THE FUTURE OF INDIA

Grey River Argus, 29 April 1942, Page 7

THE FUTURE OF INDIA

The final solution of India’s problems can only be achieved alon* socialist lines. Only social se dustry and collective agncultuie ca finally provide the means which will raise India from a world slum to land of plenty and happiness Only the mighty social forces of work ing class, once grown to lts tull statue and role of leaders^ p ’ the working peasantry, once Über ated from bondage, and drawing into co-operation the most dear sighted and progressive elements of the tellectuals and urban petty bourgeoisie, will be able finally to out the Augean stables and build the new society in India.

NOT SO FAR DISTANT

Nor is such a vision of India’s future so distant as might be imagined by remote observers. The dynamic forces of India’s socialist future, the forces of the industrial working class and of the awakening masses of the peasantry, are already gathering and advancing more and more clearly to the forefront of tne political scene. Once the working class will have reached its maturity of organisation and political leadership through the development of its political party and trade union 01ganisation on the firm basis of class struggle, and guided by the light 01 Marxist theory, and once it will nave built its contact and alliance with the masses of the poor peasantry and agricultural proletariat, who are already building their peasant unions the conditions will have opened for the realisation of the INDIAN REPUBLIC of the working people, representing the democratic power of the workers and peasantry inassociation with the radical intellectuals and other elements of the> Urban petit-bourgeoisie, who by their common efforts can lay the foundations of social, reconstruction along the path that leads to socialism.

LESSONS OF THE SOVIET

UNION.

In this connection the experience of the Soviet Union and the new type of democracy which has been ed there, has very important lessons and significance for a country i < India. Despite the fundamental inferences between the old isai * Russia on the eve of revolution and present-day India, which rule out any mechanical comparison, especia 1V the vital difference between the situation of an imperialist coun r , ahd of a colonial country, there are nevertheless certain valuable analogies in the relations of social force., and in the special type of P roblel ™ which had to be faced and haze been solved in the Soviet Union, tha have an important bearing for Ind to-day. In India we see the P icturc of a foreign despotic rule, already weakening, and building for its mam support on reactionary feudal forces, a weak industrial bourgeoisie ambitious to advance, in vaci.latmg opposition to the despotic rule but fearing also the mass forces; a rising industrial working class, numerically small, but concentrated in large scale industrial enterprises in a relatively restricted number of commanding centres, and alreacij showing very militant class sciousness and activity; and the mass of the peasantry constituting 1 overwhelming majority of the population living under extremely backward conditions of an obsolete laud system, held down in ignorance auu illiteracy, driven to desperation a - advancing to a basic agrarian transformation.

SOVIET DEMOCRACY MOST

SUITABLE.

In a country with the social conditions of India it is manifest that the most suitable form of democracy may not be the parliamentary , but rather a lorn closely Mt.ng to the life and conditions of the .mass of the people, and linking up village councils of the working pea * with the councils of the workers m the factories and similar orga s. Such a form of democracy is Sovut democracy. Soviet democracy would be close L the people, to the wooers in the factories and the peasants in the villages. Soviet democracy would be able to relaese, as no > other form all the creative forces of the working classes, of the peasantry, and of the mass of int ® lle^ scientists, technicians and uibai petty bourgeoisie who are cramped and thwarted of utilising their tai ents for the common good m tm existing system, to co-operate in the common task of constructing t new India.

A WORLD CLASSLESS SOCIETY

Of especial importance for India, and in particular for the backward tracts in the country and for the -remains of those races which survive of the original inhabitants oi the country, is the experience of tne development of the Central Asian Republics in the Soviet Union, whicn under Tsarism were held under the most complete national and social subjection, and where the possibility has been shown for peoples at even the most primitive stage of culture, through the co-operation of the advanced industrial working class, to move rapidly forward, without needing to pass through any intervening capitalist stages along the path of technical, and cultural advance to socialism. Such a perspective of a People’s India, or Workers’ and Peasants’ India, advancing to socialism, hold out the image of the future for India in the modern world. Along that perspective we can throw our gaze forward to the building of socialism in India, and to the ultimate outcome in the future classless society, when the national divisions (inevitable in the transitional stage of independence and separation, to end the subjection of one nation to another) will have finally vanished and India will be part of the united world classless society. —“lndia To-day”, Palme Duff.