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‘Yeh azaadi jhooti hai!’: The shaping of the opposition in the first year of the Congress raj*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2013

SHALINI SHARMA
SHALINI SHARMA*
Affiliation:
Keele University, UK Email: s.sharma@keele.ac.uk
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Abstract

Within a year of Indian independence, the Communist Party of India declared independence to be a false dawn and the whole Socialist bloc within the ruling Indian National Congress cut its ties with the national government. The speed with which the left disengaged from what had been a patriotic alliance under colonialism surprised many at the time and has perplexed historians ever since. Some have looked to the wider context of the Cold War to explain the onset of dissent within the Indian left. This paper points instead to the neglected domestic context, examining the lines of inclusion and exclusion that were drawn up in the process of the making of the new Indian constitution. Once in power, Congress leaders recalibrated their relationship with their former friends at the radical end of the political spectrum. Despite some of the well-known differences among leading Congress personalities, they spoke as one on industrial labour and the illegitimacy of strikes as a political weapon in the first year of national rule and declared advocates of class politics to be enemies of the Indian state. Congress thus attempted to sideline the Socialists and Communists and brand them as unacceptable in the new regime. This paper focuses on this first year of independence, emphasizing how rapidly the limits of Indian democracy were set in place.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 48 , Issue 5 , September 2014 , pp. 1358 - 1388
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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Footnotes

*

I gave a version of this paper at the Annual Conference on South Asia in Madison in 2009. Thanks to Samira Sheikh, Miles Taylor, and the anonymous readers for their constructive advice.

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26 Act no. 14 of 1947.

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28 Bombay Chronicle, 4 April 1947.

29 Hindustan Times, 26 January 1947. Decontrol here referred to the continued use of wartime policies, food rationing, and price control. It was an issue that divided Congress as Gandhi wanted controls to be lifted no matter what the consequences. For him controls signified the continuance of colonial bondage. Others, more concerned about the lack of enough food leading to potential famine, felt some form of control was necessary. See Duncan, I. (1995). ‘The Politics of Liberalisation in Early Post-Independence India: Food Deregulation in 1947’, Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, 33:1, pp. 25–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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41 In the main, they all echoed Jayaprakash Narayan's words: ‘The Communists were only Russian patriots who were unreliable, undependable and who betrayed and stabbed the country in the back in her hour of need. The Communists do not work in the interests of the country but according to the dictates and commands of the Russian government. As a nationalist I believe it will be in the best interest of India to maintain friendly relations with Russia but you should not permit agents of a foreign power to work, grow and prosper in our country.’ Speech made at Bangalore, 9 March 1947, Communist Survey, 15 December–15 May 1947, Communist Activity in India, 1946–48, L/PJ/12/432, OIOC.

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47 Ibid.

48 Ranadive was known as ‘BTR’. ‘BTR on the riot situation and our tasks’. Speech delivered in the GB meeting held in RF Hall on 18 September 1947, Communist Party of India 1947/18(A), P. C. Joshi Archives.

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82 Times of India, 6 January 1948.

83 Ibid.

84 Times of India, 18 January 1948.

85 Times of India, 6 January 1948.

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91 Weiner, Party Politics in India, p. 57.

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