We Abhor Slavery

The cause of individual freedom, occupational and psychological liberty, is at the base of the Swatantra Party’s principles. It is at the base of human happiness. National freedom becomes a sapless thing if there is no happiness resulting from it. If the citizens do not feel free from the sense of oppression Caused by an external will imprisoning and suppressing their own will, national freedom is a delusion, not something real and enjoyed but only something spoken and written about. The battle for freedom that is yet to be won is as great as the battle for national freedom that was fought and won fifteen years ago.

We got national Freedom in 1947, but since 1954 we have been losing our freedoms one by one, although they were all engrossed in our Charter in 1950. The control of the State is necessary for ordered existence; but it should be limited, not totalitarian. It should leave enough room for the play of the Will of the citizen in his own personality so that the control of the State would be felt as a mechanism for automatic social welfare and not as a tyranny. But if control becomes the rule and freedom the rare exception the position is reversed. A sense of tyranny becomes the general condition, and freedom is only a leave-and-licence exception threatened at any moment to be terminated by an external will, as external as a foreign government.

This is not theory or argument, but a statement as true as any physiological law. Liberty is felt in the bone of every sentient civilized being. We are not wild beasts captured and ordained to live in the cages of somebody’s zoo; we are free human beings living in voluntary co-operation as a nation. The system of government under which we live can make the one into the other.

The cause of emancipation from State socialism is a great cause, not a mere political cliche. The obverse of individual freedom, viz., self-control and respect for the moral laws governing social life should not, however, be forgotten. The obverse of Swatantra consists of the duties that arise out of freedom and is given the name of Dharma in the Hindu tradition; it is called the principle of trusteeship in Gandhiji’s discourses. The legitimate claim to be free carries with it obligations of social justice. This should be wrought into the internal sense and conscience of the individual. Every one should consider himself a trustee of that share of God’s benefits that come to him. He is a trustee for those around him and the discharge of the obligations of that trusteeship should form his spiritual happiness. It is, therefore, a way of life, as much a way of life as State control is a way of slavery. Tena tyaktena bhunjeethaa and Maa grdhahkasya swid cihanam of the Isa Upanishad go together and summarize the Swatantra way of life and happiness.

It is not in self-consumption that happiness lies. It lies in expanding one’s possessions as far as possible in helping others. Work and earn—you cannot escape this law of life on earth— and spend what you earn as far as you can for helping those under your immediate care, and those others for whom you are a trustee by reason of the benefits you derive from living in co-operation with them. Not compulsory labour such as we enforce from bullocks and gelded horses, but voluntary and free service—and plenty of it, so as to make it the very atmosphere of national life—this is what makes national happiness. This moral obligation is the obverse of the freedom embodied in the Swatantra creed.

The exploitation of the wealthy and Powerful resulted in man trying the opposite way, viz., State-control of all life under {he dictatorship of the ‘proletariat’. But the proletariat’ cannot itself dictate—except during brief periods of disorder; it hands over the dictation to individuals of their choice, and their dictatorship soon becomes intolerable tyranny and extinction of freedom, taking civilization back to slavery. Humanity cannot agree to become and live from generation to generation like gelded horses and castrated bullocks. Therefore, we must live a way of life wherein service is linked to free will. Strange and over-much of a simplification as it may appear to be, this is what is denoted by the word Dhanna in Hindu tradition and by corresponding words in other great religions. The specific freewill-duties of the citizen in relation to those around him, the Tamil saint and law-giver Tiruvalluvar called by the name Oppuravu, a word that has been confusing commentators, but which is just Dharma on the social and political plane.

The compulsive force that brings about the performance of these duties is what the classic jurist Austin called public morality as distinguished from law. The room for disobedience that morality as distinguished from law leaves to the citizen is just what makes obedience an act of free will. The obedience thus obtained makes, in the long run, for better fulfilment and for more effective utilization of the benefit of the service for the good of the people than what is extorted by law and punishment for failure. More charitable foundations came into being in India and other countries under the pressure of Dharma and public opinion than by command of law. The opinion of good men makes up public morality; the decision of men going by the name of law is quite often felt to be unworthy of obedience and evaded in a hundred ways.

We abhor slavery. The younger generation in present day India would love to live the life of voluntary dedication that Swatantra stands for. There is nothing to prevent them from openly standing up for it as the national goal in opposition to State Capitalism and State Control which are the Congress Government’s present disastrous policy. And if the young declare for it, there is nothing in the world to stand in the way.