“Save Democracy or Save India”

PROF. B. R. KUMAR

The Englishman has an apt proverb with which most of us of the older generation are familiar–“You cannot eat your cake, and have it.” Common sense tells us the same thing; you cannot do two contradictory things at the same time; you cannot walk to the north and the south at the same time. And yet in our daily life, most of us are irrational enough to want to do this very thing; eat our cake and have it; want two contradictory things at the same time. Else how to explain the applause with which Sri Kamaraj’s latest slogan has been received by a good many public men, including Rajaji, and the conversations that are going on between the Congo and the others to implement it. So far as Rajaji is concerned, 13 years ago he discovered that the “Democracy” which the Congress was practising was only a facade; the actuality was its opposite “Statism”; and as a consequence he organised the Swatantra Party, which he has been telling us all these years is the only genuine “democratic” party. Does his joining Sri Kamaraj mean that he has won him (Kamaraj) over to his views? But there is no public declaration of this, in which case, if Rajaji hopes to convert Kamaraj to his views after the overthrow of the Congi, is it not a mere gamble; much like his gamble in ing the D.M.K. Party in Madras 30 years ago at the last general election? The D.M.K. has carried on all the policies of the Congress government which it replaced - including rationing and, Urban Land Tax, which it had opposed. To put an unrepentant Kamaraj in place of Mrs. Gandhi is to replace tweedledom by tweedledee, both are “Statists”; only a year ago Kamaraj and the Congo were thick as thieves with the Congi and Mrs. Gandhi. Merely because for their own personal reasons the Congo and the Congi have fallen out, how can the public be asked to assume, as Rajaji is asking them to believe, that the Congo have become anti “statists”? And till they do so, how can they be called “democrats” and till that is done how can he support the Congo as against the Congi to save “Democracy”?

The assumption therefore that “Democracy” can be saved by supporting the Congo against the Congi is not valid; both are “Statists” and “Statism” is the opposite of Democracy, as Rajaji has been telling us for the last so many years, and to destroy which he started the Swatantra Party. Then take the next assumption, that to “save Democracy, is to save India”; is that not equally false? India is on the brink of collapse in every walk of life; we all know that to our cost. But what has brought about this collapse but “Democracy”, to which Rajaji was a party till 1957, and to which Kamaraj was a party till 1969; till the Bangalore split. We gave ourselves a Republican Constitution in 1950. We chose the best men we had in our public life to man our Parliaments, the instruments of our new “Democracy”. We gave adult franchise to every man and woman, the accepted crest of “Democracy” then and now. We put at our head as Prime Minister, perhaps the finest man we had in our midst, and for 16 years till his death he ruled without any demur; and after him both Lal Bahadur and Mrs. Gandhi were put in their gadii by the Congress Party Organisation. All this, what was it but “Democracy”? Rajaji’s rejoinder that all this was “Statism”, does not meet the point, for even “Statism” was brought about by “Democratic” means. All the miseries that have been heaped upon our people during the last 20 years of Independence have been heaped on them by “Democratic” means, for “Democratic” purposes; e. g., Controls, Licences, Permits, Armies of Ministers, confiscatory taxation for the socialist pattern of society, etc. India has been brought to the brink of ruin by our “Democracy” of the last 20 years.

Hence the battle cry of Sri Kamaraj, is it not contradictory? If “Democracy” of the last 20 years has brought us to the brink of ruin, should not the crusade slogan be “Save Democracy or Save India”? You cannot have both: you cannot eat the cake and have it. Is that not the reality of things? Of course, it hurts our pride as a people to confess that we have made a mess of the “Democratic Club” of England and the U. S. A. of which we had formed a branch here; much as it hurts our pride that we are not yet members of the Atom Bomb Club of the European Countries and China. And further a huge vested interest of colossal dimensions has been built round this “Democracy”; of the politicians and the industrialists and merchants on the one hand to fleece the exchequer and the consumer, and of the good-for-nothing-rowdies at every level or the social scale at the other end, who have been holding the general public to ransom for their own selfish ends. If the Prime Minister can “grab “ the Banks under the name of “nationalisation,” why cannot the rowdies “grab” your “land” under some other equally high-sounding name of Maoism; and tomorrow grab your house, and car, and radio and all else under guise of social justice? All this is “Democracy”–a College Principal is murdered by a student; managements are gheraoed and every dog can bite because we are having a full-fledged “democracy”. And hence except the few good men who want to be left alone, everyone is for “Democracy” in spite of the havoc it has created during the last 20 years. There are none so blind as do not want to see; “Democracy” has ruined India; and yet even people like Rajaji dare not face the fact. A drunkard knows the cause of his ills; and yet he is a slave to it. In the old days religion was the opiate of the masses; today it is “Democracy” which is our opiate.

Hence the choice today before the good men of India is not “Democracy and India”, but “Democracy or India”. Our pride and our vested interests do not permit us to see the choice clearly; these are two vital reasons for the blind spot of our public men. But perhaps the most important reason for the blind spot is, if not “Democracy”, what else? Our public men have made a mess of things; perhaps Democracy is not in our blood as the Englishman warned us; or perhaps we lack the infrastructure of “Democracy”, courageous people like the Pathans and the Swiss. But what is the alternative? Surely we cannot ask the Englishman to rescue us again from our new masters as he rescued us from our old masters 200 years ago; and even if we were childish enough to do so, the poor Englishman is in no mood or position to rush to us. When the Romans left Britain 1500 years ago the poor Britons sent them entreaties to come and rescue them from their new terror, the Angles and the Saxon hordes; but history had moved on. And surely we cannot call our old princes–the Nizams and the rest. That would be like a man eating his own vomit. So what is the alternative? A military dictator is no good as Pakistan has shown; and that is the weakness of both General Cariappa and Kumaramangalam’s views. For a short time a military dictator may be helpful, in setting right the mess that a “Democracy” creates, as Bernard Shaw wrote; and the Greeks and the Romans often resorted to this device to get them out of their “Democratic” difficulties. But what about a long term solution?

Now the first and last requisite to grasp this long term solution is a change in our attitude to the whole problem of “Democracy”; to recognise that fundamentally in life there is no such thing as “Democracy”. Life is all “Aristocracy” based on merit, and “ Democracy” is vital to life in every form to the extent that “Democracy” helps the evolution of “aristocracy”. A garden does not consist in its millions of weeds; it is made up of the few flowers. And yet but for the weeds there would be no flowers; out of the “Democracy” (equality) of weeds has emerged the aristocracy of flowers. Millions and millions of men and women have been born and died on this earth of ours; all good “democracts”; all equal. But only a few of them are remembered–the aristocrats, the sages, seers, teachers, poets, philosophers, artists, the Christs, Buddhas, Tagores, Gandhis. It is these aristocrats that have enriched life; distinguished the life of man from that of the animal. But there would have been no “aristocrats”, but for the millions of “Democrats”. And so politics being fundamentally the science of good government, in the evolution of this good government, “Democracy” is an essential ingredient; no more. Life is the aristocracy of merit; inbreeding, dilutes merit, which explains the degeneration of kings and courtiers; and it is the merit of “Democracy” that it opens up the largest area for the rise of merit; it is the greatest check against the dangers of inbreeding. The career open to talent; it was this that made Napoleon the master of Europe, until he confined this career to his own narrow circle of France, and brought about his own ruin. In other words “Democracy is only a means; not an end; once we recognise this fact, it is easy to set up an alternative form of government, to our present “Democracy” based on its merit in the service of the people, and not a mere high-sounding figure of speech, as hitherto.

Does it all sound blasphemy? Look at the U.S.S.R. and the tremendous progress it had made during the last 53 years. Was it due to its “Democracy”, or to a small body of “aristocrats” who grasped power from the feeble hands of the Tsar, and have held it in their hands ever since by every means, honest or dishonest. Modern Russia, modern China, both are the products of the leadership of an Aristocracy, who pave risen to the top through merit. But already both are beginning to degenerate because the career open to merit is confined to a narrow circle; all opposition must be crushed. India has been brought to the brink of ruin because from the very beginning, in the Constitution itself, merit was given a second place; wardness was given the first. Those who sow the wind reap the whirlwind; today we are reaping the whirlwind of our perverted “Democracy”. And the only way to save the country is to discard our fictitious “Democracy” of wardness and replace it with the real “Democracy” of merit.

That is the real task before Kamaraj and Rajaji, if they want to save India.