party which has so completely betrayed the in-
terests of their class. They must either assert
themselves to transform the party into a revolution-
ary democratic party of the people or leave the
party. The Swaraj Party does not stand for a
democratic revolution, as its programme and record
of activities clearly indicate. For all practical pur-
poses it has even abandoned all effective opposition
to the foreign bureaucracy. The Party has split
under the pressure of class contradictions. The
section consciously representing bourgeois interests
has broken away. But the party still remains a
bourgeois Nationalist party. The social composi-
tion of the party— the objective demands of its
members and adherents — calls for a programme
entireh^ different from the old programme of the
party. The organisational structure of the party
must also be changed. A party apparatus adapted
only to parliamentary activities cannot be the suit-
able political organ of the unfranchised masses.
Owing to the essentially capitalist nature of its
programme, and the limitation of its activities to
the narrow parliamentary field, a major portion of
the popular democratic forces stood outside the
Swaraj Party. The union of these forces with the
similar element inside the Swaraj Party will con-
vert the Swaraj Party into a national revolutionary
party of the people. The first event in the future
of Indian politics will be the crystallisation of such
a party.
loo THE FUTURE OF
Chapter XIII . The Labour Party
From several quarters comes the proposition for
the organisation of a Labour Party. As a matter
of fact, efforts have been made to organise an
Indian Labour Party. All these efforts so far have
miscarried. On the face of it, the proposition is
not the result of a mature study of the situation.
Fundamentally, it does not correspond to the Indian
conditions.
First of all, the nature of the task should be
defined unequivocally. The organisation of a pro-
letarian party is not the question in issue here. The
proletariat must have its own party. The analysis
of the situation, however, reveals the imperative-
ness of a political organisation apart from the
party of the proletariat. What is needed is not a
change in the nomenclature of the proletarian party,
but a democratic party which will be the rallying
ground for all the revolutionary social elements,
including the proletariat. Obviously a Labour
Party will not meet the situation. As its name
indicates, the Labour Part}- will be the part}^ only
of the working class.
Indeed, a Labour Part}^ will not even be the
political party of the Indian proletariat. The con-
ditions for the growth of a Labour Party do not
•exist in India. A Labour Party on the British
model (the advocates of an Indian Labour Party are
all in favour of imitating the British model) must
have for its basis fairh^ developed trade unions.
These are not to be found in India. So, in India,
under the present conditions a Labour Party will be
an extraneous growth artificially brought into be-
ing. The politics of a Labour Party is the politics
INDIAN POLITICS loi
of trade unionism and parliamentarism. Indian
trade unions are not yet developed enough to give
rise to a particular type of political party. Besides,
to discharge the political role that devolves upon
the Indian proletariat in the immediate future; the
scope of their activities should be much wider. A
Labour Party of the British model is a parliamen-
tary body. Its programme is to have the grievances
of the working class redressed through acts of
parliament. Its ultimate object is to capture the
State machinery by means of a parliamentary
majority. For our present purpose it is not neces-
sary to challenge this programme on its merits. It
is sufficient to point out that there cannot be parlia-
mentarism in a country without a parliament. In
India the proletariat must take a leading part in the
fight for the establishment of democratic govern-
ment. A form of political organisation that may
supposedly be useful for the proletariat in a country
with a democratic constitution, cannot be applicable
to a country without the rudimentary element of
democratic freedom.
The advocates of a Labour Party in India repre-
sent the tendency of " Economism.'* They main-
tain that the Indian proletariat are still too imma-
ture, too unorganised, too uneducated for any
political action ; that they should let politics alone,
organise themselves one hundred per cent, in trade
unions, and improve their economic conditions by
collective bargaining. This is a totally erroneous
point of view. It is an attempt to detach the pro-
letariat from the struggle for national freedom.
To act along this line would not only be harmful
to the proletariat, but dangerous to the entire
Nationalist movement. As already pointed out, com-
binations of historic events have imposed upon the
I02 THE FUTURE OF i
Indian proletariat a very important, indeed de- I
cisive, role in the movement for national freedom |
and democratisation of the country. The fight of j
the proletariat even for the most elementary, im- ;
mediate economic demands (wages, hours, con- j
ditions of labour, etc.) , is closely bound up with •
the struggle for national and democratic freedom. ^
The basis of imperialism is the economic exploita- i
lion of the colonial working class. In proportion .
as the standard of living of the colonial working j
class rises, the foundation of imperialism is under- <
mined. The object of colonial domination is to keep |
the standard of living of the native working class ;
down to such a level as to guarantee a substantial â–
margin of super profit. Therefore, no real improve- ]
ment in the economic conditions of the Indian pro- ;
letariat can be realised before the political domina- j
tion of Britain is overthrown ; that is, until national \
independence is attained and a democratic regime t
is established. There is antagonism between im-
perialist interests and the interests of the entire
Indian people ; but the antagonism between im- ]
perialism and the Indian working class (including ;
the peasantry) is irreconcilable. The proceeds of ;
colonial plunder are produced by the labouring i
classes. The other classes of the native population ;
are oppressed in so far as they are deprived of the ]
major portion of the value produced by the labour- ]
ing masses. There is a community of interest be- !
tween the native possessing classes and foreign i
rulers in that they both benefit (though unequally) !
by the exploitation of the working class. Thus, j
while the relation between the native possessing j
classes and imperialism is that of rivalry, which !
can be readjusted in a critical moment, the interests \
of the Indian proletariat and British imperialism j
INDIAN POLITICS 103
are mutually exclusive. The existence and welfare
of one depends upon the ruin of the other. The
Indian proletariat, therefore, cannot retire from the
struggle for national freedom without strengthening
its own chains. It must stand in the vanguard of
the struggle for democratic national freedom. The
first and foremost task of the Indian proletariat is
to secure national independence and democratisa-
tion of the country. Every act in defence and fur-
therance of the most elementary economic
right of the Indian proletariat is essentially political
for it is directed against the foundation of British
domination. This being the case, the theory that
the Indian working class should organise itself in
trade unions on the basis of collective bargaining
and in a reformist Labour Party of the British
model is erroneous. It is worse ; it misleads and
betrays the Indian proletariat.
The first attempt for organising a Labour Party
in India was made in 1920, simultaneously with the
forming of the Trade Union Congress. The Trade
Union Congress was not a spontaneous growth. In
1920 the Trade Unions in India were in embryonic
forms. They were practically strike committees.
The idea of an Indian Trade Union Congress was
conceived by a few intellectuals, and supported by
the British Labour Party. The latter deputed
Colonel Wedgwood and Ben Spoor to canvass the
idea of a Labour Party in India. They attended the
first Trade Union Congress held in Bombay under
the presidency of Lajpat Rai. The desire to pro-
mote the projects of the Trade Union Congress and
Labour Party was caused by the anxiety of the
British Labour imperialists to detach the Indian
proletariat from the post-war revolutionary up-
heaval which had assumed positively alarming pro-
I04 THE FUTURE OF
portions in 1919-20. The artificiality of the whole
scheme was revealed by the fact that meeting in a
period when the whole country was in the midst of
a revolutionary turmoil, the Trade Union Congress
was presided over by a bourgeois politician with no
sympathy for Socialism, attended by a score of
Liberal intellectuals of humanitarian inclination,
and patronised by the emissaries of Labour imper-
ialism. It was singularly unconnected with the revo-
lutionary Labour movenment sweeping the country
with a series of political mass strikes. A resolution
to send delegates to the Communist International
was summarily rejected. The Trade Union Con-
gress did not concern itself with the Nationalist
agitation which was in high tide, sweeping the
working masses in its whirling course. On the con-
trary, it submissively listened to its patron saint,
Colonel Wedgwood, denounce the non-co-operation
movement. Had the Trade Union Congress been
the conscious vanguard of the Young India prole-
tariat, it should have plunged into the great revolu-
tionary mass movement in order to snatch its leader-
ship from the faltering and treacherous hand of
petty bourgeois pacifists.
Nothing more was heard of the Labour Party
until February, 1923, when the Third Trade Union
Congress met. By that time the Trade Union Con-
gress had become more unreal — a totally non-
working class body existing only in name. Never-
theless, on the agenda of the Congress stood a
resolution recommending the formation of a Labour
Party. The Congress was presided over by the late
C. R. Das, and attended by a strong detachment of
Nationalist politicians. It was more of a social
gathering than a political meeting. It was well de-
picted in an article by its Secretary, Chaman Lai,
INDIAN POLITICS 105
who wrote : "The delegates, an imposing galaxy of
respectable ladies and gentlemen, rolled up in rows
of luxiiriant motor cars." In the midst of that res-
pectable and luxurious gathering, all was forgotten
about the unwashed millions. The Nationalist
politicians, who dominated the Congress, vetoed the
project of a Labour Party.
The project was again revived in the beginning
of 1925 when the new acquisition of the Indepen-
dent Labour Party, Oswald Mosley, visited India.
He is reported to have broached the question with
several Nationalist politicians closely related to
and possessing the confidence of the British Labour
Party. In the first week of February, while the
Legislative Assembly was in session, a number of
Nationalist parliamentarians met at Delhi under the
presidency again of Lajpat Rai to discuss the pro-
ject of forming a Labour Party. The president
delivered himself of the following sentiments : that
the promoters of the scheme should not be im-
patient ; that they should devote themselves to
spade-work — to study facts and figures about the
economic life of India ; that loose talk about Com-
munism and Internationalism should be dis-
couraged ; and that an inopportune pressing of the
Labour point of view would help the foreign
capitalists. N. M. Joshi, government-nominated
Labour member of the Ivegislative Assembly,
declared : " We should prefer an Indian capitalist
to a British one." Nothing more practical material-
ised. The project remained in abeyance. A few
months later it was reported in the Press that
Lajpat Rai had joined the I.L.P. and was trying
to organise an Indian branch of that party. It is
not known if the I.L.P. has had more success in
India than the Labour Party, except that Sir
io6 THE FUTURE OF
Sankeran Nair, an ex-high official, has swelled its
thin ranks. Sir Sankeran is a particular pet of the
ruling clique of the Labour Party. Attempts were
being made to give the seat of the Communist
Saklatvala to him in the last elections.
Towards the end of the year (1925) missionaries
of British Labourism invaded India with more
determination than ever. The crusade was headed
by a retired army officer gone Labour, Major
Graham Pole. As the president of a railway em-
ployees' conference at Tanjore, he outlined the
programme of the future Indian Labour Party in
the form of advice to the working class. His advice
was to support the Commonwealth of India Bill (a
scheme of constitutional reform based upon the
agreement between British Imperialism and Indian
capital) and to demand the right to send workers*"
representatives to the various legislatures to pro-
mote working class interests. Finally, he said :
" Labour in India should be careful not to ally
itself with Communism. What is being preached
in Moscow is anarchy itself, and against such
counsels Indian Labour should be warned." The
speaker further expressed his intention to form an
Indian branch of the Fabian Society.
So, it is clear under what auspices a Labour
Party will be born in India, if indeed it ever sees
the light of life. The most important aspect of the
subject is, however, that in spite of the repeated
efforts made by men having influence over Indian
politics and fully backed by the British I.abour
Party, the project does not materialise. There has
not been any opposition from the Government.
There must, therefore, be fundamental reasons
which prevent the rise of a Labour Party in India,
INDIAN POLITICS 107
Chapter XIV. Conditions for a Labour Party
Judging from the attempts made, the projected
Indian Labour Party will be of the British type.
But the contemporary Indian conditions are not
similar to the conditions in Britain when the Labour
Party was organised. A similar political organisa-
tion can only be produced by similar social-economic
conditions. The British Labour Party was born in
a period of imperialist expansion which caused
great industrial and trade prosperity at home. The
depression following the defeat of Chartism was
broken by trade unionist activities led by an
aristocracy of labour, which came into being as a
by-product of the prosperity created by colonial
plunder. Collective bargaining was the programme
of the British Labour movement in that epoch. It
was on the basis of that non-revolutionary trade
unionism that the British Labour Party was built.
The British Trades Union Congress, which ulti-
mately found its political expression in the Labour
Party, proved impenetrable for the socialist ideas
propagated by the Social Democratic Federation,
the Independent Labour Party, &c. John Burns
reproached it for having forgotten how to fight and
having made peace, or even having concluded an
alliance with capitalism. In a manifesto addressed
to the Trades Union Congress in 1884, the Social
Democratic Federation wrote : " The trade unions
unhappily only thought of improving the social
position of the more favoured few affiliated to their
body, and they are blind to the misery of the
masses. They failed to see that it was not improve-
ment but revolution that was wanted. The raising
io8 THE FUTURE OF
of wages and shortening of hours, were the loftiest
things for which they strove."
In the later 'eighties and 'nineties of the last
centur}^, when the theoretical foundation of the
future Labour Party was laid, the British Constitu-
tion had become fully democratic (bourgeois). The
proletariat had obtained the franchise. The Trade
Union Acts of the 'seventies were regarded by the
labour aristocracy as the charter of social and
economic freedom. In such a situation the
Fabianism of Sidney Webb naturally proved more
captivating than the revolutionary Socialism
preached in the earlier periods of fierce competition,
enormous accumulation and non-democratic consti-
tution. The theoretical basis of the Labour Party
w^as, that in a democratic society, and in a State
which recognised the necessity of Social legislation,
there was no need for a revolution ; that new poli-
tical institutions for the defence of the working
class interests were not to be created — they were in
existence to be used effectively by the working class
for S3'Stematic social reform. The Fabians main-
tained that at the close of the nineteenth century
Britain possessed a fully democratic State ; that
the problem was not to secure more political power
for the working class, but to persuade the entire
working class to make constructive use of the power
they already possessed.
The conditions in India are totally different.
They are not at all the kind in which the British
Labour Party grew, nor are the Fabian theories
applicable to them. A democratic constitution and
labour legislation, which enabled the British labour
aristocracy to divert the proletarian masses from
the way of Socialism to that of Reformism, are still
to be attained in India. The conditions are rather
INDIAN POLITICS 109
analogous to the British conditions in the decades
preceding and following the passing of the Reform
Bill of 1832. They objectively make for Chartisoi
rather than orthodox trade unionism and reformist
parliamentarism. Trade unionist politics of focus-
ing the entire energy of the proletariat on imme-
diate economic issues are not suitable in a period
when the proletariat must stand at the van of a
democratic revolutionary movement. Yet the
Indian Trade Union Congress is dominated by that
tendency, and a Labour Party which presumably
will be based on the Trade Union Congress will
unavoidably go the same way. The form of
political organisation developed by the proletariat
of one country in the period of prosperity and pos-
sessing constitutional freedom, cannot be applicable
to another country in the earlier stages of capitalist
development and deprived of elementar}^ political
rights.
Owing to the fact that the objective conditions for
a Labour Party do not obtain in India, the tendency
of *' Economism '* — trade unionist politics — does
not originate in the ranks of the proletariat. It is
an artificial growth, having for its basis on the one
hand, the native element of intellectual careerism,
and, on the other hand, the machinations of British
Labour Imperialism. We have no aristocracy of
labour. Indian conditions do not permit the growth
of a labour aristocracy. The endeavour to corrupt
the Labour movement with the politics of orthodox
trade unionism and premature parliamentarianisra
are made by non-proletarian non-socialist elements.
Of late the tendency has even been officially
fomented. This indicates how dangerous such poli-
tics will be for the Indian Labour movement and for
the entire democratic movement for national libera-
no THE FUTURE OF
tion. Politics of trade unionism and of Parliamen-
tarism (in the absence of Parliament) in India are
advocated by non-socialist intellectuals, bourgeois
humanitarians, kept (by Government) Labour
leaders, and agents of British Labour Imperialism.
An Indian Labour Party, granted that it can be
organised in spite of the fact that objective condi-
tions are against it, will be controlled by these
elements. Therefore, it will never be the party of
the Indian proletariat. The Indian Trade Union
Congress, which presumably will be the basis of
the projected Labour Party, is shaped entirely on
the British model, although Indian trade unions are
separated from the British unions by a period of
half a century. The contemporary social and
political position of the Indian proletariat does in
no way correspond to that of the British proletariat
in the period when the Trades Union Congress was
organised in Britain. While the organisers and
leaders of the British Trades Union Congress all
rose from the ranks of better-paid skilled workers,
the promoters of the Indian Trade Union Congress
are non-proletarian politicians. Nor are the latter
revolutionary Socialists — " professional revolu-
tionaries," the importance of which element in the
earlier stages of the proletarian movement has been
so much emphasised by Lenin. The present
politics of the Indian Trade Union Congress is an
imbecile mimicry which might be immensely harm-
ful, if the revolutionary leaders of the proletariat
fail to fight it. It is misleading the small section
of the proletariat which has been drawn under its
influence. In its last annual session, held in
Madras, the Trade Union Congress decided that
arbitration in the industrial field and representation
in the legislative bodies (based upon a franchise
INDIAN POLITICS 1 1 1
embracing less than 2 per cent, of the population),
should be the means to dc^fend the economic interests
of the proletariat. In the broader political domain
it subscribed to the bourgeois Nationalist pro-
gramme of Self-government within the British
Empire. A Labour Party built on such a basis will
be the last thing that the contemporary social and
political situation in India demands.
It may be argued that a Labour Party in India
need not be an epitome of the British Labour
Party. It will be a very superficial argument. A
Labour Party is a form of political organisation
dominated by certain distinct political tendencies.
In India it cannot be freed from that tendency with-
out rendering it something other than a Labour
Party. This has been proved by the fact that all
the attempts so far made for the organisation of a
Labour Party in India have tended clearly to copy
the British model, and have been inspired by
adulterated Fabianism. The above argument will
evidently imply that a Labour Party should be
organised in India independentl}^ of the efforts so
far made by elements of opportunism. In that case
it will only be a question of name. The (revolu-
tionary) party of the proletariat will be called a
Labour Party. Why this nominal variation ?
Why clothe the revolutionary teachings of Marx
and Lenin in the respectable garb of Sydney Webb ?
With a different name the proletarian party will
not be able to accommodate inside it non-proletarian
classes, namely, the petty bourgeoisie and the
peasantry. Besides, theoretically, a Labour Party
cannot be the suitable weapon in the revolutionary
fight for democratic freedom. If it is intended to
deceive the Public Prosecutor, the trick will not
work. As soon as it will act as the party of the
112 THE FUTURE OF
proletariat should act, in the given situation, that
is, openly take its place in the forefront of the
democratic forces fighting under a revolutionary
programme (including the overthrow of imperialist
domination and establishment of a democratic
republic), the name will not save the party, unless
it can defend itself by more powerful means. If the
Party does not act as the vanguard of the forces of
national liberation, it will not be a party of the
proletariat in spite of the name.
So, an Indian Labour Party will be, firstly, an
artificial creation without vital connection with and
not representing the proletarian masses ; and
secondly, it will be inevitably on the British model
which does not suit the Indian conditions. It will
be neither here nor there. It will not be the party
of the proletariat, nor will it be the common plat-
form for all the democratic social forces. Its very
name (not to mention its reformist theories) will
alienate the petty bourgeoisie, which must fight
under the banner of Nationalism. On the other
hand, its trade unionist policies will draw the prole-
tariat further and further from the fight for
national freedom.
The task of the Indian proletariat in the imme-
diate future is not to bargain with the imperialist
and national bourgeoisie for the removal of imme-
diate economic grievances. It is political, of a very
comprehensive nature. It is to rally under the
banner of national liberation all the oppressed
classes of contemporary Indian society. Un-
doubtedly the proletariat will fight for their
economic demands ; but they should not have the
illusion that anything substantial can be gained in
that sphere without a radical change in the political
INDIAN POLITICS 113
system. In quest of petty economic reforms the