1947 And
Its Place In History
By Rajesh Tyagi
16 October, 2007
Countercurrents.org
Year 1947 is marked in India's
history by the fact that it was the dead end of our National Struggle,
i.e. our common goal as a nation- the goal of emancipation from domination
of Colonialism. Indian Bourgeois, which under Gandhian leadership hitherto
had been putting up a meek resistance against the colonial rule, took
the reigns of power in its own hands, not through resistance, but with
consent of Colonial masters. It came to power, not as a result of any
hostility towards imperialism, but as its agent, willfully surrendering
all posts to the enemy, adapting itself to the neo-colonial regime,
marked by large scale export of capital instead of goods, and economic
domination of imperialism instead of direct political rule. Becoming
just another link in the chain of world capitalism, the renegade Indian
bourgeois ceceded from national struggle, separated itself from the
masses of people- the workers and peasants, who were now to reel under
double yoke of capitalism, domestic as well as global. Indian bourgeois,
not only adapted itself to the global domination of Imperialism, but
sheltered under its wings the forces of local reaction, under domination
of landlords in countryside. The 60 years history of Indian bourgeois
is the history of its more and more adaptation to world capitalism,
collaboration with local reactionaries and consequently its perpetually
hostile position towards working people of India. The mission of complete
emancipation from the yoke of imperialism, now renounced by the bourgeois,
ceased to be a national goal, i.e. the common goal of all social classes
and became a class goal, a goal for the working classes. Our common
struggle as a ‘Nation’ against Imperialism, thus came to
an end, paving way for ‘class struggle’ waged by working
classes, not only against imperialism- global capitalism, but also against
its local lackeys- Indian Bourgeois and landlords, who had stabbed the
national struggle in the back by joining the bandwagon of Imperialism.
1940’s was a decade
of unrest, witnessing a big upsurge in the tamper of masses and was
full of radical activity of people. The tide of mass struggles was rising
to unprecedented proportions, acquiring ever new heights and varied
forms of struggle. Old individual terroristic immature methods had already
cleared the way for actions by broad masses of workers and peasants,
and the unarmed protests were spontaneously growing over to armed struggle,
here and there.
Despite the ‘pious’
wishes of bourgeois leadership of Gandhi-Nehru, mass resistance to imperialism
was acquiring more and more militant forms. From 322 in 1940, total
number of workers’ strikes in 1942 had become 694, with number
of participants rising from 4,50,000 in 1940 to 7,72,000 in 1942. Peasant
revolts in countryside had become very frequent and had a reciprocal
effect on the struggle in urban centres. The ‘August Rebellion’
was offshoot of this tide, where people on their own had taken to armed
struggle, pushing aside the Gandhian farce. 2,000 perished and 60,000
were taken prisoners, to be put in special camps for shortage of jails.
Such tremendous energy was generated by the wave of mass struggle. The
then leadership of the CPI, treading the path shown by the Comintern
under Stalin, instead of calling upon the masses for forcible overthrow
of British rule and seizure of power, by riding the wave of 1942, held
back the proletariat, openly opposed the ‘August Revolution’
and called for support to war efforts of British Colonialists against
axis powers. This was done when British Imperial power was already perplexed
by the takeover of Burma by Japan and arrest of Anglo-Indian armies
stationed there. Congress was banned, while ban on CPI was lifted. The
working people, prime actor on the stage of history at that moment were
thus pushed back, leaving the field open for free-play of bourgeois
leadership under Gandhi, demeaning the role of working class and its
party.
The bourgeois, thus got the
hegemony over the liberation movement. After comparatively peaceful
years of 1943-44, marked on the one hand by famine in which 50 lakh
perished, and on the other by division and disintegration among the
radical forces on the question of attitude towards the war efforts of
Colonial rule, there came another mighty wave of radical upsurge in
1945-46. In August 1945 armed clashes between workers and the police
first took place in Benaras and were then repeated in Bombay and spread
to other regions in the form of riots. Mass protests then started to
mark the opposition of people of India to the support being sent by
British rulers to France and Holland to suppress their colonies. Porters
refused to load the ships destined to Indonesia. Nationawide protests
then took place against award of sentences to officers of Indian National
Army. Mass demonstrations soon developed in general strike, where broad
sections of people took part. Barricades were erected first in Calcutta
and then in Bombay. In 1946, once again Calcutta was barricaded by the
protestors, and the unrest spread to other parts of the country-to towns
and villages. At some places people took to armed struggle against British
regime and their lackeys-landlords. Army was called to suppress the
movement and could suppress it with great violence. During this period
both strikes of workers and peasant rebellions were touching new heights
in their magnitude and form of struggle. Unrest was spreading to armed
forces also. A strike of sailors and porters on warship ‘Talwar’
started with partial demands which were soon reinforced with political
demands. Twenty other warships present in the area then joined the strike,
with Coast guards following the course. Pilots in Royal Air-force at
Bombay Air force Station were already on strike and were joined first
by Calcutta Airmen and then strike spread to other Air Force Stations.
Battleships were sent to suppress the rebellion in Navy, but failed
to quell the rebellion, even after a full fledged gun-battle. The victorious
sailors marched on the roads of Bombay with arms in hands and were joined
by workers and students. General strike broke out in support of strikers
on 22nd February. Congress and Muslim League, both, instead of supporting
the rebellion, called for surrender and sent Sardar Vallabhai Patel
as common emissary to persuade the strikers to surrender. Army was called
to crush the rebellion by force. 300 killed, 1700 wounded. Rebellion
could be crushed with brute force, but it showed that the old days have
gone forever. 1946 saw more than 2000 strikes in which 20 lakh workers
participated and 13 million work-days were destroyed. Peasant rebellions
were also spreading. 11 districts in Tibhaga peasant Struggle in Bengal,
In Layalpur Punjab, Bombay, Hyderabad, Telangana, Kashmir, Basti, Balia
in UP were centres of peasant revolt. Kerala and Tamilnadu were also
witnessing peasant revolts. Similarly, Bombay, Kanpur, Calcutta, Nagpur,
Mysore, Madras were all scenes of workers’ movement.
The active resistance of
the working people to the Imperialist rule in India, growing beyond
false preaching of Gandhi and defying the false leadership of Congress,
frightened the British Imperialists, but more than them the Indian Bourgeois
and Landlords. The upsurge of working masses, especially in the fourth
decade of 20th century, forced them to fall into the arms of each other.
Possibility of an imminent forcible overthrow of colonial rule and taking
over of the power by the revolutionary people, was looked upon as a
real threat, not only by the Imperialists but by the Indian bourgeois
also, which was hardly interested in any emancipatory cause of the national
liberation movement, but was eager to take the reigns of power in its
hands and integrate itself into the system of world capitalism.
During the fourth decade,
when working people were engaged in life and death struggle against
British Imperialism, the bourgeois-landlord leadership of Congress and
Muslim League, was engaged in hobnobbing with Imperial rulers for concessions
and whatever share in power structures could be grabbed. The bourgeois
as a class was busy to grow itself on the plunder and devastation of
people- first famine and then war. Enriched through extreme exploitation
of peasants, artisans, workers and small producers, during the famine
of 1943-44, the bankers and traders had amassed great wealth and had
grown into- capitalist class. After famine, now World War-II came to
their service. The Indian Bourgeois strove to gobble big contracts for
war supplies from colonial regime, during the World War-II. Further
enriching itself through these war contracts, the Indian Bourgeois was
not only becoming shareholder in British joint stock companies but were
opening their own companies. World War-II, led to weakening of British
Imperialism and thus the end of British Imperial monopoly, with United
States emerging as the big gainer out of the war. British Imperial power
was under double pressure. US was demanding re-division of the booty
collected from colonial exploitation, while Indian bourgeois, taking
for a ride, the wave of mass struggle against colonial domination, was
contending for more and more concessions for itself and landlords.
The Imperialists, frightened
by the high tide of mass struggle, sent Cripps Mission, proposing concessions,
prime among them the Constituent Assembly, based upon communal proportion
and an Interim Government headed by the British Viceroy. Bourgeois parties
happily conceded. Thereafter, came the infamous Mountbatten plan- for
division of India on communal lines- as an integral part of the design
for transfer of power to it. The renegade bourgeois leadership eager
to assume power in exclusion of working people- capitulated, and thus
born the celebrated ‘freedom’.
The local bourgeois, joined
hands with international capitalism to avert the possibility of a successful
social revolution in India. Capitulating to the British colonialists,
the Indian bourgeois with support of landlords, shamefully accepted
the blueprint for peaceful transfer of power, with partition of India
on religious lines, as its core scheme, wherein 27 lakh people perished
in violence. The Indian capitalist class having its origin in cities,
joined the bandwagon of global capitalism, strengthening themselves
with support from landlords in countryside, presenting itself to be
contender for political power as against the growing strength of working
people. It assumed power not as an independent contender for it, but
as lackey of world capitalism. It then co-opted itself and behind it
the landlords, to the economic and political structures of world capitalism,
mainly imposed by British imperialism.
This is how ‘1947’
presents itself to the prognosis of history, as a turning point on Indian
Political scenario –i.e. the virtual end of our national goal,
the goal of attaining freedom from the yoke of Imperialism. The slogan
of ‘freedom’ became immediately redundant and obsolete,
as a national goal, after the bourgeois and landlords turned their back
to the aims of the national movement and entered into open collaboration
with Imperialists.
1947, is marked by advent
of bourgeois democracy, i.e. the dictatorship of the bourgeois and the
landlords, totally dependent upon global capitalism. The dictatorship
coming through an agreement between the local and international bourgeois
at the back of and against the struggling people. The national struggle
is stabbed in the back.
However, at the threshold
of 20th century, the world capitalism has already exhausted its revolutionary
energies, growing into completely parasitic form-the modern imperialism,
and was reeling under a state of permanent decay. Losing its revolutionary
vigour, the Bourgeois had become incompetent to carry out even the bourgeois
democratic tasks, any further. Resultantly, in all parts of the world,
where democratic revolutions were impending and democratic tasks were
yet to be accomplished, the same could not be done, except through a
Proletarian revolution, supported by peasantry, resulting in dictatorship
of the Proletariat. Where political power was captured by Proletariat,
the democratic tasks were rapidly carried out, but where the power fell
to the hands of the bourgeois, the revolutions were stifled and retarded
immediately after initial sparks.
This happened for two reasons.
Firstly, in all countries, the bourgeois joined hands with local reactionary
elements-the landlords and foreign reactionaries-the imperialists, as
against its own proletariat, adapting itself to double reaction and
thus becoming totally counter revolutionary. And secondly because the
bourgeois in these countries was even weaker to take to development
of productive forces on its own. In fact, there was no room left for
independent growth of capitalism in separate countries, after the era
of global parasitic capitalism has set in. Thus, wherever proletariat
failed to capture power for itself, or did not strive for it and it
consequently fell to the hands of bourgeois, the countries took to the
capitalist path of development, resulting in arrest of productive forces
by local reaction at home, and total dependence outside, thus becoming
a link in the world capitalist chain.
India matured for a bourgeois
democratic revolution, while confined in the clutches of British colonialism,
very late in time, when British bourgeois had already lost its initial
revolutionary vigour and had entered in the state of decay. In its own
land, it was facing hostility from its proletariat, while in colonies
it was face to face with colonial people, pursuing the barbaric policy
of colonialism. In colonies, under its domination, it bound the masses
hand and foot, depriving them of all benefits delivered by world capitalism,
blocking all avenues of its awakening to the new light generated by
the capitalism in its youthful past, while simultaneously making the
colonial people to bear the worst burdens of it, especially in the days
of its overall decay. Colonial rule in India was based upon adaptation
of production relations of medieval ages, prevalent in India, by the
decaying capitalism of Europe.
Theoretically speaking, there
could have been two possibilities around 1947. Either the Working class
in conjunction with peasantry could have seized the power for itself
in a revolutionary manner- by forcible overthrow of colonial regime
and in exclusion of the bourgeois-landlords at home; Or the Bourgeois
could have received the power for itself in conjunction with the landlords,
not as a consequence of struggle against colonial rule, but through
intrigue upon the people, bargaining separately with colonial regime.
The prospects of first possibility- the revolutionary seizure of power
by proletariat with the aid of peasantry, were artificially dimmed by
1947, because of the bogus policy of Comintern in 1940’s to hold
back the working people from forcible overthrow of British power in
India, rather directing them to collaborate with it. The flames of Russian
revolution, which had sparked great zeal in National Liberation Struggle
around the second decade, were extinguished by the infamous ‘popular
front’ policy of Comintern, forging an alliance with capitalist
parties, nationally and internationally, mainly British Imperialists,
on false pretexts. Given this policy, no independent and determined
offensive could be taken by the Proletariat to seize power for itself.
Taking benefit of the passivity of proletariat, Bourgeois in collusion
with landlords, first established its political hegemony over the National
liberation movement and its main platform-Congress, in opposition to
the working classes, and later after taking state power in its hands
in agreement with Imperialists, grew this hegemony into its full fledged
dictatorship. The second possibility thus turned into a tragic reality-
leading to establishment of the bourgeois dictatorship. The bourgeois
power, thus, came to be established in collusion with Imperialists and
in partnership with landlords. Bureaucracy and standing army continued
to be the mainstay of this reactionary bourgeois power, as before.
Such peaceful transfer of
political power, having its ideological roots in the false preaching
of Gandhian path, virtually averted the prospects of a forcible overthrow
of colonial rule in a revolutionary way by the revolutionary masses
rising in armed revolt and further concentrated the power in the hands
of bourgeois class, in exclusion of the Proletariat and peasantry. The
bourgeois in conjunction with landlords happily grabbed this opportunity
to seize the state power for itself in exclusion of revolutionary masses-
the Proletariat and peasantry. Peaceful transfer of Political power
was thus advantageous for both the colonialists and local bourgeois,
with implied motive to avert the prospects of a revolt of masses under
the leadership of the proletariat.
What was transferred in 47
was the political power, while the economic network for neo-colonial
exploitation was kept intact in the hands of Imperialism. Even after
transfer of power to its hands, the Indian bourgeois remained connected
to Imperialism with thousand strings and instead of making attempt to
resist Imperialist exploitation and domination, became its permanent
ally. Capitulation, and not resistance to imperialism, has remained
its underlying policy. Even the political Independence which the bourgeois
celebrated with so fanfare was not absolute, but was restricted and
deformed and which has continued to vanish into thin air with passage
of time.
Post 47’ scenario is
marked on the one hand by increasing mutual adaptation between the Indian
bourgeois and landowning class at home, and with the World Capitalism
on International scale, to exploit and dominate the Indian people, and
on the other by unceasing struggles of the Proletariat and peasantry
against this bloc of reactionaries.
1947, goes in the history
of India as culminating point of the anti-colonial national struggle,
fought by different social classes together, against the British rule.
With the cessation of capitalists and landlords from struggle against
Imperialism and establishment of bourgeois democracy under their domination,
the common national goal has come to an end, leaving nothing to be shared
in common between the bourgeois and proletariat.
There are trends in revolutionary
movement of today, which do not recognise the advent of bourgeois democracy
in 1947, preaching that no transfer of political power had taken place
at all and the Country continues to be a semi-colony. These trend, roughly
appearing under the banner of ‘Maoism’ prescribing the ‘Chinese
path’ as a way out, are desperately searching for revolutionary
sections in bourgeois, with ‘national-bourgeois’ character,
deeming them to be an ally in their so-called ‘New-democratic’
revolution. This misconception emerges out in the first instance from
the incorrect evaluation of character and growth of modern imperialism
in general and secondly by miscalculating the 1947 and its aftermath
1947, did witness the transfer
of political power from direct domination of British colonialists, to
the hands of Indian bourgeois, as an agent of world capitalism, a spoke
in the neo-colonial machine. The Indian bourgeois, having assumed the
political power for itself, had continued to collaborate with all reactionary
elements –the landlords inside, the Imperialists outside, and
gradually this collaboration has perfected itself, as against the proletariat
and Peasantry. Indian Bourgeois class is linked to these reactionary
elements through hundred thousand threads. This collaboration of bourgeois
with reactionary forces of feudal society at home and Imperialism abroad,
is in the first instance voluntary, stemming out of the utter political
and social weakness of the Indian Bourgeois, has determined the nature
and development of Indian Capitalism, in Asiatic manner- weak, deformed,
capitulationist, growing only in slow evolutionary process and resulting
in an overall degeneration of economic, political, social and cultural
life of the country.
The bourgeois class becoming
the master of political power, could not advance the bourgeois revolution
at any notable pace, for two reasons. Firstly, it came to power at a
time when the world had already ushered into an era of proletarian revolution
and general decay of bourgeois class had set in. Secondly, the Indian
Bourgeois finding itself unable to cope with the advent of radical mass
upsurge on its own, colluded from the very beginning with landlords
inside and Imperialists outside. Barring initial few gimmickries by
a section of Congress leadership under Nehru, neither it remained interested
in the progress of bourgeois revolution nor it could have advanced it
for its alignment with the reactionary forces.
As illegitimate heir of the
colonial regime, bourgeois has assumed power in India, as agent of world
capitalism, revealing its totally comprador character. The democratic
tasks, which were accomplished in Europe, to a great extent, by the
bourgeois revolutions, (when bourgeois was youthful and revolutionary)
thus could not be accomplished by this degenerated comprador bourgeois
class in India, even after 60 years of transfer of power to its hands
in 1947.
The bourgeois revolution
was thus consciously hamstrung by none but the coward and capitulationist
bourgeois, who utterly failed to accomplish its historic mission. It
is this special character of 1947 which highlights the contrast between
the advent of bourgeois democracy through powerful bourgeois-democratic
revolutions in Europe, to the meek, capitulationist and retarded emergence
of bourgeois democracy in India, hand in hand with forces of inertia
against any revolutionary advance.
This failure of Indian bourgeois
in forwarding the revolution has resulted in overall decay of the social
and political life of the country, leaving the power in the hands of
worst elements of bourgeois and landlords. The rising crime and rampant
corruption, are glaring expressions of the fact that the bourgeois rule
in India has grown in total misrule led by the worst elements of bourgeois
world-the power brokers, smugglers, corrupt and criminals.
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