Thursday, February 24, 2011
ਸਿੱਖ ਭਾਈਚਾਰੇ 'ਚ ਦਲਿਤ ਜਾਤੀਆਂ ਦੀ ਹੋਂਦ ਹਸਤੀ ਦਾ ਸਵਾਲ-ਡਾ. ਹਰੀਸ਼ ਪੁਰੀ
ਪੰਜਾਬ ਸਿੱਖ ਬਹੁਗਿਣਤੀ ਰਾਜ ਹੈ।1966 ਵਿਚ ਇਸ ਦੇ ਪੁਨਰਗਠਨ ਤੋਂ ਪਿੱਛੋਂ (ਜਦੋਂ ਇਸ ਦੇ ਹਿੰਦੀ ਬੋਲਦੇ ਇਲਾਕਿਆਂ ਨੂੰ ਅੱਡ ਕਰਕੇ ਹਰਿਆਣਾ ਰਾਜ ਕਾਇਮ ਕੀਤਾ ਗਿਆ ਸੀ ਤੇ ਕੁਝ ਪਹਾੜੀ ਇਲਾਕਿਆਂ ਨੂੰ ਹਿਮਾਚਲ ਵਿਚ ਮਿਲਾ ਦਿੱਤਾ ਗਿਆ ਸੀ) ਇਸ ਦੀ ਧਾਰਮਿਕ ਬਣਤਰ ਤਿੱਖੀ ਤਰ੍ਹਾਂ ਬਦਲ ਗਈ ਸੀ। ਇਸ ਵੇਲੇ ਸਿੱਖਾਂ ਦੀ ਗਿਣਤੀ ਪੰਜਾਬ ਦੀ ਕੁਲ ਵਸੋਂ ਦਾ 63 ਫੀਸਦੀ ਬਣਦੀ ਹੈ। ਪੇਂਡੂ ਵਸੋਂ ਵਿਚ ਇਹ ਹਿੱਸਾ ਹੋਰ ਵੀ ਵਧੇਰੇ ਹੈ-ਤਕਰੀਬਨ 72 ਫੀਸਦੀ। ਪੰਜਾਬ ਵਿਚ ਦਲਿਤ ਜਾਂ ਅਨੁਸੂਚਿਤ ਜਾਤੀਆਂ ਦੀ ਗਿਣਤੀ ਖਾਸੀ ਚੋਖੀ ਹੈ। 1991 ਦੀ ਮਰਦਮਸ਼ੁਮਾਰੀ ਅਨੁਸਾਰ ਇਹ ਗਿਣਤੀ 28.3 ਫੀਸਦੀ ਸੀ, ਜਿਹੜੀ 2001 ਵਿਚ ਵਧ ਕੇ 30 ਫੀਸਦੀ ਤਕ
1849 ਵਿਚ ਪੰਜਾਬ ਉਤੇ ਕਬਜ਼ੇ ਪਿੱਛੋਂ ਜਦੋਂ ਬਰਤਾਨਵੀ ਪ੍ਰਸ਼ਾਸਕਾਂ ਤੇ ਮਨੁੱਖਜਾਤੀ-ਵਿਗਿਆਨੀਆਂ ਨੇ ਰਾਜ ਵਿਚ ਜਾਤੀਆਂ ਦੀ ਦਰਜਾਬੰਦੀ ਉਤੇ ਡੂੰਘੀ ਨਜ਼ਰ ਮਾਰਨੀ ਸ਼ੁਰੂ ਕੀਤੀ ਤਾਂ ਉਹਨਾਂ ਦੇਖਿਆ ਕਿ ਪੰਜਾਬ ਇਸ
‘ਨੀਚਾ ਅੰਦਰਿ ਨੀਚ ਜਾਤਿ ਨੀਚੀ ਹੂ ਅਤਿ ਨੀਚੁ।
1849 ਵਿਚ ਪੰਜਾਬ ਉਤੇ ਕਬਜ਼ੇ ਪਿੱਛੋਂ ''ਬਰਤਾਨਵੀ ਬਸਤੀਵਾਦੀ ਜਕੜ'' ਨੇ ਨਵੇਂ ਕਿਸਮ ਦੀ ਸਿੱਖ ਸੰਪਰਦਾ ਨੂੰ ਹੋਂਦ ਵਿਚ ਲਿਆਉਣ ਅਤੇ ਸਿੱਖ ਭਾਈਚਾਰੇ ਵਿਚ ਸਮਾਜੀ ਬਣਤਰ ਤੇ ਜਾਤੀ ਸੰਬੰਧਾਂ ਨੂੰ ਆਪਣੇ ਢੰਗ ਨਾਲ
ਆਂਦ੍ਰੇ ਪਬਤੈਲੇ ਦੇ ਅਨੁਸਾਰ ਅਜਿਹੀਆਂ ਤਬਦੀਲੀਆਂ ਦਾ ਮਤਲਬ, "ਉਸ ਮਿੱਟੀ ਨੂੰ ਉਥਲ-ਪੁਥਲ ਕਰਨ ਵਾਂਗ ਸੀ, ਜਿਸ ਵਿਚ ਵਰਣ ਆਸ਼ਰਮ ਸਦੀਆਂ ਤੋਂ ਜੜਾਂ ਫੜ੍ਹੀ ਬੈਠਾ ਸੀ।" ਇਹ ਕਥਨ ਹੈ ਠੀਕ। ਪੰਜਾਬ ਵਿਚ ਬਸਤੀਵਾਦੀ ਪ੍ਰਬੰਧ ਦੇ ਸਵੈ-ਵਿਰੋਧੀ ਖਾਸੇ ਦਾ ਇਹ ਹਿੱਸਾ ਸੀ ਕਿ ਬਰਤਾਨਵੀ ਹਾਕਮ ਵਰਣ ਵੰਡ ਨੂੰ
ਕਮਿਊਨਿਲ ਐਵਾਰਡ ਦੇ ਪ੍ਰਤੀਕਰਮ ਵਜੋਂ ਪੇਸ਼ ਕੀਤੇ ਇਕ ਹੋਰ ਮੈਮੋਰੰਡਮ ਵਿਚ ਇਹ ਦਲੀਲ ਦਿੱਤੀ ਗਈ, ''ਮੁਸਲਿਮ ਬਹੁਗਿਣਤੀ ਦੀ ਕਾਇਮੀ ਦਾ ਅਰਥ ਜ਼ਮੀਨ ਦੀਆਂ ਮਾਲਕ ਸ਼੍ਰੇਣੀਆਂ ਦੇ ਹਿਤਾਂ ਨੂੰ ਮੁਜ਼ਾਰਿਆਂ, ਕੰਮੀਆਂ ਤੇ ਅਜਿਹੇ ਹੋਰ ਲੋਕਾਂ ਦੇ ਹਵਾਲੇ ਕਰਨਾ ਹੋਵੇਗਾ, ਜਿਹਨਾਂ ਦਾ ਕੁਝ ਵੀ ਦਾਅ ਉੱਤੇ ਨਹੀਂ ਲੱਗਾ ਹੋਇਆ ਅਤੇ ਜਿਹੜੇ ਕੋਈ ਸਿੱਧੇ ਟੈਕਸ ਵੀ ਨਹੀਂ ਦਿੰਦੇ।” ਵਿਸ਼ੇਸ਼ ਉਤਮਤਾ (ਮੈਰਿਟ) ਦਾ ਇਹ ਅੰਤਰੀਵੀਕਰਣ ਸਥਾਨਕ ਪਿੰਡ ਦੀ ਸਥਿਤੀ ਵਿਚ ਜੱਟ ਜ਼ਿੰਮੀਂਦਾਰਾਂ ਦੇ ਹੇਠਲੀਆਂ ਸ਼੍ਰੇਣੀਆਂ ਉਤੇ ਕੁਦਰਤੀ ਸਮਾਜੀ ਗਲਬੇ ਨੂੰ ਹੀ ਜਾਇਜ਼ ਠਹਿਰਾਉਂਦਾ ਹੈ। ਇਹੀ ਤਰਕ ਹੈ, ਜਿਸ ਨੂੰ ਬਰਤਾਨਵੀ ਹਾਕਮ ਪਸੰਦ ਕਰਦੇ ਸਨ ਅਤੇ ਇਸ ਦਾ ਉਹਨਾਂ ਸੰਸਥਾਪਨ ਕੀਤਾ। ਜਾਤੀ ਸੱਤਾ ਦੀ ਪਕੇਰੀ ਪਕੜ ਜਦੋਂ ਸਿੰਘ ਸਭਾ ਲਹਿਰ-ਜਿਹੜੀ ਸਿੱਖ ਭਾਈਚਾਰੇ ਵਿਚ ਸ਼ਕਤੀਸ਼ਾਲੀ ਲਹਿਰ ਸੀ -
ਇਸ ਪਿਛੋਂ 1920-25 ਵਿਚ ਗੁਰਦੁਆਰਿਆਂ ਨੂੰ ਮਹੰਤਾਂ ਤੋਂ ਮੁਕਤ ਕਰਾਉਣ ਦੇ ਅਕਾਲੀ ਮੋਰਚਿਆਂ ਦੇ ਰੁਝੇਵੇਂ ਨੇ "ਛੂਤ-ਛਾਤ ਦੇ ਖਾਤਮੇ ਲਈ ਸਮਾਂ ਹੀ ਨਾ ਰਹਿਣ ਦਿੱਤਾ।" ਇਸ ਵਿਚ ਹੈਰਾਨੀ ਵਾਲੀ ਗੱਲ ਨਹੀਂ। ਜੱਟ ਭਾਈਚਾਰਾ, ਜੋ ਅਕਾਲੀ ਲਹਿਰ ਦਾ 70 ਫੀਸਦੀ ਹਿੱਸਾ ਸਨ ਤੇ ਹੋਰ ਉੱਚੀਆਂ ਸ਼੍ਰੇਣੀਆਂ ਛੂਤ ਛਾਤ ਦੇ ਖਾਤਮੇ ਵਿਚ ਕੋਈ ਬਹੁਤੀ ਰੁਚੀ ਨਹੀਂ ਸਨ ਰੱਖਦੀਆਂ, ਕਿਉਂਕਿ ਇਹ ਗੱਲ ਸਮਾਜੀ ਗ਼ਲਬੇ ਤੇ ਉਚ ਜਾਤੀ ਵਿਚ ਉਹਨਾਂ ਦੇ ਯਕੀਨ ਦੇ ਵਿਰੁਧ ਸੀ। 1926 ਵਿਚ ਸ਼੍ਰੋਮਣੀ ਗੁਰਦੁਆਰਾ ਪ੍ਰਬੰਧਕ ਕਮੇਟੀ ਦੀ ਕਾਇਮੀ ਪਿੱਛੋਂ ਹੇਠਲੀਆਂ ਸ਼੍ਰੇਣੀਆਂ ਦੇ ਤਿੰਨ ਮੈਂਬਰਾਂ ਨੂੰ ਇਸ ਵਿਚ ਨਾਮਜ਼ਦ ਕਰਨ ਦਾ ਫੈਸਲਾ ਹੋਇਆ। 1933 ਤੱਕ ਹੇਠਲੀਆਂ ਸ਼੍ਰੇਣੀਆਂ ਦੇ 200 ਲੋਕਾਂ ਨੂੰ ਗ੍ਰੰਥੀਆਂ, ਪਾਠੀਆਂ, ਰਾਗੀਆਂ ਤੇ ਸੇਵਾਦਾਰਾਂ ਵਜੋਂ ਭਰਤੀ ਕੀਤਾ ਗਿਆ।
ਵੱਖਰੇ ਗੁਰਦਵਾਰਿਆਂ ਦੀ ਉਸਾਰੀ ਏਨੀ ਆਮ ਗੱਲ ਹੋ ਗਈ ਸੀ ਕਿ ਜੋਧਕਾ ਇਸ ਨਤੀਜੇ ਉਤੇ ਪਹੁੰਚਿਆ ਕਿ ਅਜਿਹੀਆਂ ਉਸਾਰੀਆਂ ਦਾ ਨਾ ਤਾਂ ਪਿੰਡ ਦੀਆਂ ਭਾਰੂ ਸ਼੍ਰੇਣੀਆਂ ਵਿਰੋਧ ਕਰਦੀਆਂ ਸਨ ਤੇ ਨਾ ਹੀ ਸਿੱਖ
"ਪਿਛਲੇ ਕੁਝ ਸਾਲਾਂ ਵਿਚ ਪੰਜਾਬ ਦੇ ਪਿੰਡਾਂ ਵਿਚ ਜੱਟਾਂ ਤੇ ਮਜ਼ਹਬੀ ਸਿੱਖਾਂ ਵਲੋਂ ਵੱਖੋ ਵੱਖਰੇ ਗੁਰਦਵਾਰੇ
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Perspective of Indian Revolution -Mohit Sen
In order to be able to do this with any measure of objectivity, we must begin with an effort to try to 'understand the socioeconomic changes that have taken place in India since independence. Naturally any presentation of such a complex problem will tend to be schematic but the presentation might provoke useful discussion. What are the different relations of production that we encounter in India? What about the development of productive forces? And what is the nature of the mode of production, the base of the entire socio- economic formation of India today? These are vital but difficult questions to answer in any detail. It will however suffice for our purpose if we are able to indicate the broad contours of the socioeconomic scene in India. The main impression emerges of a dual development in the economy. Taking the two decades of independence as a whole, there can be no denying the fact that there has been considerable development of the productive forces, i.e. of the implements of production as well as of man who uses these implements and acquires a fund of production experience in so doing. The development of productive forces is by no means sufficient to solve the problems of development with which India is confronted. Nor does it measure up to the possibilities that are technically existent but which are socially held up. Nevertheless the development of the productive forces is considerable and cannot be gainsaid. As a synthetic indicator (however unsatisfactory since not only material values are taken into account) we have the growth of the net national product by over 75 per cent in the period from 1948 to 1969, with agricultural production having risen by over 50 per cent and industry by over 100 per cent in the same period. This record compares favourably with any other country in the so- called third world (or the zone of newly-independent states) except for those that have advanced on to-socialism. It is true that India started off with an advantage in. that it had a far more developed industrial base and transport network and that it did not go through the kind of war devastation that many other newly-independent states had to cope with. A viable administrative structure was also inherited but this has turned out to be a curse in disguise. But these factors only help to explain the better showing that India has made. They 'do-not do away with the fact of the performance. Nor are these the only noteworthy features of the development of productive forces in post- independence India. While it is true that national income statistics show that the structure of the economy has not altered much- the share of agriculture in the net domestic product has fluctuated around 48 per cent; of mining, manufacture and transport and communications around 24 per cent; of various types of services, including trade and administration, around 24 per cent. Nevertheless there is no denying the fact that there has been a qualitative change-with regard to the kind of products that are made in India as well as the manner in which they are made. While agriculture has lagged behind and continues to lag behind, despite the hybrid- fertiliser- tractor combination in certain areas, and has yet to make a technological breakthrough, industry has done much better. Plants like the HEC at Ranchi, the MAMC, the-new steel plants, fertiliser plants, oil refineries, heavy electrical plants, aircraft manufacture, HMT wagon-building, the design and consultancy bureaus of HSL and FCI, etc., the petrochemical complexes coming up in different regions—all these demonstrate that if man is a tool-making animal, independent Indian man has made considerable progress and approached the threshold of the modern age. The industrial landscape of India has changed absolutely beyond recognition.
And as has been stressed above it is not only the tools but along with them quite inevitably the toolmaker has also altered' beyond recognition. The industrial worker of contemporary India is very far removed from what his father was. And his numbers have swelled considerably. He has been joined by the fast proliferating white-collar worker whose conditions of work and psychology increasingly approximate that of the industrial worker. A new intelligentsia has come into being, quite 'different from the liberal-professions oriented intelligentsia of the pre- independence days. One sees also the great change in the composition of students. The number of first generation students especially at the middle and high school levels and to a lesser extent in the colleges has vastly increased as has the number of students with a rural background. Their psychology or spiritual makeup is also considerably different. There may be a certain rawness and primitiveness about the majority of them and a greater amount of hardheadedness, and desire for material advancement and an element of careerism—but there are modern drives, different from the hierarchical consciousness of the not so distant past. Anti-imperialism is not so dominant a force as it once used to be but there is patriotism and an urge towards radicalism. At the same time, as we shall see, the frustrations of the capitalist path and the failure of the left in many parts to project the future with its new, inspiring ideology have led to a growth of revivalism and superstition among the students. With the breakdown of the nationalist ideology and the failure in many places to advance the new democratic ideology, to say nothing of socialist consciousness, pre- nationalist ideologies of caste, religion and regionalism rush in to fill the vacuum. This is not a process confined to the students or the intelligentsia; it is fully present in the working class itself. But this development has been noted and commented upon and almost made to appear as the only characteristic of the ideological makeup of the new industrial worker, the white-collar worker and the new student. To say the least, this is to overdraw the picture. All this superstition, religiosity and barbarism are not the products of the new in independent India. They are the ideological reflex of the persisting relics of the past. They are reminders that in India today the past is still very present. One has however to note the change as well. Whichever class in Indian society one chooses to take one will have to admit that in the aggregate there is now more of rationalism, more of knowledge, more of an urge for justice and equality, more of a desire for a better material life than in the days before freedom. The degeneration of the majority of Congress leaders should not be taken as the degeneration of the nation as a whole. Such degeneration could have taken place and might well take place if there is the triumph of counterrevolution. But what has taken place in India since 1947 is not counterrevolution, just as it is not advance in the direction of socialism. What has taken place is development along the capitalist path with compromises with imperialism and feudalism and in an epoch when capitalism is historically obsolescent on a world scale. But capitalist development even of his distorted kind does also inevitably produce its gravedigger- the new productive force of the new Indian working man, emerging from darkness and advancing towards light. Is this true of the Indian village as well? With the lag in the development of the productive forces of Indian agriculture, as compared to the development that has taken place in the industrial sphere, there has been less of change if we take the Indian countryside as a whole. But uneven 'development, based largely on irrigation facilities and proximity to urban centres, is the very law of motion of the Indian countryside.
However here too what has taken place is neither counterrevolution nor restoration but halting, retarded and very uneven growth. Here too while the forces of medievalism and their ideology has made gains, so have the forces of modernity and the latter more than the former. Feudalism and semi-feudalism have not been eliminated and the concentration of landownership has not been done away with but they are not as powerful as they once used to be. They have been curbed and partially transformed. And in the village too the agricultural labourer and the poor peasant while still terribly oppressed are by no means as cowed down as before, particularly in areas where either the economic transformation has been swifter or where the democratic movement has had deeper roots— the two do not always coincide. As for taking to new techniques, every available evidence points to the conclusion that the Indian peasant is as responsive to innovation as anybody else. The difficulties are those of a lack of means. Ono is insisting on all these points and emphasising the change in that of the most important of all productive forces— the working man of India, because this is often overlooked. Often enough in a mechanical materialist manner all attention is focused only on the implements or tools of production. The most rebellious or revolutionary factor in the Indian scene is thus missed and all kinds of pessimistic conclusions drawn, bringing grist to the mill of the forces of Indian counterrevolution. And let it be remembered that it is man who spans the entire length of the socioeconomic formation from the base to the superstructure. While we have to bear in mind the new in the productive forces of post- independence India, it will be completely one- sided to overlook the old. In this age of scientific technological revolution, the productive forces of India are still woefully underdeveloped and medieval in many respects and in many areas. This is particularly true of rural India and of some of the older established industries. What are the different relations of production that we encounter in India today and how do they differ from those of the colonial past? There are some problems of methodology to be cleared up here. Imperialism is essentially a particular stage in the development of the capitalist mode of production. The relations of production in the stage of monopoly capital are still the relations of production of capitalism. Greater concentration and centralisation of capital and the greater socialisation of the production process, inherent in the transition from competitive to monopoly capital, do not signify any basic change in the relations of production, in the pattern of ownership, in the private appropriation of the fruits of social production. The development and dominance of monopoly accentuate the conflict between socialised production and private appropriation which is the central contradiction of the capitalist mode of production. This is a tact 'missed' by the theoreticians of 'convergence' of capitalism and socialism, by the theoreticians of the change of capitalism into the corporate industrial state. In relation to the countries colonised by imperialism the matter is somewhat more complex. Imperialism bolsters up feudal and semi- feudal relations of production. It generally opposes the growth of the indigenous capitalist relations of production, especially in the industrial sphere. It brings in its wake an inevitable expansion of commercial relations and of commodity production but retards and distorts the tendency of such development to culminate in capitalist relations of production based on the productive forces of machinofacture. Imperialism in the colonial countries not only plunders economically, siphoning off the surplus product (surplus above an increasingly precarious subsistence, resulting in calamitous famines and dreadful human mortality), it also exerts all manner of extra- economic coercion to prevent the development of the productive forces of the colonies.
It is therefore a particular type of capitalist relations of production when it comes to the colonial setting. It is this that was the leading relation of production in colonial India. The feudal and semi- feudal relations prevalent in the countryside were of course far more extensive and far weightier quantitatively but they followed in the wake of the capitalist relations of production of the 76 Perspective of Indian Revolution
imperialist type. Petty commodity production, natural economy and indigenous capitalist relations of production were also prevalent in colonial India. The capitalist relations of production of the indigenous variety developed in India largely through the second way of capitalist growth described by Marx (and mentioned above) but it nevertheless came into conflict with the imperialist mode of exploitation no sooner did it start developing the productive forces of India both through greater social division of labour and through a degree of industrialisation. One can here make a distinction between the imperialist-capitalist relations of production and the indigenous-capitalist relations of production by stating that the former, while extracting surplus-value in the actual cycle of production, depends to a great extent for capital accumulation on profit-on-alienation (i.e. outside the process of production proper) and on extra-economic coercion, and the latter more on extracting surplus-value in the actual cycle of production, though also relying on profit-on alienation and extra- economic coercion. These two variations in the mode of appropriation of the surplus product, though both based on the capitalist relations of production, have quite opposite effects and connections with the development of productive forces, one helping and the other hindering. In independent India over the past thirty years or so what are the relations of production that have been fostered, what preserved and what reduced in importance, if not removed? There is little doubt that it is the capitalist relations of production of the indigenous type that have grown most rapidly, been deliberately fostered and become the leading element in the total ensemble of the relations of production that make up the totality of the mode of production of independent India. It is also interesting and of considerable significance that the chief form of this growth has been the development of the public sector in the sphere of industrial production as well as in transport, finance and distribution. State capitalism of this kind is the most progressive form of capitalist development in newly-independent countries and creates the highest degree of socialisation of production as well as the material basis for non- capitalist transformation to socialism. It is also of appreciable progressive significance that the development of the public sector is inextricably linked with the enormous expansion of trade and other economic relations with the socialist countries, above all the Soviet Union. It is connected therefore with the partial but developing linkage of Indian economy with the socialist international division of labour, even though it still remains basically a part of the imperialist: international division of labour. At the same time it must not be overlooked for a moment that the public sector in India today is neither socialist nor non- capitalist. It is state capitalist. Its mode of financing and accumulation is capitalist, especially the spoliation of the toiling people through taxation and deficit-financing. It runs its concerns mainly in a bureaucratic fashion, animated by the capitalist contempt and dislike for the actual producer of values. Its construction assists the capitalist class as a whole to make considerable windfall profits at the expense of the national exchequer. Its products, thanks to the capitalist pricing policy, also aid the growth of the capitalist class as a whole, including the stratum of monopolists. Thus while the development of the public sector helps the nation, it particularly benefits the capitalist class. State capitalism however is not the only form in which indigenous capitalist relations of production have been fostered and developed in India. There has been ample encouragement to and growth of private capitalism, in the first place of the stratum of monopolists.
The 75 monopoly houses controlled by some fifteen or twenty monopoly families have developed their assets at quite a phenomenal pace. The facts are far too well known to need much emphasis
here. What we would like to emphasise here are only four facets of this process of the development of the monopoly stratum of the Indian capitalist class. There is no doubt that this stratum developed without Indian capitalism having gone through all the phases of capitalism, including the phases when capitalism played so progressive a part in the general forward movement of history. A powerful section of the Indian capitalist class went straight, as it were, from pre- capitalist childhood to a kind of decadent senility, having a very brief period of invigorating manhood. Nevertheless, even as we remember the many pre- capitalist and commercial capitalist features and motivations of the Indian monopolists, it cannot be forgotten, least of all by those who claim to be following the methodology of Marx, that their emergence does testify to the development of capitalist relations of production, and fairly considerable development at that. The emergence of the monopoly stratum in the Indian capitalist class cannot be treated as evidence of 'pre- capitalist throwback'. It is living testimony to the fact that India has advanced along the capitalist path of development, however much that phrase might rankle in the ears of some. Some of the critics of the CPI's thesis of the present crisis in India being the crisis of the capitalist path of development base themselves on the famous distinction that Marx makes in Capital (third volume) on the two ways of capitalist development. These critics make one fundamental mistake—they overlook the fact that Marx terms both ways as ways of capitalist development. He does not characterise the non- revolutionary way as merely the way of pre- capitalist throwback and restoration. The second facet to which we would like to draw attention is the comparative size of the monopolist stratum. It is of course utterly puny as compared to the monopoly giants of the developed capitalist or imperialist countries. General Motors or Standard Oil of New Jersey would feel somewhat insulted if they were to be bracketed together with the Tatas and Birlas as all being members of the club of monopolists. Nor is this all. If we compare the relative position occupied by the giant western monopolies in their national economies with the position of the Indian monopoly houses in Indian economy, we shall find that the latter is not in the same position at all as that of the former. Whether we take the standards of capital assets, financial power, workers employed, values produced, commodities controlled as well as chain of control through intermediaries, we shall find that the Indian monopolists do not anywhere occupy the same dominant position as do their counterparts in the imperialist countries. Moreover in India the state capitalist sector did not emerge as the result of private monopoly capitalist development, crowning the process with the coming into being of state monopoly capitalism. State capitalism in India, whether in the fields of transport, power industry, trade or banking, grew pari passu with the emergence of the Indian monopolist stratum, assisting it as well as restricting it, collaborating with it as well as curbing and competing with it.
Today the position has been reached when the Indian public sector, or Indian state capitalism, is more powerful than Indian monopolist stratum in practically every sphere of economic enterprise. The public sector has hitherto not been used to any great extent as an antimonopoly force. This is only natural considering the powerful influence wielded by the monopolists in the Indian state, of which it is a component part. But not only is its antimonopoly potential enormous but it provides a material-technical base for our country's economic development obviating and cutting of the full fledged monopoly stage of Indian capitalism. It would certainly be the height of folly to minimise in the least the power of the Indian monopoly stratum or its potential as a counterrevolutionary force, especially in collaboration with the imperialists and the feudal and semi- feudal and landlord forces in the rural areas. And the political pull, patronage and penetration of the Indian monopolists are considerably greater than is warranted by the extent of their economic position, because of the class character and outlook of the top echelons of the bureaucracy as well as of powerful segments of the highest leadership of the ruling party whether in the organisation or in the government. The split in the Congress has certainly reduced this power in the ruling Congress but this power is still considerable in these spheres as well, to say nothing of its force in the rightist consolidation of the Syndicate, Swatantra and Jana Sangh and the entire force of counterrevolution. At the same time one must guard against overdrawing the picture as some Marxist analysts tend to do. They schematically argue that since a monopolist stratum has emerged in India and since the monopolies are the leading and dominant force in the states of the imperialist countries, hence in India too this stratum 'must' be dominating and leading the Indian state. They put forward such a formation as an axiomatic assertion without attempting an all- sided and comprehensive analysis of the actual position in India. They therefore violate the very first principle of Marxist methodology, i.e. that truth is always concrete. The third facet of the process of the emergence of the Indian monopoly stratum to which we would like to draw attention is the fact that neither this process nor the formation and growth of the public sector exhaust the story of the development of Indian capitalism in the industrial sphere. It is not only the reactionary way of capitalist development that has been the way along which the Indian capitalist class has developed. The "really revolutionary" way, as Marx put it, has also been the way along which a section of the Indian capitalist class has developed. In the medium and small capitalist sector, innumerable examples can be found of the growth of capitalist entrepreneurs from among the petty commodity producers, from the new-skilled intelligentsia, from even a small section of skilled workers. Even more numerous are examples of capitalists, who may not have 'directly emerged from the ranks of the petty commodity producers and through the process of their differentiation, but who do take an active part in the organisation and development of their enterprises, playing the same role as their counterparts in the mid-nineteenth century, or even earlier, capitalist industrial breakthrough in Great Britain. These medium and small capitalists are by no means a negligible force, whether we take the national economy as a whole or the Indian capitalist class. The monopolies commission report as well as the annual surveys of Indian industry would show that taken as a group their capital assets as well as production of values compare quite favourably vis-a-vis the monopolists, though in the "very nature of things they are much more dispersed, do not enjoy the advantages of economies of scale, of distribution apparatus and influence with the government or foreign imperialists. A fact of considerable importance is that the small and medium industrialists, particularly in the Punjab, parts of Maharashtra, 'Gujarat and Tamil Nadu, have proved to be technologically more innovative and enterprising than the large industrial houses. And this stratum has not emerged as a byproduct of monopoly growth or as subsidiaries or mere agencies for the monopoly houses. Its emergence and development has been a process running parallel with that of the monopolies. There was in this case too collaboration and conflict, coexistence as well as competition. And with the passage of time and in the context of available resources becoming scarce in relation to the increased 'developmental process as well as the insufficient expansion of the national market to absorb the increased capitalist commodity production, these two parallel processes of capitalist development entered into a phase where antagonism is likely to be greater than collaboration.
Besides it is the development of the public sector, i.e. of state capitalism, that helped not only the monopoly houses but also the medium and small industrialists—training, industrial estates, infrastructure, credit, ancillary production, guaranteed market, etc. It is quite evident that in the last analysis, with the spectacular development in all spheres of national life, this process would proceed faster to the advantage of both state capitalism as well as the medium and small capitalist strata. The fourth facet of our brief examination of the meaning of the emergence of the monopolist stratum of the Indian capitalist class relates to its conglomerate character. It has been noted by authorities examining recent trends in the development of US monopoly capitalism that the gigantic wave of mergers of already huge monopoly empires has led to the coming under the same roof of totally unrelated production lines, e.g. steel and textiles or telephones and cosmetics. While testifying to the increased socialisation of the production process, it also testifies to its totally irrational character under monopoly capitalism. One finds that the Indian monopoly houses have developed the same characteristic—Birlas have textiles, fertilisers, newspapers, engineering, grape gardens and money lending! And the Birlas are not exceptional but quite typical in this respect. In every respect the Indian monopoly houses have become a counterproductive force in India today. The reports of various commissions with their accounts of outright swindling, preemption, restrictive practices and so on convey this message for all to see. For any Marxist not to grasp this patent fact is a sorry commentary not only on his Marxism but also on his grasp over facts. A few words have to be said at this stage regarding imperialism and its economic presence in the country after independence. There are any amount of statistics to prove the contention that the capital assets of private foreign capital have increased enormously in value, taken from the angle of absolute growth. And while the UK retains its leading position, it has the US and now West Germany as its competitors. The foreign collaboration agreements, tending to increase dependence on imperialist technology, have also greatly multiplied as compared to the position in pre- independence time. The annual drain in the form of repatriated profits, fees and royalties has also been on the increase and represents a running sore. What is of far greater importance is the enormous expansion and qualitatively different nature of the export of state monopoly capital with the USA in the lead by a huge margin. This has not only led to the present serious debt repayment problems but has created a whole psychology of dependence as brought into prominent relief by the budgetary role played by the PL-480 counterpart funds. Of course the more glaring and disastrous manifestation of this psychology of dependence was the decision to devalue the rupee, not so much on grounds of economic expediency as such but because the expectation was that this would make the imperialists far more generous, especially the US imperialists, since they were insistent about devaluation. The context of the decision, it will be recalled, was provided by the extraordinary performance of Asoka Mehta in the USA on the very eve of the decision. He not only made the utterly obscene speech about the opening womb of India but called upon the hardheaded businessmen from Wall Street to learn the virtues of backseat driving- a more open call to give India some kind of neocolonialist regime could scarcely have been made.
In relative terms however whatever aspect of the matter we consider the position of the imperialists has weakened in the realm of national economy, to say nothing of political sphere, compared to what it was in the first years after independence. It might appear rather ridiculous to have to make this point were it not for the fact that this has become a matter of contention in the Marxist circles and communist movement. While some would state that the present Indian state is a semi- colonial state, some others of the same movement argue that though India did achieve independence in 1947, the economy has become increasingly dependent, year by year, on the imperialists. This is because, according to them, i.e. the CPM, the Indian 80 Perspective of Indian Revolution
state is led by and dominated by the monopolists who are collaborating with the imperialists. The Indian state therefore is led by the collaborationists and the economy is being led by them to increasing dependence. Neither of these two sections of the communist movement would care to explain how this is so when the relative position of the imperialists has weakened in the present period. While private imperialist capital investment has gone up in absolute terms, its relative position vis-a-vis both indigenous private as well as state capitalism has sharply declined. Again, while the foreign trade of India is still mainly with the imperialist countries, the share of the socialist and newly-independent states has gone up considerably over the past two decades. Besides the very development of the economic base of India makes country far less vulnerable to imperialist pressure than it would have been say some 20 years ago. The pressure exerted by the export of state monopoly capital, especially in the form of PL-480 food shipments, is the most ominous and this has intensified over the years. Even in this sphere India's position is far better than it was some two decades ago, especially with the vast increase in aid from the socialist states and the general development of the national economy. The danger of neocolonialist subversion cannot be fought by drawing a panicky picture of the extent to which imperialism still has powerful positions in our national economy. The danger has to be accurately visualised and properly pinpointed. And it has to be stressed that, considering both the world as well as Indian developments in the past two decades, there is absolutely no objective reason for any kind of capitulatory or weak-kneed attitude to the imperialists. The danger of neocolonialist subversion or takeover of the Indian economy and state is very real. But this implies that the Indian state and economy today are neither semi- colonial nor neocolonial. It also implies that such a takeover is not inevitable. A danger can be defeated but what is inevitable cannot be warded off! The danger is not that India will be converted into a Taiwan or a Ghana after the downfall of Nkrumah. To guard against such a development would be to miss the real danger and to fail to understand the concrete dialectics of the neocolonialist strategy vis-a-vis India. As far as our country is concerned the neocolonialist strategy is to promote a kind of collaborationist capitalism, build a dependent capitalism in alliance with Indian monopoly capitalists. And to push this kind of development through would mean a drastic weakening of the economic relations with the socialist states, a restriction of the position and growth of the public sector, reduction of the plan to a formality and greater reliance on the so- called free play of market forces, reliance on the landlord-capitalist to carry through the so- called 'green revolution' in the countryside. Quite obviously this would require the dismantling of the, present parliamentary democratic superstructure and its replacement by an authoritarian state. Recent developments have only underlined how real such a danger is- and that there is a very real chance of defeating this danger.
The changes in the Indian countryside have been considerable and complex. Nevertheless the main trends are now fairly clear. The redistribution of land, in terms of the implementation of the slogan "Land to the tiller!", to the landless and the land-poor has not taken place except on a limited scale in the very recent period (and this through the struggle of the peasants as well as agricultural labourers leading to actual forcible occupation of wasteland). The concentration of the ownership of the land is still very high and the inequality of ownership really formidable, with the vast bulk of the rural population practically deprived of the main means of production. The democratic transformation of production relations in the Indian, countryside has yet to take place. Additionally usurious money-lending is still the main form 'of credit, the source being the traditional moneylender as well as the 'agriculturist', i.e. the landlord-moneylender. The bulk of
commodity exchange (vastly increased in the post- independence period so much so that rice and wheat have become some of the principal commercial crops) is controlled by the mill owner, the landlord and the wholesale trader, often the same person but always linked closely. The persistence of semi- feudal relations of production is undoubted and it is this that gives meaning to the formulation that the stage of democratic revolution is not yet over in our country. The material equipment of the overwhelming bulk of Indian agriculture continues to be primitive and meagre, though in certain areas there has been a fair amount of development in recent times—a combination of improved seed, fertiliser, water supply and mechanisation. It would be totally unrealistic and subjective to ignore this aspect of the situation in Indian agriculture. Nevertheless transformations have been taking place in the Indian countryside in the period since independence. And the clear direction of development is the growth of capitalist relations of production. While it is true that the growth of commodity production by itself does not necessarily lead to the growth of capitalist relations of production, there is a certain point after which quantity turns into quality in this sphere as well. It is not only a question of land having become a commodity on a scale unprecedented not only in Indian history but for any society where semi- feudal relations of production persist. Nor is it only a matter of a tremendous increase in production for the market. It is above all a question of a change in the form of the extraction of surplus from the labourers, the working peasant's included. Exploitation in the form of tenancy continues, so does a particular type of labour rent and rent-in-kind. But this is by no means the only kind of exploitation that now prevails in the Indian countryside. There are two types of capitalist development taking place and at an accelerated pace in the recent period. It will be remembered that Lenin had distinguished between two kinds of capitalist development in agriculture. One is along the junker path, the painful and the reactionary path of the transformation of feudal and semi- feudal landlordism into capitalist landlordism. This is not only a slow way of development, leaving intact many vestiges of feudalism but also presents a grave menace to the development of productive forces, especially an enlightened and democratic working peasant. The other is along the American way of development, i.e. through a measure of agrarian reform and the rise of capitalist elements from among the petty commodity producers. This is not only a speedier but a more democratic way of development, the best possible way in conditions of the breakthrough from feudalism and semi- feudalism to capitalism, when there is no question of the capitalist alternative. In India we have had a combination of both types of capitalist development and the result is that we have both feudal and semi- feudal landlords who have transformed themselves into capitalist landlords as well as a stratum of rich peasants who have emerged from the better-oft' sections of the protected tenants and the petty commodity producers in general. There is quite an amount of empirical evidence pointing to this conclusion as well as the evidence of those who have been working for many years on the peasant front.
But some peculiarities of the development of capitalist relations in Indian agriculture have to be noted. There has been no major redistribution of land in favour of the actual cultivators, in particular the toiling and poor peasants. But some land has passed from the hands of the landlord class to the rich peasants. The capitalist landlords have of course evicted peasants who were tenants on an extensive scale in the first decade after independence. Some have 'come back' on the basis of oral leases and the like. There has been in some areas an increase in share-cropping as an 'alternative' to the previous tenancy based on cash rent. But most of the land under rich peasant cultivation has come from the landlords who had previously given it on lease— compensation having been paid on the basis of capitalised rent. There has been in the very recent days some amount of leasing of land by the rich peasants, and even some capitalist landlords, from the poor peasants who have not been able to maintain themselves even at subsistence level on their miserable plots and who have a somewhat better chance of survival as agricultural labourer or by migrating to the towns and construction sites. Extortion has of course accompanied this kind of distress sale. But there is another phenomenon to be noticed here. In many areas the poor peasants and middle peasants have sold their relatively small plots of wet land and bought much larger plots of dry land (or land where irrigation is expected soon) and then used their superior skill as compared to the local cultivators to transform their new plots and themselves into a new type of entrepreneurial capitalist in agriculture or a rich peasant. In some parts of the country, especially in the previously dense forest areas or in the foothills of the northern areas, enterprising farmers from other regions as well as ex-servicemen or a certain kind of educated semi-urban dwellers have brought fresh land under cultivation on which they not only produce crops but also capitalism! Another fact, noted by many scholars who have engaged in what are called farm management studies, is that in Indian conditions (and it would seem in Japan as well) a small unit of production (of course above a certain level) is not necessarily disadvantageous. As far as productivity per unit of land or labour, or relative capital investment is concerned, the advantage has not gone to the owners of large holdings. The smaller landholders have more than held their own in these respects. Finally it has to be noted that the capitalist development of agriculture in India, as in other spheres, takes place at a rather slow pace and in conditions where there is some amount of democratic consciousness among the middle and poor peasants and some amount of organised peasants as well, though very much less than what is desirable or possible. In these conditions, while eviction and deprivation of land through the process of differentiation has taken place and continues to take place, it is not on the scale that was witnessed in the period of capitalist development in Europe in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The cumulative result of the impact of all these factors is that in India since independence we have the persistence of a very large section of middle peasants, of petty commodity producers who produce for exchange but without generating sufficient surplus for extended reproduction on a significant scale. There has not been that kind of polarisation produced in the Indian village which a classical type of capitalist development would have resulted in. This naturally has very important consequences for .the development of the revolutionary movement in India. An interesting development in the recent period is the direct penetration of the industrial monopoly houses, including imperialist concerns, into agriculture. Seed-farms, orchards, vegetable farms, grape gardens, etc. have been the main forms of this penetration up to now. But it is clear from the various proposals being made by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry that there are plans to go further in this direction. Credit and market mechanisms are also partially controlled by the monopolists (at least until the 14 major banks were nationalised) but not wholly, of course. Efforts have been made and will surely continue to be made to build up a durable alliance between the landlords (both of the pre- capitalist and capitalist varieties) and the monopolists, but at the same time there is also increasingly coming into existence an objective basis for a conflict between this alliance and the other elements of capitalism in the rural areas, though points of collaboration also exist. In other words contradictions develop not only between the forces seeking a non- capitalist path of development but also between different forms and types of capitalist development as well.
Some acute analysts who have been observing developments in the rural areas of India for over a decade have come to the conclusion that a kind of industrial revolution is also taking place in the countryside. This would seem to be an exaggeration but not totally wrong. Agro- industries have begun to spring up on a large scale. Even more important is a very significant growth of what are usually termed subsidiary occupations such as the growing of vegetables, poultry farming and 'dairy farming. What we have here is an important increase in the pace and scope of the further division of labour and the greater connection, on the basis of diversified production as well as increase in consumption, between the rural areas and the urban market. Of course the reverse process is also taking place with the increase in the consumption in the rural areas of articles produced in the towns—not only commodities like cigarettes, soap, matches and cloth but relatively more durable items like cycles, torches, transistors and watches. The urban-village continuum, on the basis of the growth of capitalist relations of production and the market, is developing and consolidating, getting knotted together in the increase of small towns as well as of transport facilities. This again is of extraordinarily great significance for the perspectives of the Indian revolution. There- are some other aspects of this continuum which need to be briefly mentioned. One is the spread of primary and secondary education to the village, with students drawn not only from the upper strata but also from the middle peasants and even from the poor peasants and agricultural labourers. It is a process whose importance should not be underestimated and whose significance is the strengthening of the trend towards the 'urbanisation' of the Indian village. But this is not the only impact of education and its spread. The number of students going from the villages to the towns and large cities for the collegiate level of education has shown a qualitative increase in the post- independence years, much more so if we include those who go in for higher school education. It is quite true that the educational opportunities available, especially for the toiling and poor sections of our society are hopelessly inadequate. But at the same time it would be absurd not to notice the great increase that has taken place and the sociological consequences of this not only for the student body as a whole but also for the rural areas from where many of these students now come. Being somewhat of misfits in the urban areas, these first generation students add to the social tensions there, having initially a large Luddite element in their psychological makeup. But these students also bring back a good deal of the town when they return to their village homes, disturbing the atmosphere of "rural idiocy". Another aspect, but at the level of the poorer toilers, of this spreading and strengthening continuum is the migrant worker— on the dam sites, on the industrial projects, on the urban housing sites, on the cycle rickshaw or on the railway platform as porters —who leaves his family in the village and returns frequently to it. This unskilled and semiskilled partial-worker-partial-peasant has also grown quite enormously in numbers. He more than takes the place of the original industrial worker, including plantation labourer, who also had his one foot in the village but who now tends to be drawn more from the urban area itself. He also quickens life in the village and drags it increasingly in the direction of the capitalist town and all its modern contradictions.
Still another aspect, whose significance is often misunderstood, is the increasing participation of the rural areas in the parliamentary democratic political processes. It is of course of great transformatory significance that the peasant, including the so called lower strata, gets to know that there is such a thing as his right to vote—not only for the panchayat but also for the assembly and even parliament. It should not be forgotten that while adult franchise is not at all the means by which the toiling peasant or any other section of the toiling people for that matter will secure his social and economic emancipation, it is at the same time an important democratic right. It was and is an important component of the programme of the democratic revolution in all countries. It is precisely for this reason that the entrenched vested interests 'do all in their power to negate the power of this democratic right. They not only resort to outright violence and terror; they not only use bribery on a vast scale, they also bring into play all their social power and utilise all the pervasive influence of the pre- capitalist ideologies such as caste, religion and the like. It has been correctly noted by Jayaprakash Narayan that the largest political party in the country is caste. It is also true that caste feelings and alliances have come much more to the forefront than in the past. One could even term this the 'modernisation' of the caste system and caste psychology! But it would be quite wrong to treat this as evidence that the hold of caste has therefore increased as compared to the past. As a matter of fact that the very use of caste in the political process tends over a period to loosen caste affiliations and lessen their value since the various contending political forces all harp on the same theme and try to pull the same strings. Still more important than all this however is the fact that the representatives of village power (representatives of the different and even conflicting components of this power) have reached the very pinnacles of the total power structure, especially in the different states, but also at the centre though to a lesser extent. The impact of this on the different political parties as also on the state and union governments has at least received some attention. What has received far less notice and been undeservedly neglected is the impact that this process has had and continues to have on the Indian village. The Indian village is no longer unaffected or indifferent to "the storm clouds in the political sky". It is part and parcel of these convulsions, increasingly acting as the subject of historical processes. What of conflict within the village? It certainly exists. There is no truth whatsoever in the stupid idyll of village peace and rural harmony. There was nothing like this in the past and not in the present, most certainly. But what exactly is the specific configuration of the class struggle in the Indian village? The central shaping factor is still the near-monopoly ownership of the main means of production, i.e. the land. The democratic transformation of the Indian villages, without which the transition, to socialism cannot be embarked upon, cannot be accomplished without smashing this monopoly. At the same time it is not only the feudal and semi- feudal elements who are the monopolists in the Indian village. The capitalist landlords are also a part of this dreadful deadweight, despite the fact that their exploitation of the land and the labourer is of the new, capitalist type in the main. It is against this force too that the democratic revolution in the Indian countryside has to proceed and is proceeding. This means that the democratic agrarian revolution in India, one of the most important component parts of the entire national-democratic revolution yet to be accomplished, has an anti- capitalist aspect to it. This is one of the most important reasons why it is not a democratic revolution of the old type, confined to anti- feudal tasks alone and not transgressing the bourgeois framework. This is also one of the most important reasons why the Indian bourgeoisie, i.e. its non monopoly stratum, cannot be the leading force in the revolution to complete the unfinished national-democratic tasks. This means further that in the village the basic forces of the democratic revolution will be the non- capitalist toiling peasant, i.e. the agricultural labourer, the poor peasant and the middle peasant. Unless therefore the political weight, initiative, energy, action and organisation of these forces are enormously increased, there is no hope of accomplishing the democratic revolution. And it is these forces too that have to unite and go forward to socialism. Thus the mobilisation of these basic forces of the 'democratic agrarian revolution in India is at the same time the mobilisation of those forces in the rural areas who will push our country on to socialism.
But there can be no skipping of stages. The mobilisation of these forces is not for an all-out onslaught on all the capitalist elements in the countryside nor for the abolition of all capitalist agrarian production relations. The mobilisation is for the implementation of a democratic programme, for the completion of the democratic revolution. Further the basic forces of the revolution are not the totality of the forces which can be united with or neutralised for the ending of all forms of landlordism. The rich peasant, that other representative of capitalism in the Indian countryside, that representative also of the other way of capitalist .development in the countryside, is a potential ally of the basic forces of the revolution. And this stratum constitutes a formidable and extremely widespread force. Moreover, because of the very character of the present stage of the Indian revolution, its influence is not restricted to itself. It has very considerable influence on the middle peasant, still more extensive in size though not in power, who desires the end of landlord monopoly of the land precisely in order to jump up the social ladder and become a rich peasant. It is true that the middle peasant is in favour of ending one form of private property and the most powerful form at that. But at the same time it cannot be forgotten that he is in favour of such abolition precisely in order to consolidate and develop the petty form of property. It may of course be asked, as to how one can regard the rich peasant as a potential ally, as also one of the participatory forces in the present Indian democratic revolution? The objective basis is provided by the two ways of capitalist development and the consequent differing attitudes to the problem of production as the engine for profit and the consequent approaches to the expansion of the market. Further the rich peasant emerged, essentially from the diminution of the scope of the feudal mode of production and the power of the landlords. Even 'transformed' landlords, though having greater links with the rich peasants, exercise power in the village in a manner which aspires to be monopolistic and exclusive. Nor is this a matter of political power alone but of access to credit, to benefits from expenditure by the state, to control of the market. The rich peasant, though to a considerably lesser extent than the other cultivating peasants, also suffers from the extra- economic coercion of the landlords, manifested in the latter's continuing control of the main means of production and important factors of production. The rich peasant has a share in this control since as a stratum it too is a participant in the state-power of contemporary India but it is a share which has constantly to be struggled for. With the edge of the democratic revolution being directed against the landlords, the objective contradiction between them and the rich peasant can become the subjective force of the latter's neutralisation or even coming over to the front of the democratic revolution. The important possibility and conclusion emerges that as the basic forces of the agrarian democratic revolution are mobilised and pursue a policy of discrimination, of uniting all who can be united with, and as these forces sweep forward in struggle of increasing scope and tempo, they will not encounter an evermore monolithic ruling bloc, but on the contrary they will be able to bring about splits in this bloc. While the advance of the forces of the Indian revolution will, as Marx taught long ago, organise the forces of Indian counterrevolution, this advance will also win for it new allies or at least reduce the social base and alliance of its target. As we shall see this formulation applies not only to the perspective of the agrarian democratic revolution but also to that of the Indian national-democratic revolution as a whole.
A word has to be said here about the perspective of the non-capitalist path of development for Indian agriculture. An amount of misunderstanding has been created around this term. It is quite clear that the mere breakup of the landlords' monopoly of the ownership of land and the mere distribution of land to the tiller does not signify that a non- capitalist transformation of Indian agriculture has taken place or commenced. As we know, and as Lenin stressed repeatedly, all such a step does is to clear the way for the most rapid possible development of the capitalist relations of production, on the basis of the clearing of the chief obstacles to the fullest development of commodity production and the acceleration of the differentiation among the petty commodity producers. At the same time it cannot bet stressed too much that without this kind of radical democratic structural change there can be no question of even starting on the non- capitalist path. This is the sine qua non of the non- capitalist path. Further it is quite obvious that the democratic agrarian revolution is not and will not be a thing-in-itself. It will be a component, and a most important component at that, of the national-democratic revolution as a whole. And this is a democratic revolution of a new type, taking place in an epoch when the world socialist system is increasingly determining the main trends of world social development, where the leadership of the revolution will be in the hands of all consistently anti-imperialist, anti- feudal and democratic elements. Therefore the distribution of land to the tiller and the development of petty commodity production need not and will not lead on to the full scale and rapid growth of capitalist relations of production. It will be led on the basis of intense struggle and fresh differentiation in the direction of the development of cooperative forms of distribution, marketing and production (in different forms again and at different levels). It will be led also in the direction of the restriction of the unbridled growth of capitalism by not only the struggle of the agricultural labourers and poor peasants but also the credit, pricing and supply of inputs policy of the state. At the same time the rich peasant will benefit not only from the removal of the incubus of landlordism, the growth of the market and removal of monopoly domination of the credit institutions as well as the commodity exchange system. He will benefit also from the general emancipation of the productive forces of society. The policy of struggle against and unity with the rich peasant is precisely the struggle between and unity of the elements of the future socialist transformation of India and the elements of the 'revolutionary way' of capitalist development at this particular historical conjuncture of the national-democratic stage of the Indian revolution. And the non- capitalist path of development in the Indian context is precisely the path of such unity and struggle not only in the rural areas hut taking the entire ensemble of the production relations in our country. Going on from the survey of the perspectives of the Indian revolution in the countryside, we would like to touch upon some other crucial aspects of the problem.
One of the most important of these aspects is the uneven development, economically, politically and socially, of the different areas and regions of the country. Indian developments of the past cannot be understood if we do not constantly keep in mind the continental scale of our country. Nor is this a matter of mere spatial dimensions. It is a specific and most significant peculiarity of Indian development that this uneven development is also manifested in the uneven development of the different nationalities that inhabit and make up the entity, the evolving entity, which is our country. Moreover the uneven development of the different nationalities of India has led to conflict between different nationalities due to this very difference in the level of development. It has also led to a drive on the part of the different nationalities to attain equality, to achieve expression of their identity and even to outstrip other nationalities. At the same time all these developments of the nationalities in our country do not encounter the oppression of a particular 'ruling' or 'dominant' nationality. The competition is by and large a competition of equals despite the unevenness of development. Moreover the formation of nationalities has not been completed though the Indian Union has already come into being, not only as a juridical entity but as part and parcel of the spiritual makeup and consciousness of all Indians, no matter the nationality to which they may belong. It is a particular moment of equilibrium in the development both of the various Indian nationalities as well as of the larger entity of the Indian Union. Both are evolving at the same time but with uneven tempos, creating highly complex problems for those who are working for the advance of the Indian revolution. An interesting feature of this incomplete nationality formation is the struggle of different regions within a nationality as well as the tragedy of the division of some developed nationalities at the time of the transfer of power. If we take a long view of the mainstream of Indian history, there is no doubt that many of the areas which form the sovereign state of Pakistan are a part of this mainstream. We are not for a moment questioning; the validity and reality of the-existence of Pakistan. It is as valid and real as that of the Indian Union itself. What we are pointing to is the complicated nature of historical development in our country and the tragedy of partition which is the result of this complexity and which has added to it as well. Yet another element of complexity is the level of development of the vast Hindi-knowing region and the state of its cohesion —will it develop in the direction of a single Hindi nationality or will several nationalities emerge? In a different way and on quite a different level, we have the problem of the tribal areas which are in ferment as never before. What is the likely perspective of their development? Would they get integrated into the nationalities in their proximity or emerge as nationalities in their own right? Or would it be a mixture of both? It is rather hazardous to attempt even a general answer, but then not all hazardous tasks are to be avoided. The likely line of development is the ever-more integrated emergence of India as a distinct entity, on the basis of evermore integrated nationalities whose number is likely to increase. The development of the different nationalities of our country will coincide with and give full body to the development of India itself, mutually conditioning and reinforcing each other. And this development will proceed, we must remember, in the context of the national-democratic revolution, through which the transition to socialism will be made. There is thus likely to be a closer connection between the two phases of very specific development of the Indian nationalities—the two phases about which Lenin wrote in his celebrated controversy with Rosa Luxemburg and later Bukharin. And because of this closer interconnection the unity of the working people of the various nationalities will be easier to accomplish. At the same time, because of the objective existence and a certain dovetailing of these two phases, the task of building the unity of the toiling people will encounter objective obstacles and call for greater skill and tact and flexibility. Nevertheless the most likely (and the most favourable from the angle of the interests of the toiling people) result of all these developments will be the self- determination of the Indian nationalities within the framework of the Indian Union. Secession is not likely to be the form self- determination and is certainly not the form which would most suit the interests of the toilers of India. Another significant aspect is the nature of the power system in India which is of the greatest consequence for the perspective of the Indian revolution. It is an undoubted fact that the main form of power, whether it be armed power or political decision-making or the levers of the economy, is concentrated at the centre. Neither the unevenness of development taking the country as a whole nor the emergence of the powerful state leaders can obviate this fact. It is this central citadel of power that the forces of the Indian revolution will have to storm. It is this central citadel of power, developments in which exert powerful influence on the developments in the different units of the Indian Union. Overlooking this fact and stressing only the uneven nature of the Indian economic and political developments, stressing only the dispersal of the elements of power can lead to (and has led to) dangerous adventurist actions which can and have led to serious setbacks for the Indian revolutionary forces.
At the same time only seeing the concentration of power at the centre and completely belittling the power residing in the different states, going so far as to call them glorified municipalities, would not be a mistake in analysis only but also lead to misdirecting the course of the Indian revolution. Power is both concentrated and dispersed in India. In terms of the constitution, as well as in terms of reality, the centre can simply override the states—but only with the concurrence of the majority of the states and on the basis of a certain measure of consensus. Again, both in terms of the constitution as well as in terms of reality, the states can bend the centre to their will—but only on the basis of a consensus achieved among a number of states or in the context of a divided centre. To put it somewhat melodramatically, there is for example such a thing as the Congress high command and at the same time there are such things as Congress state bosses (the same is true of many other parties as have an all-India character). There is both a dispersal and interdependence of state-power in India, both a concentration of power at the centre and considerable residual and constitutive power in the states. If the main levers of power are at the centre, considerable footholds of power are to be found in the states. Further just as the composition of the dispersed units of power is very far from homogeneous—it is no accident that the character of the ministries in the different states varies so much- so is the nature of the central power not homogeneous. The nature of the heterogeneity in both cases is the result of specific balance and moving equilibrium of class forces. It is of course true that the Indian capitalist class as a whole is in power and the Indian state is an executive committee of this class. But this also is not homogeneous. It has a monopoly as well as a non monopoly stratum. It has urban as well as rural components, which have not solidified into one mass. Its divisions also run along the lines of the emergence of the various nationalities. In different areas, according to the level of capitalist development as well as the type of capitalist development, it has links with the landlord class but in widely varying degree. The influence of the monopolists also varies from state to state. As a result of this heterogeneity the development of the revolutionary movement, its victories in one or more states, its running state governments combined with the continued development of sweeping mass movements and struggle (including different kinds of all-India actions) can lead to polarisation within the class as well as within the state-power of this class. And here we come to another extremely important point concerning the nature of Indian state-power vis-a-vis national-democratic revolution. There need be no doubt that the national-democratic revolution will have to smash the present capitalist state and establish a new, revolutionary national-democratic state. The smashing of the old state has of course to be understood in the sense in which Lenin put it in his State and Revolution and Can the Bolsheviks Retain State Power? The smashing is of the coercive apparatus, of the bureaucratic administration and of the entire hierarchical structure. It does not refer to the elements of accounting and management of the national economy which has to be taken over by the new class or classes which have taken power. What exactly is to be put in place of the old, smashed state-power, i.e. form of the new state-power, cannot be laid down in advance in any detail. Only general guidelines can be provided, for it is the masses in revolutionary action who often enough create and set up their own, new organs of state-power- as happened in the case of the Soviets in the 1905 and October 1917 revolutions. These fundamental regularities of revolution will undoubtedly be found in operation as the Indian masses surge forward to complete the second stage of the Indian revolution.
There is however likely to be a new feature, a novel element. This is the fact that the non monopoly stratum of the Indian bourgeoisie is part of the present ruling class, part of the present Indian state.
But this stratum of the Indian capitalist class is also a component of the national-democratic forces and front which seeks to overthrow the present state-power and replace it by the national-democratic state. This is an unprecedented situation. In the people's democratic revolutions of China and Eastern Europe it is true that a section of the bourgeoisie did form a part of the people's democratic front and of the people's democratic dictatorship. But, at least in the case of China, it is quite explicitly stated that this section of the bourgeoisie never held state-power, was not a part of that ruling class which was removed from power by the victorious people's democratic-revolution. Thus, though the class composition of the Indian national-democratic front and of the people's democratic front in China and Eastern Europe is the same, this vital difference will be of great importance for the specific dialectics of the Indian revolution, for the specific manner in which the old state-power is smashed and replaced by a new one. It is in the context of the particular combination of centralised, as well as dispersed, elements of state-power, of the objective possibility of the split in the ruling class, that one has to attempt to map out the general contours of the strategy of the Indian revolution, not in the sense of the general disposition of the class forces but in the sense of the likely line of attack of these forces. The likely perspective is the establishment of focuses of power in the states coinciding with the polarisation of the ruling class at the centre, together with the rising tempo of mass revolutionary movements and struggles, leading on to the establishment of the national-democratic front at both governmental and nongovernmental levels and the establishment of a national-democratic state. It is here that one has to emphasise the importance of all the three elements of the line of attack of the national-democratic forces. The action of the masses (the forms of which we shall discuss a little later) is of course of supreme importance, Unless the masses—the workers, the peasants and the urban middle strata—are able to intervene on the issues of national importance and are in a state of constant mobilisation so as to be able to intervene on the issue of power itself, there is no hope for the advance of the national-democratic revolution, let alone its successful finale.
The second element is that as a result of the advance of the mass movements and struggles and as a result of the skilful and appropriate utilisation of the system of parliamentary democracy, the left and democratic parties and forces including the Congress can form governments in different states. These governments are not the same as municipal corporations. Nor is their only aim the providing of relief to the people, though this is of undoubted importance. Nor is it their only aim to 'agitate the masses', to so function that the masses 'shed their illusions' about the possibility of any significant advance through the utilisation of the parliamentary democratic system and to be in a constant state of confrontation with the central authority. This does not mean that in the states where such left and democratic forces and parties have formed the government there is to be no mass agitation and struggle conducted by the parties that are in the government. This has to be done and without doing this there can be no question of further advance of the national-democratic forces in these states. The problem of combining parliamentary and extra- parliamentary forms of action still remains, though it is shifted on to a new level. Not only for their own partial demands, not only in order to rebuff the machinations of the reactionary forces (including those in the administration), not only in order to combat the instability or sectarianism of different components of the united front governments, must the masses be kept in a state of constant preparedness and on the move. It is of even greater necessity that the masses be mobilised and brought into action for the implementation of the policies and decisions of these governments. Further it is essential to openly tell the masses in these states regarding the limitations not only of the power of state governments but also of the entire framework within which they have to function. It is essential to tell the masses openly that the establishment of such left and democratic state governments is only a partial victory and that the struggle for power lies ahead. It is essential to tell the masses openly that these state governments can in no way substitute for their struggles and movements geared to the strategic aim of winning state-power throughout the country. There is also no doubt that the state governments will on many occasions have to come into conflict with the centre. The whole point is to conflict with the centre on issues that can mobilise not only broadest sections of the democratic forces in the state but throughout the-country. These necessary activities of the state governments will however not exhaust their role. Nor are these the main activities and functions of these governments. The raison d'etre of such governments is to bring about the maximum possible changes in the structure of the economy, state and society. It is precisely the extent to which these state governments proceed in this direction that they will be able to mobilise the masses, raise the level of their consciousness, act as a model and an inspiration for the masses in other states, begin to challenge the centre 'On broad national-democratic issues and help in the process of bringing about a polarisation in the ruling class as well as raising the tempo and widening the scope of the national-democratic mobilisation. These state governments need to attempt to unite their efforts, consult with one another and function effectively in such central organs as the national development council, etc. The democratisation of agrarian relations, of the police, of the administration and of social life in general combined with the greatest possible development of the productive forces of the state will enable these governments to play their due role in the national-democratic revolutionary process. The importance of the third element should not be underestimated either, i.e. the possibility of the polarisation and split in the ruling class. It should be remembered that there is no question here of any kind of 'conspiracy' to divide the Congress, nor is it a matter of getting involved in the factional struggles of the ruling party. The polarisation visualised is based on objective, material factors and developments. It is on the basis of this objective reality that the basic forces of the national-democratic revolution have to intervene. Naturally the effectiveness of this intervention will depend on the strength and organisation of the basic forces of the national-democratic revolution. At the same time it has to be remembered that this strength is also built up on the basis of correct policies and tactics, in the shaping of which an important part is played precisely by the anticipation and utilisation of the polarisation in the ruling class. The polarisation will be more speedily become a reality if the basic forces of the national-democratic revolution are able to unite, project an alternative programme, evolve concrete alternative policies to those being pursued by the ruling class and launch an offensive against the right-reactionary forces so strongly entrenched in the state, the- government and the ruling party.
The developments in the country since 1969 onwards have demonstrated that it is the right-reactionary forces in the ruling Congress party which pursued the strategy of either capturing the party or splitting it. This strategy came against the background of the rising revolt of the increasingly radicalised masses against the capitalist path of development. It came against the background of the all round crisis of this path of development. It came against the background of the steady and qualitative deepening of the general crisis of the entire world capitalist system. It came against the background of the tremendous advance of the world socialist system, especially its vanguard force—the Soviet Union. It came, finally, against the background of the growth of the forces 91
fighting for an orientation directed against imperialism and for social progress in the third world as a whole. It was a combination of what can be termed the permanently operating factors in the Indian situation that played a crucial role in bringing about the particular pattern of polarisation at the centre i.e. the centrists and leftists in the ruling party proving capable of defeating the conspiracy of a powerful section of the right in their own party supported by their brethren outside. It is not the left inside or outside the ruling party which sought to split or capture the ruling party. It was the right which made such an attempt, though unsuccessfully. But this attempt was not a mere subjective wish of some scheming leaders. It was the result of the working of certain objective forces, though the actual turnout of events certainly had a large element of the subjective. There needs to be some brief discussion finally on two other broad themes of the perspectives of the Indian revolution. One is the possible form of the Indian revolution and the other is the question of the leadership of this revolution. AS to the form of the Indian revolution an initial misunderstanding has to be put out of the way. It is certainly not the view of Marx, Engels, Lenin or even Mao that the only possible form of the revolution in any country and at any time has to be that of one or another form of insurrection and armed civil war. Force indeed is the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one. But the midwife 'force' does not need always to take the shape of the barrel of a gun! Revolution—yes! Insurrection and armed civil war—not always yes! This point has been urged at some length in the earlier chapters. What needs to be made clear at the outset however is that the possibility of a peaceful transition in India (and it is a possibility and not inevitability) is not to be confused either with the reformist idea that piecemeal changes and piecemeal advances on their own way will obviate the need for a revolutionary leap or with the revisionist concept that the ballot box will be the main arena of the national-democratic revolutionary struggle. Peaceful transition is a form of revolution and places the main stress on extra- parliamentary mass movements and struggles, on the building of powerful mass organisations and on the need for a revolutionary vanguard, well equipped with the weapon of Marxism-Leninism and wise enough to know how to deal with unexpected twists and turns in the situation. It is also to be borne in mind that peaceful transition in India at any rate is not likely to be free of armed clashes. It is, finally, to be borne in mind that the non- peaceful path of the revolution is an equal possibility in India. While working for the peaceful path one has always to be ready for the other alternative. It is also essential to bear in mind that the prospect of peaceful" development of the Indian revolution in the main depends not only on the fact that the balance of forces on a world scale in the new epoch makes the export of counterrevolution more difficult than it was in the case of the Soviet and Chinese revolutions. This of course is of the very greatest importance. Nor does this prospect depend only on the existence of the parliamentary 'democratic form of the dictatorship of the capitalist class. Of course this is of crucial significance. More important however and of decisive significance is the nature of the system of power discussed above, i.e. the possibility of the establishment of footholds of power by the national-democratic forces even before the storming of the central citadel of power and the possibility of a split in the ruling class, therefore, in the central state-power and the creation of a broad national-democratic front.
Two more points about the possibility of peaceful transition as the form of the Indian revolution. First, in a country where the possibility of peaceful transition exists, failure to attempt to utilise this possibility inevitably results in severe setbacks for the revolutionary forces. The experience of other countries apart, we have our own experience in 1948-50 and the naxalite actions. The possibility of peaceful transition is an objective reality and to ignore it is therefore to go against objective reality and end up in the bog of subjectivism. Not to see in time that this possibility is only one of two equal possibilities leads to subjectivism and equal disaster. Second, the utilisation of the possibility of peaceful transition involves, as we have mentioned, the development of sweeping mass struggles and actions, the building of powerful mass organisations and the coming into being of a revolutionary vanguard party. It is precisely this process that, given a vigilant leadership, will ensure the success of an armed revolution should this become inevitable. And the need to exercise vigilance about the reactionaries forcing an armed civil war cannot be overemphasised; civil war is an equal possibility in India. Now for the final theme of our present discussion, i.e. the leadership of the national-democratic revolution in India. There has been far too much misunderstanding of this problem. The desirability of the leadership of the national-democratic revolution by the working class is not the point at issue as far as the adherents of the Marxist-Leninist theory are concerned. All of them desire that the hegemony of the nation be won by the working class. It is also not in dispute that the national-democratic or rather people's democratic revolutions that are led by the working class solve more profoundly the social problems of the masses, facilitating a swifter transition to socialism. It is, finally, not in dispute that the task of completing the national-democratic revolution cannot be accomplished under the leadership of the non monopoly stratum of the bourgeoisie, because of the dual nature of that class, its proneness to compromise and inherent characteristic to vacillate especially when the mass revolutionary movement sweeps forward at an accelerated tempo. Indeed the national-democratic revolution cannot be completed without ending the hegemony of the capitalist class over the masses of India. The point to consider is whether in the new epoch, in the concrete conditions of India today, working class leadership is indispensable for the victorious conclusion of the national-democratic revolution. The point to consider is whether in these conditions the pattern of the people's democratic revolution in China and in Eastern Europe will be repeated in our country.
In India since independence there has been a fairly considerable growth of the non monopoly stratum of the bourgeoisie in the industrial sphere as well as of the rich peasantry in the rural areas. And the representatives of these two components of the Indian capitalist class have a share in state-power as well as considerable mass following. In other words, these two components of the Indian capitalist class have fairly powerful economic position as well as considerable political influence. They cannot be compared at all to the national bourgeoisie in China or the collaborationist bourgeoisie in Eastern Europe during the foreign fascist occupation. These were far too weak politically and economically to present any kind of challenge to the working class for the leadership of the people's democratic front or the antifascist front. And precisely because of their weakness they were also in no position to attempt to challenge the imperialists or the fascists and to come into open conflict with them on the basis of the organisation of mass struggle and pressure. This section of the bourgeoisie in China or Eastern Europe did have its objective contradiction and conflict with imperialism, feudalism and fascism. But it did not play any oppositional role vis-a-vis these forces till on the very eve of, or even after, the victory of the people's democratic revolution. This is in sharp contrast to the position, policies and history of the non monopoly stratum of the Indian bourgeoisie. Leaving aside the role played by its representatives in the freedom struggle, since independence they have occupied an important place in state-power. Compromise with imperialism, feudalism and monopoly capital and the pursuit of building an independent capitalist India placing the main burden of development on the toiling people have gone hand-in-hand with advance in the direction of building an independent economic base, development of the public sector, developing extensive relations with the socialist camp, curbing of feudalism and restriction of the monopolists. In other words, its dual role has continued after independence. The crisis of the capitalist path of development, the general crisis of the entire post- independence structures burst with the recession of 1965-66 to 1967-68 and the general election of 1967. It is characteristic that with the rising tempo of the mass movement and the victories of the democratic forces, as well as the increasing attempts of the neocolonialists, Indian monopolists, landlords and reactionaries to take over the exclusive leadership and control the Indian state, the representatives of the non monopoly bourgeoisie have started upon a new course. While the right-centre coalition was disrupted (though not finally broken) and though the centre-left coalition did not yet come into being (though partial and small beginnings are already in existence), there is no doubt that the centre, which is the political representative par excellence of the national non-monopoly stratum of the bourgeoisie, struck back at the rightist offensive, checked the drift to the right and moved partially to the left. This resulted in the split in the ruling party, though this split does not represent the completion of the polarisation process. While the overwhelming majority of those who grouped around the Syndicate were rightists and while all the left in the Congress stayed with the ruling Congress, the latter was dominated by the centre and the right-reactionaries were also present in key positions. Only the further advance of the left and democratic forces can push the polarisation process further. Nevertheless it would have been the height of political folly not to recognise that a turning point had been reached in the political development of post- independence India, that the confrontation between the forces of national-democracy and those of neocolonialism and right-reaction was moving towards a climax and that brilliant prospects were opening out for the unity and swift growth of all the national-democratic forces. Any sectarianism at this stage, any insistence that only when the hegemony of the working class (i.e. the leadership of the communists) is accepted can the united front be built would have been extreme political shortsightedness and betray the very cause of establishing proletarian hegemony. Unfortunately not all the forces of left, not all sections of the communist movement, were free of this deep-rooted sectarian disease. The process just described went on at an accelerated pace, despite the attempt that was made in 1972 to once again bring about a reconciliation on the basis of a combination of concessions by the centre to the right and the attempt to compel the latter to accept the leadership of the former. All that this attempt accomplished was the halting of the process of radicalisation that had begun so well with the nationalisation of the 14 major scheduled banks in 1969 and to the re- activisation of the right at a higher level and in a more dangerous form. J The massive electoral victories of 1971 and 1972 did not bring the expected stability despite the olive branch preferred to the right. Internal reaction and the neocolonialists obviously could not reconcile themselves to accepting the leadership and domination of the centre. This was all the more so because it was a centre which was increasingly adopting firmer anti-imperialist positions and moving to consistently and qualitatively strengthen friendship and alliance with the Soviet Union. In other words, it was a centre that, according to the neocolonialists and internal reaction, was moving to the wrong side of the dividing line in the central contradiction of our epoch, i.e. the contradiction between imperialism and the world socialist system.
This found striking expression in the events centred around the national-liberation struggle of Bangladesh. There can be no doubt that India played a glorious role in relation to this struggle. There can equally be no doubt that India could never have played such a role if the rightist challenge had not been rebuffed in 1969-71 in which not only the left represented by the CPI but the patriotic and progressive forces headed by prime minister Indira Gandhi and the CPI had not done what they did in 1969-71. Right-reaction would have been installed in power and such a government would certainly not have come forward to aid the national-liberation struggle of Bangladesh. At the same time, as has been repeatedly and generously acknowledged by Indira Gandhi and other leaders of the ruling party, India could play the glorious role that it did because of the Indo-Soviet treaty that was signed on 9 August 1971. This was no mere formality. It represented not merely the qualitative raising of Indo-Soviet friendship. It was the coming together of the most powerful and vanguard state of the world socialist community and the most advanced and populous country of the national-liberation zone at the level of alliance. It was these two forces together that came to the help of the liberation struggle of Bangladesh. It was only to be expected that the neocolonialists and internal reaction would launch a counterattack. Their counterattack was considerably facilitated by the fact that the failure to implement the mandate of the elections of 1971 and 1972 gave rise to mounting mass discontent particularly because of stagnation in production and a big spurt of prices by as much as 20 per cent and above in a single year. The first counterattack was the agitation launched in the last quarter of 1972 for the breakup of Andhra Pradesh. Seemingly confined to one state it was actually an attempt to begin the process of the fragmentation and dismemberment of our country. It is no accident that in addition to landlord-support in Andhra Pradesh all-India reaction rallied in its favour. The Jana Sangh, for example, coming out with a plan for some fifty or more states. Neocolonialist forces had already threatened that a hundred Bangladeshes would be created in India. The struggle went on for many months leading to the suspension of the Andhra Pradesh legislative assembly in which the Congress enjoyed an overwhelming majority. For some time the administration was virtually paralysed. It stands to the credit of the working class, rural poor and their vanguard the CPI, that they stood firm and valiantly fought back the separatist offensive. Many Congress leaders and congressmen also rallied and eventually the prime minister advanced a formula on the basis of which the unity of the state was preserved. Without the firm, principled and independent stand of the CPI and the toiling people it could rally, the separatists would clearly have swept ahead. But without the prime minister—who was made the target of the most vulgar and vicious attack—and the Congress party also eventually coming out against separatism this particular rightist attack could not have been defeated. Following the successful pulling down of the Gujarat assembly as a result of the somewhat mixed and complex ‘navanirman’ agitation and the failure to secure a legislative majority through the elections in Uttar Pradesh and Orissa, the neocolonialists and internal reaction launched upon their biggest bid for power under the leadership of Jayaprakash Narayan and his slogan of 'total revolution' in the early part of 1973. While the scale of operations was countrywide, the chief arena of battle was Bihar. A tremendous offensive was let loose with the express intention of creating anarchy and chaos, pulling down the Bihar assembly and then going on to do the same with the Lok Sabha. The big business press and its patrons, the landlords and the CIA masterminds, did all in their power to intimidate, browbeat and terrorise, utilising the discontent of the masses, particularly the students and other sections of the intermediate strata.
Once again the brunt of the attack was first borne by the working class, rural poor and their vanguard, the CPI. These forces not only resisted valiantly but went on the counter-offensive on a mass scale. For quite some months they fought virtually alone, aided of course by the fact that the state power at the centre and in Bihar was not in the hands of the right, though in many places it was sympathetically neutral to their opponents, to say the least. But after a lapse of time the Congress also moved in to mobilise the masses on an extensive scale against the JP movement. The prime minister boldly and forthrightly opposed this crusade. And this attack too was beaten back by the third quarter of 1974. As we shall see later the offensive was again resumed in the middle of 1975. The point, however, that one wants to make at this stage is that the centre's attempts to woo the right, placate it and thus subdue it do not succeed. The genuine left forces not only have to take the initiative in the battle against the right but do so with a unity-oriented approach to the centre. For without centre-left unity the right cannot be defeated. And also because without such defeat the shift to the left cannot be secured. It is not only the non- monopoly national bourgeoisie's particular physiognomy and position that needs to be analysed concretely when we are discussing the problem of the likely leadership of the national-democratic front and national-democratic revolution in India. One has to discuss also the question of the intermediate classes and strata, i.e. those social sections which stand between the national non monopoly bourgeoisie and the urban and rural proletariat. It was a serious mistake of the communist movement in India that the relative independent role and activity of these social sections were underestimated. It is now quite clear that what is somewhat loosely termed the petty-bourgeois or peasant-revolutionary democrats do play an extremely important role in many newly-liberated states. In many of these states, because of the decisive influence of the world socialist system, these revolutionary-democrats play the leading role in placing their states on the non- capitalist path and giving its basic direction a socialist orientation. Of course there is conflict and contradiction in progress along this path as also the possibility of regression. In India, with the far more developed capitalist relations of production and consequently with a far more developed (economically as well as politically) capitalist class and working class, it is not at all likely that the representatives of the petty bourgeoisie and the peasantry will be able to play exactly the same role. It does not at all seem likely that they will be able to play the exclusive leading role. At the same time it would be wrong to draw the conclusion, that they will not play any relative independent role. Inability on their part in the specific situation of India to play the sole leading role should not be equated with inability to play relative independent role. What was the trend of left, militant nationalism has not disappeared with the advent of freedom, it has transformed itself and at a qualitatively higher level is present in the Congress as well as in some of the traditional noncommunist left parties. They are an important element in India's political life with great political influence and a wide mass base. Of course they are an important component of the national-democratic revolutionary forces and without their participation there would be no question of building the national-democratic front. It is however out of the question that they would accept the leadership of the working class, i.e. of its vanguard party, the Communist Party, at this stage of their level of consciousness and the level of the working class movement itself. To insist upon this would be both unrealistic and sectarian. The perspective of the development of these representatives of petty-bourgeois and peasant democracy is in the direction of their increasing attraction towards scientific socialism and the positions of the working class. One has the precedent of the leaders in many African, Asian and Latin-American countries. However this transformation is neither going to be smooth nor swift in India. Indeed it has not been so elsewhere either. United work and patient, tactful ideological struggle will be essential if this process is to be helped forward. Sectarianism is singularly out of place. But so is lack of attention to appropriate criticism and failure to stress the independent role of the working class and its party. It needs to be emphasised at the end, however, that while eschewing all sectarianism on the question of the leadership of the national-democratic front, while adhering to the concept of the collective leadership of this front, that without the working class, the rural proletariat and the toiling peasantry vastly increasing its political weight in the life of the nation, there is absolutely no chance of building the national- democratic front. It is the representatives, of the working class, the rural proletariat and the toiling peasantry who have to take the initiative and play a pioneering role in building this front. Without the working class playing an independent and pioneering, vanguard role the petty-bourgeois mass might well fragment and swamp the revolution or even become the victims of counterrevolutionary ideology and politics. This requires tremendous work but offers most inspiring prospects for any genuine Indian revolutionary. The working class, the rural proletariat and toiling peasants have of course to be organised to wage a defensive battle to ensure that the capitalist class is not able to place all the burdens of development upon their shoulders. They have to be organised (o struggle for a decent standard of life, for a more human condition. But this is only the start of work. The forces have to come on to the stage of history as subjects and not as objects of the historical process. They have to come forward not only as the disinherited but as the inheritors of all that humanity has produced and all that lies ahead of it now not only on earth but in the universe. They have to come forward as the vanguard of all the healthy forces of India. They have to produce, and in a very vital sense, be produced by, their own vanguard political organisation. And this is a realistic prospect. The working class and to a lesser extent the rural proletariat have changed quite considerably in the past two decades. Not only have their numbers swelled but their character has changed. They are better educated, more linked to modern methods of production and more aware of what should be their position. Fatalism, ignorance and the enforcement of stupidity are encountering ever fiercer resistance. Yet a very great deal remains to be done. Exhilarating work lies ahead for those who have a penchant for enlightenment and who feel the injustice rampant in India on their own skins. The Indian revolution today emerges on the basis of and is meant to secure the resolution of the dual development that has taken place in the economy and society of post- independence India. This dual development has had its impact on the outlook of the Indian working man and the preworker, i.e. the student. Radicalism and revivalism coexist and compete and the unity of opposites this psychology represents has to be quickly resolved if the entire future of India is not to be split asunder.
In this process of India's revolutionary development a significant role would be played by the new intelligentsia and by the feedstock of that intelligentsia, the student community. Considering that still about three-fifths of Indians continue to be illiterate neither the number of students nor of those who eventually are employed as some kind of mental labour is very large. But in absolute terms they are to be counted in millions and this figure represents quite a substantial increase since independence. Even more important than these quantitative statistics is the change in the composition of this intelligentsia and its psychological-ideological makeup. No doubt the proportion of 'humanities' students is very considerable as is those who can be called one or another kind of 'clerk'. But, firstly, among the 'humanities' students the percentage of those who are first generation students coming from lower social strata of the towns and villages is probably now more than those who came from the traditionally educated families. Then, again, the prestige of the 'humanities' has gone down in favour, of medicine, engineering and commerce. This is not to say that there has been a sudden increase in careerist outlook among the students. It is absolute nonsense not to realise that for almost everybody who goes to college learning is for earning, as they say. But the kind of earning that is more paying and prestigious and also possible is what is important in this context. Finally, a much larger proportion of the intelligentsia is now 'industrialised'. This does not only apply to those who are directly absorbed into industry as highly-skilled workers, engineers, supervisors, scientific workers or managers but also the vast number of other employees whose occupation, work conditions and the rest bring them quite close to that of the industrial worker. Apart from this, there are now quite a number of scientists and technologists and various types of professionals who do extremely skilled, important and strategic work. These are sometimes referred to derisively as the 'new brahmins'. There is of course a certain arrogance and aloofness about some of them. But there can be no doubt that the majority are not only patriotic and anti-imperialist bull in some, not always flattering, ways not very different from the general run of what is loosely called the middle class or, more accurately, the intermediate strata. Their importance is far greater than their numbers. But what is much more significant is that they are to be counted as among the allies of the working class and the working people in the revolution that is taking shape in our country. The trouble is that so little is really being done to approach them or even know them. When one is discussing the question of the intelligentsia one inevitably has to say something about the Gramscian 'traditional’ and 'organic' categorisation of this stratum. The categorisation is of course relevant, but perhaps not quite as new as some would like to think. It is really as old as the Marx-Engels thesis about the division of mental and manual labour and the point in the Communist Manifesto about the possibility of a section of those of the ruling class coming over to the revolution at a certain critical point of the revolutionary process. It is also to be noted that in his What Is To Be Done? Lenin has some wonderfully perceptive comments to make about how scientific socialist consciousness emerges and is brought to the working class. His post- revolutionary writings on the role of the intelligentsia after the revolution has come to stay are also very important. As a matter of fact, one is of the view that 'organic' intelligentsia does not really scientifically describe those of the working class who become as educated and as proficient in mental work as the intelligentsia. If they continue as workers or act as the ideological-political representatives of the workers, then they continue to belong to that class. And those belonged to the intelligentsia and who go over to the working class also become the representatives of that class quite as much as those who were born in it. Here it is a matter of class-consciousness and affiliation which are objective realities even though not material products. What is important is the reminder from Gramsci that the intelligentsia as such has its limitations even though a left trend can be developed therein. And that to educate and enlighten the working class itself is among the most indispensable, inspiring and challenging of tasks facing the revolutionaries, particularly those of contemporary India. A great test for the understanding of the revolutionary process in our country came with the acceleration in the tempo of counterrevolutionary activity in June 1975. A life-and-death situation came into existence following the Allahabad high court judgement declaring the election of Indira Gandhi as void. Immediately with revived hopes the JP-led crusade came directly to the nation's capital. With a new stridency the call was renewed for the resignation of the prime minister. This time the police and the armed forces were not just told not to obey 'immoral orders'. Now they were told that if they obeyed orders they would be punished. Elaborate plans were made at all kinds of private and semiprivate conclaves to create situation of total breakdown of the administration in the capital along with scarcely veiled threats against the life of the prime minister. It was a significant fact that following the judgement of supreme court judge Krishna Iyer which on any account was more favourable to the prime minister than the Allahabad high court verdict, all the big business papers without exception asked, or rather demanded, that Indira Gandhi should step 'down from prime ministership. Clearly, neocolonialism and internal reaction were moving towards the coup de grace. The CPI and other left and revolutionary forces faced a new and critical challenge not least to their capacity for creative grasp of the specifics of the Indian revolutionary process. There could be no doubt about two basic features of the situation. One, that the forces of neocolonialism and worst internal reaction were trying their utmost to dislodge prime minister Indira Gandhi from power and to take total state-power into their own hands. Second, that prime minister Indira Gandhi's government represented the class interests of the bourgeoisie of India and the dominant section pursued a dual policy of struggle as well as compromise with the imperialists, landlords and monopolists and which often took up anti- working class and anti- working people policies and measures. In any event, its basic policy was not one of building socialism or national-democracy but independent capitalism. In such a situation should the CPI remain neutral? Or should it independently strive to overthrow the Indira Gandhi government, maybe in alliance with some other left parties, but taking advantage of the chaos and anarchy being created by the forces of neocolonialism and worst internal reaction? Or should it even join the latter on the ground that the ruling bourgeoisie was always more dangerous and more the enemy of the working class than the bourgeoisie in opposition? The CPI wisely and courageously rejected all these alternatives. It based itself on a firm Marxist-Leninist analysis of the contending forces. It came to the correct conclusion that it was precisely in the class interests of the working class and favourable to the cause of advancing the national-democratic revolutionary process in our country that the counterrevolutionary attempt to dislodge the Indira Gandhi government should be defeated. It was well aware of the class character of that government. But it was as well aware of the class character of neocolonialism and the worst forces of internal reaction. While towards the former a policy of unity as well as struggle had to be pursued, towards the latter there could only be the approach of uncompromising battle to the finish. It was a life-and-death question for the working class and other revolutionary, patriotic and progressive forces in our country. If the neocolonialists and worst forces of internal reaction triumphed it would not only be the Indira Gandhi government that would be pulled down. It would represent a decisive to crippling defeat for the CPI, for the working class and all other revolutionary, progressive and patriotic forces.
Such has been the experience of the triumph of fascism whether in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s, or Indonesia in 1965 or Chile in 1973. Learning from this experience and basing itself on the generalisation of this experience in the historic antifascist united front line worked out at the 1935 seventh congress of the Communist International, the CPI decided to do all in its power to defeat the forces of counterrevolution and to build the broadest possible unity of all those forces threatened by and opposed to fascist counterrevolution. The CPI was also firmly of the view that the defeat of counterrevolution need not and could not lead merely to the preservation of the status quo. The defeat of counterrevolution was indispensable for the advance of the revolutionary process. But more than that the struggle for the defeat of counterrevolution was simultaneously the struggle for the extension and intensification of the revolutionary process. This was so for the following reasons. First, the struggle against counterrevolution required the unification of all patriotic, progressive and left forces and would help to facilitate the achievement of this unification. Second, the logic of the struggle against counterrevolution was its growing over into the battle for social transformation which would curb and weaken the socioeconomic base of neocolonialism and the worst forces of internal reaction. Third, the battle against counterrevolution would provide opportunity for the consistently revolutionary forces to display their mettle, come forward as unifiers, as initiators and develop their capacity for hegemony. At the same time, the CPI was well aware that all this would not be an automatic process. Because of the class character of the different forces that would inevitably make up the front of battle against counterrevolution, it was1 well aware that within this front there would be struggle and that the building of this front would be a difficult and zigzag process. All the more would this be the case in India given the present balance of forces between the non- monopoly bourgeoisie, the petty-bourgeoisie, peasantry and working class. While cognisant of the 'difficulties, the CPI was optimistic about the outcome. There were two basic scientific grounds lor this optimism. First, the battle in India was not an isolated event. It was an integral part of the international struggle against imperialism, for peace, freedom, democracy and social progress. It was taking place in an epoch whose chief characteristic was the transition on a world scale from capitalism to socialism. It was taking place, moreover, at a time when the world balance of forces had altered qualitatively in favour of the anti-imperialist and progressive forces. This was a time when the world socialist community of which the Soviet Union is the vanguard and most powerful force and the other world anti-imperialist forces have become the decisive force shaping world social development. No doubt the maoist betrayal did 'do tremendous damage but it could not negate nor reverse this process. Should the maoist betrayal get reversed in China then of course this process would receive a new impulse.
The world situation is also characterised by the fact that the 'drawing together of the socialist community, above all the Soviet Union, and the other anti-imperialist forces (including newly-independent states such as ours) is proceeding with great momentum, despite setbacks here and there. The Indo-Soviet treaty of 1971, the Brezhnev visit of 1973 and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's visit to the Soviet Union in 1976 are milestones of our two countries coming closer and closer. The relations between our two countries are no longer based only on the principles of peaceful coexistence. They are more and more taking on the features of an alliance based on an ever-greater unity of objectives and views on international issues and ever-closer economic connections, including production cooperation. Nor is this confined to the Soviet Union. Our country has relations of the same quality with other friendly socialist states. This exercises a significant and beneficial influence not only on developments on a world scale but also internally in the countries concerned. This should not be taken as an example of Soviet 'interference' in the internal affairs of our country or any other. As a matter of fact the impact of this influence is great precisely because there is no interference or any attempt at it. The influence is on entirely different grounds. To use the words of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi the Soviet Union is a true friend because it helps India to be itself! And during her recent visit to Moscow she used the words that she hoped India and the Soviet Union would continue to march together and in step with history. In other words, the influence exists because patriotism exists and this patriotism gets more vigorous expression as an anti-imperialism that inevitably orients towards an alliance with the forces of socialism on a world scale. This does not mean that the patriotic forces would immediately or automatically adopt the same approach to the CPI or other radical forces internally. But certainly the scope for joint action and dialogue is widened and hence also for mutual understanding and appreciation and eventually unity. It has to be emphasised that this is not confined to Indo-Soviet relations, though these are undoubtedly the most significant and crucial. It is no accident that it is in this period too that our country's relations and friendship with, e.g., Cuba and Vietnam have also strengthened. Indeed this is the case with all anti-imperialist radical states and forces. Second, the CPI’s optimism is based on a scientific assessment of the character and logic of the contradictions of contemporary Indian society. AS has been discussed in the earlier pages India's transition to socialism is mediated through the broad class alliance of a national-democratic revolution. The contradiction of the non monopoly bourgeoisie with imperialism, landlordism and the Indian monopolists is an objective reality. All the attempts at compromise and unification cannot wipe out this contradiction. Linked up with this is the equally ineradicable objective reality that the path of independent capitalist development on which the non monopoly bourgeoisie has placed the country cannot solve the problems of national regeneration and development and gets caught up in its own inherent and inextricable crisis. This is the case not only in the economic sphere but politically as well. A veritable national revolt opens up against the capitalist path of development and the non monopoly bourgeoisie is not only compelled to try to adapt to the compulsions of the situation but the objective basis is built up for its dislodgement in positions of hegemony and exclusive rule. Other forces of the national-democratic revolutionary process—the working class, working peasantry and agricultural labourers and toiling sections of the intermediate strata—who are opposed to the capitalist path of development are objectively impelled forward to take their due place in this process. Once again it has to be emphasised that the objective basis only gives the revolutionary forces a historical change. Their advance and victory is not predetermined in any mechanistic sense. History's making depends on their wisdom and their knowledge in the bringing into being of which the vanguard party plays an indispensable role. And the realisation of the historical chance thrown up by the movement of objective reality comes through revolutionary struggle or revolutionising practice. It was this comprehensive understanding that guided the CPI in the turbulent days of the offensive of counterrevolution from 1973 to 1976. It was this understanding that led it to support the declaration of the national emergency on 26 June 1975 and the subsequent 20-point programme announced by the prime minister.
There could be no doubt that the declaration of the emergency did contain dangers and possible negative consequences for the working class and other democratic forces, even of quite a serious nature. The CPI pointed this out from the start, particularly in relation to possible bureaucratic excesses. At the same time the CPI was firmly of the view that without the declaration of emergency catastrophe could not have been averted. Without the declaration of the emergency the counterrevolutionary bid for power on the part of the neocolonialists and the worst forces of internal reaction would have succeeded. India's freedom, democracy and unity would have been dealt a mortal blow. The CPI therefore supported this bold preemptive blow by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. It is significant that the Soviet Union, friendly socialist states including Vietnam and Cuba, progressive anti-imperialist states of the third world also supported the declaration of the emergency. The USA and other imperialist powers bitterly opposed it and cried hoarse about the demise of Indian democracy. Indeed it could be said that support and opposition to the declaration of emergency in India ran along the lines of anti-imperialism and pro- imperialism. It was a commentary on the tragic shortsightedness of the CPM and some other left parties and forces that they found themselves in the company of the pro- imperialists both at home and abroad. The CPI, while supporting the emergency, made a clear-cut class characterisation of it. It stated that the emergency was the use of the capitalist state-power against the most reactionary, anti-Soviet and anticommunist sections of the vested interests. Thus it was not as if the CPI was of the view that the emergency was the use of the state-power by the working class or by revolutionary-democrats. While it Was no doubt a blow by the state against the most rabid enemies of the working class and other democratic forces in our country, it could not ho forgotten for a moment that this state had a very definite class character—it was and remains a capitalist state. This naturally gave its own character, limitations and dangers to the emergency. Nevertheless it has to be emphasised that the neocolonialist, fascist and right-reactionary takeover of the country could not have been prevented without the declaration of the emergency tl At that moment of time in the third week of June 1975 it Would have been impossible to have achieved this by swift mass mobilisation. That would have taken much more time and there was at that moment no time left—the sands had virtually run out. At the same time it has to be emphasised that neither the emergency nor the announcement of the 20-point programme have ensured the rout or the elimination of the neocolonialist and right-reactionary menace to our nation, its democracy and the revolutionary process. This menace has been given 'a sharp blow and, thwarted for the time being. The forces behind it are bound to try to stage a comeback, not necessarily in the same form and manner. It is only to be expected that they would seek to use all the avenues which the inherent limitations of the emergency leave open for them. And they would be able to do so all the more because their socioeconomic base remains largely undamaged, their influence in the state and bureaucratic apparatus as well as in the ruling party. Even more important is the fact that the unity, mobilisation and striking power of the patriotic, progressive and left forces still leave a tremendous lot to be desired. The unity of the Congress, the CPI and other patriotic and progressive parties and forces has yet to achieve that degree of cohesion and that level which would make it an invincible defender of the freedom, democracy and social progress of our country. 102 Perspective of Indian Revolution
The immediate outcome and perspective of the Indian revolutionary process is still in the balance. It is on the anvil of struggle—a struggle in which none of us are spectators but participants and partisans. But it is a struggle requiring not only courage and militancy on the part of all revolutionaries but also tact, capacity to win over others and a scientific vision. And it is a struggle which the revolutionaries of our country can engage in with fully justified historical optimism
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