The Socialist Party was a political party in India. It was founded in 1971 through the merger of the Praja Socialist Party (PSP), the Samyukta Socialist Party (SSP) and the Indian Socialist Party. The unification process of PSP and SSP was itself marred by divisions, and in 1972 the party suffered major splits in Northern India. From January 1973 George Fernandes emerged as the leader of the party, and would emerge as a force within the opposition during the Emergency. In 1977 the party merged into the Janata Party.
Merger process 1971 elections and push for PSP-SSP unification The 1971 Indian general election represented a severe setback for both the PSP (obtaining only 2 Lok Sabha seats) and the SSP (obtaining 3 Lok Sabha seats).Ali, Rehana. The Working of Election Commission of India. Jnanada Prakashan, 2001. p. 143 Whilst the two parties had entered the 1971 elections with very different electoral strategies, the defeat at the polls prompted the leadership of both parties to move towards a reunification of the socialist movement.
In Uttar Pradesh a sizeable section of SSP had rejected the alliance with right-wing parties, a joined the Congress (R) during the 1971 election campaign. After the election SSP leader Salikram Jaiswal and 9 other SSP Members of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly joined the Congress (R). Reflecting on the election outcome, Chief Minister of Bihar and SSP leader Karpoori Thakur appealed for "the consolidation of Socialist forces" in the country. Former SSP national chairman S. M. Joshi voiced support for unity with PSP.
On March 15, 1971 the PSP general secretary Prem Bhasin stated that the "need for a separate, independent Socialist party was greater than ever now". On March 17, 1971 the PSP National Executive held a meeting at which the party, albeit with some hesitation, gave up its hitherto line of seeking an understanding with the ruling Congress (R).
The SSP National Executive held its first post-election meeting on April 3–4, 1971. The SSP National Executive decided to pull out of the opposition Grand Alliance. At the meeting there was a clash between Madhu Limaye and Raj Narain, with the former called for left unity whilst and the latter opposing such moves. It was decided that a party conference towards the end of the same month would resolve the matter. PSP-SSP unity talks had been scheduled to take place on April 24, 1971 in New Delhi, but the talks were postponed until after extraordinary conference of SSP in Patna in late April 1971. On April 12, 1971 the Maharashtra Executive of PSP held a meeting in Poona, at which it adopted a call for socialist merger and left unity (including the Republican Party of India and the Communist Party of India).
ISP and the merger process On April 1, 1971 the chairman of the Indian Socialist Party (ISP), K. Chandrasekharan, speaking in Thiruvanathapuram called for a unity process including the PSP, the SSP, the ISP, PSP splinter groups in Bihar and West Bengal as well as a SSP splinter group in West Bengal. K. Chandrasekharan had attended an August 15–16, 1970 socialist unity conference in Patna convened by the Bihar rebel PSP. Other participants at the August 1970 Patna conference had included A. Halim (secretary of the Uttar Pradesh ISP), Bidyut Basu (chairman of the rebel PSP of West Bengal), Sooraj Narain Singh (chairman of the rebel PSP of Bihar) and Chandrashwar Azad (joint secretary of the rebel PSP of Bihar). The August 1970 Patna conference resolved that a new "dynamic militant socialist party" be formed and elected a 10-member preparatory committee to organize the process.
SSP Patna Conference The SSP Special Conference in Patna was finally held on April 28, 1971. At the conference the S.M. Joshi camp (with Madhu Limaye, George Fernandes and Ramand Tiwari) accused Raj Narain of trying to rig elections through use of bogus voters, prompting Joshi and his followers to walk out of the conference in protest. Apart from the issue of electoral fraud accusations, the Joshi camp also called for the party to adopt socialist unity and reject alliances with right-wing parties. The Raj Narain camp on the other hand opposed unification with PSP and wanted to continue the participation of SSP in the governing Samyukta Vidhayak Dal coalition in Bihar.Fickett, Lewis P.. The Major Socialist Parties of India: A Study in Leftist Fragmentation. Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University, 1976. pp. 85-89
As of the early May 1971 the Joshi camp managed to gain the upper hand in the battle over the SSP - a credential committee was established (to purge fake voters from the party), Karpoori Thakur agreed to leave the Bihar government, a proposal to substitute the SSP Uttar Pradesh leadership with an ad hoc committee was accepted and the SSP National Committee proposed to seek unity with PSP and ISP. In response to these moves Raj Narain said he would retire from active politics.
Draft merger agreement PSP-SSP unity talks resumed on May 25, 1971. On June 4, 1971 George Fernandes, speaking in Bangalore, announced that PSP and SSP had agreed to a merger, and that the two parties had agreed on all issues - including language, caste and price control policies. Moreover Fernandes states that parties like the ISP, the Republican Party of India, the Peasants and Workers Party of India and the minor Kerala socialist parties were invited to join the united party. However, behind closed doors, there were still some tweaks to be worked out on language and caste policies between the leaderships of the two parties. In the drafting of the terms of the merger agreement, all the Lohiaite positions on language policies and backward castes were accepted.Shah, Sonal. Indian socialists : search for identity. Popular Prakashan, 1994. pp. 149, 153-154 The draft merger agreement called for a "radical socialist alternative" to the Congress(R). The draft called for the total replacement of English language by Hindi and the application of strict quota reservation policies for backward castes for education and employment. The SSP did however agree to softening their language policy a bit, as they accepted that non-Hindi states could use English during a transitional period. The draft agreement rejected the participation in united fronts with parties opposed to nationalism, democracy, secularism and socialism.Sadasivan, S. N.. Party and Democracy in India. Tata McGraw-Hill, 1977. pp. 164, 166-168 The document called for the implementation of integrated price control policy.
On June 20, 1971 a draft merger agreement was signed in Delhi by both parties. The draft agreement was to be ratified by each party. In response to the June 20, 1971 draft merger agreement, the ISP units in Bihar and Kerala pledged to join the merger process. Splinter groups in Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal also pledged to join the unification process. The SSP Special Convention held at Barahiya on June 27, 1971 overwhelmingly voted to ratify the merger, following a stormy debate that lasted for six hours.
West Bengal, Bihar and Kerala coalition governments A major hurdle for the merger was the question of participation in state governments. Per the June 20, 1971 draft merger agreement, socialists should end their participation in state coalition governments in Bihar, Kerala and West Bengal. There were sectors of PSP reluctant to break away from the state governments. The issue of PSP participation in the West Bengal state government was resolved on June 28, 1971, as the cabinet collapsed and President's Rule was imposed in the state.
In Bihar, PSP Lok Sabha parliamentarian Sisir Kumar and 4 PSP Members of the Bihar Legislative Assembly rejected the merger process and refused to heed the call to withdraw support to the Bhola Paswan Shastri state government. On July 15, 1971 they were suspended from PSP chairman N.G. Goray.
Regarding Kerala the PSP National Executive sent Peter Alvares and N.G. Goray to try to convince the state party unit to break with the C. Achutha Menon state government, but the majority in PSP in Kerala opposed the new line. The PSP youth wing in Kerala opposed withdrawing support to the C. Achutha Menon government. On July 18, 1971 the PSP Kerala State Council held a meeting in Cochin, at which a majority voted to endorse that the PSP state government minister remain in his post. Thus the majority group of PSP in Kerala broke away from the national party organization. Some 100 PSP workers loyal to the National Executive Committee stormed out of the venue in protest. The NEC loyalists then gathered at a nearby hotel, claiming that they were the legitimate PSP unit in Kerala and they passed a no-confidence resolution against PSP Kerala State Executive chairman Attingal Gopala Pillai. The PSP NEC loyalist group in Kerala was led by P. Viswambharan and N.K. Seshan.
Formation of the Socialist Party The PSP Special Conference held in Bulandshahr on August 8, 1971 unanimously ratified the merger, removing the last road block for the unification process. On August 9, 1971 the merger of the PSP, SSP and ISP was formalized. The National Ad Hoc Committee of the unified Socialist Party held its first meeting on that day. 55 out of 61 National Ad Hoc Committee members were in attendance. Apart from leaders hailing from PSP, SSP and ISP, there were also leaders of the erstwhile Socialist Party of West Bengal, the Bihar Socialist Party and the Uttar Pradesh Socialist Party represented in the National Ad Hoc Committee. The meeting elected Karpoori Thakur as party chairman and Madhu Dandavate as party general secretary. The National Ad Hoc Committee resolved to continue operating until a new party leadership could be elected in June 1972. At this point the unified Socialist Party claimed a membership of 600,000. The newspaper Janata became the party organ. The Rashtra Seva Dal was the volunteer organisation of the party.
The August 9, 1971 foundation of the new party coincided with the 29th anniversary of the Quit India movement launched by the Congress Socialist Party. Moreover, on the same day as the foundation of the new party, the Indo-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation was signed. The newly constituted Socialist Party issued strong criticism of the treaty.Subhani, S. M. Mohiuddin. Attitude of Socialists Towards India's Foreign Policy. India, National Publishing House, 1977. p. 123 The Socialist Party would argue that India should neither depend on aid from the capitalist nor socialist blocs.Bhatt, G. D.. Indo-Soviet Relations and Indian Public Opinion. Pacifier Publications, 1989. p. 163
Parallel to the PSP Bulandshahr convention and the foundation meeting of the Socialist Party, the dissident wing of PSP led by Sisir Kumar and D. Damodaran Potti organized a meeting of former PSP workers in New Delhi August 8–9, 1971. The meeting the PSP as reconstituted, denouncing the merger with SSP as "betrayal of democratic socialism". On August 14, 1971 Sisir Kumar issued an appeal to PSP to "return" to his faction, arguing the PSP-SSP merger was "unworkable".
Within just 4 days of the merger Raj Narain and 8 others resigned from National Ad Hoc Committee. They criticized N.G. Goray and argued that the merger was an "immoral temporary marriage". He had opposed the merger process but had accepted it due to pressure from the party rank and file. Whilst Raj Narain continued to make critical comments on the merger process, Roma Mitra (editor of Mankind) was more outspoken. She argued that the merger process with PSP was "devoid of a positive, political, social, economic or radical or revolutionary content. Quantitatively the merger was supposed to have ushered in a big party, that too it, i. e . the new united party, has been robbed of. So both from the point of view of quality and quantity, the merger has no meaning. The leaders of the SSP, quarreling and wrangling among themselves, have sinned without pleasure."