DEMOCRACY IN INDIA

By A. RANGANATHAN

“Politics,” wrote Seeley, “are vulgar when they are not liberalised by history, and history fades into mere literature when it loses sight of its relation to practical politics,” and viewed in this perspective, it is clear that the growth of democracy in India was a direct result of the system of liberal education which the British had introduced in our Universities. Along with the classics of English literature, the nineteenth century Indian had studied such political classics as Locke’s ‘Of Civil Government’ and Mill’s ‘On Liberty’. Some Indians were also influenced by the ideals of Cavour and Mazzini who, in their turn, had drawn most of their political ideas from English liberalism. And the desire to have a truly national Government, based on the parliamentary system, was strengthened by two factors–the enactment of legislative measures on the social plane, and the steady development of a spirit of nationalism on the political plane. Seeley had described the then Government of India as one “which is utterly un-English, which is bureaucratic,……which rests on military force, which raises its revenue not in the European fashion, but by taking the place of a universal landlord, and in a hundred other ways departs from the traditions of England.” Thus, paradoxical as it may seem, England herself was doubly responsible for the growth of a democratic movement in India. While the policy of the British colonial administrators in India intensified the struggle for freedom, it was the teachings of great British intellectuals like Burke, Acton, Seeley, Shaw and Russell that inspired in us the love of freedom.

The beginnings of British liberal thought can be traced in the 17th century struggle in England, of the Parliament against the authority of the King. But the word ‘Liberal’ as a Party label gained currency in British politics as a result of the sympathy felt by the Whigs for the Spanish ‘liberales.’ And the movements of liberal thought which developed in England during the course of one or two centuries were compressed into a few decades in India, in an Indian setting. To cite an example, Lord Macaulay pleaded for religious liberty, during a debate on the civil disabilities of the Jews, in a celebrated speech in the House of Commons. In India (where religious liberty was no problem at any time), Raja Ram Mohan Roy had to launch a campaign against such customs as ‘Suttee.’ Similarly Raja Ram Mohan Roy’s sympathy for Naples when it was attacked by the Austrian Government and his opposition to Spanish imperialism in South America (markedly similar to the liberal element in Indian public opinion, which asserted itself against totalitarian tyranny in the test-cases of Hungary and Tibet) had been inspired by the British Liberal Party’s attitude towards the national movements in Italy, Greece and South America. And the Raja’s contribution to the freedom of the Press flowed from ‘Milton’s ‘Areopagetica,’ a notable source of English liberalism. Thus, the principles of civil liberty, the rule of law and the freedom of the Press constituted the background of the first phase of liberal democracy in modern India.

“It was said,” observed Sir Winston Churchill in December 1946, in a memorable debate in the House of Commons, “in the days of the great administration of Lord Chatham, that one had to get up very early in the morning not to miss some of the gains and accessions of territory which were then characteristic of our fortune. The no less memorable administration of the Rt. Hon. gentleman is distinguished for the opposite set of experiences. The British Empire seems to be running off almost as fast as the American loan. The steady and remorseless process of divesting ourselves of what has been gained by so many generations of toil, administration and sacrifice, continues.” This observation of Sir Winston was in reply to Lord Attlee’s statement that His Majesty’s Government did not desire “to retain within the Commonwealth and Empire any unwilling peoples.” Herein lies the triumph of the liberal tradition over the imperial tradition, and of freedom over authority, which climaxed a process of decades, resulting in the transformation of the British Empire into the Commonwealth of Nations. The philosophical foundations of such a transformation were laid by a group of men led by Edmund Burke.

Burke’s reverence for the cultures and civilisations of all nations, including his own, distinguished him as the prophet of philosophical conservatism. His profound admiration for the permanent values of Indian civilisation led him to believe that the people of ‘Hindosthan’ must be governed “upon their principles and not upon ours.” Burke’s argument on the French Revolution was equally based on his great regard for the culture of France. And his attitude towards the “American problem’ was due to his reverence for the British Constitution. He argued that, “to prove that the Americans ought not to be free, we are obliged to deprecate the value of freedom itself, and we never seem to gain a paltry advantage over them in debate without attacking some of the principles and in deriding some of those feelings for which our ancestors had shed their own blood.” Looked at from this point of view, there is hardly any necessity to ‘reconcile’ Burke’s attitude towards the French Revolution and his approach to the problems of India and America, as is attempted by some students of political philosophy. Strange as it may seem, it is his very conservatism that made Burke evolve a philosophy of liberalism. Burke merely held that rapacity in the Empire as well as in France was hardly compatible with democracy in England. Burke’s declared aim was to “maintain the spirit of freedom in its full vigour.” While it is difficult to trace Burke’s ideas to any particular influence, it is interesting to note that Cicero’s orations afford a striking parallel to Burke’s orations, in the history of political ideas.

Although Burke made a brilliant contribution to the discussion of the problems of the day, his gaze not only surveyed his own time, but was projected far into the future, since his oratorical utterances were at once practical and philosophical. And in his ‘Reflections on the Revolution in France,’ he has a significant comment on Dr. Prince which can however stand as a general reflection on ill-advised and hasty economic change for the sake of novelty, “wholly unacquainted with the world in which they are so fond of meddling, and in- experienced in all its affairs, on which they pronounce with so much confidence, they have nothing of politics but the passions they excite.” He has warned us of a situation, “when individual freedom is curtailed, in the name of the people: those who are subjected to wrong under multitudes are deprived of all external consolation: they seem deserted by mankind, overpowered by a conspiracy of their whole species.” Burke’s ideas flowed from the ancient fountainhead of the ‘rule of law’.

In essence, the rule of law means that the activities of the Government should be motivated by the ideals of justice and not by caprice, and that judges should be independent of the executive. Switching on to India, one is inclined to agree with Sir Ivor Jennings who wrote: “Essentially the Indian Constitution is an individualist document. Its prophets are Burke, Mill and Dicey; yet some at least of the members of the Constituent Assembly thought in collectivist terms. The result is a curious dichotomy. On the one hand the individualism of the nineteenth century has sought to limit the powers of the Government in the interests of liberty; on the other hand the collectivism of the twentieth century has sought to expand the powers of the Government in order that the State may regulate economic life and, incidentally, restrict liberty. This dichotomy in thought is primarily due to the fact that our leaders fail to see the connection between national independence and individual liberty. And since Indian Independence, there has been a gradual but sustained effort to increase the powers of the executive at the expense of courts. Pandit Nehru had opposed the idea of the Supreme Court being the final arbiter on the quantum of compensation, on the plea that the Supreme Court of India ought not to make itself a “third House of Parliament.”

It is well known that the Due Process Clause of the Fifth and Fourteenth amendments to the American Constitution constitute a source of reserved power for the judiciary, to act as a restraining influence on legislative and executive bodies when they tend to limit the freedom of the individual. While there is no Due Process Clause as such in the Indian Constitution, the Indian Constitution empowers Parliament to regulate property rights in India. Article 19 (1) (f) and (g) says that:

“All citizens shall have the right to acquire, hold and dispose of property; and to practise any profession, to carry on any occupation, trade or business.”

And the fifth clause states that “nothing in the said sub-clauses shall affect the operation of any existing law in so far as it imposes, or prevent the State from making any law, imposing reasonable restrictions on the exercise of any of the right conferred by the said sub-clauses, in the interests of the general public or for the protection of the interests of any Scheduled Tribe.” The “Right to Property” was originally guaranteed by Article 31 of the Indian Constitution. According to the original provision in Article 31 (1), “No person shall be deprived of his property save by authority of law.” And Article 31 (2) stated: “No property, movable or immovable, including any interest in, or in any company, owning any commercial or industrial undertaking, shall be taken possession of or acquired for public purposes under any law authorising the taking of such possession or such acquisition, unless the law provides for compensation for the property taken possession of or acquired, and either fixes the amount of the compensation, or specifies the principles on which, and the manner in which, the compensation is to be determined and given.” However, on April 27, 1955 an amendment was introduced in the wake of a bitter controversy, which substituted for Article 31 (2) the following clauses: (2) No property shall be compulsorily acquired or requisitioned save for a public purpose and save by authority of a law which provides for compensation for the property so acquired or requisitioned, and either fixes the amount of compensation or specifies the principles on which, and the manner in which, the compensation is to be determined and given, and no such law shall be called in question in any court on the ground that the compensation provided by that law is not adequate. (2A) Where a law does not provide for the transfer of ownership or right to possession of any property to the State or to a corporation owned or controlled by the State, it shall not be deemed to provide for the compulsory acquisition or requisitioning of property, notwithstanding that it deprives any person of his property.”

Commenting on it, Mr. Justice Douglas has remarked, in his scholarly work, We the Judges, that “India has broken with one tradition of the law of eminent domain.” He has also pointed out that “the 1955 Amendment casts a shadow over every private factory, plant or other individual enterprise in India. The legislature may now appropriate it at any price it desires–substantial or nominal. There is no review of the reasonableness of the amount of compensation. The result can be just compensation or confiscation–dependent wholly on the mood of Parliament...If Parliament appropriates private property for only nominal compensation, the spectre of confiscation would have entered India, contrary to the teachings of her outstanding jurists.” It would be difficult to deny that this Amendment which vested this power in Parliament, will in actual practice delegate it to the ruling party, to be finally administered by the bureaucracy. The situation is particularly conducive to the growth of State Capitalism, if viewed in the light of the various measures which have followed in the wake of the “Socialistic Pattern of Society”–Wealth Tax, the Nagpur resolution on ‘Co-operative Farming,’ nationalisation of life insurance, State trading etc.

The Nagpur resolution on ‘Co-operative Farming’ is an innocuous resolution at first sight; but upon serious reflection, its implications are obvious. As pointed out lucidly by Mr. Minoo Masani, M. P., the introduction of co-operative farming will mean that the property of the peasant “has been taken away from him without telling him so, and he is being fobbed off with a scrap of paper which a future Government will have no hesitation, on ‘equitable grounds,’ in tearing up, because his utility to society ends on the day on which the farm ceases to be his.” Mr. Nehru’s arguments in favour of co-operative farming are by no means convincing; indeed they fall flat. In one of his replies to the critics of co-operative farming, the Prime Minister said that “the momentary reaction of a peasant might be to dislike these things, because he thinks land is being carted away. It is wrong. Land is not being carted away to some other country or continent. Land remains there and he will remain there.” Land, in Russia, has not been carted away, but the Soviet peasant has lost his liberty.

This scheme of co-operative farming is not only a dangerous measure in itself, but must also be viewed in the present-day setting of increasing interference of the executive authority. The erstwhile bastions of democracy in a pluralistic State, such as the peasant, the free enterpreneur, the middle classes, the judiciary and the free Press are gradually being made to sink into insignificance by giving expression to a spate of calculated ridicule. A great judge known for his brilliant intellect and moral integrity is invited to preside over an enquiry and is later characterised as ‘lacking in intelligence’ simply because his findings were not to the liking of the ruling party. And more often than not, the judiciary is given gratuitous scraps of advice regarding the line of judgement, in the interests of social reform. If an erstwhile colleague does not approve of some new fangled proposals of taxation, she is dubbed as exhibiting the mentality of “a petty capitalist.” And in case an elder statesman warns against the hasty implementation of Hindi as the language of administration, he is accused of carrying on a cold war. These are not healthy trends in a democracy, since it would mean that any action which is non-conformist” (however justified by reason) from the accepted angle of what may be termed Yesmanship, would be criticised as an essay in cold war. And now comes the turn of the Press. In Mr. Nehru’s words: “I know editorial opinion is also strongly in favour of the Swatantra Party. How any sensible person can be that I cannot understand. I can only come to the conclusion that editorial opinion is based on personal views and prejudices and, may be, financial backing.” Here we are not concerned with the programmes and policies of the Swatantra Party as such. But this strange inference or deduction by which a person is judged as ‘sensible,’ is unfortunate, to say the least. And still worse is the implied meaning in the phrase ‘financial backing.’ Does it mean that the same charge can be levelled against the Press, if it sings hymns in praise of the Congress Party? This line of approach reduces the philosophy of the Fourth Estate to a level of thinking which is hardly consistent with the ideals of enlightened democracy. And it makes nonsense of the tradition of the freedom of the Press in India which can be traced to the writings of Raja Ram Mohan Roy.

While a two-party system constitutes a pre-requisite for a democratic set-up, it is well to remember that it would be difficult to work out the system of democracy, if one party is democratic and the other is rooted in a totalitarian ideology. In India, until very recently, there wasn’t any party which could be called an opposition party in the real sense of the term, since both the Hindu revivalist parties and the Communist parties had rejected the basic ideals of democracy and liberty. Mr. Rajagopalachari had advocated the case for a healthy opposition even two years ago, when he pleaded for a party of the Right, “without inviting any semantic controversy.” According to him, a party of the Right gives expression to those distresses and disturbances “which are not less real or important than the need for change and progress.” And since the Congress Party had swung to the Left, Sri C. Rajagopalachari had outlined the necessity of having a strong and articulate Right, and not a number of splinter parties such as the ultra or the outer-Left.

Commenting on the Swatantra Party at a recent Press conference, Mr. Nehru told a gathering of Press representatives, that it is “a ghost-like party and raises ghosts of a past century.” This is, perhaps, a clear confirmation of the fact that “something is rotten in the State of Denmark” which constitutes the Congress organisation. What are those ghosts? Could it be that the Gandhian ideal of democracy, when projected through the forum of the Swatantra Party, assumes the shape of a ghost? The Gandhian view of Socialism is crystalised in the following significant terms: “I do not share the socialist belief that centralisation of the necessaries of life will conduce to the common welfare, when the centralised industries are planned and owned by the State. The Socialistic conception of the West was born in an environment reeking with violence.”

Sometime ago, Prime Minister Nehru said: “Private enterprise may come in the way and does come in the way of the functioning of the democratic apparatus.” This is a clear indication of the fact that we in India tend to imitate a trend of thinking which was fashionable in Europe several years ago. At a time when the latest manifesto of the British Labour Party reflected the tendency to denationalize, it was a trifle amusing that the Congress Working Committee had presented the new nostrum of a “democratic and socialistic society” which is supposed to be an improvement over the old slogan of the “socialistic pattern of society.” This basic confusion in thinking arises from a failure to view the two sectors, private and public, in their proper setting. An atmosphere of hostility surrounds the private sector in India. Mr. Eugene Black stated the position, clearly and unambiguously, in his memorable letter to Mr. T. T. Krishnamachari. He observed: “In making my own comments, I should like first to emphasise once again my conviction that India’s interests lie in giving private enterprise, both Indian and foreign, every encouragement to make its maximum contribution to the development of economy, particularly in the industrial field. While I recognise that the Government itself must play an important role in India’s economic development I have the distinct impression that the potentialities of private enterprise are commonly underestimated in India and that its operations are subjected to unnecessary restrictions there.”

What is needed is a real sense of dedication, and not a misplaced faith in the infallibility of the public sector. A nationalised corporation is only a landmark on the road to State Capitalism; but it cannot justify its existence unless it fulfils certain statutory obligations to the public. In his work on ‘Problems of Nationalized Industry,’ Mr. W. A. Robson. has lucidly commented: “Nationalisation cannot succeed without it; nor can democratic socialism prove to be a superior conception of social or economic life. If the vast industrial forces which work in the public corporations merely seek to exploit their position to the full, the future will be grim and joyless indeed.”

The concept of Socialism, whether it is called the “Socialistic Pattern of Society” or the Co-operative Commonwealth, is based on the nineteenth century Marxian theory of class war. Just as the famous American philosopher William James wanted a moral equivalent for war, it is necessary to evolve a liberal equivalent to Socialism in the phraseology of William James. Since we are living in a democratic society, it is essential to preserve the choice of individuals in the spheres of saving and consumer trades, based on the mechanism of the market economy. What is needed, therefore, at the moment is to formulate a comprehensive liberal alternative to Socialism with its main accent on individual freedom which gives democracy its distinctive profile.

The belief of our New Delhi planners in Socialism (which makes them think in terms of constitutional encroachments into the domain of the individual) is based on the pathetic assumption that Socialism signifies materialism, a higher standard of living. Actually, the so-called materialism, of the Socialist way of life is an “inverted kind of materialism” (as argued by Prof. Michael Polanyi) finding its scope by building colossal structures and voicing the usual slogan of “production and more production” at the expense of urgent popular goods. It is high time we cry halt to this remorseless process of steadily divesting the people of their property rights through the legislative apparatus, if we are to preserve the spirit of democracy as distinguished from its outer trappings.

Disraeli once observed with profound insight that “a political institution is a machine; the motive power is the national character. With that it rests whether the machine will benefit society or destroy it.” Ranade gave us an idea of the national character of India when he said that “change for the better by slow absorption–not by sudden conversion or revolution–this has been the characteristic feature of our past history” in his address to a social conference held as early as 1893. The success of democracy depends not only on the strength of vigilant public opinion, but on the high level of thinking in the various debates and discussions which form a regular feature of democracy. In his “Reflections on Government” Sir Ernest Barker observes: “It is not the worship of quantity: it is the worship of quality, that quality of the thinking and discoursing mind which can dare to raise and to face conflicting views of the Good, and to seek, by the way of discussion, some agreed and accepted compromise whereby a true (because general) national will is attained, and a national Good is secured which is really good because it is freely willed.”

Democracy can be a vital force, only if based on liberty. And the essence of liberty has been summed up in the immortal words of John Stuart Mill: “There is in the world an increasing inclination to stretch unduly the powers of society over the individual, both by the force of opinion and even by that of legislation. The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it.” What we need to cultivate in India today is this frame of mind which springs from a creative combination of a liberal outlook, a scientific temper and a democratic approach, and not a warped state of mind which thrives on blind fanaticism, narrow nationalism and doctrinaire socialism. It has been well said that no piece of writing on democracy can have the finality of a conclusion. It is not enough if we merely express our full-throated appreciation of the ideal contained in the vibrant statement that “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” Indeed, if need be, we must be prepared to sacrifice our careers if they compromise with our ideals, so that a state of liberal democracy might flourish for ever.

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