The
Bourgeoisie Comes of Age in India
The long-awaited publication of Jawaharlal Nehru's book on India
[Jawaharlal Nehru, The Discovery of India, (Calcutta, 1946)], past and
present, has in many ways justified the great hopes raised by the author's
distinguished record in the struggle for India's freedom, and by his active
share in the struggle against war. His career is too well known for further
comment here; those who do not know it would be well advised to read his
Autobiography as well as this book. No person knows India better than Pandit
Jawaharlal. He is able to express himself brilliantly both in Hindi and
Urdu, as friends and admirers among Hindus as well as Muslims will admit.
Most important of all, he has an intimate acquaintance with the British
ruling class because of his education in England. The book in question is,
therefore, a damning indictment of British rule in India; but more than
that, its ambitious scope includes the history of India culturally as well
as politically in a single perspective. The performance is all the more
remarkable when it is considered that the work was essentially completed in
jail, under the most distressing circumstances, with full consciousness on
the part of the author that a struggle against Hitlerism was being waged
without his help, though he himself had always been an unswerving opponent
of fascism and all that fascism represents. The very fact that so able a
personality should be jailed without trial while a considerable number of
British agent were foisted upon India to fight the war from the safety of
office chairs had an unfortunate result for the Indian population; for
while the British officials and a larger number of Indian business men
filled their pockets with vast quantities of paper currency, the people at
large had the benefit of inflation, famine, epidemics and shortages. To
explain just what this means in terms understandable to an American is
beyond the reach of any sensitive person who had the misfortune to be an
eye-witness of the happenings in India during the war years.
The book cannot be too strongly recommended to the general
reader. The present writer wishes to make it clear that he himself is a
humble admirer of the author. This is to prevent misunderstanding, for the
bulk of this communication is necessarily devoted to pointing out a certain
number of flaws. For the ancient history of India, little need be said
because such sources as we possess are extremely meagre and their
interpretation puzzles even those who have devoted a lifetime to their
study; on this score we need not hold the author responsible. In some ways
it is unfortunate that he has not had the leisure to study Indian sources
more critically and that he has relied so heavily upon comparatively
popular accounts by British authors. This, however, may be condoned on the
ground that Indian political prisoners hardly have reference libraries at
their disposal.
One feature that may strike the reader as rather surprising is a
curious attitude towards the much abused term "race";
denunciation of racialism and of imperialism occurs on p. 386f, but on p.
387 we read: "psychology counts and racial memories are long."
Just what racial memory means is not clear, particularly in the case of a
country that had forgotten the splendid Mauryan and Gupta periods,
including the very script of those times; that ascribes almost every cave
of any date to the mythical Pandavas; and is capable of pointing out as
prince Pratap Sinha, the statue of Outram (a butcher of the 1857 revolt) on
the Esplanade at Calcutta. It was noticeable on the contrary that class
memories are extremely short, or at any rate strikingly different from what
Nehru imagines to be race memories. For example, the British Commissioner
of Police in Bombay whose name was execrated for his incompetent or
deliberately provocative handling of popular discontent at the end of
January, 1946 (ending in a real blood-bath in the working class areas of
Bombay) was nevertheless a guest <missing
text> May, along with the Congress ministers, at the ri<missing text> weddings of the
year in Bombay. On p. 431 we read: "old races develop that attitude
[of quietism] to life:' Just what this means is also not clear, for
ethnologically there is no evidence that any race is older than any other.
In fact if the sentence can be taken as applying to the Indian races, it is
quite impossible to explain why quietism has been on the wane since 1940 at
least, and has given place to the constant ferment of political activity in
this country .
Far more serious to the present reviewer is the absence of the
question "why." No attempt at history can be regarded as mature
which does not, within the framework of the author's ideology, make some
attempt at analysis. For the ancient period we find considerable difficulty
in explaining certain facts for the simple reason that the facts themselves
are not always clear; but for the modern period it seems to me that the
author's present approach cannot stand unchallenged. I may go further and
venture the statement that this vague use of the term "race," the
absence of the question as to why certain changes take place at certain
times, are intimately bound up with another remark- able feature of the
book, the absence of a class analysis. The author could have asked himself
one question with the greatest of advantage, namely, cui bono; what is the
class that called for or benefited by a certain change at a certain period
of history? This might have clarified one issue noted by the author, that
the British have fought desperately and till now effectively against
granting India the same kind of social and political rights of which the
English themselves are so proud in England. It is quite obvious that the
class of Englishmen who fought for the suppression of local governments and
civil liberties in India have also fought desperately against the lower
classes in England; but when the pressure of the working class in England
became too great, the bourgeois front was breached in some one place and a
local amelioration was won. Then the losing section of the bourgeoisie
necessarily fought for the imposition of <missing text> restriction
against all other owners of means of production and ultimately put a good
face on the whole matter, provided that they, the rulers, had granted certain reforms at their
own sweet free will. There was comparatively little class opposition from
India as the British had taken every care to preserve as much feudal and
religious prerogative as possible.
It may be further suggested that the absence of developed modern
capital in the Muslim community as well as the great relative poverty of
the Muslims in India might explain (as Nehru does not) both the case
against the Muslim League (p. 466) and Muslim backwardness (p. 468) as well
as the reactionary attitude of the Muslim upper classes in India. Nehru has
himself pointed out (p. 437) that Indian business men demand exactly the
same kind of protection in Ceylon which they rightly resent having given to
British business interests in India. He is undoubtedly aware of the fact
that Indians in South Africa, backed whole-heartedly by the Indian trading
community there, are fighting hard for equality; but for equality with the
whites and not equality with the Negroes also. The absence of class
analysis vitiates the peculiar presentation of provincial differences and
growth of industry (p. 392-398). We read that the people of Gujarat,
Kathiawar and Kutch were traders, manufacturers, merchants and seafarers
from ancient times. Now it is undeniable that the great majority of people
in just those districts are definitely not traders, although people from
the localities mentioned occupy so prominent a place in the capitalistic
section of India today. The reason is that early contact with Mohammedan
traders enabled this small fraction to develop early contact with the
British and thereby introduced them to a new system of production: that is,
production based on machinery and modern capital. The best example of this
perhaps is the tiny Parsi community which, in its original situation in
Gujarat, was one of the most shamefully oppressed of refugee minorities and
is today one of the most advanced, cultured and powerful of communities in
India; solely because of their adoption of modern industrial and finance
capitalism. On the other hand the case is totally different with the
Marwaris of Rajputana (p. 394-96) who did control finance and money-lending
in the old days but had no political rights whatsoever. If Nehru will take
the trouble to look up the records he will see how often such moneylenders
backed the British in the days of British expansion in India. Of course
that may not lead him to realise a basic contemporary phenomenon: the
change of pseudo-capital thus accumulated into modern productive money. The
changeover is now actually so rapid that even the most backward and
degenerate of Indians, the feudal princelings, are becoming shareholders on
a large scale. The days are gone when shares were issued at a face value of
Rs.30/- to be quoted today (1946) at well over Rs.3,000/- or when a stock
was issued at Rs.100/-, of which Rs.99/- was given back as a capital
repayment, to give a dividend of over Rs.150/- today, being quoted at
Rs.2,300/ -. Those stocks had a much longer start in the race for
modernisation of industry, but the total volume of such capital was
negligible and has now been tremendously increased by the conversion of
primitive accumulation as well as by the uncontrolled inflation and
profiteering of the war period.
Not only has Nehru neglected to take note of this accumulation,
but he has also been unable to grasp just what this quantitative change has
done qualitatively to the character of the- Indian middle class, a class
which may now be said to be firmly, in the saddle. A few drops from the
banquet (generally from the excess profits) have been scattered as a
libation in the direction of education, scientific research, and charity; a
considerable slackening of the ancient rigidity of manners, and
unfortunately of morals also, is duly noticeable. Yet this is nothing
compared to the principal characteristic of this class, the ravening greed
which is now so obvious in the black market, in enormous bribes spent in
making still more enormous profits, in speculation in shares and an
increasingly callous disregard for the misery and even the lives of their
fellow Indians). The progressive deterioration in the living conditions of
our peasant workers (over 50 per cent of the population), of our factory
labour and even the lower-paid office workers and intellectuals affords a
striking contrast with the wealth that flows into the pockets of the upper
middle class, though the gain may be camouflaged by the ostentatious
simplicity of white khaddar (homespun) and the eternal Gandhi cap.
The new constitution for India, in the gaining of which Nehru and his friends
have spent so many of the finest years of their lives in jail, will come
only as a recognition of the power of this newly expanded Indian middle
class.
Actually the negotiations of the British Cabinet Mission are
nothing if not recognition of the position of the new bourgeoisie in India.
The old trusteeship theory no longer yields monopoly profits either by
investment or by export; the British bourgeoisie which must export and
invest has admitted the necessity of coming to terms with their Indian counterpart
which needs capital goods. It is surely not without significance that the
modern industrialists and financiers contribute to Congress (by which I
mean the Indian National Congress Party in this note) funds, while the
leadership of the Muslim League is on noticeable good terms with the
Mohammedan owners of money in India; it may be suggested that one reason
for the conflict between these two middle class political organizations is
not only the fact that the Muslim minority forms one-third of the population
of the country with less than one-tenth of its wealth, but further that the
wealth in Muslim hands is based predominantly on barter pseudo-capital or
semi-feudal agrarian production, both of which look for protection to the
British.
In the light of all this, which Nehru does not acknowledge
explicitly, it is interesting to note his comments on the Indian Communist
Party (p. 524 and 629). Nehru does not realize that the Indian Communist
Party (never ideologically powerful had in 1941 been suppressed to the
point of ineffectiveness and that their increasing force in Indian politics
today, though still virtually negligible as against that of the
bourgeoisie, is due solely to their having really gone down to the peasant
workers and the very small industrial proletariat-two sections of the
Indian population among which the Congress and the Muslim League both have
much less influence today than they did before 1943. In speaking of the
Congress Planning Committee (p. 482-84) it is curious to note that the findings
of the committee had apparently no influence whatsoever on the provincial
Congress governments then functioning. Nehru might have studied with profit
the differences between the Congress programme and the actual performance
of the Congress ministries.
There is no evidence at all that the Congress as constituted
today is in the remotest danger of drifting (like its planning committee)
towards socialism. With the Muslim League leadership, of course, it is
difficult to observe anything except pure opportunism and reaction. Without
going deeper into the statistics or capital investments, it may be
stated-and verified by a reference to the newspaper advertisements of the
period-that the years 1937-39, when the Congress ministries ruled, show in
their particular provinces a considerable number of new enterprises being
started. The investor certainly demonstrated his confidence in the
Congress, whether or not the British and the Congress Planning Commission
gave any attention to that aspect of the matter. Of course this cannot
compare with the almost explosive increase in capital today.
In dealing with the stirring events of August, 1942 (p. 579f.),
Nehru has given the parliamentary side of the question in a straightforward
manner. The external observer, however, may be struck by one noteworthy
point which has not even been visualized in the book. When the All India
Congress Committee met at Bombay, the members knew that arrest was imminent
and most of them had prepared for the event by setting their family affairs
and personal finances in excellent order against all contingencies that
might arise for the next year or two. What strikes this writer as
remarkable is that not one of these worthy and able delegates, though aware
that the British adversary was about to strike, ever thought of a plan of
action for the Congress and for the nation as a whole. The general idea was
"the Mahatama will give us a plan", yet no especial impression
was made by the Mahatma's speech just before the arrests-though that address
to the assembled delegates on the eve of an anticipated popular explosion
is not only not revolutionary in character, nor a plan of action of any
sort, but seems, when taken objectively, to be on the same level as a
comfortable after-dinner speech. Why is it that knowledge of popular
dissatisfaction went hand in hand with the absence of a real plan of
action? Does it mean, for example, that the characteristic thought then
current among the Indian bourgeoisie had in effect permeated the Congress
leadership? One may note that on a class basis the action was quite
brilliant, no matter how futile it may have seemed on a national
revolutionary scale. The panic of the British government and jailing of all
leaders absolved the Congress from any responsibility for the happenings of
the ensuing year; at the same time the glamour of jail and concentration
camp served to wipe out the so-so record of the Congress ministries in
office, thereby restoring the full popularity of the organization among the
masses. If the British won the war it was quite clear that the Congress had
not favoured Japan; if on the other hand the Japanese succeeded in
conquering India (and they had only to attack immediately in force for the
whole of the so-called defense system to crumble) they could certainly not
accuse the Congress of having helped the British. Finally, the hatred for
the mass repression fell upon the thick heads of the bureaucracy, while
having the discontent brought to a head and smashed wide open would
certainly not injure the Indian bourgeoisie.
In this connection we may again recall Lenin's words that
"only when the lower classes do not want the old and when the upper
class cannot continue in the old way then only can the revolution be
victorious. Its truth may be expressed in other words: Revolution is
impossible without a national crisis affecting both the exploited and the
exploiters." You look in vain in Nehru's book for any recognition of
the undeniable fact that, in 1942, while the toiling masses had begun to
taste the utmost depths of misery and degradation, the Indian bourgeoisie
was flourishing as never before. War contracts, high prices, the ability to
do extensive black-marketing, had given the financiers and industrialists
what they wanted; furthermore even the lower, middle classes who had
normally been the spearhead of discontent in India had begun to experience
an amelioration because of the great number of new clerical and office jobs
created by the war and the expanding war economy. Taking cognizance of this
and of the further truth that the British in India had consistently allowed
investors to make an increasing amount of profit in this country, one may
be able to account for the lack of a plan in 1942 and for the successive
deadlocks that followed in spite of mass pressure in the direction of
revolution.
History has thrust upon Nehru the mantle of leadership of a very
powerful organization which still commands a greater mass support than any
other in India, and which has shown by its unremitting and painful struggle
that it is determined to capture political control of the entire
subcontinent. But will Nehru's orientation towards Marxism change when the
interests of the class which now backs Congress so heavily diverge from the
interests of the poorer classes; or will his lack of a class analysis lead
only to disillusionment? It would be silly to proclaim that Mahatma Gandhi,
than whom no more sincere person exists, is a tool of the capitalists in
India. But there is no other class in India today, except the new bourgeoisie,
so strong, so powerfully organized, and so clever as to exploit for its own
purposes whatever is profitable in the Mahatma's teachings and to reduce
all dangerous enunciations to negative philosophical points. This
bourgeoisie needs Nehru's leadership, just as India has needed the class
itself. As I read the omens, the parting of the ways is clearly visible;
what is not clear is the path Nehru himself will choose in that moment of
agony.
Science and Society (New York), vol. X 1946, pp. 392-398.
The OM thesis at this time was that the
British would never transfer power to the Indian National Congress. The OM
solution was that the Hindus and the Muslims, somehow equated to the
Congress and the Muslim League, should unite to throw out the foreign imperialists.
The question of the class structure behind the two parties was never openly
raised, perhaps because the writings of W. Cantwell Smith led the OM to
believe that the Muslim League was, in some mysterious way, at heart
anti-British and on the road to socialism. One sure test of effective
anti-imperialism, namely how many of the leaders were jailed or executed by
the rulers of empire, was not applied. The intransigence and the open
alliance with the British, so profitable to the leading personalities in
the League, and the insistence upon the "two nations" theory were
dutifully ignored. No emphasis has been laid upon the total disruption of
advanced peasant movements in the Punjab and in Bengal by the 1947
separation of Pakistan. For that matter, the OM had dismissed the Satara
peasant uprising (patri sarkar) of 1942-43 as pure banditry.
Web templates
|