Gokhale for Today: Liberalism Restated

Gokhale for Today: Liberalism Re-stated ¹

The birthday of Gokhale, the 9th of May, gives us occasion, year after year, to renew our memory of the faith by which he lived and the principles by which he worked and to see how far they are relevant to the circumstances of our day and where they need to be revised. It is the nature of the world to keep changing (Jagat=moving) from moment to moment; and it is man’s responsibility to keep his outward and his inward in constant harmony with each other. This means two processes: a frequent re-examination by him of his own ideas and attitudes about things on the one side and, on the other, a frequent review of the changes in the conditions in which he has to live his life. There is need for a re-evaluation and re-adaptation both ways from time to time. The essential merit of Gokhale’s faith was in this recognition of the need for review and re-adjustment. The dynamism of the world and its call for the seasonable reform of man’s relationships with it are among the axioms of Liberalism. Liberalism is the name given in Gokhale’s day to the faith and principles held by him.

The word ‘Liberal’ is used in this essay not as the label of a political party or of a body of crystallized dogma or sacrosanct formulary. ‘Liberal’ here is the name of an attitude of mind towards the problems of life. It denotes a point of view rather than a body of set views. That point is the belief that life, in order to be good, should for every one be both free in itself and helpful, and not hurtful, to other lives. From this standpoint, which is definite and permanent, the readings of situations by the Liberal may vary from occasion to occasion, and the purposes to be pursued may vary accordingly. The inner principle is one; and its outward manifestations may be in a variety of forms as indicated by differences in the circumstances.

TWO-FOLD SIGNIFICANCE

The word ‘Liberal’ has two connotations. Firstly, it is preference for Liberty,–for as much Liberty as possible,–for each individual man as against attempts to subtract from it made by the State or society or any other external authority. Secondly, to be Liberal is to be generous, large, adjustable, tolerant and not rigid in one’s relations with others. The word ‘free’ has also this two-fold meaning (‘Liber’ is the Latin for ‘free’). We speak of the freedom of the press, and we speak also of a man being free of his money. Thus, being on guard against the claims of authority and cultivating sympathy with one’s fellow-citizens are the two basic ingredients ofLiberalism. We, shall see later on how these basic ideas have found practical application.

‘DHARMA’ –THE TRIPLE CODE

It seems necessary to note at this stage that there is nothing peculiarly British or European in these ideas. Their validity is universal. So far as India is concerned, the ideas are implicit in the Hindu concept of Dharma. Let us for a moment turn to this word which is the key-word to the Hindu way of life. It has many meanings in current usage. But let us look at the main basic senses. ‘Dharma’ comes of a verbal root Dhriwhich means ‘to bear’, ‘to uphold’, ‘to sustain’, ‘to support’. That which supports life is Dharma. This process of supporting life consists of three disciplines:

(1) Dharma is individual self-sustenance or one’s being oneself – that is, true to one’s nature. Every created thing has its Dharma or distinctive virtue or characteristic quality or its peculiar value or power to affect others. Burning is the Dharma of fire. Cooling is the Dharma of water. Sight is the Dharma of the eye; hearing of the ear; walking of the legs. Each organ has its prescribed Dharma. None can perform the Dharma of another. The eye cannot hear; the leg cannot taste. Thus the inherent property or capacity of a thing is its Dharma. In short, a thing’s Dharma or virtue is that which makes it itself and keeps it itself–its individuality, its Tattva(That-ness). Sva-dharma inculcated in the Bhagavad-Gita is the rule of self-fulfillment. One has to exercise whatever is of value or power in one in relation to the occasion or the situation in which one finds oneself. It is Sva-dharma for a Kshatriya (member of the military caste) to fight when the cause of justice calls for it. Liberty is opportunity for such self-fulfilment. Sva-tantraor liberty is a condition indispensable to Sva-dharma. It should be noted that, while the word liberty, denoting absence of restraint, is negative in its import, the word Sva-dharma (one’s own duty prescribed by the principle of the general good) is positive. The notion of duty is implied and not explicit in liberty, while the notion of Svatantra (liberty) is implied and not explicit inSva-dharma (duty). The relative emphasis in the two phrases ischaracteristic of the twoscales of value. That liberty is Incidentaland ancillary to Dharma isthe Hindu view.

(2) Dharma is justice or the regulation of the movements of an individuality when in association with other individualities. Self-fulfillment is not in solitude, but in and through society. This means occasions for clash of personalities and conflict of interests. Harm to one individuality or another is then likely. To minimize this harm is the purpose of Law. Law or Nyaya is the working of Dharma. The seat of the King, who is the fountain of justice, is Dharma-Asana. Not only should there be freedom for the individual’s self-fulfillment, but that self-fulfillment should take place in such a way for each that the similar self-expression of another is not harmed or hindered. Justice is the avoidance of harm. Law is the regulation of the course of freedom by the principle of justice. It is justice that supports life in society. Hence justice is Dharma.

(3) Dharma is fellow-feeling, or recognition of the inter-dependence oflife among all that live. Each human being is incomplete by himself or herself and must have some one or another to bring his or her life to completion, making it bearable and worth while. Dharma is this sense or one’s partnership with others in the business of living; and the larger the area of this partnership, the better for the soul. Hence the soul-educative value of the home and the tribe and the State. Hence the importance of the practice of loving-kindness to all that lives. Dharma is thus charity or philanthropy, citizenship, or public spirit. It is an exercise in the cultivation of one’s spiritual self-expansion–of the habit of identifying yourself with all around. When that habit is formed, one begins to transcend one’s customary self. One learns to shed the ego and merge oneself in cosmic living. The progress of the soul is from self-expression under the law of justice to self-dissolution in life universal–from Dharma to Moksha, from individualism to universalism, from life limited to life limitless. Sympathy and fellow-feeling, which are stepping stones in the ascent, are Dharma, as seen in familiar phrases like Dharma-Shala, Dharma-karya, etc. Dharma, active as kindness and compassion, sustains life.

Self-fulfillment, justice, self-dissolution; liberty; law, universal fellowship: such are the three basic ideas of Dharma, the Code of Ethics designed to sustain life and give it purpose and direction. It is a code of the true Good, both of the individual and of his entire field of being.

It should be noted that the concept of Dharma is nothing but the application of Satya or the Truth of Things to the affairs of life. Satya is the nature of the things one has to do with–in both what they are and what they do. And the impulse to seek such knowledge is Rita. Rita is the natural and spontaneous urge existing in every living being towards the truth. When an ant feels its way as it crawls along, when an elephant tests the ground underneath with its foot before planting the feet thereon, when a baby catches hold of a bright toy and tries to bite it, when the deer sniffs the air to make sure that there is no tiger anywhere near, it is Rita that works. There is within every living being an instinct that makes for a search of the nature of the things coming under its notice; that natural curiosity or craving for knowledge is Rita. Rita leads on to Satya or Truth; and Satya expresses itself as Dharma or the Triple Law of the good life.

Dharma, as set out above, takes an integrated view of life in both possible aspects: the individual’s and the community’s. In so far as Dharma concerns itself with the self-development of the individual, it is individualisim. In so far as it requires that the individual’s self-fulfillment must be in and through the lives of his fellow beings, it is collectivism. Dharma is thus the harmonizing and blending of two categories of the good: the individual’s and the community’s. It holds that neither kind of good is fully and truly achieved without the other’s being in that very process realized.

The Hindu derives his notion of value from what he believes to be the highest and largest Truth. Brahman or the Great One is that Truth. It is God. It is larger than, and inclusive of, all the truths of the world. Brahman is at once the source, the home and the final destination of all that there is. All that a man desires, or is attracted by, is to be valued according to its effect on his progress towards the realization of Brahman. Man may not be able to know for certain what the purpose of creation is, or why he has been placed in it where he is. But he has it in his power to free life on earth of its burdensomeness and find in it a serene joy that no worldly factor can mar. This all-transcending joy comes from the realization of Brahman. This joy is the highest Good, the summum bonum of life, and all other good-seeming things of the world are to be judged and evaluated with reference to that highest of the Good. It is the joy of experiencing oneself as one with all that is. It is to lose all vestiges of ego and be merged in Eternal and Infinite Being. The sense of being separated from Brahman is our master-error and the mother of all miseries. Re-union is peace, and felicity. This re-union is to be sought in a life of Dharma, the triune stream of liberty, justice and universal fellowship. It should now be clear how the basic concepts of Liberalism are an integral part of Dharma.

LIBERALISM IN INDIA-NEITHER BORROWED
NOR IMITATIVE

While it is true that Indian Liberalism owes nothing of its essential content to British or European thought-movements of that name, it should be acknowledged that the early Liberals of our country owed their impulse for an examination of their country’s political and social conditions to the English education they had received and the inquiring attitude in which their minds had been put by the superiority they saw in Europe’s political institutions, in Europe’s science and in Europe’s industrial and commercial organization. The Reform Movements of England and France turned Raja Rammohan Roy’s mind in the direction of a critical review of his own country’s condition. Similar was the reaction of Ranade and many other English-educated Indians of his day to the contrast they could not help observing between their country and the countries of Europe in all that we commonly regard as the essentials of progress.

The history of England and Europe suggested new ideas of the Good to be striven after and exemplified a new way of life. Indian, reformers saw in those suggestions nothing repugnant to their country’s ideas of the good and the right. On the contrary, the lessons of foreign example appeared to them to fit well into the ground of their national psychology. To Ranade, ² reform was in practice merely a rediscovery of certain long-forgotten principles of sound social organization and a re-adapting and further development of those pre-existent rudiments of the general good among his own people. Europe’s Liberalism thus re-awakened rather than created Indian Liberalism. It evoked into actuality a potential parallel of regenerative forces in India.

It was Gokhale’s distinction to have realized that conditions had become ripe in his day for the application of Liberalist principles in the field of the country’s politics and administration. This unfoldment of the contents of Liberalism was a gradual, long-continued process, not a sudden upheaval of vision or impulsion. It was a process of response to the call of circumstance. It is important to note that Indian Liberalism was not the a-priori importing of a foreign doctrine or the uncritical imitation of a foreign cry, but the natural evolution of a native instinct impelled by new experience and new thought.

There is special need today for a re-statement and re-emphasizing of the principles which formed the ground-work of Gokhale’s politics. They are principles of a realistic approach to ideals, of the study of the fundamental facts of human nature, of the individual’s need of autonomy, of the recognition of the limitations to the State’s capacity as well as to the people’s, and of the need of public education for the achievement of lasting results. The current policies of the Government in our country are, in many important respects, not merely a departure from the old principles, but also a contradiction of them in some respects. And the results of that departure have not proved to be of a happy kind. Mr. Nehru’s recent mood of discontent, fortunately not allowed to prevail, may, however, be noted as the reflex of a dissatisfaction felt throughout the country with the policies and the techniques which have come superseding the faith of the earlier nation-builders to whose ideas the public had become educated for three quarters of a century.

Some people use the words ‘idealism’ and ‘realism’ as though they were necessarily antithetical terms. That is a mistake. An ideal is nothing but the summation and maximizing of all the good implicit in the actual. An ideal is formed not in a vacuum and not in the solitude of a cloister, but with the closest possible reference to the solid things and the significant facts on which it will have to work, for their betterment. The soundness of the ideal is necessarily proportionate to the soundness of one’s understanding of the real. The ideal is the imaginative perfecting of the fragments of the good seen in the reality, around. The ideal is thus rooted in the real. The practical idealist is one who constantly checks and corrects his mental pictures of the good in the light furnished by an analysis and evaluation of the existing. What there is is the raw material for what there should be. The study of existing facts and their tendencies is realism; and the appreciation of the possibilities of the good in them is idealism. In this sense Gokhale was a practical idealist, and Gandhi was another.

GOKHALE AND GANDHI

The present policies in our country, to the extent of their being a departure from the principles of Gokhale, are as well a departure from the line of Gandhi, for on most matters of the duty of the State and the rights of the citizen, Gokhale and Gandhi thought and felt very much alike. Both alike took their stand on the psychology of the people–the attitudes they had inherited, their common beliefs and sentiments, the experiences they had gone through, the education they had received not only in schools, but also in life’s struggles, their scales of value and their mental make-up and outlook. It is out of these, they both recognized, that the India of the future is to be evolved. And they took a careful measure of the forces ranged on the opposite side. How large an area was common ground., for Gokhale and Gandhi will become evident when we examine the elements of the faith that was Gokhale’s. But before we proceed to it, a word seems necessary as regards the one or two points of difference of view between Gokhale and Gandhi.

Gandhi’s plan of work for winning independence was not one referable to any idea of Gokhale’s or any other predecessor’s. Gokhale could not have been aware of that plan at all, because Gandhi’s ideas in this matter reached fullness and cogency of expression only some years after Gokhale’s death. It is an open question whether, if Gokhale had lived on for some five or ten years longer, he would have approved of the course adopted by Gandhi. One may as well speculate, relying on the evidence we have of Gokhale’s great respect and affection for Gandhi and Gokhale’s habitual openness of mind and receptivity to new ideas, that Gokhale would have heartily joined Gandhi as collaborator in the Satyagrahic fight. But taking facts as they stood at the time one has to admit that the ideology of Satyagraha is not one that can be organically related to the known views of Gokhale.

Another problem beyond Gokhale’s ken which Gandhi had to face was that of the mutual relations of industrial employers and employees. But in this matter, there is ampler ground for the view that Gokhale would have stood on the same side as Gandhi. Gokhale was a poor man and his heart was with the common people, as can be seen from his pleadings in his Budget Speeches and his campaign for universal compulsory education of the people up to an effective standard.

Apart from these two questions–that of Satyagraha and that of Socialism–Gandhi may well be counted a fellow-traveller of Gokhale on all questions of nation-building and governmental policy. Let us now turn to the tenets of Liberalism as represented by Gokhale. They were mainly six: (1) Liberty, (2) Realism, (3) All-sided Study, (4) Gradualness and Evolutionary Continuity, (5) Efficiency in Administration, and (6) Economy in Public Expenditure.

We must at this stage remind ourselves of the all-important and epochal changes that have taken place since Gokhale’s time in the political constitution and status of India. In Gokhale’s day, India was a Dependency, not even a Dominion, of Great Britain, ruled by a bureaucracy under the barely theoretical control of Britain’s democracy. Today, India is an independent sovereign State, a democracy and a Secular State. These, we may be sure, are changes that would have rejoiced Gokhale as the grand fulfillment of his own dreams. The supremacy of the people in their own country, their right to the free management of their own affairs, the sharing of power; by the entire bodyof citizens, and the complete dissociation of the State from religion without anyantagonism to religion as such, are all conditions fundamental toliberalism.

DEMOCRATIC AND SECULAR

Democracy may be defined as government by public opinion expressed through representatives of the citizens gathered for deliberation and debate according to the Constitution accepted by the country. A democratic Constitution for the state is the first requisite of Liberalism; because, of all forms of government, it is democracy that gives value to the individual. The sovereignty of the people is an axiom of Liberalism; and every citizen therefore counts for something in it. This significance of the individual is indeed the starting point of Liberalism. The vote is to the Liberal the symbol of a unit of rational intelligence, not a packet of mechanical man-power. The Liberal would count heads and not hands. Parliament and procedure are of importance to him as venues for browning into active service all the moral and intellectual faculties of the community and setting them in concentrated action for the good of all. The Liberal’s constant care therefore is that society’s intelligence and conscience get their fullest chance.

The Liberal also recognizes that man’s life is a mixture of two distinct and dissimilar ingredients: the material and the spiritual–the objective and the subjective–that which can be brought to analysis and proof and that which consists of inward faith and experience not accessible to outward measurement. The Liberal would never forget or belittle the distinction between these two provinces of life. And he accepts the teaching of Jesus: “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s” (Matt. 22-21). A Secular State is not anti-religious. But it does not single out, as its own, any one among the many religions and creeds professed by its subjects. To be this is, however, not to be anti-religious. On the other hand, the Secular State protects all religions equally and refrains from interference with any equally. It protects the non-religious and even the irreligious as well so long as they do not attempt to meddle with the religious. Such were the Hindu kingdoms of old. The Raja of Vijayanagara may have been personally a Vaishnava or a Shaiva, but his protection as Ruler was available as readily to Jains and even Mussalmans as to Hindus. Equally to care for all is in effect not different from being equally neutral towards all. The modern State concerns itself directly only with the temporal and non-religious aspects of man’s life. So does Liberalism. Not that the Liberal is not alive to the contribution which religion and philosophy have it in their power to make to the strength of the State by the good influence which they can exercise upon the character and outlook of the people. But he appreciates these advantages as he appreciates the favourable features of geography and climate–as things beyond his powers and his reckoning. He does not refuse the good offices of religion in building up the moral side of citizenship; but he takes care that the private side of life has its fullest possible autonomy. His care directly is with the public side of life only.

Having thus cleared the ground, we may now proceed to deal with each of the components of Liberalism enumerated above.

LIBERTY

First as to liberty. The contents of this general concept will perhaps be better appreciated if stated under some specific heads. Let me mention some: (i) Civil liberty or the right of citizenship. Franchise or the right to vote is its practical form. A share in making laws, and equality in the eye of law, are the main principles. Law must be an expression, and the authoritative expression, of the general will of those whom it is meant to govern. This is the heart of the philosophy of democracy. The sacredness of the vote and the freedom of the vote are derived from this. (ii) Political liberty or a share in the control of government or the instruments of the legislature. ‘No power without responsibility,” and “Redress before supplies” are the maxims here. (iii) Fiscal liberty as expressed in the aphorism, “No taxation without representation.” (iv) Personal liberty is the-impossibility of arbitrary acts to restrain a man’s freedom of movement and action and self-enjoyment. Remedies are in the form of habeas corpus and other judicial writs. (v) Social liberty, relating to the freedom of intercourse between groups and classes and their equal right to the use of roads, parks and such other public amenities. (vi) Economic liberty which relates to the choosing of a profession or trade and entering into contracts of service and to move from place to place in search of opportunity. (vii) Domestic liberty which relates to marriage, adoption and the status of members in a family. (viii) Religious liberty and liberty of conscience. (ix) Liberty of speech and discussion, of which the freedom of the press is an integral part, and (x) Liberty of meeting and association for not unlawful purposes. This brief list is illustrative and by no means exhaustive. It must be readily acknowledged that many of these items of liberty have been duly provided for in the current Indian Constitution.

The canon of liberty calls for two conditions in the State’s exercise of authority:

I. that the individual shall be free in all fields of life and action, except to the extent marked off for the State by such unavoidable needs of the community as cannot otherwise be satisfied and as cannot be neglected without danger to one and all: and

II. that, as a corollary to the above, the State shall leave in the citizen’s hands as much as possible of his possessions and resources and shall not take for itself more than it is capable of returning to him in things of utility and service.

The Liberal State is an ancillary and not a transcendental institution. It does not seek to take hold of the entire field of the people’s life, but confines itself only to those parts of the field that are inevitably of concern to all of them in common. It does not undertake to play the Deputy Providence, but regards itself as a mere human agency, fallible and corrigible. The first of its assets are its People, in both individual and collective aspects. What is of value in their mental and moral and physical faculties is its principal capital. The power of the State counts as only the next. He who would build up the life of his people should first stir and encourage their inborn and spontaneous impulses to improve themselves and increase their own welfare. The instinct of self-interest should be roused and canalized in the direction of the Good. State-action is of secondary significance. Its method of operation should be regulative rather than compulsive. The State should create incentives for the play of the good sense and initiative of the people and stop short of coercion. Not that State-action is to be absolutely ruled out. It may be necessary and even indispensable on occasions. But when it has to come, let it come in forms not deprecatory or discouraging to the voluntary self-effort of individual citizens.

The Liberal sees the house of life for each man or Woman as made up of two chambers, one reserved for his (or her) living all by himself, alone and undisturbed, and the other chamber meant for his sharing life with others. Every human being, in his (or her) very nature, is both individualistic and gregarious. He would sometimes be left alone; all with himself and to himself. At other times he craves for company and is not happy in solitude. And when in company, he has both preferences and aversions, thus behaving pro-socially sometimes and anti-socially other times. Has not Browning described man as a midway creature between God and beast? The Liberal recognizes the naturalness and the inescapability of the duality and marks off the field of private life from the public. He would, not extend the public field unless there is undoubted and urgent need for extension; and even in the limited public field, he would further limit the operation of State-authority to the unavoidable minimum. In short, in all cases of likely collision between the individual and the State, his general tendency would be to stand by the individual who is almost always the weaker party in a contest against the massed forces of the State. The Liberal would first try to avoid all possibility of conflict between authority and liberty; and then, when conflict is found to be inevitable, he would throw his weight on the side of liberty. For liberty is the indispensable condition of the blossoming of ‘Personality; and this blossoming of personality should be the supreme purpose of all governments and all laws. In the final analysis, self-development is the highest good for everyone, man or woman; and society and the State and all other forms of organized existence are only means to that end. It is a grievous confusion of ends and means to talk of a general welfare which ignores individual welfare. The first element of well-being for any one is the sense of liberty: “Good or bad, my life is mine; well or ill, my lot is my choice; high or low, my destiny is my handiwork”–this feeling of self-dependence and self-respect is the fruit of liberty; and when that felicity is secured to a man, he could blame no one and will learn to reconcile himself to what time and the world bring to him. That is peace and welfare.

Let us linger for another moment on this all-important issue and inquire into the position taken up by Mahatma Gandhi. In political theory, it is well known that Gandhi was one that could be called a philosophical anarch. He would have no government at all or only an absolute minimum of it, in the sense of government’s being a force acting from outside upon the individual. Not that he wants no government or would welcome chaos. Far from it, he would like every one to govern himself or herself from within and not need a government from without. When that is so, the State would be rendered superfluous and would “wither away” in the Marxian phrase. This, however, is an extreme of perfectionism and too remote for our reach. Its defect is in its forgetting of the dual side of human nature, one side always needing control but exceeding the average man’s capacity for self-control. Next to doing away with the State, Gandhi would have it restrict its activity to the inevitable minimum. He would have all relationships among individuals be regulated by goodwill and free contract rather than by the force of law and the machinery of the State. There are seeds of the good embedded in every human heart. Let us call them into life rather than employ the police to achieve our social ends. Communism is coercive. It discourages and even atrophies the people’s private impulse for the good and thus deprives them of the opportunity of moral self-education by voluntary exertion for the general good. This is really emaciating to the soul of man. As for Socialism, standing midway between Communism and Liberalism, it lacks the thoroughness and ruthless efficiency of the first and the genial and fertilizing influence of the second. Gandhiji used to claim that he, in contrast to those who put on the label, was the true Socialist, his brand of Socialism consisting in accepting the ethics of trusteeship as the basis of relations between the ‘Haves’ and the ‘Have-nots’ in society. In other words, the State should not aim at the abolition of the capitalist and the employer, in the illusory hope of creating a classless society, but should make itself responsible for ensuring that the ‘Haves’ conduct themselves as though they were persons appointed to be trustees for the ‘Have-nots.’ Those who possess properties or faculties of value to the community should by all means be enabled to cultivate and develop those possessions; and they should at the same time be required to share the fruit reaped equitably with those who laboured in the garden even though they were not the legal owners. Equity rather than equality is the principle here. The Trusteeship Doctrine recognizes that the Capitalist or the Proprietor has a place in the economy of the nation–an indispensable place though not an uncontrolled place. He is as vital as is the technician and the machine-minder or any other worker. It is therefore, not for the State to take sides with any among them. On the contrary, it is for the State to insist on fairplay and equity in their relations with one another. Viewed logically from this position, there should be no antagonism and no unfriendly rivalry between what are nowadays called the public sector and the private sector in fields of economic enterprise and social amelioration. It is clear that some State-enterprises connected with the Five-Year Plans go against this freedom of private initiative. The so-called nationalizing of life insurance, bus transport, etc., is an instance.

REALISM

I now cometo Realism, the second rule of Liberalism. This is the habit of seeking to find out things in their true nature and their working. Public policies and measures should be based upon an analytical understanding of relevant facts in their fullness and a measured appreciation of the directions and velocities of the forces in or arising out of those facts. Good intentions are not enough. If the promoter of a benevolent scheme is sincere, that sincerity must induce him to search and ascertain whether the conditions exist to make that scheme worth while. This rules out a-priori or presumptive legislation and fancy-drawn planning: Every new movement of the State must mean some disturbance to the old established order of society in some part of it, and it is therefore bound to meet with some resistance. Habits formed through generations and material interests built up for long cannot be melted away by sentiment; and sentiment may itself be the child of error in understanding. It is not just to attribute anybody’s opposition to a scheme or an idea to self-interest on his part. And after all, is not self-interest the raw material of politics and the factor that makes the State necessary? The good citizen’s business is not to decry personal interest, but to find how best its operations may be regulated so as to avoid or at least to minimize harm by one interest to another. This is justice. Facts are its raw material. To measure the relative validities of the several claims and interests in conflict and to accommodate them in accordance with their respective merits is the office of justice.

And apart from the needs of justice, an accurate appreciation of the facts of a situation is essential to the success of any effort at betterment. Facts are solid stubborn things; they will not be chased away by the charms of our benevolent planning. If we would overcome their opposition, we must first take measure of their magnitude and strength. To get our facts wrong and build our hopes of betterment thereupon is to work our way into a fool’s paradise. And among facts are not merely the external, tangible, census-verified facts of the physical world, but also the internal, intangible and unpredictable facts of human psychology. The statesman that undervalues them does so at peril to his plans and his name. The recent attempts to fix limits to agricultural holdings and transmute the landless into the ‘be-landed’ are instances of an unscientific and egregiously amateurish attitude in the handling of a most serious and complicated problem. An ideal not related to the real is the sure parent of a chimera.

ALL-SIDED STUDY

This is, speaking strictly, a continuation of the topic of Realism. Being scientific excludes bias and partisanship of all kinds. A special word however seems not uncalled for to emphasize the importance of letting light fall upon a public question from as many sides as possible, particularly because of the multitudinousness of communal, linguistic, sectarian, provincial and other ramifications of the body politic in our day in addition to organized political parties. For national solidarity and peace as well as for the fairness and workability of public policy, it is necessary not only that all possible parties and groups should be heard and heard with sympathy, but also that they should be so dealt with as to leave them no ground for honestly complaining that they have been ignored. If policy should satisfy the demands of justice, it follows that no available fact or fraction of a fact relevant to the matter should be shut out and no means of sifting or checking dispensed with. There is thus a place for every minority view in the perfecting of public policy. A majority is no god, and a minority no victim, in a justly constituted democracy. Parliament works by conventions accepted by majority and minority alike; and one such convention is that when all efforts at mutual conversion fail and when there appears no more hope of successful bargaining between majority and minority, the issue may be decided by the relative strength of votes. The minority gets every reasonable opportunity to persuade the majority; and when all its argument and eloquence fail, it bows to the majority, not in sullenness but in the spirit of sportsmanship. The minority is loyal enough to the country to realize that there must be an end to discussion at some stage, and a guidance for action must issue. It defers to that majority as a working device and not as an admission of any injustice in itsown cause. That deference is tentative and temporary. The minority remains free to re-open the matter again subject to accepted rules. Such being the spirit and attitude of parliamentarianism, the Liberal would not be proud of mere numerical superiority. There can be no greater enemy to democracy than dogma; and there is no dogma more dangerous than that of a mechanically secured majority.

The British method of democratic decision is not the despotism of brute number. That method is described as a majority-minority pact. The vote is preceded by months of inquiry and discussion, in hundreds of newspapers and public meetings and expert committees. It is from these that the ultimate vote derives its moral significance. When discourse and debate have proceeded long enough in the general opinions of all parties, and all have come to feel that the hour for decision has struck, there being no other way available to resolve differences, the division bell is invoked as the last resort. It is only such a vote that can claim moral authority for itself. In other words, there are occasions when the vote is in place and there are occasions when it is not. And there are proper methods of voting and there are improper methods as well. The Liberal keeps the distinction clearly in view. The legislation in our country to amend the Constitution, so as to eliminate the jurisdiction of the courts over compensation disputes about properties taken over by the State from private persons, is a glaring example of party dogma and majority high-handedness. The way in which a ministerial crisis was solved in Mysore recently is also an example of the dogma of a mechanical majority.

The areas of politics in which mere votecannot be a proper instrument of decision are becoming more and more with the progress of science and technology and the means of international communication and commerce. Take a question of administering a hydro-electrical project or managing a large mine or the question of framing a trade agreement with a foreign country or arranging for exchange: of what value can the votes of uninstructed laymen be on such matters which need expert knowledge and specialized experience for judging? How can party-commandeered votes guarantee wisdom of decision?

There is yet another point for study. Politics is in the last analysis a theatre of personalities. The skilled orator, the shrewd strategist, the man with a distinguished bearing, the practised actor, the hero of the football field,–any one with such popular gifts can sway the forces of politics. Amid these dazzling irrelevancies, is there any room for the man of statesmanly vision and cool strength of character? It would be but a poor kind of democracy which did not keep its eye on the look-out for a Gladstone or a Lincoln. A crowd-hailed demogogue can be no substitute for a statesman sensitize to responsibility. The Liberal would always bear in mind this tragic possibility in a democracy and lose no opportunity of warning his fellow-citizens against the perils of democracy’s self-flattery and self-love. Democracy will serve itself best when it remembers its own limitations in knowledge and judgment and finds room for the man of superior insight in its councils and at its work-spots.

GRADUALNESS AND EVOLUTIONARY CONTINUITY

A mark of the Liberal is readiness to re-examine a position and re-adapt existing institutions to suit new circumstances. Society is to him a living and growing organism; and growth means change, the decay of old tissues and their replacement by new ones, the hardening of a bone or its thinning, the accumulation or loss of flesh or fat, variation in the composition of the blood. Such changes in the internal structure of the body call for corresponding changes in food and dress and conditions of work, if the body should survive and function in health. Not only by the weakness or folly of human agencies, but also by the sheer passage of time is the structure of an organism changed from moment to moment,

“The old order changeth yielding place to new,
And God fulfils Himself in many ways
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.”

Need for reform being thus a natural contingency, it is needful to remember that the reform necessary could be brought about possibly in one of ‘many ways.’ The Liberal pauses to consider those ‘many’ possible ways and choose that one which seems the best when set against the attendant circumstances.

And the true reformer would wait upon popular psychology and give it time to educate itself to the innovations he would introduce. He would not be abrupt or sudden. That would not be fairness towards the intelligence of the public. He could strive patiently and perseveringly to bring them to an understanding of his mind. He would make the public ask for that which he wishes it to accept. Such was the way of Gladstone. A long and persistent process of public education will make the reform take root in the people’s mind and work well. Only that reform will endure and become part of the normal life of the community of which the rationale has come to be grasped by it. Not only accepting the Good, but appreciating why it is good and how it is good before acceptance is the condition about which the Liberal would make sure. The Good can be not so good if n is imposed by force or authority. ⁴ What is imposed by force may as soon be deposed by force. This is particularly likely in a regime of what is called ‘responsible government’ in which there is a constant shuttle-cock movement of rival parties. If a measure should escape the danger of getting perverted or altogether abolished by the successor-Government, it should have found permanent lodgement in the life of the community. This longevity can be secured for a measure if (i) it is introduced in gradual instalments, and (ii) is made as far as possible to look and act as a continuation and further evolution of a pre-existent institution or arrangement. The people can easily understand and suit themselves to things to the like of which they are accustomed. Gradualness and evolutionary continuity minimize disturbance and misunderstanding, and maximize the chances of intelligent and willing acceptance of reform. This is a principle not observed in some cases of the linguistic re-organization of States. Some of the regions affected are not at ease and show no promise of early reconcilement.”

EFFICIENCY OF ADMINISTRATION

Efficiency is adequacy of return made to the citizen in service, both qualitatively and quantitatively, by the State for the support it has received from him in the form of taxes and cesses and in co-operation in the execution of its laws and policies. This efficiency is the resultant of many factors working in combination: first, a stable Ministry having a mind of its own; second, a carefully recruited and trained body of civil servants, with a reasonable degree of freedom allowed them to point out the flaws and weaknesses of ministerial proposals; third, a vigilant and well-informed legislature; and fourth, an alert and articulate general public.

Under all the heads, we are far from having reached even an ordinarily satisfactory position. Some would even say that the position has deteriorated since 1947. The Ministries are in perpetual turmoil and tottering in most of the States. They at best manage to hold on for a while by keeping caucuses and cliques engaged in mutual destruction. The absence of a strong Opposition party has left the ruling party without that salutary fear of a rival which could have made for discipline.

Another aspect of concern for efficiency relates to the amount of attention given to routine. When development projects are on foot, everybody turns to them for opportunities of self-advancement. The ruling party, in its natural anxiety to make an impression upon the public, insists on priority for its own new schemes of benevolence. The kind of work that can get into headlines in newspapers receives preference over work which though essential is not sensational. The routine suffers. Work of normal day-to-day importance falls into arrears and there is confusion in public offices: files held up, papers in congestion, reports and returns delayed, accounts not posted, information incomplete and unready, correspondence dilatory and trying to tempers: such are the results of neglect of the routine in Government offices. The administration is then not rendering what is due from it to the public.

The ideals of the Welfare State and the Socialistic Pattern suggest programmes much in excess of the capacity of the average personnel of Government offices in our country. A Government’s efficiency must naturally depend upon the nature and the volume of work it has taken into its hands. A Liberal, before asking the Government to undertake new and unaccustomed tasks, would carefully take stock of its resources in technical and managerial ability. The Liberal recognizes that just as there are things which a Government alone can do well, there are things beyond the capacity of any Government to achieve. A delimitation of tasks is therefore a condition of efficiency. Anover-burdened administration is bound to fail not only as regards the new programmes, but also in the old routine. The Chagla Inquiry Report furnishes instances.

Some basic questions arise in this context. How will the Constitution of India stand a scrutiny by the Liberal from the point of view of efficiency of administration? Is the kind of relationship between the Centre and the States the right one? Can there not be a more rational distribution of powers and functions? Is the current structure of Ministries suited to our circumstances? Cannot the Governors be made more effective without loss to democracy? Should partymen have so large a room for plying their fingers in the administration? Is the professional administrator finding his due chance to help the Government as he should? These and other questions of the kind are obviously so important and so complicated as to need a separate paper or two for themselves. My purpose for the moment is merely to suggest the need, which many have come to realize from the experience of the last ten years, for the revision of the Constitution in the direction of simplicity of machinery and the effectiveness of each part of it.

ECONOMY

The subject of economy in public expenditure is closely connected with the subject of efficiency of service. The employing of two men for a job which one man could well do is not only a waste of one man’s wage, but also an opportunity to the two to shift responsibility from each to the other.⁵ A rupee saved from public expenditure is a rupee added to the treasury and two rupees’ worth of relief given to the tax- payer. Leaving the citizen’s pocket intact and as full as possible is one of the fundamental canons of Liberalism. What the State is not in a position to return in an adequate shape and size to the citizen, it has no right to take from him. It is thus that the Liberal insists on a frequent examination of the progress of the State’s undertakings, the state of work in Government offices, and the sufficiency or excess of staffs in them. Audit of efficiency and retrenchment of expenditure on establishments are the twin mottos of the Liberal. His first concern always is about the State’s solvency. The guarantee for the Stare’s independence is the independence of its exchequer. The Liberal would therefore hesitate to ask any foreign Government for a gift of aid or even a loan. Even when no strings are attached, foreign aid affects the recipient’s stature and self-respect. Expectations would naturally exist in the giver’s mind even though he protests to the contrary; and when they are not satisfied, misunderstandings are bound to show themselves. Such psychological complications drive out harmony and vitiate the international atmosphere. When external help is necessary, it is best sought from an international institution like the World Bank, where the obligation cannot be towards any single or particular country. A bank is a business organization, and a loan from it cannot compromise the borrower’s independence with any country as such.

In regard to the country’s economic development, the Liberal would stand for self-sufficiency so far as the necessaries of life, such as the staple foodgrains and clothing, are concerned. He would give the first attention to agriculture and food-production. He recognizes that the boundaries of the country’s economic life do not always coincide with its geographical boundaries. Foreign trade is most necessary, and he would plead for freedom of trade subject only to the condition of fairplay in competition. It is uncontrolled competition that leads to chaos in international markets. India should, therefore, be careful to apply her mind independently with reference to each individual case of import or export and judge of it, having regard not only to India’s advantage but also to the likely effect of a transaction on the
international scene.

To emphasize the importance of agriculture is not to belittle the importance of industry. The industrial development of the country has always been one of the principal planks of the Liberal platform. But the Liberal, as suggested at the beginning in this paper, would lay the first emphasis on encouraging private enterprise. The Prime Minister of India has sometimes spoken of ‘mixed economy’ as the way. The phrase is attractive to the Liberal; but its precise meaning remains still to be stated. If the idea is that part of the capital for an enterprise should come from private investors and the rest from the State and that management should be in the hands of an agency representative of both, it may by pointed out that Mysore has tried it on a large enough scale and in more than two or three instances, and found it successfully workable. If a way be devised of associating workers also with the industry so that they could see that their interests are duly protected, the way will have been found to peaceful prosperity.

WORLD PEACE

I must now close. The six topics I have dealt with are those which arise out of India’s internal situation of today, of just this day. There are of course other topics of equal urgency. A word on our foreign policy cannot be avoided, even though it does not belong to the politics of Gokhale’s time. It is only an independent nation that has to face problems of war and peace. And here our teacher is Mahatma Gandhi who was truly an internationalist. In the field of external affairs, India has on the whole kept true to the Gandhian ideals of justice and peace.

India’s interest in international affairs is incidental to her general interest in the welfare of humanity. She has for her own sake no material interest to promote outside her borders. She has no place on the military map of the world and has never sought one. She has no ambition for territory. She holds no colony. She claims no sphere of influence. She has known what it is to be dominated by a foreigner; and she does not wish to dominate over anyone. She wants to be left alone, but in an atmosphere of friendliness and peace. She is concerned with building up her own strength by her own hands and by her own resources, and with filling worthily her part in the comity of nations. War in any part of the world is to her like hot and pungent smoke in a neighbourhood, affecting her comfort in breathing. Hence her desire to work for peace and harmony even among people remote from her shores like the Koreans and having no manner of material connection with her. It is, therefore, unnecessary for her to range herself on any one side in a conflict. Her taking sides would indeed be fatal to her possible office of friend and peace-maker. Non-involvement is the attitude proper to the judge,–one who is friend to both parties without being so friendly to either as to be regarded as unfriendly by the other. It is the attitude of such a true-hearted friend, whose goodwill towards both is regulated by his loyalty to justice and the sense of the general welfare of all, that is summed up in the creed of Pancha Sheela or the Five-pointed Ethic: (i) Mutual respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty, (ii) Non-aggression, (iii) Non-interference in internal affairs, (iv) Equality and mutual help, and (v) Peaceful co-existence. The Liberal stands for these principles. And he would submit all differences for settlement to arbitration. War can never settle a dispute. A forced settlement is no settlement, for it will drive the anger of the defeated inwards, to smoulder there and burst into flames later on. Only an agreed settlement can bring peace, and the way to it is through negotiation and arbitration. And even then, the Hindu Liberal would plead that man may not arrogate to himself the power to see and administer justice in its divine perfection. Man can but make an approach towards it, and if with his best effort there is still some sense of shortcoming felt by a party, it is far better that that party accepts even that imperfect-seeming settlement, trusting to the goodness of the Great Judge of all, than that it should take the matter into its own hands and resort to violence. The supreme need of nations today is for self-introspection and self-restraint by each. And that is the teaching of the Mahatma.

Liberalism is both a philosophy of politics and a technique of government. Its chief ingredients are the rational evaluation of the policies and activities of the Government, the minimizing of governmental interference in the life of the people, the maximizing of the citizens’ voluntary contribution to general welfare, the mobilizing of private goodwill and good sense instead of the machinery of law and official authority to achieve social ends, frugality and prudence in the management of public money, vigilance over the performances of public functionaries, avoidance of partisanship and of fanaticism in the shaping of public policy, informing the intelligence and activizing the conscience of the community in all matters of moment to the public: these are the duties of the enlightened citizen in a democratic polity, and their aim is to secure and extend the field of freedom for the individual for his full and beneficent self-fulfillment, for the performance of his Sva-Dharma.

These definitions of Liberalism are merely an elaboration of the triple principles of Truth and Justice and Human Fellowship in their application to the life of the people. As such they could be sure of hearty approval by the universal common sense of the world. We may be sure that it is the practising of those principles that Gokhale had in view when he pleaded that “public life must be spiritualized.” The same was Gandhiji’s plea. Gokhale and Gandhi alike counted it a requisite of simple honesty that those in authority should examine the grounds of their action before starting action, and should suit that action to the historical ground and social milieu of the people as well as to their resources in talent and material.

The country’s history during the last ten years has been one of noble purposes sadly frustrated, and high-souled exhortations followed by depressing disillusionment. The great Prime Minister is in a mood to re-think. The mood will prove a blessing if it sent him to a re-study of the Gokhale-Gandhi philosophy. He may go even far further to those early fathers of political wisdom, Plato and Aristotle. Much as they differed, they both agreed that society is a mosaic; that it is variety that makes its elements need one another, sobringing them into unity; that the State’s aim should be not uniformity, but unity based upon a rational adjustment of their positions; that true justice consists in the achievement of balance and harmony amidst variety; that measured pace and moderation in the pursuit of ideals are among the virtues of statesmanship. The straight line is undoubtedly the shortest distance between any two Points in a diagram in a book of geometry; but it is not always so for the road-maker on our concrete uneven earth. Festina lente: “Hasten slowly.”

¹ Amplification of a note read at the public meeting at the Institute of public Affairs, Bangalore, on May 11, 1958.
² Ranade observed as follows in his speeches at the 6th and 7th sessions of the Social Conference (1892–93): “The history of this great country is but a fairy tale if it has not illustrated how each invasion from abroad has tended to serve as a discipline of the chosen race and led to the gradual development of the nation to a higher ideal–if not of actual facts, at least of potential capabilities. The nation has never been depressed beyond hope of recovery, but after a temporary submerging under the floods of foreign influences, has reared up its head, absorbing all that is best in the alien civilization and polity and religions….” “Above all countries, we inherit a civilization and a social and religious polity which have been allowed to work their own free development on the big theatre of Time. There has been no revolution, and yet the old condition of things has been tending to reform itself by the slow process of assimilation……Change for the better by slow absorption–not by sudden conversion or revolution–this has been the characteristic feature of our past history.”
³ At a meeting of the All-India Congress Committee in New Delhi on 11th May 1958, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru observed as follows in the course of a speech:

“Many of the things explained by Marx do not exist today. And many of his predictions have proved to be incorrect……The concept of Socialism is changing even in Western countries. Therefore, we in India have to be more wide-awake, and the conditions ultimately are governed by the state of our people, by the state of their minds….The basis of Socialism is greater wealth. There cannot be any Socialism of poverty….It is dangerous merely to nationalize something without being prepared to work it properly….My idea of Socialism is that every individual in the State should have equal opportunity for progress. I do not at all prefer the State controlling everything, because I attach a value to individual freedom. The State is very powerful politically. If you are going to make it very powerful economically also, it would become a mere conglomeration of authority....We have to learn from practical experience and proceed in our own way.” A.I.C.C. Economic Review, May 15, 1958, p. 4.

This sounds very much like the voice of a Liberal.
⁴ Nor is the cause of democracy a cause of number. It is not the worship of quantity: it is the worship of a quality, that quality of the thinking and discoursing mind which can dare to raise and to face conflicting views of the Good and to seek, by the way of discussion, some agreed and accepted compromise whereby a true (because general) national will is attained, as it cannot otherwise be, and a national Good is secured which is really good because it is freely willed.”
–Sir Ernest Barker, Reflections on Government.
⁵ Professor C. Northcote Parkinson has, in the columns of The Economist of London, shown how the tendency to swell in size and grow in numbers is inherent to a bureaucracy and how civil servants go on multiplying, regardless of the volume of work that really needs to be done. This natural tendency of officialdom towards self-aggrandizement is called ‘Parkinson’s Law.’ Its axioms are (1) “An official wants to multiply subordinates, not rivals. (2) “Officials make work for each other.” Applying Parkinson’s Law to India, ‘Odysseus’ points out in The Eastern Economist of May 30, 1958: “In 1937, the personnel of the then Bureau of Public Information was 4 officers and 52 clerical staff: a total of 56. Today, excluding clerical staff, the officers should, according to Parkinson’s Law, total l0.85 men, whereas they actually total 57–nearly six times more than Parkinson allows. Not only has the Bureau multiplied its own staff, ithas actually given birth to several whole new departments!’