Opinion From land reforms to pollution, we must reclaim Chaudhary Charan Singh’s political philosophy
From agrarian reform and rural–urban inequality to social justice and sustainability, Charan Singh’s ideas offer urgent lessons for contemporary India
Singh’s politics reminds us that contemporary politics needs to include the rural, rather than leave it behind (Express Archives) I have flown from the UK to attend a conference on the late Chaudhary Charan Singh at my alma mater, the University of Delhi. The conference aims to do more than commemorate Singh’s legacy by placing his relevance in contemporary politics. Irrespective of our political leanings, I believe that an understanding of Singh is needed, as his politics resists comfortable categorisation as left or right. They take us to a time when the rural was still at the heart of Indian politics after Gandhian interventions, but its role in the postcolonial nation-state was being debated by leaders across political parties. However, it would be wrong to contain his legacy merely as that of a leader advocating the centrality of villages. His politics was firmly anchored in a dynamic understanding of rural and urban, caste and class, capitalism and socialism, agrarian and industry, intellectualism and political leadership. As India experiences the challenges of climate change, peasants’ demands for MSP, the dominance of urban India in popular media, and the persistence of “the rural” at the heart of the Indian economy, not only do we need to remember Singh on his birth anniversary, but also understand his ideas, which may help us to reflect on our own predicaments.
Singh was a follower of Gandhi’s principles and built upon the notion of Gandhian political economy, stressing small-scale and localised economic production. Standing against the Nehruvian model of big industry-led economic development, Singh highlighted the centrality of village economies. He famously remarked that the path to the nation’s prosperity runs through its fields and granaries. The rural, for him, did not exist in a vacuum, but was actively shaped by the politics of the urban. He saw the increasing neglect of rural India as a class conflict between urban elites and the rural poor, small peasants, and big landlords. Born into a tenant farmer’s family in a Meerut village, Singh understood India through his experiences. Instead of following US models of agrarian scientific education or the Soviet-style economy, Singh emphasised solutions that underscored India’s food crisis, rural–urban divide, unemployment, poverty, illiteracy, corruption, and social inequalities. His various writings—Abolition of Zamindari (1947), Joint Farming X-Rayed: The Problems and its Solutions (1959), India’s Poverty and its Solution (1964), Economic Nightmare of India: Its Causes and Cure (1981), among others—are testaments to his intellectual churnings. As a newly elected member of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly in 1946, he played a crucial role in framing the Zamindari Abolition and Land Reforms Bill, which was made law in 1952. This radical act of land reform during his tenure as revenue minister made the landless tenant a permanent owner of land.
Charan Singh was appointed to the United Provinces’ Legislative Assembly during the 1937 provincial government formation by the Congress. Elected at the age of 35, he introduced two landmark bills in the provincial government. One advocated a loan waiver for farmers, a long-standing commitment of the Congress, and the other proposed 50 per cent reservation in government jobs for peasants’ children. His rationale for such a radical stand emanated from his understanding that agriculture contributed over 80 per cent to the state’s revenue. After the Congress party’s Nagpur Resolution in January 1959, where collective/cooperative farming was proposed, he parted ways.
Singh pioneered a model of decentralised village economy, focusing on small land-owning peasants, small industries, and intensive agricultural production. His critique of big industry-led and urban-tilted development grew from an understanding of India’s peculiarities and postcolonial trajectory, which had to accommodate a large rural population. The rural, the peasant, and the migrant continue to be on the periphery of policymaking and popular discourse, not necessarily just in terms of their issues being raised, but also in terms of their representation in high politics. The lack of peasant leaders in national politics should bring us closer to Singh’s work and help us understand how rural disparities afflict even our current political visions.
During his tenure as Home Minister in the Janata Party government (1977–1979), Singh laid the groundwork for institutionalising backward class reservations. There was a shift in his thinking on affirmative action in government employment from one based on class to caste. In his later years, he championed the cause of the backward classes. Singh’s insistence led to the formation of the Mandal Commission, which provided a detailed framework for affirmative action policies. Though Singh could not see the implementation of the Commission’s recommendations, his efforts paved the way for V. P. Singh’s historic decision to enact them in 1989. Between July 1979 and January 1980, Charan Singh became the Prime Minister of India for a brief spell in a politically unstable environment. His social justice politics sharpened in the 1980s. In September 1979, he formed the Lok Dal by merging the Janata Party (Secular), the Socialist Party, and the Orissa Janata Party. Reservations for BCs and SCs/STs formed a key component of the Lok Dal manifesto in 1980 and 1984.
Over the years, while urban growth has been phenomenal, the population in rural areas has also increased. The rural has persisted, changed, and become more important than it was in the past. Singh’s politics reminds us that contemporary politics needs to include the rural, rather than leave it behind. Its complexities, the interdependence between urban and rural areas, social disparities, and class dynamics must be understood in the current phase of the Indian economy. As the environmental crisis of air pollution cripples our nation, Singh’s agricultural advocacy for small production and fair prices for agrarian produce aligns closely with the current emphasis on sustainable agriculture.
The writer is assistant professor in History at the University of Nottingham, UK
Share
