Sruthijith has a post asking why Indians are so instinctively socialist. He blames it on the fact that our universities and our academic institutions are seeped in leftist ideology.

I do not agree with him on that. Soviet propaganda wasn’t notably successful in the Soviet Union. When Russians saw that their lives were a sorry mess and completely at variance with what their books told them, the books, the ideology in them and the leaders who deceived them with this ideology became objects of ridicule. What is surprising at first glance is that such a thing did not happen in India. For this, as usual, I blame Nehru.

As I have explained earlier, Nehru did not embrace socialism fully. For this, he was excoriated by those to his left, i.e. the communists. Fortunately for his legacy, but unfortunately for the country, he set up a democracy and allowed free speech. Free speech ensured that people could criticise him, but usually the criticism was from the left.

As a result, even now, you will see people who claim, not that socialism had failed us, but that “We have failed to achieve socialism”. Now anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear should know that all attempts to “achieve socialism” have failed badly and the closer you got to “achieving” socialism, the more spectacular your failure. But because those Indians who say those things did not actually live in Stalin’s Russia or Mao’s China, they can deceive themselves with impunity.

Along the way, they changed the definition of socialism from standing for a certain set of policies (central planning, nationalisation of industries, etc.) to defining a certain set of results that those policies were supposed to achieve. Who can object to “equality”, “abolition of povery”, “social justice”? If an ideology stands for those things, it should be good by definition, shouldn’t it?

Both Nehruvian socialists and the communists were responsible for these word games. Communists said in effect “Hey Nehru, socialism is supposed to mean abolition of poverty, social justice and equality. None of these have been achieved. What kind of socialism is this?” Nehruvians in effect told the communists “Look, let’s not be dogmatic about the definition of socialism. If socialism is something that achieves equality, abolition of poverty and social justice, isn’t it possible that my policies will achieve them? Why do you stubbornly insist that your path of complete revolution is the right path?”

They were arguing but they had agreed on the fluffy definition of socialism, and it is this definition that stayed on in the public mind. Besides, this criticism ended up raising Nehru’s stature. Why? Because someone who wished to defend Nehru could claim with a straight face that he was a well meaning idealist who got some things wrong.

Another problem is democracy. You see, democratic governments very often take horrible decisions, but they usually manage to stave off utter disaster (as Amartya Sen points out.) In the 50s we were staring at starvation. Because we had a democratic government, some of the stupider policies were reversed and we had a green revolution. (Incidentally, the green revolution was not Nehru’s achievement. It was made possible by the fact that land ceilings were quietly relaxed in some places, making mechanisation possible. Land “reforms” were most “successful” in West Bengal. The Green Revolution was most successful in Punjab. That should tell you something.)

Likewise, in 1991, we were hurtling towards bankruptcy. If we had continued further, we would have been unable to pay for our imports. We wouldn’t have been able to buy oil. Our trucks would have ground to a halt. Our industries would have been shut down and our cities would have been starved of food. A government more committed to Nehru’s vision, such as that of the Soviet Union or of North Korea, would have held on to its policies regardless of such minor problems. But our democratic government shamefully abandoned His vision and changed course just enough to avoid hitting the barrier of bankruptcy.

Now perhaps my readers will naively think that by establishing democracy and tolerating free speech, Nehru did a good thing. But because of democracy’s maddening tendency to stave off disaster, our citizens do not have a clear appreciation of the real stupidity of Nehru’s policies. No one remembers the shortages and privations of 1991 because there weren’t any. But this also means that not many people understand how close we were to them.

If Nehru had established a dictatorship instead of an imperfect democracy, Indians would have starved, there would have been civil war and almost certainly India would have broken up. Socialism would have been as much a laughingstock in India as communism was in the Soviet Union.

And who knows, perhaps India might have come to its senses and taken a decisive turn towards capitalism rather than the furtive half-turn as it is taking now. So those who claim that Nehru’s policies were good for the long term even though they caused short term pain got it exactly wrong. His particular combination of policies ensured that India survived in the short term, but is condemned to hanging in Trishanku’s heaven for a long time to come.

This is one reason why I keep bashing up Nehru at every available opportunity. Unless we understand that his policies were completely wrong and also why they were wrong, we will forever feel guilty about abandoning his policies. We will go about the task in a half-hearted fashion.

There are other things that we capitalists can do to convey our message. I hope to take them up in a later post. But Nehru bashing is fun and easy, so you should all do it if you wish to carry forward the standard of capitalism. Don’t abuse him. Just criticise him and relentlessly point out all the mistakes he made.