THE THREAT TO OUR POLITICAL SYSTEM

“Padmabhushan” Prof. M. VENKATARANGAIYA

The two essentials of our political system are parliamentary democracy and federalism with a strong centre. Several factors have, however, emerged, especially in the months preceding and following the last general election which pose a threat to these essentials. Unless steps are taken to effectively curb them without further delay, our political system, as it was shaped by the founding-fathers of our Constitution, may disappear, giving place first to a period of anarchy and confusion and next to the rise of some other system not in consonance with the modern tradition that has developed in our country during the last one century or with the ideals of freedom which should animate all of us.

The threat to parliamentary democracy has come from what is called “Direct Action” which is fast becoming a normal feature of the political process in the country. Even in its peaceful and non-violent form it is a menace to democracy. It has, however, ceased to be non-violent. It has taken a universally violent form resulting in large-scale destruction of public and private property, loss of life. Lawlessness and disorder have become matters of course interfering with the people in the pursuit of their daily avocations. The primary function of any government–democratic otherwise–is the maintenance of law and order and the protection of life and property. Today in several parts of the country–the north and in the south–governments are unable to discharge this function. Those who are resorting to direct action invariably succeeded in getting their demands satisfied and this encourages them to repeat their action. It is the law-abiding citizen that suffers. Goondas and hooligans are having their own way. If this happens for a few days or even weeks, it may not cause alarm but it has been going on for months and there are no signs of its coming to a stop. Governments feel helpless and do not take any action to meet it. The police forces on which crores of tax-payers’ money is spent have become immobile. Naturally people are asking the simple and straightforward question: Who the rulers of the country are? Woe to any government when people begin to ask a question like this.

What causes worry and anxiety is not merely the helplessness of governments and the inaction or ineffective action by those in charge of law and order but also the fact that many political parties in the country have become the staunch advocates of direct action and show a preference to it to achieve their objectives over action in legislatures. A democracy guarantees to citizens the right to organise themselves into associations, meet in assemblies and give expression to their opinions with considerable freedom. In consequence of such a guarantee political parties have come into existence but they are using the rights granted to them by the Constitution not to strengthen democracy but to weaken it and even to destroy it by resorting to direct action as a normal feature of their activities.

Worse than this is the fact that such action is being encouraged by governments in some states–notably in West Bengal and Kerala. Under their influence several sections of the people have taken the law into their own hands and are creating a chaotic situation which is a prelude to taking over complete power by them in accordance with the techniques which are a part of their creed. Nothing is more paradoxical in our political situation today than governments in certain states conniving at lawlessness and violence.

In many countries of the world, including the highly advanced and affluent ones, laoour organisations have been staunch advocates of direct action in the form of strikes to gain their economic objectives. They preferred this and they do so even now–to negotiating with their employers round a table. The extremists among them have been advocates of a general strike to bring to a dead stop the whole economy of a country. But it was very rarely that they used this method to gain any political advantage. For this purpose they relied on parliamentary action. Unfortunately in our country labour organisations have developed on quite different lines. Trade unions are dominated by political parties which is a sign of the immaturity of labour. And parties which are interested more in gaining political power misuse the control they have over unions for political purposes and these union, have under their influence frequently resorted to direct action to bring pressure not on employers but on Government.

Another cause for alarm is the large part played by students in the movement for direct action. The student community has become a potent political force today. Students have ceased to be students. Educational institutions have ceased to be the arena of their work. They are more active in streets, on railway tracks, around police stations, Post-offices and other Government offices. Their school or college serves for them the purpose of enabling them to meet and to concert plans for their non-academic activities elsewhere. Their hostels also serve a similar purpose. Because of their youth they are full of energy and enthusiasm. Experience has not taught them to understand the long-period consequences of their reckless and irresponsible behaviour. As a political force they have several advantages. Their numbers are large. There are now more than one and half million students in the seventy universities of the country. They are congregated in university campuses and in individual colleges which give them all the opportunities they need to undertake concerted action. They have their unions which have now become more like trade unions. They have funds collected from members. Many of them are members of several political parties, especially of a leftist character, and they get additional funds from political parties whenever they need them. Political parties which are behind them are ready to defend their activities whatever form they may take and give them substantial support in parliament and other legislative bodies. Direct action has become more of a threat as the large body of students have got involved in it.

Finally we come to several academicians who lend their support on what they call theoretical and scientific grounds to direct action as a legitimate part of the democratic political process. Most of them are fellow-travellers and they only wear the academic cloak to avoid public criticism. In reality they do not believe in democracy.

Having now considered who the sections of the people are that resort to direct action, both non-violent and violent, it is necessary to understand why it is incompatible with democracy.

Before we do this we must have a clear idea of the mistaken view of democracy which the advocates of direct action have.

According to them democracy means the right of the people to rule directly. This gives them the right to call on Government to do whatever they (the people) want them to do. Their theory is that Government elected by the people is their servant and it is bound to carry out what is dictated to it by them. They take refuge in that oft-quoted but thoroughly wrong definition of democracy attributed to Abraham Lincoln that it is Government of the people, for the people, by the people. The sooner we understand that this is a wrong definition of democracy, the better it will be.

Government by the people is an impossibility; even if possible, it is most undesirable, for the simple reason that they do not have the fitness or competence to govern. It is not possible for the millions of people in a modern state to assemble in one place, discuss the merits and defects of any particular course of action to be taken on a public issue and arrive at a decision. This was possible only in the small cities of ancient Greece. Modern democracy is representative democracy and it can be nothing else. What the people can do is not to govern but to elect those who are to govern. Of course in the interval between one general election and another they are free to express their views on the commissions and omissions of Government and shape public opinion, and Government watches the opinion and takes it into consideration in arriving at decisions. In many cases it ignores the opinion and takes the responsibility for ignoring it. It does not behave and it ought not to behave like a mere servant. It is in the position of a leader and a leader does not deserve the name if he blindly follows those who have to be led by him.

Apart from the fact that Government by the people is an impossibility, modern democracy rests on an equally valid assumption that people are incompetent to govern. Government is an art and like any other art it requires a certain kind of knowledge, experience, skill and ability which only some and not all possess. This is why politicians have become a class by themselves. They constitute a profession like the doctors, the lawyers, the teachers, and members of other professions. Moreover people in mass are easily excitable. We know how the crowds behave. They can be easily swayed by demagogues who have the capacity to flatter them and appeal to their lower passions. To make them the rulers and to treat the Government as their agent or servant is to place power in the hands of those who are not fit to exercise it. The people have a place in democracy but that does not entitle them to govern.

The theory of direct action goes against this correct view of democracy. It forgets that the essence of all government is decision-making on all public issues. It may be the levy of one tax in preference to another, one pattern of recruitment to public offices in preference to another, expenditure on one item of welfare instead of another. Every public issue has a number of alternative solutions to it. It is not like a mathematical problem which has only one correct solution to it. Each solution may be desirable from one point of view and undesirable from another. But some choice has to be made and it should be done by a responsible body which has the necessary competence for the purpose and which can calmly consider the pros and cons of each choice that is open. From the time when civilisation has come into existence with its specialisation of functions, it has been universally recognised that Government is the body which should be entrusted with the function of decision-making. Democracy cannot hand over this function to the people. Democracy only lays down how a Government should be constituted.

Let us see what direct action exactly means. A number of people in a state like Andhra demand that the fifth steel plant should be located in Vizagapatam and they call on the Government to give effect to it by indulging in acts of sabotage and destruction. They make the decision even though they have not the competence to do it. Another group of people in another state demand the abolition of land revenue and want the Government to immediately put it into effect without giving an opportunity to it to consider the merits and defects of such a course of action. A third group demands that the salaries of Government employees and their D. A. should be raised by 20 per cent and resorts to a strike or to pillage to enforce its demand. It is not prepared to listen to any arguments that may be brought against what it demands and how it is going to effect the general tax-payer or the other sections of the people to whom also Government owes a responsibility. Wherever direct action is resorted to it is a small group of people that take a decision and compel Government to accept it. This is done on the basis of the theory that Government should carry out the will of the people.

When properly analysed it always amounts to rule by an interested minority. On anyone of these and similar issues there is nothing like a will of all the people. Decisions in all these cases are made by irresponsible groups simply because they have the physical force to defy Government and the unorganised sections among the people. It is a sort of terror which they practise. It is at the point of the sword like the highway robber depriving a traveller of what he has that those who resort to direct action behave. No more argument is required to show that it is inconsistent with the principles of democratic government. There may be some justification for it where government is a hereditary monarchy or an oligarchy based on birth or wealth or a party dictatorship as is found in communist or fascist regimes or a military dictatorship. It has no place in a democracy where government consists of persons elected by the people themselves and where people have every opportunity to replace one set of rulers by another in a general election.

The point may be made clear by an analogy. Everyone of us–laymen as we are–has a right to choose his doctor, his lawyer, the teacher for his children, the shoe-maker to make his shoes, the carpenter who makes the articles of furniture he wants. It often happens that a patient is dissatisfied with his doctor. Just see what he then does. He does not himself write out a prescription and demand that the doctor should follow the prescription. He only changes his doctor. Similarly in every other case. This is the right course for him to follow simply because he has not the competence to do the work of the doctor, the lawyer and so on. He can however judge whether their work is to his satisfaction. A person may not be able to cook but he can judge whether the food prepared by a cook tastes sweet or bitter. The same is the relation between people and the government in a democracy. Direct action is just like a patient writing out a prescription and asking the doctor to administer the medicine according to it.

Thus far regarding the incompatibility of direct action with democracy. The other threat to democracy arises as a result of a number of political parties in the country having no faith in it being allowed not only to carry on propaganda against it but also to contest elections and form governments. All Communist parties belong to this category. They have formed a government in West Bengal and in Kerala. They have also joined coalitions in Bihar and U. P. It is part of their creed that wherever they come to governmental power they should use it to strengthen the Communist forces in the state and undermine the strength of democratic forces. They make it a point to recruit large number of communists into the state police force, into the ranks of the state civil service, the teachers in state scheols, and the employee in every other public or quasi-public organisation. All this facilitates their easy-taking over of the government of the state completely when a suitable opportunity arises. In the last stage of British rule in India government was compelled to concede the Muslim League’s demand for Pakistan when Jinnah resorted to direct action and one of the reasons which impelled them to do so was the fact that a large percentage of policemen in Bengal, Punjab, Sind and so on were Muslims who would not be of any use in suppressing the direct action resorted to by the League. This is the kind of predicament in which our Central Government will find itself in states which come under the Control of communist parties as Kerala and West Bengal have already come. The existence in the country of parties wedded to the overthrow of democracy but enjoying all the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution is another serious threat to our political system.

It is time that the Central Government abandons the policy of drift which it has so far been following in dealing with those who resort to direct action and who are using their political power as partners in United Front Governments in some states to strengthen anti-democratic forces and bring about a revolution as a result of which democracy would disappear and an authoritarian form of government will be established. We require at the Centre a leadership which is capable of taking firm decisions and enforcing them. For years such a leadership has been absent and this is the one reason why the anti-democratic forces are gaining ground. Those who want to stage a violent revolution are carrying on their rehearsals in the form of direct action. It is they that are setting up local popular committees, raising quasi-military guards in the form of Senas and doing everything possible to strengthen themselves so that they might establish an independent government when their preparations are complete.

It is this that also poses a threat to our federal system. In a federation the constituent units have a large amount of freedom granted to them and this is the case with the states in the Indian Union. After the fourth general election it has become the fashion with the various non-Congress governments which have come into power in several states to find fault with the Centre for anything and everything and making it responsible for shortcomings and failures in their policy. Space does not permit giving a detailed account of their policies from this point of view. It is enough to note that they have been carrying incessant propaganda among their people that for all the ills they are suffering from, it is the Centre that is to blame. The result is that the loyalty of the people to the Centre is being undermined and a feeling is created among them that it would be better if their state secedes from the Centre and becomes independent.

It is noteworthy in this connection that a member of Rajya Sabha from Kerala demanded during the discussions on the Unlawful Activities Bill that each state should be conceded the right of secession as is the case in Soviet Russia and to demand secession should not be regarded as a crime. This is the direction in which the communist opinion in the country has been moving and if it grows stronger it will strike a blow against our federal system.

The Communist party is at present the one party in the country which stands for the secession of states from the Union. This is due to two powerful reasons. One is that it has no chance of coming into power at the Centre in any foreseeable future either as a constituent of a coalition government or by its own right. And it is not satisfied with the kind of power which the Constitution gives to it in states. It is only sovereign independence that will satisfy it and it is in this direction that it is moving in Kerala and in West Bengal the only states where it has fair chances of remaining in power. The second is that it is part of an international Communist organisation and is anxious that the states over which it rules should have diplomatic relations with Soviet Russia and China. One of the demands made by the Kerala Chief Minister after the fourth general elections was that he should be free to import rice directly from foreign countries. He had evidently China in mind. It is also a matter of common knowledge that the extremists among them are anxious to create a Viet Nam in Bengal and Kerala. They have not forgotten the days when they were able to make themselves a power in Telengana in 1947-48. With independence in one state or another which would enable them to get arms from their “fatherlands” they can spread themselves into other parts of the country as Mao did in China after first establishing himself in Yenan. The Communist ideology is anti-federal as well as anti-democratic. Every extension of their power in the country will deal a blow to the two essential features of our Constitution.

The great problem that confronts all those who have faith in democracy and in the evolutionary process, through which it proposes to bring about all desirable social and economic changes, should think now of the ways and means by which the threat to democracy posed by the advocates of direct action and by Communist parties should be met. Otherwise the country will have to witness in a new form the anarchic conditions which came into existence in the eighteenth century after the collapse of the Mughal Empire.

Back