Ideology critique and Materialist Revolution in India

Philosophy in India, has highly been prejudiced in the favour of idealism and in its specific forms of Spirituality. Vedic Philosophy and it's high and mighty claims on the after life and hence before life, beyond the world, and hence of this world cemented, undoubtedly the Vedic philosophy as the representative of Indian Philosophy. Vedanta, in it's pinnacle eras, became representative of Spiritual ideas. 

To throw oneself back in what went in the favour of idealist thinkers, we see a neutral point in History, which was neither materialistic nor idealistic in it's content. I claim, It was the rise of Gautam Buddha where Ideas were at par with Matter and from there starts a decline of materialism in India. Where perversion of thought process, a claim to spirituality became a disdain for materiality and hence, the whole conceptual underpinning of this world business. The answer to why India, in it's business,highly motivated by "that worldly" Affairs, if they exist, is this period where Buddha starts a synthesis of Matter and Idea somewhere in the sublime state. From there on, Buddhist and Vedantic thinkers take on and it goes to the valleys of Idealist thought and the zeniths of Materialism remains hidden and even became invisible with coming age. 

The answer to why a Materialist revolution is needed is not hard. India, in the garb of idealism, today, founds itself within layers of Ideology often misinterpreted or interpreted in their right way, where they elude a civilisation with charms and grab power in their hands. Materialism frees human from extra terrestrial conceptions of the world and makes it self-dependent and independent enough to question authorities and authorities even of extra terrestrial nature. Materialism is revolution against the world of spirits,if any. It is the fight for the right in it's material form and not some sublime, pseudo-, or feeling way. Materialism derives it's conceptual power from the fact that man is able to grasp the totality of his being and the collective that he forms. The concept of totality being totally graspable by man, is what Hegel is all about. Hegel, although being a German Idealist, is the key thinker who opens the doors to ultimate materialist thinking and revolution all over the world. He acts as a "Vanishing meditator" Between Kant and the subsequent world which is then led by Karl Marx and successors. The disrespect for Materialism as a philosophy in India stems from a time immemorial. But, to locate it, It can be seen in the decline of Charvakas and how brutally they are critiqued in all of Indian philosophy. The leaders of critique and critical theory are materialist thinkers, and in India, they are the ones critiqued the most. Why is this the case? The ruling class never wanted a democratic materialist perspective for the Commons to be achieved and hence, it was kept always suppressed in the garb of it being called the unclear, vague, selfish and less-thorough conception of the world. 

Coming to the modern times, we see, in colonial India, The critique of colonialism came with critiques of the ruling ideology again. But, this time, the presence of materialist way was thoroughly missing. Except MN Roy, and perhaps Ambedkar, No one really shows a materialist reading of the society in their writing. But, no! There is a catch here. There are thinkers which can aptly be termed as, Idealo-materialist thinkers in their own way, if I may. These thinkers take idealist and often spiritual texts and  subvert the idealist meanings, do interpretations of these texts that at one time, produced lethargy and inaction in the "Indian" Crowd, to promote action and national agenda. In their re-interpretation, we see glimpses of materialist thought process where in the garb of divine, heavenly and so called out of the world, religious ideas, they underpin the modern ideas of liberty, equality and democracy. We see, Swami Vivekananda, Mahatma Gandhi, Aravind and even to some extent Ambedkar, interpreting texts in their own way. First question to ask is why was there a need of re-interpretation of texts written hundreds of years old? Gandhians might give an answer that it was the unique approach of Gandhi to create national consciousness in masses. Ambedkarites might argue that the Ideology critique of the Brahminical ideology deemed it necessary for him to interpret texts, Vivekanand followers might say, it was an adhyatmik exercise for him. I claim, It was the Renaissance period of ideology critique, although biased in the favour of idealism, rejuvenated since the time of Buddha and Charvakas. The need to critique the ideology by not directly critiquing it, but rather, subverting it, redeeming some of it's essentialities while making something new out of it, a kind of Hegelian Aufhebung or Sublation. Sublation literally means to uplift something further by keeping something of it and rejecting something of it. 

This ideology critique is all the more essential in contemporary times. All the more needed in a time, where religion, the mass connector in India, is used in order to manipulate people once again. The ruling ideology today, Hindu nationalists, using subversive methods again to establish an ideology of Hindutva that favours them. 

Critical theory is all the more needed where, The contours of ideology is located in the current ruling ideology. What are the instruments they employ to use? Religious texts, critique of Marxist historiography and presenting them as villains, demarcation of the rifts in Hindu and muslim religious ideas, etc. A thorough materialist re-reading of religious and for that matter, political texts and political writings of predecessors is required and they demand a sort of dialectically reversed re-interpretation. For example: The best example of Gandhi interpreting Srimad Bhagwat Geeta as a text of non-violence. Yes! A radicalism in re-interpretation of this sort if required. Not leniency, not lethargy, not liberal interpretation trying to include all sides, but a radical dialectically and diametrically opposite interpretation, calling a book claimed to be written in a battlefield, a sort of battle cry, to be called as a book of non-violence. Gandhi, in this sense remains a strange phenomena. The same gandhi, in earlier days, is seen to uphold the ruling ideology of Casteism, in the guise of Varna, while here we see, a radical Gandhi. We should always be concerned with the critical theorist, Radical Gandhi and not the liberal mouthpiece. 

A materialist interpretation of Geeta is required which is in line. All this for what? Creating something which Marx called the revolutionary consciousness, a consciousness which can call out the ruling ideology at every step. Call out God if needed.A consciousness which can call shackles as shackles and not ornaments or jewelry. A materialist conception of political thought and history is what I seek. This will sow the seeds of a materialist revolution in India. This revolution will not render the idealist ideas redundant, rather it will re-interpret them in an aesthetic way, to point at the urgency to take charge for the humans to their this worldly life not to get it be engulfed by the narrative of that world concepts. A pure theoretical approach to revolution is borrowed from Slavoj Zizek, whose ideology critique will be the lens we will employ here.His interpretation of Christian texts as atheist texts and how the death of Christ signifies the holy Ghost being the collective consciousness and we are the one responsible here is the source of inspiration. Hope, we could achieve it with Indian religious texts. The task is simple, identify the areas where the ruling ideology exists, and do a re-interpretation Or rather, subversion, in order to give a materialist conception of every, hitherto, existing political, social, religious philosophy.