HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF, FIRST AS A TRAGEDY, SECOND AS A FARCE
One of the most quoted remarks of Karl Marx, the German philosopher and political theorist, popularly known as the ‘Father of Communism’, is “History repeats itself, first as a tragedy, second as a farce”. To put it very simply, the quote refers to how humans rarely learn from mistakes of the past, be it their own or someone else’s.When the mistake is repeated the first time, it is a tragedy, a sad reminder that it is not too late to learn and do better the next time. However, when it is replicated for the second time, it is more ludicrous, making it almost funny (a farce often refers to an event or situation that is comically absurd), than tragic and unfortunate. It is also because it ends up going against the expectation that age or experience results in wisdom. Subhash Chandra Bose, when was addressing the Azad Hind Fauj in 1945, he stressed that we should learn from the mistakes that Bharat had done in the year 1858, when first war of independence had taken place. Revolutionar...