BY PROF. N. SRINIVASAN ¹

(Andhra University, Waltair)

III. DEMOCRACY AND THE PARTY-SYSTEM

THE FAILURE OF REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT

Of the two forms of democracy, direct and representative, only the latter is possible in the modern State. The State of today is large. It cannot be visualised by the citizen and fails to satisfy the criterion of the ideal State of Aristotle. The type of government that the Greeks practised with such success is impossible in it. In the recent past, to render more effective the participation of the people in their government, the representative system has been supplemented in some democracies by the devices of direct legislation by the people, the Initiative, the Referendum, and the Recall.

The defects of representative government have become of late increasingly manifest. Under the stress of the extraordinary political and economic conditions resulting from the last War, democratic governments in some countries, notably in Italy and Germany, have been replaced by dictatorships. In Mr. Iyengar’s opinion this "signal failure of democracy" has been due to the difficulty of re-adjustment in an unprecedented economic crisis, to the sense of defeat, "disillusionment and widespread neurosis," to the lack of faith in democracy and an inexperience with its methods, and above all to "an insufficient appreciation of the paramount claims of race." With this analysis of the causes of the failure of democracy in the post-war world or with the desire that in this country we should avoid the defects that have become evident from this experience no one would disagree.

Of the system of representative government as it has functioned Mr. Srinivasa Iyengar is a severe critic. To him representative government realizes only very imperfectly his idea of a "complete democracy". He writes: "The system of representation, betraying a strange lack of confidence in the democratic ideal, is devised to secure party advantage and to minimise administrative inconvenience which is only another name for fear of change." For this astonishing proposition the presence of Second Chambers, checks and balances and safeguards of all sorts in most modern constitutions provide the evidence. (13)

This is neither fair nor accurate. It is a misrepresentation of the intended or actual purpose of representative systems. Such devices as Second Chambers, checks and balances, which appear today to obstruct the progress of democratic change, were largely the products of an admiration for the English Constitution that was widespread in the last two centuries and that made it the model for other constitutions. In the eighteenth century view the excellence of the English Constitution depended on the checks and balances that were supposed to form part of it. Montesquieu had seen in these mechanisms the secret of the Englishman’s liberty. It was not realised that the bicameralism of the English Parliament was an accident of history and that there was not a separation of powers in the constitution, but rather a novel and fruitful combination of them in the Cabinet System that was being evolved. Every country that desired liberty sought to set up this theoretical constitution with elaborate checks and balances of one power set against another. It should also be remembered that when representative institutions were first introduced their object was merely the prevention of arbitrary government and the preservation of liberty and not the achievement of large social changes. A negative purpose was necessarily reflected in institutions of a negative character. Nor were there any developed parties to exploit them for their own advantage. Whether justified or not today, the checks and balances of constitutional systems have served an important purpose in making smooth a transition from a society based on privilege to one founded largely on the principle of equality.

Most recent constitutions embodying the representative principle, far from displaying a distrust in democracy, have, on the contrary, shown an undue faith in the efficacy of its mechanisms and have devised ingenious schemes for ensuring the supremacy of the popular will. The complex schemes of direct legislation in recent democratic constitutions of Europe cannot be held to betray any lack of confidence in democracy or even in the representative system, as the purpose of these devices has been to educate the electorate more than to correct the abuses of the representative system. They have also obviously the purpose of facilitating democratic action in every possible way. Indeed it may be said that in most of these constitutions, their makers have set up theoretically perfect systems rather than practicable schemes of democratic government.²

Perhaps, among modern constitutions, it could alone be maintained of the constitutions of the United States and of India that the intention of their framers was consciously to circumscribe the action of the representative bodies in the interests of an established order. In the United States the industrial and commercial interests sought to secure their interests and the Federalist Party which was still an incoherent group was their instrument in 1786. Even so the actual working of the constitution has not completely fulfilled the expectations of its framers.³ In practice the constitution proved flexible enough to enable its survival in a changing world; it has permitted the ‘ad hoc’ planning under Roosevelt since 1932.⁴ If the experience of other countries is any guide it could be maintained that constitutional limitations will be powerless to prevent democracy from effecting the changes that it desires with urgency. In India, of course, the vested interests that have sought and obtained protection are numerous and have nullified any pretence that may be made of the constitution being representative and much less democratic. The point need not be laboured that a representative system need not be–in fact, it is not in most cases–a device to secure party advantage or an obstacle in the way of changes desired by a people. If it were, it would be folly on our part to set it up as an ideal. To maintain that democracy is the only way of assuring the happiness and welfare of the people and at the same time to assert that the representative system is a device to secure party advantage are surely contradictory. One cannot blow hot and cold in the same breath.

Mr. Srinivasa Iyengar uncritically repeats the defects of democracy pointed out by its critics since the time of Lecky, Maine and Sir James Fitz Stephen till Ostrogorski, Ludovici and Mencken.⁶ The control of the electorate over the representatives is "largely theoretical ". The elector is never well informed to be a competent judge of his representative’s actions. "This is especially the case where the democracy as a whole is not adequately educated as in India." (17) The elector does not choose his representative nor is he in constant contact with him. The parties choose the members of the legislatures. The elector is hypnotised by their propaganda. Existing electoral systems are imperfect and do not recognise the need to secure the services of able and experienced men of character for democracy.⁷ Corruption and professionalism vitiate democratic politics and these have vastly increased with the unlimited tenures of members in legislative bodies and the payment of their services. And so on.

PARTY, AS THE VILLAIN OF THE PIECE

The existence of these evils will not be denied, and remedy must be sought. At the least we must try to reduce the evils to the minimum. The causes of the evils have to be understood if they are to be overcome. Whence do they arise? To Mr. Srinivasa Iyengar the cause, indeed the sole cause, of the numerous evils of democracy lies in the Party System. The thesis is not unfamiliar in criticisms of democracy ever since Ostrogorski’s celebrated study of the Party System in the United States and in England appeared in the last decade of the nineteenth century. It is restated in more unqualified and less restrained language and without any fresh and substantial evidence. This is the crucial point in the present analysis of the evils of the representative system as it has functioned, and there-fore must be examined at some length. The gravamen of the charge is that, where a Party system is in existence, "it supersedes democracy" (54), and a series of rather ill-arranged propositions of a general nature constitute the ‘proof’ for so damaging a conclusion. We shall review the more important of these to see if the thesis is borne out by them.

In general, it may be said that, if the evils that are attributed to party, so formidable in their sweep, were even half true, the prospects of democracy would be gloomy. But fortunately that is not the case. The picture of the evils is over-drawn to the point of caricature. Where they exist in any degree–and it must be admitted that they do–they are the outcome of more causes than one, of which party is but an insignificant factor.

THE VOTER AS THE VICTIM OF THE PARTY

Does the party prejudice the judgment of the voter and curtail the freedom of choice that he should possess in choosing his representative? Is the appeal of the party only to his baser instincts and emotions and never to his reason? ⁸ Is it always a hindrance and never a help to him in the exercise of his civic functions? Mr. Srinivasa Iyengar’s answer to these questions is an emphatic negative. Party is the prime factor in preventing the citizen from the conscientious performance of his functions; he is the unwitting dupe of its frauds. It exploits his credulity and arouses his partisanship. It clouds his sense and he is rendered unfit for the duties of citizenship. Even placing rival programmes before him has only this effect (58).

Underlying this charge are large assumptions that are yet unproven. There is a naive faith in the virtues of the common man, his competence, his intelligence, his interest in public affairs and willingness for the sacrifices involved in democratic citizenship. The experience of existing democracies would seem to point the other way. It is not a derogation of democracy to admit that in no modern democracy is the electorate intelligent or competent enough to sift the complex and difficult issues of modern governments and by itself unaided to arrive at a sound judgment on them. It is unable by itself to choose between alternative policies and rival candidates. The large modern electorate makes personal knowledge of the candidates impossible. It is the party which introduces the prospective candidates for electoral favours to the people with the assurance of their conduct in the ways defined in the programme of the Party–at least ultimately. Here is an incident related to his students at the London School at a meeting some years ago by the late Professor Graham Wallas which illustrates the peculiar difficulties of the voter in the modern State, and the gap that is filled by the party system in our democracies. For an election to his Borough Council in the days before organised parties began to contest local elections, Professor Wallas had been approached by the two candidates from his ward who were contesting the seat. He knew neither of them personally and neither of them was known to belong to parties with well-defined programmes. The considerations which made this eminent professor of Political Science to vote for one of them was the fact that he had observed from the bath over-looking the street while shaving every morning one of the candidates pass his door! This certainly is not rational choice.

If this were the plight of a great man, what of the ordinary men and women who constitute the bulk of a modern electorate? The problem of choosing a candidate or policy is not certainly simplified by the abolition of party. On the contrary, it would render matters worse and would make every choice a sort of lucky dip. There is not necessarily virtue or ability if the candidate disclaims any allegiance to a party. The elector has no assurance that of the conduct of the representative would conform to his preferences in any case. The representative may effectively plead his loneliness and evade his responsibility to his constituents, which is impossible under a regime of party. An electorate that cannot make a choice between rival candidates cannot certainly be expected to choose judiciously among contrary policies. The problem needs thought, knowledge, and understanding of a difficult kind which no electorate possesses in any high degree. No electorate again can be expected to devote much time to politics. It can indicate preferences among alternative solutions suggested by some few who have made it their task to think out its problems. It does not very much matter if the thinking has been from a special angle, with a penchant for what are conceived as the interests of the party. Party, in the words of Lowell, serves as the broker of ideas. ⁹ The vital importance of this function needs no elaborate proof. Where it is proposed to add the Referendum and Initiative to the processes of democracy, this function becomes well-nigh indispensable.

Nor is the assumption that an educated electorate will discharge its civic duties of its own accord, or will be willing to make the sacrifices of time and trouble demanded of it, without considerable persuasion and sometimes even compulsion, any more well-founded. The lethargy of the electorate has been a matter of constant and regretful complaint in every democracy. In the greatest of democracies, Switzerland, not a few Cantons have resorted to compulsory voting laws, and this, in spite of an admirably organised Party System, ¹⁰ which is constantly busy, and which is almost pedagogic educating the electorate and arousing its interest in public questions. An electorate needs, as all experience shows, constant reminders of its duty to go to the polls as well as constant illumination of the problems on which it has to decide. There is thus an inescapable necessity for organised groups of political enthusiasts, by whatever name they may be known, in our large democracies. The "vocation of leadership," as the Webbs term it, is the central function and raison d’etre of parties in the modern State.¹¹ The better served a democracy is by organized leadership, the greater are the chances of responsible government in it.

There is implicit a further assumption that flatly contradicts the rest. The citizen is conceived to be at the same time both stupid enough to be led by the party to support ends and policies that are not his and wise enough as to need no guidance whatever, in the exercise of his civic functions, with such arduous tasks to perform as choosing candidates for several legislative and even executive bodies as well as to vote at referenda and initiative elections. None of the assumptions can be admitted as true. The citizen is neither so ignorant even when he is not literate or well versed in the problems of modern governments, as to be the victim of the schemes of parties which have no relevance to his material interests. He may sometimes be deceived; but that happens to him not more than once. The shrewdness of the peasant-voter in this country is proverbial. He exercises a fair amount of discretion in the choice of his representative. Experience makes him vary his support to parties and policies. The periodical swing of the pendulum ‘and the land-slides at elections are reminders that no party that does not realise its programmes or whose programmes turn out ill in practice can hope to retain for long the confidence of the electorate. Nor, on the contrary, is he above the need of the organised help in choosing his men and measures that parties alone can give him. Not the least of the services of a party is the enthusiasm that it brings to the task of making the citizen vote. But for this democracy will scarcely function at all.

THE INDIVIDUAL MEMBER AND THE PARTY.

Mr. Srinivasa Iyengar deplores the loss of independence of the individual member of the Legislature. He urges that where a party imposes its discipline on its member no member has the freedom to speak his real opinion on the merits and defects of questions before the Legislature. "A party majority only registers party decisions made outside, or by the Party leader in the House." The decisions of the House are not an expression of the real opinion of the majority of its members which ought to be the case according to democratic theory. Discussions are often formal and unreal. "If democracy is government by discussion then surely party government is not democracy."

The disappearance of the private member from the centre of the parliamentary stage has come about quite unobtrusively and for quite proper reasons–the need that responsibility and power should go together and its necessary corollary that the initiative in legislation should belong to the Government of the day. The limited time at the disposal of a Legislature for transacting its business is a further cause. It is in this context of the necessities of government and of limitations of time that the problem of the relation of the individual member to his party should be considered.

It is doubtless true that the member of a party must accept its programme and should not deviate from the ‘party line’ in the Legislature. But can it be denied that an active member has manifold opportunities of moulding the programme of the party and of guiding its activities? Or again, can it be said that a member by accepting the discipline of a party abdicates his right to private judgment? It should be remembered that the association with the party is voluntarily undertaken and unless a person approves in broad outline the programme of a party and the attitude it brings to the study of problems he will not join it. Persons who join a party for personal or other reasons cannot be taken into account in this. What must be emphasized is the fact that, given an agreement in a fundamental way as must be the case among the members of the same party, the possible differences of opinion on the details and techniques of particular measures cannot be great and their sub-ordination involves hardly the suppression of individual opinion. Even these can be fully expressed at the councils of the party. Instead of being ineffective in an irreconcilable position, individual members, by shedding their intransigence and eccentricities and co-operating with like-minded other citizens, become effective influences in government. Nor should the fact of changing policies and leadership within the party be overlooked as is done in characterising party discipline as tantamount to a denial of individual freedom of opinion.

It might further be pointed out that in the criticism of the party as a tyranny over the individual member there is a tendency to idealise the latter. It is not always or even frequently that the party has drowned the individual’s voice; in the majority of cases in actual fact there is no voice at all to be drowned. That rather is the serious problem for democracy. This must be evident to anyone who has cared to look into the proceedings of any modern legislature to discover the contributions of individual members.

THE RESPONSIBILITY OF GOVERNMENT

It is argued by Mr. Srinivasa Iyengar that the system of party destroys the responsibility of Government to the legislature or even to the party itself. The question raised cannot be answered unless we know what is implied by responsibility under modern conditions and what constitutes the respective spheres of the legislature and the executive. A modern legislature cannot obviously undertake the functions of the Athenian Assembly. A legislature that would administer as well as legislate would surely lead to instability in government and incoherence in policy. French experience conclusively proves this.¹² The ventilation of grievance, the criticism and control of the administration and the maintenance of its standards by interpellations, the co-operation with the executive in the making of the laws that are necessary, the criticism of policy and the determination of its broad outlines and in Parliamentary systems the making of the Government appear to be the proper functions of a modern legislature. The voting of supplies is merely a means to these ends. If it is desired that the processes of law-making must answer to the urgent necessities revealed by experience, and if stable and competent government is desired, the leadership of the executive must be accepted by the legislature, as indeed it is in all Parliamentary systems as distinguished from the Presidential systems of constituting the executive. Even in Switzerland, where the executive is the servant of the legislature, the Federal Council’s leadership in the Legislature has been unquestioned. If, within the functions that are appropriate to it, a legislature is effective and the Government’s policies constitute an expression of its desires, we can justifiably speak of the existence of responsible government. Such responsibility is at its best where a legislature is divided into two more or less equal and coherent parties, one of them habitually supporting the Government and the other vigilantly scrutinising its actions and subjecting them to a withering fire of criticism. The homogeneity and discipline of the party in office as well as in opposition is essential if government is to be both Purposeful and responsible. The discipline of party assures the Government strength and stability while the latter in its turn provides the leadership and drive necessary along the lines to be pursued. In the modern State the Legislature cannot govern; it can only act as a control on behalf of the people whom it represents. If the Legislature were to begin to administer it can only lead to a muddle. The view that a modern Legislature is competent to govern shows only an ignorance of the tasks and techniques of modern public administration and a wholly unjustified belief in the capacity of the average legislator for administration.

THE "DICTATORSHIP" OF THE PARTY.

Mr. Srinivasa Iyengar seems to resent almost any kind of discipline and organization in the party system. To him there exists no need for organised parties of any kind. The argument is best given in his own words: "That men must differ in opinion and that those who hold the same opinion may ally themselves for some purposes may be readily conceded. Such differences are often beneficial and sometimes necessary for the growth of democracy and for the close scrutiny and deliberate formulation of a sound policy. But this does not necessitate the establishment of a party organisation to keep the electors saturated with party spirit or set up party candidates for election to the legislature and to run the election campaign or to capture the supreme power of the state for the benefit of a group, large or small. Nor does it require that those citizens who hold similar views on all political and economic questions should be organised into stereotyped parties, rigid and permanent, with rules of discipline devised only in the interests of each party and of its leadership, and striking at the opponents as a military machine. Liberty is imperilled by such devices especially when the minorities have not the courage to assert themselves or the skill and leadership to organise themselves into powerful rival camps. It is the party organisation and party discipline that have altered the character of political parties altogether by making them more or less a sinister force in a democratic State." (58).

The continuation of this argument occurs on a previous page, and is as follows: "And the more rigid and the more disciplined it is, the more of a dictatorship it becomes, as the recent experience of Europe has shown. A party seeks to impose its will on the majority of the population and gets its own men returned. The electorates are not free to choose their repesentatives but accept the party itself as their representative. And the party requires the men returned to surrender their own judgment and submit to its dictation. There is therefore no expression of democracy but only a dictatorship. The difference between this Parliamentary dictatorship and the new Dictatorship consists only in this: the former allows the opposition a voice and some play. It does not suppress the opposition and stifle criticism. In the new dictatorships opposition is eliminated and criticism suppressed altogether. This is the reason why(?) the dictatorship of a party government, veiled in constitutional forms will generally lead to an open dictatorship in one form or another." (52).

We have already considered the necessity of the Party System and the position of the individual member, and the question of minority parties will be considered in the section dealinig with the Party System in India. Here we shall only consider if the Party System inevitably leads to a dictatorship as is alleged. By dictatorship must be meant a form of government in which an absolute power is in irresponsible hands. Is it the case in any democracy within our experience? England has been under a regime of parties almost continuously since 1688. With the growth of democracy and the development of parliament during the nineteenth century, parties have become organised and well-disciplined. The organisation of an English Party from the primary ward committees to the great Central Association is more complete and its discipline more rigorous than that of any party in this country, even including the Congress. The Government of England–no one but the confirmed Marxist has yet made such an accusation–has never yet been the veiled dictatorship to which a Party System inevitably leads in the opinion of Mr. Iyengar. It can safely be prophesied that if ever a dictatorship arises in England it will be not due to the Party System operating within the constitutional framework, but will be the direct outcome of the failure of the Party System, or its disintegration. The experience of other democracies, whether of the Parliamentary, the Presidential or other types provides not the least basis for the fear of a Party System deteriorating into a dictatorship. It may be obeserved also that in the countries in which dictatorships have arisen there has been a complete disintegration of the old constitutional parties or their forcible suppression. The only reasonable deduction is that parties, far from leading to dictatorships, help to preserve democracy by fostering a sense of loyalty to a constitutional regime. It is indeed a strange kind of dictatorship that allows the opposition "a voice and some play" and does not stifle criticism!