Presenter
Motam Pruthvi Sai - Department of Political Science, School of Social Sciences, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, IndiaPanel
113 – What Shade of Red?: Footprints of Socialism in South Asian Intellectual and Political HistoryAbstract
The early 20th century in India witnessed a range of colonial nationalists, having declared their commitment to socialism, interpreting Marxism differently than which was presented by communists around the world. The creation of Congress Socialist Party (CSP) symbolised the first formal, institutional engagement with Marxist thought outside established communist circles in India. Individuals like Narendra Deva, Jaya Prakash Narayan, Ram Manohar Lohia, to name a few, were a part of such effort. The CSP members’ understanding of the nature of the struggle for national independence and the tactics to be followed were the outcome of their Marxist beliefs. However, they had their own interpretations of Marxism and modified it considerably to suit Indian society. This paper shall first seek to show that Marxism was a constitutive element in the thought process of CSP members. It helped them to define and sustain their nationalism, rather than being opportunistically and artificially added on to it. This paper shall further seek to demonstrate that despite this, their socialism represented an appropriation of Marxism in the service of a “modernizing, rationalist, statist and nonrevolutionary nationalism.” The explanation of this does not lie, however, in their selective and one-sided use of Marxism. This paper concludes by investigating what it was about the Marxism of this period that made it prone to appropriation by modernising nationalists like the members of the CSP.
