Is Our Statism Constitutional?

Rules have been issued by Government to curb the permissible expenditure on advertisements planned by business houses. This might have been with or without the knowledge or approval of the minister in charge, which is an internal administrative affair, and may provide a bridge for withdrawal when the pressure of the press and public agitation become too strong for Government to sustain this double attack on freedom. One is the intrusion by Government and its official agencies in the internal affairs of the private management of non-nationalized industries. It is grossly unfair to use the income-tax law to bring about this intrusion. The shareholders might object to lavish advertisements and overmuch expense incurred thereon, but it is not for the Government to do this. The other is the inroad into the freedom of the press. If advertisements of the private sector are curbed through refusal of deduction for income-tax purposes, the value of the gifts of the ruling Government in the shape of government advertisements goes up automatically. Newspapers, especially the smaller journals, would find their business impossible unless they cringe and obtain government advertisements which will automatically lead to suppression of that liberty of thought and expression which was inscribed in bold letters in the preamble of the Constitution. The intrusion into the internal economy of an industry would escalate into many curbs including the laying down of ceilings for salaries and wages for labour also. Any liberal wage policy, such as was followed by Ford, would be barred unless government allows it. Intrusion, once permitted, creates in the official mind a taste for it, and this taste, closely allied to the appetite for power, grows with feeding.

     These rules and the new Company Law are symptoms of the Statism which has gripped our economy. The aims and objects of the Constitution of India have been set out in Part IV of that document. The goals written into the articles comprising that part of the Constitution are national goals which all political parties must accept without the slightest demur. But how to reach those goals, in an orderly manner, is a matter on which political parties may and must, in a democracy of 400 million souls, differ. The Constitution permits such differences of opinions and alternative programmes based on those opinions. The competition between such differing programmes and the periodical appeal to the people for support to such programmes constitute the substance of parliamentary debate and election campaigns. The framers of the Constitution, Gopalaswami Ayyangar, Alladi Krishnaswami Aiyar, Dr. Ambedkar, B. N. Rau and others, put down in clear and unambiguous language what may not be done by any government in the course of its efforts to reach the goal of securing for all its citizens justice, liberty, equality and fraternity. They were aware of the existence at that time of a body of thought in the country which went in the direction of the political philosophy on which communism was based and which the ‘socialists’ also believed in, viz., in the vesting in the State of all power to regulate the economy of the nation by controlling all the activities of citizens, substituting government wisdom for individual interest and competition. The framers of the Constitution, therefore, wrote down Articles specifically to prevent this intrusion of State power in the life of the citizens, whichever party may come to power, and these Articles are in Part Ill of the Constitution. Part Ill of the Constitution lays down the fundamental rights of the people as against any political party that may come into power and take charge of the administration and try out its programmes. The Constituent Assembly decreed that the goals in the preamble of the Constitution, set out in detail in Part IV, should be reached without attempting to do what was prohibited by the provision laid down in, Part Ill. Any law in derogation of, or inconsistent with, these provisions was declared to be invalid.

     The provisions of Article 368 laying down the procedure for any amendment of the Constitution and the special majorities for any alteration of the fundamental rights declared in Part III, have been interpreted by the Government, and recently by a Bench of the Supreme Court also, to cover not only amendments by way of improvement but also, by implication, to give to such majorities the power of nullification of the fundamental rights.

     Two learned judges of that Bench expressed grave doubts in respect of this interpretation which goes contrary to Article 13 as well as to the plain purpose of Part Ill. The word ‘law’ in Article 13 was restricted by the majority of that Bench to a narrow interpretation which would give power to a government, which commands more than a two-thirds majority of the total membership of either House of Parliament (as the Congress Party now does) to repeal any or all of the fundamental rights solemnly inscribed in the Constitution. This position is one that calls for serious reexamination not only by the Supreme Court under the provisions of Article 143 but by international jurists of eminence.

     The socialism which has been adopted, and is sought to be enforced by the Congress Party which has seized power, is in total derogation of the intention and purpose of the framers of the Constitution, being so inconsistent with the articles laid down in Part Ill that the Government has been forced by the Supreme Court, over and over again, to resort to Parliament for amendments of the articles in Part III. These amendments have been passed under the wrongly extended interpretation of Article 368 and the equally wrong and narrow interpretation of Article 13 as earlier explained. I am convinced that the socialism of the present Government is not only a fruitless and wasteful experiment but wholly contrary to the intentions of the framers of our Constitution.