Makers of Modern India

by Ramachandra Guha

  Even as regards corruption, it is not generally realized that there is corruption on a gigantic scale in the dictatorships—only its form is changed. Instead of corruption in the sense of bribery and the like, there is grosser corruption in the form of lying, deceit, intrigue, terror, enslavement of the human mind, crucification of the dignity of man. All this corrupts human life far more than bribery and similar things.

  The only true solution of the problem both of bureaucracy and corruption is direct self-government of the people and direct and immediate supervision and control over the civil servants by the people and their elected organs. In the primary communities, as I have said above, there need be no paid civil servants. In the larger communities the civil servant would be directly under the control and supervision of the communal body concerned. Further, it would obviously be in the interest of the communities to keep the cost of the administration as low as possible. So, there will be a natural check on proliferation of the bureaucracy. Thus as self-government develops, the civil servant becomes either unnecessary or subject to the immediate elected authority.

  There may, however, be one danger in all this. If the communal representative bodies and their members themselves become corrupt, there would be little check on corruption in this scheme of things. I admit that it is quite likely that in the beginning it might well be so, but I refuse to believe that such a situation could last long. If the responsibility were really thrown upon the people so that they could see clearly that their suffering was due to the fact that they had chosen the wrong type of people to manage their affairs, the relationship between the people, their representatives and civil servants would be so intimate and direct that it should not take long for the people to remedy the situation …

  It is not possible in this paper to consider what departments of administration are to be entrusted to which community. I have emphasized the general principle that every community would have powers to do all that may be within its natural competence. Since there is general inertia among the people at present, this may not be much. Powers would have to be ‘given’ from above. I should therefore say that I would take courage in both hands and give to the communities the utmost powers possible. Some of the powers might not be used, some might be abused. But the people would learn and it would be the job of the voluntary social workers to help them to learn.

  I should therefore say that police, justice, taxation, collection, social services, planning, should all be decentralized to the maximum possible extent. As the people learn and acquire self-confidence, the process of decentralization, instead of starting from above, would be normalized and begin to operate from below.

  A new political structure like the one envisaged here will not be built in a day, if for nothing else, for the reason that the foundation will have to be laid first and the structure built from below, storey by storey. The economic structure too would have to be built along with [it]. All this would take time, so there will have to be a period of transition.

  Village panchayats have been established in the greater part of the country. These have to be remodelled according to the principles put forward in this paper.

  The next stage would be the establishment of Panchayat Samitis. This has also been started already, such as in Rajasthan. But again the conception behind it has to be radically changed.

  When panchayat samitis are established, the District Councils would have to be constituted.

  The economic institutions would also have to be organized side by side.

  Planning and the whole system of education would have to be re-oriented …

  The picture drawn here of the polity for India, and of social organization in general, might perhaps appear to be idealistic. If so, I would not consider that to be a disqualification. An ideal cannot but be idealistic. The question is if the ideal is impractical, unscientific or otherwise ill-conceived. I have tried in the preceding pages to show that all relevant considerations lead irresistibly towards it.

  The achievement of this ideal would, however, be a colossal task. Thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of voluntary workers would be needed over [a] number of years to accomplish it.

  The governments should lend their full support; but it is necessary to remember that the main burden of the task would have to be borne by voluntary political and social workers and institutions. The heart of the problem is to create the ‘spirit of community’, without which the whole body politic would be without life and soul. This is a task of moral regeneration to be brought about by example, service, sacrifice and love. Those who occupy high places in society—in politics, business, the professions—bear the heavy responsibility of leading the people by personal example.

  The task also is one of social engineering, needing the help of the State; of scientists, experts, educationists, businessmen, experimenters; of men and women; of young and old.

  It is a task of dedication; of creation; of self-discovery.

  It is a task that defines India’s destiny. It spells a challenge to India’s sons and daughters. Will they accept the challenge?

  The Tragedy of Tibet

  In 1959 the Chinese government came down heavily on a rebellion in Tibet, forcing tens of thousands of Tibetans to flee to India. Simultaneously, they strengthened their military presence in, and political control over, that territory. In these excerpts from speeches he made at the time, Jayaprakash Narayan outlines the implications of the crisis in Tibet for India, China and the world. This remains a compelling critique of totalitarianism in theory and practice. The emphases in the text are the author’s.2

  … One of the great tragedies of history is being enacted in full view of the world. Tibet is being gobbled up by the Chinese dragon. A country of less than ten million souls is being crushed to death by a country of six hundred and fifty million people. Patriotism, courage, faith can perform miracles. The Tibetans love their country; they are brave; they are devoted to their religion and their Dalai Lama. Yet, 1 to 65 is an odd that even a nation of Herculeses will find it difficult to overcome.

  The attention of the world is currently turned elsewhere. Moreover, Tibet for most countries of the world, except its immediate neighbours, is an obscure, distant, benighted land—not worth bothering about. This makes the tragedy of Tibet deeper.

  India, as an immediate neighbour of Tibet, and as a country regarded for its moral position, its detachment and freedom from power politics has a great responsibility in this matter. The world looks to India for a lead and India must not fail.

  It is not only a question of the fate of ten million people. That of course is important and would be so whatever the number. But there is also the question—and this is of much greater importance—of the basis of international justice and peace. Is world peace possible if the strong are free to oppress the weak with impudence? Such a world would be dominated by a few powerful nations and peace would consist in any uneasy balance of power between them and the small nations would be at their mercy.

  This surely is not the picture of the future world order that India has in view. We believe that just as inside nations the rule of law must be established to secure human rights, so in the international community too must the rule of law be enforced so as to ensure the freedom and rights of nations. That rule of law can only be based on an international morality which is universally accepted. Even the strongest power then might find it difficult to go against the moral verdict of the world. From my point of view, the greatest virtue of our foreign policy of non-attachment and independence of judgment is that it enables us to contribute, because of that very non-attachment, to the development of international morality.

  India therefore must not shirk her responsibility at this testing moment. Her responsibility is far greater at this time than it was at the time of Hungary. This is so not only because Tibet is on our frontier and what happens there affects our security, nor only because of our spiritual and cultural bonds with Tibet. The Panchen Lama, by the way, twitted u
s the other day for showing such solicitude for Bud[d]hism abroad when we had not cared to preserve it at home. The learned Lama forgets that the Bud[d]ha’s teachings have very largely become a part of Hindu life and thought and the Bud[d]ha himself is worshipped as our last Avatar [of Vishnu] … [O]ur bonds with Tibet are there and they no doubt determine our attitude towards their present plight. But our concern for and responsibility towards Tibet spring mainly from the fact that Tibet is a neighbour who has been wronged. The responsibility is increased when it is recalled that the neighbour had put trust in our assurances.

  In this connection, there has been some glib talk of war. If you do this or that, it would mean war with China, it is said. It is amazing that people should talk of war in this loose manner. The whole world knows, and China more than them all, that India has no desire whatever to start a war with anyone. On the other hand, India has repeatedly reiterated her firm desire to continue her bonds of friendship with China. But if China seeks to exploit that desire for unjust purposes, India cannot be party to it. Nor can India be brow-beaten into doing something that she considers wrong nor prevented by threats from doing the right.

  The main elements of the Tibet situation have been clear enough from the beginning.

  Tibet is not a region of China. It is a country by itself which has sometimes passed under Chinese suzerainty by virtue of conquest and never by free choice. Chinese suzerainty has always been of the most nominal kind and meant hardly more than some tribute paid to Peking by Lhasa. At other times Tibet was an independent sovereign country. For some time in the 8th century Peking paid a yearly tribute of 50,000 yards of Chinese brocade to Tibet.

  After the fall of the Manchu empire in 1911, Tibet functioned as an independent country till 1950, when the Chinese Communist Government invaded it. In between there were attempts to re-impose Chinese suzerainty by treaty in which the British Government took a leading hand. Pressed from both sides by two powerful forces, Tibet had little choice. Nevertheless nothing came out of these attempts and till the communist invasion, Tibet was a free country.

  The British had their own selfish motive for agreeing to China’s suzerain powers in Tibet. Being imperialists themselves they had, of course, no qualms in the matter. Their motive was to bribe the Chinese into recognizing the monopoly of economic rights of Britain in Tibet.

  It was this policy born in imperialist sin that free India inherited. Very rightly India renounced all the rights she enjoyed in Tibet by virtue of that inheritance. But curiously she re-affirmed that part of the sinful policy that related to China. India gave her assent to China’s suzerain position in Tibet.

  That was a major mistake of our foreign policy. The mistake was twofold. The first was that we accepted an imperialist formula. The very idea that one country may have suzerain powers over another is imperialist in conception. The second mistake was to believe that a powerful totalitarian state could be trusted to honour the autonomy of a weak country.

  It is true that we could not have prevented the Chinese from annexing Tibet. But we could have saved ourselves from being party to a wrong. That would have been not only a matter of moral satisfaction, but it would have also set the record right, so that world opinion, particularly in the Afro-Asian part of the world, could have asserted itself. That might have even halted the Chinese. The communists are anxious to present themselves as liberators, so when Afro-Asian opinion would have condemned their Tibet action as aggression they would have found it immensely difficult to go on with it. India’s acceptance of the suzerainty formula gave to the Chinese action a moral and legal sanction and prevented the formulation of an Afro-Asian opinion on the question. It thus prevented the true aggressive character of Chinese communism from being realized by the backward peoples of Asia, aggravating the danger of their being enslaved in the name of liberation.

  It has been said, more in whisper than aloud, that non-recognition of China’s claims of suzerainty would have earned for us the hostility of the Chinese Government. In the first place, issues of right and wrong cannot be decided on considerations of pleasure or displeasure of the parties concerned. In the second place, it should have been foreseen that sooner or later the Chinese would try to destroy the Tibetan autonomy and then a conflict of policies would become inevitable.

  Furthermore, we could have made it clear that even though we were opposed to China’s suzerainty over Tibet, we were, on our side, keen and determined to pursue our policy of friendship. India had strongly opposed recent Anglo-French aggression in Egypt, but on that account she did not change her policy of friendship towards England and France. Nor was India’s action construed by those powerful countries as hostile, nor did they themselves on that account become hostile to India.

  There are some who say that facts of history must be taken into account and if Tibet has sometimes been under China, it is irrelevant to raise the question of Tibetan independence now. This is an amazing argument. Anyone who believes in human freedom and the right of all nations to independence, should be ashamed to talk in this fashion. According to the logic of this view-point, Hungary, for example, having long been a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, should never be entitled to independence. Would any sensible person agree with this view? Let us not therefore slip into the habits of lazy thought and give approval to wrongs of history.

  For years an illusion was in the making. It was said that China was different. It had an ancient civilization. Therefore Chinese communism was different from Russian and so on and on. That illusion has been shattered to the great good fortune of the peoples of Asia, who have been warned in time.

  China rants incessantly about imperialists and expansionists. But China herself has been revealed as a cruel imperial power. If communism had been a truly liberating and anti-imperialist force, the Chinese communists, on assumption of power, should themselves have proclaimed the independence of Tibet and foresworn the old imperialist notion of suzerainty and made a treaty with Tibet of equality and friendship. But communism under Russian and Chinese guidance has become expansionist and aggressive, just as nineteenth-century capitalism under the leadership of Britain, France, Germany had become aggressive and expansionist. Somewhere or the other Marxism has gone wrong. Lenin wrote a famous thesis on imperialism as the last phase of capitalism. Some one should write another thesis on communism as the first phase of a new imperialism! …

  Having annexed Tibet by invoking an outworn, imperialist formula, the Chinese communists were in no hurry to go on with their plans of subjugating the country. They also needed time to build roads and military establishments and to haul up arms to the roof of the world. When they had sufficiently entrenched themselves, they began to tighten the screws. It was not a question of reforms. The question plainly was that of subjugation of Tibet. The Chinese interfered in everything, in the matter of religion as well as administration. Revered Lamas were purposely ill-treated, humiliated, imprisoned, tortured. The sanctity of shrines and images was violated. Monasteries were demolished and their properties confiscated. A new system of administration was imposed, in which Chinese were posted at all key points. The Post & Telegraph, the Mint, the Hydro-electric plant were taken over. Printing of Tibetan currency was prohibited. Chinese Postal stamps were introduced. The powers and functions of the Dalai Lama were clipped. A vast scheme of colonization by China was set on foot, so that large parts of Tibet should cease to be Tibetan and become Chinese. That was a process of stealing Tibet from the Tibetans that caused deep anxiety and aroused bitter resentment. Centuries-old granaries, some of them with grain reserves to last for years, were emptied and the grain seized by the Chinese. Reserves of gold and silver bullion were appropriated on the pretext of taking it on loan. The so-called land reforms were introduced, softly at first, but later with the usual communist disregard for popular feeling. Forced labour, so foreign to Tibetan tradition, was introduced on a big scale. The Press and all other means of information were taken over by the Chinese.

  All
this was happening over a number of years and to some of the administrative and constitutional changes the Tibetans were forced to give their ‘assent’. The rest was done at the sweet will of the over-lords.

  Resistance to such [a] state of affairs was natural. Soon it took the form of a national resistance movement.

  [The] Marxism of Karl Marx was meant to be an objective science of society. But present-day communism is nothing if not a complete travesty of objectivity. Had it not been so, all the wild charges could never have been made against India and Indians. Had it not been so again, the Tibetan upsurge could not have been represented by the Chinese as only a minor disturbance caused by a handful of reactionary Lamas and landlords. It is not that communists do not know the truth. It is only that communism cannot bear the truth. Truth is communism’s deadly enemy.

  There is no doubt that the vested interests are also with the resistance, but its character is national rather than class. The Tibetans are fighting to win their national freedom and not to defend the feudal rights of a few nobles and monasteries. The leaders of the movement are not feudal reactionaries, but the most progressive elements in Tibetan society, who stand for reform and change.

  The true history of the Tibetan national movement has yet to be told. There are Tibetans now in India who can give the world an authentic account. But one does not know when they will consider the opportune moment to have arrived to tell their story. In spite of all that has happened they perhaps feel that a settlement with the Chinese might still be possible. One admires the faith of these brave religious people and prays that their faith may be vindicated. One necessary condition for that seems to be unambiguous expression and assertion of world opinion on the side of truth and justice.

  There is a point of view that is not so much expressed publicly as privately canvassed. It is said that even if the Chinese are behaving a little roughly in Tibet, why be so squeamish about it? Are they not forcibly rescuing the Tibetan masses from medieval backwardness and forcing them forward towards progress and civilization?