Letter to Mr Minoo Masani

Summary

This document is a brief typed letter from Acharya J. B. Kripalani (11 Gautam Palli, Lucknow, dated 3 June 1963) to Minoo Masani, with a five-page copy of Kripalani’s inaugural address to a Praja Socialist Party and Socialist Party unity conference held in Lucknow on 1 June 1963 attached. In the letter, Kripalani congratulates Masani on a recent success (mentioning Shakuntala in Bombay), reports that a meeting with Lohia in Delhi produced only vagueness — Lohia would not commit even to a meeting of friends — and presses Masani for a face-to-face of Rajaji, JP, Masani and himself, with Dr Lohia to be invited or not “as they wish”. Everywhere he goes, Kripalani writes, he is asked to work for the unity of the democratic opposition parties, and he wants Masani’s reaction to the tentative minimum programme he has just put forward.

The enclosed speech opens with a bleak diagnosis of both the internal and international situations. The Five Year Plans have failed to raise the standard of living; agriculture is stagnant; food imports are rising; taxes, prices and inflation are all rising; landless labourers earn less in real wages than before; the recent gold order and compulsory saving scheme have aggravated matters; and administration lacks efficiency and integrity. Externally, “Communist China” occupies large chunks of Himalayan territory, incursions continue without let or hindrance, and India’s neighbours are alienated. Kripalani argues that fifteen unbroken years of Congress rule have produced a “near-dictatorship not of the Congress party but of the Central and State Governments,” in which ministers themselves collect election funds and organise elections through governmental machinery, so that defeating a Congress candidate has become “well nigh impossible” if the authorities are determined to keep him out.

Because exit from Congress is difficult (patronage and office are inside it) and those who do leave splinter into conflicting groups, Kripalani concludes that a viable opposition can only be built by an electoral alliance of the democratic opposition parties around a minimum common programme. He cites Dr Lohia’s by-election successes at Amroha and Rajkot as proof that a straight fight between Congress and a combination of democratic parties works. His proposed six-point minimum programme: (1) a clean and efficient administration; (2) resistance to Chinese aggression until every inch of sacred soil is vacated; (3) an amicable India–Pakistan settlement enabling joint defence of the sub-continent; (4) the establishment of social justice — with the pointed reservation that “socialism” is itself a vague term that not all democratic parties can subscribe to and which “in some of its forms” is “anti-democratic, aggressive and reactionary”; (5) no further nationalisation of industry and commerce until existing public-sector schemes are consolidated and run at least as efficiently as the private sector; and (6) effective control of enterprise in the private sector.

Key points

• Personal typed letter from Acharya J. B. Kripalani (Lucknow, 3 June 1963) to Minoo Masani, enclosing the full text of Kripalani’s inaugural address at the PSP–SP unity conference held in Lucknow on 1 June 1963.
• Kripalani reports his Delhi meeting with Lohia found him “very vague” and unwilling to commit even to a meeting of friends, and asks Masani whether a meeting of Rajaji, JP, Masani and himself can be organised as soon as possible.
• The speech opens with a diagnosis of failure of the Five Year Plans — stagnant agriculture, rising food imports, rising prices, inflation, worsening real wages for landless labourers whose number is increasing.
• Kripalani charges that fifteen years of Congress rule have produced a “near-dictatorship” of Central and State Governments, with ministers themselves financing and running elections through Congress machinery.
• Diagnosis of why opposition unity has been hard: Congress monopolises office and patronage, so ambitious politicians stay inside it; those who leave splinter into conflicting groups.
• Cites Dr Lohia’s Amroha and Rajkot by-election successes as evidence that a straight fight between Congress and a combination of democratic parties can work.
• Proposes a six-point minimum common programme: clean administration; resistance to Chinese aggression; amicable India–Pakistan settlement enabling joint defence; social justice (with explicit reservation about the vagueness of “socialism”); no further nationalisation until existing public-sector units match private-sector efficiency; effective control of private enterprise.
• Externally, notes Communist Chinese occupation of Himalayan territory, continuing incursions “without let or hindrance”, and alienation of India’s neighbours.