REWIND

New Delhi, 8 February 2024

DEMOCRACY IS NOT A HARLOT

By Inder Jit

(Released on 18 September 1979) 

Much of our medieval and modern history is beginning to make sense at long last. The treachery of the Jai Chands and the Mir Jafars always baffled and troubled me as a student, inspired by the freedom struggle and brought up on Gandhiji's "Quit India" call. How could Jai Chand sink so low as to invite Muhammad Ghori to India just to settle with Prithvi Raj personal scores, howsoever hurtful and serious? Again, how could Mir Jafar shamelessly join hands with the East India Company for the sake of private gain, no matter how great, and thereby help the British in their calculated design to colonise India. These and other black seeds no longer confound. Everything now falls into a pattern against the backdrop of the recent political happenings. Major issues have seldom counted. Personal gains and petty feuds have invariably taken precedence over all else. A descendant of Mir Jafar remarked to me in New York two years ago: "Mir Jafar was not a traitor. He was only a defector."

The mid-term poll is hopefully expected to stem the spreading political rot, help revive some values and promote healthy polarisation. However, what we are witnessing so far is a continuation of what has happened over the past decade and more: an unbroken exercise in double talk and deception. All the parties are once again swearing by democracy, socialism and secularism. They are also busy drawing up their party manifestoes for the poll and, in advance, mouthing familiar platitudes and promises. Yet, the truth is that almost all our leaders are motivated solely by considerations of personal aggrandisement: who can get what, when, where and how. Most politicians, like the members of the notorious French Foreign Legion, are only too willing to join any new or old force which holds out promise of a bigger share in the prospective loot. Options are, therefore, being carefully kept open for any "good deal" any time. Nothing can be ruled out. Power and wealth are all that matter.

Nothing symbolises the tragedy of the current situation more than two experiences last week. In the first case, a prominent public man visiting New Delhi sought my "advice" about the poll prospects since we journalists are supposed to have special crystals. The reason? He had been offered a ticket for the Lok Sabha by all the three main parties -- the Janata, Congress (I) and the Congress-Janata(S) Alliance. "Which shall I take?" he asked and added: "Remember I must get into Parliament this time." Taken aback, I queried: "Is there really a choice?" Pat came the answer: "But all the three stand for democracy." The second occurred on Wednesday last at the Talkatora gardens, venue of the AICC(I) session. Surprised to find a strong critic of Mrs Gandhi at the meeting as a special invitee, I remarked: "I see you have made up your mind finally." "Yes, my friend", he said, "Mrs Gandhi has, more or less, agreed to give me a ticket. What is more, she has reaffirmed that she is all for democracy and your Press freedom too. Didn't you hear her this morning?"

Regretfully, little has been done by the feuding politicians or by the thinking people and the media to bring the parties down from their airy generalities to meaningful specifics in regard to their objectives and the means they propose to adopt to achieve the promised ends. Every party no doubt stands for democracy, socialism and secularism. But, as Nehru pointed out on more than one occasion, today's world faces a new crisis. "We speak the same words", he said, "but they mean different things to different people. In effect, we speak different languages." In India, the three words have come to mean all things to all men. Several pointed questions have still to be asked: What kind of a democracy do we want? Democracy of the Free World or of the Socialist World? What kind of Socialism? Gandhian, Soviet, Maoist, Fabian or Royist- or plain Post Office socialism, as John Galbraith once described our economic system under Nehru. Again, what kind of secularism? Pseudo or genuine?

Important at any time, these questions have become more pertinent now in view of various claims and counter claims. The Janata, the Congress (S) continue to denounce Mrs Gandhi and her Congress (I) as authoritarian. But Mrs Gandhi asserts otherwise. In an interview to Mary C. Carras last year as published in her book, Indira Gandhi: In the Crucible of Leadership, the former Prime Minister made the following remarkable claim: am committed to democracy. I do not think there is anybody who is less authoritarian than I am." In Bombay last week, she told newsmen that there had never been "lesser democracy in the country than during the last two and a half years of Janata rule. What is even more interesting and, according to many, "ominous" was her reference to democracy at the AICC (I) meeting last Thursday. Democracy in India, she said, might “take a new turn" after the elections. "Our people were fooled in 1977. Today their eyes have been opened."

Mrs Gandhi shrewdly preferred not to spell out the "new turn", she proposes to give to our democracy in case she is able to win the poll. (Remember, the Emergency was designed to put democracy back on the rails!) But this and certain other matters need to be clarified by Mrs Gandhi. What is her basic concept of democracy? Does she want India to continue as an open society? Or does she want it to switch over to a socialist democracy? What about the Press? Does she accept the view that the freedom of the Press is the cornerstone of our democracy, as appropriately stressed by Mr L.K. Advani, and that it should be enshrined in the Constitution in specific terms and made inviolable. Mrs Gandhi's remarks in Bombay on Press censorship and her subsequent clarification in New Delhi have not removed doubts about her basic outlook. This is indicated in her interview with Mary Carras whom she told: "To say that newspapers which belong to a very narrow group, to a clique you might say, that their voice being allowed is democratic, to me this makes no sense."

The Congress (I) would, therefore, do well to spell out in clear and unambiguous terms its attitude to the freedom of the Press through a formal resolution of the Working Committee or an authoritative statement. This should be done equally in regard to fundamental freedoms and the independence of the judiciary if Mrs Gandhi and her party are to carry conviction about their basic commitment to a healthy democracy and the rule of law. Fresh doubts about her attitude to the judiciary have been created both by her recent remarks on the Maruti report and the judgment by Justice Sinha in her historic election case. The latter happened when a newsman in Bombay at a "Meet the Press" session asked some inconvenient questions about her election case. Visibly angered, she sarcastically quipped "what an election case" and then reportedly added: "A petty judge sitting somewhere had debarred a Prime Minister for six years on flimsy grounds. It was a ridiculous judgment."

Likewise, three other issues need to be clarified by each party to enable our people to make a correct choice: the concept and content of socialism and secularism and of non-alignment. Early in the seventies, some younger Congressmen tried to get their party's High Command to set up a committee to define socialism. But Mrs Gandhi tactfully shot down the proposal, leaving her Government free to act pragmatically, a formulation which eventually enabled her to promote, so to say, the family sector, as disclosed by the Maruti report, in addition to the public and private sectors. True, every party vaguely stands for a mixed economy in which there is scope for both public and private sectors. But Mr Charan Singh, Mr Jagjivan Ram, Mr Chavan and Mr Bahuguna seem to differ in their respective concepts of socialism and planning and the role of the public sector. The people would like to know quite clearly the kind of socialism they are voting for and that, in the final analysis, they are not opting for a mixed-up economy.

Secularism got off to a good start under Nehru. But distortions crept in before long and one was even treated to the disgusting spectacle in which Mahatma Gandhi came to be labelled as a Hindu. Things have greatly deteriorated thereafter and our secularism has increasingly come to acquire an unfortunate tilt. One is secular if one ignores all facts and denounces, for instance the massacre of Muslims in Aligarh or Jamshedpur and in the process even incites communalism. But one becomes "rabidly communal" if he or she denounces the "butchery" of Hindus at Sambhal in UP. Communalism, whether of the majority or the minority, needs to be condemned by all parties and their views clearly stated. It has no place in a genuinely secular state. Similarly, we need to be positive about the basic concept of non-alignment, essentially a projection of India's sovereignty into the world abroad. Who stands for a tilt towards Moscow or Washington and who for genuine non-alignment?

Ultimately, we must be clear about the true nature of a healthy and purposeful democracy and what it offers: fundamental freedoms and the inalienable right to sack a corrupt and incompetent Government. We can do no better than recall Winston Churchill's famous words spelling out his concept of democracy. Said he: "Democracy, I say, is not based on violence or terrorism, but on reason, on fair play, on freedom, on respecting the rights of other people. Democracy is not a harlot to be picked up in the street by a man with a tommy gun. I trust the people, the mass of the people in almost any country, but I like to make sure that it is the people and not a gang of bandits from the mountains or from the countryside who think that by violence they can overturn constituted authority, in some cases ancient Parliaments, Governments and States." --- INFA.

(Copyright, India News & Feature Alliance)