Espías renegados entre Inquisición y justicia seglar

We can no more separate our politics from our economics. Indian commerce and industry are intimately associated with and are indeed an integral part of the national movement—growing with its growth and strengthening with its strength.

—Sir Purshottamdas Thakurdas, in his presidential address to the second annual session of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry [FICCI], 1928

The national struggle for independence cannot be reduced, in any way, to merely an expression of the self-serving agenda of the Indian capitalist class. Similarly, the Indian National Congress (INC) was not an organisation that represented only the interests of the national bourgeoisie. As we have seen in Chapter II, the national struggle for independence evolved, over a period of time, into a movement that involved all sections of the Indian people. Hence, the dynamics of the movement were guided by the conflicts among the various socio-economic groups. The INC, as a body, was the forum where these conflicts took place. In the course of handling these conflicts, the Congress as a platform, and Gandhi in particular, could negotiate between the groups and among them at the same time. On most occasions, if not all, the Congress turned to be a fair arbitrator. This was how it could represent the Indian people as a whole. Most of the credit for this achievement should go to Gandhi.

This scenario, however, began to change after 1937, when the Congress assumed office in the provinces after the elections based on the Government of India Act, 1935. A number of those who became ministers in different provinces were known for their sectarian views. This was the case not only on issues involving the religious minorities and their position in independent India, but also in the case of their attitude towards workers. This was also the stage when Gandhi’s ability to influence the priorities of the INC was beginning to whittle down. It had a lasting impact also on the course of the national struggle for independence. While a detailed discussion on the shift in the attitude of the Congress towards the religious minorities (the Muslim community in particular) will be appropriate at a later stage (Chapter IV), it is pertinent to state here that the Muslim League’s resolution (in August 1940) demanding Pakistan will have to be seen in the context of the developments in the INC during this period. Of relevance to the concerns of this chapter is the experience involving the

Congress leaders who held positions in the provincial ministries with regard to their attitude towards the demands and aspirations of the peasantry and the industrial workers.

The Congress ministries were on the side of the employer in almost all instances when there was a conflict of interests between the worker and the employer. Those who headed the Congress ministries in the provinces—C. Rajagopalachari in Madras, B. G. Kher in Bombay and G. B. Pant in the United Provinces—did not conceal their predilections on this. This was true even when the conflicts arose out of demands by the workers for better wages and working conditions. An illustration of this was a legislation passed by the Bombay Legislative Assembly (in 1938) imposing severe restrictions on trade union organisations. The Bombay Act formed the basis for a similar legislation in the Madras

presidency. It was not enacted in Madras only because the Congress provincial governments resigned in September 1939.

There was no change in the attitude of the Congress leaders even after the resignation of the ministries in September 1939. They persisted with this sectarian agenda, reducing the INC to a platform that invariably sided with the Indian capitalists whenever there was a conflict of interest between labour and capital. This shift, in the overall strategy of the INC, was further established in the context of the post–World War II nationalist upsurge. The Congress leaders in the provinces did not hesitate to order repressive measures to put down the various agitations involving the industrial workers and the peasantry across the country. Instances of police firing at striking workers were commonplace in all provinces in the post–World War II period. The trade union movement,

invariably, was being led by the communists. All these reveal a story that will establish the extent to which the Indian capitalist class had emerged into a powerful group to influence the course of the INC.

The incipient capitalist class in India was clear in its perception that liberation from the colonial yoke was the only way to build a capitalist set-up in India. It saw import substitution as the basis for further growth and expansion. The unravelling of the Indian economic reality from the beginning of the twentieth century provided the objective conditions to the maturing of this understanding too. Clarity on these lines and the impact of the swadeshi slogan across the country led the national bourgeoisie away from becoming a comprador class. A large number of textile mills had come up in and around Bombay by 1896. While the swadeshi campaign helped expansion of the market for Indian goods, World War I led to a situation when sea routes to India were closed for merchant vessels. This aided the Indian enterprise in a big way. The market that the colonial enterprise had created over the years was available, on a platter, for the Indian manufacturer. The Indian enterprise could also enter

several areas other than the cotton textile industry that had existed even before the outbreak of war.

The cessation of hostilities in 1918 and the larger crisis of global capitalism that ultimately manifested in the great crash (1929) had its impact in India too. This added to the crisis that was building in the Indian industrial scenario, even otherwise due to the war-time boom receding and forcing large-scale retrenchment of industrial labour. The workers, radicalised by the shared

experience of life within and outside the factories, were responding to the crisis by organising strikes.

The rising strike wave peaked in 1928. These issues were becoming a subject matter for concern for the INC too. The widening of the Congress base after the entry of Gandhi and the changes in its

constitution in 1920 had brought into its fold a large number of industrial workers. These were factors that led the Congress to define freedom in a radical fashion at the Karachi session. It is important to take note of the distinct and pronounced tendencies in this context. Gandhi, for instance, had

developed the slogan of swadeshi to form the core of the national struggle for independence. In the same period, we witness the enmeshing of radical ideas, brought into the political discourse by Jawaharlal Nehru. Inspired by the 1917 revolution in Russia, Nehru contributed immensely to the radicalisation of the INC.

This larger context was leading the important members of the Indian capitalist class also to define their own position vis-à-vis the national struggle for freedom. The foundation of the FICCI, in 1927,

took place in this context. This was the same time when the trade union movement had established itself into a force. Rather than restricting their concerns to wages and bargaining, the trade unions in India, mostly organised under the banner of the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), were explicit about their political agenda too. The industrial working class had, after all, associated itself with the nationalist cause as early as 1905. Recall the general strike in Bombay in protest against the arrest and detention of Bal Gangadhar Tilak. The national bourgeoisie too began to evolve its

position vis-à-vis the INC in this context. The statement at the second annual session of the FICCI (in 1928) by its president, Sir Purshottamdas Thakurdas, that the economic advancement of the Indian capitalist class was so closely tied to the national struggle for independence, marked the beginning of a battle for the Congress. Ambalal Sarabhai was more explicit when he stressed the need for the FICCI to ensure an organic link with the INC.

It is clear that the leading lights of the Indian capitalist class were convinced about the need to convert the leadership of the INC into a representative of its own interests. They did this in a

calibrated manner rather than in an ad hoc fashion. G. D. Birla’s pronouncement in 1930, ‘the need to strengthen the hands of those fighting for freedom’, seemed to clarify to those within the FICCI who wondered as to how the rising tide of popular protests could be dealt with. The debate within the FICCI in this regard persisted. Lalji Naranji, for instance, wondered about the adverse impact that could result from a popular movement whose basis was disregard for authority. They were concerned over the adverse effect the idea of civil disobedience could have on the future government,

particularly so in the light of the moral high ground that this movement had achieved, thanks to

Gandhi’s leading role in it. Lalji Naranji’s concern was that such a movement was bound to lead to a tendency that could culminate in organised challenges against private property and political authority even after independence was achieved. Such apprehensions notwithstanding, the Indian capitalist class was clear on the point that it was not in their interest to oppose the INC. The agenda was to ensure a critical role for themselves and influence the Congress’ agenda as much possible.

The debate within the Congress on whether to enter office or not during 1935–37 turned out to be an occasion for the national bourgeoisie to play a role and push the INC to enter office. It was G. D.

Birla who worked hard towards this end. Once the Congress decided to form its governments, it did so with an explicit statement that the objective was to wreck the constitution rather than working it.

Birla then conveyed to Viceroy Lord Halifax that it was imperative for the colonial rulers to ensure that the constitution (of 1935) worked. ‘Otherwise’, he stressed, ‘India would be compelled to take direct action’. He was representing to the colonial rulers the need to ensure that conditions were not created for another round of civil disobedience.

In spite of their reservations against the Congress’ strategy of popular mobilisation and the consequent radicalisation of the movement, the national bourgeoisie did not condemn or distance itself from the Congress at this stage. Birla’s note to Purshottamdas in the midst of the civil

disobedience movement established this clearly. In January 1931, Birla wrote: ‘If we are to achieve what we desire, the present movement should not be allowed to slacken.’

This unequivocal stand was evident even in the the midst of Gandhi’s individual satyagraha programme against the colonial government’s unilateral decision to involve India in the war efforts.

The individual satyagraha began in November 1940. Describing the situation as one where the Congress was left with no option but to launch non-cooperation movement, Purshottamdas clearly stood by the national struggle for freedom. This position matured into a categorical statement on 5 August 1942, just four days before the Quit India resolution was moved at the All India Congress Committee session at the Gowalia tank grounds in Bombay. In a joint letter to the viceroy, the leading lights of the FICCI, Purshottamdas Thakurdas, J. R. D. Tata and G. D. Birla made it known that they stood by the Congress’ demand for independence as a necessary condition for cooperation in the war effort.

Thus, it is clear that the capitalist class, as it emerged in India, was determined to stand by the national struggle for freedom rather than turn into a comprador class. The story, however, does not end here. Similar developments were noticed around the same time as the Quit India movement were assuming the form of a popular movement and even taking the shape of violent protests against all forms of authority. All this had far reaching implications for the political discourse after 15 August 1947. The period between 1943 and 1947 was the phase when the influence of the nationalist bourgeoisie on the INC was pronounced. In other words, this was the period when the Congress began drifting away from the fundamentals laid out in the Karachi session. It also meant a decisive break by the Congress with the Gandhian tradition, in at least one important area; the premise on which India’s post-independence economic policy was formulated.

The Bombay Plan and Nehruvian Socialism

Assured as it was of independence even while the World War II was still on, the FICCI, in 1944, came out with what was known at that time as the Bombay Plan. The Indian capitalist class, by this time had grown into a powerful group. The share of indigenous enterprise in the domestic market was over 70 per cent. Similarly, over 80 per cent of the deposits in the organised banking sector came from the Indian capitalist class. Their future prospects, however, depended on a lot more than mere patronage of the kind they received from the Congress ministries during 1937 and 1939. They realised the need for an economic order that went beyond the rhetoric of free enterprise and they were in

search of a leader who was willing to go along with them.

The turning point, in this regard, was the convergence of sorts between the objective of the national bourgeoisie and Jawaharlal Nehru’s approach to independent India’s economic development. This led to an alliance between the two. Nehru’s fascination to emulate the principles of centralised planning and large-scale production of goods, as carried out in the Soviet Union, laid the basis for this alliance. The aspirations of the national bourgeoisie had a lot in common with Nehru’s vision of modernity than with the Gandhian paradigm. The Gandhian model, based on small-scale production units and celebrating the artisan, went against the interests of the national capitalist class. This was particularly so when they had appropriated, to themselves, most of the domestic market for goods.

Realising the need to set the agenda, the FICCI set up a committee to draft an economic policy resolution to be presented before the future government of India. Around the same time, G. L. Mehta, in his presidential address to the FICCI’s annual session in 1943, stressed the need for a consistent

programme of reforms that could act as the most effective remedy against social upheavals. This indeed seemed to have been the framework within which the Post–War Economic Development Committee, set up by the FICCI in 1942, drafted its report. This report came to be known as the Bombay Plan. The Bombay Plan was an attempt that incorporated features inherent to the socialist framework to the extent that it did not dilute the core interests of the capitalist class in India.

Recognising the need for state intervention in economic activity, the Bombay Plan laid thrust on state investment in the infrastructure sector, particularly in areas involving huge capital investments and a long gestation period, apart from social overheads. Other salient aspects of the plan were the poverty-alleviation measures by the state, deficit financing and state investments in those sectors that gave return only in long term. The Bombay plan emphasised that the state must involve itself in

economic activity to the extent that it helped in employment generation and, by extension, enlarge the size of the home market. However, another prescription of the Bombay Plan was to erect protective barriers against competition from imports. Radical land reforms and freeing the agrarian sector of its feudal vestiges would have served the same purpose, i.e., enlarging the home market for consumer goods. But then, such a strategy also carried with it the potential of a revolutionary upsurge, which could have, in the final count, spelt the end of their dream. The Nehruvian era (1951–64) witnessed implementation of several important features of the Bombay Plan in the name of socialism. This laid the foundation for the political dynamics during the decade after independence.

IV