The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-06-10
BY KARL MARX.

BY KARL MARX.
uINDoSTAN is an Italy of Asiatic dimensions,
ii the Himalayas for the Alps, the Plains OF
Bengal for the Plums of Lombardy, the Dec
can for the Apprentices, and the Isle OF Ceylon
for the Island of Sicily. The same rich var
ety in the products of the soil and the same
dismemberment in the political configuraton'
Just as Italy has, from time to time, been COM
pressed by the conqueror's sword into different
national masses, so do we find Hndostan,
when not under the pressure of the Mohani-
medan, or the Mogul, or the Briton dissolved
into as many independent and conflicting state
as it numbered towns, or even villages. YET.
in social point of view, Hindostan IS not the
Italy, but the Ireland of the East And this
strange combination of Italy and of Ireland,
of world of righteousness and of world OF
woes, is anticipated in the ancient traditions
Of the religion of Hindostap, That religion IS
at once a religion of sensuahst eNuberance'
and a religion of self-torturing ascetlsm; re-
ligion of the Lingam and Of the Juggernaut;
the religion of the Monk and of the Bayadere.
share not the opinion of those who believe
in a golden age of HindOstan, without recur-
ring, however, like Sir Charles Wood, for the
confirmation of my view, to the authority OF
Khuli-Kh But take, for example, the times
of Aurung- Zebe; or the epoch, when the Mogul
appeared in the North, and the Portuguese IN
the South; or the age of Mohammedan lnva-
sion, and of the Heptarchy in Southern India
or, if you will, go still more. back to antiquity,
take the NEUROLOGICAL chronology of the Brat
man himself, who places the commencement
of Indian misery in an epoch even more re
mote than the Christian creation Of the world
There cannot, however, remain any doub
80 1l H. No p-it
on Hindostan is of an essential. ti.&erent ant
infinitely more intensive kind t4-a all Hlndo
stan had to suffer before. ! O. not aIude u
European despotism. planted upon As;atic deS-
potsm, by the British East India Company,
forming a more monstrous combination than
any of the divine monsters startling us in the
Temple of Salsette. This is no distinctive fea-
ture of British colonial rule, but only an inn
tation of the Dutch, and so much so that in or
der to characterize the working of the Births
East India Co., it is sufficient to literally re
peat what Sir Stamford Raffles, the Englis,
governor Of Java, said Of the old Dutch Ea-
India Company:
"The Dutch Co., actuated solely by the spirit
Of gain, and viewing their subjects, with less
regard or consideration than a West India
planter formerly viewed gang upon his
estate because the latter had paid the pur
chase money of human property, which the
other had not, employed all the existing ma
chinery of despotism to squeeze from the peo
pie their utmost mite of contribution the last
dregs of their labor, and thus aggravated the
evils of capricious and semi-barbarous gov
eminent, by working it with all the practiced
ingenuity of politicians, and all the monopol
izing selfishness of traders"
All the civil wars, invasons, revolutions, con-
quests, famines, strangely complex, rapid and
destructive as the successive action in Hindo
stan may appear, did not go deeper than its
surface England has broken down the entire
framework of Indian society, without any
symptoms of reconstruction yet appearing.
This loss of his old world, with no gain of a
new one imparts a particular kind of melan-
choy to the present misery of the Hndoo,
and separates Hindostan, ruled by Britain,
from all its ancient traditions, and from the
whole of its past history.
There have been in Asia, generally, from
immemorial times, but three departments Of
government; that of Finance, or the plumber
of the interior; that of War, or the plumber of
the exterior; and, finally, the department Of
Public Works. Climate and territorial cond-
tions, especially the vast tracts of desert, ex
tending from the Sahara, through Arabia,
Persia, India and Tartary, to the most elevated
Asatic highlands, constituted artificial irriga-
ton by canals and waterworks, the basis of
Oriental agriculture. AS in Egypt ard India,
inundations are used fer fertilizng the soil in
Mesopotamia, Persia, etc.; advantage is taken
of a high level for feeding irrigative canals.
This prime necessity of an economical and
common use of water, which, in the Occident,
drove private enterprise to voluntary associa-
ton, as in Flanders and Italy, necessitated, in
he Orio 1171or ivili and
voluntary association, the interference of the
centralizing power of government. Hence an
economical function devolved upon all Asiatc
governments, the function of providing public
works This artificial fertilization of the soil,
dependent on a central government, and i'm
mediately decaying with the neglect of irriga-
ton and drainage, explains the otherwise
strange fact that we now find whole terri
tories barren and desert that were once bril-
liantly cultivated as PalMvra, Petra, the ruins
in Yemen and large Prov rs of Egypt, Persia
and Hindostan; it also c aims how single
war of devastation has bccl able to depopulate
country for centuries, and to strip it of all
its civilization.
Now, the British in Eac. India accepted from
their predecessors the department Of finance
and of war, but they have neglected entirely
that of public works. Hence the deterioration
of an agriculture which is not capable of being
conducted on the British principle of free COM
petition, of laissez-faire and laissez-aler But
IN Asiatc empires we are quite accustomed to
bee agriculture deteriorating| one govern
ment and reviving again under some Other