Abhijeet PimparkarModel Answers to PYQs (2019-2024)
1] Manabendra Nath Roy’s political thought highlighted the humanistic aspects of Marxism. Discuss. [2024/15m/200w/4c]
MN Roy proposed the idea of radical humanism as his interpretation of Marxism. It grew out of the dissatisfaction with existing major philosophies and as described by MN Roy, it is a philosophy of freedom.
Roy felt that neither parliamentary democracy nor communism was the best model of governance. While democracy does not give opportunity for direct participation, Communism subsumes man under the collective ego of class. Roy wanted to give a philosophy that gives real importance to man as an individual and aims to achieve freedom of man.
He suggested three components of radical humanism i.e. freedom, reason and ethics. For MN Roy, real liberation means freedom from all sorts of fears. This can come with the promotion of scientific rationality free from religious dogma. Roy wanted society to be based on secular rational principles rather than superstitions. Thus, radical humanism aims to establish human society in harmony with the principles of nature. It rejects metaphysics and believes in science.
Radical humanism supports intellectual revolution. The human brain is most important means of production. It produces the most important things i.e. Ideas. The crisis of modern civilization is the lack of faith in the innate rationality of man. Like Protagoras, MN Roy also believes that man is a measure of everything. The progress of society is to be measured by the amount of freedom it gives to man.
By giving centrality to humans as individuals and as the end of his theory, contrary to the Marxist focus on class, MN Roy highlights the humanistic aspect of Marxism. Thus, his theory is rightly called as ‘new humanism’. [267 words]
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