On “Socialist Communist Interaction in India” by Madhu Limaye

MADHU LIMAYE

A few months earlier to George Fernandes’s 60th birthday (3rd June 1990), I met Johan Galtung, Professor of Peace Studies, University of Hawaii and Research Coordinator, UN University in Delhi and he suggested to bring out festschrift volume in honour of our dear George Fernandes with the title Dignity for All. Subsequently, I discussed this idea with Madhu Ji and he encouraged me to go ahead.

I requested Madhu Limaye Ji to contribute an essay to Dignity for All, one of the festschrifts, he began to write on a hitherto un researched subject: Socialist Communist Interaction in India. The other contributors of the volume included: Willy Brandt, Johan Galtung, Rabi Ray, Rajni Kothari, Nikhil Chakravarty, U R Ananthamurthy, H K Paranjape, and so on. Madhu Limaye Ji began writing for the volume. Soon I got a call from him. Madhu Limaye Ji told me that he would like to write a volume on this subject and not just an article. I was delighted. His writings blossomed into a full-fledged book.

On the subject of socialist-communist interaction in India, none other than Madhu Limaye could have written with such authority. According to Limaye: In this volume the focus is not on the world communist movement but on India. But in the background of the Socialist-Communist interaction in India, one should never forget, there have always lurked the developments in the international communist movement. He has combined in this study a historian’s penchant for narrative and painstaking detail, and a political analyst’s ability to link the ongoing events at the macro level with personal experiences.

Thus, the festschrift volume is an invaluable and insightful account of the complex relationship between two highly significant political movements socialism and communism Socialist Communist Interaction in India. Madhu Limaye takes the reader through the twists and turns of events from the times Marx comes to India to the realignment in the early 1990s of forces to the Left of Centre.

In the Preface of this volume Madhu Limaye wrote in March 1991:

I have returned to this theme exactly after four decades. My Communist Party: Facts and Fiction, was published in early 1951. These forty years have seen vast changes in the USSR and Eastern Europe, as also in China, Vietnam, Mongolia and Cuba, the non-European Communist states. Many Communist Parties in Europe have abandoned several long-held beliefs and postulates such as Dictatorship of the Proletariat, one-party state, and centralized party structure. These had come to epitomize the modern version of Marxism-Leninism.

In the volume the focus was not on the world communist movement but on India. However, in the background of the Socialist-Communist interaction in India, one should never forget, there have always lurked the developments in the international communist movement.

Madhu Limaye’s vast contributions on the theme both in English, Marati and Hindi are highly relevant even in the present day politics. On the 50th anniversary of the Quit India Movement, he, who belonged to the last generation of freedom fighters, looked at some facets of that movement in his important book: August Struggle: An Appraisal of Quit India Movement. Madhu Limaye discussed the relevance of what happened on August 9, 1942 and thereafter. This book also includes selections from the writings of Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Jayaprakash Narayan, Rammanohar Lohia and Mrs. Aruna Asaf Ali. It sets out Aruna Asaf Ali’s views on the role of the Indian Communists in the August struggle. 

In the Foreword to this book George Fernandes wrote: Madhu Limaye, who has authored this little book on some facets of that struggle, belongs to that generation of freedom fighters who in 1942 were in the prime of their youth. They were full of dreams of fighting for an independent and egalitarian India in which land would be owned by the tillers and the workers would be treated as partners in common nation-building endeavours, and would be enabled to live a life of dignity. They dreamt of a vibrant and prosperous India, at peace with itself and with its neighbours.


Madhu Limaye passed away on 8th January 1995. Even after more than 30 years, the lamps he lighted giving vast rays of inspiration to the political activists and students. I hope this volume will be a step forward in promoting the ideas and values for which Madhu Limaye struggled throughout his life. No doubt, the life and work of Madhu Limaye will be a great source of inspiration for the future generations and his legacy will be remembered forever in India.

George Mathew is Director, Institute of Social Sciences, New Delhi. The founder of the Institute of Social Sciences, he has been on the forefront of research on and promotion of democratic decentralisation in India and has taken a leading role in the international forum on federalism. His major publications include Panchayati Raj: From Legislation to Movement (1994, 2002), Communal Road to a Secular Kerala (1990) and Panchayati Raj in Jammu and Kashmir (edited, 1990). He has also produced an award-winning feature film, Swaraj: The Little Republic (2002)

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