was a co-sharing body of village proprietors, who descended from a common ancestor. Each had a clear idea of his ownership in the joint land, though they were jointly responsible for the
19

government revenue. Joint cultivation was undertaken to keep community life better, while joint responsibility for payment of land revenue was in vogue to avoid oppression by the rulers. An opposite view was held by Maine. He contended that in the earliest times the entire village land belonged to the community without any individual rights in the property, as was the case with the ancient European communities. The ryotwari system of peasant proprietorship was a decayed form of the joint holdings system. Maine held that though later on individual rights in property were recognized in these villages, the land was re-distributed among the villagers equalizing the fertility of the soils. Madan is of the view that before the British conquest two systems of land tenure were prevalent in India: the ryotwari system of peasant proprietorship and, the mahalwari system of joint ownership. The British, following their own tradition that the king was the sole proprietor of land, imposed the zamindari system, first in Bengal, and later on in the other parts of North India. In the face of resistance from the local people, it was given up in many areas. However, the ryotwari and the mahalwari systems introduced later on under the British rule were not satisfactory, as the land revenue was very high, and it also fluctuated from time to time. Marx strongly criticized all these systems. Madan observed that Mr. R. C. Dutt214 almost concurred with Marxs views on the British Indian systems of revenue and taxation.215 He also noted that the observations made by Marx in connection with the future results of the British rule in India turned out to be true.216 Marx believed that the railways and modern industries will lead to the dissolution of hereditary division of labour and caste distances. Madan observed that many people have joined the new industries, leaving their hereditary occupations and are working together at one place. However, many of the upper castes still prefer nonmanual jobs and are not interested in taking up industrial enterprises. Marx wrote that all the English bourgeoisie may be forced to do will neither emancipate nor materially mend the social conditions of the mass of the people till in Great Britain itself the ruling class is replaced by industrial proletariat or the Indians themselves have grown strong enough to throw off the English yoke altogether. Madan found that this observation of Marx has also proved to be true. India got independence in 1947 only when the Labour Government with Mr. Clement Atlee as prime minister came to power, although promises were made earlier from time to time by various other parties in power to give independence to India.217 Madan concluded that:
Karl Marx studied all the aspects of Indian society, including political, economic, social, religious, ruralurban, familistic, cultural etc., with the exception of population.218

Madan forgot to mention that Marx predeceased the Indian population studies. Others have noted that Marx did not live to see the results of the revenue surveys and caste inquiries of India.219 One may add that the discovery of the Indus Valley Civilization and of the text of Arthashastra also took place after Marxs death. People of each generation in every country labour under the load of the main gaps in contemporary knowledge. For instance, the otherwise painstaking surveys and interventions of Sudipta Kaviraj,220 Sunil Mitra,221 Debi Chaterjee,222 Andr Bteille,
20

223 and Debesh Roy Choudhury,224 and Dipesh Chakrabarty225 suffer from the contemporary Indian lack of awareness about the India-related ethnological notes and land-relations-historiographic excerpts of Karl Marx. Kraders editions of these texts (see n. 8 and 9) were available and read, but not much commented upon; Harsticks edition (see n. 9) was not even available and, remains inaccessible to most Indians, like the volumes of the MEGA, on linguistic grounds. This reveals a certain time-lag and communication gap between Indian and Western Marx-studies, even in the realm of matters pertaining to India. * * * * * * * * *

Marxs interest in India was a part of his interest in the dynamics of world history. He inherited this interest from European Renaissance and Enlightenment, the Romantic Movement and, the critique of that movement in Hegel, and thereafter. 226 The exposure to the data and texts from the non-European world gave rise to an interest in world history in Europe. In the German speaking part of Europe this interest manifested itself as a discourse on the philosophy of human social history. In England and France it laid the foundations of ethnlogical studies, which grew into empirical and theoretical anthropology. Multi-dimensional study of world history came into being. When Marx began his studies on India, he took his cues from the entire preceding scholarship. Before him, and largely even after, European Indology was mainly interested in Indias past. Marx effected an inversion, and turned his gaze firmly on Indias present and future. He was interested in finding out how this historical other of Europe was getting transformed into something else. As in the case of political economy, here too, his journalistic involvement lured him into a study of the more enduring structures of the socio-economic formations that evolved in this part of the world. His study of political economy and world history complemented each other. After all, the former unfolds inside the latter. Neither world history, nor political economy, and not even India, has come to an end! Their study remains open ended. What is more, all of these are very large domains, containing numerous very large sub-domains. Borrowing an expression from an well-known result obtained in the realm of another discourse,227 it may be heuristically suggested, that hence the incompleteness of our cognitive efforts Marxs included in these, as in many other, domains. Many Marxists in India and abroad have turned their attention to India. Till date their efforts are preponderantly characterized by a certain externalist orientation, wherein India figures solely as an object of investigation and therapy and, Marxism appears as a repository of some methods which are external to it. They have generally failed to notice that India, and for that matter Asia and the entire world, is internally connected with the very process of emergence of Marxs historiography228. In the case of India, these connections are mediated through the interfaces of India-Studies, Philosophy of History, Historiography and, Anthropology. The study of these internal connections alone can set right the imbalances, misconceptions and, the orientalist and anti-orientalist etc. stereotypes, which mar the hitherto evolved reception of Marxs writings on India. We can expect that in the process many interesting hind sights, insights and foresights will also be generated, respectively, about Indias past, present and future. The future21

orientation is crucial here, as the task is not merely to interpret India, but also to change her for the betterment of her people and of the entire humankind.

NOTES:
1 2 3 4 Karl Marx, Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature, in: Marx K. and Engels, F. Collected Works (henceforth, MECW), Vol. 1 (Moscow, 1975), pp. 41, 736. See: MECW, Vol. 5 (Moscow, 1976), p. 55. See: MECW, Vol. 6 (Moscow, 1976), pp. 184-85. See : MECW, Vol. 12 (Moscow, 1979), pp. 125-33, 148-56, 174-84, 192-200, 209-16, 217-22; vol. 15 (Moscow, 1986), 297-300, 305-21, 327-30, 336-56, 361-78, 392-99, 419-24, 435-52, 504-09, 527-38, 546-49, 553-59, 575-88, 590-95, 607-11. See: MECW, Vol. 28 (Moscow, 1986), pp. 34-35, 406, 424; Vol. 29 (Moscow, 1987), pp. 253, 275 (footnote). Capital, Vol. I (Moscow, 1983), pp. 337-39; Vol. II (Moscow, 1978), p. 137 (footnote); Vol. III (Moscow, 1978), pp. 333-34. Theories of Surplus Value, Part I (Moscow, 1978), p. 376; Part II (Moscow, 1978), pp. 16, 241, 407, 482; Part III (Moscow, 1978), pp. 188, 416, 435, 440. See : MECW, Vol. 39 (Moscow, 1983), pp. 333-34, 339-40, 345-48; Marx-Engels, Selected Correspondence (Moscow, 1965), pp. 337, 351. See: MECW, Vol. 26 (Moscow, 1990), pp. 140, 148, 151, 159-60, 162, 168, 169, 174, 232. Lawrence Krader (ed.), The Ethnological Notebooks of Karl Marx (Assen 1972; 2nd ed. 1974), pp. 103, 106, 245-71, 281-84, 297, 307, 309, 314, 322-27, 333-34, 339, 341, 344, 347, 348. Karl Marx, Excerpts from Maksim Maksimovich Kovalevskijs Obschinnoe Zemlevladenie i.t.d. (Moskva, 1879), in : Lawrence Krader, The Asiatic Mode of Production : Sources, Development and Critique in the writings of Karl Marx (Assen, 1975), Part II, pp. 345-99 and, in : Hans-Peter Harstick (Hrsg.), Karl Marx ber Formen vorkapitalistischer Produktion (Frankfurt/Main and New York, 1977), S. 39-93. Karl Marx, Notes on Indian History (Moscow, 1960). For a selected list of books in the Assamese, Bengali, Gujrati, Hindi, Indian English, Kanada, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Tamil, Telegu and Urdu languages upto 1983, see : Arati Datta and Phani Bhusan Roy, Karl Marx : through Indian Eyes (Calcutta, 1984). This list does not include publications in the Kashmiri, Konkani, Manipuri, Nepali, Santhali and Sindhi languages. The possibility of publications existing in some more of the Indian languages can not be excluded. Earlier attempts in this direction include: i. G.J. Ramarao, Marxism: Indian History and Philosophy, in: Horst Krger (Hrsg.), Neue Indienkunde. Festschrift Walter Ruben zum 70. Geburtstag (Berlin, 1970), pp. 331-43. ii. Bastiaan Wielenga, Marxist Views on India in Historical Perspective (Madras, 1976); see especially therein, Chapter II : Indian Marxists on Marx and Indian History, pp. 63-112. While collecting materials for this article I received a lot of help from Rajani and Sanjiv Vaidya, Biplab Chakraborty, Bhanudeb Dutta, G. Kumarappa and, late Somnath Ghosh. Karl Marx, The Future Results of the British Rule in India, NYDT, No. 3840 of August 8, 1853; in : MECW, Vol. 12, l.c., (n. 4), p. 218. See: Dilip Kumar Biswas (ed.), The Correspondence of Raja Rammohun Roy, Vol. II (Calcutta, 1997), pp. 755-56. See: Id. (ed.), The Correspondence of Raja Rammohun Roy, Vol. I (Calcutta, 1992), pp. 560-62; Vol. II, l.c., (n. 15), pp. 706-09, 775-76, 990, 1122. See: MECW, Vol. 12, l.c., (n. 4), pp. 125-33, 217-22. See: the weekly Somprokash (Harinavi, 23 Baishakh 1269/5 May 1862; quoted in: Sukomal Sen, Bharater Shramik Andolaner Itihas (History of Indian Labour Movement) (Calcutta, 1975; 3rd ed. 1984), p. 119.

6 7 8 9

10 11

12

13 14 15 16 17 18

22

19

See: the Transactions of the Bengal Social Science Association: 1867-78; partially reprinted in: Bela Dutt Gupta, Sociology in India (Calcutta, 1972), see especially therein: Part Two, pp. 52-63, 186-94, 278-307, 344-61. Reverend James Long, Village Communities in India and Russia. Read on 26 March 1872. Repr. in: Dutt Gupta, Sociology in India, l.c., (n. 19), Part Two, pp. 221-77. For Marxs excerpts containing a reference to it, see Marx-Nachlass (IISG, Amsterdam), B140, pp. 40, 71; Eng. tr. in : Krader, The Asiatic Mode of Production etc., l.c., (n. 9), Part II, pp. 368, 389; Bengali tr. in : Pradip Baksi (ed.), Karl Marx, Bharatbarse JamiSamparker Itihas Prasange (On the History of Land Relations in India), (Calcutta, 1999), pp. 30, 62. John Budd Phear, The Aryan Village in India and Ceylon (London, 1880). For Marxs notes from it see : MarxNachlass (IISG, Amsterdam), B 146, pp. 128-54; reproduced in : Krader (ed.), The Ethnological Notebooks of Karl Marx, l.c., (n. 8), pp. 243-84; partial Bengali tr. by Partha Chattopadhyaya in collaboration with Sujan Chanda and Shuvoranjan Dasgupta, under the title : Banglar Gramsamaj Prasange Karl Marx (Karl Marx on the Rural Society of Bengal), Baromas (Calcutta, Autumn 1987), pp. 2-22. Peary Mohan Mukherjee [in Marxs notes: Babu Peary Chund Mookerjee], On the condition of Bengal Ryot. Read on 11 February 1870. Repr. in : Dutt Gupta, Sociology in India, l.c., (n. 19), Part Two, pp. 186-94. For Marxs excerpts from it see: Marx-Nachlass (IISG, Amsterdam), B 146, p. 136; and, Krader (ed.) The Ethnological Notebooks of Karl Marx, l.c., (n. 8), p. 257. See: the Documents of the First International : 1870-1871 (Moscow and London, n. d.), pp. 258, 530. Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyaya, Samya, Bangadarshan (Calcutta, 1874-76). Reissued as a monograph in 1879. Repr. in: Gopal Halder (ed.). Bankim Rachanasangraha, Prabandha Khanda, Pratham Angsha (Calcutta, 1973), pp. 498-533. Subsequently, Bankim distanced himself from the views expressed therein. Ibid., p. 507. Here and henceforth all translations into English are mine P. B. Jogendra Chandra Ghosh, The Village Community of Bengal and Upper India, The Calcutta Review, Vol. LXXIV, No. CXLVIII (Calcutta, 1882), pp. 227-70. See: Marx-Nachlass (IISG, Amsterdam), B 140, pp. 29-34; Krader, The Asiatic Mode of Production etc., l.c., (n. 9), Part II, pp. 346-55. See: Marx-Nachlass (IISG, Amsterdam), B 140, pp. 30, 31, 66, 76; Krader, The Asiatic Mode of Production etc., l.c., (n. 9), Part II, pp. 350, 351, 382, 397. Ghosh, The Village Community of Bengal and Upper India, The Calcutta Review, l.c., (n. 26), p. 244. The reference is to: August von Haxthausen, Studien ber die innern Zustande des Volksleben und insbesondere die lndlichen Einrichtungen Russlands, 3 vols. (Hanover, 1847-1852) and, the disscussion that followed this publication. Karl Marx, Outlines of the Critique of Political Economy (Rough Drafts of 1857-58), in : MECW, Vol. 29, l.c., (n. 5), p. 253. Rabindranath Thakur, Socialism, Sadhana (Calcutta, Jaistha 1299/May-June 1892), pp. 87-91. Swami Vivekananda, Letter to Miss Mary Hale, 1st November, 1896; in : The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Vol. VI (Calcutta, 1956; 13th repr. 1995), pp. 381-82. See: Khorshed Adi Sethna, Madame Bhikhaji Rustom Kama (New Delhi, 1987), pp. 37-38. Ibid., p. 71. Ibid., p. 38. Naginlal H. Setalvad, Socialism and the Social Movement, The Modern Review, Vol. VII, No. 3 (Calcutta, March 1910), pp. 255-67. Werner Sombart, Sozialismus und soziale Bewegung im 19. Jahrhundert; subsequently reissued as : Sozialismus und soziale Bewegung; Eng. tr. Socialism and the Social Movement (London and New York, 1909); in 1924 the 10th ed. of the original was published under the title : Der proletarische Socialismus (Marxismus).

20

21

22

23 24

25 26 27 28 29 30

31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

23

39 40

Lala Hardayal, Karl Marx : A Modern Rishi, The Modern Review, Vol. IX, No. 3 (Calcutta, March 1912), pp. 273-86. K. Ramakrishna Pillai, Karl Marx (Palghat, August 4, 1912). For an Eng. tr. of it by K. P. Mohan, together with a reprint of Hardayals essay (see n. 39), see : P. C. Joshi and K. Damodaran, Marx comes to India (Delhi, 1975), pp. 47-73, 108-23. Upendranath Bandopadhyaya, Europe Samaj Biplab (Social Revolution in Europe), Narayan (Calcutta, Asara 1327/June-July 1920); repr. in : Shipra Sarkar and Anamitra Dash (collected), Bangalir Samyabad Charcha (The Cultivation of Communism in Bengal) (Calcutta, 1998), pp. 33-37. Sripad Amrit Dange, Gandhi vs Lenin (Bombay, 1921); repr. in: Id., Selected Writings, Vol. 1 (Bombay, 1974), pp. 41-126. Manabendra Nath Roy, in collaboration with Abani Mukherji, India in Transition (Genve, 1922). Largely secular, extremist and, Pan-Indian. In 1920, about 18,000 Muslim peasants went to Afganistan from India. They considered India under the British to be an apostate land, and sympathised with the plight of the Sultan of Turkey (see n. 48 below). The Party originated in California. Attempted uprising in central Punjab in 1915. The party was dissolved in 1948. Like the Yugantar and Anushilan in Bengal. A large number of their members joined the communist and trotskyist parties in the 1930s. A movement in early 20th century India, which arose as a result of Muslim fears for the integrity of Islam. It was a campaign in defense of the Sultan of Turkey, who was also the Khalifa (Caliph) of Islam. It collapsed when Mustafa Kemal Atatrk abolished the caliphate in 1924. A movement for the liberation of the Sikh shrines (Gurudwaras) from the clutches of autocratic clergy (Mahants). After the attainment of democratic control of the shrines in 1925, the movement turned itself into a political party, presently operative in Indian Pubjab. See: Gangadhar Adhikari (ed.), Documents of the History of the Communist Party of India (henceforth, DHCPI), Volume One: 1917-1922 (New Delhi, 1971), pp. 1-4. Karl Marx, Outlines of the Critique of Political Economy (Rough Drafts of 1857-58), in : MECW, Vol. 29, l.c., (n. 5), p. 253. Edward Shils, The Academic Profession in India, in : Edmund Leach and S. N. Mukherjee (ed.), Elites in South Asia (Cambridge, 1970), p. 199. See: Krader, The Asiatic Mode of Production etc., l.c., (n. 8), pp. 327-39, especially pp. 337-39 therein. See : Kautilya, The Arthashastra, ed., rearranged, tr. and introduced by L. N. Rangarajan (New Delhi, 1992), pp. 223-52, 265-74, 281-87, 294-303, 324-56, 369-91, 392-445. See: The Kamasutra of Vatsyayana, tr. by Richard F. Burton (New Delhi, 1993), pp. 205-37. See the 44th amendment to the Inidan Constitution adopted in 1978. See: the working paper on Asian labour by Prof. Jan Breman, A Study of Industrial Labour in Post-Colonial India, p. 10. Centre for Asian Studies, Amsterdam. (E-mail : breman@pscw.uva.nl). M. N. Roys Memoirs (Bombay etc., 1964), p. 29. Mohammad Barakatullah, Bolshevism and Islamic Nations (in Persian) (Tashkent, 1919); Eng. tr. by Captain Samad Shah of the British-Indian Army, preserved in the National Archives of India, Home and Political Department, 1919, File No. 2295; partially reproduced in : DHCPI, Volume One : 1917-1922, l.c., (n. 50), pp. 123-28, see therein p. 123. Ibid., pp. 123-28. Dange, Gandhi vs Lenin, in : his Selected Writings, Vol. 1, l.c., (n. 42), p. 75.

41

42 43 44 45 46 47 48

49

50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59

60 61

24

62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70

Frederick Engels, The History of Primitive Christianity. Written between June 19 and July 16, 1894. Partially reproduced in : Marx, Engels, Pre-Capitalist Socio-Economic Formations (Moscow, 1979), p. 482. Wielenga, Marxist Views on India in Historical Perspective, l.c., (n. 12. ii), p. xviii. Ibid. See: Pradip Baksi, Rammohun O Amader Kal (Rammohun and Our Times), translators introduction to : Rammohun Roy, Samajik O Rajnaitik Prasanga (On Issues Social and Political) (Calcutta, 1998), p. xiii. Id. Samakalin Samajer Uttaraner Samasya (Problems of Social Transition Today). Rammohun Roy Memorial Lecture (Calcutta, 18 March, 1998), pp. 23-24 Benoy Kumar Sarkar, Paribar, Gosthi O Rastra (Itihaser Arthanaitik Byakhya) [The Family, the Gens and the State (An Economic Interpretation of History)] (Calcutta, 1924). Ibid., pp. vii-viii. Ibid., p. viii. See: Frederick Engels, Paribar, Byaktigata Sampatti O Rastrer Utpatti (The Origin of the Family, Private property and the State), tr. by Manmatha Nath Sarkar (Calcutta, May, 1944); tr. by Rebati Barman (Calcutta, November 1944); anonymous tr. (Moscow, 1977). Sarkar, Paribar, Gosthi O Rastra (Itihaser Arthanaitik Byakhya), l.c., (n. 67), pp. iv, vi. Ibid., p. v. Ibid., p. xvi. Ibid., pp. xxii-xxiii. Masses, No. 11 (November, 1925). Rajani Palme Dutt, Modern India (London, 1926; Indian reprint : Bombay, 1926). See: Anjan Bera, Banglay Marksbadi Prakashanar Pratham Parba (The First Phase of Marxist Publications in Bengal) (Calcutta, 2000), p. 20. Soumendranath Thakur, Sadharan Swattwabadir Istahar (Manifesto of the Upholders of Common Ownership) (Calcutta, 1929). For this * marked footnote see: MECW, Vol. 6, (Moscow, 1976), p. 482. See: the Statement of S. A. Dange, Accused in the Meerut Conspiracy Case, Before R. L. Yorke, Esqr. I.C.S., Additional Sessions Judge, Meerut, U. P. India; Delivered from 26th October 1931 to 5th January 1932 (Meerut, 1932); repr. in: S. A. Dange, Selected Writings, Vol. 2 (Bombay, 1977), see pp. 137-38 therein. See: Dange, Selected Writings, Vol. 2, l.c., (n. 80), Appendix E, p. 513. Ibid., Foreword, pp. xix-xx. See: Karl Marx, The British Rule in India, in : MECW, Vol. 12, l.c., (n. 4), p. 132. Mulk Raj Anand (ed.), Marx and Engels on India (Allahabad, 1938). See: MECW, Vol. 12, l.c., (n. 4), pp. 93-100. See: MECW, Vol. 40 (Moscow, 1983), pp. 49-51; and MECW, Vol. 43 (Moscow, 1988), pp. 389-91, 471-76. Karl Marx, Articles on India (Bombay, 1943; 2nd ed. 1945). Compare: Rajani Palme Dutt, India Today (London, 1940; Calcutta reprint of 1997), pp. 83-96, 193-95. Marx, Engels, The First Indian War of Independence 1857-1859 (Moscow, 1959). Marx, Notes on Indian History, l.c., (n. 10). See: Datta and Roy, Karl Marx : through Indian Eyes, l.c., (n. 11).

71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80

81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90

25

91

For instance: Karl Marx, Pre-capitalist Economic Formations; tr. J. Cohen, Ed. and Intro. by E. J. Hobsbawm (London, 1964). Daniel Thorner, Marx on India and the Asiatic Mode of Production, Contributions to Indian Sociology, Vol. IX (Paris, December 1966), pp. 33-66. Shlomo Avineri (ed.), Karl Marx on Colonialism and Modernization: his despatches and other writings on China, India, Mexico, the Middle East and North Africa (New York, 1969). Marx, Engels, Pre-Capitalist Socio-Economic Formations, l.c., (n. 62). Preface by Norrire Ter-Akopyan. See n. 8 and n. 9. See: Banglar GramSamaj Prasange Karl Marx, Baromas, l.c., (n. 21). See: Baksi (ed.), Karl Marx, Bharatbarse Jami-Samparker Itihas Prasange, l.c., (n. 20). Iz neopublikovannykh rukopisiej Karla Marksa, Sovetskoe Vostokovedenie (Moskva, 1958), No. 3 (str. 3-13), No. 4 (str. 3-32), No. 5 (str. 3-28). See n. 9. Introduction to: Karl Marx, The Future Results of the British Rule in India, (NYDT, No. 3840, of August 8, 1853), repr. in Masses, No. 11 (1925), l.c., (n. 75). Introduction repr. in DHCPI, Volume Two : 1923-1925 (New Delhi, 1974; 2nd print 1982), pp. 589-90. Hirendranath Mukhopadhyaya, Bharatbarsa O Karl Marx (India and Karl Marx) (Calcutta, 1347/1940); partially repr. in Sarkar and Dash (collected), Bangalir Samyabad Charcha, l.c., (n. 41), p. 259.

92 93 94 95 96 97 98

99

100 Panduranga V. Gadgil, Karl Marx Ani Hindustan (Karl Marx and India), Parishista (Appendix): Capital Granthachi Parshabhumi (The Background of the Capital), Marxche Capital-Sargrantha (A Summary of Marxs Capital) (Mumbai / Bombay, 1941; 2nd ed. 1949), p. 135. 101 Jawaharlal Nehru, The Discovery of India (Calcutta, 1946; New Delhi, 1981). 102 Ibid., pp. 29-30. 103 Ibid., p. 30. 104 S. A. Dange, India: from Primitive Communism to Slavery A Marxist Study of Ancient Indian History in Outline (New Delhi 1949; 5th ed. 1972). 105 Ibid., p. xxvii. 106 See: Ibid., p. 14. 107 Ibid., p. xi. 108 Ibid., p. xvi. 109 Ibid., p. xxiii. 110 Ramarao, Marxism: Indian History and Philosophy, in : Krger (Hrsg.), Neue Indienkunde, l.c., (n. 12.i), p. 331. 111 See: Dr. Bhupendra Nath Datta, Aprakashita Rajnitik Itihas (Unpublished Political History) (Calcutta, 1953), pp. 240-353. 112 Id., Dialectics of Land Economics of India (Calcutta, 1952). 113 See: Ibid., p. 231. 114 Ibid. 115 The reference is to Marxs letter to Engels dated 14 June 1853; see MECW, Vol. 39, l.c., (n. 6), p. 348. 116 Datta, Dialectics of Land Economics of India,l.c., (n. 112), p. 231. 117 Ibid., p. 232. 118 See: Marx-Nachlass, B 140. 119 See: Marx-Nachlass, B 146.

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120 Henry Sumner Maine, Village-communities in the East and West, to which are added Other Lectures, Addresses, and Essays (London, 1871). 121 Id., Ancient Law: its connection with the early history of society, and its relation to modern ideas (London, 1861), p. 170. 122 See: MECW, Vol. 6, l.c., (n. 3), pp. 485-89. 123 MECW, Vol. 26, l.c., (n. 7), p. 186. 124 Damodar Dharmanand Kosambi, An Introduction to the Study of Indian History (henceforth, ISIH) (Bombay, 1956; rev. 2nd ed. 1975; 4th Repr. 1991). 125 Ibid., pp. 8-9. 126 Ibid., p. 15 (Kosambis note 13). 127 Ibid., pp. 9-10. 128 Ibid., p. 10. 129 Ibid., pp. 15-16 (Kosambis note 14). 130 See: Marx, Capital, Vol. I, l.c., (n. 5), pp. 337-39. 131 Kosambi, ISIH, l.c., (n. 124), p. 11. 132 Marx, The Future Results of the British Rule in India, in MECW, Vol. 12, l.c., (n. 5), p. 217. 133 Time: c. 4th-2nd centuries B.C. Area: the whole of India, minus the area south of Karnataka. 134 Time: c. 1st century B.C.-3rd century C.E. Area: north Deccan. 135 Time: c. 4th-6th centuries C.E. Area: north India. 136 Kosambi, ISIH, l.c., (n. 124), p. 12. 137 Ibid. 138 Ibid., p. 14 139 Perhaps the reference is to: Francis Buchanan, A Journey from Madras through the Countries of Mysore, Canara, and Malabar, 3 vols. (London, 1807). See: Marx-Nachlass, B 140, p. 68. 140 D. D. Kosambi, Letter of Pierre Vidal-Naquet, 4th July 1964; quoted in: Romila Thapar, The Contribution of D. D. Kosambi to Indology, Interpreting Early India (New Delhi, 1992); included in : Id., History and Beyond (New Delhi, 2000), p. 105. 141 See: Marx-Nachlass, B 140, pp. 38, 70-71. For Kosambis study of the Goan village organisation, which was, according to him, the model for the Karnatak settlement and which survived almost to the 1960s, see : D. D. Kosambi, Myth and Reality (Bombay, 1962), Ch. V. 142 See: D. D. Kosambi, The Culture and Civilisation of Ancient India in Historical Outline (New Delhi, 1970; 6th impression 1981), pp. 166-210. 143 Time: 1336-1646 C.E. Area: a part of the Deccan. 144 D. C. Sircar, Landlordism confused with Feudalism, in : Id. (ed.), Land System and Feudalism in Ancient India (Calcutta, 1966), p. 57. 145 Irfan Habib, Problems of Marxist Historical Analysis, Enquiry (Delhi, Monsoon 1969), pp. 51-56; revised version in : Science and Human Progress : Prof. D. D. Kosambi Commemoration Volume (Bombay, 1974), pp. 34-47. All subsequent references are to this revised version. 146 Habib, Problems of Marxist Historical Analysis, in: Science and Human Progress etc., l.c., (n. 145), p. 36. 147 See: Maine, Village-communities in the East and West etc. l.c., (n. 120). 148 Habib, Problems of Marxist Historical Analysis, in: Science and Human Progress etc., l.c., (n. 145), p. 37.

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149 Ibid., p. 38. 150 Ibid. 151 Ibid., p. 40. 152 See, for instance: Irfan Habib, Marxs Perception of India, The Marxist, Vol. 1 (New Delhi, July-September 1983), pp. 92-143; also included in: Marx on Indonesia and India. Mit Beitrgen von Fritjof Tichelman und Irfan Habib. Schriften aus dem Karl-Marx-Haus (Trier, 1983). 153 Gangadhar Adhikari, Marx and India (New Delhi, 1969), p. 13. 154 Ibid., p. 14. 155 Susobhan Sarkar, Marx on Indian History, in : P. C. Joshi (ed.), Homage to Karl Marx : A Symposium (New Delhi, 1969), p. 93. 156 Ibid., p. 94. 157 Ibid., p. 95. 158 Ibid. 159 Ibid., p. 95-96. 160 Ibid., p. 97. 161 See Marx-Nachlass, B 140, pp. 34-39. 162 Sarkar, Marx on Indian History, in: Joshi (ed.), Homage to Karl Marx: A Symposium, l.c., (n. 155), p. 98. 163 Ibid. 164 Karl Marx, The British Rule in India, in MECW, Vol. 12, l.c., (n. 4), p. 126. 165 Ibid. 166 Thomas Stamford Raffles, The History of Java, Vol. 1 (London, 1817), p. 151. Quoted by Marx in his article cited in n. 164 above. 167 Sarkar, Marx on Indian History, in : Joshi (ed.), Homage to Karl Marx : A Symposium, l.c., (n. 155), p. 102.] 168 See MECW, Vol. 12, l.c., (n. 4), pp. 131-132. 169 Sarkar, Marx on Indian History, in : Joshi (ed.), Homage to Karl Marx : A Symposium, l.c., (n. 155), p. 107. 170 See: MECW, Vol. 12, l.c., (n.4), pp. 218-21. 171 Sarkar, Marx on Indian History, in : Joshi (ed.), Homage to Karl Marx : A Symposium, l.c., (n. 155), p. 108. See also, Sunil Sen, Marx on Indian Railways, in : Mohit Sen and M. B. Rao (ed.), Das Kapital Centenary Volume : A Symposium (Delhi etc., 1968), pp. 158-65. 172 Formed in 1964 after a split in the Communist Party of India. 173 E.M.S. Namboodiripad, Marx, the Asiatic Mode and the study of Indian History, The Radical Review, Vol. 3, No. 2 (Madras, April-June 1972); repr. in Id., Selected Writings, Volume One (Calcutta, 1982), p. 357-65; see p. 359 therein. 174 S. Naqvi, Marx on Pre-British Indian Society and Economy, Socialist Digest, No. 7, March 1973; Repr. in: Science and Human Progress: Prof. D. D. Kosambi Commemoration Volume, l.c., (n. 145), pp. 48-76; see p. 58 therein. 175 Ibid. 176 Ibid., pp. 59-60. See also Marx-Nachlass, B 140, p. 67. 177 Franois Bernier, Voyages, contenant la description des Etats du Grand Mogol, 2 vols. (Amsterdam, 1669 / 1723-24). 178 Report of the Committee of the House of Commons (London, 1812).

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179 Naqvi, Marx on Pre-British Indian Society and Economy, in: Science and Human Progress etc., l.c., (n. 174), pp. 60-71. 180 We learn from Marx-Nachlass, B 140, p. 68: that Marx had at least read Kovalevskij on the Letter to Colbert adjoined to Voyages de Franois Bernier. Amsterdam, 1669. 181 Tapan Raychoudhuri, The Asiatic Mode of Production and Indias Foreign Trade in the 17th century: A Theoretical Exercise, in : Essays in Honour of Prof. S. C. Sarkar (New Delhi, 1976), p. 839. 182 See: Maurice Godelier, La notion de mode de production asiatique et les schmas marxistes d volution des socits, Sur le mode de production asiatique (Paris, 1969), pp. 47-100; Eng. tr. in D. D. Seddon (ed.), Relations of Production (London, 1978). 183 Raychoudhuri, The Asiatic Mode of Production and Indias Foreign Trade in the 17th century : A Theoretical Exercise, in : Essays in Honour of Prof. S. C. Sarkar, l.c., (n. 181), pp. 839-40. 184 Ibid., pp. 843-44. 185 Ibid., pp. 844. 186 Ibid., pp. 845-46. 187 See: MECW, Vol. 28, l.c., (n. 5), p. 418. 188 Diptendra Banerjee, Marx and the Transformability of Asiatic Societies, in : Essays in Honour of Prof. S. C. Sarkar, l.c., (n. 181), p. 849. 189 Ibid. 190 Ibid., p. 854. 191 See: Nikolai Konstantinovich Mikhailovskij, K. Marks pered sudom g. Yu. Zhukovskovo [Karl Marx before the Tribunal of Mr. Zhukovskij], Otechestvenniye Zapiski, October 1877, pp. 311-70. 192 See: Marx, Letter to the Editorial Board of the Otechestvenniye Zapiski, November 1877; in : Marx-Engels, Selected Correspondence (Moscow, 1965), p. 313. 193 See: Marx, Letter to Vera Ivanovna Zasulich, March 8, 1881; Ibid., pp. 339-40. 194 Banerjee, Marx and the Transformability of the Asiatic Societies, in : Essays in Honour of Prof. S. C. Sarkar, l.c., (n. 181), p. 855. 195 Ibid., p. 870. 196 Ibid., p. 877-78. 197 Ibid., p. 878. 198 Ibid., pp. 880-81. 199 Niharranjan Ray, Indian Historiography and Marxist Thought, in: Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya (ed.), Marxism and Indology. Transactions of the Seminar on Marxism and Indology, jointly sponsored by Asiatic Society, Calcutta and, Indo-GDR Friendship Society, West Bengal, in celebration of the 80th Birthday of Professor Walter Ruben (Calcutta, 1981), p. 32. 200 Ibid., pp. 32-33. 201 Ibid., p. 34. 202 G. R. Madan, Western sociologists on Indian society: Marx, Spencer, Weber, Durkheim, Pareto (London etc. 1979), Ch. 1 : Karl Marx (1818-83), pp. 1-27, end notes in pp. 361-62. 203 Ibid., p. 3. 204 Ibid., p. 2. [See n. 4, 91, 10 and 5 above.] 205 Ibid., p. 5. 206 Ibid., p. 9.

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207 Ibid., pp. 14-15. 208 Ibid., pp. 15-17. 209 A. S. Altekar, A History of Village Communities in Western India (Bombay, 1927). 210 B. H. Baden-Powell, The Origin and Growth of Village Communities in India (London, 1899). 211 M. Elphinstone, The History of India (London, 1839). 212 Maine, Village Communities in the East and West etc., l.c., (n. 120). 213 R. K. Mukherjee, The Economic History of India : 1600-1800, (Calcutta, 1946). 214 R. C. Dutt, The Peasantry of Bengal (Calcutta and London, 1874). Id., Famines in India (London, 1900). Id., The Economic History of India, Vol. I (London, 1902); Vol. II (London, 1904). 215 Madan, Western sociologists on Indian society : Marx, Spencer, Weber, Durkheim, Pareto, l.c., (n. 202), p. 21. 216 Ibid., p. 24. 217 Ibid., p. 25. 218 Ibid., p. 26. 219 Asok Mitra, Caste and Class in Indian Society. Dr. Bhupendranath Dutta Memorial Lecture of The Asiatic Society (Calcutta, 1994), pp. 4-5. 220 Sudipta Kaviraj, On the Status of Marxs Writings on India, Social Scientist, Vol. XI, No. 9 (New Delhi, September 1983), pp. 26-46. 221 Sunil Mitra, Ashiya Utpadan Paddhati (The Asiatic Mode of Production), in his Marxiya Darshan, Samajik Bichchhinnata O Ashiya Utpadan Paddhati (Marxist Philosophy, Social Alienation and the Asiatic Mode of Production) (Calcutta, 1983), pp. 53-67. 222 Debi Chaterjee, Marxist Thought in India (Calcutta, 1985). 223 Andr Bteille, Marxism, Pluralism and Orthodoxy and Is there a Marxist Anthropology? in his Essays in Comparative Sociology (Delhi, 1987), pp. 118-40, 141-66. 224 Debesh Roy Chowdhury, From Pre-Capitalist to Capitalist Societies : Re-Examination of some Issues, in : Deb Kumar Banerjee (ed.), Marx and His Legacy : A Centennial Appraisal (Calcutta etc., 1988), pp. 100-119. 225 Dipesh Chakrabarty, Marx after Marxism : A Subaltern Historians Perspective, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. XXVIII, No. 22 (Bombay, May 29, 1993), pp. 1094-96). 226 See: Raymond Schwab, La Renaissance Orientale (Paris, 1950). Donald F. Lach, Asia in the Making of Europe, 2 Vols. (5 Books) (Chicago, 1965-77). Wilhelm Halbfass, Indien und Europa (Basel, 1981). V. Ja. Ivbulis, O vlijanii Indii na zarozhdenie kontseptsii istorizma v sochinenijakh rannikh nemetskikh romantikov, v R. F. Mazhokina (Red.), Literatury Indii (Moskva, 1989), str. 4-16. Pradip Baksi India, Marxism and the World Today, Party Life, Vol. XXVII (New Delhi, 1991), No. 10 (pp. 1-10), No. 11 (pp. 13-20). John James Clarke, Oriental Enlightenment: The Encounter between Asian and Western Thought (London and New York, 1997). 227 Kurt Gdel, ber formal unentscheidbare Satze der Principia Mathematica und verwandter Systeme I, Monatshefte fr Mathematik und Physik, Bd. 38 (Leipzig, 1931), S. 173-98. 228 For a bibliographic exploration into Marxs encyclopedic study of general, political, legal, constitutional and cultural history of the various regions of the world, ethnology and, related disciplines like historical geography, political science, social philosophy and philosophy of law and state, see : Harstick (Hrsg.), Karl Marx ber Formen vorkapitalistischer Produktion, l.c., (n. 9), S. 231-263.

CATEGORY: MARX-ENGELS-STUDIES KEY WORDS: INDIA / MARX / ENGELS / MARXISTS / MARX-ENGELS-RECEPTION 30