party of India,
which normally identifies itself with the so-called Congress "left, described the Jaipur confab as a "status quo session." New Age said editorially (February 20): "At Jaipur there was really nothing very exciting except for a brief interlude in the subjects Committee when delegates somewhat vented the feelings of the’ people over the grave food situation and perhaps for the first time in recent years pressed their dissent in open defiance of the High Command. There were some refreshing speeches." New Age blamed the Congress for not adopting a comprehensive resolution on foreign policy.
Kamaraj, the "unsophisticated" politician, called for wider dispersal of responsibility among the states for the development-...°. of natural resources and public-sector undertakings, as it might yield "better results than a heavily overburdened centralised control."
He appeared to be talking against centralized planning even within the present capitalist framework. Perhaps this:was a conces-— sion to the regional bourgeois interests. As a concession to the small industrialists, he called for liberalization of the policy regarding issuing of industrial licenses and advancing of loans. Furious debate indeed occurred on the food situation, as the Jaipur session was held under the shadow of the food agitation in Kerala. The delegates magnanimously "authorised" the Congress president to constitute a.committee to study the various aspects of the food problem-.and. submit a. report before March 31, 1966!
‘Not even the bourgeois: press appeared | impressed ‘by "the parrote like repetition of the Bhubaneshwar ideals and the appointment of. a. few committees-to.solve thé country's-economic ills." (Times of India, February 14.) A strong plea was madé by . some delegates to abolish. the existing food zones (a system of grouping together dif= ferent states on the basis of their marketable surplus of food ©. grains and restricting interzone movement of food grains); but the demand was cleverly sidestepped.
The. ‘resolutions. on food and. _the economic situation, adopted by the session, were so vague that even the conservative Times of India. (February 14) | was constrained to. observe: "The ” Congress has done very. little in the last 18 years to draw on its reserves of idealism. Its very survival as a dynamic political force will depend in the years to come upon its ability to make good this lack." In fact the farcical nature of the deliberations was self-evident. | Replying. to the debate on the failure of the government to implement the Bhubaneshwar resolution, Home Minister Nanda admitted that its implementation. "had been weak and ineffective." Although he claimed that "the country wanted to move towards socialism" and the pace had to be "accelerated," he said that the "achievement of the goal of . socialism is not an. easy task.. "
Referring to the Bhubaneshwar decision to run rice mills either in the government or the cooperative sector, Nanda said: "We have not been able to do it." Then he offered this pearl of selfcriticism: "We must either not decide to do the things without knowing the: difficulties or first remove the difficulties before deciding to do things. "
- Bigu- Patnaik, former chief minister of Orissa who turned critic of the government, said that many. "brave" resolutions had been adopted year after year but the government and the party had "slept over them." He referred to the failure of the Congress to implement, even after fifteen years, the resolutions advocating "a national food policy, nationalisation. of the processing industry, monopoly procurement and the establishment of farmers' banks." He also pointed out that even in an advanced capitalist country like
Japan, all trading in rice and wheat is nationalized and every producer has to sell his produce to the government at a fixed price.
As usual, different groups representing different sectors of the ruling class spoke in different voices at..the session.. Mushtaq. Ahmed, president of the Delhi Pradésh. Congress, caused a flutter among the delegates when he said that. "protégés of big capitalists had captured key positions in the Congress and were impeding the progress towards socialism." On the other hand, the "big business" representative B.M.Chinai demanded de-control of various commodities on the ground ‘that the recent de-control. of cement has considerably improved its availability. . coe
-B.R. Bhagat, Minister ‘of State for Finance, admitted that. ‘the. performance of the public sector had been poor during the last two years, and the returns were not commensurate with the investments. He also declared that the "advance towards socialism would not be possible without first improving the administration of public sector projects.
The entire farce ‘shows. up one thing, The Congress, as the. biggest and best organized party of the Indian bourgeoisie, ‘has been | able to fool the massés for the last twelve years in the name of... : socialism mainly because of the absence of a strong working-class party offering the perspective of a socialist revolution to the masses. The capitalist leadership of the Congress has been helped in this by the left-fakers, like those in the Dangeite Communist party . of India, who built up an aura of "progressivism" around.it. Ex-. Socialist Asoka Mehta succumbed to the "“compulsion:of a backward econony" by finally accepting the planning portfolio in the Congress cabinet. There are many pseudo leftists even today who believe that. they can swing the Congress to the "socialist path" by sharing the. crumbs of office thrown to them Py the capitalist rulers of the country.
In reporting on the Jaipur. gathering, Link said: "As economic difficulties mounted, many progressive . Congressmen. -began to.feel the need to make'a concerted effort to assert themselves. A number of conventions of socialists in the Congress met, the last of which was at Jaipur itself just before the. A.I.C.C. (ali- India Congress Committee] session began. This convention drew up a: memorandum calling for faster steps towards 'socialism' and presented it to the Congress president before the proceedings began." Nanda reportedly associated himself with the meeting of the "Socialists"; and the outcome of the Jaipur session needs no further comment .
' The Birlas and Jains, who finance this "socialism," no doubt. laugh at the endless self-deception of the petty-bourgeois "radicals" and "progressives" inside the Congress. But the. gain is theirs. An illusion is: created to deceive the masses. The hoax presented by the Congress’ can only be dissipated finally by the independent class movement of the workers and peasants. However, the capacity of. the Congress ‘to keep up its deception. has: become limited; its prestige is definitely on the wane « Bo Loa