Swarajya, August 5, 1961
Promising paradise through controls, the Congress Government has contrived to sap the moral stamina of public servants by bringing them into contact with men filled with a newly encouraged hunger for making money in the shortest possible time, by buying a monopoly from the issuing officers, and thereby putting other greedy people at a disadvantage.
If I did not see the Devil in this scheme of contact between officials and businessmen and the issue of small and big relative monopolies going by the fanciful name of 'socialistic pattern', I would not have revolted. But when I saw a great corrupting movement set in motion and all national and individual life brought under its baneful shadow, I felt it my duty to throw away all other considerations, and revolt without a thought as to whether I shall win or lose in this battle against heavy odds. When one sees a great evil, one must fight it. Otherwise, there is no purpose in life.
I am not exaggerating the corruption. I had seen the finest official cadre in Asia working splendidly, and I have seen it now ruined completely under this evil system, and in a very short time. I have seen landslides of moral standards like mountain sides toppling down during an earthquake. My great age and varied experience have enabled me to see the changes and contrasts, and the consequent distress is great.
This is an attempt to explain why I have broken away from valuable friendships and time-honoured camaraderie, which to many is still a mystery and is cause for distress and adverse comment. The sacrifice of comradeship and affection that I have made now, giving up that precious possession, and earning displeasure and dislike in the highest quarters - these are no less a sacrifice than what I made when I was forty, and full of potential for worldly advancement, gave up my practice at the bar, grieved my aged father, withdrew my children from school and college, and went into the wilderness in 1920.
When this issue of SWARAJYA reaches readers, the Swatantra Party will have finished its second 'First of August', the day hallowed by Lokamanya Tilak's memory every year, since forty years ago. 'Swaraj is my birthright and I will have it,' said our Lokamanya. Swaraj is the birthright of every citizen, and we have to save it from the expropriatory hands of a party which has arrogantly confounded itself with the State.
If the dread Tempter of semitic theology plotted to corrupt simultaneously the finest public service corps in Asia and a whole nation that had been brought up by long tradition to follow dharma, each individual and group in their respective walks of life, the Devil could not have devised any better plan than the socialist pattern and the permit-licence-quota scheme of economy now enforced in India.
This is not rhetoric. Promising paradise through controls, the Congress Government has contrived to sap the moral stamina of public servants by bringing them into contact with men filled with a newly encouraged hunger for making money in the shortest possible time, by buying a monopoly from the issuing officers, and thereby putting other greedy people at a disadvantage.
Each successful act of corruption feeds the appetite for greater effort in the same direction and a corps of greedy men is built up throughout the country to stand up loyally for a government that thus quickly enriches the shrewd corrupters, all the time bamboozling the poor that they are serving the cause of their uplift.
And the Devil taking him up into an high mountain. shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the Devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them; for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will, I give it. If thou therefore will worship me, all shall be thine. And Jesus answered and said unto him, get thee behind me, Satan.
If I did not see the Devil in this scheme of contact between officials and businessmen and the issue of small and big relative monopolies going by the fanciful name of 'socialistic pattern', I would not have revolted. But when I saw a great corrupting movement set in motion and all national and individual life brought under its baneful shadow, I felt it my duty to throw away all other considerations, and revolt without a thought as to whether I shall win or lose in this battle against heavy odds. When one sees a great evil, one must fight it. Otherwise, there is no purpose in life. I am not exaggerating the corruption. I had seen the finest official cadre in Asia working splendidly, and I have seen it now ruined completely under this evil system, and in a very short time. I have seen landslides of moral standards like mountain sides toppling down during an earthquake. I have seen callousness and greed replace all traditional sensibility and restraint, all ideas of swadharma. My great age and varied experience have enabled me to see the changes and contrasts, and the consequent distress is great.
This is an attempt to explain why I have broken away from valuable friendships and time-honoured camaraderie, which to many is still a mystery and is cause for distress and adverse comment. The sacrifice of comradeship and affection that I have made now, giving up that precious possession, and earning displeasure and dislike in the highest quarters - these are no less a sacrifice than what I made when I was forty, and full of potential for worldly advancement, gave up my practice at the bar, grieved my aged father, withdrew my children from school and college, and went into the wilderness in 1920.
I have often thought of those days when a spirit of adventure and a passionate abhorrence of foreign rule helped one to undergo any sacrifice, when contemplating the present position in which I have dared to raise the white star against totalitarianism and corruption. One is not helped in this battle against one's own misguided colleagues, by any youthful spirit of adventure or hatred of foreign rule. At every step there is pain at having to do it.
But should we not defend freedom, should we not defend democracy, should we not defend dharma? We must not allow India to be debased, mistaking mass selfishness for patriotism. We must love India and learn why we should love India. We must fight Statism, we must fight one-party rule, which has devised self-generating power to perpetuate itself, and we must stem the tide of greed and corruption. We must bring again into being a cadre of sternly honest officials to administer our affairs as was done till recently. It is a sacred duty, if there be any purpose in life and if we are not just spinning tops, spinning till death overtakes us and we go down to be re-absorbed into dead matter, tools mourning around the body that once was alive. When the morality of the nation and its elite is being undermined and threatened with destruction, there is no question of any alternative or surrender to superior force. We must fight and protect the soul of the nation from being overwhelmed and destroyed. It is the duty of each citizen to resist it to the utmost without waiting for others or counting the cost. For if the nation's morality is lost, there will be nothing thereafter to save.
