[Letter to Mr H P Modi]

Summary

This 29 September 1959 letter from Ramgarh House, Patna, is addressed by Kamakhya Narain Singh to H. P. Modi. Singh says that he had held a press conference on 26 September and encloses a copy of his statement, together with answers to questions from the press, for Modi’s comments. The surviving enclosure pages consist principally of newspaper reports and the text of Singh’s political statement concerning the Swatantra Party, the Bihar Rajya Janata Party, and the coming elections.

In the enclosed statement, Singh presents the Swatantra Party as a response to what he describes as Congress-led statism, economic controls, bureaucratic expansion, and the influence of socialism and communism. He advocates individual freedom, competitive enterprise, private ownership, restrained taxation, free trade, decentralised industry, food self-sufficiency, and the rule of law. The clippings also report his hope that the Swatantra Party would win a majority in Bihar, discuss a possible merger with the Janata Party, and describe opposition activity against the Bihar government, including protests over food scarcity and alleged administrative failures. The pages include references to Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Karl Marx, as well as historical and contemporary political comparisons. The document is complete as a scanned nine-page file, although some newspaper clippings are fragmentary, rotated, or difficult to read.

Key points

• The letter transmits a press-conference statement and press answers from Kamakhya Narain Singh to H. P. Modi.
• The enclosed material presents the Swatantra Party as an alternative to Congress socialism, state expansion, and economic controls.
• Singh argues for individual freedom, private ownership, competitive enterprise, decentralised industry, and restraint in public expenditure and taxation.
• The statement supports free trade between Indian states and criticises restrictions on the movement of food grains from surplus to deficit regions.
• The clippings report plans for electoral contests in Bihar and a possible political merger between the Swatantra and Janata parties.
• The political case is framed through references to Gandhi, Nehru, Marx, the Congress, and the legacy of Indian political traditions.
• The newspaper material also records protests concerning famine, food shortages, government administration, and alleged political repression in Bihar.