Madhu Dandavate was considered quite a good Railway Minister under Morarji- he made second class seats more comfortable- but failed as Finance Minister in VP Singh's government. He lost his seat in 1991 and faded out of politics. By then, people realized that the Indian Socialists were useless. It had been a mistake to split the Janata party over 'dual membership'. Instead of marginalizing the RSS, it made the BJP the natural successor to a squabbling Janata Parivar and a corrupt and incompetent Congress.
Ram Guha, quite predictably, doesn't get that both Mahdus- Limaye and Dandavate- were useless tossers.
He writes in Scroll.In
In the age of Hindutva,
Indian politicians should try to be very sweet and nice to Hindus
why Madhu Dandavate’s legacy must be cherished
Opposition should cherish useless tossers so as to lose elections by a wider margin.
Passion is momentary but compassion is more enduring, the Socialist leader wrote.
The compassion of a useless tosser is itself useless.
The Indian Socialist tradition is now moribund,
like every other Socialist tradition because the thing was stupid shit.
but there was a time when it had a profound and mostly salutary influence on politics and society.
It helped keep the country poor and under the control of a corrupt and incompetent dynasty. Madhu himself contributed to V.P Singh's political demise.
Yet few people now know of its past vigour and dynamism.
Useless tossers used to get elected because elected politicians were almost wholly useless. This has become more difficult because voters want 'last mile delivery' of essential goods and services.
The Congress, the Communists, the regional parties, the Ambedkarites, and (especially in recent years) the Jana Sangh and the Bharatiya Janata Party – all have had their chroniclers and cheerleaders who have traced their respective ideological lineages and written biographies, and sometimes hagiographies, of their major leaders.
Sensible people don't read that shit.
Not so the Indian Socialists, who, for the most part, have been ill-served by Indian historians.
Indian historians are utterly shit.
This is as good a time as any to remember the Socialists, not least because the centenary of the birth of one of their finest representatives falls later this month. This is Madhu Dandavate, who was born on January 21, 1924.
Thanks to Socialist ideology, Dandavate Sahib succeeded in getting born. This great accomplishment should be cherished. Furthermore the fact that no less a personage than his own Mummy graced the auspicious occasion is a fulsome tribute to Dandavate Sahib's commitment to Gender empowerment even of people wot don't got no dicks.
As a student in Bombay, Dandavate was deeply inspired by the ideals of the Congress Socialist Party and by its charismatic leaders such as Jayaprakash Narayan, Ram Manohar Lohia, and Yusuf Meherally.
They wanted the Brits to fuck off. Then, the Brits fucked off. No doubt, they would have wanted the Hindus to fuck off too. They didn't get their wish. On the other hand, one could say that JP and Lohia helped the RSS and Jan Sangh to rise in politics. Meherally could not do so because he was dead.
The Congress Socialist Party thought the mainstream Congress too conservative on questions of economic justice and women’s rights.
Congress was the party of the high caste Hindus as Gandhi acknowledged in 1939
At the same time, it also distanced itself from the Communist Party of India, which was tied to the apron strings of the Soviet Union. The Socialist/Communist divide starkly surfaced during the Quit India movement of 1942, which the Socialists supported and the Communists opposed.
Because Hitler had invaded the Soviet Union.
Ideologically speaking, the Socialists radically differed from the Communists on three counts. First, the Communists worshipped Stalin and Russia whereas the Socialists (rightly) saw Stalin as a dictator and Russia as a dictatorship.
More importantly, the Socialists knew they would be the first to be slaughtered if the Commies came to power.
Second, the Communists exalted the role of violence whereas the Socialists preferred non-violence in settling political disputes.
The Socialists thought they could come to power through the ballot box. There was some notion that Nehru would anoint JP as his successor. Sadly, JP went crazy and became a disciple of Vinobha and his crack-pot 'Bhoodan' movement.
Third, the Communists believed in the centralisation of economic and political power whereas the Socialists advocated decentralisation in both spheres.
What they advocated was the eradication of economic and political power. They were deeply committed to doing stupid shit.
In marking themselves out from the Communists, the Socialists were inspired by Mahatma Gandhi.
i.e. their heads were full of shit.
As Madhu Dandavate wrote in his book, Marx and Gandhi: “Gandhi’s opposition to violent methods was based on his respect for human life.
Gandhi said the Brits must hand over the Indian Army to Congress before fucking the fuck off. Otherwise, the Muslims and the Punjabis would grab everything and enslave the non-violent Hindus.
For the follies of the system, the individuals who act as the limbs of the system, must not be penalised or destroyed was his insistence…
So, if the postman rapes you, you should not put up a fight. The folly is that of the Post Master General. You should send him a letter of rebuke- unless, of course, this involves being beaten and raped by the chaps at the post office counter.
Gandhi had learnt from experience that in violent revolutions there is no real involvement of the widest sections of the people: a minority participates in a revolution and the microscopic minority that wields power installs a dictatorship in the name of the people.”
Gandhi could not have learnt this from any experience of his own.
In the same book, Dandavate further remarked: “Gandhi’s political and economic perspective grew out of his
getting money from Indian mill-owners to pretend to care deeply about handloom weavers while encouraging the boycott of British cloth
desire to usher in a genuine non-violent democratic society in which
nobody would have sex. JP and Kripalani didn't get to fuck their wives. Sad.
there was no room for coercion and for man becoming an appendage of [the] State or of technology.
You are an appendage of your I-phone. I feel sorry for you. Indeed, my sorrow is so great that I've decided to steal it from you.
It was for this reason that he was not much enamoured of communism that borrowed for production the technology of capitalism but strived to change only the relations of production.”
Don't use electricity and don't travel by train or bus. Technology is very evil.
After Independence, the Congress Socialists left the parent Congress and started a party of their own.
This was not a fun party. It was deeply boring.
This underwent several splits and reunifications in subsequent years. Whether divided or united, whether in power or out of power, whether at the Centre or in the states, the Socialists played a significant role in enriching political debates in the decades of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.
They played a role in making the country relatively poorer and weaker than it had been under the British.
Their leaders such as Lohia and JP were known and admired all across India.
While Uncle Sam refilled India's begging bowl.
Among the party’s notable features was their strong commitment to gender equality.
i.e. they were eunuchs.
Indeed, as compared to the Congress, the Jana Sangh, and even the Communists, the Socialists stand out for the number of remarkable women leaders they produced – among them Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay,
who was not a Socialist and not a political leader.
Mrinal Gore and Madhu Dandavate’s wife, Pramila.
None made much of a mark. Mrinal could have been Health Minister under Morarji. Durga Bhagwat blamed her for the Janata split and the two parted ways.
The Socialists were also very active in the cultural sphere, especially in theatre and music, and in the civil rights and environmental movements.
If everybody shouts loudly enough, the Government will be obliged to give everybody millions of dollars. Why did Shakespeare not understand this? Genuine Art must be about demanding that the Government abolish Death, Disease, Poverty, Sadness and smelly farts.
Like his early hero, JP, Madhu Dandavate was a person of moral and physical courage. Like Lohia, he was a scholar. Like NG Goray, SM Joshi and Sane Guruji (all icons of his), he seamlessly blended his love of Maharashtra with his love for India.
Dandavate and Goray were capable people. Sadly their party split on the 'dual membership' question thus permitting Indira to return and set up her own Dynasty.
Yet, even among his fellow Socialists, Dandavate stands out for one reason,
he wasn't utterly shit as a Minister- at least the first time around.
namely, that he left an enduring practical legacy by helping to improve the lives of hundreds of millions of Indians.
Not really. He initiated a couple of schemes which were carried forward by his successors. Indira thought he'd done a good job as Railway Minister and hinted she could use his services.
This was through his work as Union railways minister in the first Janata government. In a brief tenure of two years, Dandavate had a profound impact. He rebuilt the trust between the State and the railway unions (that had been eroded by the strike of 1974 and its suppression by Indira Gandhi’s government), began the process of computerisation and, perhaps most significantly, elevated the second-class section of passenger trains by having a soft foam topping placed on its hard wooden slats. This last innovation has by now made billions of railway journeys far more comfortable than they would otherwise have been.
It took about a decade for this to be rolled out fully. Still, people were amazed that a Socialist wasn't utterly useless.
The first train with these safer and more comfortable seats was flagged off on December 26, 1977. It ran between Bombay and Calcutta (and back). The Railway Board wanted to call it the Eastern Express. It was the minister who chose the inspired name, Gitanjali Express, and had portraits of Rabindranath Tagore hung inside the train.
My own suggestion that it be named 'Orgasm Express' and that it be adorned with Playboy centre-folds was rejected by Madhu who felt that people would experience greater sexual arousal by looking at a portrait of a bearded Bengali gentleman. I have to confess, Dandavate was right.
Dandavate was without question the best railways minister the country has had.
Shastri is generally awarded that title. Jagjivan Ram was considered the best administrator.
Indeed, only a handful of cabinet ministers have had a comparable transformative impact, for the good of India and Indians. They include Vallabhbhai Patel as home minister between 1947 and 1950, C Subramaniam as agriculture minister between 1964 and 1967, and Manmohan Singh as finance minister between 1991 and 1996.
Dandavate might have shaped up to be a good administrator. His reign was too short to leave much of a mark.
In a later Janata government, Dandavate served as finance minister, when, in his budget speech of 1990, he paid particular attention to the environmental challenge. “The threat to our environment can no more be ignored,” he remarked: “It has been estimated that around 139 million hectares of land is degraded through soil erosion, salinity, total loss of tree cover, etc. Our forests are under pressure from a variety of sources. In urban areas, air and water pollution from industry transport and other sources is widespread. A healthy environment is part of the quality of life and a productive environment is the basis for development. Our emphasis on rural development and decentralisation will allow us to integrate environmental considerations into the design of development.”
Madhu spooked the financial markets though ultimately it was VP who sowed the seeds of his own destruction.
Sadly, these warnings have been ignored by later governments whose emphasis on unbridled capitalism and obsession with mega projects have wreaked devastation on our environment, burdening present and future generations with dangerously high levels of air and water pollution, depleting aquifers, degraded forests, toxic soils, and more.
As Indira pointed out, poor people are pretty good at degrading the fuck out of the environment all by themselves.
Let me offer one last Dandavate quote, likewise with a markedly contemporary resonance. This comes from the Introduction to his memoirs, and is dated July 1, 2005, when he was in his eighties. Here he says: “The 1984 anti-Sikh riots,
which were a factor in Rajiv winning the biggest Parliamentary majority in Indian history
the demolition of the Babri Masjid
which put the BJP on the path to hegemony at the centre
and arson, murders and looting in Gujarat
a gift which keeps giving to Narendra Modi
during the recent communal holocaust struck a heavy blow to secularism.
Because everybody thinks secularism is virtue signalling shite.
The spirit of religious tolerance, which was nurtured with great care during India’s freedom struggle,
such great care that over a million were killed during Partition
lay in shambles.
in 1947. This guy had his head up his arse
However, from the ashes of these shambles will one day arise the edifice of harmonious India.
Modi's India is plenty harmonious.
Passion is momentary but compassion is more enduring.”
Religion is enduring. Secularism, like Socialism, is a fad which has had its day.
Now, with Hindutva so hegemonic in our politics, those who stand for compassion and fraternity must work ever harder to justify Dandavate’s optimism of the will.
By writing stupid shit.
I began my column by observing that as compared to the attention paid to the Congress, the Communists, and the Hindutvavadis, the Socialists had been neglected by scholars.
Indian historians are cretins. They are incapable of scholarship.
This may be because their recent history has been less noble, with one set of self-described Socialists providing legitimacy to Hindutva and another set founding dynastic parties handed over from father to son.
Indira was a Socialist. Sonia has an affinity with the Left.
Nonetheless, for a decade before Independence, and at least for three decades afterwards, the Socialists represented a political trend characterised by intellectual innovation as well as by personal courage.
No. Indian Socialists were quixotic shitheads who couldn't make up their minds whether they were for Marx or the Mahatma.
We still await a proper history of Indian socialism, of its rise and maturity, of its manifold contributions to intellectual and public life, and of its descent and degradation.
Once Nehru forced Congress to embrace a Socialist agenda, the Indian Socialists were outflanked. All they could do was run around like headless chickens claiming to be more Gandhian than Thou. What they forgot was that Gandhi believed in transmigration. Embrace khaddar and Ahimsa and abstain from Sex and you will be reborn on a paradisal planet where everybody lives happily for a trillion years.
However, at least in terms of biographical studies, there are now promising signs. In 2022, Rahul Ramagundam published a well-researched study of the incident-filled life of George Fernandes.
It must be said, Fernandes lived an interesting, albeit ludicrous, life.
I have been reading in manuscript Nico Slate’s compelling biography of Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, due to be published later this year.
I suppose some Americans may be interested in the woman for whom their Veep was named. I'm kidding. Comatose Kamala is of no interest to anybody.
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