Author Archives: Anvil

Gujarat and Himachal Elections: What Lies Ahead?

There is still another section of the liberal “left”, which is still striving to form an aggregative equation of oppressed identities in order to defeat Modi and Fascism. The lacklustre performance of the BJP in the elections was primarily due to the class anger of certain sections of society, even though they were not class ‘politically’ conscious or class ‘politically’ organized. However, people of this section claimed that the anger of the dalits, adivasis, Muslims, OBCs, etc combined to defeat the BJP. read more

Editorial • Fascism

Marx’s Capital : 150 Years and Beyond

Marxism is not an aggregation of everything that Marx said or did. Marxism is a worldview, approach and a method. This worldview and method of materialist dialectics is Marx’s epochal contribution to science. As Lenin said, Marx could never write his planned separate treatise on materialist dialectics, but he left us Capital, which is the application of the materialist dialectics in the arena of economic phenomena. read more

Marxism •

Report of Sixth Arvind Memorial Seminar on Imperialism

The Arvind Memorial Trust organizes a national seminar each year on some important aspect of the movement for social change in memory of Com. Arvind Singh, editor of the magazine ‘Dayitvabodh’, a brilliant Marxist intellectual and activist. The first two seminars held in Delhi and Gorakhpur focused on different aspects of the labour movement while the third seminar was held in Lucknow on the democratic rights movement in India. The fourth seminar was centered on Caste Question and Marxism while the fifth seminar in Allahabad was on problems of socialism. read more

Imperialism • Reports

The Rajsamand Killing and What It Tells About the Indian Fascism

The Rajsamand killing is not one off incident. It can neither be brushed aside as an act of lunacy. A recent report has pointed out that there has been an unprecedented spike in hate-crimes, incidence of violence and terror acts especially against Muslims, over the last three and a half years since Bharatiya Janta Party and Narendra Modi assumed power in May 2014. The incidents of lynchings and violence in the name of the “cow-protection”, beef-eating, “Love Jihad”, “Ghas Wapasi” that has been unleashed since the coming to power of Hindutva Fascism must be viewed in a continuity.  Even as the aftermath of Rajsamand barbarity was still unfolding, other scenes of Fascist violence were on full display in yet another laboratory of communal Fascism, Madhya Pradesh. In Satna district, Bajrang dal goons attacked Catholics who were out singing Christmas carols and even set blaze a Catholic priest’s car. The police, instead of taking action and slapping relevant charges against the attackers, booked cases against the carol singers themselves!

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Fascism •

Caste Question, Marxism and the Political Legacy of B. R. Ambedkar

To answer the question ‘what is caste’ we must answer the question ‘how did varna/caste system originate?’ In my opinion, to understand caste system in its contemporaneity, it is essential to comprehend it historically. One of the main weaknesses of sociological studies of caste is their disdain for a historical view. This positivistic fetish to record the myriad contemporary particularities of caste prevents most of the sociological studies to arrive at a balanced historical understanding of caste system. read more

Caste Question •

Naxalbari and Subsequent Four Decades:  A Retrospection (Part-2)

The root cause of stagnation-disintegration of the movement was not the state repression, but its own ideological line (Left adventurism) and wrong understanding of the Indian program (program of New Democratic Revolution following the path of the Chinese Revolution). The state repression can push back a country’s revolutionary struggle for some time, but it cannot be the fundamental reason for the stagnation-disintegration that continues for more than four decades. With hindsight, this point can be easily made with complete certainty. read more

Communist-movement • National •