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== List of Publications by Charan Singh Archives == Charan Singh was born on 23 December 1902 in Meerut District of the then United Provinces (Uttar Pradesh) in an illiterate tenant farmer’s village hut. His mental fortitude and intellectual ability were recognised early in life and he went on to acquire a B.Sc., M.A. in History and LL. B from Agra College. He joined the Indian National Congress at 27 in the struggle to free India from British rule and was imprisoned in 1930, 1940, and 1942 for his participation in the national movement. He remained a member of the Legislative Assembly of Uttar Pradesh from 1936 to 1974 and was a minister in all Congress governments from 1946 to 1967 which provided him a reputation as a clean and clear-headed administrator and upholder of the law of the land. Singh was the state’s first non-Congress Chief Minister in 1967 and again in 1970, before his tenure in 1977 in the Union Government as Cabinet Minister for Home and then Finance. This journey culminated in 1979, when he was made Prime Minister of India. Over much of the 70s and early 80s he remained a figure of major political significance in Indian politics and passed away on 29 May 1987. The Charan Singh Archives (CSA) were established on 23 December 2015 (visit www.charansingh.org) to document Charan Singh’s intellectual legacy. CSA publicly shares and interprets the extensive material available on his life and intellect. It highlights Charan Singh’s commitment to leading an ethical life, his championship of agriculture and the rural in the Indian development discourse and in politics, his life-long belief in non-agricultural job creation in rural India as the appropriate solution for livelihoods, land reforms and social justice based on a community of shared economic interests in place of religion or caste. CSA publishes books written by and on Charan Singh, details of which are given in the following pages. Questions? Please call Yashveer Singh on 9810403866 or email info@charansingh.org '''List of Publications by Charan Singh Archives: 15 August 2022''' *Selected Works of Charan Singh *Summary of Selected Works *Abolition of Zamindari *Joint Farming X-rayed *India’s Poverty and its Solution *India’s Economic Policy *Economic Nightmare of India *Land Reforms in U.P and the Kulaks *Charan Singh: A Brief Life History *चरण सिंह एक संक्षिप्त जीवनी *शिष्टाचार *विशिष्ट रचनाएं *एक ऐतिहासिक सिंहनाद *आर्थिक विकास के सवाल और बौद्धिक <center>'''Selected Works of Charan Singh'''</center> The Charan Singh Archives published the ‘Selected Works of Charan Singh’ in 2020. This collectors set includes 6 of Singh’s major works and an easy-to-read summary of each of these books in the original English. CSA dedicated these books to the memory of those who sought a new dawn for India in Gandhiji’s Swaraj as a peaceful spiritual, political and social revolution. The set makes an ideal acquisition for private and public libraries and is especially useful for students of economics, political economy, Gandhian studies, academicians in general, social and political activists, politicians and policy makers. The contemporaneity of Charan Singh’s ideas informs us how little India has changed since Independence as we struggle with an agrarian crisis where 47% of our impoverished population remains engaged in non-remunerative agricultural livelihoods. When COVID struck at the heart of human activity in 2020, the ugly innards of the urban, post-industrial exploitative structure lay fully exposed as our rural brothers and sisters fled the slums of the cities for their villages from where they had migrated to earn a living. In Singh’s ideal world, the regeneration of rural India would have replaced the megacities that are being constructed and these would not have become the capital sinks of an ecologically unsustainable life. As we enter 2021 CE, a farmers agitation for repealing three laws related to procurement of their produce has morphed into a struggle for an agricultural way of life. Ironically, the APMC law the farmers from Punjab are fighting to retain was passed in 1937 by Sir Chhotu Ram, the making of which Singh had a historical role. Charan Singh proposed a Gandhian political economy – less industrial, more hand- made and self-sufficient local economies – one readers can reacquaint themselves through this collector set. He wrote Abolition of Zamindari (1947), Joint Farming X-Rayed (1959), India’s Poverty and Its Solution (1964), India’s Economic Policy: The Gandhian Blueprint (1978), Economic Nightmare of India (1981) and Land Reforms in U.P. and the Kulaks (1986). The 7th book (Summary of Selected Works) provides easy-to-read summaries of each of these 6 books, and is an excellent accompaniment to the original texts. In addition to these, Singh wrote scores of books, pamphlets and hundreds of articles on the need for centrality of villages and agriculture in India’s political economy and planning. His ideas proposed less industrial, more hand-made and self-sufficient rural and local economies in India. All these books plead for the centrality of villages, agriculture and hand-made local industry in India’s political economy. Singh believed deeply in a democratic society of small producers and small consumers brought together in a system neither capitalist or communist but one that addressed, as a whole, the uniquely Indian problems of poverty, unemployment, inequality, caste and corruption. Each of these issues remains intractable today, and his solutions as fresh and relevant to their amelioration and ultimate eradication. <center>'''Summary of Selected Works'''</center> Charan Singh was born on 23 December 1902 in Meerut District of the United Provinces (Uttar Pradesh) in an illiterate tenant farmer’s village hut. His mental fortitude and capability were recognised early in life and he went on to acquire a B.Sc., M.A. in History and LL. B from Agra College. He joined the Indian National Congress, at 27, in the struggle to free India from British rule and was imprisoned in 1930, 1940, and 1942 for his participation in the national movement. He remained a member of the Legislative Assembly of Uttar Pradesh from 1936 to 1974 and was a minister in all Congress governments from 1946 to 1967, which provided him a reputation as an efficient, incorruptible and clear- headed administrator. Singh was the state’s first non- Congress Chief Minister in 1967 and again in 1970, before his tenure in 1977-78 as the Union Minister for Home and, later, Finance. This journey culminated in 1979 when he became Prime Minister of India. Over much of the 70s and early 80s he remained a figure of major political significance in Indian politics till he passed away on 29 May 1987. Charan Singh wrote scores of books, political pamphlets, manifestoes and hundreds of articles on the centrality of the village and agriculture in India’s political economy. Many of these thoughts are relevant to India today as we struggle with an agrarian crisis with 67% of our impoverished population living in the villages and 47% engaged in unremunerative agricultural livelihoods. He helped write the 611 – page report of the Zamindari Abolition and Land Reforms Committee in Uttar Pradesh in 1948 and also wrote the books Abolition of Zamindari (1947), Joint Farming X-Rayed (1959), India’s Poverty and Its Solution (1964), India’s Economic Policy (1978) Economic Nightmare of India (1981) and Land Reforms in U.P. and the Kulaks (1986). <center>'''Abolition of Zamindari'''</center> Published in 1947 when Charan Singh was a Member of the Indian National Congress’ Zamindari Abolition and Land Reforms Committee (ZALRC) in Uttar Pradesh, Abolition of Zamindari: Two Alternatives details Singh’s case and method for ending landlordism. He was, in fact, to become the principal architect of the ending of zamindari in Uttar Pradesh as Minister of Revenue in the 1950s. Singh deploys his considerable knowledge of the land tenure system, the psyche of the Indian peasant and literature from across the world to identify alternatives for the removal of zamindari available to India. He proposes a solution from the bottom up, positing the self-cultivating small peasant and decentralized village industry as the cornerstone of an economic policy uniquely suited to the problems of the nascent Indian nation. Singh’s vision, based on the primacy of peasant owner-cultivators, is organically opposed to the Marxist model as practiced then in Soviet Russia and popular in intellectual and political circles in India of the time. His commitment to a democratic Indian future is absolute, and in search for an equitable society he recommends radical land reforms and a restructuring of Indian agriculture based on intensive utilization of land, coupled with an emphasis on small-scale machinery augmenting labour, employing millions in the process. <center>'''Joint Farming X-rayed'''</center> Written in opposition to the adoption of joint farming as India’s agricultural policy at the Indian National Congress’ Nagpur Resolution of January 1959, which was a culmination of high-pitched propaganda led byjawaharlal Nehru in favour of collective/cooperative farming, Joint Farming X-rayed presents Charan Singh’s substantive intellectual break with the political party he had served for 35 years. Published in September 1959, this is a devastating critique of joint farming as a means of increasing agricultural productivity. Singh finds it unsuitable for the Indian countryside based on varied geography, limited land and capital, a complex social structure, a vast population and commitment to democratic principles. He also brings to bear an extraordinary amount of evidence from multiple continents and numerous disciplines to present a picture of the havoc collectivisation unleashes on farm productivity, in which he presciently anticipates the failure of collective farms across the Communist world. His alternate vision identifies land as the limiting factor in capital production, and posits agriculture, not industry, as the priority for sustainable capital formation. The book locates independent small owner-cultivators, decentralised village industries, intensive farming and population control as the solutions for India. Singh puts forth a cogent plan for a new India constructed from the bottom-up, in opposition to the Nehruvian top-down plan aping alien models unsuited to her genius and limitations, made by men who Singh considered were themselves alienated from the ground realities of the country. <center>'''India’s Poverty and its Solution'''</center> Published in 1964, India’s Poverty and its Solution is Charan Singh’s most substantive work. It lays out his clear ideological position on the need for a primarily agricultural society to give primacy to agriculture for inter-related social, economic, political and ecological reasons. An update of his 1959 book Joint Farming X-rayed, which was written in opposition to the adoption of large scale co-operative farming as India’s agricultural policy by the Indian National Congress, Singh bolsters his devastating critique of joint farming with updated figures and tables. Singh reiterates that the system of peasant proprietorship is best suited to India’s economic and social development, with small farms forming a bulwark of democracy, and also the basis of a certain way of life quite in contrast to industrialisation. Singh details an alternative model for India’s bottom-up economic development based on decentralised village industries, agricultural self-sufficiency and enhanced purchasing power of the vast majority of Indians dwelling in the villages. <center>'''India’s Economic Policy'''</center> Published in 1978 when Charan Singh was Union Home Minister and the Chairman of Janata’s Party’s Cabinet committee on economic policy, India’s Economic Policy: The Gandhian Blueprint lays out an alternate model for India’s development. This easy-to-read book is a succinct formulation of Singh’s principles to build India from the bottom-up. Singh is critical of Jawarhalal Nehru’s economic policy framework and the latter’s rejection of Mohandas Gandhi’s vision of an India with the village at its center. He prescribes a radically new policy blueprint, on Gandhian lines, in harmony with India’s geography, population, demography and democratic beliefs. His economic policy targets the ‘three ills’of poverty, unemployment and disparities in wealth through higher agricultural production, maximisation of employment on land and by capital, reduced inequalities in incomes, and protection of labour from exploitation. Singh’s blueprint recommends a reversal of industrialization and the privileges its mostly urban beneficiaries enjoyed over agriculture and the village, and a complete overhaul of urban-elitist planning which had little contact with ground realities. Singh stresses he is not opposed to industrialisation per se, but to the priority given to it over village India. He opposes mechanisation that replaces human labour, with which India is endowed to excess, as well as to the concentration of economic power it engenders in the hands of a few. He urges a break away from foreign technology as well as capital upon which all efforts at development had hitherto been predicated. His Gandhian prescription is the widespread application of labour- intensive techniques and small scale decentralised production, for the most part, all based on democracy engendering self-employment instead of the extractive Capitalist or totalitarian Communist systems. <center>'''Economic Nightmare of India'''</center> The last of Charan Singh’s major works, Economic Nightmare of India: Its Cause and Cure was published in 1981. This updated Singh’s long-standing critique of the lopsided capital-intensive, industrial and urban-biased development path followed by India since Independence in 1947. Singh strings together, in his usual systematic manner, damning data on growing poverty, malnutrition, unemployment, indebtedness and income inequality in India. He warns of a bleak future unless national priorities change to address the vast majority living in rural India. Singh takes us through a tour of the land system in India, the neglect of agriculture, the exploitation of the peasant and deprivation of the village by priorities of the urban elite. He juxtaposes the opposing patterns of development envisaged by Gandhi and Nehru, and the ills that ‘Socialist’ thinking brought to society including an inefficient public sector. He also goes on to condemn the concentration of economic power in the hands of a few business families, widening income disparities and unemployment. Singh champions nationwide self-employment, eschewing models based on communism or capitalism as practiced in other nations, as the basis of a self- sufficient and democratic nation. Singh shares solutions that replace the Nehruvian approach with the Gandhian: focus on the village, agriculture, and rural employment. He marshals arguments in favour of primacy to employment over growth in GDP; decentralised industrialization based on labour-intensive techniques of production; strengthening of the small farm peasant economy and avoiding labour displacing mechanisation of agriculture; increasing investments in social and economic infrastructure in rural areas for education, medical facilities, sanitation, civic amenities to dramatically reduce migration to the slums of the cities. <center>'''Land Reforms in U.P and the Kulaks'''</center> Published a year before his passing in 1987, Charan Singh’s last work, Land Reforms in U.P and the Kulaks chronicles Singh’s relentless struggle over three decades (1936-66) in favour of small farms and his battles for the abolition of Zamindari in the face of bitter opposition from the landed aristocracy. As Parliamentary Secretary in 1946 and later Revenue Minister in 1952 in Uttar Pradesh (U.P.), he led the movement for abolishing the Zamindari system, supported fully by the Chief Minister Govind Ballabh Pant. Singh cites the Zamindari Abolition and Land Reforms (ZALR) Act of 1951, researched, written and shepherded into law and implemented by him, as the proudest achievement of his political career. His unparalleled knowledge of the complex set of land tenure laws in U. P. was instrumental in warding off determined attacks from opponents across the political spectrum. The ZALR Act provided small tenant cultivators with permanent and inalienable rights to the land they tilled; and in conjunction with the Consolidation of Holding Act (formulated and passed into law again by Singh in 1953) ensured they became a bulwark of democracy and of higher agricultural productivity. He demonstrates the lengths to which this legislation went on to protect rural and interests of the downtrodden against urban greed, corruption and legal sabotage instigated by the landlords and their rural collaborators. His writing reveal a deep understanding of the tenant’s view of land reforms, as well as an intimate understanding of the psychology and ethos of the Indian countryside. Singh considered this empathy lacking in his political contemporaries, whether capitalist, socialist or communist, and to whom he returns the charge of being the real Kulaks. <center>'''Charan Singh: A Brief Life History'''</center> This brief life history of Charan Singh takes the reader through the early influences of Swami Dayanand and Mahatma Gandhi on Singh, his immersion in the freedom struggle, his long political life in Uttar Pradesh and Delhi, and his abiding importance as an organic intellectual of village India with a complex, sophisticated and coherent strategy for India’s development at variance from all post-Independence governments. A detailed chronology of Singh’s life is a fascinating glimpse of politics in India from the Forties till the Mid-Eighties. Singh was a man of simplicity, virtue and morals in the Gandhian mould, his upright character and honesty recognised by all. This enabled him a reputation as a strong administrator, an upholder of the law of the land. He believed in a fundamentally democratic society of small producers and small consumers brought together in a system neither socialist or capitalist but one that addressed the uniquely Indian problems of poverty, unemployment, inequality, caste and corruption. Each of these issues remains intractable today, and his solutions as fresh and relevant to their amelioration and ultimate eradication. A scholar of extraordinary capability, Singh wrote a number of books, political pamphlets and numerous articles in English on his belief of the centrality of villages and agriculture in India’s political economy which are even more relevant to India today as we struggle with an agrarian crisis and 67% of our population in the villages. His first publication was the 611-page report of the Zamindari Abolition and Land Reforms Committee in Uttar Pradesh in 1948. He also wrote, amongst others, Abolition of Zamindari: Two Alternatives (1947), Joint Farming X-Rayed: The Problem and Its Solution (1959), India’s Poverty and Its Solution (1964), India’s Economic Policy: The Gandhian Blueprint (1978) and Economic Nightmare of India: Its Cause and Cure (1981). <gallery> </gallery>
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