Indian Holocaust My Father`s Life and Time, Chapter: Nine Hundred Fifteen
Palash Biswas
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Most known for Muslim appeasement, the West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee follows the steps of Narendra Modi to intiate a relationship with zionist Israel.The prominence of religious nationalism made the ground of Gujarat genocide and Mamata Banerjeee is just clearing the decks for the genocide culture!Gujarat, Maharashtra, Haryana and Rajsthan have already established such relationship. Government of India and some of the state governments depend on Israel in internal security affairs.On the other hand, Mamata is trying her best to invoke religious nationalities to wipe out Marxist base in the state. She has declared ten days` holiday for state government employees to celebrate Durga puja, Lakkhi puja and Bakrid! Development is judged by productionsystem of a nation. Developd nations have developed production system. It needs a progressive culture. The history of industrial revolution as well as that of capitalism roots in the destruction of feudal culture and society.Despite opting for free market economy, India does everything to sustain feudal set up in the production system as well as society. Religious nationalism would not help either market economy or capitalism in India. Though the strategic alliance of zionism and hindutva have converted India into free market, but this very alliance sustaining the manusmriti rule may further invoke a counter revolutionary coup later or sooner! It would lead to unprecedented violence.
Though Mamata behaves ulra left!Continuing the protest against FDI in multi-brand retail, TMC chief Mamata Banerjee on Saturday urged political parties supporting the UPA government to take a stand on 'anti-people decisions' in the interest of the common people and also sought public opinion on these issues.
"Time is running out to voice protest against manyanti-people decisions like increase in diesel prices,fertilizer prices, restriction on use of LPG cylinders, introduction of FDI in retail, in pensions and insurance, etc., by UPA-II," Banerjee, the West Bengal chief minister said in a Facebook post.
"May I request the political parties supporting the UPA-II, to take stand in the interest of common people, sothat anti-people decisions are not implemented. "May I also seek public opinion on these issues?" she said.
Most alarming is the development that Muslim as well as Hindu fundamental elements do capture political and trade union spaces very fast.The President Pranab Mukherjee's son Abhijit on Saturday managed to retain the Jangipur lok sabha seat by a margin of just 2536 votes, which is the lowest victory margin in this Congress bastion.BJP have more than tne percent votes in this byelection while muslim front got eight percent.Interestingly, Trinamool Congress did not filed its candidate against Abhijit. But the party chief Mamata Banerjee did not spell out clearly whether she was supporting the Congress candidate. None of the Trinamool Congress leader had campaigned for Abhijit. It is certain the Congress leadership will analyse their performance in Jangipur and try to find out the factors responsible for Abhijit's poor show. In the industrial belt, religous nationalist forces are taking over trade unions.
In 2009, Pranab Mukherjee won the seat by a margin of 1,28,149 votes. The by-elections had taken place on October 10 and the results was announced on Saturday. Abhijit had contested the Jangipur lok sabha by-elections on a Congress ticket.
Abhijit had defeated CPIM's Muzaffar Hossen by a margin of just 2536 votes. While Abhijit got 332919 votes, CPIM's Hossen had managed to secure 330383 votes. This narrow margin has certainly worried the Congress leadership in West Bengal as well as the party leadership in Delhi as Jangipur falls under Murshidabad district which is still a Congress stronghold. BJP candidate, Sudhangshu Biswas, who came third, received 85,867 votes.Two independent candidates Raisuddin and Tahedul Islam polled 41,620 and 24,691 votes respectively. Without naming any party, Abhijit said the votes of the BJP and a particular party had helped the CPI(M) candidate Muzaffar Hussain to notch up a big margin.
On 18 June 2012, Mamata met Israeli Ambassador to India Alon Ushpiz. As Ananad bazar Patrika reported today, Mamata gave Ushpiz one of her painting. The Mamata painting with flowers is now being showcased in the drawing room of Ushpiz!Israel is keen to boost its cooperation with West Bengal in the agriculture sector, the envoy said then.9/11 has exposed what maharashtra did with internal security helped by Israel.It is known that Israel is more interested in internal security!
All government offices will remain closed for 10 days at a stretch - from October 20 to October 29 - and reopen only on October 30. Though earlier, October 26 was a working day, a notification issued by the government on Friday has declared it as a holiday.The offices of the registrar of assurances and collector of stamp revenue will however remain open on October 26.
The news of Israel gearing up to tie up with West Bengal Govt. came as a shock for the Muslim community. Though the visit of the Israeli ambassador was of diplomatic nature, yet it was highly detested by the Muslim population of the state.Muslim population has played a vital role in Mamata's historical win in this year's assembly election. Even Mamata Banerjee has acknowledged this. Both the Muslim community and Mamata share a respectful relationship. But the current visit of Israel envoy and his announcement of upcoming ties is an alarm bell. Mamata Banerjee needs to respect the local sentiment.For many Mamata fans it was disheartening news as she has previously strongly criticized the Israel for its atrocities on Palestinians. She has had even condemned the Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip urged the Centre to send relief, if need be, representatives and appealed to the United Nations (UN) to intervene in the matter.
However, social activist and founder of Narmada Bachao Andolon (Save Narmada movement) Medha Patkar met West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday and urged her to strengthen her tirade against the UPA government.
Patkar talked to Mamata for about 45 minutes at the state administrative headquarters in Writers' Buildings on Saturday.
"Mamata is the only chief minister in the country who has opposed Centre's FDI policy and dared to quit the UPA government. Mayavati and Mulayam Singh Yadav had also opposed the FDI, but now withdrawn support on the Manmohan Singh government which is taking anti-people policies almost every day. I congratulate Mamata for her bold step and for her courage to quit the Union government to strengthen her fight against the Centre," Patkar told reporters after her meeting with the West Bengal chief minister.
Patkar also said that she will organise a national convention soon to mount pressure on the UPA government to withdraw its anti-people polices and "I have invited Mamata Banerjee to attend the convention." Patkar also blasted at the Union minister Jairam Ramesh.
"The minister had consulted us before forming the land policy of the Union government. But we did not find in the land policy our observations and the policy has been framed to help the rich," the social activist said. She also congratulated Mamata Banerjee for not allowing setting up of any SEZ in West Bengal.
Asked whether the change of guard in Bengal would improve the ties, Ushpiz said: Although Israel has had ties with Bengal for sometime, the previous Left Front government was not too keen on expanding the scope. Ushpiz escaped from answering questions on whether Israel would help the state government in tackling Maoist insurgents. Diplomatically he said "These are things we don't discuss in public. We also believe that any Indian citizen has the right to live in peace," he said.
It is reported that the Israeli envoy also called on the Director General of West Bengal Police Naparajit Mukherjee ahead of his meeting with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee here. He said. ""West Bengal is a priority state to us".
"Mamata Banerjee's interest in forging greater ties with Israel will help in developing a long-term partnership between her state and his country, the West Asian nation's envoy to India "Alon Ushpiz' said after a two-day trip to the Bengal capital said she has promised full co-operation to ensure closer ties between Israel and Bengal. Improving trade ties with Bengal is part of Israel's overall strategy of engaging more with India thinks." The Telegraph.
"We are very much keen to boost our agricultural cooperation here in West Bengal -- from seeds and dairy to horticulture, egg, semi-arid agriculture and also to food processing," Israeli Ambassador to India Alon Ushpiz told reporters in Kolkata after meeting with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Ushpiz said an Israeli company was also interested in a couple of water projects in the state.Israel has also expressed interest in setting up a Centre of Excellence in West Bengal.There is at present one Indo-Israel Centre of Excellence for vegetables at Karnal in Haryana.The Centre focuses on increasing crop productivity by using the appropriate technology.
The ambassador said the Centre would help in "match-making" and facilitating Israeli investment in Bengal and vice-versa. Ushpiz told bilateral trade was estimated to touch $5 billion by the end of 2011 and had the potential to reaching $15 billion once the pact was in place. Although Israel has close ties with several Indian states, such as Gujarat, Maharashtra, Haryana and Rajasthan, Ushpiz said there was great "synergy' between his country and Bengal. Ushpiz said Israel and Bengal could co-operate in several areas and added that his country could provide technological help in irrigation and water management. "We have requested the government to send a delegation to Israel in November, during WATEC, an exhibition on water management," Ushpiz said. The Israeli ambassador also tossed up a proposal before the Bengal government on creating a platform for joint industrial research and development.
"I believe that with the help of (finance) minister (Amit) Mitra in the coming months, we will be able to cement these projects," he said.
Mitra was also present in the meeting.
Ushpiz said he came here to further strengthen the relationship between Israel and West Bengal.
It was his second visit to the state.
"Israeli economy is basically an agro-based and hence we carried out a lot of innovation. We introduced new technologies in agriculture. We are keen to co-operate with the State in this field," Mr Ushpiz told newspersons on the sidelines of an interactive session organised by the CII-Suresh Neotia Centre of Excellence for Leadership.
The water scarcity in Israel has pushed the country to develop technology on efficient water management. "Close to 75 per cent of our sewerage water goes back into agriculture. We have developed a number of technologies for recycling of water," he said.
However, when asked if Israel has entered into any agreement with the West Bengal Government, Mr Ushpiz said, "No pact is on the table yet. We are, however, looking at doing something tangible."
This apart, Israel was also keen on co-operating with India in the areas of internal security, renewable energy, reuse of sewerage water and desalination of water, he added.
Bengal is going for a total shut down for 10 days at a stretch, as state government offices will remain closed for Durga puja in between October 20 and October 29 and the offices will reopen on October 30 after Lakshmi puja. There was only one working day on October 26, but the state government issued a notification on Friday to announce it a holiday too.
Earlier, it was a norm for the state government offices to remain closed till Lakshmi Puja. However, after Buddhadeb Bhattacharya came to power, the number of holidays was curtailed. The offices started opening a day after Dussehra. Friday's notification has made officials at Writers' Buildings happy. That time of uninterrupted holidays till Lakshmi Puja is back again, felt officials.
Earlier, a section of the state government staff had planned to apply for CL on October 26 to enjoy an uninterrupted 10-day holiday. But with the new order in place, the state secretariat officials and government employees of other offices are a happy lot and gearing up to enjoy an extended holiday.
Bank officials are, however, not as lucky as their state secretariat counterparts. October 25 and 26 will be working days for them. People are hence apprehensive of standing in long queues to get their bank work done on these two days.
ATMs also may dry up during the festive season, some fear. But bank officials have assured that arrangements will be made to replenish the ATMs on a daily basis. "But since most people will be out pandal hopping during the Puja days it is best to keep some cash stacked up or use cards for transactions," suggested another bank official.
The extended holiday has raised a question among a section of officials - how will the government react in case there is an emergency or disaster? This is because with all the offices shut, only a section of the disaster management cell will function in the state secretariat.
The state staff are happy with this extended holiday, but many officials have raised a valid question that if any disaster occurs during this period how will the government react. Because with all offices being closed only a section of the disaster management cell will function in the state secretariat.
So, those who are in need of any service from the state government should either reach the offices by October 19 or should wait for the next month, as by the time the offices open the staff will be busy to queue up for their salary. Again the banks too are going to have two working days on October 25 and 26. So there are apprehensions that there will be a huge rush on these two days, Even the ATMs might dry up during the festive season. Though bank officials assured that they will arrange for replenishing the ATMs on a daily basis and for it specials arrangements had been made. But still to go for pandal hopping during the puja days its best to have enough cash ready or use cards for transactions, a bank official suggested.
So, the staff at state secretariats and the other offices are getting ready for an extended holiday. Earlier a section of the state government staff had planned for taking a day's CL on October 26 to enjoy a continued holiday of 10 days. Now the state government had ensured that all government offices remain closed for 10 days, except the offices of registrar of assurances and collector of stamp revenue.
The state staff are happy with this extended holiday, but many officials have raised a valid question that if any disaster occurs during this period how will the government react. Because with all offices being closed only a section of the disaster management cell will function in the state secretariat.
State government holidays from Oct 20 to Oct 29
Oct 26 was not a holiday, but government declared it a holiday on Friday
Banks to remain open on Oct 25 and Oct 26
Leading Muslim Urdu journalist Mr. Syed Ali said , "It is a big mistake committed by Shri Mamata Banerjee who failed to understand politics of Israel and aware of the picture of Muslims internationally, hurting the sentiments of Muslims in the state, centre as well as internationally. Israel had lost friendly ties with nations like Turkey, Egypt etc. and therefore eyeing its alliance with new friend called "Bengal' through the shoulders of Mamata Banerjee. It is sad that she did not for once thought about the sentiments of the Muslims. More than 20 crore of the minority community do not like Israel and consider it as the greatest enemy of muslims and humanity. The link of Israel with India will not be anything more arms and ammunition trade. The ambassador of terror called Israel has in the past committed inhuman acts with innocents in the Gaza strip and has been consistently been oppressing on Palentine and now eyeing it new partner in India through aiming to make Bengal the "new gaza strip'. The strength of muslims in west Bengal is very strong and it should in no way be broken and the justice should be demanded to the chief minister asking her to rectify her errors."
Maulana Siddiqullah Chowdhury having a strong hold over Bengali speaking Muslims told Eastern Post that, "Israel is an old enemy of Muslims and whenever wherever Israel laid it's hands, there has been downfall and not growth. Be it the 1944-1945 Gaza Crisis or Afghanistan, or Iraq. Israel had always been against Muslims. It is shame that India a notion of more than 120 crore people and 20 crore Muslims need to join hands with a small hostile and murderous nation like Israel giving them partnership of corporating against humanity. By seeking Bengal's alliance Israel just want to strength it's command in the UN of which it used to neglect the commands. Israel too has found it lately that it's position in the UN has started to falter."
A T Jamal Qasmi, who is a teacher in a school, expressed his displeasure over the move. Mr. Qasmi said, "Israel has never been the friend of Muslims. In fact they were the ones who even killed the prophets. They are not even accepted internationally. Not by the Muslims or the Hindus or any other. If we keep aside the Islamic perspective, Mamata Banerjee's move is anti-human as today no community of the world accepts Israel's friendship, so it is in any way harmful for India and also Muslims."
Meanwhile, Israeli government is funding the pilgrimage of a group of Christians from West Bengal state to the Holy Land from Nov 2012.
The Consul General of Israel in Kolkata, Harsh Neotia has confirmed about the full sponsoring of 25 pilgrims from poor economic background in West Bengal, to Maria Fernandes, vice-chairperson of Minorities Commission in the state.
Fernandes told during press meet at Archbishop's House, Sept 1, that West Bengal Christian Holy Land Pilgrimage Committee had been formed with representatives from all Churches, with Catholic Archbishop Thomas D'Souza as chairperson of the newly formed committee.
So long Christian pilgrims from West Bengal used to go to the Holy Land either from Cochin or Chennai or Mumbai, and there was no facility to go directly from Kolkata, said Fernandes.
For the first time, Qatar Airways flights to the Holy Land will take off from Kolkata's Netaju Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport, from Nov 14 to Dec 9 on every Wednesday, she added.
The maiden trip on Nov. 14 will have 25 pilgrims, who would be required to pay Rs. 66,000 for five day trip to the Holy Land, and 25 pilgrims sponsored by the Consul General for Israel at Kolkata.
The second phase of the pilgrimage from Kolkata to the Holy Land would begin on Ash Wednesday in 2012, and will continue till Good Friday, Fernandes said.
The pilgrims would be visiting such important places as Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Mount of Olives, Nazareth and the Sea of Galilee.
Nine members from the Christian community are also invited to visit the Holy Land as state guests of Israel, including Fernandes, and Anglo-Indian MLA, Michael Shane Calvert.
Archbishop D'Souza said that it is the desire of every Christian to visit the Holy Land at least once in their life time, and this opportunity is made possible with the help of the state Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
He said that of the 25 fully sponsored seats during every trip to the Holy Land during regular intervals, are shared by all the eight Catholic dioceses (two seats each), three Church of North India dioceses (two seats each), and one seat each for Baptists, Methodists and the Assembly of God Churches.
All applications to join the pilgrimage from Bengal Christians would be sorted out and processed at the Coordinating Committee at the Archbishop's House in Kolkata, Fernandes said.
Among those present during the launching of the West Bengal Christian Holy Land Pilgrimage Committee was the Church of North India Bishop Probal Kanto Dutta of Durgapur, and representatives from the Methodist Church.
Works of Karl Marx 1853
The Future Results of British Rule in India
Written: on July 22, 1853
Source: MECW Volume 12, p. 217;
First published: in the New-York Daily Tribune, August 8, 1853; reprinted in the New-York Semi-Weekly Tribune, No. 856, August 9, 1853.
Signed: Karl Marx.
London, Friday, July 22, 1853
I propose in this letter to conclude my observations on India.How came it that English supremacy was established in India? The paramount power of the Great Mogul was broken by the Mogul Viceroys. The power of the Viceroys was broken by the Mahrattas. The power of the Mahrattas was broken by the Afghans, and while all were struggling against all, the Briton rushed in and was enabled to subdue them all. A country not only divided between Mahommedan and Hindoo, but between tribe and tribe, between caste and caste; a society whose framework was based on a sort of equilibrium, resulting from a. general repulsion and constitutional exclusiveness between all its members. Such a country and such a society, were they not the predestined prey of conquest? If we knew nothing of the past history of Hindostan, would there not be the one great and incontestable fact, that even at this moment India is held in English thraldom by an Indian army maintained at the cost of India? India, then, could not escape the fate of being conquered, and the whole of her past history, if it be anything, is the history of the successive conquests she has undergone. 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. The question, therefore, is not whether the English had a right to conquer India, but whether we are to prefer India conquered by the Turk, by the Persian, by the Russian, to India conquered by the Briton.
England has to fulfill a double mission in India: one destructive, the other regenerating the annihilation of old Asiatic society, and the laying the material foundations of Western society in Asia.
Arabs, Turks, Tartars, Moguls, who had successively overrun India, soon became Hindooized, the barbarian conquerors being, by an eternal law of history, conquered themselves by the superior civilization of their subjects. The British were the first conquerors superior, and therefore, inaccessible to Hindoo civilization. They destroyed it by breaking up the native communities, by uprooting the native industry, and by levelling all that was great and elevated in the native society. The historic pages of their rule in India report hardly anything beyond that destruction. The work of regeneration hardly transpires through a heap of ruins. Nevertheless it has begun.
The political unity of India, more consolidated, and extending farther than it ever did under the Great Moguls, was the first condition of its regeneration. That unity, imposed by the British sword, will now be strengthened and perpetuated by the electric telegraph. The native army, organized and trained by the British drill-sergeant, was the sine qua non of Indian self-emancipation, and of India ceasing to be the prey of the first foreign intruder. The free press, introduced for the first time into Asiatic society, and managed principally by the common offspring of Hindoos and Europeans, is a new and powerful agent of reconstruction. The Zemindari and Ryotwar themselves, abominable as they are, involve two distinct forms of private property in land — the great desideratum of Asiatic society. From the Indian natives, reluctantly and sparingly educated at Calcutta, under English superintendence, a fresh class is springing up, endowed with the requirements for government and imbued with European science. Steam has brought India into regular and rapid communication with Europe, has connected its chief ports with those of the whole south-eastern ocean, and has revindicated it from the isolated position which was the prime law of its stagnation. The day is not far distant when, by a combination of railways and steam-vessels, the distance between England and India, measured by time, will be shortened to eight days, and when that once fabulous country will thus be actually annexed to the Western world.
The ruling classes of Great Britain have had, till now, but an accidental, transitory and exceptional interest in the progress of India. The aristocracy wanted to conquer it, the moneyocracy to plunder it, and the millocracy to undersell it. But now the tables are turned. The millocracy have discovered that the transformation of India into a reproductive country has become of vital importance to them, and that, to that end, it is necessary, above all, to gift her with means of irrigation and of internal communication. They intend now drawing a net of railroads over India. And they will do it. The results must be inappreciable.
It is notorious that the productive powers of India are paralysed by the utter want of means for conveying and exchanging its various produce. Nowhere, more than in India, do we meet with social destitution in the midst of natural plenty, for want of the means of exchange. It was proved before a Committee of the British House of Commons, which sat in 1848, that
"when grain was selling from 6/- to 8/- a quarter at Khandesh, it was sold at 64/ to 70/- at Poona, where the people were dying in the streets of famine, without the possibility of gaining supplies from Khandesh, because the clay-roads were impracticable."
The introduction of railroads may be easily made to subserve agricultural purposes by the formation of tanks, where ground is required for embankment, and by the conveyance of water along the different lines. Thus irrigation, the sine qua non of farming in the East, might be greatly extended, and the frequently recurring local famines, arising from the want of water, would be averted. The general importance of railways, viewed under this head, must become evident, when we remember that irrigated lands, even in the districts near Ghauts, pay three times as much in taxes, afford ten or twelve times as much employment, and yield twelve or fifteen times as much profit, as the same area without irrigation.
Railways will afford the means of diminishing the amount and the cost of the military establishments. Col. Warren, Town Major of the Fort St. William, stated before a Select Committee of the House of Commons:
"The practicability of receiving intelligence from distant parts of the country, in as many hours as at present it requires days and even weeks, and of sending instructions, with troops and stores, in the more brief period, are considerations which cannot be too highly estimated. Troops could be kept at more distant and healthier stations than at present, and much loss of life from sickness would by this means be spared. Stores could not to the same extent he required at the various depots, and. the loss by decay, and the destruction incidental to the climate, would also be avoided. The number of troops might be diminished in direct proportion to their effectiveness."
We know that the municipal organization and the economical basis of the village communities has been broken up, but their worst feature, the dissolution of society into stereotype and disconnected atoms, has survived their vitality. The village isolation produced the absence of roads in India, and the absence of roads perpetuated the village isolation. On this plan a community existed with a given scale of low conveniences, almost without intercourse with other villages, without the desires and efforts indispensable to social advance. The British having broken up this self-sufficient inertia of the villages, railways will provide the new want of communication and intercourse. Besides,
"one of the effects of the railway system will he to bring into every village affected by it such knowledge of the contrivances and appliances of other countries, and such means of obtaining them, as will first put the hereditary and stipendiary village artisanship of India to full proof of its capabilities, and then supply its defects." (Chapman, The Cotton and Commerce of India [pp. 95-97].)
I know that the English millocracy intend to endow India with railways with the exclusive view of extracting at diminished expenses the cotton and other raw materials for their manufactures. But when you have once introduced machinery into the locomotion of a country, which possesses iron and coals, you are unable to withhold it from its fabrication. You cannot maintain a net of railways over an immense country without introducing all those industrial processes necessary to meet the immediate and current wants of railway locomotion, and out of which there must grow the application of machinery to those branches of industry not immediately connected with railways. The railway-system will therefore become, in India, truly the forerunner of modern industry. This is the more certain as the Hindoos are allowed by British authorities themselves to possess particular aptitude. for accommodating themselves to entirely new labor, and acquiring the requisite knowledge of machinery. Ample proof of this fact is afforded by the capacities and expertness of the native engineers in the Calcutta mint, where they have been for years employed in working the steam machinery, by the natives attached to the several steam engines in the Burdwan coal districts, and by other instances. Mr. Campbell himself, greatly influenced as he is by the prejudices of the East India Company, is obliged to avow
"that the great mass of the Indian people possesses a great industrial energy, is well fitted to accumulate capital, and remarkable for a mathematical clearness of head and talent for figures and exact sciences." "Their intellects," he says, "are excellent."
Modern industry, resulting from the railway system, will dissolve the hereditary divisions of labor, upon which rest the Indian castes, those decisive impediments to Indian progress and Indian power.
All the English bourgeoisie may be forced to do will neither emancipate nor materially mend the social condition of the mass of the people, depending not only on the development of the productive powers, but on their appropriation by the people. But what they will not fail to do is to lay down the material premises for both. Has the bourgeoisie ever done more? Has it ever effected a progress without dragging individuals and people through blood and dirt, through misery and degradation?
The Indians will not reap the fruits of the new elements of society scattered among them by the British bourgeoisie, till in Great Britain itself the now ruling classes shall have been supplanted by the industrial proletariat, or till the Hindoos themselves shall have grown strong enough to throw off the English yoke altogether. At all events, we may safely expect to see, at a more or less remote period, the regeneration of that great and interesting country, whose gentle natives are, to use the expression of Prince Soltykov, even in the most inferior classes, "plus fins et plus adroits que les Italiens" [more subtle and adroit than the Italians], a whose submission even is counterbalanced by a certain calm nobility, who, notwithstanding their natural langor, have astonished the British officers by their bravery, whose country has been the source of our languages, our religions, and who represent the type of the ancient German in the Jat, and the type of the ancient Greek in the Brahmin.
I cannot part with the subject of India without some concluding remarks.
The profound hypocrisy and inherent barbarism of bourgeois civilization lies unveiled before our eyes, turning from its home, where it assumes respectable forms, to the colonies, where it goes naked. They are the defenders of property, but did any revolutionary party ever originate agrarian revolutions like those in Bengal, in Madras, and in Bombay? Did they not, in India, to borrow an expression of. that great robber, Lord Clive himself, resort to atrocious extortion, when simple corruption could not keep pace with their rapacity? While they prated in Europe about the inviolable sanctity of the national debt, did they not confiscate in India the dividends of the rajahs, 171 who had invested their private savings in the Company's own funds? While they combatted the French revolution under the pretext of defending "our holy religion," did they not forbid, at the same time, Christianity to be propagated in India, and did they not, in order to make money out of the pilgrims streaming to the temples of Orissa and Bengal, take up the trade in the murder and prostitution perpetrated in the temple of juggernaut? These are the men of "Property, Order, Family, and Religion."
The devastating effects of English industry, when contemplated with regard to India, a country as vast as Europe, and containing 150 millions of acres, are palpable and confounding. But we must not forget that they are only the organic results of the whole system of production as it is now constituted. That production rests on the supreme rule of capital. The centralization of capital is essential to the existence of capital as an independent power. The destructive influence of that centralization upon the markets of the world does but reveal, in the most gigantic dimensions, the inherent organic laws of political economy now at work in every civilized town. The bourgeois period of history has to create the material basis of the new world — on the one hand universal intercourse founded upon the mutual dependency of mankind, and the means of that intercourse; on the other hand the development of the productive powers of man and the transformation of material production into a scientific domination of natural agencies. Bourgeois industry and commerce create these material conditions of a new world in the same way as geological revolutions have created the surface of the earth. When a great social revolution shall have mastered the results of the bourgeois epoch, the market of the world and the modern powers of production, and subjected them to the common control of the most advanced peoples, then only will human progress cease to resemble that hideous, pagan idol, who would not drink the nectar but from the skulls of the slain.
The First Indian War of Independence, 1857-58
British Rule in India | East India Company
1853 Works | New York Tribune | Marx/Engels Archive
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1853/07/22.htm
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