Basic Principles of Swatantra Party

The Indian National Congress has been before the country for nearly 80 years. Not taking into account the pre-Gandhian period, the reorganized Congress institution has been working for the last 40 years. A little over 25 years age, the Congress gave up its national character and became a political party contesting elections. This party began with a fund of popular affection, derived from the successful struggle for freedom conducted by the Congress against foreign rule. Britain entrusted the governance of the country to the leaders of that party in 1947. During the last five years, through the adoption of the so-called socialist policy, this regime and, through it, the Congress Party assumed complete control over the country's industry, trade and commerce.

     The Congress Party, therefore, has had the advantage not only of long years but also of being in sovereign authority controlling the fortunes of all businessmen that count in India. Democracy has been functioning in our country under the guidance of this party without any Opposition party to speak of, in this climate of totalist control over all industry, trade and commerce and individual life. It was only in the middle of 1959 that, on account of the regimentation policies which the Congress adopted, the Swatantra Party was conceived and started.

     The Swatantra Party has not found its work easy, not only because it is difficult to divert men from the traditional attachment to the Congress but also, and especially, on account of the manner in which the Congress Ministers have utilised their position and their control over the business activities conducted by the industrial and commercial community in order to strengthen the party organization in every manner. Practically unlimited funds are now at the disposal of the Congress Party to be utilised purely for party purposes. After the first flush of patriotism that followed Independence, the people's spirit deteriorated in many ways and money power has become an important element in democracy.

     In spite of these handicaps, the Swatantra Party has made headway and seeks the suffrage of the people in the 1962 elections. The Swatantra Party published in August 1959, in brief and precise form, without any plethora of wdrds, the principles to which the party stood pledged. Having come into existence long after the Congress, the Swatantra Party has clearly set out before the public what it stands for, namely, the sacredness as well as the secular importance of individual freedom and enterprise and the great harm that regimentation would cause to real progress. The principles published in 1959 are as good as a manifesto for the elections of 1962. These 21 principles have been explained and amplified in subsequent publications of the party.

     One of the most important provisions states that the party will not seek to curb the freedom of its members to vote according to personal conviction in any but the matters stated in that document. What this country needs is a government as near to a non-party regime as possible, as near to a national government as we can secure in parliamentary democracy. The Swatantra Party's pledge to leave its members free to vote without party whips on all matters except where the anti-regimentation policies of the party impinges, is a guarantee that in most matters that come up from time to time, the national and real majority view will prevail and not that of the majority within the ruling clique as is now happening under the Congress Government.

     The Congress Party claims special credit for all things done by the Government during these 14 years. Much of it is obviously what any government which collects taxes and has undertaken the duties of administration must do. Such achievements cannot be claimed as a speciality of the Congress Party. The Swatantra Party, it put in power, will utilise the machinery of administration and the taxes paid by the people and carry on as well as, if not much better than, the Congress Party in all these directions. What the Swatantra Party opposes is the near-communist regimentation policy which the Congress has now adopted. The Swatantra Party's opposition will take shape as the policy of the government if the Swatantra Party is returned to power, and even otherwise as a continuous opposition policy, it the party is returned in sufficient strength to become an effective opposition.

     Supplementing the above I shall rapidly take the reader over some concrete points. But before that, let me say a few words about the Congress election manifesto.

     "Equal opportunity to every citizen" - one of the phrases occurring in the Congress manifesto - is a good thing but it is not the Congress but the Swatantra Party that will give it. The permit-licence-quota-raj of the Congress regime which is re-embodied by necessary implication in the Third Plan is a negation of equal opportunity to every citizen for many, many more years if not for all time, and is a means to give the party's favourites opportunities to get rich quick. The almost unendingly expanding foreign borrowing programme on a scale which it is not an exaggeration to call monstrous and to which the Congress plans commit the nation makes a self-sustaining and self-generating programme an obvious impossibility. Yet this self-sufficiency and independence is without any qualm of conscience promised in the Congress manifesto. Even more brazen is the effrontery of the Congress manifesto when it says that the Congress Party stands for 'the worth and dignity of the individual'. Every self-respecting citizen knows that it is the first victim laid on the altar of regimentation. It is to save the worth and dignity of the individual that the Swatantra movement had had to be organized in spite of every obvious handicap. The Congress manifesto professes to be against monopolies when everyone knows that it is the party's regime that has created and is continuing to create a number of unearned monopolies for its favoudtes in industry as well as in trade. The Congress regime is bent on creating the most intolerable of all monopolies, a State monopoly in the hands of a particular closed-shop political party which thereby obtains the means of perpetuating itself in power and the enjoyment of that monopoly. Recent revelations about collection of party funds have thrown bright light on this evil.

     The Swatantra Party's mission is to oppose the Congress Party's so-called socialist policies. It stands for the Indian way of life which attaches as great importance to Dharma as to material prosperity. Spiritual values in the tradition of the country will prevail with this party. It does not promise to do for the people impossible things; it will help them to help themselves, not relieve them of responsibility as the Congress Party seeks to do or makes people believe it will, by its controls and regulated economy.

     More than anything else the Swatantra Party is bent on giving the country a clean administration. It will see that there is no interference by politicians either of the ruling party or others in the day-to-day administrative affairs. The machinery of administration will be streamlined and coordinated so that necessary action may not be delayed or deviate from justice.

     All laws and orders passed in contravention of the Fundamental Rights as originally conceived by the fathers of the Constitution will be repealed and just rights restored except where gross injustice will ensue as a result of lapse of time or other unavoidable causes. The articles in the Constitution dealing with Fundamental Rights will be restored to their original shape as set out in the Constitution of 1950. Where land or other property has been already acquired without due compensation, every effort will be made to render justice.

     The Swatantra Party will rectify the confusion and corruption which have entered the economy by reason of controls, permits, licences and quotas given by the Congress Government.

     Government interference in the industrial activities of the people will be reduced to the minimum. Encouragement will be given to the ploughing back of profits for further expansion. A State enterprise will not be allowed to enjoy an undeserved monopoly. Wherever possible, private enterprise will be allowed to compete with nationalized industries and services so as to keep all efforts at the highest level of efficiency.

     Trade will be entirely left to the people and kept competitive. The State Trading Corporation will only deal with communist countries.

     The Swatantra Party will restore religion to its legitimate influence on life. Gifts to religious institutions and private charities will be released from taxation. The Swatantra Party will enforce proper respect for the practices and property of all religions in India, duly recognizing the fact that every religion is contributing to the general welfare by helping the spiritual stability and moral asset of the respective communities.

     The Swatantra Party will faithfully carry out the provisions in the Constitution for the protection of the rights of all minorities and will not open itself to the charge of indirectly disregarding them. It will not look upon associations for the protection of the rights of minorities and for their betterment as communal organizations to be discouraged.

     The Swatantra Party will rectify foreign policy so as to restore the moral influence of our nation in wodd affairs, and not merely serve personal ambitions for international importance. The party will endeavour to rectify the unfortunate impression created in the world that India is really not non-aligned but has a bias in favour of the communist bloc.

     The party will do everything possible to maintain territorial integrity and do whatever is possible at this late stage to put back aggression.

     The party will halt borrowing from foreign governments and encourage private capital more freely to flow into the country's private sector from abroad.

     The stability of the rupee will be the party's pre-eminent care and inflation will be curbed. Deficit financing will be avoided as far as possible.

     The Swatantra Party will halt taxation which is becoming regressive and has directly and indirectly made the life of the middle and poorer classes miserable. The party will rely on private enterprise, activated where necessary by loans and aids, and widespread rural public works, to create employment opportunities for the people everywhere instead of hoping to tackle the problem by big installations and works in a few places which cannot provide for the general population.

     The party will stop the wasteful expansion of the administrative machinery and reduce government expenditure to the minimum. Extravagant construction of new buildings will be prohibited. Government undertaking will be improved by organizing better management and adequate supervision.

     Agriculture will receive first priority and will be put on a sound basis, automatically leading to the emergence of a viable industrial sector. The party will restore the farmer's interest in his property, big or small, and uncertainties will be removed and incentives provided. The small peasant will be freed from land taxes except to the extent necessary for maintaining ownership records. The small peasant will be given every encouragement to grow into a big peasant.

     The party stands for land reform but opposes expropriation in any form including what is directly or indirectly involved in collective or co-operative farming for which the Congress Party stands. The Swatantra Party will initiate and support reforms such as will improve harmonious relations between owner and tenant as well as labourers employed on land and bring about increased effort and production. But the party is opposed to policies that create conflict and uncertainty and lack of interest in cultivation. The party will do everything to support an adequate level of agricultural prices relative to the prices of industrial commodities required for rural life.

     Great attention will be given to small-scale industries. Competition will be promoted in all spheres of economic activity and monopolies will be guarded against.

     The sales tax will be made less onerous, uniform and simple and harassment will be eliminated by duly recognizing the conditions under which small trade is actually carried on in the country.

     The production of consumer goods and their proper distribution will be encouraged so as to make life happy for people with low grade incomes.

     Top priority will be given to housing not only in urban and'suburban areas but also in the rural areas.

     Special attention will be given to technical education and workshop service centres will be established on a widespread scale to help agricultural and other machinery being kept in good order and facilities provided for cheap local training of skilled workers.

     Trade unions will not be allowed to become the playground of political parties ,qnd will hL- heined to be in the hands of the workers themselves.

     Admission to schools and colleges will be on merit. The need for special facilities for poor pupils showing merit will be fully recognized. The autonomy of the universities will not be infringed.

     Mobile ambulance facilities will be organized so as to enable the rural population to obtain the services of big medical institutions in the districts without diff iculty or loss of time.

     Attention to roads and culverts and bridges will be greatly improved in all public works, mechanization will be avoided wherever man-power can be efficiently employed and where speed of execution is not essential.

     Election procedure will be improved and amended so as to secure a fair chance for the real views of the electorate to prevail and so that no one is kept out from exercising his vote by ignorance of his rights or distance or other causes. The principle of State responsibility for the periodical collection of the votes of the people will be put in force so as to reduce the expenses of candidates to the minimum and release democracy from the domination of money power. At present, elections have become a scandalous form of private enterprise. The State should take up full responsibility for working democracy in a proper way.

     The greatest single cause of the present unsatisfactory position is the absence of an effective Opposition to the ruling party, offering to replace it and checking its errors from time to time. The communists have come to recognize the present ruling party as their instrument, and so are not a real opposition. The Swatantra Party has been formed in order to check the Congress and the machinery of government from surrendering to communism.

     If the Congress Party if returned again to power now, it would be an endorsement of its present policies, placing the country on the brink of communism. The inevitable inefficiency and failure of the Congress Government and its official machinery will then push the country over the brink into communism or a military regime. Mr. Jawaharlal Nehru will then discover a slogan to reconcile the nation to that fate. This is the crisis of the present situation and the Swatantra Party warns the nation to beware. Unless the Swatantra Party is returned in substantial strength, not only democracy but our traditional values will be lost. Satyam eva jayate.