Step away and step aside, you Marxist historian, your time is over

 

Step away and step aside, you Marxist historian, your time is over

An all-original poem by Sujay Rao Mandavilli

 

You craft began with the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the mid-19th century,

To these two souls you owe your existence largely if not greatly,

Though Hegel, Kosambi, and others did contribute,

Along with the efforts of some other followers and champions of the trade who possessed steely resolute,

With class struggle and class conflict as your talking points and pivots,

And materialism and dialectical materialism being your shoots,

In a limited set of issues you engage,

In fossilized and ossified methodologies you partake,

Marxist historiography is obsolete, and its practitioners make an infinite regress,

Marxist historians often do not work holistically in the interests of scientific and intellectual progress,

We must a small digression make and begin this poem by saying that we must not condone,

Leave alone prop up or support,

The perils, follies and excesses of right-wing idiocy,

To any level, standard or degree,

Because the right wing can be noxious,

Insidious,

And positively dangerous to society,

Even as they project their claimed strengths to the laity quite absurdly,

Some say Marxist historiography is teleological and deterministic and posits an origin in history at the start of revolution of the proletariat only,

Though they may be right only partly,

Such paradigms are riddled with contradictions and may even block the reconstruction of economic history or the history of caste partially,

Others say Marxist historiography is one-sided and polarizes thereby never promoting convergence of thoughts to any degree,

It must also be noted that one-sided approaches breed incompetence mostly,

And there is also a natural misalignment between the efforts of Marxist historians and the ever evolving needs of society,

One-sided approaches do not serve the cause of science and promote healthy scholarship ideally,

Using scientific constructs of history,

To drive away superstition and mythology,

Is not even in their DNA or philosophy,

In their work there is little non-bias and scholarly objectivity,

Or transparency, openness, reliabilism, and non-subjectivity,

Most of their oeuvres are heavily blighted by the iron grip of ideology,

And the only form of intense and passionate dedication is dedication to ideology,

Marxist historiography is based on Eurocentric paradigms; and does not take local realities into account completely,

Thereby even promoting racism, bigotry and Eurocentrism indirectly,

Can we therefore even refer to it as the Colonial-Marxist-Imperialist school of historiography provocatively and retrospectively?

Marxist historians may even promotes an ideological discrimination between religions and cultures and one that is not based on a complete and accurate study,

Marxist historiography may even neglect study of cultural and non-material factors that inevitably mold history and shape society,

As some practitioners even tend to brush away culture more or less totally,

Marxist historians do not follow inter-disciplinary approaches even half-heatedly,  

They may well become the weakest link in the social sciences eventually,

They do not also help scholars from allied disciplines to achieve their objectives naturally,

Some Marxist endeavours tend to become less scholarly and more political eventually and subconsciously,

Such endeavours breed limited, one-sided intellectualism and that is most certainly a fallacy,

And in extreme cases even intellectual dishonesty,

They are also infamous for their poor integration between pre-history, proto-history and history,

And inevitably lack interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity,  

Marxist historiography even conflicts with objectivity and rationality and the rigorous quest for the truth and veracity,

It is also sometimes marked by a theoretical underdevelopment and lack of a long term strategy,

There is often no appetite for innovation and research on novel areas like history of science and technology,

This leads to gradual loss of control of mainstream institutions often irrevocably,

Such short-sighted misadventures cannot continue beyond a generation or two at any rate,

As it slowly gets associated with senility and old age,

Even intellectual equivalents of Glasnost and Perestroika cannot save them mightily,

As they are left by the wayside high and dry,

And may be seen by future generations as following weird, illogical approaches quite absurdly,

They also bring science and scientific endeavor a bad name,

In spite of all their trappings of self-proclaimed glory and fame,

Marxist historians lose credibility and no one believes them even when they are right,

The cry wolf syndrome even throws people off guard all right,

You have a limited purview,

As your ideology is current to a limited few,

You have a limited bandwith,

With diversity and a broad spectrum of ideas remaining a myth,

In addition to your non-integration with pre-history and proto-history,

You do not also advocate integration across geographies,

You have a limited spectrum and area of operation too,

As you are driven primarily by ideology to boot,

And always fail to renew yourself anew,

Though your possessed traditions and cherished attributes can be employed by other schools too,

You resultantly deal with a limited set of issues with flawed intellectualism,

Making your technique flawed and incomplete,

Deluded genuinely that your are uncommonly smart,

And proudly cherish and flaunt your trade and your art,

Though you lay the onus on others to compensate,

You need songs and symbols in your name,

For you are all things considered, a true ideology, though one with relative fame,

Depleted intellectual faculties,

Illogical , irrational behavior,

Loss of personal self-respect and dignity,

Wild and untamed intellectual freedom without social responsibility,

You obviously even for the most part do not pursue responsible patriotism as it may be against your ideology,

You allow yourself to be unknowingly fooled and misled by dogmatists subscribing to other rival and ideologies,

Such as conscious, subsconsious or unconscious racism,

Or sinful and black-hearted imperialism,

Your only salvation is death,

Our only liberation is your death,

As your coordinates seldom budge,

Or with new realities adapt and adjust,

As you create and birth counter-reactions galore,

With counter devious and slithering machinations aft and fore,

You cannot even propagate or fight for your own interests, you merry Andrews,

Let alone resuscitate and reinvigorate yourself anew,

Your resultant and concomitant naivety is being exploited by others too,

You self-destroying and self-defeating souls,

Even as you the benefits of your ideology extol,

Even in one of your unauthorized extensions namely Indology,

One that even derisively and contemptuously deserves to be called the “Colonial-imperialist- Marxist” school of Indology,

Oh you expired and defunct Marxist historian,

You may even be labeled for what it is worth, a distortian,

Though you may have allowed other schools to exist,

You may have verily promoted intellectual stagnation and intellectual mediocrity,

As you do not mostly act in the interests of science, the education system or society,

Your results are visible and apparent for the laity to see,

The nine million three hundred and fifty seven thousand five hundred and fifty seventh criticism of Marxist historiography is a follows, we may say and add,

In an extremely crude and exaggerated fashion indeed, 

Though this is an obvious exaggeration,

Remember though that there is a law of unintended consequences proposed by Robert K. Merton,

Which essentially states that even the path to hell may be paved with the best of intentions,

Marxist may proudly refer to their method as the “Marxist method” (with an emphasis on the “a”,) to grab attention,

With a limited set of duties and assignments,

You adhere to and adopt a form of subconscious and unconscious communalism indeed,

Though not as dangerous as that of right-wing fascists so to speak,

Deceit, calumny, suppression won’t work, your fossilized souls,

Stuck in a time warp you demented folk,

Your endeavours have the uncanny knack of producing quite the opposite effect,

As we in our work on the various Marxist Gods that failed, did dissect, 

People may well say then with all the self-reflection that is of any value and worth,

Even make it known and make it heard,

That Marxist historians, their intellectual capabilities crippled, once walked upon this earth,

You are beyond reform, and your salvation indeed lies only in death,

You may claim to fight right-wing fascists truly,

But alas that can never be accomplished by imposing a counter-ideology,

You do not even evaluate religion comprehensively and adequately,

Or fight the menace of religion deep-rootedly and comprehensively,

Only on the basis of the narrow prism that is your ideology,

For you have for a large part no intention to do any good to society,

Only mostly slavish subservience to your ideology,

Neither in the least any contemporary methodology,

Human psychology you do not bother to comprehend or understand,

Even as you disastrously continue to stick your heads in the sand,

And embody brainlessness beyond belief,

Others may not find it impressive as you tragically do not see, 

Abandon your cherished ideology and the favorable results will be there for all to see,

Adopt neutrality and non-ideology as your decree,

The principle of equidistance and absolute neutrality,

And the right wing will decline as it has no reason to cry hoarse indeed,

That is the only way to fight the right as the sane will agree,

As it is often said one kind of bias legitimizes every other kind of bias,

That is the social sciences equivalent of the law of action and reaction in natural science,

Genuineness of purpose alone does not produce right,

The jury is also justly always out, Who is more insane the far left or the far right?

And whose camp the fair name of objective scholarship more grievously blight?

But hold on tight, not all is hunky dory,

The right must not gain ground as the left inevitably fades into oblivion and obscurity.