India After Independence: 1947-2000 by Bipan Chandra Read Free Book Online Page B

carryingout basic changes in society, economy and polity. It went on defining itself in more and more radical terms, based on equity and social justice and greater social and economic equality. It accepted and propagated a programme of reforms that was quite radical by contemporary standards: compulsory and free primary education, lowering of taxes on the poor and lower middle classes, reduction of the salt tax, land revenue and rent, debt relief and provision of cheap credit to the agriculturists, protection of tenants’ rights and ultimately the abolition of landlordism and ‘land to the tiller’, the workers’ right to a living wage and a shorter working day, workers’ and peasants’ rights to organize themselves and reform of the machinery of law and order. A dramatic moment in the evolution of this radical orientation of the national movement was the Karachi resolution of the 1931 Congress which declared that ‘in order to end the exploitation of the masses, political freedom must include real economic freedom of the starving millions.’ 7
    And to crown this growing radicalism was that of Gandhiji who declared in 1942 that ‘the land belongs to those who work on it and to no one else.’ 8
    An aspect of its commitment to the creation of an egalitarian society, was the national movement’s opposition to all forms of inequality, discrimination and oppression based on sex and caste. It allied itself with and often subsumed movements and organizations for the social liberation of women and the lower castes. The national movement brought millions of women out of the home into the political arena. Its reform agenda included the improvement of their social position including the right to work and education and to equal political rights. As part of its struggle against caste inequality and caste oppression, abolition of untouchability became one of its major political priorities after 1920. The movement, however failed to form and propagate a strong anti-caste ideology, though Gandhiji did advocate the total abolition of the caste system itself in the forties. It was because of the atmosphere and sentiments generated by the national movement that no voices of protest were raised in the Constituent Assembly when reservations for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes were mooted. Similarly, the passage of the Hindu Code Bills in the fifties was facilitated by the national movement’s efforts in favour of the social liberation of women.
Secularism
    From its early days, the national movement was committed to secularism. Secularism was defined in a comprehensive manner which meant the separation of religion from politics and the state, the treatment of religion as a private matter for the individual, state neutrality towards or equal respect for all religions, absence of discrimination between followers of different religions, and active opposition to communalism. For example, to counter communalism and give expression to its secular commitment,Congress in its Karachi resolution of 1931 declared that in free India ‘every citizen shall enjoy freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess and practise his religion,’ that all citizens would be ‘equal before the law, irrespective of caste, creed or sex,’ that no disability would attach to any citizen because of caste, creed or sex ‘in regard to public employment, office of power or honour, and in the exercise of any trade or calling,’ and that ‘the State shall observe neutrality in regard to all religions.’ 9
    It is true that in his early years, Gandhi, a deeply religious person, emphasized the close connection between religion and politics. This was because he believed that politics had to be based on morality, and to him all religions were the source of morality. Religion was, in fact, he believed, itself morality in the Indian sense of dharma. But he not only moved the Karachi resolution in 1931, but when he saw that the communalists were using