Gokhale
for Today: Liberalism Re-stated 1
The
birthday of Gokhale, the 9th of May, gives us occasion, year after year, to
renew our memory of the faith by which he lived and the principles by which he
worked and to see how far they are relevant to the circumstances of our day and
where they need to be revised. It is the nature of the world
to keep changing (Jagat=moving) from moment to
moment; and it is man’s responsibility to keep his outward and his inward in
constant harmony with each other. This means two processes: a
frequent re-examination by him of his own ideas and attitudes about things on
the one side and, on the other, a frequent review of the changes in the
conditions in which he has to live his life. There is need for a re-evaluation
and re-adaptation both ways from time to time. The essential merit of Gokhale’s
faith was in this recognition of the need for review and re-adjustment. The
dynamism of the world and its call for the seasonable reform of man’s
relationships with it are among the axioms of Liberalism. Liberalism is the
name given in Gokhale’s day to the faith and principles held by him.
The
word ‘Liberal’ is used in this essay not as the label of a political party or
of a body of crystallized dogma or sacrosanct formulary.
‘Liberal’ here is the name of an attitude of mind towards the problems of life.
It denotes a point of view rather than a body of set views. That point is the
belief that life, in order to be good, should for every one be both free in
itself and helpful, and not hurtful, to other lives. From this standpoint,
which is definite and permanent, the readings of situations by the Liberal may
vary from occasion to occasion, and the purposes to be pursued may vary
accordingly. The inner principle is one; and its outward manifestations may be
in a variety of forms as indicated by differences in the circumstances.
The
word ‘Liberal’ has two connotations. Firstly, it is preference for
It
seems necessary to note at this stage that there is nothing peculiarly British
or European in these ideas. Their validity is universal. So far as
(1)
Dharma is individual self-sustenance or one’s being oneself – that is, true to
one’s nature. Every created thing has its Dharma or distinctive virtue or
characteristic quality or its peculiar value or power to affect others. Burning
is the Dharma of fire. Cooling is the Dharma of water. Sight is the Dharma of
the eye; hearing of the ear; walking of the legs. Each organ has its prescribed
Dharma. None can perform the Dharma of another. The eye cannot hear; the leg
cannot taste. Thus the inherent property or capacity of a thing is its Dharma.
In short, a thing’s Dharma or virtue is that which makes it itself and keeps it
itself–its individuality, its Tattva (That-ness).
Sva-dharma inculcated in the
Bhagavad-Gita is the rule of self-fulfillment. One has to exercise whatever is
of value or power in one in relation to the occasion or the situation in which
one finds oneself. It is Sva-dharma for
a Kshatriya (member of the military caste) to fight
when the cause of justice calls for it.
(2)
Dharma is justice or the regulation of the movements of an
individuality when in association with other individualities.
Self-fulfillment is not in solitude, but in and through society. This means
occasions for clash of personalities and conflict of interests. Harm to one individuality or another is then likely. To minimize
this harm is the purpose of Law. Law or Nyaya
is the working of Dharma. The seat of the King, who is the fountain of justice,
is Dharma-Asana. Not only should there be freedom for the individual’s
self-fulfillment, but that self-fulfillment should take place in such a way for
each that the similar self-expression of another is not harmed or hindered.
Justice is the avoidance of harm. Law is the regulation of the course of
freedom by the principle of justice. It is justice that supports life in
society. Hence justice is Dharma.
(3)
Dharma is fellow-feeling, or recognition of the inter-dependence of life
among all that live. Each human being is incomplete by
himself or herself and must have some one or another
to bring his or her life to completion, making it bearable and worth while.
Dharma is this sense or one’s partnership with others
in the business of living; and the larger the area of this partnership, the
better for the soul. Hence the soul-educative value of the
home and the tribe and the State. Hence the importance of the practice of
loving-kindness to all that lives. Dharma is thus charity or philanthropy,
citizenship, or public spirit. It is an exercise in the cultivation of one’s
spiritual self-expansion–of the habit of identifying yourself with all around.
When that habit is formed, one begins to transcend one’s customary self. One
learns to shed the ego and merge oneself in cosmic living. The progress of the
soul is from self-expression under the law of justice to self-dissolution in
life universal–from Dharma to Moksha, from
individualism to universalism, from life limited to life limitless. Sympathy
and fellow-feeling, which are stepping stones in the ascent, are Dharma, as
seen in familiar phrases like Dharma-Shala, Dharma-karya, etc. Dharma, active as kindness and compassion,
sustains life.
Self-fulfillment,
justice, self-dissolution; liberty; law, universal fellowship: such are the
three basic ideas of Dharma, the Code of Ethics designed to sustain life and
give it purpose and direction. It is a code of the true Good, both of the
individual and of his entire field of being.
It
should be noted that the concept of Dharma is nothing but the application of Satya
or the Truth of Things to the affairs of life. Satya is
the nature of the things one has to do with–in both what they are and
what they do. And the impulse to seek such knowledge is Rita. Rita
is the natural and spontaneous urge existing in every living being towards the
truth. When an ant feels its way as it crawls along, when an elephant tests the
ground underneath with its foot before planting the feet thereon, when a baby
catches hold of a bright toy and tries to bite it, when the deer sniffs the air
to make sure that there is no tiger anywhere near, it is Rita that works. There
is within every living being an instinct that makes for a search of the nature
of the things coming under its notice; that natural curiosity or craving for
knowledge is Rita. Rita leads on to Satya or Truth; and Satya expresses itself
as Dharma or the Triple Law of the good
life.
Dharma,
as set out above, takes an integrated view of life in both possible aspects:
the individual’s and the community’s. In so far as Dharma
concerns itself with the self-development of the individual, it is individualisim. In so far as it requires that the
individual’s self-fulfillment must be in and through the lives of his fellow
beings, it is collectivism. Dharma is thus the harmonizing and blending of two
categories of the good: the individual’s and the community’s. It holds that
neither kind of good is fully and truly achieved without the other’s being in
that very process realized.
The
Hindu derives his notion of value from what he believes to be the highest and
largest Truth. Brahman or the Great One is that Truth. It is God. It is
larger than, and inclusive of, all the truths of the world. Brahman is at once
the source, the home and the final destination of all that there is. All that a
man desires, or is attracted by, is to be valued according to its effect on his
progress towards the realization of Brahman. Man may not be able to know for
certain what the purpose of creation is, or why he has been placed in it where
he is. But he has it in his power to free life on earth of its burdensomeness
and find in it a serene joy that no worldly factor can mar. This
all-transcending joy comes from the realization of Brahman. This joy is the
highest Good, the summum bonum of life, and all other good-seeming things of the
world are to be judged and evaluated with reference to that highest of the
Good. It is the joy of experiencing oneself as one with all that is. It is to
lose all vestiges of ego and be merged in Eternal and Infinite Being. The sense
of being separated from Brahman is our master-error and the mother of all
miseries. Re-union is peace, and felicity. This re-union is to be sought in a
life of Dharma, the triune stream of liberty, justice and universal fellowship.
It should now be clear how the basic concepts of Liberalism are an integral
part of Dharma.
LIBERALISM
IN INDIA-NEITHER BORROWED
NOR
IMITATIVE
While it is true that Indian Liberalism owes nothing of its essential content to British or European thought-movements of that name, it should be acknowledged that the early Liberals of our country owed their impulse for an examination of their country’s political and social conditions to the English education they had received and the inquiring attitude in which their minds had been put by the superiority they saw in Europe’s political institutions, in Europe’s science and in Europe’s industrial and commercial organization. The Reform Movements of England and France turned Raja Rammohan Roy’s mind in the direction of a critical review of his own country’s condition. Similar was the reaction of Ranade and many other English-educated Indians of his day to the contrast they could not help observing between their country and the countries of Europe in all that we commonly regard as the essentials of progress.
The
history of England and Europe suggested new ideas of the Good to be striven
after and exemplified a new way of life. Indian, reformers saw in those
suggestions nothing repugnant to their country’s ideas of the
good and the right. On the contrary, the lessons of foreign example
appeared to them to fit well into the background of their national psychology.
To Ranade, 2 reform was in
practice merely a rediscovery of certain long-forgotten principles of sound
social organization and a re-adapting and further development of those
pre-existent rudiments of the general good among his own people. Europe’s
Liberalism thus re-awakened rather than created Indian Liberalism. It evoked
into actuality a potential parallel of regenerative forces in India.
It
was Gokhale’s distinction to have realized that conditions had become ripe in
his day for the application of Liberalist principles in the field of the
country’s politics and administration. This unfoldment of the contents of
Liberalism was a gradual, long-continued process, not a sudden upheaval of
vision or impulsion. It was a process of response to the call of circumstance.
It is important to note that Indian Liberalism was not the a-priori importing
of a foreign doctrine or the uncritical imitation of a foreign cry, but the
natural evolution of a native instinct impelled by new experience and new
thought.
There
is special need today for a re-statement and re-emphasizing of the principles
which formed the ground-work of Gokhale’s politics. They are principles of a
realistic approach to ideals, of the study of the fundamental facts of human
nature, of the individual’s need of autonomy, of the recognition of the
limitations to the State’s capacity as well as to the people’s, and of the need
of public education for the achievement of lasting results. The current
policies of the Government in our country are, in many important respects, not
merely a departure from the old principles, but also a contradiction of them in
some respects. And the results of that departure have not proved to be of a
happy kind. Mr. Nehru’s recent mood of discontent, fortunately not allowed to
prevail, may, however, be noted as the reflex of a dissatisfaction felt
throughout the country with the policies and the techniques which have come
superseding the faith of the earlier nation-builders to whose ideas the public
had become educated for three quarters of a century.
Some
people use the words ‘idealism’ and ‘realism’ as though they were necessarily
antithetical terms. That is a mistake. An ideal is nothing but the summation
and maximizing of all the good implicit in the actual. An ideal is formed not
in a vacuum and not in the solitude of a cloister, but with the closest
possible reference to the solid things and the significant facts on which it
will have to work, for their betterment. The soundness of the ideal is
necessarily proportionate to the soundness of one’s understanding of the real.
The ideal is the imaginative perfecting of the fragments of the good seen in
the reality, around. The ideal is thus rooted in the real. The practical
idealist is one who constantly checks and corrects his mental pictures of the
good in the light furnished by an analysis and evaluation of the existing. What
there is is the raw material for what there should
be. The study of existing facts and their tendencies is realism; and the
appreciation of the possibilities of the good in them is idealism. In this
sense Gokhale was a practical idealist, and Gandhi was another.
The
present policies in our country, to the extent of their being a departure from
the principles of Gokhale, are as well a departure from the line of Gandhi, for
on most matters of the duty of the State and the rights of the citizen, Gokhale
and Gandhi thought and felt very much alike. Both alike took their stand on the
psychology of the people–the attitudes they had inherited, their common beliefs
and sentiments, the experiences they had gone through, the education they had
received not only in schools, but also in life’s struggles, their scales of
value and their mental make-up and outlook. It is out of these, they both
recognized, that the India of the future is to be evolved. And they took a
careful measure of the forces ranged on the opposite side. How large an area
was common ground., for Gokhale and Gandhi will become evident when we examine
the elements of the faith that was Gokhale’s. But before we proceed to it, a
word seems necessary as regards the one or two points of difference of view
between Gokhale and Gandhi.
Gandhi’s
plan of work for winning independence was not one referable to any idea of
Gokhale’s or any other predecessor’s. Gokhale could not have been aware of that
plan at all, because Gandhi’s ideas in this matter reached fullness and cogency
of expression only some years after Gokhale’s death. It is an open question
whether, if Gokhale had lived on for some five or ten years longer, he would
have approved of the course adopted by Gandhi. One may as well speculate,
relying on the evidence we have of Gokhale’s great respect and affection for
Gandhi and Gokhale’s habitual openness of mind and receptivity to new ideas,
that Gokhale would have heartily joined Gandhi as collaborator in the Satyagrahic fight. But taking facts as they stood at the
time one has to admit that the ideology of Satyagraha is not one that can be
organically related to the known views of Gokhale.
Another
problem beyond Gokhale’s ken which Gandhi had to face was that of the mutual
relations of industrial employers and employees. But in this matter, there is
ampler ground for the view that Gokhale would have stood on the same side as
Gandhi. Gokhale was a poor man and his heart was with the common people, as can
be seen from his pleadings in his Budget Speeches and his campaign for
universal compulsory education of the people up to an effective standard.
Apart
from these two questions–that of Satyagraha and that of Socialism–Gandhi may
well be counted a fellow-traveller of Gokhale on all
questions of nation-building and governmental policy. Let us now turn to the
tenets of Liberalism as represented by Gokhale. They were
mainly six: (1) Liberty, (2) Realism, (3) All-sided Study, (4) Gradualness and
Evolutionary Continuity, (5) Efficiency in Administration, and
(6) Economy in Public Expenditure.
We
must at this stage remind ourselves of the all-important and epochal changes
that have taken place since Gokhale’s time in the political constitution and
status of India. In Gokhale’s day, India was a Dependency, not even a Dominion,
of Great Britain, ruled by a bureaucracy under the barely theoretical control
of Britain’s democracy. Today, India is an independent sovereign State, a
democracy and a Secular State. These, we may be sure, are changes that would
have rejoiced Gokhale as the grand fulfillment of his own dreams. The supremacy
of the people in their own country, their right to the free management of their
own affairs, the sharing of power; by the entire body of citizens, and
the complete dissociation of the State from religion without any antagonism
to religion as such, are all conditions fundamental to liberalism.
Democracy
may be defined as government by public opinion expressed through
representatives of the citizens gathered for deliberation and debate
according to the Constitution accepted by the country. A democratic
Constitution for the state is the first requisite of Liberalism;
because, of all forms of government, it is democracy that gives value to the
individual. The sovereignty of the people is an axiom of Liberalism; and every
citizen therefore counts for something in it. This significance of the
individual is indeed the starting point of Liberalism.
The vote is to the Liberal the symbol of a unit of rational intelligence, not a
packet of mechanical man-power. The Liberal would count heads and not hands.
Parliament and procedure are of importance to him as venues for browning into
active service all the moral and intellectual faculties of the community and
setting them in concentrated action for the good of all. The Liberal’s constant
care therefore is that society’s intelligence and conscience get their fullest
chance.
The
Liberal also recognizes that man’s life is a mixture of two distinct and dissimilar
ingredients: the material and the spiritual–the objective and the
subjective–that which can be brought to analysis and proof and that which
consists of inward faith and experience not accessible to outward measurement.
The Liberal would never forget or belittle the distinction between these two
provinces of life. And he accepts the teaching of Jesus: “Render unto Caesar
the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s” (Matt.
22-21). A Secular State is not anti-religious. But it does not single out,
as its own, any one among the many religions and creeds professed by its
subjects. To be this is, however, not to be anti-religious. On the other hand,
the Secular State protects all religions equally and refrains from interference
with any equally. It protects the non-religious and even the irreligious as
well so long as they do not attempt to meddle with the religious. Such were the
Hindu kingdoms of old. The Raja of Vijayanagara may have been personally a Vaishnava or a Shaiva, but his
protection as Ruler was available as readily to Jains
and even Mussalmans as to Hindus. Equally to care for all is in effect not
different from being equally neutral towards all. The modern State concerns
itself directly only with the temporal and non-religious aspects of man’s life.
So does Liberalism. Not that the Liberal is not alive to the contribution which
religion and philosophy have it in their power to make to the strength of the
State by the good influence which they can exercise upon the character and
outlook of the people. But he appreciates these advantages as he appreciates
the favourable features of geography and climate–as
things beyond his powers and his reckoning. He does not refuse the good offices
of religion in building up the moral side of citizenship; but he takes care
that the private side of life has its fullest possible autonomy. His care
directly is with the public side of life only.
Having
thus cleared the ground, we may now proceed to deal with each of the components
of Liberalism enumerated above.
First
as to liberty. The contents of this general concept will perhaps be better
appreciated if stated under some specific heads. Let me mention some: (i) Civil liberty or the right of citizenship. Franchise or
the right to vote is its practical form. A share in making laws, and equality
in the eye of law, are the main principles. Law must be an expression, and the
authoritative expression, of the general will of those whom it is meant to
govern. This is the heart of the philosophy of democracy. The sacredness of the
vote and the freedom of the vote are derived from this. (ii) Political liberty
or a share in the control of government or the instruments of the legislature.
‘No power without responsibility,” and “Redress before supplies”
are the maxims here. (iii) Fiscal liberty as expressed in the
aphorism, “No taxation without representation.” (iv) Personal liberty is
the-impossibility of arbitrary acts to restrain a man’s freedom of
movement and action and self-enjoyment. Remedies are in the form of habeas
corpus and other judicial writs. (v) Social liberty, relating to the
freedom of intercourse between groups and classes and their equal right to the
use of roads, parks and such other public amenities. (vi) Economic liberty which
relates to the choosing of a profession or trade and entering into contracts of
service and to move from place to place in search of opportunity. (vii)
Domestic liberty which relates to marriage, adoption and the status of members in
a family. (viii) Religious liberty and liberty of conscience. (ix) Liberty of
speech and discussion, of which the freedom of the press is an
integral part, and (x) Liberty of meeting and association for not unlawful
purposes. This brief list is illustrative and by no means exhaustive. It must
be readily acknowledged that many of these items of liberty have been duly
provided for in the current Indian Constitution.
The
canon of liberty calls for two conditions in the State’s exercise of authority:
I.
that the individual shall be free in all fields of life and action, except to
the extent marked off for the State by such unavoidable needs of the community
as cannot otherwise be satisfied and as cannot be neglected without danger to
one and all: and
II.
that, as a corollary to the above, the State shall leave in the citizen’s hands
as much as possible of his possessions and resources and shall not take for
itself more than it is capable of returning to him in things of utility and
service.
The
Liberal State is an ancillary and not a transcendental institution. It does not
seek to take hold of the entire field of the people’s life, but confines itself
only to those parts of the field that are inevitably of concern
to all of them in common. It does not undertake to play the Deputy Providence,
but regards itself as a mere human agency, fallible and
corrigible. The first of its assets are its People, in both individual and
collective aspects. What is of value in their mental and moral and physical
faculties is its principal capital. The power of the State counts as only the
next. He who would build up the life of his people should first stir and
encourage their inborn and spontaneous impulses to improve themselves and
increase their own welfare. The instinct of self-interest should be roused and
canalized in the direction of the Good. State-action is of secondary
significance. Its method of operation should be regulative rather than
compulsive. The State should create incentives for the play of the good sense
and initiative of the people and stop short of coercion. Not that State-action
is to be absolutely ruled out. It may be necessary and even indispensable on
occasions. But when it has to come, let it come in forms
not deprecatory or discouraging to the voluntary self-effort of individual
citizens.
The
Liberal sees the house of life for each man or Woman as made up of two
chambers, one reserved for his (or her) living all by himself, alone and
undisturbed, and the other chamber meant for his sharing life with others.
Every human being, in his (or her) very nature, is both individualistic and
gregarious. He would sometimes be left alone; all with himself and to himself.
At other times he craves for company and is not happy in solitude. And when in
company, he has both preferences and aversions, thus behaving pro-socially
sometimes and anti-socially other times. Has not Browning described man as a
midway creature between God and beast? The Liberal recognizes the naturalness
and the inescapability of the duality and marks off the field of private life
from the public. He would, not extend the public field unless there is
undoubted and urgent need for extension; and even in the limited public field,
he would further limit the operation of State-authority to the unavoidable
minimum. In short, in all cases of likely collision between the individual and
the State, his general tendency would be to stand by the individual who is
almost always the weaker party in a contest against the massed forces of the
State. The Liberal would first try to avoid all possibility of conflict between
authority and liberty; and then, when conflict is found to be inevitable, he
would throw his weight on the side of liberty. For liberty is the indispensable
condition of the blossoming of ‘Personality; and this blossoming of personality
should be the supreme purpose of all governments and all laws. In the final
analysis, self-development is the highest good for everyone, man or woman; and
society and the State and all other forms of organized existence are only means
to that end. It is a grievous confusion of ends and means to talk of a general
welfare which ignores individual welfare. The first element of well-being for
any one is the sense of liberty: “Good or bad, my life is mine; well or ill, my
lot is my choice; high or low, my destiny is my handiwork”–this feeling of
self-dependence and self-respect is the fruit of liberty; and when that
felicity is secured to a man, he could blame no one and will learn to reconcile
himself to what time and the world bring to him. That is peace and welfare.
Let
us linger for another moment on this all-important issue and inquire into the
position taken up by Mahatma Gandhi. In political theory,
it is well known that Gandhi was one that could be called a philosophical anarch. He would have no government at all or only an
absolute minimum of it, in the sense of government’s being a force acting from
outside upon the individual. Not that he wants no government or would welcome
chaos. Far from it, he would like every one to govern himself or herself from
within and not need a government from without. When that is so, the State would
be rendered superfluous and would “wither away” in the Marxian
phrase. This, however, is an extreme of perfectionism and too remote for our
reach. Its defect is in its forgetting of the dual side of human
nature, one side always needing control but exceeding the average man’s
capacity for self-control. Next to doing away with the State, Gandhi would have
it restrict its activity to the inevitable minimum. He would have all
relationships among individuals be regulated by goodwill and free contract
rather than by the force of law and the machinery of the State. There are seeds
of the good embedded in every human heart. Let us call them into life rather
than employ the police to achieve our social ends. Communism is coercive. It
discourages and even atrophies the people’s private impulse for the good and
thus deprives them of the opportunity of moral self-education by voluntary
exertion for the general good. This is really emaciating to the soul of man. As
for Socialism, standing midway between Communism and Liberalism, it lacks the
thoroughness and ruthless efficiency of the first and the genial and
fertilizing influence of the second. Gandhiji used to claim that he, in
contrast to those who put on the label, was the true Socialist, his brand of
Socialism consisting in accepting the ethics of trusteeship as the basis of
relations between the ‘Haves’ and the ‘Have-nots’ in society. In other words,
the State should not aim at the abolition of the capitalist and the employer,
in the illusory hope of creating a classless society, but should make itself
responsible for ensuring that the ‘Haves’ conduct themselves as though they
were persons appointed to be trustees for the ‘Have-nots.’ Those who possess
properties or faculties of value to the community should by all means be
enabled to cultivate and develop those possessions; and they should at the same
time be required to share the fruit reaped equitably with those who laboured in the garden even though they were not the legal
owners. Equity rather than equality is the principle here. The Trusteeship
Doctrine recognizes that the Capitalist or the Proprietor has a place in the
economy of the nation–an indispensable place though not an uncontrolled place.
He is as vital as is the technician and the machine-minder or any other worker.
It is therefore, not for the State to take sides with any among them. On the
contrary, it is for the State to insist on fairplay
and equity in their relations with one another. Viewed logically from this
position, there should be no antagonism and no unfriendly rivalry between what
are nowadays called the public sector and the private sector in fields of
economic enterprise and social amelioration. It is clear that some
State-enterprises connected with the Five-Year Plans go against this freedom of
private initiative. The so-called nationalizing of life insurance, bus
transport, etc., is an instance.
I
now come to Realism, the second rule of Liberalism. This is the habit of
seeking to find out things in their true nature and their working. Public
policies and measures should be based upon an analytical understanding of
relevant facts in their fullness and a measured appreciation of the directions
and velocities of the forces in or arising out of those facts. Good intentions
are not enough. If the promoter of a benevolent scheme is sincere, that
sincerity must induce him to search and ascertain whether the conditions exist
to make that scheme worth while. This rules out a-priori or presumptive
legislation and fancy-drawn planning: Every new movement of the State must mean
some disturbance to the old established order of society in some part of it,
and it is therefore bound to meet with some resistance. Habits formed through
generations and material interests built up for long cannot be melted away by
sentiment; and sentiment may itself be the child of error in understanding. It
is not just to attribute anybody’s opposition to a scheme or an idea to
self-interest on his part. And after all, is not self-interest the raw material
of politics and the factor that makes the State necessary? The good citizen’s
business is not to decry personal interest, but to find how best its operations
may be regulated so as to avoid or at least to minimize harm by one interest to
another. This is justice. Facts are its raw material. To measure the relative
validities of the several claims and interests in conflict and to accommodate
them in accordance with their respective merits is the office of justice.
And
apart from the needs of justice, an accurate appreciation of the facts of a
situation is essential to the success of any effort at betterment. Facts are
solid stubborn things; they will not be chased away by the charms of our
benevolent planning. If we would overcome their opposition, we must first take
measure of their magnitude and strength. To get our facts wrong and build our
hopes of betterment thereupon is to work our way into a fool’s paradise. And among
facts are not merely the external, tangible, census-verified facts of the
physical world, but also the internal, intangible and unpredictable facts
of human psychology. The statesman that undervalues them does so at peril to
his plans and his name. The recent attempts to fix limits to agricultural
holdings and transmute the landless into the ‘be-landed’ are instances of an
unscientific and egregiously amateurish attitude in the handling of a most
serious and complicated problem. An ideal not related to the real is the sure
parent of a chimera.
ALL-SIDED
STUDY
This
is, speaking strictly, a continuation of the topic of Realism. Being scientific
excludes bias and partisanship of all kinds. A special word however seems not
uncalled for to emphasize the importance of letting light fall upon a public
question from as many sides as possible, particularly because of the multitudinousness of communal, linguistic, sectarian,
provincial and other ramifications of the body politic in our day in addition
to organized political parties. For national solidarity and peace as well as
for the fairness and workability of public policy, it is necessary not only
that all possible parties and groups should be heard and heard with sympathy,
but also that they should be so dealt with as to leave them no ground for
honestly complaining that they have been ignored. If policy should satisfy the
demands of justice, it follows that no available fact or fraction of a fact
relevant to the matter should be shut out and no means of sifting or checking
dispensed with. There is thus a place for every minority view in the perfecting
of public policy. A majority is no god, and a minority no victim, in a justly
constituted democracy. Parliament works by conventions accepted by majority and
minority alike; and one such convention is that when all efforts at mutual
conversion fail and when there appears no more hope of successful bargaining
between majority and minority, the issue may be decided by the relative
strength of votes. The minority gets every reasonable opportunity to persuade
the majority; and when all its argument and eloquence fail, it bows to the
majority, not in sullenness but in the spirit of sportsmanship. The minority is
loyal enough to the country to realize that there must be an end to discussion
at some stage, and a guidance for action must issue. It defers to that majority
as a working device and not as an admission of any injustice in its own
cause. That deference is tentative and temporary. The minority remains free to
re-open the matter again subject to accepted rules. Such being the spirit and
attitude of parliamentarianism, the Liberal would not
be proud of mere numerical superiority. There can be no greater enemy to
democracy than dogma; and there is no dogma more dangerous than that of a
mechanically secured majority.
The
British method of democratic decision is not the despotism of brute number.
That method is described as a majority-minority pact. The vote is preceded by
months of inquiry and discussion, in hundreds of newspapers and public meetings
and expert committees. It is from these that the ultimate vote derives its
moral significance. When discourse and debate have proceeded long enough in the
general opinions of all parties, and all have come to feel that the hour for
decision has struck, there being no other way available to resolve differences,
the division bell is invoked as the last resort. It is only such a vote that
can claim moral authority for itself. In other words, there are occasions when
the vote is in place and there are occasions when it is not. And there are
proper methods of voting and there are improper methods as well. The Liberal
keeps the distinction clearly in view. The legislation in our country to amend
the Constitution, so as to eliminate the jurisdiction of the courts over
compensation disputes about properties taken over by the State from private
persons, is a glaring example of party dogma and majority high-handedness. The
way in which a ministerial crisis was solved in Mysore recently is also an
example of the dogma of a mechanical majority.
The
areas of politics in which mere vote cannot be a proper instrument of
decision are becoming more and more with the progress of science and technology
and the means of international communication and commerce. Take a question of
administering a hydro-electrical project or managing a large mine or the
question of framing a trade agreement with a foreign country or arranging for
exchange: of what value can the votes of uninstructed laymen be on such matters
which need expert knowledge and specialized experience for judging? How can
party-commandeered votes guarantee wisdom of decision?
There
is yet another point for study. Politics is in the last analysis a theatre of
personalities. The skilled orator, the shrewd strategist, the man with a
distinguished bearing, the practised actor, the hero
of the football field,–any one with such popular gifts can sway the forces of
politics. Amid these dazzling irrelevancies, is there any room for the man of
statesmanly vision and cool strength of character? It would be but a poor kind
of democracy which did not keep its eye on the look-out for a Gladstone or a
Lincoln. A crowd-hailed demogogue can be no
substitute for a statesman sensitize to responsibility. The Liberal would
always bear in mind this tragic possibility in a democracy and lose no
opportunity of warning his fellow-citizens against the perils of democracy’s
self-flattery and self-love. Democracy will serve itself best when it remembers
its own limitations in knowledge and judgment and finds room for the man of
superior insight in its councils and at its work-spots.
A
mark of the Liberal is readiness to re-examine a position and re-adapt existing
institutions to suit new circumstances. Society is to him a living and growing
organism; and growth means change, the decay of old tissues and their
replacement by new ones, the hardening of a bone or its thinning, the
accumulation or loss of flesh or fat, variation in the composition of the
blood. Such changes in the internal structure of the body call for
corresponding changes in food and dress and conditions of work, if the body
should survive and function in health. Not only by the weakness or folly
of human agencies, but also by the sheer passage of time is the structure of an
organism changed from moment to moment,
“The
old order changeth yielding place to new,
And
God fulfils Himself in many ways
Lest
one good custom should corrupt the world.”
Need
for reform being thus a natural contingency, it is needful to remember that the
reform necessary could be brought about possibly in one of ‘many ways.’ The
Liberal pauses to consider those ‘many’ possible ways and choose that one which
seems the best when set against the attendant circumstances.
And
the true reformer would wait upon popular psychology and give it time to
educate itself to the innovations he would introduce. He would not be abrupt or
sudden. That would not be fairness towards the intelligence of the public. He
could strive patiently and perseveringly to bring them to an understanding of
his mind. He would make the public ask for that which he wishes it to accept.
Such was the way of Gladstone. A long and persistent process of public
education will make the reform take root in the people’s mind and work well.
Only that reform will endure and become part of the normal life of the
community of which the rationale has come to be grasped by it. Not only
accepting the Good, but appreciating why it is good and how it is good before
acceptance is the condition about which the Liberal would make sure. The Good
can be not so good if n is imposed by force or authority. 4
What is imposed by force may as soon be deposed by force. This is particularly
likely in a regime of what is called ‘responsible government’ in which there is
a constant shuttle-cock movement of rival parties. If a measure should escape
the danger of getting perverted or altogether abolished by the
successor-Government, it should have found permanent lodgement
in the life of the community. This longevity can be secured for a measure if (i) it is introduced in gradual instalments,
and (ii) is made as far as possible to look and act as a continuation and
further evolution of a pre-existent institution or arrangement. The people can
easily understand and suit themselves to things to the like of which they are
accustomed. Gradualness and evolutionary continuity minimize disturbance and
misunderstanding, and maximize the chances of intelligent and willing acceptance
of reform. This is a principle not observed in some cases of the linguistic
re-organization of States. Some of the regions affected are not at ease and
show no promise of early reconcilement.”
Efficiency
is adequacy of return made to the citizen in service, both qualitatively and
quantitatively, by the State for the support it has received from him in the
form of taxes and cesses and in co-operation in the
execution of its laws and policies. This efficiency is the resultant of many
factors working in combination: first, a stable Ministry having a mind of its
own; second, a carefully recruited and trained body of civil servants, with a
reasonable degree of freedom allowed them to point out the flaws and weaknesses
of ministerial proposals; third, a vigilant and well-informed legislature; and
fourth, an alert and articulate general public.
Under
all the heads, we are far from having reached even an ordinarily satisfactory
position. Some would even say that the position has deteriorated since 1947.
The Ministries are in perpetual turmoil and tottering in most of the States.
They at best manage to hold on for a while by keeping caucuses and cliques
engaged in mutual destruction. The absence of a strong Opposition party has left
the ruling party without that salutary fear of a rival which could have made
for discipline.
Another
aspect of concern for efficiency relates to the amount of attention given to
routine. When development projects are on foot, everybody turns to them for
opportunities of self-advancement. The ruling party, in its natural anxiety to
make an impression upon the public, insists on priority for its own new schemes
of benevolence. The kind of work that can get into headlines in newspapers
receives preference over work which though essential is not sensational. The
routine suffers. Work of normal day-to-day importance falls into arrears and
there is confusion in public offices: files held up, papers in congestion,
reports and returns delayed, accounts not posted, information incomplete and
unready, correspondence dilatory and trying to tempers: such are the results of
neglect of the routine in Government offices. The administration is then not
rendering what is due from it to the public.
The
ideals of the Welfare State and the Socialistic Pattern suggest programmes much
in excess of the capacity of the average personnel of Government offices in our
country. A Government’s efficiency must naturally depend upon the nature and
the volume of work it has taken into its hands. A Liberal, before asking the
Government to undertake new and unaccustomed tasks, would carefully take stock
of its resources in technical and managerial ability. The Liberal recognizes
that just as there are things which a Government alone can do well, there are
things beyond the capacity of any Government to achieve. A delimitation of
tasks is therefore a condition of efficiency. An over-burdened administration
is bound to fail not only as regards the new programmes, but also in the old
routine. The Chagla Inquiry Report furnishes
instances.
Some
basic questions arise in this context. How will the Constitution
of India stand a scrutiny by the Liberal from the point of view of efficiency
of administration? Is the kind of relationship between the Centre and the
States the right one? Can there not be a more rational distribution of powers
and functions? Is the current structure of Ministries suited to our
circumstances? Cannot the Governors be made more effective without loss to
democracy? Should partymen have so large a room for
plying their fingers in the administration? Is the professional administrator
finding his due chance to help the Government as he should? These and other
questions of the kind are obviously so important and so complicated as to need
a separate paper or two for themselves. My purpose for the moment is merely to
suggest the need, which many have come to realize from the experience of the
last ten years, for the revision of the Constitution in the direction of
simplicity of machinery and the effectiveness of each part of it.
The
subject of economy in public expenditure is closely connected with the subject
of efficiency of service. The employing of two men for a job which one man
could well do is not only a waste of one man’s wage, but also an opportunity to
the two to shift responsibility from each to the other.5
A rupee saved from public expenditure is a rupee added to the treasury and two
rupees’ worth of relief given to the tax- payer. Leaving the citizen’s pocket
intact and as full as possible is one of the fundamental canons of Liberalism.
What the State is not in a position to return in an adequate shape and size to
the citizen, it has no right to take from him. It is thus that the Liberal
insists on a frequent examination of the progress of the State’s undertakings,
the state of work in Government offices, and the sufficiency or excess of
staffs in them. Audit of efficiency and retrenchment of expenditure on
establishments are the twin mottos of the Liberal. His first concern always is
about the State’s solvency. The guarantee for the Stare’s independence is the
independence of its exchequer. The Liberal would therefore hesitate to ask any
foreign Government for a gift of aid or even a loan. Even when no strings are attached,
foreign aid affects the recipient’s stature and self-respect. Expectations
would naturally exist in the giver’s mind even though he protests to the
contrary; and when they are not satisfied, misunderstandings are bound to show
themselves. Such psychological complications drive out harmony and vitiate the
international atmosphere. When external help is necessary, it is best sought
from an international institution like the World Bank, where the obligation
cannot be towards any single or particular country. A bank is a business
organization, and a loan from it cannot compromise the borrower’s independence
with any country as such.
In
regard to the country’s economic development, the Liberal would stand for
self-sufficiency so far as the necessaries of life, such as the staple foodgrains and clothing, are concerned. He would give the
first attention to agriculture and food-production. He recognizes that the
boundaries of the country’s economic life do not always coincide with its
geographical boundaries. Foreign trade is most necessary, and he would plead
for freedom of trade subject only to the condition of fairplay
in competition. It is uncontrolled competition that leads to chaos in
international markets. India should, therefore, be careful to apply her mind
independently with reference to each individual case of import or export and
judge of it, having regard not only to India’s advantage but also to the likely
effect of a transaction on the
international scene.
To
emphasize the importance of agriculture is not to belittle the importance of
industry. The industrial development of the country has always been one of the
principal planks of the Liberal platform. But the Liberal, as suggested at the
beginning in this paper, would lay the first emphasis on encouraging private
enterprise. The Prime Minister of India has sometimes spoken of ‘mixed economy’
as the way. The phrase is attractive to the Liberal; but its precise meaning
remains still to be stated. If the idea is that part of the capital for an enterprise
should come from private investors and the rest from the State and that
management should be in the hands of an agency representative of both, it may
by pointed out that Mysore has tried it on a large enough scale and in more
than two or three instances, and found it successfully workable. If a way be
devised of associating workers also with the industry so that they could see
that their interests are duly protected, the way will have been found to
peaceful prosperity.
I
must now close. The six topics I have dealt with are those which arise out of
India’s internal situation of today, of just this day. There are of course
other topics of equal urgency. A word on our foreign policy cannot be avoided,
even though it does not belong to the politics of Gokhale’s time. It is only an
independent nation that has to face problems of war and peace. And here our
teacher is Mahatma Gandhi who was truly an internationalist. In the field of
external affairs, India has on the whole kept true to the Gandhian ideals of
justice and peace.
India’s
interest in international affairs is incidental to her general interest in the
welfare of humanity. She has for her own sake no material interest to promote
outside her borders. She has no place on the military map of the world and has
never sought one. She has no ambition for territory. She holds no colony. She
claims no sphere of influence. She has known what it is to be dominated by a
foreigner; and she does not wish to dominate over anyone. She wants to be left
alone, but in an atmosphere of friendliness and peace. She is concerned with
building up her own strength by her own hands and by her own resources, and
with filling worthily her part in the comity of nations. War in any part of the
world is to her like hot and pungent smoke in a neighbourhood, affecting her
comfort in breathing. Hence her desire to work for peace and harmony even among
people remote from her shores like the Koreans and having no manner of material
connection with her. It is, therefore, unnecessary for her to range herself on
any one side in a conflict. Her taking sides would indeed be fatal to her
possible office of friend and peace-maker. Non-involvement is the attitude
proper to the judge,–one who is friend to both parties without being so
friendly to either as to be regarded as unfriendly by the other. It is the
attitude of such a true-hearted friend, whose goodwill towards both is
regulated by his loyalty to justice and the sense of the general welfare of
all, that is summed up in the creed of Pancha
Sheela or the Five-pointed Ethic: (i) Mutual respect for territorial integrity and
sovereignty, (ii) Non-aggression, (iii) Non-interference in internal affairs,
(iv) Equality and mutual help, and (v) Peaceful co-existence. The Liberal stands
for these principles. And he would submit all differences for settlement to
arbitration. War can never settle a dispute. A forced settlement is no
settlement, for it will drive the anger of the defeated inwards, to smoulder there and burst into flames later on. Only an
agreed settlement can bring peace, and the way to it is
through negotiation and arbitration. And even then, the Hindu Liberal would
plead that man may not arrogate to himself the power to
see and administer justice in its divine perfection. Man can but make an
approach towards it, and if with his best effort there is still some sense of
shortcoming felt by a party, it is far better that that party accepts even that
imperfect-seeming settlement, trusting to the goodness of the Great Judge of
all, than that it should take the matter into its own hands and
resort to violence. The supreme need of nations today is for self-introspection
and self-restraint by each. And that is the teaching of the Mahatma.
Liberalism
is both a philosophy of politics and a technique of government. Its chief
ingredients are the rational evaluation of the policies and activities of the
Government, the minimizing of governmental interference in the life of the
people, the maximizing of the citizens’ voluntary contribution to general
welfare, the mobilizing of private goodwill and good sense instead of the
machinery of law and official authority to achieve social ends, frugality and
prudence in the management of public money, vigilance over the performances of
public functionaries, avoidance of partisanship and of fanaticism in the
shaping of public policy, informing the intelligence and activizing
the conscience of the community in all matters of moment to the public: these
are the duties of the enlightened citizen in a democratic polity, and their aim
is to secure and extend the field of freedom for the individual for his full
and beneficent self-fulfillment, for the performance of his Sva-Dharma.
These
definitions of Liberalism are merely an elaboration of the triple principles of
Truth and Justice and Human Fellowship in their application to the life of the
people. As such they could be sure of hearty approval by the universal common
sense of the world. We may be sure that it is the practising
of those principles that Gokhale had in view when he pleaded that “public life
must be spiritualized.” The same was Gandhiji’s plea.
Gokhale and Gandhi alike counted it a requisite of
simple honesty that those in authority should examine the grounds of their
action before starting action, and should suit that action to
the historical background and social milieu of the people as well as to their
resources in talent and material.
The
country’s history during the last ten years has been one of noble purposes
sadly frustrated, and high-souled exhortations
followed by depressing disillusionment. The great Prime Minister is in a mood
to re-think. The mood will prove a blessing if it sent him back to a re-study
of the Gokhale-Gandhi philosophy. He may go even far further back to those early
fathers of political wisdom, Plato and Aristotle. Much as they differed, they
both agreed that society is a mosaic; that it is variety that makes its
elements need one another, so bringing them into unity; that the State’s
aim should be not uniformity, but unity based upon a rational adjustment of
their positions; that true justice consists in the achievement of balance and
harmony amidst variety; that measured pace and moderation in the pursuit of
ideals are among the virtues of statesmanship. The straight line is undoubtedly
the shortest distance between any two Points in a diagram in a book of
geometry; but it is not always so for the road-maker on our concrete uneven
earth. Festina lente:
“Hasten slowly.”
1 Amplification of a note
read at the public meeting at the Institute of public Affairs, Bangalore, on
May 11, 1958.
2 Ranade
observed as follows in his speeches at the 6th and 7th sessions of the Social
Conference (1892–93): “The history of this great country is but a fairy tale if
it has not illustrated how each invasion from abroad has tended to serve as a
discipline of the chosen race and led to the gradual development of the nation
to a higher ideal–if not of actual facts, at least of potential capabilities.
The nation has never been depressed beyond hope of recovery, but after a
temporary submerging under the floods of foreign influences, has reared up its
head, absorbing all that is best in the alien civilization and polity and
religions….” “Above all countries, we inherit a civilization and a social and
religious polity which have been allowed to work their own free development on
the big theatre of Time. There has been no revolution, and yet the old
condition of things has been tending to reform itself by the slow process of
assimilation……Change for the better by slow absorption–not by sudden conversion
or revolution–this has been the characteristic feature of our past history.”
3 At a meeting of the
All-India Congress Committee in New Delhi on 11th May 1958, Pandit Jawaharlal
Nehru observed as follows in the course of a speech:
“Many of the things
explained by Marx do not exist today. And many of his predictions have proved
to be incorrect……The concept of Socialism is changing even in Western
countries. Therefore, we in India have to be more wide-awake, and the conditions
ultimately are governed by the state of our people, by the state of their
minds….The basis of Socialism is greater wealth. There cannot be any Socialism
of poverty….It is dangerous merely to nationalize something without being
prepared to work it properly….My idea of Socialism is that every individual in
the State should have equal opportunity for progress. I do not at all prefer
the State controlling everything, because I attach a value to individual
freedom. The State is very powerful politically. If you are going to make it
very powerful economically also, it would become a mere conglomeration of
authority....We have to learn from practical experience and proceed in our own
way.” A.I.C.C. Economic Review, May 15, 1958, p. 4.
This sounds very much
like the voice of a Liberal.
4 Nor is the cause of
democracy a cause of number. It is not the worship of quantity: it is the
worship of a 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, as it cannot otherwise be, and a national
Good is secured which is really good because it is freely willed.”
–Sir Ernest Barker, Reflections
on Government.
5 Professor C. Northcote Parkinson has, in the columns of The Economist
of London, shown how the tendency to swell in size and grow in numbers is
inherent to a bureaucracy and how civil servants go on multiplying, regardless
of the volume of work that really needs to be done. This natural tendency of
officialdom towards self-aggrandizement is called ‘Parkinson’s Law.’ Its axioms
are (1) “An official wants to multiply subordinates, not rivals. (2) “Officials
make work for each other.” Applying Parkinson’s Law to India, ‘Odysseus’ points
out in The Eastern Economist of May 30, 1958: “In 1937, the personnel of
the then Bureau of Public Information was 4 officers and 52 clerical staff: a
total of 56. Today, excluding clerical staff, the officers should, according to
Parkinson’s Law, total l0.85 men, whereas they actually total 57–nearly six
times more than Parkinson allows. Not only has the Bureau
multiplied its own staff, it has actually given birth to several whole
new departments!’