Three cheers for liberty

That is the problem. And it can be encapsulated in three passages from our Constituent Assembly debates8212;passages that you would have often heard Mr Palkhivala recite from memory.

The prescient passages

The first, of course, is the warning of Joseph Storey that Provisional Chairman Dr Sachchidananda Sinha recalled in his Inaugural Address, and which Mr Palkhivala put as the frontispiece to his book, Our Constitution, Defaced and Defiled. Storey had said, 8216;8216;Let the American youth never forget that they possess in their Constitution a noble inheritance, bought by the toils, and sufferings, and blood of their ancestors; and capable, if wisely improved, and faithfully guarded, of transmitting to their latest posterity all the substantial blessings of life, the peaceful enjoyment of liberty, property, religion, and independence. The structure has been erected by architects of consummate skill and fidelity; its foundations are solid; its compartments are beautiful, as well as useful; its arrangements are full of wisdom and order; and its defences are impregnable from without. It has been reared for immortality, if the work of man may justly aspire to such a title. It may nevertheless perish in an hour by the folly, or corruption, or negligence of its only keepers, the people. Republics are created8217;8217;8212;and here Dr Sinha looked up, and told the assembled members, 8216;8216;these are the words which I commend to you for your consideration8217;8217;8212;8216;8216;by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them.8217;8217;

Constituent Assembly of India, Debates, 9 December 1946, Book I, Volume I, p 5.

Pause at the last few words for a moment. Can there be a better description of what has been made of Dr Sinha8217;s state, Bihar? The precise condition having been brought about, can the consequence Storey foretold be escaped? What freedom will survive the wreckage?

Turn next to the closing speech of Dr Ambedkar. He had been explaining how the Constitution had come to be put together, how so many had contributed to its evolution, and been countering some of the criticisms that were already being levelled. And then he said, 8216;8216;Here I could have ended. But my mind is so full of the future of our country that I feel I ought to take this occasion to give expression to some of my reflections thereon. On 26th January 1950, India will be an independent country Cheers. What would happen to her Independence? Will she maintain her Independence or will she lose it again?8230;It is not that India was never an independent country. The point is that she once lost the independence she had. Will she lose it a second time? It is this thought which makes me most anxious for the future8230;Will history repeat itself?8230;This anxiety is deepened by the realisation8230;that in addition to our old enemies in the form of castes and creeds we are going to have many political parties with diverse and opposing creeds. Will Indians place the country above their creed or will they place creed above country? I do not know. But this much is certain that if the parties place creed above country, our Independence will be put in jeopardy a second time and probably be lost for ever8230;8217;8217;

He added an exhortation, of course: 8216;8216;This eventuality we must all resolutely guard against. We must be determined to defend our Independence with the last drop of our blood8230;8217;8217; And this exhortation was greeted with acclamation, 8216;Cheers8217;, states the Record. ibid, 25 November, 1949, Book VI, Volume X, pp 977-78.

But in view of what we see around us today, what strikes us? That our political parties are living up to Dr Ambedkar8217;s exhortation? Or his foreboding?

And look at what has become a contributory factor. The centrepiece of our constitutional system, indeed of every democratic system, is the periodic election. In a society as vast and as diverse as ours, to win an election, it used to be that a party had to be a hold-all. There was a contrast between leading a movement and winning elections, it used to be said8212;8216;8216;Movements divide, elections bring together8217;8217;8230;In a sense, therefore, that centrepiece of democracy, the election, itself used to help fashion a political class in the image of the country, a political class that would, to use Dr Ambedkar8217;s words, place country above creed.

But that was three decades ago. Today the national parties are stuck. Parties that appeal exclusively to sectional interests8212;for instance, to particular castes8212;have pushed them out from one state after the other. Every party that tries to focus on nation-wide issues is finding that it is just not able to mobilise sufficient support. On the other hand, the campaign of each sectional party has but one theme8212;that the group which it 8216;represents8217; is separate from, that it is different from and at loggerheads with, all other groups. The 8216;election strategy8217; of the one who seeks to get such a group behind him is not to unify and bring people together. Quite the contrary. A person leading a caste that constitutes 16 per cent of the population 8216;strategises8217; to but one purpose8212;to break the caste that is 18 per cent into factions smaller than his 16 per cent.

Elections over, 8216;coalitions8217; are cobbled together of parties, whatever their beliefs8212;that is easier done than said, for none of them believes in much. The Government is formed, true, and 8216;functions8217;. And the politicians themselves get along famously in the central halls of legislatures. But outside8230;the residue of each round is an even blacker pile of bitterness, even sharper divisions. We see the consequence in the north these days. Economic development8212;for instance, the way it multiplies occupations; modernisation8212;the new modes of transport, the more and more distant places from which one gets one supplies, for instance; urbanisation8212;the crowding that inevitably follows in its wake; all these were erasing the caste rules we used to read about. So, in a hundred ways caste was being dissolved. But in the last 30 years, as politicians have been less and less able to go to the people with their record of service and performance, they have stoked these primal identities, they have conjured up threats to them, and presented themselves as the only available saviours.

So, even that keystone of the democratic arch8212;periodic election8212;is deepening fault-lines. This will soon tell on freedom. A society so splintered will not be able to stand up to an all-out assault by one determined to crush freedom. In region after region, the splintering has already delivered power into the hands of local toughs. Moreover, the toughs proclaim that all means are justified to crush those whom they dub the oppressors8230; The consequence? 8216;8216;Freedom8217;8217; has a very restricted meaning in Bihar and Eastern UP today.

In fact, the splintering, and the kind of person who is capturing office as a result, a matter to which I shall just turn, has already fomented among vast numbers a yearning for the 8216;8216;strong man8217;8217;, for some 8216;8216;strong man8217;8217; or woman8212;of their caste, for only he or she will deliver them from the tough of the other caste. A Mayawati to counter a Mulayam Singh. Anybody to counter Laloo Yadav.

That denouement apart, there is a debility that follows from the 8216;theory8217; of democracy itself. We have seen the first steps: win elections by fielding whoever will win and by using whatever means will deliver; the results in, cobble together parties whatever their beliefs. The next step follows from the premise of what we have made of 8216;parliamentary democracy8217;8212;that is, whatever this contrived majority does is 8216;the will of the people8217;, it is what the people gave a 8216;mandate8217; for! Recall the passages I listed from Mrs Gandhi and her minions. Look at the way a fatuous document8212;the 8216;Common Minimum Programme8217;, drafted after the elections to rationalise the coming together of disparate parties8212;has suddenly acquired scriptural status. Look at the way, on the claim that the people have given them a mandate, these persons suborn investigative agencies and public prosecutors to defang cases in which they are implicated. We feel secure in the belief that that 8216;invention8217;, the doctrine of the Basic Structure, will shield us from extreme excesses. But the content can be, in many regions it already has been hollowed out8212;though the external structure is all that the Constitution requires. True, there is the Comptroller and Auditor General of India and his large organisation as provided for in the Constitution. But have you ever seen whether anything has been done as a consequence of the absolutely shocking facts they have set out about the way finances have been 8216;8216;managed8217;8217; by, for instance, the Government of West Bengal?

You will recall the concluding address of the President of the Constituent Assembly, Dr Rajendra Prasad. You will recall his words, 8216;8216;Whatever the Constitution may or may not provide, the welfare of the country will depend upon the way in which the country is administered. That will depend upon the men who administer it. It is a trite saying that a country can have only the Government it deserves. Our Constitution has provisions in it which appear to some to be objectionable from one point or another. We must admit that the defects are inherent in the situation in the country and the people at large. If the people who are elected are capable and men of character and integrity, they would be able to make the best even of a defective Constitution. If they are lacking in these, the Constitution cannot help the country. After all, a Constitution like a machine is a lifeless thing. It acquires life because of the men who control it and operate it, and India needs today nothing more than a set of honest men who will have the interest of the country before them8230;We have communal differences, caste differences, language differences, provincial differences and so forth. It requires men of strong character, men of vision, men who will not sacrifice the interests of the country at large for the sake of smaller groups and areas and who will rise over the prejudices which are born of these differences8230;8217;8217;

Of course, he was not8212;no one in that generation was8212;the resigning kind. He did not want, not one of those assembled in the Central Hall would have wanted, affairs of state to be left to events and chance. And so, in spite of the decades of suffering that those before him had endured for the country, he counseled them, 8216;8216;Let not those who have served in the past therefore rest on their oars, saying that they have done their part and now has come the time for them to enjoy the fruits of their labours. No such time comes to anyone who is really earnest about his work. In India today I feel that the work that confronts us is even more difficult than the work which we had when we were engaged in the struggle. We did not have then any conflicting claims to reconcile, no loaves and fishes to distribute, no powers to share. We have all these now, and the temptations are really great. ..8217;8217; ibid, 26 November, 1949, Book VI, Volume X, pp 993-94.

Has his prayer been answered? Has his faith in events and chance been vindicated? But I am on two other points. That the hour of crisis will throw up men and women8212;the Emergency, a JP8212;is not enough. For governance has to be of a standard from day to humdrum day. So, the questions we must face are: 8216;8216;Is the electoral system that was adopted under the Constitution8212;rather, more accurately, is what we have made of the electoral system that was adopted under the Constitution8212;throwing up a set of honest men who will have the interest of the country before them8217;8217;? 8216;8216;Is it bringing to the fore a set of men of strong character, men of vision, men who will not sacrifice the interests of the country at large for the sake of smaller groups and areas and who will rise above the prejudices which are born of those differences8217;8217;? 8216;8216;Are elections throwing up persons who have the ability to run governments?8217;8217;

And is one of the reasons they are failing to do so not the one to which Dr Rajendra Prasad had drawn attention even at that time? He said that, as deliberations of the Constituent Assembly drew to a close, he had two regrets. One regret he said was that it had not been possible in the time available to prepare for adoption simultaneously the version of the Constitution in an Indian language. The other regret he expressed is the one to which I want to draw your attention. Dr Rajendra Prasad said, 8216;8216;I would have liked to have some qualifications laid down for members of the legislatures. It is anomalous that we should insist upon high qualifications for those who administer or help in administering the law but none for those who make it, except that they are elected. A law giver requires intellectual equipment but even more, capacity to take a balanced view of things, to act independently and above all to be true to those fundamental things of life, 8216;in one word8217; to have character.8217;8217;

8216;8216;Hear, Hear8217;8217;, all assembled exclaimed. Of course, there was a basic difficulty, Dr Rajendra Prasad acknowledged, but then there was a consequence too, one that was just as certain as the difficulty was apparent: 8216;8216;It is not possible to devise any yard-stick for measuring the moral qualities of a man and so long as that is not possible, our Constitution will remain defective8230;8217;8217;

The consequences of that omission pile one on the other. To start off, the Executive is to be chosen from among the legislators: with the stock that our elections are throwing up, it is just a chance if a fifth of any Council of Ministers consists of persons who have the requisite executive ability. Do not be misled by the one who happens to be Prime Minister. Look at his Council of Ministers8212;for, while in theory he is 8216;the first among equals8217;, no Prime Minister can squander his authority picking a quarrel over every issue with minister after minister. Do not be misled by a Council of Ministers. Look at the legislature as a whole: in the end, no Prime Minister, certainly not one faced with fractured legislatures of the kind that are now the order of the day, can disregard the clamour of the generality of the political class, that is of the legislature as a whole. Thus, irrespective of how sagacious the Prime Minister is, irrespective of the fact that six or seven of his colleagues are world-class, the character, comprehension and capabilities of the average legislator have decisive, and all too often deadly consequences for programmes and policy. 8216;8216;But aren8217;t civil servants the ones who are meant to advise, and then, after policies have been set by ministers, to execute?8217;8217; To be able to choose between possible courses of action which civil servants and others will proffer, especially in the fast-changing, high-technology, interdependent world in which we now live, ministers must themselves be knowledgeable. Moreover, their knowledge won8217;t go far either if the political class as a whole is as little equipped to choose as it is today: it will go by slogans, it will be propelled by interested parties, and, to put it no higher, will unknowingly derail rational policies. The unending arguments over WTO, over patents, over public sector enterprises8212;all bear testimony to the mal-effects of this multi-tier unacquaintance. In any event, it won8217;t be long before the civil service acquires the hue of political leaders: look at the way civil services in Bihar and UP have become casteist, and how individual civil servants strive to hook on to some political side or the other. And the disease is progressive. Each round of elections enfeebles the polity further. Each round of discretionary appointments8212;to Civil Service Selection Boards, for instance8212;weakens administration further. Dr P V Indiresen has a law to explain the condition, 8216;Indiresen8217;s Law8217;: 8216;8216;Second-rate persons select third-rate persons.8217;8217; You do that for fifty years, and governance becomes what it has.

To be continued

PART I

PART III

PART IV