Notes on the history of Modern India - Note 2 -

 The Background –

As regards ancient India we can briefly say that the society was dominated by the alliance of

Warrior class (the Ksatriyas) with the priestly class (Brahmins). The downgrading of manual labour and pursuit of the science of healing and medicine, the neglect of scientific enquiry and extolling of esoteric pursuits were essential aspects of the ideological constructs for this domination. What is more specific and of far reaching consequence is the fact that in the Indian sub-continent the caste formations, originally based on an elementary division of labour within the community, later came to be defined by birth, as collective ownership of land gradually became the de facto prerogative of the dominant classes in the community.

About pre-colonial India, it can be briefly said that changes in production techniques and social organization of production were long drawn and gradual; they did get modified over time but rarely led to any so far reaching changes as to usher in completely new mode of production or bring about necessary concomitant alterations in social and economic structures more compatible with such newer methods of production. There is a general consensus among historians that it would be appropriate to term the mode of production prevalent in pre-colonial India, particularly since the seventh century AD, as ‘Indian feudalism’, not as ‘feudal’ in the European sense of the term or even as ‘Asiatic mode’. (To give a very brief outline, the term ‘Asiatic mode’ should be understood as an in-process general theoretical construct, built up on the basis of data available to Marx in his time, to define the mode of production, where essentially land and water resources were common property of the community and collective interests held supremacy, as the ‘other’ mode of production quite different from what was prevailing then in Europe; and nothing more).

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Further two aspects of the then prevailing milieu need to be emphasized.

a)         The growth of commercial and usurious capital, but not manufacturing capital, in the pre-colonial society, was obviously too feeble to break the stranglehold of the caste-based feudal society.

b)         Considering the nature and spread of the markets for the commodities produced and traded, the Bhakti movement need to be viewed as signifying the emergence of ‘proto-linguistic nationalities’ - not of “linguistic nationalities” or “regional communities of culture”.

Prabhat Patnaik has brought to our attention Paul Baran’s proposition ‘that even third world societies could have developed capitalism independently, if not spontaneously then at least in response to the emergence of capitalism in Europe; and observes that this assessment emerges in the writings Mao Zedong concerning the Chinese society of his times. Prabhat Patnaik goes on to add that: ‘From this it followed that colonialism, by thwarting possible independent capitalist development in third world societies and imposing on them an exploitative relationship for the benefit of metropolitan capitalism, played a largely negative historical role in these societies. On the other hand, if these societies were seen as being held in the grip of stagnation and stasis because of the nature of property relations prevalent in them, then the intrusion of colonialism, by breaking up the stability of the old order, could be seen as playing a certain positive role, even though the colonized people had to pay a heavy price for it.’

Further, according the Prabhat Patnaik, recognition of the positive and negative aspects in the destructive role of colonialism and its complex impact of on the Indian society is evident in the writings of Karl Marx, Rajni Palme Dutt and EMS Namboodripad; and this balanced assessment need not be construed as approving or welcoming colonialism in any sense. (A view with which I am in agreement on the basis of the strength of logic inherent therein).

 In India, as elsewhere in the colonial world, from the early period of colonial rule, the elemental consciousness of anti-colonialism of the people came to be expressed in scattered, recurring revolts. These rebellions, spread across the sub-continent, were suppressed ruthlessly, but the anti-colonial resentment of the people rose to a crescendo in the uprising of 1857. The peasantry and the soldiers of the colonial army were the decisive elements in this uprising of 1857, which was led by the fading ruling elite, the feudal gentry, who were the natural leaders of the peasantry. This uprising was a more serious challenge to colonialism than all the earlier revolts; it lasted longer and was more widespread across the country, but failed to free the land and the people from the colonial yoke. The British rulers made their peace with the feudal gentry after the suppression of the 1857 uprising.

In British India, the raison d’etre of British rule was tribute extraction and transfer. The fiscal policies of the colonial masters, their exchange rate policy, changing patterns of trade and investment, their tariff policy, the accompanying de-industrialization, de-urbanization and commercialization of agriculture all contributed to continuous extraction and draining away of the wealth through taxation and corruption. All this has been well documented.

Thus, in the Indian sub-continent, the presence of substantial mercantile and manufacturing activity within the backward feudal economy since pre-colonial times and the very dynamics of colonialism super-imposing itself upon it set the stage for the emergence of indigenous capitalist class.  In this milieu the British colonial masters, with the experience of the 1857 rebellion behind them, were ready to pursue the subtler option of curbing dissent through providing channels of communication for the expression of grievances of the dominant classes. In 1885 the Indian National Congress (INC) was formed. The INC started off as a petitioning forum of elite and affluent classes and covered a tortuous path.

Notes on the history of Modern India - Note 1

Prologue

The recording of history in all fairness should tell us how the events happened the way they did and why they happened so and ideally without the ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’.  However, undeniably, all political or philosophical theories, ancient, whether modern or post-modern, currently dominant, subdued or extinct, of Western breed or indigenous based on our own traditions of reflections, being what they are, have their own ideological roots and class moorings. This is generally the case in spite of the usual claims of balanced and non-partisan rendering as the basic perspective underlying such recordings are seldom acknowledged openly. The renowned astrophysicist, Carl Sagan, had once commented in an altogether different context, very poignantly that "We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers".  Simply put what this implies that, when we are dealing with very vital issues, there is a definite need to organize our questions more sharply and go about trying to find reasonably precise answers to them. In practice, leaving aside few exceptional cases, we rarely find this aspect being addressed to with as much scientific rigour and factual candour as possible or with the earnestness it deserves, in the academies, in political circles and also in the many research studies done so far. If indeed some of the very fundamental issues are taken up in raising some valid question, in the initial spurt of enthusiasm or as a smoke-screen for reiterating non-partisan approach, the momentum gets lost while probing the underlying causes; which is starkly evident particularly in the case of recorded history of our freedom struggle and the historical, political or writings on other aspects of independent India. So, the history as is generally handed down to us through various sources, barring some few rare exceptions can be considered at best as a mixture truths, half truths and sometimes even outrageous untruths; and ipso facto history as etched in the general consciousness of our people is also weighed down by these inputs. This is rarely surprising for history is part of the terrain of contest and confrontation in the undeclared but seldom acknowledged ‘war of position’ between the ideologies dominant and emerging classes in our society.  As the African proverb goes, truly, ‘Until the lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter.’

To dispel the possibility of being either overwhelmed by such induced distorted perceptions or just succumbing to the collective amnesia; we need to begin to asking probing questions and try to find the answers, peering through all the accumulated gloss to bring into relief some basic, rough-cut propositions, in a way like the images embedded within the stones that came into relief with just the touch of an expert sculptor’s tools working with his/her hands. With this end in view I propose to share with you some of my notes on the history of modern India.

At the outset, it needs to be stressed that the Indian sub-continent is one of the nodal points on planet Earth where the homo sapiens first began to gather in small groups of food gatherers and hunters, gradually resorting to shifting agriculture, domesticating animals, then moving on to settled agriculture, contemplating the rudiments of science, framing its grammar and thus gradually embarking upon the process, which we have now come to term as civilization.  The other nodal points of contemporaneous beginnings of human civilization and science are the regions, which now go by the nomenclature of China, Middle East-Africa and South America.  Alongside this continuing quest in pursuit of science and progress, the human race had to contend with wars of conquests, violent oppression and exploitation engendering conflicts among numerous tribes and also internecine strife within tribes. From all accounts, this is the perception we gain from the hitherto history of the human race.

We, the peoples of India, are heir to very complex evolution and history of the collective humanity at large.  India, as is often said, is a nation of continental proportions – a region of acculturation of original inhabitants, immigrants and invaders. We are also heir to the legacies of the sub-continent, in particular, which is a region of multiple hues in terms of its troubled history, diverse geography, where its people belonging to multi-racial ancestry have now evolved in to multi-ethnic, multi-national groups of communities, speaking a host of languages and dialects, reposing their faith in numerous religions and faiths, following customs handed down from ancient times as also those very modern.

What is more specific to India and its peoples is the fact that in our case the caste formations, originally based on an elementary division of labour within the community, later came to be defined by birth, as collective ownership gave way to private proprietorship in land.  With the intrusion of industrializing nations in search of colonies, the subsequent formations of classes based on private proprietary ownership of the means of production have been superimposed upon these erstwhile caste divisions. The emerging newer class divisions of the colonial era inexorably absorbed the underlying demarcations of castes of the bygone spewing yet newer forms of indelible divisions. The peoples of our country, as peoples elsewhere in other parts of the world, have all along been striving to unite around some common cause for their common good and this, in fact, is our defining element.

The trajectory of the struggles of the peoples of the Indian sub-continent over the ages and more particularly the struggles of the past few centuries or so hold many valuable lessons for us. All these form a rich patrimony for all of us as also for all other peoples across the world.  So when we indeed begin to analyze what our significant achievements are and what are our failures over the last few centuries, our assessment shall have much to do with how we analyze the history of our immediate past, or what we perceive as our goals and how we have gone about achieving those goals.