Maia Ramnath - Decolonizing Anarchism.pdf - Libcom

Echoes and Intersections I 199
characterised as antediluvian;' JP insisted that "this aspect
of Gandhism . .. does not necessarily mean the rejection of
modern science and technology; though it does mean that
the modern techniques of production are neither used as
means of exploitation nor as means of domination."58
In 1952 he broke with Marxism. The questioning that
had started with news of Russian purges led him now to abjure
materialism as a philosophy of historical and political
change. From his reading of Erich Fromm while in prison,
JP had learned to focus on the humanistic as opposed to
the economistic side of the Marxian tradition, with its emphasis
on alienation. Drawing on Fromm, he noted that
while "socialisation of production means bureaucracy and
manipulation of the individual . .. [a 1 balanced system . ..
must be evolved so as to reconcile large-scale planning with
freedom for the individual."59
In the same year, despite pressure to seek office in the
first general elections of independent India, he abruptly
walked away from the game of electoral power. He then
immersed himself in Vinoba Bhave's Bhoodan movement,
facing bitter reproaches for giving up on politics.
He retorted that he hadn't: he had only abandoned
rajniti, "the politics of parties, elections, parliaments and
governments;' not lokniti.60
In his 1959 "A plea for Reconstruction of Indian
Polity;' JP called for counteracting the alienation of modern
industrial society by cultivating integrated, meaningful
communities based on "a feeling of unity in the midst of
diversity; a sense of freedom within the framework of accepted
social responsihilities; differentiation off unctions