My Memories of Ajit Roy

MY MEMORIES OF AJIT ROY

I was very happy to read Gabriel’s brief obituary of Ajit Roy.  Along with Gariel and Bass there are many many people who will remember Ajit Roy for his deep friendship and warm heartedness.  Ajit Roy came to us not only as a Marxist but as a deeply human and honourable person.  He earned a great respect and appreciation for his qualities as a person, intellectual and a Marxist.  He lived a very simple life.  In spite of moving all over the world and being recognized as a great intellectual who inspired scores of people, big and small, he lived a very simple of life with bare necessities.  I had visited him along with our mutual Dutch friend in Koltkata before he moved into his Salt Lake city flat.  This Dutch friend was totally bowled over after seeing the house and the life style of Ajit.  He did not expect Ajit to live in such simplicity.  “Could he not earn some advantage of his friendship with so many people, his intellectual position and his work to acquire a better place to live in?” he remarked.    This visit has made an indelible mark on both of us as we were able to penetrate into the person of Ajit Roy beyond his intellectual acumen and his position among the international intelligentsia.   In his very simple life style there was a great luxury of books and magazines in his house.  His store of books was slowly edging the members of the family to a cramp accommodation.  When he moved to the simple flat at the Salt Lake City his books had to be given one of the only two bed rooms there were in the flat. 

I met Ajit Roy for the first time in 1976, soon after the declaration of Emergency in India.  This was a very critical phase in Indian politics and for the left in particular.  We were very eager to listen to his analysis of the situation of emergency.  While many felt Indira Gandhi had turned fascist, he tried to warn us of a wrong characterization of emergency as a fascist phase.  His view was if we equate Indira Gandhi’s emergency with emergence of fascism then we may mistake the fascist forces to be democratic and get misled into supporting the real fascist forces.  He drew a clear distinction between authoritarian rule and a fascist rule.  While he tried to show us the pitfalls of the Indian economic and political situation he always showed us the brighter signs of emergence of people’s movements in different social sectors.  He was confident that people’s power would defeat the emergency of Indira Gandhi.

After the collapsed of the Soviet Union we had invited Ajit Roy for a workshop in Penukonda, Andhra Pradesh.  There were other Marxists friends who participated in the workshop.  Many of the Marxists believed that it was the end of the dream for socialism.  They felt that Socialism is a utopia and capitalism is here to stay.  They held that we should make best of capitalism to improve the lives of the poor within this system.  Ajit Roy relying on the methodology of dialectics tried to convince people that “the history does not end with capitalism and the socialist path is not identical with the path that the Soviet Union had followed”.  It was a historical necessity for the Soviet era to end so that a search for new path for socialism would begin.

Ajit Roy was born on 14 November 1920.  He did his high school and college education in Dhaka district of the erstwhile East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). He was a student of the Dhaka University from where he did his graduation and post-graduation in Economics. However, he did not appear for the final MA exams.

Ajit Roy’s ancestors were landlords in Dhaka district for several generations. However, due to prolonged litigation between two sections of the family, by the time Ajit Roy’s father had reached his adolescence, most of the property was gone. His father had to fend for himself all the way. He became a school teacher and was widely admired and respected. Ajit Roy’s parents were unusually modern in their outlook and extremely secular.  Ajit Roy and his siblings (two elder sisters and one younger brother) grew up in a very liberal family atmosphere.

Ajit Roy joined the Communist Party in 1940 and became its full-fledged member in 1941. He was Vice-President of the Provincial Students’ Federation during 1945. He became a party journalist in 1946, first as a reporter and then as a member of the editorial board of the party’s Bengali organ, Swadhinata. In 1946, under the direction of the late P C Joshi, the then General Secretary of CPI, along with another comrade, he was sent to Pune to meet Gandhiji and take his interview.

In 1949 he was expelled from the party as he opposed the Left sectarian line adopted by the party under the leadership of B T Ranadive. He was readmitted to the party after a couple of years as the political line of the party changed under a new leadership. Ajit Roy was elected as a member of the Calcutta District Committee of the CPI in 1955.

In November 1962 there were sharp differences within the Communist Party.  In July 1964 the break away faction of the Party formed themselves into a new Party, The Communist Party of India (Marxist) in a meeting in Tenali, Andhra Pradesh.  Ajit Roy was the saddest person when the Communist Party India was split.  He did not believe in two communist parties working for socialism.  He strongly argued within the CPI against the split and emphasised the need to remain united. He believed in the inner party democracy and open discussion within the party.  He held that all difference among the members could be addressed.  He even went to the extent to assert that the health of the party would be proved by living with differences of opinion within its members.  Though occupying a good position in the party he chose to remain outside the communist party rather than join any faction of the party and become party to the split in the party.

Immediately after the split in the party with a small group of comrades he started a monthly review under the name “The Marxist Review” and argued his position against the split. The Marxist Review was an independent political venture – that continued till 2004. 

Ajit Roy used his independent position to interact with all Marxists within the party and outside the party.  He had great hopes from the left oriented action groups in India and constantly interacted with them.  He worked incessantly for a non sectarian politics. 

In the fifties he was also associated with the Indian Statistical Institute. In the early eighties, Ajit Roy joined the Rome-based Permanent People’s Tribunal, a successor to Bertrand Russel Tribunal, as a jury. He also came in touch with the Communist Parties of Italy, France, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden.

Ajit Roy considered himself a true Leninist but he did not consider Leninism as a dogma.  Lenin evolved politics from the specific economic and political situation in Russia.  He believed that the Marxist needed to have flexibility to evolve politics from the situation in India in the context of International politics.  He understood that Lenin had an advantage of success of Russian revolution through which Bolshevik came to power.  But later revolutionaries had to face defeats and repression.  Antonio Gramsci was one such revolutionary who had come out with insights relevant to the situation of defeat of revolutionary struggle in Italy.  Inspired by Gramsci’s experience and insights, Ajit Roy believed that the civil society has a greater role in the transformation of the society than just the so called vanguard revolutionary party.  He analysed different civil society members’ movement across the world and drew lessons of the relevance of civil society.  Unless there is consensus among the civil society revolution will be a dictatorship.  Unless the party is deeply rooted in the society and involved in the task of building such consensus among the civil society it will be a sterile party that will produce only violence and bloodshed.  His great appreciation of Gramsci’s ideas resulted in he writing a book on Gramsci in Bengali.

Long before the Soviet Union had moved away from Stalin Ajit Roy had exposed Stalin and his dictatorial policies.  He was very critical of the succesive presidents of the Soviet Union but was hoping that someone would emerge in Soviet Union who would bring it to the right path.  He welcomed very enthusiastically Gorbachev’s attempt at Glasnost and Perestroika.  He had given lectures to several gatherings on the essence of Gorbachev’ policies and he thought it would open up the Soviet society and bring about political freedom so that the civil society will go along with the development of the Soviet Union.  Ajit Roy did not consider Gorbachev at fault for the breakup of the Soviet Union.  He was convinced that Mr. Boris Yeltsin brought about the ruin of Soviet Union.

Ajit Roy vehemently campaigned for disarmament and against nuclear weapons.  To put an end to the arms race he wanted the Soviet Union to unilaterally disarm itself.  He had faith that if Soviet Union disarmed itself of nuclear arms there would be no attack on Soviet Union from America and the Capitalist block and the Soviet Union would become stronger.   Disarmament by Soviet Union would take the sting out of the American arms.  His analysis went further.  He believed that America used USSR as an excuse to go for massive production of arms.  But the real purpose of  American arms production was to solve the crisis within the American Capitalism.

Ajit Roy has authored around 10 books in English and a few in Bengali. He also used to contribute to the Economic and Political Weekly.   

“The Management Accountant”, Calcutta has this to say about Ajit Roy’s writing.  “Ajit is among those rare breed of Indian Intellectuals who would form their conclusion on the basis of a serious study of the facts of the Indian situation and not try to fit the facts into their pre-conceived notions.”

I would like to mention a few of his books.

“ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN INDIA SINCE INDEPENDENCE” (1961)

“PLANNIN IN INDIA – ACHIEVEMENTS AND PROBLEMS” (1965).

“ECONOMICS AND POLITICS OF US FOREIGN AID” (1966).

“A MARXIST COMMENTARY  ON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN INDIAN – 1951-1965” (19670)

“THE MONOPOLY CAPITAL IN INDIA” (1976).  Monopolistic developments at the apex of the so called organized sector of the Indian economy attracted attention of Indian economists decades ago.  But invariably the commentators noted one aspect of the phenomenon only – centralization – and generally considered the whole thing as some sort of an abnormality.    Ajit Roy’s “Indian Monopoly Capital – a Brief Outline, published in 1953 was the first analytical work on this phenomenon based on a comprehensive Marxist methodology.  He revealed that Indian monopoly capital, as well as its somewhat abnormal features, were the normal outgrowth of capitalist development in the specific historical conditions.  For the last quarter century Roy has continued his investigations into the phenomenon and has published the results periodically in the form of papers, articles, and even chapters in his various works.  In this volume, he has brought together the more important results of his continuous study.”

“ECONOMICS AND POLITICS OF GARIBI HATAO” (1973).   The Sunday Hindusthan Standard, Calcutta comments on this book “... the mass of factual data presented and the sharp and penetrating analysis of the effects of many of the current policies of the government will prove of great value.”  Economic Times, Bombay comments, “The author quotes extensively from published reports to show the appalling dimensions of mass poverty...”

“POLITICAL POWER IN INDIA – NATURE AND TRENDs”, (1975)  Commenting on this book, Iapan, Canada says, “In contrast to what passes in the name of social science in India today, Ajit Roy’s timely study is both welcome and stimulating.”  The Economic Times, New Delhi states, “Ajit Roy rightly argues that emergency and administrative measures cannot solve economic problems which demand structural change and hence political action.  In this context, his prognostication would seem to have some relevance.”

“INDIA IN THE ‘SEVENTIES’” (1978).

“EURO-COMMUNISM”,

“ASPECTS OF WORLD POLITICS”.

“On Marxists Theory and Practice, from Stalin and Mao to Gorbachev and Deng” (1992)  “The collapse of the mighty Soviet power, enjoying the loyalty of vast masses the world over with dedicated communist at the van, has deep roots going back to the Bolshevik Revolution.  The predicaments of China today is reflected in her professions of loyalty to Marxism apparently contradicted by the subjection of the Chinese people to growing exploitation by international capital and budding bourgeoisie, accompanied by the even like the Tiennmen tragedy of June 1989.  Many differences not withstanding, there is a profound identity at the roots of the crisis in the Soviet Union and China – in the absence of an adequate base of a self acting working class.  This runs through the selected analytical studies made between 1976 and 1989 and presented here by the well Marxist writer and editor of the Marxist Review.  Concurrently there emerges from these analyses a robust faith in an early regrouping of socialist forces the world over based on a renewed understanding of Marxism.

Ajir Roy was a regular visitor to Bangalore and gave innumerable lectures to the activists who used to come to the Indian Social Institute, Bangalore for training.

Ajit Roy was a very close friend and a mentor for me and my family.  We will treasure the memory of the moments he spent with us in our place.