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Book No. – 8 (Political Science)
Book Name – Indian Political Thought (Himanshu Roy/ M.P. Singh)
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1. Economy and Technology
2. Culture
3. Politics
4. Foreign Policy.
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Nehru: Ideas of Development
Chapter – 25
Table of Contents
- Nehru’s ideas of development were aimed at modernizing Indian society.
- Modernity is understood as a social process of change, starting with the renaissance, incorporating new technology, creating balanced social relations, and introducing rationality of thought.
- Modernity has become a metaphor for social progress, associated with the rise of liberalism and capitalism.
- The process of change is constant and present in all ages, not a one-time phenomenon or event, but an ongoing transformation in large societies, even before the renaissance.
- Modernity is a combination of:
- (a) Deliberate policies designed for social change.
- (b) Passive, subterranean or collateral effects from both intended and unintended social acts over time.
- Nehru’s modernity was a conscious design for rapid technological and relational (social and institutional) change through state interventions and mass participation.
- It aimed to shatter or transcend feudal structures and replace them with a holistic democratic structure in India.
- The ideal future was a classless society, with communism as the final goal, but in the post-colonial context, it was to be a transitional liberal-democratic society.
- The transitional society was intended to be bourgeois-democracy free from pre-capitalist elements, promoting rapid social mobility and equitable citizenship.
- It was envisioned as a society governed through active citizen participation, with knowledge imparted through command guidance.
- Nehru called for a raging campaign to secure popular support and participation, using more effective machineryand a far-reaching outlook.
Economy and Technology
- Nehru’s development strategy was premised on the rapid development of the bourgeois economy, assisted by state intervention.
- The bourgeois economy was expanded into rural areas through land reforms, agricultural cooperatives, bank loans, subsidies, and cottage industries.
- Nehru advocated for scientific and mechanized agriculture, focusing on better ploughs, seeds, manure, and extending credit and market facilities.
- Intensive cultivation was essential for self-sufficiency and generating a surplus for India’s progress.
- In urban areas, growth was primarily driven by state-owned capital in key sectors like coal, iron and steel, shipbuilding, telecommunication, atomic energy, and railways.
- Focus was on growth, which meant enhanced production, industrialization, capital formation, and expanding bourgeois social formation.
- The state was to control principal means of production and strategic economic points.
- Planned development aimed to:
- Pre-determine the objectives of proposed projects.
- Regulate the market.
- Prevent crisis from unbridled production.
- Generate resources for funding projects.
- Industrialize regions to create uniform capital-labour relations and a market economy.
- Nehru emphasized scientific management for improving productivity and ensuring non-conflicting capital-labour relations.
- The goal of planning was controlled growth, balancing agriculture and industry, and maintaining equilibrium between production, consumption, and purchasing power.
- Nehruvian state, through planned development, created new markets and undermined semi-feudal relations, transforming isolated villages into a homogeneous society.
- The market fostered interdependence, creating national unity through standardized production processes and economic features.
- The socialized functioning of production was central to national unity, while the protected market provided opportunities for business, capital formation, and the creation of a new unequal society.
- This expansion deepened the monetization of social relations and transformed time into money and polity into a corporate organization.
- Under Nehru, the bourgeois economy expanded, primarily benefitting the business environment, ending the semi-feudal past.
- It accelerated the formation of monetized social relations and positioned India’s ruling class in the international business arena, balancing economic ties with both power blocs.
- Nehru’s era was focused on expanding industrial-infrastructural base in the post-colonial economy.
- Nehru himself remarked that his policies were not socialistic, with only some public sector industries, and emphasized that this was not socialism.