I
appreciate very much the kind invitation of your Secretary to come and address
you this evening. I was hesitating to accept this invitation for two reasons. In
the first place, I can say very little which can bind the Government.
Secondly, I can say very little about Trade Unionism in which you are primarily
interested. I accepted the invitation because your Secretary would not take a
‘No’ from me. I also felt that this was probably the best opportunity I can
have to speak out my thoughts on Labour organization in India which have been
uppermost in my mind and which I thought may even interest those who are
primarily interested in Trade Unionism. The Government of human society120
has undergone some very significant changes. There was a time when the
government of human society had taken the form140 (1) of
autocracy by despotic rulers. This was replaced after a long and bloody
struggle by a system of government known as Parliamentary Democracy. It was
felt that this was the last word in the framework of government. It was
believed to bring about the millennium in which every human being will have the
right to liberty, property and pursuit of happiness. There were good grounds
for such high hopes. In Parliamentary Democracy, there is the Legislature to
express the voice of the people; there is the Executive which is subordinate to
the Legislature and bound to obey the Legislature. 240 Over and above the
Legislature and the Executive, there is the Judiciary to control both and keep
them both within prescribed limits. Parliamentary Democracy has all the marks
of a popular Government, a government of the people, by the people and280
for the people. It is therefore a matter of some (2) surprise that there
has been a revolt against Parliamentary Democracy although not even a century
has elapsed since its universal acceptance and inauguration. There is revolt
against it in Italy, in Germany, in Russia, and in Spain, and there are very
few countries in which there has not been discontent against Parliamentary
Democracy.
Why
should there be this discontent and dissatisfaction against Parliamentary
Democracy? It is a question worth considering. 360 There is no country
in which the urgency of considering this question is greater than it is in
India. India is negotiating to have Parliamentary Democracy. There is a great
need of someone with sufficient courage to tell Indians that Parliamentary
Democracy is not the best product, as it appeared to be. Why has Parliamentary
Democracy failed? In the420 country of the dictators it has failed
because it is a machine whose movements are very slow. It delays swift action.
In a Parliamentary Democracy the Executive may be held up (3) by the
Legislature which may refuse to pass the laws which the Executive wants, and if
it is not held up by the Legislature it may be held up by480 the Judiciary which
may declare the laws as illegal. Parliamentary Democracy gives no free hand to
Dictatorship, and that is why it is a discredited institution in countries like
Italy, Spain and Germany which are ruled by Dictators. If Dictators alone were
against Parliamentary Democracy, it would not have mattered at all.
Their testimony against Parliamentary Democracy would be no testimony at all. Indeed,
Parliamentary Democracy would be welcomed for the reason that it can be
an effective560 check upon Dictatorship. But unfortunately there is a
great deal of discontent against Parliamentary Democracy even in countries
where people are opposed to Dictatorship. That is the most regrettable fact
about Parliamentary Democracy. This is all the more regrettable because
Parliamentary Democracy has600 not been at a standstill. It has
progressed in (4) three directions. It has progressed by expanding the
notion of Equality of Political rights. There are very few countries having
Parliamentary Democracy which have not enforced adult suffrage.
It has recognized the principle of Equality of Social and Economic Opportunity.
It has recognised that the State cannot be held at bay by corporations which
are anti-social in their purpose. With all this, there is immense discontent
against Parliamentary Democracy even in countries pledged to Democracy. The
reasons for discontent in such countries must be different from those700
assigned by the dictator countries. There is no time to go into details. But it
can be said in general terms that the discontent720 against Parliamentary
Democracy is due to the realization that it has failed to assure to the masses
the right to liberty, property or the pursuit of happiness. If this is true, it
is important to know the causes which have brought about this failure. The
causes for this failure (5) may be found either in wrong ideology or
wrong organization, or in both. I think the causes are to be found in both. As
an illustration of wrong ideology which has vitiated Parliamentary Democracy, I
can only deal with two. I have no doubt that what has ruined Parliamentary
Democracy is the idea of freedom of contract. The idea became acceptable and
was upheld in the name of liberty. 840 Parliamentary Democracy took no notice
of economic inequalities and did not care to examine the result of freedom of
contract on the parties to the contract, should they happen to be unequal. It
did not mind if the freedom of contract gave the strong the opportunity to
defraud the weak. The result is that Parliamentary Democracy in standing out as
protagonist of Liberty has continuously added to the economic wrongs of the
poor and the oppressed. The second wrong ideology which has vitiated
Parliamentary Democracy is the failure to realize (6) that political
democracy cannot succeed where there is no social and economic democracy. Some
may question this proposition. To those who are disposed to question it, I will
ask a counter question. 960 Why did Parliamentary Democracy
collapse so easily in Italy, Germany and Russia? Why did it not collapse so easily980
in England and the USA? To my mind there is only one answer, namely, there was
a greater degree of economic and social democracy in the latter countries than
it existed in the former. Social and economic democracy are the tissues and the
fibre of a Political Democracy. The tougher the tissue and the fibre, the
greater the strength of the body. Democracy is another name for equality.
Parliamentary Democracy developed a passion for liberty. It never made an
agreeable contact with equality. It failed to realize the significance of
equality, and did not even endeavour to strike a balance between1080
Liberty and Equality, with the result that liberty (7) swallowed
equality and has left a progeny of inequities. I have referred to the wrong
ideologies which in my judgment have been responsible for the failure of
Parliamentary1120 Democracy. But I am equally certain
that more than bad ideology it has bad organization which has been responsible
for the failure of Democracy. All political societies get divided into two
classes— the Rulers and the Ruled. This is an evil. If the evil stopped here it
would not matter much. But the unfortunate part of it is that the division
becomes a stereotyped stratification, so much so that the Rulers are
always drawn from the Ruling Class and the class of the Ruled1200
never becomes the Ruling class. People do not govern themselves, they establish
a government and leave it to govern them, forgetting that it is not their
government. That being the situation. Parliamentary Democracy has never been a
government of the people or by the people, and that is why (8) it has
never been a government for1260 the people. Parliamentary Democracy,
notwithstanding the various equipments of a popular government, is in reality a
government of a hereditary subject class by a hereditary ruling class. It is
this vicious organization of political life which has made Parliamentary
Democracy such a dismal failure. It is because of this that Parliamentary
Democracy has not been able to realise the common man’ dream of liberty,
property and pursuit of happiness. The question is who is responsible for this.
There is no doubt that if Parliamentary Democracy has failed to benefit the
poor, the labouring and the oppressed classes, it is these classes who are
primarily responsible for it. In the first place, they have shown a most appalling
indifference to the effect of the economic factor in the making of men’s life.
Someone very recently wrote a book called the1400 (9) ‘The End
of Economic Man’. We cannot really talk of the End of the Economic Man for the
simple reason that the Economic Man was never born. The common retort to Karl Marx
that man does not live by bread alone is unfortunately a fact. 1440
The aim of civilization cannot be merely to fatten men as we do pigs. But we
are far off from that stage. The labouring class far from being fat like pigs
are starving, and one wishes that they thought of bread first and everything
else afterwards. Karl Marx propounded the doctrine of the Economic Interpretation
of History. A great controversy has raged over its validity. To my mind, Karl Marx
propounded it not as a doctrine, but as a direction to Labour that if Labour
cares to make its economic interests paramount, as the owning classes do,
history (10) will be a reflection of the economic facts of life more
than it has been. 1554
