LOKAMANYA AND MARXISM

 LOKAMANYA AND MARXISM

From the available evidence it seems safe to establish the proposition that the credit of introducing Marx and his doctrine of

 class conftlict to India for the first time goes to Bal Gangadhar Tilak. That Tilak had a genuine interest in socialist thought is evident from the kind of 'selections' he reproduced from foreign journals in the issues of the English weekly, The Mahratta, which he edited from its start in January 1881, and also from the articles he intermittently wrote championing the cause of agricultural labourers and industrial workers in the Kesari from the time he took over its editorship from G.G. Agarkar in 1886 to his last days in 1920.

 An article on nihilism' was reproduced by Tilak in The Mahratta of 17 April 1881.This article, reproduced from the English journal Leisure Hour, noted that nihilism 'manifests itself as radicalism in politics, as communism in its social aspect, as theism in its religious tendencies'. Here, then, perhaps for the first time, the term communism' (as ideology) appeared in the Indian press. Tracing

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(

'communism' (as ideology) appeared in the Indian press. Tracing the origin and development of nihilism, the author of this article noted that 'from the first it has been a fierce protest against the existing society, and the fearful abuses of power under Nicholas, the timid reformatory measures of his successor and the chaos and contradiction of autocratic rule (in Russia) generally have been its most potent support.. . it postulated the entire subversion of existing societies.... No more monarchy; no more established religions; no more property in land, which is to be free for all as the air, since all have an equal claim to bodily sustenance... The article noted that Alexander Herzen (1812-70) and Michael Bakunin (1816-76) were its first representatives (The Mahratta, 17 April 1881). Bakunin joined the First International (a coordinating socialist body) in 1869, but after storny debates with Karl Marx, was expelled in 1872.

 The clinching evidence in support of our proposition comes from an article which Tilak reproduced in The Mahratta from

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English journal Radical. The article, which Tilak described as'a prized essay' on the best means of utilizing trade unions, focused on Karl Marx's definition of labour as wealth and on class contlict. Tilak's genuine concern for the working class is attested by the significant preamble he prefixed to the reproduced article. It said:

 However highly we may boast of progressive civilisation amongst us, there is still much that renmains to be undone. We extract below from the columns of the Radical a prized essay on the best means of utilizing trade unions. The essay is very valuable and we are sure perusal of this essay will produce a revolution of opinion of a very useful and desirable description (The Mahratta, 1 May 1881).

 Here was a penetrative analysis of the ruthless exploitation of the working class by capitalists, and of the class confict emerging thereof. It begins with Charles Darwin's description in his Origin of Species and discusses 'how certain species of ants steal the eggs of other species and rear their progeny as their slaves. These little creatures, when they come into this world, find themselves born into

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of slavery and the whole of their lives through they have to labour and toil for their captors! This description, the essay argues, portrays in miniature' the condition of workmen in England. It asks exploited labourers if they were not

 -they and their children-reared

 from childhood 'in a state of social slavery'. 'Are you not placed without your consent in a condition of subversion to other classes? Are you not, your whole lives through, toiling and labouring and heaping wealth upon and procuring comfort for another class? Is it not a fact that you never enjoy the wealth you create?' (The Mahratta,

 1 May 1881).

 The working clases', the essay further asserts, 'as in the case

 of the ants Darwin speaks of, are reared from their birth in this state of abasenent to another class. Here, then, is the damaged part of our social system. This is where all the mischief begins.This is the point to which the trade unions should turn their attention. This

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