Modern
Indian Nationalist opinion, in so far it had any conceptions of what a state
should be and what governments should do, obviously struck liberal attitudes.
It was not till the late twenties that socialist doctrines found champions and
not till the forties of this century that they found significant recognition in
society. Liberalism constituted the one dominant influence in Indian political
thinking–though in various shades.
But,
then, what is Liberalism? The sanctity of the individual; political democracy,
with the corollary of political rights and representative institutions; from
the economic point of view, restraint from state control; and a secular
attitude to politics–these form the essentials of European liberalism.
It
can safely be said that in
Even
among the Congressmen of the time there appears to be a general acceptance of
the liberal values. With the exception of the Mahatma and those who believed in
his political and social philosophy, the majority of the Congress conceived of
an independent
It
is extremely difficult to discern whether Congress political thinking had any definite
notions about the type of economy it would like to be introduced in
Again,
Pandit Nehru’s rationale for embracing socialism is not so much a doctrinaire
committal to it, but the desire that the lot of the masses should never be
forgotten when once freedom became a reality. He feared that an Indian
political revolution, which did not constantly identify itself with the cause
of the masses, may degenerate itself into a middle-class hegemony in society, as
it happened in
Thus,
excepting genuine Gandhians
and the few enthusiasts of socialism, Congressmen, in general, visualised no spectacular alteration in the social fabric
after freedom. Their conception of free
The
views of radicals like Tilak, though couched in an entirely different
terminology, do not differ very much from the liberal democratic outlook, at
least in their economic aspect. It is true that Tilak thoroughly distrusted the
utilitarian and materialistic origins of western liberal ideas as highly
injurious to the spiritual traditions of Hindu polity. His uncompromising
opposition to measures of social reform, championed by Ranade
and Gokhale, indicates his position. Indeed, it is held by some writers that
Tilak revived the
The
leading political ideas of Tilak today permeate the policy of the Jan Sangh and it is important to realise
that this Party is extremely conservative in its social and economic doctrines.
Once again it is difficult to decipher whether the conservatism is attributable
to the religious outlook of the party or is due to the fact that the party
caters mainly to the middle classes and the upper-caste section of the society.
The
origins of socialist thought in
Thus
the growth of the Communist ideology preceded the development of Socialist
ideas in
In
a way the Gandhian revolution in the Congress
committed the whole organisation to Gandhism with its emphasis upon the welfare
of the masses of the villages. The consequent Congress policy of the abolition
of the zamindari system and agricultural reforms
suggests a socialist trend. But Gandhism can only be styled as utopian
Socialism.
Socialism
of the European brand, with its stress on industrialisation and nationalisation, firm faith in science and technology, and
the idea of progress and its uncompromising distrust of tradition and customs,
found expression only in the younger generation of the Congress, while the
Congress itself embraced the Gandhian ethic.
Jayaprakash Narayan, Jawaharlal Nehru, Acharya Narendra
Deva, Achyut Patwardhan and Asoka Mehta drank deep at the fountain of European Socialism.
Their belief in the efficacy of the democratic order is as robust as their
insistence on a socialist order. In 1935 Jayaprakash Narayan in his Why Socialism delivered an
annihilating critique of Gandhiji’s organic ideas. Democratic socialism with a
Marxist base was their creed.
Indian
socialists were no less involved in the problem of adjusting the industrial and
the agricultural aspects of a nation’s economy. And, like all doctrinaire socialists,
they abhorred the ‘peasant’-oriented outlook, or ‘the danger of peasantism ‘ as Narendra Deva put it. Such
‘peasant’ outlook “looks at all the questions from the narrow and sectional
viewpoint of the peasant class. Its tenets derived from the ideal that our
economic evolution, as the whole structure of our state, will necessarily have
to retain its specific peasant character….Such an outlook is unscientific and
betrays a mentality which may give an exaggerated importance to the small
peasant.” As will be evident from this passage, there lies the quarrel of the
socialists with the Gandhian system.
Aggressive
faith in the virtues of an expanding industrial order is implied in such
downright condemnation of a peasant-oriented outlook. Nothing short of a
complete transformation of the social order is here advocated, wherein custom
and tradition would go overboard, science taking the place of religion. It is
important to note that the Indian Socialists, even after the last
twenty-five years of constant adaptation of socialist theory to Indian
conditions, are emphatic in their denial of the virtues of Indian rural
attitudes, traditions and institutions. Thus Asoka Mehta says: “The old attitudes cannot be evoked again. They
were the product of certain social institutions and a certain social climate.
Both have changed and, therefore, the old attitudes are lost.”
But,
perhaps, the original contribution that the Indian socialists made to socialist
thought is their realisation that Indian conditions will have to be taken into
account in framing one’s ideas. Thus they are ready to give agriculture and its
problems priority and to recognise that, for a long
time to come, the problem of socialism is not so much an issue of the rights of
industrial workers as of agricultural labourers.
Original
still more is their attitude towards the part that traditional ethical values
play in creating the needed atmosphere. Socialism needs a cultural milieu and
the Indian tradition can contribute a lot towards this end. It is quite
something when Asoka Mehta
has come round to quote Milton Singer with approval that “A book on the Indian
case would more accurately be entitled ‘The Hindu Ethic and the Spirit of
Socialism’. I have merely wanted to show that the traditional Indian philosophy
of renunciation is not a major obstacle to economic development, that it has in
fact been all along linked to the material side of Indian life, and that as
interpreted by the religious and social reformers of the last hundred years,
especially by Gandhi, it is perfectly capable of providing the spiritual
incentives and disciplines of modern industrial society.”
The
subsequent origins of the Praja
Socialist Party, with the merger of the Socialist Party and the Krishik Mazdoor Praja Party, is a definite proof of the
reorientation of Socialist policy to the local conditions.
The
Socialism adopted by the Congress is mostly inspired by Nehru. As far back as
1928, he, along with Jayaprakash Narayan
and Narendra Deva, formed a
ginger group, agitating for the adoption of a socialist policy. In 1929 the
AICC, at his insistence, adopted a resolution accepting in principle a
socialist programme as its goal. However, the Congress did not take its
implications very seriously and they were to protest vehemently when some time
later they were confronted with a definite socialist programme.
Thus
the socialist thinking of Nehru is not a matter of recent times. It was once
again mainly Nehru’s exhortation that made the Constituent Assembly proclaim a
socialist Republic. Subsequently too, it was through his efforts that a firm
Congress committal to a socialist pattern of society was effected.
It
can be stated categorically that Nehru’s socialism is just another variant of
the genus of Democratic Socialism–a mixture, and heterogeneous at that, of the
Marxist view of history, radical liberalism and a genuine internationalism.
As
for Nehru’s Marxian moorings, what appears to have drawn him to Marxism is its
claim to be a scientific system. With its emphasis on the material condition of
man, its neat explanation of the progress of history and its presentation of
the dialectic as a universal law. Marxism appealed to the scientific
temperament of Nehru. There is no doubt that this scientific spirit constitutes
the key to Nehru’s intellectual dimension’s and socialism is the result of the
manifestation of the scientific attitude in its social and economic aspects. It
was the French Materialist school’s contribution to Marxism that tuned well
with Nehru’s mental make-up. Its rejection of altruism as a basis for social
ethics, its robust trust in the human intelligence, as typified by the Encyclopaedists, and its Naturalism, found an echo in
Nehru. This so called ‘scientism’ of Marx appears to be the one strong binding
link between Marx and Nehru. But neither the concept of ‘class war’ nor that of
the dictatorship of the proletariat convinced Nehru.
But
Nehru acquired a genuine thirst for the democratic way of life and love for the
sanctity of individual liberty. An inalienable faith in the efficacy of
democratic institutions can thus be seen in his thought. This, combined with
his impassioned advocacy of Socialism, naturally made him come nearer Fabianism. Much of his socialism doesn’t differ from the
views of the early Fabians. Indeed the point of criticism against Nehru is
precisely this close identity of his views with Fabian thought. It can be
argued that in the twentieth century the trends of the capitalist system have
undergone so complete a transformation that a nineteenth century Fabian
perspective on capitalism is thoroughly out of date and grossly unrealistic.
The Socialism of Nehru is now characterised in some
quarters as old fashioned and naive, having no relation to the changes that
have come over in the social and economic spheres.
Nehru’s
rejection of violence as the vehicle of change is derived from another source.
And that is, the Gandhian ethic. His committal to
Gandhism, however tenuous it is, really meant a committal to a principle and
not a mere product of political tactics. The problem of means, to him, is an
issue of prime importance. Thus the non-violent approach was favoured in the struggle for freedom and the evolutionary
method adhered to in realising socialism. But as
between the Fabian trait of gradualism and the Gandhian
faith in non-violent change, there lies a vast chasm. Fabian gradualism is
based upon pragmatic and utilitarian grounds, while Gandhian
non-violence is first and foremost a moral imperative. It is difficult to trace
which of these motives operate, in any specific case, in Nehru’s thought.
The
internationalism of Nehru is the corollary to his genuine concern with the
condition of man. His humanism enables him to transcend narrow loyalties and
acquire a universal outlook. It is also well known that Marxist and Socialist
ideologies are primarily internationalist in their character. It is this that
is responsible for his foreign policy. The impasse that is reached by the
contemporary world situation, mostly due to the cold war, evokes distress in
Nehru. But his socialist leanings and his anti-colonial convictions rule out a
pro-western reading of the situation. Indeed, sometimes, the above factors tend
to make him give the benefit of doubt to the Russian camp. On the other hand, the
scant respect for morality and the not-too-infrequent perversion of socialist
values exhibited by communists render communism repulsive to his conscience.
In
any case, he is not prepared to see the bloc conflict as one involving the
struggle between righteousness and unrighteousness, morality and immorality, or
peace-lovers and aggressors. For, firstly, to Nehru
neither of the partisans to the conflict have ‘clean hands’, secondly, he is sceptical enough not to accept too sure a definition of
morality in politics. Nor does he believe that morality is the monopoly of any
one side in the cold war. This ambivalence towards the conflict (towards the
nature of the conflict as well) between the power-blocs constitutes the basis
for his policy of non-alignment. His own firm conviction of the desirability of
world peace is, of course, a self-evident moral principle. And since this
principle will never be served-either by the continuance of the cold war or by
its culmination in a hot war, Nehru argues for its sublimation into peaceful
co-existence.
Gandhism and Sarvodaya
The
most original contribution to contemporary Indian political thought is Gandhian thought. While the foregoing are variations on
western themes with a dash of Hindu orthodoxy thrown in (as in some cases), the
social and political ideas of Gandhiji are fundamentalist and bold. This does
not mean that Gandhian ideology is sui generis. The
essential conceptions of Gandhism–universal advancement, belief in the harmony
of social relationships, the theory of trusteeship with its rural bias, the
advocacy of decentralisation and firm faith in the
innate altruism of man, can, no doubt, be traced to diverse creeds. But the
originality of Gandhism lies in the fact that, in this age dominated by
technology and organised power, Gandhiji has come out
against these, flaunting the flag of individual regeneration, revival of innate
morality and return to Elysian simplicity. The philosophy of Sarvodaya can be analysed under
the following concepts.
a. Altruism of the
human being,
b. Disavowal of power
as an instrument of social control,
c. Rejection of the
pursuit of unlimited material advancement,
d. Ruralism
and decentralization.
The
idea of Sarvodaya or universal uplift, is based upon
an optimistic interpretation of human nature. That man is essentially
altruistic and, consequently, social reform must concentrate on bringing to the
surface this altruistic element, is the basis of the Gandhian
theory of trusteeship. An appeal to the hearts of the people to respect their
obligations towards the weaker and less fortunate, is the most effective way of
bringing about a change in
the society. And Sarvodaya believes that voluntary sacrifice of one’s riches
or pleasures will certainly be forthcoming if only the moral approach is
strictly followed Acharya Vinoba Brave’s’ suggestive
phraseology like Bhoodan, Shramdan
and Sampattidan reiterates the Gandhian
stress on individual volition as the basis for all social reform.
The
above reference to the concept of voluntary sacrifice introduces one essential
difference between the ethics of Gandhism and Socialism. No doubt, among
socialists too, there are some who believe in the innate altruism of man. But
these are prone to consider the prevailing social circumstances as hindering
the free play of such morality and, consequently, agitate for corporate social
reform by which the mellifluous human nature may play its part. There is, thus,
a desire on their part to reform social conditions by the instrumentality of
law. But Gandhi and Bhave are against any sort of
authority trying to coerce man directly or indirectly into realising
his social responsibilities. To them organised power
is more an evil than a blessing. The power of persuasion is far more fruitful
than the power of the State, which happens to be the normal channel for the
expression of social will in present-day politics.
Yet
the Gandhian suspicion towards organised
power should not be interpreted to mean a rejection of all norms of social
control. The Gandhian school does believe in
government, and regulations and sanctions. But these should not be the concern
of specialised institutions, which make government
their profession and monopoly. Government and law must become part and parcel
of the life of the common man, things in which he must really have a share. In
other words, the overwhelming domination of political power–the feature of
present-day society–must cease and power must sublimate itself into a spirit of
voluntary social obligation.
Such
distrust of political power has a streak of anarchism in it. Vinoba’s insistence on social revolution through voluntary
conversion of the people, his distrust towards the instrumentalities of the
state and, finally, his immense faith in human nature cannot but remind one of
the anarchist notion that the evils of society are more the consequences of the
existence of the state.
Added
to this inherent suspicion towards politics and political power, is Jayaprakash Narayan’s idea of a
party-less democracy. As an aspect of Sarvodaya
philosophy, this concept is yet another manifestation of disapproval of the
modern emphasis on power and the struggle for power that goes under the name of
the democratic process. Further, the concept spotlights how modern democracies
tend to exploit the diversity of interests that prevail in society, rather than
seek the common interest. In so far as Jayaprakash Narayan criticises the party
system as impliedly based upon ‘class conflict’, and posits the thesis of
party-less democracy, he is laying stress on the Sarvodaya
ideal of social solidarity as opposed to group animosity, which the party
system encourages.
But
there is the possibility that the plea for a party-less democracy may be
interpreted as a plea for one party rule, with all the attendant paraphernalia
of modern democracies. In such a case the state, as the monopolist of power,
would still be very much there and, possibly, one-party rule may degenerate
into a dictatorial rule.
Thus
in the context of the Sarvodaya ideology, in the term
‘Party-less Democracy’, both the words ‘Party-less’ and ‘Democracy’ acquire new
connotations. Party-less as the party spirit militates against the Sarvodaya view of human psychology, and democracy of
a totally different conception under which the struggle for power is relegated
to minor importance.
Such
enlightened anarchism with its stress on inward change naturally stands for decentralisation of economic and political life. It would
imply devolution of authority to villages which will manage their own affairs.
And such a decentralised social order will be
democratic and egalitarian. Then the egalitarian society will come about, not
through the instrumentality of a centralised state,
but through decentralised rural communities.
Gandhism
has in it an unmistakable spiritual approach to politics. It does not conceal
its faith in the higher ideals of human life, not to be lost sight of even in
the humdrum activities of day-to-day existence. Unceasing pursuit after
unlimited material wants is an ideal that doesn’t correspond with the Gandhian ethic. This is the reason why Sarvodaya
is against an industrialised social order. The
satisfaction of the minimum demands for a comfortable existence can be achieved
in a self-sufficient rural economy. Gandhi and Bhave realised the basic incompatibility of industrialism and
their interpretation of the ends of social and individual existence.
One
may scoff at these ‘unrealistic’ ideas of rural economy and self-sufficiency.
But in these days when the ‘affluent society’ appears to be posing more
problems than solving some, when the worship of Mammon has
assumed fantastic proportions, it is time for some other creed to remind us of
a saner approach to life. Human wants can never be satiated to the full. At one
level or the other they will have to be left unfulfilled. Why, then, not realise this from the start, and shape a society in which
elementary comforts will be provided for, along with the blessings of a simpler
and, hence, purer social order? Put thus, Gandhism is a bold doctrine which
analyses in a fundamentalist fashion the defects in the values of westernised societies.
Communism in India
It
is not necessary to discuss at length the development of communism in India. No
contribution worth mentioning is made by any Indian towards communist thought.
Ever since it gained some hold in India, Communism, in the name of
international loyalties, even turned a blind eye to the cause of freedom. And,
perhaps, a noteworthy step that Indian Communism took in recent times is its
acceptance to work as an organisation within the fold of the democratic
Constitution of India, eschewing extra-legal tactics. Again, it may be
suggested that the rift in world communist circles, between the Stalinists and
the Kruschevites, has its domestic repercussions
also. For long the former were a force to reckon with and the Party’s
acceptance of the doctrine of peaceful co-existence can be regarded as a shift
from the Stalinist position of aggressive and uncompromising Communism to a more
empirical interpretation of Marx and Lenin. The Communists in India are at bay
in the struggle between Russia and China and in so far as this struggle
represents a debate on ideology, Indian Communism is also seized of this issue.
But since the debate is one concerning communist foreign policy in general in
India the Communists have no alternative but to accept the Russian stand–thanks
to the Chinese aggression on the northern borders of the country! Thus, apart
from these subtle transformations in communist thinking, there is not much of
Indian contribution to communist thought. But the new creed of M. N. Roy, once
a high priest of Communism, needs special mention.
M. N. Roy and Radical
Humanism
M.
N. Roy’s thesis of Radical Humanism is at once a reaction against the
corruption of Marxism into Communism, as practised by
the communist Leviathans, and a strong plea to instal
the social order on individualist lines.
It
would be easier if we explain the humanism of Roy first and then proceed to
examine its Radicalism.
Starting
with the classical dictum of protogoras of Abdera, Roy holds that Man is the measure of all things. He
bemoans the loss of this primacy of man under modern social and political
systems. He argues that ‘Man comes first, then mankind’ and that society should
be based on the concept of the freedom of the human personality–its morality
firmly rooted in the individual morality of the members constituting it.
True
to such jealous concern with the individual human being, Roy condemns those
factors that generate totalitarian forces in society leading
to the submergence of the individual man. He holds politics functioning by
power to be mainly responsible for this tendency and consequently champions a decentralised social order having no use for the instrument
of political power.
And
the Radicalism of Roy lies in his interpretation of the foundations
of individual morality. To him “Naturalist Humanism alone (most appropriately
called New humanism) can inspire a philosophy which will
set man free, spiritually as well as socially. It is new because it is
scientific and integral; because it conceives human sovereignty not as a
differentiation from the mechanistic processes of nature, but as their highest
product. The ideas of newness being transitory, the more precise term ‘radical’
should be preferred.” He rejects the religious basis of morality and finds the
sanction of morality in the mechanistic biological functions articulated as
instincts and intuitions’. Thus ‘morality must be referred back to man’s innate
rationality, and it is not necessary to go in search of divine or
mystic-metaphysical sanctions’.
In
the scheme of this scientifically-based morality, Roy deduces all values from
the supreme value of freedom, and here he is uncompromising towards everything
that limits freedom. Thus, his Radicalism expresses itself in another form
also. That is his plea for the removal of political power. And his call for decentralisation is not the result of a disillusionment
with modern civilisation; it is not a ‘moralist’ admonition against the worship
of Mammon, as is the case with Thoreau, Ruskin and Tolstoy and Gandhi. It is
true that Roy argues for priorities for agricultural development, but this is
because the country’s economy is primarily agricultural in its nature, and not
because Roy has moral repugnance to an industrialised
order. The set-up of the country’s economy will be such as to satisfy the need
of the maintenance of individual freedom.
Roy
charges that philosophers so far have failed to realise
the innate morality of man and ‘the prevailing opinion has been that man can
behave morally only under compulsion, either super-natural or social’. He
claims that Radical Humanism discovered the true foundations of ethics. But it
may be observed that quite a few socialists sought to base their views on
precisely the same factor, that is, the altruism of man. Thus the idea of
tapping the innate ‘goodness’ of man to build a just and moral social order, is
not an original idea of the Radical Humanists.
Secondly,
in view of Roy’s long identification with the official communist policy, his
new creed cannot but appear as something ‘revolutionary’ and bordering on being
‘anarchic’ in its features. The stress on ‘morality’ (rational, though, it may
be), the plea for the, abolition of political power and the faith in a
decentralized society where power is relegated to a minimum function are all
features appropriate to near-anarchism.
It
is extremely interesting that two doctrines like Sarvodaya
and Radical Humanism, derived from such diametrically opposed traditions,
should come so close to each other in their conclusions.
Roy’s
new creed takes him a long way off from his former faith. Though the communist
stress on materialist ethics is maintained, Roy’s insistence on individual
morality and his silence over the issue of class struggle and revolution taken
together, with his emphasis on agricultural development, make a total departure
from the communist faith. But his goal of a social order, where political power
and parties do not exist, perhaps, still owes its existence to the Marxian end
of class-less society regenerating human morality to a pitch of altruism where
social obligations are fulfilled without the need of compulsion or
force.
Politics of Religion
and Caste in India
The
Two-Nation Theory: The separatist agitation amongst the
Muslims is a manifestation of (1) the influence of religion upon politics and
(2) the nineteenth-century notion of one nation–one state;
Whatever
may have been the other considerations that strengthened the claim for
statehood of the Muslims, there is no doubt that religion was made almost the
exclusive cause. Thus the agitation went against the very foundations of modern
political thought, namely, the divorce between politics and religion. But, of
course, it may be posited that the Muslim community is distinct not only in
religion but in culture too. It may be recalled that Lord Minto
himself supplied the bogey of a distinct culture as a criterion for establishing
claims for Muslim nationhood.
A
section of the Muslim intellegentsia reject both
these separatist criteria. The late Azad stands
foremost in this context. Of the younger generation, Professor Humayun Kabir not only denies the validity of political
claims based on religion but undertakes a systematic analysis of the causes for
the religious schism in India and suggests cures. His intellectualism conceives
of a stable political order only on the foundations of a cultural synthesis.
Tracing
the ‘medieval reconciliation’ between the Hindu and Muslim cultures, he states
“when two powerful currents meet, there is no question of the absorption of the
one in the other. The two streams join to create a new form. Their separate
contributions can hardly be distinguished. The same thing happens when two
living organisms unite. Interpenetration is complete and no element can remain
unchanged in the new synthesis.” But with the coming in of the European, and
with him Western culture, started ‘the modern ferment’. Here the three strands,
of culture, Hindu and Muslim and Western, remain untouched by each other, and
yet simultaneously acting upon individuals at different unrelated levels. “A
man who accepts Western science intellectually is steeped emotionally in the tradition
of ancient or medieval India. And to Professor Kabir, “The educational
revolution brought about by Macaulay was largely
responsible for this bifurcation of Indian society.” Thus ‘the absence of a
common system of national education’ has been one of the main reasons why
Indians exhibit even today a regional, linguistic or communal outlook. The
remedy he suggests is a national education creating the proper atmosphere for
the development of a synthetic view of Indian culture.
Politics of Caste and
the theory of Retributive Justice
One
of the most important results of the constitutional reforms in India is the
realisation amongst the hitherto backward groups that a united effort would
enable them to capture political power with the help of which the existing
social imbalance could be redressed. This was the idea behind the formation of
the Justice Party in the Madras Presidency. The social subordination of the
non-Brahmins for ages, taken together with the fact that even the benefits of
Western education were monopolised by the higher
castes, naturally generated forces of discontent and caste hatred. The Reforms
of 1919, with their property qualifications for voting rights, led to the enfrachisement of sizable sections of the non-Brahmin
communities. While the sociological condition made these exploit this
newly-conferred lever to power, the political condition brought these
communities nearer the British Government, who saw, in the ideas of these, an
opportune weapon to beat the Brahmin-led Congress with.
The
leaders of this communal politics professed the liberal democratic views and
contributed no original political or social ideas. Yet, perhaps, their belief
in the justice of the hitherto oppressed castes now coming into their
own, politically, and through political power making good their former losses,
even by opressing the upper castes, may itself be
regarded as a political faith.
Such
a creed of social or caste retribution may be styled as Caste War. What the
capitalists are to the Proletariat, the Brahmins are to the non-Brahmins. But
the Proletariat must needs eliminate the capitalist class–the non-Brahmins
thought only in terms of an equitable retribution, i.e. deny the Brahmin,
henceforth, certain social and economic opportunities, which he allegedly
denied to the non-Brahmins in the past.
Would
such retributive justice solve the problem? Gandhiji characterised
such attempts at social justice through reserved accesses to political power as
plainly immoral. In the context of the agitation of Harijans
for separate treatment as a minority, a situation similar to the point under
consideration, he pleaded for the redress of the social injustice by individual
and voluntary effort, and was against imposition of justice by legal methods.
The reasons are clear. Legal sanctions rarely bring about moral conversions
and, on the other hand, only perpetuate prejudices by maintaining caste
entities.
The
legacy of these is the present separatist agitation by certain political
parties in Madras, agitating not only on caste lines but advocating a separate
nation status for south India on racial grounds.