Whither Mankind? *
The dying year and the years that have passed
before it have been days of great stress and strain for humanity at large; a
frightful war is on and men are dying and cities being destroyed from one end
of the world to the other. During times like this there is always the danger
that the necessities of the present situation might obscure the need for an
objective view and careful planning for the future. Fortunately, however,
public opinion during this war has largely shown itself alive to the need for
thinking beyond today and planning for a world where the disfigurements, both
economic and political, of the last decade will cease to exist. That is why
there is so much talk of reconstruction in the air and that is why the four
freedoms and the Atlantic Charter have made such a prominent entry into the
world’s political vocabulary. It is not possible for me in this brief talk to
look ahead and visualize all the changes that would be necessary if the
post-war world is to be a safer and happier place to live in. I would,
therefore, only confine myself to some of the more important regions in which
it is necessary to think beyond today.
To begin with, it would be no exaggeration to say
that the political complexion of the world of today contains within it the
seeds of internecine conflict. Let me outline the position very briefly. You
have, or rather you had, before the war began a number of nations, militarily
powerful and claiming the rights of unqualified sovereignty in respect of both
their political and economic policy; then you had a number of small nations
politically independent and jealously guarding the rights of their sovereignty
but, nevertheless, afraid of their bigger neighbours and attempting to secure
their position by alliances or isolations. Then you had a number of countries,
some of them with very large populations, which were not politically sovereign
and were under varying degrees of foreign control. Over all this you had a so-called
League of Nations which was only a debating body and had neither executive functions nor any sanctions with which
to enforce its opinions. You also had, under the shelter of national
sovereignties, oppressions of racial minorities, the bullying of weaker
neighbours, the expending of national incomes, for the building up of vast
armies and other military forces, and a hands-off policy regarding colonies and
dependencies. On the top of all this, you had some countries openly glorifying
in and prepared for war, and others who were unwilling to face the horrors of
war and therefore willing to purchase peace by a policy of appeasement. It was
out of this medley of forces and factors that this war has emerged; and if you
do not want a recurrence of war we have to think beyond today, by which I mean,
that we have to free our minds from the shackles and inhibitions of this era of
nationalism which has laid so much emphasis on national sovereignties and
freedom of individual governments to do whatever they like within their
borders. I am not suggesting that nations should disappear altogether nor that
there should be no individual governments. I am not placing before you the
ideal of the Parliament of Man and the Federation of the World about which the
poet sang so long ago. In fact, I have some little doubt, apart from its
practicability, about even the desirability of the substitution of all
individual governments by one supra-national world government. But I do suggest
that unlimited and unqualified national sovereignty has to go. I do maintain
that there are certain rights of man which must be maintained in all parts of
the world and which it is in the interest of peoples allover the world to see
that they are so maintained. I do ask for the acceptance of certain fundamental
human rights which no government shall have the right to tamper with and for
the acceptance of certain international laws and standards, of international
conduct which no government would be entitled by rights of its sovereignty to
transgress. As a corollary, I also ask for the creation of an international
authority with the necessary powers to enforce international law and maintain
fundamental human rights in every part of the world.
Let me put it more concretely. To begin with, in
the world of tomorrow there can be no master peoples and subject peoples. Every
country must have political freedom and the right to have a government of its
own choice. This means that there can be no colonies and no empires in the
traditional sense. It is, however, possible that some countries may not be in a
position immediately to assume the reins of self-government because of the
backwardness of their people. In such cases interim
administrations will have to be provided, the set object of which will be
to prepare these peoples for taking charge of their own government. I must
hasten to point out, however, that I am not suggesting the re-creation of the
mandate system as it emerged from the last war. I am, of course, accepting the
need for some-thing like mandates, but the mandates will have to be strictly
international and under the direct control of international authority and not
left to be administered by individual nations, however friendly they may be
said to be to the interests of the peoples concerned. As for my country, I
assume that the promise already given will result in the conferment of
political freedom upon her on the termination of the war.
Secondly, the fundamental human rights of freedom
of speech, of thought, of association, etc., must be guaranteed in the
constitution of every country. The rule of law must prevail in all countries
and the only way in which this can be safeguarded would be to set up a World
Court of Justice to which appeals can lie in all cases affecting fundamental
rights. This would, of course, mean a certain measure of infringement of
national sovereignty, but such infringement is inevitable if fundamental human
rights are to be secured in actual practice and not to remain merely on paper.
What I am suggesting is merely an extension of the function of a World Court of
Justice to include cases affecting the personal liberty of the nationals of
different countries. I would also like to consider the possibility of having an
international cadre of the judicial service from amongst whom the personnel for
the highest judicial positions in every country in the world could be
recruited.
Another important requirement is a comparative
equalisation of the standards of life of peoples all over the world. Even if
equalisation is not possible it must be regarded as a sort of world duty to see
that certain minimum conditions of civilised existence are secured to all the
peoples of the world. Thus, for example, the present enormous disparity that
exists in different parts of the world in respect of the incidence of disease
or of literacy should not be permitted to continue. Hunger, disease and
ignorance constitute fruitful soil for the agitator and the propagandist and
furnish an ideal background for the development of forces inimical to world
peace. This principle has already been accepted as far as different regions
within a country are concerned, and I do not see why it should not be extended
to cover the different regions of the world. I agree that it will involve the
throwing of an extra burden on the shoulders of the more well-to-do among the
family of nations but the burden will be no more than temporary and will be
well worth undertaking for the part, it can play in lessening intra-national
dissatisfactions and thus preserving world peace. Side by side with this there
should be an all-round development of the world’s economic resources. Some
regions of the world, like, for example, India or China or South America or
South-east Europe, are economically backward and it may be difficult for them
to reach their optimum development on the basis of their own unaided resources
in the form either of capital or of technical skill. Under the circumstances,
they will require the aid of the more advanced countries in respect of both
capital and technical skill but they want this aid without its involving any
control over their life by foreign elements. This objective can be secured only
if an international investment authority is constituted through whom the
capital transactions will take place and on whose executive bodies the capital
importing nations will also be represented.
Then there is the question of armaments. It has
always been regarded hitherto that an individual country can spend as much
money as it likes on armaments and can build up as big an armed strength as it
thinks fit; the consequence of this is usually an armament race, starvation of
the social and developmental services, and the eventual outbreak of war. Now it
is absolutely essential to discard the so-called right of each nation to build
whatever armed strength it likes. Disarmament of the vanquished nations alone
will not do. No nation must have the right to have an unlimited military
budget. I am not saying that different governments should not be permitted to
maintain a minimum of armed forces required for internal security purposes but
if every nation, even assuming that this privilege is confined only to the
members of the United Nations, is to have the right of making aeroplanes,
bombs, tanks, submarines, battle-ships etc., there can be no security from the
fear of wars. Three things are necessary to ensure the effective limitation of
national sovereignty in respect of armaments:
(1)
The amount of money that each nation can spend for its military budget should
be defined by international agreement and must be based, of course, upon some
general criterion or combination of criteria such as size of national income,
numbers of population etc. It should also be open to an international authority
to audit the military accounts of every individual government.
(2) No individual nation should be permitted to own
an aircraft industry for either civil or military purposes. In fact, the
aircraft industry should be internationalised and should be run by an
international corporation on the management of which all the different
countries of the world will be represented.
(3) A small but highly powerful and mechanised
international force should be constituted which should be under the control of
an international authority and the cost of which must be borne by the budgets
of the individual nations.
If these three things are done, I believe that no
individual nation will have the means to start a big war while, at the same
time, the family of nations functioning through an international authority will
have sufficient armed strength to put down any aggressor who dares to break the
world peace.
You are perhaps wondering where this international
authority is going to come from. Of course, it will have to come from the ranks
of the United Nations and, in the beginning, it is bound to be dominated by the
Great Powers. But eventually, it will be a world organisation, embracing all
the nations–both victors and vanquished–and it will derive its moral authority
from the realisation by the common man of the impossibility of maintaining
international law without an international authority to maintain it. It may
perhaps take the form of regional councils federated into a World Council; or
it may even take the form of a World Federation. I do not know. You cannot
constitute an international political organisation out of a text-book. It has
to evolve itself from the necessities of the situation and the growth of men’s
ideas. But I am positive that if we begin to think beyond today, it must make
us realise the need for limiting national sovereignty and creating an
international organisation which will have the task of maintaining
international law and preserving world peace. Thinking beyond today, no one can
be either an isolationist or a pure nationalist; and it is a happy augury that
so many of us have begun to think in world terms and thereby taken our place in
the ranks of those who think beyond today and, in fact, beyond tomorrow.
* Based on a talk given at the All India Radio, Delhi on 31-12-1943.