Editor: Rekha Saraswat

M. N. Roy

Founder Editor

528

THE RADICAL HUMANISTMARCH 2014

Rs. 20/monthVol. 77 No 12

(Since April 1949)

Formerly : Independent India

(April 1937- March 1949)

THE RADICAL HUMANIST MARCH 2014

The Radical Humanist

Monthly journal of the

Indian Renaissance InstituteDevoted 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

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Please Note: Authors will bear sole

accountability for corroborating the facts that

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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.

www.theradicalhumanist.com

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 12

Transformation of Secular Humanism:

From Rammohan Roy to M.N. Roy

—Swarajbrata Sengupta 29

6. Academicians' Section:

Baul of Fire

Ilina & Binayak Sen 34

7. Book Review Section:

A Sensitive Treatment Of Crisis

—Dipavali Sen 35

8. Humanist News Section:

Antonio Gramsci and M.N. Roy

— T. Ravi Chand 37

Condolences for Ila Pathak

— Gautam Thakar 39

Vol. 77 Number 12 March 2014 Contents

From The Editor's Desk: Birds of a Feather

flock together: Not Necessarily!

Today 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

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!!


From The Writings of M.N. Roy:

Historical Role of IslamChapter Two:

The Mission of IslamContd. from the last issue....

Christianity had lost its original

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

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,


2

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.]


3

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Guests' Section:

Surge in India’s Imagination—Uday Dandavate

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.

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

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

4


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.

Kadam Kadam Badhaye Jaa

Here is a thought for those who are

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.

[email protected]


5

Current Affairs' Section:

Influence of Armed Forces—Kuldip Nayar

Another Lok Sabha, 15th in the series,

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

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

6


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 RegionalIdentities

India may not be coming apart at the

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

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,

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


8

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.


9

An Appeal to the ReadersIndian 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 VyasPresident (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.5000.00Mr. S.C. Verma (Delhi) - Rs.5000.00

Mr. Yogesh Kamdar (Mumbai) - Rs.2500.00Mr. Tidabhai P. Babaria (Gujarat) - Rs.2500.00

Mr. M. Dinkar (Karnatka) - Rs.1000.00

—Rekha Saraswat

Does Economic Anarchy leadto Political Chaos?

—K.S. Chalam

Anarchy is understood as a state of

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

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


10

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:[email protected]


11

IRHA / IRI Members’ Section:

A Plea for Humanism—Ramesh Korde

Present Scenario:

The 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.

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

12



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

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

28

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

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

15


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

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

16


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

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

17


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

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

18


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

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

19


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.

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

20


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,

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

21


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

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

22


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

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

23


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

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.

24


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

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

25


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

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

26


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 democracy-

government 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

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

27


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

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

28


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:

[email protected]]

29


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

Transformation of SecularHumanism: From Rammohan

Roy to M.N. Roy—Swarajbrata Sengupta

The modern age is the creation of

modern 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

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


29

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

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


30

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

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

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.


32

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.

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.]


33

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

[email protected]

Educationists' Section:

Baul of Fire—Ilina & Binayak Sen

Story Dated: Monday, January 27, 2014

It 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

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)


34

Book Review Section:

A Sensitive Treatment OfCrisis

—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]

This is a book by a former chief

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.

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.

35


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. [email protected]]


36

Dear Friends,

Your article for the RH should be emailed at:

[email protected]

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.

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

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.


37

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,

—Potturi Venkateswara Rao

[email protected]

2. Dear Sri somayya Garu

Thank you for the clipping. I am happy to note

that the contacts between Gramsci and Roy are

recorded. I know through late P.H. Gupta of

Vizag that Roy along with his wife spent few

weeks with him in Vizag. But we do not have any

record except hearsay. There could be similar

episodes of people who were contemporaries

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

[email protected]

(T. Ravi Chand can be contacted at: Milinda

Publications, Door No.11-5-4, Nalam Vari Street,

Bapatla-522101, Dist. Guntur, Andhra Pradesh.

Cell no. 099661 34406. klagencies agencies)

There is definitely an urgent need to go ahead with this

unfinished work of editing and publishing the entire

volumes of Roy’s writings from Jail, a duty that we owe

to the coming generations.We plan to take up the project

very soon, in near future.

Rekha Saraswat)


38

—THE RADICAL HUMANIST SUBSCRIPTION FORM–

The Manager,

The Radical HumanistC/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 ofone year/two years/three years/life.

Name...........................................................................................................Address........................................................................................................Phone No.....................................................................................................E-mail.........................................................................................................

Thanking you.Yours faithfully,

Condolences for Ila Pathak(1933-2014)

Gujarat lost a dedicated social activist

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

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

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

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


40


BOOKS BY M.N. ROY

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Documents

Editor: Rekha Saraswat