Review: Mao - The Unknown Story
This book is an epic biography of Mao Tse-tung, a man who rose from obscurity to become the dictator of China for almost three decades.
If you were asked - ‘Who was the greatest mass murderer of the 20th century?’ - what would be your response? Most people would say Adolph Hitler or Joseph Stalin, but…
August 6th, 2006 at 11:28 pm
The crimes against humanity of Mao, Stalin, Pol-Pot and other communist leaders are insufficiently well known to the world. With examples like these, it is amazing how modern day communists/socialists walk around with so much self-righteousness, pointing the accusing finger at everyone for being ‘anti-people’.
August 7th, 2006 at 10:43 am
The trouble is that Communist theory and rhetoric is so full of simplistic notions that will naturally appeal to the common man. Given that, how does one go about challenging Communism in India (whether Marxist, Maoist or Leninist) - or indeed Nepal - at the grassroots level?
I recall some 10 years ago or so, whilst working in some tribal areas in Uttar Pradesh, speaking with some villagers who were uneducated (in the conventional sense of the word), illiterate and staunch supporters of Communism. One I remember quite vividly is an elderly man sitting by the side of the road holding a red flag. When I asked him about his thoughts on Communism, he said to me that being a devotee of Shri Rama made him by definition a Communist, since Rama Rajya itself was nothing more or less than Communism in action; indeed, he went so far as to say that Shri Rama himself was the world’s first Communist. Of course, pointing out that Communism actually condemns all religious identity and that in the Indian context it is specifically anti-Hindu was singularly ineffective as a line of debate.
Thus far, the most successful method of dealing with this issue, along with the missionary issue also, that I have seen is through the work of sewa organisations such as Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram. For example, whilst working with Deendayal Shodh Sansthan in the Chitrakoot region a few years back, I remember seeing formerly quite ’secularist’ (for want of a better term) communities discussing quite heavily Hindutvawaadi ideas.