Part 3
It should commence its work for the year, by a clearer declaration of rights of the different communities in India under the Swaraj Government. So far as the Hindus and Mahomedans are concerned, there should be a clear and emphatic confirmation of what is known as the Lucknow pact and along with that there should be an emphatic insistence of each others' rights. And each should be prepared to undergo some kind of sacrifice in favour of the other. Let me give an instant to make my meaning clear. Every devout Mussalman objects to any music in front of a mosque and every devout and orthodox Hindu objects to cows being slaughtered. May not the Hindus and Mussalmans of India enter into a solemn pact so that there may not be any music before any mosque and that no cows may he slaughtered? Other instances may be quoted. There should be a scheme of a series of sacrifices to be suffered by each community so that they may advance shoulder to shoulder in the path of Swaraj. As regards the other communities such as Sikhs, Christians and Parsees, the Hindus and Mohamedans who constitute the bulk of the people should be prepared to give them even more than their proportional share in the Swaraj administration, I suggest that the Congress should bring about real agreement between all these communities, by which the rights of every minority should be clearly recognised in order to remove all doubts which may arise and all apprehensions which probably exist. I need hardly add that I include among Christians not only pure Indians but also Anglo-Indians and other people who have chosen to make India their home. Such an agreement as I have indicated was always necessary but such an agreement is specially necessary in view of the work which faces us to-day.
FOREIGN PROPAGANDA
I further think that the policy of exclusiveness which we have been following during the last two years be now abandoned. There is in every country a number of people who are selfless followers of liberty and who desire to see every country free. We can no longer afford to lose their sympathy and co-operation. In my opinion there should be established Congress agencies in America and in every European country. We must keep ourselves in touch with the world's movements and be in constant communication with the lovers of freedom all over the world.
THE GREAT ASIATIC FEDERATION
Even more important than this is the participation of India in the great Asiatic Federation which I see in the course of formation. I have hardly any doubt that the Pan-Islamic movement which was started on a somewhat narrow basis has given way or is about to give way to the great Federation of all Asiatic people. It is the union of the oppressed nationalities of Asia. Is India to remain outside the union? I admit that our freedom must be won by ourselves, but such a bond of friendship and love of sympathy and co-operation between India and the rest of Asia, nay between India and all the liberty-loving people of the world is destined to bring about World Peace. World Peace, to my mind, means the freedom of every nationality and I go further and say that no nation in the face of the earth can be really free when other nations are in bondage. The policy which we have hitherto pursued, was absolutely necessary for the concentration of the work which we took upon ourselves to perform and I agreed to that policy whole-heartedly. The hope of the attainment of Swaraj or a substantial basis of Swaraj in the course of the year made such concentration absolutely necessary. To-day that very work demands broader sympathy and a wider outlook.
DEMANDS FOR PUNJAB WRONGS, KHILAFAT AND SWARAJ
We are on the eve of great changes, and the world-forces are upon us. The victory of Kemal Pasha has broken the bonds of Asia and she is all astir with life. It is Prometheus who spoke within her, and 'her thoughts' are like the many forests of vale through which the might of whirlwind and rain had passed. The stir within every European country for the real freedom of the people has also worked a marvellous transformation in the mentality of subject races. That which was more or less a matter of Ideal has now come within the range of practical politics. The Indian nation has found out its bearings. At such a time as this it is necessary for us to reconsider and to restate our demands. Our demands regarding the Punjab wrongs have got to be restated because many of them have already been realised. Our demands regarding Khilafat have got to be reconsidered, because some of them have already been worked out and we hope that before Lausanne Commission has finished their work very little of it will remain unrealised. Our demand for Swaraj must now be presented in a more practical shape. The Congress should frame a clear scheme of what we mean by a system of government which may serve as a real foundation for Swaraj. Hitherto, we have not defined any such system of Government. We have not done so advisedly as it was on the psychological aspect of Swaraj that we concentrated our attention. But circumstances to-day have changed. The desire is making us impatient. It is therefore the duty of the Congress to place before the Country a clear scheme of the system of Government which we demand. Swaraj, as I have said, is indefinable and is not to be confused with any particular system of Government. Yet the national mind must express itself, and although the full outward expression of Swaraj covers the whole life history of a nation, the formulation of such a demand cannot be any further delayed.
SCHEME OF A GOVERNMENT
It is hardly within the province of this address to deal with any detail scheme of any such Government. I cannot, however, allow this opportunity to pass without giving you an expression of my opinion as to the character of that system of Government. No system of Government which is not for the people and by the people can even be regarded as the true foundation of Swaraj. I am firmly convinced that a parliamentary Government is not a government by the people and for the people. Many of us believe that the middle class must win Swaraj for the masses. I do not believe in the possibility of any class movement being ever converted into a movement for Swaraj. If to-day the British Parliament grants Provincial autonomy in the provinces with responsibility in the Central Government, I for one, will protest against, because that will inevitably lead to the concentration of the power in the hands of the middle class. I do not believe that the middle class will then part with their power. How will it profit India, if in place of the White Bureaucracy that now rules over her, there is substituted an Indian Bureaucracy of the middle classes. Bureaucracy is Bureaucracy and I believe that the very idea of Swaraj is inconsistent with the existence of a Bureaucracy. My ideal of Swaraj will never be satisfied unless the people co-operate with us in its attainment. Any other attempt will inevitably lead to what European Socialists call the "Bourgeoise" Government. In France and in other European countries it is the middle class who fought the battle of freedom and the result is that power is still in the hands of this class. Having usurped the power they are unwilling to face with it. If to-day the whole Europe is engaged in a battle of real freedom it is because the nations of Europe are gathering their strength to wrest this power from the hands of the middle classes. I desire to avoid repetition of that chapter of European history. It is for India to show the light to the world, Swaraj by Non-violence and Swaraj by the people.
To me the organisation of village life and the practical autonomy of small local centres are more important than either provincial autonomy or central responsibility; and if the choice lay between the two, I would unhesitatingly accept the autonomy of the local centres. I must not be understood as implying that the village centres will he disconnected units. They must be held together by a system of co-operation and integration. For the present, there must be power in the hands of the provincial and the Indian Government; but the ideal should be accepted once for all, that the proper function of the central authority, whether in the provincial or in the Indian Government is to advise, having a residuary power of control only in case of need and to be exercised under proper safeguard. I maintain that real Swaraj can only be attained by vesting the power of Government in these local centres, and I suggest that the Congress should appoint a Committee to draw up a scheme of Government which would be acceptable to the Nation.
The most advanced thought of Europe is turning from the false individualism on which European culture and institutions are based to what I know to be the ideal of the ancient village organisation of India. According to this thought modern democracy of the ballot box and large crowds has failed, but real democracy has not yet been tried. What is the real democracy of modern European thought?
The foundation of real democracy must be laid in small centres--not gradual decentralisation which implies a previous centralisation--but a gradual integration of the practically autonomous small centres into one living harmonious whole. What is wanted is a human state, not a mechanical contrivance. We want the growth of institutions and organisations which are really dynamic in their nature and not the mere static stability of a centralised state.
This strain of European thought found some expression in the philosophy of Hegel according to whom "human institutions belong to the region not of inert externality, but of mind and purpose and are therefore dynamic and self-developing."
Modern European thought has made it clear that from the individual to the "unified state," it is one continuous process of real and natural growth. Sovereignity (Swaraj) is a relative notion. "The individual is sovereign over himself"--attains his Swaraj "in so far as he can develop control and unify his manifold nature." From the individual we come to the integrated neighbourhood which is the real foundation of the unified State, which again in its turn gives us the true ideal of the world-state. This integrated neighbourhood is a great deal more than the mere physical contiguity of the people who live in the neighbourhood area. It requires the coalition of what has been called "neighbourhood consciousness." In other words, the question is "how can the force generated by the neighbourhood life become part of our whole critic and national life?" It is this question which now democracy takes upon itself to solve.
The process prescribed is the generation of the collective will. The democracy which obtains to-day rests on an attempt of securing a common will by a process of addition. This really means a war of wills, the issue being left to be decided by a mere superiority of numbers. New democracy discountenances this process of addition, and insists on the discovery of detailed means and methods by which the different wills of a neighbourhood entity may grow into one common collective will. This process is not a process addition but of integration and the consciousness of the neighbourhood thus awakened must express the common collective will of that neighbourhood entity. The collective will of several neighbourhood centres, must by a similar process of integration be allowed to evolve the Common collective will of the whole nation. It is only thus, by a similar process of integration that any league of nations may be real and the vision of a world state may be realized. The whole of this philosophy is based on the idea of the evolution of the individual. The idea is to "release the powers of the individual." Ordinary notions of state have little to do with true individualism, (_i. e._) with the individual as consciously responsible for the life from which he draws his breath and to which he contributes his all. According to this school of thought 'Representative government, party organisation, majority rule, with all their excrescences in their stead must appear the organisation of non-partisan groups for the begetting, the bringing into being of common ideas, a common purpose and the collective will.' This means the true development and extension of the individual self. The institutions that exist to-day have made machines of men. No Government will be successful, no true Government is possible which does not rest on the individual. "Up to the present moment," says the gifted authoress of the New State, "we have never seen the individual yet. The search for him has been the whole long striving of our Anglo-Saxon history. We sought to improve the method of representation and failed to find him. We sought to reach him by extending the suffrage to every man and then to every woman and yet he eludes us. Direct Government now seeks the individual." In another place the same writer says; "Thus group organisation releases us from the domination of mere numbers, thus democracy transcends time and space. It can never be understood except as a spiritual force. Majority rule rests on numbers; democracy rests on the well-grounded assumption that society is not a collection of units, but a network of human relations. Democracy is not worked out at the polling booths, it is the bringing forth of a genuine collective will, one to which every single being must contribute the whole of his complex life, as one which every single being must express the whole of it at one point. Thus the essence of democracy is creating. The technique of democracy is group organization." According to this school of thought no living state is possible without the development and the extension of the individual self. The State itself is no static unit. Nor is it an arbitrary creation. "It is a process; a continual self-modification to express its different stages of growth in which each and all must be so flexible that continual change of form is twin fellow of continual growth." This can only be realised when there is a clear perception that individuals and groups and the nation stand in no antithesis. The integration of all these into one conscious whole means and must necessarily mean the integration of the wills of individuals into the common and collective will of the entire nation.
The general trend of European thought has not accepted the ideal of this new democracy. But the present problems which are agitating Europe seem to offer no other solution. I have very little doubt that this ideal which appears to many practical politicians as impracticable will be accepted as the real ideal at no distant future. "There is little yet," I again quote from the same author, "that is practical in practical politics."
The fact is that all the progressive movements in Europe have suffered because of the want of a really spiritual basis and it is refreshing to find that this writer has seized upon it. So to those who think that the neighbourhood group is puny to serve as a real foundation of self-Government, she says, "is our daily life profane and only so far as we rise out of it do we approach the sacred life? Then no wonder politics are what they have become. But this is not the creed of men to-day; we believe in the sacredness of life; we believe that divinity is for ever incarnating in humanity, and so we believe in Humanity and the common daily life of all men."
There is thus a great deal of correspondence between this view of life and the view which I have been endeavouring to place before my countrymen for the last 15 years. For the truth of all truths, is that the outer Leela of God reveals itself in history. Individual Society, Nation, and Humanity are the different aspects of that very Leela and no scheme of self-Government which is practically true and which is really practical can be based on any other philosophy of life. It is the realisation of this truth which is the supreme necessity of the hour. This is the soul of Indian thought, and this is the ideal towards which the recent thought of Europe is slowly, but surely, advancing.
To frame such a scheme of Government regard must therefore be had:--
1. To the formation of local centres more or less on the lines of the ancient village system of India.
2. The growth of larger and larger groups out of the integration of these village centres.
3. The unifying state should be the result of minor growth.
4. The village centres and the larger groups must be practically autonomous.
5. The residuary power of control must remain in the Central Government, but the exercise of such power should be exceptional and for that purpose proper safeguards should be provided, so that the practical autonomy of the local centres may be maintained and at the same time the growth of the Central Government into a really unifying state may be possible. The ordinary work of such Central Government should be mainly advisory.
As a necessary corollary to what I have ventured to suggest as the form of Government which we should accept, I think that the work of organising these local centres should be forthwith commenced. The modern sub-divisions or even smaller units may be conveniently taken as the local centres, and larger centres may be conveniently formed. Once we have our local areas--"the neighbourhood group"--we should foster the habit of corporate thinking, and leave all local problems to be worked out by them. There is no reason why we should not start the Government by these local centres to-day. They would depend for their authority on the voluntary co-operation of the people, and voluntary co-operation is much better than the compulsory co-operation which is at the bottom of the Bureaucratic rule in India. This is not the place to elaborate the scheme which I have in mind; but I think that it is essentially necessary to appoint a Committee with power, not only to draw up a scheme of Government but to suggest means by which the scheme can be put in operation at once.
BOYCOTT OF COUNCILS
The next item of work to which I desire to refer is the Boycott of Councils. Unhappily the question has become part of the controversy of Change or No change. To my mind the whole controversy proceeds on a somewhat erroneous assumption. The question is not so much as to whether there should be a change in the programme of the work; the real question is, whether it is not necessary now to change the direction of our activities in certain respects for the success of the very movement which we hold so dear. Let me illustrate what I mean. Take the Bardoli Resolution. In the matter of boycott of schools and colleges the Bardoli Resolution alters the direction of our activity, which does not in any way involve the abandonment of the boycott. During the Swaraj year the idea was to bring the students out of Government schools and colleges, and if National schools were started they were regarded as concessions to the "weakness" of those students. The idea was, to quote the words of Mahatma Gandhi, "political" and not "educational." Under the Bardoli Resolution, however, it is the establishment of schools and colleges which must be the main activity of national education. The idea is "educational" and if it still be the desire of the Congress to bring students out of Government schools and colleges, it is by offering them educational advantages. Here the boycott of schools and colleges is still upheld, but the direction of our activities is changed. In fact, such changes must occur in every revolution, violent or non-violent, as it is only by such changes that the ideal is truly served.
In the next place, we must keep in view the fact that according to the unanimous opinion of the members of the Enquiry Committee, Civil Disobedience on a large scale is out of question because the people are not prepared for it.
I confess that I am not in favour of the restrictions which have been put upon the practical adoption of any system of civil disobedience, and in my opinion, the Congress should abolish those restrictions. I have not yet been able to understand why to enable a people to civilly disobey particular laws, it should be necessary that at least 80 per cent. of them should be clad in pure "Khadi". I am not much in favour of general Mass Civil Disobedience. To my mind, the idea is impracticable. But the disobedience of particular laws which are eminently unlawful, laws which are the creatures of "Law and Order," laws which are like an outrage on humanity and an insult to God ... disobedience of such laws is within the range of practical politics, and, in my opinion, every attempt should be made to offer disobedience to such laws. It is only by standing on truth that the cause of Swaraj may prevail. When we submit to such laws, we abandon the plank of truth. What hope is there for a nation so dead to the sense of truth as not to rebel against lawless laws, against regulations which insult their national being and hamper their national development?
I am of opinion that the question of the boycott of Councils which is agitating the country so much must be considered and decided in the light of the circumstances I have just mentioned. There is no opposition in idea between such civil disobedience as I have mentioned and the entry into the Councils for the purpose and with the avowed object of either ending or mending them. I am not against the boycott of Councils. I am simply of opinion that the system of the Reformed Councils with their steel frame of the Indian Civil Service covered over by a dyarchy of deadlocks and departments is absolutely unsuitable to the nature and genius of the Indian nation. It is an attempt of the British Parliament to force a foreign system upon the Indian people. India has unhesitatingly refused to recognise this foreign system as real foundation for Swaraj. With me, as I have often said, it is not a question of more or less; I am always prepared to sacrifice much for a real basis of Swaraj, nor do I attach any importance to the question as to whether the attainment of full and complete independence will be a matter of 7 years or 10 years or 20 years. A few years is nothing in the life history of a nation. But I maintain India cannot accept a system such as this as a foundation of Swaraj. These Councils must therefore be either mended or ended. Hitherto we have been boycotting the Councils from outside. We have succeeded in doing much. The prestige of the councils is diminished and the country knows that the people who adorn those chambers are not the true representatives of the people. But though we have succeeded in doing much, these Councils are still there. It shall be the duty of the Congress to boycott the councils more effectively from within. Reformed councils are really a mask which the Bureaucracy has put on. I conceive it to be our clear duty to tear this mask from off their face. The very idea of boycott implies, to my mind, something more than mere withdrawal. The boycott of foreign goods means that such steps must be taken that these councils may not be there to impede the progress of Swaraj. The only successful boycott of these councils is either to mend them in a manner suitable to the attainment of Swaraj or to end them completely. That is the way in which I advise the nation to boycott the councils.