Philosophers have just interpreted the world; the point is to change it’, this line echoes strongly in the Communist Manifesto as well as in P.C. Joshi’s book Marxism as Scientific Enterprise, and with this statement, one is forced to think of the relevance of Marxism in today’s time. Indeed, in a contemporary context, the question arises—are we haunted by the ‘spectre of Marx’ or the ‘spectre of capital’? The current democratic and economic crises in India has brought the country’s potential development process to a halt. It is amidst these crises that Joshi’s book interrogates the political and economic situation of the country in the post-Independence era and tries to challenge the existing orthodox notions of radical change, both in the activist and theoretical paradigms.

Framing the problematic of the text within the Marxist paradigm, Joshi engages with Marxism in a very pragmatic and contextual manner. The running theme of the text is to bridge the gap between theory and practice. The basic idea is to create a critical self-consciousness among the masses and a section of the intelligentsia, and to deliberate upon the Indian social and political condition. It is only through such deliberations and reflections that one develops a better understanding of the Indian postcolonial context. When one compares developed countries to postcolonial countries in terms of their development processes, it requires a completely new dynamic. Even different countries within the postcolonial paradigm have their own political and economic structures that need to be dealt according to their local conditions.

In an attempt to revolutionise the present Indian situation, P.C. Joshi analyses the problem with a more refined understanding of Marxism. He goes beyond concepts like base-superstructure, crude economism and working class as the only agents capable of revolutionising and bringing about the overthrow of capitalism. Not caught in the universalist framework of Marxism, he looks at the situational divide between the East and West that is defined by various social and traditional categories as well as by the changing economic conditions of the country, in terms of industrial processes and the category of labour. It is these existing gaps between the East and the West that lead Joshi to search for a more authentic and organic approach for Marxism to operate in the Indian context. Till now, the way Marxism operated in India, partly political and more activist, was a very crude operation of Marxism. Without any deliberation upon the cultural, social and economic paradigm of the Indian context, in terms of its caste and class structure, rural–urban divide, existing feudal relations and values, Marxism was just operationalised according to a classical Marxist understanding. It came with a very crude understanding of revolutionary change, which limited itself to the working class, that too only the organised sector. It is these basic loopholes that come to occupy the central objective of Joshi’s book.

As India grapples with the ongoing process of neo-liberalism and undemocratic processes, Joshi points out the challenges before the Marxist intelligentsia and activists. In order to deal with the present situation, one needs to take into account changing political and economic structures and bring in a new synthesis of Marxism in the Indian context. To quote Joshi here, ‘Indian Marxism must go native in order to be truly relevant and creative in the present context. This means a painful transition from Eurocentric Marxism to Indian-oriented Marxism. Marxism has to struggle against its own ignorance of the radical Indian tradition and its own alienation from the native milieu, including the native Indian’ (p. 136).

To gain a foothold over the Indian context, we need to understand the crude reality of capitalist exploitation not just within the economic context but also beyond that. A sense of injustice prevails within every sphere, however, most of the time it is fought within the minds of the subaltern classes. Unable to pierce through the hegemonic aspirations of the ruling class, the subaltern section is frustrated and left to its own condition. More often than not, this section, whether it is the urban poor or the landless peasant labourer, is caught within the feudal cultural values of religion and caste. The burden of these values comes to understate the existing problems of poverty and exploitation. Thus, the decadent feudal values overshadow the existing problems. It is this scenario that makes the Indian case so unique in its own way. This peculiar relationship between power and culture forces one to stretch the limits of addressing the problems beyond the paradigm of economy and bring it to a more cultural realm and in the everyday lives of people. Any form of resistance to break away the barriers of caste, class and ‘other’ should be dealt at the cultural level first. It has hitherto taken a back seat in the Indian context. The understating of cultural power causes the hegemony of the state elite and the bourgeois class to surface.

To overthrow state power and the capitalist class, an organic synthesis of Marxist theory has been suggested in Joshi’s book. An understanding of the Indian scenario is attained by breaking away from the past and developing an understanding, keeping in mind the needs of the present. For a long period of history, Indian Marxists were hugely influenced by Lenin, Stalin and Mao. The Indian model of Marxism and the Communist Party could notbreak away from the Soviet and the Chinese model of communism. Without developing any understanding of the Indian context and any relation with the subaltern section, the Western model of Marxism was directly imposed in Indian context. Both those with left-liberal ideological orientation and with a radical left-orientation failed in indulging the grass roots. Thus, both Nehru’s mixed economy model and the resistance (trade union) politics of the left failed to revolutionise the Indian social context. The answer to the failure of erstwhile politics echoes throughout Joshi’s book. The challenges of the past and the present need to be accommodated within the paradigm of left politics, if not state politics.

The question of caste, class and culture intermesh with one another to give a unique understanding to the Indian state of affairs. Joshi enriches this complex dynamics of caste, class and culture by bringing in new variants. The multiclass model put forth by Joshi problematises the layers of class that come to influence Indian polity, the middle class being one of them. Most Marxist scholars are indifferent to the politics of the middle class, whom they consider apolitical and opportunist. However, by critically analysing the politics of this, Joshi renders a sense of hope for this class to bring about a change in radicalising the democratic process. He tries to bring an alliance between the middle class and the subaltern class by focusing on the intellectual capacities of the middle class. To him, the middle class is very important; it is distinct from the traditional elite class as it has been bringing about economic, social and political transformation in India since Independence. He tries to locate the middle class historically and its crucial role in social reforms and Indian independence.

Further, one of the biggest challenges faced by Marxists today is dealing with growing social parasites. These parasitic elements are constitutive of both the bourgeoisie and the proletariat class, that is, the lumpen bourgeoisie and the lumpen proletariat. The lumpen bourgeoisie is harmful to the economy for artificially increasing the growth rate of the economy; however, the real threat in today’s time comes from the lumpen proletariat, who are also termed as ‘precariats’. Most of them do not possess any permanent jobs and end up not being organised by the trade unions. Frustrated by their life conditions and unemployment, their politics is mostly of anarchism, violence and hooliganism. It is this form of anarchist and unorganised politics of the informal and the unorganised class which Joshi fears the most. More than objectivising the condition of change, such form of politics reinstates the existing state of affairs.

Joshi’s book is not about having blind faith on Marxism, rather it interrogates various possibilities and variations in the Marxist stream of thought. To accept a theory, given its scientific credentials, without any interrogation and practical outcome, is to be irrational and unscientific. It is about going beyond and exploring the conformity of an evolving process in order to challenge the orthodox and traditional notions of Marxist politics. Throughout the book, Joshi looks into the historical trajectory of Marxism and brings a more authentic form of analyses for understanding both the objective and subjective conditions of Marxism in India. In an effort to bring in a more renewed form of Marxism in the Indian scenario, Joshi looks into all aspects of the Indian situation from the coming of socialism in the Soviet Union to its fall across the world. There has always been a substantial gap between theory and practice that has led to the failure of socialism across the world. It is this gap that Joshi tries to analyse and bridge throughout the book by looking into the changing political, economic and cultural aspect of Indian polity.

As stated earlier, Indian Marxism has been very rooted in working class politics: it has easily managed to overlook changing forms of class structure (the lumpen proletariat and the lumpen bourgeois), emerging middle class patterns/politics and the rural–urban divide, in terms of the landless peasantry and the urban poor, where the urban working class population was always the focus of struggle, keeping the rest out of the sight. Human relations and their cultural values also occupy a central agency in an attempt to overthrow the power structures of the elite and its hegemony, which has always been overlooked by the Indian Marxists. Cultural relations have always acquired a secondary position in any kind of radical politics. However, Joshi in his book points out the subtle importance of cultural relations and a resistance to overcome the hegemonic aspiration of the ruling classes. Thus, with all his criticism and understanding of Marxism in the Indian context, Joshi exposes contemporary problems within the same. Instead of drawing any closed understanding, he opens up the revolutionary fervour of overthrowing capitalism to various possibilities when he says: ‘The need of the hour is to understand dynamics of capitalism from outside the mode of production but also by exploring the role and dynamics of other factors in conjunction with class factor’ (p. 129).


Contents

1.Reflections on Marxism and Social Revolution in India
2.Roots of the Politico-Economic Problemd: Basis-Superstructure Relations Reconsidered
3.Class and Social Transformation in India : Possibilities and Constraints of intermediate Classes
4.Capitalism and the Labouring Poor : Victims of Transforming Agents
5.Socialism : A Lost Cause or A Long Revolution ?
6.On Return to Marxism as a Scientific Enterprise
7.Some Fundamental Aspects of Socialist Transformation in India
8. Imperatives of Renewal of Socialism
9.Social Parasitism and Economic Development
10.Perspectives on Social Change : The Emergence of the Poor as a Class.

Includes bibliographical references and index.