In Defence of Freedom- Exciting Times and Quiet Meditations

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A collection of articles on social and economic issues published in Calcuttan newspapers and journals and elsewhere in India over the last fifty years. An engagement with the issues of the time emerges that allows the reader a perspective of the late twentieth century and the questions it raises for the future not only in India, not only in the "developing countries", but for every citizen of the world now and as it will be. But first and foremost the focus is on India, and West Bengal, where a Communist government has been in power for over twenty years, and where the problems of rural reconstruction and urban congestion can appear next to insoluble. The reader will meet the luminous figures of Gandhi and Tagore and Nehru as the story of Independence unfolds. It is the philosophical concerns underlying that story that are laid bare, concerns that lie at the heart of civilisation and its prospects in the light of a world that is increasingly nuclear- armed, where the gap between rich and poor does not diminish and the poor continue to live diminished lives, where consumerism brings a danger in its wake that is ignored in the flush of material benefits. Professor Datta's style is classically lucid and simple, his learning wide comprising the Western and Oriental intellectual traditions and his outlook more that of a man in the street than an academic. His aim is to clarify, so that people may see for themselves the choices facing society and each member of it. in India and beyond, for the next century. The following selection of his articles in English is taken from various book collections as indicated and includes a number of hitherto uncollected articles from the last decade.

Professor Amlan Datta, a well-known economist and educationist, started his career as university teacher in 1947 and became Head of the Department of Economics in Calcutta University in 1968. He was Pro Vice-chancellor of Calcutta University from 1972-74 and Vice-Chancellor of North Bengal University from 1974-77. He joined the Gandhian Institute of Studies as Director in 1978 and thereafter was Vice-Chancellor of Viswa-Bharati University, Santiniketan from 1980-84. He is a prolific writer on economic, social, political and philosophical subjects both in English and Bengali. His very first book For Democracy attracted the attention of scholars from all over the world. Professor Datta still travels widely on speaking engagements and is especially well known in Japan.

The essays collected in this volume were written at different dates stretching over a period of fifty years, the second half of the twentieth century. Some of these pieces were written when Stalin was still alive, some after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and the rest in the intervening period. While some of my ideas have stayed unaffected by the passage of time, others may be better understood if they are placed in their historical context.

When I started writing these essays, independent India had just started her experiment with democracy. The world at large was passing through the era of the "cold war". The Soviet economic model had considerable influence in India. Not a few people also saw virtue in the idea of the "dictatorship of the proletariat". I thought it was my public duty to help protect Indian democracy to the best of my ability from the contamination of these totalitarian fallacies. In fact, this was a matter of worldwide concern which explains the response I received from Bertrand Russell at that time. In a letter dated 28 July, 1953, he wrote: "I find myself in very complete agreement with your ideas, and I think that your arguments against communist dictatorship are such as ought to appeal to those who are hesitating."

Some of the leading issues of that time retain their relevance even today; some others have reappeared in a new form; still others, largely neglected previously, have now surfaced as problems of deep concern all over the globe. Let me illustrate. The threat of a nuclear holocaust, which dominated the consciousness of the post-War generation, continues to be relevant for India and the world even at the present moment. The danger of communist dictatorship has now receded only to be replaced by an equally intolerant brand of religious "fundamentalism" and so the attack on freedom of thought and expression has reappeared in another form. In recent decades, the problem of global warming and a possible ecological disaster has become a matter of deep concern for mankind in a manner unprecedented in earlier years.

Thus, there is both continuity and change in one's meditations on the contemporary crisis of civilisation. Old challenges as well as new constituted the setting in which I have had to review the question of non-violence and the reconstruction of human society for the sake of "the good life". As a writer who thought and wrote through the exciting years of a continuing struggle for power interwoven with a desperate search for peace and freedom, this book is my offering to those who will be interested to build a creative human fellowship in the twenty-first century.

Professor Amlan Datta, a well-known economist and educationist, has been acknowledged as a discerning author on issues of political and economic ideology and practice in independent India. He is not a dogmatic ideologue but has enduring humane convictions. No wonder, he has been opposed to both the dogmas which have been in fashion in the 20th century: the Soviet communist dogma of state capitalism and the Western dogma of market capitalism. Both tend to sacrifice humanism at the altar of economism. Both tend to be predatory. The former has broken down, bringing in its wake bad name to the humanist doctrines of socialism/ marxism, which were never really implemented. The latter staggers along, evolving and compromising with time (such as, through the mechanisms of 'democracy' and 'welfare state'). It remains nonetheless exploitative as it measures success by the potluck. While Gandhi placed human being at the centre, modern (now 'global') economism has 'GNP' and 'Profit' at the centre. So half a century of unprecedented prosperity and filching of scarce resources from Mother Nature has left the global society even more sharply divided among the Haves and Havenots. In India, the Freedom Movement had a vision of a nonviolent social order of Gandhian Swaraj of flourishing communities merging into ever-expanding concentric circles. Instead, over 50 years of Independence has produced unmanageable metropolitan cities choling with motor vehicles and their exhausts and slums, derelict towns, rivers converted into sewers, deforested countryside, and deprived rural population. Can any theory justify coexistence of rollicking prosperity, elitism, and waste (at public and private cost) with 30-40 percent population 'below poverty line', illiterate and undernourished? Obviously, political democracy too can turn out to be an instrument of social exploitation, a form of soft internal colonialism.

Gandhiji had warned just before his death that attaining political freedom was relatively easy and it would be far more difficult to attain economic, social and moral freedoms for even 'Unto this Last'. In present times, Amartya Sen is sensitizing Indians into expanding the concept of freedom to cover basic needs and capabilities of every citizen.

Professor Amlan Datta's collection of essays, published in newspapers, journals and volumes over the last fifty years, deals with myriad fields and aspects of human freedoms. In these essays, the reader will easily see an engagement with the long-term political, social and economic issues that offer to the reader a perspective of the late twentieth century. It raises questions for the future not only in India, not only in the developing countries, but for every citizen of the world, now and as it will be. But first and foremost the focus is on India and on West Bengal, where the problems of rural reconstruction and urban congestion seem to appear next to insoluble. The reader will meet the luminous figures of Gandhi and Tagore and Nehru as the story of Independence unfolds. It is the philosophical concerns underlying that story that are laid bare, concerns that lie at the heart of civilisation and its prospects in the light of a world that has to contend increasingly with the nuclear arms, the poor continuing to live diminished lives, and consumerism bringing a danger in its wake that is ignored in the flush of material benfits. Professor Amlan Datta's style is classically lucid and simple, his wide learning comprising both the Western and Oriental intellectual traditions and his outlook as much relevant for the academician as for the lay reader. His aim is to clarify, so that people may see for themselves the choices facing society and its each member for the new century.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages