GANDHIJI AND INDIAN SOCIALISTS KAMALADEVI CHATTOPADHYAY

Gandhiji subscribed from the earliest days of his public career to the principle of social justice and practised it according to his own lights, though he may not have exactly called himself a socialist in the academic sense. By founding the Tolstoy Farm and the building up of a colony on certain stern principles, abjuring private property, striving towards community owner-ship and responsibility, he laid claim “to be one of the early founder-members of the peasants’ and workers’ republic”. This may be challenged by those who claim to be scientific socialists. Gandhiji pointed to his own Ashram and allied institutions run under his guidance under the ruling principle of “To each according to his needs, from each according to his capacity”. The one basic difference lay in their being founded on non-violence. Somebody who once ate in the common kitchen of Talimi Sangh in Sevagram remarked humorously: “Gandhiji calls this (common kitchen) rasoda and it sounds commonplace. The Communists would call it ‘Commune and everybody would be impressed.” Gandhiji was essentially a humanist and to him the substance and quality of the content was of supreme importance, not so much the jargon, though he was meticulously precise in the use of his vocabulary. In his own novel fashion he explains:

Socialism was not born with the discovery of the misuse of capital by capitalists. As I have contended socialism, even communism, is explicit in the first verse of the Isopanishad. What is true is that when some reformers lost faith in the method of conversion, the technique of what is known as scientific socialism was born. I am en-gaged in solving the same problems that face the scientific socialists. It is true however that my approach is through unadulterated non-violence.

All these professions of his were recorded in the thirties. In his inimitable manner he summed it all up in a homely but vivid fashion:

Socialism is a beautiful word, and so far as I am aware, in socialism all the members of the society are equal- nonc low, none high. In the individual body the head is not high because it is the top of the body, nor are the soles of the feet low because they touch the earth. Even as parts of the body are equal, so are the members of society. This is socialism.

Translating them in terms of Indian independence, “the swaraj of my dream” as he picturesquely termed it, “it meant the creation of a state where the necessities of life would be enjoyed by all.” He said:

I have not the slightest doubt that swaraj is not purna swaraj until these amenities are guaranteed to all under it…

On the eve of the Salt Satyagraha, he made a direct reference to vested interests, without mincing words; The greatest obstacle in the path of non-violence is the presence in our midst of the indigenous interests that have sprung up from British rule, the interests of moneyed men, speculators, scrip-holders, landholders, factory-owners and the like. All these do not always realize that they are living on the blood of the masses, and when they do, they become as callous as the British principals whose tools and agents they are. If they could but realize that they must give up their blood-stained gains, the battle is won for non-violence… But non-violence has to be patient with these as with the British principals. The aim of the non-violent worker must ever be to convert.

These utterances may more or less be taken as the bedrock of his faith, the bare essence. In defining individual aspects, however, great variations emerged. This was inevitable. For his was a living, moving, thinking mind, in constant ferment, revo-lution and appraisal. There could be nothing static about his thinking. If that had happened he would have lost his dynam-ism. Drawing attention to this, Ram Manohar Lohia says:

A great man, if he is connected for half a century or more with public life, must have made contradictory statements. Mahatma Gandhi, with his rare insight, made neverthe-less certain conflicting assertions. From his belief that the caste system was a part of religion, he went on to say that it was a sin. From his belief that the sum-total of the British Empire tended to act for good, he went on to say that it was Satanic, and from a certain underlying belief in the sanctity of private property, he went on to demand its confiscation without compensation and termination of land ownership It has, however, to be remembered that though Gandhiji did write voluminously, writing was not a mental exercise for him.

It was only a corollary to action. His life, his way of living, his programme of action to meet a situation or a challenge, those were his true expressions. They were not treatises for mental stimulation. They were inextricably related to what he was engaged in doing and only in that context do they fall into the proper perspective and become meaningful. Gandhiji was there-fore more specific than any of our religious leaders in the past had been. For his life was the book of faith, open to anyone to read. That is how countless people the world over found in him their spokesman, the solace and the cure for their griefs, almost an answer to their yearnings and cries. Nevertheless there were batches of young people rising out of the growing ferment with irrepressible questions, for which they could not find ready answers in Gandhiji. The predomi-nant element that influenced the incipient socialists was Marx-ism and the Russian Revolution.

Socialism did not come to the national Congress only after the formation of the Socialist Party inside it. A growing trend had already begun to make itself felt even in the late twenties, expressing radical views and socialist principles in a general way through the youth and the younger leaders, which finally matured into an organized party. In Why Socialism? Jaya-prakash Narayan has tried to answer that moot question and the several wide differences between Gandhiji and socialists at the time. These socialists asserted that capturing the national state machinery was a prerequisite to the implementation of a socialist programme. For this the national Congress had to be made into an effective revolutionary vehicle for direct action. With all their wider differences, Gandhiji and the Congress socialists did touch at a point somewhere deep in the depths. He was a revolutionary though not cast in the conventionally accepted mould; he was wedded to direct action as revolution-aries must be. In spite of temporary variations, the touching points grew and met more and more. Gandhiji had said:

Above all, Congress represents, in its essence, the dumb semi-starved millions scattered over the length and breadth of India… if there is a genuine clash of interests I have no hesitation in saying on behalf of the Congress that it will sacrifice every interest for the sake of the interests of these dumb millions.

Nevertheless the Congress lacked a clear-cut socio-economic programme to draw the enthusiasm of the masses. Acharya Narendra Dev as the President of the first Conference of the Congress Socialist Party clearly stated:

The national struggle is coming more and more to be identified with the struggle of the oppressed classes and a full recognition of this fact alone will enable us to formu-late correct policies for the future.

While the older Congress leadership in a way resented the emergence of this young militant group, regarding it as a dis-ruptive force, they also did not see the need for building up workers’ and peasants’ organizations, as for them their existing machinery was good enough. Gandhiji’s reaction was, however, totally different. He said he welcomed the socialists but did not favour some of the planks of their programme, such as class war; but if the socialists agreed to adhere to non-violence, he had no objection to Congressmen joining such a struggle.

As a matter of fact Gandhiji’s endeavour to lift the economic battle to a political plane began as far back as 1918 when, during the peasant struggle in Kaira for suspension of land revenue, he declared:

The Kaira ryots are solving an imperial problem of the first magnitude… this is a struggle for self-government.

There were however other thorny problems, such as Gandhi-ji’s adherence to Trusteeship, of which the socialists were highly critical. According to them it should either be acknowledged that the wealth of the wealthy was unjustly acquired and its ex-propriation should be demanded or we should accept it as rightfully theirs to do what they liked with. Property they held had to be scientifically analyzed according to the method of its production and distribution and not treated as a question of ethics or morality, in a sentimental sense. Because to them this was not a matter that a change of heart could set right. It was a social and economic set-up which had to be overthrown and substituted by another, more equitable and conforming to jus-tice. The socialist solution therefore lay in a social revolution, which alone would create the proper environment for a different human relationship and behaviour and not something which concerned just a few individuals.

Though everybody is familiar with Gandhiji’s concept of Trusteeship, I would like to quote a few of his expressions on it. We must however begin at the beginning and it is this: He was not only a humanist, he also leaned towards austerity. Thus while one may believe in socialism and also an affluent society by increasing production through science and technology, and expanding our needs proportionately, Gandhiji believed in a simple life as one believes in aesthetics. To him wanting or possessing anything over and above one’s minimum needs was stealing. He went even further: “A thing not originally stolen must nevertheless be classified as stolen property, if we possess it without needing it.” Apparently those who styled themselves scientific socialists had no meeting point with an ascetic prin-ciple; for logically, as Gandhiji himself admitted, this must ultimately lead to “total renunciation and learning to use the body for the purpose of service alone”.

The theory of Trusteeship is devised because non-violence is incompatible with a feudalistic and capitalistic society. Gandhiji admits that accumulation and preservation of wealth inevitably involve violence, and Trusteeship was conceived to avoid con-fiscation. But Gandhiji did not leave it as a pious wish. He gave a very stern warning through the Harijan of 25-5-1947:

If the present owning class did not of its own accord become trustees, force of circumstance would compel the reform, or the alternative would be utter destruction.

The present power of the zemindars, the capitalists and the Rajas can hold sway only so long as the common people do not realize their own strength. If the people non-cooperate with the evil of zemindari and capitalism it must die of inanition…

The argument that when one possesses more than what one strictly needs one deprives someone else of it, is today largely fallacious. True, we are still in a transitional stage in the developing countries where production lags behind. Even so, man holds the key to unlimited wealth. He has found the “open sesame” to the treasure trove. Modern science and technology can easily wipe off poverty and want, and fill mankind with abundance. That this is not happening is due to other causes, not because it is physically impossible. The world has woken up to this realization. It is impossible to preach to such a world self-denial which would have to be on a colossal scale. For today we live in intimate contact with another way of life which seems so overwhelmingly full of promise of what may be called the good things of life. As someone has said, such a life of self-denial could only be possible in a monastery.

Another point of difference that Gandhiji had with the socialists was the nature of the movement in the “Indian States” which existed at the time. For while the socialists were for full and integrated participation of the people of these States in the national freedom struggle, Gandhiji had certain strong reservations. In April 1940 Jayaprakash Narayan submitted a resolution to the Congress Working Committee on the Socialist Party’s picture of an independent India, covering every important sector of the national life, which Gandhiji admitted he liked and reproduced in full in the Harijan under the caption:

“Jayaprakash’s Picture”, with his own comments. The socialist proposition on land and the cultivator was that the former should belong to the latter, and none should own more land than is necessary to support his family. On this Gandhiji wrote:

Shri Jayaprakash’s propositions may appear frightful.. In reality they are not. No man should have more land than he needs for dignified sustenance. Who can dispute the fact that the grinding poverty of the masses is due to their having nơ land that they can call their own?

He however declined to endorse the proposition on the Indian States. He seemed to accept the substance but not the procedure. He was optimistic that the Princes would surrender their autocracy when the time came. He laid the ultimate responsibility for realization of this transformation on our-selves. In conclusion he said:

The Princes and all others will be true and amenable when we have become true to ourselves, to our faith, if we have it, and to the nation. At present we are half-hearted. The way to freedom will never be through half-heartedness.

World War II was a crucial event in world politics, particularly to the colonial countries. In our domestic scene it marked a serious shift in the Congress when it resolved to offer conditional cooperation in the war effort in spite of Gandhiji’s opposition. One may say that this was perhaps the beginning of a long chain of changes in Congress-Gandhi relations. The old ties were really never re-forged. In fact they became looser.

Similarly a shift also came over the Socialist Party’s postures vis-a-vis the Congress and this marked the beginning of a new relationship at least amongst the leaders who were shaping it.

The socialists not only dissociated themselves from the Con-gress resolution on the War, but called upon it to start a nation-wide fight against the British regime. The Party decided to rally fully round the Congress to make it an effective instru-ment for the final struggle. In fact the first anti-war resolution of the Congress at the Lucknow session had come originally from the Socialists, which was reaffirmed subsequently at other Congress sessions. The Socialist Party now took its stand on the Ramgarh Congress resolution calling it an “imperialist war” and saying that a national struggle was inevitable. The Party dissociated itself from other Left groups which kept attacking the Congress, particularly calling for a change in the leadership.

On the contrary the Socialists emphasized the need for unity and for strengthening the hands of the leaders, particularly Gandhiji, arguing that raising the issue of Socialism v. Gandhism was at the moment irrelevant. The original thesis that without a mass base and composition and programmatic transformations the Congress could not become a proper vehicle of struggle was by implication played down. The Socialists accepted the fact that no one but Gandhiji could lead a national struggle and its content and technique could be determined by him alone; and they were pretty confident he would not compromise on the issue of war and national freedom. They were right. Here the Socialists stood with Gandhiji firmly even while the Congress wavered. In a matter of weeks with the failure of the Cripps Mission, Gandhiji began to electrify the people with the “Quit India” slogan. The Socialist Party’s complete identification with this brought into sharp relief the new role of the Communist Party, now made legal as a war-time ally by the British rulers, which had set itself to work against this national struggle.

The period following the Quit India movement marked a new phase in Indian politics and Congress-Gandhi relations. 

The crack which had started during the War period became wider. The British proposals to India did not meet with Gandhiji’s approval. Later, on the partition question he took a strong stand. But the Congress chose to ignore his views.

Once more the Congress Socialists and Gandhiji stood together. The Socialists tried to prevail upon him to lead once more the struggle until India could be free on her own terms of integrity and self-respect. He was obviously in great mental agony. As he confessed, he saw nothing but darkness before him. One can imagine Gandhiji’s distress when he saw this pain-ful end to his life’s work. This situation brought some of the important Socialists and him together, as never before. There was growing a closer kinship between these few Socialists and Gandhiji.

They discussed the alternatives. There was really only one, a mass struggle, and the Socialists were very confident that even if he could not carry the Congress, the people would certainly rally round Gandhiji. Gandhiji, however, decided otherwise. Why he did so is anybody’s guess. What is more, he wanted the Congress to present a united front, so he prevail-ed upon the Socialists not to oppose the Congress resolution on the British proposals. So sensitive was the Socialist leader-ship to Gandhiji’s feelings and wishes that the Socialist AICC members could only abstain from voting. From then on a new era seemed to have begun in this relationship, more in a personal way perhaps, but reflected nevertheless in other spheres too.

The post-Quit-India period opened a new phase for the Socialist Party. While the new Party thesis professed the Party’s adherence to the revolutionary path, it declared also its belief that where democracy and civil liberties operated, the transition to Socialism must be peaceful and through demo-cratic means which included civil resistance, satyagraha and strikes. This was a definite departure from the old pronoun-cedly Marxian Socialism though the Party reiterated that it was still based on Marxism, largely perhaps because the rank and file would not be able to conceive of Socialism away from Marxism.

The Indian Socialists could not any more find their identity with the Western Socialists in the democratic countries because of their failure to support the colonial struggle whole-heartedly, their attitude in some cases being pretty dubious. The Communists had become wholly dis-credited after the record of the Indian Communists during war. Socialist thought itself was in a ferment in the country and much rethinking had started in the Socialist Party though it was some time before concrete signs could become visible.

Gandhiji’s martyrdom intensified the emotional ties. The compulsion became more and more pressing to take on and complete the good work he had left undone, the legacy we had inherited. The shake-up that resulted seemed to put things in their proper perspective. From then on the image of Gandhi was a portent to reckon with. There had been a large influx of new elements into the Socialist Party after the 1942 struggle. They had no political background, particularly of the Congress and Gandhiji’s leadership. They had been drawn by the freedom struggle which fired youthful imagination. While they showed fervour and enthusiasm, they had no political maturity or Socialist discipline and they often struck impossible 

postures and made impractical demands which generally led to confusion in the party-Gradually the leadership seemed to melt away. Two vigorous stalwarts, Yusuf Meherally and Acharya Narendra Dev passed away. Jayaprakash Narayan, who became firmly convinced that the present rigid party governments could not solve India’s problems, turned to the Gandhian path of Sarvodaya and Bhoodan with Bhave and others of Gandhiji’s close colleagues. Some quit politics and turned to what Gandhiji had termed constructive work. Some wrote on the new think-ing in Socialism and Gandhism. Dr. Lohia has written volu-minously on this, as on the incompleteness and fallacies of Marxism.

On re-examination several of Gandhiji’s assertions and beliefs seemed to reveal themselves in a different light, freed from political trappings.

Let us begin with his emphasis on simplicity and not affluence. Self-denial and detachment as the key to happiness is an old Indian precept. Today we see something strange yet not so strange. 

While the development of science and techno-logy has brought untold wealth, it has not brought happiness, Hippyism being one of the symptoms of a mankind troubled by a new hunger which wealth cannot satisfy. Here we see a queer spectacle of young people turning away from the affluence which is theirs. Obviously what we should aim at is not a higher standard of living but a normal one, to meet necessities and wipe out the penury that degrades and the slavery that demoralizes. Perhaps a mean has to be found. As Dr. Lohia put it so concisely and effectively: “The good and the beautiful must find a meeting place other than the one fashioned by Buddha.” He illustrated it by reproducing a young American student’s picturesque phrasing: “Once we have the materialist bull by the horns, how do we ever let him go-how to live relaxed if one had to keep the wheel turning faster and faster?” Truly did Gandhiji say: “A man who has no moncy wants to become a millionnaire, a millionnaire wants to become a billionnaire and so it goes on….”

The Western man of affluence seems no longer at peace with himself, he is like an exile from home. “The long pilgrim-age of Socialism must end this as also the socialist’s self-alienation. It asks of us men of today a new direction,” so said Dr. Lohia addressing the Socialists. Perhaps Gandhiji could have helped us to do it had the Socialists established earlier the rapport which came on the eve of his death, or had he lived to 125 years as he once wished to.

Gandhiji’s concepts of Trusteeship and change of heart are inextricably linked together. In fact his entire philosophy is based on the belief in the essential goodness of man. Where one failed to bring about a change of heart he did not take it as refuting his faith but rather as something wanting in oneself. It would need much more use of this technique and under very divers conditions and with different sets of people to evolve any firm precepts. Nevertheless there is our own experience when millions of people did undergo a remarkable transfor-mation, showing courage, discipline and generosity, instead of the age-old fear, lethargy and pettiness, that seemed so ingrained jn us for centuries. According to one of the older Socialists, what does stand out in all this is Gandhiji’s assump-tion that man can be good even though he is almost certain to be bad in certain situations.

Against the success of the Indian experiment, there is the failure of the Negro struggle against colour-bar. But such telling experiments are few and far bet-ween. Perhaps if the physical area of operation could be widened by larger numbers of adherents to this faith it could get a better trial. In any evert while avoiding getting enmeshed in sentimental social illusions, one need not view sections of humanity as black and white, good and bad. It is the kind of thinking which must ultimately decide that kingship is bad therefore the king’s head should be chopped off or that as the proletariat is down-trodden and exploited, it must be right and should be indulged.

What Gandhiji wanted done in the end was to break the concentration of power by entrusting it to socicty as a whole. What he pleaded was that the weapons used in all these str ggles should be of love and non-violence,not of fear and hate. The outcome of such struggles might be different. Because once again one is handicapped from want of adequate data. Now we start with a negative mental block, never with faith. Maybe if we accepted, even if it was not a 100 per cent success, even a shred of faith, like a spark out of dying fire, it would be rewarding-it would urge even if only a few, to forge ahead and see if a new effective weapon could not be evolved.

Gandhiji was unique in that he dealt with matters of the spirit, soul and conscience together with social and political affairs in the most natural and unconscious manner. Systems such as Socialism enjoined on its followers social codes, but most of all collective behaviour. But Gandhiji, like Moses, put out whole tabernacles of commandments for each individual, obligations to himself as to his fellow beings.

Here Gandhiji recognizes that a mass is composed of individuals and, while a system may deal with the mass, the core of it is the individual and the quality of each individual that comprises it is what is precious and the individual should not lose that identity. It was only by rescuing this precious individual which an overbearing mass must corrode, that Gandhiji evolved and bequeathed to mankind the invaluable instrument of satyagraha-civil resistance that enables any single individual who is aggrieved to stand up to resist tyranny and oppression.

One could pick up Gandhiji’s thoughts and precepts and study them each afresh and seek to assess and evaluate each facet with its intrinsic characteristic. For this one has to put away the shibboleths and cliches so dear to those who do not wish to make the effort to think. Was Gandhiji a revolutionary? Was he a Socialist? When we fling these familiar phrases around, we do so as though cach had a standard measurement and weight, height and colour. To some confirmed Marxists Gandhiji’s political struggle was not a revolution because military weapons, the familiar feature of an upheaval, were missing. There was not even a danda to flourish.

Let us remind ourselves that, while Gandhiji was a consis-tent non-conformist even when he talked of God and Con-science in a startlingly unconventional manner, in one thing he conformed to the sages of yore. He refused to accept the world as he found it when he was born. He shook it and tried to reorient it. But he never gave up the quest, it went on, it had to go on. It began with the first man and is eternal. For if man gave up the quest, he would decay and perish. As one travels round in India, in towns and in villages one comes across stone and cement figures trying desperately to look like him. But one characteristic is common to all, be they fine or ugly, they invariably show him walking, on his march, the eternal quest. The Dandi March was more than symbolic. It typified the nation swung onto its feet to begin the long march to the far-off goal that ve cannot yet see. But the quest is still on. That is what exhilarates one while the feet move forward-our senses are astir, expectant to catch new sights, new sounds, to breathe new perfumes and let the skin tingle with experience. That is the joy of a quest. Pensively and picturesquely Jawaharlal Nehru has painted this picture in his vivid language, offering his tribute to this unique man when he started his historic salt march:

Today the pilgrim marches onward on his long trek, staff in hand he goes along the dusty roads, clear cyed and firm of step with his faithful band trudging along behind him. The fire of a great resolve is in him and surpassing love of his miserable countrymen and love of truth that scorches and love of freedom that inspires.

Source : Mahatma Gandhi 100 years ( published under the auspicious of The National Committee For The Gandhi Centenary ) 

courtesy : Gandhi peace foundation