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EIGHTEEN An ideology can be taken to have triumphed when those whom it declares to be its enemies start speaking its language. Communism has already passed that test and arrived at a stage when its thought-categories have acquired an almost universal adherence. Let us sample some of the more basic communist slogans and see how strongly and systematically they have seeped into the thought and language of the present-day intelligentsia in every corner of the world. In the process, we shall also discover how the human mind can be manipulated to a point where any amount of objective data fails to have any impact on it, and where superstitions of the silliest sort become its entire stock-in-trade. Karl Marx had propounded and his followers have propagated ever since that the poor and the downtrodden people are inevitably bound to become the core of the communist movement and the vanguard of the "proletarian revolution". The whole history of the communist movement, however, leaves not a shadow of doubt that it is exactly the poor and the downtrodden people who have all along kept away from the communist parties which have been, by and large, strongholds of the intelligentsia indoctrinated in communist ideology. In Asia, Africa and Latin America, this communist intelligentsia has been derived overwhelmingly from the uppermost strata of society to whom alone education in modern universities has been accessible. Yet, a belief is abroad that the communist movement is everywhere constituted of the poor and the downtrodden people, with the result that whenever communism wins a victory it is supposed to be a victory of the poor and the downtrodden. And almost everybody who considers himself an intelligent opponent of communism goes on repeating ad nauseum that the only sure way of stopping Communism is to abolish poverty and class oppression. Similarly, Karl Marx had propounded and his followers have propagated ever since that the capitalists everywhere are inevitably bound to oppose the communist movement. The whole history of capitalism since the rise of the communist movement, however, leaves not a shadow of doubt that the capitalists have not only financed the communist parties and competed with each other to secure business deals with communist countries, but have also packed the press they have owned with communist editors and scribes, with the result that the capitalist press has been the largest and the most powerful agency of communist propaganda. In Asia, Africa and Latin America, an average capitalist cannot ten a communist from a crab and he wholeheartedly cooperates with the communist movement which has come to represent power, prestige and pugnacity in all these three continents. Yet, a universal belief is abroad that wherever and whenever the communist movement has come up against opposition, it has always been due to capitalist inspiration and capitalist money. And almost everyone who considers himself an opponent of Communism looks to the capitalists for providing the finances he needs for his politics and gets angry because he finds the capitalists either indifferent to him or actually cooperating with the communists. Another silly superstition which has become widespread after the Second World War is that the United States of America has always been and remains today the main bulwark of anti-communism. An examination of U.S. record vis-a-vis world communism before and after the Second World War, however, leaves not a shadow of doubt that outside the Soviet Union the United States of America has been the biggest single propagator of communist ideology and the foremost financier of the world communist movement. In Asia, Africa and Latin America, a convinced anti-communist discovers in no time that almost all serious U.S. publications, almost all outstanding U.S. scholars and scribes, almost the entire U.S. diplomatic apparatus, and almost all U.S. Foundations dread and despise a convinced anti-communist as a demon, and fawn upon communists and fellow-travellers as leaders of "the renaissance that should revitalise these backward continents. The only basis for a widespread belief in the U.S.A.'s anti-communist role is ultimately to be found in Comrade Zhdanov's celebrated speech in September 1947 in course of which he described the U.S.A. as the "leader of the camp of imperialism and war" as against the "camp of socialism and peace led by the Soviet Union". To prove our point, let us look at a fat and high-priced book, Communism in India,1 which has just come out of the U.S.A. and which the United States Information Service is distributing freely all over India. This precious piece of "research", undertaken by two State Department scholars, has been sponsored by the Centre for South Asian Studies, Institute of International Studies, University of California, which is headed by Dr. Richard L. Park who has spent many years in India as a student of India's foreign policy. The two "scholars" themselves spent several years in India, travelling from one end of the country to another, meeting all sorts of intellectuals and politicians and collecting a vast amount of reference material. The book is a thoroughly documented work of more than six hundred pages. And the whole project must have cost the U.S.A. several million dollars. But this book could have as well been produced and printed in Moscow. Here are its main conclusions:
Small wonder that this book, freely acquired from the USIS, is being sold at all communist bookshops and recommended by all communist circles. An official history of the Communist Party of India was badly needed by the Party bosses. The U.S. "scholars" have done the job free of cost, and on a scale which might not have been possible for the Party for a long time to come. But what is the truth about Communism in India as every Indian, who has watched and studied it first-hand, knows it for sure? It is just the opposite of what these U.S. "scholars" say. We know that
It is, therefore, not surprising that the U.S.A. has never been able to understand Pandit Nehru even though the latter has never tried to hide his basic beliefs from anybody. The U.S. writers have written several biographies of "the great man" but none of them has brought out his true character as a consistent communist in thought and action. They have spread, in their own country and elsewhere, the superstition that he and he alone stands between India and the inevitable communist flood. A few years back, the present writer tried to convey the truth about Pandit Nehru to the U.S. public and politicians through the medium of some "reactionary" U.S. newspapers. But every newspaper he approached came out with the stock reply that it was too late in the day to try the "Indian brand of MacCarthyism" in the U.S.A. when U.S.A.'s own native brand had been long out of the market. One sympathetic editor, who knew the truth but did not dare publicise it in the U.S.A., wrote: "If you say that Nehru is Jesus Christ himself just descended on earth, every American will hug you to his heart. But if you want to say something different you better seek some other country and some other press." Inside India itself, however, everyone except our Americanised intelligentsia, knows and says that Pandit Nehru is a communist. The common man is not in a position to evaluate the communist creed in terms of any moral or political values because all that he hears from all quarters is in favour of Communism. But he knows and says loudly that Pandit Nehru is on the side of the Soviet Union in the latter's quarrel with America. The author of these articles has been warned by so many of his "illiterate" cousins from the countryside not to oppose Communism because it means opposing Pandit Nehru who is all powerful and can harm people with whom he may get displeased. In fact, his own mother who is also totally "illiterate" and knows no politics, keeps on worrying about her son coming to harm because of his attitude towards "that powerful man (ThâDâ mâNas)". It is only the Indian intelligentsia which, like its U.S. mentor and counterpart, reacts negatively if someone says that Pandit Nehru is a communist. Their stock argument is that even the anti-communist U.S.A. which suspected Pandit Nehru of communist sympathies at one time, has realised its mistake and has come out in support of his policies. For, inside India, Pandit Nehru's conscious and careful cultivation of the Communist Party in independent India's courtyard is only one side of the painful picture. On the other side, we have his proclaimed and manifest hostility towards any effort to expose and isolate the communist movement in India. Here we shall quote only one notable instance out of the many of which we have personal knowledge. That instance is connected with an effort on the part of some courageous patriots belonging to all national political parties to forestall Chinese designs against this country. Pandit Nehru and his henchmen did not allow this effort to succeed, and as a result we have the Chinese Reds sitting on several thousand miles of our soil. When Tibet was invaded by the Chinese Red Army in October 1950, the explanation which Peking put forward was: "Anglo-American imperialism and their running dog Nehru were plotting a coup for the annexation of Tibet." The only reaction from Pandit Nehru was to start apologising for Peking immediately. Talking to Reuter's Diplomatic Correspondent in Srinagar a week or two later, he said: "The current Chinese policy is perhaps partly attributable to the fact that although Peking's policy may not be dictated by Moscow, much of the information upon which this policy is based comes through Soviet sources. For instance, Moscow has repeatedly said that Anglo-American intrigues in Tibet aim at bringing that country into an anti-communist bloc or sphere of influence. However unfounded these accusations may be, I wonder whether they have not influenced the Chinese decision to move into Tibet ... The apprehension in Peking that the United States was bent on the destruction of the new regime is, rightly or wrongly, very real."3 But public opinion in India was exercised about Chinese occupation of Tibet as it meant a threat to India's own security, apart from suppression of Tibetan freedom. Nothing could be done immediately to mobilise public opinion and put pressure on the Government of India to change its China policy. It was only on August 22, 1953 that a meeting of leaders from various patriotic political parties, including Members of Parliament, decided to raise unofficial India's voice of protest against the continued occupation of Tibet. The meeting set up a Tibet Committee and announced a Tibet Day to be observed in September. But as soon as the news of this idea being mooted appeared in the press, the Prime Minister came out against it in a public statement issued the very next day. According to Hindustan Times dated August 26, "He referred to a report that some persons proposed to hold a Tibet Day. He thought that it was ill-advised and asked members not to take any interest in it." The meeting on August 22 had set up a Tibet Day Committee under the Chairmanship of Shri Gurupadaswami who was a Praja Socialist Party (PSP) Member of Parliament at that time. But another MP on the Committee, Prof N.G. Ranga, had to tender his resignation from the Committee on August 28 under pressure from the Prime Minister with whose party he was at that time negotiating the merger of his own provincial Krishakar Lok Party in Andhra Pradesh. The Committee, however, did its duty by the country and the cause of human freedom in Tibet. More than eighty persons marched to the Chinese Embassy in New Delhi carrying placards and raising slogans asking Red China to vacate Tibet. Later on, a meeting was held in New Delhi Town Hall and addressed, among others by Shri Gurupadaswamy, Shri V.P. Joshi of the Jana Sangh and Munshi Ahmed Deen of the Praja Socialist Party. The Prime Minister felt annoyed with this effort. He put pressure on the press in New Delhi not to publish news of the Tibet Day demonstration and meeting. It became widely known in journalist circles those days that Feroze Gandhi, the son-in-law of the Prime Minister and a Director of the Express Group of newspapers at that time, explicitly ordered his chain everywhere not to report these events in the Capital. A few days later, the Prime Minister did something infinitely worse. Speaking on Foreign Affairs in the Rajya Sabha on September 23, he denounced and threatened the organisers of the Tibet Day in a language which was wild. He said: "Sometimes-not often, I am glad to say-some exuberant people organise some demonstration of other against friendly countries... Being a gallant band of three or four they demonstrate their wishes in this manner. Sometimes they demonstrate, at any rate they did a few days ago, against what they did not like, against the Chinese Government. Now, it is a trivial matter but I mention it because a member of this honourable House apparently, I believe, associated himself with this matter ... They proclaim a Tibet Day. Why anyone should proclaim a Tibet Day passes my comprehension, more especially at this juncture. Who the genius was who suggested it or whose bright idea it was, I do not know. But anyhow here was this Tibet Day about ten days ago-nobody has noticed it-but a dozen to two dozen persons marched through the streets of Delhi to proclaim their love of Tibet and marched to the Chinese Embassy and demonstrated in front of it with loud cries. Well, it is rather childish, all this and extraordinary that grown up persons should behave in this way and show up, because if a couple of dozen persons do this it does not indicate, if 1 may say so, any powerful body of opinion. In fact, it indicates their own smallness and folly. I mention this because it is perfectly ridiculous. I don't mind if anybody thinks so and wants to oppose us, not in argument or debate or even in public streets. Well, if he goes beyond a certain limit, any Government will have to take action. We don't take any action normally speaking. We have not, but what I want this House to consider is the extreme, well I use the word 'folly', of such activities. Members of this House do not attach any importance to it, I know. But there is the rest of the world which exaggerates and which may be interested in exaggerating these incidents which come at a moment when we seek help in delicate matters in developing a spirit of friendly cooperation and tries to create trouble." This statement was full of insinuations. Here was the Prime Minister of a democratic country showing extreme intolerance for, and interfering publicly with other people's freedom to think and express opinion about matters which concerned the security of the nation. The Communist Party of India and its fronts had built up before his own eyes a formidable apparatus which was leading demonstrations, every now and then, against this or that foreign embassy, and heaping the foulest possible abuse on several friendly countries. The Prime Minister has, to this day, never uttered a word against even acts of hooliganism enacted by the communists outside those embassies - burning cars, stoning, and manhandling office staff. But a small and dignified protest on the part of some patriots to draw the attention of their people and Government to the threat posed by China's illegal invasion of a buffer State, made the Prime Minister furious and robbed him of all sense of proportion and propriety. The Prime Minister had shown himself partial to a communist cause in utter disregard of national interest. In the process, he had made himself utterly ridiculous as well. On the one hand he said again and again that the protesters against China were only a few people who represented no one except themselves. On the other hand he chose to spend so much breath and create the impression that the event was very important. His threat of action against the protesters, of course, was nothing short of criminal. But the work of the Committee continued in spite his fretting and fuming. After sometime, it organised a Himalayan Border Conference to prepare Indian public opinion against Chinese designs towards India, which were becoming all too clear even at that early date. More than a thousand people marched through the streets of Delhi demanding vigilance on our northern borders. But the Nehru Government's attitude towards this patriotic effort became even more hostile, still and responsible officers of the External Affairs Ministry re-echoed only stories published in R.K. Karanjia's yellow sheet as well as the traitorous communist press. A regional meeting of the Himalayan Borders Conference was held at Patiala. The then Chief Minister of PEPSU, Col. Raghubir Singh, had sympathised with the Conference from the very beginning. He made a hall and other facilities available for the meeting. But just on the eve of the meeting, he received the "right" instructions from the External Affairs Ministry at New Delhi. He had to cancel his permission for the use of the hall, and withdraw all other facilities. Privately he regretted this forced decision on his part and, while confessing that he could not publicly offend the Big Boss, he contributed several hundred rupees to the Conference fund. Pandit Nehru has been seeing "American imperialism" in every patriotic effort to explode the myth of the Soviet and the Chinese paradise. On the other hand, he has allowed the Communist Party of India to flood the country with cheap communist literature, all sorts of communist fronts, and the so-called "cultural delegations" from every communist country. If the Praja Socialist Party or the Jana Sangh publishes a small pamphlet or opens an extra office, he starts smelling "foreign money". But the Communist Party of India is currently spending something like 30 to 40 crore rupees every year on its party apparatus, open and secret. The recent report of the Press Commission that the Communist Party of India is the biggest press-lord in the country is only an indication of the enormous amounts of money the Party has been receiving from the Soviet Slave Empire for training saboteurs on Indian's own soil and subverting India's hard-earned freedom. He has never bothered to look into communist finances and the channels through which the finances flow. The Intelligence Department is kept busy in harrassing "American agents" and "communal fanatics".
Why is the average U.S. scholar, scribe and politician so blind to reality? Why did he fail to see the truth in time in the case of China? Why can he not see the truth in India today? Why is it that the U.S. advisers everywhere have been the sappers and miners of Communism? The present writer put these questions to a contemplative friend of his a few years back. And the reply that the wise man gave is quoted below in his own words: "It happened in a dream. But the dream was no Freudian wish fulfilment. On the contrary, it was a nightmarish interpretation of waking life. "A bunch of Indian eggheads had gathered in a highbrow seminar to compile an inventory of US sins. The roll was quite formidable. Monopoly capitalism, dollar imperialism, H bomb militarism, MacCarthy fascism, negro-lynching racialism, alcoholism, crime fiction, horror comics, juvenile delinquency, jazz music, and coca cola. Dante's inferno stood erupted right in our midst. "The young swami in saffron looked bored and unimpressed. His lips twirled in a gesture of contempt as he surveyed the august assembly. Then he stood up, and summarily dismissed the eggheads as denizens of darkness dishing out dirt and disease. The singular sin of the United States, he said, was Dialectical Materialism. "The eggheads stabbed him with hostile stares which soon exploded in angry outbursts. How did this swine of a swami steal into the company of sober scientists? It was suggested that his person be subjected to thorough search. Some crevice of his ridiculous robe was suspected of being loaded with dollar bills. But better counsels prevailed and the seminar dispersed hastily. The holy hoax was not worth an audience. "I accosted the swami on the road outside. He certainly seemed to be a very interesting man. Absolutely convinced. And immovably calm in a world where convictions created convulsions of hatred and self-rigliteousness. Very soon, I was sitting before him on a lawn, trying to share his uncanny insight. He smiled indulgently and spoke in simple terms: " 'The United States has an idea. Democracy. She has practised it for long, and has prospered on it. There is no doubt that she cherishes the idea with sincere devotion. Her one ambition is to share it with every other country. And she spends billions to spread and safeguard it in all parts of the world. " 'What does she do? She proclaims that democracy can be distilled from the standard of living. So let every country improve its agriculture and industry, and develop schools, cinemas, railways, roads. Let there be taller and heavier bodies which last better and longer. Let everyone have fruit juice for breakfast, wear a silk hat, ride a mercedes, and giggle at Marylin Munroe. And democracy will develop to the detriment of all other ideas. " 'The United States protests that democracy must perforce depend upon dictators who can push through plans for industrialization. She seeks out Nehrus Nassers, and Soekarnos who have power, prestige and a lot of pugnacity. She turns a deaf ear to the denunciations they daily hurl at her. Dip them with another darned good dose of dollars, and in due course they shall deliver democracy. That is the formula. " 'The United States cannot bother about blighters who believe in (!) democracy, and who write and fight for it. After all, the miserable scribes have no power to persecute or protect. She cannot waste her august attention on inspired idiots and discredited do-nothings. She cannot afford to provoke people in power for a pack of funny friends, hated and hunted by their own people. No. She is practical. And she is precise. " 'Now, all this is exactly what we know as Dialectical Materialism. In the universe presided over by this deity, consciousness oozes out of matter like oil from sunflower seeds, ideas are concomitants of material changes, and the human mind an effeminate evolute of the human body. It is a universe of objective and subjective necessities, in which there is no freedom and, therefore, no place for faith.' "There was a pause. I gave him my reactions. I had suddenly become very optimistic about peaceful coexistence, now that I knew that both the Soviet Union and the United States shared the same creed. The Swami laughed aloud and said: " 'Who told you the Soviet Union promotes Dialectical Materialism? That is a damned lie, as big as the other lie that the United States promotes Humanism. The Soviet Union only sells Dialectical Materialism to those she wants to defeat and destroy. As for herself, she stands for what in philosophy we call Idealism, a rigorous and uncompromising type of Idealism. " 'The Soviet Union too has an idea. Totalitarianism. She has polished and perfected it over the years. She is passionately dedicated to it. She wants this idea to prevail permanently, for, without it, she sees no hope for humanity. And she also spends billions to spell and secure it in every corner of the world. " 'What does she do? She propounds that the standard of living and much more follow from faith in totalitarianism. She elaborates the idea in an unending stream of books, pamphlets, posters, handbills, and films, produced in every language and suited to the lowest intelligence and the meanest pocket. She employs an army of men and women to retail this idea on a mass scale in order to convert or corrode as many people as possible, and to ultimately impose it with force of arms in true crusading fashion. " 'The material conditions may differ from Czechoslovakia to Albania to Tibet. But they are all equally ripe for totalitarianism. The triumphal march of an idea does not and should not depend on any material preparation. The idea cannot and should not wait for slow and stupid material changes. What the idea needs is human minds, their craving for it. The minds can be captured and the craving created by means of books and the party apparatus. " 'Nor does the Soviet Union seek for any credentials of power or prestige in choosing her friends. All she cares for is their convictions. Let the convinced ones be obscure and unknown. She makes them famous overnight by powerful publicity. Let the convinced ones be poor. She makes them prosperous by placing them in her paid hierarchy. Let the convinced ones be hated by their own people. She makes them loved by discovering in them virtues which no one ever suspected. " 'If you can turn a phrase, you can be turned into a world famous author, without your ever bothering to write a line. People everywhere will be informed by the Soviet network that your wonderful works are under translation. Royalties on enormous editions will come pouring into your pocket. And so on, you can be a renowned scientist, or doctor, or lawyer, or musician, or poet, or priest, as it suits your taste, and go about as an honoured guest in every capital of the world. All you have to do is to believe in and seek for totalitarianism, and the rest in added unto you. " 'This is not Dialectical Materialism. This is Idealism, according to which consciousness converses with consciousness as one lamp is lighted by another, ideas implement ideas, and one human mind meets another, directly without any material aid. In this universe, the ill-fed and ill-clad underdogs have as much capacity as their more privileged fellow-beings. For, this is the universe of freedom, and of faith.' "There was another pause. I was too flabbergasted to offer any comment. After a while, the swami himself resumed: " 'You were talking of peaceful coexistence. I do not know what that phrase really means. What I see before my eyes is a neat division of labour between the United States and the Soviet Union, at least in this part of the world. The United States is trying to take care of our bodies, our hearths, and our homes. The Soviet Union is taking care of our heads, and showing extreme concern for our mental, moral and spiritual needs. " 'The United States builds schools and spreads literacy among the peasants. The Soviet Union provides them the newspapers they read. The United States erects factories in which the workers can earn a livelihood. The Soviet Union bands them into trade unions, trains their leaders, and gives them a cause to die for. The United States gives scholarships to promising students for studies abroad. The Soviet Union equips them with political glasses through which they can survey the world. The United States builds hospitals and furnishes them with soft beds and rare medical supplies. The Soviet Union indoctrinates the nurses who attend and attract the patients. The United States spends on library premises. The Soviet Union stocks the shelves within with her own choice of literature. The United States pampers regime after regime with the paraphernalia for pomp. The Soviet Union creates an elite capable of possessing power in every land...' "The swami looked at his watch, and stood up. He was now in a hurry. I accompanied him to the nearest bus stand, and shot my only question at him: 'Why do you think Dialectical Materialism is a sin?' He raised his eyebrows, looked grim, and whispered: " 'I am a man of God. I have seen Him face to face, even as I see you. I know He is pure, unmixed Consciousness. Self-existing, All-sustaining and Blissful Consciousness.' "And then suddenly pointing his well-shaped finger towards a heap of dirt, he roared: 'Dialectical Materialism says that Mahatma Gandhi and Albert Einstein evolved out of that filth. That is blasphemy. And a sin. A cardinal sin.' "I woke up with a start. There was no swami, no bus stand, and no heap of dirt. Instead, I lay in a bed scattered with the writings of the Right Reverend Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. Perhaps I had been bored to an early doze by his bad paraphrase of communist scriptures."4 Opposition to Communism has never been and shall never be a mechanical concomitant of any class, or social status, or nation, or creed, or interest. Every class, every social status, every nation, every creed, and every interest will become an opponent of Communism the moment it becomes conscious of certain moral and spiritual values which ought not to be sacrificed in exchange for any amount of material good or political benefit. And every class, every social status, every nation, every creed, and every interest has cooperated and will continue to cooperate with Communism so long as it takes resort to expediency for securing selfish gain, and is prepared to sacrifice moral and spiritual values in exchange for its own temporary survival or the destruction of its temporary enemies. So far Communism has been opposed only by isolated individuals and groups who have done so mostly at the cost of their reputation in the communities to which they have belonged. A history of these heroes and their endless endeavour has still to be written. The scholars of the so-called free world have no time to spare for such a study because they are more than busy in their studies of the Soviet Union, its Satellites, and its paid puppets all over the world. The libraries and reading rooms of the free world are loaded with surveys, statistics, specialised monographs, brochures and bulletins, all of them brooding over the least little detail regarding communist countries, communist conspiracies, and communist crimes. The "bourgeois" press reserves all its headlines for communist hooliganism in every walk of life, in all parts of the world. It pays no heed to efforts aimed at stopping that hooliganism. But if a study of anti-communist effort is ever undertaken, it will reveal unmistakably that the courage to oppose Communism has always been the concomitant of some moral and spiritual spark, and seldom a companion of man's craving for cash or creature comforts. The spark will become a blazing fire at the touch of a spiritual world-view. And India is the land which has been specially chosen for such momentous missions all through human history. For, India is the home of Sanâtana Dharma, a world-view which is at once eternal and universally valid. All other spiritual world-views have imprisoned themselves within the confines of a particular book, or a particular prophet, or a particular church. Sanâtana Dharma alone rises above all sectarian semantics and sophistry, and takes us straight into that sunshine of the Supreme Spirit which has sanctioned the rise and spread of Communism, and which will sanction its death and destruction as well. Let us start that dharmayuddha in the dharmakshetra that is BharatavarSa. India is Kurukshetra too, the battle-field on which the moral and spiritual intuitions and imperatives of man's higher nature must manifest themselves into concrete and coherent action. Let the spirit of Sanâtana Dharma re-awaken and spread once more in the land of its first though immemorial dawns. Let us look at Pandit Nehru and his hoodlums from the vantage point of that spirit. Then we shall see immediately as to who is the arch-villain in this dismal drama, and stop wasting our time and energy in weeping and whining against mere minions like Comrade Krishna Menon.
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