Compulsion or Faith in People

At all times and in all places the temptation is great for good men to think of resorting to available force when there is some injustice to be removed or some reform to be made. For, it always seems a surer and quicker way than to trust to the goodness of men and adopt methods of persuasion. The truth remains, however, that force, although it may achieve something at once, always leaves behind something that is opposed to justice or welfare and neutralizes what good has been achieved. Often it does not succeed in really achieving what was wanted to be achieved.

     Force is not only what is ordinarily known and obvious as something that hurts. Compulsion through legal processes is also force. Social reform by decree of State falls in the category of force although hidden from the eye. It leaves a trail of paid just like ordinary physical assaults on the person of a wrong-doer, and results in as much evil as good, and the evil shows itself, sometimes at once and sometimes not at once, but in course of time. Whenever we can follow the way of persuasion, it is best to pursue that course, although it may appear too slow and doubtful a process to meet the evil.

     Persuasion and the methods of non-violence are based on the faith that the conscience of men can be reached. Compulsion is resorted to by men who are impatient for results and are not disposed to wait or who have no faith in their fellowman, and believe that only compulsion can achieve results.

     I receive letters from people who ask me whether I really believe the rich will follow the dharma preached by Gandhiii and, not believing this, they prefer the socialist plan to the Swatantra plan. Their credulity is as great as their mistrust. They do not examine things to see whether the promises of the socialists can be fulfilled at all in the circumstances of this country. They do not question but take it for granted that the socialist plans of government will remove the poverty of our country. That I oppose this is sufficient cause for these credulous people to accept the claim as a proved alternative. On the other hand, their mistrust is applied in full measure when dealing with the programme of the Swatantra Party and the doctrine of trusteeship or oppuravu, on which it is based. They say they cannot believe the rich and so my method will fail. They do not realize the elementary truth that there is no wealth for the State to distribute it through socialism. Wealth has to be produced, and it can be produced by work and through investment of capital. Capital is not the wicked product of capitalism. It is as necessary that investments must be made to produce wealth as seed is necessary to raise crops.

     Work cannot be expected without the incentive of individual interest and the guarantee that everyone will be protected in the enjoyment of what one has acquired. Without freedom of vocation and contract, and the fundamental guarantee about property, there can be no incentive to the production of wealth.

     It is futile to imagine that State departments can produce wealth for the enjoyment of it by forty crores of people spread over two million square miles. What can possibly be done for a small population occupying a few hundred square miles cannot be done by a government responsible for the welfare of four hundred millions. The only feasible way of production of wealth is by making it the attractive business and responsibility of individuals composing the nation. Socialism is the opposite of this.

     The Swatantra Party is based on this fundamental doctrine of individual production of wealth in such measure as to permit distribution; all attempts to put the cart before the horse will end in a fall in national production with all its dire consequences.

     Faith in our fellow-beings is the religious foundation of a civilized community. We are a civilized community. I cannot accept the theory that dharma is a futility. If I do so, it must also follow that a government founded on the votes of a people to whom dharma is a futility cannot be expected to govern justly or achieve good for the people, in spite of the people being bad. Nor can I accept the theory that all rich men are bad and the poor are impeccable. Those who argue that the individual cannot be trusted, cut the ground from under their feet. If individuals cannot be trusted, no more can the few be trusted who are popular with them and to whom they periodically give authority through their votes. These are plain truths and on these truths are founded, the age-long reliance on religion, conscience and dharma in all countries and the evolution of the laws of property, contract and freedom of occupation. All nations accepted those fundamentals, until recently men began to argue fallaciously that they can be done away with without prejudice to progress and civilization and freedom.

     The blind reliance on compulsion as a means for good ends actuates the conduct of political parties. There is too great an amount of suppression of free thinking and freedom of speech and action. Political and civic action are sought to be patterned on military discipline with the result that intellectual thinking processes are put out of action and atrophied. A total reliance on party discipline is developed. The party, in fact, vanishes in the authoritarianism of a coterie. A correspondent wrote to me pointing out that the leaders of the Swatantra Party spoke in different choices about the China affairs and deplored this. Far from deploring, I consider it proper that accepting certain fundamentals, people should think freely and differently and say what they feel. The emotions of a people should be reflected truthfully in expression and not suppressed or doctored to suit the ideas and behests of party leaders. Truth demands consistency between thought and speech. It is wrong policy to make speech, and thought differ in order to produce a deceptive uniformity in any political party. The Congress is following this wrong policy. The Swatantra Party has shown a new way to people in its 21st article. The Swatantra Party holds that democracy is best served if every political party allows freedom of opinion to, its members on all matters outside the fundamental principles of, the party. It therefore gives its members full liberty on all questions not failing within the scope of the principles stated.

     I feel (and have stated) that we cannot go to war with China but must rely on moral pressure to stop her aggression and make her withdraw from the trespass she has indulged in. We must, therefore, devise ways to gather and put this moral pressure to use. I do not condemn the invitation to talk wherever and whenever it may be if, as the Prime Minister says, he is firm in his determination not to make it a path to surrender. Some of my colleagues do not feel quite sure of this determination and apprehend danger, and they have expressed themselves in language which differs from mine. Must I ask them to suppress their fears or hide them? No, on the contrary, we serve the nation better by speaking out and allowing every one to speak out frankly. Those who imagine that the Swatantra Party is split over this issue are sadly mistaken. We believe in truth and freedom. There is unanimity as to principles and I think the Prime Minister and the world should know how we feel although we are agreed that negotiation and moral pressure must do what in the olden days war was expected to do.

I give below the letter and my reply thereto.

Your recent statement supporting Pandit Nehru's action in having invited the Chinese Premier to New Delhi for holding talks on the border dispute is quite welcome. China is our neighbour and, as such, the border issue should not for long be kept on the tender- hooks of suspense. The settlement of the comparable Sino Burma border question on the basis of the McMahon Line is a pointer that now wiser counsels prevail in the Chinese camp.

By contrast, the attitude of your other Swatantra colleagues like Minoo Masani on Nehru's action is highly deplorable, to say the least. The convolutions of the Swatantra Party high-ups are most perplexing indeed. The' party' speaks with many voices and the contradictory views and statements of its leaders on almost every issue of national importance are such as to put to shade the much-talking ministers of the ruling party who are notorious for talking differently on policy matters. In the incipient stage of the new party's formation, such failings might have been excusable. As, however, the position has now changed, I take it that you have been unable to rectify it. I really sympathise with your present lot-a good man fallen among Free Enterprisers. What have you to say about it all, dear Rajaji?

This is my reply:

I do not believe in steam-rolling opinions and expression of views. A party is founded on certain important fundamental principles. On other matters, I believe political parties should not censor or bring under whip different views or differences in emphasis. If you ponder over what Mr. Masani or others have said and what I have said, you will see there is no real difference. But even if there be difference I like such free expression on such matters. I don't like the uniformity insisted on and enforced by the Congress. This is what I have to say about it.