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.