India's First Socialist Regime

BHARGAVA, G. S.

India's First Socialist Regime The recent Travancore-Cochin election resulted in a coalition designed to stop the Communists By G. S. Bhargava New Delhi Asignficant political experiment is under...

...The Stalinists now tried to coax the Socialists into a coalition government, but the latter refused...
...Many politically conscious Christians also condemned the religious crusade which the Front was carrying on against Communism...
...The state constabulary could not cope with the situation, and, when the Akalis were in power, the authorities actually connived at lawlessness...
...The spectacle of a party that holds only 19 seats in a 118-seat legislature forming its own government and attempting to implement its election pledges is unique in itself...
...today, 39 per cent of Travancore-Cochin's 10 million people are Christians, most of them Catholic...
...The Palace naturally made every effort to stem the tide of Catholic proselytizing, thereby alienating the clergy...
...Travaucoro was,in a sense, a theocratic state before its integration into the secular Indian Union, for its de jure Head of State was a Hindu deity, Lord Padmanabha, whose trustee was the Maharajah (the present Rajpramukh, or Head of State, of Travancore-Cochin...
...The Congress by itself, dominated as it is by conservative financial barons, cannot meet the crying needs of the people...
...The general elections of 1951-52 led to chronic political instability in PEPSU...
...First, the Congress, lacking a majority in the Legislature, formed a government with the tacit backing of the Communists and Akali splinter elements...
...Moreover, the Akali left wing has fallen under complete Communist control...
...These results left the opposition parties in a quandary...
...As a result, the popular movement on behalf of responsible government in the state received wholehearted support from the Church--an unusual phenomenon in India, where organized religion generally plays no part in politics...
...The recent Allahabad party congress had made it clear that the rank-and-file would not countenance such an arrangement with either the Congress or the Communists...
...This assured the latter the backing of 64 of the 118 members of the Legislature...
...To counter the Congress party's alliance with the clergy, the Socialists had entered into a limited electoral coalition with the "United Front of Leftists" (composed of the Communist, Revolutionary Socialist and Kerala Socialist parties...
...During the recent election, a Catholic archbishop directed his followers not to vote for any of the opposition parties, asserting that a moral issue was involved...
...Gradually, however, it became an exclusively Christian and Congress-party organization, driving non-Christians into the leftist--chiefly the Communist--camp...
...The Communists made no gains, but their allies, the largely Trotskyist Revolutionary Socialist party, rose from 4 to 9, while the Socialists went from 11 to 19...
...The Communists promptly recruited some for their campaign against the landlords and the custodians of law and order, while the feudal elements enlisted others to fight their class battles...
...Though the Communist vote was no more than 16 per cent, the Stalinists and their splinter-party allies together bagged 32 seals and tried to form a government with the help of 8 Congress-party rebels (representatives of Tamil-speaking districts of Malayalam-speaking Travancore-Cochin who favor seceding to join other Tamil areas of South India in forming a common state...
...In the border state of PEPSU in the north, the Congress party has faced a different kind of challenge: the outcry against alleged Hindu domination raised by Sikh nationalists organized in the Akali party, who demanded a Punjabi linguistic state as the nucleus for an autonomous Sikh state...
...No party or group of parties strong enough to form a stable government had emerged in either state in 1951, and constantly shifting patchwork alliances were necessary to prevent a complete breakdown...
...This statement cost the Congress party a good many Hindu votes...
...At first, the Front professed neutrality toward the non-Communist opposition parties and confined itself to exposure of Communist tactics at home and abroad...
...With both sides poised for an armed showdown, utter chaos prevailed...
...After integration into the Indian Union, the small private armies maintained by the various princes were disbanded, leaving hundreds of these mercenaries without jobs...
...But all is still not well in PEPSU...
...The Akalis have been thoroughly vanquished as a political force...
...Had it not been for the strict neutrality maintained by the 12 Socialist members of the Legislature, the Communists would have won control of this strategic state with its rich thorium deposits...
...After the formation of Travancore-Cochin as part of the Indian Union and the establishment of a Congress-party government there, religion and politics seemed to part company...
...Like Travancore-Cochin, PEPSU was formed by the amalgamation of several former princely states...
...The Socialists countered with the proposal that the Communist bloc support them, but without actually participating, in forming a government...
...He also asked whether the Church would excommunicate those who voted for the opposition...
...The Communists, determined to win power for themselves, turned down this plan...
...It is hard to say how long the Congress party and its new-found feudal allies will continue to pull together...
...while the Socialists lack the resources to replace the Congress in power and take up the problems of social progress and Communism...
...Now, however, with a strong Congress majority, they have little power to influence events...
...In the old, badly-divided Legislature, the two Communists often enjoyed a pivotal position...
...The influential Maharajah of Patiala, the Rajpramukh, has gained in power, with his kith and kin now sitting in the Legislature as Congress-party members...
...Now, thanks to the smashing Congress victory in the February elections, PEPSU has a Congress-party government backed by an absolute majority in the Legislature...
...At last, the Congress, alive tothe danger a Communist government would represent for the entire country, agreed to support a Socialist government...
...Until recently, Catholics as a body ceased to play an active role in state politics, though they retained the upper hand in the ruling party...
...Within the Congress party, however...
...Christians gained supremacy over the Hindu elements...
...Two Indian states--Travancore-Cochin in the south and the Patiala and East Punjab States Union (PEPSU) in the north--went to the polls in February after two years of political instability following the general elections of December 1951...
...Then they parted company again and the Government fell, necessitating the February elections...
...To avoid another division of the anti-Communist vote, possibly resulting in a minority Communist government, the clergy formed a so-called Anti-Communist Front...
...Finally, New Delhi had to suspend the state constitution and rule the area directly for a year...
...Travancore-Cochin, which stretches along the southwestern coast of India, was created through the merger of two former princely states...
...The Secretary of the Socialist party, a Christian, replied that efforts to defeat Communism with the weapon of religion had failed in overwhelmingly Catholic France and Italy...
...If the Congress attempts any significant social changes, it will run athwart the disfavor of the Rajpramukh and his allies...
...The Congress party was badly mauled in the 1951 elections, winning only 44 out of 108 seats...
...The Communists profited from the general confusion, meanwhile, to launch efforts to set up a "parallel government" in the villages of the interior...
...In order to score its victory, however, the Congress had to make common cause with the most reactionary feudal elements, and it has taken into the party a number of former princely rulers who were previously pillars of the Akali movement...
...And if it goes slow on agrarian and other reforms, the Communists will win a new lease on life...
...and the devout Hindu, Pattom Thanu Pillai, now Socialist Prime Minister of Travancore-Cochin, who headed the first Congress ministry in 1947, was elbowed out of the party...
...The solution arrived at in Travancore-Cochin may be the key to what is needed for all India: a broad agreement between the Socialist and Congress parties to provide the country with progressive, efficient government...
...It is probably the largest single area in the country to come under the influence of Catholic missionaries, who have been there for over a century...
...The election results came as a shock to the Congress...
...Hitherto, the Congress's conservative leaders have seemed to fear the Communists less than the Socialists, regarding the latter as the real threat by virtue of their democratic character...
...The Communist gains in 1951 had alarmed the Catholic clergy more than the Stalinists' political opponents...
...Nevertheless, the Communists are not pleased with the election results, even though they increased their strength from two to four seats...
...Perhaps recent events in Travancore-Cochin represent a break with this potentially disastrous course...
...As I pointed out in the February 22 New Leader, this was a correct strategy for preventing the Congress from returning to power with a mere plurality...
...More important, however, this development in Congress party-dominated India gives the Socialist party its first real chance to put its program before the people...
...With ten new seats added to the Legislature since 1951 (one of them appointive), the Congress increased its strength by only one seat to 45, or 14 short of a majority...
...When Prime Minister Nehru, during a tour of the state, was asked his opinion of this religious "interference" in politics, he replied evasively that the clergy had as much right to participate in politics as anyone else...
...Later, the Communists forged an alliance with the Akali feudal lords which put the latter in power...
...India's First Socialist Regime The recent Travancore-Cochin election resulted in a coalition designed to stop the Communists By G. S. Bhargava New Delhi Asignficant political experiment is under way in the South Indian state of Travancore-Cochin, where India's first Socialist government has come into being...
...But the Communists' presence in the coalition made it dangerous...
...Besides increasing the literacy rate, clerical influence led to large-scale conversions...
...The Congress party succeeded in making peace with the rebels and kept precariously in power until the middle of last year...

Vol. 37 • April 1954 • No. 15


 
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