Ravi is kind enough to devote his thoughts to a book review I had posted recently; the book, which proves that Nehru was a die-hard communist. Ravi’s entry contains a neat distinction between the definitions Socialism and Communism as was understood fifty or eighty years ago. One that I agree with in toto.

Bear with me if this entry doesn’t follow any pattern of logically arriving at a conclusion, but I hope I make my point reasonably clear in the end.

I quote Ravi:

“socialist” means something very different from what it meant fifty or eighty years back. Now it has a much vaguer meaning, i.e. the government has some sort of heavy handed role in the economy. At that time, it meant that the government controls the economy completely. The only difference between socialism and communism was that a socialist thought that the same ends could be achieved without revolution, though not necessarily without violence. He would have prefered to achieve it through constitutional means if possible, or through a series of agitations and strikes if necessary. But the final result of both would have been the same, though a socialist would wish that the government be democratically elected.

Socialism in today’s world is all but dead whatever its understanding in today’s context is. As History is witness, socialists of various hues either eventually abandoned socialism in favour of Communism, or were overshadowed/relegated to the dustbin because Communism won several thumping battles. (I know I’m doing semantobatics here, but do indulge me) Ever since, Socialism has been equated with Communism. Further, it is also insightful to observe the modern-day socialists/communists. Ever since Communism has become a dirty word, they are under pressure to invent newer jargon to obscure the word taking care not to distort the message. This pattern is pretty much the same the world over with perhaps the sole exception of India where 70-something retards still squall about a Workers’ Revolution that is waiting to happen in India. They do so with the full knowledge that an average Indian (in their lexicon this generally stands for their dear peasants, factory labourers and an assortment of people including auto rickshaw drivers) doesn’t really understand what Communism stands for. And those Communist intellectuals who in the forefront holler in this manner are themselves from the hated bourgeoisie class. With this in the background, I’ll quote Ravi again:

Of course, when compared with what he really wanted to “achieve”, India truly fell short. So naturally Nehru’s intellectuals defined down socialism to mean some nice-sounding ideals and this is what most people think of when they think of socialism.

After you read the book, it becomes pretty clear that Nehru didn’t have the first clue on leading a nation with such a bloody history of foreign oppression behind it. Be it in any field: foreign policy, economy, or education. He rambled voluminously mostly about the goodness of socialism/communism, of the glorious achievements of the USSR, against the imperial powers (UK, France & Germany at first, then the US), and lastly, about his cherished Socialistic Pattern of Society. What SPS stands for is till today a mystery because the Founder himself wasn’t clear about it. What is clear is that it was a Communist state that he wanted to convert India into. Nehru used the word “socialism,” or SPS to mask his true Communist leanings.

So the argument over whether Nehru was “only” a socialist or a communist at heart is less important than it is to understand how close we were to disaster under Nehru.

It has been proved conclusively the kind of damage Communism (can and) has inflicted upon mankind, and it is from this perspective that I indulged in some play of semantics. An individual is just the manifestation of the ideology he/she adheres to. If the ideology calls for destruction, oppression, and cruelty, these very traits will manifest in that individual. In the same vein, our understanding of how close we were to disaster under Nehru should, I think, be viewed from the perspective of the ideology he espoused. If he was just a misguided Communist/Socialist, and realized the fact, there is scope for correction. If however, he consistently insisted that Stalin was a “great warrior,” and apologized–and defended–for his (Stalin’s) purges, and other Soviet evils, we can only conclude that it is because that he is an ardent Communist, he condones these evils, and consequently brought India on the brink of disaster.

PS: I reckon this might spark a discussion, so I’ve added this entry to the Discussions category.