Religion is the Opium of the Masses

Marx's idea of religion is somewhat ambiguous. At least the exponents of Marxist ideology have turned the table on him. That is why a clarification is to be sought. Sloganeering Marxists have repeatedly said that religion is the opium of the masses. The question is that had Marx wanted to mean what underlies in this short precept? Had he really wanted religion to be bypassed by the masses?

The truth lies elsewhere. The downtrodden people all over the world down the ages have been pained at the way they have been treated. There is every reason for them to have suffered the angst of existence. In clinical science, we have been offered to go for analgesia for the physical pains we suffer and this way we have found a true remedy for all sorts of our physical pains. With that view in mind Marx said that "religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature..."

What kind of sigh that is? That sigh arises out of the economic alienation they suffer due to capitalist mode of production. In the capitalist mode of production the mass of producers are totally alienated from their immediate produce as they do not have any possessive control over them and the appropriator class appropriate their labour of pain by political and economical manipulation. This kind of economic alienation is of psychological and spiritual sorts. But Marx's main thrust was on physical sufferings as caused by the economic exploitation. That exploitation leaves them physically wretched all through as they have to lead a life that is most inhuman and threadbare. This threadbare life pushes them back to the wall to wage a bitter struggle simply for mere existence.

And they have nothing and no one to fall back upon in this "heartless world". Where should they get solace? Where should they get respite from the sufferings of domestic drudgery? Where should they get heart to confront this faceless and heartless world of economic exploitation, physical oppression and spiritual alienation? So they have to live under a delusion enforcing them to fall a prey to the make-believe world of religion and heavenly bliss where they find a heart to give vent to their sighs. Whatever fictitious and phantasmagorical that world may be, at least they have a little space of their own there in that chosen world to heave a sigh of relief at the end of their hard days of toil and moil. So, it might be said that Marx's views about religion have some cathartic effects on the religious masses. Who are we to deny them of their world?

Marx also said that "the religious world is but the reflex of the real world." What happens to the suffering people who don't have any way whatsoever to smooth their pains of diurnal hunger, death and disease and pains of existential pain? What they will do in that case? Who will shelter them in their times of misery? Marx too had no answer for them in his time. Rather he opined that suffering people have no other options but to take to religion which like opium can soothe their pains at least for the time being. And there is absolutely nothing wrong of them in their falling prey to religion. Without the benevolent impact of analgesia of religion, there is no way for them to bear with the situation.

So, Marx had never repudiated and spoken ill of religion as such but rather he detected and supported the positive role played by religion in no uncertain terms. Without this prejudice, the oft-quoted fragmented slogan "Religion is opium of the masses" turns out to be vague political jargon not in conformity with the Marx's idea of religion. He knew quite well how to address the issue in true perspective. He is not blame for the ambiguity in his idea of religion. And so many ideas of his have been vulgarised and are still being vulgarised by none other than the diehard Marxists.