the Congress’s statement of its economic objectives had not exactly been
precise; it spoke of the need for ‘social justice and equality’, the impor-
tance, ‘as far as possible’, of ‘national and regional economic efficiency’,
and the necessity to ensure that ‘democracy extends from the political
to the social and economic spheres’. References to effective control over
local affairs by village-level committees or Panchayatscould be seen as a
concession to the Gandhians. The statement maintained that ‘democracy
in the modern age necessitates planned central directions as well as decen-
tralisation of political and economic power, in so far as this is compatible
with the safety of the State, with efficient production and the cultural
progress of the community as a whole.’^24 The rhetoric of the period
strongly stressed the need for collective and disciplined national progress,
for production before distribution could be achieved, and consequently
for harmonious industrial relations. Change would come, but it would be
relatively gradual, consensual, and rely on the education of the masses and
the initiatives of the state. Vested interests would be chipped away by the
authority of the state, represented by the national government, which in
effect was the Congress.
Integral to these plans was the acceptance of the myth of a benign state.
The characterisation of the state as an organ of class rule, and consequently
the importance of identifying who the ruling classes were in a given state,
could not afford to be brought out into the open. Instead, ‘national’
solidarity and ‘nation-building’, both of which had been important
concepts under imperial rule, were to be invoked. The national state, as
opposed to the colonial state, was assumed to have the interests of its
citizens at its core; the Congress, which was the legitimate heir of the
national movement, would automatically embody these interests – or so
the myth ran. Nehru himself, if one goes by the views he expressed in the
Discovery of India, did not believe either in the nationalism that this
implied or in the necessarily benign nature of the state: nationalism for
him was an obsolete idea and only survived in the absence of national
freedom, and he was clearly conscious of divergences in class interests. But
in public he accepted, and promoted, the myth.
With the emphasis placed on ‘nation-building’, industrialists and
workers were asked to work together for the collective good. Nehru acted
as intermediary, declaring that ‘indiscipline among labour’ was indeed a
problem, but that industrialists had to stop blaming labour, or agitators
among labour, for their problems,^25 and asking industrialists to set up188 CONSOLIDATING THE STATE, c. 1947–55