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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 November 2008
The decade preceding the Second World War was a crucial period in the history of the Indian nationalist movement. It was at this time that the leadership of Gandhi and the ‘Old Guard’—Congress veterans who, with few exceptions, were annually re-elected to the party's Working Committee—faced its most serious challenge for control of the Congress Party. The outcome of this internal party struggle determined the nature and scope of the independence movement throughout the war years and until the attainment of freedom in 1947. It also determined the political complexion of the party that was to guide the Republic of India through the early, and critical, formative years of its existence.
1 Adhikari, Gangadhar M., Communist Party and India's Path to National Regeneration and Socialism, New Delhi, 1964, pp. 55–7.Google Scholar
2 See, for example, Overstreet, Gene D. and Windmiller, Marshall, Communism in India, Berkeley, 1959.Google Scholar
3 Indian National Congress, General Secretaries Report, 1933–34, Bombay, 1934, p. 9.Google Scholar
4 Address of Nariman, K. F., Chairman of the Reception Committee, 26 October 1934, at the 48th Session of the Indian National Congress, Bombay.Google Scholar
5 AICC Newsletter, No. 38, 27 February 1936, p. 3.
6 Acharya, Narendra Deva, Socialism and the National Revolution, Bombay, 1946, p. xii.Google Scholar
7 Address of Nariman, K. F., Chairman of the Reception Committee, 26 October 1934, at the 48th Session of the Indian National Congress, Bombay.Google Scholar
8 Narayan, Jayaprakash, Why Socialism?, Benares, CSP 1936, pp. 2Google Scholar.
9 In India, groups which shared one or both of these positions were designated as ‘left wing’. The term ‘right wing’ was given a similarly broad but converse meaning. It is in this dual sense, and in conformity with Indian usage, that these terms are employed throughout this article.
10 Masani, Minoo R., The Communist Party of India, New York, 1954, pp. 53–4.Google Scholar See also Rusch, Thomas A., ‘Dynamics of Socialist Leadership in India’, Leadership and Political Institutions in India, Richard, L. Park and Irene, Tinker, Eds., Princeton, 1959, p. 189.Google Scholar How varied were the political views of these early socialist leaders can be seen in tracing their subsequent careers. Narayan came under the influence of Gandhian ideas in the 1940s, and later, in 1954, formally eschewed politics in order to devote himself to work in the Bhoodan Yagna movement of Vinoba Bhave, a disciple of Gandhi. Masani resigned from the CSP in 1939 and in 1959 helped found the conservative Swatantra (Freedom) Party, which is a firm advocate of the free enterprise system. Asoka Mehta left the Praja Socialist Party (PSP), the successor of the CSP, in 1962 and joined the Congress Party. In January 1966, he became Planning Minister in Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's cabinet. The late Rammanohar Lohia was expelled from the PSP in 1955 because of his views and unaccommodating attitude. Lohia, who died in October 1967, was the founder of the Samyukta Socialist Party (SSP).
11 Masani, op. cit., p. 53 and Rusch, op. cit., p. 189.
12 The Leader, 3 August 1934, quoted in Narayan, Why Socialism?, pp. 87–8.Google Scholar
13 Narayan, , pp. 74 and 89– 93. Since writing this tract, Narayan's views have altered considerably. As indicated earlier, he later came under the influence of Gandhi's ideas.Google Scholar
14 Narayan, pp. 70 and 84–7.
15 Narayan, pp. 86–7. Narayan is here quoting from Godwin, William, An Inquiry Concerning Political Justice, Dublin, 1793, Vol. II, pp. 330–3.Google Scholar
16 Gandhi, , ‘Is Violence Creeping In?’ Harijan, Poona, 13 August 1938, p. 216. Gandhi here cites as an example of violence to which he is opposed the reviling of capitalists as an example of violence to which he is opposed the reviling of capitalists as a class and ‘inciting people to loot them’.Google Scholar
17 ‘Proceedings of the Working Committee,12–13 June, 1934’,Google Scholar, in Nripendra, Nath Mitra (ed.), The Indian Annual Register: An Annual Digest of Public Affairs in India, Calcutta, 1935, 1, 283–4.Google Scholar
18 Congress Bulletin, Allahabad, 27 June 1934, p. 13.Google Scholar
19 Homespun cotton cloth which is also known as khadi.
20 Indian National Congress, General Secretaries Report, 1933–34, p. 11.Google Scholar
21 Quoted in Presidential Address of Prasad, Rajendra, 26 October 1934, at the 48th Session of the Indian National Congress, Bombay.Google Scholar
22 Quoted in Mukherji, Hiren, Gandhiji: A Study (2nd ed. rev.), New Delhi, 1960, p. 109.Google Scholar
23 Meeting of the Working Committee,Wardha,9–11 September 1934, as referred to in Presidential Address of Rajendra Prasad, p. 15.Google Scholar
24 Sharma, Jagdish S., Indian National Congress: A Descriptive Bibliography of India's Struggle for Freedom (Delhi: S. Chand, 1959), p. 565.Google Scholar
25 Indian National Congress, General Secretaries Report, 1933–1934, pp. 1–2.Google Scholar
26 Presidential Address of Rajendra Prasad.
27 Address by Nariman, K. F., Chairman of the Reception Committee,26 October 1934,at the 48th Session of the Indian National Congress,Bombay.Google Scholar
28 Brecher, Michael, Nehru: A Political Biography, London, 1959, p. 207.Google Scholar
29 Roy, M. N., India in Transition, Geneva, 1922. Except for the date, the publication details are fictitious. The English edition was preceded by a Russian version in 1921. The book was written in collaboration with Abani Mukherji.Google Scholar
30 Jayaprakash Narayan, ‘M. N. Roy’, dated May 1954. This is a testimonial to Roy written shortly after his death. A copy is in the possession of the author. In this document Narayan makes the interesting observation that, after a long period of disagreement, the political thought of the two men converged once again in the early 1950s on the concept of partyless democracy. Narayan wrote: ‘We had moved closer together at the end just as I was close to him at the beginning … Both of us, each in his own way, had moved away from Marxism in the same direction and to the same goals’. Narayan felt that Roy ‘had done more thinking’ on the question of non-party democracy than anyone else and visited him twice, just before his death, to discuss the topic with him, but on both occasions Roy was too ill to speak. Narayan's writings on the subject are well known. Roy's pertinent essays have been gathered together in a volume entitled Politics, Power and Parties, Calcutta, 1960.Google Scholar
31 Congress Socialist Party…, pp. 5 and 9–10.
32 Presidential address of Acharya Narendra Deva at the First All-India Congress Socialist Conference,Patna,May 1934,Google Scholar quoted in Deva, op. cit., p. 4.
33 Congress Socialist Party…, p. 14.
34 A taluka, also known as a tahsil, is a revenue subdivision of a district.
35 Roy's report to associates in Bombay Province, Dehra Dun, 25 May 1938, League of Radical Congressmen Files No. 1, Roy Archives, Dehra Dun, U.P., India.
36 Independent India (Bombay), 3 April 1938, p. 4.Google Scholar
37 Masani, , op. cit., p. 67.Google Scholar
38 See Narayan, Jayaprakash, Socialist Unity and the Congress Socialist Party, Bombay, 1941, pp. 3–4.Google Scholar
39 Narayan, Jayaprakash, ‘Presidential Address at the Bengal Congress Socialist Party Conference (1935)’, in Jayaprakash Narayan, Towards Struggle, Bombay, 1946, pp. 132–5.Google Scholar
40 ‘CSP Reply to the Royists’, Congress Socialist, Bombay, 28 August 1937, pp. 7–9 and 14.Google Scholar
41 Rusch, Thomas A., ‘Role of the Congress Socialist Party in the Indian National Congress, 1931–42’, (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Political Science, University of Chicago, 1955), p. 147. The other three members were: Jayaprakash Narayan, M. R. Masani and C. K. Narayanswamy.Google Scholar
42 Interview with Mukherji, Rajani, Calcutta, 13 December 1962.Google Scholar
43 Congress Socialist Party: Constitution, Programme and Resolution, 1934, adopted at the First Conference of the All-India Congress Socialist Party, p. 3.Google Scholar
44 Interview with Mukherji, Rajani, Calcutta, 13 December 1962.Google Scholar
45 Congress Socialist, Bombay, 25 January 1936, p. 16.Google Scholar
46 Ibid., 9 January 1937, p. 20.
47 Letter from Bombay associates to Roy, , Bombay, 12 December 1934, File No. 111/2, Roy Archives.Google Scholar
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49 Independent India, Bombay, 20 June 1937, p. 2.Google Scholar
50 Interview with Justice V. M. Tarkunde, Bombay, 1 November 1961. Chavan broke with the Royists in 1939 on the question of support to the British war effort. To this day, however, he readily acknowledges his intellectual indebtedness to Roy. One of his closest confidants while Chief Minister of Maharashtra was the noted Sanskrit scholar and Royist, Tarkateertha Laxsmanshastri Joshi.
51 Congress Socialist, Bombay, 7 August 1937, p. 13,Google Scholar and interview with Thakar, , Ahmedabad, 13 11 1962.Google Scholar
52 Independent India, Bombay, loc. cit., and interview with Govindan, M., Madras, 29 11 1962. Pillai was a member of the Legislative Council under the system of dyarchy and was for ten years a member of the AICC. He met Roy in 1928 on a trip to Germany.Google Scholar
53 Roy, M. N., Our Task in India, Calcutta, 1932? Foreword by Rajani Mukherji. ‘The programme submitted by Manabendra Nath Roy for National Workers of India and as adopted by the Revolutionary Working Class Party, the Communist Party of India’. For a reference to the manifesto's early circulation,Google Scholar see ‘Repairing the Ruins of India’ a letter from India, Revolutionary Age, New York, 22 11 1930, p. 10.Google Scholar
54 Congress Socialist Party…, pp. 9–10 and 20.Google Scholar
55 Interview with Masani, Minoo R., 07 1953, cited in Rusch, ‘Role of the Congress Socialist Party…’, p. 335.Google Scholar
56 U.S. Department of State, Office of Strategic Services, The Radical Democratic Party of India, Washington, D.C., 1945, pp. 4–6.Google Scholar
57 Narayan, , Socialist Unity and the Congress Socialist Party, p. 4.Google Scholar
58 Letter from Roy to Bombay associates, Dun, Dehra, 5 05 1935, File 111/3, Roy Archives.Google Scholar
59 Ibid., 29 October 1934, File No. 111/2, Roy Archives.
60 Ibid., 12 March 1935, File No. 111/3, Roy Archives.
61 Ibid., 29 October 1934, File No. 111/2, Roy Archives.
62 ‘CSP Reply to the Royists’, loc. cit.
63 Congress Socialist, Bombay, 21 11 1936, p. 11.Google Scholar
64 Congress Socialist, Bombay, 21 11 1936, p. 11.Google Scholar
65 Masani, Minoo R., ‘General Secretary Indicts M. N. Roy’, Congress Socialist, Bombay, 26 06 1937, pp. 18–19.Google Scholar See also Independent India, Bombay, 4 07 1937, p. 9.Google Scholar
66 Congress Socialist, Bombay, 10 04 1937, p. 17.Google Scholar
67 Masani, Minoo R., ‘Good Riddance of Bad Rubbish’, Congress Socialist, Bombay, 13 03 1937, p. 18.Google Scholar
68 Ibid., 6 march 1937, p. 6.
69 Narayan, , Socialist Unity and the Congress Socialist Party, pp. 6–8.Google Scholar
70 Susanne, Hoeber Rudolph, ‘The Working Committee of the Indian Congress Party: Its Powers, Organization and Personnel’, (unpublished paper no. D/55–2, Centre for International Studies Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Cambridge, Mass., 1955, p. 33.Google Scholar
71 Rusch, , ‘Role of the Congress Socialist Party…’, p. 169.Google Scholar
72 These three men did not resign at the time of the Royist mass resignations, but withdrew from the CSP when the party began to assail Roy for his actions and impugn his motives. Interview with Justice, V. M. Tarkunde, Bombay, 1 November 1961.Google Scholar
73 Masani, , The Communist Party of India, pp. 54–55.Google Scholar
74 Rusch, , ‘Role of the Congress Socialist Party…’, p. 343.Google Scholar
75 Narayan, , Socialist Unity and the Congress Socialist Party, p. 34.Google Scholar
76 Ibid.
77 Deva, , op. cit., p. 117Google Scholar
78 Dutt, R. Palme, India Today, Bombay, 1949, p. 397, cited in Overstreet and Windmiller, Communism in India, p. 167.Google Scholar
79 Masani, , The Communist Party of India, p. 74.Google Scholar
80 Joshi, P. C., ‘Report to the Central Committee’, People's War, Vol. I, 4 10 1942, p. 5, cited in Overstreet and Windmiller, op. cit., p. 166.Google Scholar
81 Masani, , p. 68–71.Google Scholar
82 Narayan, , Towards Struggle, p. 175.Google Scholar
83 Rusch, , ‘Role of the Congress Socialist Party…’, p. 354.Google Scholar
84 Rusch, , ‘Role of the Congress Socialist Party…’, p. 354. Before the CSP-CPI split these last three areas were already under the control of E. M. S. Namboodripad, P. Sundarayya and P. Ramamurti respectively.Google Scholar
85 Rusch, , ‘Role of the Congress Socialist Party…’, p. 356.Google Scholar
86 Roy frequently used such epithets as ‘adolescents’ and ‘noisy youngsters’ in referring to Indian communists. See, for example, ‘An Open Letter to the Executive Committee of the Communist International’, 1935. File No. 111/1, Roy Archives.Google Scholar
87 Koestler, Arthur, The Yogi and the Commissar and Other Essays, New York, 1961, p. 12.Google Scholar
88 Letter from Roy to Bombay associates, Dehra Dun, 12 March 1935, File No. 111/3, Roy Archives.Google Scholar
89 Letter from Roy to European associates, Dehra Dun, 22 April 1936, in Roy, Letters from Jail, pp. 185–7.Google Scholar
90 See, for example, Masani's comment that Roy left the CSP because it did not lend itself ‘to the personal leadership of would-be dictators’. Masani, ‘General Secretary Indicts M. N. Roy’, loc. cit.Google Scholar
91 Narayan, , Socialist Unity and the Congress Party, pp. 5–6.Google Scholar
92 Talmon, J. L., in his Origins of Totalitarian Democracy, has argued persuasively that all existing political systems are derived from two schools of political thought which can be distinguished in reference to their attitude toward politics. These are the liberal, empirical attitude, which presupposes politics to be ‘a matter of trial and error and regards political systems as pragmatic contrivances of human ingenuity and spontaneity’, and the totalitarian, absolutist attitude, which posits the existence of ‘a sole and exclusive truth in politics’. These two traditions in political thought may be styled democratic radicalism and liberalism. Talmon holds that democratic radicalism has its roots in the eighteenth-century beliefs in the rationality, innate goodness and perfectability of man and in the natural order as an ‘attainable, indeed inevitable and all-solving end’. He calls this view ‘Political Messianism’. In the eyes of its adherents, political ideas achieve legitimacy as derivatives of an all-embracing and coherent philosophy. In such a conception the field of political activity is expanded to embrace all human action. Politics becomes ‘the art of applying this philosophy to the organization of society’ with the end of realizing this philosophy in all fields of human endeavour. Such political behaviour was characteristic of the English independents, of the French Jacobins and of modern-day communists.Google Scholar The Calvinists based their faith on God, the Jacobins on nature and reason, and the Marxists on dialectical materialism (Talmon, J. L., Origins of Totalitarian Democracy, London, 1952, pp. 1–3, 249 and 253).Google Scholar
93 Weiner, Myron, Party Politics in India: The Development of a Multi-Party System, Princeton, 1957, pp. 158 and 163.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
94 Congress Bulletin, 13 February 1936, p. 19.Google Scholar
95 Tendulkar, D. G., Mahatma: Life of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Bombay, 1951–1954, Vol. II, pp. 489–90.Google Scholar
96 Masani, Minoo R., ‘From Lucknow to Faizpur’, Congress Socialist, Bombay, 5 12 1936, p. 6.Google Scholar
97 Nehru, Jawaharlal, Whither India? (2nd. ed.rev.), Allahabad, 1933, pp. 35–40.Google ScholarThe first edition was published in November 1933, the second in December.Google Scholar
98 Nehru, Jawaharlal, ‘Congress and Socialism’, 15 07 1936, in Nehru, Eighteen Months in India, Allahabad, 1938, pp. 28–40.Google Scholar
99 Nehru, Jawaharlal, The Unity of India: Collected Writings, 1937–1940, New York, 1948, p. 95.Google Scholar
100 Tribune, Lahore, 4 12 1936, p. 8.Google Scholar
101 Nehru, Jawaharlal, Manabendranath Roy (Young Socialist League Pamphlet No. 4), Poona, n.d.Google Scholar See also Nehru, , An Autobiography, London, 1942, pp. 153–4, and 161.Google Scholar
102 Tribune, Lahore, 24 November 1936, p. 6 and 3 December 1936, p. 9.Google Scholar
103 Letter from Roy to a friend, Dehra Dun, 24 February 1936,Google Scholar in Roy, M. N., Fragments of a Prisoner's Diary, Vol. III: Letters from Jail, Dehra Dun, 1943, pp. 168–9.Google Scholar
104 Roy, M. N., Jawaharlal Nehru, Delhi, 1945, pp. 12–13, 41 and 51.Google Scholar
105 Letter from Roy to the CSP, May 1934, in Roy, M. N., Letters by M. N. Roy to the Congress Socialist Party, Bombay, 1937, p. 4.Google ScholarThis is a collection of three letters— dated May 1934, May 1935 and February 1936—which Roy claims he wrote to the CSP. The CSP contends, however, that only the 1936 letter was received. (‘Resolutions of the Central Committee of the CSP, Calcutta, 26 October—1 November 1937’,Google ScholarCongress Socialist [Bombay], 13 11 1937.)Google Scholar Whatever might be the case, it is clear from the record that the CSP leaders were aware of Roy's views on the subject from the inception of the party. See, for example, J. P. 's refutation of this view at the Bombay Conference in 1934(Congress Socialist Party: Constitution, Programme and Resolutions, 1934, p. 32).Google Scholar
106 Letter from Roy to the CSP, February 1936 Ibid., p. 52.
107 Letter from Roy to the CSP, May 1935, Ibid., p. 29.
108 AICC Newsletter, Allahabad, 1940, No. 5, 15 06 1939, pp. 3–4.Google Scholar
109 Ibid., No. 6, 30 June 1939, p. 1.
110 Tribune, Lahore, 23 November 1936, p. 16.Google Scholar
111 Independent India, Bombay, 19 09 1937.Google Scholar
112 Tribune, Lahore, 21 11 1936, p. 1.Google Scholar
113 Ibid., 24 November 1936, pp. 6 and 16.
114 Ibid., 30 November 1936, p. 8.
115 Ibid., 6 December 1936, p. 9.
116 Ibid., 24 December 1936, p. 2.
117 Ibid., 27 December 1936, p. 3.
118 Presidential address by Jawaharlal Nehru at the 50th Session of the Indian National Congress, Faizpur, December 1936.Google Scholar Appendix C in Nehru, Jawaharlal, Toward Freedom: The Autobiography of Jawaharlal Nehru, New York, 1948, pp. 416–31.Google Scholar
119 Roy, M. N., ‘Some Reminiscences’, Independent India, Delhi, 1 04 1945, pp. 142–4.Google Scholar
120 Ibid.
121 Tribune, Lahore, 10 December 1936, p. 3.Google Scholar
122 Karnik, V. B., ‘One Year’, Independent India, Bombay, 21 11 1937, p. 2.Google Scholar
123 Letter from Roy to CSP, February 1936, in Roy, M. N., Letters by M. N. Roy to the Congress Socialist Party, p. 54.Google Scholar
124 Ibid., p. 36.
125 Letter from Roy to CSP, February 1936, in Roy, M. N., Letters by M. N. Roy to the Congress Socialist Party, p. 42.Google Scholar
126 I.e. those who were willing to co-operate with the British government in working within the framework of the 1935 Constitution of India.
127 Letter of resignation of Bengal Royists from CSP, Congress Socialist, Bombay, 17 07 1937, pp. 21–2.Google Scholar
128 ‘CSP Reply to the Royists.’
129 Letter from Bombay associates to Roy, 12 December 1934, File 111/1, Roy Archives, and interview with Rajani Mukherji, Calcutta, 13 December 1962.Google Scholar
130 Letter from Roy to Bombay associates, 29 October 1934, File 111/1, Roy Archives.Google Scholar
131 See footnote 53.
132 Roy, ‘Plan of Action and Organization’, File 111/1, Roy Archives. This is an unpublished hand-written document.
133 Interviews with C. T. Daru and Dashrathlal Thakar, Ahmedabad, 13 November 1962, and Dharatri Ganguly and Janardan Bhattacharya, Calcutta, 8 December 1962. The meetings of this party were conducted in a romantic conspiratorial atmosphere—at night, behind drawn shades, by candlelight and with papers arranged so that they could be quickly destroyed in case of an unexpected interruption (Interview with K. K. Sinha, Dehra Dun, 19 May 1962).
134 Presidential Address, Gujarat Congress Socialist Conference (1935),Ahmedabad,23–24 June 1935, in Deva, op. cit., pp. 65–87.Google Scholar
135 Narayan, Jayaprakash, ‘Issues Before and After Lucknow’, Congress Socialist, Bombay, 16 05 1936, p. 8.Google Scholar
136 ‘CSP Reply to the Royists’.
137 Ibid. See also the resolution adopted on the subject at the All-India CSP Conference,Faizpur,December 1936, quoted in Congress Socialist, Bombay, 9 January 1937, p. 26.Google Scholar
138 Subhas, Chandra Bose, The Indian Struggle, 1935–42, Calcutta, 1952, p. 14.Google Scholar
139 Address by Roy to the Madras DCC, 27 July 1937, Independent India, Bombay, 19 08 1937, p. 12.Google Scholar
140 Roy, M. N., ‘Disagreement with Lenin’, The Radical Humanist, XVI, 25 (1952), p. 292.Google Scholar
141 Plekhanov's early faith in the populist movement was shaken by the resort of a section of its members to terrorism, which he considered irrational and animless, and by mounting statistical evidence that the village commune was a dying institution. In 1884 he published an attack on populism entitled Our Differences in which he held that, contrary to the views of his erstwhile allies, capitalism was the dominant economic force in Russia and that the hope of the future lay with the proletariat rather than the peasantry (Plekhanov, Georgii V., Our Differences in Selected Works, I, prepared by the Institute of Philosophy of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, London, 1961, pp. 141–400).Google Scholar
142 See Haimson, Leopold H., The Russian Marxists and the Origins of Bolshevism, Cambridge, Mass., 1955.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
143 It should be noted that Marx himself, toward the end of his life, was unable to discount altogether the Russian commune as a basis for social reconstruction. In 1881 Marx wrote to Vera Zasulich that ‘the analysis in Das Kapital offers no argument either for or against the vitality of the rural commune (mir), but… [I am convinced] that this commune is the point d'appui for the social regeneration of Russia’. However, he added that this could come about only after a general revolution based on the urban proletariat. The isolation of the Russian commune rendered it incapable of serving as a revolutionary catalyst.(See Mitrany, David, Marx Against the Peasant: A Study in Social Dogmatism, New York, 1961, pp. 56–7).Google Scholar
144 Roy, , India in Transition, p. 207.Google Scholar
145 Tilak, B. G. (1856–1920), ‘the father of Indian unrest’, alarmed Indian Muslims by his glorification of the seventeenth-century Hindu patriot, Sivaji, the scourge of the Muslim Moghul rulers, and by his sponsorship of ‘cow-protection societies’. One of the arguments of Congress moderates such as G. K. Gokhale 1866–1915, against Tilak's tactics was that, however useful they might be in the short run ultimately they would divide the country into two hostile religious camps.Google Scholar
146 Roy, , Fragments of a Prisoner's Diary, Vol. III: Letters From Jail, pp. 16 and 69–70.Google Scholar
147 Ibid., Vols. I and II: Crime and Karma: Cats and Women (2nd ed. rev.), Calcutta, 1957, pp. 66–7.Google Scholar
148 Roy, , Fragments of a Prisoner's Diary, Vol. III: Letters From Jail, pp. 69–70.Google Scholar
149 Independent India, Bombay, 16 10 1938.Google ScholarIn formulating my views on the relationship between the thought of Roy and Gandhi I have benefited by conversations with Philip Spratt in Bangalore in November 1962.Google Scholar
150 After Gandhi's death a new respect for him emerged in Roy's thinking. Although he continued to reject Gandhi's religiosity and nationalism, in evolving his philosophy of Radical Humanism he came closer to Gandhi in his emphasis on human solidarity, the relation of means to ends, the necessity of some form of economic and political decentralization and the rejection of party politics. The extent of Gandhi's responsibility for the breakdown in relations between the Hindu and Muslim communities is a matter of some controversy among those knowledgeable in Indian affairs. On this question, however, Roy never changed his mind. To him Gandhi's appeal to Hindu tradition always remained a major cause for Muslim separatism (Letter to author, dated 7 September 1967, from Professor Shanti Tangri, Wayne State University, who interviewed Roy in Dehra Dun in 1953).
151 For a discussion of the interrelationship between the ‘great tradition’ of a peasant society and culture and local communities of which it is composed, see Redfield, Robert, Peasant Society and Culture, Chicago, 1956.Google Scholar
152 For a discussion of populism in transitional societies, see Shils, Edward, Political Development in the New States, The Hague, 1962, p. 21.Google Scholar
153 Mosca has contended that mankind is divided into social groups each with its distinctive beliefs, sentiments, habits and interests. Different social types may arise inside a single society where there exist urban centres subject to ‘rapid flows of ideas’ which ‘agitate the higher classes’. For Mosca leadership in such societies flows to those who possess a political formula based on ‘complexes of belief and sentiment which have the sanction of the ages’. Contrary to the Marxists, however, Mosca did not believe that the gap between the leaders and the led could ever be fully closed—even in a thoroughly modernized society (Mosca, Gaetano, The Ruling Class, New York, 1939, pp. 71–2 and 106–14).Google ScholarI and indebted to Leonard Binder's paper ‘National Integration and Political Development’, delivered at the 59th Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, New York City, September 1963, for suggesting the relevance of Mosca's concepts to the study of political development.Google Scholar
154 For a discussion of the Tripuri crisis and its aftermath see Indian National Congress, Report of the General Secretaries, March 1939-February 1940, New Delhi, 1940, pp. 6–27 and 51–65.Google Scholar
155 Karnik, V. B., ‘Congress Socialists and the Pant Resolution’, Independent India, Bombay, 26 03 1939, pp. 203–205.Google Scholar
156 Tribune, Lahore, 13 March 1939, pp. 2 and 5.Google Scholar
157 Letter from Bose to Gandhi, dated Jealgora P. O. District Manbhum, Bihar, 25 March 1939, in Nehru, Jawaharlal, A Bunch of Old Letters, Bombay, 1958, pp. 184–7, 355–6.Google Scholar
158 Press release by Roy, , Amrita Bazar Patrika, Calcutta, 6 02 1939.Google Scholar
159 Amrita Bazar Patrika, Calcutta, 7 02 1939.Google Scholar
160 Tribune, Lahore, 10 march 1939, pp. 1 and 14–15 and 11 March 1939, pp. 1 and 15.Google Scholar See also ‘Roy's speech on the Pant Resolution’, Independent India, 26 03 1939, p. 221. The Royists' support of Bose in this instance was not based upon any illusions regarding his political views, which certainly could not be regarded as socialist.Google Scholar
