MukhtasIr Tareekh-e-Hind is a compilation of Urdu translations of three research articles on various aspects of Indian history written by three of the Soviet Union’s leading historians during the 1950s and 1960s: Albert Zakharovich Manfred, Vladimir Pavlov and Erik Komarov. Needless to say, these histories are based on the Marxist point of view, which scholar Ahmed Salim has translated from English.

The first section is an overview of the subcontinent’s history starting from ancient times and going up till Partition. The second section deals with the social and economic evolution of united India from the 18th to the 20th century; and the third section is based on Vladimir Lenin’s analysis of political and revolutionary movements in India during the first half of the 20th century. Lenin was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist.

Albert Zakharovich Manfred, Soviet historian and professor, wrote a brief history of the world (Mukhtasir Tareekh-e Alam), which was earlier translated into Urdu and became quite popular in leftist circles. The section on India’s ancient history has been extracted from this book. Manfred taught in higher education institutions in the Soviet Union, and served as a head of the department of modern history of West European countries at the Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Manfred’s text is in itself a brief history of India. The section covers pre-Christ civilisation in India, Greek invasions, medieval India, history of the 16th and 17th centuries, end of the Mughal empire, British rule, WWI, political awakening in India and end of the British rule.

Manfred describes ancient Indians as a highly developed civilisation with a rich culture. This civilisation produced the epic Mahabharata, Buddhist carvings, and developed arts and sciences including mathematics, astrology and medicine. In Manfred’s view, the caste system and village communities (biradris) were two main characteristics that defined ancient India.

A look at the history of India from the perspective of Russian Marxist historians

Russian historians have been divided in two groups in their approach while analysing India’s past: one group subscribes to the theory that the Indian society was a slave-owning society where the feudal mode of production emerged in the 5th century AD after the fall of the Gupta Empire. Russian historians G.F. Ilvyn and G.M. Bongard-Levin were proponents of this theory which Manfred also subscribes to. However, there are other historians like A.M. Osipov and E.M. Medvedev who rejected this thesis and held the view that the Indian economic system was feudal since the first half of the 1st millennium BC. Medvedev’s argument was that by and large economic benefits were accrued by the ruling class through feudal mechanisms such as taxation and rent collection.

The second part of the book deals with the social and economic evolution of India from the 18th to 20th century, as written by noted Russian Marxist historian Vladimir Pavlov. Pavlov’s main interest was in the economic development of modern India, and thus the medieval period was significant to him as the basis of subsequent developments. He delved into aspects of trade and industrial development and the formation of the business class in India before it was colonised by the British.

Pavlov is known for his two influential works in
Russian: The Formation of the Indian Bourgeoisie (published in 1958) and The Socio-Economic Structure of the Indian Industry (published in 1973). His English work, Historical Premises for India’s Transition to Capitalism was published in Moscow in 1978. He is also known for his scholarly article, ‘Towards the Stage-Formation Characteristics of the Oriental Societies in Pre-Modern Times’, published in 1979.

In his essay published in Mukhtasir Tareekh-e-Hind, Pavlov argues that by the end of the 18th century trade capitalism had emerged in feudal India in the form of small industries set up by artisans, but a developed form of capitalism had not evolved. He says that no positive change occurred in the tools of production during the 19th century in India, as was the case with other Asian countries too, except Japan. In Pavlov’s view, capitalism grew in India in the middle of the 19th century, not independently, but under the influence of the British.

The last essay, by Erik Komarov, comprises an analysis of political and revolutionary movements in India during the first half of the 20th century from the perspective of Vladimir Lenin’s writings on this subject. This essay also highlights the impact of the Russian Revolution of 1917 on the political struggle for independence in India. Lenin was of the view that in under-developed countries like India, a national liberation movement could only take the form of a bourgeoisie-democratic movement, and thus he advised Indian communists to support this movement.

Mukhtasir Tareekh-e-Hind is an interesting read for students of history, especially those who have an interest in the Marxist-Leninist viewpoint. However, the translations of the essays, except the first one, are encumbered with unfamiliar terms and words as well as ambiguous, complex sentences, even to the reader well-versed in Urdu.

The reviewer is a Lahore-based researcher and freelance journalist.

Mukhtasir Tareekh-e-Hind
(HISTORY)
By A. Manfred, V. Pavlov and Erik Komarov
Urdu translation by Ahmed Salim
Pakistan Publishing House and Maktaba-e-Daniyal
ISBN 978-9694190563
333pp.