Swarajya, March 20, 1965
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.
The referendum in Kerala has gone in favour of China, thanks to the Central Government’s blundering tactics. Again, judging from the seats secured by the Kerala Congress Party, the revolt against the Congress from within its own ranks has more than justified itself. The official Congress made a poor show, both against the rebels and against the Communist Left. The Communist Party is known to be free from dishonest personal practices, although standing for total Statism and in league with dangerous external forces. It became also a party of martyrs kept in prison by Authority.
If the Kerala Congress joins up with the official Congress making a bargain over the distribution of offices, the revolt would become a politically purposeless drama and be a precedent for pure careerist rebellion. If the kerala Congress abstains from this and develops for itself a more realistic and sensible policy of economic growth than that of the official Congress and decides to stand apart, the revolt though confined to one State, will help national progress.
There is no force in claims put forward by the Congress Party on the basis of the percentage of votes polled in its favour, since the ruling party entered the contest in all the 133 constituencies whereas the communists contented themselves with less than three-fourths of the number. The votes polled for the defeated Congress candidates in all the constituencies go to swell the percentage.
Coming to the Swatantra performance in Kerala, it may look like unmitigated failure in the eyes of superficial observers and in the opinion of those who are not interested in anything but immediate results. The party offered its candidates only in fourteen constituencies out of a hundred and thirty-three. It did not enter the fray in the hope of winning many seats. It did not intend to weaken the Congress against the Communist Party or or help the latter to score over the Congress. It took a first, necessary though expensive step in the long road to presenting a third alternative to the voters of Kerala, who are divided into two main sections with two obsessing fears and are in an inextricable looking dilemma. One section would undertake no risks which may help the communists to win control or improve the chances for such a result. The other section would, for no reason whatsoever, undertake what may help the Congress to perpetuate its rule and would rather vote for the Communist Party than for a party for which it had learnt to have utter contempt. It is this dilemma between the Devil and the Deep Sea that has dominated Kerala politics. The Swatantra Party seeks to educate the people in the true principles of national welfare, in the need for increased production as well as the maintenance of the free way of life and the dignity of the individual as distinguished from the coercion and the ant-hill society for which communism and now Congress also stand.
The Swatantra Party lost all but one out of the fourteen seats it contested. But if we look at the pattern of this defeat, we can see how a small first step has been successfully achieved in dissolving the great dilemma in Kerala. The Swatantra Party’s campaign in Kerala is not merely a fight on two fronts, against communists, whose slogans continue to deceive the poor, as well as against the entrenched Congress Party canvassing on the strength of all that it can do for the people, or create an illusion of so doing, with government power and government money. It is not merely a campaign of education in the principles of national economy and politics; it is a fight against a pathological condition, an all-absorbing fear and aversion of one sort or the other, which leaves little room for reasoning or thinking, and much less for undertaking any risk.
Let us take three types of cases, first, where the Swatantra Party fared worst, next where it fared not so badly, and thirdly where it fared very well and came on top. Calicut I: The Communist Party came on top here with 27,671 votes and the Congress obtained an almost equal number (25,125 votes). The Swatantra Party could obtain only 491 voters to take the risk involved in cutting at the dilemma. This number could have been larger but for the Jan Sangh. Even 491 votes is not bad for a beginning. It is a small but good seed in the midst of the adverse overwhelming fear on either side. Another case of this type, where the Swatantra Party fared badly to all appearance (where the complication of other parties did not enter as in Calicut I), is Kilimanoor. The Communist Party came on top with 17,911 votes. The Congress came second with 17,567 votes. The Swatantra Party managed to secure 745 voters willing to steer clear of both Scylla and Charybdis. This little score good beginning.
Let us next take the medium-type. At Narakal where the chief of the Kerala Pradesh Congress himself stood in his own home-town he came on top with 24,713 votes. Yet the Left Communist Party scored 17,141 votes. The Indian National Congress chief Sri Kamaraj specially looked after this area. The Swatantra Party succeeded, in spite of all this, to secure 4,570 votes to make a dent on the dilemma. In Palghat, the Left Communist Party obtained 17,747 Votes and came on top beating the Congress Party’s candidate who got 13,260 votes. Here, too, the Jan Sangh took away 2,879 of the votes. Yet the Swatantra Party scored 5,279 votes which represents the number that had come to the Congress rule to an extent that made them take the risk involved in not voting for the Congress, viz., thereby giving a bigger chance to the grave danger—the Communist Party.
Lastly, let us see what happened in Poonjar. The Communist-backed Independent obtained nearly 15,000 votes, and the Congress candidate polled 6,210. The Swatantra Party candidate came on top, with very nearly 22,000 votes. The simultaneous battle in Kerala against the plain, what may even be called honest, totalitarianism of the Communist Party and against the Congress, which stands pledged to Statist economy which prevents free economic growth and puts all power in the hands of the party-bosses, breeding corruption of various kinds, is a hard, long complicated battle, calling not only for a strenuous programme of education of the voters in the principles of government and economic growth essential for general welfare, but also for inspiring the people with a spirit of courageous adventure in the triple cause: the cause of individual freedom, the cause of integrity in public affairs, and the cause of harmony in the place of ruinous class conflicts which both the Congress and communists work up. The battle in Kerala should not for ever continue to be a rivalry between a Statism that breeds dishonesties and political favouritisms and Communism which aims at total State power with secret external loyalties that are a danger to the security of India. The battle should be for honest government and a free economy which contributes to prosperity and happiness—which only the principles of the Swatantra Party can ensure. It is a long as well as a hard battle but it is one of those battles that must be fought; and fear being ultimately only an illusion, the battle may one day suddenly become swift and decisive.
