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Page 1: Peace Profile: Jayaprakash Narayan

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Peace Profile: JayaprakashNarayanS.P. Udayakumara

a S. P. Udayakumar runs the South Asian CommunityCentre for Education and Research at Nagercoil,Tamil Nadu, India.Published online: 12 Mar 2014.

To cite this article: S.P. Udayakumar (2004) Peace Profile: JayaprakashNarayan, Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice, 16:4, 505-512, DOI:10.1080/1040265042000318761

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Page 2: Peace Profile: Jayaprakash Narayan

Peace Review 16:4, December (2004), 505-512

Peace Profile: Jayaprakash Narayan

S.P. Udayakumar

Looking back at his long and active politicallife,Jayaprakash Narayan, popularly known in India as ':J.P.," claimed that he discerned in it "a uniform line of development," although an outsider may perceive it "as a zigzag and tortuous chart of unsteadiness and blind groping." There was groping, he concedes, but he asserts that it was certainly not blind. Narayan passed through various political stages in his life before he reached near-Gandhian stature in Indian public life with his personal integrity, renunciation of power and positions, and sincere dedication to the ideals of democracy, freedom, human dignity and equality.

N arayan's political life can be summarized in a single phrase: "quest for revolution." He could think well ahead of the entire nation when the Indian

subcontinent was waging a relentless struggle against the British colonialists and decide that mere freedom from the colonial shackles could not alone bring freedom and salvation to the teeming millions. His was the dream of liberating India fi·om the chains of both colonial appropriation and age-old exploitation. He knew very well where he was going or had to go, but "how to get there" was his problem. He was a young follower of Mahatma Gandhi, and then an avowed Marxist in the U.S. and again a follower of Gandhi on returning to India. He never completely abandoned the one for the other.

After a long and tortuous struggle, he synthesized the two big minds and the ideals of\Vestern democracy and evolved a new political philosophy, which may be called "Gandhian socialism." He pondered about the social and political evils in India, the problems the nation faced and the impending bleak future. Aspiring to a "total revolution in every sphere and aspect of society," he placed his hope on the youth of the country and led them in the pace-setting struggle. The arduous life of struggle, harassment and imprisonment, which was dedicated to certain ideals and values, was in a constant search for the ideology and methodology for India's salvation. Having been passed on to the younger generation, the legacy ofj.P. still remains as a guiding star on the Indian political hmizon.

The young.J.P., a science student in Patna College in Bihar, was drawn to the Indian independence struggle. Although he had established contact with a member of the revolutionary movement, he was attracted by Mahatma Gandhi's non-cooperation movement. \\Then the latter called lor non-cooperation with all law courts and educational institutions maintained by the government in early 1921, J.P. ldi Patna College even though the exam was only a few weeks away.

ISSN 1040-2659 print; ISSN 14-!i!l-9982 onlinc/O,U040505-0B © 2004 Taylor & Francis Ltd DOl: I 0.1080/ I 04026.104200031 1!761

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At that time, he conceived the lofty notion of freedom and went on to envisage the freedom of humankind.

Being unprepared to go back to any educational institution maintained or aided by government and having heard that it was possible to work one's way through in U.S. universities, he sailed for the U.S. with his father's help. He studied at the universities of California at Berkeley, Iowa, Wisconsin and Ohio by working in fields, factories, restaurants and slaughterhouses. While at Wiscon­sin, he came into close contact with a group of communists, read communist thinkers' works avidly and became an ardent Marxist. He became convinced that political freedom alone was not suflicient but must be accompanied by equality and the end of exploitation, poverty and hunger. Narayan was fascinated by the Marxist theory of revolution and it seemed to offer a surer and quicker way to freedom than Gandhi's technique based on non-cooperation and civil dis­obedience. To his great chagrin, Marxian philosophy offered, besides freedom, equality also. What Lenin had achieved in the Soviet Union proved for him beyond any doubt that the Marxian way of revolution was by far superior. He did not have any inkling at that time that Gandhi was also concerned about the menace of poverty and had his own theory of social revolution.

\Vhcn J.P. returned to India in November 1929, the country was undergoing a new political upsurge similar to that of 1920 1921 when J.P. left Patna College. Despite his conversion to Marxism, he had remained an Indian nationalist to the core and cherished the Indian independence struggle. The circumstances were also very diflcrcnt andJ.P. came into close personal contact with Gandhi, since his wife had lived with Gandhi's family in their Sabarmati ashram in Gujarat. Narayan met .Jawaharlal Nehru, who had gone to sec Gandhi, and the two developed a close friendship. On Nehru's persuasion, J.P. joined the Congress Party and vigorously participated in the second civil disobedience campaign in 1932-1933. When the top Congress leaders were all arrested, J.P. became the Acting General Secretary of the party in 1932 and kept the campaign alive. He himself was arrested on September 7, 1932.

T he Communist Party of India (CPI), as per the policy reversal of the Sixth Congress of the Communist International in 1928, focused on building

themselves up rather than cooperating with the nationalist organizations in their struggle for independence. They denounced the Indian National Congress and called the congressional leaders the lackeys of the bourgeoisie. This came as a rude shock to J.P. and he became convinced that the socialist struggle in India could not be carried on under the leadership of the CPI or the guidance of the Comintern. At the same time, he was equally convinced that the struggle for socialism and equality could not be put aside until the achievement of indepen­dence. He wanted to combine both struggles and felt the need for a socialist party that would be free from the Comintern's control and act within the nationalist fr<tmcwork. According to Prascd, J.P. wanted to have an organized body of Marxian socialists within the Congress so as to "develop the national movement into a real anti-imperialist movement aiming at freedom from the foreig'l power and the native system of exploitation." Narayan came out of

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prison with an idea and a vision and eventually launched the Congress Socialist Party (CSP) in 1934. He claimed that the CSP had the true understanding of Marxism and was applying it correctly to the Indian situation.

Although he fostered a Marxist program of Soviet type, J.P. was certainly influenced by Gandhian precepts of decentralization, renunciation of coercion, and refraining from a blind rush for modern machinery. He was not in favor of copying the Soviet model blindly in India. For instance, in the introduction of cooperative and collective farming, he thought there should be no coercion but only encouragement and promotion through propaganda, demonstration, sub­sidy and preferential taxation. In view of the large population and land shortage, he felt India would need few labor-saving devices (at least until industrial development absorbed the surplus rural population) and no large conglomeration of villages with huge collective forms. According to his socialist scheme, cities would be built with geographical planning and concentration would be avoided by diffusing industrial sites. The agro-industrial villages, besides being units of agricultural production, would also become units of industrial production. Thus the impact of Gandhi's ideas was very much prevalent in J.P.'s thinking.

Doubting that any socialist unity could be worked out with the Communist Party as long as it remained subservient to the Comintern, J.P. was discouraged by deeper doubts about the very nature of the Soviet experiment. The ruthless purges and atrocities of Stalin made him think that there was something basically wrong in the Soviet experiment. This pessimism along with the ever-present influence of Gandhi through his wife paved the way for J.P.'s shift from Marxism to democratic socialism.

H aving served a prison term of nine months for his incendiary speech favoring non-cooperation with the British war (Second World War) efforts,

J.P. was arrested again and kept in a Rajasthan prison without trial. He was caught by the prison officials when he tried to smuggle out letters to his comrades through his wife. Narayan, considering the Second World War a great oppor­tunity for achieving the nation's objective, had asked his comrades in his letters to go underground, collect arms and money and prepare for an armed struggle. The government published the letters in the press so as to alienate him from his followers and older leaders and to tarnish his image: a Congress leader advocat­ing violence. Narayan clarified his position in his letter "To all Fighters for Freedom 1," which is printed in Prasad's A Revolutionary's Qyest: Selected Writings qj' ]ayaprakash Narayan ( 1943): "I have no hesitation in admitting that non-violence of the brave, if practised on a sufficiently large scale, would make violence unnecessary, but where such non-violence is absent, I should not allow coward­ice, clothed in Shastric [Vedic] subtleties, to block the development of this revolution and lead to its failure." But the same J.P., while in Rajasthan prison, undertook a fast for 31 days in support of the demands to disband prison and repatriate prisoners to their home states.

Narayan escaped from the Bihar prison and organized a guerilla group, Azad Dasta, but was arrested on his way to Rawalpindi ten months after his escape.

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He strongly felt that the masses must be organized for the final struggle for freedom and seizure of power, otherwise community forces would overpower the nationalist forces. He was in favor of intensive work, in villages and towns in all parts of the country and among all sections of the people, which would bring independence and preserve the unity of the country. He was totally against negotiating the terms of independence with the British. The glimpses of future "Total Revolution" had already hit upon his mind. As the country neared its independence, a remarkable change had occurred in his thinking. He was increasingly drawn to gandhian ideals and preferred its tenets like decentraliza­tion, ethical values in public life, and renunciation of violence and dictatorship. He concluded that socialism did not mean merely the satisfaction of material needs of the individual.

Narayan conceived two paths to socialism: one non-violent, where democratic conditions prevailed, and the other violent, in the absence of democratic norms. In fact, he repudiated the Soviet model when he wrote that "the method of the violent revolution and dictatorship ... (in the only country where it has been tried) has led to something very different, that is, to a bureaucratic State, in which democracy docs not exist." His picture of socialism was an economic and political democracy, where humankind will be free and "neither be slave to capitalism nor to a party or the state."

He envisioned a socialist India whose economic side would consist of cooper­ative farms run by village panchayats, large-scale industry owned and managed by the state, community-owned and -managed industry, and small-scale industry organized under producers' cooperatives. He thought it was necessary to prevent the state from emerging as the single source of employment and economic development and thereby hampering individual freedom.

The democratic socialist society was envisaged as involving the following factors: First, the law of the land would be based on the will of the people fi·ecly expressed by them. Second, full individual and civil liberty and cultural and religious freedom would be guaranteed. Third, all distinctions of birth and privilege would be abolished, and equal rights to all citizens guaranteed. Fourth, social justice and economic freedom would be the guiding principles of the political and economic organization of the state, which would be conducive to the satisfaction of the reasonable requirements of everyone. Fifth, material satisfaction would not be the society's sole objective. Sixth, all large-scale production would be under collective ownership and control. Seventh, small­scale production by individual or cooperative effort would be pursued for the equal benefit of all. And eighth, villages would be self-governing and self­sufficient.

Emphasizing the Gandhian ideal of purity of means, J.P. became convinced that politics must be dominated not by the pursuit of power, but by commitment to certain moral values. He thought "it would be by constructive work rather than by tactics of parliamentary opposition, by positive service rather than by exploiting the· mistakes and faults of others that we would succeed in establishing a democratic socialist society." He changed the name of his party to "Socialist Party" and separated from the Congress. Although his party got the second­largest percentage of votes in the 1952 general elections, they secured only 12

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scats in the 500-seat parliament. But J.P. saw that as an opportunity to spread his party's message and to secure followers in all parts of the country.

He felt that the Western model of democracy did not give the people full scope to participate in the management of their affairs and was based on an atomized society (the state is an organic sum of individuals). He strongly resented the idea of small caucuses of politicians ruling in the name of the people and creating the illusion of democracy and self-government. He thought Gandhism, marked by high regard for values, and political and economic decentralization, must be used to develop socialism in India through mass movements and actions of non-vio­lent character. This new kind of polity, consistent with India's own traditions and with the true nature of human beings and community, was viewed by Narayan as "communitarian" or partyless democracy.

In this society, the local or primary communities would be neither rural nor urban, but agro-industrial, based on a balance between agriculture and industry using science and technology just to serve the communities' ends but not more. Several primary communities would form a regional community and all regional communities would join together to form the district communities. The district communities would federate to create provincial communities and the provincial communities altogether would form the national community. The political institutions at each of these levels would be called Gram Panchayats, Panchayat Samitis, District Council, State Assembly and National Parliament. But J.P. recognized some preconditions that had to be fulfilled: the social education of people must be promoted by governmental and non-governmental agencies; political parties must refrain from meddling in the affairs of these institutions; power and financial resources must be devolved; and so forth.

I n the meantime, J.P. witnessed a great social revolution by non-violent mass action taking place before his own eyes when Vinoba Bhave, the spiritual heir

of Mahatma Gandhi, marched on foot from one village to another, exhorting people with big land holdings to offer portions of their land for distribution among the landless. His own fascination for philosophy and non-violent action inspired him so profoundly that he joined Vinoba's bhoodan Oand gift) movement. Eventually, J.P. gave up party and power politics and called for jeevandan (dedication of life to a cause). Vinobha himself described bhoodan as "intensely and deeply political," but said that politics was of a different kind --"not the politics of parties, elections, parliaments and governments, but politics of the people." It aimed at persuading the people to carry out a revolution in their own lives and thus a revolution in society.

According to J.P., the most important characteristics of the non-violent revolution is that the means should be in harmony with the ends. He asserts that as coercive means do not lead to human freedom, as untruthful means are inadmissible for the creation of a new life based on truth, the means must be non-violent, if the end is a non-violent society. Narayan listed some of the elements of the method as follows: First, the creation of a band of properly trained volunteers committed to non-violent service of the people and to acting as the conscious cadres of the revolution. Second, the establishment of a program

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of "constructive work" designed to serve and help the people and to act as a medium through which their hearts and minds can be touched. Third, individ­uals and groups must be converted to new ways of thought and action. And fourth, non-violent non-cooperation and resistance should be used when necess­ary.

Narayan describes how both violent and non-violent revolutions change society through direct action of the people, but in the former the old society is destroyed in one sweep and the new one built brick by brick, whereas in the latter changing the old society and constructing the new one proceed side by side and step by step. His concept of Total Revolution specifies that it must be a "revolution in every sphere and aspect of society." The work for Total Revol­ution has four aspects: struggle, construction, propaganda and organization. He emphasizes that it "has to be peacefully brought about without impairing the democratic structure of society and affecting the democratic way of life of the people." He clarifies that it cannot be achieved merely through elections, legislative enactments and administrative actions, but by must be achieved through people's action employing non-cooperation and civil disobedience on a wide scale.

Narayan convened a "National Convention on Unity and Democracy" in 1969 to provide political stability and to facilitate social change and development but nothing tangible was achieved. Taking this failure to heart, he began to ponder the way to rouse the country to move forward, and to put an end to problems in India like inequality and injustice. Besides the persuasion and constructive work, he thought there must be a struggle in the form of satyagraha and civil disobedience in his program.

In 1970, J.P. openly supported a movement started by some leftist parties in Bihar for peacefully occupying the land of big landlords owned in excess of the ceiling fixed by law. The 68-year-old Sarvodaya leader was assuming the role of fighter for the rights of the downtrodden. The working of the country's political system and the possibility of achieving economic progress also made him sec the situation as "a challenge as well as an opportunity." He saw "the precipitous fall in the moral standards" of Indian public life. He was afraid that all his dreams of socialism and Sarvodaya would perish if democracy itself ceased to flourish because of unreasonable politicians, especially the authoritarian posture of Mrs. Indira Gandhi. He called the educated people to go to the masses and explain to them their rights and duties as citizens of a democracy. Although some work was done by a few Gandhian workers, the situation did not improve.

Narayan prepared the ground for some form of mass action in order to reverse the downward trend in the moral standards of public life under the auspices of his Gramdan movement. He was insistent that the participants in the people's action must be free from corruption in their private and public life and ready for suffering and sacrifice. He was weary of demonstrations, noisy processions, strikes and the use of violence. Nonetheless, the elite or the political parties showed little interest in his program and consequently he decided to turn to the youth of the nation, especially university students. He spoke like the prophet of a revolution in major cities like Patna, Kanpur. The students' struggle started in Gujarat, but, despite J.P.'s last minute guidance, it died out. Next, the state of Bihar witnessed a student uprising in March 1974 and the 72-year-old ailing leader announced

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his goal of Total Revolution at a massive public meeting in Patna on June 5, 1974.

Although the Bihar Movement did not achieve its immediate objectives, namely, the resignation of the state government and dissolution of the State Assembly, J.P. pressed ahead with his work. He traveled all over India and spoke on the need for Total Revolution. By the time he set out to establish students' and people's struggle committees and organize the struggle and surge forward, Mrs. Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency on June 26, 1975, imposed censorship and arrested J.P., all opposition leaders and almost all the active workers engaged in organizing the people's committees for Total Revolution.

N arayan, in his solitary confinement, wrote, "My world lies in shambles all round me. I am afraid I shall not see it put together again in my

lifetime ... [But] India will rise from the grave, no matter how long it might take." Even when he lived with the mercy of machines for periodic dialysis, he organized a new political party merging many non-communist parties and won the general elections in 1977, ousting Mrs. Indira Gandhi and creating the Janata Party government with the dream of fulfilling his Total Revolution based on Gandhian Socialism. But the new government virtually ignored him and his ideas. Following personal rivalry among the leaders, power struggle and defec­tions, the government fell in July 1979.

Narayan was no longer able to travel and meet people and had no grip on the situation. He suffered silently and his last days were full of agony that he could not give a concrete shape to his political philosophy and revolutionary method­ology. He was not a dogmatist, and never claimed he had an answer for every question. But he strongly hoped that others would continue the quest for the appropriate path to a Total Revolution through non-violent means. Although he wanted the intellectuals to think about the theoretical problems of Total Revolution, it was in the nation's youth that he pinned his hope for the nation's salvation.

Narayan considered the Gandhian concept of Sarvodaya (welfare for all) the higher form of socialism and predicted that "if the world were ever to reach the port of peace and freedom and brotherhood, Socialism must eventually merge into Sarvodaya." He wanted India, as the representative of "the aspirations and promptings of the disinherited and dispossessed of the earth," to rally the common people of the world together for strengthening the forces of peace and freedom. Brahmanand argues that J.P.'s philosophy was "based on the social nature of man and group dynamics" and "on the social and political philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi with emphasis on community on the one hand and the theory of 'the least government' on the other." Narayan's political philosophy grew even more meaningful when the ruthless communist countries began to talk about "humane socialism."

Narayan used to read the Gita, believed firmly in its central thesis that "do your duty and leave the rest to Him" and had this precept guide him in his life. He fought for India's independence, founded the socialist movement in India, worked for twenty years as Vinoba Bhave's right hand and led a crusade against

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authoritarianism. The posts of Central Minister, Prime Minister and President of India all crossed him without alluring him in any way. Lying in his death bed, J.P. wrote,

And this unsuccessful life Will be blessed a hundred times If for the dear young fellow seekers It makes the thorny path a bit easy.

India still remains to be as it was in J.P.'s time, craving for social change, equality, justice, better standards of pubic life and the uplifting of the deprived and the downtrodden.

Narayan was in no way a failure, for he has sown the seeds of Total Revolution. His vision does and will continue to inspire those who grope for a way out of the predicament India finds itself in. As long as humanity and human dignity live on the earth, his ideology of freedom and equality and methodology of non-violence are going to remain relevant and inspiring. While India and J.P.'s Total Revolution lie in wait for each other, it is the young revolutionaries who are slowly and gradually working on a bridge between them.

RECOMMENDED READINGS

Brahmanand, R. (ed.). 1970. Communitarian Socie!JI and l'andzayati Raj. Varanasi, India: Navachetna Prakashan.

Brahmanand, R. (cd.). 1978. Toward1 Total Revolution. Bombay: Popular Prakashan. Prasad, Rima! (cd.). 1980. A Revolutionarf5 Quest: Selected Writings qf ]ayapmkash Narayan. Delhi:

Oxford University Press. Shah, A.B. (ed.). 1978. Prison Diary. Seattle: University of Washington Press.

S. P. Udayakumar runs the South Asian Community Centre for Education and Research at Nagercoil, Tamil Nadu, India. Correspondence: [email protected]

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