Jihad becomes class war
Stalin,the Communist dictator had killed two Indians,during the great purges of 1937-1938.The most infamous killing was that of Virendranath Chattopadhyaya,younger brother of Sarojini Naidu.He was a brilliant revolutionary,and had been an enemy of M N Roy,one of the founder members of the Indian Communist Party,in Tashkent,in which the C P I ( M ) of India believes in,and in which the C P I doesn't.Virendranath,popularly known as Chatto,was executed by Stalin's police on 2 September,1937.He was the hero in Somerset Maugham's short story,Giulia Lazzari.
The second Indian to be killed was,Abani Mukherji,who had joined the Soviet Party in 1918.He founded the Indian Communist Party along with Roy.The party was formed making use of the vulnerability of the muhajirs from India,who were on their way for a Jihad in Turkey.The Sultan had been removed by the British at the end of the world war.The Muhajirs were trained in the military school set up by the Soviet Union in Tashkent.Mukherji was given charge of the school.
Roy,together with Mukherji concluded that the Turkey jihad was class war.No wonder,Mukherji,in his document on the Mappila revolt of Malabar,to Lenin,interpreted it as a class war between Hindu lords and Muslim peasants.This document,prepared in October,1921 was read by Lenin and handed over to his ideologue,Nikolai Bukharin on 14 November,with a note.The document was subsequently published in the German and French journals of the Communist International,and was translted from the German Die Internationale by Eden and Cedar Paul in the March 22 issue of the jounal of the British Communist Party,The Communist Review.While digging up information on Mukherji,I found the article in the Marx Memorial Library and Workers School,London.
The existence of the document was never a secret:in the January-March,2014 issue of the journal,The Marxist,in an article,Muslims of Malabar and the Left,Pinarayi Vijayan had observed :
"The rebellion caught the attention of Lenin. Lenin had recorded the importance of Hindu-Muslim unity that developed during that period. In the background of Malabar Rebellion, Lenin had instructed Abani Mukherji, an Indian Communist of that period to prepare a pamphlet after collecting all available facts regarding the agrarian issue in India and peasant struggles. Abani Mukherji who was also an economist prepared the pamphlet and published it in Russian and English from Moscow. It was a Russian named Kutowski who first conducted research on ‘Malabar Rebellion’ and received a doctorate."
Mukerji ( 1891-1937) was never an economist,he had studied textile technology and had worked in a couple of cotton mills in India.
This is the first Marxist interpretation of the Malabar Mutiny as a class war,and all the Marxist historians,including K N Panicker have subscribed to the view.It is regrettable that Panicker has not even mentioned the name of Mukherji in his thesis and book,
A reason must be there for Marxist historians ignoring Mukherji's document.It was a document adopted by the Comintern and acknowledged by Lenin and Bukharin.Lenin,it is said,was slowly poisoned and killed by Stalin,while Bukharin was executed by him.That doesn't erode the value of a first document.Clearly,the reason is that,Muherji,while trying to interpret it as a class war,got hold of the fanatic content of the rebellion.He observes that the Khilafat movement was seized and subjugated by the fanatic Muslim clergy.He avows that,the mullahs,forgetting the aim of the movement,diverted their rank and file,against their peace loving Hindu neighbors.The Hindus were given the option," death or Islam".Thus the Hindus were massacred,forcibly converted and if they refused,were hacked to death.They ransacked the Military depot at Malappuram and looted the treasury,of 40,000 pounds.
Stalin,the Communist dictator had killed two Indians,during the great purges of 1937-1938.The most infamous killing was that of Virendranath Chattopadhyaya,younger brother of Sarojini Naidu.He was a brilliant revolutionary,and had been an enemy of M N Roy,one of the founder members of the Indian Communist Party,in Tashkent,in which the C P I ( M ) of India believes in,and in which the C P I doesn't.Virendranath,popularly known as Chatto,was executed by Stalin's police on 2 September,1937.He was the hero in Somerset Maugham's short story,Giulia Lazzari.
The second Indian to be killed was,Abani Mukherji,who had joined the Soviet Party in 1918.He founded the Indian Communist Party along with Roy.The party was formed making use of the vulnerability of the muhajirs from India,who were on their way for a Jihad in Turkey.The Sultan had been removed by the British at the end of the world war.The Muhajirs were trained in the military school set up by the Soviet Union in Tashkent.Mukherji was given charge of the school.
Roy,together with Mukherji concluded that the Turkey jihad was class war.No wonder,Mukherji,in his document on the Mappila revolt of Malabar,to Lenin,interpreted it as a class war between Hindu lords and Muslim peasants.This document,prepared in October,1921 was read by Lenin and handed over to his ideologue,Nikolai Bukharin on 14 November,with a note.The document was subsequently published in the German and French journals of the Communist International,and was translted from the German Die Internationale by Eden and Cedar Paul in the March 22 issue of the jounal of the British Communist Party,The Communist Review.While digging up information on Mukherji,I found the article in the Marx Memorial Library and Workers School,London.
"The rebellion caught the attention of Lenin. Lenin had recorded the importance of Hindu-Muslim unity that developed during that period. In the background of Malabar Rebellion, Lenin had instructed Abani Mukherji, an Indian Communist of that period to prepare a pamphlet after collecting all available facts regarding the agrarian issue in India and peasant struggles. Abani Mukherji who was also an economist prepared the pamphlet and published it in Russian and English from Moscow. It was a Russian named Kutowski who first conducted research on ‘Malabar Rebellion’ and received a doctorate."
Mukerji ( 1891-1937) was never an economist,he had studied textile technology and had worked in a couple of cotton mills in India.
This is the first Marxist interpretation of the Malabar Mutiny as a class war,and all the Marxist historians,including K N Panicker have subscribed to the view.It is regrettable that Panicker has not even mentioned the name of Mukherji in his thesis and book,
Against Lord and State: Religion and Peasant Uprisings in Malabar, 1836-1921.If he had seen Mukerji's article and chose to omit it,it is deplorable.and if he had not seen it,it is despicable.Even a naive researcher is supposed to find the primary source of his argument.In the absence of this,Panicker's thesis is incomplete and a farce-as Marx said in the Eighteenth Brumaire,"history repeats itself first as tragedy,then as farce".The revolt was a tragedy and the thesis,a farce.
Mukherji tries to soften the fanaticism by saying the Muslim jihadists had killed retired Police Inspector K V Chekkutti first and hence,it was not a jihadist conspiracy.Mukherji is wrong-Chekkutty had been decorated with a Khan Bahadur title by the British for his services to the East India Company,and was in their good books.He had informed the British of the movements of the jihadists,and hence got killed.
Mukherji has unabashedly compared the Malabar revolt to the peasant uprising in Oudh,proving Marxists don't read Marx-Marx had written on the 1920 Oudh revolt,The Annexation of Oude, in the 28 May 1858 issue of The New York Daily Tribune.Marx has rightly pointed out that Governor General Canning had attached all the property of the peasants in Oudh.Mukheji should have known the difference between jihad and revolution.
Maybe he and the Marxists pushed for a revolutionary jihad-a Red Jihad.
The contention of Mukherji that the Muslims of Malabar coast are the descendants of Arab fighters is unfounded;they are the descendants of the Hindu fishermen who were forcibly converted.There were massive conversions and widespread massacres during the campaigns of Hyderali and Tipu Sultan,if one is to go into the roots of the 1921 Malabar Jihad.Panicker cites the massacre of 34 Hindus on a day in 1921.Sober people never term a massacre a class war.Ofcourse,for Lenin,massacres were class conflicts,if we are to assess the killing of the Tambov peasants in revolt. For Stalin,purges of his enemies including Trotsky were class wars.
Maybe he and the Marxists pushed for a revolutionary jihad-a Red Jihad.
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| Mukherji |
Intellectuals who invested in land are called Bourgeois by Mukherji.There was no other option,and eventually they became the middle class in India,and the backbone of the Party in West Bengal and Kerala.To bracket them with Jenmis is sheer absurdity.The Hindu peasants too were down trodden and hapless.Muslim peasants alone doesn't constitute a class.The multitude of Hindus who were forcibly converted belonged to the working class.The tens of thousands of ordinary soldiers of the Nair Brigade that was captured,converted or killed were from the working class.Out of 15000 nairs captured by Hyderali and taken to Bednur,only 200 survived.One among them,Velluvakkammaran Nambiar,converted as Ayaz Khan,became the Commander of the forces of Hyderali and his Governor.
The Marxist historians have a pervasive tendency to infer first , distort facts and then theorize.Thus,Fazal Pookkoya Thangal,leader of the Malabar jihad,who had declared three fatwas against Hindus and hence deported to Arabia,has become an expert in class wars,in the eyes of Marxist historians like K K N Kurup.When jihad becomes class war,fundamentalists become Marxists.It is inevitable then that IS modules get into party ranks,Abhimanyu gets killed,and Marxist students kill a fellow traveler.
Mukherji too was a victim.The difference between him and contemporary Marxist historians is that he chose to reveal the truth,without finding safety in platitudes.The fanaticism of 1921 is there in the document,making him a renegade.It is better to ignore him.He was not a historian,but a textile technologist,trying to weave Marxist draperies out of abundant absurdity.Both Chatto and Mukherji were Bengalis,sidelined by another Bengali,M N Roy.Comintern finally demoted them to the Academy of Sciences in Moscow.They made contact with Lenin's widow Krupskaya,and were killed by Stalin.Mukherji was shot on 26 October,1937.Execution by shooting was reserved for high ranking communists;Hanging was for the mediocre.
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