• The disillusioned prophet One of his last interviews, printed in India Today August 15 1977
• Field Work More Important Letter to members of the national executive of the CSP, August 29, 1951
• Stock Taking Press statement on Independence Day, 1948
• The Revolution of 1942 The Searchlight, April 22, 1946
• First Things First Congress Socialist, Vol. I, No 52, December 26, 1936
• Why Socialism

First Things First

Congress Socialist, Vol. I, No 52, December 26, 1936

Independence first then anything else! Do not raise remote issues! Let us put our shoulders to the immediate task! First things first! These slogans have recently been revived. They have received support from quarters which were not expected merely to repeat them as an admonition to the left in the national movement. However, as slogans they are responsible enough. But the essence of slogans is in their application.

Mere repetition of platitudes does not take us very far. It may serve the purpose of covering up issues and confusing actions, but it cannot help solve the real problem. WE all want independence first. But it is foolish to pretend that we have no problems, that the only thing left to do is to “act” and not to “talk”, as if talking or acting were the only alternatives before us. It is pathetic naivete to believe that merely by repeating that meaningless phrase, “first things come first”, we will have solved all the problems that face us today. The question now is not whether we want or do not want independence. We have passed that stage. It has taken us 50 years to do so! The problem is that of developing for conducting the struggle for independence. It is unity on this question that will mean real strength.

Thousands of Congressmen who have been in the thick of the struggle are searching for an answer. They are growing in the belief that the basis of the freedom movement should be widened, its reforms and methods reshaped and its fundamental assumptions changed. The whole national movement is going through this process of internal adjustment. Differences, sharp and bitter, are natural. A vast organisation like the Congress cannot go through such a reconstruction without controversy and some internal confusion. Those who do not see any need for change, naturally look upon this controversy or self-examination as disloyalty and disruption. They try to damn the whole thing by describing it as “raising of remote issues”. In fact the issues are not remote but have a living organic touch with the present.

Independence is not an abstract concept except for a few misguided intellectuals. It is a concrete thing. The masses do not conceive of it in terms of assemblies and constitution. Nevertheless, to them it does mean certain very concrete things. If to the peasant, ground down by landlordism, independence means freedom from that system, it cannot be said that abolition of landlordism is an issue remote from independence. If the masses take conscious part in the struggle for independence they will surely put their own interpretation upon it.

It is significant that even reactionary parties in the country, particularly the Muslim parties -because the Muslim masses are poorer and more exploited - have given place in their programmes to a fair number of radical economic slogans. The platform of the Praja Party in Bengal, of which a retired minister is the leader, includes economic items that will scare away many leaders of the Bengal Congress. It is daily becoming clear to the people in Bengal that the Congress cannot go deeper into the peasantry of the province and cannot be identified with it unless it makes its position clear with regard to the Zamindari system and other vital questions, that in fact it takes an active part in its struggle against landlordism and indebtedness. That may scare away a few of the landlord bosses of the Congress, but it will change its whole character in Bengal and transform it into a real mass organisation. Incidentally it will also go a long way towards solving Hindu-Muslim question that now distracts political Bengal so tragically.

We have heard of great deal in the past about socialism and communism not being the immediate issues. Here again is a slogan about which it is difficult to make up ones mind unless one knows what use is made of it. If by raising this cry it is intended to gag the socialists, it is a dangerous and reactionary slogan. It is one thing to say that the achievement of independence is our first and immediate task and quite another to say that independence is the only issue before us.

For the greater number of India’s billions, the real issues are hunger and poverty and oppression and exploitation. Is independence synonymous with freedom from these? Can we tell the masses that independence under any circumstances means bread, employment, freedom from exploitation and oppression? Can we say justly that unless independence takes on this meaning it is a real issue of the people? Hunger and poverty do not need definition. Independence does. It can become real for the people only when its definition covers the fundamental needs. What is the guarantee that independence will assume this definition>? Have socialism and communism any part to play in this? If they have, it is foolish to separate them from the issue of independence.

Socialism for the masses is not that scientific system which we find in the works of scholars. Socialism to them is identified in a general and broad way with the ending of poverty and exploitation. Therefore, it suffuses and colours the struggle of the masses for independence and gives it an orientation. When thousands of hungry and oppressed peasants flock to hear Jawaharlal Nehru declare that Socialism is the only solution to the problems of poverty and unemployment, the struggle for independence rises to higher heights because it receives a content which is understood by the millions.

The deeper the people sink in poverty and degradation as a result of imperialist exploitation and the deepening crisis that grips the world, the more will the urge for independence and economic emancipation draw nearer and enforce each other. Independence cannot be separated from its content. Therefore, to put socialism and independence in water tight compartments is to weaken the fight for independence itself. No one says that our immediate fight is for socialism and yet socialism is the warp and woof of immediate fight. It colours it, gives it direction, provides it with an edge of idealism. Men must know where they are going before they can take their steps firmly. Men fight and sacrifice their lives not for the first thing they see before their noses but for ultimate ideals and objectives.

It is not only the objective that is coloured by socialism but also the manner in which we shall strive to arrive at. In so far as the masses are concerned their urge is to fight against day- to- day operations. For them that struggle and the struggle for independence are the same thing. One develops into other. But there must be direction and they must be guided to the ultimate goal. Who will direct and who will guide? How shall we learn that imperialism cannot be overthrown by the manufacture if salts or picketing of liquor shops? From experience – our own and of others.

Socialism is the embodiment of the revolutionary experience of humanity. T tells us about the springs of mass action and therefore helps us in providing a lead and directing the action. Therefore, all those thousands of active national revolutionaries, socialism is a live issue. Its propagation and the organisation and consolidation of socialist forces are of the utmost importance to national movement. The Socialist forces must organize however not as a coterie to capture offices in the Congress but as a torch bearer of the national revolution. They must become its vanguard by not emphasizing the superiority of their ideology but by their work and dynamic lead.