ISR Index | Main Newspaper Index
Encyclopedia of Trotskyism | Marxists’ Internet Archive
From International Socialist Review, Vol.22 No.1, Winter 1961, pp.27-28.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
Recent Trends in Indian Nationalism
by A.R. Desai
Popular Book Depot, Bombay, India. 1960. 149 pp. Rs. 8.75
A conscious exponent of the method of Historical Materialism, Dr. Desai has tried, “... to indicate the causal connections underlying economic, political, social, educational, cultural and ideological currents that have been developing in India.” He indicates that his is the first attempt to so synthesize all the various aspects of Indian nationalism.
The author, a sociology professor at the University of Bombay, first intended to write a short postscript to his earlier work Social Background of Indian Nationalism. However “the postscript lengthened to the size of a small book,” he writes in the preface.
Dr. Desai’s thesis is that Indian capitalism cannot resolve the crisis in which it finds itself. His prognosis is that the crisis will deepen until India places political power in the hands of the working class.
The Indian bourgeoisie and its Congress party saw the solution to the country’s ills in the transfer of political power from the British rulers to itself. However, after over a decade of political rule by the capitalist class, all the old social problems persist and even partial progress is not to be observed.
Its fear of the masses and its material connections with semi-feudal exploitation paralyzes the bourgeoisie in the face of the awesome land question. And without a fundamental overturn of social relations on the land no backward country can make any serious efforts to modernize itself. The industry of the country retains all the characteristics of a colonial extension: inadequacy, one-sidedness and an inability to make the substantial leap forward necessary to raise the standard of living above sub-subsistence levels.
A curious aspect of this little book is that the author’s conclusions jibe with those of the Trotskyist movement, but he indicates no awareness of either contemporary Trotskyist writings or the monumental work of Leon Trotsky on the subject of colonial revolutions.
Because of the vast scope of the material covered in less than 150 pages, the book often reads more like a manifesto or a declaration of position than a sociological analysis. Nevertheless, those unused to the materialist method will undoubtedly be intrigued by this fresh approach to recent Indian history.
Despite its sketchiness, Recent Trends in Indian Nationalism is a useful outline for beginning a study of the Indian “problem.”
ISR Index | Main Newspaper Index
Encyclopedia of Trotskyism | Marxists’ Internet Archive
Last updated on 7 May 2009