Raojibhai Mota Article ii
See how he
put up world political and social situation alongwith the Indian perspective.
Let us read him for the benefit of those
who will not have a chance of reading this volume :
“
To begin with we have to examine
the world situation following the
first World War , It was this
situation together with the depression of the thirties that cause of unrest
among the peasantry not only in India but in the world at large. The unrest of
the Indian peasantry provided an
immediate scope to the rising Gandhian leadership for phasing out the political
activity of the Congress .Before Gandhi it was confined to the upper strata of
educated professionals like lawyers, and
doctors and the urban elite withy Gandhian leadership the Congress was emerging
as a movement with its roots in the masses whose political consciousness began to raise (rise) .Though at this stage
the spirit of the struggles was rising, the party organization hardly existed and agitation in a large measure was determined by the whims
of local leaders. Worried over the proper organization, the Mahatma was forced
to discontinue agitations. “ ….. “ In contrast to the Leninist cadre parties , INC ( Now henceforth read
Congress in place of INC means Indian National Congress as Mota refers to the
Congress as INC) was a mass party. It
differed from the Asian Marxist parties in its acceptance of the principle of class-collaboration as a
foundation of anti-imperialist politics. From operational point of view Gandhian class collaboration is a corollary to the principle of non-violence
.This principle of non-violence imparted to INC its basic feature which made it
an instrument for transfer of power
rather for capture of power.”
--
I.
Now Mota goes to the art of mobilization of
masses by Gandhi, read him in his own words “The
postulated universality was expected to
integrate traditional groups. Mahatma’s
prayer meetings, rather than education through the basis units of the INC , provided the basis for action . Through
the medium of his Prayer Meetings , he cultivated direct contact with the
masses. And how mammoth were these meetings sometimes is a matter of gesture.
Look, one point is there , during those days there was not any means of entertainment so , general public attended
these meetings in large numbers. I myself remember the days when Vinoba Bhave , the spiritual heir to Gandhi
visited Surat probably in 1950s , entire SURAT COME ON ROAD TO HAVE HIS DARSHAN
, BOTH SIDESD OF LONG ROADS WERE PACKED WITH PEOPLE, AND ON SEEING HIM PEOPLE
STARTED SHOUTING Vinoba Zindabad. As a
boy of 12 or 13 , I was among the public. Then Nehru visited Surat on his way to enquire about health of one of the companions
of Gandhi in South Africa , he was a Muslim. Nehru went to that village
Kachholi appx 15 km away from Surat. It was the same story , People packed on both sides of the
roads wherever he went , even on roads passing through villages , people
jampacked the roads. People had come to
attend his public meeting , and they had come on foot for miles and miles .
There was ,a sort of craze at that time to have a darshan of the national
leaders. The attendance at the Prayer meetings of Gandhi ,
was in thousands , and at Rly stations
too thousands would collect to see him . Naturally , he wielded great influence
with the masses and it is the experience
of the world ,that those leaders who bring such large number of people under
their spell , start wielding authority, This
is the way he built up his spring board across the country creating an awe
among the Congress leaders that now they had nothing to do but to see that this
magic of Gandhi works , at least up to
the freedom is gained , as it was their
ultimate aim , They dreamt of freedom
and were not much sincere in putting Gandhi’s
precepts in practice which were outmoded
and did not suit the changing situations
of the country’s industrialization ,and
westernization of culture and thinking. Mahatma built up direct contact with the masses with the result that
the party machinery became secondary
factor in devising mass action ( this happened in number of countries
where the leader with mass appeal cultivates direct contact with masses and the
party organs start depending on him for political ends. In other words party
does not count , only leader matters and the party remains at the mercy of that
leader. Another result of this strategy is that no second cadre comes up , and
the party looks on for the appointment of his
heir and a dynastic rule follows . In case of Gandhi he was made to
appoint Nehru as his political heir on account of his compromise with Motilal
Nehru , father of Jawaharlal Nehru ,and Vinoba Bhave as spiritual heir( ! ) both Brahmins. By doing
so , he acknowledged the supremacy of the Brahmins over not only the Hindus but
also the non-Hindu population of undivided India. The muslims resented this and
that is how the cry for a separate State for the Muslims gained
added momentum.-BRP)The party organs did not develop a consciousness of responsibility for
action. This being so, the INC could never confront the Mahatma with the
problem of social goals to be achieved by the post-independence state. Nehru
once wrote a letter to the Mahatma in this connection but on
receiving the stern response from him he
did not press the point any further. The
Mahatma rather than
the party was deemed accountable
to the people. It was the Mahatma who
stumbled upon a Himalayan blunder and not the party. The Congress as a
party lived a life devoid of morphology. It was amorphous and this amorphousness
was honoured as a principle of liberalism. “
No one even Gandhi hided the fact that
he was an apostle for orthodoxy , he gave his identity ( lakh in Gujarati ) as staunch sanatani hindu ,
flaunted a big ( kanku ) vermilion on his forehead , started his agitations on
auspicious tithis as per hindu calendar , did not appoint even a
single Muslim as Manager of any ashram anywhere in India ,,Gandhi observed
Varnavyavastha in its crude form and only to balance this a smoke screen of the
emancipation of the Harijans was raised which led the gullible among the most
backward classes that he was really a great saint. Gandhi raised so much dust
in the name of untouchability that the Hindus were led to believe that untouchability
was only for the Harijans ,while in
reality untoucahability as inherited from the Hindu conventions was observed
towards the Shudras who are now Backward Classes and whose nomenclature was
changed to Mandal Communities in the wake of the pronouncement of the report of
the Mandal Commission and in Gujarat who are identified as Baxi Panch castes.
By doing so Gandhi comfortably removed this stigma of untouchability from
the forehead of the Shudras and foisted
it on the harijans. Now that the Shudras were purified by Gandhi , they easily
started to wear the mantle of pure Hindus and started to observe untouchability
towards the Harijans and started giving the same treatment to the Harijans
which was given to the forefathers of the Shudras by the Caste –Hindus..This is
a travesty of social history when a greatman like Gandhi replaced one set of
people to bear the brunt of popular disgust and contempt without any social,
religious or cultural justification. This inhuman practice was simply an
extension of the stratification and
gradation of castes 1. Brahmins looking
down upon the Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and the Shudras 2. Kshatriyas looking down
upon the Vaishyas ,and Shudras , Vaishyas looking down upon the Shudras Now
what the Shudras could do to transfer this burden downwards ? So they found
some castes and sub-castes from their
own fold to look down upon as this system was based on treating some ones
inferior so their own status could rise. In one sentence the Caste-System made
the men not lengthening their own line in
order to rise in social stratification , but shortening the line of others ! This was the way all Hindus were engaged in
this art of shortening lines of others and thereby. Shortened the cumulative line of
the Hindus and that is how the foreign invaders found this land attractive for invasions and defeating the kings one by one and
thereby facilitating the occupation.
Politics
during 1920 to 1935
------------------ -------------- This period in the life-span of the
Congress is very important as it was
during this time that 1. The Congress
oscillated between modernism and
traditionalism 2.What social policies the independent State could pursue once
freedom was achieved as there was tension over this between Gandhi and the
Congress. 3. The party could do nothing to influence the course of action as it
was not the source of mass action , Gandhi had captured the imagination and
loyalty of the masses by his direct contact with them. It was Gandhi from whom the stamina
and inspiration for mass action emanated not the Congress. Congress was reduced
to playing second fiddle to the tune of
Gandhi. This helplessness on the part of
Congress determined the course of action for the coming decades and the
formation , of the Constituent Assembly that approved the new Constitution . .
Article iii ( Congress loses ground during 1935 to
1960s )
Mota has vividly described the vanishing
influence of the British raj or rather
loosening of its grip over internal politics of India. He says on page No
164 “ The British Imperial economy was
collapsing and the political structure of the empire had to adapt itself to these
changing economic conditions. It ( British economy ) could survive only by
sharing political power with the rising bourgeois leadership in colonies….The
Mahatma and the INC were willing to co-operate in order to demonstrate to the
people of India that the principle of
nonviolent action yields fruits. The protest of the tiny left- wing
was brushed aside and the INC came
into power in many states. Thus
the Britishers secured their their position in Delhi by immunizing the imperial
govt against mass agitations.”
According to this logic the winner of
1942 Quit India movement was the British Govt and not the Congress party as in
order to survive in power and continue tasting sweet loaves of Govt authority
the Congress leaders who scrambled for getting into the Govt machinery
sacrificed their ideology of standing by the people , the poor , the exploited
classes and started carrying out actions which in normal course would have
been taken by the British Govt, ! It was at this point that the communist
movement gathered momentum and the
communist started flexing their muscles
all over India. M N Roy left Congress , thousands of hardcore communists were
imprisoned and if my memory is correct the leaders like S A Dange and others
gave a call to the imprisoned communist
workers to start an uprising against the Govt in the jails , as a result
of which thousands of hardcore communist workers were got killed by their own
leaders who actually were carrying out the agenda of the zamindars and
capitalist class. There after there is a visible decline in the communist
movement , Dange etc were rewarded for their services later on but the
communist bosses never made sincere
efforts to revive the communist spirit , I remember that spirit when as a boy
of 15 or 16 I could collect a group of
8-10 boys and starta running procession shouting “ Lal Vavto Zindabad and pass
from the door-step of a Congress leader who was so much annoyed
with me that he had rebuked me in strong terms stating that I did not know that
the Principal of the Mission High School
were I was studying was a staunch Congressman ! Such was the spirit of the pre-Independence days ! . Now look to
the tragedy , those killed belonged to non-upper castes of the Hindu social
structure, This is how the non-Upper
Caste leadership of the Communist movement was eliminated in the jails after
India gained freedom. Now the leadership of communist movement fell into the
hands of the Brahmins and it continues even to this day. The ugly face of
social stratification concealed itself behind a smoke screen of forgetfulness and now
no historian worth the name remembers this ugly episode of Indian history!
I am surprised why Mota has avoided
this important episode in his writings . Mota . He traces how Congress
gradually deviated from its lofty ideals and as a result how number of political groupings sprang up
all over India and this trend posed great challenge to the stability of
Congress organisation. Kisan Sabhas and
Trade Unions posed great threat to the Congress monopoly of political activity , in fact ,
there was none as meanwhile Congress was
reduced to Election Party and it left a
big void
for political initiatives and the
opportunity was easily grabbed by leaders who were disenchanted from the
performance of Congress , they started
their own outfits as they had duly
learnt the art of of mobilizing the masses while they were in
Congress . This drift of number of committed workers cost Congress heavily in future
but the national Congress leaders were overconfident of their hold over the people which in reality was not
there. Congress survived on the wages of its labour of freedom struggle so far the old generation who had seen the
personal magic of Gandhi , his espousal
of national spirits , his swadeshi movement etc carried this historical burden
over their head but with the
disappearance of this old generation that magic also faded and gradually disappeared and new voters
who had not come under the spell ( prabhav ) of that age and gave precedence
to their daily problems of livelihood over that
memory of past and became more amenable to the parochial appeals couched
with orthodoxy . threw away this burden to the winds in North India that is how
a great threat emerged to the Congress from U.P. under one time Congressman
Charan Singh who brought the jats of UP, Rajasthan , Punjab and Haryana under
his spell .
Congress was not brought up to
fight for poor people’s rights as its leaders were always drawn from the
classes and this was the cause of and for the masses .If one considers the
composition of the Congress of that time one would come across a sorry fact that practically all the Presidents of the
Provincial Congress Committees were either big Jamindars, Upper caste activists
like Brahmins and vaishyas and in rare cases former rulers of the Rajwadas ( princely states) who were from the kshatriya
caste. In Bihar Congress always preferred big Brahmin Zamindars as PCC chiefs
as well Chief Ministers for decades and
as a result there has been an
accumulation of agrarian problems in this part of the country and its tragic results are now visible in Zarkhand,
Uttaranchal and truncated Bihar also in the form of Naxalwadi extremism. In North India there worked a mixture of both
Zamindari colonialism,and concealed
Hindu religiosity .There was a big talk of secularism in the Constitution and
in the public speeches but the
Central and Sate ministers openly
flaunted their religious loyalty by performing Hindu poojas when they inaugurated
public utilities like laying Foundation
stone , Bhumi Pujan , Innauguaration ceremonies etc. Even the buildings
of judiciary were not spared from this religious ceremonies and the Chief
Justices and SC judges flaunted tilak on their foreheads performing
poojas which was not called for if one
believed in true undiluted secular ideals.Moreover professing a
particular religion was private matter of the individual and the public
servants were not supposed to exhibit their religious loyalty while executing
their official duties . This practice
continues this date giving an impression to the orthodox elements in the majority
community that all these VIPs are their
brothers in arms , this is a very sorry observation to make but one has to take
a stand when the nation drifts from its chosen and cherished constitutional
ideals and aims and public welfare.
How this happened ?
Mota traces this process from 1946 to 1964 when Nehru dominated the political scene in India
and 9 Pages 167, 168, 169, 170, 171 ,
172 are packed with Mota’s political wisdom and historical
significance.
What were the factors that
shaped the heart and mind of the following decades , that shaped, nourished and brought
up a political entity which was never intended by those who fought the struggle
for freedom and the passive population
of India who supported Gandhi’s struggles from a distance and hoped for better
tomorrows when the foreign ral was gone
and Indians shaped their own destiny.
Mota traces this process right to
1935 Act . When freedom was granted ( rather not won ) , the political
class busied itself with drafting a Constitution. The question arose as to whom
the power was to be transferred ? The Britishers were brought up in the tradition of political thinkers and thought it proper that the power should be handed over to
the representatives of the people. Now the modalities for choosing the representatives
were thought over..There was no time ,
and political will to give this matter
a mature consideration. And between 1935
to 1946 there did not occur any contingency to change the system of picking up
( not electing in true sense of the term ) representatives. So far the electors
were moneyed class , dominant classes
and dominant castes who elected representatives to the Assemblies. They were
property holders means “haves “ and not “ have-nots “In Gujarati vocabulary
they were sanchits and not vanchits. The people from the princely States
were not allowed to participate in this process of electing representatives and
they constituted one third of the
population. Those who were recognized as the representative s of the people of
India were only a tiny group of vested interests . They prepared the foundation of
the New India , read the various
provisions of the Constitution. : Preamble
: WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA , having
solemnly resolved to constitute India into a SOVEREIGN , SOCIALIST,SECULAR ,DEMOCRATIC
REPUBLIC and to secure to all its
citizens : JUSTICE , social, economic and political, LIBERTY of thought , expression,
belief, faith and worship ; EQUALITY of
status and opportunity ; and to promote among them all FRATERNITY
assuring the dignity of the
individual and the unity and the
integrity of the nation ;
Now more on various rights accruing to the citizenry from the
Constitution . These are called Fundamental Rights and they are included in
part three in the Articles No 12 to 35.
Let us enumerate the same, 1. Right to Equality before Law on the grounds of
religion, race, caste, sex, or place of birth; employment , abolition of
untouchability and titles. 2.Right to Freedom- speech and expression,; assemble
peacefully , and without arms , to form associations or unions;3. Right against
Exploitation- Prohibition of traffic in human beings and forced labour,
prohibition of employment of children in
factories etc. 4. Right to Freedom of
Religion- conscience and free profession
practice and propagation of religion ;
manage religious affairs payment of
taxes for promotion of any particular religion ; attendance at any religious
instructions or religious worship in certain educational institutions . 5.
Cultural and Educational Rights –
protection of interests of minorities ti
establish and administer educational
institutions 6. Right to Constitutional
Remedies – all citizens are guaranteed
the right to move the Supreme
Court or High Courts by appropriate
proceedings for the enforcement of
Fundamental Rights. ( Note: Amendments No 16th and 24th
have considerably limited the exercise of Fundamental Rights . Let us
now scan through these( a ). Amendment No 16 was passed in 1963 empowering the State to enact any legislation
, imposing reasonable restrictions in
the exercise of Fundamental Rights by
citizens , so as to protect the
sovereignty and integrity of India. ( b
) Amendment No 24 was passed in 1971 affirming the Parliament’s power to amend any part of the Constitution ,
including the Fundamental Rights by
amending Articles 138 and 13 of the Constitution The President was made bound to give assent to amending
Acts when they were presented to
him. This made Presidential Assent an automatic act . Part IV , The Directive
Principles of the State Policy The
relavent Articles are
36 to 51, they lay down 19 principles , enjoing the State to undertake within its means , a
number of welfare measures. These are intended
1 to . assure citizens an adequate means of livelihood, 2. Raise the
standard of living, 3. improve public
health ,4. Provide freeand compulsory education to children . and 5. ensure
that the economic system does not result
in the concentration of wealth and means of production to the detriment of the common good. These
principles are not enforceable at law like Fundamental Rights . Neverthless,
they are declared fundamental to
the governance of the country.
This way those who were nowhere
near the poor and the poorest wanted to create a nation which was socialist,
democratic , classless and casteless . There was definitely a flood of hypocrisy in the mind of those who approved
this Constitution as it was like foregoing their age old privileges , social economic and
political domination , discriminations against
lower castes AND THE SUPERIORITY OVER THE CASTES STRATIFIED BELOW THEIR RESPECTICE CASTES UNDER
THE Brahmanical order of Hindu society. They did it, common people believed the
propaganda in support of “ socialist society “ , they also believed in “ Garibi
Hatao “ slogan of Indira Gandhi and swelled the
ballot-boxes with the votes , they believed that India was embarking on
a course of “ secularism “
Now let us agree with Raojibhai when he says
on page No 167 :
“ To constitute the authority to receive
power , elections were held in India
in
India in 1946 on the basis
of 1935 Act which restricted franchise (
voting
eligibility ) only to the
tax-paying section of the population of
Br itish
India. The
people of the princely states were
excluded from participation in the election.
Thus power was transferred to the tiny group of property holders.
More
Surprising
is the
fact that the mode of transfer of power ultimately created a
Theocratic Pakistan
‘“ In Pakistan the wealthy , the educated
and zamindars were
always siding with religious fanaticism and Jinna was on
their hit-list right since
1943. While he was in
Bombay in his house situated on Mount
Pleasant on
23rd July
1943, one militant youth from Lahore named Rafiq Sabir Majangavi
trespassed into his bunglow
and attacked Jinna with a knife , the assailant was
overpowered , prosecuted and jailed for 5
years. His connections were never
divulged as he never opened his mouth about the persons
behind the plot.
.
( from “ Mohammad ali Jinna “ by Raju Raj pp No
126 Tulsi Sahitya Publication New
Delhi
Similarly Gandhi was also subjected to attacks
but lately, but before that Jinna
had come under the scanner of
the Islamic militancy. Lahore is to this date a hot
bed of Islamic militancy.
Raojibhai hits bull’s eye ( in the terminology of fire arms ), when he
says that after the attainment of
freedom “ the politics of democratic
causes was replaced by the
politics of hunting offices. The
governmental wing of the party choked
the voice of the so-called organizational wing .The only
function reserved for the latter was to
help the3 former ( government wing ) to
win the elections The modern ideology which Nehru professed was rendered
useless in winning elections because the
voting behavior of the Indian people was
non-progressive.
I disagree with the Mota on this
score , the aims of the political class
that fought against the Britishers was
to grab power , the freedom struggle was never motivated for the amelioration
of the poor and the down-trodden, in
Gandhi the dominant castes particularly the Brahmins saw a golden opportunity
to capture the throne to be vacated by
the British and bring not only the
Hindus but even non-Hindus under their
authority , When Nehru talked of “socialist society the deprived and backwards were made to
believe that a paradise which descended over Russia was now about to transform
their lives as was done in Russia , then “ then the Congress under the pressure of the dominant casted ,
changed the gear and started talking of “ socialist pattern of society “ even then the zamindars and capitalists and
dominant castes were afraid of repeating
Russia in India and so the Congress including Nehru started changing the gear
again and now it was “ socialistic
pattern of society “ which the governing class
has thrown to the wind and by propaganda , atrotious inflation and creating
fresh issues and high-lighting minor and inconsequent issues into national
issues have artificially forced the masses to forget this socialism and even a
slight reference to it is looked on by the Congress and other national leaders
with contempt. This process was undertaken on a massive scale during the rule
of Indira Gandhi who instead of bringing socialism talked of “ Garibi Hatao “ now the shift is to “ Ram Rajya “ “ Ram Temple
‘ and when Atal Bihari Bajpai was leader
of the Opposition in Lok Sabha he has
gone on record on the premises of Rashtrapati Bhavan on public address
system stating that ‘ let Ram Temple come up in Ayodhya , all
the problems of India will be solved” ! So the people believed him that the
problems of India were connected with building or not building Ram Temple in
Ayodhya and the electorate gave majority to him. Then , after becoming Prime
Minister he and the BJP realised that building a Temple In Ayodhya would solve
problems of employment for a few masons , labourers and contractors only , and
for solving the gigantic problems like eradication of poverty , unemployment ,
illiteracy , housing , health , restoring public confidence in Govt. machinery
to maintain law and order and meeting
threat6s of the terrorists , keeping communal peace and harmony needed human efforts and no God could help
solve these problems so in spite of remaining in power for 5 years , Bajpai or BJP did not build the Temple . Temple was a
weapon to demolish Congress only . People are not made great by buiding or demolishing structures but by
creating jobs for the unemployed , increasing their health , building houses
for the deprived in other words by addressing the daily issues
of ROTI, KAPDA AND MAKAN and AROGYA ..This
is the game political class goes on playing of shifting the attention of general public ,
particularly the poor and the gullible
from basic issues and does not allow
them to concentrate on the real issues confronting them like the poverty , lack of housing , sanitation ,
employment , poor health , social disabilities , education etc. Now consider
the recent Act passed by the Central Govt.
on right to education , it was included in the Constitution in 1950 and it
took 60 years for the Govt. to pass this
legislation , even the rules to be
framed under some social legislations like Eradication of Untouchability takes
years to frame , and legislative endorsements by the Assemblies take months and years
because the dominant classes who command the bureaucracy and parties are not psychologically committed to the causes of
social amelioration of the most backwards SCs and STs. The implementation of
Mandal Commission Report took years
across the country and in between the dominant castes had unleashed violent agitations and in Gujarat the govt .led by Madhavsinh Solanki was forced to
resign as it favoured the Shudras. These shudras then rallied behind
Adwani ( BJP and during 1990s ) for rehabilitation of the Hindu God Ram ,
forgetting that no God worth the name had ever bothered to protect their
ancestors from the innumerable humiliations and disabilities since centuries and Ram was alleged to have kiled a Shudra named Shambuk
who in the defiance of religious commands had committed a grave crime of worshipping a
Hindu God , his crime being that he was
born in a shudra fold and so he
was not entitled to worship a Hindu God.. Then with changing political scene
the shudra was brought to life again ,
but a fact remained that he was killed by no other than Ram for worshipping a
Hindu God , the incident still reverberates in the mind of the orthodox Hindus
who are in most of the cases descendants of SHAMBUK WHO WAS KILLED BY Ram for
the crime of worshipping him , deny entry to the harijans into the Hindu temples in the
South., construct dividing walls between
their and theirs colonies , prohibit passage from their streets and what
not , one peculiar thing about these
practices is that there are no prohibitions against the Muslims in those areas.
This is the punishment for worshipping Hindu Gods in earlier times the penalty was paid by the ancestor Shambuk of the Shudras , now it is paid by the
Harijans, the Hindu fold has not been showing any sign of parivartan even
centuries after large scale conversion
from ancient India which once extended from Afghanistan to presenr day Bangla
Desh. It should be said to the credit of the Britishers that they added Ceylone
, and Burma to that entity and si8lently ceded them away from mainland
politics and the Indian politicians had
no grasp over the consequences of that act.
Mota’s
assessment of the political scene as
narrated on page No 168 is rather not
shrewd but simplistic. Gandhi never desired Congress to gain strength vis-Ã -vis
his domination over it. Theirs was a master and slave relationship ! He quit as
party member ,and yet controlled it from remote instrument. One should agree with Churchill that the strength of a leader is measured from the
party organization he creats as it is the organization on whose shoulders the
leader sits and commands , controls the
near and distant politics .Here Gandhi did not do that but left the
organizational work to Patel, if one sees the reports of that period one would
immediately catch a sorry figure of Nehru. Nehru engrossed himself in public
speeches and drafting lengthy resolutions of Congress Working Committee, AICC,
and plenary sessions of the Adhiveshans he never bothered about day-to-affairs , creating leaders ,
motivating the lower cadres which are oxygen to the body of the party. He went
on creating a colossal image of himself in the mind of the people . While Sardar Patel went on coming into
close contact with the party workers , second and front level leaders ,
measuring them , how much strength they would wield , how reliable they would
be in future and in fact he kept tract on the workers and leaders . As a result he became seasoned politician and a
great mind-reader. He could exactly say what a particular person would do after
particular lapse of time and how he would behave under certain circumstances. Take one
example, Shri Sadoba Patil of Maharashtra and Union Railway
Minister once came to Bardoli ( Sardar’s laboratory of mass movement ) for
delivering a lecture in Sardar Ashram (
probably in 1973 or 74 where I had to
look after after his security ) . He said once during turbulent
days of reorganization of States one particular man came to Sardar’s residence , Patil was present there. After
talking with him he left. Then Sardar said to Patil that this man is a rolling
stone and he will go now to Jawahar, Patil then left Sardar’s house and
proceeded to Nehru’s place and he found that particular person waiting to see
Nehru! I still remember a letter written by Sardar to Nehru advising him to be ware
of the Chinese as their intentions were
doubtful .He had written a letter to Nehru and that is a document. Nehru
disregarded his advice and we see how Chinese
overran our defences. Nehru was a student of history, he has written at
least two books with a fictional style 1. Glipses of World History and 2.
Discovery of India during his jail terms. But the historians do not agree with
his drawing lessons from certain world
and national events. He regarded Himalayas as insurmountable barrier against any Chinese
invasion , while in fact Chinese traveler Hue En Sang had already crossed the
High Himalayas centuries ago and in recent years the Tibetan refugees in
thousands strength had crossed the Himalaya on foot in 1958. If a lonely man like Hue En Sang could cross
Himalaya and lakhs of Tibetan refugees could imitate him after centuries , why
Chinese military equipped with superior
military hardware can’t do the
same after 1958 and after a prolong
exchange of letters , memoranda and dialogues . This went on for years and yet
Nehru’s Himalaya remained insurmountable
to him until a fine early morning
Chinese guns shattered peace of the mountains and wrong belief of the
Prime Minister of India.
We can agree with Mota what prompted Gandhi to designate Nehru as his
political heir when he had not acquired necessary shrewdness, mind-reading and
skills for handling persons particularly
higher ups.One should go back to history of 1920s when father of
Ja3wahar Nehru, Motilal was a leading light of the Swaraj Party and Gandhi wanted his co-operation
and enjoined him to join Congress. It is so said that Motilal had seen the
colour of the days to come after advent of Freedom and so he demanded oif
Gandhi to give preferential treatment to Jawahar and appoint him as his heir.
Once this appointment came through , Jawaharlal Nehru was certainly a heir-apparent to the throne. Now look to the personal politics
of Gandhi. He was a vaishya and professed from house-top that he was a Sanatani
Hindu. He believed in maintenance of Chaturvarna in which the Brahmins were at
the top of the Hindu social order.There were at least three contestants for the
post of the heir to Gandhi 1. Jay Prakash narayan 2. Vallabh Patel and 3.
Nehru. Jayprakash belonged to Kayastha
caste which was not a savarna caste ( his ancestors were copiers of the documents , as during those
days there were not carbon-papers or fax machines ( Carbon Paper was invented in , Type writer in 1808 , but before that the ancestors of
Jay Prakash Narayan were copying the
documents manually and so their occupation fell under physical- workers and were considered Shudras for the purposes of Hindu Varna Vyavastha ). 2. As regards Vallabhbhai Patel the social
status was quite clear , the Patels were
not Brahmins , Rajputs , or Vaishyas and
so fell under the category of Shudras. As Shri M N Srinivas the famous
Sociologist has said , since the Patels were connected with farming and
farming involved killing of insects , they were kept beyond
the periphery of the Savarnas , they were not allowed to enter the Hindu
Temples and so they formed their own
set Swaminarayan panth , built temples
but the Brahmins refused to serve as poojaris in those temples and so the
Swaminarayan-leaders created theirf own priest-class which is drawn from the
Kadva sub-caste of the community. That was the position during the pre-British
period and continues even to-day , now the
Patels care for the hoods about the Brammins. An interesting thing
happened during the regime of the C M
Keshu Patel of Gujarat when Keshubhai refused to accept one Brahmin leader
Ashok Bhatt as Minister and too much pressure was brought about on the C M,
Keshubjai appointed him in the cabinet . at the time of swearing-in ceremony
Ashok Bhatt went to the C M Keshubhai Patel and touched his feet as a gesture
of gratitude . Here the historical cycle of the domination
of the Brahmins took a full circle and I was amused to see this picture as the symbol of changing fortunes of the dominant
caste , the Brahmin that one day was . But that gesture was quite short-lived,
and Ashok Bhatt secretly manoevred with Narendra Modi , in order to bring about
the down-fall of Keshubhai and they succeeded in last leg of 2001. This episode
is indicative of the changing fortunes of the
castes in Gujarat. But before that Vallabhbhai was made to suffer this
humiliation , if you read the history of the imprisonments of Gandhi and
Vallabhbhai Patel , particularly the Diaries written by private secretary of
Gandhi, Mahadevbhai Desai you would find that
both had a very good personal rapport and
Nehru was never close enough to Gandhi as Vallabhbhai was , but Gandhi was more
loyal to Varna Vyavastha than personal
bonds with Patel and so in the process of heir- selection , Patel was
bye-passed and Nehru came on the
top of
the national politics. When this game was on , there was
no lobbying for Vallabhbhai patel as there was no lobby for espousing cause of
a Shudra for the post of Prime Minister of .India , created smooth ground for Nehru , and Patel
was removed like a
stone on the road. In Congress circles also there seemed to be no
grumbling as Gandhi had magnified and
extended his personal politics to national politics , a more deserving candidate
was neglected not on merits but on basis
of age-old Varna Vyavastha. So it is
difficult to agree with Mota when he says on page No 168
Second paragraph that “ Anyway, Sardar Patel lost the game because his weapon INC was not sharp and
strong enough for his task. It was weak in comparison
to Nehru’s weapon – the Government. I remember an advice given to Prince Jahangir by his father Akbar that “ This is a land where authority rules supreme. Whoever wields
authority , will find all on his side ,so never lose the reins of authority. “
Jahangir became Emperor by adhering to this advice and Nehru became Prime
Minister on the same criteria ! If one goes to historical background , this
battle for supremacy was long decided
even before it began in 1946-47 .The answers prepared by Brahmins centuries ago
, were not fitting the bills of 1940s and 1950s. Looking to the frequent and
mind-boggling travels, discussions, parleys and strategems Patel played with
the princes and his advisors, one can certainly say that Nehru as the Organiser
would have been aq grand failure and . Even leaders like Suhravardi who were brought up , trained in the dust of practical
politrics could check-mate Nehru easily. Nehru was a high flier with no guts
for greets of practical politics , Patel was a suitable to the gimmics of the
Pakistanis .This is all narrated in V P Menon’s book and is interesting thing
to learn not only for future policians but also for future diplomats.
3. Nehru. His ancestors hailed from Kashmir. If one
sees through the history of his movements right from childhood , one would realize that he had noy travelled far enough
and had not gained any knowledge of various people , castes , regions ,
religions , differtent problems confronting the widely distyributed land , had not
come in contact with different persons ,leaders , understood their problems
their limitations , their strengths and
their aspirations . As regards organizational ability he
drew blank , his only passion was to address public meetings
, court arrest, go to prison and write books .He knew that image building was a
sure step to the throne and with the media monopolised his caste-fellows this
was an easy job.. By now the dominant caste , the
Brahmins had understood that Jawahar
Nahru was tipped to fill the void of Gandhi , and this time came much earlier, even before freedom came .His succession to
Gandhi was a well orchestrated historical exercise and with the help of media , Motilal Nehru’s
dream of his son becoming a democratic Caesar over the political firmament in India came true. The third
paragraph on page no. 168
describing the fall of Gen Sec Kriplani at the hands of Nehru is eye-opener. The 4th paragraph heralds the days of authority over organization
and it continued for decades .Mota’s
memorable sentence be repeated here
‘ He ( Nehru ) reduced the Party to impotence
and converted it into an election agent . The party had to
suffer because it abjured the principle of mass action which alone can nourish its roots among the masses. “ Mass
agitations always put the leaders’
ability to mobilize and also their
following among the masses .Agitations are like examinations for the
leaders as well as the common workers. Workers get a chance to go near the
ordinary people and persuade them to join the processions , rallies or to
attend public demonstrations .Agitations are like oil to lubricate the parts of
the machinery and provide a chance to the ambitious
workers to prove their ability and gain knowledge about the issues involved in
the agitation. As a result agitations always throw up new leaders and
side-tract the useless leaders. As a result , the vested interests among the
leaders who have no roots among the masses never allow any agitations lest new
leaders would come up and their position in the party would be threatened. Once a set of leaders was prepared , even
Gandhi does not seem to have favoured fresh agitations after 1942 ! Here Mota
seems to have forgotten that as the case
with Gandhi was , his heir was decided
even before the exigency arose , during 1920-30s , and Nehru had already
decided to appoint Indira as his successor , so a strong party machinery would
have been a liability to the appointer
and there was a great likelihood of coming up of an organized opposition to the
appointee , so a weak and paralysed party was a must for the dynastic rule ,
and here history got repeated when
Shastri had to serve as care-taker P M and make way for Indira. Both these great men had played mischief with
the maqsses’ feelings and regarded them no better than “ huers of wood and drawers of
water “.
If you
read Patel’s Secreatry V P Menon’s
book “ Integration of the Indian
States “ ( Orient Longman 1956
ed. ) you would get an idea about
his diplomatic skill , maturity of handling the mischievous princes , like Nawab Of Bhopal ,particularly
Nizam of Hyderabad and his notorious Prime Minister Kasim
Razvi of Razakar Party , Nawab of Junagadh and variety of princes with fanciful ideas about sovereignty , suzerainty etc the
ideas their fore fathers had not dreamt
of during the reign of the British !
Let us remember some
memorable sentences from Mota.
1.
The crux of the doctrine of the political
pragmatism is the relative irrelavence
of the party in building political bridges
between the state and the people. The party is reduced to merely an election agent .
2.The party is forced abjure ideology. The
activity of election seizes the
party mind and , which then disassociates itself
from the day-to-day struggles of the
masses for survival and freedom. The
institution of election is highlighted
as the sole determinant of the
democratic character of the state and
the society. It becomes an exclusive
criterion of a democratic character of
the government. Other freedoms are valued as merely subservient to the
so-called free-elections.
3. Thus with
independence, Gandhian ideology lost its
significance for social change
and the so-called constructive workers were relegated to a secondary position in the
Congress Party.
…….During the
transition from activity which helped people in their
day-to-day struggles for survival and freedom- at least of the
downtrodden people, - to the election exclusively the roots of the party ( Congress ) in the struggling masses dried up.
This observation of Mota is very
interesting, look , the areas where Congress picked up High-Caste Brahmin Zamindars as the Chief Ministers for too long eg Bihar . The CMs ruled as Zamindars and the entire lot of landless
labour turned hostile to the Congress and for decades Congress does not see any
chance of come-back. Bengal was handed over to the Brahmin CMs the last being
Siddharth Shanker Ray , who massacred
the agitators of poor on a large –scale and the only result was that the Marxists came to power
and are stayed put in the saddle since
decades. In Andhra region Congress gave reign of power to big Zamindars and the natural result was that in backward
region of Telangana , communists dug their foothold . Now the cumulative effects of the
Congress exercise are that
Naxalist activities are running with high speed . It happened so, because the Congress left
the space , which was readily occupied by the waiting militant
activists.
4. The leadership thrown
up by elections looks upon the leaders of the struggling masses as a threat to their power . A tension
prevails between the two which cripples the nation state.
Mota’s analysis as to
how the urban populace came under the influence of the non-Congress parties is very shrewd. Many a
social worker would not probably be knowing the
reasons. He says that ( page No 170 bottom para ) The refugees from Pakistan spread over
almost India > They were bitterly anti-Muslim and seeing their plight the
mind of the urbans were moved by their
plight
….. After
partition, the Indian Muslims could not touch Muslim League and they drew closer
to Congress for obvious reasons. The Congress took a hint from Nehru ( see the article by historian Ramchandra Guha in his article in the Hindu dt. July 20 2008 , Nehru said in Oct 1947 ,“We have a Muslim minority
who are so large in numbers that they
can not , even if they want , go anywhere else. That is a basic fact about which
there can be no argument. Whatever the provocation from Pakistan and
whatever the indignities and horrors inflicted on the non-Muslims there,
we have got to deal with this minority in a civilized manner. We must give them security and the
rights of citizens in a democratic state. “ The Muslims came to attend Congress
meetings in a large number , sometimes they happened to host its meetings in their houses , and were selected for
party posts too. This alienated some sections of the Hindus and dislike to Congress in cities came to take roots. The Hindu migrants from Pakistan particularly
from Sindh
settled in Gujarat ,Madhya
Pradesh ,Rajasthan ., Delhi .This is how
so many cities in North India came under anti-Congressism.
Quite striking
observations are found as regards the melt down of Congress secularism. As a result
of Shyama Prasad Mukherji’s formatioin of Jan Sangh , Congress’ response was diluting
its own secular ideology, though “it lacked a healthy ideology of
modernism necessary to fight the forces
of traditionalism “ .Congress went
further to appease Urban Elite and “
induced Radhakrihnan “ to occupy Rashtrapati Bhavan. Thus were destroyed the conditions for the rise of a modern
secular nation state , which were laid during the initial period of pre-independence days. “
What were the
benefits of the much orchestrated Integration of the princely Sates on the
Congress ? No doubt India as a nation gained , but Congress came to lose in a
surprising way. There was no other party
of the eminence except Congress , so the
Ex- Rulers of the princely States started joining the the in a big way. The new
entrants “ started dominating the Congress units on the basis of their hold
over their former subjects “ .. “ In
almost all cases the Congress units had to accept the tutelage of the deposed princes and looked to them for
votes during elections. In many cases the Congress nominated ex-princes for Lok
Sabha seats Thus on the basis of their
hold on their subjects , they came to dominate both , the Congress party and the Lok Sabha. Feudal elements and the allied rich peasants politically dominated the party. “ One more convincing matter Mota has brought to
our attention that the entire energy of Congress was directed against the
British and the Maharajas were kept untouched , in other words the Princes were
kept “ holy “ like cows and their image
remained unscathed . This happened , as I think now , due to the Kings’
position in Hindu social hierarchy , as the Kings since hundreds of years were
considered to be under the surveillance and
ritual domination of the Brahmins and it was through the state might
that the Hindu Varna vyavastha came to be
severely imposed by the Brahmins in this Brahmin Order of Hindu society.
As such the Hindu Kings enjoyed special
treatment at the hands of the Congress leadership which was predominantly
Brahmin and one Vaishya who was Gandhi, who prided to be called a sanatani
Hindu. The special treatment received by the ex-Hindu rulers was as a reward
for keeping the Hindu Varna vyavastha in tact for centuries .The treatment
received by the kingdoms of Junagadh and
Hyderabad was different and more their advisors ( Prime Ministers ,
Vazirs etc ) were Muslims and those of
the Hindu kings were Brahmins ( Gandhi’s father was also a Vazir in the darbar
of the king of Porbandar ! ) It may be possible that the advisors of the Hindu
kings were in contact with the Congress leaders
who might have assured them of “ sweet treatment “ after the rule fell into the hands of Congress.
Now Mota comes to the
point as far the structure of the society is concerned. He says on page No
172 first para , last three
sentences , I put it verbatim for
the benefit of the readers :
“
Even some remnants of the Kisan Sabhas and trade unions which had continued to
Be with the Congress lost their
status and importance within the party.
The party
was required to mould the people on the basis of traditional values – castes , com-
munities , linguism , etc. The nation
state began to lose its progressive and
modern
character. “ What a fall , dear friends ,
when the world was thirsting for
socialism ,
equality , brotherhood , these
Congress leaders wanted to take the society backwards , in a religious
colonialism and imperialism of the Brahmins. This word would appear slightly unpalatable to some , but if the mechanics
of imperialism is studied , one would
realize that the Emperors all over the world
did not physically control the subsidiary kings and the wider subjects
but employed such means like appointing
tributary-kings and feudal-Zamindars etc to
control the masses given under their charge , who all would bow before
the Emperor and pay him tributes on demand or voluntarily. Here the tributes
assumed the form of daxina backed by scriptures. And all the while this game
went unchallenged as the media was an
accomplice in this game of deceipt , fraud and rank perfidy as it was also a part of the upper strata of
the caste-system. When Congress was implementing this policy of duplicity , Nehru was shouting from the
world-house tops championing the cause of the people of South Africa n Apartheid
! ) When slavery of a refined character was being imposed on the Scheduled
Castes and the Tribes , he was making speeches against the slavery of the
Blacks in African Congo , Nigeria,
Uganda and elsewhere ,cunningly implying to the world that everything
was alright in his country and India was
playing part of a friend , philosopher and guide for all the discriminated
people of the world ( of course , except India’s down-trodden and the
deprived ! )
The greatness of Mota is very much
visible if you read the paragraph No 3
on page 172. The congress’ thinking had gone astray underneath but outwardly it
continued to play the card of respect for all religions , equality of all ,
brotherhood among all communities , tolerance etc. Mota designates this as “pluralism “.It was not as an aim to fight
for but as a value and here its edge got blunted. It became a convenient
vehicle “ respect for traditional leadership , respect for linguistic and
regional chauvinism . This respect is also reflected in Govt. dominated
programmes.Tha party was torn apart on account of the contradiction between the
value of pluralism based on traditional
groups and that of modern
nationhood. .THE NATIONHOOD IS GRAFTED ON THE TRADITIONAL
SOCIETY .( italics mine )
….The party’s
commitment to these contradictory values has proved fatal because the value of
pluralism localizes political power
which endangers the process of nation building .Parochial
groups have been seizing power in the states
and the Central Government lives
on perils of disintegration. “ Pluralism came to be interpreted selfishly in Hindu orthodox ways.
Pluralism meant THAT PEOPLE OF ALL RELIGIONS HAD TO LIVE IN CO-EXISTENCE
RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF THE OTHER TO PROFESS AND FOLLOW THE RELIGIOUS BELIEF
OF ONE’S CHOICE. The Hindu leaders and bureaucrats interpreted the term in a
fashion convenient to them . That is the
reason the Hindu ministers , public servants and even judges started behaving as if HINDUISM WAS THE
OFFICIAL RELIGION OF THE STATE. Here Pluralism got official beating at the
hands of the Hindu orthodox elements. This
tendency is visible from Nehru’s time
when the idols of Ram was secretly placed in the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya
with the connivance of the official machinery , as after some time it was
learnt the Dist Magistrate after retirement had joined the Jan Sangh. More,
even Congress Government of Rajiv Gandhi had opened the doors of this Masjid for Hindu prayers in 1985 or so
and within a very short time of 7 years BJP galvanized its own constituency all
over India centering on the supposed rights of the Hindu over an alleged
demolished Janmasthan of the Hindu God Ram within the premises of the Babri
Masjid.
Iii
Mota
adequately describes what was the true legacy of Nehru. He states
following
1.
Inadequate defence ( a shameful defeat at the
hands of China in 1962) 2. Tormenting poverty 3. Dangers of
parochialism and linguism in state politics 4. Declining party image and 5. Corruption at all levels of
administration. Looking to the gravity
of all the problems Nehru gave to the next generation there is little ground to feel proud of the so called achievements of Nehru’s regime which lasted
from 1947 to 1964 nearly a generation.
Furthermore
Mota describes how Congress failed to effectively prevent the forces of
disintegration , the threats to the party and the nation state which came up 1. with Charan Singh who took up the cause of
discontent among the Jat agriculture caste of Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and
drove out Congress from the seat of power in U P 2. Shekh Abdulla in Kashmir , 3. Akali Dal in
the aftermath of death of kairon in Punjab 4.Rise of Swatantra Party with connivance of ex-princes and landlords
for whom the Coingress had diluted its social agenda 5. The D M K in Tamilnadu
with separatist tendency which drove out
the Congress from power ( this happened there
on account of the well-galvanised
organization of the DMK the organization which Congress had forgotten since
decades ! The shocking observations
come in the last following lines , “ All such parties had roots in some kind of
parochialism and traditionalism Their rise to strength implies a breakdown of
Gandhi- Nehru concept of nationalism . Their cumulative force reduced the Congress Party to a ghostly existence. “ After the advent to power Indira Gandhi
depended on C P I for survival and wasted two precious years to identify the
basic problem from which threat was emerging to the stabilityShe now got the
answer and that was “ poverty ‘ so she gave a slogan “ Garibi Hatao “ now
garibi was a problem , in Gandhi’s
thinking garibi was not a problem but a blessing and poverty was like God ,
remember his word Daridra Narayan “ The garibs were asked to feel happy about
their poverty as it was just a Godly virtue . People had accepted this Gandhian notion but saw that the ruling class and the businessmen
and industrialists were not worshipping the poverty but were worshipping the Goddess of wealth Laxmi and
their wealth was increasing leaps and bounds and yet they were asked by Gandhi to leave wealth to
the prosperous sections of society and embrace poverty and feel happy about it
, so they rejected this notion of Gandhi the Congress did not feel the true
pulse of the masses and remained over confident of its contribution to the
freedom and thought that the goodwill would last generations to generations but
some leaders wanted to cash on this discontent and throwing all the norms of
political finess to the wind , just jumped into the struggle and started mobilizing
discontented masses and took away
a major chunk of the popular support
from the Congress and created
their own political forts and Gandhism is noticed to suffer decline from this
historical contradiction. Then people started raising questions over
Gandhi’s other teachings too and
since then Gandhism has not reclaimed the lost ground.
One should remember here how Kamal
Abdel Pasha of Turkey built a nation
replacing traditional society . That was a case quite extraordinary and
he was a despot and state power was readily employed to carry out the ends of
nation building. Here in India both , Gandhi and Nehru were democratic despots
and had there been a sincere desire on
either’s part India would have become a nation state long back aand might have made strides
in economic and political spheres.
Then actually what went wrong ?
Mota clarifies in his treatise that looking
to the world currents , in the countries where nation states have come up to be
built , there were traditional societies , then people accepted democracy
Modernism does not come up on its own , but the change takes place in the minds
of the people first and then the abstract principles get translated into reality but before that the traditional society is to be broken up ,
if it exists side by side with the industrial changes , then there would come
some moments in history when this traditional loyalty will supplant the social
, political and economical changes that
have occurred so far. The traditional and modern can never co-exist they are world apart from each other. Here we
allowed religion to remain stronger in the name of pluralism and craved for
social changes to take place . We wanted peace and brotherhood but our scriptures were full of
violence and fraternal conflicts like Mahabharat. We wanted social equality but
Manusmruti taught that there can never be
equality as all are created unequal
and they are like head Brahmins ) Shoulders and arms ( kshatriyas ) body (
vashyas ) and the legs ( shudras ) The educated people , pleaders , have installed a statue of the
author of Manu Smruti in the compound of the High Court in Rajasthan and it still
remains there , even when the Constitution speaks of equality , brotherhood,
and a society devoid of discriminations
and injustices .
Take the case of jobs. We want
removal of poverty , but do not want to recruit the SCs and STs in the
government services , there are thousands of vacancies still lying vacant ,
there is a subterfuge conspiracy of designating certain posts as
reserved for SCs or STs for which there is no likelihood for getting any
candidate from these sections and then converting these posts as general and
counting those posts which were so reserved as the posts of SC-STs. There is
still an open conspiracy to harass and punish them without legal justification in respect of
postings and promotions .There exist
groupism on caste and province level in the administrative and police
hierarchy .The government servants
coming from down trodden sections of society as they can not get to the monopolizing segments as
the savarnas do.This is the story of the
people whom the Hindus consider them as part and parcel of the Hindu fold. The atrocities perpeptrated on the Muslims in
some states are quite distressing like the incidents of 2002 in Gujarat . The
violence also marked the agitation against the Reservation Policy in
which the harijans were targeted.The
upper castes violently resisted
reservations to the Backward Classes , the shudras .
Congress went on winning one
election after another , right from 1947 onwards , Nehru , Indira and Rajiv ,
won astounding numbers of seats in Lok Sabha. The election victory gave it
opportunity to rule again and again , but it thought it was in recognition of
the services Gandhi and Congress
leaders had rendered
to the people , Congress did not take up the opportunities to reform the
economic and social systems , it remained satisfied with continuation of the
society in other words , it sought to preserve the inward and outward form of
the society , the “ castes “ remained castes and did not convert
into “class “ because Constitution sought to eliminate castes as it
was bane of the Hindu society , in stead of destroying this monstrous structure of society , the leaders played into the
parameters of the arithmetic of winning elections and went on buttressing the caste system
which was mandated to be destroyed by the Constitution adopted in 1949 and
which became came
fundamental law in 1950.The
Congress leaders forgot everything about
destroying the caste , as a result of which the lofty provisions contained in it were given a state burial , which reflected in the further monopolization
of the industries , businesses ,
bureaucracy by the upper
castes , the residential systems
continued to be colonized still on the lines instructed by Manusmruti , the
real wages of the downtrodden hardly compensated the poor to meet the needs of Roti
, Kapda and Makan , not only that , the
Manusmruti came to be enforced with greater jealousy and ferocity in the
villages as a result of which
legislations like “ Protection
of Civil Rights Act
came to be passed at the central level as in the wake of adoption of
Constitution brotherhood , humanity among and towards the downtrodden did not appear . When
Ambedkar was pressurized to submit to the fast of Gandhi in Nagpur in the year
1930 , Gandhi had undertaken this task of uplifting the social status of the
harijans on behalf of the upper castes , and
as a result of this blackmail Ambedkar agreed to drop his demand for
separate constituencies for the harijans , this all vanished into thin air with
the advent of the freedom not only that
but the upper castes strengthened their stranglehold around the neck of the dalits and
the adivasis . These sections waited enough ,
but their patience was construed
as weakness and State power came to be used against them in the form of
legalities, investigations and punishments in the name of
law and order . Stability of the system in the name of maintenance of law and
order became plank of all the parties. All forgot that the primary need was changing the tradition-bound society and not
nourishing or showpiecing the parliamentary democracy was
the ultimate aim of the change-over from
the British Raj to the formation of a Republic . This change or
parivartan involved addressing the basic needs of the poor as
well doing away with the Hindu-discriminations of castes. A majority in the
parliament was not sufficient guarantee of realizing the ambitions of the non-upper
caste people. The Congress leaders did not guess the fight-back potential of
the upper-castes when some advance in the social reforms was initiated as they
rallied under this or that excuse , Mota has enlisted these factors on page No
175 pagraph 2 , stating Nav Nirman
agitation of Gujarat and Jay Prakash
Narayan’s agitation in Bihar. Take his
statement “ Street action on the part of the opposition renders it ( the institution of parliamentary institution
) impotent. Neither the government nor the
majority party can summon will to
resist violent mass agitation. Here the use of state power matching the street
violence is soft and selective ,
consider the amount and scale of state violence against the Naxalists during 2009 2010. The soft corner of the
establishment towards the upper castes is quite visible here.
The mobilization of the
upper-castes went unanswered by the
Congress and here they missed the bus , or they had no leaders of that timber to match the increasing interference of the
upper castes in the execution of the State’s social reform agenda. Once the
upper castes gained upper hand in this chess game , they have not allowed
loosening of the grip since then , take the case of Gujarat when Patels , who
launched anti-reservation agitation in 1985 , sacrificed more that 100 youths ,
have remained in the forefront since
then and their share in the power has been on the increase while the the share
of the rest of the society has decresed until Narendra Modi managed to remove
Keshu Patel from the seat of power.in 2001.
But how Congress faltered on this
score ? It was their miscalculation that the social change can be brought about
by governmental action only and the Organisation was not necessary for this
exercise. If one thinks on the lines of the motivation of the change and
mobilization of the people for whom the chane is to conceived and execute, one
would clearly realize that without involving the beneficiaries in this task
from the initial stage ,the opponents of the schemes would be emboldened to resist the change but if
they are motivated to rise in defence of the reformations , the opponents would
think hundreds times before resisting
the change. This is a historical lesson in Gujarat. Congress gave 27 %
reservations to the Mandal Panch communities in 1985 under the Chief
Ministership of Madhavsingh Solanki.This was resisted by the upper castes and
state-wide agitation was called by them . But the beneficiaries of the supposed
change did not rise against this
brow-beating by the upper castes and in the process , Madhavsingh
ministry had to go. It was clearly the rightists’ victory. Let us remember
Mota: “ They conceived government and not the party as a medium for realizing the goals of ideology and thus
rendered the party impotent in matters of social change.Moreover Nehru
conceived socialism , democracy , and
secularism as the elementary values
which alone can determine the
structure of a modern society . Indira Gandhi echoed her father’s view . No
doubt these are the necessary elements
in the structure of modern ideology, but
they can not fill the total space of the
ideological structure.They lack the power of cohesiveness of the party. THE
BASIS OF SOCIALISM IS CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS WHICH CANNOT FATHOM THE TOTALITY OF
SOCIAL EXISTENCE. ( italics mine ). The
basis of secularism is enlightenment and the intelligentia is the only group in which it can be realized
in all its aspects. It was an extremely limited role outside this group. Such
inadequacies of modern values have led
some sensitive thinkers to invoke humanism as a principle of their unity. But humanism is abstract , conceives
values through reason alone and tends to
devalue emotions and passions. It is too
remote for the purpose of releasing the common man’s energy for the fulfillment of the collective
goals.In this connection the Russian experience is illuminating . In its early
phase Russian Revolution encountered such paradoxes of humanism in its relationship
with socialism , democracy and secularism and was compelled to push it to the
back seat. It invoked the value of nationhood
which stabilized the revolutionary sate
by eliminating the excesses of the
elementary values. However it is still groping for an appropriate
form of nationalism which can
incorporate these values. The skeptics
may be reminded that nationhood is a
value emerging within human history and
as such it is not a cult which is ethically void. It still has a progressive
role at least for people groping for a stable state. …………… To summarise: We as a people with history stand
at its cross roads. The basic question we face is redefining the ideolological
structure in the light of experiences of of the last seventy years ( This was written in The Radical Humanist, of
Feb 1988 ) of our active and serious politics
and use it to transform the
political base particularly the party
system. We have to pick up the debate of the 1950s on the issue of
modernity versus tradition.The
conclusions arrived then arte worthless
so far as they assumed and affirmed the reconciliability of
traditionalism and modernism.The Nehru-Gandhi formulation of principle of
nationalism based on an
appreciation of values of traditional
social groups cannot be reconciled with
the modern values of socialism ,
democracy and secularism. We have been trying to build our political institutions on the basis of their self-contradictory
value system. They have naturally, proved to be too fragile. THE RESULTING
ANARCHY PAVES A WAY FOR A REVOLUTIONARY CRISIS . And our only hope is such a
crisis creates the conditions of its solution. No crisis in real
history is perpetual.”
( page No 176-
177 )
Note: The readers are requested to please post
their remarks on this site for wider feed-back.
