“... ‘Cultural Marxism’ is the intellectual elaboration of a ‘will-to-destroy’ as it pertains to traditional cultural and societal bastions. Karl Marx had a will-to-destruction, and ‘The Communist Manifesto’ is a handbook for the destruction of whatever remained in this late epoch of the West of the organic bonds such as family, marriage, faith and the pre-capitalist attachment to village, church, and land. Rather than decrying the destruction of these organic bonds, Marx regarded them as ‘bourgeois’ institutions that were dialectically being destroyed by capitalism and industrialism as a progressive step. Those who resisted this dialectic of destruction were vehemently denounced in ‘The Communist Manifesto’ as ‘reactionists’.” -- K. R. Bolton, Academic Member, Athens Institute for Education & Research, in his paper ‘Cultural Marxism: Origins, Development and Significance’, published in ‘The Journal of Social, Political and Economic Studies’, Volume 43, Number 3 & 4, Fall & Winter, 2018. THOUGH the above statement by Bolton is in the context of Western world, one may find striking similarities in the description of the situation in India these days. For, in different form, the same ideological forces referred to as ‘Cultural Marxists’ are moulding the Indian society, mostly through the academic circles.

 

Interestingly, many of those falling prey to these forces that work against the organic bonds are not aware that they are being fooled into participating in the process of subversion of rich Indian socio-cultural heritage. No one is more misled than people who think that the world is a space where the Marxists and their ultra-radical versions like the Indian Maoists are still waging a struggle for creation of a class-less society. Gone are the days of the ‘Classical Marxists’ whose ideology once influenced people across the world. After spending years chasing the mirage of class-less society only through economic critiques or by wasting age and energy on convincing people that they are players in larger scheme called ‘production relations’, some of the younger breed of Marxists-in-hurry took a radical approach of theorising that culture was an authoritarian ‘construct’. They theorised that everything that constituted culture was an expression of something practised by dominant sections of society. Hence, they advocated, destruction of this construct. Thanks to post-World War Germany, France, some other European nations, and the US, such theories found their way in academic circles. It spread fast like a weed with the support of financial elites of the world who basically wanted to use the practitioners of such theories to create troubles in resource-rich parts of the world to ensure their continued domination. Today, the situation is such that the ‘Classical Marxists’ have become a rarity and the ‘Cultural Marxists’ have taken over the Left space to a great extent. The ‘Critical Theory’, which was converted into ‘Critical Race Theory’ to target the dominant socio-cultural group in the US, has become an umbrella concept under which everything is being looked at from the political lens.

 

In India, unfortunately, this has taken the shape of ‘Critical Caste Theory’. More unfortunate is the fact that many of the academicians also stand influenced by the use of jargonised expressions by these ‘Cultural Marxists’ and feel inferior to the extent of developing ‘misia’ (hatred) for Indian roots and civilisational cultural heritage. Guided by their influencers, these academicians are shaping the educational discourse and content, which has started showing results in the form of youngsters considering everything Indian as something sub-standard and worth derision. The trouble with the ‘Cultural Marxists’ is that they are full of contradictions, no matter the justifications they invent to support their flawed theories. However, afraid of illogic being exposed by probing questions, they resort to denouncing the critics as ‘right wingers’, ‘conservatives’, ‘reactionaries’, ‘supremacists’, ‘fascists’, ‘orthodox’ etc. In case of India, whichever thing they do not like, they falsely brand it as ‘Brahminical’, ‘bourgeois’, ‘capitalist cronies’. Unfortunately, a vast majority of youngsters is falling prey to such a propaganda because of lack of their reading of own history. Their parents are afflicted by the dream of fulfilling own wish of going abroad and aping foreign culture instead of having pride in rich Indian cultural roots.

 

This only aggravates the problem. In this process, no one is mustering courage to question the inherent contradictions in the ‘Cultural Marxism’ in all its shades, and lack of solid foundation based on human organic bonds. For instance, no one questions that if the ‘Cultural Marxists’ want to create a class-less society, why are they coming up with newer theories that actually divide a society into various identities viz. LGBTQIA++, Queer, Left or Right, this caste or that caste, majority or minority, so on and so forth. Of course, this part can be explained in detail on some other occasion. These incubators of subversion can be defeated easily, only if the organic bonds such as family, marriage, faith, attachment to village, temples or other places of worship, land, nation, and Indian roots are preserved.

 

This preservation will have to start from families, then extend to communities, then to regions, States, and ultimately to the level of collective consciousness of the proud socio-cultural ethos of India. One of the ways to make a good beginning is to tell stories of Indian heroes and heroines at home, as well as in schools and even colleges. Another way is to teach them that identity rooted in own culture is more important than identity politics. Need is to understand that if a tree’s base is flooded with polluted water, its roots absorb it, circulate the negative nutrients in the system, weaken the structure from within, and ultimately lead to death of the tree in the long run. Need is to protect the base of the beautiful tree of Indian culture.