Masani s Manifesto

Book Review: Minoo Masani, by S. V. Raju
Published by National Book Trust, Rs 40
Masani s Manifesto
Atul Chaturvedi
Indian Express
10 February 2008
http://www.indianexpress.com/story/270692.html


When Minocher Rustom (Minoo) Masani died in 1998, just seven years short of his centenary, it was the end of an era. For Masani was the last of a particularly unique brand of politician — an intellectual to whom principles mattered, and one without the faintest hankering for power.
S.V. Raju, an associate of Masani's, has filled the huge gap in our knowledge of his life, and brought him to life for a generation that has, sadly, not even have heard his name. The field till now had been held by Masani's own vivid, two-volume account, Against the Tide, now unjustifiably out of print.
Masani was a lawyer who joined the freedom struggle, and was imprisoned in 1932 and 1934. At 38, he was elected as Bombay's youngest mayor. Masani also worked for J.R.D. Tata. It speaks volumes about the two of them that when Masani courted arrest, he first told Tata, who told him to get in touch once he was out of jail!
Politically, Masani was a radical who espoused socialism. In the Congress, he was a member of a ginger group, the Congress Socialist Party, and counted among his colleagues Jayaprakash Narayan, Achyut Patwardhan, and Ram Manohar Lohia. Masani was an admirer of the Soviet Union, but not an uncritical one.
He began to distance himself from the Soviets after examining all the information he could get about the purges. This, in turn, led him to warn against the Communist Party of India, its call for a United Front, and its policy of infiltrating the Congress.
Masani's disenchantment with Socialism grew apace, especially after he came into personal contact with Gandhi. By the early 1950s, we can safely say that Masani's political stance was an interesting combination of political liberalism and Gandhian ethics. For a former socialist, he was unique in stating that a mixed economy was a necessity for India. What, then, was the difference with Nehru? Masani believed that Nehru's was a statist economy, in which individual liberty was subordinated. The story goes that an offer was made to Masani to join the government, conditional on whether he would support Nehru or Patel. His replied that he would support anyone who supported his principles. Result — no ministry.
Masani entered Parliament in 1957, and soon became general secretary of the newly founded Swatantra Party, under the leadership of the venerable C. Rajagopalachari. He was the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, and for almost a decade opened the debate on the budget from the opposition benches. In Parliament, he refused to oppose for the sake of opposing. When the rupee was devalued, he supported the move after consulting economists. He insisted that a no-confidence motion should be moved only if a viable alternative was available.
After the failure of the Swatantra Party in the 1971 polls, Minoo Masani left politics. He, however, became active again during the Emergency, supporting his old comrade JP. He won a landmark case against the government when it tried to put fetters on his journal, Freedom First. For the first and only time in his life, he occupied an official position as Chairman of the Minorities Commission, but quit after deciding that the Janata government had no interest in it. To the end, principles prevailed over power.