For decades, Marxists have been haunted by Marx’s statement that religion is the opium of the masses. Does it not demand that Marxists be atheists, party workers and theoreticians are constantly quizzed. In the past, CPM leaders have been questioned for being seen in temple precincts and even in the vicinity of religious places.
When a former MP from Kerala quit the CPM, claiming he could not reconcile his belief in Jesus with the party’s approach to religion, General Secretary Prakash Karat clarified that the party wasn’t against religion. Marxism does not attack religion per se, he said, only the social conditions that make it the “sigh of the oppressed creature”.
In this festival season, the party has gone one step further, with the Kerala unit asking workers to participate in religious functions and the running of temples. Durga puja has long been an event as important, if not more, as May Day celebrations for Bengal comrades. In Latin America, the Liberation Theologists have been allies of the Reds for years.
Indeed, there have been attempts by Jesuit priests in Kerala as well to project Jesus as an emancipator of the poor, and an ally of Marx. There, of course, has never been a diktat by the CPM to its members to be irreligious, and down the years leaders had become reconciled to many cadres being staunch believers. However, the current intervention has more to do with local politics than any metaphysical concerns.
The CPM believes the RSS is steadily using religious functions to spread its influence among believers in Kerala and the party does not want to let the Sangh Parivar monopolise the space.
