Wither Mankind?

Whither Mankind? *

Thinking Beyond To-day

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 bodyand 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 wardness 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 ground 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 ward 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.