DEPARTMENT OF LAW

PRESTIGE

Presentation on M.N Roy

Presented By:-
Mradul Jain
 Life Sketch

M. N. Roy was prominent Indian philosopher of a

twentieth century.
He started his career as a militant political activist and
left India in 1915 in search of arms for organizing an
insurgence against British rule in India.
He was also a great speaker, who had a very distinct and
dynamic style; and he had written huge number of texts.
Roy was a creator of the Mexican Communist Party and
the Communist Party of India. He was also a
representative to congresses of the Communist
International and Russia's aide to China.
 Roy recognized that the congress was "the leader of the
movement for national liberation" and appealed for the
adoption of a liberal economic program dedicated to enhance
the standard of living of the disadvantaged workers and
peasants.
The manifesto stated that only by working for the economic
betterment of the masses, the congress hope to gain their
support in the struggle for independence and thus become a
real mass movement.
Roy was harshly critical of the exploitation of workers'
turbulence by the nationalist for their political aim.
He urged the Indian National Congress to procure the support
of the workers and peasants by including the redress of their
immediate grievances in its programmed.
 The groundwork of the Communist Party of India was
significant event in the country's political life and played an
immense role in stimulating the struggle of the Indian people
for national freedom and social advancement.
M.N.Roy wanted to make the communist party of India as a
legal and national political party like the Congress and Swaraj
parties.
Roy conversed the matter with Singaravelu who had already
formed a Labour and Kisan party of Hindustan in Madras.
According to Roy, main task of the party was to fight for
freedom and the demand of social liberation was a secondary.
The question of national liberation was primary because "the
release of all the forces of social production is the first step
towards the ultimate realization of our programme which is
the end of class domination."
 Roys Humanism

Roy was a born revolutionary. He was influenced by

Marxists when stayed in USA. He was one of the
learned person of Marxist in world. Later on, some
differences arose between Roy and Stalin and Roy
was criticized as a revisionist. With time, Roy
became critic of Marxist. In later years, he
transformed his philosophy from Marxism to radical
humanism which was called new humanism. It was
great contribution of Roy in the arena of modern
Indian political thought. The uttermost piece of his
original work which is planned to be man's ultimate
fulfillment is New Humanism.
 The basic elements of New Humanism arc three:
rationality, morality and freedom
As a rational creature man is involved in a struggle for
material existence. This struggle takes two forms at the
savage plane it signifies the satisfaction of his mundane
wants and at the higher plane, it signifies his struggle for
freedom.
Freedom of the individual is one of the central themes of
Roys scientific politics.
Apart from Roys 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 that 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.
 Morality( ), which emanates from the rational
desire for harmonious and mutually beneficial social
relations, is rooted in the innate rationality() of
human beings.
According to Roy, human beings are moral, because
they are rational.

,
!
 New Humanism of Roy aims at instilling a sense of
primacy of values and the urge for eternal freedom.
Roy described that democracy would be efficacious
only when spiritually free individuals assume the
conduct of public affairs.
He strongly believed in the greatest good of the
greatest number that can be accomplished only when
members of the government are responsible in the
first place to their respective morality.
 Roys Disagreements with Marxism

According to Roy, the materialism of Marx was dogmatic and

unscientific and neglected the creative role of the human
subject.
Though the movement through thesis and anti-thesis appears
to be a logical argumentation, according to Roy, it is
ridiculous to state that matter and forces of production move
dialectically. He strongly believed that the dialectic
materialism is materialistic only in name it is essentially
idealistic in nature.
Roy strongly believed that the Marxian interpretation of
history is defective because it allowed no role to mental
activity in the social process. History can never be interpreted
solely with reference to materialistic objectivism.The
intelligence of human beings and their cumulative actions are
very powerful social forces.
 Roy criticized the economic interpretation of history as
envisaged by Marx. According to Roy, prior to man becoming
an economic being, he was driven by biological needs in
satisfying his quest for economic amenities. Early anthro-
pological studies revealed that of early activities and struggles
of human beings revolved around finding means to
subsistence. These activities were driven by biological urges of
human beings and not economic.
Roy criticized the concept of sociology of class struggle.
Though there are a number of social classes and despite the
presence of tension among these classes, they are all operating
in a cohesive manner. Further, the failure of
contemporary() society to get bifurcated into
antithetical polarized( ) sectors as prophesied in
the Communist Manifesto raised additional queries about the
Marxist thesis.
 Marx proved to be a complete failure with his
prediction that the middle class would disappear. In
fact, the expansion of economic process also leads to
the increase in the number of the middle class.
Further, the cultural and political leadership of the
middle class is a patent fact of the post-World War I
period.