Socialism in India

It's not surprising, if a bit unsettling to some, that many of the freedom fighters got attracted to the lure of socialist ideas for nation building while dreaming for an independent India. Socialism was like the Spirit of the Age in pre-independence India. It was Karl Marx, the father of communism, who inspired many Indians through his writings during the Russian Revolution.

Bal Gangadher Tilak was among the first Indian freedom fighters to praise Marx's philosophy and the Russian communist revolutionary Lenin. Subhash Chandra Bose, the fascist leader of the Indian National Army, had inclinations towards authoritarian means for creating a socialist nation. He thought of Soviet Union as a role-model-nation for India and believed (post WW II) that democracy would not work in a country like India. He had major disagreements with Gandhi's non-violent methods for attaining independence, and was an advocate for a violent resistance. [He was elected as the president of Indian National Congress for two consecutive terms, but resigned because of his ideological differences with the Mahatma.]

Another revolutionary, Bhagat Singh, was also attracted to the Marxist principles of revolutionary Communism. After becoming the leader of Hindustan Republican Association, he changed its name to Hindustan Socialist Republican Association in 1928. Like Netaji, he also believed that a vast and diverse country like India could survive only under a socialist government. He wrote in his letter to the Governor of Punjab “Till Communist Party comes to power and people live without unequal status, our struggle will continue. It cannot be brought to an end by killing us: it will continue openly as well as secretly.” 

In the famous statement on June 6, 1929, Bhagat Singh said, “The whole edifice of this civilization, if not saved in time, shall crumble. A radical change, therefore, is necessary and it is the duty of those who realise it to reorganise society on the socialistic basis. Unless this thing is done and the exploitation of man by man and of nations by nations is brought to an end, sufferings and carnage with which humanity is threatened today cannot be prevented.” [source] 

On the other end of the political spectrum of pre-independence India, the Indian National Congress also believed in the socialist idea and set it as a goal for free India. Nehru, the first prime minister of independent India adopted socialist practices for industrial and economic development as well as for social reforms in India. While many argue today that the liberalization should have taken place as early as the 70's (as opposed to the 90's), it remains a topic of debate whether implementing free market economy right after freedom could have been a wise alternative to 'centralized planning'.

The National Planning Committee (NPC), which was set up in 1938, was in charge of deciding economic policy for India that was soon to be free. The NPC took lessons from Russia and Japan where state intervention was needed and helped tremendously to annul the effects of late industrialization. This 'late industrialization' effect was even more prevalent in India which had been under colonial rule for over 200 years. So the NPC suggested "service before profit" policy, and notably the private sector agreed with this strategy.  In 1944, a group of leading industrialists published A Plan for Economic Development for India (which was later known as the Bombay Plan), in which they expressed the need for state intervention especially in  energy, transportation and infrastructure. These capitalists concurred that, positive and preventive functions of the state are essential to any large scale economic planning in the early stage of industrialization. 

During the Emergency of 1976, the word socialist was added to the preamble of the Constitution of India:

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 of opportunity;

and to promote among them all

FRATERNITY assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the Nation; [link]

(Emphasis is mine.)

Even after India has shredded off its socialist ideals in 1991, when the prime minister Narsimha Rao and the finance minister Manmohan Singh, introduced economic liberalization which spurted a tremendous economic growth in last couple of decades, India continues to be described a socialist republic in the preamble to the constitution! [Several months ago, the SC surprisingly refused to entertain a petition which urged to remove the word socialist from the preamble.]

Atheism and Agnosticism

There is a common misconception about the definition of atheism. Many perceive an atheist as someone who believes that God does not exist (i.e. there's no God.) -- which is not necessarily true.

Let's consider the term theist first. A theist is someone who believes in the existence of God. He believes that there's a God. If you think of this particular belief (there's a God) as a metaphysical entity, then this entity exists in the mind of a theist. While in an atheist's mind that belief simply does not exist. Note that this does not necessarily mean that an atheist believes that there's no God. A belief that there's no God is, another metaphysical entity, which might or might not exist in an atheist's mind.

There are two possible opposites of belief  (1) disbelief, and (2) absence of belief. The first one is active denial. While the second one is a mere passive position. Normally when one hears the term atheist, they think about the 1st position (i.e. disbelief in God). Position (1) is called active (or strong) atheism, while (2) is referred as non-theism. I think it's fair to lump (1) and (2) together and tag both positions as atheism. But it's important not to forget that an atheist can belong to either (1) active atheism, or (2) non-theism. Active theist affirms the non-existence of God, while a non-theist rejects theism. 

So while theism (and hence atheism) is about belief. Agnosticism, on the other hand, is about knowledge. A person who knows for sure that God exists is a gnostic. And a person who doesn't claim to know whether God exists or not is an agnostic.

Contrary to common understanding, a person can be both: a theist and an agnostic, a believer without claiming to know for sure if God exists or not. Similarly you can be an atheist as well as an agnostic. In fact, being an agnostic  can be a reason why someone is also an atheist (i.e. he lacks the belief, because he's not sure.) 

On religious subjects, the only world religion that's firmly agnostic - Buddhism - is of Indian origin. A particular school of thought in Buddhism, called Theravada, a predominant religion in Sri Lanka, is actually non-theist. In Hinduism too, the Carvaka philosophy of skepticism and materialism (also known as Lokayata), which originated in the 6th century, is classified as a nastika (i.e. atheist) system. Jainism also rejects the beliefs in a personal creator God.

Amartya Sen has explored the heterodoxy of Indian religious beliefs in his fascinating book The Argumentative Indian. I take the following passage from his book: The so-called 'song of creation' (or the 'creation hymn', as it is sometimes called) in the authoritative Vedas ends with the following radical doubts: 

Who really knows?

Who will here proclaim it?

Whence was it produced?

Whence is this creation?

The gods came afterwards, with the creation of this universe.

Who then knows whence it has arisen?

Whence this creation has arisen -

perhaps it formed itself, or perhaps it did not -

the one who looks down to it, in the highest heaven,

only he knows -

or perhaps he does not know.

[From Rigveda. English translation by Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, in Rigveda: An Anthology.]

The Last Mughal

The Last Mughal is yet another laboriously researched and wonderfully written book by William Dalrymple. William is an Indophile, who previously authored two excellent books: The City of Djinns and White Mughals. He is fascinated by the old city Delhi and all his three books reveal quite intriguing, obscure and forgotten details about the city that served as the capital for two of the biggest empires that ruled India - the Mughals and the British. The city was also the primary center of the Great Mutiny of 1857.

What's most interesting to me in this book is the first-person accounts of what happened on the streets of Delhi ere, during and after the Uprising. Utter chaos took over the city as the mutineers started looting around (the members of the wealthy class being their first target). As the situation grew worse after people realized Zafar's inability to stop the havoc, many seized this opportunity to settle old scores and satiate their lust. After Delhi fell under British attack, hell broke loose when the revengeful army officers went on a killing rampage. "The punishment for mutiny is death." was their motto, but they didn't even spare the lives of innocent civilians who were mere observers (albeit most wished for british defeat). During the Uprising, the mutineers had violently massacred numerous British officials and civil servants not sparing the lives of their wives and children. This created a strong desire for vengeance among the victorious army officials. The army rummaged and plundered houses and havelis in search of any valuables they could find. The violence rumbled on for weeks and the city was deserted after many were killed and those who were alive fled the city. Delhi became a necropolis.

William Dalrymple intensively researched previously undiscovered sources like the Mutiny Papers, the National Archives of India, Delhi Commissioner's Office Archives, Delhi's principal newspapers of that time (Dilhi Urdu Akhbar, Siraj ul-Akhbar, Delhi Gazette &c), National Archives of Rangoon (where Zafar spent his final days as a British State Prisoner). We read letters written by British officials to their wives and siblings that often oscillate between emotional outbursts (on seeing poor civilians being killed inhumanly) and brave proclamations (for being able to take revenge for the innocent British families that were butchered by mutineers). There are excerpts from diaries written by Englishwomen, army officers as well as celebrated Delhi personalities like Ghalib (the famous poet who was a member of Zafar's durbar). All together, this creates a throbbing picture of the indescribable cruelties that took place in Delhi. The letters, editorials from newspapers, government documents - all are very subjective accounts, but you have to appreciate William Dalrymple who tries to be as objective as possible and gives us information from both sides: British and Indian, both of which played the roles of 'the cruel' and 'the victims'.  

Bahadur Shah (II) Zafar's precarious and helpless position at the dawn of the Mutiny and also after their defeat is explored in this book as never before. By 1857, the Mughal dynasty was on a steep decline and the British Company, of whom Zafar himself was a pensioner, was already on the rise. When the mutineer army from Meerut came to Zafar to get his blessing, the enfeebled 82 year old king had no other option but to give in to their rather forceful demands and hesitantly declare support for the Uprising. This finally led to his imprisonment after Delhi fell to British army, and the British court charged Zafar with "rebellion, treason and murder" in a trial that lasted more than 8 months. The primary contributor to the defeat of mutineers seem to be the lack of central authority, which Zafar was supposed to be providing. But the octogenarian, who was a sufi poet by heart, could do very little except expressing his dismay at the looting of the city residents by mutineers and their arrogant disrespectful behavior to the emperor himself. "The king was like the king on the chessboard after checkmate." Above is a photograph (perhaps the only one) of the Last Mughal taken after the his trial in 1858.

Bahadur Shah II Zafar, the last Mughal King, the descendent of the great world-conquerers Chengiz Khan and Timur, died quietly without any fuss, as a British State Prisoner in Rangoon in 1862. A week after his death the British Commissioner Captain Davis wrote to London to report what has passed, adding:

The death of the ex-King may be said to have had no effect on the Mahomedan part of the populace of Rangoon, except perhaps for a few fanatics who watch and pray for the final triumph  of Islam. A bamboo fence surrounds the grave for some considerable distance, and by the time the fence is worn out, the grass will again have properly covered the spot, and no vestige will remain to distinguish where the last of the Great Moghuls rests.

Few factoids from the book: 

• The mutineers were called "Pandees" in Colonial British slang. The name derived from, as you might have guessed, Mangal Pandey who was the first sepoy to rise against the Company. And "Tommies" was a generic slang for a british soldier at that time.  
• Although they are commonly believed to be written by Zafar, it's unclear if he really penned the fantastic and rather melancholic ghazals (1) "Na Kisi Ki Aankh Ka Noor Hoon" and (2) "Lagta Naheen Hai Dil Mera" (both wonderfully sung by Mohammed Rafi in movie Lal Qila). 
• Zafar, the pen-name of Bahadur Shah II,  means "Victory", which is quite ironic since he is widely perceived as a "loser" and associated with one of the greatest defeats in Indian subcontinent.
• Ghalib was among the few Muslim survivors left in the city. In his muhalla, Ballimaran, also lived some senior courtiers  of the British loyalist Maharaja of Patiala, who sent troops and supplies to British army during the Siege. Because of this, the Britishers did not raid Ballimaran and Ghalib escaped the massacre.
• The Sikhs were keen recruits in the British army. They fought two vicious wars with the British but this was probably outweighed by the hatred on the Mughals who martyred two of their greatest gurus - Guru Arjan Dev and Guru Tegh Bahadur.