Party Politics in India

M. R. MASANI
General Secretary, Swatantra Party

In most parts of the world, the question as to whether political parties are necessary does not arise. Political parties are considered to be a concomitant of the democratic form of Government, but in India my friend Jayaprakash Narayan has kept the debate alive. Recently at an AlCC meeting Mr. Nehru felt called upon rather vehemently to say: “I am entirely in favour of the Party System of Government.” In this particular debate I feel sorry that I cannot go all the way with my good friend Jayaprakash, much as I admire his idealism and the spirit of service in which he has raised this issue. For as long as one can foresee, political parties will, in my view, be necessary in a democracy. Jayaprakash says that elections should be held on the principle of selecting the best man. That is not quite so simple because, when thousands upon thousands of people have to vote, the question arises: Who is the best man? How do we weigh the quality of one man as being better suited to represent us than another? The answer is that one votes for the man who represents one’s point of view better than the other candidates. That is, one votes for the man with whom one has the greatest ideological affinity. That is what political parties are about. They are groups of people with common thoughts or common programmes or common policies, offering a choice to the electorate. Therefore, in selecting the ‘best man’, the mechanism of a political party becomes a great aid, or should be a great aid, to the electorate.

Having said that, I would also say that “there is no doubt that Party politics are acquiring a somewhat bad name in this part of the world. We have seen how, in one country of Asia after another, party democracy is giving way to some form or another of dictatorship or autocracy. There is a growing cynicism about all politicians based on the fact that most politicians, according to public opinion, do not practise what they preach. There is a gulf between profession and practice on all sides, and there is growing cynicism as a result, which is very dangerous because, if people really come to believe that all politicians are crooks, democracy will not survive for long. Mr Nelson Rockefeller, a likely candidate for the Republican nomination in the next presidental election, recently said quite aptly that “to call politics dirty is to call democracy dirty.”

Party’s Proper Sphere

There is a current world trend as a result of which the political party tends to become too dominant over the individual. The political party in most parts of the world, though not total like the Communist Party, is in danger of becoming all-pervasive, of trying to dictate to a member his thinking on almost every aspect of life. This phenomenon was referred to by the well-known Italian novelist Ignazio Silone, who has been in the past a member of the Italian Socialist Party. He pointed out that the Party system in Italy was also tending in the direction of dominating the minds and lives of people too much. He made the plea that the party should be kept to its proper place. Just as, much earlier, somebody has said: “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s,” so too, since the party reflect an attempt to run the State, a point comes where we must tell the party to keep its hands off certain spheres of life which should really belong to the individual conscience and the individual personality.

When we formed the Swatantra Party in this country in 1959 under Rajaji’s inspired leadership, thanks to his guidance, we tried to assert this principle of a limit government and a limited party. Our party was “a party with a difference”.

This might explain something that confuses and puzzles many people as to how in the Swatantra Party leading members are found to be at variance on matters which the party does not consider to be of the first importance but which to individuals might seem to be somewhat important such as language or regional boundaries or the banning of the nuclear bomb on which my great leader Rajaji and I hold very different views and freely express them in public. We believe that this should be so and that it is not on every public issue that members of the party should conform to our view.

The Swatantra Party has said from the start that the party will not follow the lead of the other parties in trying to indoctrinate and capture student organisations and groups of students. In our Statement of Policy we have said that we will keep out of the Universities. We will go and address study circles or meetings but we will not set up groups of students based on our platform and subscribing to our programme. That stage must come after they have graduated and become full citizens. Similarly, in the case of trade unions and workers who today are, we know, exploited by the various political parties, we have kept our hands off trade unions and said that, while our members may go and serve as individuals, there will be no Swatantra TUC to add to the INTUC, the HMS, the AITUC and the UTUC. We will not form a fifth Trade Union Congress just because others have set this pattern. So, in these ways, we have tried to keep out of what we consider unnecessary or undesirable party activity.

Similarly, in the case of Municipal and Panchayat elections. From the beginning, we have said that we will not contest Village Panchayat elections. Recently, there was a great deal of pressure from some of our people who asked, why, when the others were not abstaining, we should do so. It was, they said, an unfair handicap. I am very glad therefore that the AICC at its recent meeting has reaffirmed the Congress Party’s decision to keep out of Village Panchayats. That makes it much easier for us to adhere to our own stand without being blamed for unduly restricting the Party’s activities. There are ways in which we believe that the party should limit its activities.

‘Left’ and ‘Right’

In common terminology, parties are either ‘left’ or ‘right’. I have felt for a long time that these words have become altogether meaningless. I was delighted, therefore, when on June 13, Mr Nehru, when asked about the left and the right wing elements in his own Cabinet at a Press conference, replied: “These terms do not fit in our politics.” I hope that after this statement by Prime Minister the heresy which I have been trying to preach that the words ‘leftist’ and ‘rightist’ have no meaning will be a little better appreciated. Harold Laski had something interesting to say on the subject apropos a similar discussion in England many years ago. Referring to the quarrels between the left wing and the right wing of the Labour Party to which he belonged, he once observed: “Too much preoccupation with the wings is likely to disturb the flight of the bird.” Actually these terms were taken from the sitting arrangement in the French National Assembly, after the French Revolution, which, rather like our own Parliament, the Lok Sabha, was a semi-circular horseshoe. Those who sat on the right of the presiding authority happened to be moderates at that time and those who sat on the left were those who were the most extreme. This antiquated terminology of the French Revolution we have carried into entirely different situations where it has no meaning at all.

I would like to ask the reader what he or she thinks is a leftist party. Perhaps, if you thought a little, you would say that a leftist party is a party that believes in rapid progress, in the fullest human liberty and one that is opposed to tyranny of any kind. And you would say that those who believe in the concentration of power and authority in one or in few hands are rightists. If that is so, it is obvious that the Communist Party in India, or in any other country, symbolises extreme Right reaction, because it believes in the fullest concentration of power in the hands of the party dictatorship in charge of the State machine and that the Sarvodaya people, like my friend Jayaprakash Narayan and Acharya Vinoba Bhave, who believe in the fullest decentralisation following Gandhiji’s thinking, are extreme leftists. But that is not how our newspapers use these terms. By the same logic then the Communist Party is extreme right, Mr Nehru’s Government is inner right, the PSP is the centre, the Swatantra Party is inner left and the Sarvodaya group as the extreme left. That would certainly be a more logical application of these terms. However, in order to avoid confusion, I would suggest that intelligent people stop using these meaningless lables and go behind them to analyse the content of political programmes.

The word leftist also has another disadvantage. It becomes a subtle cover or veil to hide the real coloration of a person, ‘Leftist’ is a very convenient cover for hidden communists, crypto-communists, and fellow-travellers. Mr A. D. Gorwala, one of the finest political commentators in India today, in his issue of May 23 of Opinion says: “What an umbrella-word is ‘leftist’! How many take shelter under this umbrella’s shade! Is a well-known medical man a communist? Well, he is a leftist! Is an equally well-known writer, a scientist, a communist? You know, the apologists will say, both of them are leftists. Is Krishna Menon a communist? Pat comes the answer, ‘He is a leftist.’ Are journals which persistently support the Soviet cause communist? No, they are always leftist. And therefore, for another reason, that it causes confusion and gives aid and comfort to the communists as a cover for their underground activities also, it is a term that should be avoided.

How then should the Swatantra Party be correctly described? Believers in Statism like the communists and Mr Nehru call it reactionary. Most unattached people call it conservative. The first description is obviously motivated by the desire to create prejudice and is a mere term of abuse. The second description is not objectionable if it means that the Swatantra Party would like to conserve what is good in India’s history or tradition. I would, however, take exception to it because I do not think that the programme and manifesto of the Swatantra Party are Conservative. I think a more accurate description of the party would be to say it is Liberal and Gandhian. The policy of minimum government and of maximum individual liberty comes directly from Gandhiji’s teaching. You remember Gandhiji’s phrase “That Government is best which governs least.” This is the basis of our programme. Gandhiji also said: “I look upon an increase in the power of the State with the greatest fear because, while apparently doing good by minimising exploitation, it does the greatest harm to mankind, by destroying individuality which lies at the root of all progress.”

Similarly, Western Liberalism also bases itself on minimum government and maximum individual liberty. It is not the Conservative but the Liberal school of economists, like Professor Hayek, Professor Roepke and, may I say Professor Shenoy, who are the staunchest individualists. In Europe, if you know the party spectrum, you will find that the Conservative Party in Britain and the Christian Democratic Party of Italy and Germany are more Statist than the Liberal parties of those countries.

So, in the spectrum, the Liberal is the most individualist, Conservative or Christian Democrat more Statist, the socialist more Statist and the Communist completely Statist. Hob-house, in his book on “Liberalism”, says: “Liberalism is the belief that society can safely be founded on the self-directing of personality; that it is only on this foundation that the true Community can be built. Liberty then becomes not so much a right of the individual as a necessity of society.” In other words, the Liberal believes that the human being is capable of rational choice; the Liberal believes and has faith in the people. Professor Parkinson said recently in an article published in an English journal: “The word ‘liberal’ means generous or openhanded. But generous with what? With freedom and political responsibility.”

Now, it happens that I was elected a Patron of the Liberal International, some years before the Swatantra Party was formed. At a conference of the Liberal International in Italy in 1959, soon after its establishment here, I produced the programme of the Swatantra Party and asked them to comment on it. The leaders of world Liberalism were puzzled as to why Rajaji had called it a conservative party. According to them, ours was a liberal programme. They passed a resolution which said: “The 9th Congress of the Liberal International held at Gardone, Italy, from October 1 to 4, 1959, welcomes the formation of the Swatantra Party in India and trusts that this party will prove a staunch and successful upholder of the values and policies of Liberals which are so necessary for the development of the good life, for friendly relations between the people of the East and of the West and essential to the peace of the world.”

Who is Outdated?

Taking the world as a whole, I would say that the gulf between Democratic Socialists and Liberals is becoming very narrow. In more advanced and educated countries, there is not very much to divide the Liberals and Socialists any more. You know, for instance, that Mr Woodrow Wyatt, only a few weeks ago, made the suggestion that the British Labour Party and the Liberal Party should merge in a common party to oppose the Conservative Party. The German Social Democrats are among the leading members of the Socialist movement in the world. Soon after the Swatantra Party was formed, I tried to find out where their new programme, which they published in October or November 1959, about three or four months after ours, disagreed with ours. It may amuse you to know that practically, right through, the new German Socialist programme echoed the terms of the Swatantra Party’s Statement of Policy. We took the trouble to publish it as a pamphlet with the title “Who is outdated?” in parallel columns. I will quote just one passage to show how the German Social Democrats, six months after we published our programme, practically paraphrased our economic programme.

This is what the Swatantra Party said in August 1959: “The party believes that in the field of production, the free choice of the producer and the consumer must be given a basic place and importance. In industry, the party believes in the incentives for higher production and expansion inherent in competitive enterprise, with adequate safeguards for the protection of labour and against unreasonable profits, prices and dividends where there is no competition or where competition has not secured the necessary corrective.” Four months later in November 1959, this is what the German Social Democrats produced: “The free choice of consumer goods and services, the free choice of a place to work, free initiative for employers, are decisive foundations and free competition an important element of a free economic policy. Totalitarian control of the economy destroys freedom. The Social Democratic Party therefore favours a free market wherever free competition really exists. Where markets come under the domination of individuals or groups, however, manifold measures are necessary to preserve the freedom of the economy. As much competition as possible–as much planning as necessary.”

So it is important to go behind catchwords and slogans and try to understand the real content of the programme of a political party.

Democratic Socialists are moving nearer and nearer the Liberal position. In fact, communists also are trying to edge away from the collectivist creed. Djilas, the Yugoslav communist, again in jail for his insistence on expressing himself, said in his book, The New Class” “Communism as an ideology has run its course. It does not have any new thing to reveal to the world.” Because of this fact, in Yugoslavia, in Poland, and even in Russia, within the limits of party dictatorship and the secret police, we can see the beginnings of the struggle to edge away from collectivism, to edge away from the kind of State Capitalism which some people in our country believe is Socialism. In Britain, the older generation is more socialist than the younger. This was not so fifty years ago; it was not so twenty years ago. Here is the division of the present House of Commons in Britain by age groups. You will see how, as the age goes up, the number of socialists increases and the number of liberals and conservatives drops. Age group 20-29–the youngest, Liberal and Conservative 9, Labour 1; 30-39–Conservative and Liberal 52, Labour 18; 40-49–Conservative and Liberal 140, Socialist 55; 50-59–Liberal and Conservative 118, Socialist 106. Now we come to the older people age group; 60-69–Liberal and Conservative 35, Socialist 75; over 70–Conservative 3 and Socialist 20. So it is becoming a creed of the old and the out of date.

I was very glad when Mr Frank Moraes wrote in the Indian Express on May 28, 1962: “When will Mr Nehru and his henchmen, who dutifully echo his economic and political incantation, realise that they are at least three decades behind the time and that they do not lead the vanguard of thinking but bring up the rear?” Something that I have now been saying for five years.

In America there is a similar trend which is symbolised by the Conservative revival in the campuses of U. S. Universities. Someone has written a little jingle about this development and I quote a few of the verses because the last line of the last verse puts a question which may well be addressed to the large number of ‘Leftists’ among the intelligentsia of the country:

“Students, students, turning Right
On all campuses in sight,
Which unlikely left-wing scheme
Made you swim against the stream?
What the reason? Where the blame?
Are they too numerous to name?
What your anger? What dead air
Caused you to abjure, forswear?

Students, students, turning Right
On all campuses in sight,
We greet you with this happy song– 
But what the hell took you so long?