IT is a historical law that revolution is followed
by corruption. The Restoration of 1660, the fall of Robespierre in Thermidor,
1794, were plain signals to the old Adam that he need no longer heed the
fanatics. Though no such dramatic break occurred in Russia, the replacement of
idealism by a scramble for place and wealth has gone nearly as far. We now hear
that in Eastern Germany the Communists, suddenly lifted from the concentration
camps to power, are already yielding to the familiar temptations.
There is therefore no ground for surprise at the
decline in morale experienced since the revolution of August 15, 1947. We
should rather be glad that it has taken place so suddenly that nobody can have
mis5ed it. For natural though it is, it cannot be ignored as unimportant. It is
in fact much more than a mere growth of financial dishonesty. That is a symptom
of wider and grayer evils. Indian democracy is challenged by an all-round
unfitness for self-rule.
Everybody knows that the country is unfit for
self-rule. Departing British officials, even sympathetic ones, freely prophesy
a relapse into autocracy, monarchical or dictatorial. Many people advocate
dictatorship. The existing regime is in fact democratic only in a formal sense;
and though that formality is well worth preserving, unchallenged one party rule
accustoms the public to having its affairs decided without being consulted.
The precarious position. of democracy is well
understood. Yet no broad policy to strengthen it seems to exist, or to have
been discussed. Education is of course fundamental to democracy, and the new
governments are anxious to push education. Even in this matter, however, in the
new policies are not entirely free from defects. Craft-centred education, if
universal, and suitably geared in with a broader cultural education, can be
admirable; but it might easily be perverted into a training which limited
horizons and discouraged thought, a training in acquiescence rather than
initiative, an education, in short, for a subservient class. This has probably
happened with the technologically-biased Russian education: it turns out good
workers but not good citizens.
I hope I am not guilty of a nationalist prejudice,
but I doubt the wisdom of the rapid abandonment of English as the medium of
instruction in higher education. A reaction against English is inevitable, but
the authorities would do better to slow it down than to encourage it, for it is
dangerous. I am not thinking of science and technology, though these matter a
great deal, but of democracy, or, more broadly, what can be called a modern
outlook.
The governments ought to take more interest in
democracy. Abstract exhortations are notoriously useless. What is needed first
of all is study. It cannot be assumed–the assumption would be risky even in the
most advanced countries–that the public is sufficiently articulate to make its
real needs known, or sufficiently homogeneous to be effectively represented by
an elected legislature, The governments ought to establish permanent committees
of psychologists and sociologists with staffs enough to keep in touch with all
the main groups of their populations. Elaborate questionnaire techniques
for such purposes have been worked out, especially in America. These should be
used. We want to know how people at all levels are reacting to the vast and
rapid changes now going on. We want psychological studies of the village and
the town, the State and the Province, high and low castes, old and new
occupations, the tribes, the minorities. Why do people produce more children
than they can support? How do those brought up in joint families differ from
those in single families? What are the conditions of village democracy? Why is
the cooperative movement such a qualified success? Why do some communities go
ahead while others stagnate? What conditions favour crime, official corruption,
commercial irregularities? Why do people become Communists? How effective are
the established propaganda agencies? What are the effects of bilingual
education? Without sound answers to the hundreds of questions like these that
can be asked, those who plan education, regulate the press or films, impose
prohibition, uplift Harijans, exhort people to grow more food, or draft the
Constitution, are working in a greater or less degree, in the dark. We have a
long way to go before the community becomes capable of democracy: without such
study we cannot even know whether we are going the right way.
The governments must undertake this study. So far
as they are moved by the desire to promote democracy, they will be benefited by
the results. But such knowledge, like any other, can also be misused. A
dictator tries to acquire just the same type of information. Democracy cannot
be kept going unless the desire for it prevails, in the governments and more
especially among the public. It is the absence of the proper spirit among the
people that is the greatest weakness of democracy in India, It is a mistake to
blame the governments as corrupt, inefficient, obscurantism, ill-informed or
dictatorial: in all these respects they truly represent the public. The spirit
of self-rule can be strengthened only among the people and by the people.
At the political level we need of course an
effective democratic opposition. Immediately, the only party which can aspire
to this position is the Socialist Party. An increase in the strength of this
party is desirable. It is the only one of the existing opposition parties that
is likely to be tolerated by the Congress, and general electoral contests
between the two should teach the present ruling party a much-needed lesson in
political decorum. Once the Socialist Party has compelled recognition of the
principle that opposition must be allowed, other parties may be able to take
advantage of it. Further, the Socialist Party stands for democracy and
decentralisation and a number of other acceptable principles.
However, it has adopted what seem wrong policies in
some matters. It has identified itself too closely with nationalism. In a nationalist
world nationalist policies are unfortunate necessities; it is not for an
idealistic party to press them any further than need be. The Socialist Party’s
support for Hindustani, doubtless in the belief that it is a democratic policy,
seems mistaken: Hindustani is an instrument of reaction. The party’s espousal
of Socialism as its distinctive policy is also unfortunate. It is doubtful if
the slogan is at present realistic in the purely economic sense. Socialism is
not an end; it is a means, which all parties are now willing to adopt in some
measure. The important question is to what use one’s Socialism will be put: to
support oligarchy or promote democracy, to enslave the public or free them, to
increase the nation’s armed power or promote popular welfare–all are compatible
with Socialism. It is to be hoped therefore that the Socialist Party will
change its policy, or will be successful in creating an atmosphere in which
other opposition parties with different ideas can flourish.
However, this concerns only the political aspect of
democracy. Mahatma Gandhi understood well that life is much more than politics.
Side by side with the Congress he organised a non-political movement, centred
in the Ashrams, led by men who had dedicated their lives to public work, for
village uplift, khadi, Harijan seva, Hindi, and the rest. He was trying not
only to change people’s political preferences, but to change their whole
outlook.
Intelligent modern-minded people know what is wrong
with society as it is. They may see various aspects of the nation’s weaknesses,
but their remedies will be for the most part complementary rather than
conflicting. They must begin to organise themselves to do what they know needs
to be done. They must inspire themselves with a little of the devotion that
distinguishes the Gandhists and the Communists. They need take no comprehensive
resolution of self-denial. They should resolve only to observe proper standards
of conduct in their own business, and to set aside some part of their spare
time for organised public work. They can educate. They can push the library
movement. They can organise foreign language clubs and promote knowledge of
foreign thought. They can give expert help in matters like cooperation, local
government, sanitation, productive techniques–there is little doubt that
production could be much increased without great expenditure if educated men
put their minds to its problems. They can study in private and discuss in
public these and other matters of common concern. They can initiate the kind of
sociological investigation proposed above. They can investigate the very urgent
problem of population control, which has social as well as medical aspects.
These jobs–except the last, which is taboo–are
being tackled now, by the political parties, and various special bodies. But
while much of their work is valuable, the approach is usually in some measure
unacceptable to a modern mind. The Gandhian bias against technology for the
present perhaps more theoretical than practical; but even this is
objectionable. In regard to broader cultural trends the Gandhian institutions
are predominantly backward-looking and isolationist. The practical effect of
their teaching is to lead towards a stagnant, hierarchical society, in which
foreign contacts are reduced to a minimum, education is restricted and new
ideas are feared, in which poverty is made tolerable by cultivating a
masochistic delight in it, and in any case the population grows so fast as to
defeat any economic reform. Broadly, the policies of the Congress conduce to
the same ends, but–such is practical politics–the saving graces of Gandhism,
its honesty, its peacefulness, its respect for the individual, tend to be
sacrificed to corrupt special interests, and to national power and glory.
We do not want a rejection of national traditions.
That would be undesirable and is of course impossible. But we do not want a
wholesale rejection of foreign ideas; and that is possible, and actually
threatens. We want the most beneficial synthesis, and to that end the people
who at present are the bearers of both the Western and the Indian cultures must
assert themselves. There is a danger that they will be swamped by the flood of
nationalism, and their valuable acquisition of a foreign culture will be allowed
to die out. They must rally against that danger.
Such movements as that suggested here are usually
organised round the personality of a leader. Jawaharlal Nehru is the
outstanding leader who has for the last twenty years represented the kind of
outlook it is intended to cultivate. I should not however propose that
organisations be launched in his name. Probably he would disapprove. He is now
too closely identified with one party to be a proper leader of what should be a
non-party and largely non-political movement. In any case we should not wish to
encourage the atavistic practice of leader-worship. What India needs is the
habit of independence, of local initiative, of thinking for oneself.
In the absence of the stimulus provided by an
outstanding man as leader, and in the absence of religious or political
fanaticism, any movement must seem doomed to ineffectiveness. Certainly these
conditions preclude easy success. But the kind of people appealed to should
surely be able to overcome that difficulty, unless it is true that head and
heart are irreconcilably at enmity. In fact such people all over the country
are engaged in inconspicuous public work of this nature. What is needed is that
they become more aware of their responsibilities as the small minority of
bearers of a modern culture and that they organise and perhaps modify their
work accordingly. The Rotary Club can be cited as a parallel. Its inspiration
is non-political, non-national, non-religious, and free from leader-idolatry,
and in fact is rather similar to what is proposed here; yet it is a successful
growing movement. It runs on the strength of the impulse to serve the community
and the stimulus of working together for good purposes, under the direction of
a light, self-imposed discipline. Surely the public I am appea1ing to are
capable of that.