The Great Speeches of Modern India

by Rudrangshu Mukherjee

  I venture to suggest that India is one of the twentieth century’s major political anachronisms. The parliamentary system, which was evolved over a thousand years of trial and error for the government of a small, occidental island, and is predicted on the existence and smooth working of a sophisticated two-party system through a single Parliament is sought to be adapted to administering an Asian subcontinent through the machinery of what is developing into a multi-multi-party system clashing in Parliament and in a number of state legislatures.

  The British system has been worked by generations of trained professional and highly skilled politicians and administrators. In contrast, most of India’s politicians are untrained and inexpert in the complex management of a modern society, while the main responsibility for administering the country is borne by an overworked cadre of senior civil servants whose number is grossly inadequate to cater effectively to the needs of over half a billion people.

  In addition, the machine has been burdened with the most ambitious economic planning and development programme ever attempted outside Soviet Russia and with immensely difficult problems of defence, external affairs and finance. Up to the early 1960s, the strain on the machine was hidden by the dominating personality of a great leader, while a benevolent one-party autocracy maintained a facade of political stability and democracy in action. With Nehru gone, the facade has begun to crack and the machine is showing increasing signs of breaking down.

  The process is being accelerated by the disillusionment of the Indian people, who after twenty years of planning and controls and the expenditure of enormous amounts of money, find themselves little better off than when they started on their great adventure. The search for new leadership and new political ideas is further fragmenting a multiplicity of parties, most of which seem to be so bankrupt in ideas that they continue to use slogans and clichés of nineteenth century socialism. Frustration and loss of faith are rapidly eroding our nationhood and encouraging a tendency for India to withdraw again into mutually antagonistic regional divisions.

  To come back to our thesis that the parliamentary form of government we have adopted is in the process of failing, the next question is whether this is due to inherent defects in the system itself or to the failings of the politicians charged with operating it? I think it is due to both.

  If the majority of the professional politicians of India, elected to the central and state legislatures, were as mature, as civic minded, as well-informed and as responsible as their counterparts in more politically advanced countries, we would at least have a measure of political stability, a better informed and intellectually higher level of debate and a greater respect for law and order. We would still suffer, however, from what I suggest is the major failure of the system under our conditions, namely, the constitutional requirement that cabinets at the Centre and in the states can be formed only from Members of Parliament and the respective legislatures and are made directly responsible to them in their day to day conduct of the country’s or the states’ affairs.

  The problems to be tackled by the Executive and the Legislative branches of the government are nowhere in the world as numerous, varied and complex as in India. The great majority of them are certainly not political problems. Is it not obvious, therefore, that they should be tackled mainly by experts, technicians, scientists, economists, industrial managers and other professionally trained men and women? Can we blame our politicians, untrained and uninformed in any of the specialized disciplines involved in the management of a vast country such as ours, if they fail to understand, let alone to solve, the problems they face and to adapt themselves to the rapidly changing conditions of today? If, except for a few outstandingly able and dedicated men and women to whom we must extend our profound respect and gratitude, they have in this new game of parliamentary politics been mainly concerned with maintaining their own political position and status? Can we blame them for succumbing to the lust for power and for the many privileges attached to political power?

  Between now and the next General Elections in 1972, so overwhelming may be the disillusion of our voters that they may turn their faces totally away from the procedures and practices of parliamentary democracy. Even if this does not happen, is it not likely that the trend which emerged in the last elections (1967) may be even more pronounced in 1972? If so, we may be faced, both at the Centre and in most of the states, with a dangerously fluid situation in which a host of parties will constantly manoeuvre for power in a series of ever changing coalitions, defections and floor-crossings, where the authority of the government and Parliament will be so debased that the nation may sink into anarchy, be captured and ruled by a dictatorship, or cease to exist as a united India.

  Can we afford such a risk and what will be the fate of our hundreds of millions of hungry, and by then angry people, if we do and the gamble fails?

  What then is the alternative? Might it not be a Presidential System of Federal Government in which a Chief Executive at the Centre and elected Executive Governors in the states are elected for a term of years, during which they are irremovable and free to govern through cabinets of experts appointed by them and who may, but need not, include professional politicians?

  There can be many variations of such a system, many ways of electing a President and governors, but its main characteristics, however, are stability on the one hand and expert management of affairs on the other. The executives of such a government will not, as in the British system, be directly responsible to Parliament in their day to day management of a country’s affairs and constantly vulnerable to political skulduggery, but would be subject to constant and vigilant scrutiny by Parliament, which, of course, must remain the only body entrusted with law making.

  I am well aware that this alternative was considered by the Constituent Assembly before our Constitution was enacted and that the British system was preferred to it, but since then, we have had a full twenty years of experience in its working and the conditions visualized in 1947 are certainly not those which we find in existence today. We have, in these twenty years, already amended the Constitution almost as many times, and four of the amendments have been major ones. Need we be afraid of a further amendment intended to provide the country with a more stable and more expert government than we have today?

  What, in practice, should we do? I suggest that the first step should be the appointment by Parliament of a high powered commission to undertake a comprehensive study of the problem and to recommend such revision of our Constitution as would ensure the attainment of the desired objective. The commission should consist of outstanding experts in the fields of politics, law, education, science and other professions.

  This will, I know, require an act of great courage but on it will depend the future of one-seventh of the human race as well as of the whole experiment of welding our people together permanently into a single united nation.

  Meanwhile, we cannot even afford to wait till courage comes. We have to find the intermediate ways and means of restoring a degree of stability to our politics and more than a degree of safety to our citizens. Whatever be the politics of the parties or coalitions of parties in individual states, communication links must be kept going and at least selected strategic industries must be kept free from intimidation and sabotage.

  Although such action obviously lies in the realm of the government, we businessmen, particularly those of us whose activities spread beyond a single state, can do much by our example and by word and action to help to break through the parochial barriers of creed and language, which we see being put up throughout the country.

  In addition to the many tasks and duties of a purely economic trading and managerial nature to which we must dedicate ourselves in the coming years, let us also play our part in maintaining the integrity of our country and the survival of our democratic way of life.

  Importance of NGOs (New Delhi, April/May 1969)

  JAYAPRAKASH NARAYAN (1902–1979)

  Jayaprakash Narayan was a c
lose disciple of Gandhi and an ardent socialist. In the sixties, he moved away from active politics and immersed himself in social work. He devoted himself to reviving Gandhi’s ideas about sarvodaya and to building a society that would be free of inequalities and exploitation; a society, as J.P.—as he was popularly known—says in this speech, ‘in which people would largely look after themselves.’ In J.P.’s view, these were the objectives of independence as Gandhi saw them. In this speech J.P. draws attention to social work carried out by agencies that are independent of the government. J.P. was arguing for the expansion of voluntary activity outside the ambit of the state. The vision and the relevance of this speech is more marked today when the role of non-governmental organizations in development and welfare is being increasingly recognized in India.

  Gandhiji was an incarnation of voluntarism. His whole political, social and moral philosophy was based on the individual performing his duty in the best manner possible individually and also combining with other individuals towards solving the problems of the community, of society and the nation. Throughout his life, he established voluntary organizations and conducted them with the greatest possible interest in every detail of their activities.

  He had a very clear picture in his mind as to what he wanted. He wanted to create a new India. He wanted to change the system and the existing social order in India so as to bring about a social revolution. The word ‘revolution’ in this context only means that society has to change from its roots and its foundations, not merely outwardly but in a fundamental way. He wanted to construct a new society, which he called ‘Sarvodaya Society’. From time to time during his own life, Gandhiji had himself elaborated on this word, Sarvodaya. This was a society fundamentally different from the one we have, even after twenty-two years of independence. This was a society in which there would be equality—economic, social and political, a society in which there would be no exploitation; a society in which people would manage their own affairs; a society in which people would largely look after themselves. It would be a self-regulated society. These were the objectives of independence as Gandhiji saw them. He said in Calcutta on 15 August 1947 that the independence or Swaraj that had come was not the Swaraj for which he had fought. That Swaraj was yet to be achieved.

  How are we going to do all this? How can we bring about a social revolution and the reconstruction of society? The two processes go side by side, and how can one do this in a non-violent manner? Gandhiji’s answer was: voluntary action.

  Gandhiji paid small attention to the proceedings of the Constituent Assembly. Somebody wrote to him that though the Constitution of India was being written, there was no mention in it of Ram Rajya which he always preached as the foundation of Swaraj. He wrote in The Harijan just forty days before he was assassinated that if this was so, it was deplorable. He well knew that it was not the Constituent Assembly which could build the country from the bottom, but that this would have to be done by the people themselves. This could not be done by legislation or by a planning commission.

  Now, many of us are engaged in numerous kinds of useful activities. If this work is multiplied a hundredfold, a thousandfold or even a hundred-thousand fold, what will happen? Would a new society be created? No. But that does not mean that Gandhiji was not thinking of activities such as those engaged in, by the various organizations represented here. Gandhiji considered constructive work to be a preparation for social revolution and for social change. He considered constructive work as a discipline for nonviolent mass action. He had written at a number of places on the objectives of constructive organizations like the All India Village Industries Organization and others, which he had himself set up. The objective of constructive organizations and constructive work is not to give employment to people. It is not to add a few paise to the pockets of the poor. These are incidental. The real objective is to create a non-violent society. All the activities that we are engaged in, are essential from the point of view of mass contact in society. They are essential for something that has to be done on the basis of the work that all of you have been doing. As I have understood it, Gandhiji’s technique had two main parts.

  It had a third part also, which many of you might consider the most important part. I do not think it is the most important part. However, this part in itself is very important, and like a Brahmastra, is to be used when all other moral means have failed. If you read the Mahabharata, you will find that it is not every time a soldier goes to battle that he uses the Brahmastra, it has to be used in the most exceptional conditions.

  What are the two important parts of Gandhiji’s method of social change and social reconstruction? One is what we are doing by setting up social service organizations, which Gandhiji called constructive work organizations, manned by people who are motivated by the spirit of service, idealism and the love of humanity. If we have constructive social service organizations with a view to achieving Gandhian results, then these constructive workers or social workers would also believe in the philosophy of non-violence. But not non-violence as a matter of expediency as Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru or Rajen Babu [Rajendra Prasad] or Maulana Azad or Sardar Patel saw and used, as a weapon to fight the British Empire. After that objective had been gained, they had no use for non-violence as a revolutionary philosophy of life.

  The modern structure of society is very unjust. In the name of law and order, so much injustice is being perpetuated. The rule of law and government by law, are all very fine phrases. What do we find after twenty-two years of independence? Human beings by the million are living as pigs. In the great cities of Calcutta and Bombay people literally pick up food from the gutter. Law and order has to be maintained so that these people do not break a few shop windows and seize the food displayed there. This is not the conception of a non-violent order of society. If all talk of nonviolence and peace is in support of the status quo, if the Gandhian philosophy is always used to support the status quo, I cannot imagine a greater injustice to Gandhiji. Therefore it becomes very necessary to see that hundreds and thousands of people who have faith in this revolutionary vision and philosophy are organized in constructive, social service organizations. Their activities are to be coordinated. This was the first part of Gandhiji’s method. Let us go to the people. It is not by sitting in Parliament here and by legislating there that you will create a new India. The new India will have to be created by the bare hands of the people. Therefore, Gandhiji wanted hundreds of people to take up this work.

  Gandhiji said that he wanted that every individual should have all his primary needs fulfilled—enough clothing, a decent house to live in, education for his children, medical care for the sick and disabled in the family, and equal opportunity for employment. These five primary needs of every man should be met in whichever community he lives. Even in the United States of America no one can say whether these five basic requirements have been met so far as the individual is concerned, though it is the richest society in the world today. You go and see how people live in ghettoes in the USA, in the bustees around Calcutta, in the jhuggis and jhompdis around Delhi and the jhompdis in Bombay. Recently I visited jhompdis around Bombay and I was shocked to see the conditions in which the people live there. It is terrible. Gandhiji did not want everyone to go about in a loin cloth. He wanted everyone to have a full life. He also wanted that as a moral virtue, as a social duty, everyone should voluntarily place a limit on his own wants. Otherwise, if unlimited wants are to be pursued, human society will be destroyed; we will land ourselves in disaster.

  You have established individual contact; you have won the confidence of the people. Then, at that moment, it is necessary to place before the people a programme for non-violent mass action. Society cannot change in bits. There has to be a mass revolution, mass movement and massive change. Many people ask: why don’t you show us an example or model of Gramdan village or a Sarvodaya village? We say it is just impossible. This is not what we are after. This cannot be done. Why do you not ask the Socialists to give us a
model? Why do you not ask the Communists to give us a model? They tell you ‘unless we capture the state, we will not be able to build up society’, and that appeals to you. We say that by creating models we will never succeed in changing society. One farmer may learn from another and grow twice, thrice or four times as much as he is growing, and if somebody underwrites the risks involved or assures him that there are no risks involved, he will undoubtedly follow the other man. But if we have a colony in which people are leading a new way of life, have given up proprietary rights, follow the principle of trusteeship and treat their property as a trust, develop a shared way of life with everybody contributing something to the community for the good of the whole, then you will seldom find that the community next to it will accept it as an example. Though many things are contagious and spontaneous, sometimes, somehow goodness is not equally contagious.

  The third part of the Gandhian technique—if that word could be used—was the most effective weapon Gandhiji had. It was his unfailing weapon. It was the Brahmastra. He did not call it that. I am calling it so. This was Satyagraha which includes both non-violent resistance and non-violent non-cooperation. This Brahmastra is not to be used as our political parties are using and vulgarizing it for everything on earth, without creating a climate for it, without moral justification behind it and without creating the spiritual background for it.