SWATANTRA—AUGUST 2,
1947
MR. Casey, ex-Governor of Bengal, writes thus of Pandit
Nehru: “Next to Mr. Gandhi he is, without doubt, the most respected public
figure on the Congress side. And yet one hesitates to call him a popular
figure. He is reliably said to be intolerant of opposition, or even of critical
comment, even from his friends. It may be that, in spite of his many gifts,
this intolerance will make it difficult for him to command the full
co-operation and loyalty of his colleagues over a period of time.”
* * *
Intolerance of opposition is the new danger besetting
Congress leadership as it primes itself to get into the saddle as the ruling
party in the country. Hitherto a certain patriotic quality was inherent in the
position of the Congress as the dominant anti-imperialist organization. The
whole world loves patriots. That is why scoundrels put on the guise of patriots
to win the world’s regard which otherwise they have no means of getting at, and
we have an adage like, Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. But
whatever the motive, patriotism, in the context of a struggle for national
liberation, levels up those who go in for it, into action and behavior calling
for hardihood and sacrifice. As the Congress came to be recognized as the main
party pledged to the attainment of national liberation, the stamp of Congress
membership sufficed as a hallmark of patriotism. Irrespective of personal
qualities, the very jailors of Congress prisoners, paid slaves of the imperial
power, looked upon their charges with respect as their potential deliverers and
were correspondingly crest-fallen if not conscience-stricken over their own
vocation. There were few among those at large that were not a little shamefaced
over their enjoyment of liberty while the patriots of the Congress were under
incarceration.
* * *
With the withdrawal of British power, the whole of the
vantage position of a fighting party credited with patriotic fervour, is lost
to the Congress, as it were overnight. There is no longer a foreign power to
fight with, in the old form of occupational Government. Other tests of
patriotism are urgently needed. What shall they be? All the confusions and
conflicts now being witnessed are at bottom a sign of multifarious
interpretation of the true content of patriotism in the true content of
patriotism in the changed circumstances of the moment, with no longer an
external authority to contend with.
* * *
The struggle for new definitions has begun among the
Congressmen themselves, but the boundaries of the struggle do not fall within
the Congress organization, the whole of our public life is contained in them.
It must be said that in the matter of overt behaviour at least, the minorities have
begun to play their part handsomely. Mark Qhalikuzza-man, one of the fathers
of the Pakistan movement, saluting the Union Flag! The majorities, feeling
their power, are attempting to set themselves up as the sovereign authority in
the State, and for the time being, the power of majority organization is being
developed on communal lines and nowhere so markedly as in the Congress itself,
notwithstanding the professed non-communal objective of Congress politics all
these years. The League and the British have between them communalized the
Congress. Attempts towards a new equilibrium based on the decommunalisation of
public life through administrative flat, are being reported from C.P. and U.P.
But their influence has left the Southern Presidency unaffected. Just as, in
Pakistan, the rule of the League is being shaped into a communal Muslim rule,
here in Madras the rule of the Congress is being shaped, not into a Hindu rule
but into a communal non-Brahmin rule.
* * *
Muslim rule in Pakistan will be popular with Muslims so long
as the emotional satisfaction of communal authority over an excluded class like
Hindus, suffices for the Muslim majority. But no emotion, however pleasant, can
take the place of food, and the struggle of the hungry against any rule denying
them food and a fair share of the good things of life, is bound before long to
assert itself, gathering allies from all communities. Disparity between the
rich and the poor is the eventual cause of every variety of disturbance leading
society to chaos and bloodshed, and though communalism of one sort or another
may for a while veil its true character, it cannot take the place of a helpful
lasting remedy for it. Hatred doctrines sand exclusive appropriations of power
and its benefits cannot create the atmosphere of mass goodwill necessary for
the stability of any State. Widespread prosperity alone can do it. With freedom
won, the mass distribution of prosperity, in place of the present privation, is
the proper objective that should engage the ambitions of the public-spirited,
and in the new setting, the type of patriots needed for leadership are neither
the honoured fighters of the Congress in the independence struggle, nor
opportunist communalists seeking to rouse the ignorant passions of the
multitude against particular sects to make careers for themselves,-- as the
Nazis under Hitler sought to rouse the passions of the Germans against the
Jews,--but intelligent and constructive planners for an economy of plenty
impervious to exploitation by monopolist profit-seekers. The test of the new
democracy is that none that is a citizen should be excluded from any of its
benefits. The danger it has to overcome is that of majority tyranny. Its
freedom should be freedom for all who do not endanger others’ freedom.—(August
2, 1947) S A K A.
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