logo
Why Marxism has lost its appeal for Indian Muslims

Why Marxism has lost its appeal for Indian Muslims

Scroll.in05-05-2025

One of the most recognised statements of Karl Marx pertains to religion being the 'opium of the people'. This is understood as exemplifying his criticism of religion as a tool of oppression or a form of delusion. However, the less famous sentence preceding this one says, 'Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world and the soul of soulless conditions.'
Marx's metaphor was both empathetic and critical. In one of his earlier works he sees religious identity as socially conditioned, and its persistence as being materially rooted. While not celebratory of religion, Marx recognised that religion could potentially serve as a form of resistance.
It is this possibility of religious identity that we see in the engagement of Indian Muslim intellectual traditions with Marx's explanations of oppression and resistance, during the colonial rule and in post-colonial India.
Marx and India's Muslim past
Marx had a deep interest in India. As a scholar of his time he remained orientalist in his approach, perhaps also an outcome of the sources he relied upon. These sources were deeply focused on Muslim rule – often presenting it as both despotic and advanced, compared to 'Hindu antiquity' or tribal societies. The Mughal empire, in particular, was central to British justifications for conquest, often presented as a corrupt but once-glorious civilisation that the British were now 'reforming'.
Critical of colonialism, especially the oppression and violence of the East India Company, Marx still thought within Enlightenment and Eurocentric frameworks.
In his Notes on Indian History (which he did not intend to publish), Karl Marx not only focused on the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughal Empire, but also devoted substantial attention to later Muslim rulers such as Tipu Sultan of Mysore, the Nawabs of Awadh and the Nizams of Hyderabad.
This reinforces the fact that Marx's interest in Muslim regimes in India was not confined to the canonical empires, but extended to regional powers who confronted British colonial expansion –especially those that offered military or political resistance. From Marx's 19th-century perspective, Muslim dynasties were the dominant political actors in India for nearly 600 years. Any serious historical account would necessarily foreground this period.
He was broadly interested in how various empires extracted surplus, managed land and labour, and structured the economy. He paid close attention to Mughal land revenue systems (like jagirdari), which allowed him to examine pre-capitalist modes of surplus extraction. He also observed the weakening of centralised authority, internal rebellion, and the shift to British colonial dominance through East India Company's military-financial interventions.
Marx followed the Indian Rebellion of 1857 closely. In his articles published in The New York Daily Tribune he did not emphasise religious identities explicitly, but reframed some of the Eurocentric narratives.
' The First Indian War of Independence' is the name of the book by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels about revolt of 1857. pic.twitter.com/iS8KbbtnLd
— ADITYA KRISHNA (@adityakrishnabg) May 5, 2023
Muslim modernists
During the second half of 19th century, Indian Muslim reformers and modernists like Sayyid Ahmad Khan, attempted to reinterpret Islamic teachings in light of rationality and scientific laws of nature. This prompted his detractors to label him 'nechari'. Though not a Marxist, Syed was influenced by the intellectual currents that included Marxist ideas on materialism and social progress.
As they navigated the ideological influence of Western colonial powers and their own religious traditions, Indian Muslim intellectuals, particularly those engaging in anti-colonial activities found Marx's criticism of colonialism influential.
Marxist thought was propagated in Urdu literary circles through Urdu translations of Marx's writings and other Marxists texts by Indian Muslim intellectuals and leftist activists. Prominent Indian Muslim intellectuals such as Maulana Azad had to contend with the rise of Marxism among the youth. Azad incorporated elements of Marxist thinking in his analysis of colonialism and its effects on Indian society, including the Muslim community. In fact, a serialised translation of the Communist Manifesto was published in his weekly newspaper Al-Hilal.
Allama Iqbal, the philosopher-poet of South Asian Islam, was deeply ambivalent about Marx. He admired Marx's critique of capitalism and colonialism but he criticised Marx's materialism and rejection of spirituality. In his poem Lenin, Khuda ke Huzoor Mein (appearing before God), Iqbal imagines Lenin complaining to God about capitalism and European modernity using a Marxist idiom. Iqbal though makes Lenin compensate for his perception that Marxism ignores the soul and spirituality even as he approves of its attempt to fix the injustice in the world.
Play
Muslim socialism
During the I World War many Indian Muslims who participated in the Khilafat movement and the defence of the Ottoman Empire in Central Asia and Turkey were disillusioned by the idea of Islamic unity as a political force or Pan-Islamism. The search for anti-colonial solidarity, led some of them to Bolshevism. Soviet Union's anti-imperialist stance and its overtures to colonised Muslims took them to Tashkent. It was at the Communist International that early Muslim socialism emerged.
Historians like have argued that shift was driven more by political pragmatism and anti-colonial emotion than by doctrinal Marxism.
Even as the motivation may have been instrumental, evidently Marxism and Islamic thought were not impossible to blend. This is perhaps best exemplified in the politics and political expression of Maulana Hasrat Mohani.
Mohani was one of the founders of Communist Party of India, he coined the slogan 'Inquilab Zindabad' or Long Live the Revolution, and was a popular cultural figure. Even as he experimented with an array of party affiliations he remained rooted in socialist disdain for capitalist exploitation. Mohani was not a votary of Gandhi's moderate methods to resist the colonial rule. His advocacy and use of khadi were more a blend of his radical anti-colonial economic analysis and Islamic ethics of simplicity and austerity, than the influence of Gandhi's charisma.
Marxist ideas contributed to the anti-colonial struggle also by effectively uniting various Indian communities, including Muslims. Notably, during the independence movement, figures like Subhas Chandra Bose and other leftist leaders sought to bridge the gap between Muslim and non-Muslim communities by promoting an anti-colonial ideology and solidarity over religious differences.
Marxist aesthetics
The mixing of Islamic and Marxist aesthetics by Muslim poets, writers, intellectuals and activists is a part of long and continuing history of intellectual dialogue between Islamic and Marxist thought not only in India but in other parts of the Muslim world around anti-colonial and anti-capitalist struggle.
This history includes Communist parties and groups playing important roles in anticolonial movements in Sudan, Algeria, Egypt and Palestine. It consists of Marxists reinterpretation of Shia martyrdom as revolutionary resistance in Iran. It includes Ali Shariati synthesising Shia theology, framing early Islam especially under Imam Ali as proto-socialist.
Frantz Fanon noted that Islam functioned as a 'people's religion' against French settler colonialism which blended with Marxist frameworks guiding much of the post-independence ideological makeup in Algeria. Many Muslim feminists like Fatima Mernissi and Nadje Al-Ali have used historical-materialist and political-economic methods – shifting the focus from 'Islam as a problem' to material conditions and power structures.
Inspired by a blend of Islamic thought and a Marxism-inflected critique of Western modernity, Ziauddin Sardar advocated for decolonial futures rooted in pluralism and ethical justice.
In his explorations of global capitalism and cultural resistance, Marxist critic and philosopher Fredric Jameson has held that Islam represents one of the few remaining serious cultural and political challenges to the homogenising force of late capitalism. Jameson's view is part of a broader effort to think about non-capitalist cultural forms – including religion – as possible forces that can be counter hegemonic, especially when more conventional leftist alternatives appeared institutionally weak.
Thinkers like Samir Amin and Talal Asad have echoed this by arguing that Islamic movements, and traditions, while varied, shape political life in ways that do not easily fit liberal or capitalist models and may resist capitalist globalisation on their own terms.
Muslims in post-colonial India
In post-Partition India, Marxist affiliations also offered many Muslims an alternative political identity that transcended communal labels. As in the closing scene of Garam Hawa, when Sikandar Mirza and Salim Mirza join a left procession instead of migrating to Pakistan, the moment captures a form of belonging.
The Communist Parties were among the few parties to openly recruit Muslims on ideological grounds, not token representation. Although Jawaharlal Nehru as the prime minister was quite antipathic to communists, arguably, it was his admiration of Marx and his professed socialist ideals which made him popular among Muslim left-leaning intellectuals. They were wary of both religious nationalism and capitalist conservatism, and it provided them a sense of proximity to the ideology in power.
Renowned filmmaker Satyajit Ray once praised 𝘎𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘮 𝘏𝘢𝘸𝘢 in a Calcutta-based weekly, stating that despite technical issues, the film is a milestone in Indian cinema due to its bold subject matter, doing full justice to Ismat Chughtai's work. Produced with the aid of the… pic.twitter.com/W3iNZXV224
— 𝓼𝓪𝓷𝓴𝓪𝓻 (@yansan) October 19, 2024
Marxism remained influential in Indian Muslim political circles, particularly during the rise of left-wing movements in the mid-20th century. Communist opposition to right-wing politics has been more steadfast than any other political entity – making Marxist politics an important space for anti-communal politics.
This aspect of left politics had seen some waning, coinciding with the decline in the influence of communist parties in many parts of the country, especially since after the left front chose to walk out of the ruling Congress-led United Progressive Alliance coalition in 2008. They have however remained considerably popular in states with significant Muslim populations, including Kerala, West Bengal and even Kashmir.
One of the reasons of decline in Muslim presence in or their willingness to associate with the left is that, Marxism has also come to be associated largely with atheism due to the policies of the regimes in Communist countries.
Among the South Asian Muslims, this perception was strengthened perhaps due to Maulana Maududi's aversion to socialism. Maududi decreed socialism as being redundant in Islamic societies or even incompatible with Islam, but it was perhaps also rooted in his defence of private property rights and opposition to nationalisation of resources.
The steady communalisation of all politics in India has strengthened the discourse in left and communist groups that asserts that issues of persecution due to religious identity are not real but a distraction from class struggle.
Another reason for decline in support for Marxism as an ideology is the declining familiarity of the idiomatic mixing of Marxism and anti-colonialism in Urdu poetics, which is being replaced by a blatantly anti-Muslim rhetorical mix of neo-liberalism and cultural nationalism.
The erasure of Islamic idioms and memory of Muslims' role from the history of Marxist politics has also been affected in India partially by nepotism in left 'intellectuals'' of Muslim heritage. They have accrued cultural capital of being secular through perpetuating an intellectually lazy culture of equating religion with cultural nationalism, and of targeting Islam as being especially fanatical, rather than a serious material force, which Marx would have found seriously vulgar.
Marx's materialist conception of history – which stresses that economic conditions shape societal structures – was evident in the struggles of Indian Muslims, particularly during the period of British colonialism and the Partition of India.
Issues of land ownership and distribution, economic inequalities, and the impact of colonial policies deeply affected the Muslim community. Marxist analysis continues to provide a useful framework for critiquing these social conditions.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

US Envoy Says He Does Not Think Palestinian State Is US Policy Goal: Report
US Envoy Says He Does Not Think Palestinian State Is US Policy Goal: Report

NDTV

time40 minutes ago

  • NDTV

US Envoy Says He Does Not Think Palestinian State Is US Policy Goal: Report

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said he did not think that an independent Palestinian state remains a goal of US foreign policy, according to an interview with Bloomberg News released on Tuesday. "I don't think so," Huckabee said when asked if a Palestinian state remains a goal of US policy, Bloomberg reported, Bloomberg reported. Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, is staunch pro-Israel conservative picked by President Donald Trump to be his envoy to Israel. "Unless there are some significant things that happen that change the culture, there's no room for it," Huckabee was quoted as saying. Those probably won't happen "in our lifetime," he told the news agency. Trump, in his first term, was relatively tepid in his approach to a two-state solution, a longtime pillar of US Middle East policy, and he has given little sign of where he stands on the issue in his second term. Huckabee suggested a piece of land could be carved out of a Muslim country rather than asking Israel to make room. "Does it have to be in Judea and Samaria?" Huckabee said, using the biblical name the Israeli government favors for the West Bank, where some 3 million Palestinians live under occupation. The White House and US State Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Huckabee's remarks. An evangelical Christian, Huckabee has been a vocal supporter of Israel throughout his political career and a longtime defender of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. Trump has pursued strongly pro-Israel policies as president and his choice of Huckabee as ambassador signaled that they would continue.

West Bengal Assembly passes resolution praising armed forces, condemns Pahalgam terror attack
West Bengal Assembly passes resolution praising armed forces, condemns Pahalgam terror attack

India Gazette

timean hour ago

  • India Gazette

West Bengal Assembly passes resolution praising armed forces, condemns Pahalgam terror attack

Kolkata (West Bengal) [India], June 10 (ANI): The West Bengal Assembly on Tuesday passed a resolution conveying appreciation for the Indian armed forces for their recent action targeting terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). The resolution moved in state Legislative Assembly on Tuesday also condemned the April 22 terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir's (J-K) Pahalgam, which claimed the lives of 26 people, most of them tourists. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee expressed deep grief over the incident and paid tribute to those who lost their lives. 'We do not support terrorism in any way. In Pahalgam, tourists lost their lives. We condemn this incident. Three victims were from Bengal. During the incident, one Muslim man (Adil Hussain Shah) opposed them and sacrificed his life. We salute and pay tribute to him also,' Banerjee said. She further said that West Bengal is the only state to have moved such a resolution. 'Bengal is the only state that moved a resolution on this. We are the first to convey appreciation for the Indian Armed Forces in combating militant and terrorist activities in Jammu and Kashmir,' she said. Hitting out at the Centre, Banerjee said there is no reason to neglect West Bengal, and the state played an important role during independence. 'There is no reason to neglect West Bengal. Bengal is a great land that played a role in the freedom movement, but has been neglected. We have demanded a special session of Parliament. Bengal is the only state to table this resolution in the Assembly, saluting our brave armed forces,' she said. Raising questions on the Pahalgam attack, Banerjee asked, 'Why did security breaches occur? Not a single Police personnel was deployed. Why have the terrorists not been captured till now? Why is there a gap in our diplomacy? How is Pakistan managing to get loans from the IMF/ World Bank? How did the terrorists manage to enter Indian territory? How is sensitive info related to the nation being supplied to Pak - the links of which are from Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh.' She also stressed the need to strengthen central security forces, stating, 'CRPF and BSF should be further empowered. 'Pahalgam terror attack took place because of the failure of the Centre and the Intelligence,' she said. During the discussion, Leader of Opposition and BJP MLA Suvendu Adhikari proposed that the name 'Operation Sindoor'--the Armed Forces' counter-operation--be included in the resolution. He asked why the name 'Operation Sindoor' was not mentioned in the resolution. 'In this resolution, appreciation has been conveyed for the Indian Armed Forces, but why don't you mention the name 'Operation Sindoor'?' Adhikari asked. (ANI)

Beef being weaponised against Hindus: Assam CM Himanta Sarma after Eid incidents
Beef being weaponised against Hindus: Assam CM Himanta Sarma after Eid incidents

Time of India

time2 hours ago

  • Time of India

Beef being weaponised against Hindus: Assam CM Himanta Sarma after Eid incidents

Guwahati: Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Tuesday said that beef is being "weaponized" against Hindus in the state. He was referring to instances of pieces of the meat being thrown in public places after the Eid celebration last week. Talking to media persons in Guwahati he said, "In the past if some of Muslim families lived in a Hindu neighbourhood, they would be careful not to create any problems for the Hindus. If they wanted to have beef, they would go to their people living in Muslim-majority areas. Now they throw away the leftovers and waste around so that the Hindus in the neighbourhood have to eventually leave that place.' Play Video Pause Skip Backward Skip Forward Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration 0:00 Loaded : 0% 0:00 Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 1x Playback Rate Chapters Chapters Descriptions descriptions off , selected Captions captions settings , opens captions settings dialog captions off , selected Audio Track default , selected Picture-in-Picture Fullscreen This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Opaque Semi-Transparent Text Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Caption Area Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Drop shadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Walgreens Hides This Cheap 87¢ Generic Viagra from Seniors – Here's Why fridayplans Learn More Undo Sarma pointed out that beef pieces were left in various places after Eid last week, including in front of Cotton University in Guwahati. 'Someone can have it at Eid, but it cannot be weaponized against other people.' Sarma added "Good Muslims oppose such acts. They do not post photos on Facebook holding beef. I received just three phone calls from Muslim persons after these incidents to say that they do not approve of it". Live Events The Chief Minister, " if things move as it is now, "in 20 years, beef will be thrown in front of Kamakhya temple". Authorities in western Assam's Dhubri district-imposed restrictions in Dhubri town, the district headquarters, following unrest over 'beef' found in a temple complex. Invoking Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, District Commissioner Dibakar Nath said there was a likelihood of breach of peace and public tranquillity in areas falling under the Dhubri police station due to communal tension and risks of riots and violent protests. Sarma claimed that all foreigners were sent away from Gujarat and not a single one went to the court, whereas in Assam, cases are filed daily against action on illegal migrants by Assamese petitioners and lawyers. Sarma said that Congress had opposed the push back of foreigners. ' Its legislative party leader Debabrata Saikia opposed the same in the state assembly on Monday. 'Saikia quoting in the assembly that then PM Jawaharlal Nehru had opposed the Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act, 1950, which empowers district commissioners to identify foreigners and remove goes on to show that Nehru's pro-foreigner stance was from 1950 itself.' Talking about the National Register of Citizens (NRC), Sarma said that the state government, AASU and others are "not satisfied" with it. He said the state government has approached the Supreme Court for re-verification of 20-10 percent of the names in various categories, and though the apex court has not agreed to it yet, "we believe the court will accept it". Sarma on Monday said that over 330 illegal infiltrators were pushed back in the last few months, and this operation will be expedited in the coming days. Sarma on Monday informed the Assam Legislative Assembly that the government has pushed back almost 330 such illegal foreigners and none of them have returned. 'It is not possible for them to return, and we are firm on this. And this pushback will be intensified; it will be expedited. The way illegal immigrants have entered the state from Bangladesh and Pakistan, we must be more proactive to keep the state safe'.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store