Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T05:03:48.172Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Jawaharlal Nehru and Planning, 1938–41: India at the Crossroads

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Bidyut Chakrabarty
Bidyut Chakrabarty
Affiliation:
Delhi University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The modern state is interventionist, and planning is an effective means to ascertain its control over the entire social process. As an operational tool, planning seems formidable to structure the role of the state in accordance with its ideological underpinning. Therefore, not only is planning as an instrument tuned to economic regeneration, it is inextricably tied to the regime's political preference as well. The aim here is not to argue for a deterministic network between planning and the ideological slant of the regime and its leadership and viceversa, but to show the complex interdependence which entails, at the same time, an interplay of various pulls and pressures in a rapidly changing social fabric. Colonial India provides us with a political system embedded in both the age-old and primordial value system and various other cultural influences which, inter alia reflected the system's absorption of alien value preferences. This obviously was not a smooth process, for India which drew on loyalties based on primordial ties strove to absorb new stimuli which had their roots in a completely different socio-political and economic environment; the result being tension among those presiding over the destiny of the country which had its reflection in the political discourse of the day. By concentrating on planning which, among other things, strove to transform India from a traditional to a modern society, the paper seeks to explain the difficulty facing the Congress stalwarts, Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose in particular, despite their confidence in planning as the only instrument to rejuvenate India after the British withdrawal.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , May 1992 , pp. 275 - 287
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Nehru, Jawaharlal, ‘Objectives of Planning’, Indian Annual Register, vol. II, p. 238.Google Scholar

2 Amrita Bazar Patrika (hereafter ABP), 9/9/1938.

3 Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi (hereafter NMML), AICC Papers 30/1934, Nehru's address in Azamgarh, 8/6/1934.

4 NMML, AICC P.L 3 (i)/1937, Nehru to the Congress premiers, 17/10/1937.

5 Netaji Research Bureau, Calcutta, Nehru to Bose, 10/10/1938.

6 Nehru to Indira, 9/7/1937, in Nehru, Jawaharlal, Glimpses of World History (London, 1962), p. 887.Google Scholar

7 NMML, AICC 28/1929, Congress Resolutions, May 1929.Google Scholar

8 Zaidi, Z. M. (ed.), Congress History, 1885–1947 (London, 1965), p. 220.Google Scholar

9 Ibid., p. 321.

10 Hindustan Standard, 27/9/1934.

11 1936 Faizpur Presidential address in Jawaharlal Nehru and Socialism (a collection of Nehru's speeches, Delhi, 1969), pp. 18–20.Google Scholar

12 ABP, 24/12/1938.

13 Times of India, Bombay, 17/10/1938.Google Scholar

14 Chakrabarty, Bidyut, Subhas Chandra Bose and Middle-Class Radicalism: A Study in Indian Nationalism, 1928–40 (I.B. Tauris, London, 1990), ch. I, pp. 41–6.Google Scholar

15 India Office Records, London (hereafter IOR), L/PJ/2/1930, Secretary (HomePoll), Government of India to the Chief Secretary Bengal, 7/7/1930.

16 Nehru's statement to the press, 30/6/1939, in Gopal, S. (ed.), Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru (hereafter SW) (Orient Longman, New Delhi, 1976), vol. IX, p. 399.Google Scholar

17 Nehru, Jawaharlal, An Autobiography (Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1982), pp. 551–2.Google Scholar

18 Note circulated to the members of the national planning committee, Allahabad, in Gopal, (ed.) SW, p. 377.Google Scholar

19 Ibid., p. 374.

20 Gopal, S., Jawaharlal Nehru: A Biography 1889–1947, vol. I (Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1975), p. 245.Google Scholar

21 NMML, Jawaharlal Nehru Papers, National Planning Committee, file no. 135/pt 11/1939, Ambalal to Bose, 3/2/1939.

22 Ibid.

23 Nehru's speech at Delhi University, in Hindustan Times, 15/2/1939.

24 Ibid.

25 Gopal, , Jawaharlal Nehru, vol. I, p. 246.Google Scholar

26 Nehru, to Shah, K. T., 13/5/1939, in Gopal, (ed), SW, vol. IX, p. 373.Google Scholar

27 Nehru, to Kripalani, Krishna, 29/9/1939, in Gopal, Jawaharlal Nehru, vol. I, pp. 246–7.Google Scholar

28 National Herald, 21/6/1939, quoted in Gopal, (ed.), SW, vol. IX, pp. 386–7.Google Scholar

29 Gandhi, to Kaur, Amrit, 29/6/1939 quoted in Gopal, Jawaharlal Nehru, vol. I, p. 247.Google Scholar

30 Gandhi, to Nehru, , 11/8/1939, in A Bunch of Old Letters (Asia Publishing House, Bombay, 1958), pp. 378–9.Google Scholar

31 Nehru, to Bose, Subhas, 21/6/1936, in Gopal, (ed.), SW vol. IX, p. 397.Google Scholar

32 Ibid., p. 398.

33 Nehru, to Kamath, , 17/5/1939 in ABP, 3/7/1939.Google Scholar

34 ABP, 7/7/1939, see the editorial.

35 ABP, 7, 10 July, 1939; Hindustan Times, 9/7/1939 and Times of India, 9/7/1939.Google Scholar

36 NMML, Purshotamdas Thakurdas Papers, file no. 220/1938–39, Ambalal to Thakurdas, 18/6/1938.