DEPARTMENT OF SOUTH AND CENTRAL ASIAN

STUDIES

HOME ASSIGNMENT
TOPIC: M N ROY : REDICAL HUMANISM
PAPER: INDIAN POLITICAL THOUGHT (POL.552)

SUBMITTED TO SUBMITTED BY

DR. MANAVHANJAN MEHAR KOTUB UDDIN AHMED

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR 19MAPLSC14

Introduction

M.N. Roy, who founded the philosophy of Radical Humanism, was in many ways a unique
person. He distinguished himself both as a man of action and as a man of thought. In both the
fields, he lived an intense life. As a man of action, he was a devoted and dedicated
revolutionary. As a man of thought, he developed into a profound and original social
philosopher. There was a fine blend of Romanticism and Rationalism in his mental make-up.
His practical experience and evolving thought led him through three distinct phases of
political life. He started as an ardent nationalist, became an equally ardent communist and
ended as a creatively active radical humanist.

Humanism

"Humanism is derived from the Latin word “Humanus” meaning a system of thought
concerned with human affairs in general. Humanism is an attitude which attaches primary
importance to Man and his faculties, affairs and aspirations. Humanism had to pass through a
process of development and change, but its main idea was that Man must remain the Supreme
Being. Humanism means respect for man as Man and not only because of his individual
achievements. The essence of Humanism is the importance placed on human being, the
individual as the centre of all aspirations of human activities. And, there should no dogmatic
authority over life and thought."According to Oxford Dictionarym “an outlook of system of
thought concerned with human rather than divine or supernatural matters” It is a doctrine
according to which man is a point of departure and point of reference of human action.

Reason for the Evolution of Radical Humanism: From Marxism to Radical Humanism

The genesis of the concept of new humanism lies in the frustration of Roy with the subtle
characteristics of the Marxian philosophy like its feeble ethical moorings and overemphasis
on the economic interpretation of the history to the substantive, if not total, disregard to the
value of the intellect in the dynamics of the historical processes. Thus, initially Roy tried to
evolve a radical perspective on humanism which still had a lot to owe to Marxism. However,
dissatisfied even with his radical incarnation, Roy made the final move of propounding a
theory rooted in integral scientific humanism which he called as the ‘new humanism, new,
because it is humanism enriched, reinforced and elaborated by scientific knowledge and
social experience gained during the centuries of modern civilisation’.

The philosophy of radical humanism or new humanism represents the zenith of an

intellectually bewildering journey spanning over a period of over 30 years. Roy also
disapproves Marxian theory of class struggle. According to Roy, Marx's theory of class
struggle has degraded individual consciousness. He was also critical of Marx giving too much
importance to the working class. Roy believes that polarization of capitalist society into the
exploiting and the working class never takes place. Roy did not regard extra value as a
peculiar feature of capitalism. He believes that the creation of surplus value and accumulation
of capital were also in a socialist society.
According to Roy, the Marxian interpretation in history is faulty because it allows slender
role to mental activity in the social process. The intelligence of human being and their
cumulative actions are very powerful social forces. Roy also condemns the Marxian
economic interpretation of history.

Philosophical Foundations of Radical Humanism

 Belief in Materialism

M.N. Roy was a thoroughgoing materialist. His philosophy is materialism and materialism is
the only possible philosophy for him. It represents the knowledge of nature. Knowledge that
is acquired through contemplation, observation and investigation of the phenomena of nature
itself forms its basis. Therefore, his materialism is not a monstrosity it is generally supposed
to be it is not the cult of "eat, drink and be merry"' as it has been detected by some of its
adversaries. Materialism is a monistic system of thought. But this ultimate system would not
negate the resort to pluralist concepts of making explicit the process of the becoming of
matter.

Roy is very anxious to repudiate the prevalent association of materialism with some kind of
philosophy of life or a mere pursuit of hedonism. Materialism is only on account of the
evolution and processes of the cosmos and it does not mean sensuous egoism. It simply
maintains that the origin of everything that really exists is matter, all the other appearances
being the various transformations of matter. And these transformations are governed
necessarily by laws inherent in nature.

Roy's Materialism is the only philosophy possible, restated with the help of scientific
knowledge. Materialism has been the most relevant hypothesis for a philosopher like M.N.
Roy, to lay the foundations for his rationalistic, philosophical thought and fruitful scientific
investigation. Another, in the last analysis, merges into religion or ends in the absurdity or
sophism.

In Roy's opinion, the basic principle of materialism can be stated in many ways, that the
world is self-contained and self-explained. The world exists objectively physical as well as
biological; there is nothing beyond and outside it. It being and the becoming are governed by
laws inherent in itself; laws are neither mysterious not metaphysical, nor merely
conventional; there are coherent relations of events. Consciousness is a property of that,
which distinguishes existence from non-existence, in a certain state of organisation. This
philosophical generalization of the various branches of scientific knowledge may be termed
objectivism, naturalism or realism or by any other name but M.N. Roy prefers materialism.
For him, it makes no essential difference. Onlythe term matterhas a historical meaning, as it
rules out illusions and superstitions which debate philosophy into religion.

 Characteristics of Materialism

The distinguishing feature of materialism is that it is not a closed system like all the other
schools of philosophy. It is not a dogma. It is a method of approaching nature, history, society
in all its diverse departments. In short, life as a whole, indeed, in the narrow and speculative
sense, materialism liquidates philosophy, in as much as it declares that there cannot be an end
to the process of acquiring Knowledge.

Yet another feature of materialism is that sense-perception is the foundation of all

knowledge. The implication of this feature is the denial of innate ideas. Consciousness does
not exist independent of external objects. But when it is asserted and more clearly by modem
sensationalism as was done by Sophism, the formed ground of materialism is abandoned. So
the starting point of materialism is the acceptance of the objective reality of things. The
relation between the perception of a thing and the thing itself has been an enduring subject for
ages, the central contention of speculative philosophy. The development of natural sciences
has put an end to that disputation. The known claim of any scientific knowledge would doubt
that conception of a tree corresponds with the tree itself. Any such doubt has been dispelled,
since man began to get acquainted with nature, through his activities, when a thing
reproduced by a man corresponds with the original object of his perception, as there can no
longer be any possible doubt about the objective reality of things and the correctness of the
perception of them.

 Belief in Knowledge

According to M.N Roy, except thoroughgoing idealists, no modem philosopher has disputed
the existence of the external world; excepting for the possibility of knowing it. Knowing is an
act of mind. Knowledge, however, is not identical with thought, any more than thought is
identical with being. Thought is mind's inherent property, whereas knowledge is acquired
from outside. One is inherent, while the other is acquired from outside. Sensations are bodily
events. They are causally connected with the external world. Knowing as well as perception
takes place on the plane of direct physical contact. The causal chain is physical, not logical.
Therefore for Roy, all arguments of the subjectivity are irrelevant. The other link is similar to
the causal connection between events in relation, between sensations and their external
causes. It is governed by physical laws.

Roy’s New Humanism: Twenty-Two Theses On Radical Democracy

"New Humanism" is the name given by Roy to the "new philosophy of revolution" which he
developed in the later part of his life. This philosophy has been summarized by Roy in the
"Twenty-Two Theses" and elaborated in his New Humanism - A Manifesto. New Humanism,
as presented in the Twenty-Two Theses, has both a critical and a constructive aspect. The
critical aspect consists of describing the inadequacies of communism (including the economic
interpretation of history), and of formal parliamentary democracy. The constructive aspect,
on the other hand, consists of giving highest value to the freedom of individual, presenting a
humanist interpretation of history, and outlining a picture of radical or organized democracy
along with the way for achieving the ideal of radical democracy.

 Basic Tenets of New Humanism

Apart from Roy's effort to trace the quest for freedom and search for truth to the biological
struggle for existence. The basic idea of the first three theses of Roy is individualism.
According to Roy, the central idea of the Twenty-Two Theses is that political philosophy
must start from the basic idea that the individual is prior to society, and freedom can be
enjoyed only by individuals. Quest for freedom and search for truth, according to Roy,
constitute the basic urge of human progress. The purpose of all-rational human endeavor,
individual as well as collective, is attainment of freedom in ever-increasing measure. The
amount of freedom available to the individuals is the measure of social progress. Roy refers
back the quest for freedom to human being's struggle for existence, and he regards search for
truth as a corollary to this quest. Reason, according to Roy, is a biological property, and it is
not opposed to human will. Morality, which originates from the rational desire for
harmonious and mutually beneficial social relations, is rooted in the innate rationality of man.

 Humanist Interpretation of History

In his humanist interpretation of history, presented in theses four, five and six, Roy gives an
important place to human will as a determining factor in history, and emphasizes the role of
ideas in the process of social evolution. Formation of ideas is, according to Roy, a
physiological process but once formed, ideas exist by themselves and are governed by their
own laws. The dynamics of ideas runs parallel to the process of social evolution and both of
them influence each other. Cultural patterns and ethical values are not mere super structures
of established economic relations. They have a history and logic of their own.

 Inadequacies of Communism

Roy's criticism of communism, contained in theses seven to eleven is based mainly on the
experience of the former Soviet Union, particularly the "discrepancy between the ideal and
the reality of the socialist order." According to Roy, freedom does not necessarily follow
from the capture of political power in the name of the oppressed and the exploited classes and
abolition of private property in the means of production. For creating a new world of
freedom, revolution must go beyond an economic reorganization of society. A political
system and an economic experiment which subordinate the man of flesh and blood to an
imaginary collective ego, be it the nation or class, cannot possibly be, in Roy's view, the
suitable means for the attainment of the goal of freedom.

The Marxian doctrine of state, according to which the state is an instrument of exploitation of
one class by another, is clearly rejected by Roy. According to Roy, the state is "the political
organization of society" and "its withering away under communism is a utopia which has
been exploded by experience". Similarly, Roy rejects the communist doctrine of the
dictatorship of the proletariat. "Dictatorship of any form, however plausible may be the
pretext for it, is," asserts Roy, "excluded by the Radical-Humanist perspective of social
revolution".

 Shortcomings of Formal Parliamentary Democracy

Roy has discussed the shortcomings of formal parliamentary democracy in his twelfth and
thirteenth theses. These flaws, according to Roy, are outcome of the delegation of power.
Atomized individual citizens are, in Roy's view, powerless for all practical purposes, and for
most of the time. They have no means to exercise their sovereignty and to wield a standing
control of the state machinery. "To make democracy effective," says Roy, "power must
always remain vested in the people and there must be ways and means for the people to wield
sovereign power effectively, not periodically, but from day to day."

 Radical Democracy

Thus, Roy's ideal of radical democracy, as outlined in theses fourteen to twenty-two consists
of a highly decentralized democracy based on a network of people's committee's through
which citizens wield a standing democratic control over the state.

Roy has not ignored the economic aspect of his ideal of radical democracy. He argued that
progressive satisfaction of the material necessities is the pre-condition for the individual
members of society unfolding their intellectual and other finer human potentialities.
According to him, an economic reorganization, which will guarantee a progressively rising
standard of living, is the foundation of the Radical Democratic State. “Economic liberation of
the masses”, says Roy, “is an essential condition for their advancing towards the goal of
freedom." The ideal of radical democracy will be attained, according to Roy, through the
collective efforts of mentally free men united and determined for creating a world of
freedom. They will function as the guides, friends and philosophers of the people rather than
as their would-be rulers. Consistent with the goal of freedom, their political practice will be
rational and, therefore, ethical.

Roy categorically asserts that a social renaissance can come only through determined and
widespread endeavor to educate the people as regards the principles of freedom and rational
cooperative living. Social revolution, according to Roy, requires a rapidly increasing number
of men of the new renaissance, and a rapidly expanding system of people's committees and
an organic combination of both. The program of revolution will similarly be based on the
principles of freedom, reason and social harmony.

As pointed out by Roy himself in his preface to the second edition of the New Humanism: A
Manifesto, though new humanism has been presented in the twenty-two theses and the
Manifesto as a political philosophy, it is meant to be a complete system. Because of being
based on the ever-expanding totality of scientific knowledge, new humanism cannot be a
closed system. "It will not be", says Roy, "a dogmatic system claiming finality and
infallibility."

 Philosophical Revolution or Renaissance

It is obvious from the foregoing that Roy was a great supporter of philosophical revolution or
renaissance, and he has given a central place to it in his radical humanism. Roy was an
admirer of European renaissance and drew inspiration from it. For him, "the renaissance was
the revolt of man against God and his agents on this earth". According to Roy, the
renaissance "heralded the modern civilization and the philosophy of freedom". He strongly
believed that India, too, needed a renaissance on rationalist and humanist lines. According to
him, this was a necessary condition for democracy to function in a proper manner. He
believed that “a new Renaissance based on rationalism and cosmopolitan humanism” was
essential for democracy to be realized. (Roy has used the word “rationalist” not in the
Cartesian sense but in the popular sense. In this sense, a “rationalist” regards reason including
both perception and inference as a source of knowledge.)

According to Roy, a philosophical revolution must precede a social revolution. He was

opposed to blind faith and superstitions of all kinds and supported rationalism. As a physical
realist, he rejected all allegedly supernatural entities like god and soul. Similarly, he was
opposed to fatalism and the doctrine of karma. He unequivocally rejected the religious mode
of thinking and advocated a scientific outlook and a secular morality. As noted earlier, he was
in favor of delinking philosophy with religion and associating it closely with science. He
believed that science would ultimately liquidated religion.

According to Roy, a revolutionary is one who has got the idea that the world can be remade,
made better than it is to-day that it was not created by a supernatural power, and therefore,
could be remade by human efforts.

Further, according to Roy, "the idea of improving upon the creation of God can never occur
to God-fearing. We can conceive of the idea only when we know that all gods are our own
creation, and we can depose whom-so-ever we have enthroned."

Roy's critical approach towards religion comes out very clearly in the preface of his book,
India’s Message, where he asserts that a criticism of religious thought and a searching
analysis of traditional beliefs and the time-honored dogmas of religion is essential for the
belated Renaissance of India. “The spirit of inquiry should overwhelm the respect for
tradition."

According to Roy, "a critical examination of what is cherished as India's cultural heritage will
enable the Indian people to cast off the chilly grip of a dead past. It will embolden them to
face the ugly realities of a living present and look forward to a better, brighter and pleasant
future." Thus, Roy was opposed to an uncritical and vain glorification of India's so-called
"spiritual" heritage. However, he did not stand for a wholesale rejection of ancient Indian
thought either. He favored a rational and critical approach towards ancient traditions and
thoughts. Roy believed that the object of European renaissance was to rescue the positive
contributions of ancient European civilization, which were lying buried in the Middle Ages
owing to the dominance of the Church. Roy had something similar in his mind about India.
According to him, one of the tasks of the Renaissance movement should be to rescue the
positive outcome and abiding contributions of ancient thought - contributions, which just like
the contributions of Greek sages, are lying in ruins under the decayed structure of the
Brahmanical Society - the tradition of which is erroneously celebrated as the Indian
civilization.

 Emphasis on Ethics

Roy has given a very important place to ethics in his philosophy. According to Roy, "the
greatest defect of classical materialism was that its cosmology did not seem to have any
connection with ethics". Roy strongly asserts that if it is not shown that materialist
philosophy can accommodate ethics, then, human spirit, thirsting for freedom, will spurn
materialism. In Roy' view materialist ethics is not only possible but also the noblest form of
morality. Roy links morality with human being's innate rationality. Human beings are moral,
according to Roy, because they are rational. In Roy's ethics freedom, which he links with the
struggle of existence is the highest value. Search for truth is a corollary to the quest for
freedom.

However, Roy is not unique among materialists in emphasizing the importance of ethics in
his philosophy. Contrary to popular impression, ancient materialist Epicurus and modern
materialist Holbach, for example, accorded an important place to ethics in their philosophies.
However, the details of Roy's ethics are somewhat different from these philosophers.

Conclusion

The above discussion on the life and times of MN Roy reveals the fact that Roy started his
ideational journey from Marxism. Later dissatisfied with the practice of the Marxian ideology
and basically because of its domination by Russian Communist, he left it. On coming back to
India, dissatisfied with his association with Indian National Congress, he organized his own
political party-Radical democratic party and ultimately founded a new movement called New
Humanism. Thus it would be wrong to conclude that the ideational journey was journey from
Marxism to New Humanism.
BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Research Publication Social Sciences, Ansari Road, Dariaganj, Delhi.

Bhattachaijee, G.P. : M.N. Roy and Radical Humanism, A.J.B. Wadia Publication, Bombay
.(1961)

Bhattachaijee, G .P .: M.N, Roy and Communist China

Bhattachaijee, G .P Evolution o f Political Philosophy ofM.N. Roy

Chandra, Prakash: The Political Philosophy ofM.N. Roy

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