Summary
This one-page English press clipping reports M. R. Masani’s address to the Press Club of India in New Delhi on February 13. Masani frames Indian politics as a contest between Gandhi and Marx: he says Mrs. Gandhi represents the status quo, while he advocates Gandhian decentralisation, an economy free from government control of foodgrains, and stable prices.
Masani accepts Marx’s diagnosis that the proletariat had been deprived of property and enslaved, but rejects Marx’s conclusion that everyone should lose property. He argues that property is a fundamental, though not absolute, right subject to reasonable restrictions, and presents the conflict between Gandhi and Marx as a dispute over the future of property and economic organisation. In the question-and-answer portion, he criticises Mrs. Gandhi’s electoral prospects, comments on the cost of Air Force travel, condemns aircraft hijacking as criminal piracy, and remarks on the persistence of socialist sentiment.
Key points
- Masani presents Indian politics as a contest between Gandhian decentralisation and Marxist economic doctrine.
- He characterises Mrs. Gandhi as standing for the status quo.
- He argues that government should not control foodgrains and advocates a stable price level.
- He accepts Marx’s account of proletarian dispossession but rejects the abolition of private property.
- He treats property as a fundamental right subject to reasonable restrictions.
- In the question period, he discusses elections, Air Force fares, aircraft hijacking, and socialist commitment.
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