Reflections on the Eve of 80th Independence
Day: The Democracy Defiled
The
general election of 1951-52 was the first major test of political democracy in
the new Republic of India. India passed that test with high honours because of
benevolent leadership of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. India opted for
the Parliamentary democracy, the Cabinet system of government, based on the
British model. The Cabinet is responsible to the House of the People. It
functions on the principle of joint responsibility and remains in office as
long as it maintains the confidence of the House of the People.
Nehru’s Cabinet was surrounded by persons who did
not share his ideology. They were retained mostly out of a sense of loyalty to
old colleagues, persons who fought side by side for
Independence. Until the death of Sardar Patel on December 15, 1950,
Nehru and Patel made all the decisions of substance. The only other person,
whose counsel was regularly sought, was Maulana Azad, the dean of India’s
nationalist Muslims.
Nehru and Patel, known as Panditji and the Sardar
among friends, ruled India during the transition period from 1947 to
1950. No two leaders of any Asian nationalist movement in the 20th century
differed more than the duumvirs of the new India, in background, education,
temperament, ideology, sources of power, and qualities of leadership. According
to Michael Brecher, author of Nehru: A Political Biography, “The
two men did not get on well together and, the rivalry was genuine. Nehru often
felt that, Patel was trying to usurp his power; Patel was jealous of Nehru’s
prestige and popularity. Patel could have ousted Nehru from the Prime
Ministership; the party would have backed him. But a severe heart attack in
March 1948 ended the possibility of change.”
Following the assassination of Gandhi, Patel felt
guilty that as the Home Minister he failed to protect the Mahatma. There was
public demand for his resignation. On February 3,1948, taking moral
responsibility for security lapses, he wrote a letter to Nehru offering to
resign. Nehru persuaded him to stay, emphasizing on their need to work together
to build the nation. This what Nehru had said in his letter to Patel
written on the same day:
“When Bapu was alive, we had hoped to meet him
together and discuss various matters that had troubled us somewhat. Now, with Bapu’s death, everything is changed and
we have to face a different and more difficult world. It is over a quarter of a
century since we have been closely associated with one another and we have
faced many storms and perils together. Even our differences have brought out
the far greater points of agreement between us and the respect we bear to each
other. We have even learnt to differ and yet carry on together. In the crisis
that we have to face now after Bapu’s death I think it is my duty and, if I may
venture to say, yours also for us to face it together as friends and
colleagues...in full loyalty to one another and with confidence in each other.”
During its first decade, the functioning of the
Indian Parliament was remarkable. Despite the Congress majority, debates were
often vigorous, providing ample opportunity for the ventilation of grievances -
spirited Question Periods, Adjournment Motions, Halt-an-Hour Discussions, and
debates on Demands for Grants. The discussion of Bills brought out the main
issues and gave the Opposition an opportunity to express their views.
The experiment with the parliamentary democracy was
successful and parliamentary institutions were more firmly established in the
way of life of the Indian people than they were in many a European country.
This achievement owed to Nehru and to his pre-eminence in post-independence
India. He had declared his faith in the democratic process. He was present in
the House every day during the session. He was active during the debates. He
was tolerant and very courteous to the Opposition, and he encouraged them as he
tried to build up healthy parliamentary practices and conventions. His
pre-eminence could only be compared with that of Winston Churchill at
Westminster during the Second World War.
The Parliament in India was a symbol of the method
of government which Nehru tried to establish an instrument to educate those who
would wield power in the future. It was a unifying force, representing
different regions, castes, creeds, social and economic groups. Nehru
had fashioned the habit of looking to Parliament to solve disputes and to
reduce the divisions in Indian society, conflicts often operating at cross
purposes.
Nehru
offered to resign on a few occasions, only to withdraw under popular
demand. In April 1958, he wanted to relinquish his
office. He met President Rajendra Prasad and offered to resign. The
Congress party and the nation felt orphaned, and begged him to withdraw the
offer. The world leaders appealed to him to stay in Office at a crucial
juncture in history when his presence was most required for securing
international peace and cooperation. Eisenhower and Khruschev urged him not to
resign. The US President Eisenhower in his letter 5 April 1958, addressed to
Prime Miniter Nehru, wrote:
“I have just received news reports from New Delhi
that you are thinking of laying down your official and heavy responsibilities.
You, if anyone, Mr. Prime Minister, deserve a long and restful vacation after
all these years that you have guided your vast country toward economic,
political, and social progress. However, I and countless others hope that you
will not go too far away or for too long a time. Are there not at least faint
indications that the world may be at a turning point when some important problems
can be solved, when perhaps the sharpness of conflict between the Soviet Union
and the West may be sufficiently moderated to become tolerable. It would indeed
be a misfortune, perhaps for all of us, if at what may prove to be a critical,
formative period, your own influence were not actively present over any really
protracted period.”
Nehru wrote to Khruschev on
10 May:
“I was happy
to receive through your ambassador your letter and I am very grateful to you
for your personal interest and your good wishes. All I wished was to go away to some quiet place and have an
opportunity not only to rest but to think quietly about the many problems of
our country and the world. These problems are, as you well know, of vital
importance and, as I wish to utilise such energy as I have in serving my
country and the cause of world peace, I wanted to refresh myself, and my mind
especially, for these tremendous tasks. My colleagues, however, were insistent
that I should not resign even for a short while, and I have submitted to their
wishes.”
Nehru relented to the pressure
and withdrew the offer to resign.
This background is given to make
the detractors of the first Prime Minister of free India to understand what
Nehru meant to India and the world of his time, and how Nehru’s India is in
tatters today under the Modi Raj, and how the democracy that he built is
defiled. The Nehru’s golden era of democracy is being defamed and destroyed by
the people whose ancestors collaborated with the British, who never
participated in the freedom movement; nor believed in democracy and the
constitution of India.
All the democratic institutions
are captured: the Parliament, a temple of Democracy, is reduced to
heckling house ; the opposition not allowed to perform its legitimate role; no
dissent tolerated; the Presiding Officers failing to prevail on the government;
the Bills passed without discussion by bulldozing the
established procedures and conventions; the government choosing silence over a
plethora of burning national issues, toppling the elected governments and
engineering defections and splitting rival political parties, in gross
violation of the people’s mandate; the misusing
of central agencies and using coercive methods and money power; and
the election commission’ partisan role in preventing the vote theft to benefit
the ruling party - all these demonstrate the democracy defiling in
India.
Most importantly, the education,
the backbone of the nation building, has totally collapsed. The massive
privatisation of education has destroyed the future of the youth, Gen Z, the
middle class and the poor. The unemployment is all time high; 80% of unemployed
is in the 15-24 age group; 29% graduates find no jobs after spending lakhs of
rupees on education, their parents mortgaging land and taking loans; and as
large as 82% of workforce is employed in the unorganized informal sector.
Faced by uncertain bleak future
the students are forced on to the streets protesting against the political
ecosystem that doesn’t address their grievances. It is an expression of
collective anger against the system that failed them. The resignation of the
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan is an indication of the youth
power. Following the brutal crackdown on the protesting students on July 20,
the Modi government is resorting to witch-hunting to harass and coerce and
intimidate the students who took part in the protest.
Sonia Gandhi in an article An
education system’s collapse, young India’s trauma, The Hindu, July 24,2026
writes: “The Narendra Modi government has responded to their courage with
cowardice and wanton cruelty, treating them not as inheritors of the future but
as enemies of the nation. Only the government and its captive media
are spinning stories around this spontaneous rising tide of protest; unleased
the repressive power of the state on them.”
The first fundamental issue is
the Modi government’s retreat from public education. It has reduced the
proportion of its Budget spent on school education by 50% and on higher
education by 33%. Over the past 12 years, the Modi government has shut down nearly
one lakh public schools, while overseeing the opening of 43,000 private
schools- a large chunk of which are run by the RSS, which, along with its
affiliate organisations, presides over the largest private school network. Even
most of the Sainik Schools are run by them, thus indoctrinating and
politicising the future armed forces.
The impact of the shutdown of
government schools is devastating. They are the schools of the poor - SCs, STs
and the poorer strata of backward class communities. India is home
to 60% of the world’s below poverty in population, and it is their children who
need the government schools, if they have to see any future for them. What is
the meaning of democracy and its lofty ideals to these unfortunate people,
whose children are deprived and denied quality public
education?
As Sonia Gandhi says,” the cost
of pursuing a private education deters lakhs of talented students who come from
humble backgrounds but have immense potential. Equally critical is that these
expenses also put a crushing burden of impossibly high expectations on our
students. The acute desperation of our students is a direct consequence of the
privatisation and commercialization of education. The appointment of feckless
Vice-Chancellors chosen for their partisan loyalty, and the consequent
recruitment of politically connected but unqualified faculty,
has created a crisis in teaching in our public universities.”
The education system has become
increasingly expensive, prone to corruption, and difficult to succeed
in. The Modi government deliberately cleared the National Education
Policy 2020 without seeking consensus or subjecting it to parliamentary deliberations,
all the present evils in education system stemming from this arbitrary policy
decision.
And unless the present education
system is totally revamped and liberated from the clutches of the RSS – an
organisation whose ideology is inspired by Mussloni’s fascism and Hitler’s
Nazism - and its political ecosystem, and the public education is restored for
the children to have a safe and secure future, devoid of social and economic
discrimination, there is no future for India, and there can be no safety valve
for democracy.
The democracy defiling is a
symptom of an authoritarian regime. What could be more disgraceful than the
Home Miniter, fearing the opposition, refusing to come to parliament and make a
statement on the crackdown on the students, and the Prime Minister who thinks
that he is not accountable to parliament in a parliamentary democracy? It is
disrespect and insult to the nation and the people who elected them. Nowhere in
a democracy could Modis and Shahs survive in power.
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