Editor: Rekha Saraswat

Rs. 20/month

Vol. 77 No 12

MARCH 2014

THE RADICAL HUMANIST (Since April 1949) Formerly : Independent India (April 1937- March 1949)

528

M. N. Roy Founder Editor

THE RADICAL HUMANIST

The Radical Humanist Vol. 77 Number 12

March 2014

MARCH 2014

www.theradicalhumanist.com Contents

Monthly journal of the

Indian Renaissance Institute Devoted to the development of the Renaissance Movement; and for promotion of human rights, scientific-temper, rational thinking and a humanist view of life.

Founder Editor: M.N. Roy Editor: Dr. Rekha S. Contributory Editors: Prof. A.F. Salahuddin Ahmed, Dr. R.M. Pal, Professor Rama Kundu Publisher and Printer: Mr. N.D. Pancholi Send articles to: Dr. Rekha Saraswat, C-8, Defence Colony, Meerut, 250001, U.P., India, Ph. 91-121-2620690, 09719333011 E-mail articles at: rheditor@gmail.com Send Subscription / Donation Cheques in favour of The Radical Humanist to: Mr. Narottam Vyas (Advocate), Chamber Number 111 (Near Post Office), Supreme Court of India, New Delhi, 110001, India n.vyas@snr.net.in Ph. 91-11-22712434, 91-11-23782836, 09811944600 Please Note: Authors will bear sole accountability for corroborating the facts that they give in their write-ups. Neither IRI / the Publisher nor the Editor of this journal will be responsible for testing the validity and authenticity of statements & information cited by the authors. Also, sometimes some articles published in this journal may carry opinions not similar to the Radical Humanist philosophy; but they would be entertained here if the need is felt to debate and discuss upon them. —Rekha S.

1. From the Editor’s Desk: Birds of a Feather flock together: Not Necessarily —Rekha Saraswat 1 2. From the Writings of M.N. Roy: Historical Role of Islam: The Mission of Islam 2 3. Guests’ Section: Surge in India’s Imagination Kadam Kadam Badhaye Jaa —Uday Dandavate 4 4. Current Affairs’ Section: Influence of Armed Forces Emergence of Regional Identities —Kuldip Nayar 6 Does Economic Anarchy lead to Political Chaos?

—K.S. Chalam 10 5. IRI / IRHA Members’ Section: A Plea for Humanism —Ramesh Korde Transformation of Secular Humanism: From Rammohan Roy to M.N. Roy —Swarajbrata Sengupta 6. Academicians' Section: Baul of Fire Ilina & Binayak Sen 7. Book Review Section: A Sensitive Treatment Of Crisis —Dipavali Sen 8. Humanist News Section: Antonio Gramsci and M.N. Roy — T. Ravi Chand Condolences for Ila Pathak — Gautam Thakar

12

29

34

35

37 39

THE RADICAL HUMANIST From The Editor's Desk: Birds of a Feather flock together: Not Necessarily! oday we need to recollect the basic tenets of New Humanism as envisaged

by Roy and his contemporaries in the movement. This will help us to honestly confess that the movement has not reached anywhere.

Those who are desperate about their participation in the present political scenario have forgotten that political involvement was the last step to complete the mission of a Radical Democratic Society. Roy had categorically said that “The work and progress of the Radical Humanist Movement will no longer be judged in terms of mass following, but by the spread of the spirit of freedom, rationality and secular morality amongst the people...” he wanted us to free ourselves from the habit of testing our strength on the basis of the number of members in our group. While initiating the Radical Humanist Movement he had specifically asked us to “bring a change in our day-to-day programmes” and to “free ourselves from the notions associated with the aim, activity and organisation of political parties.” But our party hang-over continues to haunt us and we keep on counting numbers of members and posts.

Secondly, have we completed the primary task, given to us by the movement, of bringing about a cultural renaissance in the Indian society?

Apart from the occasional closed-circle seminars, guest lectures and conferences what do we do to make our philosophy known amongst the people who come in our direct contact on a day to day basis? Are we even recognised as radical humanists or are we wearing the caps of all other famous national and international organisations and claiming to practice the principles of New Humanism in the society without taking the name of Radical Humanism as such? Why this shying away from the name? If we are ourselves so doubtful about its basic tenets then why keep the aura of its tag with us? It is now high time that we introspect upon our tendency of putting the blame, of our

T

MARCH 2014 movement’s fading out slowly, upon everyone else in the association and considering ourselves individually victimised. Many of us actively and almost all of us passively have faith in and follow the rituals of one religion or the other, sometimes for the sake of family and sometimes for the sake of society and friends.

Are we ourselves culturally emancipated? So many of us connect ourselves with Charitable Trusts and institutions still feeling elated that at least we are serving the society. But are we thus serving the values of renaissance?

When Roy wrote that “The Radical Democrats will reorganise themselves so as to develop a comprehensive social movement he expected a total change in the outlook of Indian society as a prerequisite to developing an organised democracy in our country. Whatever change we are seeing in the mind-set of the feudal Indian society is the after effect of the advancement of science and technological innovations and not due to our efforts in doing so.

AAP talks of the common man and it wants to honestly help get him out of the clutches of corruption and bribery with the assistance of the Mohalla Samitees. This is its single motto that it wants to pursue it by coming to power. Now where is the Radical Humanist Movement similar to it? Radical Humanism wants to change the circumstances and the basic thought process which cultivates the ills of corruption in a self seeking profit motivated capitalist materialist society. AAP wants to remove the evil from the surface level, administratively while Radical Humanism wants to eradicate its root cause, ideologically. The process is long for the radicals and they need to understand that a renaissance movement takes generations to show its effect.

Meanwhile, how much have we worked towards that goal and what efforts are we putting as radicals in revolutionising the society around us is a question we should ask ourselves now and stop grudging about others' inactions. We claim to be birds of the same feather but we seldom flock together!!

THE RADICAL HUMANIST

MARCH 2014

From The Writings of M.N. Roy:

Historical Role of Islam Chapter Two:

The Mission of Islam Contd. from the last issue.... had lost its original Christianity revolutionary fervour becoming, on the one hand, the ideology of social dissolution (Monasticism), and a prop for the decaying Empire, on the other. But the social crisis continued, aggravated by the degeneration of Christianity. The message of hope and salvation came from the caravan traders of Arabia who had stood outside the corrupting atmosphere of the decomposed Roman world, and prospered by their advantageous position. The “Revolt of Islam” saved humanity.

A famous authority on Islamic history (Okley, History of Islam) writes the following about the mission of Mohammad: “He found a whole nation in the full tide of rapid improvement, eagerly in search of knowledge and power. The excitement in the public mind of Arabia, which produced the mission of Mahemet, induced many other prophets to make their appearance during his life time”.

The people for whom the Islamic history is summarized in the exploits of fanatical hordes, dramatically offering the dismayed world the choice between the Koran and the sword, with the blood-curdling cry of “Allah Akbar”, do not know, or conveniently overlook, that only the immediate successors of Mohammad occupied themselves solely with temporal and religious conquests; and even they were distinguished from the barbarian ravishers of humanity like Alaric, Attila, Genseric, Chengis or Tamerlane, by the nobility of character, purity of purpose and piety of spirit. Their devoutness might have been fortified by superstition, but was not stained by hypocrisy. Their fanaticism was

2

softened by generosity and sound common sense. Their ambition was remarkably free from selfishness. Godliness, for them, was not a veil for greediness.

There are a few figures in history more romantic, more devout, more sincere and more modest than the first. “Commander of the Faithful” Abu Bakr! His memorable injunction to the “Army of God” ran: “Be just; the unjust never prosper. Be valiant; die rather than yield. Be merciful; slay neither old men, nor women, nor children.

Destroy neither fruit trees, nor grains, nor cattle.

Keep your word even to your enemy. Molest not those men who live retired from the world.” The irresistible march of the “Army of God” bears testimony to the fact that this remarkable injunction was uttered sincerely by the venerable chief, and obeyed strictly by the devout followers.

Everywhere the Saracen invaders were welcomed as deliverers by peoples oppressed, tyrannised and tormented by Byzantine corruption, Persian despotism and Christian superstition. Fanatically faithful to the revolutionary teachings of the Prophet, and obediently acting according to the noble, wise and eminently practical injunctions of the Khalif, the Saracen invaders easily enlisted the sympathy and support of the peoples they conquered. No invader can establish an abiding domination over conquered peoples, except with their active support or tacit toleration.

The second Khalif, Omar, whose impetuous horsemen had pushed their victorious march through the Persian Empire, to the distant banks of the Oxus, on the one side, and were masters of the second metropolis of the Roman world – Alexandria – on the other, made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem on a camel which also carried the entire royal provision and equipage – a small tent of coarse hair, a bag of corn, a bag of dates, a wooden bowl, and a leathern flask of water. Gibbon offers the following account of the simplicity, devoutness, equity and righteousness of the conquerors of Persia,

THE RADICAL HUMANIST

MARCH 2014

Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine and Egypt: “Wherever he halted, the company without distinction was invited to partake of his homely fare, and the repast was consecrated by the prayer and exhortation of the Commander of the Faithful. But in expedition or pilgrimage, his power was exercised in the administration of justice; he reformed the licentious polygamy of the Arabs; relived the tributaries from extortion and cruelty; and chastised the luxury of the Saracens by despoiling them of their rich silk, and dragging them on their face in dirt.”

(Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire) Khaled, whom the Prophet called the “Sword of God”, whose almost legendary valour had united Arabia, Mesopotamia and Syria under the banner of Islam, died in the possession only of his horse, his arms, and a singe slave. The great hero is credited to have declared in his youth, “It is not the delicacies of Syria, or the fading delights of this world, that have prompted me to devote my life in the cause of religion, I only seek the favour of God, and his apostle”.

(Recorded by the historian Abul Feda) — Contd.

[Publisher’s Note: This book, first published in 1939, was written when Roy was in jail in the early thirties under a sentence of twelve years rigorous imprisonment, later reduced to six, for ‘conspiring to deprive’ the king-Emperor of his sovereignty in India. Looking back at events in the intervening period, one might wish that this book had been read more widely in the decade before the Indian sub-continent became independent and at the same time partitioned into two States. A better knowledge and more objective understanding of the history of Islam on the part of Muslim as well as non-Muslim India might have prevented much of the later tragic developments and human suffering.

But it is never too late for knowledge and understanding to undo the harm that the lack of them has done. Hence, this small book on the historical role of Islam, in East and West, may itself have a historical role to play, apart from its intrinsic value as a scholarly treatise, beautifully written, on a fascinating chapter of human history.]

— THE RADICAL HUMANIST SUBSCRIPTION RATES—

In SAARC Countries: For one year-Rs. 200.00; For two years-Rs. 350.00; For three years-Rs. 500.00; Life

subscription-Rs. 2000.00 (Life subscription is only for individual subscribers and not for institutions.)

Cheques should be in favor of The Radical Humanist. For outstation cheques: Please add Rs. 55.00 to the total. In other Countries: Annual subscription (Air Mail) $ 100.00; GBP 75.00 Note: Direct transfer of subscription amount from abroad may be sent to: SWIFT Code: CNRB0000349, MICR Code: 110015012 in the Current Account Number 0349201821034 at Canara Bank, Maharani Bagh, New Delhi, 1100014, India.

Cheques and money transfer details from abroad may be sent to: Mr. Narottam Vyas (Treasurer), Chamber No. 111, (Near Post Office) Supreme Court of India, New Delhi-110001, Ph. Chamber 91-11-23782836, Res. 91-11-22712434, Mob. 09811944600

3

THE RADICAL HUMANIST

MARCH 2014

Guests' Section:

Surge in India’s Imagination —Uday Dandavate the political elite, Arwind Kejriwal’s Forbehavior smacks of irresponsible behavior of an elected chief executive; whereas to the thousands of young citizens of Delhi, who throng to the streets at the beck and call of AAP leadership, Arwind Kejriwal represents an irrepressible BAAGI (revolutionary), who they expect to first demolish the corrupt system and give people the participatory power to rebuild a new approach to governance.

Turn of events in Delhi continue to be incomprehensible to those who have expert knowledge of how democracy works in India.

The Aam Aadami Party has defied expectations of experts on Westminster model of governance, through its unconventional methods of handling important governance issues by crowd sourcing citizen’s ideas through Jan Sabhas and Street activism. Rather than exercising his power as the chief executive of the state of Delhi from the chambers within the secretariat, Arwind Kejriwal continued to provoke popular imagination by protesting against the corrupt nexus between the politicians, business and administration, in addition to taking quick decisions on promises made during campaign. For the political elite, Arwind Kejriwal’s behavior smacks of irresponsible behavior of an elected chief executive; whereas to the thousands of young citizens of Delhi, who throng to the streets at the beck and call of AAP leadership, Arwind Kejriwal represents an irrepressible BAAGI (revolutionary), who they expect to first demolish the corrupt system and give people the participatory power to rebuild a new approach to governance. Arwind Kejriwal did not join electoral politics to govern Delhi. Contrary to media campaign, Delhi citizens did not elect him just to govern Delhi, but to start cleansing the system. Delhi citizens did not respond with overwhelming enthusiasm first to Anna Hazare

4

and then to the AAP’s demand for Jan Lok Pal Bill, so they could capture power in Delhi. The genesis of AAP is in India’s disenchantment with apathetic, arrogant, and corrupt system that has eroded the dignity of ordinary citizens and turned politicians into pawns in the hands of rich industrialists. Kejriwal entered the swamp of electoral politics, despite advice to the contrary by his mentor Anna Hazare, “So that he could flush the system from inside”. The sight of a man flushing the gutter is ugly but the ultimate result promises to be desirable for the health of democracy.

All the three contenders to national imagination today- Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi and Arwind Kejriwal, want to demolish status quo- Narendra Modi wants to demolish, what he calls Pseudo Secularism and replace it with a Hindu Nationalist agenda for corporate sponsored development, Rahul Gandhi wants to demolish the old order in the Congress party . He has not given a clear picture of what he wants to replace the old order within congress with, except his recent comment that the congress party needs to learn from Aam Aadmi Party’s methods.

Arwind Kejriwal on the other hand wants to demolish the corrupt political order, challenge the money power, reverse the top down model of governance and replace it with a new model that Gandhi called Swaraj. Seasoned managers of political campaigns who are used to spending hundreds of crores of rupees on expensive media campaigns, for traveling in helicopters and creating ostentatious displays of gimmicky imageries at public meetings, Arwind Kejriwal’s simple and unpaid omnipresence in media is proving to be a massive headache. While the BJP might pat itself in the back over its victories in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chattisgarh, where BJP was the only challenger to the discredited congress party, the Delhi election has given the Sangh Pariwar a lot to worry about in private. The BJP candidate lost to the AAP candidate in the constituency where Narendra Modi addressed his first election rally, where

THE RADICAL HUMANIST

MARCH 2014

crores of rupees were spent in turning it into a mega show. Likewise in majority of constituencies where Narendra Modi campaigned in Delhi, he was unable to catch the imagination of the electorate. As Arwind Kejriwal unshackles himself from the daily grind of governing Delhi, the enthusiasm for participating in a new kind of disruptive innovation in democracy is bound to inspire the 12 crore first time voters who are going to be a decisive voter segment in the next Parliament election.

Indian election scenario today stands polarized between a fumbling Rahul Gandhi, an entertaining Narendra Modi, and a revolutionary Arwind Kejriwal. The regional parties are getting ready to consolidate their traditional voter base, so that they could emerge as a bargaining power in the eventuality of a hung parliament. Two weeks before the Delhi elections, I wrote on my Facebook, “Last week opinion polls gave AAP 8 seats, this week it gave it 18 seats, with two weeks to go for the election-day and after witnessing increasing enthusiasm in the street, I believe AAP is bound to increase its tally at the same pace.” The same scenario will unfold as AAP begins its campaign for Lok Sabha. Those who are joining the AAP are not seasoned politicians. They bring with them the same strengths and weaknesses that can be found in an average Indian. It will be the responsibility of the Aam Aadmi party to organize training for its cadres and its elected representatives, so that the energy unleashed by its promise of destructive innovation of India’s democracy is harnessed and managed with the same sensitivity with which nuclear energy is harnessed. Delhi events are only a spark- the fire is bound to spread nationwide. Arwind Kejriwal’s so called irresponsible behavior can only be understood by those who can sense an irrepressible surge of national imagination of a new future that is free from corruption.

is a thought for those who are Here watching TV from home and wondering why Kejriwal government failed to govern. We live in times when most of the established parties have became a part of the corrupt system, making electoral politics a game of big money bags, Over the years, ordinary citizens are forced to accept corruption as an inseparable part of life, primarily because corruption has become the only way to fund ever increasing costs of electioneering, India has woken up in anger, to challenge the system that crushed our dignity and turned us into pawns in the hands of corrupt politicians, administrators and local thugs.Kejriwal could not govern because the corrupt would not let him govern.Kejriwal could not govern because his ways confronted established money powered governance, Kejriwal failed to govern because the system that failed people ejected him. Kejriwal was ejected by the corrupt system.He is the only man who had the courage to call out the nexus between the business and the politicians. Now the choice before India is, whether to continue with the game of putting the puppets of the big money in power, or to genuinely give a chance to those who are representing the anger, frustration and genuine desire for a fundamental change. Delhi has ignited a spark, will the fire spread or will the big money douse the fire of conscience? What is governance after all, if it only serves the interest of the corporates at the cost of ordinary people?

[Uday Dandavate studies people, cultures and trends worldwide and inspires people centered innovation strategies. He heads a design research consulting firm, SonicRim in U.S.A. He writes and speaks on topics related to people centered design and innovation in international journals and conferences. uday@sonicrim.com

Kadam Kadam Badhaye Jaa

5

THE RADICAL HUMANIST

MARCH 2014

Current Affairs' Section:

Influence of Armed Forces —Kuldip Nayar Lok Sabha, 15th in the series, Another has concluded its five-year tenure.

Whatever business that was transacted in the house was, indeed, exasperating and raucous.

Unfortunately the house representing the democratic system has fallen by the wayside practically in all Asian countries. In another three months Indian the voters will once again queue up before the polling booths to elect their representatives. Their quality has been wanting.

But I am confident that the next house will be better in content because the emergence of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has changed the political scenario in the country to make it cleaner and transparent. Yet I do not like the increasing influence of the armed forces. Defence Minister A.K. Anthony was correct in saying that there can never be an army coup in the country. First India’s Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru too echoed the same thoughts when he opted for the parliamentary way of governance after independence in August 1947. His argument was that the country was too large and too caste and religion ridden.

My worry, however, is over the say which the armed forces are beginning to have in the affairs of governance. Take the stationing of troops at the Siachin Glacier. Was it necessary when several retired top brass said that it had no strategic importance? Even otherwise, when an agreement had been initialed by foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan, our armed forces should have followed the decision but they had it stalled. Instead of being a no-man territory the soldiers of both countries at the glacier are suffering due to the inclement weather and losing men at regular intervals.

Take another example of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) which empowers the army to detain or even kill a person on suspicion without any legal action. The

6

northeast has been under it for years. A government-appointed committee found it “unnecessary” and recommended its withdrawal. But the armed forces have had their way and the AFSPA continues to be in operation.

Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah has officially asked New Delhi to free the state from the law’s application. He has made the appeal even publicly. But the central government has not relented because the armed forces want the AFSPA to continue. Even a marginal concession of releasing the political prisoners as requested by the Jammu and Kashmir chief minister has been denied.

More recent is the inquiry into the “encounter” at Pathribal in Jammu and Kashmir. The army is alleged to have killed five “terrorists” while the local villagers have said that the deceased were innocent.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) inquired into the matter and has submitted its report before the Supreme Court. According to the report, it was a clod blooded fake encounter.

In fact, breaking his silence after 23 years then Kupwara deputy commissioner S.M. Yasin said recently that he had been threatened and offered promotions to change his report on the alleged mass rapes in Konam Poshpora in February 1991.It is strange that the army has claimed that there was no such incident. The self-acquittal by the top brass has only aggravated the sense of alienation and resentment among the people in Jammu and Kashmir. The government of India should still set up a judicial inquiry headed by a Supreme Court judge to investigate into what are perceived as fake encounters.

Hardly has the dust settled down on the Pathribal encounters when the story of a possible coup in January 2012 has become public. Two army units—one of which was an armoured battalion moved to Delhi from Agra.

Any movement of troops in the periphery of the capital has to be with the prior permission. Still both units moved and were withdrawn only when

THE RADICAL HUMANIST

MARCH 2014

the Defence Secretary summoned the Director General of Military Operations, Lt. Gen. A.K. Choudhary, at midnight and conveyed him that the top in the government was very unhappy and concerned.

When a daily newspaper broke the story at that time, Defence Minister A.K. Anthony rubbished it. So did some key army and civilian officials.

Now Lt. Gen. A.K. Choudhary, after his retirement, has confirmed the story. More shocking is the confirmation by Air Chief N.A.K. Browne, then heading the Air Force. He has said: “The paratroopers were being moved to check out the possibility of their marrying with the C130 at Hindon air base, near Delhi. Still the Defence Minister has said that it was ”a routine training exercise." When after telling the Director General of Military Operations, the government sends a chopper to check if the troops were on their way back, there is more than what meets the eye. Since the date synchronized with the appeal to the Supreme Court by the then army chief V.K. Singh’s on his birth date, the movement of the military units was given importance beyond proportions.

The entire matter has to be examined further by a team of top retired civil and military officials to reach the bottom of the “routine exercise.” It cannot be left at the mere denial stage despite Defence Minister Anthony’s vehement denial.

Even a limited say of the armed forces in civilian matters is ominous.

The armed forces are apolitical is a tribute to their training and conviction when both Pakistan and Bangladesh have swerved from the right path. The other two countries in the subcontinent have had a similar training. Still they threw out the elected government. Even today when the troops have gone back to the barracks, one cannot underestimate the importance of the military. The Indian military knows and honours its place in a democratic polity. Still the examples I have given should serve as a grim warning. True, the democratic temperament has got implanted on the Indian

soil. But this could not be taken for granted.

Even a small example of Bonapartism should be probed thoroughly. The armed forces are for the country’s defence and the decision to use them rests with the elected government. This is something basic and no comprise can be made in a democratic structure.

II

Emergence of Regional Identities may not be coming apart at the India seams but the polity is. Union Ministers are quarrelling among themselves. Feuds of bureaucrats are coming out in the open. Even intelligence agencies, the Intelligence Bureau and the Central Bureau of Investigation, are at loggerheads.

Understanding between bureaucracy and the rulers has been reduced to trivialities. So much so that Finance Minister P. Chidambaram tells a top official to improve his English and the official, in turn, complains to his minister.

On top of it comes the manner in which the bill to bifurcate Andhra Pradesh was passed by the Lok Sabha. The Lok Sabha television channel, showing the proceedings, was stopped from telecasting live which negates the claim of transparency. MPs in favour of a united Andhra Pradesh were not allowed to participate in the debate because as many as 17 of them had been ousted from the house a couple of days earlier when they, including the Congress ministers, were making the passage of the bill impossible.

I am concerned over the precedent the Congress has set and the way the Speaker went along. Tomorrow if the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) comes to power and decides to have a legislation to put restrictions on the minorities, the party has only to point out that the then ruling Congress had suspended the basic norms of parliamentary democracy.

For nearly 50 days, there was the government of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) exposing the status quo governance which the two main parties, the 7

THE RADICAL HUMANIST

MARCH 2014

Congress and the BJP, had perpetrated in the last three decades.

In a way, the AAP too has become a regional party as supreme in Delhi as are Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress in West Bengal and Naveen Patnaik’s Biju Janata Dal (BJD) in Odisha. Indeed, politics of identity is the biggest danger to the democratic governance.

And this in no way is minimizing the harm the BJP is doing to the pluralistic ethos inherited from the days of freedom struggle. Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi is getting large crowds by appealing to the Hindus to imbibe Hindu nationalism. Muslims are justifiably feeling insecure because the soft kind of Hinduva is contaminating more and more people. To check this dangerous trend, the Congress is too weak and too clueless to show mirror to the nation.

Regional parties feel that they can fill the space vacated by the Congress. Probably, they can but it will be at the expense of India’s unity. The constitution which binds all parts of the country together is being violated by some regional parties both in letter and spirit.

There is no option to the federal structure which the constituent assembly cherished and enshrined in the constitution. Odisha is a typical example of how the Indian polity works. The state is federal in character but dynastic in rule.

It seldom defies the central government, however autocratic or arrogant in its posture at times.

But chief minister Naveen Patnaik’s rule is personal and he follows the footprints of his father, the late Biju Patnaik who governed in capricious and corrupt manner. He is still remembered because he gave identity to Oriyas who even today are fighting for a place under the sun. Naveen continues to remind people of his father’s legacy. I saw during my visit to Bhubaneswar hoardings all over the city with Biju Patnaik’s finger pointing towards Naveen as if he was reminding that his successor was his son. (There were also hoardings carrying only the photo of Rahul Gandhi without his mother, 8

Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on either side of Naveen.) Just as Sukhbir Singh Badal in Punjab, Akhilesh Yadav in UP or Farooq Abdullah in Jammu and Kashmir, Naveen Patnaik’s parentage is his asset. The polls in democracy are only up to elections. Subsequently, people cease to count during the five-year tenure of the state assembly. With a clutch of bureaucrats Naveen rules the state, much to the misery and helplessness of the voters. He is worse because he has eliminated leading politicians from his party methodically. He has thus become indispensible. In fact, Naveen’s strength is the absence of a leader in his own party and his adversary, the Congress. Former chief minister JB Patnaik preferred governorship of Assam to the ever increasing wrangles in the Congress.

What surprised me was that there was not even a hiss of AAP in the state. I thought that Odisha which has no opposition worth the name would be an ideal place for AAP. The party appears to have not gone beyond Delhi, western UP, Haryana and parts of Rajasthan. No doubt, its birth and success in Delhi evoked a tinge of idealism. But then Arvind Kejriwal became synonymous for the party. He did not allow anyone else to grow. In fact, some of his antics have doused the aspirations of the intelligentsia which saw in him an alternative.

Thank god, some other names who will contest the Lok Sabha elections have come out. They should underline the need for a collective leadership. Dozens of NGOs, with more enviable record than Kejriwal, are distant from the AAP. They should be persuaded to join the party which is, in fact, a platform for “thousands of mutinies” raging in the country. The AAP, however, needs to come out with its economic agenda because people have essentially voted against the Congress and the BJP. The AAP has done well in exposing the central government on the price of natural gas. Even when the private company had signed a contract to purchase gas for $2.5 But till 2017, the price has

THE RADICAL HUMANIST

MARCH 2014

been raised to $8 Btu. It is obvious that Petroleum Minister Veerappa Moily, who has defended the increased price, must be mixed up with the scam, another in the Manmohan Singh regime, left with two months in tenure.

Corruption looks like becoming the poll issue.

The Congress with numerous scams will be the target. Per force, the party has made communalism the main issue. Both corruption and communalism have to be confronted with a plank of cleanliness and pluralism. The AAP can plug these lines, provided it stays together.

An Appeal to the Readers Indian Renaissance Institute has been receiving regular requests from readers, research scholars, Rationalists and Radical Humanists for complete sets of books written by M.N. Roy. It was not possible to fulfil their demands as most of Roy's writings are out of print. IRI has now decided to publish them but will need financial assistance from friends and well-wishers as the expenses will be enormous running into lakhs. IRI being a non-profit organization will not be able to meet the entire expenses on its own. Initially, following 15 books have been ordered for print: New Humanism; Beyond Communism; Politics, Power and Parties; Historical Role of Islam; India’s Message; Men I Met; New Orientation; Materialism; Science & Philosophy; Revolution and Counter-revolution in China; India in Transition; Reason, Romanticism and Revolution; Russian Revolution; Selected Works-Four Volumes; Memoirs (Covers period1915-1923).

Cheques /bank drafts may be sent in the name of ‘Indian Renaissance Institute’ at (address): Shri B.D. Sharma, Advocate, Chamber No.111 (Old), Supreme Court, New Delhi-110001 Online donations may be sent to: ‘Indian Renaissance Institute’ Account No: 02070100005296; FISC Code: UCBA0000207 UCO Bank, Supreme Court Branch, New Delhi (India) We make an earnest appeal to you to please donate liberally for the cause of the spirit of renaissance and scientific thinking being promoted in the writings of M.N. Roy. Thanking you

B.D. Sharma

N.D. Pancholi,

Narottam Vyas

President (IRI)

Secretary (IRI)

Treasurer (IRI)

A note of Appreciation and Thanks: We have received the following a donation from thefollowing veteran Radical Humanists: Mrs. Arundhati Khandekar (Mumbai) - Rs.5000.00 Mr. S.C. Verma (Delhi) - Rs.5000.00 Mr. Yogesh Kamdar (Mumbai) - Rs.2500.00 Mr. Tidabhai P. Babaria (Gujarat) - Rs.2500.00 Mr. M. Dinkar (Karnatka) - Rs.1000.00

—Rekha Saraswat

9

THE RADICAL HUMANIST

MARCH 2014

Does Economic Anarchy lead to Political Chaos?

—K.S. Chalam is understood as a state of Anarchy statelessness or disorder. It is in fact has a wider meaning and historical background than what is generally conceived by Aam Admi or common man. When AAP Chief Minister of Delhi created flutter through his histrionics at Jantar Mantar few weeks ago, commentators started projecting him as an anarchist, if not a nihilist, radical and so on.

We had also some apprehension about the future of the Party as the promise that AAP presented to the nation was really prodigious at that time. Now, AAP is busy with its political strategies like any other Indian party, and one can expect their real blush when they take up fulltime activity of public policy. Till such time we may defer using harsh epithets.

The Pepper Spray spectacle has diverted the attention from the essential condition of the polity today, otherwise the record of events in the Indian Parliament and state Assemblies for the last few years have already reached a critical phase of eventuality. Unfortunately, the blame is attributed to Telugu politicians.

The manifestation of culpability of some in the Parliament may be understood as culmination of deceit, double standards and unethical conduct irrespective of the party. What are the motives behind this trend? Is this anindicator of the prospects for the 21st century?

In fact, the whole drama of fighting corruption both on the social net and media costing crores of rupees appeared to be sponsored by Corporates to divert attention from real issues.

For instance, Kejriwal has challenged some individuals and corporate houses including media on this important issue and opened a new front for his tirade. However, what interests

10

some of us is the issue of economic idiosyncrasiesinvolved in the so called political anarchy. In the normal philosophical discourse, anarchy looks at the moral legitimacy of state to control or regulate individual freedom. Gandhiji has also questioned the moral authority of the British to rule us and resorted to civil disobedience. This was termed as grammar of anarchy.

We are now independent with a Constitution and Parliamentary democracy to guide our collective destiny. Is it really happening as envisioned by our founding fathers? Is political democracy adequate for common man to lead comfortable life? Does it include economic and social considerations?

The western scholars and philosophers were involved in passionate debate on the question of freedom and rights in a capitalist system. But, they seem to have not been entangled with the economic basis of freedom, though Rawls and Sen were instrumental in getting the argument stretched to include questions of inequality.

However, our issue here is not about ownership of property and distributional justice in which Marxists were interested. ‘For Marx, only public ownership of the means of production can guarantee distributive justice.

Because public ownership of the means of production not only transforms surplus labour from private owners to the state, so that it no longer belongs to individuals but to the whole society, it also transforms the relationship between employees and employers who then become equal… Both the managers and workers theoretically are owners of the means of production.’ This objective was never realised anywhere in India. In fact, violence and abuse of power were used inamassing wealth and property by some apparently using democratic process that created disharmony of interests leading to chaos and disorder.

This is perhaps echoed in our Legislative bodiesas a political manifestation, but the real

THE RADICAL HUMANIST

MARCH 2014

motive was economic gain. Therefore, it could be brought under the notion of anarchy.

We can go beyond the precincts of Parliament to notice the chaos in public policy. One of the important issues flagged by AAP party explicitly, and several others implicitly are about the pricing of Gas, Oil and other public sector goods or things produced out of common resources.

It is noticed that some high profile politicians cum policy makers have voiced their view on pricing of Gas, Oil etc in India. Surprisingly, they have questioned Marginal Cost as the criterion to decide a good/product,may be out of ignorance or arrogance? Economists have been using marginal cost, as an important method of fixing price for Public sector goods. Marginal Cost is the cost of producing an additional unit of a product, reveals the efficiency at which the firm operates.

This is different from average cost that is equal to marginal cost arrivingat average revenue in an ideal condition of perfect competition. As far as the issue of using marginal cost pricing for Gas / Crude of Reliance is concerned, we all know that the situation is neither a condition of perfect competition nor it is the only firm in the oil industry. Therefore, the ideal method of pricing as indicated by some policy makers and experts, taking average cost or some other method seem to be not reasonable. This is not a product produced by the firm on the basis of its own resources but given a contract to supply the product at a price that is reasonable to consumers and profitable to the contractor.

Therefore, it should be administered or mark-up price arrived at by the government based on cost of production both variable cost and capital cost. It seems, it is here that several charges of manipulations against Reliance including CAG Report and the disciplinary action initiated against Sibal the then DGHC are cited. This is what Kejriwal and his team including senior bureaucrats who are aware of the facts are

contending. In fact, the whole process of open auction, certification by independent agencies about the genuineness of investments involved etc are all now debunked due to the manipulation of share market giving fabricated information. Perhaps, Kejriwal being an Income Tax person knew all this or may be some other reason has gotgenuine issue for wider debate.

It is not only in the case of Reliance, Coal, Spectrum, Power etc. contracts but, in several operations in the private sector involving common properties,frauds are becoming order of the day involving billions of rupees. The argument that ONGC and other public sector units are also going to be benefitted by Gas pricing is not acceptable as the surpluses of the public sector go to the state exchequer while private profits or margins fatten individuals. It is noticed that some of the huge private gains are in areas where state has invested on R&D or society has foregone its present consumption, legitimately possessed by all.

The beneficiary contractors are the ones who contested elections or put their agents in Parliament to sit on judgement on policies.

Naturally, they do not tolerate anything that goes against their private interests and create chaos and confusion either in Parliament or outside. Is it not anarchy as they are insensitive to the social good of majority?

Prof. K.S. Chalam has been Vice- Chancellor, Dravidian University, Kuppam (AP), (2005); Member, Planning Board, Govt. of M.P., (2002-04); Founder Director, UGC Academic Staff College, Andhra University, Visakhapatnam (1987-2005); Director, Swamy Ramananda Tirtha Rural Institute, Pochampally, Hyderabad (1997-98); Professor of Economics, Andhra University (1990-2005). He is on several Committees as Hon’ble Chairman, Member such as UGC, NCRI, A.U etc. He may be contacted at:chalamks@hotmail.com

11

THE RADICAL HUMANIST

MARCH 2014

IRHA / IRI Members’ Section:

A Plea for Humanism —Ramesh Korde Present Scenario: he present social, political and economic atmosphere prevailing in India presents a dismal picture where common man who forms the majority of population is disregarded as a man of no significance and importance. He is treated just as an expendable commodity. Leaders of, then, national freedom movement had liberation mission and vision, cherishing high moral values. After their departure, political leaders who succeeded them are totally bereft of any philosophical, ideological or moral conviction. Their sole object is to capture political power for their own aggrandizement. They are not hesitating to make use of foul and immoral means to achieve their objective. The end result is that it has generated social, political and economic atmosphere, affecting all facets of human life, not conducive to improve and enhance welfare and happiness in respect of large section of Indian humanity. If corrective action is not taken on urgent footing, it may endanger democracy and democratic way of life. Roy described this atmosphere as the atmosphere of social malady that rules our nation.

To-day Indians have become more credulous, superstitious, believer in outdated and antiquated religious orthodoxy and hypocritical than they were prior to independence. This is further galvanized by power crazy politicians to get votes of people so that they can capture state political power. In order to sway people by appealing to their baser instincts and prejudices to earn votes, politicians found it most convenient to keep people ignorant and intellectually docile. Their political philosophy is, that more the backward and ignorant the people are, more easily they can be swayed. They would never make people enlightened because that would dig their grave.

T

12

It is reported that almost about sixty percent of Indian population live in poverty with attended evils of illiteracy, malnutrition, discriminatory social life. It is criminally irresponsible to talk about progress in economic field. The fact is, eventually, the lower middle class, known as backbone of society and other vulnerable living below poverty line, are trapped in intolerable and unfavorable difficult economic living situation due to exorbitant and alarming price rise in daily consumable commodities which are absolutely required for man’s biological survival and even existence. In spite of this pathetic human situation, normal behavior of vast number of Indians are simply outburst of emotions which does not lead them to correct action and have become amenable to demagogic appeals of power hungry politicians.

Of course emotions are an integral part of human nature. But if it is not tempered by reason, they will never escape from the influence of power crazy politicians. With reference to economic policies and activities which would promote welfare and happiness of Indian humanity at large, Indian Government has disowned and abandoned this bounden responsibility, bestowed upon them by Indian constitution and transferred it to private capitalist, given them a free hand almost in all economic fields. These private capitalist systems of production goods is solely for earning profits to exclusion of welfare and interest of small farmers, lower middle class, workers and other vulnerable classes. Their very existence is denied and treated as nothing more than herd of cattle’s of no significance. Modern technology was the creation of man’s ingenuity.

Its purpose was to free man from the drudgery of earning his livelihood. However politicians and private capitalist have misused this technology for their selfish and self aggrandizement and have enslaved man of his own creation. This is how the creation has devoured the creation. The most obnoxious and irritating experience is so called idealist

THE RADICAL HUMANIST

MARCH 2014

intellectuals and professional academicians most of them have become tools in the hands of power crazy politicians. They have surrendered their intellectual integrity just to have share in economic loot perpetuated by corrupt power crazy politicians.

Prof. Sibnarayan Ray while analyzing the present atmosphere in India observed that the spirit of cynicism and atmosphere of widespread among the educated and revival obscurantism and anti-rational faith in large section of people, make substance of renaissance humanism exceedingly difficult, if not altogether impossible. It was renaissance humanist movement of Europe in 15th/16th centuries place man in the center of all human activities and institutions, opening before humanities all the avenues and roads to attain freedom and prosperity in respect of all citizens of Western Europe. In this movement middle class was on frontline.

In Western Europe, it was middle class who worked as the conscience keeper of the Western Europe, challenged the status quo that was denigrating common man as of no significance and made large number of individuals aware in respect of criminal excesses committed by rich elite and wealthy upper class. It was the middle class intellectuals having humanist inclination brought revolution that paved the roads to improving human condition in respect of large section of citizens. As against this, Indian educated middle class firmly believes in the preservation of exploitative status quo that has debased common man, losing his entity and become man of no significance. The end result is the complete erosion of their sensibility towards the pathetically declining standards of public affairs. They are apathetic towards the plight of poor. They are simply in indulges in rampant consumerism.

This excruciating social, economic and political atmosphere situation has resulted into despair and intellectual apathy among large section of Indian population, leading to loss of their 28

strength and even desire to improve and reshape situation conducive to human welfare and happiness in order to attain human dignity.

Now it is well established and experienced that all prevailing ideologies and theories – right or left, including capitalist economic doctrine – proved to be all fallacies of the cherished ideals or ideas to solve problems confronting large section of Indian population. On the contrary people are treated as herd of cattle of no consequences. They are debased as unthinking breast. They have failed to help people to outgrow from intellectual backwardness, cultural stagnation, blind faith and hero worship. All these theories and ideologies proclaimed by various political parties do not regard human individual worth of respect in his own right. He is treated as an expending commodity to be utilized, disposed like an inanimate log in the wheel. Political parties are totally deprived of any sympathetic sensitivity towards vulnerable.

Without exception, all political parties, day in day out, are involved in politics of power where needs of man of flesh and blood are of no significance. Deprived of any moral sense or sympathy, they do not hesitate to make use of foul and immoral means to capture political power of state. So long as capture of political power remains the object of political parties, they would not be handicapped by any moral impulse, they would always be guided by dictum-end justifies the means. This has resulted into discounting morality in public affairs and the gains of economic development and its benefits are monopolized by significant, politically and economically influential minority elite group. All these benefits never tickle down below as claimed by the adherents of multinational global capitalist economic system.

At present, in India, due to backwardness, ignorance and blind faith on large section of Indians, have become amenable to demagogic outburst of leaders of various political parties, whose moral sense if not dead, has become

THE RADICAL HUMANIST

MARCH 2014

dormant. Secularism is the sheet anchor of Indian Constitution. In the broadest sense, secularism is the rejection of religious mode of thought. At present, it is in great danger due to alarming and exorbitant growth of religious revivalism particularly among the educated middle class who are supposed to be leaders of people. Widespread religious revivalism among large section of Indians has gathered enormous strength to inflict fatal blow to secularism. This has also debased man as an unthinking least and killed his creative capability that would make him the shaper of his destiny and be the subject of his circumstances. This atmosphere has created a breeding ground for power crazy politicians to manipulate feelings and prejudices of ignorant people to get their votes in order to capture states political power to rule over them.

Chronologically, Indians are living in 21st century. But they are socially, culturally and intellectually clinging to religious dominated medieval age. Discoveries and progress of various sciences have inflected a thrashing fatal jolt to religious beliefs and dogmas; however this has not penetrated the intellectual and social life of India even educated middle class has escaped from its influence. Then what to say about other lower classes. This middle class is in the habit of glorifying past which may not be worth glorifying. This further galvanized by power hungry politicians for their own aggrandizement. Large section of Indian population are being ignorant and intellectually docile, do not understand that this glorifying false past legend, will never lead them to bright and prosperous life. Despite tremendous growth of scientific knowledge that has exploded false legend preached by religious teachings, Indians are overwhelmed and trapped in the doctrine of fatalism and karma theory which impress upon large section of population that the present lifestyle is predetermined and preordained by life style lived in the previous life. The belief in previous life is the greatest delusion. Faith in such

15

unverifiable and false legend resulted into man losing faith in him and thereby self confidence that is required to make man shaper of his destiny. People have to realize that no God – the greatest delusion –would come down from non-existence heaven to restore goodness and to sort out mess created by man, none but man himself can sort out. It is man alone can clear up this mess because it is his own creation. To become creator and shaper of his destiny, man has to outgrow from the false legend promoted by the teachings of religion. Because of this teachings, superstitious and obscurantism are still hanging round the neck of Indians.

Intellectual life of Indians is very much permeated with prejudices, blind faith, superstitions that is inhibiting free and critical thinking.

Religious teachings have injected necrophilia – worshipping dead statues carved out of stone or mud or wood etc. – tendencies among majority section of Indian population. The end result is, the basic needs required for man’s biological survival are pushed into background having no priority. Large section of Indian population failed to developed scientific outlook requires combating religious obscurantism. People have accepted applied science – modern technology developed by science – it solely used for higher production goods for higher profits. Technology is a readymade instruments available to mankind, does not excite critical faculty of brain.

For example, switch on switch, one gets light, switch off light disappear. Here reasoning faculty does not have any role to play. Consequently, theoretical science is at discount. It is the theoretical science alone can promote scientific outlook by asking questions, what, why and how things are happening. Due to impact of religious teachings of invariable legends, vast majority of Indians are deeply predisposed to accept authority, that makes people amenable to self regimentation and are also afraid of hard thinking independently. This has facilitated any power crazy politicians to establish their

THE RADICAL HUMANIST

MARCH 2014

authoritarian regime to rule over the people.

The living example is the proclamation emergence by Indira Gandhi in 1975, collaborates above observation.

It was M.N. Roy who led us to the top of volcano, draw our attention to the boiling cater inside the volcano where common man who form the majority of population are being roasted in poverty, malnutrition, illiteracy, intellectually ignorance political and economic disabilities etc. Roy was a man of high moral fervor and intense dislike for social injustice mated out to large section of Indian population. He had intense burning volcanic human urge to revolt against the intolerable and unbearable all round condition where large section of Indians are trapped and roasted. To combat and improve the above human condition, he expounded a philosophy called, Radical Humanism or Scientific Humanism or New Humanism, using the words interchangeably, indicating the way out from present day prevailing predicament.

Indians are suffering from, affecting all and every facets of life covering human beings.

However, at the outset, he had cautioned that philosophy of humanism presented by him is not the last word on human wisdom. Scientists say, universe is not static but expanding.

Therefore knowledge acquired by humanity will always be tentative and cumulative like science.

Since philosophy of humanism being based on the discoveries of science it is also tentative and cumulative. It is subject to modification, improvement and enrichment in the light of new discoveries of science and new experience of humanity. Even some of the tenets are found untenable in the light of new discoveries of science and new experience of humanity; they could be rejected and replaced by new tenets.

This corrective method is inbuilt in the philosophy itself.

At present at the bottom, the conflict is between on the one hand, the prevailing dominant doctrine of capitalism, further developed into multi-national global economic and financial 16

corporation’s where in man of flesh and blood is debased and is of no significance, he is treated as an expandable commodity. On the other hand philosophy of humanism innovated by M.N. Roy in India and others in Western Europe and U.S.A., places man in the center of universal human activities, where in basic needs of human beings, required from his very biological existence and survival, have first priority. This is the conflict between two antagonistic values affecting all facets of humanity.

Capitalism: After the fall of Communist Soviet Russia in 1990, few of the Western European intellectuals audaciously proclaimed that this is an auspicious event, also an end of history. Now only liberal capitalist economic system will survive and dominate the world affairs. Any other alternative system is pushed into non-entity and will not have any role to play in any of the world’s affairs. It appears that this myopic short sighted vision of few intellectuals has lost their historical sense. The evidently established fact is that there can never be an end of history. History is the creation of ingeniousness efforts of humanity. Human ingenuity can never be exhausted so long as entire humanity is not wiped out from the planet. Human being is thinking animal and inherently curious about unknown or even known of his surrounding and environment. It is now also well established according to Arther Koestler that exploratory drive is innate part of human nature. If human being had been believing animal he would never had come out of his dwelling place – cave – and would still be living under the primeval savagery condition and there would never had been growth of even modern capitalist civilization. This amply establishes that human ingenuity and creativity can never be completely exhausted. As M.N. Roy observed that it may suffer a setback for time-being but it has inherent capacity to reside as long as entire mankind is not completely wiped out from this earth. Again, at the top of

THE RADICAL HUMANIST

MARCH 2014

their voice, these advocates of globalized market capitalist economist claimed that the fruits of this economy growth would automatically tickle down below. Experience has evidently proved this to be a great illusion. It has failed to solve satisfactory even the elementary basic necessities required for physical existence in respect of vast majority of world citizens, even though they are well aware that physical existence of human being is very much basic and pertinent condition for social existence.

M.N. Roy wrote, historically capitalist economic system did free mankind from the chains of slavery of medieval feudal society but invariably they transformed most human beings into atomized, isolated, helpless and hopeless individual social unit. This resulted into individual never broke from pernicious authoritarian traditions.

Erich Fromm wrote that one effect of capitalism had on the process of freedom, at the same time, it made the individual more alone and isolated and imbibed him with a feeling of insignificant and powerlessness. Bertrand Russell was harsher on the capitalist economic system. He emphatically said that capitalist economic system cannot work without lying, corruption, profiteering, cruelty and unfairness.

Human experience has corroborated this observation of intellectual mountains having humanist inclination. However, the most unfortunate result is that this system has led to despair and intellectual apathy on large buck of population and has become mute spectator to majority of common man being prosecuted by this capitalist economic system for no fault of them. This system has debilitated people’s strength and capability or even desire to revolt against this criminality irresponsible common man’s blood sucking exploitative economic system. The sole object of this system is to obtain material growth to fetch more and more profit to be pocketed by insignificant minority elite and neo rich upper middle class, pushing majority of population in boiling pot of abnormal

17

high price of basic commodities require for their very existence.

Under capitalist economic system, the common man is constantly threatened with uncertainty because of beneficiary labor laws enacted by parliament, beneficial to huge section of Indian work force, has been given go-by, not only by group of capitalist but even by government of India, even though Indian Constitution has bestow on them to protect those vulnerable from exploitation by any class and to ensure job security. At present, these beneficial labor laws are not enforced faithfully by government authority due to presence from capitalist class as a whole. Those people who are employed under this capitalist system, finds no leisure to develop finer and aesthetic aspects of life as most of their physical energy is spent in drudgery just to earn his livelihood. To attain good, aesthetic, moral and happy society, the pre-condition is that human beings need to be liberated from the menace of physical privation and their basic needs require for his physical existence must be satisfied in all the circumstances. Human experience has proved beyond any reasonable doubt that capitalist form of economic system is disadvantaged to large section of not only to Indian population but to world population. It caters to the needs of only infinitesimal privileged minority elite and upper middle class.

Man by his ingenuity developed modern machines and technology. The only purpose was to mitigate and free man from age-long drudgery to earn his livelihood and earn thereby leisure to develop finer and aesthetic aspects of life to promote cultural progress. The capitalist have misused this technology for their selfish aggrandizement. The result is creation has devoured the creator. Capitalist are always obsessed with earning profit, using fair or foul means to satisfy their insatiable bottomless greed and make use of modern technology exclusively to enhance their selfish end.

The fact is, modern technology depends on energy generated by burning non-renewable

THE RADICAL HUMANIST

MARCH 2014

natural resources like coal, gas, oil, etc. which are not infinite. In cause of time, sometime in future, these natural resources will be completely exhausted and disaster would be the consequence. Capitalist are also totally blind to likely ecological disaster that may take place due to polluting natural atmosphere by misuse of modern technology. It is only non-polluted ecology can sustain life on this planet. The ominous shadow is lurking on horizon. By polluting natural ecology and atmosphere, we are endangering the very life of generation still to be born who will never pardon us for the criminally irresponsible misuse of natural resources.

With all the fanfare, celebrated by advocates of capitalist economic system, approving and admiring so called economic growth achieved by them, even to-day, as reported, vast majority of human population, particularly lower middle class and other classes are living if not starving in poverty for want of sufficient economic means to meet their two ends. They are driven to such a bottomless level that they are forced to seek their lunch and dinner from garbage. Capitalist will never dedicate themselves to improve human condition of those vulnerable. In their vocabulary the sufferings of these large numbers of population are treated as irrelevant and do not posses human entity and dignity. It is god ordained. Capitalist economic system has polarized society into have and have not’s. infinitesimal small minority elite and neo-rich higher middle class are enjoying and consuming all fruits by capitalist promoted economic system, but large majority of population are being deprived of all avenues for their economic welfare. Advocates of capitalism, most of them are highly educated. It can be safely assumed that they are well aware that to develop higher finer aspects of human life, the pre-condition is, man has to exist physically. Therefore, it is pertinent to sustain physical existence, basic needs of human being like food, dwelling place, clothing, medical and non-polluted atmosphere

18

and many others be satisfied in all the circumstances and must be extended to entire humanity. These basic needs are never included or listed in the vocabulary of capitalist oriented economic system. They quote fallaciously the dictum of biological evolution, survival of the fittest and claim they are the fittest exclusively.

The object and aim of these so called survivals of the fittest are never having been consonance with welfare and happiness of the majority constituent of the community. In their calculation these majority have no relevance and possess no significant entity. Only measure of economic growth is profit earn and accumulated irrespective of means adopted – fair or foul.

This myopic vision of capitalist class as a whole resulted into a small infinitesimal section of society have acquired power, privilege and dominant weightage on all activities of state government, pushing large section of people into economic servitude and force them to labor under economic disadvantages, loosing almost all opportunities to exercise effectively their sovereign right bestowed by Indian constitution that belongs to them. The most irritating experience is, so called; most of the economists have become apologists of this exploitative capitalist economic system. They never raise their voice against this common man’s blood sucking system. They found that it is more beneficial to earn share in economic loot, gathered by capitalist by surrendering their intellectual dignity, in order to live a highly luxurious lifestyle. M.N. Roy did observe that culturally, the positive outcome of capitalist civilization has been tremendous advance in science, in its theory and practice which has prepared ground for final liberation of man from age long spiritual bondage. But the basic evil of capitalist civilization is cultural aspects has been systematic and persistent attempt to block the spiritual liberation of man even when it was creating condition favorable for that liberation.

Under capitalist economic system man can exist

THE RADICAL HUMANIST

MARCH 2014

only as a slave or slave driver. It has remained highly in-egalitarian economic system. It has widened the disparities of income and wealth among the people. The economic inequalities created and fomented by capitalist systems are reflected in political inequalities as well.

The owners of capitalism have a far greater weightage on parliamentary democracy than their number justifies.

The worst parts of present economic situation dominated by multi-national global corporate financial institution have developed globalized network collaboration engaged in exploiting non-renewable natural resources, with no intention to enhance welfare and happiness in respect of large majority of human population. The only purpose is to increase their iron grip on all the facets of planets just to satisfy their insatiable appetites of greed.

The consequence is that huge section of humanity suffers from dehumanized psychosis. In this process of globalization of economy, the basic needs of majority vulnerable individuals are totally ignored; resulting into life of large section of humanity becomes precarious.

Adding fuel to the fire, these multinational corporations bring pressure on respective state governments, not to be over enthusiastic about their humanistic inclined compassionate economy and political policies which are beneficial to large majority section citizens. It is evidently established that the government of India has readily succumbed to this pressure and committed to global capitalist market economy as panacea for economic ills and evils Indians are suffering from. However in practice it is found to be great illusion in respect of large section of vulnerable. To-day, we have reached to such a stage from which we have to proclaim that this multinational global economic corporation is not the last word of human wisdom. It could be treated as one of the stages of historical event, subject to modification or even if necessary could be rejected if it is found in practice that it has failed to promote welfare and happiness in respect of entire humankind.

Now its failure is self evident, therefore, human ingenuity has to explore to search out better altruistic alternative consonance with welfare and happiness of entire humanity so as to have harmonious and mutually beneficial 19

atmosphere conducive to all round growth of all constituents of society. To-day the greatest threat to stability of human life is the inequality between have and have not’s generated by capitalist oriented economic system. It is also true this elite oriented capitalist economic system, is not going to give up anything. The result is, thus continuous progressively increasing inequality may lead to have adverse effect on the stability of nation. If we desire that harmonious and mutually beneficial relations is not to be totally eclipsed, ingenuity of man must apply its intellectual creative capability to explore the possibility of alternative economic system to combat the capitalist oriented economic system.

Humanism – Only Panacea for all Social Evils: Humanism is man’s centered theory of life in which man is the center and measure of everything. It believes, the chief end of human life is to work for the happiness of entire human race living on this earth and within the confine of the nature that is its home. Its main objects can be explained in brief as under. “We stand for thorough reconstruction of national life. Our political objective is to establishment of democratic society which will mean effective political power for the people. We strive not only for national freedom, but also for social emancipation of the toiling masses. Our task is to spread enlightenment which will dispel obscuranticism in the spiritual life of the country. We advocate modernism in every walk of life against revivalism. We want disinterested to come to own and enjoy the richness and fullness of life on this earth. We want man to be the master of his destiny…..Object of humanism is an increasing large number of people, motivated by the indomitable will to remake the world, moved by adventure of ideas and fired with the idea of a free society of a free man, can create the condition under which democracy would be possible.” (M.N. Roy) “As long as I breathe, I shall fight for the future that radiant future in which man, strong and beautiful, will

THE RADICAL HUMANIST

MARCH 2014

become the master drifting of his history and will direct it towards the boundless horizon of beauty, joy and happiness.” (Young Trotsky) “Society will be kingdom of freedom where reason and not faith shall reign, where every individual will have an ample opportunity to develop his or her potentialities.” (Karl Marx) Humanism emphasis that man is born for wonder have joy and hope, enjoying the beauty of natural world acquires knowledge that leads to truth and wisdom. Humanism believes that world where man lives and experiences is not a vale of tears or devilish. It is the scene of beauty, intense living and feeling of happiness. Born out of historical experience that the present prevailing political, economic ideologies and theories, including capitalist economic system and also religious doctrine were put into practice, found wanting and inadequate to solve multi-dimensional problems confronting majority of human population to enable them to live freer, happy life with human dignity and without economic disabilities.

In response to this excruciating experience in respect of large section of toiling masses of world community, some of the intellectuals of western Europe and in India M.N. Roy (he called it Radical Humanism) who had open mind, having humanist inclination and also love for toiling masses, revived universal humanist movement, defined it as rebirth of man as the only sovereign entity and only measure of all things and also the root of mankind, the highest product of the entire biological evolution. These proponents of theory of humanism believed in a universally uncontestable truth that the world can only be humanized because the constituents of world are human beings who are not dead matter; they are living biological entities, who react to their environment. These human beings have the inherent capacity to change and alter the environment if it is not conducive to their intellectual growth, welfare and happiness. Thus man becomes the architect and shaper of their destiny.

20

The above statement is well corroborated by the growth and progress of mankind from savagery to present modern civilization. It is the result of man’s ingenuity and his own efforts, without any aid and intervention of any supernatural agency.

From this it can be deduced that man has innate capacity to create still better society. The salient features of the philosophy of Radical Humanism as expounded by M.N. Roy can be summarized in brief as under: At the very outset, it does not claim absolutism. It is subject to modification and be improved upon in the light of new discoveries of science and new human experiences. It is not merely for professional philosophers. But it is a way of thinking and doing for average person seeking to lead happy and useful life in this world. In order to attain a reasoned interpretation of nature and man’s place in it, Roy had inquire into the major branches of natural sciences such as physics, chemistry and more particularly biological evolution and also social sciences such as human history, politics, cultural, economics etc.

Roy had defined this philosophy as a philosophy of living and action in day to day life of man. It has tried to bridge the age-long gap between thinkers and doers, between theory and practice. He had explicitly stated that the guiding principle in one’s life is his philosophy, even though it may not be explicit in his mind. This philosophy puts man in center and sanction, also measure of everything. Manhood is the beginning of human existence. Man is an end in himself. There is nothing higher than man. It has included in it the most enduring values of European Renaissance Humanism of 16th century. It believes, since it is based on natural sciences, man possess the innate capacity or potentialities to solving problems confronting him with the help of reason and scientific method applied to all aspects of life. It categorically rejects all theories of pre-destination, pre-ordained or predetermined by any supernatural being that breeds fatalism.

It asserts that man possess genuine freedom of

THE RADICAL HUMANIST

MARCH 2014

creative choice and action. He is the shaper of his own destiny. It emphasis that all human beings must have freedom of expression and civil liberties, throughout all areas of economic, political and cultural social life. It rejects usually conceived of heavenly God or heaven. This does not exist. Therefore, no sanction or support needed from supernatural sources. It will persistently strive to remind man, his only home is in this mundane world. No use searching elsewhere for happiness. Man must find his destiny here and now. This philosophy will strive to ensure good of all humanity on this world.

The central concern of humanism is the happiness of man in this existence and nothing beyond grave. Happiness is an end itself, not depending on supreme deity. It sets up good for entire humanity and will encourage democratic way of life. The whole human existence is in nature and outside nature nothing exists. There is no place for the supernatural God. Humanism implies world view in which nature is everything and man is an integral part of it, where supernatural being has no role to play. It will strive to free knowledge from the tutelage of religious doctrine and stimulate universal intellectual vitality in order that man may enjoy the full life in this world.

It is a universal truth that those most man enthusiastically wedded to religious mode of thought have to admit that religion has foiled to bring about unity among entire mankind living in this world. History is the witness that confirms that irrational doctrines of religion and chauvinistic naturalism played erroneous role in bringing recurrent disasters upon mankind. This legacy of the dead generations heavily weighs on the mind of living. Humanism strives to liberate people from this legacy. The chief end of humanism is to further earthly human interest to greater happiness and glory of man. Therefore there are certain material conditions that must be satisfied in all the circumstances for physical existence and health of man, such as good food,

21

housing, sufficient clothing, adequate medical care, non polluted atmosphere, etc.

Humanist will strive for economic democracy, the right of every adult individual to a gainful employment at a decent wage, to generate economic security and opportunity to have an equitable share in material goods of life. Have a proportionate voice in the conduct of economic affairs. Economic democracy does not mean equality of income. It only means, everyman must have some surplus to finance other finer aspects of his life and also the life of his family.

Even Frank Roosevelt, the President of U.S.A. had while outlining economic democracy observed that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. Humanism is the mental attitude which accepts supremacy of reason. Its philosophy can be modified in the light of new discoveries of science and new human experience. It is independent of all arbitrary assumption or authority. Humanism, therefore, depends upon reason to determine what ideas are true and what actions would enhance human freedom, unaided by any supernatural sources.

Only scientific method can stimulate reasoning faculty which lying dormant in large section of Indian population. This method is self correcting because it constantly examines and if necessary would revise existing knowledge. Science is self-evolving, therefore will never become a dogma.

The philosophy of Radical Humanism being founded on natural sciences, it will always strive an advancement of science and its application in every spheres of human life as the best hope of the human race that will result into multi-dimensional freedom, a realty. The growth of neo-cortex according to scientists had stimulated thinking faculty of man. Therefore man is called a thinking animal. Man is evolved from the mechanical process of biological evolution. It knows no collectivity because life expresses through individual being. Therefore thinking is the attribute of individual human

THE RADICAL HUMANIST

MARCH 2014

being. Therefore society cannot escape from its responsibility to respecting individual freedom of expression. The cerebral cortex of brain that is bestowed on man, the power of thinking, raised man above all other creature living on this earth.

Humanism assigns to man the task of being his own savior and redeemer and believes this life is all and enough. The philosophy of Radical Humanism is not a new dogma. It is developing philosophy, open to experimental testing in the light of newly discovered facts by natural sciences and also by rigorous reasoning. It begins with the fact that biological evolution has conclusively shown that man and all other forms of life were the result of, not of a supernatural act of creation by God (existence of God is a great delusion) but by an infinitely long process of mechanical biological evolution stretching at least two billion years.

Based on the above fact, the Radical Humanism affirms the spirit of cosmopolitan and essential brotherhood of man. Man has made the entire planet his village because by nature he is ubiquitarian. From this attribute of man, it can be safely deduced that the unity of the entire human race is possible. V.M. Tarkunde defined humanism as an attitude of mind that gives primacy to the human individual, recognizes his or her right to live in freedom and with dignity.

The basic tenet is that man is the measure of thing; he is an end in himself and is not the means to any supernatural end. Humanism is an outlook or system of thought attaching prime importance to human values and goodness of human beings, emphasizing common human needs and seeks solely rational ways of solving human problems. (New Oxford Dictionary) According to Roy, humanist philosophy is absolutely concerned with lives of all human beings with all its aspects of life, founded on human experience, well collaborated by the discoveries of natural sciences. It does not subscribe to time honored notion that revolution means violence resulting into blood bath. It has defined revolutionary ideas that man

22

has the capacity to remake and reshape the existing social, political or economic world if he is not satisfied with it.

Humanism immensely desires that people should adopt scientific outlook because science is the light giving and fruit bearing. It is the science alone has liberated man from cobwedes of superstitions and brought control over and freed people from many fatal diseases man were suffering from in good old days. It also earnestly desire that intelligence, wisdom, knowledge and moral excellence should be the test of political leadership. These qualities will lead to moral fervor, dislike for social injustice toiling masses are suffering from to-day and will also undertake fight to improve human conditions of oppressed and exploited.

The Radical Humanist philosophy, since it is based on the findings of natural sciences, has categorically rejected the existence of any supernatural being that predetermines the fate and affairs of human beings on this earth. It puts man in the center, responsible for all the activities carried in society because these are the result of man’s alone endeavor. It defined freedom as progressive liberation of man from various impediments that obstructs the unfolding of his innate potentialities and to develop his personality so that he may not become marionette to dance to the tune of imaginary supernatural being.

Humanism examines critically the past traditional ideas to bring out positive essence that would expand multi-dimensional human freedom and to lay intellectual and moral foundation to boost up democratic way of life. In order to establish and enjoy democratic freedom and social justice for entire humanity, humanism advocates, political system and economic activities needs to be democratized and social justice oriented.

Innate curiosity results into exploratory drive are the basic quality of human nature. The spirit of enquiring leads man to search for truth regarding his surroundings. Thus he acquires knowledge about his surroundings. This

THE RADICAL HUMANIST

MARCH 2014

knowledge broadens his intellectual horizon to liberate man from obscurantism. To achieve this humanist would excite and stimulate inherent critical faculty of man which is lying dormant at present in large section of Indians. Of course knowledge can never be absolute since according to science of astronomy universe is not static. It is expanding. Therefore, there always be a new scientific discoveries resulting into new human experience. In view of this, need may arise to readjust, amplification, enrichment and even to times honored accepted tenets of the philosophy of humanism require to be rejected or revised if found untenable in the light of new discoveries of natural sciences and human experience.

Therefore Humanist emphatically says, economic sufficiency and security is not enough. Man must have a psychological atmosphere free from cultural regimentation that leads to intellectual stagnation. Humanist wants people must adopt scientific mode of thought instead of religious mode of thought. As explained by Roy, science claims no finality. It is always tentative and cumulative, subjects to verification by any individual. As against this religious mode of thought is not subject to any verification, accepts everything as granted, immutable eternal truth for all time to come. Consequently it deadens the creative reasoning faculty of man, the only instrument available to man acquire knowledge to discriminate between true and false.

Our civilization is found on the discoveries of science where acquired scientific knowledge is bound to play the most crucible role in the life of humanity. However, Roy had cautioned, if this is not tempered by human moral values, its destructive potentialities would lead to disaster.

For example nuclear atomic energy can be used either way. Therefore, Humanist wants that acquired scientific knowledge and moral human values never be treated as mutually exclusive.

Measuring rode of humanism is whether any system - be it political, economic or any other

23

system – provided equal opportunities to one and all members of society to unfold his or her innate biological potentialities, enjoy all those benefits accrued through economic growth and progress, to reduce progressively the present prevailing all disabilities that has degraded common man and woman. At the same time, humanism asserts that economic growth must not undermine the individual freedom and democratic way of life. It must result into improvement of lifestyle of the entire constituents of society to ensure their welfare and prosperous lifestyle. Historically even state was created by man as political organization of society with sole object to coordinate various activities carried out in society to create harmonious relations to avoid chaos.

Genetically all human beings are not identical.

Man is born biologically equal but with difference. Every individual human being is unique in his own way. Therefore, human character cannot be equated with uniformity.

Even biological evolution does not recognize collectivity. Life expresses through individual human being. Therefore, state as well as society has to guarantee individual freedom of expression. This aspect must never be discarded because state or society cannot determine innate quality of man. They can determine only his opportunity. An important mission of Radical Humanism is to endeavor to create and increase large number of rational human beings through education to create such political, economic and social institutions that will not fetter the all round development of human personality to live with dignity.

The main purpose of humanist education is to enlighten man by making him conscious of his potentialities, to think rationally and be judge by himself by stimulating critical faculty of man and to apply this mental setup to solve all problems confronting man, never depending upon power crazy politicians and economic bosses. This enlightenment along with civil liberties and with the help of available acquired scientific

THE RADICAL HUMANIST

MARCH 2014

knowledge could result into development of scientific outlook on life to apply it to all aspects of life. This will foster no respect for authoritarian mentality; will induce self confidence in man to trust his own reasoning faculty that will free him from outdated and antiquated dogmas preached by any doctrine.

This type of education must be given top most priority because even in 21st century, science has made tremendous progress, exploding all false outdated dogmatic beliefs, it is still hanging round the necks of large section of Indian population except very few. This has retarded our progress towards multi-dimensional human freedom and democratic way of life not only in public affairs but also in private family affairs.

Even personality like Radhakrishnan, an authority on Hindu theology observed that we have to apply our reason and interpret tradition.

We should not blindly follow the text without realizing their relevance. The institutions and dogmas which lose their stuff of loose their stuff must be scrapped. If the organism looses the strength to excrete its own waste, it perishes. If old practices are taken as final, they could become fetters to the living spirit. If we rest content what our father have done, decay will set in. Therefore need has arisen to replace outdated, antiquated and irrational absolute ideas that promote authoritarian mentality, not conducive to democratic way of life by change promoting ideas, resulting from scientific outlook on life. Only open and free society can promote reasoned dissent, democratic way of life. This will also protect those who think differently. Any other society will debase man because it will not respect dignity of man as an end in itself. It is scientific outlook on life can induce change promoting ideas. Man by nature is a curious and thinking animal. With the help of available scientific knowledge, he explores to find causes behind the happenings of natural phenomena within the nature itself. This develops scientific outlook on life. Only scientific

24

outlook on life will stimulate self-confidence that make man enlightened and free him from ignorance, fatalism and blind faith. Thus he becomes master of his destiny.

Roy had explained the fact social struggle for progress, in actually is the continuous struggle for existence on a higher level of choice, intelligence and reasoning, not guided by instinct or natural selection. Man’s life does not transcend this physical word which is his home. As man develops intelligently, his knowledge broadens, he takes interest in other than physical existence, cultivates finer aesthetic aspects of life. Roy wrote in 1923, cultural achievements of the primitive human society were very meager when man had to spend all his time and energy in struggle for existence. In proposition as the problem of material existence was solved, in proposition as the leisure at the disposal of man increases, this energy is turned towards into other attribute that are intellectual, cultural, aesthetic and spiritual.

Today this has become possible if the use of available modern scientific technology is rationally planned, man will not be required to spend all his time and energy for his material existence. By reducing his working hours, he will have sufficient leisure to devote this to develop and enrich his life with finer aesthetic aspects. In fact one of the objects of modern technology was to freeing man, progressively from the excruciating drudgery for earning his livelihood.

Therefore need had arisen to reconstruct economic order with human needs content and if possible that modern technology will be able to reduce man’ working hours for earning his livelihood. Thus economic disabilities of man can be eliminated. To achieve this, the voice of reason, lying dormant among large section of Indian people, will have to be raised in order that people can play effective dominant role in all the activities carried out in society. Reason is the only instrument available to man to liberate him from all disabilities. One of the founding pillars of Radical Humanism is biological evolution.

THE RADICAL HUMANIST

MARCH 2014

The biologists say, life originated in course of mechanical process of biological evolution, in the context of – with law governed physical universe, culminated in the evolution of man, the highest product of biological evolution.

Biological evolution does not recognize collectivity. Life expresses through an individual human being. When Home Sapiens appeared first as an individual on this earth, he was forced to face tyrannical natural surroundings and also wild ferocious carnivorous animals, physically stronger than Homo sapiens, both threatening to destroy the very existence of Homo sapiens. It strives to free itself from these inimical surroundings. Thus begins struggle for existence. However Homo sapiens must have realized, as an individual, he was helpless entity to combat those life destructive forces. This realization must have been resulted into feelings of mutual aid and to seek cooperation of other Homo sapiens like him to form society to fight their inimical surroundings forces successfully.

Thus first human society came into existence to serve the purpose of man. This collective interest would make man aware that he alone is the maker or shaper of his destiny, not depending on any supernatural agent and mutual aid is a biological heritage. In absence of these innate cooperative feelings, Homo sapiens would not have survived. From the above it can be deduced that society is not pre-ordained by any supernatural being. Society being the creation of man to serve his purpose, all social relations and activities – be it political, economic or social – must serve the purpose of man. It is moral responsibility of society to provide means that would satisfy the needs of man, such necessities to sustain his physical existence, and to promote his welfare, happiness and to expand his all round freedom.

As explained by Roy, life when first originated through the process of mechanical biological evolution, it has no purpose when it culminated in the evolution of man having conscious, intelligence and will purpose could be

25

attributed. Therefore all the various activities carried out in society must serve the purpose of man. Any social, political or economic activities or system that inhibits to serve multi-dimensional needs of man works contrary to the original purpose for which society was formed.

Man is evolved from the inanimate physical universe. But physical universe is not chaos. It is law governed. Its laws are integral part of law governed universe. The law governedness is reason in nature. Since man is evolved from law governed physical universe, he inherits this law governedness – the reason. From this it can be deduced that reason is an integral part of human nature. Therefore, we say, man is essentially rational. Rationality can be defined as belief or theory that opinion should be based on reason and on available scientific knowledge rather than on dogmatic beliefs of religion doctrine.

Reason can be defined as power of mind to think, understand and judgment by a process of logic. Reason being integral part of nature, man is essentially rational and therefore potentially moral. Reason is the only instrument available to man to discriminate between moral or immoral actions of man or good from bad. Therefore, humanist will strive to animate the reasoning faculty of man that is lying dormant or suspended at present in large section of Indian population. This will make extremely difficult for power hungry politicians to sway people like dumb driven cattle.

Rationality is a biological evolution, manifesto rudiment of reason, well established by student of animal psychology. They show ability to connect experience. Therefore, it can be deduced from this that reason must have been highly developed in the highest biological form – MAN. Genetic equipment of man determines innate potentialities. But political, economic and social environment determines which or how much of these potentialities could be realized actually during man’s life span. Only democratization of all the activities carried out in

THE RADICAL HUMANIST

MARCH 2014

society can facilitate unfolding of innate potentialities of man. Man needs power to make or reshape better society if he is not satisfied with existing one. But power becomes harmful when it is concentrated in few hands that kill democratic way of life. Historical political experience teaches us that it is mainly through the instrumentality of political parties, states political and economic power are concentrated in few hands having scant respect for basic democratic values and basic needs of toiling masses. They invariably use their power for their selfish aggrandizement. Therefore, the need has arisen to explore the possibilities to reduce the influence and intervention of political parties in all these activate to the barest minimum.

One can learn from the functioning of political parties, even in their internal affairs, a small minority, very often single powerful personality control all the affairs of party and majority members of party are treated as dumb driven cattle. Their internal functioning is not democratic oriented. They make use of this dumb driven cattle to capture state power for their selfish end never handicapped by moral human values, always guided by the dictum – end justifies means. This has resulted into eclipse of ideological issues. Never occur to them to enlighten people or animate people’s reasoning faculty because it will dig their grave.

More the backward and ignorant people are, more easy to sway them by appealing to their basic instinct to get their votes to capture state power. In response to this excruciating experience, radical Humanists have explored the possibilities to conduct all affairs of state without the intervention of political parties. To realize this, humanist will make all efforts to stimulate intense urge for freedom among large section of population, induce them to depend on their critical thinking faculty, never to surrender slavishly to any external authority by exchanging their precious individual freedom.

They will make all efforts to free people from mental slavery because mental slavery is the

26

worst slavery.

At present large section of Indian population have become more credulous, superstitious, religious orthodoxy and less critical than what they were prior to independence. They are entrapped in the tentacles of religious dogmas and chauvinistic nationalism. These two octopuses are spreading their tentacles that kills spirit of democratic way of life Indian people needs to be first freed from this tutelage which is eating vitality of Indians. Because of these tentacles of man, a thinking being has become just dumb cattle and amenable to demagogic outburst of power crazy politicians. Indian people need to outgrow this mentality of medieval age to pave the roads to all round human freedom. To emancipate Indian people from the enchainment and entrapment of the mentality of medieval age, Roy had initiated the Renaissance humanist movement on the pattern of European Renaissance movement of 16th century. Indians had never undergone such movement based on rationalism and cosmopolitan humanism to outgrow medieval age.

Voltaire described the Renaissance as the bright light of liberated reason which shown in contrast with era of religious priestly tyranny. Burkhard described as a general awakening and rebirth of intellect and human personality. The tradition of scholastic learning with supernatural sanction was rejected in favor of a return to pagan ways of rational and scientific thinking. Renaissance was a revolution in the realm of ideas and values which destroyed the moral sanction of feudal order. It was aesthetic against the exotic. (Ref. Reason, Romanticism and Revolution by Roy) Europe also in medieval age was entrapped in religious mode of thought an ideology of chauvinistic nationalism. The above spirit of Renaissance helped them to shed these enslaving ideas to pave the ways for the growth of scientific knowledge, thereby acquired scientific outlook, applied it to all aspects affecting human life, and achieved all round

THE RADICAL HUMANIST

MARCH 2014

tremendous progress. Subsequently it became known as Renaissance Humanist movement.

The European Renaissance Humanist movement of 16th century was a revolt against other worldliness of medieval age, a religious limitation on knowledge, reliance on reason instead of faith, against immortality and making best of this only life in this world, cautioned against subservient to the past outdated traditions. Indians have yet to learn from this European Renaissance Humanist movement that will give impetus to pave the path to human freedom and democratic way of life, liberate them from the tentacles of religious dogmas and from the ideology of chauvinistic nationalism. These octopuses have invariably encouraged authoritarianism not conducive to growth of democracy. The spirit of the European Renaissance Humanism will revolutionize the mentality of Indian population that will lay intellectual and moral foundation to realize free, open and moral society where every individual have equal opportunity to develop himself. All time honored dogmas will be subjected to a searching critical analysis and reject all those ideas that retard progress of people at large.

The spirit of Renaissance will generate courage to revolt against social injustice, presently large section Indians are suffering from.

The spirit of Renaissance will stimulate people to reexamine the present distressing experience and also prevailing various political and economic theories why they have failed to solve the excruciate problems confronting people of India. The spirit will also change present intellectual, cultural and social atmosphere to bring about reconstruction to promote popular welfare and will establish genuine democracygovernment of and by the people. To promote Renaissance Humanist movement needs revaluation of the ancient values and reject those that retard the growth of human personality and it’s all round welfare and progress. It is the spirit of Renaissance alone with bring about change in Indian people to

27

outgrow paralyzing effect of fatalism and will inspire confidence in man that he alone is the maker of his destiny, will open all the avenues to acquire freedom and prosperity to all. This Renaissance Humanist movement can fruitfully be brought by all those who are non-conformist, iconoclastic, individual having critical attitude towards all traditional values that generate blind faith based on outdated ideologies and doctrines. To spread the message of Renaissance Humanist movement, M.N. Roy founded the Indian Renaissance Institute. Let us renovate it and resurrect the spirit of Renaissance Humanism.

Humanism Asserts – Man is the Shaper of his Destiny: H.J. Eysenck wrote; “Man is biological as well as social organism. Evolutionary doctrine teaches us that our brain, autonomic system and our body structure have evolved through millions of years in response to a very hostile environment.

What single us out from the other animals has been the unique development of the neo-cortex, that great mass a white and grey matter inside our skull which enables us to function intelligently, to adjust rationally and to solve our problems successfully. Our entire culture is based on this fragile basis. Without our intellect, the human world would be wiped out in very little time by animal better equipped in many ways to survive in a world created by nature red in tooth and claws. Julian Huxley had explained that in addition to physical heredity, man possess the capacity for social transmission which acts as a base for cultural heredity. And in addition to being subjected to purely automatic operation like that of natural selection in the biological sphere or that of economic determinism in social sphere, he has the possibility of guiding change by means of conscious purpose in the light of rational experience.

Huxley further said that thus in broadest views, man’s destiny is to be the agent of the evolutionary process. The possibility of any

THE RADICAL HUMANIST

MARCH 2014

further real advance of any major novelty, of any large scale continuation of evolutionary process lies in his hands. Only in promoting the development and dignity of individuals, shall we find a criterion of further advance or accompanying our destiny in a satisfactory way.

The state and community must not to be exalted at the cost of individual. The development of personality remains permanent objective of the process. J. Brodsky has said that man is not the figure in the landscape. He is the shaper of landscape. M.N. Roy traced the biological development of man beyond the appearance of human species; one can find rudimentary forms of power of thinking and reasoning even moral judgment in lower animals. So these attributes of man, the highest product of biological evolution must have developed still very much higher.

Man is grown out of the background of the physical universe. Universe is harmonious and law governed system. Having grown out of it, man is an integral part of this law governed physical universe. Law governedness is reason in physical universe. This expresses itself in man as his capacity for reasoning and judgment.

These are fundamentals special attributes and qualities of human being. Curiosity originates in thinking faculty of man called brain. It is an innate quality of human nature. Curiosity leads to enquiring, enquiring in turn acquires knowledge and knowledge gives power to man.

The acquired power generates self-confidence to make man architect of his destiny. Man can become master of his destiny if he is freed from the false fatalistic beliefs that his affairs of his life on this world are pre-determined or pre-ordained by some supernatural being called God. Human history has categorically established that nothing is pre-determined or pre-ordained. This is well collaborated by the historical growth of man from savagery to civilization. Whatever exists on our planet – be it political, economic or social – is the result of man’s endeavor without any aid of intervention

28

of any supernatural being.

It is true that social, political, economic and cultural environment do shape man. But it is equally true that man had reshaped this environment if it is not conducive to welfare, growth and happiness of man. If it was not so, ancient, savage man would never have come out of cave. We can learn from human history that man had never been slave of his environment.

By nature man being curious, thinking and enquiring animal, tries to understand, his surroundings and also natural environment and try to make them conducive to his growth and welfare. All man is born with thinking apparatus called brain and mind is the function of brain.

Thus man is differentiated from all other live animals. This innate faculty has the capacity to make man shaper of his destiny by his own choice for good or evil. From this it can be deduced that he alone is responsible for all of his actions. From the above it can be further deuced that man is neither helpless nor marionette to dance to the tune or string pulled from bind by any supernatural being. Cultural and intelligence growth of man from savagery to civilization amply proves that this is the result of man’s creative ingenuity without the aid of any supernatural or divine force or being.

Man existed prior to existence of society. Having born out of the background biological evolution as an individual being, he starts struggle for existence as an individual. During the course of this struggle, he realizes that he alone cannot combat the tyrannical natural environment and wild ferocious carnivorous animals, physically stronger than man, threatening the very physical existence of man. Thus it is drawn on him that there are also men like him who are also struggling for existence like him, he sought their cooperation to reinforce struggle to fruitful successful end. Thus first human society formed by man to serve his purpose for biological survival. From this it can be deduced that society was created by man to serve his purpose to attain good and safe life on this planet. In course

THE RADICAL HUMANIST

MARCH 2014

of time this mutual aid attribute along with the help of scientific discoveries, developed modern civilization where in man plays dominant role without any help or intervention of supernatural or divine force. Creation begins with appearance of human being where no divine hand plays in shaping man’s destiny.

Human history has well established that man by his own efforts advances from savagery to civilization. Today because of tremendous growth of scientific knowledge along with its technology, man has acquired immensely, greater power to advance from exploitative capitalist mode of economic thought to man liberating mode of economic thought. The positive scientific knowledge is not speculation, neither is it revealed wisdom. It is based on objective factual experience of human beings that promotes self-confidence in man; enable him to depend on himself, no longer necessary to seek support or aid of any supernatural being.

This he becomes master of his destiny. Roy wrote, ever since the savage ancestor of man came down from arboreal abode and learns to

break branches to pluck fruits from the trees for nourishment, man is creating world of his choice and became the shaper of his destiny. Man is free because being evolved out of law governed physical universe which is self-content and self-operating, he inherits these qualities of physical universe. From it can be deduced that man is self-content and self-reliant, has innate capacity to find out how to make better living conditions. Man cannot be human without being socialized. The famous example of wolf-boy who was brought in the company of wolves and remote from human society behaved like wolf.

This amply demonstrates that our humanness is born in the company of and in association of other human beings.

To be concluded in the next issue............

[Ramesh Korde is an 85 years old Radical Humanist and still going strong in his writings and discussions. He may be contacted at: sudhesh1959@gmail.com]

Letter to the Editor: Dear Editor, I am finally able to read The Radical Humanist and the RH Website. Thank you.

I was delighted to read your article (Contemporary relevance M.N. Roy's 'New 'Humanism' (after sixty years of his death on 25th January 1954). The brief biographical sketch of life and philosophy is brilliant. I am with you concerning your criticism of JP and AAP. Also about "educators" educating the people. I would like to read the whole editorial.

I am continuing to read and write about Roy. It is such a shame that most of the recent writers about India do not even mention his name. (For instance, Imagining India, The Idea of India). Very few have even heard his name.

Some American writers and journalists I have spoken to have expressed great interest in Roy's life and his quest for a rational society based on individual freedom.

The political and moral situation in this country, in my opinion, is not very different than in India. It just needs a different vocabulary. — Kameshwar Wali

29

THE RADICAL HUMANIST

MARCH 2014

Transformation of Secular Humanism: From Rammohan Roy to M.N. Roy —Swarajbrata Sengupta modern age is the creation of Themodern minds rather than of a modern technology. In Europe, the Renaissance marked the transformation of the human mind as the harbinger of modern civilization. In India also, there took place an intellectual movement in the nineteenth century after our people got the revivifying touch of the English ideals. But unlike its European predecessor, the Indian Renaissance was extremely short-lived, its duration hardly exceeding two or three decades.

It could not thus accomplish its historical task of modernizing the Indian mind. The various obscurantist cults and parochial loyalties that beset India to-day and threaten its secular-liberal structure are to be traced largely to this single factor.

The way the Indian Renaissance was conceived determined its subsequent career. The pioneers of our Renaissance movement had a very false notion of its nature, although they frequently used the term ‘Renaissance’ to designate their movement and were also very conscious of the fact that their Bengal was the new Italy and Calcutta the new Florence. So far as the Renaissance was a modernizing factor in Europe, it proclaimed the sovereignty of man and signified the re-assertion of his rationality in his own affairs. Among other things, it paved the way for a series of conquests of nature which inaugurated the modern age in history.

This modern age of secular humanism had its beginning in opposing the church and the concept of God. Its outlook was that anything that is irrational and considered unverifiable ought to be discarded. It was secular, being completely free from religious tutelage. And man was its focal point. This is to say, secular humanism then coming into existence in Europe held man in the centre stage, acclaiming 29

human values and ideals. Earlier, the concept of social values guiding man centred around the theme that man was the creation of God and love for man was, therefore, love for God; it took man nearer to Him. The concept also formed the basis of the concept of universal brotherhood and all human values. Humanism, on the other hand, had its underpinning in the secular concept of values which refused to recognise a supernatural entity. With humanism, man was the focus of all contemplations. So it placed man above everything, even above the idea of god.

Therefore, all the contemplations for progress and social welfare ought to be in the interest of humanity. Everything to the contrary, everything which ran counter to rationality and was not amenable to objective enquiry and verification ought to be done away with. Only those injunctions, ethics and values were just which conduced to human welfare and social progress.

This secular humanism was wholly revolutionary in character and brought off a radical transformation of society. The industrial revolution in Europe just came in its wake and great strides were made. The road opened for development of the individual and rapid advances took place in building machinery and discovering the laws of machines. For the first time in history, now emerged the concepts of democratic way of life, freedom of man and dignity of man.

In India, however, from the very outset the Renaissance movement almost wholly took the character of what is known as the Reformation movement in Europe. We shall now explain the statement more clearly.

II The earliest religion of the world was natural religion – the cult of ascribing various phenomena to a variety of Gods. It was the expression of man’s inherent rationalism at his primitive state of knowledge. But when gradually man came to know better and tried to speculate a physical explanation of things, some sort of a philosophy as a prelude to scientific

THE RADICAL HUMANIST

MARCH 2014

knowledge was born. This philosophy was necessarily materialistic. The inquisitiveness of man, which originally led to natural religion, provided also the impetus to primitive science.

Religion now outlived its utility, but still it refused to yield ground without a fight. It readjusted its position by eschewing its original foundation of rationalism and replacing it with an elaborate superstructure of rituals, dogmas and metaphysical cobwebs. Not to reason but to believe was its newly prescribed motto.

Henceforward two currents of thought, religion and rationalism, flowed side by side, each trying to get control of man’s mind.

So far as Europe was concerned, the Middle Ages amounted to a dark age. Religion then took complete control of the situation. The church, bigotry and intolerance discouraged and persecuted all free enquiry and learning.

The secular-rationalist thought of ancient Greece, the cradle of the European civilization, for a whole millennium.

By the middle of the Fourteenth century, Europe again came into intimate contact with the long-forgotten Greek learning. Arab scholars salvaged, enriched and transmitted it to Europe.

This reawakened her mind. An atmosphere was thus created where free and unfettered enquiry became possible once again. Mortification to attain salvation gave place to joy of life, which found expression in various literary and artistic creations. It also vastly expanded the scope of human activities in other directions. Basically, therefore, the Renaissance was the resumption of man’s quest for knowledge and freedom undertaken at the dawn of civilization but overwhelmed for about a thousand years by the religious mode of thought.

In Europe, the Renaissance took not less than two hundred years, from the middle of the Fourteenth century to that of the sixteenth, to deliver man from the bondage of religion and supernaturalism. Then in some of the countries of Northern Europe where the religious feeling was rather strong, the Renaissance got 30

entangled with the Reformation, a qualitatively different kind of movement. There the secular and iconoclastic spirit of the Renaissance came to be subordinated to the striving for purifying Christianity. The eventual failure of the Reformation movement, however, gave a new spurt to humanism in Northern Europe and finally signaled the end of the age of faith in the history of Europe. Then the development of mathematics and natural sciences during the seventeenth century toppled God from His throne.

Let us now turn to India. The western impact came to the Indian society at a time when it had been lying stagnant for centuries. This prolonged stagnation ensued from the defeat of the Buddhist revolution. Like ancient Greece, ancient India too represented distinct rationalist-secular tendencies.

The dissatisfaction with the Vedic natural religion started fresh speculations as to the origin of things. These speculations gave rise to the Vedantic thought on the one side and the materialist thought on the other. As has been already seen, the materialistic thought has a liberating significance which a religious thought cannot have. A religion, in the proper sense of the term, assumes the existence of a supernatural being or of supernatural beings.

Now what is supernatural must always remain outside the ken of man, who is by no means a special creation but a product of nature and circumscribed by its laws. Reason, therefore, must make room for faith. The moment the cause of the phenomenal world is placed beyond the rational comprehension of man, the world itself becomes incomprehensible to him and the solution of its problems goes beyond his power. In this respect, the Vedanta again takes an extreme position. It denies the very existence of the reality and declares it to be a figment of man’s imagination. In contrast, materialism seeks to find the causesof natural phenomena in nature itself, and to acquire that knowledge it depends upon observation, investigation and

THE RADICAL HUMANIST

MARCH 2014

contemplation. Its hypotheses are always verifiable. As a result, the secrets of the universe become accessible to human knowledge at an increasing speed, thus putting man in a position to reshape the world to suit his own convenience.

The intellectual revolt represented by the Indian materialists in the post-Vedic era culminated in the rise of Buddhism. It was more ethical than religious, and so far as it regarded everything as an endless process of constant flux and challenged the notion of an eternal and changeless substance, it controverted the basic assumption of a religious philosophy, particularly of the Vedantic brand. Buddhism was also patronized by the trading class, which in every country and in every age was the precursor of all progress. It created an unprecedented impact upon the Indian society.

But the secular-rationalist thought of Buddhism was hardly compatible with its idea of Nirvana.

The Brahmanical reaction working through Acharya Sankar took advantage of this contradiction, carried on a furious onslaught and ultimately defeated it. A patriarchal, sacerdotal society was re-established upon the ruins of the Buddhist revolution. Manu was its code-giver. He placed the merchants under all sorts of disadvantage and prohibited sea-voyage because it tended to engender heretic views. Decay and stagnation of the Indian society followed. India could not produce any new forces to rescue it from that state.

The western impact upon India during the nineteenth century sought to accomplish the unfinished task of the Buddhist revolution.

Through English education, the liberating rationalist thought of the French illumination was now pumped into our static society. It once again gave an impetus to our social and intellectual life and widened our social sympathies. That was the significance of the Indian Renaissance of the early part of the nineteenth century.

The present, however, must be built upon the

past. To ensure the smooth advancement of any army it requires to be led from the rear.

Rammohan, who has been acclaimed as the father of the Indian Renaissance, was a multi-dimensional man. He had, no doubt, a great enthusiasm for English education and English ideas. Nonetheless, partly out of concern for providing an indigenous basis for the Indian Renaissance and partly in the fact of an interested attack from the Christian missionaries upon the Hindu religion and culture, Rammohan refused to be “an eternal rag-picker in other people’s dustbins”. So he had to ransack the granary of India’s past to find ideological support for his actions. He had an additional reason for doing so. He wanted to purify the current Hindu religion of its crudeness and various current oppressive vices.

But we should not deny that with the advent of Raja Rammohan Roy we had the first impact of secular humanism of Europe. In that light, the Renaissance in this country may be said to have begun with Raja Rammohan, who stirred up the Renaissance movement through social reforms, combining Europe’s Renaissance humanist thoughts, ideals and concepts with the essence of religion. As a result, the Renaissance movement advanced gradually following this path of religious reforms. With the advent of Vidyasagar later in the course, this movement took a colossal stride forward. In a society steeped in superstition and bigotry, with a rot setting in and people gasping under the domination of the Brahmins and pandits, secular humanism found a magnificent manifestation. He was the pioneer, so it appears, who brought off a break in the Renaissance movement then producing thorough religious reforms in our country. He freed the humanist movement, for the first time in our country, as far as is known, from the influence of religion to base it on the firm foundation of history, logic and science. In him this movement attained its secular character. He tried to foster a rational link between the Indian

31

THE RADICAL HUMANIST

MARCH 2014

civilization and the western civilization based on science. So he emphasized that students should be taught English and logic of John Stewart Mill, and these not in brief but as a matter of full course. He argued that it would be impossible to help the people of this land, who are stopping under the burden of religious scriptures, stand erect by teaching them only Sanskrit. To help them stand erect, they had to be given the opportunity of gaining access to the modern advanced knowledge of the world at large. By learning English, young men and women could study history and logic and get access to modern scientific knowledge. They would be acquainted with the materialist philosophy of Europe. On this question, he had a debate with Principal Ballantyne of the then Sanskrit College at Benaras. Ballantyne was in favour of teaching Sanskrit and also Sankhya and Vedanta, the two major traditional philosophical systems of India, to students of philosophy. We know Vidyasagar was an authority himself on Sankhya and Vedanta, having complete mastery over these philosophies. Yet he, together with Akshaya Kumar Dutta, opposed the idea of teaching both these philosophical systems and emphasized that students should instead be taught English and introduced through it to the scientific knowledge and the materialist philosophies of Europe. That would help them realize the truth by critically studying the material world and create a new guiding philosophy of life or new values. They also argued that neither the philosophy of Berkeley of Europe nor the philosophies of Sankhya and Vedanta could serve the purpose of students, because those were all false systems of philosophy. So these philosophies could not guide man today and help him learn the truth. A rational temper would have to be fostered in the young generation and the people in general if they had to learn the truth. If we would just analyse their outlook on education, we shall readily recognize that they defined a break and a very bold break at that, to give a new orientation to the current of

32

Renaissance after Raja Rammohan Roy initiated religious reforms. Vidyasagar and Akshaya Kumar freed the humanist movement, as far as it was possible to do it in the then social condition, from the religious outlook and influence.

III Then it was M.N. Roy who on his return to India after a long absence threw down the gauntlet.

While abroad he drank deep into the literature of the European Renaissance and Enlightenment and had a clear conception of the significance of the Renaissance. He saw that the British rule in India provided merely an objective impediment to her modernization. The greater impediment was a subjective factor, the mentality of the Indian people. The modern age could not be simply foisted upon their “bullock-cart mentality”. Besides, Roy found it impossible to practice national politics in an atmosphere of blind faith and hero-worship. So he never failed to emphasise the importance of heralding a philosophical revolution in the country. For that purpose, he started a fresh Renaissance movement in India. Thus, while the contemporary educated section of our people continued to derive its inspiration from the Upanishads and the Bhagwat Gita in the age-old fashion, Roy drew heavily upon the hitherto neglected materialist thought of ancient India along with the similar thought-currents of the west. He proceeded to give a lie to the widely held belief that the spiritualistic tradition of India was the only and true tradition of India. That is why Roy used to think himself as the spiritual heir to the lost current of the Indian materialist school of thought and liked to call himself “a modern Charvaka” after that legendary figure of the Indian materialist school of thought. He went even to the extent of rewriting Indian history with a view to salvaging the abiding values of secular rationalism that lie hidden under the rubbish of the so-called sanctified shibboleths and revaluating them in the light of modern knowledge.

THE RADICAL HUMANIST In fact, Roy was the most conscious and consistent prophet of the Renaissance in India.

In this respect, his role was similar to that played

by Erasmus, the noted humanist of fifteenth century Germany, home of the Reformation movement in Northern Europe. Many people of Northern Europe, particularly those of Germany at first resisted the spirit of the Renaissance grown so luxuriantly in the congenial atmosphere of Italy and looked upon it only as a new form of Roman domination. Erasmus represented in his person the migration of the Renaissance humanism to Germany and the North. In India also, the Reformation movement soon got mixed up with our nationalist aspirations. Consequently, a reaction started against the culture of the conquering nation, and the sacred message of Hindu revivalism began to find a ready response in the minds of our people. In that age of recession, Roy spared no pains in the face of heavy odds to spread throughout India the learning and spirit of the Renaissance. Roy, as we have seen, has called himself a modern Charvaka. But, viewed from this standpoint, he can be called the Indian Erasmus as well.

Bibliography: Ferguson, W.K.: The Renaissance in Historical Thought.

MARCH 2014 Hyma, Albert: The Christian Renaissance Lucas, H.S.: The Renaissance and the Reformation Roy, Raja Rammohan: Vedanta Grantha Ibid: Vedanta Sar Ibid: A Defence of Hindoo Theism (in reply to the attack of an advocate for idolatry at Madras).

Mazumdar, J.K.: Raja Rammohan Roy – Progressive Movement in India Mazumdar, B.B.: History of Political Thought from Rammohan to Dayananda Mazumdar, R.C.: On Rammohun Roy Buckland, C.E.: “Vidyasagar, Isvar Chandra” (Dictionary of Indian Biography) Sen, Sukumar,: Adhunikatama Manus Vidyasagar Dutta, Akshaya Kumar: Bahya Bastur Sahit Manab Prakritir Sambandha Vichar Roy, M.N.: Materialism Ibid: India’s Message Ibid: From Savagery to Civilisation

[Swarajbrata Sengupta, retired Professor of English, is a veteran Radical Humanist from West Bengal.]

Invitation from Citizens For Democracy (C.F.D.) An All India Conference of CFD will be held to discuss the prevailing critical crisis facing Indian democracy and to find out possible solutions. Programme is as follows: Subject: Challenges Before Democracy In India Date & Time: Saturday, the 29th March 2014 (10.00 am to 5.00 pm) (Lunch – 1 pm to 2 pm) Venue: Tiwari Bhawan (Next to Gandhi Peace Foundation) ‘Jawaharlal Nehru Youth Centre’ 219, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Marg, New Delhi 110002 Agenda will be sent shortly. You are requested to participate.

N.D. Pancholi, (Gen. Secretary), (M) 9811099532 ndpancholi44@gmail.com

33

THE RADICAL HUMANIST

MARCH 2014

Educationists' Section:

Baul of Fire —Ilina & Binayak Sen Story Dated: Monday, January 27, 2014 t is that time of the year again when rural Bengal (both in West Bengal and Bangladesh) comes alive with the Baul melas. It coincides with Makar sankranti, which is celebrated by preparing a variety of pitha (rice-based sweets and savouries) at home and also by taking part in Baul gatherings. Birbhum and Nadia in West Bengal and Kushtia and Jessore in Bangladesh play host to the best Baul gatherings. Other major gatherings close to Kolkata are the Poush mela and Kenduli mela, which take place near Santiniketan, and the Sati Mayer mela at Ghoshpara in Nadia. In Bangladesh, the Lalan mela held at Kushtia, the birthplace of Lalan Phakir, the founder of the Baul sect, is known far and wide.

Lalan and the Baul sect are deeply rooted in the composite culture of Bengal. They have upheld tolerance and plurality through times of communal carnage and division. Living in 18th century Bengal and standing at the crossroads of Tantrik, Vaishnavite and Islamic cultures, Lalan wrote and sang about an accessible and immediate divinity that was connected to ordinary people.

Like Kabir, but in a different time and place, Lalan’s life lays claim to both the Hindu and Muslim traditions. His followers believed in the ideals of community life, gender equity and uncompromising love for the divinity as well as for one another. These ideals, however, were not always immediately achieved.

The book Baulsphere documents the day-to-day life in the Baul akharas (communities) and reveals how divisive values like jealousy and possessiveness often coloured it.

Baul music is sung to the accompaniment of the stringed ektara and is often multilayered in its meaning. Many of the lyrics written by Lalan and

I

34

his mentor Shiraj Sai are still sung to this day and reveal newer meanings to its listeners.

In one of his best known songs, Shob Loke Koy Lalan Ke Jaat Sansare, Lalan denounces the differences created on the basis of caste and creed, and asserts the basic unity of the human experience at the most basic level. He also makes a deeply penetrating comment on the patriarchy inherent in social structures like the family, for those who care to understand. The following lines strike at the roots of the women’s marginalisation issue.

Sunnat dile hoy musalman, Nari jatir ki ba bidhan; Bamun chini paitar proman, Bamni chinbi kemone...

(A man becomes a confirmed Muslim through sunnat (circumcision), but how do we recognise a (Muslim) woman? A Brahmin man can be recognised because of his sacred thread, how do we recognise a Brahmin woman?)

It is obvious that women have no independent validity in a patriarchal society. Their lives make sense only in the context of the men who ‘own’ them. That Lalan was so clear on this issue 200 years ago fills us with amazement. His commitment to gender justice was theoretical as well as practical.

Lalan’s followers tried to practise gender equity.

But, of course, this was not easy in our society.

Even in terms of noted singers of Baul music, men outnumber women, although Kalidasi Adhikary among the old guard and Parvati Baul among the newer generation have achieved recognition as prominent women Baul singers.

Dr. (Ms) Ilina Sen teaches at Vardha. And Dr. Binayak Sen, recipient of several awards including the Jonathan Mann Award, Gwangju Prize for Human Rights and the Gandhi International Peace Award, is a pediatrician, in the rural-tribal areas of the Chhattisgarh state.public health specialist and activist He is the national Vice-President of thePeople's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL)

THE RADICAL HUMANIST

MARCH 2014

Book Review Section:

A Sensitive Treatment Of Crisis —Dipavali Sen [BOOK: FAULT LINES How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten The World Economy, by Raghuram G. Rajan, published by Collins Business, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers India, 2011, paperback, not illustrated, pp 356, price unstated] is a book by a former chief This economist of the IMF. Intimidating, to say the least! But let me quote: “I write these last lines in a Lufthansa Airbus, flying back to the United States from a conference in Moscow. It is late in the evening and the gentle rays of the wintry setting sun, toward which we are headed, glint magically off the plane’s giant engines...” (p 291) At once you realize this is a book that is different, blending economics with sensitivity.

The theme of the book is crisis or economic depression, specifically that triggered off in 2008.In 2007 Raghuram Rajan had warned the world’s top bankers that they were going to face a major problem. His warning had not got due attention. The crisis had occurred, and the world is only just recovering from it.

This book points out that such crises will occur again if short-term solutions and politically motivated measures to reduce inequality are allowed to cause financial instability.

Economic occurrences of the past reveal certain “fault lines” or cracks in the world economy. It is overly dependent on the indebted American consumer. All nations must make hard choices to ensure greater stability and lasting prosperity.

India has to act decisively to achieve growth within a framework of democracy.

35

Else, the fault lines will deepen and widen and there will be earthquakes again.

The Introduction (pp1-25) ends on a note of optimism. “The picture is not all gloom. There are two powerful reasons for hope today: technological progress is solving problems that have eluded resolutions for centuries, and economic reforms are bringing enormous numbers of the poor directly from medieval living conditions into the modern economy.

Much can be gained if we can draw the right lessons from the crisis and stabilise the world economy. Equally, much could be lost if we draw the wrong lessons.” (p 25) Chapter One (Let Them Eat Credit) describes the growth of the US practice of providing easy credit as a solution to income inequality.

Chapter Two (Exporting to Grow) analyses how export-led growth has created global trade imbalances, Chapter Three (Flighty Foreign Financing) made developing countries even more vulnerable.

Chapter Four (A Weak Safety Net) reveals defects in provisions for the unemployed even in an advanced economy like the U.S. Chapter Five (From Bubble To Bubble) exposes the weaknesses of the U.S. economy that the crisis revealed.

Chapter Six (When Money is the Measure of All Worth) further exposes the system’s financial vulnerabilities.

Chapter Seven (Betting the Bank) partially attributes the misplaced confidence of the bankers and of the market in the government’s coming to bail them out.

Chapter Eight (Reforming Finance) suggests “realistic reforms” (p 239) such as “managing the interface” between the government and the private sector, which constitutes a big `fault line’.

Chapter Nine (Improving Access to Opportunity in America) underscores the importance of America’s using government intervention to reduce socio-economic inequalities.

THE RADICAL HUMANIST

MARCH 2014

Chapter Ten (The Fable of the Bees Replayed) refers to Bernard Mandeville who in 1714 had pointed out that in a vibrant economy borrowing does have a role to play. Today’s world is Mandevillean and multi-lateral institutions like the IMF and the World Bank should try to reduce the eco-political differences among nations.

The Epilogue ends thus: “The crisis has resulted from confusion about the appropriate roles of the government and the market. We need to find the right balance again, and I am hopeful we will.”(p 292) In the Afterword (What lies ahead for India), Raghuam Rajan is “frank” (p 308) in asking India not to delude herself about her growth prospects but combat the very real dangers she faces. In the Postscript to the Paperback Edition, he says: My book offers no silver bullets; no obvious solutions that will fix everything in one go. …But eventually …I have no doubt that solutions will emerge.”(p 321) Notes and Index follow, along with a list of ten awards or recognitions that the book has received, and a most confidence-inspiring photograph of the author on the inside back cover.

Long, long ago Marx had presented his prognosis on Capitalism. Crises will necessarily occur within this Mode of Production and lead ultimately to a complete collapse. Much scholarly work has been done on this, but

obviously not enough. Every new turn of the Business Cycle elicits new theories and policies.

For example, in the Economic and Political Weekly, March 29, 2009, Vamsi Vakulabharanam presented his analysis of the 2008 crisis. He showed how, from a Marxian viewpoint, it was the result of inappropriate short-term “fixes” or measures which, in any case, would not hold good forever. The Marxian prescription to cure crises was institutional. For crises to disappear, Capitalism itself has to go.

But Raghuram Rajan is no Marxist. He holds out hope for a future which is within the framework of Capitalism. “These problems can and will be solved, provided we retain faith in human ingenuity and give it space to express itself” (p 288).

His book has received many accolades. It has won the FT-Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award 2010. Leading dailies and magazines have recommended it effusively, To all those commendations, I add mine.

[Ms. Dipavali Sen, from DSE and Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics (Pune), Visva Bharati University, Santiniketan teaches at Sri Guru Gobind Singh College of Commerce, Delhi University. She is a prolific writer and has written creative pieces and articles both in English and Bengali. dipavali@gmail.com]

Dear Friends, Your article for the RH should be emailed at: rheditor@gmail.com or posted at: C-8, Defence Colony, Meerut, 250001, U.P. Please send a passport size photograph and your brief resume if it is being sent for the first time to the RH. A note whether it has also been published elsewhere or is being sent exclusively for the RH should also be attached with it.

— Rekha S. 36

THE RADICAL HUMANIST

MARCH 2014

Humanist News Section: Antonio Gramsci and M.N. Roy “It was a curious coincidence that there was another hunch. Back amongst the most outstanding communist leaders! It was Antonio Gramsci of Italy. I met him in Moscow. He was not a worker, but an intellectual, a professor of philosophy, He also was terribly shy – more so than Brandler. In private company, he seldom spoke. Arrested in the earlier years of the fascist regime, he spent twenty two years in prison and died soon after his release on the liberation of Italy. The hardship of long imprisonment had shattered his delicate health, but not his spirit.

Pondering over the fact of Croce’s popularity with the progressive younger generation even after he had turned a critic of Marxism, Gramsci came to the conclusion that the philosophical aspects of Marxism should be revised so that it could offer the idealistically inclined all that Croce gave and much more. Gramsci had left behind about 2,000 pages of manuscript as the result of profound study in prison. It may turn out to be the greatest contribution to philosophical thought hitherto made by any communist”- M. N. Roy’s Memoirs (1915 – 1923), Ajanta Publications First Published 1964, Reprint 1984 Delhi PP 274-275.

“Hopefully, some day like his one time friend and colleague on the Comintern Executive, Antanio Gramsci, Roy too will have the complete text of his nine volume prison manuscripts completely edited and published that has never been, and realistically could not be within the preview of the present limited project of the selected works”- Selected Works Of M.N. Roy, Volume Iv 1932-1936, Edited By S.N. Ray, Oxford University Press, Calcutta, 1997, Pp.10-11. “The operation of the social dialectic, as envisioned by Roy in the contemporary Indian context involved a bourgeois democratic revolution without the bourgeois, but under the hegemony of the proletariat, bringing into the revolutionary movement the peasantry, the

37

lower middle classes, especially students and intellectuals, besides of course the working class. This was also the view of Plekhanov in Russian context, a view shared by Lenin in his early writings. Roy’s stress on democracy in contradiction to the bourgeois is particularly significant in view of the subsequent development of his political thought. The concept of hegemony is also very important; it goes back to Plekhanov, and was developed at about the same time as Roy by Antanio Gramsci (1891-1937), one of the founders of the Italian Communist party. Roy and Gramsci knew each other well as both were members of the Comintern executive. About the same time as Roy and Gramsci were in prison (1926-37) where his ideas ware set down in thirty-two prison notebooks, published years after his death in six volumes by Einaudi of Twin under the general title Quaederni del Carcere (1948-51), subsequently superseded by the scholarly edition in four volumes in 1975”.

Both Roy and Gramsci strongly emphasized the role of intellectuals in history, of consciousness and will in their “Philosophy of Praxis”, which affirms the need…. To construct an intellectual moral bloc which can make politically possible the intellectual programs of the mass and not only of the small intellectual groups “(A Gramsci, selection from the prison notebooks, and trans

by Q. Hoare and G.N. Smith, London, 1971, pp332-3)”. In his incomplete memories Roy wrote that Gramsci’s prison manuscripts “may turn out to be the greatest contribution to philosophical thought hitherto made by any communist “(M.N Roy’s memories, P-274). Roy wrote this in 1949-50, long before Gramsci was discovered by the Marxists in the West, two decades before his writings were available in English translation. IBIDEM, P-230 Notes:16817 T. Ravi Chand, a Buddhist writer and publisher from Andhra Pradesh sent these quotes to Sri. Somayya Ravela who, in turn, forwarded them to me with comments from following people.

THE RADICAL HUMANIST

MARCH 2014

exchanging notes. But they don’t make any history except occasional curiosity. Scholars anticipated that Roy would become a Gramsci of India, being a towering personality. In fact, Dr. Venkataswamy referred to the Frankfurt school and the critical theory and its influence and so on.

—K S Chalam chalamks@hotmail.com (T. Ravi Chand can be contacted at: Milinda —Potturi Venkateswara Rao Publications, Door No.11-5-4, Nalam Vari Street, maitripuri@gmail.com Bapatla-522101, Dist. Guntur, Andhra Pradesh.

Cell no. 099661 34406. klagencies agencies) 2. Dear Sri somayya Garu Thank you for the clipping. I am happy to note that the contacts between Gramsci and Roy are There is definitely an urgent need to go ahead with this unfinished work of editing and publishing the entire recorded. I know through late P.H. Gupta of volumes of Roy’s writings from Jail, a duty that we owe Vizag that Roy along with his wife spent few to the coming generations.We plan to take up the project weeks with him in Vizag. But we do not have any very soon, in near future. record except hearsay. There could be similar Rekha Saraswat) episodes of people who were contemporaries Comments sent to Sri. Somayya Ravela: 1. Dear Sri Ravela Somayyya garu, Thanks for forwarding the write up “Gramsci and Roy”. It is interesting to read their views. The two great intellectuals are not there now but their views are relevant even today. The very concept of intellectual moral bloc will remain pertinent as long as bourgeois and capitalist classes dominate human life. Regards,

—THE RADICAL HUMANIST SUBSCRIPTION FORM– The Manager,

The Radical Humanist C/o Mr. Narottam Vyas (Treasurer) Chamber No. 111, (Near Post Office) Supreme Court of India, Delhi-110001 Dear Sir, I/We wish to be enrolled as subscriber/s for The Radical Humanist for a period of one year/two years/three years/life.

Name...........................................................................................................

Address........................................................................................................

Phone No.....................................................................................................

E-mail.........................................................................................................

Thanking you.

Yours faithfully,

38

THE RADICAL HUMANIST

Condolences for Ila Pathak (1933-2014) lost a dedicated social activist Gujarat who stood by socially excluded sections of society, especially brutalized women when Prof. Ila Pathak passed away due to breast cancer on January 9, 2014 in Ahmedabad. She tirelessly supported women survivors of dowry harassment, rape, crimes of honour. She campaigned against sex selective abortions of female foetuses from way back in the 1980s.

A master’s degree in law, a Ph.D. in English literature and a high post in NCC were indicative of her capacity to achieve the goals she had set for herself. Her devotion to working for women’s rights and development was reflected in her writings and action through AWAG and innumerable institutions she was associated with.

Feminist Activism of Ilaben Pathak: Ilaben began her career as a university teacher of English language and literature at H. K. Arts College, Ahmedabad and as a free- lance journalist who wrote addressing women’s concerns. In the early seventies she started her crusade against misogyny in Gujarati plays rife with double entendre, full of crude and crass jokes/puns that degraded women and

MARCH 2014 objectified women’s bodies.

In 1981, Ilaben with her young colleagues and students established AWAG (acronym means noise). AWAG energetically made noise against sexism in advertisements, media and textbooks.

In 1982, she spearheaded a participatory action research project of AWAG to highlight the precarious condition of homeless and miserable tribal migrant workers near railway tracks of Ahmadabad city who eked out their subsistence by collecting coal fallen on the railway tracks.

She started income generation activities for them based on tribal art and beadwork. In 1982, when a tribal woman in Sagbara village of South Gujarat was gang raped, Ilaben took the case up to Amnesty International. As a result all the rapists were punished.

Ilaben took leadership for movement against Patan PTC College gang rape in which a 19-year-old Dalit student was repeatedly raped over a period of time by her male teachers. She also supported Manipur’s Irom Sharmila’s agitation against Armed Forces Special Powers’ Act (AFSPA).

Ilaben’s courageous and consistent work among victims of communal riots post demolition of Babri Musjid in 1993 and among Muslim refugees after Gujarat riots in 2002 symbolised her secular humanism. Ilaben’s command over language came handy to coin catchy and hard hitting slogans in Gujarati such as “Silence is not a virtue, Break the silence of oppression”, “Putting up with injustice is not a virtue, fight for justice”. She gave great emphasis to documentation, research and training and AWAG always provided information in local Gujarati language and resource persons for capacity building of community workers, elected representatives and youth. From 1986-1992, she regularly wrote for a feminist quarterly in Gujarati, Nari Mukti (Women’s Freedom) that was collectively brought out by feminists of Mumbai, Valsad, Surat, Vadodara and Ahmadabad.

Ilaben and Social Movements: Her persuasive

39

THE RADICAL HUMANIST

MARCH 2014

style of speaking was her success mantra. She could reach out to all- Gandhian, liberals, feminists, human rights activists, leftists. She could establish communication with the rich and powerful without getting cowed down by them.

She reached out to weak and marginalized people with utmost humility. She made lifelong friends among women’s studies scholars and feminists whenever she attended national and international conferences on women. She used to attend these conferences with over a dozen women from her organization and she looked after them very well.

Crucial Contribution: Ilaben served on many apex bodies to further the cause of women. She was a member of the Women Development Cell of Gujarat University that had to perform twin tasks of prevention of sexual harassment and promotion of gender sensitization in the University and its affiliated colleges. Ilaben was also a governing board member of Centre for

40

Social Studies, Surat. She played an important role in all women centred activities of Gujarat Vidyapeeth. Ilaben was president of the India Chapter of Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. She was an active member of the Movement for Secular Democracy. In 2012, Ilaben Pathak was honoured for her work among poor and oppressed women. Four books were published based on a compilation of her articles promoting women’s striving for dignity and their struggle for empowerment.

Her four decades long pioneering work will always give us strength and inspiration to keep the torch of women’s rights burning in today’s volatile circumstances. She has left a huge fan following among students and all those women whom she supported proactively, intellectually and emotionally. Illaben will always remain with us.

Condolences sent by Gautam Thakar, Gen. Secretary, IRHA, Gujarat

THE RADICAL HUMANIST

MARCH 2014

BOOKS BY M.N. ROY Published by Renaissance Publishers, Indian Renaissance Institute, Oxford University Press and Others

1. POLITICS POWER AND PARTIES

Rs. 90.00

2. SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY

Rs.95.00

3. BEYOND COMMUNISM

Rs.40.00

4. THE HISTORICAL ROLE OF ISLAM

Rs.40.00

5. MEN I MET

Rs.60.00

6. INDIA’S MESSAGE

Rs.100.00

7. MATERIALISM

Rs. 110.00

8. REVOLUTION & COUNTER REV. IN CHINA

Rs. 250.00

9. REASON, ROMANTICISM AND REVOLUTION

Rs.300.00

10. NEW ORIENTATION

Rs 090.00

11. ISLAAM KI ETIHASIK BHOOMIKA (IN HINDI)

Rs.25.00

12. HAMARA SANSKRITIK DARP (IN HINDI)

Rs.40.00

13. NAV MANAVWAD (IN HINDI)

Rs.90.00

14 .SAMYAWAD KE PAAR (IN HINDI)

Rs.45.00

Post Office Regd. No. Meerut - 146-2012-2014 RNI No. 43049/85 at H.P.O.Meerut Cantt.

To be posted on 10th of every month

RENAISSANCE PUBLISHERS PRIVATE LIMITED 15, Bankim Chatterjee Street (2nd floor), Kolkata: 700 073, Mobile: 9831261725 NEW FROM RENAISSANCE

By SIBNARAYAN RAY Between Renaissance and Revolution-Selected Essays: Vol. I- H.C.350.00 In Freedom’s Quest: A Study of the Life and Works of M.N. Roy: Vol.Ill H.C.250.00 Against the Current - H.C.350.00

By M.N. ROY Science and Superstition - H.C.125.00 AWAITED OUTSTANDING PUBLICATIONS

By RABINDRANATH TAGORE & M.N. ROY Nationalism - H.C.150.00

By M.N. ROY The Intellectual Roots of Modern Civilization - H.C.150.00 The Russian Revolution - P.B.140.00 The Tragedy of Communism - H.C.180.00 From the Communist Manifesto - P.B.100.00 To Radical Humanism - H.C.140.00 Humanism, Revivalism and the Indian Heritage - P.B. 140.00

By SIVANATH SASTRI A History of The Renaissance in Bengal —Ramtanu Lahiri: Brahman & Reformer H.C.180.00

By SIBNARAYAN RAY Gandhi, Gandhism and Our Times (Edited) - H.C.200.00 The Mask and The Face (Jointly Edited with Marian Maddern) - H.C.200.00 Sane Voices for a Disoriented Generation (Edited) - P.B. 140.00 From the Broken Nest to Visvabharati - P.B.120.00 The Spirit of the Renaissance - P.B.150.00 Ripeness is All - P.B. 125.00

By ELLEN ROY From the Absurdity to Creative Rationalism - P.B. 90.00

By V. M. TARKUNDE Voice of A Great Sentinel - H.C.175.00

By SWARAJ SENGUPTA Reflections - H.C 150.00 Science, Society and Secular Humanism - H.C. 125.00

By DEBALINA BANDOPADHYAY The Woman-Question and Victorian Novel - H.C. 150.00 Published and printed by Mr. N.D. Pancholi on behalf of Indian Renaissance Institute at S-1 Plot 617 Shalimar Garden Extension I, Sahibabad, Ghaziabad-201005 Printed by Nageen Prakashan Pvt. Ltd., W. K. Road, Meerut, 250002 Editor-Dr. Rekha Saraswat, C-8, Defence Colony, Meerut, 250001