K ar
s g
andaliz
ed
arl l Marx’
Marx’s
gr r a v e v
vandaliz
andalized
The tomb of Karl Marx at London’s Highgate cemetery has been
vandalized in a targeted attack that means the Grade-1 monument
will never be the same. The suspected vandal damaged a marble
plaque which was taken from Marx’s original 1883 gravestone and
incorporated into the 1954 monument. The images of the defaced
memorial, which attracts tens of thousands of visitors each year,
show what appears to be the damage done by a hammer to the
lettering of Marx’s name and the marble on which it is mounted.
Ian Dungavell, the Chief of Highgate Cemetery Trust condemned
the attack and said: “we think it was deliberately targeted against
Karl Marx. … Regardless of what anyone thinks about Marx’s
philosophy, it is an appalling thing to do. On a human level, this is
grave of his wife, his own grave and other members of his family”.
Though this vandalism appears as an individual act, it is the result
of growing anti-Communist propaganda unleashed by the monopoly
finance capital and consequent growing intolerance in the society of
Western countries.
Reservations in education are
related to only the higher
educational institutions run by the
government. The private insti-
tutions have to apply the
reservations, but students from
reserved categories have to pay
several times more than what their
counterparts in government
colleges paid. As the policy of
privatization of higher education
being pursued at break neck
speed, students from the socially
as well as economically deprived
sections are left in the lurch. The
intermediate and elementary
education has already pushed into
oblivion.
On the other, reservations in
jobs are restricted to only
government sector. The organized
sector employs little less than 10
per cent of the work force. The
organized sector consists of the
central, state and public sector
enterprises along with the private
sector. Thus the reservations
apply to only 5 per cent employ-
ment, which is declining over the
years. During the last four years,
employment in the public sector
enterprises has come down by
whopping 13 per cent, from 16.9
lakh in 2014 to 14.7 lakh in 2018.
16
The railway minister announced
that railways will fill the existing 2
lakh vacancies over the next three
years. The other side of the coin
is, if and at all the vacancies were
filled, by that time another 2 lakh
vacancies arise as around 60,000
railway men will be retiring from the
service every year. Narendra Modi
claimed that his government would
create one crore jobs every year.
According to Centre for Monitoring
Indian Economy (CMIE), almost 1.1
crore Indians lost their jobs in 2018
alone. An NSSO study, which the
Modi government refuses to
release, showed that unemploy-
ment rate in India recorded highest
in 45 years and the employment
destroyed in agriculture and
manufacture due to demonetisation
had not revived even after three
years.
The EWS reservation is a
master stroke played by the ruling
classes. The criteria for the EWS
reservations were decided in such
a manner that 96 per cent of the
people
belonging
to
the
unreserved category are made
eligible for EWS quota. For all
practical purposes, this turns EWS
quota on par with open category
as the marks scored in the test
would be the deciding factor for
selection. This is making mockery
of the very concept of reser-
vations- only to dupe the youth.
Seven decades after the
independence, reservations for
jobs and education in the govern-
ment sector has not improved the
educational and economic
condition of SCs and STs to the
extent it had to and as expected.
Same is the case with OBCs. When
the successive governments are
shirking from the responsibility of
providing jobs and education – that
too under the din of enacting Right
to Education and Right to
Employment laws – there is no
hope for the youth belonging to all
sections and castes to get
educated and employed in a
decent manner. The youth should
see through this smoke screen and
understand the treacherous game
of pitting one section of them
against other for notional
opportunities that did not exist
being played by the ruling classes
and their political parties.
The experience of seven
decades has categorically showed
that the present social system is not
able to provide decent living
conditions for the people. The
feudal relations prevailing in the
rural areas act as a fetter for the
development of agriculture and
rural population. The wealth
created by the labouring people in
all sectors of economy is being
drained by the imperialist sharks
and gobbled up by a handful of
Indian big bourgeois families,
leaving a very small fraction to the
people of India. This is the real
cause of poverty in India and
consequent backwardness of
various communities and castes.
Unless and until the feudal
relations are broken by distributing
land to the tiller and overthrowing
the imperialist domination on Indian
economy, the country and the
people will not witness the progress
in their lives.
Class Struggle