Daily Times

Ever since the bloody partition in 1947, any major incident, whether it is a terrorist outrage, a colossal accident or natural disaster on either side of this Radcliffe line that bifurcates the South Asian subcontinent, the drums of blame immediately start beating in full glare with fingers pointing the other side of the border. While Karachi airport was being terrorised by the so-called Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) on June 8, the usual hate brigade came out of the woodwork to implicate India. In India similar merchants of paranoia and loathing blame even a loud firecracker explosion heard in the vicinity on the ISI and Pakistan. The accusations in both countries invariably start from the religious right, followed up with consenting signals and noises from certain sections of the state and ultimately being lapped up by the media, leading to open bashing and whipping up of nationalist chauvinism and religious fanaticism. It becomes a raucous and venal sport of the anchors, news bulletins and the press to undermine the real issues. It is very difficult to say whether it is more ferocious and venomous in India or in Pakistan.

This is not entirely based on ignorant oblivion and blind hatred. There is also a grain of truth in it, but to the extent that it is exacerbated and whipped up, it shows very deep ulterior motives. The script is always the same. All sinister designs and acts of state and non-state actors are attributed not just to ISI or RAW but the whole society including one and a half billion oppressed and deprived souls who have nothing to do with it whatsoever. The relationship between the Pakistani and Indian ruling classes has been erratic, odd and contradictory. At times there is a phase of ferocious belligerence with three wars already part of their chequered history and prolonged periods of hostility and diplomatic brinkmanship. Then there are intermittent short intervals of ‘peace and friendship’ with hypocritical gestures raising hopes of tranquillity, which are rapidly squashed by yet another catastrophic event or a provocation igniting strains and tense atmospherics. There is a method in it. These highs and lows in hostility by the ruling elites tantalise the masses and plunge them even further into despair, bewilderment and apathy. It is an antic to entangle them into national prejudice, subjugating them into more enslavement. The quest for visas and cross-border travel is a desperate desire of vast sections of the toiling classes — a dream that soon goes sour. Yet they are continually given new hope, to be crushed at the next move.

This vicious cycle of overtures of peace and impotent war-mongering rage has plagued the history of the region. Today’s reality is that the ruling elites have reached a stage economically, historically and militarily that they cannot engage in a full-fledged war nor can they establish a sustainable peace. The roots of this reactionary political character of the rulers of the subcontinent lie in the historical and socioeconomic evolution that this region has undergone in the last two centuries. Less than 350 years ago the Indian subcontinent was far ahead of contemporary Europe. In his renowned book, A New History of India, Stanley Wolpert narrates the features of the Moghul Empire: “The domain spread 1,200 miles along the Tropic of Cancer, from the eerie white salts of the Rann of Kutch on the shores of the Arabian Sea, to the verdant delta of the holy River Ganges in Bengal, and from the snowy crags of Kabul to the lush teak forests of the Vindhyan foothills. The 100 million people who lived here under its aegis were cosmopolitan and affluent. In 1577, the average Indian peasant enjoyed a relatively higher income and lower taxation than his descendants ever would again.”

In England, meanwhile, most of the population of around 2.5 million lived in a state of misery and impoverishment. Around 90 percent of the population was rural, often going hungry during frequent food shortages. The Black Death broke out periodically, as did pneumonia, smallpox and influenza. Life expectancy stood at just thirty-eight years. The industrial revolution transformed Britain and Europe into advanced capitalist countries within two hundred years. However, the present relentless crisis of capitalism in Britain, the US, Europe and other advanced capitalist countries has plunged these countries into the throes of permanent instability and social strife, revealing the limits and incapacity of the system to develop society. The decline of the Mughal Empire and the failure of the ruling classes to accomplish an industrial revolution has been extensively written about and discussed by regional and foreign historians, sociologists and economists. But the most profound analysis and causes of this decline and the situation in India and the colonial subjugation of the subcontinent by European and later the British imperialists can be found in the writings of Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels. Their works on the Asiatic Mode of Production and the epic collection in book form, The First Indian War of Independence 1857-59, are the most scientifically and thoroughly investigated analyses and elucidations of this process.

The end of the British Raj and subsequent ‘independence’ came with a very heavy price. First there was the tragic loss of almost 2.7 million lives, lost to an orgy of religious frenzy with its venomous, reactionary vengeance and the largest migration of peoples in modern history. The British Raj’s policy of divide and rule fomented this vicious genocide, the wounds of which are still festering in the region today. A revolutionary situation erupted in 1946 that was pioneered by the gallant Sailors Revolt of the British Indian Navy. The Royal Indian Navy Revolt encompasses a total strike and subsequent revolts by Indian sailors of the Royal Indian Navy on board ships and shore establishments at Bombay harbour on February 18, 1946. From the initial flashpoint in Bombay, the revolt spread and found support throughout British India, from Karachi to Calcutta, and ultimately came to involve 78 ships, 20 shore establishments and 20,000 sailors. It was crushed with force by the British imperialists and was stabbed in the back by the native elite politicians. “Only the Communist Party supported the strikers; the Congress and the Muslim League condemned it. This co called mutiny was actually the precursor of a mass revolt against the British Raj and imperial rule,” notes Ronald Spector in his 1981 book, Armed Forces and Society.

(To be continued)

The writer is the editor of Asian Marxist Review and international secretary of Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign. He can be reached at ptudc@hotmail.com