Rise Of Indian Nationalism

Left politics in India

Left politics in India
By Manju Gupta
Leftism in India, 1917-1947, Satyabrata Rai Chowdhuri, Macmillan Publishers India Ltd, Pp 254, Rs 375.00

THE Leftists or those who believe in Marxism-Leninism followed an ideology at complete variance with the Indian National Congress guided by Mahatma Gandhi and his ideology of non-violence during the decisive phase of the Indian freedom moment. As a result, their policies clashed at every stage of the freedom movement, giving rise to dramatic developments which are described in this work.

Leftism in India, after the close of World War I, developed along two main streams, namely communism and democratic socialism. While the first was a projection of the international communist movement controlled at that time by the Comintern, the second corresponded broadly to the tradition of Fabian socialism and represented the most meaningful check to communism in India. Though the character and the course of the movements set in motion by both ideological systems were conditioned by India’s struggle for freedom, the communists could not themselves with the ethos of Indian nationalism in this period. As a result the Leftist party’s appeal lay only with a group of sharply oriented indigenous intelligentsia. It was from this group that the communist movement derived is leadership as well as the intermediate layers of cadres while the vast mass of the population remained alienated from the revolutionary tenets of Marxism. Though this intelligentsia had extensively read Marxist scriptures, they failed to accept its irrelevance to Asian developments. It was, however, the Russian Revolution or the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 that caught the imagination of a section of intellectuals who felt emancipation of India was not possible through “weak and watery reforms of Gandhi” but by a revolutionary mass struggle against British imperialism and its Indian allies.

The Communist Party of India’s nationalist policy of dividing the country into 16 separate states did not find echo in the heats of the people who were tied in “the unifying bond of the Indian ethos.” The Communist Party of India thought that by weaning away the Muslims from the Congress, they would be able to rally the separatists in their favour and capture the nationalist movement.

Pressures of Loyalism during British Rule | Welcome to APLHS ...

As has been noted by several historians of British-ruled India, the numerical presence of the British in colonized India was never very significant. Yet, the British were able to maintain a vast and stable empire in the Indian subcontinent for almost two centuries. They were able to recklessly exploit India's natural resources and drain the wealth of it's citizenry through the imposition of excessive and unreasonable taxes - all without unmanageable challenges to their political authority during much of their debilitating reign. Although there is no doubt that physical violence (including torture ) were important elements of British domination in India, equally important were the successes of political strategies that took full advantage of rivalries amongst native rulers and cynically exploited divisions arising from caste, religion, class and other sectarian loyalties. Not only were the British able to garner the loyalty or acquiescence of the Indian Maharajas and other elements of the decadent feudal aristocracy, they were also able to command the support of influential sections of the British-educated new urban intelligentsia whose loyalty to the colonial empire remained unquestioned even as nationalist feelings and nationalist currents emerged with greater or lesser intensity after the defeat of 1858. Money-lenders and the landed gentry were particularly reliable allies of the British, and the new industrial class, though critical of British policies, was invariably constrained by it's conservatism in opposing British rule. Thus, loyalism became a powerful political trend in British India that either countered nationalist forces outright, or attempted to diffuse their impact and efficacy through calls for political moderation, non-violence and tactical restraint. Loyalist forces made frequent and fervent appeals to the Indian masses to be patient with the British, to be content with the slow pace of political reforms, and to be grateful for minor concessions concerning self-rule. Those who demanded a more radical and confrontationist approach with the British (such as Tilak) were branded as "extremists" and dismissed as unrealistic or utopian radicals. Rooted amongst sections of the Indian elite that feared the power of the restive masses, loyalism was not only a strong political force in Indian territories directly ruled by the British, but also had a profound impact on Princely India.

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