Ashok Mehta

An important member of the freedom struggle movement and an active participant on the city politics of Bombay and a Trade Unionist. Was one of the founder members of the Indian National Trade Union Congress (Congress Party’s TU wing). In the year 1932 he was jailed along with many others at the Nashik Jail for participating in the Civil Disobedience movement. Later on founded the Socialist Party that merged with Praja Socialist Party along with Jay Prakash Narayan. He was influenced by democratic socialism. In the year 1953 he wrote an article “Compulsions of a backward economy and areas of cooperation” in the Janata weekly after which he was accused of developing soft corner for the Congress Party under Jawahar lal Nehru upon which he resigned from the post of General Secretary of the party. He was pioneer of the theory of “Political Compulsions of a backward Economy”. During the early 1940s he was very active in the trade union movement of textile, railway, engineering and post and telegraph workers, Bombay city. He also acted as a Trustee of the Bombay Port Trust, 1947-48 and founded, the Hind Mazdoor Sabha in the year 1949 and was its First General Secretary. Finally in the year 1964, June he joined the Congress Party. He was appointed Union Minister of Planning, January, 1966 and took over additional portfolio of the Department of Social Welfare, February, 1966 and was re-appointed as Union Minister of Planning, Petroleum & Chemicals and Social Welfare, March, 1967. He was a great exponent of democratic planning in the country.

For Further Details:

Socialist Thought in Modern India by R A Prasad(1974)