Swrajya, November 18, 1961
Between ourselves, honest voter, these private monopolies created by the pernicious system of permits, licences, quotas and controls (to be extended now even to foreign capital which voluntarily comes into the private sector) make the Congress Party's rich friends richer, and the poor poorer. It is a close conspiracy; we have a battle between money and liberty, between dharma and atheism, between freedom and communism clothed in Congress robes.
It is the stock in trade of those who wish to uphold the present regime of permit-licence favouritisms to attack the Swatantra Party saying that it stands for the anarchy of laissez faire. This cheap way of meeting the opponent’s argument is deliberately calculated to deceive an ignorant and untrained electorate. It is not intended to satisfy those who are capable of reasoned thinking.
A free government is what the people feel and think to be so. Their subjective reaction is the natural and competent judgment on this point, If the people in practice allow a certain degree of authority over them not consistent with ideas of perfect freedom, the rulers ought to thank them for it, and not endeavour to hold from that fact that the whole position has been altered and that having gone so far, by analogy they must hereafter have nothing whatsoever but by the rulers’ pleasure.
The Swatantra Party stands not for abstract and metaphysical or geometric freedom, but for that liberty which Edmund Burke expounded in the following memorable words addressed to the sheriffs of Bristol, his constituency:
“Government is a practical thing, made for the happiness or mankind, and not to furnish but a spectacle of uniformity to gratify the schemes of visionary politicians. The extreme of liberty (which is its abstract perfection, but its real fault) obtains nowhere and as we all know, in every point which relates either to Our duties or satisfactions in life, is destructive both to virtue and enjoyment. Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed. The degree of restraint it is Impossible in any case to settle precisely. But it ought to be the constant aim of every wise public counsel to find out by cautious experiment, and rational cool endeavours, with how little, not how much of this restraint, the community can subsist. Liberty is a good to be improved, and not an evil to be lessened. It is not Only a private blessing of the first order, but the vital spring and energy of the State itself, which has just so much life and vigour as there is liberty in it.”
This is exactly what Gandhiji said too—as little of government interference as possible and maximum freedom for the people.
‘Integration’ is not uniformity, produced by the legislative and administrative compulsions of the Congress Party’s regime. It is deeper and something that will have to be achieved by far greater wisdom, tolerance and love than the Congress Party has proved itself capable of.
We have been given recently yet another glimpse into Sri Nehru’s mind. He is convinced that school text-books should be prepared by Government. This nationalization of school books, if undertaken and accomplished, would be almost a biological weapon of attack on the nation. The idea is to ‘catch them young and indoctrinate the children. Uniformity is the weapon of dictatorship. It facilitates control and totalitarian aims. Variety is a thorn in the dictator’s flesh. He finds it troublesome. So he does everything to steam-roll all things into uniformity. We must be warned against this in time; later, it will be too late.
Very promptly and rightly the Indian Express wrote protesting that this nationalization of children’s text-books would be a dangerous innovation. The present school books are bad and are, of course, also a source of commercial exploitation. But the remedy is not nationalization. The people who will be selected to produce books under the orders of government will do no better than those who now produce them.
The point, however, which is more important than anything else is that it is a significant indication of how Sri Nehru’s mind works in all matters. It is a symptom of the totalitarian mentality and bolshevik complex that has seized the Congress Party under Sri Nehru’s leadership.
During Sri Nehru’s visit to America, President Kennedy felt it necessary to assure his people that Sri Nehru was one who was “committed to individual liberty.” This was a gesture of great friendliness on the part of Mr. Kennedy. It was necessary for Mr. Kennedy to give this assurance in order to save unpleasantness marking Sri Nehru’s tour. But Sri Nehru holds that the kind of scope which the individual will have in State socialism is individual liberty. His craving for bigness, for uniformity, and for power, and his faith in Bolshevik compulsion as a means to prosperity and happiness, is contrary not only to all that Gandhiji felt should guide India’s progress but is opposed to the beliefs of even some younger men like Jaya Prakash Narayan who have been ardent admirers of Sri Jawaharlal Nehru, who have sacrificed and worked not a little to attain our present political status, and who cannot be said to belong to a past century but can be classed among the moderns to whom Sri Nehru loves to belong.
