In the midst of India’s complex socio-political landscape, a profound ideological revolution is underway.

In several earlier articles, I have mentioned that India’s real and massive problems of poverty, unemployment, child malnutrition, price rise, lack of proper healthcare, and good education for the masses cannot be solved within the present political and constitutional system, nor by the electoral process (such as the one India is presently undergoing), but by a people’s revolution.

I have also stated that historical experience shows that before every actual revolution, there is always a long period of ideological revolution, in which the weapons used are not bombs, guns, or swords, but ideas.

During this period of ideological revolution, there is a clash of ideas, practices, and values—the old conservative and conventional ones (e.g., feudal thinking and practices) clashing with the newly emerging ones, which challenge the former.

What was regarded as good earlier by the old feudal order (e.g., the caste system in India, marriage within one’s own caste and religion, etc.) is often regarded as backward, outdated, and even evil by the enlightened sections of society.

As Shakespeare said in Hamlet, “Fair is foul, and foul is fair,” i.e., good has become bad, and bad has become good. Everything becomes topsy-turvy, and there is tremendous social churning.

Thus, in England, the revolutions of the 17th century were preceded by vehement debates between those who supported the theory of divine right of kings, propounded articulately by King James I, and those who challenged it and propagated the idea of popular sovereignty (culminating in John Locke’s famous work ‘The Second Treatise on Government’).

In France, the great French Revolution of 1789, which destroyed feudalism in France, was preceded by decades of ideological struggle by great thinkers like Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, and other French Encyclopedists who waged a powerful attack on the feudal system and religious bigotry.

In Russia, before the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, there was a long period of ideological struggle after the Decembrist Revolt of 1825 was crushed by Czar Nicholas I. Great writers like Pushkin, Herzen, Belinsky, Chernyshevsky, the Narodnik thinkers, Plekhanov, Lenin, etc. featured prominently therein.

1. In India, we are presently passing through the period of ideological revolution, and the actual revolution is still far off. It is useful, therefore, to consider some features of the Indian ideological revolution, which are mentioned below:

As already mentioned above, the primary weapons used in this period will not be guns, bombs, or swords, but ideas.

The Indian people, the vast majority of whom are mentally backward, steeped in casteism and communalism for centuries, have to be patiently educated by the small, enlightened section of society, and their backward feudal mindsets changed gradually by the latter, replacing them with modern, scientific mindsets.

This will not be an easy task and will, in fact, be met for a long time with fierce resistance and even violence by the orthodox, backward, feudal-minded people (who are in the vast majority and do not want to change their feudal reactionary ideas and practices).

Nevertheless, the job has to be done, and there are no doubt many patriotic individuals among the enlightened section of society who will come forward and do it.

Intellectuals are the eyes of society, and without them, society is blind. Intellectuals have to provide leadership to the people, but unfortunately, most so-called ‘intellectuals’ in India are, in fact, pseudo-intellectuals.

They have superficial, half-baked, bookish knowledge, but with huge egos and arrogance, and they strut around the social scene like peacocks, displaying their shallow knowledge. It is genuine intellectuals India needs, not these fakes and phonies.

2. After a certain period has elapsed in the ideological struggle, the need will be felt by the patriotic section for organizing a political party of those who genuinely want India to emerge from poverty, unemployment, malnutrition, lack of healthcare, and good education, etc.

As is well known, the present Indian politicians, of all parties, only seek power and wealth and have no genuine love for the country or the people’s welfare, and they polarize society on caste and communal lines to gain votes.

Individual effort, which though undoubtedly very valuable at the early stage of the ideological struggle, will no longer be sufficient later to take the struggle further forward.

How such a political organization will be created and how much time that will take is impossible to predict. One cannot be rigid about historical forms. But its leaders, whoever emerge as such, must have the following qualities: (1) they must have modern, secular, scientific minds; (2) they must be enthused with patriotism and selflessness, which is essential, for they too, apart from the people they lead, will have to make great sacrifices; (3) they must lead frugal personal lives, for how can they call upon the people to make great sacrifices (as they have to if the struggle is to succeed) when they themselves live cozy, comfortable lives?

3. Still later, towards the end of this period of pure ideological struggle, and just before the beginning of the actual revolution, a section of the armed forces of the government will defect and come over to the side of the people (who are being led by the party of patriots mentioned above), as it happened at the time of the English, French, Russian, and Chinese Revolutions.

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