Deendayal Upadhyaya-profound philosopher of Independent India

Dr. Duggaraju Srinivasa Rao

Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya, the unmatched thinker, philosopher molded in the rishi sampradaya of Bharat, excellent organizer and co-founder of the Bharatiya Jan Sangh, died in a mysterious circumstances on February 11, 1968. His untimely, mysterious death has left a void in the sociao-political India as his nascent idea of Integral Humanism couldn’t be taken to the people for whose wellbeing he proposed it.  His thoughts are unique, rooted in ancient Indian wisdom. Unlike other post independent political leaders, who are followers of western models, Deendayal Upadhyaya thoughts were independent and he visualized a different kind of future to the world.  Whatever he forecasted almost seven decades ago has come true. Not only had he predicted the collapse of the existing economic and political orders but he showed the new way, based on the humanism that is inherent in the Bharatiya thought and culture.  He called his new philosophy as Integral Humanism and that formed the basis for political party Jan Sangh, the forerunner of today’s BJP.

Integral Humanism philosophy evolved through continuous study of the Indian philosophical and statecraft of Bharat, the Chanakya’s Artha Sasthra and other philosophical thoughts from other areas of the world. Deendayal Upadhyaya spent almost a decade, after he co-founded the Jan Sangh, in the national libraries and other learned centers before formulating and sharing with his party colleagues. As he presented this new concept called Integral Humanism in the 12^th annual session of Jan Sangh at Vijayawada in January, 23-24, 1965 not many in his party or outside what his new philosophy is. It was totally new for those who were not so familiar with the Indian traditions and thoughts but unfortunately fate took him away from this world much with in three years of his conceptual presentation of Integral Humanism. Had he survived beyond 1968, the Indian political scene would have been certainly different from what it was.

Deendayal Upadhyaya boldly predicted the future failure of then existing two models, capitalistic and socialist, resulting in chaotic world. That is what exactly what we are witnessing currently with dominant Trump playing havoc in the world. What Trump started tariff world is not a result of the success of the capitalism but is done out of the frustration due to the failed capitalistic model which is not taking USA nowhere.   The socialistic order has collapsed in 1990s itself with the breaking of USSR and troubles being faced in the former soviet collaborators. The Ukraine war is also due to the frustration being faced in Russia. China, the other socialist country is surviving not on socialism but as capitalistic dictatorship under the red flag. The moment Mao founded red grip is loosened China is bound to end in chaotic.  When he fore warned in 1960s about such an eventuality not many of his contemporaries believed such a thing can happen.

The leaders who were leading the nation then were pygmies in intellect and their world view is limited and whatever little imagination or ideas they had was mainly through the western prism. They are not rooted in the Bharatiya traditions and knowledge of our seers. So they blindly chose one of the existing model and that copied model was implemented till the nation was lead to economic crisis of 1980s. Then came, to absorb the shocks of the economic collapse, the economic reforms which is another copy format of capitalism. If it was the socialistic model for the first forty years of independent India then it was the capitalistic model of USA for last 30 years only after Narendra Moid’s ascendancy to the prime minister chair that some semblance of Deendayal Upadhyayya’s third model saw some implementation.

Deendayal Upadhyaya gave clear cut reasons for the collapse of socialist world and it happened in 1990. Soviet Union, the first nation on the socialist path couldn’t succeed it saw society from the money-wants angle ignoring the independent thought process of humans. Providing food, shelter and work will satisfy the people, the then rulers of USSR thought. Ignoring individual thoughts, freedom and treating the people as robots or life as mechanized one resulted in the revolt of the long suppressed ambitions erupted and swept the dictatorial Lenins, Stalins. USSR, an artificial collage of nations got fragmented and dismantling authoritarian ruling in east European nations followed.

The rival to socialism, the capitalism then claimed victory and proclaimed as theirs is the only way and West tried to spread their way through the creation of new world order through the concept Globalization, World Trade Organization. The USA lead capitalist forces imposed the free trade on developing nations to make profit and spread the “no alternate model to it” and world believed for over 3 decades. Now the USA itself forced to concede the failure of their model during the recent Davos summit where the US secretary for trade and business said that their prescription harmed both the prescriber (USA) and the follower (other nations). He talked about the need for some amount of restrictions on the trade and commerce and the need to protect the local resources and populations. Perhaps USA while prescribing the Globalization thought of capital and good movement from their industrial nationals to the developing world earning them huge profits but them never imagined the developing nations will restructure and utilized the borderless Nations concept to send their skilled human capital to the developing world.

Deendayal Upadhyaya gave the reasons for the failure of both the model. He said the capitalism is market driven, profit oriented and the socialism is the centralized authority controlling everything including human thoughts and behaviors as socialism see humans as robots without independence in thoughts. In both the models the average person, family, societal values are overshadowed.  Without due regard to the individuals, their ambitions, family values, societal shared values he said the country can’t progress.

When we threw away British, the concepts of west should have also been threw out and our own new Bharatiyata should have been adapted on native culture and tradition. Instead of Indian spiritualism we adopted western secularism and instead of compassion, cooperation we gave competition and individualism. Instead of that integral humanism is the idea of integration of man and nature- integration of vayshti, samasti, sristhi amd parameshti. Deendayal Upadhyayay wanted his new concept to be integrated with the Indian politics and that is now happening under the Modi lead NDA government for the last 12 years. Every new scheme announced and implemented by the current government has roots in the Integral Humanism concept of Deendayal Upadhyaya, though it was not noticed and appreciated by many.

(Author is retired professor. Views expressed are personal.)