Nov 24, 2025
Nov 24, 2025
Knowledge gained through practice
Knowledge that grows through study
Abilities that develop through opportunities and training
Books and Training
In recent times, books on management skills and personality development "self help series" have gained immense popularity. Countless books and coaching centres have emerged for Civil Services, Group exams, and post-Intermediate entrance examinations. Together, these generate a turnover of lakhs of crores across the country.
Once selected, candidates receive direct, on-the-job training in fields such as IAS, IPS, bank management, etc. They are assigned real, practical tasks. In teacher training, one has to actually teach lessons and demonstrate competence. No matter how much one studies, ultimately direct practice becomes indispensable.
Knowledge through Practice Grows Step by Step
Some individuals started as Sarpanch, rose to Panchayat Samiti President, then became MLA, Minister, Chief Minister, and even Union Minister. Puppala Ashalu, whose formal education stopped at Class V, began as a building construction worker, took up contract work for building houses, gradually grew into a major contractor, and eventually became Chairman of Jagtial Municipality. Many highly educated people worked under his leadership.
"Ande Sri " had not even that little schooling. Through sheer personal effort, he rose to become a great poet (Mahakavi), people’s poet (Loka Kavi), and the author of the Telangana State anthem. Crores of educated people now sing that anthem with reverence.
Gold Reveals Itself Only When the Opportunity Arises
Abilities grow only when opportunities come. It was because of movements and opportunities that Gaddar, Gooda Anjaiah, B.S. Ramulu, Gorati Venkanna, and Ande Sri were able to rise. Without movements or other opportunities, neither experience nor growth is possible. One cannot develop the competence of a Collector merely by passing the IAS exam without actually serving as Collector. One cannot acquire the experience and abilities of a Chief Minister without actually getting the opportunity to serve as Chief Minister. If someone merely acts the part, it remains just acting – not reality.
The Flow of Knowledge vs. Stagnant Water
Lessons, skill trainings, and movements all help improve practical performance. Yet, no matter how much one reads or watches films or observes others about riding a bicycle, swimming, falling in love, physical intimacy, childbirth, or motherhood – in the end, these are things one can only truly know through direct personal experience.
If a person thinks “I know enough” and stops there, they remain stuck at that spot. If they believe that little knowledge is everything, they are called “a frog in a well.” People label such half baked knowledge as superficial; those who lack worldly wisdom and tact are called innocents who miss the point, or “wingless termites.”
Knowledge Comes in Many Forms and Streams
Thus, knowledge is acquired in numerous ways. Travel across the country and educational journeys broaden the mind. Schools, colleges, universities, and training centres impart the knowledge and experiences accumulated by the world up to that point. Books and literature nurture intellectual growth, wisdom, and sensory awareness. The more a person’s capacity to absorb increases, the more they grow. If the capacity does not increase, even from a mighty river one can draw only a glass of water.
Direct Knowledge and Indirect Knowledge
Without direct knowledge (pratyaksha jnana), indirect knowledge (paroksha jnana) cannot exist. The direct knowledge gained by one person becomes indirect knowledge for others. Knowledge acquired through practice and action is direct knowledge.
Knowledge gained through teaching and study is indirect knowledge.
Direct knowledge arises with lived experience. Indirect knowledge lacks direct experience and personal senses . Direct knowledge is filled with experiences, feelings, and inner responses.
Literature, arts, cinema, and drama can create indirect knowledge that feels like direct experience and produces real emotional responses, yet it still remains indirect knowledge.
The process of knowing (cognition process or “eruka krama”) begins only through sensations, feelings, and experiences received via the senses – traditionally five ( panchendriyas), but actually eight ( astendriyas) or more.
When direct knowledge is defeated and indirect knowledge triumphs, alienation, domination, and ruling power structures are born.
Indian and Western Streams of Epistemology
For thousands of years, numerous theories of knowledge have emerged in India. Greek philosophy and Indian philosophy grew in parallel competition. Western philosophy advanced by translating Greek works first into Arabic and then into European languages. Kant, Hegel, Marx, Engels, Lenin, Mao, and others built further on this Western tradition.They never touched Indian philosophy, Indian theories of knowledge, Buddhist logic, or Buddhist epistemology. In India, Naxalites, Maoists, CPI, and CPIM clung tightly to these Western philosophical and epistemological frameworks.
Some Theories of Knowledge
While Mao was mobilizing the Chinese people through struggle, he took two chapters – “On Contradiction” and “On Practice” – from Soviet Russian textbooks, translated them, added many new points, and reshaped them into original essays. The People’s War Party (PWG) gave these two essays enormous importance; they were repeatedly studied and discussed.
In the 1960s, when differences between Russia and China sharpened, the famous “Great Debate” produced nine major documents. These two essays also came under mutual criticism. Intense struggle took place even on the theory of knowledge.
On epistemology, Russia and China split into two camps. The People’s War Party adopted Mao’s theory of knowledge and declared the law of contradiction as primary. The Russians disagreed; they gave priority to categories. They criticized Mao’s theory for making the individual primary. The Russians said that individual consciousness develops as part of social existence (as Marx had said). Marx predicted the state wither away in communist society. Mao said that state would be eliminated.
Mao, in contrast Marx, said that social consciousness develops as part of individual consciousness. Even when the same lesson is taught in class, some students score 100 marks while others fail – this shows the difference in students’ level and capacity to absorb. Walls also “hear” the lesson, but they get no marks.
In reality, these are not contradictions; they are mutually complementary – two stages of the same process. The birth and development of knowledge pass through many stages and many levels. Lenin called some of these stages “empiricism” and criticized their limitations in his book Empirio Criticism and Materialism (Volume 14 of his Collected Works).
Relationship is More Fundamental than Contradiction
Later in life, Lenin studied even more deeply. That advanced understanding is recorded in his Philosophical Notebooks (Volume 38 of his Collected Works).
I myself have read Mao’s essays “On Contradiction” and “On Practice” at least fifty times, and Lenin’s Volumes 14 and 38 again and again. It took time to understand that there were differences between them, and I kept re reading to resolve them.
I finally realized: contradiction and the unity of opposites are possible only within relationship.
Therefore, Lenin declared that relationship (relation) is primary. That is why, from a class perspective, Lenin linked the nationality question and the woman question to the overall struggle – he established a relationship with them and focused on solving them. Thus, many streams began to merge into class consciousness.
Thus, What Was Integrated into Class Consciousness
Over time, alongside the original class perspective and class philosophy (the first theory of knowledge), the following issues were gradually added and linked as complementary elements:
Different thinkers and movements tried in various ways to correctly sequence and integrate these into a coherent theory of knowledge. Some started Structuralism, feminism, subaltern studies, Gramsci inspired theories, Rosa Luxemburg, Georg Lukacs, civil society theories, separate statehood movements, the Karamchedu struggle, Ambedkarism, Kanshi Ram’s movement, demands for reservation for SC/STs and, later, for BCs in legislative bodies, etc.
The Expanded Foundation of Dialectical Motion Philosophy
I brought all these together into a single "inter relational" framework. During my all India tours in 1985–86, I closely observed numerous theories and practices, integrated them, and wrote the book "Gati Tarka Tatva Darshana Bhumika " (Foundational Framework of the Philosophy of Dialectical Philosophy). It was written in 1987, serialised in the Telugu journal Dalit Voice in 1990, and published as a book (first edition) in 1991.
To the ten points listed above, I further added aesthetics (drawing from Yuri Borev’s work) and the theory of literary knowledge/alankara shastra. Thus was born the full epistemological treatise " Gati Tarka Tatva Darshana Bhumika". In it, class, caste, national capitalists, gender, nationality, experiential knowledge, etc., were given only as illustrative examples to help understanding—they are not themselves the theory.
When a principle is explained, the example becomes an illustration; the illustration is not the principle. Even if the example is faulty, the principle remains unchanged. Many people, instead of discussing the principle, attack the examples and imagine they have defeated the principle itself. That is why Lenin said all examples are handicapped.
Theoretical Friction Between Lenin and Mao
Marx, Engels, Lenin, Mao and others gave primacy to class and class contradictions. From that base arose dialectical materialism and historical materialism. Lenin, through intense study of many philosophies, reached the stage where he declared that RELATION (sambandham) is more fundamental than contradiction. This is clearly visible in Volume 38 of his Collected Works (the Philosophical Notebooks).
Yet Russian epistemology stopped at Lenin’s Volume 14 (Materialism and Empirio Criticism). Chinese/Maoist epistemology stopped at “On Contradiction” and “On Practice”. The ten issues listed above emerged in the course of movements, practice, experience, and historical progression. Simone de Beauvoir, in her book The Second Sex, pointed out that historical materialism and the theories of capital, labour power, and surplus value had completely left out women’s contribution, thereby rendering them incomplete and only half truths. Despite this, most Marxists remained confined to the old understanding.
We established Itself is the Programme”
The united platform Dalit, OBCs, STs, and Minorityies writers, artists and intellectuals united forum in 1992 in Andhra Pradesh, India (formed by merging many streams) condensed all the above points into a single sentence programme:
“It works in the social, literary, cultural, and artistic fields for freedom, equality, fraternity, self respect, and the construction of an egalitarian society—struggling against all forms of discrimination and inequality based on varna, class, caste, gender, nationality, religion, region, country, and language.”
Sharad Patil, who left the CPM in Maharashtra and founded the Satya Shodhak Communist Party, disagreed with us in discussions held at Sangli (Maharashtra), Vijayawada, and Srisailam. He replaced the word “class” with “caste” in his party programme and declared that his party would work in the light of Mahatma Jyotirao Phule and Dr B.R. Ambedkar’s theories. He refused to include the other dimensions. Because of this, united action between us and his group did not materialise. He did, however, incorporate the Buddha and Buddhist logic into both aesthetics and epistemology. I translated one of his important articles on these subjects and included it in the book "Gati Tarkam, Marxism, Ambedkarism " that I edited and published. The book carries forewords by Prof. K.S. Chalam (former Vice Chancellor), Prof. Dr. Chakradhar Rao, and Dr Kancha Ilaiah.
The same volume also contains a letter written by a young man named Pallam Kumaraswamy titled “The Hegemony of Marxism in Philosophy Must Be Overthrown”. He wrote it after intensively studying Gati Tarka Tatva Darshana Bhumika and attending many classes and discussions on it, so I decided to publish it.
The Working Class is Not a Single Monolith
Thus, philosophy and the science of knowledge keep expanding. Some stopped at Hegel. Marx took only half of Hegel and moved forward.
In India, because of the caste system, its culture, its centuries long oppression and domination, the working class that emerges from the productive, labouring castes (shramika kulas), the leadership of the working class that comes from them, their experiences, and their priorities are entirely different.
The middle class that rises from these labouring, Productive castes is different.
The national bourgeoisie that rises from these Productive, labouring castes is different.
Their primary demands are education, employment, equality, and jobs.
The outlook of those who have historically enjoyed dominance as upper castes is completely different. They always give priority to ordering others around and exercising domination. That is why they stretch out their hands only for state power. Even if society does not change, even if everyone does not become educated, even if everyone does not escape poverty, they desperately insist: “We must have state power, we must come to power.” Movements led by upper caste leadership are invariably like that.
Feminists and People from Productive, Labouring Castes,Women, feminists, and educated persons who have risen from labouring castes, when they provide working class leadership, first say: “The oppression, exploitation, torment, and poverty imposed on us must go. We want freedom, equality, fraternity, self respect, our own representation, and our rightful share.” They demand social reform, universal education, and employment opportunities for all.
Upper caste leadership opposes this and brands it as "This education system is unscientific.” It diverts the movement, creates slogans and programmes that are convenient for recruiting cadres, and keeps repeating “state power, state power.”
Thus, even though the class may be the same, the needs, experiences, priorities, slogans, and programmes are completely different.
For example, in teachers’ and employees’ unions, the problem faced by Dalit teachers and employees—being unable to find rental houses in villages, facing caste discrimination—has never become a major demand or agenda item. This means that almost all such unions continue under upper caste leadership that is untouched by those problems. When caste issues are ignored, the nationality question, the question of the local bourgeoisie, and the women’s question all get reduced and confined to the problems, domination, and solutions of the upper castes.
Knowledge without lived experience leads to strange distortions.
Knowledge rooted in lived experience remains realistic. Knowledge without experience produces theories, doctrines, epistemologies, and historical materialisms that are opposed to reality. This actually began with Marx himself. Let us see how.
Half Truths in Marxism
While formulating his theory, Hegel spoke of two principles: quantitative change, qualitative change, and negation (abhava). Along with negation, Hegel also spoke of sublation (aufhebung). Sublation means the old remains and the new also emerges.
Marx clung only to negation and dropped sublation. He therefore declared that the capitalist class and the capitalist system would be negated and a working class system would take its place.
In reality, what happened was that working class leadership seized power over capital and state authority and acquired, adopted capitalist nature
, but ordinary workers were not given even the minimum—shares in capital or partnership rights. Let us leave that debate aside for now.
Now look at sublation: the old remains, the new also emerges. A tree remains, yet from its seeds new trees of many generations keep sprouting and growing. Grandparents live on while sons, grandsons, and great grandsons are born and grow. Therefore, in nature and in society, it is sublation that exists, never pure negation. Capital is not abolished. Working class leadership simply occupies the position of the former capitalists. That is exactly what happened.
With the addition of political power, anyone who questioned or opposed them was “made non existent” according to the principle of negation. In our country this was implemented under the name of “class enemy annihilation.”
Because of this erroneous formulation, Marxism dragged the world into countless class wars. Class contradictions and class wars are impossible without relationships between classes. When Adivasi (tribal) people still live in pre class stages of society, class war is impossible. Class wars begin only when a working class has fully emerged.
Therefore, Adivasis and the Shudra and Ati Shudra castes who are victims of the caste system must first be brought to the highest level of modern development.
Sublation: The Co existence and Fusion of the Old and the New
Women who have suffered patriarchal and male domination, victims of colonialism and internal colonialism—all must be enabled to rise and develop in every sphere: education, power, industries, and every field of life. For this, we need personality development books, free higher education, management skills training, and the nurturing of lofty aspirations and noble ideals.
Curricula, trainings, social reforms, caste reforms, special opportunities, and incentives must be provided so that Adivasis, women, backward regions, and backward castes can grow not merely equal to others, but higher than others.
In a single lifetime, rising from clerk to Group I officer, from Group II to IAS, from advocate to Supreme Court judge, from Sarpanch to Chief Minister, from school teacher to degree college principal—this kind of upward mobility in every field is true evolution. Only then does the stage of qualitative transformation actually emerge. This is the complete meaning of Hegel’s sublation (aufhebung).
By abandoning sublation and clinging only to the rest, Marx opened the door for dominant classes, castes, regions, and men—who were already developed—to continue occupying every sphere through status quo and domination. In the revolutions of Russia, China, and elsewhere, it was precisely the middle classes that seized everything. In truth, those victories came as a consequence of the two World Wars and the opportunities they created; to claim they happened because of Marxism is like believing that tamarind fruits fell because someone was chanting mantras beneath the tree. People may have climbed the gallows holding the Bhagavad Gita, but the Gita told Arjuna “kill (in battle),” not “kill yourself.”
New Knowledge from Old Experience
The philosophical books I have written were shaped by new experiences and new studies layered upon old knowledge. Without the old, the new cannot exist. Just as seeds from a tree become new trees, just as grandchildren and great grandchildren are born while the elders still live—this is the same evolutionary process continuing in the realm of philosophy.
Thus, theories of knowledge keep developing: new theories of knowledge emerge from old experiences. The books that arose in this stream are "Gathi Tarka Tatva Darshana Bhumika, Marxism Ambedkarism, Buddhism Socialism," and others. The need and necessity for personality development literature, training centres, management skills, and self help books is constantly increasing. Society advances only when study is combined with practice, and when capacities and skills are both enhanced and acquired.
Power Does Not Reach Everyone
If we keep talking only about “capturing state power,” in the end—as happened when the sacrifices and movements of crores of people in Telangana were appropriated by the KCR family—a few new dominators and new exploiting classes simply climb onto chairs and continue exploitation. We can observe exactly the same thing in Russia and China.
Power never reaches everyone; only a few enjoy it. What can actually be delivered to all people is development, skills, improvement in living standards, and education. So why keep waiting for “tomorrow,” leaving today’s development and power in the hands of a few, and shouting “movement for tomorrow’s development” or “state power”? That work must happen right now.
Therefore, striving for development, for representation, partnership in power, and for representation in every sphere is the duty of the people of the world. Only when opportunities are given to all, only when they truly reach everyone, will all capacities and skills in society blossom and genuine total societal development take place.