When India became free the entire population was united with a single purpose in mind. To re-build the nation where everyone would have an equal opportunity to live as human beings and collectively commit for the creation of a better society. In this process of commitment for future struggle two specific groups of people had played most significant roles because they had the maximum grass-root relationship with common people of India. They were the Gandhian-Congress-combine and the Communists. Consequently in the events that unfolded and the parliamentary structure that evolved, these two groups had the maximum strength and participatory opportunity. Congress party became the rulers and the Communists the main opposition. Their common objective was to work out a reasonable democratic structure and programme which would produce social equality and economic justice for all.

After 50 years what is the result today? The Congress party looks dissipated, bankrupt, brainless, spineless and has become directionless. The Communists have also become weak, ineffective and disintegrated. It provided the political opportunists with no vision to run a country so vast and big, to grab power.

The situation changed with National Democratic Alliance coming to power under the leadership of a great nationalistic and broad-minded leader Atal Behari Vajpayee. But the economic and political philosophy with which the NDA is administering the country has raised quite a few eyebrows. Swadeshi Jagaran Manch has taken courageous stand in opposing some aspects of the economic policy adopted by the Government. In other words, its approach and philosophy has direct relationship with the aspirations of the poor millions of our people.

The Congress is primarily responsible for pushing the country back into the trap of neo-colonialism. While the traditional Gandhians and the Communists have failed to raise the flag of revolt, the SJM is determined to do it in a systematic and convincing manner. Therefore now it is essential that these three powerful groups in the Indian society must come together and evolve a common agenda for national action. If this does not happen soon, it will be difficult for India to extricate itself from the clutches of IMF, WB and WTO by dominated western imperialism.

The Gandhians basically believe in the decentralisation of power right upto the village level so that the 80 per cent of the people would be adequately empowered to make their own decisions. They also believe in the inevitable need for urgent and purposeful land reforms without which the miserable plight of the peasants cannot be improved. But most of the Gandhians have lost their power of radical thinking and collective social actions. The older ones have satisfied themselves by becoming unproductive heads of institutions as insecure mathadhipatis. The younger ones are mostly absorbed by the NGO culture because it provides them with certain amount of social and economic security. Thus, only very few young Gandhians are left in the field to share the miseries of common people and take up some direct responsibility for action.

The Communists have virtually split themselves into many factions and much of their time is spent in finding fault with the others and scheming against one another. Few extremists among them know only how to kill and get killed. They have failed to provide real political education to themselves as well as to the working class movement. Their trade union wings are fully satisfied with unproductive fights for achieving their exclusive narrow purposes such as wage increase, job guarantee, promotion, etc. Even though they swear by Marx, Lenin, Mao, etc, they have not correctly understood the political philosophy of all those leaders.

The political and economic philosophy of Marx and his scientific interpretation of society are very much alien to the present process of thinking and action of trade union activists. Our Communists have also failed to build up a proper nation-wide consistent relationship and alliance with the peasantry. Therefore the masses have lost confidence in them. They have become compromisers and fighters for their own exclusive nominal existence rather than struggling for the total social change. Moreover, all various splinter groups of Communists have their leadership fighting against one another without any broader outlook.

Faced with the present predicament, through which the country is sailing, it has understood the true spirit of swadeshi and swavalamban. These are the two simple but powerful economic principles that governed the entire Gandhian movement before Independence. The SJM is sincerely trying to re-introduce that spirit of freedom struggle into the present globalisation-intoxicated Indian official economic thinking. Its sincerity of purpose and patriotic spirit cannot be questioned. But both the conventional Gandhians and rigid Communists do not seem to be trusting the SJM and its objectives.

Since basically all of them are influenced by the swadeshi and swavalamban spirit, in the larger interest of the country their joint efforts and action is very necessary. Together they can create a phenomenal political among in the masses. Together they can formulate an equitable economic agenda for the country. Together they have plenty of talents and resources among themselves to articulate and explain a convincing manifesto to the nation. If they do this within a couple of years they could become the torch-bearers on a new civilisational approach to India's socio-economic-political future. They have nothing to lose but their separatist egos.

(The author is Executive Trustee, India Development Foundation, Bangalore.)