Karnataka - Hubli   

Working class caught up in religious dogmas: expert

By Our Special Correspondent

HUBLI, MAY 19. K. Raghavendra Rao, honorary director of the Indian Institute of Marxist Theory and Practice and retired Professor of Political Science, Mangalore University, has said that strategies will have to be worked out to awaken class consciousness among the working class by making them shed their religious dogmas.

"This is very difficult to achieve but it is inevitable," Mr. Rao said in his keynote address at a seminar on "Religion and the Indian working class: a secularist perspective" here on Tuesday. It was organised to mark the 18th death anniversary of Embar Bhashyachar, a renowned freedom fighter and litterateur.

Mr. Rao lamented that not much work had been done in the country in the context of religion and the working class while a good number of studies existed on Christianity and the working class in Latin America and Europe.

Marxism had categorically stated that religion would wither away only with the establishment of a communist society, he said. For establishing such a society, the working class had to be in the vanguard of the revolutionary class struggle.

In his presidential remarks, K.S. Sharma, veteran trade union leader, said that in post-independent India, capitalists and the ruling class had been using religion to perpetrate class rule. Even the Left parties, he said, had fallen a prey to the "romance of parliamentarianism" by which they were indirectly strengthening the "exploitative capitalist-landlord rule."

He noted that the Indian working class, instead of joining class struggles, had got caught up in the vortex of religious dogmas.

The need of the hour was to lead revolutionary struggles against neo-imperialist forces and usher in a communist State based on Marxian ideology, Mr. Sharma said.

D.V. Shirali, retired Director of the Research Cell, Reserve Bank of India, said a struggle should be launched against religious establishments. B. Krishna Murthy, retired Professor of Psychology, Gulbarga University, said religion was an illusion and demystification of religion was needed to galvanise the working class into action.

Shantadevi Sannaellappanavar, Professor of Kannada, Karnatak University, said there was a need to develop consciousness among the working class. Sulochana Potnis, Assistant Director of Museums, said the working class could be secularised by awakening class-consciousness.

Radhika Gudihal, advocate, said women should join hands with men to establish a society marked by equality and prosperity.

S.G. Nadgir, educationist, released the second edition of Namana, an anthology of poems penned by Da Ra Bendre. Mr. Rao released the prospectus of the training classes in music to be started by the Bendre Music Academy.

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