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ABSTRACT
Socialism in India, as an important intellectual tradition, has been a central interlocutor in the more significant debates on normative concerns, especially on inequality. Its presence was crucial during the nationalist struggle for independence and in post-colonial formative years, in the debates on inequalities and nature of development (1930–1970s). This article engages with a specific strand of Socialism (Oppositional Socialism), in the writings and works of Dr Jayaprakash Narayan, Dr Ram Manohar Lohia and Kamla Devi Chattopadhyaya and their position on inequality in India and the world. In ways tracing solutions from within, through tropes of indigenity, via concepts and frameworks, and providing alternative visions for resolution of inequality in India and globally. Narayan’s invocation of Sarvodaya, Lohia’s intersectional reading through the lens of caste, class and gender along with Chattopadhaya’s decentralised and gendered framework aids in understanding the rationale for choosing Democratic Socialism as a significant interlocutor in the resolution of inequality for post-colonial societies.
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Notes
1 Some of the significant works on Socialism in Modern India include B. R. Nanda’s Socialism in India, Randhir Singh’s Marxism, Socialism, Indian Politics: A View from the Left, Chandrika Singh’s Socialism in India: Rise. Growth and Prospect. Benjamin Zachariah’s Developing India: An Intellectual and Social History C.1930-50, Atul Kohli’s Democracy and Development in India: From Socialism to Pro Business and Niclas Tölle’s The Socialist Opposition in Nehruvian India expands on the contribution of Socialist thought in the significant foundational debates of newly independent modern India.
2 Sherman, “A New Type of Revolution,” 484–505.
3 Socialism in India underwent significant transformations over the years. Initially, emerged as part of the Congress fold, as Congress Socialist Party, and worked as a collaborator. Eventually in 1948, with its separation and emergence as Socialist Party, it emerged as a central oppositional front. See Boris, Socialist Opposition in Nehruvian India.
4 These thinkers are reasonably new to the non-Indian world. Though, Daniel Kent-Carrasco presents the ideas of JP and Lohia in a comparative perspective, however it does not delve into the concern on inequality in their thinking. See Kent-Carraasco, “A Battle over Meanings,” 370–388.
5 JP was growing up during the years, which were marked by great transformational times for the nationalist struggle for Independence. It was when Mahatma Gandhi had arrived in India after his successful struggle in South Africa. In 1919, Gandhi gave the call for Non-Cooperation and Khilafat movement and asked the youth specifically to associate with the movement, by non-cooperating with the British administration and boycotting foreign goods. His first involvement with the struggle was when Gandhi had given the call for the non-cooperation movement in 1919, as young JP and other students responded by boycotting school and joining the movement.
6 In America, JP got introduced to Marxism and Marxian thinkers and philosophers like Karl Marx, Lenin, Plekhanov, Rosa Luxembourg and the famous Indian Marxian, M. N. Roy. They were all foundational in shaping his outlook on the human condition. At Wisconsin, JP attended several Marxist-Leninist meetings but never became a member of the Communist Party.
7 Congress Socialist Party, based on the rights and cause of the Indian workers and the farmers, came into existence in 1934. Despite being the largest nationalist organisation, Indian National Congress failed to pay adequate attention to the rights of the working and agrarian class. Therefore, the need was felt to have an organisation for this specific cause. In the initial years, CSP was considered as the left-wing of INC.
8 Bhattacharjee, Jayaprakash Narayan, 90.
9 His addresses, speeches, pamphlets and delivered at the various conferences organised by the Socialist Party were central in providing the blueprint of development in Modern India.
10 Praja Socialist Party secured the second-highest number of votes. The Communist Party had won more seats than the PSP, as they secured 23 seats which was very disappointing for the Socialist collective. The result was disastrous, as the strains amongst the Socialists became out in public. The tensions amongst the Socialists had already started from 1948 onwards when during a study camp in Mahabalshewara post the Socialist conference held in Nasik, a large number of differences emerged within the party on essential issues like inequality, ways of its resolution and the more prominent role of the party in national politics.
11 Jeevandani translates to one who dedicates his life to a specific cause; in this case, it was for the Bhoodaan and Gramdaan movement as the bulwark of grassroots democracy and land reforms.
12 Published As ‘Materialism and Goodness: Incentives for Goodness’ in Freedom First in 1952.
13 The concept of Sarvodaya was invoked by M.K Gandhi for the first time, based on the notion of the welfare of all, according primacy to the least privileged and most downtrodden. It is fascinating to observe that JP in his early Marxian days was critical of Gandhism and its ways of resolution of the problems, but later in his life, made it the only way of reflecting and resolving the Indian predicament. For Gandhi’s political, socio and economic philosophy, see Parel and Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj.
14 Originally published as Prison Diary as ‘Notes on Bihar Movement from 18 August and 7th September from prison in Chandigarh, when the government arrested him during the emergency.
15 Narayan, Why Socialism?, 5.
16 Ibid., 71.
17 Ibid., 12.
18 Ibid., 88.
19 Ibid., 87.
20 This letter is invoked as an essential piece of communication between Nehru and JP like Nehru, as the Prime Minister, offered him a vital position in the cabinet of Independent India, but JP declined the offer. However, this letter and the 14-point agenda was incorporated as the Minimum Programme for Nationalist Reconstruction based on comprehensive constitutional, legal, administrative, fiscal and economic reforms.
21 Some of JP’S solutions were incorporated by Jawaharlal Nehru’s Cabinet decisions from the 1950s to 1960s.
22 Narayan, “Democratic Socialism: Ideal and Method,” delivered as the General Secretary’s report to the 8th National Conference of Socialist Party in Madras (1950) in Prasad, Socialism, Sarvodaya, and Democracy, 70.
23 This is also reflective of the evolutionary thinking in JP, who initially had rejected Gandhian methods as reformist, coming to a full circle and embracing the same solution for Indian and Asian predicament.
24 Narayan, “From Socialism to Sarvodaya,” in Prasad, Socialism, Sarvodaya and Democracy, 167.
25 Satyagraha, a non-violent method of protest and agitation, would become his mode of politics in Independent India (1950s–1960s).
26 Oesterheid, “Lohia as a Doctoral Student in Berlin”. Despite being in Germany, he was well aware of Indian nationalist politics. Lohia was also the Secretary of the Central Europe Indian Association, founded by Indian Students abroad rallying around the cause of Anti British Colonialism and Indian Independence.
27 Rammanohar Lohia and Jayprakash Narayan were the critical intellectuals in shaping Socialism in India and were also the founding members of the Congress Socialist Party and later Socialist Party.
28 Lohia published a seminal text, On the Struggle of Civil Liberties, highlighting the various national movements in colonies worldwide, making a solid case for sovereignty and Independence. This text as later went on to become the precursor of the Foreign policy of Independent India. However, Lohia resigned from the secretaryship of the Foreign Department in August 1938 and was fully involved with CSP.
29 Lohia’s differences with the Communist Party of India were in tandem with his larger rejection of communism, carried through in the Russian model of development, which was considered inspiring by the other socialists. This was in many ways incipient to his articulations that the post-colonial societies needed their own set of solutions.
30 This reflected in his participation in many meetings that Asian countries organised, the most famous being the conference of Asian countries in Rangoon in 1953. His speeches at the particular conventions of the Socialist Party at Panchmarhi and the Beitul Conference shaped the program and agenda for the Indigenous socialist project in India and Asia.
31 In many ways, this phase of Lohia's life could be attributed to bringing the voices of the most impoverished masses up in the ranks of the assembly. Kapoor writes, 'In a nutshell, after Lohia's entry into the Lok Sabha, Parliament became a vital and lively institution in which the voice of crores of exploited men and women was heard’ (Kapoor, Collected Works of Dr Rammanohar Lohia, 105).
32 Ibid., 89.
33 He travelled to the USA in 1964, lecturing on the race problem, which marked his second world tour after a break of 13 years, and he further to Paris, Brussels, Vienna, Rome, Istanbul and Trehan. In 1965, Lohia travelled to East Germany.
34 Lohia, Marx, Gandhi, and Socialism, 222.
35 With his taking over of the Gen Secretaryship of the Socialist Party, the concern of caste became part of the larger party's program and Manifestoes for the first time.
36 Lohia, The Caste System, 81.
37 Ibid., 16.
38 Ibid., 97.
39 Ibid., 17.
40 Ibid., 65.
41 Lohia communicated with Dr B.R. Ambedkar and Periyar, two tall leaders of the depressed communities and understood the complexities of caste-based inequalities. Lohia’s engagement with the two inspired his position on the same.
42 Yadav, “What is Living and Dead in Lohia,” 99.
43 Lohia felt that racial inequality was a deep-rooted condition that needed the immediacy of resolution, just like the caste problem in India. In 1961, Lohia lectured on this concern extensively at many academic and non-academic platforms during his trip to the USA.
44 Lohia was an ardent supporter of Civil Disobedience. This was the Gandhian influence on his life and politics. He was critical of any kind of violence in the perusal of objectives. Despite having differences with Gandhi, which manifested in many of his writings and correspondences with Gandhi, Lohia made Civil Disobedience a modality of his politics. His Marx, Gandhi and Socialism is an essential text reflective of his views and position on Civil Disobedience.
45 Lohia, “The Meaning of Equality” in Marx, Gandhi and Socialism, 222–241.
46 Ibid., 241.
47 In her becoming Kamaladevi, her grandmother and mother, an active member of Mahila Samaj, played catalysts as mentioned in her autobiography, Inner Recesses Outer Spaces. Her immediate home environment, in the mode of her family inheritance, not only determined her initial years of growing but made the gendered concerns foundational to her thinking and politics. Kamaladevi mentions many phenomenal women like Margaret Cousins, Pandita Ramabai, Margaret Sanger, Annie Besant, who played an essential role in shaping her ideas and life.
48 Kamaladevi worked vigorously on the women’s questions, for instance, lobbying for crucial bills like the Sharda Act to prevent child marriage and the Age of consent bill for increasing the age for marriage for girls which were milestones for the women’s movement in Modern India. In 1930, Kamaladevi, with Ava Wadia and Dhanvantri Rau, founded the Family Planning Association, a resolution demanding government support and maternity facilities in 1934.
49 Ibid., 72. One has to understand that revitalisation of Handicrafts was not new to her, but the continuation of some of the work carried forward by her under the aegis of the All India Women’s Conference (AIWC). In the 1930s, AIWC made it mandatory for branches to carry out crafts involving women during the nationalist struggle for Independence.
50 AIHB was bifurcated into two separate boards, Handloom and Handicraft Boards. It worked vigorously to set up training centres in different parts of the country and provide grants to revive specific crafts. Undertaken as a means of supporting and protecting the crafts that were lost and needed revival. This sector suffered one of the worst under British rule, almost extinct and on the verge of death.
51 In 1964, she, along with Aileen Webb and Margaret Patch, cofounded World Crafts Council (WCC). Affiliated with UNESCO, WCC had regional centres covering Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America and North America. Primarily as a network, revolutionising the global crafts movement, which aimed to provide a better future for the craftspersons of the world.
52 Carol Dubois and Lal, “Feminism and Socialism,” in A Passionate Life, 91. Published initially in Kamaladevi's, “Labour and Motherhood,” in The Awakening of Indian Women.
53 Ibid, 91.
54 Ibid., 92.
55 Chattopadhyay, “Workers and Wages,” in The Awakening of Indian Women, 25.
56 Chattopadhyay, “Some Real Issues Facing Women,” 495.
57 Chattopadhyay, Socialism and Society, 31.
58 Ibid., 22.
59 Ibid., 29.
60 Ibid., 168.
61 Ibid., 170.
62 Ibid., 56.
63 Ibid., 31.
64 Ibid., 35–36.
65 Boris, Socialist Opposition in Nehruvian India, 83.
66 The three thinkers were influenced by M K Gandhi’s social, political, moral and economic ideas. Satyagraha (Civil Disobedience), Vikendrikaran (Decentralisation) and Sarvodaya (Welfare of all) were three Gandhian ideas that influenced the trio. For Gandhian economic thought, refer to Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj and Other Writings, Constructive Programme: It's Meaning and Programme, Gram Swaraj. Also, see Kumarappa’s, Gandhian Economic Thought.
67 As one witnessed, Narayan, in the latter part of his life, had become a Gandhian himself.