Scientific Socialism

I remember vividly a meeting in the General Patters Road Congress House in Madras, thirty years ago, at which, among others, the late lamented V. Chakkarai Chettiar happened to be one of the speakers. In the course of his speech he declared he was for what he called ‘scientific socialism’—which was then a euphemism for communism. He and others like him did not see the ugly side of that way of governance, but only looked at what was good in its objectives: maximum possible equality of opportunity and well-being for the various people that form a nation.

     It is an excellent thing to aim at. But how shall we relate it to the economic life of the nation, production and distribution ? We have found all over the world that if governments attempt to reach the very desirable objectives of socialism through State action, the people are gradually reduced to servility. It invests the State, and therefore invests those who happen to be in possession of State authority, with supreme and excessive power with all its well-known evil consequences. If we could isolate Statism from socialism, there would be nothing like it. But this cannot be done.

     Yet we cannot give up the battle. Therefore we have to fall back on the steady cultivation of a sense of Dharma among all the people, and particularly among the young people undergoing education. All fundamental shaping of character and temperament must be done when minds and bodies are young. That all people should be happy and look upon one another as equal in spite of ephemeral and surface differences is Indian Dharma as well as what is prescribed in all the religions of the world. And Dharma can and should be inculcated during the shaping period of youth.

     If, however, we are not content with a long-term old- fashioned plan of this kind, and socialism takes the form of Statism, it is an enemy to freedom and not all the paraphernalia of national Independence can make up for what is lost by the individuals making up the nation. The State is a mere conception. It has no nerves or feelings. National feeling depends on the sum-up of how all the people, each one by himself, feel. The free way of life gives a sense of happiness to the nation. If this is lost through State action, it cannot be otherwise compensated for. True scientific socialism, standing on its own feet, must rest on Dharma, and not on the compulsions of the State. When a political group seizes power in democracy and invests the State with economic power over the people, the party perpetuates itself in authority and converts democracy into tyranny. If this inescapable fact is not kept in mind, it would be like handling a cobra forgetting its poisonous fangs.

     We are dealing with nations, not with small tribes or communities, which can of course practise socialism and enforce that discipline through communal compulsions and sanctions. Indeed what is sought to be done these days in the name of ‘socialism’ is the attempt to do for big nations what was possible and good only for tiny groups and communities. Mathematically, what is good and correct for x must be good for x to the power of 1,000. But this is not true when we deal with human beings. As size and numbers increase the calculations go completely wrong.

     The State in a small community is a true cooperative organization. But the State in a big nation is a leviathan, a monster which tyrannizes. Savage tribes were all communists or socialists under a dictator. Individual feelings counted for nothing. Survival demanded this discipline in the case of small groups and tribes. But as civilization advanced and life became complicated and populations became large, this discipline meant loss of freedom for the individual and coercion by the ruling authority. Freedom is the central element of happiness. There-fore good government came to be a balance between discipline and freedom. Discipline where it is necessary, freedom in all other matters. And this is what Gandhiji stood for. Maximum freedom and minimum government. We cannot remind ourselves too often of this advice of the Father of the Nation. It is not ‘ideology’, but common sense, practical wisdom. It is the proportion and the limitations that are important, not abstract logic standing apart from men.

     It is power and the insatiable desire for ever more power, which the Congress Party and its leaders have infected themselves with, that has corrupted it so badly, so irreparably. It would be a pity, a real tragedy, if this great land of ancient repute and its good men and women should be handed over for another long period of serfdom under this power-mad party.