By the same author

Awadh in Revolt, 1857-58: A Study of Popular Resistance

Spectre of Violence: e 1857 Kanpur Massacres
Mangal Pandey: Brave Martyr or Accidental Hero?
e Penguin Gandhi Reader (editor)
India: en and Now (co-author)
Trade and Politics in the Indian Ocean World: Essays in Honour
of Ashin Das Gupta (co-editor)
RANDOM HOUSE INDIA
 Published by Random House India in 2011

Introduction and introductory notes © Rudrangshu Mukherjee 2007

Introductory notes to speeches by Mani Shankar Aiyar,
André Béteille, Somnath Chatterjee, Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan
and Aruna Roy © Rudrangshu Mukherjee 2011

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 For
Shobita

‘To talk and laugh, and to do each other kindnesses; to read pleasant books
together; to pass from lightest jesting to talk of deepest things and back
again: to differ without rancour, to teach each other and to learn from each
other; these proceeding from our hearts as we gave affection and received it
back, and shown by face, by voice, by the eyes, and by a thousand other
pleasing ways, kindled a flame.’
 Contents

Introduction

Part One
1880s–1947

e opening of the Indian National Congress (1885)

 1.
WOMESH CHANDRA BONERJEE

One country, two nations (1888)

 2.
SYED AHMED KHAN

On the inauguration of the Muslim League (1906)

 3.
MUSHTAQ HUSSAIN

On conserving ancient monuments (1900)

 4.
LORD CURZON

Game preservation in India (1901)

 5.
LORD CURZON

Sisters and brothers of America (1893)

 6.
SWAMI VIVEKANANDA

How and why I adopted the Hindu religion (1902)

 7.
SISTER NIVEDITA (1867–1911)

At Benares Hindu University (1916)

 8.
MOHANDAS KARAMCHAND GANDHI
 9. Freedom is my birthright (1917)
BAL GANGADHAR TILAK

e trial speech (1922)

10.
MOHANDAS KARAMCHAND GANDHI

e dangerous cult of absolute non-violence (1940)

11.
V.D. SAVARKAR

Purna Swaraj (1929)

12.
JAWAHARLAL NEHRU

At the second Round Table Conference (1931)

13.
MOHANDAS KARAMCHAND GANDHI

e Muslims of India (1930)

14.
MUHAMMAD IQBAL

e death of God (1933)

15.
M. SINGARAVELU

Crisis of civilization (1941)

16.
RABINDRANATH TAGORE

Give me blood and I promise you freedom! (1944)

17.
SUBHAS CHANDRA BOSE

e great Calcutta killings (1946)

18.
SHYAMAPROSAD MOOKERJEA

Opening address to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan (1947)

19.
MUHAMMAD ALI JINNAH

e dawn of freedom (1947)

20.
SARVEPALLI RADHAKRISHNAN

Tryst with destiny (1947)

21.
JAWAHARLAL NEHRU
Part Two
1947–2007

e light has gone out (1948)

22.
JAWAHARLAL NEHRU

My father, do not rest (1948)

23.
SAROJINI NAIDU

Why I killed Gandhi (1949)

24.
NATHURAM GODSE

Closing speech of the first Constituent Assembly of India (1949)

25.
B.R. AMBEDKAR

Temples of the new age (1954)

26.
JAWAHARLAL NEHRU

Power (Calcutta, November 1954)

27.
S.N. BOSE

On the Five-Year Plans (1955)

28.
JAWAHARLAL NEHRU

e Hindu Code Bill (1955)

29.
J.B. KRIPALANI

e Kashmir issue (1952)

30.
SHYAMAPROSAD MOOKERJEA

Tibet (1959)
31.
ATAL BIHARI VAJPAYEE

A myth (1968)
32.
J.R.D. TATA

e presidential system (1968)

33.
J.R.D. TATA
34. Importance of NGOs (1969)
JAYAPRAKASH NARAYAN

I have come to serve you (1969)

35.
KHAN ABDUL GHAFFAR KHAN

Tragedy in Bangladesh (1971)

36.
INDIRA GANDHI

Proclamation of Emergency (1975)

37.
INDIRA GANDHI

Speech in the Lok Sabha on the President’s address (1976)

38.
SOMNATH CHATTERJEE

e education of a filmmaker (1982)

39.
SATYAJIT RAY

Lowering the voting age to eighteen (1988)

40.
RAJIV GANDHI

Panchayati raj (1989)

41.
RAJIV GANDHI

Present economic situation (1991)

42.
MANMOHAN SINGH

e future of Indo-US relations (1994)

43.
P.V. NARASIMHA RAO

Why Ayodhya is a setback (1992)

44.
L.K. ADVANI

e fatwa (1993)
45.
SALMAN RUSHDIE

Survival and Right to Information (1996)

46.
ARUNA ROY
 47. On Founder’s Day (1992)
VIKRAM SETH

Doon School Founder’s Day address (2007)

48.
MANI SHANKAR AIYAR

Our culture, their culture (1995)

49.
AMARTYA SEN

Renunciation (2004)
50.
SONIA GANDHI

On Jinnah (2005)
51.
L.K. ADVANI

In Lahore (1999)
52.
ATAL BIHARI VAJPAYEE

e viable university (2010)

53.
ANDRÉ BÉTEILLE

Rekindling a spark of enthusiasm (1982)

54.
J.R.D. TATA

Sources
Acknowledgements
 Preface to the Paperback Edition

e fact that this book is going in for a paperback edition is ample proof
that people are interested in reading speeches. One reason for this is that
the text of a speech helps to capture a slice of history even though the
speech-making aspects are lost in the written word. For this edition, I have
corrected a few errors that were brought to my notice. More importantly, I
have added five more speeches to the original. Two out of the five that have
been added are previously unpublished and I am deeply grateful to Aruna
Roy and Mani Shankar Aiyar for allowing me to read these speeches and
for the permission to print them.
October 2010 Rudrangshu Mukherjee
Introduction

‘For last year’s words belong to last year’s language

And next year’s words await another voice…
…Since our concern was speech, and speech impelled us
To purify the dialect of the tribe
And urge the mind to aftersight and foresight…’
T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding

Speeches are meant to be spoken—and heard. For this reason, a speech is

fundamentally different from other forms of written text, for it is not simply
dependent on the words alone—though they are the vital components of a
good speech—but on certain other skills to do with voice and even gesture.
A good orator brings to a speech something more persuasive and moving
than the power of the written word and these qualities often prove to be
ephemeral, losing something of themselves in printed form. But there are
certain speeches that retain their emotive charge. ink of Abraham
Lincoln’s Gettysburg address and those words—‘government of the people,
by the people and for the people’—which have become the most quoted
definition of democracy. Or think of Winston Churchill’s memorable
speeches during the Second World War. At the time they were made,
Churchill’s speeches roused the British people and sustained their morale
during their darkest hour. Even today, they make stirring reading and so
many of the phrases and sentences that he used have become part of the
English language. is book brings together some of the speeches made in
India, from the end of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the
twenty-first, which retain their power as written texts.
One reason these speeches speak to us across time and without the
oratorical skills of their authors is that most of them were actually written
up before they were delivered. ere are exceptions, of course. Witness the
h h J h l l N h d h f J
speech that Jawaharlal Nehru made in the evening of January 30, 1948,
immediately after Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination. He was totally
unprepared but his heart dictated the right words. It was one of the great
impromptu speeches of modern Indian history. But for most of the speeches
in this collection, the words were carefully chosen and the cadences of
sentences measured to achieve maximum effect. e most famous example
of this is another of Nehru’s speeches, the one he made at midnight August
14–15, 1947. e phrase, ‘tryst with destiny’, which Nehru coined has
earned for itself an undying quality.
ere are some speeches, however, that have a charge not because of their
language but because of the sheer enormity of the occasion on which they
were made. e speech made in 1885 by W.C. Bonerjee, as the first
president of the Indian National Congress on its opening session is
enshrined in India’s historical memory. Similarly, Indira Gandhi’s short and
severe announcement in June 1975—that India has been put under
Emergency—is a speech that stands as a reminder of the only period in
which democracy was suspended in independent India. In these cases the
occasion made history; the speech is an expression of the making.
e finest speeches in this anthology marry style and context: they are
beautiful and capture a mood or a moment of history. A good example is
the statement Mahatma Gandhi made from the dock at his trial in 1923. It
was a speech made in court and Gandhi did not allow his passion to
overrun the restraint that the location naturally imposed on him. Even
today the speech can be read as a perfect summary of Gandhi’s creed of
non-violence. But there are also a few speeches which have been included in
the anthology simply because they read so well. I didn’t have to include the
final speech in this anthology—made by J.R.D. Tata on the occasion of his
solo flight from Karachi to Bombay in 1982—but have done so because of
its great charm, style and poignancy. Here is a sprightly seventy-eight year
old admonishing the younger generation for being too preoccupied with
their careers and hoping ‘that when they are seventy-eight…they will feel
like I do, that despite all the difficulties, all the frustrations, there is a joy in
having done something as well as you could and better than others thought
you could.’
is book is split into two sections with August 15, 1947, acting as the
dividing line. e first part begins in the late nineteenth century and ends

h I d ’ d d  d l d h d f
with India’s independence. e second includes speeches made after
independence right up to present times. Within these two broad divisions,
the chronological sequence has been broken and the speeches have been
arranged to enable a retelling of the history of modern India with the
speeches as a convenient, if unusual, access to that story.
e first section recounts India’s struggle for independence. e great
turning point in this struggle was the establishment of the Indian National
Congress, the political party that was at the forefront of the Indian national
movement. e anthology, thus, opens with the inaugural speech of the
INC. e journey towards freedom was marked by many such milestone
speeches. One of the most memorable of these was the declaration made by
Bal Gangadhar Tilak on behalf of all subject people: ‘Swaraj is my
birthright.’ Tilak spoke as an old man to the youth of India at a time when
the Swadeshi movement was failing and Extremists and Moderates in the
Congress party had split. Tilak articulated the desire of all subjugated
people and his words, imbued with rare power, transcended all factions.
A key actor—many would argue the principal one—in the theatre of swaraj
was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi who brought to the freedom
movement the message of nonviolence and transformed the Congress to
enable it to become a mass-based party capable of mobilizing millions.
Gandhi was not an orator in the traditional sense of the term, but he was a
persuasive speaker with a gift for words. His speeches drew their power
from the depth of his commitment. But Gandhi’s commitment to non-
violence was not without opposition. V.D. Savarkar—a powerful orator—
expressed his disagreement with Gandhi’s doctrine of non-violence. It was a
speech later to be used by Nathuram Godse, Gandhi’s assassin, in his trial.
ere was opposition to the Congress and to Gandhi from other quarters as
well. Subhas Chandra Bose, like Savarkar, could not accept Gandhi’s
overwhelming emphasis on nonviolence. He left the Congress fold and
tried to force the British out of India during World War II through an
armed invasion with the aid of the Japanese. Opposition to the Congress
also grew out of the perception among certain sections of educated Indian
Muslims that the Congress spoke only for the Hindus. e idea that
Muslims in India represented a nation within a nation was expressed in
many speeches—from Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan’s in the late nineteenth
century to Iqbal’s in the 1930s, to the speeches of Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
ese ideas led to the creation of Pakistan and Jinnah’s opening speech to
h Pk C A bl h I
the Pakistan Constituent Assembly is its apotheosis. It remains a
memorable speech, remarkable in the vision of a secular state that it
presented.
e growth of nationalism is never a mere political phenomenon. Political
self-assertion is predicated upon cultural pride. Some of the speeches
presented here capture India’s cultural awakening, a process that was
integral to India’s attaining freedom and nationhood. As an expression of
this pride, Vivekananda’s speech in Chicago has seldom been excelled. Here
was an unknown monk, dressed in saffron robes, who rose to speak of the
universal values of faith and tolerance against the rising tide of bigotry and
fanaticism. He spoke as the representative of a proud and ancient
civilization ‘which has taught the world tolerance and universal acceptance.’
ere was more than a hint of self-confidence and superiority in
Vivekananda’s address. It epitomized the spirit of resurgent India. Romain
Rolland was to compare his stirring words to the music of Beethoven and
Handel.
Inspiration for this pride could come from unusual quarters. Lord Curzon
made Indians aware of their archaeological heritage and, more importantly,
gave it institutional form. Jawaharlal Nehru would say of him that, ‘after
every other Viceroy has been forgotten, Curzon will be remembered
because he restored all that was beautiful in India.’ e speeches of Curzon
included here show him to be a man of foresight. In a country that had
little or no awareness of conservation, Curzon spoke of India’s rich
architectural heritage and the need to preserve her ancient monuments. It is
ironic that the most imperial of the Indian viceroys unwittingly contributed
to India’s cultural—and thus political—awakening. Margaret Noble, known
as Sister Nivedita, spoke to Indian women of their unique lineage. Hers was
an unusual speech since she spoke to Indian women self-consciously as a
white woman who had embraced India and Hinduism. She appealed to her
Indian sisters to reject the lure of western fashion and extravagance and to
cultivate the ‘reverential humility’ which she said was an essential part of
Indian femininity.
Implicit in Sister Nivedita’s autobiographical speech was the bigger theme
concerning the cultural encounter between India and the West. is theme
became the subject of Rabindranath Tagore’s last public statement in 1941,
e Crisis of Civilization. e initial enthusiasm for Western culture and

l h h d d d f d I d ’ ll
civilization that had inspired and formed India’s growing intelligentsia
during the nineteenth century had dwindled by the outbreak of the Second
World War. ere was the increasing awareness that the cultural exchange
between India and the West could not be seen as being unrelated to
questions of power and colonial domination. While Tagore voiced the
anguish as early as 1941, one of his admirers, the economist Amartya Sen
confronted the issue of power in this context in his Satyajit Ray Memorial
Lecture delivered in Calcutta in the late 1990s. Ray himself came to these
problems almost instinctively when he spoke of his own craft of film-
making in the early 1980s. Ray was a wonderful speaker. His voice was a
rich baritone and his English accent—picked up from the BBC radio,
which he listened to as a young man—was impeccable. But even without
the aid of his voice and accent, the speech remains a superb one. Elegantly
written, it explains complex ideas about cinema and Ray’s vision with
deceptive simplicity.
One individual who had in his own unique way resolved the problems
surrounding the cultural interaction between India and Europe, had been
Gandhi. When asked what he thought of European civilization, he had
retorted that it would be a very good idea. His vision of India was based on
a complete rejection of all that was modern and therefore derived from the
West. Perhaps it was fitting that he died soon after India attained
independence since the free state of India turned its back on most of
Gandhi’s ideals while paying lip service to him as father of the nation.
While Nehru made his ‘tryst with destiny’ speech, Gandhi, shunning the
celebrations, fasted in a slum in east Calcutta. August 15, 1947, was not the
tryst Gandhi had made with destiny. He was murdered by a Hindu fanatic,
Nathuram Godse, who believed that India should become a powerful and
modern state. Godse has become a pariah in Indian history. What this has
obscured is the eloquent speech he had made as a condemned man at his
trial. e second section of this book begins with Gandhi’s death since it
inaugurated, in many ways, a new era for India.
Having overcome the trauma of Gandhi’s murder, India, the fledgling
nation, turned towards building a modern polity, economy and society. e
Constituent Assembly, the forum where many fine speeches were made,
provided the framework of parliamentary democracy. e chairman of the
drafting committee, B.R. Ambedkar, captured in his closing speech of the
first assembly both the profound solemnity of the occasion and the
bl h h d d l d h l d f h bl N
responsibilities that had devolved on the leaders of the new republic. No
leader was more aware of these responsibilities than Nehru. He embodied
in his personality, his policies, the qualities of his leadership and above all in
his speeches the hopes and aspirations of independent India. As the first
Prime Minister, he was responsible for making democracy in India robust
and viable, and for endowing the nation with a set of modern institutions.
e 1950s were Nehru’s golden years, and it can be said without any undue
exaggeration that his voice became the voice of India. He spoke for the
nation and to the nation. Nehru was no demagogue but he had the ability
to inspire, to capture the imagination of the nation. He had the rare gift of
choosing the right words for an occasion. Only he could fuse together
tradition and modernity by describing the Bhakra Nangal dam and other
similar projects as the temples of the new India.
e passing away of Nehru closed a chapter in the annals of India’s
contemporary history. e style of the speeches, too, changed. Nehru and
his contemporaries—and almost certainly the generation preceding him—
had all written their own speeches. is cannot be said for the politicians of
the post-Nehru era. Most, if not all, the major political figures from Indira
Gandhi onwards had their own team whose members worked on the
speeches and wrote them. Indian political leaders were part of a global
trend. None of the great orators, during the Second World War and the
period preceding it, employed speechwriters. Churchill wrote his own
speeches and rehearsed them again and again. In the House of Commons,
he was, as his biographer, Roy Jenkins, has remarked, ‘always a very note-
bound speaker’. Across the Atlantic, President Roosevelt, it is recorded,
took four hours to write his 1933 inaugural speech. Harking further back in
time, it is inconceivable that the great orators in British parliament—
Edmund Burke, Gladstone, Lloyd George—would allow someone else to
write the speeches that they would deliver. John F. Kennedy was perhaps
the first leading political figure to work with speechwriters. His first
speechwriter was eodore Sorensen who instructed the young president to
follow Lincoln’s Gettysburg address as a model. Speech writing for
Kennedy became a major operation with men like John Kenneth Galbraith,
Adlai Stevenson, Arthur Schlesinger and others being solicited for drafts
and suggestions. e age of the speechwriter had arrived. e age of the
spin-doctors was not far away.

I I d l h ld h d I h
In Indian politics, speechwriters are seldom seen or heard. It is thus never
possible to know who exactly wrote a particular speech and the historian is
forced to move from the realm of record to that of rumour. At various
points of time, P.N. Haksar, Ashok Mitra, and P.N. Dhar wrote Indira
Gandhi’s important speeches. But the person who wrote the most number
of speeches for Indira Gandhi was probably Sharda Prasad who also
performed the same service for Rajiv Gandhi. Sharda Prasad was once
asked why he, who had seen two prime ministers at such close quarters, did
not write his memoirs. He reportedly quipped, ‘a man can become a ghost,
but a ghost cannot become a man.’
e dependence on speechwriters may have had something to do with a
change in the style of politics, but what is certain is that the quality of the
speeches underwent a radical transformation. e speeches became more
matter of fact. ose who have heard Indira Gandhi speak will agree that
her speeches were not short on power but it came from her voice
modulation and the passion she could bring to her speeches when the
occasion demanded. e power of her speeches, thus, was not derived from
the power of words. is was even more true of her son Rajiv Gandhi who,
when he first came to public life, was a very poor speaker. He faltered,
despite the best efforts of his closest friends, some of whom, the rumour
goes, often wrote his speeches. But Rajiv Gandhi brought to Indian politics
a freshness that was often reflected in what he said.
e subject of the speeches in the post-Nehru epoch also underwent a
change. Political leaders tended to concentrate more on governance and
administration rather than on issues of nation-building which had provided
the theme of some of Nehru’s best speeches. Indira Gandhi did occasionally
stray to the problems of the environment or the changing role of women in
Indian society, but these performances, when read today, appear a trifle
lacklustre. In fact, the best speeches of the post-Nehru era came from
people who were far away from politics. Two of these—one by Amartya Sen
and the other by Satyajit Ray—have already been mentioned. Two others
need to be noted. Vikram Seth’s speech was addressed to schoolchildren, a
group that remains out of the focus of public life and debate, even though
the children represent the future of India. Admittedly, Seth was speaking to
the boys of India’s most elite school but the candid description of the
unhappiness he felt at school and his advice to students, ever so gently
imparted, will chime with many.
I d h O f h bl h
India is a new nation with an ancient past. One of the problems that
continues to elude Indian public life is the way that past can be linked to
the present. e usual tendency is to either ignore the past or to glorify it.
In his speech on Gautama Buddha, Gopal Gandhi speaks directly to
Tathagata with the angst and the anguish of the present. Gautama’s
sufferings and his own mode of coping with them acquire in Gopal
Gandhi’s crie de coeur, a poignant contemporary resonance.
ere is one aspect without which any discussion of the speeches would be
incomplete. is is the technological dimension. In the late nineteenth
century, speeches were delivered without the aid of microphones. A
booming voice was a necessary requirement for a good orator. e coming
of the microphone was a major development since the smallest change in
tone and voice modulation would now get magnified many times over. e
next technological advance was even more significant for public speakers.
Over the wireless, speeches were carried across to millions. Indira Gandhi’s
speeches on Bangladesh and on the declaration of the Emergency were
delivered over the radio. e impact of both was electrifying though in
different ways. One boosted the morale of the nation and the other spread
fear and apprehension. e coming of radio also meant that speeches were
recorded for posterity. e advent of television took this forward: not only
was the voice captured but every gesture, grimace and smile was captured on
camera. ere can be no doubt that these developments have made speech-
givers more self-conscious. ese technological developments, more
importantly, have also enriched the archive of history. Science did not have
the means of recording the gestures that Vivekananda had made during his
Chicago address or the pitch that Tilak’s voice had registered when he
spoke of swaraj but today television footage can tell us exactly what Sonia
Gandhi did when she spoke of the dictates of her inner voice.
An inescapable risk in preparing and editing a volume such as this one is
the problem of choice and selection. e process is invariably subjective.
e subjectivity is always tempered, however, by the knowledge of what one
has not chosen. e plea of ignorance takes care of one part of the problem,
the easier part in fact. I am sure there exist speeches of which I am unaware
and therefore I have not included in this volume. But there are other
speeches and other orators I know about that are absent from this volume.
One significant absence is speeches made by communist leaders. Hiren
Mukerji, for example, was a formidable orator. But many of his memorable
h d h f l d
speeches were made impromptu in the course of election campaigns and are
thus lost to history. e speeches he made in the Lok Sabha—his debate
with C.D. Deshmukh in Sanskrit has become the stuff of Lok Sabha lore—
somehow, to this editor, did not carry the same power as texts to be read.
is is also partially true of another Mookerjea—Shyamaprosad—who, it is
said, made even Nehru quake whenever he spoke in the Lok Sabha. But
while reading the many interventions he made in parliament, his speeches
did not convey to me the emotions that he obviously invoked when he
spoke.
ere is obviously a shadow between the power of oratory and the power of
a text when it is read by subsequent generations. A distinction needs to be
made between great speakers and great speeches. Great speakers do not
always make great speeches. e yardstick for judging the latter is whether
the words retain their power with the passing of time. Nehru was not a
great orator in the traditional sense of the term, his voice was not loud and
words did not come in a torrent as they do with great orators, he did not
pause for effect but he made many memorable speeches and coined phrases
that have become part of the nation’s vocabulary. We do not know if
Vivekananda was a great orator but reading his Chicago address after more
than one hundred years is still a stirring experience. Orators like Hiren
Mukerji and Shyamaprosad Mookerjea, or to take another example, Tulsi
Goswami (known in his time as the Demosthenes of Bengal) moved people
by their rhetoric but not all their speeches when read today convey the same
power. ere is a disjunction somewhere between the power of speech when
heard and the power of words when read. In this collection, for obvious
reasons, the emphasis has been on the latter.
Another problem in the selection process has been language. India had
many powerful orators who spoke in their mother tongues—Atal Bihari
Vajpayee is an obvious example. In this volume, I have included some
translated speeches, but only where official and approved translations exist.
Some of Vajpayee’s gems, unfortunately, have not fallen into this net. I am
also aware that there are some important occasions that threw up speeches,
which have not been presented in this collection. Readers will, I am sure,
notice these and accept that this after all is a personal selection. e best
that an editor can do is to appeal to the conscientious reader in the words of
the greatest speech-maker in literature, ‘and after we will both our
judgments join.’
 Part 1
1880s–1947
‘Freedom is my birthright. So long as it is awake within me, I am not old.
No weapon can dry this spirit, no fire can burn it, no water can wet it, no
wind can dry it.’
BAL GANGADHAR TILAK
e opening of the Indian National Congress
(Bombay, December 1885)
WOMESH CHANDRA BONERJEE (1844–1906)

By the 1880s, English educated Indians had formed themselves into two
political camps. One around Surendranath Banerjea in Calcutta, and
another around Alan Octavian Hume in Bombay. In 1885 Hume
summoned the Indian National Congress in Bombay and W.C. Bonerjee, a
highly successful barrister-at-law in Calcutta, was made the first president.
Bonerjee was so anglicized that he had changed his family name, Banerjee.
He later went to live and die in London, but wanted his last rites to be
performed in Benares. His great rival in Calcutta politics was Surendranath,
who could not attend the Congress because he received the invitation too
late. Surendranath organized the Indian National Conference, which was
merged with the Congress the next year at Hume’s behest. ere was, in
these initial years, a great deal of tension between the Bengal and Bombay
delegates of the Congress. e former were not prepared to join, in the
words of one member, ‘in the role of the hubble-bubble bearer (hukka-
bardar) of anybody else.’ e aims and demands of the early Congress were
moderate but its significance lay in the fact that it was the first all-India
body established to articulate the grievances and demands of Indians. e
Congress confined itself, in its early years, to petitioning the government to
reform its un-British character by ending economic exploitation and racial
discrimination. In this opening address, the message of loyalism stands out
—the Congress was happy to be Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition. Yet the
Congress within a few years would spearhead the Indian national
movement.

I fi f h h d ll
It seems a fitting occasion for answering a question that had continually
been asked in the outside world during the past few weeks, namely, what
the objects and aims of this great national Congress really were. I would not
pretend to reply to this question exhaustively. e ensuing proceedings
would, I believe, do this more effectively than any single speaker could hope
to; but I may say briefly, that the objectives of the Congress could for the
most part be classified under the following heads:
(a) e promotion of personal intimacy and friendship amongst the more
earnest workers who further our country’s cause in the different parts of the
Empire.
(b) e eradication, by direct, friendly personal intercourse, of all possible
race, creed, or provincial prejudices amongst all lovers of our country, and
the fuller development and consolidation of those sentiments of national
unity that had their origin in their beloved Lord Ripon’s most memorable
reign.
(c) e authoritative record has been carefully elicited by the fullest
discussion of the matured opinions of the educated classes in India on some
of the more important and pressing social questions of the day.
(d) e determination of the lines upon, and methods by which, during the
next twelve months, it is desirable for native politicians to labour in the
public interest.
Surely there is nothing in these objects to which any sensible and
unprejudiced man could possibly take exception to. Yet, on more than one
occasion remarks have been made by gentlemen, who should have been
wiser, condemning the proposed Congress as if it was a nest of conspirators
and disloyalists. Let him say once and for all, and this I know well after the
long informal discussion we had among ourselves the previous day, that I
am expressing the sentiments of every gentleman present, that there are no
more thoroughly loyal and consistent well-wishers of the British
government than myself and the friends around me. In meeting to discuss
in an orderly and peaceable manner questions of vital importance affecting
our wellbeing, we are following the only course by which the Constitution
of England enables us to represent our views to the ruling authority. Much
has been done by Great Britain for the benefit of India and the entire
country is truly grateful to her for it. She has given us order, she has given
us railways, and above all, she has given us the inestimable blessing of
W d B d l ll b d 
Western education. But a great deal still remains to be done. e more
progress the people make in education and material prosperity, the greater
would be the insight into political matters and the keener our desire for
political advancement. I think that our desire to be governed according to
the principles prevalent in Europe is in no way incompatible with our
loyalty to the British government. All that we desire is that the basis of the
government be widened and that the people should have their proper and
legitimate share in it. e discussion that will take place in this Congress
will, he believed, be as advantageous to the ruling authorities as, I am sure it
will be, to the people at large.
One country, two nations (Meerut, March 1888)
SYED AHMED KHAN (1817–1898)

e founding of the Indian National Congress had an immediate response

from the Muslims. Men like Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, a Delhi-born
employee of the British government who rose to the position of a
subordinate judge and in 1875 founded the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental
College at Aligarh, saw the Congress as a body dominated by educated
Hindus. Muslims had been slow to take to English education and this set
them apart from those who were active in the Congress. Sir Syed argued
that Muslims in India had their own identity and that their interests would
be better served by cultivating the friendship of the British rather than
allying themselves with the INC. is was the first time that this
standpoint—that the Indian Muslim’s interests were separate from those of
the Hindus—was publicly voiced and it would continue to be raised until
Partition.

I think it expedient that I should first of all tell you the reason why I am
about to address you on the subject of to-night’s discourse. You know,
gentlemen, that, from a long time, our friends, the Bengalis have shown
very warm feelings on political matters. ree years ago they founded a very
big assembly, which holds its sittings in various places, and they have given
it the name ‘National Congress.’ We and our nation gave no thought to the
matter. And we should be very glad for our friends the Bengalis to be
successful if we were of opinion that they had by their education and ability
made such progress as rendered them fit for the claims they put forward.
But although they are superior to us in education, yet we have never
d d h h h h d h l l h h h l l h
admitted that they have reached that level to which they lay claim to have
attained. Nevertheless, I have never, in any article, or in any speech, or even
in conversation in any place, put difficulties or desired to put difficulties in
the way of any of their undertakings. It has never been my wish to oppose
any people or any nation who wish to make progress, and who have raised
themselves up to that rank to which they wish to attain and for which they
are qualified. But my friends the Bengalis have made a most unfair and
unwarrantable interference with my nation, and therefore it is my duty to
show clearly what this unwarrantable interference has been, and to protect
my nation from the evils that may arise from it. It is quite wrong to suppose
that I have girded up my loins for the purpose of fighting my friends the
Bengalis: my object is only to make my nation understand what I consider
conducive to its prosperity. It is incumbent on me to show what evils would
befall my nation from joining in the opinions of the Bengalis: I have no
other purpose in view.
e unfair interference of these people is this—that they have tried to
produce a false impression that the Mohammedans of these Provinces agree
with their opinions. But we also are inhabitants of this country, and we
cannot be ignorant of the real nature of the events that are taking place in
our own North-West Provinces and Oudh, however their colour may be
painted in newspapers, and whatever aspect they may be made to assume. It
is possible that the people of England, who are ignorant of the real facts,
may be deceived on seeing their false representations, but we and the people
of our country, who know ‘all the circumstances’, can never be thus imposed
on. Our Mohammedan nation has hitherto sat silent. It was quite
indifferent as to what the Babus of Bengal, the Hindus of these Provinces,
and the English and Eurasian inhabitants of India might be doing. But they
have now been wrongly tampering with our nation. In some districts they
have brought pressure to bear on Mohammedans to make them join the
Congress. I am sorry to say that they never said anything to those people
who are powerful and are actually Raises and are counted the leaders of the
nation; but they brought unfair pressure to bear on such people as could be
subjected to their influence. In some districts they pressed men by the
weight of authority, in others they forced them in this way, saying, the
business they had at heart could not prosper unless they took part—or they
led them to suppose that they could not get bread if they held aloof. ey
even did not hold back from offering the temptation of money. Where is
h h d k h Wh d k h h h
the man that does not know this? Who does not know who were the three
or four Mohammedans of the North-West Provinces who took part with
them, and why they took part? e simple truth is they were nothing more
than hired men. (Cheers) Such people they took to Madras, and having got
them there, said:
‘ese are the sons of Nawabs, and these are Rais of such-and-such
districts, and these are such-and-such great Mohammedans,’ whilst
everybody knows how the men were bought. We know very well the people
of our own nation, and that they have been induced to go either by pressure,
or by folly, or by love of notoriety, or by poverty. If any Rais on his own
inclination and opinion joins them, we do not care a lot. By one man’s
leaving us our crowd is not diminished. But this telling of lies that their
men are landlords and Nawabs of such-and-such places and their attempt
to give a false impression that the Mohammedans have joined them, this is
a most unwarrantable interference with our nation. When matters took
such a turn, then it was necessary that I should warn my nation of their
misrepresentations in order that others should not fall into the trap; and
that I should point out to my nation that the few who went to Madras,
went by pressure, or from temptation, or in order to help their profession,
or to gain notoriety, or were bought. (Cheers) No Rais from here took part
in it.
is was the cause of my giving a speech at Lucknow, contrary to my wont,
on the evils of the National Congress; and this is the cause also of today’s
speech. And I want to show this that except Badruddin Tyabji who is a
gentleman of very high position and for whom I have great respect, no
leading Mohammedan took part in it. He did take part, but I think he
made a mistake. He has written me two letters, one of which was after the
publication of my Lucknow speech. I think that he wants me to point out
those things in the Congress which are opposed to the interests of
Mohammedans in order that he may exclude them from the discussion. But
in reality the whole affair is bad for Mohammedans. However, let us grant
that Badruddin Tyabji’s opinion is different from ours; yet it cannot be said
that his opinion is the opinion of the whole nation, or that his sympathy
with the Congress implies the sympathy of the whole community. My
friend there, Mirza Ismail Khan, who has just come from Madras, told me
that no Mohammedan Rais took part in the Congress. It is said that Prince
Humayun Jah joined it. Let us suppose that Humayun Jah, whom I do not
k k ll ff l
know, took part in it, yet our position as a nation will not suffer simply
because two men stand aside. No one can say that because these two Rais
took part in it therefore the whole nation has joined it. To say that the
Mohammedans have joined it is quite wrong and is a false accusation
against our nation. If my Bengali friends had not adopted this wrong course
of action, I should have had nothing to do with the National Congress, nor
with its members, nor with the wrong aspirations for which they have raised
such an uproar. Let the delegates of National Congress become the stars of
heaven, or the sun itself—I am delighted. But it was necessary and
incumbent on me to show the falsity of impression which, by taking a few
Mohammedans with them by pressure or by temptation, they wished to
spread that the whole Mohammedan nation had joined them. (Cheers)
Gentlemen, what I am about to say is not only useful for my own nation,
but also for my Hindu brothers of these provinces, who from some wrong
notions have taken part in this Congress. At last they also will be sorry for
it, although perhaps they will never have occasion to be sorry; for it is
beyond the region of possibility that the proposals of the Congress should
be carried out fully. ese wrong notions which have grown up in our
Hindu fellow-country-men, and on account of which they think it
expedient to join the Congress, depend upon two things.
e first thing is that they think that as both they themselves and the
Bengalis are Hindus, they have nothing to fear from the growth of their
influence. e second thing is this: that some Hindus—I do not speak of all
the Hindus but only of some—think that by joining the Congress and by
increasing the power of the Hindus they will perhaps be able to suppress
those Mohammedan religious rites which are opposed to their own, and, by
all uniting, annihilate them. But I frankly advise my Hindu friends that if
they wish to cherish their religious rites they can never be successful in this
way. If they are to be successful, it can only be by friendship and agreement.
e business cannot be done by force; and the greater the enmity and
animosity the greater will be their loss. I will take Aligarh as an example.
ere Mohammedans and Hindus are in agreement. e Dushera and
Moharrum fell together for three years, and no one knows what took place.
It is worth notice how, when an agitation was started against cow-killing,
the sacrifice of cows increased enormously, and religious animosity grew on
both sides, as all who live in India know well. ey should understand that
those things which can be done by friendship and affection cannot be done
b f If h d h h I h d b h
by any pressure or force. If these ideas which I have expressed about the
Hindus of these Provinces be correct and their condition be similar to that
of the Mohammedans, then they ought to continue to cultivate friendship
with us. Let those who live in Bengal eat up their own heads. What they
want to do, let them do it. What they don’t want to do, let them not do it.
Neither their disposition nor their general condition resembles that of the
people of this country. en what connection have the people of this
country with them? As regards Bengal, there is, as far as I am aware in
Lower Bengal, a much larger proportion of Mohammedans than Bengalis.
And if you take the population of the whole of Bengal, nearly half are
Mohammedans and something over half are Bengalis. ose
Mohammedans are quite unaware of what sort of thing the National
Congress is. No Mohammedan Rais of Bengal took part in it; and the
ordinary Bengalis who live in the district are also as ignorant of it as the
Mohammedans. In Bengal the Mohammedan population is so great that if
the aspirations of those Bengalis who are making so loud an agitation be
fulfilled, it will be extremely difficult for the Bengalis to remain in peace
even in Bengal. ese proposals of the Congress are extremely inexpedient
for the country which is inhabited by two different nations, who drink from
the same well, breathe the air of the same city, and depend on each other for
its life. To create animosity between them is good neither for peace, nor for
the country, nor for the town.
After this long preface I wish to explain what method my nation, nay, rather
the whole people of this country, ought to pursue in political matters. I will
treat in regular sequence of the political questions of India, in order that you
may have full opportunity of giving your attention to them. e first of all is
this—in whose hands shall the Administration and the Empire of India
rest? Now, suppose that all the English and the whole English army were to
leave India, taking with them all their cannons and their splendid weapons
and everything, then who would be rulers of India? Is it possible that under
these circumstances two nations—the Mohammedans and the Hindus—
could sit on the same throne and remain equal in power? Most certainly
not. It is necessary that one of them should conquer the other and thrust it
down. To hope that both could remain equal is to desire the impossible and
the inconceivable. At the same time you must remember that although the
number of Mohammedans is less than that of the Hindus, and although
they contain far fewer people who have received a high English education,
h b d d fi k P b bl h ld
yet they must not be considered insignificant or weak. Probably they would
be by themselves enough to maintain their own position. But suppose they
were not. en our Musalman brothers, the Pathans, would come out as a
swarm of locusts from their mountain valleys, and make rivers of blood to
flow from their frontier on the north to the extreme end of Bengal.
is thing—who, after the departure of English would be conquerors—
would rest on the will of God. But until one nation had conquered the
other and made it obedient, peace cannot reign in the land. is conclusion
is based on proofs so absolute that no one can deny it. Now, suppose that
the English are not in India and that one of the nations of India has
conquered the other, whether the Hindus the Mohammedans, or the
Mohammedans the Hindus. At once some other nation of Europe, such as
the French, the Germans, the Portuguese, or the Russians, will attack India.
eir ships of war, covered with iron and loaded with flashing cannons and
weapons, will surround her on all sides. At that time who will protect India?
Neither Hindus can save nor Mohammedans; neither the Rajputs nor my
brothers the Pathans. And what will be the result? e result will be this—
that foreigners will rule India, because the state of India is such that if
foreign powers attack her, no one has the power to oppose them. From this
reasoning it follows that of necessity an empire, not of any Indian race, but
of foreigners, will be established in India. Now, will you please decide which
of the nations of Europe you would like to rule over India? I ask if you
would like Germany, whose subjects weep for heavy taxation and the
stringency of their military service? Would you like the rule of France?
Stop! I fancy you would, perhaps, like the rule of the Russians, who are very
great friends of India and of Mohammedans, and under whom the Hindus
will live in great comfort, and who will protect with the tenderest care the
wealth and property which they have acquired under English rule?
(Laughter) Everybody knows something or other about these powerful
kingdoms of Europe. Everyone will admit that their governments are far
worse, nay, beyond comparison worse, than the British Government. It is,
therefore, necessary that for the peace of India and for the progress of
everything in India the English Government should remain for many years
—in fact for ever!
When it is granted that the maintenance of the British Government, and of
no other, is necessary for the progress of our country, then I ask whether
there is any example in the world of one nation having conquered and ruled
h d h d l h h
over another nation, and that conquered nation claiming it as a right that
they should have representative government? e principle of representative
government is that it is government by a nation, and that the nation in
question rules over its own people and its own land. Can you tell me of any
case in the world’s history in which any foreign nation after conquering
another and establishing its empire over it has given representative
government to the conquered people? Such a thing has never taken place. It
is necessary for those who have conquered us to maintain their empire on a
strong basis. When rulers and ruled are one nation, representative
government is possible. For example, in Afghanistan, of which Amir Abdur
Rahman is the ruler, where all the people are brother-Afghans, it might be
possible. If they want they can have representative government. But to think
that representative government can be established in a country over which a
foreign race rules, is utterly vain, nor can a trace of such a state of things be
discovered in the history of the world. erefore to ask that we should be
appointed by election to the Legislative Council is opposed to the true
principles of government, and no government whatever, whether English or
German or French or Russian or Musalman, could accept this principle.
e meaning of it is this: ‘Abandon the rule of the country and put it in our
hands.’ Hence, it is in no way expedient that our nation should join in and
echo these monstrous proposals.
e next question is about the budget. ey say: ‘Give us power to vote on
the budget. Whatever expenses we may grant shall be granted, whatever
expenses we do not grant shall not be granted.’ Now, consider to what sort
of government this principle is applicable. It is suited to such a country as
is, according to the fundamental principles of politics, adapted also for
representative government. e rulers and the ruled must be of the same
nation. In such a country the people have also the right of deciding matters
of peace and war. But this principle is not adapted to a country in which
one foreign race has conquered another. e English have conquered India
and all of us along with it. And just as we made the country obedient and
our slave, so the English have done with us. Is it then consistent with the
principles of empire that they should ask us whether they should fight
Burma or not? Is it consistent with any principle of empire? In the times of
the Mohammedan empire, would it have been consistent with the
principles of rule that, when the Emperor was about to make war on a
Province of India, he should have asked his subject-peoples whether he
h ld h Wh h ld h h k d Sh ld
should conquer that country or not? Whom should he have asked? Should
he have asked those whom he had conquered and had made slaves and
whose brothers he also wanted to make his slaves? Our nation has itself
wielded empire, and people of our nation are even now ruling. Is there any
principle of empire by which rule over foreign races may be maintained in
this manner?
e right to give an opinion on the budget depends also on another
principle, which is this: that in a country in which the people accept the
responsibility for all the expenses of government, and are ready with their
lives and property to discharge it—in such a country they have a right to
give their opinion on the budget. ey can say, ‘undertake this expense or
leave that alone.’ And whatever the expense, it is then their duty to pay it.
For example, in England in a time of necessity the whole wealth and
property of everyone, from the Duke to the cobbler, is at the disposal of the
government. It is the duty of the people to give all their money and all their
property to the government, because they are responsible for giving
government all that it may require. And they say: ‘Yes, take it! Yes, take it.
Spend the money. Beat the enemy. Beat the enemy.’ ese are conditions
under which people have a right to decide matters about the budget. e
principle that underlies the Government of India is of a wholly different
nature. In India, the Government has itself to bear the responsibility of
maintaining its authority and it must, in the way that seems to it fittest,
raise money for its army and for the expense of the empire. Government has
a right to take a proportion of the produce of the land as land-revenue, and
is like a contractor who bargains on this income to maintain the empire. It
has not the power to increase the amount settled as land-revenue. However
great its necessity, it cannot say to the Zamindars: ‘Increase your
contribution.’ Nor do the Zamindars think that, even in a time of necessity,
government has any right to increase its fixed tax on land. If at this time
there were a war with Russia, would all the Zamindars and Taluqdars be
willing to give double their assessment to government? ey would not give
a pice more. en what right have they to interfere and say: ‘So much
should be spent and so much should not be spent?’ e method of the
British Government is that of all kings and Asiatic empires. When you will
not, even in time of war, give a pice more of your land-revenue, what right
have you to interfere in the budget?

 l f h b d E h
e real motive for scrutinizing the budget is economy. Economy is a thing
of such a nature that everyone has a regard for it in his household
arrangements. It is a crude notion that government has no regard for
economy and squanders its money. Government practices economy as far as
possible. Our government is so extremely miserly that it will not uselessly
give anyone a single pice. Until great necessity arise and great pressure is
brought to bear on it, it will not spend a pice. It has completely forgotten
the generosity of the former emperors. e kings of later times presented
poets and authors with estates and lakhs of rupees. Our government does
not spend a pice in that way. What greater economy can there be than this?
Instead of rewards it gives authors copyright. at also it does after taking
two rupees for registering. It writes a letter as a sanad, and says that, for
forty years, no other man may print the book. Print it, sell it, and make your
profit: this is a reward to you from government.
People look at the income of the government and say it is much greater
than that of former empires, but they don’t think of the expenses of
government and how much they have increased. In the old days, a sword of
fifteen or twenty rupees, a gun of ten or fifteen rupees, a cardboard
ammunition bag, and a coil of fuse was enough equipment for a soldier.
Now look and see how the expenses of the army have increased in modern
times, and what progress has been made in arms, and how they are daily
improving, and the old becoming useless. If a new kind of gun or cannon be
invented in France or Germany, is it possible for government not to
abandon all its old kinds of guns or cannons and adopt the new? When the
expenses have grown so much, the wonder is how on earth government
manages to carry on its business on the small tax which it raises. (Cheers)
Perhaps many people will not like what I am going to say, but I will tell
them openly a thing which took place. When after the Mutiny, the Hon’ble
Mr Wilson was Financial Minister, he brought forward a law for imposing
a tax, and said in his speech that this tax would remain for five years only.
An honourable English friend of mine showed me the speech and asked me
if I liked it. I read it and said that I had never seen so foolish a Financial
Minister as the Hon’ble Mr Wilson. He was surprised. I said that it was
wrong to restrict it to five years. e condition of India was such that it
ought to be imposed for ever. Consider for a moment that government has
to protect its friends the Afghans, and their protection is necessary. It is
necessary for government to strengthen the frontier. If in England there
h d b d f h f h h l ld
had been any need for strengthening a frontier, then the people would
themselves have doubled or trebled (sic) their taxes to meet the necessity. In
Burma there are expenses to be borne, although we hope that in future it
will be a source of income. If under such circumstance, government
increases the salt-tax by eight annas per maund, is this thing such that we
ought to make complaints? If this increase of tax be spread over everybody
it will not amount to half or quarter of a pice. On this to raise an uproar, to
oppose government, to accuse it of oppression—what utter nonsense and
injustice! And in spite of this they claim the right to decide matters about
the budget.
When it has been settled that the English Government is necessary, then it
is useful for India that its rule should be established on the firmest possible
basis. And it is desirable for government that for its stability it should
maintain an army of such a size as it may think expedient, with a proper
equipment of officers; and that it should in every district appoint officials in
whom it can place complete confidence, in order that if a conspiracy arises
in any place they may apply the remedy. I ask you, is it the duty of
government or not to appoint European officers in its empire to stop
conspiracies and rebellions? Be just, and examine your hearts, and tell me if
it is not a natural law that people should confide more in men of their own
nation. If any Englishman tells you anything which is true, you remain
doubtful. But when a man of your own nation, or your family, tells you a
thing privately in your house, you believe it at once. What reason can you
then give why the government, in the administration of so big an empire,
should not appoint as custodians of secrets and as givers of every kind of
information, men of her own nationality, but must leave all these matters to
you, and say: ‘Do what you like?’ ese things which I have said are such
necessary matters of State administration that, whatever nation may be
holding the empire, they cannot be left out of sight. It is the business of a
good and just government, after having secured the above mentioned
essentials, to give honour to the people of the land over which it rules, and
to give them as high appointments as it can. But, in reality, there are certain
appointments to which we can claim no right; we cannot claim the post of
head executive authority in any zila. ere are hundreds of secrets which
government cannot disclose. If government appoint us to such responsible
and confidential posts, it is her favour. We will certainly discharge the duties
faithfully and without divulging her secrets. But it is one thing to claim it as
h d h f b l b f hf l d h
a right and another for government, believing us to be faithful and worthy
of confidence, to give us the posts. Between these two things there is a
difference as between Heaven and Earth. How can we possibly claim as a
right those things on which the very existence and strength of the
government depends? We most certainly have not the right to put those
people in the Council whom we want, and to keep out those whom we don’t
want, to pass those laws that we want, and to veto those laws that we
dislike. If we have the right to elect members for the Legislative Council,
there is no reason why we should not have the right to elect members for
the Imperial Council. In the Imperial Council thousands of matters of
foreign policy and State secrets are discussed. Can you with justice say that
we Indians have a right to claim those things? To make an agitation for
such things can only bring misfortune on us and on the country. It is
opposed to the true principles of government, and is harmful for the peace
of the country. e aspirations of our friends the Bengalis have made such
progress that they want to scale a height to which it is beyond their powers
to attain. But if I am not in error, I believe that the Bengalis have never at
any period held sway over a particle of land. ey are altogether ignorant of
the method by which a foreign race can maintain its rule over other races.
erefore, reflect on the doings of your ancestors, and be not unjust to the
British Government to whom God has given the rule of India; and look
honestly and see what is necessary for it to do to maintain its empire and its
hold on the country. You can appreciate these matters; but they cannot who
have never held a country in their hands nor won a victory. Oh, my brother
Musalmans! I again remind you that you have ruled nations, and have for
centuries held different countries in your grasp. For seven hundred years in
India you have had imperial sway. You know what it is to rule. Be not unjust
to that nation which is ruling over you, and think also on this: how upright
is her rule. Of such benevolence as the English Government shows to the
foreign nations under her, there is no example in the history of the world.
See what freedom she has given in her laws, and how careful she is to
protect the rights of her subjects. She has not been backward in promoting
the progress of the natives of India and in throwing open to them high
appointments. At the commencement of her rule, except clerkships and
kaziships there was nothing. e kazis of the pargana, who were called
commissioners, decided small civil suits and received very small pay. Up to
1832 or 1833 this state of things lasted. If my memory is not wrong, it was
h f L d W ll B k h fI d b
in the time of Lord William Bentinck that natives of India began to get
honourable posts. e positions of munsif, subordinate judge and deputy
collector on respectable pay were given to natives, and progress has been
steadily going on ever since. In the Calcutta High Court a Kashmiri Pandit
was first appointed, equal to the English judges. After him Bengalis have
been appointed as High Court judges. At this time there are, perhaps, three
Bengalis in the Calcutta High Court, and in the same way some Hindus in
Bombay and Madras. It was your bad fortune that there was for a long time
no Mohammedan High Court Judge, but now there is one in the Allahabad
High Court. (Cheers) Native High Court judges can cancel the decision of
English judges and collectors. ey can ask them for explanations. e
subordinate native officers also have full authority in their posts. A deputy
collector, a sub-judge, or a munsif decides cases according to his opinion,
and is independent of the opinion of the judge or collector. None of these
things have been acquired by fighting or opposition. As far as you have
made yourselves worthy of the confidence of government, to that extent you
have received high positions. Make yourselves her friends and prove to her
that your friendship with her is like that of English and the Scots. After
this what you have to claim, claim—on condition that you are qualified for
it.
About this political controversy, in which my Hindu brothers of this
province, to whom I have given some advice, and who have, I think, joined
from some wrong notions, have taken part, I wish to give some advice to
my Mohammedan brothers. I do not think the Bengali politics useful for
my brother Musalmans. Our Hindu brothers of these provinces are leaving
us and are joining the Bengalis. en we ought to unite with that nation
with whom we can unite. No Mohammedan can say that the English are
not ‘people of the Book.’ No Mohammedan can deny this: that God has
said that no people of other religions can be friends of Mohammedans
except the Christians. He who had read the Koran and believes it can know
that our nation cannot expect friendship and affection from my other
people. (‘ou shalt surely find the most violent of all men in enmity
against the true believers to be the Jews and the idolators: and thou shalt
surely find those among them to be the most inclinable to entertain
friendship for the true believers, who say we are Christians.’ Koran, Chap.
V). At this time our nation is in a bad state as regards education and
wealth, but God has given us the light of religion, and the Koran is present
f d h hh d d h d b f d N G d
for our guidance, which has ordained them and us to be friends. Now God
has made them rulers over us. erefore, we should cultivate friendship
with them, and should adopt that method by which their rule may remain
permanent and firm in India, and may not pass into the hands of the
Bengalis. is is our true friendship with our Christian rulers, and we
should not join those people who wish to see us thrown into a ditch. If we
join the political movement of the Bengalis our nation will reap loss, for we
do not want to become subjects of the Hindus instead of the subjects of the
‘people of the Book.’ And as far as we can we should remain faithful to the
English Government. By saying this I don’t mean that I am inclined
towards their religion. Perhaps no one has written such severe books as I
have against their religion, of which I am an enemy. But whatever their
religion, God has called men of that religion our friends. We ought not on
account of their religion but because of the order of God to be friendly and
faithful to them. If our Hindu brothers of these provinces, and the Bengalis
of Bengal, and the Brahmans of Bombay, and the Hindu Madrasis of
Madras wish to separate themselves from us, let them go, and trouble
yourself about it not one whit. We can mix with the English in a social way.
We can eat with them, they can eat with us. Whatever hope we have of
progress is from them. e Bengalis can in no way assist our progress. And
when the Koran itself directs us to be friends with them, then there is no
reason why we should not be their friends. But it is necessary for us to act as
God has said. Besides this, God has made them rulers over us. Our Prophet
has said that if God places over you a black negro slave as ruler you must
obey him. See, there is here in the meeting a European Mr Beck. He is not
black. He is very white. (Laughter) en why should we not be obedient
and faithful to those white-faced men whom God has put over us, and why
should we disobey the order of God?
I do not say that in the British Government all things are good. Nobody
can say that there is any government in the world, or has ever been, in
which there is nothing bad, be that government Mohammedan, Hindu, or
Christian. ere is now the Sultan of Turkey, who is a Mohammedan
Emperor, and of whom we are proud. Even his Mohammedan subjects
make complaints of his Government. is is the condition of the Khedive
of Egypt. Look at the governments of Europe, and examine the condition
of the Government of London itself. ousands of men complain against
government. ere is no government with which everybody is satisfied.
If l h l h E l hG
If we also have some complaints against the English Government, it is no
wonderful thing. People are not even grateful to God for His government. I
do not tell you to ask nothing from government. I will myself fight on your
behalf for legitimate objects. But ask for such things as they can give you, or
such things to which, having due regard to the administration of the
country, you can claim a right. If you ask for such things as government
cannot give you, then it is not the fault of government, but the folly of the
askers. But what you ask, do it not in this fashion: that you accuse
government in every action of oppression, abuse the highest official, use the
hardest words you can find for Lord Lytton and Lord Dufferin, call all
Englishmen tyrants, and blacken columns on columns of newspapers with
these subjects. You can gain nothing this way. God had made them your
rulers. is is the will of God. We should be content with the will of God.
And, in obedience to the will of God you should remain friendly and
faithful to them. Do not do this: bring false accusations against them and
give birth to enmity. is is neither wisdom nor in accordance with our holy
religion.
erefore, the method we ought to adopt is this; that we should hold
ourselves aloof from this political uproar and reflect on our condition, that
we are behind them in education and are deficient in wealth. en we
should try to improve the education of our nation. Now our condition is
this, that the Hindus, if they wish, can ruin us in an hour. e internal trade
is entirely in their hands. e external trade is in possession of the English.
Let the trade which is with the Hindus remain with them. But try to snatch
from their hands the trade in the produce of the country which the English
now enjoy and draw profit from. Tell them: ‘Take no further trouble. We
will ourselves take the leather of our country to England and sell it there.
Leave off picking up the bones of our country’s animals. We will ourselves
collect them and take them to America. Do not fill ships with the corn and
cotton of our country. We will fill our own ships and will take it ourselves to
Europe!’ Never imagine that government will put difficulties in your way in
trade. But the acquisition of all these things depends on education. When
you shall have fully acquired education, and true education shall have made
its home in your hearts, then you will know what rights you can legitimately
demand of the British Government. And the result of this will be that you
will also obtain honourable positions in the government, and will acquire
wealth in the higher ranks of trade. But to make friendship with the
B l h h l l l d h
Bengalis in their mischievous political proposals, and join in them, can
bring only harm. If my nation follows my advice they will draw benefit from
trade and education. Otherwise, remember that government will keep a
very sharp eye on you because you are very quarrelsome, very brave, great
soldiers and great fighters.
On the inauguration of the Muslim League (Dacca,
December, 1906)
MUSHTAQ HUSSAIN (1841–1917)

In October 1906, thirty-five rich and influential Muslims met the Viceroy,
Lord Minto, in Simla. In their address to Minto, they spoke about the
‘national interests’ of Indian Muslims and appealed to the British
government for assistance against the ‘unsympathetic’ Hindu majority.
Minto gave a hearty welcome to the deputation and assured them that the
interests of Muslims would be safeguarded by the British administration.
e meeting was timely because the British were poised to make important
changes in the way they ran their Indian empire. ey wanted to include a
certain degree of Indian participation in decision-making bodies so it was
important for the Muslims to organize themselves into a party that
represented their interests. In November, the Nawab of Dacca, Salimullah
Khan invited Aligarh’s Mohammedan Educational Conference to Dacca for
its annual meeting. He also mooted the idea that a Muslim All India
Confederacy be organized in his city. is led to the first meeting of the
Muslim League in Shah Bagh in Dacca on December 30 with fifty-eight
delegates from all over India. Mushtaq Hussain from Hyderabad was the
first president and he emphasized that while the Muslim League had no
quarrel with the Congress so long as the latter did not oppose British rule
and hurt the interests of the Muslims. e seeds of a Muslim opposition to
a Congress-led national movement were already evident.

Ih d h h h h k f h h h d
I have no words with which to thank you for the honour you have done me
in electing me as your Chairman today. e place could have well been filled
by many others in the community who are present here, but now that you
have commanded me to fill it, I can only obey your wishes and discharge
the duties of a Chairman of such an assembly to the best of my powers. I
have, however, to thank the Hon’ble Nawab Salim-ul-lah Bahadur of Dacca
specially, for the title which he has unconsciously given to me. I have my
doubts about being Viqarul-Mulk or ‘the pride of the country’, but I can
assure you I am, as I have always been, ‘Mushtaq-ul-Mulk’ or ‘the lover of
my country’. For us old men creeping every day nearer and nearer to our
graves, what is left to do, but to be Mushtaq-ul-Mulk and Mushtaq-ul-
Qaum, lovers of our country and lovers of our race. I feel that the unwitting
recognition of my love of my people, for which I have to thank my Hon’ble
friend the Nawab Bahadur of Dacca, is my greatest claim to fill the chair
you are now offering me. May I long deserve this title.
I believe you all know what you have come to discuss. As this deliberation
on political questions will be a free one, I trust no person who is a
government servant will take part in it, as the tie which binds him to the
government precludes the possibility of our regarding him free in the sense
in which non-official members of any community can be. Moreover, the
discussion of such grave problems requires maturity and experience on the
part of us all, so that young men who are still in school and college cannot
be expected to offer to us a fair share of either. At the present stage of their
lives they should learn and not teach. ey should therefore not be
encouraged to leave the hard task of mastering things for the more pleasant
one perhaps, of dictating to others. When they have graduated and stepped
into the arena of the world, we shall welcome their participation, but not
yet. So, if there is any gentleman present here who is a government servant,
he should withdraw, and if he is a student in a college or school, I shall
request him not to come forward to participate actually in this discussion.
Gentlemen, that which has drawn us here today is not a need which has
only now been felt by us. When the National Congress was founded in
India, the need had even then been felt, and the late Sir Syed Ahmed Khan,
to whose foresight and statesmanship Musalmans should always be grateful,
had made great endeavours to impress upon ‘Musalmans the belief that
their safety and prosperity lay in their keeping aloof from the Congress.’
is view has been proved to be so far right that though Sir Syed Ahmed
Kh h M h d ll fi h b l f
Khan is no more among us, the Mohammedans are still firm in that belief,
and as time passes they will feel more and more that, in order to protect and
advance their political rights and interests, it will be necessary for them to
form their own separate organization. Five years ago, in October 1901,
some Musalmans from various provinces had assembled at Lucknow, and,
after careful consideration of the matter, they had come to the conclusion
that the time for the formation of such an organization had come, and
consequently the work of organizing such a body in the United Provinces
was going on when new events followed close upon each other in Bengal;
and impressed by the commotion caused by the direct and indirect influence
of the National Congress, and finding that the Government intended to
increase the representative element in its Legislative Councils, Musalmans,
as a community, sent a Deputation to the Viceroy to Simla last October,
and represented their needs, and the disadvantages under which their
community had been labouring, before His Excellency. All these
proceedings, together with the Viceroy’s reply to the Deputation, have
already been fully reported in the press and made familiar to the country. I
need not allude to them in detail now. On that occasion, those
representatives of the community who had assembled as members of the
Deputation had, after a careful consideration of the ways and means by
which the political rights and interests of their co-religionists could be
permanently safeguarded, decided that in December next, delegates from
different provinces should be asked to assemble at Dacca and discuss this
momentous question. In the meantime, the Nawab Bahadur of Dacca had
framed a scheme for the same purpose and circulated it for our
consideration. Today we have assembled here to settle finally the lines of
action in a question, the settlement of which has so long been postponed.
Before I proceed with the work we have in hand today, I feel it necessary to
say that, no matter what the general principles of British administration
may be, and no matter what rights may be vouchsafed by the generosity and
love of justice of the British nation to its Indian subjects, we who have not
yet forgotten the tradition of our own recent rule in India and elsewhere,
and are more intimately acquainted than other communities of India with
the proper relations which should subsist between the government and its
subjects, should accept it as a rule of our conduct that the plant of the
political rights of a subject race thrives best in the soil of loyalty, and
consequently the Musalmans should prove themselves loyal to their
b f h kf f f h h 
government before they can ask for a recognition of any of their rights. e
Musalmans are only a fifth in number as compared with the total
population of the country, and it is manifest that if at any remote period the
British Government ceases to exist in India, then the rule of India would
pass into the hands of that community which is nearly four times as large as
ourselves.
Now, gentlemen, let each of you consider what will be your condition if
such a situation is created in India. en, our life, our property, our honour,
and our faith will all be in great danger. When even now that a powerful
British administration is protecting its subjects, we the Musalmans have to
face most serious difficulties in safeguarding our interests from the grasping
hands of our neighbours, instances of which are not rare in any province or
district, then woe betide the time when we become the subjects of our
neighbours, and answer to them for the sins, real and imaginary, of
Aurangzeb, who lived and died two centuries ago, and other Musalman
conquerors and rulers who went before him. And to prevent the realization
of such aspirations on the part of our neighbours, the Musalmans cannot
find better and surer means than to congregate under the banner of Great
Britain, and to devote their lives and property in its protection. I must
confess, gentlemen, that we shall not be loyal to this government for any
unselfish reasons; but that it is through regard for our own lives and
property, our own honour and religion, that we are impelled to be faithful to
the government; and consequently the best security for our good faith is the
undoubted fact that our own prosperity is bound up with, and depends
upon our loyalty to British rule in India. I shall be the last person,
gentlemen, to suspect our neighbours of civil intentions, but I do not
hesitate in declaring that unless the leaders of the Congress make sincere
efforts as speedily as possible, to quell the hostility against the government
and the British race, which is fast increasing in a large body of their
followers, the necessary consequence of all that is being openly done and
said today will be that sedition would be rampant, and the Musalmans of
India would be called upon to perform the necessary duty of combating this
rebellious spirit, side by side with the British Government, more effectively
than by the mere use of words.
It is however our duty towards our neighbours that as far as our influence
may reach and our persuasion may work, we must prevent our friends and
neighbours from going on the wrong path, and as their neighbours it is
l f fi d d l h h hf d
always one of our first duties to deal with them with fairness and courtesy
and, without prejudice to our legitimate rights and interests, to carry on
with them an intimate social intercourse, maintain our sympathy, and
strictly avoid all forms of hostility towards them. I would go even a step
further, and impress upon you, gentlemen, that there is no quarrel between
us and the National Congress and Congress people, nor do we oppose or
disagree with every one of their acts and views. Indeed we are thankful to
them for the efforts which they have made in causes common to us both,
and procured certain advantages in which they and we have equally shared,
and it is quite possible that we may regard in the future a part of their
programme is perfectly justified. All the differences that now exist between
us and them, or shall exist at a future date, must fall under one or other of
three heads. Either they will relate to those demands of theirs which, if
granted, would endanger the continuance of British rule in India; or they
will relate to those efforts of theirs which are directed against our own
legitimate interests; or they will fall under the head of that want of
moderation and respect which are due from the subjects to their sovereign.
And this leads me to say that we must bear in mind that moderation and
respectfulness shall have to be the essential characteristics of any political
organization which the Musalmans assembled here today would form.
I cannot help recalling the pleasure which I experienced when, in reply to
the Address of the Musalmans’ deputation to the Viceroy, of which I had
the honour to be a member, His Excellency said that Musalmans of Eastern
Bengal had behaved with remarkable moderation and courtesy under the
most trying circumstances, and I have to congratulate the Hon’ble Nawab
Salim-ul-lah Bahadur of Dacca and the Hon’ble Khan Bahadur Syed
Nawab Ali Chowdhury on a result so eminently successful, which was
brought about by their own efforts and the great influence they wield in
Eastern Bengal: and we can all rely that this influence will be used in the
future, as it has been in the past, on the side of moderation, law, justice and
courtesy.
On conserving ancient monuments (Calcutta,
February 1900)
LORD CURZON (1859–1925)

Lord Curzon was amazed at the apathy of Indians towards their own
architectural and archaeological heritage, and conservation became a
passion for him during his viceroyalty (1899–1904). On his official tours, he
tried to impress upon local authorities that the conservation of ancient
monuments was one of the primary obligations of the government and he
returned to this theme when speaking at the annual meeting of the Asiatic
Society of Bengal of which he was the patron. Curzon’s passing of the
pathbreaking Ancient Monuments Preservation Act (1904) was a direct
outcome of the concerns expressed in this speech.

I hope that there is nothing inappropriate in my addressing to this Society a

few observations upon the duty of government in respect of ancient
buildings in India. e Asiatic Society of Bengal still, I trust, even in these
days when men are said to find no time for scholarship, and when
independent study or research seems to have faded out of Indian fashion,
retains that interest in archaeology which is so often testified to in its earlier
publications, and was promoted by so many of its most illustrious names.
Surely here, if anywhere, in this house which enshrines the memorials, and
has frequently listened to the wisdom, of great scholars and renowned
students, it is permissible to recall the recollection of the present generation
to a subject that so deeply engaged the attention of your early pioneers, and

h ll b hl l h f
that must still even in a breathless age, appeal to the interest of every
thoughtful man.
In the course of my recent tour, during which I visited some of the most
famous sites and beautiful or historic buildings in India, I more than once
remarked, in reply to municipal addresses, that I regarded the conservation
of ancient monuments as one of the primary obligations of government. We
have a duty to our forerunners, as well as to our contemporaries and to our
descendants—nay, our duty to the two latter classes in itself demands the
recognition of an obligation to the former, since we are the custodians for
our own age of that which has been bequeathed to us by an earlier, and
since posterity will rightly blame us if, owing to our neglect, they fail to reap
the same advantages that we have been privileged to enjoy. Moreover, how
can we expect at the hands of futurity any consideration for the productions
of our own time—if indeed any are worthy of such—unless we have
ourselves shown a like respect to the handiwork of our predecessors? is
obligation, which I assert and accept on behalf of government, is one of an
even more binding character in India than in many European countries.
ere abundant private wealth is available for the acquisition or the
conservation of that which is frequently private property. Corporations,
societies, endowments, trusts, provide a vast machinery that relieves
government of a large portion of its obligation. e historic buildings, the
magnificent temples, the inestimable works of art, are invested with a
publicity that to some extent saves them from the risk of desecration or the
encroachments of decay. Here, all is different. India is covered with the
visible records of vanished dynasties, of forgotten monarchs, of persecuted
and sometimes dishonoured creeds. ese monuments are, for the most
part, though there are notable exceptions, in British territory, and on soil
belonging to government. Many of them are in out-of-the-way places, and
are liable to the combined ravages of a tropical climate, an exuberant flora,
and very often a local and ignorant population, who see only in an ancient
building the means of inexpensively raising a modern one for their own
convenience. All these circumstances explain the peculiar responsibility that
rests upon Government in India. If there be anyone who says to me that
there is no duty devolving upon a Christian Government to preserve the
monuments of a pagan art, or the sanctuaries of an alien faith, I cannot
pause to argue with such a man. Art and beauty, and the reverence that is
owing to all that has evoked human genius or has inspired human faith, are
d d f d d f h h h h f l
independent of creeds, and, in so far as they touch the sphere of religion, are
embraced by the common religion of all mankind. Viewed from this
standpoint, the rock temple of the Brahmans stands on precisely the same
footing as the Buddhist vihara, and the Mohammedan musjid as the
Christian cathedral. ere is no principle of artistic discrimination between
the mausoleum of the despot and the sepulchre of the saint. What is
beautiful, what is historic, what tears the mask off the face of the past, and
helps us to read its riddles, and to look it in the eyes—these, and not the
dogmas of a combative theology, are the principal criteria to which we must
look. Much of ancient history, even in an age of great discoveries, still
remains mere guess-work. It is only slowly being pieced together by the
efforts of scholars and by the outcome of research. But the clues are lying
everywhere at our hand, in buried cities, in undeciphered inscriptions, in
casual coins, in crumbling pillars, and pencilled slabs of stone. ey supply
the data by which we may reconstruct the annals of the past, and recall to
life the morality, the literature, the politics, the art of a perished age.
Compared with the antiquity of Assyrian or Egyptian, or even of early
European monuments, the age of the majority of Indian monuments is not
great. I speak subject to correction, but my impression is that the oldest
sculptured monument in India is the Sanchi Tope, the great railing of
which cannot possibly be placed before the middle of the third century
before Christ, although the tope itself may be earlier. At that time the
palaces or Chaldaea and Nineveh, the pyramids and the rock tombs of
Egypt, were already thousands of years old. We have no building in India as
old as the Parthenon at Athens; the large majority are young compared to
the Colosseum at Rome. All the Norman and the majority of the Gothic
cathedrals of England and of western Europe were already erected before
the great era of Moslem architecture in India had begun. e Kutub Minar
at Delhi, which is the finest early Mohammedan structure in this country,
was built within a century of Westminster Hall in London, which we are far
from regarding as an ancient monument. As for the later glories of Arabian
architecture at Delhi, at Agra, and at Lahore, the Colleges of Oxford and
Cambridge, which we regard in England as the last product of a dying
architectural epoch, were already grey when they sprang, white and spotless,
from the hands of the masons of Akbar and Shah Jehan; while the Taj
Mahal was only one generation older than Wren’s Renaissance fabric of
modern St Paul’s.
 h k bl f f h fI d
ere is another remarkable feature of the majority of Indian antiquities—
of those at any rate that belong to the Musulman epoch—that they do not
represent an indigenous genius or an Indian style. ey are exotics,
imported into this country in the train of conquerors who had learnt their
architectural lessons in Persia, in Central Asia, in Arabia, in Afghanistan.
More than a thousand years earlier a foreign influence had exercised a
scarcely less marked, though more transient, influence upon certain forms
of Indian architecture. I allude to the Greek types which were derived from
the Greco-Bactrian kingdoms, that were founded upon the remains of
Alexander’s conquests, and which, in the centuries immediately preceding
the Christian era profoundly affected the art and sculpture of North-West
India and the Punjab. Indian sculptures or Indian buildings, however,
because they reflect a foreign influence, or betray a foreign origin, are not
the less, but perhaps the more interesting to ourselves, who were borne to
India upon the crest of a later but similar wave, and who may find in their
non-Indian characteristics a reminiscence of forms which we already know
in Europe, and of a process of assimilation with which our own
archaeological history has rendered us familiar. Indeed a race like our own,
who are themselves foreigners, are in a sense better fitted to guard, with a
dispassionate and impartial zeal, the relics of different ages, and of
sometimes antagonistic beliefs, than might be the descendants of the
warring races or the votaries of the rival creeds. To us the relics of Hindu
and Mohammedan, of Buddhist, Brahmin, and Jain are, from the
antiquarian, the historical, and the artistic point of view, equally interesting
and equally sacred. One does not excite a more vivid, and the other a
weaker emotion. Each represents the glories or the faith of a branch of the
human family. Each fills a chapter in English history. Each is a part of the
heritage which Providence has committed to the custody of the ruling
power.
If, however, the majority of the structural monuments of India, the topes
and temples, the palaces and fortresses and tombs, be of no exceeding
antiquity in the chronology of architecture, and even if the greater number
of those at any rate which are well known and visited, are not indigenous in
origin, it remains true, on the other hand, that it is in the exploration and
study of purely Indian remains, in the probing of archaic mounds, in the
excavation of old Indian cities, and in the copying and reading of ancient
inscriptions, that a good deal of the exploratory work of the archaeologist in
I d ll f l  l fI d h k
India will in future lie. e later pages of Indian history are known to us,
and can be read by all. But a curtain of dark and romantic mystery hangs
over the earlier chapters, of which we are only slowly beginning to lift the
corners. is also is not less an obligation of government. Epigraphy should
not be set behind research any more than research should be set behind
conservation. All are ordered parts of any scientific scheme of antiquarian
work. I am not one of those who think that government can afford to
patronize the one and ignore the other. It is, in my judgment, equally our
duty to dig and discover, to classify, reproduce, and describe, to copy and
decipher, and to cherish and conserve. Of restoration I cannot, on the
present occasion, undertake to speak, since the principles of legitimate and
artistic restoration require a more detailed analysis than I have time to
bestow upon them this evening. But it will be seen from what I have said
that my view of the obligations of government is not grudging, and that my
estimate of the work to be done is ample.
If then the question be asked, how has the British Government hitherto
discharged aid, how is it now discharging its task, what is the answer that
must be returned? I may say in preface that were the answer unfavourable—
and I will presently examine that point—we should merely be forging a
fresh link in an unbroken historic chain. Every, or nearly every, successive
religion that has permeated or overswept this country has vindicated its own
fervour at the expense of the rival whom it has dethroned. When the
Brahmans went to Ellora, they hacked away the features of all the seated
Buddhas in the rock-chapels and halls. When Kutub-ud-din commenced,
and Altamsh continued, the majestic mosque that flanks the Kutub Minar,
it was with the spoil of Hindu temples that they reared the fabric, carefully
defacing or besmearing the sculptured Jain images, as they consecrated
them to their novel purpose. What part of India did not bear witness to the
ruthless vandalism of the great iconoclast Aurungzeb? When we admire his
great mosque with its tapering minarets, which are the chief feature of the
river front at Benares, how many of us remember that he tore down the
holy Hindu temple of Vishveshwar to furnish the material and to supply the
site? Nadir Shah during his short Indian inroad effected a greater spoliation
than has probably ever been achieved in so brief a space of time. When the
Mahratta conquerors overran northern India, they pitilessly mutilated and
wantonly destroyed. When Ranjit Singh built the Golden Temple at
Amritsar, he ostentatiously rifled Mohammedan buildings and mosques.
N d dd h b l h
Nay, dynasties did not spare their own members, nor religions their own
shrines. If a capital or fort or sanctuary was not completed in the lifetime of
the builder; there was small chance of its being finished, there was a very
fair chance of its being despoiled, by its successor and heir. e environs of
Delhi are a wilderness of deserted cities and devastated tombs. Each fresh
conqueror, Hindu, or Moghul, or Pathan, marched, so to speak, to his own
immortality over his predecessor’s grave. e great Akbar in a more peaceful
age first removed the seat of government from Delhi to Agra, and then
built Fatehpur Sikri as a new capital, only to be abandoned by his successor.
Jehangir alternated between Delhi and Agra, but preferred Lahore to either.
Shah Jehan beautified Agra, and then contemplated a final return to Delhi.
Aurungzeb marched away to the south and founded still another capital,
and was himself buried in territories that now belong to Hyderabad. ese
successive changes, while they may have reflected little more than a despot’s
caprice, were yet inimical both to the completion and to the continuous
existence of architectural fabrics. e British Government are fortunately
exempt from any such promptings, either of religious fanaticism, or restless
vanity, or of dynastic and personal pride. But in proportion as they have
been unassailed by such temptations, so is their responsibility the greater for
inaugurating a new era and for displaying that tolerant and enlightened
respect to the treasures of all, which is one of the main lessons that the
returning West has been able to teach to the East.
In the domain of archaeology, as elsewhere, the original example of duty has
been set to the Government of India by individual effort and by private
enthusiasm; and only by slow degrees has government, which is at all times
and seasons a tardy learner, warmed to its task. e early archaeological
researches, conducted by the founders and pioneers of this Society, by Jones,
Colebrooke, Wilson, and Prinsep, and by many another clarum et
venerabile nomen, were in the main literary in character. ey consisted in
the reconstruction of alphabets, the translation of manuscripts, and the
decipherment of inscriptions. Sanskrit scholarship was the academic cult of
the hour. How these men laboured is illustrated by the fact that Prinsep and
Kittoe both died of overwork at the age of forty. en followed an era of
research in buildings and monuments; the pen was supplemented by the
spade, and, in succession, descriptions, drawings, paintings, engravings, and
in later days photographs and casts, gradually revealed to European eyes the
precious contents of the unrifled quarries of Hindustan. In this generation
f l d l h b d
of explorers and writers, special honour must be paid to two names: to
James Fergusson, whose earliest work was published in 1845, and who was
the first to place the examination of Indian architecture upon a scholarly
basis, and to General Sir A. Cunningham, who only a few years later was
engaged in the first scientific excavation of the Bhilsa topes. ese and
other toilers in the same field laboured with a diligence beyond praise; but
the work was too great for individual exertion, and much of it remained
desultory, fragmentary, and incomplete.
Meanwhile the Government of India was concerned with laying the
foundations and extending the borders of a new empire, and thought little
of the relics of old ones. From time to time a Governor-General, in an
excess of exceptional enlightenment or generosity, spared a little money for
the fitful repair of ancient monuments. Lord Minto appointed a committee
to conduct repairs at the Taj. Lord Hastings ordered works at Fatehpur
Sikri and Sikandra. Lord Amherst attempted some restoration of the Kutub
Minar. Lord Hardinge persuaded the Court of Directors to sanction
arrangements for the examination, delineation, and record of some of the
chief Indian antiquities. But these spasmodic efforts resulted in little more
than the collection of a few drawings, and the execution of a few local and
perfunctory repairs. How little the leaven had permeated the lump, and how
strongly the barbarian still dominated the aesthetic in the official mind, may
be shown by incidents that from time to time occurred.
In the days of Lord William Bentinck the Taj was on the point of being
destroyed for the value of its marbles. e same Governor-General sold by
auction the marble bath in Shah Jehan’s Palace at Agra, which had been
torn up by Lord Hastings for a gift to George IV but had somehow never
been despatched. In the same regime a proposal was made to lease the
gardens at Sikandra to the executive engineer at Agra for the purposes of
speculative cultivation. In 1857, after the Mutiny, it was solemnly proposed
to raze to the ground the Jumma Musjid at Delhi, the noblest ceremonial
mosque in the world, and it was only spared at the instance of Sir John
Lawrence. As late as 1868 the removal of the great gateways of the Sanchi
Tope was successfully prevented by the same statesman. I have read of a
great Mohammedan pillar, over 600 years old, which was demolished at
Aligarh to make room for certain municipal improvements and for the
erection of some bunias’ shops, which, when built, were never let. Some of
the sculptured columns of the exquisite Hindu-Musulman mosque at Ajmer
ll d d b l ffi h l h d
were pulled down by a zealous officer to construct a triumphal arch under
which the Viceroy of the day was to pass. James Fergusson’s books sound
one unending note of passionate protest against the barrack-builder and the
military engineer. I must confess that I think these individuals have been,
and, within the more restricted scope now left to them, still are inveterate
sinners. Climb the hill-top at Gwalior and see the barracks of the British
soldier and the relics, not yet entirely obliterated, of his occupation of the
palace in the fort. Read in the Delhi guide books of the horrors that have
been perpetrated in the interests of regimental barracks and messes and
canteens in the fairylike pavilions and courts and gardens of Shah Jehan. It
is not yet thirty years since the Government of India were invited by a
number of army doctors to cut off the battlements of the Fort at Delhi, in
order to improve the health of the troops, and only desisted from doing so
when a rival band of medical doctrinaires appeared upon the scene to urge
the retention of the very same battlements, in order to prevent malarial
fever from creeping in. At an earlier date, when picnic parties were held in
the garden of the Taj, it was not an uncommon thing for the revelers to arm
themselves with hammer and chisel, with which they wiled away the
afternoon by chipping out fragments of agate and cornelian from the
cenotaphs of the Emperor and his lamented Queen. Indeed, when I was at
Agra the other day, I found that the marble tomb of Shah Jehan in the
lower vault, beneath which his body actually lies, was still destitute of much
of its original inlay, of which I ordered the restoration.
at the era of vandalism is not yet completely at an end is evident from
recent experiences, among which I may include my own. When Fergusson
wrote his book, the Diwan-i-Am, or Public Hall of Audience, in the Palace
at Agra, was a military arsenal, the outer colonnades of which had been
built up with brick arches lighted by English windows. All this was
afterwards removed. But when the Prince of Wales came to India in 1876,
and held a Durbar in this building, the opportunity was too good to be lost,
and a fresh coat of white-wash was plentifully bespattered over the
sandstone pillars and plinths of the Durbar Hall of Aurungzeb. is too, I
hope to get removed. When his Royal Highness was at Delhi, and the
various pavilions of Shah Jehan’s Palace were connected together for the
purposes of an evening party and ball, local talent was called in to reproduce
the faded paintings on marble and plaster of the Moghul artists two and a
half centuries before. e result of their labours is still an eyesore and a
Wh I L h A ll If d h l l M
regret. When I was at Lahore in April last, I found the exquisite little Moti
Musjid, or Pearl Mosque, in the fort, which was erected by Jehangir exactly
three hundred years ago, still used for the profane purpose to which it had
been converted by Ranjit Singh, namely, as a government treasury. e
arches were built up with brick-work, and below the marble floor had been
excavated as a cellar for the reception of iron-bound chests of rupees. I
pleaded for the restoration to its original state of this beautiful little
building, which I suppose not one visitor in a hundred to Lahore has ever
seen. Ranjit Singh cared nothing for the taste or the trophies of his
Mohammedan predecessors, and half a century of British military
occupation, with its universal paintpot, and the exigencies of the Public
Works engineer, has assisted the melancholy decline. Fortunately in recent
years something has been done to rescue the main buildings of the Moghul
Palace from these two insatiable enemies. At Ahmedabad I found the
mosque of Sidi Sayid, the pierced stone lattice-work of whose demi-lune
windows is one of the glories of India, used as a tehsildar’s cutcherry, and
disfigured with plaster partitions and the omnivorous whitewash. I hope to
effect the reconversion of this building. After the conquest of Upper Burma
in 1835, the Palace of the Kings at Mandalay which, although built of the
most part of wood, is yet a noble specimen of Burmese art, was converted
by our conquering battalions into a Club House, a Government Office, and
a Church. By degrees I am engaged in removing these superfluous denizens,
with the idea of preserving the building as a monument, not of a dynasty
that has vanished never to return, but of an art that, subject to the
vicissitudes of fire, earthquake, and decay, is capable of being a joy forever.
ere are other sites and fabrics in India upon which I also have my eye,
which I shall visit, if possible, during my time, and which I shall hope to
rescue from a kindred or a worse fate.
ese are the gloomy or regrettable features of the picture. On the other
hand, there has been, during the last forty years, some sort of sustained
effort on the part of government to recognize its responsibilities and to
purge itself of a well-merited reproach. is attempt has been accompanied,
and sometimes delayed, by disputes as to the rival claims of research and of
conservation, and by discussion over the legitimate spheres of action of the
central and the local governments. ere have been periods of supineness as
well as of activity. ere have been moments when it has been argued that
the state had exhausted its duty or that it possessed no duty at all. ere
h b h h h h h ll h h f
have been persons who thought that when all the chief monuments were
indexed and classified, we might sit down with folded hands and allow
them slowly and gracefully to crumble into ruin. ere have been others
who argued that railways and irrigation did not leave even a modest half
lakh of rupees per annum for the requisite establishment to supervise the
most glorious galaxy of monuments in the world. Nevertheless, with these
interruptions and exceptions, which I hope may never again recur, the
progress has been positive, and, on the whole, continuous. It was Lord
Canning who first invested archaeological work in this country with
permanent government patronage by constituting, in 1860, the
Archaeological Survey of Northern India, and by appointing General
Cunningham in 1862 to be Archaeological Surveyor to Government. From
that period date the publications of the Archaeological Survey of India,
which have at times assumed different forms, and which represent varying
degrees of scholarship and merit, but which constitute, on the whole, a
noble mine of information, in which the student has but to delve in order to
discover an abundant spoil. For over twenty years General Cunningham
continued his labours, of which these publications are the memorial.
Meanwhile orders were issued for the registration and preservation of
historical monuments throughout India, local surveys were started in some
of the subordinate governments, the Bombay Survey being placed in the
capable hands of Mr Burgess, who was a worthy follower in the footsteps of
Cunningham, and who ultimately succeeded him as Director-General of
the Archaeological Survey. Some of the native states followed the example
thus set to them, and either applied for the services of the government
archaeologists, or established small departments of their own.
In the provinces much depended upon the individual tastes or proclivities of
the Governor or Lieutenant-Governor, just as at headquarters the strength
of the impetus varied with the attitude of successive viceroys. Lord
Northbrook, who was always a generous patron of the arts, issued orders in
1873 as to the duties of local governments; and in his viceroyalty Sir John
Strachey was the first Lieutenant-Governor to undertake a really noble
work of renovation and repair at Agra—a service which is fitly
commemorated by a marble slab in the Palace of Shah Jehan. e poetic
and imaginative temperament of Lord Lytton could not be deaf to a similar
appeal. Holding that no claim upon the initiative and resources of the
Supreme Government was more essentially Imperial than the preservation
f l h b d 7 f / l kh h
of national antiquities, he contributed in 1879 a sum of 33/4 lakhs to the
restoration of buildings in the North-West Provinces, and proposed the
appointment of a special officer, to be entitled the Curator of Ancient
Monuments, which, while it did not receive sanction in his time, was left to
be carried out by his successor, Lord Ripon. During the three years that
Major Cole held this post, from 1880 to 1883, much excellent work in
respect both of reports and classification was done; and large sums of money
were given by the Government of India, inter alia, for repairs in the Gwalior
Fort and at Sanchi Tope. But at the end of this time succeeded a period of
some reaction, in which it appeared to be thought that the task of the
Central Government, in the preparation of surveys and lists, was drawing to
a close, and that local governments might, in future, be safely entrusted
with the more modest, but, I may add, not less critical, duty of
conservation. More recently, under Lord Elgin’s auspices, the archaeological
work of government has been placed upon a more definite basis. e entire
country has been divided into a number of circles, each with a surveyor of
its own, and while the establishment is regarded as an Imperial charge, the
work is placed under local control and receives such financial backing as the
resources of the local governments or the sympathies of individual
governors may be able to give it. In the North-West Provinces, where I was
recently touring, I found Sir A. MacDonnell worthily sustaining, in point
of generous and discriminating sympathy, the traditions that were created
by Sir John Strachey.
For my part, I feel far from clear that government might, not do a good
deal more than it is now doing, or than it has hitherto consented to do. I
certainly cannot look forward to a time at which either the obligations of
the state will have become exhausted, or at which archaeological research
and conservation in this country can dispense with government direction
and control. I see fruitful fields of labour still unexplored, bad blunders still
to be corrected, gaping omissions to be supplied, plentiful opportunities for
patient renovation and scholarly research. In my opinion, the taxpayers of
this country are in the last degree unlikely to resent a somewhat higher
expenditure—and, after all, a few thousand rupees go a long way in
archaeological work, and the total outlay is exceedingly small—upon objects
in which I believe them to be as keenly interested as we are ourselves. I
hope to assert more definitely during my time the Imperial responsibility of
government in respect of Indian antiquities, to inaugurate or to persuade a
lb l d h f h h h d h
more liberal attitude on the part of those with whom it rests to provide the
means, and to be a faithful guardian of the priceless treasure-house of art
and learning that has, for a few years at any rate, been committed to my
charge.
Game preservation in India (Rangoon, December
1901)
LORD CURZON (1859–1925)

e Burma Game Preserve Association had approached Lord Curzon,

while he was on his official visit to Burma in 1901, and drawn his attention
to the decimation of wild life. Curzon replied to their address through this
speech. But the Viceroy’s commitment to wild life preservation was not just
confined to this talk. He followed it up by having the subject examined by
the Government of India and two years later, a draft bill about the
importance of wild life preservation was circulated to various local
governments. e Rangoon address can be seen as the beginning of the
long, and still incomplete, process of the preservation of wild life in India.

e question of Game Preservation in India is one that may appeal, in my

judgment, not merely to the sportsman, but also to the naturalist and the
friend of animal life. It is certainly not through the spectacles of the
sportsman only that I would regard it, though I yield to no one in my
recognition of the manly attractions of shikar. Such considerations,
however, might be suspected of a selfish tinge, and I think that in
approaching the matter we should, so far as possible, put our own
predilections in the background, and view it in the public interest at large.
ere are some persons who doubt or dispute the progressive diminution of
wild life in India. I think that they are wrong. e facts seem to me to point
entirely in the opposite direction.

U h f h M l h C lI d 
Up to the time of the Mutiny, lions were shot in Central India. ey are
now confined to an ever-narrowing patch of forest in Kathiawar. I was on
the verge of contributing to their still further reduction a year ago myself;
but fortunately I found out my mistake in time, and was able to adopt a
restraint which I hope that others will follow. Except in native states, the
Terai, and forest reserves, tigers are undoubtedly diminishing. is is
perhaps not an unmixed evil. e rhinoceros is all but exterminated, save in
Assam. Bison are not so numerous or so easy to obtain as they once were.
Elephants have already had to be protected in many parts. Above all, deer,
to which you particularly allude in the case of Burma, are rapidly dwindling.
Every man’s hand appears to be against them, and each year thins the herds.
Finally, many beautiful and innocent varieties of birds are pursued for the
sake of their plumage, which is required to minister to the heedless vanity of
European fashion.
e causes of this diminution in the wild fauna of India are in some cases
natural and inevitable, in others they are capable of being arrested. In the
former class, I would name the steady increase of population, the widening
area of cultivation, and the improvement in means of communication—all
of them the sequel of what is popularly termed progress in civilization.
Among the artificial and preventable causes I would name the great increase
in the number of persons who use firearms, the immense improvement in
the mechanism and range of the weapons themselves, the unchecked
depredations of native hunters and poachers, and in some cases I regret to
say, a lowering of the standard of sport, leading to the shooting of immature
heads, or to the slaughter of females. e result of all these agencies, many
of which are found in operation at the same time, and in the same place,
cannot fail to be a continuous reduction in the wild game of India.
I cannot say that the Government of India have hitherto shown any great
boldness in dealing with the matter. But there has been, and still is, in my
opinion, very good reason for proceeding cautiously. ere are some persons
who say that wild animals are as certainly destined to disappear in India as
wolves, for instance, have done in England, and that it is of no use to try
and put back the hands of the clock. I do not attach much value to this plea,
which seems to me rather pusillanimous, as well as needlessly pessimistic.
ere are others who say that, in a continent so vast as India, or, to narrow
the illustration, in a province with such extensive forest reserves as Burma,
the wild animals may be left to look after themselves. is argument does
h f h d l l bl l h
not impress me either; for the distant jungles are available only to the
favoured few, and it is the disappearance of game from the plains and from
accessible tracts that it is for the most part in question. I do, however, attach
great value to the consideration that wild animal life should not be unduly
fostered at the expense of the occupations or the crops of the people. Where
depredations are committed upon crops, or upon flocks and herds, the
cultivator cannot be denied, within reasonable limits, the means of self-
protection. Similarly, it is very important that any restrictions that are
placed upon the destruction of game should not be worked in a manner that
may be oppressive or harassing to his interests.
Hitherto the attempts made by government to deal with the question by
legislation, or by rules and notifications based on statute, have been
somewhat fitful and lacking in method. In parts, as I have already
mentioned, elephants have been very wisely and properly protected. A close
season has been instituted for certain kinds of game. An Act has been
passed for the preservation of wild birds. And I observe from one of the
enclosures to your memorial that your ingenuity has not shrunk from the
suggestion that a deer may reasonably be considered a wild bird. Under this
Act the possession or sale during the breeding season of the flesh of certain
wild birds in municipal or cantonment areas is forbidden. en again rules
have been issued under the Forest Act protecting certain classes of animals
in certain tracts.
e general effect of these restrictions has been in the right direction. But I
doubt if they have been sufficiently co-ordinated, or if they have gone far
enough; and one of my last acts at Simla, before I had received or read your
memorial, was to invite a re-examination of the subject with the view of
deciding whether we might proceed somewhat farther than we have already
done. We must be very careful not to devise any too stereotyped or
Procrustean form of procedure; since there is probably no matter in which a
greater variety of conditions and necessities prevails; and the rules or
precautions which would be useful in one place might be positively harmful
in another. Among the suggestions which will occur to all of us as deserving
of consideration are some greater restriction, by the charge of fees or
otherwise, upon the issue of gun licences, the more strict enforcement of a
close season for certain animals, the prohibition of the possession or sale of
flesh during the breeding season, penalties upon netting and snaring during
the same period, restrictions of the facilities given to strangers to shoot
l d f d h l d f h d
unlimited amounts of game, and upon the sale and export of trophies and
skins. I dare say that many other ideas will occur to us in the discussion of
the matter, or may be put forward in the press and elsewhere by those who
are qualified to advise. My own idea would be, if possible, to frame some
kind of legislation of a permissive and elastic nature, the provisions of which
should be applied to the various provinces of India in so far only as they
were adapted to the local conditions. e question of native states
somewhat complicates the matter. But I doubt not that the government
would, where required, meet with the willing cooperation of the chiefs,
many of whom are keen and enthusiastic patrons both of animal life and of
sport. e subject is not one that can be hastily taken up or quickly decided,
but I have probably said enough to show you that I personally am in close
sympathy with your aims, and I need hardly add that, if the Government of
India finds itself able, after further study, to proceed with the matter, an
opportunity will be given to those who are interested in each province to
record their opinions.
Sisters and brothers of America (Chicago, September
1893)
SWAMI VIVEKANANDA (1863–1902)

Swami Vivekananda was an unknown young monk when he travelled to

America to attend the Parliament of Religions held in Chicago in 1893.
e occasion was historic as it was the first time that so many
representatives of all the major religions had gathered together in one place.
Vivekananda spoke on the opening day, September 11, and simply
mesmerized his audience. His appearance there is best described in a letter
he wrote two months after the event. ‘ere was a grand procession, and we
were all marshalled on to the platform. Imagine a hall below and a huge
gallery above, packed with six or seven thousand men and women… And I,
who never spoke in public in my life, to address this august assemblage!!…
Of course my heart was fl uttering and my tongue nearly dried up; I was so
nervous and could not venture to speak in the morning…ey were all
prepared and came with ready-made speeches. I was a fool and had none,
but bowed down to Devi Sarasvati and stepped up. I made a short speech. I
addressed the assembly as “Sisters and brothers of America”, a deafening
applause of two minutes followed, and then I proceeded, and when it was
finished, I sat down, almost exhausted with emotion.’ e news of
Vivekananda’s speech and its reception, once it reached India, caused a stir.
Jawaharlal Nehru was to write in e Discovery of India that Vivekananda
‘came as a tonic to the depressed and demoralized Hindu mind and gave it
self-reliance and some roots in the past.’

S db h fA
Sisters and brothers of America,
It fills my heart with joy unspeakable to rise in response to the warm and
cordial welcome which you have given us. I thank you in the name of the
most ancient order of monks in the world; I thank you in the name of the
mother of religions; and I thank you in the name of the millions and
millions of Hindu people of all classes and sects.
My thanks, also, to some of the speakers on this platform who, referring to
the delegates from the Orient, have told you that these men from far-off
nations may well claim the honour of bearing to different lands the idea of
toleration. I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world
both tolerance and universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal
toleration, but we accept all religions as true. I am proud to belong to a
nation which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions
and all nations of the earth. I am proud to tell you that we have gathered in
our bosom the purest remnant of the Israelites, who came to the southern
India and took refuge with us in the very year in which their holy temple
was shattered to pieces by Roman tyranny. I am proud to belong to the
religion which has sheltered and is still fostering the remnant of the grand
Zoroastrian nation. I will quote to you, brethren, a few lines from a hymn
which I remember to have repeated from my earliest boyhood, which is
every day repeated by millions of human beings:
‘As the different streams having their sources in different places all mingle their
water in the sea, so, O Lord, the different paths which men take through different
tendencies, various thougb they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to ee.’
e present convention, which is one of the most august assemblies ever
held, is in itself a vindication, a declaration to the world, of the wonderful
doctrine preached in the Gita:
‘Whosoever comes to Me, through whatsoever form, I reach him; all men are
struggling through paths which in the end lead to Me.’
Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long
possessed this beautiful earth. ey have filled the earth with violence,
drenched it often and often with human blood, destroyed civilization, and
sent whole nations to despair. Had it not been for these horrible demons,
human society would be far more advanced than it is now. But their time
has come; and I fervently hope that the bell that tolled this morning in
honour of this convention may be the death-knell of all fanaticism, of all
h h d h h d f ll h bl f l
persecutions with the sword or with the pen, and of all uncharitable feelings
between persons wending their way to the same goal.
How and why I adopted the Hindu religion
(Bombay, October 1902)
SISTER NIVEDITA (1867–1911)

Sister Nivedita, who was born Margaret Noble, came to India inspired by
Swami Vivekananda. She devoted herself to the cause of education of
women and to Hinduism. On October 2, 1902, she was invited to speak to
the Hindu Ladies’ Social Club in Bombay. e organizers had requested
her to speak on ‘e Virtues of Indian Womanhood’. Sister Nivedita met
the members of the audience before her talk and decided to change the
subject of her speech. In her own words, ‘at the sight of the large
assemblages of Hindu ladies, I feel it would be presumption on my part to
speak to you on the subject because Indian womanhood is better understood
and practised by each and everyone of you than by me.’ She was requested,
instead, to speak on what induced her to change her religion. is speech
was the account of her conversion to Hinduism. Many of the values about
Indian womanhood that Sister Nivedita upheld are utterly unacceptable
today but the speech is an unusual one as it provides a moving account of an
Englishwoman’s conversion to Hinduism.

I am a born and bred Englishwoman and unto the age of eighteen, I was
trained and educated as English girls are. Christian religious doctrines were
of course early instilled into me. I was even from my girlhood inclined to
venerate all religious teachings and I devotedly worshipped the child Jesus
and loved Him with my whole heart for the self-sacrifices He always
willingly underwent, while I felt I could not worship Him enough for His

f H lf b l h h B f h
crucifying Himself to bestow salvation on the human race. But after the age
of eighteen, I began to harbour doubts as to the truth of the Christian
doctrines. Many of them began to seem to me false and incompatible with
truth. ese doubts grew stronger and stronger and at the same time my
faith in Christianity tottered more and more. For seven years I was in this
wavering state of mind, very unhappy, and yet, very very eager to seek the
Truth. I shunned going to Church and yet sometimes my longing to bring
restfulness to my spirit impelled me to rush into Church and be absorbed in
the service to feel at peace within, as I had hitherto done, and as others
around me were doing. But alas! No peace, no rest was there for my
troubled soul all eager to know the truth.
During the seven years of wavering it occurred to me that in the study of
natural science I should surely find the truth I was seeking. So, ardently I
began to study how this world was created and all things in it and I
discovered that in the laws of Nature at least there was consistency, but it
made the doctrines of the Christian religion seem all the more inconsistent.
Just then I happened to get a life of Buddha and in it I found that here, alas,
also was there a child who lived ever so many centuries before the child
Christ, but whose sacrifices were no less self-abnegating than those of the
other. is dear child Gautama took a strong hold on me and for three
more years I plunged myself into the study of the religion of Buddha; and I
became more and more convinced that the salvation he preached was
decidedly more consistent with the truth than the preachings of the
Christian religion.
And now came the turning point for my faith. A cousin of your great
Viceroy Lord Ripon invited me to have tea with him and to meet there a
great Swami from India who, he said, might perhaps help the search my
soul was longing for. e Swami I met here was none other than Swami
Vivekananda who afterwards became my Guru and whose teachings have
given relief my doubting spirit had been longing for so long. Yet it was not
during one visit or two that my doubts were dispelled. Oh no! I had several
warm discussions with him and I pondered on his teachings for more than a
year. en he asked me to visit India, to see the Yogis and to study the
subject in the very country of its birth, and I found, at last, a faith I could
lean upon and obtain my Mukti through the uplifting of the spirit till it is
merged into Ananda. Now I have told you how and why I have adopted this
religion of yours. If you care to hear more, I would gladly go on.
Il I d h b h l f h h h db f ll l h
I love India as the birth place of the highest and best of all religions; as the
country that has the grandest mountains, the Himalayas; as the place where
the sublimest of mountains are located. e country where the homes are
simple; where domestic happiness is most to be found; where the woman
unselfishly, unobtrusively, ungrudgingly, serves the dear ones from early
morn to dewy eve; where the mother and the grandmother studies, foresees
and contributes to the comfort of her belongings, regardless of her own
happiness, and in the unselfishness raises womanhood to its highest
eminence.
You, my sisters, each of whom I dearly love for being the daughter of this
lovely land of India, each of you I urge to study the grand literatures of your
East in preference to the literatures of theWest. Your literature will uplift
you. Cling to it. Cling to the simplicity and sobriety of your domestic lives.
Keep its purity as it was in the ancient times and as it is still existing in your
simple homes.
Do not let modern fashions and extravagances of the West and its modern
English education spoil your reverential humility, your lovable domestic ties
consisting in the loving forethought the elders display for the beloved ones,
depending on them, and the resulting respectful deference filially and
dutifully accorded by the young to the aged. I make this appeal not to my
Hindu sisters only but also to Mohammedan and other sisters of mine too.
All are my sisters being the daughters of my land of adoption and where I
hope to continue the work of my revered Guru Vivekananda.
At Benares Hindu University (Benares, February
1916)
MOHANDAS KARAMCHAND GANDHI (1869–1948)

Mahatma Gandhi was invited to speak at the opening of the Benares

Hindu University in February 1916. It was around the same time that his
vow not to express views on the Indian political situation came to an end.
He arrived in Benares to find that the place was under siege. Lord
Hardinge, the Viceroy, was in the city to lay the foundation stone of the
university, and every house on his route was guarded. At the function, on
the dais many eminent personalities were seated including Annie Besant
and a galaxy of princes dressed in their finery. Gandhi, in contrast, was clad
in a short coarse dhoti, a Kathiawadi cloak and turban. Gandhi’s words,
directed to the youth in the audience, shocked many and he was repeatedly
interrupted by persons sitting on the dais (Annie Besant’s interruptions are
noted in the text). e clamour on the dais was so great that the president
left, and Gandhi was unable to finish his speech. He later wrote to a friend,
‘I have seen audiences going away from boredom; I have seen speakers
made to sit down; but I have never seen the president himself abandon the
meeting.’ Among the many who were struck by the speech, two individuals
deserve special mention because of their lifelong devotion to Gandhi—
G.D. Birla, then a young businessman, and Vinoba Bhave, a twenty-one-
year-old student, later to become an eminent Gandhian. It was Gandhi’s
forthrightness that affected his listeners so greatly; very rarely had anyone
spoken with his directness and simplicity in Indian public life. Nehru
described his effect aptly when he wrote, ‘and then Gandhi came…like a
powerful current of fresh air…like a whirlwind that upset many things but
most of all the working of people’s minds.’
I wish to tender my humble apology for the long delay that took place
before I was able to reach this place. And you will readily accept the apology
when I tell you that I am not responsible for the delay nor is any human
agency responsible for it. e fact is that I am like an animal on show, and
my keepers in their over kindness always manage to neglect a necessary
chapter in this life, and, that is, pure accident. In this case, they did not
provide for the series of accidents that happened to us—to me, keepers, and
my carriers. Hence this delay.
Friends, under the influence of the matchless eloquence of Mrs Besant who
has just sat down, pray, do not believe that our University has become a
finished product, and that all the young men who are to come to the
University, that has yet to rise and come into existence, have also come and
returned from it finished citizens of a great empire. Do not go away with
any such impression, and if you, the student world to which my remarks are
supposed to be addressed this evening, consider for one moment that the
spiritual life, for which this country is noted and for which this country has
no rival, can be transmitted through the lip, pray, believe me, you are wrong.
You will never be able merely through the lip, to give the message that
India, I hope, will one day deliver to the world. I myself have been fed up
with speeches and lectures. I accept the lectures that have been delivered
here during the last two days from this category, because they are necessary.
But I do venture to suggest to you that we have now reached almost the end
of our resources in speech-making; it is not enough that our ears are feasted,
that our eyes are feasted, but it is necessary that our hearts have got to be
touched and that our hands and feet have got to be moved.
We have been told during the last two days how necessary it is, if we are to
retain our hold upon the simplicity of Indian character, that our hands and
feet should move in unison with our hearts. But this is only by way of
preface. I wanted to say it is a matter of deep humiliation and shame for us
that I am compelled this evening under the shadow of this great college, in
this sacred city, to address my countrymen in a language that is foreign to
me. I know that if I was appointed an examiner, to examine all those who
have been attending during these two days this series of lectures, most of

h h h b d h l ld f l A d h
those who might be examined upon these lectures would fail. And why?
Because they have not been touched.
I was present at the sessions of the great Congress in the month of
December. ere was a much vaster audience, and will you believe me when
I tell you that the only speeches that touched the huge audience in Bombay
were the speeches that were delivered in Hindustani? In Bombay, mind you,
not in Benaras where everybody speaks Hindi. But between the vernaculars
of the Bombay Presidency on the one hand and Hindi on the other, no such
great dividing line exists as there does between English and the sister
language of India; and the Congress audience was better able to follow the
speakers in Hindi. I am hoping that this University will see to it that the
youths who come to it will receive their instruction through the medium of
their vernaculars. Our languages are the reflection of ourselves, and if you
tell me that our languages are too poor to express the best thought, then say
that the sooner we are wiped out of existence the better for us. Is there a
man who dreams that English can ever become the national language of
India? Why this handicap on the nation? Just consider for one moment
what an equal race our lads have to run with every English lad.
I had the privilege of a close conversation with some Poona professors. ey
assured me that every Indian youth, because he reached his knowledge
through the English language, lost at least six precious years of life.
Multiply that by the numbers of students turned out by our schools and
colleges, and find out for yourselves how many thousand years have been
lost to the nation. e charge against us is that we have no initiative. How
can we have any, if we are to devote the precious years of our life to the
mastery of a foreign tongue? We fail in this attempt also. Was it possible for
any speaker yesterday and today to impress his audience as was possible for
Mr Higginbotham? It was not the fault of the previous speakers that they
could not engage the audience. ey had more than substance enough for
us in their addresses. But their addresses could not go home to us. I have
heard it said that after all it is English educated India which is leading and
which is doing all the things for the nation. It would be monstrous if it were
otherwise. e only education we receive is English education. Surely we
must show something for it. But suppose that we had been receiving during
the past fifty years’ education through our vernaculars, what should we have
today? We should have today a free India, we should have our educated
men, not as if they were foreigners in their own land but speaking to the
h f h h ld b k h f h
heart of the nation; they would be working amongst the poorest of the poor,
and whatever they would have gained during these fifty years would be a
heritage for the nation. Today even our wives are not the sharers in our best
thought. Look at Professor Bose and Professor Ray and their brilliant
researches. Is it not a shame that their researches are not the common
property of the masses?
Let us now turn to another subject.
e Congress has passed a resolution about self-government, and I have no
doubt that the All-India Congress Committee and the Muslim League will
do their duty and come forward with some tangible suggestions. But I, for
one, must frankly confess that I am not so much interested in what they will
be able to produce as I am interested in anything that the student world is
going to produce or the masses are going to produce. No paper contribution
will ever give us self-government. No amount of speeches will ever make us
fit for self-government. It is only our conduct that will make us fit for it.
And how are we trying to govern ourselves?
I want to think audibly this evening. I do not want to make a speech and if
you find me this evening speaking without reserve, pray, consider that you
are only sharing the thoughts of a man who allows himself to think audibly,
and if you think that I seem to transgress the limits that courtesy imposes
upon me, pardon me for the liberty I may be taking. I visited the
Vishwanath temple last evening, and as I was walking through those lanes,
these were the thoughts that touched me. If a stranger dropped from above
on to this great temple, and he had to consider what we as Hindus were,
would he not be justified in condemning us? Is not this great temple a
reflection of our own character? I speak feelingly, as a Hindu. Is it right that
the lanes of our sacred temple should be as dirty as they are? e houses
round about are built anyhow. e lanes are tortuous and narrow. If even
our temples are not models of roominess and cleanliness, what can our self-
government be? Shall our temples be abodes of holiness, cleanliness and
peace as soon as the English have retired from India, either of their own
pleasure or by compulsion, bag and baggage?
I entirely agree with the President of the Congress that before we think of
self-government, we shall have to do the necessary plodding. In every city
there are two divisions, the cantonment and the city proper. e city mostly
is a stinking den. But we are a people unused to city life. But if we want city
lf d h h l lf I f
life, we cannot reproduce the easy-going hamlet life. It is not comforting to
think that people walk about the streets of Indian Bombay under the
perpetual fear of dwellers in the storeyed building spitting upon them. I do
a great deal of railway travelling. I observe the difficulty of third-class
passengers. But the railway administration is by no means to blame for all
their hard lot.
We do not know the elementary laws of cleanliness. We spit anywhere on
the carriage floor, irrespective of the thoughts that it is often used as
sleeping space. We do not trouble ourselves as to how we use it; the result is
indescribable filth in the compartment. e so-called better class passengers
overawe their less fortunate brethren. Among them I have seen the student
world also; sometimes they behave no better. ey can speak English and
they have worn Norfolk jackets and, therefore, claim the right to force their
way in and command seating accommodation.
I have turned the searchlight all over, and as you have given me the privilege
of speaking to you, I am laying my heart bare. Surely we must set these
things right in our progress towards self-government. I now introduce you
to another scene. His Highness the Maharaja who presided yesterday over
our deliberations spoke about the poverty of India. Other speakers laid great
stress upon it. But what did we witness in the great pandal in which the
foundation ceremony was performed by the Viceroy? Certainly a most
gorgeous show, an exhibition of jewellery, which made a splendid feast for
the eyes of the greatest jeweler who chose to come from Paris. I compare
with the richly bedecked noble men the millions of the poor. And I feel like
saying to these noble men, ‘ere is no salvation for India unless you strip
yourselves of this jewellery and hold it in trust for your countrymen in
India.’ I am sure it is not the desire of the King-Emperor or Lord Hardinge
that in order to show the truest loyalty to our King-Emperor, it is necessary
for us to ransack our jewellery boxes and to appear bedecked from top to
toe. I would undertake, at the peril of my life, to bring to you a message
from King George himself that he accepts nothing of the kind.
Sir, whenever I hear of a great palace rising in any great city of India, be it
in British India or be it in India which is ruled by our great chiefs, I become
jealous at once, and say, ‘Oh, it is the money that has come from the
agriculturists.’ Over seventy-five percent of the population are agriculturists
and Mr Higginbotham told us last night in his own felicitous language, that

h h h bl d f h l f B
they are the men who grow two blades of grass in the place of one. But
there cannot be much spirit of self-government about us, if we take away or
allow others to take away from them almost the whole of the results of their
labour. Our salvation can only come through the farmer. Neither the
lawyers, nor the doctors, nor the rich landlords are going to secure it.
Now, last but not the least, it is my bounden duty to refer to what agitated
our minds during these two or three days. All of us have had many anxious
moments while the Viceroy was going through the streets of Benares. ere
were detectives stationed in many places. We were horrified. We asked
ourselves, ‘Why this distrust?’ Is it not better that even Lord Hardinge
should die than live a living death? But a representative of a mighty
sovereign may not. He might find it necessary to impose these detectives on
us? We may foam, we may fret, we may resent, but let us not forget that
India of today in her impatience has produced an army of anarchists. I
myself am an anarchist, but of another type. But there is a class of
anarchists amongst us, and if I was able to reach this class, I would say to
them that their anarchism has no room in India, if India is to conquer the
conqueror. It is a sign of fear. If we trust and fear God, we shall have to fear
no one, not the maharajas, not the viceroys, not the detectives, not even
King George.
I honour the anarchist for his love of the country. I honour him for his
bravery in being willing to die for his country; but I ask him—is killing
honourable? Is the dagger of an assassin a fit precursor of an honourable
death? I deny it. ere is no warrant for such methods in any scriptures. If I
found it necessary for the salvation of India that the English should retire
that they should be driven out, I would not hesitate to declare that they
would have to go, and I hope I would be prepared to die in defense of that
belief. at would, in my opinion, be an honourable death. e bomb-
thrower creates secret plots, is afraid to come out into the open, and when
caught pays the penalty of misdirected zeal.
I have been told, ‘Had we not done this, had some people not thrown
bombs, we should never have gained what we have got with reference to the
partition movement.’ (Mrs Besant: ‘Please stop it.’) is was what I said in
Bengal when Mr Lyon presided at the meeting. I think what I am saying is
necessary. If I am told to stop I shall obey. (Turning to the Chairman) I
await your orders. If you consider that by my speaking as I am, I am not

h d h I h ll l (C f ‘G ’)
serving the country and the empire I shall certainly stop. (Cries of ‘Go on.’)
(e Chairman: ‘Please, explain your object.’) I am simply… (another
interruption). My friends, please do not resent this interruption. If Mrs
Besant this evening suggests that I should stop, she does so because she
loves India so well, and she considers that I am erring in thinking audibly
before you young men. But even so, I simply say this, that I want to purge
India of this atmosphere of suspicion on either side, if we are to reach our
goal; we should have an empire which is to be based upon mutual love and
mutual trust. Is it not better that we talk under the shadow of this college
than that we should be talking irresponsibly in our homes? I consider that it
is much better that we talk these things openly. I have done so with
excellent results before now. I know that there is nothing that the students
do not know. I am, therefore, turning the searchlight towards ourselves. I
hold the name of my country so dear to me that I exchange these thoughts
with you, and submit to you that there is no room for anarchism in India.
Let us frankly and openly say whatever we want to say our rulers, and face
the consequences if what we have to say does not please them. But let us
not abuse.
I was talking the other day to a member of the much-abused Civil Service. I
have not very much in common with the members of that Service, but I
could not help admiring the manner in which he was speaking to me. He
said: ‘Mr Gandhi, do you for one moment suppose that all we, Civil
Servants, are a bad lot, that we want to oppress the people whom we have
come to govern?’ ‘No,’ I said. ‘en if you get an opportunity put in a word
for the much-abused Civil Service.’ And I am here to put in that word. Yes,
many members of the Indian Civil Service are most decidedly overbearing;
they are tyrannical, at times thoughtless. Many other adjectives may be
used. I grant all these things and I grant also that after having lived in India
for a certain number of years some of them become somewhat degraded.
But what does that signify? ey were gentlemen before they came here,
and if they have lost some of the moral fibre, it is a reflection upon
ourselves.
Just think out for yourselves, if a man who was good yesterday has become
bad after having come in contact with me, is he responsible that he has
deteriorated or am I? e atmosphere of sycophancy and falsity that
surrounds them on their coming to India demoralizes them, as it would
many of us. It is well to take the blame sometimes. If we are to receive self-
h ll h k W h ll b d lf
government, we shall have to take it. We shall never be granted self-
government. Look at the history of the British Empire and the British
nation; freedom loving as it is, it will not be a party to give freedom to a
people who will not take it themselves. Learn your lesson if you wish to
from the Boer War. ose who were enemies of that empire only a few
years ago have now become friends…
(At this point there was an interruption and a movement on the platform to
leave. e speech, therefore, ended here abruptly).
Freedom is my birthright (Nasik, May 1917)
BAL GANGADHAR TILAK (1856–1920)

When Tilak came out of prison in Mandalay in 1914, after serving a

sentence of six years, he found the nationalist movement at a low ebb. e
mass upsurge of the Swadeshi movement had died down and his old rivals,
the Moderates seem to be on the ascendant. Tilak wanted the Congress to
stop being merely a deliberative body and to lead the protest against British
rule. To revive the spirit of nationalism, Tilak and Annie Besant began the
Home Rule Leagues—Besant in 1915 and Tilak the next year. is speech
was made at a function to mark the first anniversary of Tilak’s Home Rule
League. Tilak was speaking as an old man to the young and his words were
so impassioned that they became the clarion call of the national movement.
Tilak’s demand for freedom was incorporated in the Purna Swaraj
resolution of the Congress in 1929.

I am young in spirit though old in body. I do not wish to lose this privilege
of youth. To deny the growing capacity to my thinking power is to admit
that I have no right to speak on this resolution. Whatever I am going to
speak today is eternally young. e body might grow old, decrepit and it
might perish, but the soul is immortal. Similarly, if there might be an
apparent lull in our Home Rule activities, the freedom of the spirit behind
it is eternal and indestructible, and it will secure liberty for us. e soul
means Parameshwar and the mind will not get peace till it gets identified
with Him. If one body is worn out the soul will take another; so assures the
Gita. is philosophy is quite old. Freedom is my birthright. So long as it is
awake within me, I am not old. No weapon can cut this spirit, no fire can
b d d I f h h CID
burn it, no water can wet it, no wind can dry it. I say further that no CID
can burn it. I declare the same principle to the Superintendent of Police
who is sitting before me, to the Collector who had been invited to attend
this meeting and to the government shorthand writer who is busy taking
down notes of our speeches. e principle will not disappear even if it seems
to be killed. We ask for Home Rule and we must get it. e science which
ends in Home Rule is the science of politics and not the one which ends in
slavery. e science of politics is the ‘Vedas’ of the country. You have a soul
and I only want to wake it up. I want to tear off the blind that has been let
down by ignorant, designing and selfish people. e science of politics
consists of two parts. e first is divine and the second is demonic. e
slavery of a nation comes into the latter part. ere cannot be a moral
justification for the demonic part of the science of politics. A nation which
might justify this is guilty of sin in the sight of God. Some people have the
courage to declare what is harmful to them and some have not that courage.
e political and religious teaching consists in giving the knowledge of this
principle. Religious and political teachings are not separate, though they
appear to be so on account of foreign rule. All philosophies are included in
the science of politics.
Who does not know the meaning of Home Rule? Who does not want it?
Would you like it, if I enter your house and take possession of your cooking
department? I must have the right to manage the affairs in my own house.
It is only lunatics and children who do not know how to manage their own
affairs. e cardinal creed of the conferences is that a member must be
above 21 years of age; do you not, therefore, think that you want your own
right? Not being lunatics or children you understand your own business,
your own rights and, therefore, you know Home Rule. We are told we are
not fit for Home Rule. A century has passed away and the British Rule has
not made us fit for Home Rule; now we will make our own efforts and fit
ourselves for it. To offer irrelevant excuses, to hold out any temptation and
to make other offers will be putting a stigma on the English policy. England
is trying to protect the small state of Belgium with the help of India; how
can it then say that we should not have Home Rule? ose who find fault
with us are avaricious people. But there are people who find fault even with
the all-merciful God. We must work hard to save the soul of our nation
without caring for anything. e good of our country consists in guarding
this—our birthright. e Congress has passed this Home Rule resolution.
 l f l h ld f h C h h b
e provincial conference is only a child of the Congress which submits to
mandates of its father. We will follow Shri Ramachandra in obeying the
order of our father the Congress. We are determined to make efforts to get
this resolution enforced even if the effort leads us to the desert, compels us
to live incognito, makes us suffer any hardship and even if it finally brings
us to death. Shri Ramachandra did it. Do not pass this resolution by merely
clapping your hands but by taking a solemn vow that you will work for it.
We will work for it by every possible constitutional and law-abiding method
to get Home Rule. rough the grace of God, England has changed its
mind towards us. We feel our efforts will not be without success. England
proudly thought that a tiny nation might be able to protect the empire by
itself. is pride has gone down. England has now begun to feel that it
must make changes in the Constitution of the Empire. Lloyd George has
openly confessed that England cannot go on without the help of India. All
notions about a nation of a thousand years old have to be changed. e
English people have discovered that the wisdom of all their parties is not
sufficient. e Indian soldiers have saved the lives of the British soldiers on
the French battlefield and have showed their bravery. ose who once
considered us as slaves have begun now to call us brothers. God has brought
about all those changes. We must push our demands while the notion of
this brotherhood is existing in the minds of the English. We must inform
them that we, thirty crores of the Indian people, are ready to lay down our
lives for the empire; and that while we are with them none shall dare cast an
evil glance at the empire.
e trial speech (Ahmedabad, March 1922)
MOHANDAS KARAMCHAND GANDHI (1869–1948)

After the violence at Chauri Chaura in February 1922, Gandhi called off

the Non Co-operation Movement, the first all-India protest against British
rule. Gandhi had insisted that the movement should be non-violent and the
killing of policemen in Chauri Chaura came as a shock to him. He expected
to be arrested and the arrest came on March 10 when he was in his
Sabarmati ashram. e trial began on March 18 before C.N. Broomfield,
ICS, District and Sessions Judge, Ahmedabad. J.T. Strangman, the
advocate-general conducted the prosecution. Gandhi, who told the court
that he was a farmer and a weaver by occupation, was undefended. He was
charged for writing three articles in Young India, which had excited hatred
and disaffection towards His Majesty’s Government in British India. e
three offending articles were, Tampering with Loyalty, e Puzzle and its
Solutions and Shaking the Manes. Gandhi pleaded guilty to the charges and
proceeded to make a statement on record to the court. In this speech,
Gandhi spoke about his deep commitment to nonviolence and his refusal to
accept British rule. Maniben Patel, the daughter of Vallabhbhai, was
present in the court. She recalled the silence and the sadness in the court
room as the speech was made and the verdict delivered: ‘It was as if the
birds and animals too were still, and people had stopped breathing…When
asked why they were looking sad, people broke down and wept.’

Before I read this statement I would like to state that I entirely endorse the
learned Advocate-General’s remarks in connection with my humble self. I
think that he was entirely fair to me in all the statements that he has made,
b dIh d h lf h
because it is very true and I have no desire whatsoever to conceal from this
court the fact that to preach disaffection towards the existing system of
government has become almost a passion with me, and the learned
Advocate-General is also entirely in the right when he says that my
preaching of disaffection did not commence with my connection with Young
India, but that it commenced much earlier and in the statement that I am
about to read, it will be my painful duty to admit before this court that it
commenced much earlier than the period stated by the Advocate-General.
It is the most painful duty with me, but I have to discharge that duty
knowing the responsibility that rests upon me, and I wish to endorse all the
blame that the learned Advocate-General has thrown on my shoulders in
connection with the Bombay, the Madras and the Chauri Chaura
occurrences. inking over these deeply and sleeping over them night after
night, it is impossible to dissociate myself from the diabolical crimes of
Chauri Chaura or the mad outrages in Bombay and Madras. He is quite
right when he says that, as a man of responsibility, a man having received a
fair share of education, having had a fair share of experience of this world, I
should know the consequences of every one of my acts. I knew that I was
playing with fire. I ran the risk and, if I was set free, I would still do the
same. I know that I was feeling it so every day and I have felt it also this
morning that I would have failed in my duty if I did not say what I said here
just now.
I wanted to avoid violence. I want to avoid violence. Nonviolence is the first
article of my faith. It is also the last article of my creed. But I had to make
my choice. I had either to submit to a system which I considered had done
an irreparable harm to my country, or incur the risk of the mad fury of my
peopl bursting forth when they understood the truth from my lips. I know
that my people have sometimes gone mad; I am deeply sorry for it. I am,
therefore, here to submit not to a light penalty but to the highest penalty. I
do not ask for mercy. I do not ask for any extenuating act of clemency. I am
here to invite and cheerfully submit to the highest penalty that can be
inflicted upon me for what in law is a deliberate crime and what appears to
me to be the highest duty of a citizen. e only course open to you, the
Judge, is as I am just going to say in my statement, either to resign your
post, or inflict on me the severest penalty, if you believe that the system and
the law you are assisting to administer are good for the people of this
country and that my activity is therefore injurious to the public weal. I do
h k d f b b h Ih fi h d h
not expect that kind of conversion, but by the time I have finished with my
statement, you will, perhaps, have a glimpse of what is raging within my
breast to run this maddest risk that a sane man can run.
e statement was then read out.
STATEMENT
I owe it perhaps to the Indian public and to the public in England, to
placate which this prosecution is mainly taken up, that I should explain why,
from a staunch loyalist and co-operator, I have become an uncompromising
disaffectionist and non-co-operator. To the court, too, I should say why I
plead guilty to the charge of promoting disaffection towards the
government established by law in India.
My public life began in 1893 in South Africa in troubled weather. My first
contact with British authority in that country was not of a happy character.
I discovered that as a man and Indian I had no rights. More correctly, I
discovered that I had no rights as a man because I was an Indian.
But I was not baffled. I thought that this treatment of Indians was an
excrescence upon a system that was intrinsically and mainly good.
I gave the government my voluntary and hearty co-operation, criticizing it
freely where I felt it was faulty, but never wishing its destruction.
Consequently, when the existence of the empire was threatened in 1899 by
the Boer challenge, I offered my services to it, raised a volunteer ambulance
corps and served at several actions that took place for the relief of
Ladysmith. Similarly in 1906, at the time of the Zulu revolt, I raised a
stretcher-bearer party and served till the end of the rebellion. On both these
occasions I received medals and was even mentioned in despatches. For my
work in South Africa I was given by Lord Hardinge a Kaiser-i-Hind Gold
Medal. When the War broke out in 1914 between England and Germany, I
raised a volunteer ambulance corps in London consisting of the then
resident Indians in London, chiefly students. Its work was acknowledged by
the authorities to be valuable. Lastly, in India, when a special appeal was
made at the War Conference in Delhi in 1918 by Lord Chelmsford for
recruits, I struggled at the cost of my health to raise a corps in Kheda and
the response was being made when the hostilities ceased and orders were
received that no more recruits were wanted. In all these efforts at service, I
was actuated by the belief that it was possible by such services to gain a
status of full equality in the empire for my countrymen.
 fi h k h h f h R l A l d d b
e first shock came in the shape of the Rowlatt Act, a law designed to rob
the people of all real freedom. I felt called upon to lead an intensive
agitation against it. en followed the Punjab horrors beginning with the
massacre at Jallianwala Bagh and culminating in crawling orders, public
floggings and other indescribable humiliations. I discovered, too, that the
plighted word of the Prime Minister to the Mussalmans of India regarding
the integrity of Turkey and the holy places of Islam was not likely to be
fulfilled. But, in spite of the forebodings and the grave warnings of friends,
at the Amritsar Congress in 1919, I fought for co-operation and working
the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms, hoping that the Prime Minister would
redeem his promise to the Indian Mussalmans, that the Punjab wound
would be healed and that the reforms, inadequate and unsatisfactory though
they were, marked a new era of hope in the life of India.
But all that hope was shattered. e Khilafat promise was not to be
redeemed. e Punjab crime was white-washed and most culprits went not
only unpunished, but remained in service and some continued to draw
pensions from the Indian revenue, and in some cases were even rewarded. I
saw, too, that not only did the reforms not mark a change of heart, but they
were only a method of further draining India of her wealth and of
prolonging her servitude.
I came reluctantly to the conclusion that the British connection had made
India more helpless than she ever was before, politically and economically.
A disarmed India has no power of resistance against any aggressor if she
wanted to engage in an armed conflict with him. So much is this the case
that some of our best men consider that India must take generations before
she can achieve the dominion status. She has become so poor that she has
little power of resisting famines. Before the British advent, India spun and
wove in her millions of cottages just the supplement she needed for adding
to her meagre agricultural resources. is cottage industry, so vital for
India’s existence, has been ruined by incredibly heartless and inhuman
processes as described by English witnesses. Little do town-dwellers know
how the semi-starved masses of India are slowly sinking to lifelessness.
Little do they know that their miserable comfort represents the brokerage
they get for the work they do for the foreign exploiter, that the profits and
the brokerage are sucked from the masses. Little do they realize that the
government established by law in British India is carried on for this
exploitation of the masses. No sophistry, no jugglery in figures can explain
h d h h k l ll h k d
away the evidence that the skeletons in many villages present to the naked
eye. I have no doubt whatsoever that both England and the town-dwellers
of India will have to answer, if there is a God above, for this crime against
humanity which is perhaps unequalled in history. e law itself in this
country has been used to serve the foreign exploiter. My unbiased
examination of the Punjab Martial Law cases has led me to believe that at
least ninety-five percent of convictions were wholly bad. My experience of
political cases in India leads one to the conclusion that in nine out of every
ten cases the condemned men were totally innocent. eir crime consisted
in the love of their country. In ninety-nine cases out of hundred, justice has
been denied to Indians as against Europeans in the courts of India. is is
not an exaggerated picture. It is the experience of almost every Indian who
has had anything to do with such cases. In my opinion, the administration
of the law is thus prostituted consciously or unconsciously for the benefit of
the exploiter.
e greatest misfortune is that Englishmen and their Indian associates in
the administration of the country do not know that they are engaged in the
crime I have attempted to describe. I am satisfied that many English and
Indian officials honestly believe that they are administering one of the best
systems devised in the world and that India is making steady though slow
progress. ey do not know that a subtle but effective system of terrorism
and an organized display of force on the one hand, and the deprivation of
all powers of retaliation or self-defence on the other, have emasculated the
people and induced in them the habit of simulation. is awful habit has
added to the ignorance and the self-deception of the administrators. Section
124 A under which I am happily charged is perhaps the prince among the
political sections of the Indian Penal Code designed to suppress the liberty
of the citizen. Affection cannot be manufactured or regulated by law. If one
has no affection for a person or system, one should be free to give the fullest
expression to his disaffection, so long as he does not contemplate, promote
or incite to violence. But the section under which Mr Banker and I are
charged is one under which mere promotion of disaffection is a crime. I
have studied some of the cases tried under it, and I know that some of the
most loved of India’s patriots have been convicted under it. I consider it a
privilege, therefore, to be charged under it. I have endeavoured to give in
their briefest outline the reasons for my disaffection. I have no personal ill
will against any single administrator, much less can I have any disaffection
d h K ’ B I h ld b b d ff d
towards the King’s person. But I hold it to be a virtue to be disaffected
towards a government which in its totality has done more harm to India
than any previous system. India is less manly under the British rule than she
ever was before. Holding such a belief, I consider it to be a sin to have
affection for the system. And it has been a precious privilege for me to be
able to write what I have in the various articles tendered in evidence against
me.
In fact, I believe that I have rendered a service to India and England by
showing in non-co-operation the way out of the unnatural state in which
both are living. In my humble opinion, non-cooperation with evil is as
much a duty as is co-operation with good. But, in the past, non-co-
operation has been deliberately expressed in violence to the evil-doer. I am
endeavouring to show to my countrymen that violent non-co-operation
only multiplies evil and that, as evil can only be sustained by violence,
withdrawal of support of evil requires complete abstention from violence.
Non-violence implies voluntary submission to the penalty for non-co-
operation with evil. I am here, therefore, to invite and submit cheerfully to
the highest penalty that can be inflicted upon me for what in law is a
deliberate crime and what appears to me to be the highest duty of a citizen.
e only course open to you, the Judge, is either to resign your post and
thus dissociate yourself from evil, if you feel that the law you are called upon
to administer is an evil and that in reality I am innocent; or to inflict on me
the severest penalty if you believe that the system and the law you are
assisting to administer are good for the people of this country and that my
activity is, therefore, injurious to the public weal.
e dangerous cult of absolute non-violence
(Madurai, December 1940)
V.D. SAVARKAR (1883–1966)

Savarkar had been a militant revolutionary before he became a champion of

Hindutva. In 1907, on the fiftieth anniversary of the revolt of 1857, he had
held up the uprising’s armed and united (Hindu and Muslim) resistance to
the British as a model for action in the present. He was convinced that
British rule could be overthrown only through violence and his hatred for
non-violence was visceral. He argued that non-violence made men
effeminate. He delivered this speech at the twenty-second session of the
Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha. His views were the ideological
inspiration for Nathuram Godse who became Savarkar’s protégé. ere is a
direct link between Savarkar’s views and those of Godse as put forward in
his trial speech.

Relative non-violence on the whole, is doubtless a virtue so pre-eminently

contributing to human good as to form one of the fundamentals on which
human life whether individual or social can take its stand and evolve all
social amenities. But absolute non-violence, that is, non-violence under all
circumstances and even when instead of helping human life whether
individual or national it causes an incalculable harm to humanity as a whole,
ought to be condemned as a moral perversity. It is on the whole condemned
likewise by those very religious and moral schools which lauded relative
non-violence as the first and foremost human virtue.

I h ld b d l h h h h d b B ddh
It should be noted in particular that the ahimsa preached by Buddhism or
Jainism is directly opposed to the absolute ahimsa or the absolute non-
violence as Gandhiji interprets it, condemning all armed resistance under all
circumstances. e very fact that the Jains reared up kingdoms, produced
heroes and heroines who fought armed battles and Jain commanders in
chief leading Jain armies without being ostracized by the Jain acharyas,
prove the point to the hilt that the ahimsa of the Jains cannot be the rabid
ahimsa of the Gandhist school. e Jain scriptures openly assert that armed
resistance to incorrigible aggression is not only justifiable but imperative.
Lord Buddha also gave the same ruling when questioned by the leaders of a
clan as to whether they should take to armed resistance as soldiers against
the armed aggression, of another clan. ‘Soldiers may fight against armed
aggression,’ said Lord Buddha, ‘without committing a sin if but they fight
with arms in defence of a righteous cause.’
Call it a law of nature or the will of God as you like, the hard fact remains
that there is no room for absolute non-violence in nature.
Man could not have saved himself from utter extinction and nor could he
have led the precarious and wretched life of a coward had he not succeeded
in adding the strength of artificial arms to his natural arms. roughout the
paleolithic and neolithic periods, the bronze age and the iron age, man
could maintain himself, multiply and master this earth chiefly through his
armed strength. In all honesty, the ‘defensive sword was the first saviour of
man’.
You may perhaps add something new to history but you cannot add to or
take away a syllable from the iron law of nature itself. Even today if man
hands over a blank cheque to a wolf or a tiger to be filled in, with a human
pledge of absolute non-violence, no killing of a living being, no armed force
to be used, even then the wolves and the tigers will lay waste all your
mandirs and mosques, culture and cultivation and ashrams. In face of such
an iron law of nature can anything be more immoral and sinful than to
preach a principle so anti-human as that of absolute nonviolence
condemning all armed resistance even to aggression? Yet it is curious to find
that even those who condemn this doctrine of absolute non-violence as
impracticable, still seem to believe that though it is impracticable for us
worldly men, this doctrine is nevertheless highly moral and evince some
mahatmaic excellence, some superhuman sanctity. is apologetic tone

b h d I h h f h d h
must be changed. It raises these prophets of this eccentric doctrine in their
own estimation and makes them feel they had really invented some moral
law raising human politics to some divine level. Seeing that even their
opponents on practical grounds attribute to them a superhuman saintliness
owing to the very eccentricity of their doctrine, they grow, perhaps
unconsciously all the more eccentric and have the insane temerity to preach
in all seriousness to the Indian public that even the taking up of a lathi
(stick) is sinful. e best means of freeing India from the foreign yoke is the
spinning-wheel. Not only that, but even after India becomes independent
there would not be any necessity of maintaining a single armed soldier or a
single warship to protect in the streets, and that there are men who after
passing the intermediate examination are engaged as cycle peons. ere are
LLBs who have accepted very humble positions in the excise, registration
department and other departments—positions which they would not be
allowed to accept in England by virtue of certain traditions of the English
bar. Taking the practical view of the position, may I be permitted to ask
how long can any government and how long can any society, shut its eyes to
the reality of the situation? How long can it profess to be a martyr to this
illusive cry of knowledge and culture if that is going to be the end of our
young men? People in England, France, Switzerland, and Italy have realized
this and they are now giving a different turn to their education.
Do not go away with the idea at all that I am opposed to university
education. Frankly, I would throw open the doors of universities as wide as
possible to everyone of you, provided I was assured that you would benefit
by that education and provided I was assured that you would then, after you
have completed your university education, become useful economic units of
society and useful members of the Indian community.
Purna Swaraj (Lahore, December 1929)
JAWAHARLAL NEHRU (1889–1964)

Jawaharlal Nehru was president of the Congress at its session held in

Lahore in 1929. Riding on a white horse at the Congress procession, he
seemed destined to be—as Mahatma Gandhi had prophesied—the young
Galahad of revolt. His presidential address demanding complete
independence captured the nation’s mood of defiance and rebellion. e
demand for complete independence had been in the air for sometime. e
Congress resolution of Purna Swaraj embodied it and Nehru’s presidential
address gave it formal shape. Nehru spoke of India’s struggle for
independence as a conquest of power and put it in an international context
of ending European dominance. e speech was received with great
enthusiasm except obviously by the British who were dismayed that the
Congress had enthroned a socialist and a revolutionary. e mood of the
Lahore Congress was appositely captured in the cries of ‘inquilab zindabad’
that went up with the traditional ‘bande mataram’ when the tricolour was
unfurled. Nehru, the idealistic nationalist, was clearly in no mood for
political compromise. is would be the last such romantic speech he would
make; the Jawaharlal of the 30s and 40s would be a more sombre, grander
figure.

Comrades—for four and forty years this National Congress has laboured for
the freedom of India. During this period it has somewhat slowly, but surely,
awakened national consciousness from its long stupor and built up the
national movement. If, today we are gathered here at a crisis of our destiny,
conscious of our strength as well as of our weakness, and looking with hope
d h h f ll h fi h h h
and apprehension to the future, it is well that we give first thought to those
who have gone before us and who spent out their lives with little hope of
reward, so that those that followed them may have the joy of achievement.
Many of the giants of old are not with us and we of a later day, standing on
an eminence of their creation, may often decry their efforts. at is the way
of the world. But none of you can forget them or the great work they did in
laying the foundations of a free India. And none of us can ever forget that
glorious band of men and women who, without tacking the consequences,
have laid down their young lives or spent their bright youth in suffering and
torment in utter protest against a foreign domination.
Many of their names even are not known to us. ey laboured and suffered
in silence without any expectation of public applause, and by their heart’s
blood they nursed the tender plant of India’s freedom. While many of us
temporized and compromised, they stood up and proclaimed a people’s
right to freedom and declared to the world that India, even in her
degradation, had the spark of life in her, because she refused to submit to
tyranny and serfdom. Brick by brick has our national movement been built
up, and often on the prostrate bodies of her martyred sons has India
advanced. e giants of old may not be with us, but the courage of old is
with us still and India can yet produce martyrs like Jatin Das and Wizaya.
is is the glorious heritage that we have inherited and you wish to put me
in charge of it. I know well that I occupy this honoured place by chance
more than by your deliberate design. Your desire was to choose another—
one who towers above all others in this present day world of ours—and
there could have been no wiser choice. But fate and He conspired together
and thrust me against your will and mine into this terrible seat of
responsibility. Should I express my gratitude to you for having placed me in
this dilemma? But I am grateful indeed for your confidence in one who
strangely lacks it himself.
You will discuss many vital national problems that face us today and your
decisions may change the course of Indian history. But you are not the only
people that are faced with problems. e whole world today is one vast
question-mark and every country and every people is in the melting pot.
e age of faith, with the comfort and stability it brings, is past and there is
questioning about everything, however permanent or sacred it might have
appeared to our forefathers. Everywhere, there is doubt and restlessness and

h f d f h d f f
the foundations of the state and society are in process of transformation.
Old established ideas of liberty, justice, property, and even the family are
being attacked and the outcome hangs in the balance. We appear to be in a
dissolving period of history when the world is in labour and out of her
travail will give birth to a new order.
No one can say what the future will bring, but we may assert with some
confidence that Asia and even India, will play a determining part in future
world policy. e brief day of European domination is already approaching
its end. Europe has ceased to be the centre of activity and interest. e
future lies with America and Asia. Owing to false and incomplete history
many of us have been led to think that Europe has always dominated over
the rest of the world, and Asia has always let the legions of the West
thunder past and had plunged in thought again. We have forgotten that for
millennia the legions of Asia overran Europe and modern Europe itself
largely consists of the descendants of these invaders from Asia. We have
forgotten that it was India that finally broke the military power of
Alexander.
ought has undoubtedly been the glory of Asia and specially of India, but
in the field of action the record of Asia has been equally great. But none of
us desires that the legions of Asia or Europe should overrun the continents
again. We have all had enough of them.
India today is a part of a world movement. Not only China, Turkey, Persia,
and Egypt but also Russia and the countries of the West are taking part in
this movement, and India cannot isolate herself from it. We have our own
problems—difficult and intricate—and we cannot run away from them and
take shelter in the wider problems that affect the world. But if we ignore the
world, we do so at our peril. Civilization today, such as it is, is not the
creation or monopoly of one people or nation. It is a composite fabric to
which all countries have contributed and then have adapted to suit their
particular needs. And if India has a message to give to the world as I hope
she has, she has also to receive and learn much from the messages of other
peoples.
When everything is changing it is well to remember the long course of
Indian history. Few things in history are more amazing than the wonderful
stability of the social structure in India, which withstood the impact of
numerous alien influences and thousands of years of change and conflict. It
h d h b l h b b h d l h
withstood them because it always sought to absorb them and tolerate them.
Its aim was not to exterminate, but to establish an equilibrium between
different cultures. Aryans and non-Aryans settled down together
recognizing each other’s right to their culture, and outsiders who came, like
the Parsis, found a welcome and a place in the social order. With the
coming of the Muslims, the equilibrium was disturbed, but India sought to
restore it, and largely succeeded. Unhappily for us before we could adjust
our differences, the political structure broke down, the British came and we
fell.
Great as was the success of India in evolving a stable society, she failed and
in a vital particular, and because she failed in this, she fell and remains
fallen. No solution was found for the problem of equality. India deliberately
ignored this and built up her social structure on inequality, and we have the
tragic consequences of this policy in the millions of our people who till
yesterday were suppressed and had little opportunity for growth.
And yet when Europe fought her wars of religion and Christians massacred
each other in the name of their saviour, India was tolerant, although alas,
there is little of this toleration today. Having attained some measure of
religious liberty, Europe sought after political liberty, and political and legal
equality. Having attained these also, she finds that they mean very little
without economic liberty and equality. And so today politics have ceased to
have much meaning and the most vital question is that of social and
economic equality.
India also will have to find a solution to this problem and until she does so,
her political and social structure cannot have stability. at solution need
not necessarily follow the example of any other country. It must, if it has to
endure, be based on the genius of her people and be an outcome of her
thought and culture. And when it is found, the unhappy differences
between various communities, which trouble us today and keep back our
freedom, will automatically disappear.
Indeed, the real differences have already largely gone, but fear of each other
and distrust and suspicion remain and sow seeds of discord. e problem is
how to remove fear and suspicion and, being intangible, they are hard to get
at. An earnest attempt was made to do so last year by the All Parties’
Committee and much progress was made towards the goal. But we must
admit with sorrow that success has not wholly crowned its efforts. Many of
M l d S kh f d h l d h l
our Muslim and Sikh friends have strenuously opposed the solutions
suggested and passions have been roused over mathematical figures and
percentages. Logic and cold reasons are poor weapons to fight fear and
distrust. Only faith and generosity can overcome them. I can only hope that
the leaders of various communities will have this faith and generosity in
ample measure. What shall we gain for ourselves or for our community, if
all of us are slaves in a slave country? And what can we lose if once we
remove the shackles from India and can breathe the air of freedom again?
Do we want outsiders who are not of us and who have kept us in bondage,
to be the protectors of our little rights and privileges, when they deny us the
very right to freedom? No majority can crush a determined minority and no
minority can be protected by a little addition to its seats in a legislature. Let
us remember that in the world today, almost everywhere a very small
minority holds wealth and power and dominates over the great majority.
I have no love for bigotry and dogmatism in religion and I am glad that
they are weakening. Nor do I love communalism in any shape or form. I
find it difficult to appreciate why political or economic rights should depend
on the membership of a religious group or community. I can fully
understand the right to freedom in a religion and the right to one’s culture,
and in India specially, which has always acknowledged and granted these
rights, it should be no difficult matter to ensure their continuance We have
only to find out some way whereby we may root out the fear and distrust
that darken our horizon today. e politics of a subject race are largely based
on fear and hatred, and we have been too long under subjection to get rid of
them easily.
I was born a Hindu but I do not know how far I am justified in calling
myself one or in speaking on behalf of Hindus. But birth still counts in this
country and by right of birth I shall venture to submit to the leaders of the
Hindus that it should be their privilege to take the lead in generosity.
Generosity is not only good morals, but is often good politics and sound
expediency. And it is inconceivable to me that in a free India, the Hindus
can ever be powerless. So far as I am concerned, I would gladly ask our
Muslim and Sikh friends to take what they will without protest and
argument from me. I know that the time is coming soon when these labels
and appellations will have little meaning and when our struggle will be on
an economic basis. Meanwhile, it matters little what our mutual

d d l h d b ld b h h ll
arrangements are, provided only that we do not build up barriers which will
come in the way of our future progress.
e time has indeed already come when the All Parties’ Report has to be
put aside and we march forward unfettered to our goal. You will remember
that the resolution of the last Congress fixed a year of grace for the adoption
of the All-Parties scheme. at year is nearly over and the natural issue of
that decision is for this Congress to declare in favour of independence and
devise sanctions to achieve it.
Recently, there has been a seeming offer of peace. e Viceroy has stated on
behalf of the British Government that the leaders of Indian opinion will be
invited to confer with the government on the subject of India’s future
Constitution. e Viceroy meant well and his language was the language of
peace. But even a Viceroy’s goodwill and courteous phrases are poor
substitutes for the hard facts that confront us. We have sufficient experience
of the devious ways of British diplomacy to beware of it. e offer which
the British Government made was vague and there was no commitment or
promise of performance. Only by the greatest stretch of imagination could
it be interpreted as a possible response to the Calcutta resolution. Many
leaders of various political parties met together soon after and considered it.
ey gave it the most favourable interpretation, for they desired peace and
were willing to go half-way to meet it. But in courteous language they made
it clear what the vital conditions for its acceptance were.
Many of us who believed in independence and were convinced that the offer
was only a device to lead us astray and create division in our ranks, suffered
bitter anguish and were torn with doubt. Were we justified in precipitating a
terrible national struggle with all its inevitable consequences of suffering for
many, when there was even an outside chance of honourable peace? With
much searching of heart we signed that manifesto and I know not today if
we did right or wrong. Later came the explanations and amplifications in
the British Parliament and elsewhere and all doubt, if doubt there was, was
removed as to the true significance of the offer. Even so your Working
Committee chose to keep open the door of negotiation and left it to this
Congress to take the final decision.
During the last few days there has been another discussion of this subject in
the British House of Commons and the Secretary of State for India has
endeavoured to point out that successive governments have tried to prove,
l b d b b d d l h f h f h d
not only by words but by deeds also, the sincerity of their faith in regard to
India. We must recognize Mr Wedgwood Benn’s desire to do something for
India and his anxiety to secure the goodwill of the Indian people. But his
speech and other speeches made in Parliament carry us no further.
‘Dominion Status in action’, to which he has drawn attention has been a
snare for us and has certainly not reduced the exploitation of India.
e burdens on the Indian masses are even greater today, because of this
‘Dominion Status in action’ and the so-called constitutional reforms of ten
years ago. High Commissioners in London and representatives of the
League of Nations, and the purchase of stores, and Indian Governors and
high officials are no parts of our demand. We want to put an end to the
exploitation of India’s poor and to get the reality of power and not merely
the livery of office. Mr Wedgwood Benn has given us a record of the
achievements of the past decade. He could have added to it by referring to
Martial Law in the Punjab and the Jallianwala Bagh shooting and the
repression and exploitation that have gone on continually during this period
of ‘Dominion Status in action.’ He has given us some insight into what
more of Dominion Status may mean for us. It will mean the shadow of
authority to a handful of Indians and more repression and exploitation of
the masses.
What will this Congress do? e conditions for cooperation remain
unfulfilled. Can we cooperate so long as there is no guarantee that real
freedom will come to us? Can we cooperate when our comrades lie in
prison and repression continues? Can we cooperate until we are assured that
real peace is sought after and not merely a tactical advantage over us? Peace
cannot come at the point of the bayonet, and if we are to continue to be
dominated over by an alien people, let us at least be no consenting parties to
it.
If the Calcutta resolution holds, we have but one goal today, that of
independence. Independence is not a happy word in the world today; for it
means exclusiveness and isolation. Civilization has had enough of narrow
nationalism and gropes towards a wider cooperation and inter-dependence.
And if we use the word ‘independence’, we do so in no sense hostile to the
larger ideal. Independence for us means complete freedom from British
domination and British imperialism. Having attained our freedom, I have
no doubt that India will welcome all attempts at world-cooperation and

f d d ll fh d d
federation, and will even agree to give up part of her own independence to a
larger group of which she is an equal member.
e British Empire today is not such a group and cannot be so long as it
dominates over millions of people and holds large areas of the world’s
surface despite the will of their inhabitants. It cannot be a true
commonwealth so long as imperialism is its basis and the exploitation of
other races its chief means of sustenance. e British Empire today is
indeed gradually undergoing a process of political dissolution. It is in a state
of unstable equilibrium. e Union of South Africa is not a happy member
of the family, nor is the Irish Free State, a willing one. Egypt drifts away.
India could never be an equal member of the Commonwealth unless
imperialism and all it implies is discarded. So long as this is not done,
India’s position in the empire must be one of subservience and her
exploitation will continue.
ere is talk of world-peace and pacts have been signed by the nations of
the world. But despite pacts, armaments grow and beautiful language is the
only homage that is paid to the goddess of peace. Peace can only come
when the causes of war are removed. So long as there is the domination of
one country over another, or the exploitation of one class by another, there
will always be attempts to subvert the existing order and no stable
equilibrium can endure. Out of imperialism and capitalism peace can never
come. And it is because the British Empire stands for these and bases itself
on the exploitation of the masses that we can find no willing place in it. No
gain that may come to us is worth anything unless it helps in removing the
grievous burdens on our masses. e weight of a great empire is heavy to
carry and long our people have endured it. eir backs are bent down and
their spirit has almost broken. How will they share in the Commonwealth
partnership if the burden of exploitation continues? Many of the problems
we have to face are the problems of vested interests mostly created or
encouraged by the British Government. e interests of the Rulers of
Indian States, of British officials and British capital and Indian capital and
of the owners of big zamindaris are ever thrust before us, and they clamour
for protection. e unhappy millions who really need protection are almost
voiceless and have few advocates.
We have had much controversy about independence and Dominion Status
and we have quarrelled about words. But the real thing is the conquest of

b h b ll d I d h k h f f
power by whatever name it may be called. I do not think that any form of
Dominion Status applicable to India will give us real power. A test of this
power would be the entire withdrawal of the alien army of occupation and
economic control. Let us, therefore, concentrate on these and the rest will
follow easily.
We stand therefore today, for the fullest freedom of India. is Congress
has not acknowledged and will not acknowledge the right of the British
Parliament to dictate to us in any way. To it we make no appeal. But we do
appeal to the Parliament and the conscience of the world, and to them we
shall declare, I hope, that India submits no longer to any foreign
domination. Today or tomorrow, we may not be strong enough to assert our
will. We are very conscious of our weakness, and there is no boasting in us
or pride of strength. But let no one, least of all England, mistake or
underrate the meaning or strength of our resolve. Solemnly, with full
knowledge of consequences, I hope, we shall take it and there will be no
turning back. A great nation cannot be thwarted for long when once its
mind is clear and resolved. If today we fail and tomorrow brings no success,
the day after will follow and bring achievement.
We are weary of strife and hunger for peace and opportunity to work
constructively for our country. Do we enjoy the breaking up of our homes
and the sight of our brave young men going to prison or facing the halter?
Does the worker like going on strike to lose even his miserable pittance and
starve? He does so by sheer compulsion when there is no other way for him.
And we who take this perilous path of national strife do so because there is
no other way to an honourable peace. But we long for peace, and the hand
fellowship will always be stretched out to all who may care to grasp it. But
behind the hand will be a body which will not bend to injustice and a mind
that will not surrender on any vital point.
With the struggle before us, the time for determining our future
Constitution is not yet. For two years or more we have drawn up
constitutions and finally the All-Parties’ Committee put a crown to these
efforts by drawing up a scheme of its own which the Congress adopted for a
year. e labour that went to the making of this scheme was not wasted and
India has profited by it. But the year is past and we have to face new
circumstances which require action rather than constitution-making. Yet we
cannot ignore the problems that beset us and that will make or mar our

l d f W h l d
struggle and our future constitution. We have to aim at social adjustment
and equilibrium and to overcome the forces of disruption that have been the
bane of India.
I must frankly confess that I am a socialist and a republican and am no
believer in kings and princes, or in the order which produces the modern
kings of industry, who have greater power over the lives and fortunes of men
than even kings of old, and whose methods are as predatory as those of the
old feudal aristocracy. I recognize, however, that it may not be possible for a
body constituted as in this National Congress and in the present
circumstances of the country to adopt a full socialistic programme. But we
must realize that the philosophy of socialism has gradually permeated the
entire structure of society the world over and almost the only points in
dispute are the pace and methods of advance to its full realization. India will
have to go that way too if she seeks to end her poverty and inequality,
though she may evolve her own methods and may adapt the ideal to the
genuine of her race.
We have three major problems, the minorities, the Indian states, and labour
and peasantry. I have dealt already with the question of minorities. I shall
only repeat that we must give the fullest assurance by our words and our
deeds that their culture and traditions will be safe.
e Indian states cannot live apart from the rest of India and their rulers
must, unless they accept their inevitable limitations, go the way of others
who thought like them. And the only people who have a right to determine
the future of the states must be the people of these states, including the
rulers. is Congress which claims self-determination cannot deny it to the
people of the states. Meanwhile, the Congress is perfectly willing to confer
with such rulers as are prepared to do so and to devise means whereby the
transition may not be too sudden. But in no event can the people of the
states be ignored.
Our third major problem is the biggest of all. For India means the peasantry
and labour and to the extent that we raise them and satisfy their wants will
we succeed in our task. And the measure of the strength of our national
movement will be the measure of their adherence to it. We can only gain
them to our side by our espousing their cause which is really the country’s
cause. e Congress has often expressed its goodwill towards them; but

b d h h  C d h ld h b l
beyond that it has not gone. e Congress, it is said, must hold the balance
fairly between capital and labour and zamindar and tenant.
But the balance has been and is terribly weighed on one side, and to
maintain the status quo is to maintain injustice and exploitation. e only
way to right it is to do away with the domination of any one class over
another. e All-India Congress Committee accepted this ideal of social
and economic change in a resolution it passed some months ago in Bombay.
I hope the Congress will also set its seal on it and will further draw up a
programme of such changes as can be immediately put in operation.
In this programme perhaps the Congress as a whole cannot go very far
today. But it must keep the ultimate ideal in view and work for it. e
question is not one merely of wages and charity doled out by an employer or
landlord. Paternalism in industry or in the land is but a form of charity with
all its sting and its utter incapacity to root out the evil. e new theory of
trusteeship, which some advocate, is equally barren. For trusteeship means
that the power for good or evil remains with the self-appointed trustee and
he may exercise it as he will. e sole trusteeship that can be fair is the
trusteeship of the nation and not of one individual or a group. Many
Englishmen honestly consider themselves the trustees for India, and yet to
what a condition they have reduced our country.
We must decide for whose benefit industry must be run and the land
produce food. Today the abundance that the land produces is not for the
peasant or the labourer who works on it; and industry’s chief function is
supposed to be to produce millionaires. However golden the harvest and
heavy the dividends, the mud-huts and hovels and nakedness of our people
testify to the glory of the British Empire and of our present social system.
Our economic programme must therefore be based on a human outlook and
must not sacrifice man to money. If an industry cannot be run without
starving its workers, then the industry must be closed down. If the workers
on the land have not enough to eat then the intermediaries who deprive
them of their full share must go. e least that every worker in the field or
factory is entitled to is a minimum wage which will enable him to live in
moderate comfort, and human hours of labour which do not break his
strength and spirit. e All-Parties’ Committee accepted the principle and
included it in their recommendations. I hope the Congress will also do so
and will in addition be prepared to accept its natural consequences. Further
h ll d h ll k d d fl b f b lf d
that, it will adopt the well known demands of labour for a better life, and
will give every assistance to organize itself and prepare itself for the day
when it can control industry on a cooperative basis.
But industrial labour is only a small part of India, although it is rapidly
becoming a force that cannot be ignored. It is the peasantry that cry loudly
and piteously for relief and our programme must deal with their present
condition. Real relief can only come by a great change in the land-laws and
the basis of the present system of land tenure. We have among us many big
landowners and we welcome them. But they must realize that the
ownership of large estates by individuals, which is the outcome of a state
resembling the old feudalism of Europe, is a rapidly disappearing
phenomenon all over the world. Even in countries which are the
strongholds of capitalism, the large estates are being split up and given to
the peasantry who work on them. In India also we have large areas where
the system of peasant proprietorship prevails and we shall have to extend
this all over the country. I hope that in doing so, we may have the
cooperation of some, atleast of the big landowners.
It is not possible for this Congress at its annual session to draw up any
detailed economic programme. It can only lay down some general principles
and call upon the All India Congress Committee to fill in the details in
cooperation with the representatives of the Trade Union Congress and
other organizations which are vitally interested in this matter. Indeed, I
hope that the cooperation between this Congress and the Trade Union
Congress will grow and the two organizations will fight side by side in
future struggles.
All these are pious hopes till we gain power, and the real problem therefore
before us is the conquest of power. We shall not do so by subtle reasoning or
argument or lawyers’ quibbles, but by the forging of sanction to enforce the
nation’s will. To that end, this Congress must address itself.
e past year has been one of preparation for us and we have made every
effort to reorganize and strengthen the Congress Organization. e results
have been considerable and our organization is in a better state today than
at any time since the reaction which followed the non-cooperation
movement. But our weaknesses are many and are apparent enough. Mutual
strife, even within Congress Committees, is unhappily too common and
election squabbles drain all our strength and energy. How can we fight a
fi h f h k f d b
great fight if we cannot get over this ancient weakness of ours and rise above
our petty selves? I earnestly hope that with a strong programme of action
before the country, our perspective will improve and we will not tolerate this
barren and demoralizing strife.
What can this programme be? Our choice is limited, not by our own
constitution, which we can change at our will but by facts and
circumstances. Article one of our constitution lays down that our methods
must be legitimate and peaceful. Legitimate I hope they will always be, for
we must not sully the great cause for which we stand, by any deed that will
bring dishonour to it and that we may ourselves regret later. Peaceful I
should like them to be, for the methods of peace are more desirable and
more enduring than those of violence. Violence too often brings reaction
and demoralization in its train, and in our country especially it may lead to
disruption. It is perfectly true that organized violence rules the world today
and it may be that we could profit by its use. But we have not the material
or the training for organized violence and individual or sporadic violence is
a confession of despair. e great majority of us, I take it, judge the issue
not on moral but on practical grounds, and if we reject the way of violence it
is because it promises no substantial results.
Any great movement for liberation today must necessarily be a mass
movement and mass movement must essentially be peaceful, except in times
of organized revolt. Whether we have the non-cooperation of a decade ago
or the modern industrial weapon of the general strike, the basis is peaceful
organization and peaceful action. And if the principal movement is a
peaceful one, contemporaneous attempts at sporadic violence can only
distract attention and weaken it. It is not possible to carry on at one and the
same time the two movements, side by side. We have to choose and strictly
to abide by our choice. What the choice of this Congress is likely to be I
have no doubt. It can only choose a peaceful mass movement.
Should we repeat the programme and tactics of the non-cooperation
movement? Not necessarily, but the basic idea must remain. Programmes
and tactics must be made to fit in with circumstances and it is neither easy
nor desirable for this Congress at this stage to determine them in detail.
at should be the work of its executive, the All-India Congress
Committee. But the principles have to be fixed.

 ld f h h b C l l
e old programme was one of the three boycotts—Councils, law courts
and schools—leading up to refusal of service in the army and non-payment
of taxes. When the national struggle is at its height, I fail to see how it will
be possible for any person engaged in it to continue in the courts or the
schools. But still I think that it will be unwise to declare a boycott of the
courts and schools at this stage.
e boycott of the Legislative Councils has led to much heated debate in
the past and this Congress itself has been rent in twain over it. We need not
revive that controversy, for the circumstances today are entirely different. I
feel that the step the Congress took some years ago to permit Congressmen
to enter the Councils was an inevitable step and I am not prepared to say
that some good has not resulted from it. But we have exhausted that good
and there is no middle course left today between boycott and non-
cooperation. All of us know the demoralization that these sham legislatures
have brought in our ranks and how many of our good men, their
committees and commissions lured away. Our workers are limited in
number and we can have no mass movement unless they concentrate on it
and turn their backs to the palatial Council Chambers of our Legislatures.
And if we declare for independence, how can we enter the Councils, and
carry on our humdrum and profitless activities there? No programme or
policy can be laid down for ever, nor can this Congress bind the country or
even itself to pursue one line of action indefinitely. But today I would
respectfully urge the Congress that the only policy in regard to the Council
is a complete boycott of them. e All-India Congress Committee
recommended this course in July last and the time has come to give effect to
it.
is boycott will only be a means to an end. It will release energy and divert
attention to the real struggle which must take the shape of the non-
payment of taxes, where possible, with the cooperation of the labour
movement, general strikes. But nonpayment of taxes must be well-
organized in specific areas, and for this purpose the Congress should
authorize the All India Congress Committee to take the necessary action,
wherever and whenever it considers desirable.
I have not so far referred to the constructive programme of the Congress.
is should certainly continue but the experience of the last few years shows
us that by itself it does not carry us swiftly enough. It prepares the ground

f f d ’ l k b f d I
for future action and ten years’ silent work is bearing fruit today. In
particular we shall, I hope, continue our boycott of foreign cloth and the
boycott of British goods.
Our programme must, therefore, be one of political and economic boycott.
It is not possible for us, so long as we are actually independent, and even
then completely, to boycott another country wholly or to sever all
connection with it. But our endeavour must be to reduce all points of
contact with the British Government and to rely on ourselves. We must also
make it clear that India will not accept responsibility for all the debts that
England has piled on her. e Gaya Congress repudiated liability to pay
those debts and we must repeat this repudiation and stand by it. Such of
India’s public debt as has been used for purposes beneficial to India we are
prepared to admit and pay back. But we wholly deny all liability to pay back
the vast sums which have been raised, so that India may be held in
subjection and her burdens may be increased. In particular the poverty
stricken people of India cannot agree to shoulder the burden of the wars
fought by England to extend her domain and consolidate her position in
India. Nor can they accept the many concessions lavishly bestowed without
any proper compensation on foreign exploiters.
I have not referred so far to the Indians overseas and I do not propose to say
much about them. is is not from any want of fellow-feeling with our
brethren in East Africa or South Africa or Fiji or elsewhere, who are
bravely struggling against great odds. But their fate will be decided in the
plains of India and the struggle we are launching into is as much for them
as for ourselves.
For this struggle, we want efficient machinery. Our Congress Constitution
and organization have become too archaic and slow moving, and are ill-
suited to times of crisis. e times of great demonstrations are past. We
want quiet and irresistible action now, and this can only be brought about
by the strictest discipline in our ranks. Our resolutions must be passed in
order to be acted upon. e Congress will gain in strength, however small
its actual membership may become, if it acts in a disciplined way. Small,
determined minorities have changed the fate of nations. Mobs and crowds
can do little. Freedom itself involves restraint and discipline and each one of
us will have to subordinate himself to the larger good.

 C ll h d h h
e Congress represents no small minority in the country and though many
may be too weak to join it or to work for it, they look to it with hope and
longing to bring them deliverance. Ever since the Calcutta resolution, the
country has waited with anxious expectation for this great day when this
Congress meets. None of us can say what and when we can achieve. We
cannot command success. But success often comes to those who dare and
act; it seldom goes to the timid who are ever afraid of the consequences. We
play for high stakes; and if we seek to achieve great things it can only be
through great dangers. Whether we succeed soon or late, none but ourselves
can stop us from high endeavour and from writing a noble page in our
country’s long and splendid history.
We have conspiracy cases going on in various parts of the country. ey are
ever with us. But the time has gone for secret conspiracy. We have now an
open conspiracy to free this country from foreign rule, and you comrades,
and all our countrymen and countrywomen are invited to join it. But the
rewards that are in store for you are suffering and prison and you have done
your little bit for India, the ancient, but ever young, and have helped a little
in the liberation of humanity from its present bondage.
At the second Round Table Conference (London,
September, 1931)
MOHANDAS KARAMCHAND GANDHI (1869–1948)

In March 1931, the Civil Disobedience Movement was suspended with the
signing of the Gandhi-Irwin pact. When the movement was at its peak,
Nehru estimated that over 90,000 persons had gone to jail. is is why the
suspension of the movement disillusioned many including Nehru who
remarked, echoing T.S. Eliot, ‘this is the way the world ends—Not with a
bang but a whimper.’ It was in this ambience of gloom and despair that the
Congress agreed to participate in the Second Round Table Conference to
be held in London in the autumn. Gandhi travelled to London as the sole
representative of the Congress. In his first speech to the conference, Gandhi
made a strong plea for the Congress as a body that included all sections of
Indians. e speech was delivered without notes and William Shirer, the
famous American journalist, thought it was ‘the greatest one of his long
political life.’

Lord Chancellor, Your Highness and Friends, I must confess at the outset
that I am not a little embarrassed in having to state before you the position
of the Indian National Congress. I would like to say that I have come to
London to attend this Committee, as also the Round Table Conference
when the proper time comes, absolutely in the spirit of co-operation, and to
strive to my utmost to find points of agreement. I would like also to give
this assurance to His Majesty’s Government that at no stage is it, or will it
be, my desire to embarrass authority and I would like to give the same

ll h h h h dff b
assurance to my colleagues here, that, however much we may differ about
our viewpoints, I shall not obstruct them in any shape or form. My
position, therefore, here depends entirely upon your goodwill, as also the
goodwill of His Majesty’s Government. If at any time I found that I could
not be of any useful service to the Conference, I would not hesitate to
withdraw myself from it. I can also say to those who are responsible for the
management of this Committee and the Conference that they have only to
give a sign and I should have no hesitation in withdrawing.
I am obliged to make these remarks because I know that there are
fundamental differences of opinion between the government and the
Congress, and it is possible that there are vital differences between my
colleagues and myself. ere is also a limitation under which I shall be
working. I am but a poor humble agent acting on behalf of the Indian
National Congress. And it might be as well to remind ourselves of what the
Congress stands for and what it is. You will then extend your sympathy to
me, because I know that the burden that rests upon my shoulders is really
very great. e Congress is, if I am not mistaken, the oldest political
organizaton we have in India. It has had nearly fifty years of life, during
which period it has, without any interruption, held its annual session. It is
what it means—national. It represents no particular community, no
particular class, no particular interest. It claims to represent all Indian
interests and all classes. It is a matter of the greatest pleasure to me to state
that it was first conceived in an English brain: Allan Octavius Hume we
knew as the father of the Congress. It was nursed by two great Parsis,
Pherozeshah Mehta and Dadabhai Naoroji, whom all India delighted to
recognize as its Grand Old Man. From the very commencement the
Congress had Mussalmans, Christians, Anglo-Indians—I might say all the
religions, sects, creeds—represented upon it more or less fully. e late
Badruddin Tyabji identified himself with the Congress. We have had
Mussalmans as presidents of the Congress, and Parsis undoubtedly. I can
recall at least one Indian Christian at the present moment, W.C. Bonerji.
Kalicharen Bannerji, than whom I have not had the privilege of knowing a
purer Indian, was also thoroughly identified with the Congress. I miss, as I
have no doubt all of you miss, the presence in our midst of Mr K.T. Paul.
Although—I do not know, but so far as I know—he never officially
belonged to the Congress, he was a nationalist to the full. As you know, the
late Maulana Mohammed Ali, whose presence also we miss today, was a
P d f h C d h f M l
President of the Congress, and at present we have four Mussalmans as
members of the Working Committee, which consists of fifteen members.
We have had women as our presidents: Dr Annie Besant was the first, and
Mrs Sarojini Naidu followed; we have her as a member of the Working
Committee also. And so, if we have no distinctions of class or creed, we
have no distinctions of sex either.
e Congress has, from its very commencement, taken up the cause of the
so-called untouchables. ere was a time when the Congress had at every
annual session as its adjunct the Social Conference, to which the late
Ranade dedicated his energies, among his many other activities. Headed by
him you will find, in the programme of the Social Conference, reform in
connection with the untouchables taking a prominent place. But in 1920,
the Congress took a large step and brought in the question of the removal
of untouchability as a plank on the political platform, making it an
important item of the political programme. Just as the Congress considered
Hindu-Muslim unity thereby meaning unity amongst all the classes to be
indispensable for the attainment of Swaraj, so also did the Congress
consider the removal of the curse of untouchability as an indispensable
condition for the attainment of full freedom. e position the Congress
took up in 1920 remains the same today; and so you will see the Congress
has attempted from its very beginning to be what it described itself to be,
namely, national in every sense of the term. If Your Highnesses will permit
me to say so, in the very early stages the Congress took up your cause also.
Let me remind this Committee that it was the Grand Old Man of India
who sponsored the cause of Kashmir and Mysore; and these two great
Houses, I venture in all humility to submit, owe not a little to the efforts of
Dadabhai Naoroji and the Congress. Even up to now the Congress has
endeavoured to serve the Princes of India by refraining from any
interference in their domestic and internal affairs.
I hope, therefore, that this brief introduction that I thought fit to give will
serve to enable the Committee, and those who are at all interested in the
claims of the Congress, to understand that it has endeavoured to deserve
the claim that it has made. It has failed, I know, often to live up to the
claim but I venture to submit that, if you were to examine the history of the
Congress, you would find that it has more often succeeded, and
progressively succeeded than failed. Above all, the Congress represents, in
its essence, the dumb, semi-starved millions scattered over the length and
b dh f h l d 7 ll h h h
breadth of the land in its 700,000 villages, no matter whether they come
from what is called British India or what is called Indian India. Every
interest which, in the opinion of the Congress, is worthy of protection, has
to subserve the interests of these dumb millions; and so you do find now
and again apparently a clash between several interests. But, if there is a
genuine real clash, I have no hesitation in saying on behalf of the Congress
that the Congress will sacrifice every interest for the sake of the interests of
these dumb millions. It is, therefore, essentially a peasant organization, and
it is becoming so progressively. You will, even the Indian members of the
Committee, perhaps be astonished to find that today the Congress, through
its organization, the All India Spinners’ Association, is finding work for
nearly 50,000 women in nearly 2,000 villages, and these women are possibly
50 percent Mussalman women. ousands of them belong to the so-called
untouchable class. We have thus, in this constructive manner, penetrated
these villages, and effort is being made to cover every one of the 700,000
villages. It is a super human task; but if human effort can do so, you will
presently find the Congress covering all of these villages and bringing to
them the message of the spinning-wheel.
at being the representative character of the Congress, you will not be
astonished when I read to you the Congress mandate. I hope that it may
not jar upon you. You may consider that the Congress is making a claim
which is wholly untenable. Such as it is, I am here to put forth that claim
on behalf of the Congress in the gentlest manner possible, but also in the
firmest manner possible. I have come here to prosecute that claim with all
the faith and energy that I can command.
If you can convince me to the contrary and show that the claim is inimical
to the interests of these dumb millions, I shall revise my opinion. I am open
to conviction, but even so I should have to ask my principals to consent to
that revision before I could usefully act as the agent of the Congress.
At this stage I propose to read to you this mandate so that you can
understand clearly the limitations imposed upon me. is was a resolution
passed at the Karachi Congress:
is Congress, having considered the Provisional Settlement between the
Working Committee and the Government of India, endorses it, and desires
to make it clear that the Congress goal of Purna Swaraj, meaning complete
independence, remains intact. In the event of a way remaining otherwise
h C b d C f h h
open to the Congress to be represented at any Conference with the
representatives of the British Government, the Congress delegation will
work for this goal; and in particular, so as to give the nation control over the
army, external affairs, finance, fiscal and economic policy, and to have
scrutiny by an impartial tribunal of the financial transactions of the British
Government in India, and to examine and assess the obligations to be
undertaken by India or England and the right to either party to end the
partnership at will: provided, however, that the Congress delegation will be
free to accept such adjustments as may be demonstrably necessary in the
interests of India.
en follows the appointment.
I have in the light of this mandate endeavoured, as carefully as I was
capable, to study the provisional conclusions arrived at by the several sub-
committees appointed by the Round Table Conference.
I have also carefully studied the Prime Minister’s statement giving the
considered policy of His Majesty’s Government. I speak as subject to
correction; but, so far as I have been able to understand this document, it
falls far short of what is aimed at and claimed by the Congress. True, I have
the liberty to accept such adjustments as may be demonstrably necessary in
the interests of India, but they have all to be consistent with the
fundamentals stated in this mandate.
I remind myself at this stage of the terms of what is to me a sacred
settlement the settlement arrived at Delhi between the Government of
India and the Congress. In that settlement the Congress has accepted the
principle of federation, the principle that there should be responsibility at
the Centre, and has accepted also the principle that there should be
safeguards in so far as they may be necessary in the interests of India.
ere was one phrase used yesterday. I forget by which delegate, but it
struck me very forcibly. He said, ‘We do not want a mere political
Constitution.’ I do not know that he gave that expression the same meaning
that it immediately bore to me; but I immediately said to myself, this phrase
has given me a good expression. It is true the Congress will not be and,
personally speaking, I myself would never be satisfied with a mere political
Constitution, which to read would seem to give India all it can possibly
politically desire, but in reality would give her nothing. If we are intent
upon complete independence, it is not from any sense of arrogance; it is not
b d b f h h h d ll
because we want to parade before the universe that we have now severed all
connection with the British people. Nothing of the kind. On the contrary,
you find in this mandate itself that the Congress contemplates a
partnership, the Congress contemplates a connection with the British
people but that connection to be such as can exist between two absolute
equals. Time was when I prided myself on being, and being called, a British
subject. I have ceased for many years to call myself a British subject; I would
far rather be called a rebel than a subject. But I have aspired, I still aspire to
be a citizen, not of the empire, but in a Commonwealth; in a partnership if
possible if God wills it, an indissoluble partnership but not a partnership
superimposed upon one nation by another. Hence you find here that the
Congress claims that either party should have the right to sever the
connection, to dissolve the partnership. It has got to be necessarily,
therefore, of mutual benefit.
May I say it may be irrelevant to the consideration, but not irrelevant to me
—that, as I have said elsewhere, I can quite understand the responsible
British statesmen today being wholly engrossed in domestic affairs, in
trying to make two ends meet. We could not expect them to do anything
less; and I wondered, even as I was sailing towards London, whether we in
the Committee at the present moment would not be a drag upon the British
Ministers, whether we would not be interlopers. And yet I said to myself: It
is possible that we might not be interlopers; it is possible that the British
ministers themselves might consider the proceedings of the Round Table
Conference to be of primary importance even in terms of their domestic
affairs.
India, yes, can be held by the sword! I do not for one moment doubt the
ability of Britain to hold India under subjection through the sword. But
what will conduce to the prosperity of Great Britain, the economic freedom
of Great Britain, an enslaved but rebellious India, or an India an esteemed
partner with Britain to share her sorrows to take part side by side with
Britain in her misfortunes? Yes! If need be, but at her own will, to fight side
by side with Britain not for the exploitation of a single race or a single
human being on earth, but it may be conceivably for the good of the whole
world! If I want freedom for my country, believe me, if I can possibly help
it, I do not want that freedom in order that I, belonging to a nation which
counts one-fifth of the human race, may exploit any other race upon earth
or any single individual. If I want that freedom for my country, I would not
b d f h f d f I dd h h d h l
be deserving of that freedom if I did not cherish and treasure the equal
right of every other race, weak or strong, to the same freedom. And so I
said to myself whilst I was nearing the shores of your beautiful island, per
chance it might be possible for me to convince the British Ministers that
India as a valuable partner, not held by force but by the silken cord of love,
an India of that character might conceivably be of real assistance to you in
balancing your Budget, not for one occasion but for many years. What
cannot two nations do one a handful, but brave, with a record for bravery
perhaps unequalled, a nation noted for having fought slavery, a nation that
has at least claimed times without number to protect the weak and another
a very ancient nation, counted in millions, with a glorious and ancient past,
representing at the present moment two great cultures, the Islamic and
Hindu cultures; if you will, also containing not a small but a very large
number of Christian population; and certainly absorbing the whole of the
splendid Zoroastrian stock, in numbers almost beneath contempt, but in
philanthropy and enterprise almost unequalled and certainly unsurpassed.
We have got all these cultures concentrated in India. And supposing that
God fires both Hindus and Musslmans represented here with a proper
spirit, so that they close ranks and come to an honourable understanding,
take that nation and this nation together, and I again ask myself and ask you
whether, with an India free, completely independent as Great Britain is,
whether an honourable partnership between these two cannot be mutually
beneficial, even in terms of the domestic affairs of this great nation. And so,
in that dreamy hope, I have approached the British Isles, and I shall still
cherish that dream.
And when I have said this perhaps I have said all; and you will be able to
dot the i’s and to cross the t’s, not expecting me to fill in all the details, and
tell you what I mean by control over the army, what I mean by control over
external affairs, finance, fiscal and economic policy, or even the financial
transactions which a friend yesterday considered to be sacrosanct. I do not
take that view. If there is a stocktaking between incoming and outgoing
partners, their transactions are subject to audit and adjustment; and the
Congress will not be guilty of any dishonourable conduct or crime in saying
that the nation should understand what it is to take over and what it should
not take over. is audit, this scrutiny, is asked for not merely in the
interests of India; it is asked for in the interests of both. I am positive that
the British people do not want to saddle upon India a single burden which
h ld l l b dI h d l b h lf f h
it should not legitimately bear; and I am here to declare, on behalf of the
Congress, that the Congress will never think of repudiating a single claim
or a burden that it should justly discharge. If we are to live as an honourable
nation worthy of commanding credit from the whole world, we will pay
every farthing of legitimate debt with our blood.
I do not think that I should take you any further through the clauses of this
mandate and analyse for you the meaning of these clauses as Congressmen
give them. If it is God’s will that I should continue to take part in these
deliberations, as the deliberations proceed, I shall be able to explain the
implications of these clauses. As the deliberations proceed, I would have my
say in connection with the safeguards also. But I think I have said quite
enough in having, with some elaboration and with your generous
indulgence, Lord Chancellor, taken the time of this meeting. I had not
intended really to take that time, but I felt that I could not possibly do
justice to the cause that I have come to expound to you, the Committee,
and to the British nation of which we, the Indian delegates, are at present
the guests, if I did not give you out of the whole of my heart my cherished
wish even at this time. I would love to go away from the shores of the
British Isles with the conviction that there was to be an honourable and
equal partnership between Great Britain and India. I cannot do anything
more than say that it will be my fervent prayer, during all the days that I live
in your midst, that this consummation may be reached.
I thank you, Lord Chancellor, for courtesy that you have extended to me in
not stopping me, although I have taken close upon forty-five minutes. I was
not entitled to all that indulgence, and I thank you once more.
e Muslims of India (Allahabad, December 1930)
MUHAMMAD IQBAL (1877–1938)

Muhammad Ali Jinnah invited the poet Muhammad Iqbal to preside over
the session of the Muslim League in 1930. In his address Iqbal voiced for
the first time the idea of a north-west Indian Muslim State. He thought
this to be the final destiny of the Muslims, at least of North-West India.
e immediate impact of Iqbal’s speech was limited since this session of the
Muslim League was poorly attended, even Jinnah could not be present. But
Iqbal’s idea was taken to its logical conclusion in a pamphlet published from
Cambridge in 1932 called Now or Never: Are We to Live or Perish for Ever?
e author was Choudhary Rahmat Ali, a thirty-five year old ‘student’ who
claimed to be the ‘founder of the Pakistan national movement’. He said he
had three associates, all three ‘students’ in Cambridge: Mohammad Aslam
Khan, Sheikh Mohammad Sadiq, and Inayatullah Khan. is was the first
time that the name Pakistan came to be publicized though the original idea
was embedded in Iqbal’s speech.

Gentlemen, I am deeply grateful to you for the honour you have conferred
upon me in inviting me to preside over the deliberations of the AlI-India
Muslim League at one of the most critical moments in the history of
Muslim political thought and activity in India. I have no doubt that in this
great assembly there are men whose political experience is far more
extensive than mine, and for whose knowledge of affairs I have the highest
respect. It will, therefore, be presumptuous on my part to claim to guide an
assembly of such men in the political decisions which they are called upon
to make today. I lead no party; I follow no leader. I have given the best part
f lf f l d f Il l d l l
of my life to a careful study of Islam, its law and polity, its culture, its
history and its literature. is constant contact with the spirit of Islam, as it
unfolds itself in time, has, I think, given me a kind of insight into its
significance as a world fact. It is in the light of this insight, whatever its
value, that while assuming that the Muslims of India are determined to
remain true to the spirit of Islam, I propose, not to guide you in your
decision, but to attempt the humbler task of bringing clearly to your
consciousness the main principle which, in my opinion, should determine
the general character of these decisions.
It cannot be denied that Islam, regarded as an ethical ideal plus a certain
kind of polity—by which expression I mean a social structure regulated by a
legal system and animated by a specific ethical ideal—has been the chief
formative factor in the life-history of the Muslims of India. It has furnished
those basic emotions and loyalties which gradually unify scattered
individuals and groups, and finally transform them into a well-defined
people, possessing a moral consciousness of their own. Indeed it is no
exaggeration to say that India is perhaps the only country in the world
where Islam, as a ‘people-building’ force, has worked at its best. In India, as
elsewhere, the structure of Islam as a society is almost entirely due to the
working of Islam as a culture inspired by a specific ethical ideal. What I
mean to say is that Muslim society, with its remarkable homogeneity and
inner unity, has grown to be what it is, under the pressure of the laws and
institutions associated with the culture of Islam. e ideas set free by
European political thinking, however, are now rapidly changing the outlook
of the present generation of Muslims, both in India and outside India. Our
younger men, inspired by these ideas, are anxious to see them as living
forces in their own countries, without any critical appreciation of the facts
which have determined their evolution in Europe. In Europe, Christianity
was understood to be a purely monastic order which gradually developed
into a vast church-organization. e protest of Luther was directed against
the church-organization, not against any system of polity of a secular
nature, for the obvious reason that there was no such polity associated with
Christianity. And Luther was perfectly justified in rising in revolt against
this organization; though, I think, he did not realize that, in the peculiar
condition which obtained in Europe, his revolt would eventually mean the
complete displacement of the universal ethics of Jesus by the growth of a
plurality of national and hence narrower systems of ethics. us, the upshot
f h ll l db h R dL h
of the intellectual movement initiated by such men as Rousseau and Luther
was the break-up of the one into a mutually ill-adjusted many, the
transformation of a human into a national outlook, requiring a more
realistic foundation, such as the notion of country, and finding expression
through varying systems of polity evolved on national lines, that is, on lines
which recognize territory as the only principle of political solidarity. If you
begin with the conception of religion as complete other-worldliness, then
what has happened to Christianity in Europe is perfectly natural. e
universal ethics of Jesus is displaced by national systems of ethics and polity.
e conclusion to which Europe is consequently driven is that religion is a
private affair of the individual and has nothing to do with what is called
man’s temporal life.
Islam does not bifurcate the unity of man into an irreconcilable duality of
spirit and matter. In Islam, God and the universe, spirit and matter, church
and state, are organic to each other. Man is not the citizen of a profane
world to be renounced in the interest of a world of spirit situated elsewhere.
To Islam matter is spirit realizing itself in space and time.
Europe uncritically accepted the duality of spirit and matter probably from
Manichaean thought. Her best thinkers are realizing this initial mistake
today, but her statesmen are indirectly forcing the world to accept it as an
unquestionable dogma. It is then, this mistaken separation of spiritual and
temporal which has largely influenced European religious and political
thought, and has resulted practically in the total exclusion of Christianity
from the life of European states. e result is a set of mutually ill-adjusted
states dominated by interests, not human but national. And these mutually
ill-adjusted states, after trampling over the moral and religious convictions
of Christianity, are today feeling the need of a federated Europe, the need
of a unity which the Christian church-organization originally gave them,
but which, instead of reconstructing in the light of Christ’s vision of human
brotherhood, they considered it fit to destroy under the inspiration of
Luther.
A Luther in the world of Islam, however, is an impossible phenomenon; for
here there is no Church-organization, similar to that of Christianity in the
Middle Ages, inviting a destroyer. In the world of Islam, we have a
universal polity whose fundamentals are believed to have been revealed, but
whose structure, owing to our legists’ want of contact with the modern

ld d d d f d b d I d
world, today stands in need of renewed power by adjustments. I do not
know what will be the final fate of the national idea in the world of Islam.
Whether Islam will assimilate and transform it, as it has before assimilated
and transformed many ideas expressive of a different spirit, or allow a
radical transformation of its own structure by the force of this idea, is hard
to predict. Professor Wensinck of Leiden (Holland) wrote to me the other
day: ‘It seems to me that Islam is entering upon a crisis through which
Christianity has been passing for more than a century. e great difficulty is
how to save the foundations of religion when many antiquated notions have
to be given up. It seems to me scarcely possible to state what the outcome
will be for Christianity, still less what it will be for Islam.’ At the present
moment, the national idea is racializing the outlook of Muslims, and this is
materially counteracting the humanizing work of Islam. And the growth of
racial consciousness may mean the growth of standards different and even
opposed to the standards of Islam.
I hope you will pardon me for this apparently academic discussion. To
address this session of the All-India Muslim League, you have selected a
man who is not despired of Islam as a living force for freeing the outlook of
man from its geographical limitations, who believes that religion is a power
of the utmost importance in the life of individuals as well as of states, and
finally, who believes that Islam is itself Destiny and will not suffer a destiny!
Such a man cannot but look at matters from his own point of view. Do not
think that the problem I am indicating is a purely theoretical one. It is a
very living and practical problem calculated to affect the very fabric of Islam
as a system of life and conduct. On a proper solution of it alone depends
your future as a distinct cultural unit in India. Never in our history has
Islam had to stand a greater trial than the one which confronts it today. It is
open to a people to modify, reinterpret, or reject the foundational principles
of their social structure; but it is absolutely necessary for them to see clearly
what they are doing before they undertake to try a fresh experiment. Nor
should the way in which I am approaching this important problem lead
anybody to think that I intend to quarrel with those who happen to think
differently. You are a Muslim assembly, and, I suppose, anxious to remain
true to the spirit and ideals of Islam. My sole desire, therefore, is to tell you
frankly what I honestly believe to be the truth about the present situation.
In this way alone is it possible for me to illuminate, according to my light,
the avenues of your political action.
Wh h h bl d l I l ff
What, then, is the problem and its implications? Is religion a private affair?
Would you like to see Islam, as a moral and political ideal, meeting the
same fate in the world of Islam as Christianity has already met in Europe?
Is it possible to retain Islam as an ethical ideal and to reject it as a polity, in
favour of national politics in which the religious attitude is not permitted to
play any part? is question becomes of special importance in India where
the Muslims happen to be in a minority. e proposition that religion is a
private individual experience is not surprising on the lips of a European. In
Europe, the conception of Christianity as a monastic order, renouncing the
world of matter and fixing its gaze entirely on the world of spirit, led, by a
logical process of thought, to the view embodied in this proposition. e
nature of the Prophet’s religious experience, as disclosed in the Quran,
however, is wholly different. It is not mere experience in the sense of a
purely biological event, happening inside the experiment and necessitating
no reactions on its social environment. It is individual experience creative of
a social order. Its immediate outcome is the fundamentals of a polity with
implicit legal concepts whose civic significance cannot be belittled merely
because their origin is revelational. e religious ideal of Islam, therefore, is
organically related to the social order which it has created. e rejection of
the one will eventually involve the rejection of the other. erefore, the
construction of a polity on national lines, if it means a displacement of the
Islamic principle of solidarity, is simply unthinkable to a Muslim. is is a
matter which, at the present moment, directly concerns the Muslims of
India. ‘Man,’ says Renan, ‘is enslaved neither by his race, nor by his religion,
nor by the course of rivers, nor by the direction of mountain ranges. A great
aggregation of men, sane of mind and warm of heart, creates a moral
consciousness which is called a nation.’ Such a formation is quite possible,
though it involves the long and arduous process of practically remaking men
and furnishing them with a fresh emotional equipment. It might have been
a fact in India, if the teaching of Kabir and the ‘Divine Faith’ of Akbar had
seized the imagination of the masses of this country. Experience, however,
shows that the various caste units and religious units in India have shown
no inclination to sink their respective individualities in a larger whole. Each
group is intensely jealous of the collective existence. e formation of the
kind of moral consciousness which constitutes the essence of a nation in
Renan’s sense, demands a price which the peoples of India are not prepared
to pay. e unity of an Indian nation, therefore, must be sought, not in the
b h lh d f h T
negation, but in the mutual harmony and co-operation of the many. True
statesmanship cannot ignore facts, however unpleasant they may be. e
only practical course is not to assume the existence of a state of things
which does not exist, but to recognize facts as they are, and to exploit them
to our greatest advantage. And it is on the discovery of Indian unity in this
direction that the fate of India as well as of Asia really depends. India is
Asia in miniature. Part of her people have cultural affinities with nations in
the East, and part with nations in the middle and west of Asia. If an
effective principle of co-operation is discovered in India, it will bring peace
and mutual goodwill to this ancient land which has suffered so long, more
because of her situation in historic space than because of any inherent
incapacity of her people. And it will at the same time solve the entire
political problem of Asia.
It is, however, painful to observe that our attempts to discover such a
principle of internal harmony have so far failed. Why have they failed?
Perhaps, we suspect each other’s intentions, and inwardly aim at dominating
each other. Perhaps, in the higher interests of mutual co-operation, we
cannot afford to part with the monopolies which circumstances have placed
in our hands, and conceal our egoism under the cloak of a nationalism,
outwardly simulating a largehearted patriotism, but inwardly as narrow-
minded as a caste or tribe. Perhaps, we are unwilling to recognize that each
group has a right to free development according to its own cultural
traditions. But whatever may be the causes of our failure, I still feel hopeful.
Events seem to be tending in the direction of some sort of internal
harmony. And as far as I have been able to read the Muslim mind, I have no
hesitation in declaring that, if the principle that the Indian Muslim is
entitled to full and free development on the lines of his own culture and
tradition in his own Indian homelands, is recognized as the basis of a
permanent communal settlement, he will be ready to stake his all for the
freedom of India. e principle that each group is entitled to free
development on its own lines is not inspired by any feeling of narrow
communalism. ere are communalisms and communalisms. A community
which is inspired by a feeling of ill-will towards other communities is low
and ignoble. I entertain the highest respect for the customs, laws, religions
and social institutions of other communities. Nay, it is my duty, according
to the teaching of the Quran, even to defend their places of worship if need
be. Yet I love the communal group which is the source of my life and behaviour;
and which has formed me what I am by giving me its religion, its literature, its
thought, its culture, and thereby recreating its whole past, as a living operative
factor, in my present consciousness. Even the authors of the Nehru Report
recognize the value of this higher aspect of communalism. While discussing
the separation of Sind, they say: ‘To say from the view-point of nationalism
that no communal provinces should be created is, in a way, equivalent to
saying from the still wider international view-point that there should be no
separate nations. Both these statements have a measure of truth in them.
But the staunchest internationalist recognizes that without the fullest
national autonomy, it is extraordinarily difficult to create the international
State. So also, without the fullest cultural autonomy—and communalism in its
better aspect is culture—it will be difficult to create a harmonious nation.’
Communalism, in its higher aspect, then, is indispensable to the formation
of a harmonious whole in a country like India. e units of Indian society
are not territorial as in European countries. India is a continent of human
groups belonging to different races, speaking different languages, and
professing different religions. eir behaviour is not at all determined by a
common race-consciousness. Even the Hindus do not form a homogeneous
group. e principle of European democracy cannot be applied to India
without recognizing the fact of communal groups. e Muslim demand for
the creation of a Muslim India within India is, therefore, perfectly justified.
e resolution of the All-Parties Muslim Conference at Delhi is to my
mind wholly inspired by this noble ideal of a harmonious whole which,
instead of stifling the respective individualities of its component wholes,
affords them chances of fully working out the possibilities that may be
latent in them. And I have no doubt that this House will emphatically
endorse the Muslim demand embodied in this resolution.
Personally, I would go further than the demands embodied in it. I would like
to see the Punjab, the North-West Frontier Province, Sind and Baluchistan
amalgamated into a single State. Self-government within the British Empire, or
without the British Empire, the formation if a consolidated North-West Indian
Muslim State appears to me to be the final destiny of the Muslims, at least of
North-West India. e proposal was put forward before the Nehru
Committee. ey rejected it on the ground that, if carried into effect, it
would give a very unwieldy State. is is true in so far as the area is
concerned; in point of population, the State contemplated by the proposal
would be much smaller than some of the present Indian provinces. e
l f A b l D d h f d h
exclusion of Ambala Division, and perhaps of some districts where non-
Muslims predominate, will make it less extensive and more Muslim in
population… so that the exclusion suggested will enable this consolidated
State to give a more effective protection to non-Muslim minorities within
its area. e idea need not alarm the Hindus or the British. India is the
greatest Muslim country in the world. e life of Islam as a cultural force in
this living country very largely depends on its centralization in a specified
territory. is centralization of the most living portion of the Muslims of
India, whose military and police service has, notwithstanding unfair
treatment from the British, made the British rule possible in this country,
will eventually solve the problem of India as well as of Asia. It will intensify
their sense of responsibility and deepen their patriotic feeling. us,
possessing full opportunity of development within the body-politic of India,
the North-West Indian Muslims will prove the best defenders of India
against a foreign invasion, be that invasion one of ideas or of bayonets. e
Punjab with a 56 percent Muslim population supplies 54 percent of total
combatant troops in the Indian army; and if the 19,000 Gurkhas recruited
from the independent State of Nepal are excluded, the Punjab contingent
amounts to 62 percent of the whole Indian Army. is percentage does not
take into account nearly 6,000 combatants supplied to the Indian Army by
the North-West Frontier Province and Baluchistan. From this, you can
easily calculate the possibilities of North-West Indian Muslims in regard to
the defence of India against foreign aggression. e Right Hon’ble Mr
Srinivasa Shastri thinks that the Muslim demand for the creation of
autonomous Muslim states along the North-West border is actuated by a
desire ‘to acquire means of exerting pressure in emergencies on the
Government of India’. I may frankly tell him that the Muslim demand is
not actuated by the kind of motive he imputes to us; it is actuated by a
genuine desire for free development, which is practically impossible under
the type of unitary government contemplated by the nationalist Hindu
politicians with a view to securing permanent communal dominance in the
whole of India.
Nor should the Hindus fear that the creation of autonomous Muslim states
will mean the introduction of a kind of religious rule in such states. I have
already indicated to you the meaning of the word religion, as applied to
Islam. e truth is that Islam is not a church. It is a State, conceived as a
contractual organism long, long before Rousseau ever thought of such a
h d db h l d l h h d h
thing, and animated by an ethical ideal which regards man not as an earth-
rooted creature, defined by this or that portion of the earth, but as a
spiritual being understood in terms of a social mechanism, and possessing
rights and duties as a living factor in that mechanism. e character of a
Muslim state can be judged from what e Times of India pointed out some
time ago in a leader on the Indian Banking Inquiry Committee. ‘In ancient
India’, the paper points out, ‘the State framed laws regulating the rates of
interests; but in Muslim times, although Islam clearly forbids the realization
of interest on money loaned, Indian Muslim states imposed no restrictions
on such rates.’ I therefore demand the formation of a consolidated Muslim
State in the best interests of India and Islam. For India, it means security
and peace resulting from an internal balance of power; for Islam, an
opportunity to rid itself of the stamp that Arabian Imperialism was forced
to give it, to mobilize its laws, its education, its culture, and to bring them
into closer contact with its own original spirit and with the spirit of modern
times.
us it is clear that, in view of India’s infinite variety in climates, races,
languages, creeds and social systems, the creation of autonomous states
based on the unity of language, race, history, religion and identity of
economic interests, is the only possible way to secure a stable constitutional
structure in India. e conception of federation underlying the Simon
Report necessitates the abolition of the Central Legislative Assembly as a
popular assembly and makes it an assembly of the representatives of federal
states. It further demands a redistribution of territory on the lines which I
have indicated. And the report does recommend both. I give my whole-
hearted support to this view of the matter; but I venture to suggest that the
redistribution recommended in the Simon Report must fulfil two
conditions. It must precede the introduction of the new constitution, and it
must be so devised as to finally solve the communal problem. Proper
redistribution will make the question of joint and separate electorates
automatically disappear from the constitutional controversy of India. It is
the present structure of the provinces that is largely responsible for this
controversy. e Hindu thinks that separate electorates are contrary to the
spirit of true nationalism, because he understands the word ‘nation’ to mean
a kind of universal amalgamation in which no communal entity ought to
retain its private individuality. Such a state of things, however, does not
exist. Nor is it desirable that it should exist. India is a land of racial and
l Add h h l f f h
religious variety. Add to this the general economic inferiority of the
Muslims, their enormous debt, especially in the Punjab, and their
insufficient majorities in some of the provinces, as at present constituted,
and you will begin to see clearly the meaning of our anxiety to retain
separate electorates. In such a country and in such circumstances, territorial
electorates cannot secure adequate representation of all interests, and must
inevitably lead to the creation of an oligarchy. e Muslims of India can
have no objection to purely territorial electorates if provinces are
demarcated so as to secure comparatively homogenous communities,
possessing linguistic, racial, cultural, and religious unity.
But in so far as the question of the powers of the Central Federal State is
concerned, there is a subtle difference of motive in the constitutions
proposed by the Pandits of India and the Pandits of England. e Pandits
of India do not disturb the central authority as it stands at present. All that
they desire is that this authority should become fully responsible to the
Central Legislature which they maintain intact, and where their majority
will become further reinforced on the nominated element ceasing to exist.
e Pandits of England, on the other hand, realizing that democracy in the
Centre tends to work contrary to their interests and is likely to absorb the
whole power now in their hands, in case a further advance is made towards
responsible government, have shifted the experiment of democracy from the
Centre to the provinces. No doubt, they introduce the principle of
federation and appear to have made a beginning by making certain
proposals, yet their evaluation of this principle is determined by
considerations wholly different from those which determine its value in the
eyes of Muslim India. e Muslims demand federation because it is pre-
eminently a solution of India’s most difficult problem, that is, the communal
problem. e Royal Commissioner’s view of federation, though sound in
principle, does not seem to aim at responsible government for federal states.
Indeed, it does not go beyond providing means of escape from the situation
which the introduction of democracy in India has created for the British,
and wholly disregards the communal problem by leaving it where it was.
us it is clear that, in so far as real federation is concerned, the Simon
Report virtually negatives the principle of federation in its true significance.
e Nehru Report, realizing a Hindu majority in the Central Assembly,
reaches for a unitary form of government, because such an institution
secures Hindu dominance throughout India; the Simon Report retains the
B hd b h d h h f lf d
present British dominance behind the thin veneer of an unreal federation,
partly because the British are naturally unwilling to part with the power
they have so long wielded, and partly because it is possible for them, in the
absence of an inter-communal understanding in India, to make out a
plausible case for the retention of that power in their own hands. To my
mind a unitary form of government is simply unthinkable in a self-
governing India. What is called ‘residuary powers’ must be left entirely to
self-governing states, the Central Federal State exercising only those powers
which are expressly vested in it by the free consent of federal states. I would
never advise the Muslims of India to agree to a system, whether of British
or of Indian origin, which virtually negatives the principle of true
federation, or fails to recognize them as a distinct political entity.
e necessity for a structural change in the Central Government was
probably seen long before the British discovered the most effective means
for introducing this change. at is why, at a rather late stage, it was
announced that the participation of the Indian Princes in the Round-Table
Conference was essential. It was a kind of surprise to the people of India,
particularly the minorities, to see the Indian Princes at the Round-Table
Conference dramatically expressing their willingness to join an All-India
Federation, and, as a result of their declaration, the Hindu delegates—
uncompromising advocates of a unitary form of Government—quietly
agreeing to the evolution of a federal scheme. Even Mr Shastri, who, only a
few days before, had severely criticized Sir John Simon for recommending a
federal scheme for India, suddenly became a convert and admitted his
conversion in the plenary session of the Conference—thus offering the
Prime Minister of England an occasion for one of his wittiest observations
in his concluding speech. All this has meaning both for the British, who
have sought the participation of the Indian Princes, and the Hindus, who
have unhesitatingly accepted the evolution, of an All-India Federation. e
truth is that the participation of the Indian princes—among whom only a
few are Muslims—in a federation scheme serves a double purpose. On the
one hand, it serves as an all-important factor in maintaining the British
power in India practically as it is, on the other hand, it gives an
overwhelming majority to the Hindus in an All-India Federal Assembly.
It appears to me that the Hindu-Muslim differences regarding the ultimate
form of the Central Government are being cleverly exploited by British
politicians through the agency of the princes, who see in the scheme
fb f h d l If h M l l l
prospects of better security for their despotic rule. If the Muslims silently
agree to any such scheme, it will simply hasten their end as a political entity
in India. e policy of the Indian Federation thus created will be practically
controlled by Hindu princes forming the largest group in the Central
Federal Assembly. ey will always lend their support to the Crown in
matters of Imperial concern; and in so far as internal administration of the
country is concerned, they will help in maintaining and strengthening the
supremacy of the Hindus. In other words, the scheme appears to be aiming
at a kind of understanding between Hindu India and British Imperialism—
you perpetuate me in India, and in return, I give you a Hindu oligarchy to
keep all other Indian communities in perpetual subjection. If, therefore, the
British Indian provinces are not transformed into really autonomous States,
the princes’ participation in a scheme of Indian federation will be
interpreted only as a dexterous move on the part of British politicians to
satisfy, without parting with any real power, all parties concerned: Muslims
with the word ‘federation’; Hindus with a majority in the Centre; and
British Imperialists whether Tory or Labourite—with the substance of real
power.
e number of Hindu states in India is far greater than of Muslim states;
and it remains to be seen how the Muslim demand for 33 percent seats in
the Central Federal Assembly is to be met in a House or Houses
constituted of representatives taken from British India as well as from
Indian States. I hope the Muslim delegates are fully aware of the
implications of the federal scheme as discussed in the Round Table
Conference. e question of Muslim representation in the proposed All-
India Federation has not yet been discussed. ‘e interim report’, says
Reuter’s summary, ‘contemplates two chambers in the Federal Legislature—
each containing representatives both of British India and the states, the
proportion of which will be a matter of subsequent consideration under the
heads which have not yet been referred to the subcommittee.’ In my
opinion, the question of proportion is of the utmost importance, and ought
to have been considered simultaneously with the main question of the
structure of the Assembly.
e best course, I think, would have been to start with a British Indian
federation only. A federal scheme born of an unholy union between
democracy and despotism cannot but keep British India in the same vicious
circle of a unitary Central Government. Such a unitary form may be of the
d h B h h B h
greatest advantage to the British, to the majority community in British
India, and to the Indian princes; it can be of no advantage to the Muslims
unless they get majority rights in five out of eleven Indian provinces with
full residuary powers, and a one-third share of seats in the total House of
the Federal Assembly. In so far as the attainment of sovereign powers by the
British Indian Provinces is concerned, the position of H.H. the Ruler of
Bhopal, Sir Akbar Hydari and Mr Jinnah is unassailable. In view, however,
of the participation of the princes in the Indian Federation, we must now
see our demand for representation in the British Indian Assembly in a new
light. e question is not one of the Muslim share in a British Indian
Assembly, but one which relates to representation of British Indian
Muslims in an All-India Federal Assembly. Our demand for 33 percent
must now be taken as a demand for the same proportion in the All-India
Federal Assembly, exclusive of the share allotted to the Muslim States
entering the Federation.
e other difficult problem which confronts the successful working of a
Federal system in India is the problem of India’s defence. In their discussion
of this problem, the Royal Commissioners have marshalled all the
deficiencies of India in order to make out a case for Imperial administration
of the army. ‘India and Britain’, say the Commissioners, ‘are so related that
India’s defence cannot now, or in any future which is within sight, be
regarded as a matter of purely Indian concern. e control and direction of
such an army must rest in the hands of agents of the Imperial Government.
Now, does it necessarily follow from this that further progress towards the
realization of responsible government in British India is barred until the
work of defence can be adequately discharged without the help of British
officers and British troops? As things are, there is a block on the line of
constitutional advance. All hopes of evolution in the Central Government
towards the ultimate goal described in the declaration of August 20, 1917,
are in danger of being indefinitely frustrated if the attitude illustrated by the
Nehru Report is maintained, that any future change involves putting the
administration of the army under the authority of an elected Indian
Legislature.’ Further, to fortify their argument, they emphasize the fact of
competing religious and rival races of widely different capacity, and try to
make the problem look insoluble by remarking that ‘the obvious fact that
India is not, in the ordinary and natural sense, a single nation is nowhere
made more plain than in considering the difference between the martial
f I d d h ’  f f h h b
races of India and the rest.’ ese features of the question have been
emphasized in order to demonstrate that the British are not only keeping
India secure from foreign menace, but are also the ‘neutral guardians’ of
internal security. However, in federated India, as I understand federation,
the problem will have only one aspect, that is, external defence. Apart from
provincial armies necessary for maintaining internal peace, the Indian
Federal Congress can maintain, on the North-West Frontier, a strong
Indian Frontier Army composed of units recruited from all provinces and
officered by efficient and experienced military men taken from all
communities. I know that India is not in possession of efficient military
officers, and this fact is exploited by the Royal Commissioners in the
interest of an argument for Imperial administration. On this point, I cannot
but quote another passage from the Report which, to my mind, furnishes
the best argument against the position taken up by the Commissioners. ‘At
the present moment,’ says the Report, ‘no Indian holding the King’s
Commission is of higher army rank than a captain. ere are, we believe, 39
captains of whom 25 are in ordinary regimental employ. Some of them are
of an age which would prevent their attaining much higher rank, even if
they passed the necessary examination before retirement. Most of these
have not been through Sandhurst, but got their Commissions during the
Great War; now, however genuine may be the desire and however earnest
the endeavour to work for the transformation, the overriding conditions so
forcibly expressed by the Skeen Committee (whose members, apart from
the Chairman and the Army Secretary, were Indian gentlemen), in the
words “Progress…must be contingent upon success being secured at each
stage and upon military efficiency being maintained throughout”, must in
any case render such development measured and slow. A higher command
cannot be evolved at short notice out of existing cadres of Indian officers, all
of junior rank and limited experience. Not until the slender trickle of
suitable Indian recruits for the officer class—and we earnestly desire an
increase in their numbers—flows in much greater volume, not until
sufficient Indians have attained the experience and training requisite to
provide all the officers for, at any rate, some Indian regiments, not until
such units have stood the only test which can possibly determine their
efficiency, and not until Indian officers have qualified by a successful army
career for high command, will it be possible to develop the policy of
Indianization to a point which will bring a completely Indianized army
h h E h l b f h ld b
within sight. Even then years must elapse before the process could be
completed.’
Now I venture to ask who is responsible for the present state of things? Is it
due to some inherent incapacity of our martial races or to the slowness of
the process of military training? e military capacity of our martial races is
undeniable. e process of military training may be slow as compared to
other processes of human training. I am no military expert to judge this
matter. But as a layman, I feel that the argument, as stated, assumes the
process to be practically endless. is means perpetual bondage for India,
and makes it all the more necessary that the Frontier Army, as suggested by
the Nehru Report, be entrusted to the charge of a committee of defence the
personnel of which may be settled by mutual understanding.
Again it is significant that the Simon Report has given extraordinary
importance to the question of India’s land frontier, but has made only
passing reference to its naval position. India has doubtless had to face
invasions from her land frontiers; but it is obvious that her present master
took possession of her on account of her defenceless sea coast. A self-
governing and free India, will, in these days, have to take greater care of her
sea coast than her land frontiers.
I have no doubt that if a Federal Government is established, Muslim
Federal States will willingly agree, for purposes of India’s defence, to the
creation of neutral Indian military and naval forces. Such a neutral military
force for the defence of India, was a reality in the days of Mughal rule.
Indeed, in the time of Akbar, the Indian frontier was, on the whole,
defended by armies officered by Hindu generals. I am perfectly sure that the
scheme of a neutral Indian army, based on a federated India, will intensify
Muslim patriotic feeling, and finally set at rest the suspicion, if any, of
Indian Muslims joining Muslims from beyond the frontier in the event of
an invasion.
I have thus tried briefly to indicate the way in which the Muslims of India
ought, in my opinion, to look at the two most important constitutional
problems of India. A redistribution of British India calculated to secure a
permanent solution of the communal problem is the main demand of the
Muslims of India. If, however, the Muslim demand for a territorial solution
of the communal problem is ignored, then I support, as emphatically as
possible, the Muslim demands repeatedly urged by the All-India Muslim
L d h All I d M l C f  M l f I d
League and the All-India Muslim Conference. e Muslims of India
cannot agree to any constitutional changes which affect their majority
rights, to be secured by separate electorates, in the Punjab and Bengal, or
fail to guarantee them 33 percent representation in any Central Legislature.
ere were two pitfalls into which Muslim political leaders fell. e first
was the repudiated Lucknow Pact, which originated in a false view of
Indian nationalism, and deprived the Muslims of India from chances of
acquiring any political power in India. e second is the narrow-visioned
sacrifice of Islamic solidarity in the interests of what may be called ‘Punjab
Ruralism’, resulting in a proposal which virtually reduces the Punjab
Muslims to the position of a minority. It is the duty of the League to
condemn both the Pact and the proposal.
e Simon Report does great injustice to the Muslims in not
recommending a statutory majority for the Punjab and Bengal. It would
either make the Muslims stick to the Lucknow Pact or agree to a scheme of
joint electorates. e Despatch of the Government of India on the Simon
Report admits that since the publication of that document, the Muslim
community has not expressed its willingness to accept any of the alternatives
proposed by the Report. e Despatch recognizes that it may be a
legitimate grievance to deprive the Muslims in the Punjab and Bengal of
representation in the Councils in proportion to their population merely
because of weightage allowed to Muslim minorities elsewhere. But the
Despatch of the Government of India fails to correct the injustice of the
Simon Report. In so far as the Punjab is concerned—and this is the more
crucial point—it endorses the so-called ‘carefully balanced scheme’ worked
out by the official members of the Punjab Government, which gives the
Punjab Muslims a majority of two over the Hindus and Sikhs combined,
and a proportion of 49 percent of the House as a whole. It is obvious that
the Punjab Muslims cannot be satisfied with less than a clear majority in
the total house. However, Lord Irwin and his Government do recognize
that the justification of communal electorates for majority communities
would not cease unless and until, by the extension of franchise, their voting
strength more correctly reflects their population; and further, unless a two-
third majority of the Muslim members in a Provincial Council unanimously
agree to surrender the right of separate representation. I cannot, however,
understand why the Government of India, having recognized the legitimacy

f h M l h h d h d
of the Muslim grievance, have not had the courage to recommend a
statutory majority for the Muslims in the Punjab and Bengal.
Nor can the Muslims of India agree to any such changes which fail to create
at least Sind as a separate province, and treat the North-West Frontier
Province as a province of inferior political status. I see no reason why Sind
should not be united with Baluchistan and turned into a separate province.
It has nothing in common with the Bombay Presidency. In point of life and
civilization, the Royal Commissioners find it more akin to Mesopotamia
and Arabia than India. e Muslim geographer Masudi noticed this
kinship long ago, when he said, ‘Sind is a country nearer to the dominions
of Islam.’ e first Omayyad ruler is reported to have said of Egypt: ‘Egypt
has her back towards Africa and her face towards Arabia.’ With necessary
alternations, the same remark describes the exact situation of Sind. She has
her back towards India and her face towards Central Asia. Considering
further the nature of her agricultural problems, which can invoke no
sympathy from the Bombay Government, and her infinite commercial
possibilities, dependent on the inevitable growth of Karachi into a second
metropolis in India, it is unwise to keep her attracted to a Presidency which,
though friendly today, is likely to become a rival at no distant period.
Financial difficulties, we are told, stand in the way of separation. I do not
know of any definite authoritative pronouncement on the matter. But,
assuming there are such difficulties, I see no reason why the Government of
India should not give temporary financial help to a promising province in
her struggle for independent progress.
As to the North-West Frontier Province, it is painful to note that the Royal
Commissioners have practically denied that the people of this province have
any right to reform. ey fall far short of the Bray Committee, and the
Council recommended by them is merely a screen to hide the autocracy of
the Chief Commissioner. e inherent right of the Afghan to light a
cigarette is curtailed merely because he happens to be living in a powder
house. e Royal Commissioners’ epigrammatic argument is pleasant
enough, but far from convincing. Political reform is light, not fire; and to
light, every human being is entitled, whether he happens to live in a powder
house or a coal mine. Brave, shrewd and determined to suffer for his
legitimate aspirations the Afghan is sure to resent any attempt to deprive
him of opportunities of full self-development. To keep such a people
contented is in the best interest of both England and India. What has
l h d h f h l f
recently happened in that unfortunate province is the result of a step-
motherly treatment shown to the people since the introduction of the
principle of self-government in the rest of India. I only hope that British
statesmanship will not obscure its view of the situation by hoodwinking
itself into the belief that the present unrest of the province is due to any
extraneous causes.
e recommendation for the introduction of a measure of reform in the
NWFP made in the Government of India’s Despatch is also unsatisfactory.
No doubt the despatch goes further than the Simon Report in
recommending a sort of representative Council and a semi-representative
Cabinet, but it fails to treat this important Muslim province on an equal
footing with other Indian provinces. Indeed, the Afghan is by instinct more
fitted for democratic institutions than any other people in India.
I think I am now called upon to make a few observations on the Round
Table Conference. Personally, I do not feel optimistic as to the results of
this conference. It was hoped that, away from the actual scene of communal
strife and a changed atmosphere, better counsels would prevail, and a
genuine settlement of the differences between the two major communities
of India would bring India’s freedom within sight. Actual events, however,
tell a different tale. Indeed, the discussion of the communal question in
London has demonstrated, more clearly than ever, the essential disparity
between the two great cultural units of India. Yet the Prime Minister of
England apparently refuses to see that the problem of India is international.
He is reported to have said that ‘his Government would find it difficult to
submit to Parliament proposals for the maintenance of separate electorates,
since joint electorates were much more in accordance with British
democratic sentiment.’ Obviously he does not see that the model of British
democracy cannot be of any use in a land of many nations; and that a
system of separate electorates is only a poor substitute for a territorial
solution of the problem. Nor is the Minorities Sub-Committee likely to
reach a satisfactory settlement. e whole question will have to go before
the British Parliament; and we can only hope that the keen-sighted
representatives of the British nation, unlike most of our Indian politicians,
will be able to pierce through the surface of things, and clearly see the true
fundamentals of peace and security in a country like India. To base a
Constitution on the concept of a homogeneous India, or to apply to India
principles dictated by British democratic sentiments, is unwittingly to
h f l A f I h ll b h
prepare her for a civil war. As far as I can see, there will be no peace in the
country until the various peoples that constitute India are given
opportunities of free self-development on modern lines, without abruptly
breaking with their past.
I am glad to be able to say that our Muslim delegates fully realize the
importance of a proper solution of what I call India’s international problem.
ey are perfectly justified in pressing for a solution of the communal
question before the responsibility in the Central Government is finally
settled. No Muslim politician should be sensitive to the taunt embodied in
that propaganda word ‘communalism’—expressly devised to ‘exploit what
the Prime Minister calls British democratic sentiments,’ and to mislead
England into assuming a state of things which does not really exist in India.
Great interests are at stake. We are 70 millions, and far more homogeneous
than any other people in India. Indeed, the Muslims of India are the only
Indian people who can fitly be described as a nation in the modern sense of
the word. e Hindus, though ahead of us in almost all respects, have not
yet been able to achieve the kind of homogeneity which is necessary for a
nation, and which Islam has given you as a free gift. No doubt they are
anxious to become a nation, but the process of becoming a nation is a kind
of travail, and in the case of Hindu India, involves a complete overhauling
of her social structure. Nor should the Muslim leaders and politicians allow
themselves to be carried away by the subtle but fallacious arguments that
Turkey and Persia and other Muslim countries are progressing on national,
i.e., territorial, lines. e Muslims of India are differently situated. e
countries of Islam outside India are practically wholly Muslim in
population. e minorities there belong, in the language of the Quran, to
the ‘people of the Book.’ ere are no social barriers between Muslims and
‘the people of the Book’… Indeed the first practical step that Islam took
towards the realization of a final combination of humanity was to call upon
peoples possessing practically the same ethical ideal to come forward and
combine. e Quran declares, ‘O people of the Book! Come, let us join
together on the “word” (Unity of God) that is common to us all.’ e wars
of Islam and Christianity, and, later, European aggression in its various
forms, could not allow the infinite meaning of this verse to work itself out
in the world of Islam. Today, it is being gradually realized in the countries
of Islam in the shape of what is called ‘Muslim Nationalism’.

I h dl f dd h h l f h f
It is hardly necessary for me to add that the sole test of the success of our
delegates is the extent to which they are able to get the non-Muslim
delegates of the Conference to agree to our demands as embodied in the
Delhi Resolution. If these demands are not agreed to, then a question of a
very great and far-reaching importance will arise for the community. en
will arrive the moment for independent and concerted political action by
the Muslims of India. If you are at all serious about your ideals and
aspirations, you must be ready for such action. Our leading men have done
a good deal of political thinking, and their thought has certainly made us,
more or less, sensitive to the forces which are now shaping the destinies of
peoples in India and outside India. But, I ask, has this thinking prepared us
for the kind of action demanded by the situation which may arise in the
near future? Let me tell you frankly that at the present moment, the
Muslims of India are suffering from two evils. e first is the want of
personalities. Sir Malcolm Hailey and Lord Irwin were perfectly correct in
their diagnosis, when they told the Aligarh University that the community
had failed to produce leaders. By leaders, I mean men who, by divine gift or
experience, possess a keen perception of the spirit and destiny of Islam,
along with an equally keen perception of the trend of modern history. Such
men are really the driving forces of a people, but they are God’s gift and
cannot be made to order. e second evil from which the Muslims of India
are suffering is that the community is fast losing what is called the herd
instinct. is makes it possible for individuals and groups to start
independent careers without contributing to the general thought and
activity of the community. We are doing today in the domain of politics
what we have been doing for centuries in the domain of religion. But
sectional bickerings in religion do not do much harm to our solidarity. ey
at least indicate an interest in what makes the sole principle of our structure
as a people. Moreover, this principle is so broadly conceived that it is almost
impossible for a group to become rebellious to the extent of wholly
detaching itself from the general body of Islam. But diversity in political
action, at a moment when concerted action is needed in the best interests of
the very life of our people, may prove fatal. How shall we, then, remedy
these two evils? e remedy of the first evil is not in our hands. As to the
second evil, I think it is possible to discover a remedy. I have got definite
views on the subject; but I think it is proper to postpone their expression till
the apprehended situation actually arises. In case it does arise, leading
M l f ll h d f ll h h
Muslims of all shades of opinion will have to meet together, not to pass
resolutions, but finally to decide the Muslim attitude and to show the path
to tangible achievement. In this address, I mention this alternative only
because I wish that you may keep it in mind, and give some serious thought
to it in the meantime.
Gentlemen, I have finished. In conclusion, I cannot but impress upon you
that the present crisis in the history of India demands complete
organization and unity of will and purpose in the Muslim community, both
in your own interest as a community, and in the interest of India as a whole.
e political bondage of India has been and is a source of infinite misery to
the whole of Asia. It has suppressed the spirit of the East, and wholly
deprived her of that joy of self expression which once made her the creator
of a great and glorious culture. We have a duty towards India where we are
destined to live and die. We have a duty towards Asia, especially Muslim
Asia. And since seventy millions of Muslims in a single country constitute a
far more valuable asset to Islam than all the countries of Muslim Asia put
together, we must look at the Indian problem, not only from the Muslim
point of view, but also from the standpoint of the Indian Muslim as such.
Our duty towards Asia and India cannot be loyally performed without an
organized will fixed on a definite purpose. In your own interest, as a
political entity among other political entities of India, such an equipment is
an absolute necessity.
Our disorganized condition has already confused political issues vital to the
life of the community. I am not hopeless of an intercommunal
understanding, but I cannot conceal from you the feeling that in the near
future our community may be called upon to adopt an independent line of
action to cope with the present crisis. And an independent line of political
action in such a crisis, is possible only to a determined people, possessing a
will focalized by a single purpose.
Is it possible for you to achieve the organic wholeness of a unified will? Yes,
it is. Rise above sectional interests and private ambitions, and learn to
determine the value of your individual and collective action, however
directed on material ends, in the light of the ideal which you are supposed
to represent. Pass from matter to spirit. Matter is diversity; spirit is light,
life and unity. One lesson I have learnt from the history of Muslims. At
critical moments in their history, it is Islam that has saved Muslims and not

If d f Il d k f
vice versa. If today you focus your vision on Islam and seek inspiration from
the ever-vitalizing idea embodied in it, you will be only reassembling your
scattered forces, regaining your lost integrity, and thereby saving yourself
from total destruction. One of the profoundest verses in the Holy Quran
teaches us that the birth and rebirth of the whole of humanity is like the
birth and rebirth of a single individual. Why cannot you, who as a people,
can well claim to be the first practical exponents of this superb conception
of humanity, live and move and have your being as a single individual? I do
not wish to mystify anybody when I say that things in India are not what
they appear to be. e meaning of this, however, will dawn upon you only
when you have achieved a real collective ego to look at them. In the words
of the Quran, ‘Hold fast to yourself; no one who erreth can hurt you,
provided you are well-guided.’ (5: 104).
e death of God (Madras, December 1933)
M. SINGARAVELU (1860–1946)

Singaravelu was known as the first communist of South India—he presided

over the Communist Party of India’s foundation conference in Kanpur in
1925—and he was an ardent atheist. e following speech was given as the
chair at the first Madras Atheists Conference. As a champion of atheism,
Singaravelu came to be associated with the anti-Brahmin movement that
swept Tamil Nadu in the 1920s. He worked closely with ‘Periyar’ E.V.
Ramaswami Naicker who provided leadership to the anti-Brahmin protests.
Naicker had been active in Non Co-operation movement but he left the
Congress in the mid-20s and formed his own movement that advocated
weddings without Brahmin priests, forcible temple-entry, the burning of
the Manusmriti and atheism. e speech is important because it shows that
while Gandhi’s religious idiom was the dominating influence within the
Congress, other currents of thought imbued with rationalism and the
scientific temper were developing among sections of Indians.

I think this conference is the first of its kind in the whole of India. One can
boldly assert that this conference will bring good to the country and people.
Unfortunately some people, out of ignorance, have ridiculed this
conference. As usual, theists indulge in slander. e bureaucrats try to
indulge in repression under some pretext or other. But this is not a new
occurrence. In the past all progressive movements have been persecuted and
ridiculed.
Not content with ridiculing the progressive movement, this mad and
ignorant world has always tried to stop the spread of scientific knowledge.
I l h f h fA k fd h
Ingersol, the famous atheist of America was not taken note of during his
lifetime and was even ridiculed. But now his birth anniversary is being
celebrated in America. Bradlaugh, the British atheist, was put behind bars
during his lifetime. Now what happens in Britain? Commemoration
meetings in honour of Bradlaugh are being held in Britain. I am sure in due
course still bigger conferences of this kind would be held in this country. It
is quite likely that people may forget the names of the atheists but their
ideas will remain forever in their minds.
Atheism is an ancient doctrine which originated and developed side by side
with theism. When the concept of God was ushered in, alongside came the
doctrine of ‘no-God’. Till the time man developed his faculty to speak, he
was not aware of any God. Some of the primitive tribesmen have confessed
their ignorance about God, and can aptly be called ‘primitive atheists’.
In this connection it is really interesting to note the history of religion.
Every religion had proclaimed that people belonging to the other religions
were atheists. A non-Hindu is an atheist to a Hindu. To a Muslim any non-
Muslim is an atheist. Likewise, many more people were termed as atheists.
Hence, I would like to say one should really be proud to be an atheist as he
is not only non-religious but also does not accept a belief in God.
As the word (God) was man’s own creation, he began to build houses
(temples) for his God. Just as he respected his superiors and elders, he
began to respect his God. What he did to entertain himself like music,
dance, rituals, feasts, he offered to his God. us, God advanced as man
advanced.
Some shrewd men of those days found an easy way to life and this paved
the way for replacing the word with an idol. To make man live perpetually
in fear of God, these men did everything possible and thus priesthood came
into existence. ese priests lived and thrived on the fear and ignorance of
men. us around the single word ‘God’ the entire edifice of religious and
philosophical system of rituals and prayers were built. In the course of
history, many beliefs have become obsolete and I am sure that this belief,
namely, theism too would become obsolete in due course.
e first and most dangerous affect of theism is that it saps the initiative of
man. Ignorance take deep roots in him. People are prevented from
acquiring scientific knowledge. eism is not only a negative evil; it is
positively harmful to the people. Whatever may be the future of God, we
f d f h I l h h ll
can never forget and forgive his past. It is only atheism that instills
confidence in man. It is only atheism which proclaims that social and
economic inequalities are only manmade. Hence, it goads man to seek out
ways of removing obstacles in the way of progress. It is only atheism that
proclaims to man: ‘Man, be a man. You alone can convert this earth into a
paradise.’
Comrades, crucial battles are ahead of us. We cannot rest on our laurels
now. ough it is put on defence, theism has not been completely routed.
Power, money, propaganda, still side with theism. Further, a majority of
people, out of ignorance still remain with theism and we have to redeem
them. eism alongwith power and money may over and again attempt to
bar the growth and development of human initiative. A concrete example is
the development of Hitlerism and fascism. Religious beliefs and other age-
old obscurantist ideas are thrust down the throats of people. is is a
dangerous trend. Take again some of the views expressed by Gandhiji. He is
openly advocating theism. Further, he is crying to make some readjustment
in the caste system, to reform it. In our view these are against the principles
of atheism. e so-called removal of untouchability is a mere device to
strengthen religious beliefs among the people. e untouchables numbering
about six crores are economically poor and downtrodden. What they need is
neither God or religion. ey need a meal a day and an opportunity to earn
a decent living.
However, there is another danger ahead. e Hindu Mahasabha, the
Sanatanis, Muslim communalists, etc., are still striving hard to capture the
legislative assembly so that theism can be enthroned. ese are the worst
reactionaries in this unfortunate land. Beware comrades, not to lose this
opportunity for contesting and capturing every seat in every village and
panchayat, in every taluk and district board. Fearlessly expose the sham of
casteism and oppression. Dethrone ignorance and theism. Please, enthrone
atheism and socialism in its place.
Crisis of civilization (Santiniketan, April 1941)
RABINDRANATH TAGORE (1861–1941)

Tagore had been unwell for sometime. He was making preparations to leave
Santiniketan for Calcutta, and was perhaps aware that he would not return
to his beloved university. On Bengali New Year’s Day, he spoke in Viswa
Bharati of his anguish at the killing and destruction he saw around him.
is speech, given at the height of the Second World War, turned out to be
not only the last speech he made in Santiniketan but also his last public
pronouncement. For these reasons it is a profoundly moving and powerful
speech—the final testament of a man disillusioned by history but clinging
to his faith in man.

Today I complete eighty years of my life. As I look back on the vast stretch
of years that lie behind me and see in clear perspective the history of my
early development, I am struck by the change that has taken place both in
my own attitude and in the psychology of my countrymen—a change that
carries within it a cause of profound tragedy.
Our direct contact with the larger world of men was linked up with the
contemporary history of the English people whom we came to know in
those earlier days. It was mainly through their mighty literature that we
formed our ideas with regard to these newcomers to our Indian shores. In
those days the type of learning that was served out to us was neither
plentiful nor diverse, nor was the spirit of scientific enquiry very much in
evidence. us their scope being strictly limited, the educated of those days
had recourse to English language and literature. eir days and nights were
eloquent with the stately declamations of Burke, with Macaulay’s long-
ll d d Sh k ’ d dB ’
rolling sentences; discussions centred upon Shakespeare’s drama and Byron’s
poetry and above all upon the large-hearted liberalism of the nineteenth-
century English politics.
At the time though tentative attempts were being made to gain our national
independence, at heart we had not lost faith in the generosity of the English
race. is belief was so firmly rooted in the sentiments of our leaders as to
lead them to hope that the victor would of his own grace pave the path of
freedom for the vanquished. is belief was based upon the fact that
England at the time provided a shelter to all those who had to flee from
persecution in their own country. Political martyrs who had suffered for the
honour of their people were accorded unreserved welcome at the hands of
the English. I was impressed by this evidence of liberal humanity in the
character of the English and thus I was led to set them on the pedestal of
my highest respect. is generosity in their national character had not yet
been vitiated by imperialist pride. About this time, as a boy in England, I
had the opportunity of listening to the speeches of John Bright, both in and
outside Parliament. e large-hearted, radical liberalism of those speeches,
overflowing all narrow national bounds, had made so deep an impression on
my mind that something of it lingers even today, even in these days of
graceless disillusionment.
Certainly that spirit of abject dependence upon the charity of our rulers was
no matter for pride. What was remarkable, however, was the wholehearted
way in which we gave our recognition to human greatness even when it
revealed itself in the foreigner. e best and noblest gifts of humanity
cannot be the monopoly of a particular race or country; its scope may not be
limited nor may it be regarded as the miser’s hoard buried underground.
at is why English literature which nourished our minds in the past, does
even now convey its deep resonance to the recesses of our heart.
It is difficult to find a suitable Bengali equivalent for the English word
‘civilization’. at phase of civilization with which we were familiar in this
country has been called by Manu ‘Sadachar’ (lit. proper conduct), that is, the
conduct prescribed by the tradition of the race. Narrow in themselves these
time-honoured social conventions originated and held good in a
circumscribed geographical area, in that strip of land, Brahmavarta by
name, bound on either side by the rivers Saraswati and Drisadvati. at is
how a pharisaic formalism gradually got the upper hand of free thought and

h d l f‘ d ’ h hM f d bl h d B h
the ideal of ‘proper conduct’ which Manu found established in Brahmavarta
steadily degenerated into socialized tyranny.
During my boyhood days the attitude towards the cultured and educated
section of Bengal, nurtured on English learning, was charged with a feeling
of revolt against these rigid regulations of society. A perusal of what
Rajnarain Bose has written describing the ways of the educated gentry of
those days will amply bear out what I have said just now. In place of these
set codes of conduct we accepted the ideal of ‘civilization’ as represented by
the English term.
In our own family this change of spirit was welcomed for the sake of its
sheer rational and moral force and its influence was felt in every sphere of
our life. Born in that atmosphere, which was moreover coloured by our
intuitive bias for literature, I naturally set the English on the throne of my
heart. us passed the first chapters of my life. en came the parting of
ways accompanied with a painful feeling of disillusion when I began
increasingly to discover how easily those who accepted the highest truths of
civilization disowned them with impunity whenever questions of national
self-interest were involved.
ere came a time when perforce I had to snatch myself away from the
mere appreciation of literature. As I emerged into the stark light of bare
facts, the sight of the dire poverty of the Indian masses rent my heart.
Rudely shaken out of my dreams, I began to realize that perhaps in no other
modern state was there such hopeless dearth of the most elementary needs
of existence. And yet it was this country whose resources had fed for so long
the wealth and magnificence of the British people. While I was lost in the
contemplation of the great world of civilization, I could never have remotely
imagined that the great ideals of humanity would end in such ruthless
travesty. But today a glaring example of it stares me in the face in the utter
and contemptuous indifference of a so-called civilized race to the well-being
of crores of Indian people.
at mastery over the machine, by which the British have consolidated
their sovereignty over their vast empire, has been kept a sealed book, to
which due access has been denied to this helpless country. And all the time
before our very eyes Japan has been transforming herself into a mighty and
prosperous nation. I have seen with my own eyes the admirable use to
which Japan has put in her own country the fruits of this progress. I have
l b l d hl M h h
also been privileged to witness, while in Moscow, the unsparing energy with
which Russia has tried to fight disease and illiteracy, and has succeeded in
steadily liquidating ignorance and poverty, wiping off the humiliation from
the face of a vast continent. Her civilization is free from all invidious
distinction between one class and another, between one sect and another.
e rapid and astounding progress achieved by her made me happy and
jealous at the same time. One aspect of the Soviet administration which
particularly pleased me was that it provided no scope for unseemly conflict
of religious differences, nor set one community against another by
unbalanced distribution of political favours. at I consider a truly civilized
administration which impartially serves the common interests of the people.
While other imperialist powers sacrifice the welfare of the subject races to
their own national greed, in the USSR I found a genuine attempt being
made to harmonize the interests of the various nationalities that are
scattered over its vast area. I saw peoples and tribes, who, only the other
day, were nomadic savages being encouraged and indeed trained, to avail
themselves freely of the benefits of civilization. Enormous sums are being
spent on their education to expedite the process. When I see elsewhere
some two hundred nationalities—which only a few years ago were at vastly
different stages of development—marching ahead in peaceful progress and
amity, and when I look about my own country and see a very highly evolved
and intellectual people drifting into the disorder of barbarism, I cannot help
contrasting the two systems of governments, one based on cooperation, the
other on exploitation, which have made such contrary conditions possible.
I have also seen Iran, newly awakened to a sense of national self-sufficiency,
attempting to fulfil her own destiny freed from the deadly grinding-stones
of two European powers. During my recent visit to that country I
discovered to my delight that Zoroastrians who once suffered from the
fanatical hatred of the major community and whose rights had been
curtailed by the ruling power were now free from this age-long repression,
and that civilized life had established itself in the happy land. It is
significant that Iran’s good fortune dates from the day when she finally
disentangled herself from the meshes of European diplomacy. With all my
heart I wish Iran well.
Turning to the neighbouring kingdom of Afghanistan I find that though
there is much room for improvement in the field of education and social

d l h f h h l kf d d
development, yet she is fortunate in that she can look forward to unending
progress; for none of the European powers, boastful of their civilization, has
yet succeeded in overwhelming and crushing her possibilities.
us while these other countries were marching ahead, India, smothered
under the dead weight of British administration, lay static in her utter
helplessness. Another great and ancient civilization for whose recent tragic
history the British cannot disclaim responsibility, is China. To serve their
own national profit the British first doped her people with opium and then
appropriated a portion of her territory. As the world was about to forget the
memory of this outrage, we were painfully surprised by another event.
While Japan was quietly devouring North China, her act of wanton
aggression was ignored as a minor incident by the veterans of British
diplomacy. We have also witnessed from this distance how actively the
British statesmen acquiesced in the destruction of the Spanish Republic.
On the other hand, we also noted with admiration how a band of valiant
Englishmen laid down their lives for Spain. Even though the English had
not aroused themselves sufficiently to their sense of responsibility towards
China in the Far East, in their own immediate neighbourhood they did not
hesitate to sacrifice themselves to the cause of freedom. Such acts of
heroism reminded me over again of the true English spirit to which in those
early days I had given my full faith, and made me wonder how imperialist
greed could bring about so ugly a transformation in the character of so great
a race.
Such is the tragic tale of the gradual loss of my faith in the claims of the
European nations to civilization. In India the misfortune of being governed
by a foreign race is daily brought home to us not only in the callous neglect
of such minimum necessities of life as adequate provision for food, clothing,
education and medical facilities for the people, but in an even unhappier
form in the way people have divided themselves. e pity of it is that the
blame is laid at the door of our own society. So frightful a culmination of
the history of our people would never have been possible, but for the
encouragement it has received from secret influences emanating from high
places.
One cannot believe that Indians are in any way inferior to the Japanese in
intellectual capacity. e most effective difference between these two eastern
peoples is that whereas India lies at the mercy of the British, Japan has been
d h h d f l d W k h h b
spared the shadow of alien domination. We know what we have been
deprived of. at which was truly best in their own civilizations, the
upholding of the dignity of human relationships, has no place in the British
administration of this country. If in its place they have established, with
baton in hand, a reign of ‘law and order’, in other words a policeman’s rule,
such mockery of civilization can claim no respect from us. It is the mission
of civilization to bring unity among people and establish peace and
harmony. But in unfortunate India the social fabric is being rent into shreds
by unseemly outbursts of hooliganism daily growing in intensity, right
under the very aegis of ‘law and order’. In India, so long as no personal
injury is inflicted upon any member of the ruling race, this barbarism seems
to be assured of perpetuity, making us ashamed to live under such an
administration.
And yet my good fortune has often brought me into close contact with
really large-hearted Englishmen. Without the slightest hesitation I may say
that the nobility of their character was without parallel—in no country or
community have I come across such greatness of soul. Such examples would
not allow me to wholly lose faith in the race which produced them. I had
the rare blessing of having Andrews—a real Englishman, a real Christian
and a true man—for a very close friend. Today in the perspective of death
his unselfish and courageous magnanimity shines all the brighter. e whole
of India remains indebted to him for innumerable acts of love and devotion.
But personally speaking, I am especially beholden to him because he helped
me to retain in my old age that feeling of respect for the English race with
which in the past I was inspired by their literature and which I was about to
lose completely. I count such Englishmen as Andrews not only as my
personal and intimate friends but as friends of the whole human race. To
have known them has been to me a treasured privilege. It is my belief that
such Englishmen will save British honour from shipwreck. At any rate if I
had not known them, my despair at the prospect of western civilization
would be unrelieved.
In the meanwhile the demon of barbarity has given up all pretence and has
emerged with unconcealed fangs, ready to tear up humanity in an orgy of
devastation. From one end of the world to the other the poisonous fumes of
hatred darken the atmosphere. e spirit of violence which perhaps lay
dormant in the psychology of the West, has at last roused itself and
desecrates the spirit of Man.
 h l fF ll d l h E l h h I d
e wheels of Fate will some day compel the English to give up their Indian
empire. But what kind of India will they leave behind, what stark misery?
‘When the stream of their centuries’ administration runs dry at last, what a
waste of mud and filth they will leave behind them! I had at one time
believed that the springs of civilization would issue out of the heart of
Europe. But today when I am about to quit the world that faith has gone
bankrupt altogether.
As I look around I see the crumbling ruins of a proud civilization strewn
like a vast heap of futility. And yet I shall not commit the grievous sin of
losing faith in Man. I would rather look forward to the opening of a new
chapter in his history after the cataclysm is over and the atmosphere
rendered clean with the spirit of service and sacrifice. Perhaps that dawn
will come from this horizon, from the East where the sun rises. A day will
come when unvanquished Man will retrace his path of conquest, despite all
barriers, to win back his lost human heritage.
Today we witness the perils which attend on the insolence of might; one
day shall be borne out the full truth of what the sages have proclaimed:
‘By unrighteousness man prospers, gains what appears desirable, conquers
enemies, but perishes at the root.’
Give me blood and I promise you freedom! (Burma,
July 1944)
SUBHAS CHANDRA BOSE (1897–1945)

After escaping from his house arrest in Calcutta in 1941, Bose went
overland to Germany where he set up the India Legion. Facing difficulties
in Germany, he arrived in Japanese-controlled Singapore by submarine in
July 1943. In Singapore he organized the Azad Hind Government (‘a
provisional government of free India’ which was recognized by nine Axis
states) and the Indian National Army. Between March and June 1944, this
army fought the British on Indian soil, alongside Japanese troops. e
campaign ended in failure but Bose refused to give up hope. He believed, as
this speech reveals, that the British were losing the war and this presented
Indians a golden opportunity to win their freedom. is is perhaps Bose’s
best known speech. Delivered at a rally to motivate the soldiers of the
Indian National Army, it is famous for its final, still powerful, phrase.

Friends! Twelve months ago a new programme of ‘total mobilization’ or

‘maximum sacrifice’ was placed before Indians in East Asia. Today I shall
give you an account of our achievements during the past year and shall place
before you our demands for the coming year. But, before I do so, I want you
to realize once again what a golden opportunity we have for winning
freedom. e British are engaged in a worldwide struggle and in the course
of this struggle they have suffered defeat after defeat on so many fronts. e
enemy having been thus considerably weakened, our fight for liberty has
become very much easier than it was five years ago. Such a rare and God-

 h h
given opportunity comes once in a century. at is why we have sworn to
fully utilize this opportunity for liberating our motherland from the British
yoke.
I am so very hopeful and optimistic about the outcome of our struggle,
because I do not rely merely on the efforts of three million Indians in East
Asia. ere is a gigantic movement going on inside India and millions of
our countrymen are prepared for maximum suffering and sacrifice in order
to achieve liberty. Unfortunately, ever since the great fight of 1857, our
countrymen are disarmed, whereas the enemy is armed to the teeth.
Without arms and without a modern army, it is impossible for a disarmed
people to win freedom in this modern age. rough the grace of Providence
and through the help of generous Nippon, it has become possible for
Indians in East Asia to get arms to build up a modern army. Moreover,
Indians in East Asia are united to a man in the endeavour to win freedom
and all the religious and other differences that the British tried to engineer
inside India, simply do not exist in East Asia. Consequently, we have now
an ideal combination of circumstances favouring the success of our struggle
—and all that is wanted is that Indians should themselves come forward to
pay the price of liberty. According to the programme of ‘total mobilization’,
I demanded of you men, money, and materials. Regarding men, I am glad
to tell you that I have obtained sufficient recruits already. Recruits have
come to us from every corner of east Asia—from China, Japan, Indo-
China, Philippines, Java, Borneo, Celebes, Sumatra, Malaya, ailand, and
Burma…
You must continue the mobilization of men, money and materials with
greater vigour and energy, in particular, the problem of supplies and
transport has to be solved satisfactorily.
We require more men and women of all categories for administration and
reconstruction in liberated areas. We must be prepared for a situation in
which the enemy will ruthlessly apply the scorched earth policy, before
withdrawing from a particular area and will also force the civilian
population to evacuate as was attempted in Burma.
e most important of all is the problem of sending reinforcements in men
and in supplies to the fighting fronts. If we do not do so, we cannot hope to
maintain our success at the fronts. Nor can we hope to penetrate deeper
into India.
 f h ll k h H F h ld
ose of you who will continue to work on the Home Front should never
forget that East Asia—and particularly Burma—form our base for the war
of liberation. If this base is not strong, our fighting forces can never be
victorious. Remember that this is a ‘total war’—and not merely a war
between two armies. at is why for a full one year I have been laying so
much stress on ‘total mobilization’ in the East.
ere is another reason why I want you to look after the Home Front
properly. During the coming months I and my colleagues on the War
Committee of the Cabinet desire to devote our whole attention to the
fighting front—and also to the task of working up the revolution inside
India. Consequently, we want to be fully assured that the work at the base
will go on smoothly and uninterruptedly even in our absence.
Friends, one year ago, when I made certain demands of you, I told you that
if you give me ‘total mobilization’, I would give you a ‘second front’. I have
redeemed that pledge. e first phase of our campaign is over. Our
victorious troops, fighting side by side with Nipponese troops, have pushed
back the enemy and are now fighting bravely on the sacred soil of our dear
motherland.
Gird up your loins for the task that now lies ahead. I had asked you for
men, money and materials. I have got them in generous measure. Now I
demand more of you. Men, money and materials cannot by themselves
bring victory or freedom. We must have the motive power that will inspire
us to brave deeds and heroic exploits.
It will be a fatal mistake for you to wish to live and see India free simply
because victory is now within reach. No one here should have the desire to
live to enjoy freedom. A long fight is still in front of us. We should have but
one desire today—the desire to die so that India may live—the desire to face
a martyr’s death, so that the path to freedom may be paved with the
martyr’s blood.
Friends! My comrades in the War of Liberation! Today I demand of you
one thing, above all. I demand of you blood. It is blood alone that can
avenge the blood that the enemy has spilt. It is blood alone that can pay the
price of freedom. Give me blood and I promise you freedom!
e great Calcutta killings (Calcutta, September
1946)
SHYAMAPROSAD MOOKERJEA (1901–1953)

August 16, 1946 had been declared Direct Action Day by the Muslim
League to achieve Pakistan. Jinnah said, ‘today we bid goodbye to
constitutional methods’ and the chief minister of Bengal, Hassan Shaheed
Suhrawardy, had made the day a public holiday so that administrative
control would be relatively lax. Massive communal riots broke out and the
streets of Calcutta became a battleground between Muslims, Hindus and
Sikhs. e police remained inactive and the army moved in only after
twenty-four hours of murder and mayhem. In the Bengal Legislative
Assembly, Shyamaprosad Mookerjea, President of the Hindu Mahasabha
party, was among the first to take up the matter. In this speech he rips into
the Muslim League government for its inaction and its complicity in the
killings.

Sir, since yesterday we have been discussing the motions of no-confidence

under circumstances, which perhaps have no parallel in the deliberations of
any Legislature in any part of the civilized world. What happened in
Calcutta is without a parallel in modern history. St Bartholomew’s Day of
which history records some grim events of murder and butchery pales into
insignificance compared to the brutalities that were committed in the
streets, lanes and bye-lanes of this first city of British India. We have been
discussing, Sir, as to the genesis of these disturbances. Time will not permit

h h h d l dh d f d h l
me to go through the detailed history and course of events during the last
few years.
But let me say this that what has happened is not the result of a sudden
explosion, but it is the culmination of an administration, inefficient, corrupt
and communal, which has disfigured the life of this great Province. But so
far as the immediate cause is concerned, rightly reference has been made by
members belonging to the Muslim League and also to the Opposition that
we have to look to the resolution that was passed at Bombay at the all-India
session of the Council of the Muslim League. Now what happened there? It
is said, on behalf of the Muslim League that the Cabinet Mission proved
faithless to Muslim interests and thereby created a situation which had no
parallel in the history of Anglo-Muslim relationship in this country. What
did actually the Cabinet Mission do? e Muslim League, the spoilt and
pampered child of the British imperialists for the last thirty years, was
disowned for the first time by the British Labour Government…(loud noise
from the government benches)…I know it that members when they hear
the bitter truth, can hardly repress their feelings. Sir, the fact remains that
the old policy of the British Government of no advancement without a
Congress-Muslim League agreement was for the first time given up in
I946…(loud cries from the government benches)…I have only stated the
fact and I do not make any comment on it and still my friends become
impatient immediately. Now, the fact remains that the Muslim League was
bypassed and the Interim Government has been formed at the Centre.
Supposing Mr Jinnah had been asked to form the Interim Government
without the Congress, would my friends belonging to the Muslim League
have then blamed the government for having betrayed the interests of the
Hindu community?
Sir, what happened after the Bombay resolution? I have before me a
summary of the speeches delivered by distinguished spokesmen on behalf of
the Muslim League in every part of India and although it was said that the
Direct Action Day itself was not the day for commencing direct action, it
was at the same time pointed out that the war had begun, the days of peace
and compromise were over and now the jehad … (A member from the
Government Benches: Against whom?) War against everyone who did not
accept Pakistan. at has been made abundantly clear.

I ld k f d d d I b f
I would ask my friends not to misunderstand me. I am trying to put in brief
their point of view as I would ask them also to appreciate our point of view.
We are like poles asunder. You say you will plunge the country Pakistan by
any means whatsoever. ese two points of view are irreconcilable and what
I am now telling the House is this that the members speaking on behalf of
the Muslim League did not mince matters. Muslim leaders want Civil War.
Only a pattern of civil war, according to Mr Jinnah, was witnessed in this
very city of Calcutta, but whether civil war will ultimately help Muslims to
get Pakistan or not is a matter that remains yet to be seen. It is said that
British Imperialists are against the Muslim League. Why talk rot in this
way? Who gave you separate electorate and communal award? Who is
helping the Sind ministry to remain in power? Is not the Governor a British
Governor? Are not the three European members of the Sind Assembly
British members of that House? Are they not trying their level best
somehow to keep the Muslim League in power and not allow the Congress
to go to office although among the Indian members they are in a majority?
Now, Sir, I shall leave this aside. I shall not refer to the detailed speeches
which have been delivered by the Muslim League leaders barring one or
two illustrative remarks. When Mr Jinnah was confronted at a pre-
conference in Bombay on the 31st July and was asked whether direct action
involved violence or non-violence, his cryptic reply was ‘I am not going to
discuss ethics’. (e Hon’ble Mr Muhammad Ali: Good.) But Khwajah
Nazimuddin was not so good. He came out very bluntly in Bengal and he
said that Muslims did not believe in non-violence at all, Muslims knew
what direct action meant and there were one hundred and one ways in
which this was made clear by responsible League leaders. One said in the
Punjab that the zero hour had struck and that the war had begun. All this
was followed by a series of articles and statements which appeared in the
columns of newspapers—the Morning News, the Star of India, and the
Azad. If you read those documents, particularly I would ask my friend Mr
Ispahani if he reads those documents, I do not know whether he had learnt
Bengali yet, if not, for his benefit a translation can be made of the Bengali
article in Azad, he will be able to find out that there was nothing but open
and direct incitement to violence. Hatred of Hindus and jehad on the
Hindu were declared in highly charged language. at was the background.
I am not going to quote the papers, for I have not the time. You have read

h d h l M l bl h d d h
them and the general Muslim public have acted according to the
instructions.
Now, so far as the later events are concerned, what happened on the 16th of
August. What were the preparations made? Mr Ispahani says that they were
taken unaware. In the Morning News on the 16th there appeared an
announcement on behalf of the ‘Pakistan’ Ambulance Corps and there full
instructions were given as to how the Ambulance Corps was to act—mind
you, Sir, this was done before the troubles started. is ‘Pakistan
Ambulance Corps’ was to be utilized in different parts of the city; they were
to go out in batches, cars and officers ‘would be available’ and from the 17th
morning announcement was to be made every hour as regards the patients
who were to be found in the different hospitals of Calcutta. is was
announced before any trouble started in Calcutta and Mr Ispahani says
there was no preparation. Of course it was sheer bad luck that you allowed
this notice, among many kinds of preparations, to be published in the
newspapers.
Now, Sir, what happened on the 16th? I shall not refer to the detailed
speeches of other members. But I shall certainly hold responsible the Chief
Minister of this province who lost his mental balance by saying in Bombay
that he was going to declare Bengal to be an independent state. A minister
who cannot control his British underling—the Commissioner of Police—is
going to make Bengal an independent state! A minister who comes forward
and says ‘I am helpless, I could not save the people of the city because the
Commissioner of Police would not listen to me’ will declare Bengal an
independent state! Now, that was Mr Suhrawardy. He said he was going to
carry on a no-rent campaign in this province. He was going to disobey law
and order. His speech before the Legislative Council goes to show that he
knew fully well that troubles were ahead. If you analyse his speech it will
appear that he knew that troubles were brewing and he said he wanted to be
as careful as possible.
I am not raising the question in this debate as to how many Hindus were
butchered or how many Muslims were butchered in Bhawanipore, Taltolla,
or Watgunge. at is not the issue. e question in issue today is, did
government succeed in protecting life and property; not to which
community that life and property belonged? Why did government allow so
many Muslim lives to be butchered if you look upon Mr Suhrawardy as the

M l h Wh d d h ll h d fl
great Muslim champion? Why did he allow the entire administration of law
and order to collapse in the city? I shall say, Sir, it was a diabolical plan. I
say Sir, there was a well-organized plan to make a lightning attack on the
city that would take Hindus by surprise, properties were going to be looted
and lives were going to be lost. en Mr Suhrawardy found that he was
caught in his own trap when he and others were hit back in their own coin.
He could not regain his lost ground and failed to do what his Muslim
brethren asked him to do in agony and distress.
On the 16th, our case is that provocation came from the other side, their
case is that provocation came from the Hindu side. at also I am not
going to discuss today. Let us leave that for the time being, but let us
proceed to the next stage. Mr Suhrawardy said by 12 noon he realized the
situation was very bad. Was he not still the Chief Minister of Bengal? What
did he do at that time? Why was not the military called out at that time? I
have got here a circular issued by the military for the information of its
officers and employees in which clear information is given that the military
was ready to come out on Friday noon but it was not asked to do so. e
civil police failed to protect the life and property as it was expected to do
and whenever the military was asked to come out, it came out and it did
whatever it could do. But, alas, thousands had been killed meanwhile and
crores of rupees looted!
On Friday Mr Suhrawardy knew that trouble had broken out—no matter
whether the Hindus were the aggressors or the Muslims were, why did he
allow the whole city to be placed at the mercy of goondas, dacoits and
murderers? Why did he allow the meeting at all to be held at the maidan in
the afternoon over which he presided? He stands charged with the
deliberate offence of having played havoc with the life and property of the
citizens of this great city, no matter whether they were Hindus or they were
Muslims. On Friday night he gave a message to the Associated Press that
the condition in the city had improved. Does he remember it? It seems that
the Associated Press went to the next day’s newspapers. I would ask my
friends to forget for the time being that they belong to the Muslim League.
If Mr Suhrawardy says ‘no’, here, Sir, is the statement of Mr H.S.
Suhrawardy, Chief Minister of Bengal—I suppose that is the gentleman
sitting over there (laughter) interviewed by the Associated Press of India to
the effect that the situation was improving. (Uproar) (A voice from the

b h Wh )E ( )I
government benches: What paper?) Every newspaper. (Renewed uproar.) I
would ask my friends that they must observe the rules of the game and
fairplay even in a discussion like this. Why don’t you ask the Chief Minister
to explain this?
Mr Speaker, you can certainly look into it. I am not afraid of the truth. Yes,
Sir, (Sent the paper to Mr Speaker.) I can produce it to anyone who wants
to see it. Now, Sir, Section l44 is supposed to have been promulgated on
Friday but was never enforced.
en on Saturday the curfew order was inaugurated, but neither Section
144 nor the curfew order was enforced. How is it that in spite of Section
144 and the curfew order people were moving about committing loot and
plunder, and murder even? How is it that within a stone’s throw, Mr
Ispahani has pointed out, from Lalbazar police station shops were looted,
people were murdered and all sorts of offences were committed without the
Police moving an inch?
Of course, you are responsible. If you have got the guts to say that you are
not responsible, let us know that. Now, Sir, that was on the 16th and 17th
August. Later on what happened? Mr Suhrawardy knows it very well that
he was telling a double-faced lie. On the 23rd he issued a broadcast
message, a message of peace for the people of Bengal and within half an
hour of that he sent out a special message for the foreign press through
foreign correspondents and the things which are mentioned in that
document are entirely different from the broadcast message which he issued
to the people of Bengal. Can he deny that? (A voice from the Government
Benches: at is obvious). He has stated that the Hindus have started the
riot. (e Hon’ble Mr H.S. Suhrawardy: Certainly.) He has said that it is
the Hindus, who are to blame. He said it was the British Government
which was to blame. Say ‘certainly’ (laughter) and lastly, he said that he
cannot yet tell what will happen in future if the Interim Government
continues in office. Now, Sir, if that is the remark which he wanted to make
on that day what was the use of his appealing to the people of Bengal for
peace and harmony and saying ‘I have kept an open mind and I would like
Hindus and Muslims to work together’. Can history give us a better
example of a double-faced minister?
Sir, there are two matters here which may be mentioned. Mr Suhrawardy
said that he could not control the Commissioner of Police because he was
d h d I h ll S f h h
not under his orders. I shall give you, Sir, one instance out of many which
are available from which it will appear how Mr Suhrawardy interfered with
the administration of the police offices in a manner which was unworthy of
any Home Minister of any Province. In the Park Street police station about
seven goondas were taken by a European Inspector on Sunday evening.
Sir, that is the remark which Mr Suhrawardy has made namely, ‘I am sorry
you are a goonda then.’ I do not know who they are. ese persons were
found with looted properties. If Mr Suhrawardy says that Muslim
gentlemen took away looted properties I shall bow down my head to him,
but if he says that I am a goonda then I too can say that he is the best
goonda that is available not only in this Province but throughout the world.
(Uproar)
Sir, I shall withdraw it as soon as Mr Suhrawardy withdraws what he has
said about me. (Cries of ‘withdraw, withdraw’ from the government
benches). Let him withdraw first, what he first has said about me.
Now I withdraw too. Now, Sir, let me pass on. So far as the Park Street
incident is concerned, the important point is that goondas or gentlemen
whoever they were, seven Muslims who were found in possession of looted
properties were brought into Park Street police-station by a European
Inspector. Within ten minutes Mr H.S. Suhrawardy appears on the scene.
He gets these persons released. It is on record. Let him deny that. (e
Hon’ble Mr H.S. Suhrawardy: Yes). (Cries of ‘shame, shame’ from
Congress benches.) en he comes back (Mr H.S. Suhrawardy: Oh! no).
is is the way, Sir, in which Mr Suhrawardy has behaved. is is one
instance I am giving. (Cries of ‘you have cooked it’ from government
benches). No, I have not cooked it. He himself has admitted it.
en, Sir, the Muslim League party wanted 500 gallons of petrol from the
Bengal Government. at was not granted, but petrol coupons were issued
in the name of individual ministers—general coupons—100 gallons being
issued in the name of the Chief Minister. Evidence is available that these
coupons were used by lorries moving in the streets of Calcutta on those
fateful days. at is how arrangements were being made under the very nose
of the Home Department over which Mr Suhrawardy was presiding. Can
Mr Suhrawardy deny that he himself went to Howrah accompanied by
some Muslim League leaders, met local officers in authority there, and had
chastized and taken them to task because Muslims were not protected
h C h d h Dd M S h d l
there? Can he deny that? Did Mr Suhrawardy give in any place or at any
time the same sort of protection to the suffering Hindus. (e Hon’ble Mr
H.S. Suhrawardy: Certainly). Now, Sir, it is quite clear that at least I have
said some home truths which have made my friends opposite angry and
impatient.
Sir, they, these ministers, have taken oath of allegiance to the British Crown
and they are responsible for the life and property of all alike. My friend, Mr
Muhammad Ali, admitted this very candidly when the adjournment motion
was not allowed to be taken up in this House. Mr Suhrawardy is a great
Muslim League leader and he owes his allegiance to the Muslim League.
e Muslim League rightly or wrongly ordered that if something does not
happen to its liking, it was going to resort to direct action. One cannot serve
two masters. Sir, it has been proved beyond doubt that Mr Suhrawardy and
his other Ministers are unable to administer the affairs of this Province
impartially and efficiently. ey have failed hopelessly and wretchedly and
on that ground alone they are not fit to occupy offices for a single moment
(Interruptions).
Sir, it is not in Calcutta alone that atrocities were committed in a large
scale, but we find that troubles are spreading now in the whole of Bengal.
e information which is coming from different parts of Bengal would
make one shudder to think as to what will happen to this province. ese
gentlemen, the ministers over there, should not remain in charge of the
affairs of this province even a day longer. (Interruptions) If they remain in
office the future would be darker still. (Interruptions) e Council of Action
of the All-India Muslim League has ordered that preparations have to be
made for giving effect to the Direct Action Program. Already Muslim
League leaders from the Punjab, North-West Frontier Province and also
Sind have openly declared that they are ready with their scheme which can
be put into operation at 24 hours’ notice. Am I to believe that the Muslim
League in Bengal which is a stronghold of Mr Jinnah’s Muslim League is
not similarly prepared to give effect to the order of the Muslim League
when the occasion demands it? In other words, my charge is that the
present Ministry is utilizing the government machinery for the purpose of
launching upon a Direct Action scheme. (e Hon’ble Mr H.S.
Suhrawardy: No). Mr Suhrawardy is playing a dual role and this dual role of
Mr Suhrawardy and those who are supporting him has got to be exposed
and brought to an end in the interest of peace and tranquility.
Wh d h Ch f M h f h C f
Why does not the Chief Minister get the reports of the Commissioner of
Police through the Criminal Investigation Department as regards some
meetings which took place in the city? Mr Suhrawardy has perhaps got the
proceedings confidentially of the meetings which were held in the cities
where League leaders were invited to attend for the purpose of preparing
scheme for direct action. If he has got any report about what happened on
the 16th, he will find that even when the Calcutta maidan meeting was
being held, over which Mr Suhrawardy presided, disturbances had broken
out in several places. Now what happened in that meeting? Was there then
any CID officer present taking down notes? Where are those notes?
Sir, it was an astonishing fact that a gun shop within 2 minutes walk from
the Government House had been looted. Not a single policeman turned up
in the streets to control the situation in any part of the city. It will not help
merely making the Commissioner of Police a scapegoat, it is suggested that
the city had been ablaze in so many places that the Commissioner of Police
did not know how to act. But surely Mr Suhrawardy knew how and when
to act. (e Hon’ble Mr H.S. Suhrawardy: Yes, yes). Mr Suhrawardy says
that he knew and we also know when he acted. If he had failed without
making any effort, then he is charged with criminal negligence and if he
failed in spite of efforts, he is certainly inefficient and worthless, and he
should not be kept in that position any longer. ere is no place for him in
the ministry.
Sir, there is one point which I would like to say with regard to the Britishers
in this House. My friends are remaining neutral. I cannot understand this
attitude at all. In a situation such as this they must decide if the ministry
was right or the ministry was wrong. If the ministry was right, support
them and if the ministry was wrong, you should say so boldly and not
remain neutral merely sitting on the fence which shows signs of abject
impotence (Laughter).
My friend, Mr Gladding, said that luckily none of his people were injured.
It is true, Sir, but that is a statement which makes me extremely sorry. If a
single Britisher, man or woman or a child, had been strong enough they
would have thrown this ministry out of office without hesitation, but
because no Britisher was touched so they can take an impartial and neutral
view! Are they so sure they will be left untouched next time? ere is no
question of partiality or impartiality here. e present administration has

f l d d d A h l d
failed and it must come to an end. Anyone who remains neutral is an aider
and abettor.
I would ask my friends, what about the future. Pakistan will not be accepted
under any circumstance. (Mr Fazlur Rahman: It will be accepted). Mr
Suhrawardy said in Bombay after the 16th of August, ‘When a nation fights
against another nation I cannot guarantee civilized conduct.’ If you are a
nation fighting against us, another nation, if that is the attitude of my
friends on the other side, then they cannot remain in office any longer.
(Cries of ‘Hear, hear’ from the Opposition Benches). Mr Suhrawardy must
realize that his office is meant for the good of the entire people of Bengal
irrespective of caste, creed and religion, and not for his own so-called
‘nation’. I would say, Sir, that is an abject treachery to the great
responsibility that rests on Mr Suhrawardy, as Premier (Interruptions).
Apparently I said many good things, otherwise my friends would not be so
jubilant. e Chief Minister was dancing the other day on the polished
floor of a Delhi Hotel and I have made my friends dance on the floor of this
House. I will now say a few words in connection with the future. What
about the future? My friends, the Muslims, say that they constitute 25
percent of India’s population, and that is so big a minority that they will
never agree to live under 75 percent Hindu domination. Now if that is their
honest and genuine point of view how can they expect that 45 percent of
the Hindu population of this Province will ever agree to live under a
Constitution where that particular nation represented by Muslims,
constituting only of 55 percent, will alone dominate? (e Hon’ble Mr
Shamsuddin Ahmed: at is how the trouble began). I will not today enter
into controversies as regards the real population of Bengal. I claim it that if
a proper census is taken even today the Hindus will not be in a minority but
that question cannot be settled by argument from one side or the other. My
Muslim friends who are well-organized under the banner of the Muslim
League have got to realize that if Bengal is to be ruled peacefully it can be
done only with the willing cooperation of the two communities. I am not
talking of all India politics for the time being. (e Hon’ble Mr
Shamsuddin Ahmed: Why not? What has happened to all India politics?) I
would make this appeal to my friends that a choice has to be made by the
Hindus and the Muslims together. ere is no way out of it because what
we witnessed in Calcutta was not an ordinary communal riot: its motive was
political, but things may become even far more serious and drastic in the
d k d h N f h M l fB l d h
days, weeks and months to come. Now, if the Muslims of Bengal under the
leadership of the Muslim League feel that they can exterminate the Hindus,
that is a fantastic idea which can never be given effect to: three and a half
crores can never exterminate three crores nor can three crores exterminate
three and a half crores.
Now, Sir, if it is said that civil war will break out throughout India, will that
help anyone, will that help, in particular, 25 percent. Muslims throughout
India as against 75 percent of Hindus and other non-Muslims. It is not a
question of threat at all; it is a question of facing a stern reality. Either we
have to fight or we have to come to some settlement. e settlement cannot
be reached so long as you say that one community will dominate over the
other, but it can only be reached by a plan which will enable the vast
majority of Hindus and Muslims to live under circumstances which will
give freedom and peace to the common man. After all, forget not who
suffered most during the Calcutta Killing. It as mainly the poorer people,
both amongst the Hindus and the Muslims. Ninety percent of them were
poor and innocent and if the leaders lose their heads and go creating a
situation which they cannot ultimately control, the time will soon come
when the common man will turn round and crush the leaders instead of
being themselves crushed. It is therefore vitally necessary that this false and
foolish idea of Pakistan or Islamic rule has to be banished for ever from
your head. In Bengal we have got to live together. We say as a condition
precedent this ministry must go. Only then can we create a state of affairs
which will make it possible to build a future Bengal which will be for the
good of all, irrespective of any caste, creed, or community.
Opening address to the Constituent Assembly of
Pakistan (Karachi, August 1947)
MUHAMMAD ALI JINNAH (1876–1948)

Pakistan’s Constituent Assembly met for the first time in Karachi in August
1947 and Jinnah was the obvious choice as the President of the assembly.
is was Jinnah’s opening speech and it was made extempore. His audience
were mostly mullahs, pirs, nawabs, shahs and khans and Jinnah startled
them all by with his vision of Pakistan as a secular state where every
individual was free to practise his own religion. In his personal life, Jinnah
had never been an orthodox Muslim and in the hour of his triumph when
he had won for the Muslims a state they could call their own, he suddenly
reclaimed for himself, in his politics, his secular persona. L.K. Advani was
to praise this speech in the controversial address he made during his trip to
Karachi in 2005.

Mr President, Ladies and Gentlemen!

I cordially thank you, with the utmost sincerity, for the honor you have
conferred upon me—the greatest honour that is possible for this Sovereign
Assembly to confer—by electing me as your first President. I also thank
those leaders who have spoken in appreciation of my services and their
personal references to me. I sincerely hope that with your support and your
cooperation we shall make this Constituent Assembly an example to the
world. e Constituent Assembly has got two main functions to perform.
e first is the very onerous and responsible task of framing our future
Constitution of Pakistan and the second or functioning as a full and
l b d h Fd lL l fP k W h
complete sovereign body as the Federal Legislature of Pakistan. We have to
do the best we can in adopting a provisional constitution for the Federal
Legislature of Pakistan. You know really that not only we ourselves are
wondering but, I think, the whole world is wondering at this unprecedented
cyclonic revolution which has brought about the plan of creating and
establishing two independent sovereign dominions in this subcontinent. As
it is, it has been unprecedented; there is no parallel in the history of the
world. is mighty subcontinent with all kinds of inhabitants has been
brought under a plan which is titanic, unknown, unparalleled. And what is
very important with regard to it is that we have achieved it peacefully and
by means of an evolution of the greatest possible character.
Dealing with our first function in this Assembly, I cannot make any well-
considered pronouncement at this moment, but I shall say a few things as
they occur to me. e first and the foremost thing that I would like to
emphasize is this: Remember that you are now a sovereign legislative body
and you have got all the powers. It, therefore, places on you the gravest
responsibility as to how you should take your decisions. e first
observation that I would like to make is this: You will no doubt agree with
me that the first duty of a government is to maintain law and order, so that
the life, property and religious beliefs of its subjects are fully protected by
the state.
e second thing that occurs to me is this: One of the biggest curses from
which India is suffering—I do not say that other countries are free from it,
but, I think, our condition is much worse—is bribery and corruption. at
really is a poison. We must put that down with an iron hand and I hope
that you will take adequate measures as soon as it is possible for this
Assembly to do so.
Black-marketing is another curse. Well, I know that black-marketeers are
frequently caught and punished. Judicial sentences are passed or sometimes
fines only are imposed. Now you have to tackle this monster which today is
a colossal crime against society, in our distressed conditions, when we
constantly face shortage of food and other essential commodities of life. A
citizen who does black-marketing commits, I think, a greater crime than
the biggest and most grievous of crimes. ese black-marketeers are really
knowing, intelligent and ordinarily responsible people, and when they
indulge in black-marketing, I think they ought to be very severely punished,

b h d h f l d l f
because they undermine the entire system of control and regulation of
foodstuffs and essential commodities, and cause wholesale starvation and
want and even death.
e next thing that strikes me is this: Here again it is a legacy which has
been passed on to us. Alongwith many other things, good and bad, has
arrived this great evil—the evil of nepotism and jobbery. is evil must be
crushed relentlessly. I want to make it quite clear that I shall never tolerate
any kind of jobbery, nepotism or any influence directly or indirectly brought
to bear upon me. Whenever I will find that such a practice is in vogue or is
continuing anywhere, low or high, I shall certainly not countenance it.
I know there are people who do not quite agree with the division of India
and the partition of the Punjab and Bengal. Much has been said against it,
but now that it has been accepted, it is the duty of every one of us to loyally
abide by it and honourably act according to the agreement which is now
final and binding on all. But you must remember, as I have said, that this
mighty revolution that has taken place is unprecedented. One can quite
understand the feeling that exists between the two communities wherever
one community is in majority and the other is in minority. But the question
is, whether it was possible or practicable to act otherwise than what has
been done. A division had to take place. On both sides, in Hindustan and
Pakistan, there are sections of people who may not agree with it, who may
not like it, but in my judgment there was no other solution and I am sure
future history will record its verdict in favour of it. And what is more, it will
be proved by actual experience as we go on that it was the only solution of
India’s constitutional problem. Any idea of a united India could never have
worked and in my judgment it would have led us to terrific disaster. May be
that view is correct; may be it is not; that remains to be seen. All the same,
in this division it was impossible to avoid the question of minorities being
in one dominion or the other. Now that was unavoidable. ere is no other
solution. Now what shall we do? Now, if we want to make this great State
of Pakistan happy and prosperous we should wholly and solely concentrate
on the well-being of the people, and especially of the masses and the poor.
If you will work in cooperation, forgetting the past, burying the hatchet,
you are bound to succeed. If you change your past and work together in a
spirit that every one of you, no matter to what community he belongs, no
matter what relations he had with you in the past, no matter what is his
colour, caste or creed, is first, second and last a citizen of this state with
l h l d bl h ll b d h
equal rights, privileges and obligations, there will be no end to the progress
you will make.
I cannot emphasize it too much. We should begin to work in that spirit and
in course of time all these angularities of the majority and minority
communities, the Hindu community and the Muslim community—because
even as regards Muslims you have Pathans, Punjabis, Shias, Sunnis, and so
on and among the Hindus you have Brahmins, Vaishnavas, Khatris, also
Bengalees, Madrasis, and so on—will vanish. Indeed if you ask me this has
been the biggest hindrance in the way of India to attain the freedom and
independence and but for this we would have been free peoples long, long
ago. No power can hold another nation, and specially a nation of 400
million souls in subjection; nobody could have conquered you, and even if it
had happened, nobody could have continued its hold on you for any length
of time but for this. erefore, we must learn a lesson from this. You are
free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques
or to any other place of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to
any religion or caste or creed—that has nothing to do with the business of
the state. As you know, history shows that in England, conditions some
time ago, were much worse than those prevailing in India today. e
Roman Catholics and the Protestants persecuted each other. Even now
there are some states in existence where there are discriminations made and
bars imposed against a particular class. ank God, we are not starting in
those days. We are starting in the days when there is no discrimination, no
distinction between one community and another, no discrimination
between one caste or creed and another. We are starting with this
fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one state.
e people of England in course of time had to face the realities of the
situation and had to discharge the responsibilities and burdens placed upon
them by the government of their country and they went through that fire
step by step. Today, you might say with justice that Roman Catholics and
Protestants do not exist; what exists now is that every man is a citizen, an
equal citizen of Great Britain and they are all members of the Nation.
Now, I think we should keep that in front of us as our ideal and you will
find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims
would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the
personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the
state. Well, gentlemen, I do not wish to take up any more of your time and
h k f h h h d I h ll l b
thank you again for the honour you have done to me. I shall always be
guided by the principles of justice and fairplay without any, as is put in the
political language, prejudice or ill-will, in other words, partiality or
favouritism. My guiding principle will be justice and complete impartiality,
and I am sure that with your support and cooperation, I can look forward to
Pakistan becoming one of the greatest nations of the world.
I have received a message from the United States of America addressed to
me. It reads:
I have the honour to communicate to you, in Your Excellency’s capacity as
President of the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan, the following message
which I have just received from the Secretary of State of the United States:
On the occasion of the first meeting of the Constituent Assembly for
Pakistan, I extend to you and to the members of the Assembly, the best
wishes of the Government and the people of the United States for the
successful conclusion of the great work you are about to undertake.
e dawn of freedom (New Delhi, August 1947)
SARVEPALLI RADHAKRISHNAN (1888–1975)

is speech has an interesting, if little known, origin. Nehru had requested
Radhakrishnan to speak after him on the night of August 14th at the
Indian Constituent Assembly. With the request came a directive. Nehru
told Radhakrishnan once he was called upon to speak, he should continue
till midnight so that the assembly could then proceed to take the pledge.
us Radhakrishnan was part of what his biographer called ‘an oratorical
time-bound relay race.’ Radhakrishnan ended precisely at the appointed
minute to enable Nehru to administer the pledge. e historian S. Gopal,
who wrote biographies of both Nehru and Radhakrishnan, described the
performance as ‘an unparalleled combination of two masters, in very
different ways, of the public art.’

Mr President, Sir, it is not necessary for me to speak at any great length on

this resolution so impressively moved by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and
seconded by Mr Khaliquzzaman. History and legend will grow round this
day. It marks a milestone in the march of our democracy. A significant date
it is in the drama of the Indian people who are trying to rebuild and
transform themselves. rough a long night of waiting, a night full of
fateful portents and silent prayers for the dawn of freedom, of haunting
spectres of hunger and death, our sentinels kept watch, the lights were
burning bright, till at last the dawn is breaking and we greet it with the
utmost enthusiasm. When we are passing from a state of serfdom, a state of
slavery and subjection to one of freedom and liberation, it is an occasion for

 b ff d h d l dd fi d
rejoicing. at it is being effected in such an orderly and dignified way is a
matter for gratification.
Mr Attlee spoke with visible pride in the House of Commons when he said
that this is the first great instance of a strong Imperialist power transferring
its authority to a subject people whom it ruled with force and firmness for
nearly two centuries. For a parallel he cited the British withdrawal from
South Africa; but it is nothing comparable in scale and circumstances to the
British withdrawal from this country. When we see what the Dutch are
doing in Indonesia, when we see how the French are clinging to their
possessions, we cannot but admire the political sagacity and courage of the
British people. (Cheers)
We on our side, have also added a chapter to the history of the World.
Look at the way in which subject peoples in history won their freedom. Let
us also consider the methods by which power was acquired. How did men
like Washington, Napoleon, Cromwell, Lenin, Hitler and Mussolini get
into power? Look at the methods of blood and steel, of terrorism and
assassination, of bloodshed and anarchy by which these so called great men
of the world came into the possession of power. Here in this land under the
leadership of one who will go down in history as perhaps the greatest man
of our age (loud cheers) we have opposed patience to fury, quietness of spirit
to bureaucratic tyranny and are acquiring power through peaceful and
civilized methods. What is the result? e transition is being effected with
the least bitterness, with utterly no kind of hatred at all. e very fact that
we are appointing Lord Mountbatten as the Governor-General of India,
shows the spirit of understanding and friendliness in which this whole
transition is being effected. (Cheers)
You, Mr President, referred to the sadness in our hearts, to the sorrow
which also clouds our rejoicings. May I say that we are in an essential sense
responsible for it also though not entirely.
From 1600, Englishmen have come to this country-priests and nuns,
merchants and adventurers, diplomats and statesmen, missionaries and
idealists. ey bought and sold, marched and fought, plotted and profited,
helped and healed. e greatest among them wished to modernize the
country, to raise its intellectual and moral standards, its political status. ey
wished to regenerate the whole people. But the small among them worked
with sinister objective. ey tried to increase the disunion in the country,
d h k d d d  l h h d
made the country poorer, weaker and more disunited. ey also have had
their chance now. e freedom we are attaining is the fulfilment of this dual
tendency among British administrators. While India is attaining freedom,
she is attaining it in a manner which does not produce joy in the hearts of
people or a radiant smile on their faces. Some of those who were charged
with the responsibility for the administration of this country, tried to
accentuate communal consciousness and bring about the present result
which is a logical outcome of the policies adopted by the lesser minds of
Britain. But I would never blame them. Were we not victims, ready victims,
so to say, of the separatist tendencies foisted on us? Should we not now
correct our national faults of character, our domestic despotism, our
intolerance which has assumed the different forms of obscurantism of
narrow-mindedness, of superstitious bigotry? Others were able to play on
our weakness because we had them. I would like therefore to take this
opportunity to call for self examination, for a searching of hearts. We have
gained but we have not gained in the manner we wished to gain and if we
have, not done so, the responsibility is our own. And when this pledge says
that we have to serve our country, we can best serve our country by
removing these fundamental defects which have prevented us from gaining
the objective of a free and united India. Now that India is divided, it is our
duty not to indulge in words of anger. ey lead us nowhere. We must avoid
passion. Passion and wisdom never go together. e body politic may be
divided but the body historic lives on. (Hear, hear). Political divisions,
physical partitions, are external but the psychological divisions are deeper.
e cultural cleavages are the more dangerous. We should not allow them
to grow. What we should do is to preserve those cultural ties, those spiritual
bonds which knit our peoples together into one organic whole. Patient
consideration, slow process of education, adjustment to one another’s needs,
the discovery of points of view which are common to both the dominions in
the matter of communications, defence, foreign affairs, these are the things
which should be allowed to grow in the daily business of life and
administration. It is by developing such attitudes that we can once again
draw near and gain the lost unity of this country. at is the only way to it.
Our opportunities are great but let me warn you that when power outstrips
ability, we will fall on evil days. We should develop competence and ability
which would help us to utilize the opportunities which are now open to us.
From tomorrow morning—from midnight today—we cannot throw the
bl h B h W h h bl l f
blame on the Britisher. We have to assume the responsibility ourselves for
what we do. A free India will be judged by the way in which it will serve the
interests of the common man in the matter of food, clothing, shelter and
the social services. Unless we destroy corruption in high places, root out
every trace of nepotism, love of power, profiteering and black-marketing
which have spoiled the good name of this great country in recent times, we
will not be able to raise the standards of efficiency in administration as well
as in the production and distribution of the necessary goods of life.
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru referred to the great contribution which this
country will make to the promotion of world peace and the welfare of
mankind. e—chakra, the Asokan wheel, which is there in the flag
embodies for us a great idea, Asoka, the greatest of our emperors. Look at
the words of H.G. Wells regarding him, ‘Highnesses, Magnificences,
Excellencies, Serenities, Majesties—among them all, he shines alone a star
Asoka the greatest of all monarchs.’ He cut into rock his message for the
healing of discords. If there are differences, the way in which you can solve
them is by promoting concord. Concord is the only way by which we can
get rid of differences. ere is no other method which is open to us.
We are lucky in having for our leader one who is a world citizen, who is
essentially a humanist, who possesses a buoyant optimism and robust good
sense in spite of the perversity of things and the hostility of human affairs.
We see the way in which his department interfered actively and in a timely
manner in the Indonesian dispute. (Loud applause) It shows that if India
gains freedom, that freedom will be used not merely for the well-being of
India but for Vishva Kalyana, that is, world peace, the welfare of mankind.
Our pledge tells us that this ancient land shall attain her rightful and
honoured place. We take pride in the antiquity of this land for it is a land
which has been nearly four or five millenniums of history. It has passed
through many vicissitudes and at the moment it stands, still responding to
the thrill of the same great ideal. Civilization is a thing of the spirit, it is not
something external, solid, and mechanical. It is the dream in the people’s
hearts. It is the inward aspiration of the people’s souls. It is the imaginative
interpretation of the human life and the perception of the mystery of
human existence. at is what civilization actually stands for. We should
bear in mind these great ideals which have been transmitted to us across the
ages. In this great time of our history we should bear ourselves humbly

b f G d b l h k h h f
before God, brace ourselves to this supreme task which is confronting us
and conduct ourselves in a manner that is worthy of the ageless spirit of
India. If we do so, I have no doubt that, the future of this land will be as
great as its once glorious past.
Sarvabhutdisahamatmanam
Sarvabhutani catmani
Sampasyam atmayajivai
Saarwjyam adhigachati

Swarajya is the development of that kind of tolerant attitude which sees in

brother man the face divine. Intolerance has been the greatest enemy of our
progress. Tolerance of one another’s views, thoughts and beliefs is the only
remedy that we can possibly adopt. erefore I support with very great
pleasure this resolution which asks us as the representatives of the people of
India to conduct ourselves in all humility in the service of our country and
the word ‘humility’ here means that we are by ourselves very insignificant.
Our efforts by themselves cannot carry us to a long distance. We should
make ourselves dependent on that other than ourselves which makes for
righteousness. e note of humility means the unimportance, of the
individual and the supreme importance of the unfolding purpose which we
are called upon to serve. So in a mood of humility, in a spirit of dedication
let us take this pledge as soon as the clock strikes twelve.
Tryst with destiny (New Delhi, August 1947)
JAWAHARLAL NEHRU (1889–1964)

Arguably the most memorable speech of modern India and perhaps the
finest that Nehru ever made. It was at midnight on August 14, that the
Constituent Assembly met to usher in independence. Nehru was to be
sworn in as the first Prime Minister of India by Mountbatten on the
morning of August 15—‘e Appointed Day’, Nehru had noted in his
pocket diary—but in the speech he spoke as the embodiment of the hopes
and aspirations of the Indian people. He had prepared his speech with care.
His special assistant, M.O. Mathai, has said that in the first draft Nehru
had written ‘date with destiny’. Mathai pointed out to Nehru the
inappropriateness of the word ‘date’ given the solemnity of the occasion.
After consulting Roget’s esaurus, Mathai suggested tryst or rendezvous as
replacements. Mathai writes, ‘[I] cautioned that the phrase “rendezvous
with destiny” was used by President Franklin Roosevelt in his famous
wartime speeches. He [Nehru] thought for a moment and changed date to
tryst in the typescript.’ It should be pointed out, however, that many
consider Mathai’s testimony to be unreliable.

Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when
we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very
substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps,
India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but
rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age
ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance. It is

fi h h l k h l d fd d h
fitting that at this solemn moment we take the pledge of dedication to the
service of India and her people and to the still larger cause of humanity.
At the dawn of history India started on her unending quest, and trackless
centuries are filled with her striving and the grandeur of her success and her
failures. rough good and ill fortune alike she has never lost sight of that
quest or forgotten the ideals which gave her strength. We end today a
period of ill fortune and India discovers herself again. e achievement we
celebrate today is but a step, an opening of opportunity, to the greater
triumphs and achievements that await us. Are we brave enough and wise
enough to grasp this opportunity and accept the challenge of the future?
Freedom and power bring responsibility. e responsibility rests upon this
assembly, a sovereign body representing the sovereign people of India.
Before the birth of freedom we have endured all the pains of labour and our
hearts are heavy with the memory of this sorrow. Some of those pains
continue even now. Nevertheless, the past is over and it is the future that
beckons to us now.
at future is not one of ease or resting but of incessant striving so that we
may fulfil the pledges we have so often taken and the one we shall take
today. e service of India means the service of the millions who suffer. It
means the ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of
opportunity. e ambition of the greatest man of our generation has been to
wipe every tear from every eye. at may be beyond us, but as long as there
are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over.
And so we have to labour and to work, and work hard, to give reality to our
dreams. ose dreams are for India, but they are also for the world, for all
the nations and peoples are too closely knit together today for anyone of
them to imagine that it can live apart. Peace has been said to be indivisible;
so is freedom, so is prosperity now, and so also is disaster in this One World
that can no longer be split into isolated fragments.
To the people of India, whose representatives we are, we make an appeal to
join us with faith and confidence in this great adventure. is is no time for
petty and destructive criticism, no time for ill-will or blaming others. We
have to build the noble mansion of free India where all her children may
dwell.
I beg to move, Sir,
‘at it be resolved that:
( ) Af h l k f d h ll b f h C
(1) After the last stroke of midnight, all members of the Constituent
Assembly present on this occasion do take the following pledge:
“At this solemn moment when the people of India, through suffering and
sacrifice, have secured freedom, I,…,…, a member of the Constituent
Assembly of India, do dedicate myself in all humility to the service of India
and her people to the end that this ancient land attain her rightful place in
the world and make her full and willing contribution to the promotion of
world peace and the welfare of mankind”;
(2) Members who are not present on this occasion do take the pledge (with
such verbal changes as the President may prescribe) at the time they next
attend a session of the Assembly.’
 Part 2
1947–2007
‘Independence is no doubt a matter of joy. But let us not forget this
independence has thrown on us great responsibilities. By independence, we
have lost the excuse of blaming the British for anything going wrong. If
hereafter things go wrong, we will have nobody to blame but ourselves.’
B.R. AMBEDKAR
e light has gone out (New Delhi, January 1948)
JAWAHARLAL NEHRU (1889–1964)

On hearing the news of Gandhi’s murder in the evening of January 30,

Nehru rushed to Birla House—the scene of the assassination—where,
according to Gandhi’s biographer, D.G. Tendulkar, ‘he bent his head down
and began to sob like a child’. But within a few hours he had been pushed
by Mountbatten in front of the microphone and Nehru spoke unprepared
from his heart for the entire nation’s sense of irredeemable loss. It remains
one of the great impromptu speeches he ever made.

Friends and comrades, the light has gone out of our lives and there is
darkness everywhere. I do not know what to tell you and how to say it. Our
beloved leader, Bapu as we called him, the Father of the Nation, is no more.
Perhaps I am wrong to say that. Nevertheless, we will not see him again as
we have seen him for these many years. We will not run to him for advice
and seek solace from him, and that is a terrible blow, not to me only but to
millions and millions in this country. And it is a little difficult to soften the
blow by any other advice that I or anyone else can give you.
e light has gone out, I said, and yet I was wrong. For the light that shone
in this country was no ordinary light. e light that has illumined this
country for these many many years will illumine this country for many more
years, and a thousand years later, that light will still be seen in this country
and the world will see it and it will give solace to innumerable hearts. For
that light represented something more than the immediate present; it
represented the living, the eternal truths, reminding us of the right path,
drawing us from error, taking this ancient country to freedom.
All h h h d h h h f h d W
All this has happened when there was so much more for him to do. We
could never think that he was unnecessary or that he had done his task. But
now, particularly, when we are faced with so many difficulties, his not being
with us is a blow most terrible to bear.
A madman has put an end to his life, for I can only call him mad who did it
and yet there has been enough of poison spread in this country during the
past years and months, and this poison has had an effect on people’s minds.
We must face this poison, we must root out this poison, and we must face
all the perils that encompass us, and face them not madly or badly, but
rather in the way that our beloved teacher taught us to face them.
e first thing to remember now is that none of us dare misbehave because
he is angry. We have to behave like strong and determined people,
determined to face all the perils that surround us, determined to carry out
the mandate that our great teacher and our great leader has given us,
remembering always that if, as I believe, his spirit looks upon us and sees us,
nothing would displease his soul so much as to see that we have indulged in
any small behaviour or any violence.
So we must not do that. But that does not mean that we should be weak,
but rather that we should, in strength and in unity, face all the troubles that
are in front of us. We must hold together, and all our petty troubles and
difficulties and conflicts must be ended in the face of this great disaster. A
great disaster is a symbol to us to remember all the big things of life and
forget the small things of which we have thought too much. In his death he
has reminded us of the big things of life, the living truth, and if we
remember that, then it will be well with India…
It was proposed by some friends that Mahatmaji’s body should be
embalmed for a few days to enable millions of people to pay their last
homage to him. But it was his wish, repeatedly expressed, that no such
thing should happen, that this should not be done, that he was entirely
opposed to any embalming of his body, and so we decided that we must
follow his wishes in this matter, however much others might have wished
otherwise.
And so the cremation will take place on Saturday in Delhi city by the side
of the Jumna river. On Saturday forenoon, about 11–30, the pier will be
taken out at Birla House and it will follow a prescribed route and go to the

J  ll k l h b  l
Jumna river. e cremation will take place there at about 4 p.m. e place
and route will be announced by radio and the Press.
People in Delhi who wish to pay their last homage should gather along this
route. I will not advise too many of them to come to Birla House, but rather
to gather on both sides of this long route from Birla House to the Jumna
river. And I trust that they will remain there in silence without any
demonstrations. at is the best way and the most fitting way to pay
homage to this great soul. Also, Saturday should be a day of fasting and
prayer for all of us.
ose who live elsewhere, out of Delhi and in other parts of India, will no
doubt also take such part as they can in this last homage. For them also, let
this be a day of fasting and prayer. And at the appointed time for cremation,
that is 4 p.m. on Saturday afternoon, people should go to the river or to the
sea and offer prayers there. And while we pray, the greatest prayer that we
can offer is to take a pledge to dedicate ourselves to the truth, and to the
cause for which this great countryman of ours lived and for which he has
died. at is the best prayer that we can offer him and his memory. at is
the best prayer that we can offer to India and ourselves. Jai Hind.
My father, do not rest (Lucknow, February 1948)
SAROJINI NAIDU (1879–1949)

Gandhi’s assassination inspired another great speech, this time by Sarojini

Naidu—the poet, freedom fighter, and the first Indian woman President of
the Congress, serving at the time as the Governor of Uttar Pradesh. It is an
impassioned, near-feverish speech and is striking for the direct comparison
that it makes between Gandhi and Christ. In tone, this fiery speech could
not be more different from Nehru’s restrained address, but both see
Gandhi’s memory as a pledge for the future.

Like Christ of old on the third day he has risen again in answer to the cry of
his people and the call of the world for the continuance of his guidance, his
love, his service and inspiration. And while we all mourn, those who loved
him, knew him personally, and those to whom his name was but a miracle
and a legend, though we are all full of tears and though we are full of sorrow
on this third day when he has risen from his own ashes, I feel that sorrow is
out of place and tears become a blasphemy. How can he die, who through
his life and conduct and sacrifice, who through his love and courage and
faith has taught the world that the spirit matters, not the flesh, that the
spirit has the power greater than the powers of the combined armies of the
earth, combined armies of the ages? He was small, frail, without money,
without even the full complement of garment to cover his body, not owning
even as much earth as might be held on the point of a needle, how was he
so much stronger than the forces of violence, the might of empires and the
grandeur of embattled forces in the world? Why was it that this little man,
this tiny man, this man with a child’s body, this man so ascetic, living on the
f b h b h h h lf f
verge of starvation by choice so as to be more in harmony with the life of
the poor, how was it that he exercised over the entire world, of those who
revered him and who hated him, such power as emperors could never wield?
It was because he did not care for applause; he did not care for censure. He
only cared for the path of righteousness. He cared only for the ideals that he
preached and practised. And the midst of the most terrible disasters caused
by violence and greed of men, when the abuse of the world was heaped up
like dead leaves, dead flowers on battlefields, his faith never swerved in his
ideal of non-violence. He believed that though the whole world slaughter
itself and the whole world’s blood be shed, still his non-violence would be
the authentic foundation of the new civilization of the world and he
believed that he who seeks his life shall lose it and he who loses his life shall
find it.
His first fast in 1924 with which I associated was for the cause of Hindu-
Muslim unity. It had the sympathy of the entire nation. His last fast was
also for the cause of Hindu-Muslim unity, but the whole nation was not
with him in that fast. It had grown so divided, it had grown so bitter, it had
grown so full of hate and suspicion, it had grown so untrue towards the
tenets of the various creeds in this country that it was only a section of those
who understood the Mahatma, who realized the meaning of that fast. It
was very evident that the nation was divided in its loyalty to him in the fast.
It was very evident that it was not any community but his that disapproved
so violently and showed its anger and resentment in such a dastardly
fashion. Alas for the Hindu community, that the greatest Hindu of them
and the only Hindu of our age who was so absolutely and unswervingly true
to the doctrine, to the ideals, the philosophy of Hinduism should have been
slain by the hand of a Hindu! at indeed, that indeed is almost the epitaph
of the Hindu faith that the hand of a Hindu in the name of Hindu rights
and a Hindu world should sacrifice the noblest of them all. But it does not
matter. It is a personal grief, that is, loss, day in and day out; year in and
year out, for many of us who cannot forget, because for more than 30 years
some of us have been so closely associated with him that our lives and his
life were an integral part of one another. Some of us are indeed dead to the
faith; some of us indeed have had vivisection performed on us by his death,
because fibres of our being, because our muscles, veins and heart and blood
were all intertwined with his life.

B I ld b h ff hl d f ld
But, as I say, it would be the act of faithless deserters if we were to yield to
despair. If we were indeed to believe that he is dead, if we were to believe
that all is lost, because he has gone, of what avail would be our love and our
faith? Of what avail would be our loyalty to him if we dare to believe that all
is lost because his body is gone from our midst? Are we not there, his heirs,
his spiritual descendants, the legatees of his great ideals, successors of his
great work? Are we not there to implement that work and enhance it and
enrich and make greater achievements by joint efforts than he could have
made singly? erefore, I say the time is over for private sorrow.
e time is over for beating of breasts and tearing of hair. e time is here
and now when we stand up and say, ‘We take up the challenge!’ to those
who defied Mahatma Gandhi. We are his living symbols. We are his
soldiers. We are the carriers of his banner before an embattled world. Our
banner is truth. Our shield is non-violence. Our sword is a sword of the
spirit that conquers without blood. Let the people of India rise up and wipe
their tears, rise up and still their sobs, rise up and be full of hope and full of
cheer. Let us borrow from him, why borrow, he has handed it to us, the
radiance of his own personality, the glory of his own courage, the
magnificent epic of his character.
Shall we not follow in the footsteps of our master? Shall we not obey the
mandates of our father? Shall not we, his soldiers, carry his battle to
triumph? Shall we not give to the world the completed message of
Mahatma Gandhi? ough his voice will not speak again, have we not a
million, million voices to bear his message to the world, not only to this
world, to our contemporaries, but to the world generation after generation?
Shall sacrifice be in vain? Shall his blood be shed for futile purposes of
mourning? Or, shall we not use that blood as a tilak on our foreheads, the
emblem of his legion of peace-loving soldiers to save the world? Here and
now, here and now, I for one before the world that listens to my quivering
voice pledge myself and you, as I pledged myself more than 30 years ago, to
the service of the undying Mahatma.
What is death? My own father, dying, just before his death with the
premonition of death on him, said: ‘ere is no birth. ere is no death.
ere is only the soul seeking higher and higher stages of truth.’ Mahatma
Gandhi who lived for truth in this world has been translated, though by the
hand of an assassin, to a higher stage of the truth which he sought. Shall we

k h l Sh ll d hb h
not take up his place? Shall not our united strength be strong enough to
preach and practise his great message for the world? I am here one of the
lowliest of his soldiers, but along with me I know that there are his beloved
disciples like Jawaharlal Nehru, and his trusted followers and friends like
Vallabhbhai Patel and Rajendra Babu, who was like St John in the bosom of
Christ, and those others of his associates who at a moment’s notice flew
from all ends of India to make their last homage at his feet. Shall we not all
take up his message and fulfil it? I used to wonder very often during his
many fasts in which I was privileged to serve him, to solace him, to make
him laugh, because he wanted the tonic laughter of his friends—I used to
wonder, supposing he died in Sevagram, supposing he died in Noakhali,
supposing he died in some far off place, how should we reach him?
It is therefore right and appropriate that he died in the city of kings, in the
ancient site of the old Hindu empires, in the site on which was built the
glory of the Moghuls, in this place that he made India’s capital wresting it
from foreign hands, it is right that he died in Delhi; it is right that his
cremation took place in the midst of the dead kings who are buried in
Delhi, for he was the kingliest of all kings. And it is right also that he who
was the apostle of peace should have been taken to the cremation ground
with all the honours of a great warrior; far greater than all warriors, who led
armies to battle, was this little man, the bravest, the most triumphant of all.
Delhi is not only today historically the Delhi of seven kingdoms; it has
become the centre and the sanctuary of the greatest revolutionary who
emancipated his enslaved country from foreign bondage and gave to it its
freedom and its flag.
May the soul of my master, my leader, my father rest not in peace, not in
peace, but let his ashes be so dynamically alive that the charred ashes of the
sandalwood, let the powder of his bones be so charged with life and
inspiration that the whole of India will after his death be revitalized into the
reality of freedom.
My father, do not rest. Do not allow us to rest. Keep us to our pledge. Give
us strength to fulfil our promise, your heirs, your descendants, your
stewards, the guardians of your dreams, the fulfillers of India’s destiny. You,
whose life was so powerful, make it so powerful—in your death. Far from
mortality you have passed mortality by in supreme martyrdom in the cause
most dear to you.
Why I killed Gandhi (Simla, May 1949)
NATHURAM GODSE (1911–1949)

Godse was arrested immediately after Gandhi’s assassination. Nandlal

Mehta, an eyewitness to the murder and an associate of Gandhi filed a First
Information Report at the Tughlaq Road Police Station. e FIR was
written in Urdu. Godse and his fellow conspirators were tried in the Red
Fort. e trial began on May 27, 1948, and lasted till February 10, 1949,
and Godse was given a death sentence. e convicted appealed immediately
to the Punjab High Court which sat in Simla but the High Court upheld
the sentence. On May 5, 1949, Godse made a statement to the court,
explaining his motivations for the murder. One of the judges, G.D. Khosla
later wrote: ‘e audience was visibly and audibly moved. ere was a deep
silence when he ceased speaking. Many women were in tears and men were
coughing and searching for their handkerchiefs. It seemed to me that I was
taking part in some kind of melodrama or in a scene out of a Hollywood
feature film… I have, however, no doubt that had the audience of that day
been constituted into a jury and entrusted with the task of deciding Godse’s
appeal, they would have brought a verdict of “not guilty” by an
overwhelming majority.’ Verrier Elwin, a close friend of Gandhi, noted in
his diary, a trifle exaggeratedly, that Godse’s speech was the finest by a
condemned man since Socrates’s trial speech.

Born in a devout Brahmin family, I instinctively came to revere Hindu

religion, Hindu history and Hindu culture. I had, therefore, been intensely
proud of Hinduism as a whole. As I grew up I developed a tendency to free
thinking unfettered by any superstitious allegiance to any isms, political or
l  h I k d l f h d f h bl
religious. at is why I worked actively for the eradication of untouchability
and the caste system based on birth alone. I openly joined anti-caste
movements and maintained that all Hindus were of equal status as to rights,
social and religious and should be considered high or low on merit alone
and not through the accident of birth in a particular caste or profession. I
used publicly to take part in organized anti-caste dinners in which
thousands of Hindus, Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, Chamars, and
Bhangis participated. We broke the caste rules and dined in the company of
each other.
I have read the speeches and writings of Dadabhai Naoroji, Vivekanand,
Gokhale, Tilak, along with the books of ancient and modern history of
India and some prominent countries like England, France, America, and
Russia. Moreover, I studied the tenets of Socialism and Marxism. But
above all I studied very closely whatever Veer Savarkar and Gandhiji had
written and spoken, as to my mind these two ideologies have contributed
more to the moulding of the thought and action of the Indian people
during the last thirty years or so, than any other single factor has done.
All this reading and thinking led me to believe it was my first duty to serve
Hindudom and Hindus both as a patriot and as a world citizen. To secure
the freedom and to safeguard the just interests of some thirty crores (300
million) of Hindus would automatically constitute the freedom and the
well-being of all India, one fifth of human race. is conviction led me
naturally to devote myself to the Hindu Sanghatanist ideology and
programme, which alone, I came to believe, could win and preserve the
national independence of Hindustan, my motherland, and enable her to
render true service to humanity as well.
Since the year 1920, that is, after the demise of Lokamanya Tilak,
Gandhiji’s influence in the Congress first increased and then became
supreme. His activities for public awakening were phenomenal in their
intensity and were reinforced by the slogan of truth and non-violence,
which he paraded ostentatiously before the country. No sensible or
enlightened person could object to those slogans. In fact there is nothing
new or original in them. ey are implicit in every constitutional public
movement. But it is nothing but a mere dream if you imagine that the bulk
of mankind is, or can ever become, capable of scrupulous adherence to these
lofty principles in its normal life from day to day. In fact, honour, duty, and

l f ’ k h d k d h f l
love of one’s own kith and kin and country might often compel us to
disregard non-violence and to use force. I could never conceive that an
armed resistance to an aggression is unjust. I would consider it a religious
and moral duty to resist and, if possible, to overpower such an enemy by use
of force. [In the Ramayana] Rama killed Ravana in a tumultuous fight and
relieved Sita. [In the Mahabharata] Krishna killed Kansa to end his
wickedness; and Arjuna had to fight and slay quite a number of his friends
and relations including the revered Bhishma because the latter was on the
side of the aggressor. It is my firm belief that in dubbing Rama, Krishna,
and Arjuna as guilty of violence, the Mahatma betrayed a total ignorance of
the springs of human action.
In more recent history, it was the heroic fight put up by Chhatrapati Shivaji
that first checked and eventually destroyed the Muslim tyranny in India. It
was absolutely essential for Shivaji to overpower and kill an aggressive Afzal
Khan, failing which he would have lost his own life. In condemning
history’s towering warriors like Shivaji, Rana Pratap, and Guru Gobind
Singh as misguided patriots, Gandhiji has merely exposed his self-conceit.
He was, paradoxical as it may appear, a violent pacifist who brought untold
calamities on the country in the name of truth and non-violence, while
Rana Pratap, Shivaji, and the Guru will remain enshrined in the hearts of
their countrymen for ever for the freedom they brought to them.
e accumulating provocation of thirty-two years, culminating in his last
pro-Muslim fast, at last goaded me to the conclusion that the existence of
Gandhi should be brought to an end immediately. Gandhi had done very
good in South Africa to uphold the rights and well-being of the Indian
community there. But when he finally returned to India he developed a
subjective mentality under which he alone was to be the final judge of what
was right or wrong. If the country wanted his leadership, it had to accept
his infallibility; if it did not, he would stand aloof from the Congress and
carry on his own way. Against such an attitude there can be no halfway
house. Either Congress had to surrender its will to his and had to be
content with playing second fiddle to all his eccentricity, whimsicality,
metaphysics, and primitive vision, or it had to carry on without him. He
alone was the Judge of everyone and every thing; he was the master brain
guiding the civil disobedience movement; no other could know the
technique of that movement. He alone knew when to begin and when to
withdraw it. e movement might succeed or fail, it might bring untold
d d l l b h ld k dff h
disaster and political reverses but that could make no difference to the
Mahatma’s infallibility. ‘A Satyagrahi can never fail’ was his formula for
declaring his own infallibility and nobody except himself knew what a
Satyagrahi is.
us, the Mahatma became the judge and jury in his own cause. ese
childish insanities and obstinacies, coupled with a most severe austerity of
life, ceaseless work and lofty character made Gandhi formidable and
irresistible. Many people thought that his politics were irrational but they
had either to withdraw from the Congress or place their intelligence at his
feet to do with as he liked. In a position of such absolute irresponsibility
Gandhi was guilty of blunder after blunder, failure after failure, disaster
after disaster.
Gandhi’s pro-Muslim policy is blatantly in his perverse attitude on the
question of the national language of India. It is quite obvious that Hindi has
the most prior claim to be accepted as the premier language. In the
beginning of his career in India, Gandhi gave a great impetus to Hindi but
as he found that the Muslims did not like it, he became a champion of what
is called Hindustani. Everybody in India knows that there is no language
called Hindustani; it has no grammar; it has no vocabulary. It is a mere
dialect, it is spoken, but not written. It is a bastard tongue and cross-breed
between Hindi and Urdu, and not even the Mahatma’s sophistry could
make it popular. But in his desire to please the Muslims he insisted that
Hindustani alone should be the national language of India. His blind
followers, of course, supported him and the so-called hybrid language began
to be used. e charm and purity of the Hindi language was to be
prostituted to please the Muslims. All his experiments were at the expense
of the Hindus.
From August 1946 onwards the private armies of the Muslim League began
a massacre of the Hindus. e then Viceroy, Lord Wavell, though distressed
at what was happening, would not use his powers under the Government of
India Act of 1935 to prevent the rape, murder, and arson. Hindu blood
began to flow from Bengal to Karachi with some retaliation by the Hindus.
e Interim Government formed in September was sabotaged by its
Muslim League members right from its inception, but the more they
became disloyal and treasonable to the government of which they were a
part, the greater was Gandhi’s infatuation for them. Lord Wavell had to

h ld b b l dh d db
resign as he could not bring about a settlement and he was succeeded by
Lord Mountbatten. King Log was followed by King Stork.
e Congress which had boasted of its nationalism and socialism secretly
accepted Pakistan literally at the point of the bayonet and abjectly
surrendered to Jinnah. India was vivisected and one-third of the Indian
territory became foreign land to us from August 15, 1947. Lord
Mountbatten came to be described in Congress circles as the greatest
Viceroy and Governor-General this country ever had. e official date for
handing over power was fixed for June 30, 1948, but Mountbatten with his
ruthless surgery gave us a gift of vivisected India ten months in advance.
is is what Gandhi had achieved after thirty years of undisputed
dictatorship and this is what Congress party calls ‘freedom’ and ‘peaceful
transfer of power’. e Hindu-Muslim unity bubble was finally burst and a
theocratic state was established with the consent of Nehru and his crowd
and they have called ‘freedom won by them with sacrifice’—whose sacrifice?
When top leaders of Congress, with the consent of Gandhi, divided and
tore the country which we consider a deity of worship—my mind was filled
with direful anger.
One of the conditions imposed by Gandhi for his breaking of the fast unto
death related to the mosques in Delhi occupied by the Hindu refugees. But
when Hindus in Pakistan were subjected to violent attacks he did not so
much as utter a single word to protest and censure the Pakistan
Government or the Muslims concerned. Gandhi was shrewd enough to
know that while undertaking a fast unto death, had he imposed for its break
some condition on the Muslims in Pakistan, there would have been found
hardly any Muslims who could have shown some grief if the fast had ended
in his death. It was for this reason that he purposely avoided imposing any
condition on the Muslims. He was fully aware from experience that Jinnah
was not at all perturbed or influenced by his fast and the Muslim League
hardly attached any value to the inner voice of Gandhi.
Gandhi is being referred to as the Father of the Nation. But if that is so, he
had failed his paternal duty inasmuch as he has acted very treacherously to
the nation by his consenting to the partitioning of it. I stoutly maintain that
Gandhi has failed in his duty. He has proved to be the Father of Pakistan.
His inner voice, his spiritual power and his doctrine of non-violence of

h h h d ll bl d b f J h’ ll d d
which so much is made, all crumbled before Jinnah’s iron will and proved to
be powerless.
Briefly speaking, I thought to myself and foresaw I shall be totally ruined,
and the only thing I could expect from the people would be nothing but
hatred and that I shall have lost all my honour, even more valuable than my
life, if I were to kill Gandhiji. But at the same time I felt that the Indian
politics in the absence of Gandhiji would surely be proved practical, able to
retaliate, and would be powerful with armed forces. No doubt, my own
future would be totally ruined, but the nation would be saved from the
inroads of Pakistan. People may even call me and dub me as devoid of any
sense or foolish, but the nation would be free to follow the course founded
on the reason which I consider to be necessary for sound nation-building.
After having fully considered the question, I took the final decision in the
matter, but I did not speak about it to anyone whatsoever. I took courage in
both my hands and I did fire the shots at Gandhiji on 30th January 1948,
on the prayer-grounds of Birla House.
I do say that my shots were fired at the person whose policy and action had
brought rack and ruin and destruction to millions of Hindus. ere was no
legal machinery by which such an offender could be brought to book and
for this reason I fired those fatal shots.
I bear no ill will towards anyone individually but I do say that I had no
respect for the present government owing to their policy which was unfairly
favourable towards the Muslims. But at the same time I could clearly see
that the policy was entirely due to the presence of Gandhi. I have to say
with great regret that Prime Minister Nehru quite forgets that his
preachings and deeds are at times at variances with each other when he talks
about India as a secular state in season and out of season, because it is
significant to note that Nehru has played a leading role in the establishment
of the theocratic state of Pakistan, and his job was made easier by Gandhi’s
persistent policy of appeasement towards the Muslims.
I now stand before the court to accept the full share of my responsibility for
what I have done and the judge would, of course, pass against me such
orders of sentence as may be considered proper. But I would like to add that
I do not desire any mercy to be shown to me, nor do I wish that anyone else
should beg for mercy on my behalf. My confidence about the moral side of
my action has not been shaken even by the criticism levelled against it on all
d Ih d b h h fh ll h d
sides. I have no doubt that honest writers of history will weigh my act and
find the true value thereof some day in future.
Closing speech of the first Constituent Assembly of
India (New Delhi, November 1949)
B.R. AMBEDKAR (1891–1956)

e first meeting of the Constituent Assembly was held on December 9,

1946, with more than 300 members. B.R. Ambedkar, Chairman of the
Drafting Committee of the Indian Constitution, made this beautiful speech
the day before the assembly formally finished its work. His tone was
jubilant yet somber and reflective. e warnings he gave—place of popular
protest in a democracy, the blind following of charismatic leaders and the
limitations of only a political democracy—retain their relevance, perhaps
more today than in 1949.

Sir, looking back on the work of the Constituent Assembly it will now be
two years, eleven months and seventeen days since it first met on the 9th of
December 1946. During this period the Constituent Assembly has
altogether held eleven sessions. Out of these eleven sessions the first six
were spent in passing the Objectives Resolution and the consideration of
the Reports of Committees on Fundamental Rights, on Union
Constitution, on Union Powers, on Provincial Constitution, on Minorities
and on the Scheduled Areas and Scheduled Tribes. e seventh, eighth,
ninth, tenth, and the eleventh sessions were devoted to the consideration of
the Draft Constitution. ese eleven sessions of the Constituent Assembly
have consumed 165 days. Out of these, the Assembly spent 114 days for the
consideration or the Draft Constitution.

C h D f C l d b h C
Coming to the Drafting Committee, it was elected by the Constituent
Assembly on August 29, 1947. It held its first meeting on 30th August.
Since August 30th, it sat for 141 days during which it was engaged in the
preparation of the Draft Constitution. e Draft Constitution, as prepared
by the Constitutional Adviser as a text for the Drafting Committee to work
upon, consisted of 243 articles and 13 Schedules. e first Draft
Constitution as presented by the Drafting Committee to the Constituent
Assembly contained 315 articles and 8 schedules. At the end of the
consideration stage, the number of articles in the Draft Constitution
increased to 386. In its final form, the Draft Constitution contains 395
articles and 8 Schedules. e total number of amendments to the Draft
Constitution tabled was approximately 7,635. Of them, the total number of
amendments actually moved in the house were 2,473.
I mention these facts because at one stage it was being said that the
assembly had taken too long a time to finish its work, that it was going on
leisurely and wasting public money. It was said to be a case of Nero fiddling
while Rome was burning. Is there any justification for this complaint? Let
us note the time consumed by constituent assemblies in other countries
appointed for framing their constitutions. To take a few illustrations, the
American Convention met on May 25, 1787, and completed its work on
September 17, 1787, that is, within four months. e Constitutional
Convention of Canada met on the October 10, 1864 and the Constitution
was passed into law in March 1867 involving a period of two years and five
months. e Australian Constitutional Convention assembled in March
1891 and the Constitution became law on the July 9, 1900, consuming a
period of nine years. e South African Convention met in October 1908
and the Constitution became law on the September 20, 1909 involving one
year’s labour. It is true that we have taken more time than what the
American or South African Conventions did. But we have not taken more
time than the Canadian Convention and much less than the Australian
Convention. In making comparisons on the basis of time consumed, two
things must be remembered. One is that the constitutions of America,
Canada, South Africa, and Australia are much smaller than ours. Our
Constitution, as I said, contains 395 articles while the American has just
seven articles, the first four of which are divided into sections which total up
to 21, the Canadian has 147, Australian 128, and South African 153
sections. e second thing to be remembered is that the makers of the
fA C d A l dS h Af dd h
constitutions of America, Canada, Australia and South Africa did not have
to face the problem of amendments. ey were passed as moved. On the
other hand, this Constituent Assembly had to deal with as many as 2,473
amendments. Having regard to these facts the charge of dilatoriness seems
to me quite unfounded and this assembly may well congratulate itself for
having accomplished so formidable a task in so short a time.
Turning to the quality of the work done by the Drafting Committee, Mr
Naziruddin Ahmed felt it his duty to condemn it outright. In his opinion,
the work done by the Drafting Committee is not only not worthy of
commendation, but is positively below par. Everybody has a right to have
his opinion about the work done by the Drafting Committee and Mr
Naziruddin is welcome to have his own. Mr Naziruddin Ahmed thinks he
is a man of greater talents than any member of the Drafting Committee.
e Drafting Committee does not wish to challenge his claim. On the
other hand, the Drafting Committee would have welcomed him in their
midst if the assembly had thought him worthy of being appointed to it. If
he had no place in the making of the Constitution it is certainly not the
fault of the Drafting Committee.
Mr Naziruddin Ahmad has coined a new name for the Drafting
Committee evidently to show his contempt for it. He calls it a Drifting
Committee. Mr Naziruddin must no doubt be pleased with his hit. But he
evidently does not know that there is a difference between drift without
mastery and drift with mastery. If the Drafting Committee was drifting, it
was never without mastery over the situation. It was not merely angling
with the off chance of catching a fish. It was searching in known waters to
find the fish it was after. To be in search of something better is not the same
as drifting. Although Mr Naziruddin Ahmad did not mean it as a
compliment to the Drafting Committee, I take it as a compliment to the
Drafting Committee. e Drafting Committee would have been guilty of
gross dereliction of duty and of a false sense of dignity if it had not shown
the honesty and the courage to withdraw the amendments which it thought
faulty and substitute what it thought was better. If it is a mistake, I am glad
the Drafting Committee did not fight shy of admitting such mistakes and
coming forward to correct them.
I am glad to find that with the exception of a solitary member, there is a
general consensus of appreciation from the members of the Constituent

A bl f h k d b h D f C I h
Assembly of the work done by the Drafting Committee. I am sure the
Drafting Committee feels happy to find this spontaneous recognition of its
labours expressed in such generous terms. As to the compliments that have
been showered upon me both by the members of the assembly as well as by
my colleagues of the Drafting Committee I feel so overwhelmed that I
cannot find adequate words to express fully my gratitude to them. I came
into the Constituent Assembly with no greater aspiration than to safeguard
the interests of the Scheduled Castes. I had not the remotest idea that I
would be called upon to undertake more responsible functions. I was
therefore greatly surprised when the assembly elected me to the Drafting
Committee. I was more than surprised when the Drafting Committee
elected me to be its Chairman. ere were in the Drafting Committee men
bigger, better and more competent than myself such as my friend Sir Alladi
Krishnaswami Ayyar. I am grateful to the Constituent Assembly and the
Drafting Committee for reposing in me so much trust and confidence and
to have chosen me as their instrument and given me this opportunity of
serving the country. (Cheers)
e credit that is given to me does not really belong to me. It belongs partly
to Sir B.N. Rau, the Constitutional Adviser to the Constituent Assembly
who prepared a rough draft of the Constitution for the consideration of the
Drafting Committee. A part of the credit must go to the members of the
Drafting Committee who, as I have said, have sat for 141 days and without
whose ingenuity to devise new formulae and capacity to tolerate and to
accommodate different points of view, the task of framing the Constitution
could not have come to so successful a conclusion. Much greater share of
the credit must go to Mr S.N. Mukherjee, the Chief Draftsman of the
Constitution. His ability to put the most intricate proposals in the simplest
and clearest legal form can rarely be equalled, nor his capacity for hard
work. He has been an acquisition to the assembly. Without his help, this
assembly would have taken many more years to finalize the Constitution. I
must not omit to mention the members of the staff working under Mr
Mukherjee, for, I know how hard they have worked and how long they have
toiled, sometimes even beyond midnight. I want to thank them all for their
effort and their cooperation. (Cheers)
e task of the Drafting Committee would have been a very difficult one if
this Constituent Assembly has been merely a motley crowd, a tasseleted
pavement without cement, a black stone here and a white stone there in
h h h b h l lf  ld h
which each member or each group was a law unto itself. ere would have
been nothing but chaos. is possibility of chaos was reduced to nil by the
existence of the Congress Party inside the assembly which brought into its
proceedings a sense of order and discipline. It is because of the discipline of
the Congress Party that the Drafting Committee was able to pilot the
Constitution in the assembly with the sure knowledge as to the fate of each
article and each amendment. e Congress Party is, therefore, entitled to all
the credit for the smooth sailing of the Draft Constitution in the assembly.
e proceedings of this Constituent Assembly would have been very dull if
all members had yielded to the rule of party discipline. Party discipline, in
all its rigidity, would have converted this assembly into a gathering of ‘yes’
men. Fortunately, there were rebels. ey were Mr Kamath, Dr P.S.
Deshmukh, Mr Sidhva, Professor Sexena, and Pandit akur Das
Bhargava. Along with them I must mention Prof. K.T. Shah and Pandit
Hirday Nath Kunzru. e points they raised were mostly ideological. at I
was not prepared to accept their suggestions, does not diminish the value of
their suggestions nor lessen the service they have rendered to the assembly
in enlivening its proceedings. I am grateful to them. But for them, I would
not have had the opportunity which I got for expounding the principles
underlying the Constitution which was more important than the mere
mechanical work of passing the Constitution.
Finally, I must thank you Mr President for the way in which you have
conducted the proceedings of this assembly. e courtesy and the
consideration which you have shown to the members of the assembly can
never be forgotten by those who have taken part in the proceedings of this
assembly. ere were occasions when the amendments of the Drafting
Committee were sought to be barred on grounds purely technical in their
nature. ose were very anxious moments for me. I am, therefore, specially
grateful to you for not permitting legalism to defeat the work of
Constitution-making.
As much defence as could be offered to the Constitution has been offered
by my friends Sir Alladi Krishnaswami Ayyar and Mr T.T. Krishnamachari,
I shall not therefore enter into the merits of the Constitution. Because I
feel, however good a Constitution may be, it is sure to turn out bad because
those who are called to work it, happen to be a bad lot. However bad a
Constitution may be, it may turn out to be good if those who are called to

k h b dl  k f C d
work it, happen to be a good lot. e working of a Constitution does not
depend wholly upon the nature of the Constitution. e Constitution can
provide only the organs of state such as the Legislature, the Executive and
the Judiciary. e factors on which the working of those organs of the state
depend are the people and the political parties they will set up as their
instruments to carry out their wishes and their politics. Who can say how
the people of India and their parties will behave? Will they uphold
constitutional methods of achieving their purposes or will they prefer
revolutionary methods of achieving them? If they adopt the revolutionary
methods; however good the Constitution may be, it requires no prophet to
say that it will fail. It is, therefore, futile to pass any judgment upon the
Constitution without reference to the part which the people and their
parties are likely to play.
e condemnation of the Constitution largely comes from two quarters, the
Communist Party and the Socialist Party. Why do they condemn the
Constitution? Is it because it is really a bad Constitution? I venture to say
‘no.’ e Communist Party wants a Constitution based upon the principle
of the dictatorship of the proletariat. ey condemn the Constitution
because it is based upon parliamentary democracy. e Socialists want two
things. e first thing they want is that if they come in power, the
Constitution must give them the freedom to nationalize or socialize all
private property without payment of compensation. e second thing that
the Socialists want is that the Fundamental Rights mentioned in the
Constitution must be absolute and without any limitations so that if their
Party fails to come into power, they would have the unfettered freedom not
merely to criticize, but also to overthrow the state.
ese are the main grounds on which the Constitution is being condemned.
I do not say that the principle of parliamentary democracy is the only ideal
form of political democracy. I do not say that the principle of no acquisition
of private property without compensation is so sacrosanct that there can be
no departure from it. I do not say that Fundamental Rights can never be
absolute and the limitations set upon them can never be lifted. What I do
say is that the principles embodied in the Constitution are the views of the
present generation or if you think this to be an overstatement, I say they are
the views of the members of the Constituent Assembly. Why blame the
Drafting Committee for embodying them in the Constitution? I say why
blame even the members of the Constituent Assembly? Jefferson, the great
A h l d h k f h
American statesman who played so great a part in the making of the
American Constitution, has expressed some very weighty views which
makers of Constitution, can never afford to ignore. In one place, he has
said:
‘We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the
will of the majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding
generation, more than the inhabitants of another country.’
In another place, he has said:
‘e idea that institutions established for the use of the nation cannot be
touched or modified, even to make them answer their end, because of rights
gratuitously supposed in those employed to manage them in the trust for
the public, may perhaps be a salutary provision against the abuses of a
monarch, but is most absurd against the nation itself. Yet our lawyers and
priests generally inculcate this doctrine, and suppose that preceding
generations held the earth more freely than we do; had a right to impose
laws on us, unalterable by ourselves, and that we, in the like manner, can
make laws and impose burdens on future generations, which they will have
no right to alter; in fine, that the earth belongs to the dead and not the
living.’
I admit that what Jefferson has said is not merely true, but is absolutely true.
ere can be no question about it. Had the Constituent Assembly departed
from this principle laid down by Jefferson it would certainly be liable to
blame, even to condemnation. But I ask, has it? Quite the contrary. One has
only to examine the provision relating to the amendment of the
Constitution. e assembly has not only refrained from putting a seal of
finality and infallibility upon this Constitution by denying to the people the
right to amend the Constitution as in Canada or by making the amendment
of the Constitution subject to the fulfilment of extraordinary terms and
conditions as in America or Australia, but has provided a most facile
procedure for amending the Constitution. I challenge any of the critics of
the Constitution to prove that any Constituent Assembly anywhere in the
world has, in the circumstances in which this country finds itself, provided
such a facile procedure for the amendment of the Constitution. If those
who are dissatisfied with the Constitution have only to obtain a two-third
majority and if they cannot obtain even a two-third majority in the

P l l d d l f h h f h d f
Parliament elected on adult franchise in their favour, their dissatisfaction
with the Constitution cannot be deemed to be shared by the general public.
ere is only one point of constitutional import to which I propose to make
a reference. A serious complaint is made on the ground that there is too
much of centralization and that the states have been reduced to
municipalities. It is clear that this view is not only an exaggeration, but is
also founded on a misunderstanding of what exactly the Constitution
contrives to do. As to the relation between the Centre and the states, it is
necessary to bear in mind the fundamental principle on which it rests. e
basic principle of federalism is that the Legislative and Executive authority
is partitioned between the Centre and the states not by any law to be made
by the Centre but by the Constitution itself. is is what Constitution does.
e states under our Constitution are in no way dependent upon the Centre
for their Legislative or Executive authority. e Centre and the states are
co-equal in this matter. It is difficult to see how such a Constitution can be
called centralized. It may be that the Constitution assigns to the Centre too
large a field for the operation of its Legislative and Executive authority than
is to be found in any other federal Constitution. It may be that the residuary
powers are given to the Centre and not to the states. But these features do
not form the essence of federalism. e chief mark of federalism as I said,
lies in the partition of the Legislative and Executive authority between the
Centre and the Units by the Constitution. is is the principle embodied in
our Constitution. ere can be no mistake about it. It is, therefore, wrong
to say that the states have been placed under the Centre. Centre cannot by
its own will alter the boundary of that partition. Nor can the Judiciary. For
as has been well said:
‘Courts may modify, they cannot replace. ey can revise earlier
interpretations as new arguments, new points of view are presented, they
can shift the dividing line in marginal cases, but there are barriers they
cannot pass, definite assignments of power they cannot reallocate. ey can
give a broadening construction of existing powers, but they cannot assign to
one authority powers explicitly granted to another.’
e first charge of centralization defeating federalism must therefore fall.
e second charge is that the Centre bas been given the power to override
the states. is charge must be admitted. But before condemning the
Constitution for containing such overriding powers, certain considerations
b b d  fi h h d d
must be borne in mind. e first is that these overriding powers do not
form the normal feature of the Constitution. eir use and operation are
expressly confined to emergencies only. e second consideration is: Could
we avoid giving overriding powers to the Centre when an emergency has
arisen? ose who do not admit the justification for such overriding powers
to the Centre even in an emergency, do not seem to have a clear idea of the
problem which lies at the root of the matter. e problem is so clearly set
out by a writer in that well known magazine e Round Table in its issue of
December 1935 that I offer no apology for quoting the following extract
from it. Says the writer:
‘Political systems are a complex of rights and duties resting ultimately on
the question, to whom, or to what authority, does the citizen owe
allegiance. In normal affairs the question is not present, for the law works
smoothly, and a man goes about his business obeying one authority in this
set of matters and another authority in that. But in a moment of crisis, a
conflict of claims may arise, and it is then apparent that ultimate allegiance
cannot be divided. e issue of allegiance cannot be determined in the last
resort by a juristic interpretation of statutes. e law must conform to the
facts or so much the worse for the law. When all formalism is stripped away,
the bare question is, what authority commands the residual loyalty of the
citizen? Is it the Centre or the constituent state?’
e solution of this problem depends upon one’s answer to this question
which is the crux of the problem. ere can be no doubt that in the opinion
of the vast majority of the people, the residual loyalty of the citizen in an
emergency must be to the Centre and not to the constituent states. For it is
only the Centre which can work for a common end and for the general
interests of the country as a whole. Herein lies the justification for giving to
the Centre certain overriding powers to be used in an emergency. And after
all what is the obligation imposed upon the constituent States by these
emergency powers? No more than this—that in an emergency, they should
take into consideration alongside their own local interests, the opinions and
interests of the nation as a whole. Only those who have not understood the
problem, can complain against it.
Here I could have ended. But my mind is so full of the future of our country
that I feel I ought to take this occasion to give expression to some of my
reflections thereon. On 26th January 1950, India will be an independent

( ) Wh ld h h d d W ll h
country. (Cheers) What would happen to her independence? Will she
maintain her independence or will she lose it again? is is the first thought
that comes to my mind. It is not that India was never an independent
country. e point is that she once lost the independence she had. Will she
lose it a second time? It is this thought which makes me most anxious for
the future. What perturbs me greatly is the fact that not only India has once
before lost her independence, but she lost it by the infidelity and treachery
of some of her own people. In the invasion of Sind by Mahommed-Bin-
Kasim, the military commanders of King Dahar accepted bribes from the
agents of Mahommed-Bin-Kasim and refused to fight on the side of their
King. It was Jaichand who invited Mahommed Ghori to invade India and
fight against Prithvi Raj and promised him the help of himself and the
Solanki kings. When Shivaji was fighting for the liberation of Hindus, the
other Maratha noblemen and the Rajput kings were fighting the battle on
the side of Moghul emperors. When the British were trying to destroy the
Sikh rulers, Gulab Singh, their principal commander sat silent and did not
help to save the Sikh kingdom. In 1857, when a large part of India had
declared a war of independence against the British, the Sikhs stood and
watched the event as silent spectators.
Will history repeat itself? It is this thought which fills me with anxiety. is
anxiety is deepened by the realization of the fact that in addition to our old
enemies in the form of castes and creeds we are going to have many political
parties with diverse and opposing political creeds. Will Indians place the
country above their creed or will they place creed above country? I do not
know. But this much is certain that if the parties place creed above country,
our independence will be put in jeopardy a second time and probably be lost
forever. is eventuality we must all resolutely guard against. We must be
determined to defend our independence with the last drop of our blood.
(Cheers)
On the 26th of January 1950, India would be a democratic country in the
sense that India from that day would have a government of the people, by
the people and for the people. e same thought comes to my mind. What
would happen to her democratic Constitution? Will she be able to maintain
it or will she lose it again? is is the second thought that comes to my
mind and makes me as anxious as the first.

I h I d dd k h d  h
It is not that India did not know what is democracy. ere was a time when
India was studded with republics, and even where there were monarchies,
they were either elected or limited. ey were never absolute. It is not that
India did not know parliaments or parliamentary procedure. A study of the
Buddhist Bhikshu Sanghas discloses that not only there were parliaments—
for the Sanghas were nothing but parliaments—but the Sanghas knew and
observed all the rules of Parliamentary Procedure known to modern times.
ey had rules regarding seating arrangements, rules regarding motions,
resolutions, quorum, whip, counting of votes, voting by ballot, censure
motion, regularization, Res Judicata, etc. Although these rules of
parliamentary procedure were applied by the Buddha to the meetings of the
Sanghas, he must have borrowed them from the rules of the political
assemblies functioning in the country in his time.
is democratic system India lost. Will she lose it a second time? I do not
know, but it is quite possible in a country like India—where democracy
from its long disuse must be regarded as something quite new—there is
danger of democracy giving place to dictatorship. It is quite possible for this
new born democracy to retain its form but give place to dictatorship in fact.
If there is a landslide, the danger of the second possibility becoming
actuality is much greater.
If we wish to maintain democracy not merely in form, but also in fact, what
must we do? e first thing in my judgment we must do is to hold fast to
constitutional methods of achieving our social and economic objectives. It
means we must abandon the bloody methods of revolution. It means that
we must abandon the method of civil disobedience, non-cooperation and
satyagraha. When there was no way left for constitutional methods for
achieving economic and social objectives, there was a great deal of
justification for unconstitutional methods. But where constitutional
methods are open, there can be no justification for these unconstitutional
methods. ese methods are nothing but the grammar of anarchy and the
sooner they are abandoned, the better for us.
e second thing we must do is to observe the caution which John Stuart
Mill has given to all who are interested in the maintenance of democracy,
namely, not ‘to lay their liberties at the feet of even a great man, or to trust
him with powers which enable him to subvert their institutions.’ ere is
nothing wrong in being grateful to great men who have rendered lifelong

h B h l f l A h b ll
services to the country. But there are limits to gratefulness. As has been well
said by the Irish Patriot Daniel O’Connel, ‘no man can be grateful at the
cost of his honour, no woman can be grateful at the cost of her chastity and
no nation can be grateful at the cost of its liberty.’ is caution is far more
necessary in the case of India than in the case of any other country, for in
India, Bhakti or what may be called the path of devotion or hero-worship,
plays a part in its politics unequalled in magnitude by the part it plays in the
politics of any other country in the world. Bhakti in religion may be a road
to the salvation of the soul. But in politics, Bhakti or hero-worship is a sure
road to degradation and to eventual dictatorship.
e third thing we must do is not to be content with mere political
democracy. We must make our political democracy a social democracy as
well. Political democracy cannot last unless there lies at the base of it social
democracy. What does social democracy mean? It means a way of life which
recognizes liberty, equality, and fraternity as the principles of life. ese
principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity are not to be treated as separate
items in a trinity. ey form a union of trinity in the sense that to divorce
one from the other is to defeat the very purpose of democracy. Liberty
cannot be divorced from equality, equality cannot be divorced from liberty.
Nor can liberty and equality be divorced from fraternity. Without equality,
liberty would produce the supremacy of the few over the many. Equality
without liberty would kill individual initiative. Without fraternity, liberty
and equality could not become a natural course of things. It would require a
constable to enforce them. We must begin by acknowledging the fact that
there is complete absence of two things in Indian Society. One of these is
equality. On the social plane, we have in India a society based on the
principle of graded inequality which means elevation for some and
degradation for others. On the economic plane, we have a society in which
there are some who have immense wealth as against many who live in abject
poverty. On the 26th of January 1950, we are going to enter into a life of
contradictions. In politics we will have equality and in social and economic
life we will have inequality. In politics we will be recognizing the principle
of one man one vote and one vote one value. In our social and economic
life, we shall, by reason of our social and economic structure, continue to
deny the principle of one man one value. How long shall we continue to live
this life of contradictions? How long shall we continue to deny equality in
our social and economic life? If we continue to deny it for long, we will do
l b l ld l W h
so only by putting our political democracy in peril. We must remove this
contradiction at the earliest possible moment or else those who suffer from
inequality will blow up the structure of political democracy which this
Assembly has so laboriously built up.
e second thing we are wanting in is recognition of the principle of
fraternity. What does fraternity mean? Fraternity means a sense of common
brotherhood of all Indians—of Indians being one people. It is the principle
which gives unity and solidarity to social life. It is a difficult thing to
achieve. How difficult it is, can be realized from the story related by James
Bryce in his volume on American Commonwealth about the United States
of America.
e story is—I propose to recount it in the words of Bryce himself—that:
‘Some years ago the American Protestant Episcopal Church was occupied at
its triennial convention in revising its liturgy. It was thought desirable to
introduce among the short sentence prayers a prayer for the whole people,
and an eminent New England divine proposed the words “O Lord, bless
our nation”. Accepted one afternoon on the spur of the moment, the
sentence was brought up next day for reconsideration, when so many
objections were raised by the laity to the word “nation” as importing too
definite a recognition of national unity, that it was dropped, and instead
there were adopted the words “O Lord, bless these United States”.’
ere was so little solidarity in the USA at the time when this incident
occurred that the people of America did not think that they were a nation.
If the people of the United States could not feel that they were a nation,
how difficult it is for Indians to think that they are a nation. I remember the
days when politically-minded Indians resented the expression ‘the people of
India’. ey preferred the expression ‘the Indian nation.’ I am of opinion
that in believing that we are a nation, we are cherishing, a great delusion.
How can people divided into several thousands of castes be a nation? e
sooner we realize that we are not as yet a nation in the social and
psychological sense of the word, the better for us. For then only we shall
realize the necessity of becoming a nation and seriously think of ways and
means of realizing the goal. e realization of this goal is going to be very
difficult—far more difficult than it has been in the United States. e
United States has no caste problem. In India there are castes. e castes are
anti-national. In the first place, because they bring about separation in
l lf  l l b h l d
social life. ey are anti-national also because they generate jealousy and
antipathy between caste and caste. But we must overcome all these
difficulties if we wish to become a nation in reality. For fraternity can be a
fact only when there is a nation. Without fraternity, equality and liberty will
be no deeper than coats of paint.
ese are my reflections about the tasks that lie ahead of us. ey may not
be very pleasant to some, but there can be no gainsaying that political power
in this country has too long been the monopoly of a few and the many are
not only beasts of burden, but also beasts of prey. is monopoly has not
merely deprived them of their chance of betterment, it has sapped them of
what may be called the significance of life. ese down-trodden classes are
tired of being governed, they are impatient to govern themselves. is urge
for self-realization in the downtrodden classes must not be allowed to
develop into a class struggle or class war. It would lead to a division of the
House. at would indeed be a day of disaster. For, as has been well said by
Abraham Lincoln, a house divided against itself cannot stand very long.
erefore the sooner room is made for the realization of their aspiration,
the better for the few, the better for the country, the better for the
maintenance for its independence and the better for the continuance of its
democratic structure. is can only be done by the establishment of equality
and fraternity in all spheres of life. at is why I have laid so much stress on
them.
I do not wish to weary the House any further. Independence is no doubt a
matter of joy. But let us not forget that this independence has thrown on us
great responsibilities. By independence, we have lost the excuse of blaming
the British for anything going wrong. If hereafter things go wrong, we will
have nobody to blame except ourselves. ere is great danger of things
going wrong. Times are fast changing. People including our own are being
moved by new ideologies. ey are getting tired of government by the
people. ey are prepared to have government for the people and are
indifferent whether it is government of the people and by the people. If we
wish to preserve the Constitution in which we have sought to enshrine the
principle of government of the people, for the people and by the people, let
us resolve not to be tardy in the recognition of the evils that lie across our
path and which induce people to prefer government for the people to
government by the people, nor to be weak in our initiative to remove them.
at is the only way to serve the country. I know of no better.
Temples of the new age (Bhakra Nangal, July 1954)
JAWAHARLAL NEHRU (1889–1964)

Nehru was a champion of modernization and he believed that this could be

achieved through massive government projects and public sector
undertakings. New dams and factories underpinned his vision of a modern
and self-sufficient India. He took great pride in the completion of the
massive Bhakra Nangal dam in Punjab on the Indian side of the Sutlej river.
It was 680 feet high and the second highest dam in the world. e project
would generate nearly a million kilowatts of electricity and water from its
reservoir would help irrigate 7.4 million acres of land. It was while
inaugurating the dam that he made this speech in Hindi and added a new
phrase to the nation’s vocabulary.

I have occasion frequently these days to participate in functions marking the

inauguration of some new work or completion of some other. Today, you
and I and all these persons have gathered here on one such occasion. I want
to know from you what you think and feel in your minds and hearts on this
occasion, because in my heart and mind there is a strange exhilaration and
excitement, and many kinds of pictures come before me. Many dreams we
have dreamt are today drawing near and being materialized. For the
materialization of these dreams, we may praise one another, and those who
have done good work should be praised. But how many can be praised
when the list runs to thousands, nay, lakhs?
Let us give praise where it is due. e work which we see today, and in the
inauguration of which we are participating, is much bigger than our
individual selves. It is a tremendous thing. I have told you that I, and
d b dl f h f
undoubtedly many of you, have frequent occasions to participate in various
functions. A foundation stone is laid somewhere; a building, a hospital, a
school or a university is opened elsewhere. Big factories are going up. Such
activity is taking place all over the country because Mother India is
producing various kinds of things. Among them, Bhakra-Nangal has a
special place—Bhakra-Nangal where a small village stood, but which today
is a name ringing in every corner of India and in some parts of the world
too; because this is a great work, the mark of a great enterprise.
About fifty years ago, an Englishman came here and for the first time had
the idea that something could be done at this place, but the idea did not
materialize. e matter was raised many times. Some rough plans were
made but they were not pursued. en India became free. In the process,
the Punjab suffered a great shock and a grievous wound. But despite the
shock and the wound, freedom brought a new strength, a new enthusiasm.
And so with the wound, the worries and calamities, came this new
enthusiasm and new strength to take up this big work. And we took it up. I
have come here frequently. Many of you also must have come and seen this
slowly changing picture and felt something stirring deep within you. What
a stupendous, magnificent work—a work which only that nation can take
up which has faith and boldness! is is a work which does not belong only
to the Punjab, or PEPSU or the neighbouring states, but to the whole of
India.
India has undertaken other big works which are not much smaller than this.
Damodar Valley, Hirakud and the big projects of the south are going on
apace. Plans are being made every day because we are anxious to build a
new India as speedily as possible, to lead it forward, to make it strong and
to remove the poverty of its people. We are doing all this, and Bhakra-
Nangal in many respects will be one of the greatest of these works, because
a very big step in this direction is being taken here today after years of
endeavour. Every work we complete in India gives fresh strength to the
nation to undertake new tasks. Bhakra-Nangal is a landmark not merely
because the water will flow here and irrigate large portions of the Punjab,
PEPSU, Rajasthan and fertilize the deserts of Rajasthan, or because enough
electric power will be generated here to run thousands of factories and
cottage industries which will provide work for the people and relieve
unemployment. It is a landmark because it has become the symbol of a
nation’s will to march forward with strength, determination and courage.
 h h k d h h d
at is why, seeing this work, my courage and strength have increased,
because nothing is more encouraging than to capture our dreams and give
them real shape.
Just before coming to Nangal, I was in Bhakra where the Dam is being
built. I stood on the banks of the Sutlej and saw the mountains to the right
and left. Far away, at various spots, people were working. Since it was a
holiday, there was not much work going on, for all the people had come
here. Still there were a few persons working. From a distance they looked
very small against the mighty-looking mountain through which a tunnel
was being bored. e thought came to me that it was these very men who
had striven against the mountains and brought them under control.
What is now complete is only half the work. We may celebrate its
completion but we must remember that the most difficult part still remains
to be done—the construction of the dam about which you have heard so
much. Our engineers tell us that probably nowhere else in the world is there
a dam high as this. e work bristles with difficulties and complications. As
I walked round the site I thought that these days the biggest temple and
mosque and gurdwara is the place where man works for the good of
mankind. Which place can be greater than this, this Bhakra-Nangal, where
thousands and lakhs of men have worked, have shed their blood and sweat
and laid down their lives as well? Where can be a greater and holier place
than this, which we can regard as higher?
en again it struck me that Bhakra-Nangal was like a big university where
we can work and while working learn, so that we may do bigger things. e
nation is marching forward and every day the pace becomes faster. As we
learn the work and gain experience, we advance with greater speed. Bhakra-
Nangal is not a work of this moment only, because the work which we are
doing at present is not only for our own times but for coming generations
and future times.
Another thought came to my mind when I saw the Sutlej. Where has it
come from? What course has it traversed to reach here? Do you know
where the Sutlej springs from? It rises near Mount Kailash in the vicinity of
Mansarovar. e Indus rises near by. e Brahmaputra also flows from that
place in a different direction, reaching India and Pakistan after traversing
thousands of miles. Other rivers rise from places near by and flow from
Tibet towards China. So the Sutlej traverses hundreds of miles through the
H l hh d h d lh f dl
Himalayas to reach here and we have tried to control her in a friendly way.
You have seen the two big diversion channels. At present the whole river
has been channelled through one canal. After the rains we will divert the
river completely in the two channels so that the dam might be built there.
I look far, not only towards Bhakra-Nangal, but towards this our country,
India, whose children we are. Where is she going? Where have we to lead
her, which way have we to walk and what mighty tasks have we to
undertake? Some of these will be completed in our lifetime. Others will be
taken up and completed by those who come after us. e work of a nation
or a country is never completed. It goes on and no one can arrest its
progress—the progress of a living nation. We have to press forward. e
question is which way we have to take, how we should proceed, what
principles, what objectives we have to keep before us. All these big
questions crop up. is is not an occasion to tell you about them but we
have to remember them always and not forget them. When we undertake a
big work we have to do so with a large heart and a large mind. Small minds
or small-minded nations cannot undertake big works. When we see big
works our stature grows with them, and our minds open out a little.
Power (Calcutta, November 1954)
S.N. BOSE (1894–1974)

Satyendra Nath Bose was arguably India’s greatest scientist. He is best

known for his seminal contribution to quantum statistics which, after it had
been elaborated and extended by Albert Einstein, came to be known as
Bose-Einstein statistics. Particles whose behaviour is described by the Bose-
Einstein statistics are called Bosons. Bose was a charming and delightful
man of varied interests—from music to art to literature. Stories about him
are legion in the scientific and literary circles of Calcutta. ere is the
famous story about Bose and Neils Bohr, the Danish physicist. Bose was
chairing a lecture by Bohr and, to the amusement of the audience, seemed
fast asleep through it. At one point, Bohr turned to Bose for help. Bose
woke up with a start and instantly solved the problem. He worshipped
Einstein, and refused to publish a paper because his guru had expressed a
few reservations. He was also a great believer in explaining scientific ideas
to common people in layman’s language. In this speech he speaks about the
sources of energy and of their uses in the everyday lives of human beings.
His brief discussion on nuclear power for civilian purposes has powerful
contemporary resonances.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I deem it a very great privilege to be able to address you on the occasion of
the birthday of Sir J.C. Bose. I am among the fortunate who were able to sit
at the feet of the great master for their first lessons in modern physics; and I
still recollect the thrill of intense delight which we all felt, when he
modestly talked about his striking discoveries on electric waves in his class.
H lf fl l fd d h f h
His own life was a flaming example of devotion to science; and the fact that
many of the students of our period had deliberately chosen science as their
calling, at a time when the facilities for such studies were rare, had been in
no small measure due to the inspiring examples of those great pioneers of
research in Bengal, Sir J.C. Bose and Sir P.C. Ray. May their memory live
long and continue to inspire successive generations of students in our land.
I have chosen ‘Power’ as the subject of today’s address; we are all interested
in quick and extensive development of our power industry by the utilization
of India’s natural resources. Our ultimate source of energy, the sun, is
apparent as an incandescent disc which subtends an angle of about 32
minutes to an observer on the earth. In reality it is an incandescent globe of
vast dimensions, 1.39 × 106 kilometres in diameter, but very far away from
us, 1.49 × 108 kilometres. Seen from the sun, the earth, our little globe, will
appear as a speck of dust in the vast space. In fact our earth collects 0.5 ×
10-9 fraction of the total energy radiated by the sun at every instant. is
small fraction nevertheless amounts to a constant reception of 1.6 × 1014
kilowatts, a tremendous amount distributed at the level of the stratosphere
or 1.35 kilowatt for every square metre at sea-level.
Ages ago, our little planet was born as the result of a cosmic upheaval.
Originally an incandescent mass had separated out of the materials thrown
out from the sun, and had gradually cooled down, through about 2,000
million years from an incandescent state to what it is now today. Deep
crusts have now formed over the once molten mass, and land rocks,
continents and oceans have been formed.
Life appeared at one stage on our planet, and thenceforth through its
various manifestations has unceasingly worked on and produced far-
reaching consequences on earth.
Under its ceaseless thrusts, rocks have crumbled to soil, vegetations have
covered bare continents. We do not yet understand life but we realize that
the power necessary for such tremendous transformation has been
ultimately derived by life from the energy that the earth continuously
receives from the sun. It is the radiation from the sun, which provokes
evaporation from the sea; rain and snow reprecipitate this moisture and
water flows back ultimately to the sea, through thousands of rivers. e
sun’s heat is also the ultimate cause of atmospheric circulation. e plant
world traps the daily flow of energy by the photosynthetic process, and
f d h h l l h h l l ld d
stores it as food, which ultimately sustains the whole animal world and
builds the plant body with energy-rich carbonaceous material. is process
has gone on for ages. Ever since life has appeared on this earth and though
endless generations have been born and have died, the results of life’s
photosynthetic activity has not been all lost. It subsists in the deposits of
coal and oil, which form the raw materials for the generation of power for
the present age.
ese natural processes, (1) the circulation of water from the land back to
the sea, which provides the basis of hydroelectric power, (2) the
photosynthetic process which determines the growth of plants, are however
not very efficient in the sense that only some thousandth part of the actual
energy received from the sun is utilized in these processes. Most of the
radiation that we receive is ultimately scattered back into space. ere is
thus room for speculation about means of better utilization of this abundant
power we daily receive for the ultimate good of man.
Enduring achievements can only be brought out by large concentration of
power devoted to the purpose in view. Before the age of power steam and
coal, man had relied on large scale employment of human and animal
labour. Food and comfortable surroundings were then the principal quests
and agriculture was the principal industry which engaged the attention of
man. Other needs of the human society, its garments and its shelter, were
also met then by unaided human skill. e development of the mechanical
sense however has gradually transformed the course of human efforts.
Human ingenuity had been devoted to the discovery of labour-saving
devices, and the growth of scientific knowledge had aided materially to
bring about the industrial revolution. e tempo of progress has increased
enormously with the discovery of the steam engine and later by the
understanding of electro-dynamical processes, and the manifold uses to
which electricity can be put. Modern civilization is now based on large scale
uses of natural resources and means, whereby convenient concentration can
be directed on any object, and human labour does no longer play a
preponderant role in all human efforts, especially among nations who are at
present in the vanguard of human progress.
e extent of electric power development in a country can now be regarded
as a positive index of the economic prosperity and the standard of living of
its people. As an Indian my thoughts naturally turn to my own country, and
h I dl h I d ll l b h d h d ll
here I sadly note that India is still a long way behind the industrially
advanced countries.
In spite of magnificent ancient achievements and contribution to human
civilization, present day India ranks among the underdeveloped countries,
where efforts will have to be made now to utilize the natural resources that
lie buried in the land, or to utilize the natural advantages which its position
and geography have lent to this country. It is clear that the future
development must be carefully planned and a careful survey of all our
resources for the generation of electric power should be undertaken
immediately.
e three chief sources of generation of electric power are oil, coal and
water-flow. Our known mineral oil resources are not very significant. For
our consumption we have still to rely on foreign imports, and though the
recent talks about the probability of oil deposits in Bengal have encouraged
us to dream of a blissful prosperity in the near future, much yet remains to
be done and explored before we can really take oil into account in
formulating our future plans. Coal however is apparently plentiful. Proved
natural resources of coal here according to a recent government publication
is about 16,000 million tons, and probable total reserves may be still higher,
say about 60,000 million tons. Much of it however is added with
inconveniently large ash-content, or probably contains harmful ingredients
such as sulphur in its composition. We have also to remember that large
scale industrial developments will require development of extensive
metallurgical processes in this country which would principally require high
grade coal. Use of coal for transport and power development would have to
be carefully thought out in a manner which permits the most economic use
of our natural resources. is has, unfortunately, not been considered so
long and much of our valuable deposits have been thus frittered away or
wasted unnecessarily.
It is now comforting to think that recently greater care is being bestowed on
our reserves, and our future developments will try to conserve our good coal
and put our low-grade coals to increasing uses.
It is perhaps relevant to remark that other more highly industrialized
countries have thought about the uses of low-grade fuel and have evolved
methods by which they can be efficiently and conveniently utilized.
Efficient methods of combustion have been worked out and extensive
h h b d k h bl f fi O h
researches have been undertaken on the problem of gasifications. One hears
of electric supply in big cities elsewhere (in Russia for example) being now
secured by utilizing combustion of peat and lignite and low-grade coals and
attention is now mainly directed towards attaining a better efficiency ratio,
by using higher pressures in boilers and more efficient generators. It is a
depressing sight in our country to see coal freely burning in open hearths,
whereby useful gases which could have been utilized in developing chemical
industries are being carelessly wasted away.
e heavy and dense smoke that hangs about now in the evenings in the
streets of Calcutta is indication of how careless we are in our daily practices
and how urgent is the necessity of intelligently tackling our common-day
problems.
Turning now from coal to water power. We hopefully observe that large-
scale developments of our hydroelectric resources are on the eve of taking
place. ere have been significant developments of water power in South
and West India, where in Bombay, Travancore, Cochin, Mysore and
Madras increasing uses of our resources in water power are being made now.
We hear of Bhakra-Nangal, Hirakud and the DVC undertakings, and we
hear of Kosi and Teesta surveys being undertaken for the development of
power.
A large-scale development of hydroelectric power in our country has
evidently much to recommend itself. Here as in all other countries we have
to remember that once the costly undertakings, barrages and installations
are over, we utilize resources that nature annually gives us free and our
supplies in dams being annually replenished by precipitation are perennial
sources of power, which would not mean any progressive and quick
impoverishment in natural resources as would happen if we relied on the
burning of coal or oil reserves. Other countries have begun to think of their
coal resources, and have been seriously exploring alternative means of
generation of power, which may ultimately replace the gradual exhaustion of
their resources. Even in countries which have no plentiful water power such
as Canada or Scandinavia, people have turned their serious attention to the
quick and efficient development of water power. Indian engineers however
seem to be more cautious, and even where there is waterflow and hydraulic
head, the problem of transport of heavy machinery seems to them to be
occasionally a very deterrent factor for ultimate utilization.

I l h h h fi d l dffi l d
It is clear, however, that once we have fixed our plans, no difficulty need
deter us. In other countries such difficulties of transport and comparative
inaccessibility have been tackled in various ways.
We may for example think of building our units in situ, instead of having
the full-fledged units transport over long distances. In all such matters the
old adage that ‘if there is will there is a way’ still remains valid to a great
extent.
During the recent war, we heard of tremendous happenings during which
heavy war implements were transported by animal power over inaccessible
mountain-barriers and such events had happened near the eastern borders
of India. If one can achieve success by concentrated effort during war-time,
what hinders us from thinking that such intense efforts will be lacking
during peace-time when by such endeavours we will be making our
country’s future secure for once and for good? I feel that more stress should
be laid on water power development and all-out effort is needed to develop
the resources to the fullest extent possible in our country.
It is clear that all large-scale development in any one direction means very
often a simultaneous development to a high grade efficiency in other fields.
For example, our industry should be ready to furnish the raw materials that
may be needed and home industries should be equal to the task of
furnishing all steel, cement, and other metals that may be needed. Our
resources in other fields make us hope that they can be tackled, once our
mind is made up about the matter.
e next five-year plan of future development is now on the anvil. Let us
hope that an adequate and careful consideration will be given to the
problem of adequate development of water power in India.
During my recent visit to Europe as a delegate to the International
Conference on Crystallography, I had the good fortune to be able to study
how France has been tackling its problem of development of electric power.
After the war, electricity in France has been nationalized. Large-scale
hydroelectric developments have taken place after the war, and different
centres of hydroelectric projects in the Central Massif, Pyrenees, Alps and
in the Rhone Valley, have been developed to such an extent that France is
now producing approximately 50 percent of its total power output from its
hydroelectric installations.

Wh b h fF h h l / h f
When we remember the area of France, which is approximately 1/6th of
India, its comparatively fewer rivers and its moderate precipitation, we have
an objective demonstration of how much can be achieved by intelligent
planning. We have also to remember that the annual power production of
France stands at 40,000 million kilowatt hours, which is approximately ten
times our present output, and 50 percent of the output gives a figure which
will exceed many times the projected output in our country by the
hydroelectric schemes during the next five years.
e industries of France are able to consume fully the power that is thus
developed. Her water power is, however, not able to tackle all the industrial
problems and a simultaneous large-scale development of thermal stations
has also taken place. I mention this only as an example of how a developed
country has tried to conserve its rather slender supply of coal and has gone
on for large-scale development in water power.
I have mentioned in the beginning how inefficiently we have been able to
utilize the constant flow of solar energy. e tempo of modern
developments has necessitated such large-scale expenditure of power that
people have begun to think of discovering other ways of utilizing the solar
energy which is now mostly scattered away. Whether solar energy can be
trapped conveniently so that it would provide a cheap source of power is
still a problem of the future. It is an enticing problem, and it may be
interesting to note that the eminent Indian physicist in whose memory this
lecture is being delivered had thought very early about the probable means
of utilization, and perhaps that was one of the reasons which turned his
attention from physics to biophysical problems. e role of chlorophyll
always fascinated him and he had thought of utilizing in some way the
entrapped energy other than the way the plant actually utilizes it. In his
diary he writes:
5th March, 1885. I have been long thinking whether the vast solar energy that is
wasted in the tropical regions can in any way be utilized. Of course trees conserve
the solar energy, but is there no other way of directly utilizing the radiant energy
of the sun?
Taking advantage of the heating effect, there have been attempts to
construct solar engines, which is merely a heat engine. We may also get
thermoelectric current by heating one of the junctions. But such

h l b ll f h G f
thermoelectric batteries are practically of not much use. Great amount of
energy is also lost by the wasteful conduction.
Now, I have been thinking whether we could not directly convert the energy
of light into that of electric current.
However this problem still remains largely unsolved. ough recently news
has come through of the achievement in America, where a significant
progress in the development of photovoltaic cells has been reported. In the
absence of more detailed information, I am unable to report on the actual
achievement, though we are all eager to know the full details of the
discovery.
In the tropics where the sun shines for more than 200 days in a year, the
problem of utilization of sunshine is always a fascinating one. We utilize
energy not only for industrial purposes, but also for the enhancement of
comforts and we at once remember the problems of air-conditioning and
refrigeration, which are so important here, as in all tropical countries. It has
been reported that by means of heliostat and paraboloid mirrors this
problem of utilizing solar energy for refrigeration has been successfully
tackled in Tashkent, in the Soviet Russia in 1916.
A cement paraboloid of 80 metres (which can probably be turned to follow
the daily motion of the sun) has been covered over by small mirrors of
silvered glass, which thus concentrates the sun’s heat on a boiler which is
connected with a refrigerator, which generates the cold by the ammonia
cycle.
is news is interesting to us situated in the tropics as we are; it opens out a
prospect of so regulating our installations that we can comfortably endure
our otherwise tiring summer seasons. e National Physical Laboratory of
India has developed a few types of convenient solar cookers, water boilers,
and it is hoped that further researches there will enable us to discover better
ways of utilization of solar energy.
In France itself by means of huge paraboloid mirrors, which are skilfully
made to turn by means of photoelectric control, the tremendous
concentration of solar energy has been utilized in a rather novel fashion.
Extremely high temperatures are reported to have been obtained in solar
furnaces and extreme refractories like zirconium oxide and alumina have
been reported to be conveniently melted. ey have also been utilized for

ll l dh h f l l h b
metallurgical purposes and high purity ingots of several metals have been
obtained.
Exciting news of photosynthetic biological activity of Chlorella have
electrified the biological world. By its rapidity of growth and by its
satisfying food-value, Chlorella promises to be a valuable aid in tackling the
difficult food problem, and demonstrate at the same time possibly a more
efficient use of solar energy.
I conclude my present discourse by reporting on the prospect of utilization
of atomic energy for peaceful purposes. We have heard that an electric
power station has already been installed in Soviet Russia and that in
England by 1970 there is a prospect of atomic power stations being
installed, which would supply power and electricity at competitive rates.
While much of the necessary technical developments still remain secret,
enough has been ventilated to show that this development is bound to occur
in the near future, in the first instance in the countries which possess a
convenient Uranium supply.
We have not as yet discovered any large source of high grade Uranium in
our country, and we may safely presume that for the next twenty-five years,
we would have to depend upon the old and conventional mode of
generation of electricity, that is, steam and water-turbines for our power
supply.
is does not mean that the atomic research in our country should be
discouraged or that there are no ways of peacefully using the moderate
sources of atomic energy that we may develop in India in the near future.
e recent conference at Delhi has examined the problem from all points of
view, and it is satisfactory to report that we are now understanding better
our limitations and our immediate problems.
I have endeavoured in this brief survey to indicate the present-day trends in
the search for sources of power. In India as elsewhere, people have become
conscious of the necessity of such development which will improve the lot
of the common man, give him valuable and cheap mechanical aid, so that it
will be easy for the society to give to each individual member sufficient
leisure for the development of those human qualities which make life worth
living on earth. Cheap power, abundantly developed and delivered at the
door of every human house-dweller, is the sine qua non for such a result. I
am an optimist and believe such a day is not too distant to dawn in India.
On the Five-Year Plans (Avadi, January 1955)
JAWAHARLAL NEHRU (1889–1964)

It was through this speech made at the 60th session of the Indian National
Congress that Nehru committed his party, his government and the nation
to ‘a socialistic pattern of society’ and to economic development through
five-year plans. ere was also another, if less edifying, aspect to this
declaration. It was preceded by a prolonged effort on Nehru’s part to arrive
at some sort of understanding with the Socialist Party. e effort not only
failed but also created an irreparable breach between Nehru and Jayaprakash
Narayan, the greater socialist leader, a close disciple of Gandhi and a former
comrade of Nehru’s. e formal decision to build a socialist pattern of
society made the Socialist Party irrelevant for Nehru and the Congress. e
decision, together with the one on five-year plans, also created the ideology
and the framework for India’s economic policy for the next three decades,
after which it would be abandoned and criticized for holding back India’s
economic growth.

Yesterday I had the honour to present a resolution before you, which you
passed. In it we stated that we wanted it to be clearly understood that we
aim at a socialistic pattern of society. In the present resolution which deals
with the economic policy, we have to give effect to that decision of yours,
because ultimately it is the economic policy which is going to shape that
picture of India which you call the ‘socialistic pattern’. is resolution is
therefore of the highest importance.
In a resolution of this kind, however long-drawn-out it might be, one
cannot enter into the details of policies. ere is a danger in such
l d h h k d d h
resolutions, and that is that you may use striking words and vague phrases,
and imagine that you have given a great lead to the country. at does not
help us, because we have to grapple with the problems of India. How to
deal with those problems is itself a problem. e problems of
unemployment and of raising the level of our people are not solved by broad
decisions or slogans. I say this without any disrespect to those who wield
striking words, because I myself have been a wielder of words all my life,
drafting resolutions, getting them passed and so on. But a time comes when
you have to forget words and deal with hard actualities. is applies more
especially to Congressmen because they have much more responsibility than
others in running the government and deciding the government’s policy.
For us merely to write resolutions is not good enough. What, then, must we
do? e only thing to be done is to sit down and draw up a plan, a detailed
plan. at is the function of the Planning Commission and of the
government, and of those whom they consult. Obviously, a Congress
session cannot sit down and draw up a five-year plan. But in a resolution of
this kind we have to indicate the type of thinking needed in drawing up
that plan.
is resolution contains a brief reference to the objective to be achieved.
First of all, after expressing appreciation of what has been done, the
resolution says that the time has now come for substantially increasing
production, for raising the standards of living and for having progressively
fuller employment so as to achieve full employment within a period of ten
years. e first thing to note about this resolution is that it does not merely
repeat what we have said before. It points out that the time has come for us
to advance on the economic and social plane. In a sense we have been doing
it, but we have not been doing it adequately. e time has come to put an
end to unemployment in ten years. By ten years we mean two Five-Year
Plan periods. I wish you to appreciate that we try not to word our resolution
in what might be called bombastic language. We are an old and mature
organization with a great deal of experience. It is not desirable, therefore,
that we should use words which are vague or bombastic. On the whole we
understate what we propose to do. If we really give effect to this resolution,
it means bringing about a revolution in this country, an economic revolution
bigger than any that has taken place in our times. Take the simple fact of
putting an end to unemployment within ten years. Just try to think what it
means in this country with its population growing year by year. It is a
fi b h lk f h hh b d h
terrific job, the like of which has not been done in these circumstances in
any other country.
Yesterday, we had the President of Yugoslavia here. It was a great privilege
to have had amidst us such a great revolutionary, soldier of freedom and
builder. Whatever Yugoslavia’s troubles, unemployment has never been one
of them. In fact, they are short of human beings to do their work. For us to
compare ourselves with Yugoslavia in the matter of unemployment will not,
therefore, lead us anywhere. Take the Soviet Union—a great big country,
four or five times the size of India, with a population which is only about
one-third of India’s. e problem is different for them—a vast area with a
small population. Our problem is different—a big country, heavily
populated, and underdeveloped. Similarly, we cannot compare our problems
with those of America, England, and western Europe where they have had
two hundred years of industrial growth. ese comparisons may sometimes
be helpful but they mislead. We have to understand our problem as it is in
India, no doubt learning from what has been done in America, England,
Yugoslavia, Russia, or China, but at the same time bearing in mind that the
conditions in India are special and particular. Further, we have also to
understand that our background is in many ways peculiar, particularly the
Gandhian background.
We talk about planning. As you all know, planning is essential, and without
it there would be anarchy in our economic development. About five years
ago, planning was not acceptable to many people in high places but today it
has come to be recognized as essential even by the man in the street. Our
first Five-Year Plan is now about three years old, and we are now thinking
about our second Five-Year Plan. A phrase in this resolution says that the
second Five-Year Plan must keep the national aims of a welfare state and a
socialistic economy before it. ese can only be achieved by a considerable
increase in national income, and our economic policy must, therefore, aim
at plenty and equitable distribution. e second Five-Year Plan must keep
these objectives in view and should be based on the physical needs of the
people. ese are really the important and governing words of the
resolution and ought to be the controlling factors in drawing up the second
Five-Year Plan. Before going on to other aspects of the question, may I say
that a welfare state and a socialistic pattern of economy are not synonymous
expressions. It is true that a socialistic economy must provide for a welfare
state but it does not necessarily follow that a welfare state must also be
b d l f  f h lh h h
based on a socialistic pattern of society. erefore the two, although they
overlap, are yet somewhat different, and we say that we want both. We
cannot have a welfare state in India with all the socialism or even
communism in the world unless our national income goes up greatly.
Socialism or communism might help you to divide your existing wealth, if
you like, but in India, there is no existing wealth for you to divide; there is
only poverty to divide. It is not a question of distributing the wealth of the
few rich men here and there. at is not going to make any difference in
our national income. We might adopt that course for the psychological
good that might come out of it. But from the practical point of view, there
is not much to divide in India because we are a poor country. We must
produce wealth, and then divide it equitably. How can we have a welfare
state without wealth? Wealth need not mean gold and silver but wealth in
goods and services. Our economic policy must, therefore, aim at plenty.
Until very recently economic policies have often been based on scarcity. But
the economics of scarcity has no meaning in the world of today.
Now I come to this governing clause which I just referred to, with regard to
the second Five-Year Plan, namely, that the second Five-Year Plan should
be based on the physical needs of the people. You will remember that
yesterday the President also emphasized the necessity for basing planning
on the people’s physical needs. Our first Five-Year Plan was based on the
data and the material we had at our disposal as well as on things that were
actually being done at the time. Take these big river valley schemes. All
these things were being done at the time and we had no choice but to
continue them. We had to accept what had been done. Of course, we added
one or two new schemes and rearranged the priorities. at is to say, our
Plan was largely based on the finance available and consisted in taking up
those schemes which were most useful. But it was limited planning, not
planning in the real sense of the word. e conception of planning today is
not to think of the money we have and then to divide it up in the various
schemes but to measure the physical needs, that is to say, how much of food
the people want, how much of clothes they want, how much of housing
they want, how much of education they want, how much of health services
they want, how much of work and employment they want, and so on. We
calculate all these and then decide what everyone in India should have of
these things. Once we do that, we can set about increasing production and
fulfilling these needs. It is not a simple matter because in calculating the
d f h l h l l h b l f
needs of the people, we have to calculate on the basis not only of an
increasing population but of increasing needs. I shall give you an instance.
Let us take sugar. Our people now consume much more sugar than they
used to, with the result that our calculations about sugar production went
wrong. Now, why do they eat more sugar? Evidently because they are better
off. If a man getting a hundred rupees finds his income increased to a
hundred and fifty, he will eat more sugar, buy more cloth, and so on.
erefore, in making calculations, we have to keep in mind that the extra
money that goes into circulation because of the higher salaries and wages,
affects consumption.
So we find out what in five years’ time will be the needs of our people,
including even items needed by our Defence Services. en we decide how
to produce those things in India. In order to meet a particular variety of
needs we have now to put up a factory which will produce the goods that
we need five years hence. us, planning is a much more complicated
process than merely drawing up some schemes and fixing a system of
priorities.
Behind all this is another factor—finance. Finance is important but not so
important as people think. What is really important is drawing up the
physical needs of the people and then working to produce things which will
fulfil such needs. If you are producing wealth, it does not matter very much
if you have some deficit financing because you are actually putting money
back through goods and services. erefore, it does not matter how you
manipulate your currency so long as your production is also keeping pace
with it. Of course there is the fear of inflation. We must avoid it. But there
is no such fear at present in India. On the other hand, there is deflation.
Nevertheless, we have to guard against inflation. We have to produce the
equivalent of the money pumped in. Sometimes there is a gap between
investment and production, when inflation sets in. For example, let us say
we put in a hundred crores of rupees in a river valley scheme which takes
seven or eight years to build. During the years it is being built we get
nothing out of it but expenditure. is can be balanced in cottage
industries, in which the gap in time is not large. e additional money that
you have put in, is not locked up for long. erefore in planning we have to
balance heavy industry, light industry, village industry and cottage industry.
We want heavy industry because without it we can never really be an
independent country. Light industry too has become essential for us. So has
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cottage industry. I am putting forward this argument not from the
Gandhian ideal, but because it is essential in order to balance heavy industry
and to prevent the big gap between the pumping in of money and
production.
But production is not all. A man works and produces something because he
expects others to consume what he produces. If there is no consumption, he
stops production. erefore whether it is a factory or a cottage unit,
consumption of what is produced should be taken care of. Mass production
inevitably involves mass consumption, which in turn involves many other
factors, chiefly the purchasing power of the consumer. erefore planning
must take note of the need to provide more purchasing power by way of
wages, salaries and so on. Enough money should be thrown in to provide
this purchasing power and to complete the circle of production and
consumption. You will then produce more and consume more, and as a
result your standard of living will go up.
I have ventured to take up your time in order to give you some idea of the
approach that is intended in this resolution when we say that the second
Five-Year Plan should be based on the physical needs of the people. I hope
it has helped you to understand the way we are thinking. I myself do not see
any other way of rapid progress. e financial approach to planning is not
rapid enough. I should like you to explain this to people when you go home
to your respective towns and districts. We are responsible for giving effect to
this resolution. We have to fulfil our promise.
e Hindu Code Bill (New Delhi, May 1955)
J.B. KRIPALANI (1888–1982)

Despite the promise of a uniform civil code in Article 44 of the Indian

Constitution, Nehru began his project of reforming Indian society by trying
to codify only Hindu rituals and customs. e process had already begun in
the Constituent Assembly and a select committee had been formed to draft
a new Hindu code as it was felt that its social practices needed to be
systematized. However, the recommendations of the committee could not
be made into law because of opposition to it from Hindu orthodox
elements. e debate began again in the Lok Sabha when the Hindu Code
Bill was introduced. J.B. Kripalani, the socialist leader, was critical of Nehru
for bringing only Hindu society within the ambit of reform. He did not buy
Nehru’s argument that Muslims were not ready for reform. In this speech,
Kripalani chose to raise another fundamental point—he objected to the fact
that the bill’s reforms were based on scriptures rather than on sociological
analysis. e speech is also striking for its eccentricity—Kripalani made the
point that Indian women were not oppressed by their husbands but by their
mothers-in-law and the joint family system, and the even more bizarre
point that the right of divorce should only be given to women. But for all its
irrationality the speech remains a lively one, evidence of the range of ideas
that were thrown up in Parliament in the first years of its existence. More
importantly Kripalani’s point still holds. Even today India does not have a
uniform civil code.

I know that the Bill will be passed and whatever I say will have no effect,
because, as I have listened to the discussion, I have felt that people are
d d h b h b O d d
guided in this matter more by passion than by reason. On one side it is said
that those who are in favour of the Bill are not good Hindus; on the other
side, those who support the Bill, say that those who are against it are
orthodox. Both sides quote scriptures against each other. Not only that,
those who are in favour of the Bill are supposed to be very advanced,
modern and those who are against are supposed to be reactionaries, as if the
whole of the Catholic world was reactionary and was not advanced enough.
I am sorry that the Law Minister did not throw much light upon the
question. He talked of scriptures and because scriptures are conflicting,
nothing could be deduced from them. Can anything be deduced from
psychological and sociological studies in the West? He said, no—that
cannot be done. You cannot follow America, where investigations in this
matter have been carefully carried on, because America is not India. I have
very great respect for the Law Minister; but I am sorry he styled the
sociological studies in America about divorce to be as good as Miss Mayo’s
description of India.
(Shri Pataskar: I referred to only one particular pamphlet).
I have read that pamphlet and I think it contains sociological investigation
which cannot be compared with Miss Mayo’s book. is is doing a great
injustice to scientific investigation. What I contend is that social change
through legislation in our country cannot be based on the scriptures, nor
can it be based on custom, nor on sociological studies in other countries.
On what should it then be based? I submit, Sir, that it must be based on
sociological studies carried out here, in our country. What are the existing
conditions in the country? I am afraid the Law Minister did not throw any
light upon the conditions as they exist in our villages; because the majority
of the population lives in the villages. We may not think of conditions as
they exist in the eyes of a few highly educated women.
(Shri N.C. Chatterjee [Hooghly]: e house is divided).
Whether the house is divided or not, it is a question of observation. e
question is not whether Mr Chatterjee’s house is divided or united; the
question is about sociological facts and studies. What are the facts? What
does its law provide for? It provides for equality of women. at women are
treated unequally and tyrannically by men, I submit, is not a fact, so far as
Hindu society in the higher castes is concerned. So far as the lower castes
are concerned, sometimes the husband beats the wife and sometimes the
f b h h b d B h h h I b h
wife beats the husband. But in the higher castes, I submit that our marriage
system, our social system has not worked any great hardship on women.
(Shri N.C. Chatterjee: We are the oppressed).
I do not know whether we are the oppressed or depressed. But what I know
is that compared with other countries in the world, our women have not
fared worse. is is very clear from the fact that as soon as Mahatma
Gandhi gave the call, our women came forth in large numbers and fought
for freedom. Slaves, I submit, do not fight for freedom. It is the free people
who fight for freedom. Our women had freedom at home. ey managed
the household affairs without anybody interfering with them. Women from
very orthodox families, from very reactionary families and from families of
jo-hukums who were afraid of the foreign government freely responded to
the call of the independence movement. Were these women slaves? ey
did not care for their husbands; they did not care for their fathers; they did
not care for their brothers. eir relatives were in government service and
yet they came out to take part in the freedom movement. erefore to
consider that Hindu society has always suppressed women is not correct. It
is to the credit of Hindu society that it has treated women with great
consideration.
Some people think that woman means only the wife, as if mother is not a
woman, as if sister is not a woman. I say that there is no country in the
world where there is greater respect today for the mother. ere is no
country in the world where more love is shown to the sister than in India.
To concentrate our attention only on young ladies is not really very
sociological. If you are talking of women in general, then I think we respect
women as much as people in any other country, if not more.
ere is yet another thing. In society you cannot make a law which would
do equal justice to everybody. I realize that in many cases our women have
suffered very great injustice. Where from does this injustice come? I tell you
in ninety cases out of hundred, it comes from the mother-in-law. It does
not come from the young husband. Sometimes a young husband has to
suffer because he sees his wife being ill-treated by the mother-in-law. e
mother-in-law is a terror not only to the daughter-in-law, but also to the
son-in-law. I do not know any son-in-law who is not afraid of his mother
in-law. Even when the husband proves to be tyrannical, if you investigate
into the case properly, you will find that it is the mother-in-law who has
d h S h f A
excited the young man. So, woman is the greatest enemy of woman. Again
if there is a scandal against a woman, women will advertise it more than
men. Woman’s judgment will be harsher than the man’s judgment.
(Shri N.C. Chatterjee: Long live Acharyaji!)
However the tyranny over woman is really the tyranny of the joint family.
Hindu society is based on the joint family. Some people think they have left
the joint family. I affirm that they have not yet got rid of the joint family.
e nepotism of which we have heard so much is a proof of the vitality of
the joint family. It is practised by people who do not live in the joint family;
yet the joint family sticks to them, and that joint family is not only the
paternal family but includes the sala and the sala’s cousins. If you examine
cases of nepotism, the sala and the other such in-laws have got a more
privileged position than even the paternal relations. is shows the subtle
influence of women.
Let us see if this joint family system has certain advantages which it gives to
the young bride. I believe that for all its tyranny, it gives to the young lady
certain advantages. What are these advantages? Supposing the young man
is not earning? Who supports the family? Who supports the children? It is
the joint family. Not only that. Supposing the young woman goes astray?
e mother-in-law may give her pin-pricks at home, but outside the home
the mother-in-law stands by the young lady. Why does she stand by the
young lady even if she goes wrong? Because it is the izzat of the family; the
family honour is involved. e mother-in-law would not allow anybody to
say anything against her daughter-in-law, because that would involve the
reputation of the whole family. So, the young lady is protected; she is
supported; the children are supported. And we have experience of it in our
life—I do not know why the Congress people have forgotten this. When we
went to jail who took care of our wives and children? e family took care
of them. We take pride that we sacrificed for the country. It was in fact the
family that sacrificed. Our fathers did not agree with us; our mothers did
not agree with us. Some of our relatives were government servants. ey
had no sympathy with our ideal of freedom. Yet when we went to jail, they
supported our families. In 1942 when there was an underground movement,
to whom did we go for shelter? We went to our relations. ey were
trembling; they were afraid; they did not want to protect us. But because we
belonged to the family, they came to our help. If we had not belonged to the

f l h ld h ll d l l h
family, they would never have allowed us to conceal ourselves in their
houses. Because we belonged to the family they gave us refuge.
erefore, let us not forget that here where the state does not protect the
individual it is the joint family that comes to his help. It is insurance against
unemployment. Read the figures given in the census report. How many
unemployed are there in India? How few people are employed in the
villages? But what do we find? If in any other country there was such
colossal unemployment as here, people would die of starvation. But what
happens here? People do not die of starvation, even though there is no
unemployment dole because the joint family comes to their rescue.
You have not provided for any social insurance for the people and you want
to take away the joint family system. e joint family is insurance against
sickness, against unemployment, against old age and even against the
badmashi of the young, whether male or female. Nobody is going to
repudiate a member of a joint family, even if he is anti-social. In India we
judge a man who is a member of the family by one standard; and our
standard is quite different when we judge a man outside the family. Let us
recognize facts. You may have divorce if you like. But as long as you want to
enjoy the benefits of the joint family, you must be prepared for the
curtailment of your liberties by the joint family. You cannot have the cake
and eat it too. Here we find people who want the cake and eat it too. Here
is a government which refuses to provide facilities to individual men and
women and yet wants to talk of equality. ere can be no equality in a joint
family. e joint family is a hierarchy; there is the father of the family; there
is the mother; afterwards the elder brother. When the father dies the elder
brother takes care of the children in the family. He feeds them, he sees to
their education, he thinks they are his own children. How can you do things
thoughtlessly, without taking into consideration social facts? I am no
advocate of the joint family system. I have never lived in a joint family; I
would hate to live in a joint family. But the fact is that the majority of our
people live in the joint family. I would hate to indulge in nepotism because
my brother-in-law, cousin-in-law, neighbour-in-law or villager-in-law,
wants a job. I would not do it. It is hateful. But it is there; you cannot help
it. It is created by the joint family tie.
en again, we are a democracy. Let us judge this measure from the point
of view of democracy. What is democracy? Is this measure democratic? Can

h l Wh h fd I l
we honestly say it is? What is the meaning of democracy? It contemplates
two fundamental conditions. Democracy means the will of the majority, not
only the will of the majority, but the proposed measure must be discussed by
the masses of the people.
Democracy does not mean only majority but you must have canvassed the
opinion of the masses also. ere is another condition. Democracy means
that a measure is not considered as immoral by a large section of the people.
I do not say that this measure is immoral. But the psychological effect upon
the people would be bad if they consider a measure to be immoral; it would
create a wrong mentality. Considering it from this point of view, it is my
opinion—my sisters may disagreee with me—that the majority of Hindu
women even are not in favour of divorce. at is my view—I may be
mistaken. I have gone about the country and I think that mine is the proper
assessment of the situation.
Even so, I suppose a government has a right to reform society by enacting
legislation ahead of the times, ahead of public opinion. Such a right may
not be quite democratic, but it is a moral right. is Bill consists of three
main principles. First is monogamy; then inter-caste marriage; the third is
divorce. So far as monogamy is concerned, the measure is perfectly
democratic, because public opinion is for it. It has been trained through
centuries in that direction. So far as inter-caste marriage is concerned, I
think public opinion is that today there should be no bar to inter-caste
marriages among the Hindus. Both these propositions are approved even by
those who are called reactionaries, the Hindu Mahasabhites.
(Shri N.C. Chatterjee: We are not reactionaries).
You may not be reactionaries; but I take you to be reactionaries. We call our
state a secular state. A secular state goes neither by scriptures nor by custom.
It must work on sociological and political grounds. If we are a democratic
state, I submit we must make laws not for one community alone. Today the
Hindu community is not as much prepared for divorce as the Muslim
community is for monogamy. You see what has happened in Pakistan. e
Prime Minister of that country has married again. It is not the Hindu
women or the Indian women but the Pakistani Muslim women who have
condemned this. Will our government introduce a Bill for monogamy for
the Muslim community? Will my dear Law Minister apply the part about
monogamy to every community in India?
(A H M b H bl h )
(An Hon. Member: He is blushing).
I tell you this is the democratic way; the other is the communal way. It is
not the Mahasabhites who alone are communal; it is the government also
that is communal, whatever it may say. It is passing a communal measure.
You shall be known from your acts, not from your profession. You have
deluded the world so often with words. I charge you with communalism
because you are bringing forward a law about monogamy only for the
Hindu community. You must bring it also for the Muslim community. Take
it from me that the Muslim community is prepared to have it but you are
not brave enough to do it. It is not the Hindu voice that is being raised but
it is the Muslim voice that is being raised against the Prime Minister of
Pakistan for having married a second wife. If you want to have for the
Hindu community divorce, have it; but have it for the Catholic community
also. You can call the Catholic community reactionary because it does not
believe in divorce. But it is, throughout the world, a very progressive
community; I believe that Catholicism has shown more vigour and vitality
than Protestantism. Unfortunately, we were ruled by the English people and
our ideas of progress are Protestant ideas of progress. Protestant society is
not the only progressive society in the world! One thing more and I will
have done. Is the divorce law going to benefit our women? I have read the
notes of Mrs Renuka Ray…
(Shrimati Renu Chakravartty: Not Renuka Ray).
(An Hon. Member: Renu Chakravartty)
I am sorry. I have read the notes of Mrs Renu Chakravartty and another
lady from the Upper House, with regard to the question of restitution of
conjugal rights. When it is a question of restitution of conjugal rights, when
it is a question of alimony, they tell us that our women are not advanced,
they will be cheated by men and that they will be put at a disadvantage. e
men will have the advantage because, they are more clever and resourceful
than women.
en let us not forget that in all the higher castes there is the system of
dowry; and, sometimes, this dowry goes up to Rs. 50,000 or Rs. 60,000.
e husband will bring about such conditions and he will bring about such
evidence that he can get divorce from his wife and swallow the money that
he got as dowry, and marry again and get fresh dowry. Our women are not
economically independent. Where will they go, especially if they have a
h ld Wh ll h h Al ll l l d
child or two? What will happen to them? Alimony will not last long and
will not support them for ever. Do you think that a divorced woman will get
a husband in India? It may be that some Doctor of Science or Literature or
some highly educated woman may get a second husband. But, the average
Indian woman will not get a second husband. If she is divorced she will
have to wander from pillar to post before she can get a second husband.
(Shrimati Renu Chakravartty: Is it absolutely necessary?)
Even khana here becomes jhuta if you touch it. Who is going to have a
marriage with a non-maiden? Our society is like that, not that I like it. I do
not believe in these things and I believe I have been progressive enough. My
marriage is a civil marriage and not a ‘criminal’ marriage. But, I am not
thinking of myself. If I were thinking of myself, it would be all right. We
are legislating for the country. I would want everybody to go in for civil
marriage and not go in for a ‘criminal’ marriage. But what can I do? Society
won’t move. ese so-called idiots, our countrymen won’t move; what can
one do? I do not think in terms of caste; I do not think in terms of province;
I think in terms of men and women. In our marriage the two of us agreed
and we had the civil marriage. We paid Rs. 5 as fee and everything was
done. I want marriage to be like that. But, under present conditions, I say, if
you want to pass a divorce law, give the right of divorce to woman only but
never to men. I have no objection to our women getting this right. Let
them be superior to us; they have always been superior to us. I am not
ashamed that I am mismanaged by my wife. It is a fact; why should I be
afraid of telling the truth?
(Shri A.M. omas [Ernakulam]: May I enquire whether there can be any
personal aspersion like this?)
It is a personal aspersion on myself. Let us have a divorce law. Let only
women have the right to divorce till there is economic equality, till we have
provided social security for people and have destroyed the joint family
system. Unless we do this, I am afraid, women will be the greatest sufferers.
I say this because I believe that I am a friend of women and not their
opponent. I do not want them to be suppressed.
(Pandit Balkrishna Sharma [Kanpur Distt.—South cum Etawah Distt.—
East]: A lady’s man.)
Whatever you may call me, there are in this respect better men in the
Congress than myself, and unfortunately, they are supporting this Bill.
e Kashmir issue (New Delhi, August 1952)
SHYAMAPROSAD MOOKERJEA (1901–1953)

Between 1950 and 1952, while the rest of India settled down with the new
Constitution, conditions in Jammu and Kashmir remained troubled. e
problem about the border with Pakistan remained unresolved. ere were
also the issues of Kashmir’s relationship with India and the tension between
the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley and Hindu-dominated Jammu.
Shyamaprosad Mookerjea, who had founded the Bharatiya Jana Sangh
post-independence, made his name in Parliament for his fiery speeches
against official policy on Kashmir. In this scathing attack on Nehru’s
government, he argued that Sheikh Abdullah was asking for limited
accession to the Indian Union. is kind of special treatment was
unacceptable and Shyamaprosad insinuated that for reasons best known to
Nehru himself, Abdullah was being soft-pedalled.

I agree with the Prime Minister that the matter of Kashmir is a highly
complicated one and each one of us, whatever may be his point of view,
must approach this problem from a constructive standpoint. I cannot share
the view that we are creating a new heaven and a new earth by accepting the
scheme which has been placed before the House on the motion of the
Prime Minister. e question can be divided into two parts. One relates to
the international complications arising out of Kashmir and the other relates
to the arrangements that have to be made between Kashmir and ourselves
regarding the future Constitution of Kashmir.
It has been said that I was a party when the decision was taken to refer the
Kashmir issue to the UNO. at is an obvious fact. I have no right and I do
h d l h d d h h h
not wish to disclose the extraordinary circumstances under which that
decision was taken and the great expectations which the Government of
India had on that occasion, but it is a matter of common knowledge that we
have not got fair treatment from the United Nations, which we had
expected. We did not go to the UNO with regard to the question of
accession, because accession then was an established fact. We went there for
the purpose of getting a quick decision from the UNO regarding the raids
which were then taking place by persons behind whom there was the
Pakistan Government. e raiders merely acted on behalf of somebody else.
Somehow, we should withdraw ourselves, so far as consideration of the
Kashmir case is concerned, from the UNO. We can tell them respectfully
that we have had enough of the UNO and let us now consider and try to
settle the matter through our own efforts. I am not suggesting that India
should withdraw from the UNO. e only matter regarding which the
dispute still continues is then an established fact. We went there for the
purpose of getting a quick decision from the UNO about the occupation of
the enemy. e Prime Minister said today, that, that portion is there. It is a
matter for national humiliation. We say that Kashmir is a part of India. It is
so. So, a part of India is today in the occupation of the enemy and we are
helpless. We are peace-lovers, no doubt. But peace-lovers to what extent?—
at we will even allow a portion of our territory to be occupied by the
enemy? Of course the Prime Minister said: thus far and no further. If the
raiders enter into any part of Kashmir, he held out a threat of war not in
relation to Pakistan and Kashmir, but war on a bigger scale between India
and Pakistan.
Is there any possibility of our getting back this territory? We shall not get it
through the efforts of the United Nations, we shall not get it through
peaceful methods, by negotiations with Pakistan. at means we lose it,
unless we use force and the Prime Minister is unwilling to do so. Let us face
facts—are we prepared to lose it?
It has been said that there is some provision in the Constitution, that we are
bound by the pledges which have been given. Pledges? Undoubtedly, so
many pledges we have given. We gave a pledge to Hyderabad. Did we not
say that there would be a Constituent Assembly for Hyderabad? It was
followed by another pledge that the future of Hyderabad would be decided
by the Legislative Assembly of Hyderabad. But is not Hyderabad already a
part of the Indian Union? We gave pledges also to those princes whom we
l d dff f d If lk f l d h
are liquidating in different forms today. If we talk of pledges, we have given
pledges on many other occasions. We gave pledges to the minorities in East
Bengal. at was given after the attainment of independence. e Prime
Minister said the other day that even if Kashmir had not acceded to India,
when Kashmir was attacked by the raiders, on humanitarian grounds the
Indian army could have marched to Kashmir and protected the distressed
and oppressed. I felt proud. But if I make a similar statement, or even a
similar suggestion for the purpose of saving the lives and honour of nine
million of our fellow brethren and sisters—through whose sacrifices, to
some extent at least, freedom has been achieved, I am a communalist, I am
a reactionary, I am a war-monger!
Pledges? Undoubtedly pledges have been given. I am also anxious that
pledges should be respected and honoured. What was the nature of the
pledges? We did not give any new pledge to Kashmir. Let us be clear about
it.
What was the set-up we accepted when the British withdrew from India?
ere was the Indian India divided into India and Pakistan and there was, if
I may call it, the Princely India. Everyone of those five hundred rulers got
theoretical independence and they need have acceded to India only with
relation to three subjects. So far as the rest was concerned it was purely
voluntary. at was the pattern which we accepted from the British
Government. So far as the 498 states were concerned, they came to India,
acceded to India on the 14th August 1947 in relation to three subjects only,
but still it was accession, full accession. Later on, they all came in relation to
all these subjects and were gradually absorbed in the Constitution of India
that we have passed. Supposing some sort of fulfilment of the pledge that
we are thinking of so literally in relation to Kashmir, was demanded by
these states, would we have agreed to give that? We would not have because
that would have destroyed India. But there was a different approach to the
solution of those problems. ey were made to feel that in the interest of
India, in their interest, in the interest of mutual progress, they will have to
accept this constitution that we are preparing and the constitution made
elaborate provisions for nationally absorbing them into its fabric. No
coercion, no compulsion. ey were made to feel that they could get what
they wanted from this Constitution.

M I k Sh kh Abd ll h h C H
May I ask—was not Sheikh Abdullah a party to this Constitution? He was
a member of the Constituent Assembly; but he is asking for special
treatment. Did he not agree to accept this Constitution in relation to the
rest of India, including 498 states. If it is good enough for all of them, why
should it not be good enough for him in Kashmir?
We are referred to the provision in the Constitution. e member from
Bihar… said there was going to be compulsion; that we are going to hold a
pistol at the head of Jammu and Kashmir saying that they must accept our
terms. I have said nothing of the kind. How can we say that? What is the
provision we have made in the Constitution? Article 370—read it and read
the speech of Shri Gopalaswami Ayyangar when he moved the adoption of
that extraordinary provision. What was the position then? All the other
states had come into the picture. Kashmir could not because of special
reasons. ey were: first the matter was in the hands of the Security
Council; secondly, there was war; thirdly, a portion of Kashmir territory was
in the hands of the enemy and lastly an assurance had been given to
Kashmir that the Constituent Assembly would be allowed to be formed and
the wishes of the people of Kashmir ascertained through a plebiscite. ose
were the factors that had yet to be fulfilled and that was why a permanent
decision could not be taken. It was a temporary provision.
He said categorically that he and also the Kashmir Government hoped that
Jammu and Kashmir would accede to India just as any other state has done
and accept the provisions of the Constitution. It is not a question of
compulsion on our part. e Constitution of India does not say that
whatever the Constituent Assembly of Jammu and Kashmir would ask for,
India would give. at is not the provision. e provision is—agreement,
consent.
Certain proposals have been made today. Some of us do not like them.
What are we to do? If we talk we are reactionaries, we are communalist, we
are enemies. If we keep quiet and if a catastrophe comes after a year, then:
you were a party to it, you kept quiet—therefore, you are stopped from
saying anything.
I am most anxious, as anxious as anybody else that we should have an
honourable, peaceful settlement with Kashmir. I realize the great
experiment which is being made on the soil of Kashmir. Partition did not
help anybody. I come from an area where sufferings are continuous, they are
W f l d h h ff fP h
going on. We feel every day, every hour, the tragic effects of Partition, the
tragic possibilities of approaching this national problem from a narrow,
communal and sectarian point of view. Why did we not utter a single word
against the policy of Sheikh Abdullah so long? I could have spoken. I came
out of this government two and a half years ago. On the other hand, I
supported, wherever I spoke publicly the policy of the Kashmir
Government. I said that this was a great experiment which was going on
and we have to keep quiet and see that the experiment is made a success.
We must be able to show that India is not only in theory, but also in fact, a
country where Hindus, Muslims, Christians, and everyone will be able to
live without fear and with equality of rights. at is the Constitution that
we have framed and which we propose to apply rigorously and scrupulously.
ere may be some demands to the contrary here and there. But do not
regard that, whenever an attack is made on certain matters of policy, some
narrow, sectarian, communal motive is prompting us. Rather it is the fear
that history may repeat itself. It is the fear that what you are going to do
may lead to the ‘Balkanization’ of India, may lead to the strengthening of
the hands of those who do not want to see a strong united India, may lead
to the strengthening of those who do not believe that India is a nation but is
a combination of separate nationalities. at is the danger.
Now, what is it that Sheikh Abdullah has asked for? He has asked for
certain changes to be made in the Constitution. Let us proceed coolly,
cautiously, without any heat or excitement. Let us examine each of them
and ask him and ask ourselves: if we make an allowance in respect of these
matters do we hurt India, do we strengthen Kashmir? at will be my
approach. I shall not say anything blindly because it transgresses some
provisions of this book, the Constitution of India. I would not do so. I
would have liked the Prime Minister to have sent for some of us in the
Opposition when Sheikh Abdullah was here. He faces us today with his
decisions. I do not like these public discussions because I know their
repercussions may not be desirable in some quarters. He might not have
accepted our suggestions, but I would have liked to have met him—those of
us who differ from the Prime Minister’s attitude on this question. I met
him at a private meeting and we had a full and frank discussion. But we
would have liked to have met Sheikh Abdullah and others in a friendly way
and explained our point of view to them. We want to come to an
agreement, an agreement which will make it possible for India to retain her
d K h h f Pk d b
unity and Kashmir to retain her separate existence from Pakistan and be
merged with India.
Since when did the trouble start? Let us look at it dispassionately. Since
Sheikh Abdullah’s return from Paris some time ago, statements started to
be made by him which disturbed us. Even then we did not speak out. His
first statement he made in an interview which he gave when he was abroad,
about his vision of an independent Kashmir. And then when he came he
amplified it, then again retracted from it and gave an explanation, and then
the speeches which he has made during the last few months were of a
disturbing character. If he feels that his safety lies in remaining out of India,
well, let him say so; we will be sorry for it, but it may become inevitable.
But if he feels honestly otherwise, as I have always hoped and wished, then
certainly it is for him also to explain why he wants these alterations to be
made.
Sheikh Abdullah spoke in the Constituent Assembly of Kashmir about
three or four months ago, words which have not been withdrawn, but words
which created a good deal of misgivings in the minds of all Indians
irrespective of party affiliations. I do not know whether the Prime Minister
saw this:
We are a hundred percent sovereign body. No country can put spokes in the wheel
of our progress. Neither the Indian Parliament nor any other Parliament outside
the state has any jurisdiction over our state.
It is an ominous statement. I shall make an offer to the Prime Minister and
to Sheikh Abdullah. I shall give my full, wholehearted support to the
scheme as an interim measure. e Prime Minister said today that nothing
is final. It cannot be final, because things have to be discussed in their
various details. But even then, I am prepared to give my support. Let two
conditions be fulfilled:
1. Let Sheikh Abdullah declare that he accepts the sovereignty of this
Parliament. ere cannot be two sovereign Parliaments in India. You talk of
Kashmir being a part of India, and Sheikh Abdullah talks of a sovereign
Parliament for Kashmir. It is inconsistent. It is contradictory. is
Parliament does not mean a few of us here who are opposing this. is
Parliament includes a majority of people who will not be swayed by any
small considerations. And why should he be afraid of accepting the
sovereignty of this Parliament of free India?
S dl f h h f h
2. Secondly, it is not a matter of changing the provisions of the
Constitution by the President’s order. Let us look at some of the changes
which are being sought for. We are supporters of the Maharaja! at is what
is said against us. I have never met the Maharaja. I do not know him
personally. We are not supporters of this Maharaja, or of any Maharaja as
such. But the Maharaja is there not by his own free will. e Parliament of
India, the Constitution has made him what he is, namely, the constitutional
head of Jammu and Kashmir. And what is the irony? At present Sheikh
Abdullah’s government is responsible to this Maharaja according to the
Constitution, responsible to one who is being described as a wretched
fellow who has to be turned out lock, stock and barrel. e Maharaja is
there as a constitutional head. If you feel that this should be taken out,
change your Constitution. Say that there will be no hereditary
Rajpramukhs. It is a matter worthy of consideration, let us consider it. But
see the way in which it has been put: a Hindu Maharaja is being removed.
at is one of the war cries in Pakistan. But who finished the royal powers
of Hindu Maharajas? Not Sheikh Abdullah, but the Constitution of free
India. We did it. We said that no ruler would have any extraordinary
powers, that he will be just head of the government which may be
technically responsible to him but later on responsible to an elected
legislature. But now great credit is being taken that a unique performance is
being done in Kashmir. In every speech of his he gave it: the Maharaja, the
Dogra raj is being finished. Is that a propaganda? Is that necessary? You are
flogging a dead horse. It is finished. What is the use of saying it?
What about the elected Governor? I have got here the proceedings of the
Constituent Assembly. e Prime Minister will remember that in our own
Constitution we at first made a provision for an elected Governor, and then
later on Sarder Patel and the Prime Minister and others felt that in the
democratic set-up that we contemplated an elected Governor had no place.
Read the speech. It was stated that the Governor will be there to act as the
representative of the President and if the Governor is elected by the people
or the legislature and the Chief Minister also will be elected: as such there is
every likelihood of a clash, then again, the Governor will be a party man.
And the Prime Minister pointed out all these considerations and claimed
that there was very special reason why in order to retain the unity of India
and contact between the Centre and all the states, the Governor should be
nominated by the President. You just ignore these basic points because
Sh kh Abd ll h ‘I l dh d ’ Wh ll
Sheikh Abdullah says: ‘I want an elected head now.’ Why can you not tell
him and others what you have done in the Constitution, that originally we
provided for an elected Governor but after a good deal of thought we did
away with that? Even then I say if today in your wisdom you feel that an
elected head is a necessity and it will help you, consider it. Bring it up as a
specific proposal. Let us discuss the pros and cons of it. But suddenly my
friend Mr Hiren Mukerjee says: people are clamouring for an elected head
everywhere. Are you going to have elected heads everywhere? In fact, as
things are happening we may abolish governors altogether. Governorships
are often reserved for various classes of persons—disappointed, defeated,
rejected, unwanted ministers and so forth. We need not have this class at
all. Or, if you want to have them, have them. I am not particularly
interested. But this is a change for which no justification is given.
And then the flag. e flag has a significance. It will not do for the Prime
Minister to say that it is a matter of sentiment. It was announced in the
papers three days ago that the Indian flag will fly only on two ceremonial
occasions and otherwise the state flag alone will fly there.
If you feel that the unity and integrity of India are not affected and it will
not lead to fissiparous tendencies being generated, accept it and do it for all.
But why do it as a matter of surrender to Sheikh Abdullah’s demand?
He wanted to call himself the Prime Minister. at is how he first started.
Some of us did not like it. We know one Prime Minister of India including
Kashmir, that is the Prime Minister who is sitting here. How can you have
two Prime Ministers, one Prime Minister in Delhi and another Prime
Minister in Srinagar, who will not call himself the Chief Minister, but a
Prime Minister. At first I thought it was a small matter and we should not
look at it but see how the process is developing, some sort of special
treatment at every step and he must be treated in a very different way. Look
at the citizenship rights and fundamental rights. What is it that we are
doing? Has the House considered it? Has the House discussed the pros and
cons of the recommendations which have been made? You are changing
without giving much thought to the provisions of the Constitution
regarding citizenship. It was said that rich people are rushing to Kashmir
and purchasing property. As the Prime Minister mentioned in his statement
in Article 19 (5) there is a provision. We discussed this Article threadbare
when we framed the Constitution. ere were attempts made by various

d h d h l
provinces and they wanted to have some special protection against
unauthorized purchases of land on a large scale. What is it that we have
said? We have said that any state legislature may pass a law, imposing
reasonable restrictions regarding acquisition of property or movement from
one part to another in the public interest or in the interest of Scheduled
Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
If Sheikh Abdullah feels that in Kashmir some special restriction should be
done, the clause is there. I would like to ask the Prime Minister
categorically about this. He has not mentioned it. He has skipped over it. Is
it intended that the restrictions which the Kashmir Assembly will impose
will be in accordance with this exception or is it proposed to give it
something more? ere are four classes of citizens. I have got the details,
but I have not the time to go through them. But those were done in the
time of the much cursed Maharaja. Are they to be maintained or are they
going to abolish the four different categories of citizenship? I am reminded
of a story which was written by Lord Curzon in a book. A distinguished
nobleman from England went to the court of the Shah of Persia 50 or 60
years ago accompanied by his wife. Both of them were presented and the
Shah was a bit inattentive and the secretary asked: ‘What should be the
honour done to the lady?’ ere were three different categories of Order of
Chastity and the award was made Order of Chastity—class three. at is
how the order came out and then it was realized that something had been
done which was of a staggering character, and of course amends were made
after the damage was done. Four classes of citizenship in Jammu and
Kashmir—what for? ey should be abolished. ere should be only one
class of citizenship. Would Indians take all your property? It was not
suggested that Indians should go and purchase property as they liked.
Supposing some Indian comes and purchases some property, you may have
legislative measures. We have accepted it. What is the fear? We have a
Kashmiri Prime Minister of India. We have a Kashmiri Home Minister of
India. We are happy in India. We do not mind it. We welcome them. What
is the fear? Is it feared that Indians will go and invade Kashmir and one of
them will become the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir?
I have never visited this beautiful part. I would like to go and stay there for
some time. I have not got the money to purchase a house. In any case, I
would like to go there. is is what you have in regard to fundamental
rights. You are having new changes there which are very difficult to justify.
 P M d h h h l h d
e Prime Minister mentioned two or three things—scholarships and
services, etc. What is this ‘etc.’? And why services? In services, do you want
to make a difference between one citizen and another? Even there, as you
know, in our Constitution, Parliament and Parliament alone has the right to
make special provision regarding entrance to services for those who have to
be protected. Now there are similar demands made in the South. I have
been going through their demands during the last few weeks. ey also feel
perturbed by the strict operation of some of these provisions. When you
throw open the doors to them, they also will want similar protection.
ere is another thing to which the Prime Minister has not referred. I was
really amazed to find how a special provision could be made. As you know,
two lakhs of people have gone away to Pakistan. ere is a provision that a
special law will be incorporated to get these people back to Kashmir. War is
still going on. On the one hand fundamental rights regarding civil liberty
are proposed to be made more strict, and on the other, you are going to
throw open the door and allow Pakistanis to go to Kashmir; for this there is
to be a special law and there is a special agreement. Why this anxiety on the
part of Sheikh Abdullah to make a special provision for getting back those
who ran away to Pakistan and who are not prepared to come back. Is there
any point in it? How will it affect security? ose who have been killed
cannot go back. ose who are alive can come back tomorrow if they
honestly believe in India and if they really want to live in Jammu. ey must
be tested. Let them come back. No special provision is needed for it. So far
as Jammu is concerned, as you know, it was in a most tragic state. It was
done away by both sides. ere were Muslims who were bitter and there
were Hindus who were bitter. at was a dark period when many parts of
India were like that, but today, what is the position? You have allowed how
many thousands, I forgot the number. ey have come away from Jammu
and Kashmir and are a burden on India. Why should not there be a special
provision here in the agreement that promptly they will be taken back to
Jammu and Kashmir? ere are several thousand of them who have come.
Why are they not going back? I do not know how many Pandits have come
away from Kashmir. ey also must go back to Kashmir. So far as the other
portion is concerned, that also is a serious matter. In the one-third portion
of Jammu and Kashmir which is now under Pakistani occupation, nearly
one lakh of Hindus and Sikhs have come and taken shelter, within the
Kashmir territory. What will happen to them? ey will have to be taken
f Y h k f h h h b Pk f h
care of. You are thinking of those who have become Pakistanis for the time
being. You will reconvert them and reconfer on them the status of Kashmiri
citizens but those unfortunate beings who today have taken shelter, how
will they be given accommodation? Is there land enough for them? ese
are matters which have not received any attention.
As regards the emergency provision, it is an amazing stand. If there is an
emergency on account of internal disturbance, the President of India will
not have the last say. Why this fear of the President of India? Can you
contemplate a more gratuitous insult to the President of India? Here the
Kashmir Government must conform to the Constitution. Why should they
request if there is an internal disturbance which is the creation of their own
misdeeds?
Why should they request you if, for instance, they are in league with others
from the upper side, China or Russia, through our other friends? Why
should they come and request you for your interference? I would expect the
Prime Minister to tell whether the other emergency provisions here apply
or not. As you know, there are two other very important emergency
provisions in the Constitution. Article 354 relates to application of
provisions relating to distribution of revenues while a proclamation of
Emergency is in operation and the other Article is 356 relating to
provisions in case of failure of Constitutional machinery in the State. Has
Sheikh Abdullah accepted the application of Article 356 or has he accepted
the more important provision contained in Article 360—provisions as to
financial emergency? Has he accepted that provision? e Prime Minister
does not make any reference to it. e Supreme Court’s jurisdiction also has
not yet been accepted.
I shall conclude, by making this constructive suggestion. ese comments
which I made, naturally I had to make without commenting in detail on the
reactions of Sheikh Abdullah. He wrote to me and said that he would have
liked to meet me when he was in Delhi last time. I was not here on that day.
So I could not meet him. I sent him a friendly reply. Perhaps I would meet
him some time. It is not a question of his meeting me or I meeting him. I
submit that we must proceed according to certain standards. First of all
there is no question of the President by virtue of his power to make orders
altering the provisions of the Constitution in material respects. If the Prime
Minister feels that a case has been made out for re-examination of certain

f l d f f l h l d h ld b
important provisions, for instance, land, if you feel that land should be
taken without payment or compensation, provide for it in the Constitution.
You consider all these items and make your provisions so elastic that you
can apply them either to the whole of India or you can apply them to only
such parts where the Parliament of India will feel that such special
treatment is necessary. Proceed in accordance with a constitutional manner,
not just play with the Constitution. It is a sacred document, and it is a
document on which much labour and much thought were bestowed. If you
feel some changes are necessary in order to take into consideration the new
set up that is slowly developing in India, whether in Kashmir or other parts
of India, by all means let the people of the country have a chance to express
their opinion.
Lastly, a charge was levelled that some of us have advocated separate
consideration of Jammu and Ladakh. I would assure you and the House
that I do not want that Jammu and Kashmir should be partitioned. I know
the horrors of Partition. I know the results which may ensure if Partition
comes. But the responsibility for preventing Partition will rest on those who
are today the masters of Jammu and Kashmir and are not prepared to adopt
the Constitution of India. What is the crime if today the people of Jammu
claim that they should be treated separately, in the sense that they should be
allowed to join fully with India—mark it, it is not a question of running
away from India—if they say that they would like to accept in toto the
Constitution of Free India, is there any crime that they then commit? I am
not suggesting that you partition Jammu and Kashmir. I am not suggesting
that you send Kashmir or Kashmir Valley out of India. And it is not for me
or for us sitting in this House to decide this matter. As the Prime Minister
pointed out very rightly, it is the people of that territory who will have to
decide. Now suppose the people of Jammu and Ladakh feel that either it
should be full accession in relation to the whole of Jammu and Kashmir, or
if that is not acceptable to Sheikh Abdullah, then, at least these two
provinces, the two separate entities could be justified historically or
otherwise, that they should be allowed to join with India. Let Kashmir
continue in any way that it likes, even with more autonomy, with less
possibility of interference by India; that is a possibility which we cannot rule
out. I hope that this question will be considered in its fullest possible
implications.

M f d f K h M l M d f h I h
My friend from Kashmir, Maulana Masudi, for whom I have very great
regard—I tried to follow his speech this morning referred to Jammu, the
last question which I would answer. Well, if this demand is made by
Jammu, he said Jammu is a province which in 1941 had a Muslim majority.
He said that, but did not complete the story. Undoubtedly it was a Muslim
majority Province in 1941, but it became a Muslim majority including those
districts which have now fallen into the Pakistani occupied areas.
I am not going to surrender them. I am very glad he has put the question.
e Prime Minister says that area will not be reoccupied, but it is a different
question. You are not going to re-occupy it, and it is not possible. In any
case those people have worked against Jammu and Kashmir, they have
become, as has been repeatedly said, more friendly to Pakistan than to
India.
If you take the 1951 census figures—the figures have not been published,
but it is on the basis of the territory that is under our occupation—75
percent of the population of Jammu will be Hindus. But I am not
proceeding on the basis of Hindus and Muslims. Let me make it clear. I am
proceeding on the basis of the will of the people to come to India either in
whole or in part.
If these two Provinces, Ladakh and Jammu, say that they will come to India
with all these subjects, make it possible for them to do so.
e same right which you are claiming for Kashmir may also be demanded
by the people of Jammu and Ladakh. Let us proceed in a friendly spirit.
Sheikh Abdullah himself said about a month ago that he will have no
objection if the people of Jammu and Ladakh really felt that they would go
to India. I am not saying that you have it done immediately or you proceed
in that way, but let it be possible for the people residing in those areas to
make up their minds which way it will be good to proceed, and it will also
be consistent with the same principles of self-determination which
constitute the basic claims of Sheikh Abdullah, supported by the Prime
Minister.
Tibet (New Delhi, August 1959)
ATAL BIHARI VAJPAYEE (1924–)

In 1959, the Dalai Lama fled from Tibet into India. He was given a very
popular welcome by sections of the Indian people much to the resentment
of the Chinese government. ere had always been support for Tibetan
independence in India led by Jayaprakash Narayan and the Jan Sangh.
Vajpayee, then only thirty-five, was winning his spurs in the Lok Sabha as a
Jan Sangh MP and he spoke with passion on Tibet. is is a rare, early
(translated) speech made by Vajpayee who was emerging as an
extraordinarily dramatic orator. He usually spoke in Hindi and sadly much
of his speeches lose their power in translation.

Sir, I beg to move:

‘is House is of opinion that government should refer the Tibetan issue to
the United Nations.’
Sir, the General Assembly of the United Nations is going to meet from 15
September 1959. e Government of India has decided to raise the
question of China’s admission into the United Nations. By this resolution, I
want this House to recommend to the government that the Tibetan issue
should also be raised in the United Nations.
India has been a strong champion of the United Nations, and that is the
only ray of hope in the world threatened with nuclear wars. We have all
along maintained that international conflicts should be settled by sitting
round the table, the use of force should not be resorted to and that all
disputes should be settled by negotiation. We have adopted an independent
l h l h f h b
policy in the international sphere away from the warring groups because we
think that it is the only correct policy not only in the best interests of our
nation but also in the interests of world peace. By this policy, India has
achieved a certain stature. We command respect. e peoples of the world
look to our Prime Minister when they are in distress not because we have
armaments, but because we try to adopt a policy based on moral
considerations in the international sphere. is moral force which India has
come to possess, demands that whenever there is any aggression we should
support the just cause; and in the past, when the independence of any
nation was threatened, India did not keep quiet. We also supported the
right and the just cause without being afraid of any power.
You are aware that the question of Tibet was raised in the United Nations
in 1950 when the armies of China marched into that country. On 25
October 1950 the Chinese army entered Tibet and on 7 November 1950
the leaders of Tibet sent a complaint to the United Nations against the
Chinese aggression. On 18 November 1950 the representative of El
Salvador moved the United Nations formally and asked the General
Assembly to create a special committee to study what measures should be
adopted by the United Nations General Assembly to assist Tibet against
the unprovoked Chinese aggression. But when the Steering Committee of
the United Nations met, the Indian representatives asked the committee to
drop the whole matter and gave the assurance that the Chinese forces that
were advancing had stopped and that the committee need not go into this
matter.
e Government of India wanted that China and Tibet should settle the
issue by peaceful negotiations and our Prime Minister advised the Dalai
Lama to come to an agreement with Communist China, in view of the
assurances given by the Prime Minister of China, who visited India during
those days. As a result of our assurances, the Dalai Lama came to an
agreement, the seventeen-point agreement, with China.
I need not go into history now. What has happened in Tibet is clear. It is
clear that the Sino-Tibetan agreement of 1951 has been violated. e Dalai
Lama has been forced to leave his country and to seek refuge in India. With
him, thousands of Tibetans have come to our country. Even then, the
Government of India wanted the situation to calm down in the hope that

d ll l d f l f h Tb bl ll
wisdom will prevail and a satisfactory solution of the Tibetan problem will
be found out.
What is happening in Tibet is very painful to all the lovers of freedom and
to all those who believe in human dignity. ey are aghast at the fate of the
Tibetans. Now, it is not a question of Tibetan independence or autonomy.
But the question is whether Tibet will remain as an entity, whether Tibet’s
distinct personality will survive or the Tibetan people will be annihilated.
We are aware, and the Dalai Lama has confirmed, that a large number of
Chinese are being settled in Tibet. Five million have already been settled
and four million are in the process of being settled. Besides this, there are a
large number of army officials.
e whole aim of China is to reduce the Tibetans to a minority in their
own country and thus to destroy the Tibetan personality. It is a new
phenomenon; it is a new type of imperialism. Except in South Africa, the
Western countries, I mean the imperialists, subjugated other races, but they
never tried to outnumber them in their own country so as to wipe them out
completely from the map of the world. France has subjugated Algeria, but
the Government of France respects the distinct personality of Algeria. But
it appears that the people of Tibet will have to go the way of Inner
Mongolia. Outer Mongolia, though not truly independent, has something
of its own, but Inner Mongolia has been annexed and it has ceased to exist
as a separate entity. at is happening in Tibet. e Human Rights
Charter, to which Communist China is party—because the charter of
human rights was approved at the Bandung Conference of Afro-Asians
attended by China—these human rights are being violated in Tibet.
According to the International Commission of Jurists, the people of Tibet
had been denied, and are still being denied, the right to liberty, life and
security. Forced labour has been inflicted on the Tibetans; tortuous, cruel
and degrading treatment is being inflicted on them; rights of homes and
privacy have been violated; freedom of movement within the state and the
right to leave and to return to Tibet have been denied; marriages have been
forced upon unwilling parties; property rights have been arbitrarily violated
and freedom of religion and worship have been systematically denied. If
human rights are to be violated in this manner, and by a nation which is
seeking admission to the United Nations, the world, and especially our
country, cannot and should not remain a silent spectator.

I dd h l fh h h I lC
In addition to the violation of human rights, the International Commission
of Jurists has come to the conclusion, and they have evidence to show,
prima facie case of a systematic intention to destroy in whole or in part
Tibet as a separate nation and to put an end to Tibetan interest. A prima
facie case of genocide according to the convention of 1948 has also been
made out by the commission. I need not go into these charges. Unless a
commission of independent countries can go into Tibet and find out for
themselves what is happening, nothing can be said. In addition to this, the
Dalai Lama has stated that during this upsurge sixty-five thousand people
have perished and the people of Tibet have been denied freedom to frame
their future according to their own ideas and conceptions.
Now the question is raised that since China is not a member of the United
Nations, no useful purpose will be served by referring this question to that
august body. May I submit that India joined the nations who branded
North Korea as an aggressor though North Korea was not a member of the
United Nations. We did not say at that time that since North Korea is not
in the United Nations we are not going to join in condemning North Korea
as an aggressor. We want that China should be admitted to the United
Nations because we have faith in the United Nations and we think that
whatever the form of government the people of China may have, since the
Government of China is the actual government and is actually in possession
of the administration of that country, China should be admitted to the
United Nations. But everything does not depend on us. China is not there.
But it does not mean that we should not refer the Tibetan issue to the
United Nations.
Another point made out is that if the Tibetan issue is referred to the United
Nations it might intensify the cold war. When the Anglo-French invasion
of Egypt took place the whole world joined in denouncing that aggression
and no country including ours, raised the apprehension or the fear that no,
the Anglo-French aggression should not be denounced because it will
become a part of the cold war. e Tibetan issue has nothing to do with the
cold war. It is a question of the fight of man. It is a question whether
smaller nations can rest in this world or not, or will they have to lose their
entity, will they have to be wiped out. India has a moral duty to the people
of Tibet. We have a moral responsibility. Apart from the considerations of
India’s security, with our age-old relations with Tibet, how can India remain

l h b f h l f h l f
silent when before our own eyes a nation, the personality of the people of
Tibet, is being destroyed?
Suppose, India does not refer the question to the United Nations; some
other country may raise it. I would like to know what will be our policy in
that case. We cannot prevent other nations from raising that issue. What
shall be the policy of our government? All our attempts for a peaceful
solution of the Tibetan tangle have failed. In spite of the best wishes of our
Prime Minister, the Chinese communist leaders are not prepared to heed to
the voices of wisdom, reason and justice. On the contrary, they are branding
India as imperialist and also the Indian people. India relinquished its
extraterritorial rights that accrued to us from the British. e other day, our
Prime Minister objected to the boundary line between India and China
being called as the MacMahon line: actually objected; he said, he disliked, I
think because the very name MacMahon smacks of British imperialism. As
Shakespeare has remarked, there is nothing in a name. But, it showed how
deep our feelings are against imperialism. But then, the Chinese
communists are branding us as imperialists.
Propaganda against India, against the people of India, has been let loose by
China. According to a journalist, he has estimated that in seven days from
20 to 30 April, China, through its official newspapers, news agencies and
radio, has published, distributed and broadcast seventy-seven articles,
commentaries and editorials, totalling more than forty thousand words,
condemning India in the most unrestrained language imaginable. Indians in
Tibet are being· harassed. Police are still posted in front of our mission in
Lhasa. Indian currency has been declared illegal. Cartographic aggression
including thirty thousand square miles of territory of India is still there.
Our protest notes are not even replied to. Do we think that in the present
circumstances China can be induced to accept the just demands of the
Tibetan people? e Dalai Lama has clearly stated that he and his fellows
are not against social or economic reforms in Tibet. But now that stage has
passed and I do not think there is any other course left for India but to
mobilize world opinion against the Chinese aggression of Tibet. Even
though China is not a member of the United Nations, if the Government of
India takes that issue to the United Nations and we are in a position to
mobilize world opinion in favour of the Tibetan people, I am sure
something good will come out of it. As a nation that has faith in the United
Nations, that is the only course left open for us.
Wh h G fI d h d d d h f Ch ’
When the Government of India has decided to raise the issue of China’s
recognition and admission into the United Nations, in spite of all that is
being done and said against India by the Chinese communists, I think it is
but proper that the Tibetan issue should also be raised by our government
in the forthcoming meeting of the General Assembly of the United
Nations. e government will have the benefit of knowing the wishes of the
House in this matter, and I am sure my resolution will get wide support,
and the government will accept it and will discharge the moral duty to the
people of Tibet as a free nation.
With these words, I move the resolution.
A myth (New Delhi, August 1968)
J.R.D. TATA (1904–1993)

is speech made to the Planning Commission stands in sharp contrast to

Nehru’s advocacy of a planned economy and a socialistic pattern of society.
J.R.D. Tata was the head of India’s largest private sector industrial unit,
Tata Sons. He was also personally close to Jawaharlal Nehru, yet his views
on the Indian economy were never reckoned with. His entrepreneurship,
too, flourished in spite of various government controls. He once remarked
sadly to a friend, ‘my life has been a struggle—never once has any Prime
Minister asked me what I thought of the economic policy of the country. In
no other country would this have happened.’ J.R.D. spoke his mind in this
speech. Other industrialists possibly shared his views but were never so
forthright in expressing their opinions.

e alleged ‘danger of concentration of economic power’ is a phrase that

occurs with deadly frequency in the Approach Paper (to the Fourth Five-
Year Plan) and in almost any economic discussion with any Left Wing
planner or government official. We, Indians, prone as ever to swallowing
and repeating readymade catch phrases and slogans without understanding
or analysing their meaning, have happily taken to this non-existent bogey
deliberately planted in gullible minds by our leftist propagandists.
It would seem that the greatest danger to this country today does not come
from our multiplying population, from the threats across our borders, from
communal bigotry and strife, from the continued poverty of our people,
but, believe it or not, from the concentration of economic power in the

h d f f d d l fi d l h
hands of a few individuals or firms, conducting large operations—that is,
large by Indian standards but small by world standards.
As the head of the largest industrial group in the private sector, I must be
possessed of a tremendous concentration of economic power. As I wake up
every morning, I carefully consider to what purpose I shall apply my great
powers that day. Shall I crush competitors, exploit consumers, fire
recalcitrant workers, topple a government or two? I wish Dr Gadgil or some
other eminent protagonist of this theory would enlighten me as to the
nature of this great power concentrated in my hands. I have myself totally
failed to identify, let alone exercise it.
Surely economic power in private hands, if it means anything at all, must be
the power to make economic decisions, such as to start a new industry
where and when one pleases, to raise capital and borrow money, to employ
labour, to appoint managers and fix their remuneration, to fix prices for the
goods and services one sells, to travel abroad for business or pleasure, to
enter into contracts for managerial or other services, and so forth. Isn’t it
odd that these are the very economic powers, the exercise of which are
almost totally denied to businessmen in our country?
Let us face it, gentlemen. e bogey of concentration of economic power in
private hands is a myth deliberately propagated by those who are bitterly
opposed to any form of large-scale private enterprise.
In fact, the only fearsome concentration of economic power that exists
today, lies in the hands of our ministers, planners and government officials.
It is that concentration of economic power which is the real threat to our
democracy. It is the economic power wielded by those gentlemen, and not
by industrialists, which causes the agonizing delays, the misconceived
policies and the mismanagement from which our economy has suffered for
so long.
Strangely enough, if a large business house like Tatas does not embark for a
while upon any new major industrial venture, it is accused of inactivity and
lack of dynamism. If it seeks to diversify into a promising medium-sized
venture, it is accused of attempting to crush, or block the growth of, small
entrepreneurs. If it wishes to embark on a major capital intensive project, it
is accused of monopolizing capital resources and adding to its concentration
of economic power!

 A hP k d l fi fi d
e Approach Paper seeks to deny large firms institution finance in order to
avoid the concentration of economic power, ignoring the fact that it is the
large companies with their large human and physical resources which are
best able to execute large projects. What is ‘large’? is obsessional and
almost psychopathic fear, pretended or otherwise, of the concentration of
economic power has become a major factor in the economic policies of the
government. It is because of this obsession that the Managing Agency
System is sought to be totally abolished irrespective of the managerial
upheaval it will cause.
It is time, I submit, that this question and the allied one of monopolies be
taken away from the political arena and entrusted to a commission or other
permanent quasi-judicial body, which would investigate and decide on each
case on a pragmatic basis. Let the proposed Monopolies and Restrictive
Trade Practices Commission be entrusted with the task, amongst others, of
dealing with all charges of concentration or misuse of economic power.
Otherwise this vague charge will continue to poison and paralyse every
important economic issue affecting the private sector that comes before the
government.
e presidential system (Bombay, February 1968)
J.R.D. TATA (1904–1993)

is speech was delivered at the annual general meeting of the Indian
Merchants’ Chamber. What is significant is that it took India’s leading
industrialists to voice the first doubts about the merits of imposing the
Westminster parliamentary model on India. e reasons J.R.D. Tata gave
for why the presidential system was more appropriate for India are relevant
even today, four decades on.

While I have always advocated, and still do, that businessmen should not
mix business with politics, this does not mean that in their capacity of
educated and responsible citizens, they should not take interest in political
matters and form rational views on them. In fact, in our tightly planned,
regulated and controlled economy, no intelligent analysis of economic issues
is possible without taking into account the dominating influences of
politics.
In the last fifteen years and more, our Five-Year Plans have been formulated
by the government and passed by Parliament, our economic activity
controlled by a spate of legislation and executive decisions. All economic
power has been centered in ministers and members of central and state
legislatures and in the bureaucracy. Today also, more than ever before, every
problem is considered and every decision made on the basis of political
consideration.
Unless the political system in force functions effectively, unless there is
political stability and the rule of law prevails, all efforts to improve the

l b f d O h b f h d
economic climate must be frustrated. On the basis of this criterion and in
the light of the recent outrageous events in Bengal and our other legislative
assemblies, the proliferation of parties and groups within parties, the
scramble for power or for the retention of power, the disintegration of law
and order in many parts of the country, the increasing weakness of the
Central Government, is there not justification for the view I hold that the
political system of government we have adopted is in the process of failing?
On that assumption, the thesis I put before you today is that the British
parliamentary system of government, which we have enshrined in our
Constitution is unsuited to the conditions in our country, to the
temperament of our people and to our historical background. Take a look at
the broad geographical sweep south of Europe, from the Atlantic in the
West to the Pacific in the East, from Morocco up to Japan and you will find
no country except India, Ceylon and Malaysia where this system
successfully prevails. It is worth noting also that only in countries of
considerably greater political maturity and with a much smaller population
than ours, has the system worked, or is still working, usually in a modified
form.
It may be argued that other countries like France, for instance, have in the
past been politically unstable for decades and yet survived and progressed,
that the present political instability in our country is a passing phase—the
growing pains of an infant democracy—that India will survive intact as it
has survived thousands of years of even more severe political instability. I
fear this is dangerous wishful thinking, which ignores the tremendous
changes—political, economic and technological—that are taking place here
and in the rest of the world, quite apart from the tremendous impact of our
population explosion.
I venture to suggest that India is one of the twentieth century’s major
political anachronisms. e parliamentary system, which was evolved over a
thousand years of trial and error for the government of a small, occidental
island, and is predicted on the existence and smooth working of a
sophisticated two-party system through a single Parliament is sought to be
adapted to administering an Asian subcontinent through the machinery of
what is developing into a multi-multi-party system clashing in Parliament
and in a number of state legislatures.

 B h h b k db f d f l
e British system has been worked by generations of trained professional
and highly skilled politicians and administrators. In contrast, most of India’s
politicians are untrained and inexpert in the complex management of a
modern society, while the main responsibility for administering the country
is borne by an overworked cadre of senior civil servants whose number is
grossly inadequate to cater effectively to the needs of over half a billion
people.
In addition, the machine has been burdened with the most ambitious
economic planning and development programme ever attempted outside
Soviet Russia and with immensely difficult problems of defence, external
affairs and finance. Up to the early 1960s, the strain on the machine was
hidden by the dominating personality of a great leader, while a benevolent
one-party autocracy maintained a facade of political stability and democracy
in action. With Nehru gone, the facade has begun to crack and the machine
is showing increasing signs of breaking down.
e process is being accelerated by the disillusionment of the Indian people,
who after twenty years of planning and controls and the expenditure of
enormous amounts of money, find themselves little better off than when
they started on their great adventure. e search for new leadership and
new political ideas is further fragmenting a multiplicity of parties, most of
which seem to be so bankrupt in ideas that they continue to use slogans and
clichés of nineteenth century socialism. Frustration and loss of faith are
rapidly eroding our nationhood and encouraging a tendency for India to
withdraw again into mutually antagonistic regional divisions.
To come back to our thesis that the parliamentary form of government we
have adopted is in the process of failing, the next question is whether this is
due to inherent defects in the system itself or to the failings of the
politicians charged with operating it? I think it is due to both.
If the majority of the professional politicians of India, elected to the central
and state legislatures, were as mature, as civic minded, as well-informed and
as responsible as their counterparts in more politically advanced countries,
we would at least have a measure of political stability, a better informed and
intellectually higher level of debate and a greater respect for law and order.
We would still suffer, however, from what I suggest is the major failure of
the system under our conditions, namely, the constitutional requirement
that cabinets at the Centre and in the states can be formed only from
M b fP l d h l l d d d l
Members of Parliament and the respective legislatures and are made directly
responsible to them in their day to day conduct of the country’s or the
states’ affairs.
e problems to be tackled by the Executive and the Legislative branches of
the government are nowhere in the world as numerous, varied and complex
as in India. e great majority of them are certainly not political problems.
Is it not obvious, therefore, that they should be tackled mainly by experts,
technicians, scientists, economists, industrial managers and other
professionally trained men and women? Can we blame our politicians,
untrained and uninformed in any of the specialized disciplines involved in
the management of a vast country such as ours, if they fail to understand, let
alone to solve, the problems they face and to adapt themselves to the rapidly
changing conditions of today? If, except for a few outstandingly able and
dedicated men and women to whom we must extend our profound respect
and gratitude, they have in this new game of parliamentary politics been
mainly concerned with maintaining their own political position and status?
Can we blame them for succumbing to the lust for power and for the many
privileges attached to political power?
Between now and the next General Elections in 1972, so overwhelming
may be the disillusion of our voters that they may turn their faces totally
away from the procedures and practices of parliamentary democracy. Even
if this does not happen, is it not likely that the trend which emerged in the
last elections (1967) may be even more pronounced in 1972? If so, we may
be faced, both at the Centre and in most of the states, with a dangerously
fluid situation in which a host of parties will constantly manoeuvre for
power in a series of ever changing coalitions, defections and floor-crossings,
where the authority of the government and Parliament will be so debased
that the nation may sink into anarchy, be captured and ruled by a
dictatorship, or cease to exist as a united India.
Can we afford such a risk and what will be the fate of our hundreds of
millions of hungry, and by then angry people, if we do and the gamble fails?
What then is the alternative? Might it not be a Presidential System of
Federal Government in which a Chief Executive at the Centre and elected
Executive Governors in the states are elected for a term of years, during
which they are irremovable and free to govern through cabinets of experts

d b h d h b d l d f l
appointed by them and who may, but need not, include professional
politicians?
ere can be many variations of such a system, many ways of electing a
President and governors, but its main characteristics, however, are stability
on the one hand and expert management of affairs on the other. e
executives of such a government will not, as in the British system, be
directly responsible to Parliament in their day to day management of a
country’s affairs and constantly vulnerable to political skulduggery, but
would be subject to constant and vigilant scrutiny by Parliament, which, of
course, must remain the only body entrusted with law making.
I am well aware that this alternative was considered by the Constituent
Assembly before our Constitution was enacted and that the British system
was preferred to it, but since then, we have had a full twenty years of
experience in its working and the conditions visualized in 1947 are certainly
not those which we find in existence today. We have, in these twenty years,
already amended the Constitution almost as many times, and four of the
amendments have been major ones. Need we be afraid of a further
amendment intended to provide the country with a more stable and more
expert government than we have today?
What, in practice, should we do? I suggest that the first step should be the
appointment by Parliament of a high powered commission to undertake a
comprehensive study of the problem and to recommend such revision of our
Constitution as would ensure the attainment of the desired objective. e
commission should consist of outstanding experts in the fields of politics,
law, education, science and other professions.
is will, I know, require an act of great courage but on it will depend the
future of one-seventh of the human race as well as of the whole experiment
of welding our people together permanently into a single united nation.
Meanwhile, we cannot even afford to wait till courage comes. We have to
find the intermediate ways and means of restoring a degree of stability to
our politics and more than a degree of safety to our citizens. Whatever be
the politics of the parties or coalitions of parties in individual states,
communication links must be kept going and at least selected strategic
industries must be kept free from intimidation and sabotage.
Although such action obviously lies in the realm of the government, we
businessmen, particularly those of us whose activities spread beyond a single
d hb l db d d h l b k
state, can do much by our example and by word and action to help to break
through the parochial barriers of creed and language, which we see being
put up throughout the country.
In addition to the many tasks and duties of a purely economic trading and
managerial nature to which we must dedicate ourselves in the coming years,
let us also play our part in maintaining the integrity of our country and the
survival of our democratic way of life.
Importance of NGOs (New Delhi, April/May 1969)
JAYAPRAKASH NARAYAN (1902–1979)

Jayaprakash Narayan was a close disciple of Gandhi and an ardent socialist.

In the sixties, he moved away from active politics and immersed himself in
social work. He devoted himself to reviving Gandhi’s ideas about sarvodaya
and to building a society that would be free of inequalities and exploitation;
a society, as J.P.—as he was popularly known—says in this speech, ‘in which
people would largely look after themselves.’ In J.P.’s view, these were the
objectives of independence as Gandhi saw them. In this speech J.P. draws
attention to social work carried out by agencies that are independent of the
government. J.P. was arguing for the expansion of voluntary activity outside
the ambit of the state. e vision and the relevance of this speech is more
marked today when the role of non-governmental organizations in
development and welfare is being increasingly recognized in India.

Gandhiji was an incarnation of voluntarism. His whole political, social and

moral philosophy was based on the individual performing his duty in the
best manner possible individually and also combining with other individuals
towards solving the problems of the community, of society and the nation.
roughout his life, he established voluntary organizations and conducted
them with the greatest possible interest in every detail of their activities.
He had a very clear picture in his mind as to what he wanted. He wanted to
create a new India. He wanted to change the system and the existing social
order in India so as to bring about a social revolution. e word ‘revolution’
in this context only means that society has to change from its roots and its
foundations, not merely outwardly but in a fundamental way. He wanted to
h hh ll d ‘S d S ’ F
construct a new society, which he called ‘Sarvodaya Society’. From time to
time during his own life, Gandhiji had himself elaborated on this word,
Sarvodaya. is was a society fundamentally different from the one we
have, even after twenty-two years of independence. is was a society in
which there would be equality—economic, social and political, a society in
which there would be no exploitation; a society in which people would
manage their own affairs; a society in which people would largely look after
themselves. It would be a self-regulated society. ese were the objectives of
independence as Gandhiji saw them. He said in Calcutta on 15 August
1947 that the independence or Swaraj that had come was not the Swaraj for
which he had fought. at Swaraj was yet to be achieved.
How are we going to do all this? How can we bring about a social
revolution and the reconstruction of society? e two processes go side by
side, and how can one do this in a non-violent manner? Gandhiji’s answer
was: voluntary action.
Gandhiji paid small attention to the proceedings of the Constituent
Assembly. Somebody wrote to him that though the Constitution of India
was being written, there was no mention in it of Ram Rajya which he
always preached as the foundation of Swaraj. He wrote in e Harijan just
forty days before he was assassinated that if this was so, it was deplorable.
He well knew that it was not the Constituent Assembly which could build
the country from the bottom, but that this would have to be done by the
people themselves. is could not be done by legislation or by a planning
commission.
Now, many of us are engaged in numerous kinds of useful activities. If this
work is multiplied a hundredfold, a thousandfold or even a hundred-
thousand fold, what will happen? Would a new society be created? No. But
that does not mean that Gandhiji was not thinking of activities such as
those engaged in, by the various organizations represented here. Gandhiji
considered constructive work to be a preparation for social revolution and
for social change. He considered constructive work as a discipline for
nonviolent mass action. He had written at a number of places on the
objectives of constructive organizations like the All India Village Industries
Organization and others, which he had himself set up. e objective of
constructive organizations and constructive work is not to give employment
to people. It is not to add a few paise to the pockets of the poor. ese are

d l  l b l All h
incidental. e real objective is to create a non-violent society. All the
activities that we are engaged in, are essential from the point of view of
mass contact in society. ey are essential for something that has to be done
on the basis of the work that all of you have been doing. As I have
understood it, Gandhiji’s technique had two main parts.
It had a third part also, which many of you might consider the most
important part. I do not think it is the most important part. However, this
part in itself is very important, and like a Brahmastra, is to be used when all
other moral means have failed. If you read the Mahabharata, you will find
that it is not every time a soldier goes to battle that he uses the Brahmastra,
it has to be used in the most exceptional conditions.
What are the two important parts of Gandhiji’s method of social change
and social reconstruction? One is what we are doing by setting up social
service organizations, which Gandhiji called constructive work
organizations, manned by people who are motivated by the spirit of service,
idealism and the love of humanity. If we have constructive social service
organizations with a view to achieving Gandhian results, then these
constructive workers or social workers would also believe in the philosophy
of non-violence. But not non-violence as a matter of expediency as Pandit
Jawaharlal Nehru or Rajen Babu [Rajendra Prasad] or Maulana Azad or
Sardar Patel saw and used, as a weapon to fight the British Empire. After
that objective had been gained, they had no use for non-violence as a
revolutionary philosophy of life.
e modern structure of society is very unjust. In the name of law and
order, so much injustice is being perpetuated. e rule of law and
government by law, are all very fine phrases. What do we find after twenty-
two years of independence? Human beings by the million are living as pigs.
In the great cities of Calcutta and Bombay people literally pick up food
from the gutter. Law and order has to be maintained so that these people
do not break a few shop windows and seize the food displayed there. is is
not the conception of a non-violent order of society. If all talk of
nonviolence and peace is in support of the status quo, if the Gandhian
philosophy is always used to support the status quo, I cannot imagine a
greater injustice to Gandhiji. erefore it becomes very necessary to see that
hundreds and thousands of people who have faith in this revolutionary
vision and philosophy are organized in constructive, social service

 b d d  h fi
organizations. eir activities are to be coordinated. is was the first part
of Gandhiji’s method. Let us go to the people. It is not by sitting in
Parliament here and by legislating there that you will create a new India.
e new India will have to be created by the bare hands of the people.
erefore, Gandhiji wanted hundreds of people to take up this work.
Gandhiji said that he wanted that every individual should have all his
primary needs fulfilled—enough clothing, a decent house to live in,
education for his children, medical care for the sick and disabled in the
family, and equal opportunity for employment. ese five primary needs of
every man should be met in whichever community he lives. Even in the
United States of America no one can say whether these five basic
requirements have been met so far as the individual is concerned, though it
is the richest society in the world today. You go and see how people live in
ghettoes in the USA, in the bustees around Calcutta, in the jhuggis and
jhompdis around Delhi and the jhompdis in Bombay. Recently I visited
jhompdis around Bombay and I was shocked to see the conditions in which
the people live there. It is terrible. Gandhiji did not want everyone to go
about in a loin cloth. He wanted everyone to have a full life. He also wanted
that as a moral virtue, as a social duty, everyone should voluntarily place a
limit on his own wants. Otherwise, if unlimited wants are to be pursued,
human society will be destroyed; we will land ourselves in disaster.
You have established individual contact; you have won the confidence of the
people. en, at that moment, it is necessary to place before the people a
programme for non-violent mass action. Society cannot change in bits.
ere has to be a mass revolution, mass movement and massive change.
Many people ask: why don’t you show us an example or model of Gramdan
village or a Sarvodaya village? We say it is just impossible. is is not what
we are after. is cannot be done. Why do you not ask the Socialists to give
us a model? Why do you not ask the Communists to give us a model? ey
tell you ‘unless we capture the state, we will not be able to build up society’,
and that appeals to you. We say that by creating models we will never
succeed in changing society. One farmer may learn from another and grow
twice, thrice or four times as much as he is growing, and if somebody
underwrites the risks involved or assures him that there are no risks
involved, he will undoubtedly follow the other man. But if we have a colony
in which people are leading a new way of life, have given up proprietary
rights, follow the principle of trusteeship and treat their property as a trust,
d l h d flf h b d b h h
develop a shared way of life with everybody contributing something to the
community for the good of the whole, then you will seldom find that the
community next to it will accept it as an example. ough many things are
contagious and spontaneous, sometimes, somehow goodness is not equally
contagious.
e third part of the Gandhian technique—if that word could be used—
was the most effective weapon Gandhiji had. It was his unfailing weapon. It
was the Brahmastra. He did not call it that. I am calling it so. is was
Satyagraha which includes both non-violent resistance and non-violent
non-cooperation. is Brahmastra is not to be used as our political parties
are using and vulgarizing it for everything on earth, without creating a
climate for it, without moral justification behind it and without creating the
spiritual background for it.
If we are thinking of voluntary action in terms of celebrating the Gandhian
spirit then we must understand how Gandhiji himself looked upon
voluntarism and voluntary organizations, and how he wanted that all these
voluntary activities and the force, the spirit and strength created by them
must converge on the point where there is mass action. If Gandhiji had
thought from the very beginning that the kind of community he wanted to
create should be evolved by the traditional methods of democratic politics
and if he had thought of it consistently, nobody would have been able to
prevent him from becoming the Prime Minister. e country would have
given him support in full measure.
What I am trying to drive at is this: whether we are doing our work as
Gandhian constructive workers or as other social workers, we are all
voluntary workers. We are leaving to the politicians, to the state and to the
government, the main task of building up this country and of changing it. It
is there that we go wrong. I have almost come to the conclusion that it is
not possible to bring about a social revolution changing society from its
roots—by democratic means. e democratic socialists have been in power
in some countries in the West for quite some years. e longest period that
they have been in power is in Sweden. Yet in spite of the fact that the
socialists have been in power continuously for years and years, basically
Swedish society continues to be a capitalist society and will remain so.
What are the revolutionary changes that have taken place in India since
independence? Only two changes have seeped down to the roots of the
I d O h b l f d d h h h
Indian society. One is the abolition of princedom and the other the
abolition of the zamindari system. Zamindari has been destroyed from the
roots. But for the rest, feudalism has firmly entrenched itself especially in
ex-zamindari areas and a capitalist society has come into being, in spite of
all the talk of socialism and communism. ough the roots of feudalism
have been destroyed with the destruction of the princely order and the
zamindari order, no socialist society has come into being during the past
twenty-two years. Feudalism is entrenched in the rural society. It is
everywhere—in U.P., in Bihar—except, perhaps, in the ryotwari areas where
it takes a different form. But it does exist there too, though not in the same
virulent form or elsewhere. Even if you nationalize, capitalism is there. In
nationalizing, what do we do? Is there any basic fundamental change in the
public sector except the change in ownership and, therefore, in the
distribution of surplus or profit? Except for that, what is the status of
labour? What about industrial relations? is is not socialism. is is
bureaucratism. ere is no fundamental change. I have begun to doubt very
seriously whether any government is going to bring about a radical social
revolution in India through democratic means. When the first non-
Congress Government came to power in Bihar, I made some proposals to
those people. During those ten months, not an inch of progress was made
towards any of these things.
And let me give you just one little example to show how this democratic
method is defeated. A law was passed by the Bihar Legislative Assembly
and later on by the Council in 1950. at law was called the Privileged
Person Homestead Tenancy Act. is Act created a new kind of tenancy—
homestead tenancy. If a Harijan had his little hut, mud-hut or even leaf-hut
or straw-hut on a plot of land, then this legislation gave him occupancy
rights in that little plot of land and a little area around it. If he was paying
his landowner any rent he continued to pay rent. He would not become the
proprietor, but would become a homestead tenant and would be secure in
the enjoyment of that little hut of his.
Now you go to Bihar. Everyday evictions are taking place. If the landowner
becomes angry with his labourer, the first thing he does is to drive him out
of his hut. It takes him no time to destroy the hut and then he has the field
ploughed over so that there is no sign of the hut left on the field. is is
happening every day in Bihar though the law has existed for the last twenty
years. During the tenure of the non-Congress Government, I told them:
‘Pl d h b h f h ’ k ’ F l h l
‘Please do something about this, for heaven’s sake.’ Formerly, the law
required that the man occupying the hut would have to make an
application. Later, the rules were amended and did not have to apply. e
officer concerned could suo motu put on record that plot so and so with its
particular measurements was in the name of such and such a man. Once it
is in the revenue records it would be secure. Many people are not aware of
this. If this kind of injustice has not been corrected in twenty years in spite
of this legislation, what do you expect to happen?
Take the case of share-croppers. We hear about the Naxalites. I have every
sympathy with the Naxalbari people. ey are violent people. But I have
every sympathy with them because they are doing something for the poor.
ere is some limit to the patience of the people. Why cannot the question
of sharecroppers be settled? e law gives them certain rights. After they
cultivate a piece of land for so many years, they get occupancy rights and
they cannot be evicted. But in Bihar and Bengal the landowner is free to
evict them, and he does evict them. What do you think is happening in
Purnea and other areas? ousands of share-croppers are being evicted
because the landowners have the right to resume the land; because these
poor people do not have even a chit to prove that the land was in their
cultivating possession. ey cannot prove it in a court of law. ese things
are happening today and the law is absolutely impotent to help these poor
people.
If the law is unable to give to the people a modicum of social and economic
justice, if even whatever is on paper is not implemented, what do you think
will happen if not violence erupting all over? Do you think that mere
mantras of shanti are going to save the situation of the political parties
which are responsible for this legislation? e very people who pass these
laws have seen to it that the laws are not implemented.
In the Bihar ministry (1967), in the first place, there was the Jan Sangh
which, apart from other aspects of its politics, is conservative in social and
economic matters. I was Chairman of a Committee set up by the Bihar
Government to implement the things which I had suggested to them. In
that Committee, both the Jan Sangh and Raja Bahadur Kamakhya Narain
Singh said: ‘e contract between the share-croppers and the others
sometimes is a private contract; it is a sacred contract and the state has no
right to interfere.’ is is the plea they put forth in that Committee. ere

ll k d f l d I d ’ k f h h
are all kinds of laws regarding contracts. I don’t know from where these
people got this idea about a contract between an elephant and a mouse. Is it
such a sacred contract that the community has no right to protect the
mouse? e Congress party is in power in many states. e Congress also
swears by some kind of socialism. I have not been able to understand the
socialism of the Congress yet. But, whatever it is, it has to be shown at the
ground level; some result has to be shown.
In Bihar, the Gandhi Centenary Seminar recommended only two
programmes. One programme was that homestead land should be made
secure during the Gandhi Centenary Year, by 31 March 1970. e other
was that drinking water facilities should be created where they do not exist.
Is this asking for the moon? I find that the people are losing hope and they
feel that nothing will come out of any government. When I see the
situation of Bihar I also begin to share their feelings. One after the other
changes in the government have taken place but nothing has changed. With
all the programmes and activities in this Gandhi Centenary Year, if the
problems of the people are not solved democratically, what other recourse
will the people have except violence? erefore I say, what India needs today
on her political agenda is non-violent social revolution. Not only from the
moral point of view but also from the practical point of view, this is one of
the essential items on the political agenda of India today. Otherwise,
violence will grow. I don’t care about the Naxalite movement. is is going
to grow. If Gandhiji had not been born, then perhaps we might not know
how else we could do this. My Sarvodaya friends and my Gandhian friends
will be surprised to read what I publicly say now. I say with a due sense of
responsibility that if convinced that there is no deliverance for the people
except through violence, Jayaprakash Narayan will also take to violence. If
the problems of the people cannot be solved democratically I will also take
to violence. I am raising these fundamental questions because, otherwise
observation of Gandhi Centenary is meaningless. I am not interested in it
unless we do something to change the social order. All the work that we are
doing now should be looked upon as preparatory work.
I have been a student of revolutions because I was a Marxist myself. My
interest in the history of revolutions is as keen today as it ever was. My
conclusion after a study of violent revolution is that a violent revolution
does bring about a revolution in the sense that it uproots the old social order

d d f f d  f l k d
and destroys it from its foundation. erefore it is looked upon as a
successful revolution. But it fails in achieving the objectives for which the
revolution is made. e French Revolution was a great revolution. After
that many revolutions have taken place. ere was the American
Revolution. Undoubtedly the feudal system was destroyed from its roots.
But what came out of these revolutions? After the revolutions, the power
still was not with the people. e power did not go to the people; to the
dispossessed. In Russia the revolution took place on November 7, 1917.
Undoubtedly the foundation of Czarist feudalism was destroyed, Lenin
said: ‘All power to the people, to the Soviets, to the workers, to the soldiers
and peasants.’ Soviet Russia is a great power, but there power is not in the
hands of the Soviets. e power is in the hands of a small number of
people. e Chinese Revolution took place in 1949. I think Mao Tse-tung
did not want to bluff anybody. He openly said that power grows out of the
barrel of the gun. It is absolutely true. But in China who holds the gun
today? e people do not.
I find man is enslaved everywhere in society wherever violent revolution has
taken place. Last year in Paris (1968) a revolution took place and it was led
by the students and some teachers, and later joined by some of the working
class. What did they seek? All of them were students and they were not
tools of any organized political parties. ey said: ‘We have been completely
disillusioned with every kind of delegated authority. We have no faith in
any deputy. We have no faith in any of the institutions which are supposed
to govern in the name of the people.’ en, what did they want? ey said:
‘We want power at the work place (an echo of Gandhism); in the
universities, power with the students and faculty; in the factories, power
with the workers, the technicians, the engineers, the managers and the rest
of them; in the villages power with the people in the farms.’ ey want
power at the work place. If these French revolutionaries use the means of
violence, they will never be able to establish power at the work place. ey
will only be able to destroy the power structure that exists today in the field
of economics, politics, etc. If they use violence, in France or elsewhere,
something else will take its place, which will not be power at the work
place. is is my fear.
Now, why do I say all this? As a result of the experience of democratic
societies in other parts of the world and of democratic government in our

I h b d b h h d h h l
own country, I have begun to doubt on the one hand whether social
revolution can be brought about by democratic means and, on the other, I
reject violence as only half the revolution. e more important half of it is
the betrayal of the people.
I don’t want power for myself; I want power for the people. erefore, I
cannot support the Naxalites and I hope to persuade them at some point of
time or the other. If they want power for themselves and/or the Communist
Party, Marxist-Leninist, then it is all right and let them do what they wish.
But I would not agree with this. Shri Jyoti Basu said at a recent workers’
meeting in Calcutta: ‘I want factories to be given to the workers.’ I would
like to know in which Communist country the factories belong to the
workers. Not a single factory belongs to the workers in any Communist
country except, in some respects, in Yugoslavia which the other
Communists do not accept as a proper Communist country. e factories
belong to the state. ey dupe the workers. ey say, ‘the state belongs to
you’, as if the workers can do anything with the state. is is the kind of
dictatorial set-up that we find in the Communist countries. Where do we
go? It is here that Gandhi had something to say.
Nowadays in India there is a conscious effort to denigrate Gandhiji and his
ideals. ere is an organized effort to say, ‘What is all this talk of
Satyagraha, what is Gandhiji’s contribution in bringing freedom to India,
how is he responsible for that’, etc. As one who had participated in the
struggle, I make bold to say that if Gandhiji had not created a mass
awakening and sustained it over a period of twenty-seven years, I don’t
think it would have been possible to raise the Azad Hind Fauj under the
leadership of Netaji. Today, we hear that in Ludhiana or somewhere a
statue of Gandhiji was blackened. After all, Gandhi was murdered in this
capital of India.
Gandhiji was asked: ‘You do this constructive social work. You take up a
programme and make a countrywide propaganda and campaign for the
purpose of converting the people to your scheme. If some people refuse to
be converted what will you do? Will you go on trying to convert everyone
till doomsday?’ Gandhiji said: ‘Certainly not.’ He explained: ‘If I am
convinced that I have done enough and there are still some people who
refuse to be persuaded then I will use my unfailing weapon of non-violent
non-cooperation.’ is Brahmastra is to be used as a part of the strategy of a

f h d  f I h
vast movement of change and reconstruction. erefore, I say that we
should give some thought to this—how all of us can join hands together in
fashioning one simple programme like the Salt Satyagraha?
ere should be one simple programme of mass action which we can place
before the people from today and then go on converting and persuading the
people to launch a mass movement of change in a non-violent way. A non-
violent revolution, unlike a violent revolution, cannot take place just in ten
days. John Reed wrote a famous book: Ten Days at Shook the World. It is
not like that. A non-violent movement develops step by step and it,
therefore, takes time.
I think it was given to Vinobaji’s genius to find out that the constructive
organizations in the field were losing the spirit and losing their perspective
and were slowly getting tied to the chariot wheels of this big Juggernaut, the
State of India, because one has to go for this subsidy or that grant-in-aid. In
that case, we will end up by merely becoming good people who perform
some kind of service without being able to change society. I do not think
that any political party can do it by winning elections alone. Vinobaji,
instead, laid emphasis on constructive work organizations already in the
field set up by Gandhiji. He also launched a programme of Bhoodan to
which people responded. In a country like India redistribution of land is
absolutely essential as a measure of social and economic justice. e
problem of fragmentation is not difficult to solve. It could be solved by
consolidation of holdings. It could be solved by cooperative agriculture.
When you have a society in which there is scarcity of land and many people,
with 85 or 90 percent of the people living in the villages and depending on
agriculture; if you have a situation where a few people own hundreds of
thousands of acres and the rest, millions of them, are landless, then truly it
is an explosive situation. You have an unjust situation. Many people laughed
at Bhoodan and said it was a failure. I do not think you are aware of the
programme in all its aspects. You may not have taken the trouble to find out
the facts about Bhoodan. It has been a failure in the sense that it has failed
to solve the problem of landlessness. But let me tell you frankly that the
problem of landlessness is insoluble in India. Nobody can solve it because
our population is too vast. erefore, along with khadi and village
industries, there should be a widespread network of small rural industries.
But to the extent to which land redistribution has been effected in India,
many times more acreage of land has been redistributed by Bhoodan than
b l l  f l W B lf
by legislation. is is true of almost every state except West Bengal from
whose Secretariat I do not have the figures.
Jawaharlal Nehru always laid emphasis on questions of land reform,
redistribution of land and security for tenants. ese three things always
figured in his letters to chief ministers and also in his speeches. In spite of
that, in my state (Bihar), even though the ceiling law was passed, not one
acre of land was redistributed as a result of surplus being declared over the
ceiling. Not one acre was redistributed, whereas we have been able to
distribute 3,65,000 acres of land which are fit for cultivation. We have
rejected as unfit for cultivation about sixteen lakhs of acres in Bihar. In UP
not more than 10,000 to 12,000 acres of land have been redistributed
through legislation; but 3,10,000 acres through Bhoodan. Recently I went
to Bombay. is is a ryotwari area and I wanted to know the position. I got
the figures from the Secretariat. e Revenue Department wrote to me a
letter saying that as a result of the Ceiling Act they were expected to get
surplus land totalling 1,29,000 acres. But in Maharashtra we have
redistributed 1,06,000 acres of land. is is the social and economic change
brought about by Bhoodan. No amount of khadi work, no amount of work
among the delinquent or among handicapped children or nutrition
programmes is going to bring about social change.
Now we have launched Gramdan. We should look upon ourselves as a
voluntary organization, and Gandhiji was an incarnation of voluntarism.
But this is where he wanted his voluntarism to begin. You see now the
French Revolutionaries are talking of decentralization. But when a
Gandhian talks of decentralization, immediately our learned people in
Delhi University, in the Planning Commission and in the Government of
India turn round and say: ‘In this age of technology, Mr Jayaprakash
Narayan, do you think that decentralization is possible?’ France is one of the
two most highly technologically-developed countries of western Europe,
next only to West Germany. Yet the French are talking of decentralization.
If the dimensions of our social, economic and political institutions are
beyond human scope, then man is going to be crushed under the Juggernaut
organizations, under over-mechanization. e students in western Europe
are revolting against exactly this very corruption of civilization in which the
autonomy of the individual is being completely suppressed. Gandhiji has
said that man is the supreme consideration for him. He wanted the highest
possible moral, material and physical development of the individual human
b H b f h If d ’ b l h h f d ’
being. He begins from there. If we don’t believe in the machine, if we don’t
believe in organization, but if we believe in man and in the dignity of man,
then let us take a second look at Gandhiji and during the Gandhi
Centenary Year let us take up projects for understanding man better. In this
Centenary Year, we have to snatch the initiative from the hands of
politicians, from the Parliament and the legislatures and give it back to the
people. is is our job.
I have come to serve you (New Delhi, October 1969)
KHAN ABDUL GHAFFAR KHAN (1890–1988)

One of the legends of the Indian national movement, Khan Abdul Ghaffar
Khan was a total convert to Gandhi’s message non-violence. Anguished by
the growing violence in India and Pakistan, he came especially to India and
gave this speech in Delhi’s Ram Leela grounds to remind people about the
Mahatma’s message.

e purpose of my coming to this country is mainly to emphasize to you

Indians that you have departed from the path shown by your leader,
Mahatma Gandhi. I have not come to take anything. I have not come to
become your leader or your father. I have come to serve you and nobody can
deter me from doing this. If you do not accept my services the loss will be
yours. I want to offer my services to establish unity, love and affection
among the people of various communities.
e only purpose of my coming here was to protest against violence, mutual
distrust, and hatred. e love and affection of Indian people and the
remembrance of Gandhiji have attracted me to come here. Strange stories
are circulating in India and Pakistan about the purpose of my visit. I have
come to serve you. I have not come to take money from you. I have not
even come to ask help for Pakhtoonistan. e type of Pakhtoonistan we
wanted we are about to achieve.
Many people suggested to me that I should not go to India and lodge my
protest against violence. But I thought if I protest here how will it help
India and Pakistan. On the other hand if I go there and protest how it

ld h l h I h l h I h ld
would help the two countries. I came to the conclusion that I should go to
India and if I have to protest at all I should protest there. If I go to India I
will be able to have consultations with the people of India. I have decided to
undertake a three-day fast to atone for the general atmosphere of hatred and
violence in India and the abandonment by the people of this country of the
path shown by Gandhiji.
Tragedy in Bangladesh (New Delhi, December 1971)
INDIRA GANDHI (1917–1984)

Pakistan held its first general election based on adult franchise in the winter
of 1970. In East Pakistan, the National Awami League led by Sheikh
Mujibur Rahman won by an overwhelming majority. is provided the
people of Bangladesh an opportunity to strengthen their demands for a
federal constitution, greater recognition of their language and culture, and
more control over their economic resources. Yahya Khan, the Pakistan
President, was unwilling to listen to these demands and postponed the
convening of the National Assembly. e people of East Pakistan went out
in protest and Yahya Khan decided to quell them by force. A regime of
military oppression opened in East Pakistan and there was an influx of
refugees into India. Indira Gandhi had tacitly supported and sponsored the
protests in East Pakistan. She also built up world opinion against atrocities
in East Pakistan. In December, what had been tacit became open.

In the seven weeks since Parliament recessed, the attention of the entire
country has been focussed on the continuing tragedy in Bangladesh. e
hon’ble members will recall the atmosphere of hope in which we met in
March. We all felt that our country was poised for rapid economic advance
and a more determined attack on the age old poverty of our people. Even as
we were settling down to the new tasks, we have been engulfed by a new
and gigantic problem, not of our making.
On 15 and 16 May, I visited Assam, Tripura, and West Bengal, to share the
suffering of the refugees from Bangladesh, to convey to them the sympathy
and support of this House and the people of India and to see for myself the
h h b d f h I
arrangements which are being made for their care. I am sorry it was not
possible to visit other camps this time. Every available building, including
schools and training institutions have been requisitioned. ousands of
tents have been pitched and temporary shelters are being constructed as
quickly as possible in the 335 camps, which have been established so far. In
spite of our best efforts we have not been able to provide shelter to all those
who have come across, and many are still in the open. e district
authorities are under severe strain. Before they can cope with those who are
already here, 60,000 more are coming across every day.
So massive a migration, in so short a time, is unprecedented in recorded
history. About three-and-a-half million people have come into India from
Bangladesh during the last eight weeks. ey belong to every religious
persuasion—Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, and Christian. ey come from
every social class and age group. ey are not refugees in the sense we have
understood this word since Partition. ey are victims of war who have
sought refuge from the military terror across our frontier.
Many refugees are wounded and need urgent medical attention. I saw some
of them in the hospitals I visited in Tripura and West Bengal. Medical
facilities in all our border states have stretched to breaking point.
Equipment for one thousand new hospital beds have been rushed to these
states, including a four-hundred-bed mobile hospital, generously donated
by the Government of Rajasthan. Special teams of surgeons, physicians,
nurses, and public health experts have, been deputed to the major camps.
Special water supply schemes are being executed on the highest priority, and
preventive health measures are being undertaken on a large scale
In our sensitive border states, which are facing the brunt, the attention of
the local administration has been diverted from normal and development
work to problems of camp administration, civil supplies and security. But
our people have put the hardships of the refugees above their own, and have
stood firm against the attempts of Pakistani agents-provocateurs to cause
communal strife. I am sure this fine spirit will be maintained.
On present estimates, the cost to the central exchequer on relief alone may
exceed Rs. 180 crores for a period of six months. All this, as the hon’ble
members will appreciate, has imposed an unexpected burden on us.
I was heartened by the fortitude with which these people of Bangladesh
have borne tribulation, and by the hope which they have for their future. It
h h I d h h d h d h h
is mischievous to suggest that India has had anything to do with what
happened in Bangladesh. is is an insult to the aspirations and
spontaneous sacrifices of the people of Bangladesh, and a calculated attempt
by the rulers of Pakistan to make India the scapegoat for their own
misdeeds. It is also a crude attempt to deceive the world community. e
world press has seen through Pakistan’s deception. e majority of these so-
called Indian infiltrators are women, children and the aged.
is House has considered many national and international issues of vital
importance to our country. But none of them has touched us so deeply as
the events in Bangladesh. When faced with a situation of such gravity, it is
specially important to weigh every word in acquainting this House, and our
entire people with the issues involved and the responsibilities which now
devolve on us all.
ese twenty-three years and more, we have never tried to interfere with
the internal affairs of Pakistan, even though they have not exercised similar
restraint. And even now we do not seek to interfere in any way. But what
has actually happened? What was claimed to be an internal problem of
Pakistan, has also become an internal problem for India. We are, therefore,
entitled to ask Pakistan to desist immediately from all activities which it is
taking in the name of domestic jurisdiction, and which vitally affect the
peace and well-being of millions of our own citizens. Pakistan cannot be
allowed to seek a solution of its political or other problems at the expense of
India and on Indian soil.
Has Pakistan the right to compel at bayonet point not hundreds, not
hundreds of thousands, but millions of its citizens to flee their home? For us
it is an intolerable situation. e fact that we are compelled to give refuge
and succour to these unfortunate millions cannot be used as an excuse to
push more and more people across our border.
We are proud of our tradition of tolerance. We have always felt contrite and
ashamed of our moments of intolerance. Our nation, our people are
dedicated to peace and are not given to talking in terms of war or threat of
war. But I should like to caution our people that we may be called upon to
bear still heavier burdens.
e problems which confront us are not confined to Assam, Meghalaya,
Tripura, and West Bengal. ey are national problems. Indeed the basic
problem is an international one.
W h h k h f h ld h h
We have sought to awaken the conscience of the world through our
representatives abroad and the representatives of foreign government in
India. We have appealed to the United Nations, and, at long last, the true
dimensions of the problem seem to be making themselves felt in some of
the sensitive chanceries of the world. However, I must confess with the
House our disappointment at the unconscionably long time which the
world is taking to react to this stark tragedy.
Not only India but every country has to consider its interest. I think I am
expressing the sentiments of this august House and of our people when I
raise my voice against the wanton destruction of peace, good
neighbourliness and elementary principles of humanity by the insensate
action of the military rulers of Pakistan. ey are threatening the peace and
stability of the vast segment of humanity represented by India.
We welcome Secretary General U. ant’s public appeal. We are glad that a
number of states have either responded or are in the process of doing so.
But time is the essence of the matter. Also, the question of giving relief to
these millions of people is only part of the problem. Relief cannot be
perpetual or permanent; and we do not wish it to be so. Conditions must be
created to stop any further influx of refugees and to ensure their early return
under creditable guarantees for their future safety and well-being. I say with
all sense of responsibility that unless this happens, there can be no lasting
stability or peace on this subcontinent. We have pleaded with the other
powers to recognize this. If the world does not take heed, we shall be
constrained to take all measures as may be necessary to ensure our own
security and the preservation and development of the structure of our social
and economic life.
We are convinced that there can be no military solution to the problem of
East Bengal. A political solution must be brought about by those who have
the power to do so. World opinion is a great force. It can influence even the
most powerful. e great powers have a special responsibility. If they
exercise their power rightly and expeditiously, then only we can look
forward to durable peace on our subcontinent. But if they fail—and I
sincerely hope that they will not—then this suppression of human rights,
the uprooting of people, and the continued homelessness of vast numbers of
human beings will threaten peace.

 b kl d f
is situation cannot be tackled in a partisan spirit or in terms of party
politics. e issues involved concern every citizen. I hope that this
Parliament, our country and the people will be ready to accept the necessary
hardships so that we can discharge our responsibilities to our own people as
well as to the millions, who have fled from a region of terror to take
temporary refuge here.
All this imposes on us heavy obligations and the need for stern national
discipline. We shall have to make many sacrifices. Our factories and farms
must produce more. Our railways and our entire transport and
communication system must work uninterruptedly. is is no time for any
interplay of regional or sectional interests. Everything must be subordinated
to sustain our economic, social and political fabric and to reinforce national
solidarity. I appeal to every citizen, every man, woman, and child to be
imbued with the spirit of service and sacrifice of which, I know, this nation
is capable.
Proclamation of Emergency (New Delhi, June 1975)
INDIRA GANDHI (1917–1984)

June 12, 1975, as the historian Ramachandra Guha has noted, was a bad
day for Indira Gandhi. Early in the morning, she was informed that her old
associate D.P. Dhar had died. Later in the morning came the news that
Congress was taking a beating in the polls in Gujarat. And then came the
judgment from the Allahabad High Court declaring her 1971 election to
the Lok Sabha from Rae Bareli null and void for misuse of government
machinery for election purposes. Many senior Congressmen felt that she
should step down as Prime Minister following the verdict. But she chose to
heed the advice of her youngest son, Sanjay Gandhi and the Chief Minister
of West Bengal, Siddhartha Sankar Ray. On June 25, Ray helped her draft
an ordinance declaring a state of internal emergency. e President,
Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed signed it without any protest. Armed with the
ordinance, Indira Gandhi switched off the power supply to all Delhi’s
newspaper offices so that there would be no issue the next day. At six o’clock
in the morning of June 26, a meeting of the Union Cabinet was summoned,
the members informed of the Emergency and their formal consent
obtained. Indira Gandhi proceeded to the studio of the All India Radio to
announce the state of Emergency to the nation.

e President has proclaimed the Emergency.

is is nothing to panic about. I am sure you are all conscious of the deep
and widespread conspiracy, which has been brewing ever since I began to
introduce certain progressive measures of benefit to the common man and
woman of India. In the name of democracy, it has been sought to negate the
f f d D l l d h b
very functioning of democracy. Duly elected governments have not been
allowed to function and in some cases, force has been used to compel
members to resign in order to dissolve lawfully elected assemblies.
Agitations have surcharged the atmosphere, leading to violent incidents.
e whole country was shocked at the brutal murder of my cabinet
colleague, Shri L.N. Mishra. We also deeply deplore the dastardly attack on
the Chief Justice of India.
Certain persons have gone to the length of inciting our armed forces to
mutiny and our police to rebel. e fact that our defence forces and the
police are disciplined and deeply patriotic and, therefore, will not be taken
in, does not mitigate the seriousness of the provocation.
e forces of disintegration are in full play and communal passions are
being aroused, threatening our unity.
All manners of false allegations have been hurled at me. e Indian people
have known me since my childhood. All my life has been in the service of
our people. is is not a personal matter. It is not important whether I
remain Prime Minister or not. However, the institution of the Prime
Minister is important and the deliberate political attempts to denigrate it is
not in the interest of democracy or of the nation.
We have watched these developments with utmost patience for long. Now
we learn of a new programme challenging law and order throughout the
country with a view to disrupting normal functioning. How can any
government worth the name stand by and allow the country’s stability to be
imperilled? e actions of a few are endangering the rights of the vast
majority. Any situation, which weakens the capacity of the national
government to act decisively inside the country, is bound to encourage
dangers from outside. It is our paramount duty to safeguard unity and
stability. e nation’s integrity demands firm action.
e threat to internal stability also affects production and prospects of
economic improvement. In the last few months the determined action we
have taken has succeeded in largely checking the price rise. We have been
actively considering further measures to strengthen the economy and to
relieve the hardship of various sections, particularly the poor and vulnerable,
and those with fixed incomes. I shall announce them soon.
I should like to assure you that the new Emergency proclamation will in no
way affect the rights of law-abiding citizens. I am sure that internal
d ll dl bl d h h
conditions will speedily improve to enable us to dispense with this
proclamation as soon as possible. I have been overwhelmed by the messages
of goodwill from all parts of India and all sections of the people. May I
appeal for your continued co-operation and trust in the days ahead?
Speech in the Lok Sabha on the President’s address
(New Delhi, January 1976) SOMNATH CHATTERJEE (1929–)

is was an extraordinarily courageous speech since it was made when the
Emergency was at its height. Chatterjee could not have been unaware of the
risk he was running by attacking the Emergency and upholding democracy.
It was a time when many of his colleagues and comrades were behind bars
or were underground. is speech when it was made, did not receive the
publicity it deserved as the press was then muzzled by censorship.

Mr Chairman, Sir, starting from the address of the President to the speech
which we have heard just now, an attempt has been made to justify the
Emergency on the basis of vague generalizations and mere abuses and
vilification of Opposition parties without specifying the supposed
treasonable activities on the part of the Opposition parties. I am very sorry
that having been swayed by emotions and probably encouraged by the
presence of the Prime Minister, a sober and responsible minister as we
thought him to be, Mr Chandrajeet Yadav himself chose to use this
occasion to vilify the CPI(M) on a wrong and misleading basis because,
realizing that they cannot justify the Emergency on any positive ground, the
best thing is to go on beating the opposition with whatever stick comes
handy. at is why it was said that there has been a sort of ganging up
between the right reactionaries and the CPI(M). Sir, it is known that this is
wrong and that this is an absolute calumny. Only on a very important issue
like civil liberty, there had been cooperation and we, Sir, certainly support
anybody who raises a voice of protest against the deliberate denuding of
personal and civil liberties in the country by a repressive government.
Wh ll d h ll l k h
Whoever will come and support us, we shall certainly seek their support
and given mutual support.
Now, Sir, as Miss Patel rightly said when BLD people join Congress, they
become progressives overnight. When ex-rulers and ex-zamindars joined
you, joined the ruling party, they certainly become progressives. When
Swatantries and when Jana Sanghis join the Congress they became
progressive. Do not apply such double standards everywhere. is is my
request.
You have declared Emergency. e people of the country known why. You
declare Emergency on the plea of internal disturbances, when there was
already an Emergency. Because of the powers under the Constitution of
India, which you wanted to exercise or which you did not want to take the
trouble of having obligations under, you could do it under the existing
Emergency of 1971. All the powers, the Defence of India Rules and so on,
have not been promulgated now. ey were actually promulgated in 1971
and this is now being used under the new Emergency. Not a single extra-
constitutional power was obtained by proclaiming this new Emergency.
en, what was the Emergency for? Was it for economic reasons? en,
there is a specific provision under the Constitution, Article 360, for
declaring a financial emergency. You did not take recourse to that. When
there was rampant inflation, when the whole economy was out of gear, as
Dr Rao has said, as he has reminded us, when the Government of India was
not functioning so far as the finances of the country were concerned, you
did not take recourse to financial emergency. And what emergency powers
for internal disturbance are necessary to meet an economic situation? Sir,
‘internal disturbance’ has been used as a plea because the position of a
particular individual became at stake. is is the reality. It should be
understood. I am sure members opposite realize it in their own heart of
hearts. But they cannot say so. e press in this country has been gagged.
e Opposition has been mercilessly gagged. eir own people have been
gagged. Today the whole intention has been to create a fear psychosis in the
country to bring about a feeling of terror in the minds of the people. People
are not allowed to open their lips. is is a stark reality in this country. No
good denying it. If you deny it, you are denying it for the purpose of record
only, not in your own heart of hearts.

Wh I k h h P M d h h
What I was asking the government, the Prime Minister and others was this:
What extraordinary powers did you need for which a second proclamation
was made? Now, if there was internal disturbance alone, why have you
brought out so many other justifications for this Emergency? How can you
take the pretext of late running of trains for internal disturbance? is party
has been in power since independence in this country. If the trains had not
been run in time, it is very easy to go on blaming the workers. Why have
you not been able to inculcate a sense of discipline among the workers?
Why have you not been able to make them feel part and parcel of this
country, make them feel that they are one with the administration? Why are
they alienated from you? Why are the common people alienated from you?
You have no answer. You never ask yourselves those questions. For
everything that is not happening properly in this country, an emasculated
Opposition is supposed to be responsible. You ridicule the Opposition and
say ‘the people are not with you’, but you hold that very emasculated and
miniscule Opposition supposedly responsible for the ruination of this
country. You have been in uninterrupted charge of the government of the
country. You have not delivered the goods to the people. Poverty has been
accentuated. People’s miseries have increased a hundredfold, and you say
you are not responsible for that.
is is why I say that your right to govern this country now is based on
repressive power. You cannot function without draconian laws. You cannot
function under ordinary laws of the country. e Constitution of India
which twenty-five years ago had been commended to the country by no less
a person than Jawaharlal Nehru, the Constitution does not suit you, because
it gives some powers even now to the people of the country. You do not like
the people of this country to have any power. You do not want that the
people of this country can raise a voice of protest. at is why you have
come up with proposals, those obnoxious proposals, the source of which has
not been denied.
As I was saying, if discipline was the reason, then a false reason has been
given in the proclamation of Emergency that internal disturbances were
there, which threatened the security of the country. If Mr Jayaprakash
Narayan had been guilty of treason, try him for treason. Give him
exemplary punishment under the laws of the land. If Morarji Desai, or for
that matter any person, has been guilty of sedition try him. Give him an
opportunity. Let the people of the country know. Mr Jayaprakash Narayan
h b d H h I h ffi h f
has been arrested. He is a right reactionary. In the name of fighting fascism
and right reaction, you have arrested MPs like Mr Jyotirmoy Bosu and Mr
Noorul Huda. Do they belong to right reactionary parties? You have
arrested trade union workers. You have dismissed trade unionists,
government servants, under MISA. You have detained them. You have
dismissed them under Article 311 (2) without even letting them know what
is their fault. Even the present Constitution, as it stands today, gives
enormous powers to the government. A government servant can lose his job
in a minute. A person can be kept in detention indefinitely. Even his right
to move the court is extremely limited. What have you done? You are afraid
to face the people. e Supreme Court of India has given clearance to the
Prime Minister’s election. One of the judges who upheld her election had
made an observation. I do not know whether she has had the time to go
through the judgment which has been delivered in her own case. Mr Justice
Chandrachud has observed that law should not be what the King Emperor
thinks is law; it should be decided in the anvil of constitutionality; it should
be tested on the principle whether it is for public good. … Today an
attempt is being made to stifle popular and democratic movements, and
stifle the ventilation of the people’s grievances. If I say something here
which is not to your liking, the people outside will not know; they do not
know that there is another version possible on a particular issue. People may
think: we have sent him to Parliament; we want to know whether our
representative toes the line of the government or he has some alternative
proposals to make. But now people will not know. Look at today’s papers
and see how Mr Samar Mukherjee’s speech has been reported. It is a
travesty of reporting parliamentary proceedings. Is this the way you are
going to take the country along the path of progress?
Mr Chairman, I want to make this appeal to the members opposite through
you: do not feel that patriotism is your monopoly; or the desire to do good
to the country is only your monopoly. We are as much anxious that this
country should be governed and governed properly; we want that this
country should proceed on right lines; if my line is a little different does it
mean that I do not have patriotism? If I do not want the zamindars, the
landed gentry and the black-marketeers to control our country, does it mean
that I am not patriotic? If I want to say something which the people of the
country want me to say, should I not be allowed to say it? If a judge delivers
a judgment which you do not like, you say that the judge is wrong and
h f k h ’ Wh
therefore you want to take away the court’s powers. Why are you so
arrogant? You do not want anybody to judge your action. Why should not
the judges decide whether you do something rightly or wrongly? It is a
system which has worked for so many years. Take the last amendment of
the Constitution which this Parliament adopted. We were willing parties to
it. We had been demanding that the Constitution should be so amended
that no vested interests can take advantage. We have enlarged the powers
under Article 31 of the Constitution; we have given enormous powers to
the government. But how has this government utilized those powers? What
legislation has stood in their way? How have the courts stood in their
way?…We on this side have extended our support even to a capitalist and
reactionary government as this when they thought of welfare legislation.
Whether they were implementing that or not, we had extended them full
support. Let them give one example of one single welfare legislation which
had been held up by us in Parliament? I challenge them. On the other
hand, in the name of bringing about a balanced society, egalitarian society,
and welfare and socialism in this country, they have reduced the quantum of
bonus without reducing the cost of living. ey have taken away the rights
of the workers even to hold meetings and demonstrations. ey have not
even the right to go to their managers to ventilate their grievances. ere is
a case in regard to the Bank of India, I am not going into merits because the
matter is subjudice. It is a nationalized bank and I want to tell the members
what happens there. e authorities there issued a circular deducting the
salaries of the employees, because their representatives had gone to a
meeting with the manager for ventilating employees’ grievances who even
entertained them. But after the meeting, the manager issues a notice to
them; you did not work during the time you came to see me and therefore
you are not entitled to wages for that period.
Is this the way of getting the willing cooperation of the ordinary people of
this country? Is this the way you want their participation in your so-called
nation building? Mr Chairman, Sir, the position is this. In the garb of
Emergency, what is being sought to be done is to create and maintain a
hegemony. We are opposed to that. e attempt is to create and maintain a
particular attitude of government which is not in tune with the national
aspirations of this country. You are utilizing this not for the betterment of
the people because inflation has been contained. It is said that Emergency
should remain and continue not because of inflation but because of other
d h f l h ld b h ld S h h
economic reasons and therefore elections should not be held. See how the
reason is put forward by this government. Sir, what is the position in the
economic field? What is the position in the small industries, small-scale
industries like bulb manufacturing industries? Mr Maurya is here. He has
got the statistics fully. e small-scale industries are almost closed down.
e wagon-building industries in West Bengal are completely at a standstill.
J.K. Aluminium is being closed. Hindustan Motors has introduced a
rotational system of layoffs of employees.
Now, who is coming to their protection? Are you using Emergency powers
against the management of Hindustan Motors? You have got all the powers
under the sun. You don’t care for the people’s rights under Article 19 and
under Article 14 you have suspended them. But you have not suspended
Article 31 which guarantees property rights. You have forbidden my right
to free speech. You have taken away my right of equality to be treated
equally amongst equals. But you have not taken away the right of propertied
class. at is why Article 31 has not been touched. is is the true position
of the government.
Sir, in the jute industry, what is happening? Concession after concession has
been made but layoffs and closure are continuing. More layoffs and more
closure and more retrenchments are continuing. In the jute mills, even the
jute growers are not getting concessions. Concessions have been given to
the jute mills but jute growers are not getting even the support price. Same
is the thing with regard to the textile mills. In those mills which have been
taken over the Textile Corporation, the workers are extending all support,
not a single complaint has been made against workers. ey are doing extra
work. But they are in doldrums because the management is still as bold as it
was. No attempt has been made to have the stocks cleared. e retailers
cannot even taken them, far less the consumers because of high cost of
textile goods.
Sir, this is the position in this country and we are only told that something
was being done for which Emergency must be imposed. erefore, I request
my friends, through you Sir, do not take the people of this country for a
ride. Try to do something good for them. If the people are with you, why
are you afraid of them?
e education of a filmmaker (Calcutta, September
1982)
SATYAJIT RAY (1921–1992)

When Ray was requested by friends to deliver the Amal Bhattacharjee

Memorial Lecture, he agreed with great reluctance since he rarely gave
speeches. e lecture was delivered at the small auditorium of the Academy
of Fine Arts. e hall was packed and the audience remarkably silent—not
a cough was heard even though Ray spoke for over an hour. Ray sat alone
on the stage with a table in front of him, a single lamp illuminated the
script from which he read and a spotlight created a halo of light around
where he sat. I was fortunate enough to be present and it is one of the most
unforgettable occasions of my life.

When I was asked to deliver their annual lecture by the Amal Bhattacharji
Centre for European Studies, my immediate response was to say no. It was
easy for me to do so, since 15 years of saying no to such requests has turned
it into a habit. e only occasion when I didn’t decline, the lecture never
took place. Although I had, in the end, to yield to persuasion, a great deal
of diffidence remains. It is difficult to dissociate the idea of discourse from
the idea of erudition; especially in the present case, where the enterprise is
meant to perpetuate the memory of an outstanding scholar. Now, erudition
is something which I singularly lack. As a student, I was only a little better
than average: and in all honesty, I cannot say that what I learnt in school
and college stood me in good stead in the years that followed. I studied for a
degree, of course, but my best and keenest memories of college consist

l l f h k d d f f C ll
largely of the quirks and idiosyncracies of certain professors. College was
fun, but college, at least for me, was hardly a fount of learning. All my
useful reading has taken place since I finished my formal education. is
reading has been wide and varied, but it has not been deep. Even on films I
am not particularly well read. When I got interested enough in films to start
reading about them, there were hardly a dozen books in English on the
subject. By the time I finished them, I was already at work on my first film.
One day’s work with camera and actors taught me more than all the dozen
books had done. In other words, I learnt about filmmaking primarily by
making films, not by reading books on the art of the cinema. Here, I must
say, I am in very good company. is is how all the pioneers of filmmaking
learnt their craft. But for a few exceptions; none of these pioneers was a
learned scholar. Rather, they liked to think of themselves as craftsmen. If
they were also able, on occasion, to produce works of art, they often did so
intuitively. Or at least, that is how most of them feel. e famous American
director John Ford was once asked by an admiring critic how he got the idea
for a particularly felicitous touch in one of his films. Ford said: ‘Aw, I don’t
know, it just came to me.’
Which brings me to the second reason for my diffidence. Filmmaking is
such a demanding process that directors—especially those who keep up a
steady output—rarely have time to assemble their thoughts. Of all the
major directors in the world, only one—Sergei Eisenstein—lectured and
theorized on the cinema, and described his own creative process at length.
But we must remember that in the space of nearly 20 years, Eisenstein
made only seven films, of which two were never completed. I have regularly
pursued my two vocations of filmmaking and writing for young people,
untrammelled by any thoughts of ever having to describe or analyse why I
do certain things in the way I do them.
Yet a third reason concerns a special problem that faces one who must talk
about films. Lectures on art should ideally be illustrated. One who talks on
paintings usually comes armed with slides and a projector. is solves the
difficulty of having to describe in words, what must be seen with the eyes.
e lecturer on music must bless the silicon revolution, now that he can
cram all his examples on to a cassette no bigger than a small bar of
chocolate. But the lecturer on the cinema has no such advantage—at least
not in the present state of technology in our country. If he wishes to cite an
example, he can do no more than give a barely adequate description in
d f h ll d h ll ’ A fil
words, of what is usually perceived with all one’s senses. A film is pictures, a
film is words, a film is movement, a film is drama, a film is music, a film is a
story, a film is a thousand expressive aural and visual details. ese days one
must also add that film is colour. Even a segment of film that lasts barely a
minute can display all these aspects simultaneously. You will realize what a
hopeless task it is to describe a scene from a film in words. ey can’t even
begin to do justice to a language which is so complex.
So when it was suggested that I talk on the European cinema, I declined. I
didn’t wish to talk about films which would be unfamiliar to many of the
listeners. Even reading about such films can be tiresome. But at least, with a
book, one can stop reading, and think, and try to visualize. Unfortunately, it
is not easy to stop a lecturer, and ask for time to think. At least, it is not
conventional to do so.
So I shall avoid describing films which the majority of my listeners are
unlikely to have seen. I should also make it clear that I do not propose to
discuss the cinema in all its aspects. You will not learn about its history
from this talk, nor about its sociology, its economics, its semiology. Nor will
you learn about the New Wave, the star system, or the regional cinema, and
what the governments are doing to help or hinder its growth. I shall confine
myself mainly to the language of films, and the possibilities of artistic
expression inherent in it. is will involve an occasional glance at the other
arts, as well as at films from other countries and other epochs. My main
concern, however, will be Bengal, the Bengali cinema, and my own films.
But before I get on to the subject of films, I should like to recall the gradual
stages which led to my being involved in this very versatile, very popular
and very chancy medium. One thing I cannot avoid in this talk is the first
person singular. is is a fact which had better be conveyed now, lest the
listeners spot it on their own and begin to question my modesty. ere is no
one I know better than myself, and no one I have a better right to talk
about. On the strength of my first film and the wide success it won, I have
heard it said that I was a born filmmaker. And yet, I had no thoughts, and
no ambitions, of ever becoming one even as late as three or four years before
I actually took the plunge. I have loved going to the cinema ever since I can
remember, but I must have shared this love with millions of others, or there
wouldn’t have been such a flourishing film business in India for such a long
time.

I b h h d f l Ch l K dH ld
I was born in the heyday of silent cinema. Chaplin, Keaton, and Harold
Lloyd were producing what then were uproarious comedies, and are now
seen as timeless masterpieces. Living in North Calcutta then, and most of
the cinemas showing foreign films being around Chowringhee, going to the
‘Bioscope’ was a rare event. So I never had a surfeit of films. Every visit was
a very special occasion, and every film was followed by weeks of musing on
its wonders. When the talkies came, I was just old enough to realize that a
revolution had taken place. ere were two kinds of talkies to start with:
partial talkies—which had bursts of dialogue, followed by long stretches of
silence; and one hundred percent talkies. Newspapers in those days carried
large pictorial ads of the foreign films. One look at them, and a glance at
the headlines were enough to tell the elders whether or not the films were
likely to tarnish innocent minds. ose were the days of the flamboyant
Hollywood stars, and what they were good at was not considered
particularly suitable for a boy barely in his teens. So ‘sizzling romance’ was
out, and so was ‘tempestuous, hotblooded passion’. I saw jungle stories,
slapstick comedies, and swashbuckling adventures. But occasionally there
were chance visits to supposedly adult movies. Ernst Lubitsch was a great
name in the cinema in those days. As an Austrian who had settled in
Hollywood, he had a highly sophisticated approach to romantic comedy. I
saw three of his films, around the age of ten: Love Parade, e Smiling
Lieutenant, and One Hour With You—a forbidden world, only half
understood, but observed with a tingling curiosity.
Films remained a great attraction right through college. But by then I had
discovered something which was to grow into an obsession. is was
Western classical music. I had grown up in an atmosphere of Bengali songs,
mainly Rabindrasangeet and Brahmo Samaj hymns. Even as a child, the
ones that I liked most had a Western tinge to them. A Vedic hymn like
Sangachhadhwam, or the song by Rabindranath with a rather similar tune,
Anandalokay Mangalalokay; or the stately chorus, Padoprantay rakho shebokey,
that came as a wonderful relief after three exhausting hours of sermon on
Maghotsab Day. My response to Western classical music was immediate
and decisive. As a small boy, I had read about Beethoven in the Book of
Knowledge, and developed an admiration for him which amounted to hero-
worship. Now I was listening enraptured to his sonatas and symphonies. If
films were fun and thrills and escape, the pursuit of music was something
undertaken with deadly seriousness. It was a great voyage of discovery, and
d ld f ff bl d l h F l h
it transported me to a world of ineffable delight. Films were at the most a
once-a-week affair, while music played on the hand-cranked gramophone
took up all my spare time at home. At the age when the Bengali youth
almost inevitably writes poetry, I was listening to European classical music.
My reading was then confined to light English fiction. I hardly read any
Bengali those days; not even the classics. In fact, I was not conscious of any
roots in Bengal at all. at happened in Santiniketan.
e few occasions that I met Rabindranath [Tagore] face to face—well,
meeting is hardly the word: one stole up to him with one’s heart in one’s
mouth, and touched his feet—he would glance up at my mother and say:
‘Why don’t you send your son to my school?’ To be quite honest, I had no
wish to go to his school at all. e few Santiniketanites that I got to know—
usually painters and musicians—all had long hair, and spoke Bengali in a
strange, affected sing-song. One took this to be the Santiniketan accent.
Well, such accent and such people put me off, and I thought—if this is
what Santiniketan does to you, I have no use for that place.
When, after my graduation, I did go to Santiniketan, it was out of
deference to my mother’s wish, and much against my own inclination. I
think my mother believed that proximity to Rabindranath would have a
therapeutic effect on me, much as a visit to a hill station or health resort has
on one’s system. Although I joined as a student of Kalabhawan, I had no
wish to become a painter—certainly not a painter of the Oriental school. I
strongly disliked the wishy-washy sentimentalism of the Oriental art one
encountered in the pages of Prabasi and Modern Review. I had shown a flair
for drawing from a very early age, doubtless inherited, and my taste in
painting had been formed by the same ten-volume Book of Knowledge which
had told me about Beethoven.
e Book of Knowledge left out everything before the Renaissance, and
ended with the Royal Academicians. Among the paintings and sculptures I
knew and loved were: Gainsborough’s Blue Boy, Franz Hals’s Laughing
Cavalier, Michelangelo’s David, Rodin’s inker, Landseer’s Proud Stag
With e Spreading Antlers, and Joshua Reynolds’s Bubbles, which, in those
days, was used in advertisements for Pear’s Soap. Of course, I also knew
Raphael’s Madonna, and Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. I read somewhere that
Mona Lisa’s right hand was the most beautifully executed hand in all
painting. I would gaze at this hand, and marvel at the critic who had
d d ll h h d ll h f h ld d h
studied all the hands in all the paintings of the world, and come to that
conclusion.
Since I never meant to complete the five-year course of Kalabhawan, I left
at the end of two and a half. Rabindranath had died a year before. It was
hard for me to judge if it had made a material difference to the place; after
all, he had been virtually invisible to us much of the time. But with
everybody saying ‘it’s not the same thing any more,’ one found oneself
concurring. But the main reason I left was not because Rabindranath was
no more, but because I felt I had got as much out of the place as was
possible for me.
My relationship with Santiniketan was an ambivalent one. As one born and
bred in Calcutta, I loved to mingle with the crowd on Chowringhee, to
hunt for bargains in the teeming profusion of second-hand books on the
pavements of College Street, to explore the grimy depths of Chor Bazar for
symphonies at throwaway prices, to relax in the coolness of a cinema, and
lose myself in the makebelieve world of Hollywood. All this I missed in
Santiniketan, which was a world apart. It was a world of vast open spaces,
vaulted over with a dustless sky that on a clear night showed the
constellations as no city sky could ever do. e same sky, on a clear day,
could summon up in moments an awesome invasion of billowing darkness
that seemed to engulf the entire universe. And there was the Khoai, rimmed
with serried ranks of tall trees, and the Kopai, snaking its way through its
rough-hewn undulations. If Santiniketan did nothing else, it induced
contemplation, and a sense of wonder, in the most prosaic and earthbound
of minds.
In the two and a half years, I had time to think, and time to realize that,
almost without my being aware of it, the place had opened windows for me.
More than anything else, it had brought to me an awareness of our
tradition, which I knew would serve as a foundation for any branch of art
that I wished to pursue.
But my attitude to painting as a vocation did not change. e first painting
I did as a student showed a very old, blind beggar standing in the middle of
nowhere, leaning on the shoulder of an angelic looking boy who carried the
begging bowl. My later paintings improved, as I moved away from literary
themes, but I just didn’t have it in me to become a painter.

B S k h h l k d l k
But Santiniketan taught me two things—to look at paintings, and to look at
nature. We used to go out in the afternoon to sketch from nature. Nandalal
Bose, our Mastermoshai, would steal up from behind, peer over the
shoulder and say: ‘at’s a good outline of a cow. But a cow is more than an
outline. You must feel the form of the animal—the flesh and bones beneath
the skin—and this feeling must show in the way your pencil moves.’
It was Santiniketan which opened my eyes to the fact that the kind of
painting that I used to admire, the kind that provokes the reaction, ‘How
life-like!’, should be a preoccupation that lasted only 400 years. It started
with the first awareness of perspective in the fifteenth century, and ended
with the invention of photography in the nineteenth. e first
representations of nature by man are believed to be the stone-age cave
paintings of 20,000 years ago. What is 400 years in a span that stretches 200
centuries?
Neither Egyptian, nor Chinese, Japanese, or Indian art ever concerned itself
with factual representation. Here the primary aim was to get at the essence
of things; a probing beneath the surface. Nature was the point of departure
for the artist to arrive at a personal vision. Personal, but within the ambit of
certain well-defined conventions.
Two trips to the great art centres of India—Ajanta, Ellora, Elephanta,
Konarak, and others—consolidated the idea of Indian tradition in my mind.
At last I was beginning to find myself, and find my roots.
What I missed most in Santiniketan was films. Almost imperceptibly, they
had become an object of study, as music was, and not something to be just
seen and enjoyed. I had found and read a couple of books on film aesthetics
in the Kalabhawan library. ey were most revealing. How interesting to
know, for instance, that films and music had so much in common! Both
unfold over a period of time; both are concerned with pace and rhythm and
contrast; both can be described in terms of mood—sad, cheerful, pensive,
boisterous, tragic, jubilant. But this resemblance applies only to Western
classical music. Since our music is improvised, its pattern and duration are
flexible. One can hear a complete raga in a three-minute version on old
gramophone records, and we know that a raga can be stretched to well over
two hours. Also, the structure of Indian music is decorative, not dramatic. It
builds up from a slow beginning to a fast conclusion, becoming more and
more intricate and ornamental in the process. is is rather like an Indian
l h h b ld f ld b h h d
temple, which builds up from a solid base, goes through narrower and
narrower layers of ornamentation, and ends up in the dizzy heights of the
shikhara. e mood of the music is predetermined by the raga, and
convention demands that there should be no departure from it. What the
musician aims at is to give the ideal form to the concept implicit in a
particular combination of notes. at is why Indian music is great only in
the hands of a great musician performing at the top of his form. In the
process of execution, the musician can achieve beauty, he can achieve
tension and excitement, and he can achieve sublimity. But he cannot
achieve drama, because there is no conflict in the music.
Unlike Indian music, Western music can depart from the tonic or Sa, and
much of the drama arises from this modulation of certain basic melodies
from key to key. is can be likened to the vicissitudes experienced by
characters in a story. At the end, the music has to return to the tonic or Sa,
which again is like the resolution of a conflict, where one feels nothing
more needs to be said, as the drama has come to an end.
It is significant that most of the pioneers of the cinema—those who helped
to create its grammar and its language (Griffith in the USA, Abel Gance in
France, Eisenstein and Pudovkin in Soviet Russia)—were all deeply
responsive to music. Griffith was one man who virtually created the
language of the cinema single-handed. It took him a little while to realize
the incredible potentialities of the medium, but once he saw that images
could be invested with meaning, and such meaningful images could be
strung together like sentences in a story, and the story could be made to
unfold with the grace and fluency of music, the art of the cinema evolved in
no time at all.
In the early days, when books on film aesthetics had yet to be written,
filmmakers who were in the forefront were geniuses who instinctively
produced works of art which at the same time had a wide appeal. at films
had to reach a large public was taken for granted, since filmmaking was a
costly business. But the wonder is how little pandering this involved. e
one obvious concession to the public was in the use of slapstick, which was
a direct importation from the Music Hall and Vaudeville. But in the hands
of a filmmaker of genius, even slapstick could be so inventive, so precise in
timing and so elaborate in execution that it acquired a high aesthetic value,
while retaining its power to provoke laughter. Buster Keaton in his film e

f h d bl h d ’ f
General performs the most incredible antics in the driver’s seat of a runaway
train, while a full-scale battle rages in the background. To say that the scene
is funny is not nearly enough; it is one of the most elating aesthetic
experiences in the cinema.
Unfortunately, this double function of artist and entertainer was rarely
sustained in the period of sound. Popular entertainment too often came to
mean films of overt escapism, where the artist was conspicuous by his
absence.
It is not easy to define what gives a film the distinction of a work of art.
Some definitions will emerge in the course of this talk, but it is necessary at
this point to stress the fact that to be able to tell a work of art from a work
of mere craftsmanship calls for a trained response. In other words, it calls
for what the shastras define as a rasika. One wouldn’t think so from the way
seemingly learned opinions on this or that film are bandied about by all and
sundry. Nevertheless, it is true that serious accomplished films, films which
use the language of the cinema with insight and imagination, challenge our
sensibilities in the same way as the more rarefied forms of music, painting,
and literature. Even an apparently simple film which makes a direct impact
on the emotions may call for understanding.
It was my growing interest in the cinema as an object for serious study
which led to our forming the Calcutta Film Society in the year of India’s
independence. Most of the films we showed and discussed were from
abroad. To be quite honest, we found nothing worth studying in Bengali
films from an aesthetic point of view. But it was interesting to try and
discover why they were like what they were.
ere is little doubt that the Bengali’s fondness for the theatre and jatra was
one of the things which impeded the growth of a pure cinema in Bengal.
When one watched the shooting of a film in the studio, as I had done on
several occasions, one had the strong feeling of watching the performance of
a play. Rooms had three walls and no ceilings, windows gave onto crudely
painted backdrops, dummy books lined the shelves, and the performers
appeared plastered with makeup. Right from the start, speech was taken as
the primary means of conveying information, with images and gestures
hardly given a chance to speak for themselves. Songs and melodrama,
standard prescription for Bengali films, were direct imports from the stage.
Such was the Bengali’s fondness for songs that K.L. Saigal became a
l h d k d h b h B l
popular hero, and no questions were asked either about his Bengali accent,
which was redolent of the Punjab, or his acting ability, which was
rudimentary.
e fact that some of the leading Bengali writers of the time—Sailajananda
Mukherji, Premankur Atarthi, Premendra Mitra, Saradindu
Bandopadhyaya—were involved in films as writers or directors or both, did
little to improve the quality of Bengali films. When writing fiction or
poetry, these writers obviously aimed at a literate public; but when writing
for films or directing them, they seemed to assume a totally different
identity, and aim at the lowest of lowbrows. Occasionally, one would come
across a believable character, or a situation with a breath of life in it, but
they were invariably smothered by the dead-weight of formula. e idea
seemed to be that the cinema being a popular medium, it should only
lightly divert and not seriously engage the audience. at it was possible for
a film to do both seems not to have struck them at all.
And yet Bengal never lacked craftsmen. ere were excellent cameramen,
editors, and sound recordists who knew their jobs, and above all, acting
talent of a high order. If the mannerisms of the stage occasionally crept into
a film performance, it was because the material itself was conceived in
theatrical terms. Such mannerisms were actually encouraged as a sop to the
public. Having worked with stage actors myself, I know how well they’re
able to tailor style to suit the needs of the cinema.
But all this excellent material was being used by people who were
determined not to encroach into areas which would endanger the safety of
their positions. What was singularly lacking was the spirit of adventure.
Everyone played safe, and the result was stagnation.
Two years before the film society was born, I had illustrated an abridged
edition of Pather Panchali. It had struck me then that there was a film in the
book. But it was no more than a passing thought. But ever since then,
whenever I read a work of Bengali fiction, half of my mind would be
engaged in exploring its cinematic possibilities.
One such work of fiction was Rabindranath’s Ghare-Baire. I was then
working as an artist in a British advertising agency. In my spare time, I
occasionally wrote screenplays as a hobby. In the late forties I wrote one of
Ghare-Baire, and there came an exciting point when a producer liked it
enough to decide to sponsor a film of it. I signed a contract with him, and
dd f dH dh D G h d h fil S
so did my friend Harisadhan Das Gupta, who was to direct the film. Since
my contribution ended with the writing, it didn’t affect my job in any way.
But the producer went on to have second thoughts on the screenplay, and
suggested some changes. In my youthful pride, I put my foot down. I was
certainly not going to let a compromise sully my maiden contribution to the
cinema. is led to a deadlock, and ended up in the project falling through.
I felt like a pricked balloon at the time, but I can say now, after 35 years,
that I consider it the greatest good fortune that the film was never made.
Reading the screenplay now, I can see how pitifully superficial and
Hollywoodish it was.
At any rate, I found my mind turning back to Pather Panchali, which had by
then taken a more concrete shape. I pondered on it, and on the implications
of giving up my job. I felt it would be fun to be an independent artist,
working to satisfy a creative urge rather than satisfy the needs of a client.
Even at best, advertising art is a functional art, its sole aim being to sell a
product. Of course, there is a commodity aspect to films too: the filmmaker
works for a sponsor who expects to get his money back, and with a profit.
But if—and this was a big if—inspite of a sponsor, it was possible to make a
film in total freedom, then the choice for me would be simple.
Two things happened around this time to ease the way towards a resolution.
e first was the encounter with a director of world stature. Jean Renoir had
come to Calcutta to scout locations and interview actors for a film he would
be making in Bengal. Renoir was a French director who had emigrated to
Hollywood just before Hitler’s army invaded France. I knew his American
films, but not his French ones. His films had a poetry and a humanism one
rarely found in American films.
As it turned out, the man himself was very much like his films. He was
genial, warm hearted, and ready with advice to a young aspirant. On two
occasions, I was lucky enough to be with him while he was out looking for
locations. He reacted with gasps of surprise and delight at details which
eventually found their way into his film, capturing the Bengal countryside
as it had never been captured before. As Renoir told me: ‘You don’t have to
have too many elements in a film, but whatever you do, they must be the
right elements, the expressive elements.’ Simple-sounding advice, which
nevertheless touched on one of the fundamentals of art, which is economy
of expression.
 d k l l I fi
e second important event took place a year later. I was on my first trip to
London to work for a spell in the head office of our advertising agency. e
first film I saw in London was De Sica’s Bicycle ieves. I came out of the
theatre my mind fully made up. I would become a filmmaker. As soon as I
got back home, I would go all out to find a sponsor for Pather Panchali. e
prospect of giving up a safe job didn’t daunt me any more. I would make my
film exactly as De Sica had made his: working with non-professional actors,
using modest resources, and shooting on actual locations. e village which
Bibhutibhusan had so lovingly described would be a living backdrop to the
film, just as the outskirts of Rome were for De Sica’s film.
Bicycle ieves was in many ways a revelation. I assume many of you have
seen the film. For those who haven’t, I shall give the briefest outline of the
story.
Ricci, a poor worker in Rome, needs a bicycle in order to get a job. His own
bike has been lying in a pawn-shop. To get it back, Ricci has to pawn some
household possessions. Within a day of his acquiring it, the bike is stolen.
Ricci desperately tries to retrieve it, but fails. At the end of an exhausting
day, in a mood of abject despair, Ricci notices a bike left standing in an
apparently deserted street. After a long fight with his conscience, he decides
to steal it. But he makes a clumsy job of it, and is caught and beaten up by
an angry mob in the presence of his ten-year-old son Bruno. As Ricci
makes his way home weeping in humiliation, Bruno, who is also crying,
joins him and offers his hand in sympathy. e two walk hand in hand and
are lost in the crowd.
As you can see, there isn’t much of a story, and not much of a theme either.
But De Sica and his writer Zavattini pack into its 90 minutes such an
incredible amount of social observation that one never notices the
slenderness of the plot. e film simply bristles with details, some of which
add depth to the story in unexpected ways. For instance, there’s a scene
towards the end where Ricci suddenly runs into the thief in front of the
latter’s house, pounces upon him, and demands that he hands back his bike.
Hotly denying his guilt, the thief suddenly goes into an epileptic fit. As he
sinks to the ground shaking and foaming at the mouth, his mother, who’s
been watching from an upstairs window, tosses pillows to put under his
head. Meanwhile, Bruno has dragged along a policeman, whom Ricci now
takes into the house to make a search. We see the miserable pigeonhole of a

h h h k lf h f l ff ‘I d
room where the mother cooks a meagre meal for the family of four. ‘Instead
of accusing him,’ she says, ‘why don’t you find him a job?’ e bike,
however, is not found. As Ricci comes out of the house, he finds that the
whole neighbourhood has turned against him. His hopes dashed to the
ground, he has no choice but to walk despondently away.
Apart from adding dimension to the story, the film challenges our stock
response of instant antipathy towards a character who brings misery on the
hero by an unsocial act. But so finely is the balance maintained that the
incident doesn’t lessen the calamity of the hero’s loss. It merely makes the
film a far richer experience than a conventional treatment would have done.
One quality which is sure to be found in a great work of cinema is the
revelation of large truths in small details. e world reflected in a dew drop
will serve as a metaphor for this quality. ere is a scene in Bicycle ieves
where father and son go feverishly looking for a man they believe to have
connections with the thief. In the process the two lose each other. Finding
himself alone in a back street of a quiet neighbourhood, Bruno is seen to
approach a wall while unbuttoning his pants. But before he can do what he
wishes to do, Ricci suddenly appears and calls out urgently. Bruno whirls
round and runs to join his father, his urge unsatisfied. is one detail brings
home the implications of this desperate, daylong search more vividly than
anything could have done. It is such details, combined with acute social
observation, and the suffusing warmth of the father-and-son relationship
that make Bicycle ieves a great work of cinema.
When I finally decided to become a filmmaker, I was well aware that I
would be up against a relatively backward audience. And yet I had set my
mind on breaking all manner of conventions. I had discussed the project
with a number of professionals, and, to a man, they had discouraged me by
saying that it couldn’t be done the way we wanted to do it. ‘You can’t shoot
entirely on location,’ they had said. ‘You need the controlled conditions of a
studio.’ ‘You can’t shoot in cloudy weather; you can’t shoot in the rain; you
can’t shoot with amateur actors’, and so on and so forth.
So one of the first things we did was to borrow a 16 mm camera and go to a
village and take test shots. Subrata, who was to be my cameraman, and I
went to Bibhutibhusan’s village Gopalnagar, the Nishchindipur of Pather
Panchali. It was in the middle of the rainy season, and we had to squelch
through knee-deep mud to reach our destination. But once we got there, we
l W k h h d l h f h
lost no time. We took shots in the dim light of a mango grove, we shot in
pouring rain, and we shot in the failing light of dusk. Everything came out.
I shall not go into the various ordeals we had to face in the two and a half
years it took to make Pather Panchali. e story has been told often enough.
But what I have probably not mentioned elsewhere is that it was in a way a
blessing that the film took so long to make. We learnt filmmaking as we
went along, and since we went on for so long, it gave us that much more
time to learn. With all my knowledge of Western cinema, the first thing I
realized was that none of the films I had ever seen was remotely like the
story I was about to film. Pather Panchali had its roots deep in the soil of
Bengal. e life it described had its own pace and its own rhythm, which in
turn had to mould the pace and the rhythm of the film. e inspiration had
to come from the book, and from the real surroundings in which we had
decided to place the story.
If the books on filmmaking helped, it was only in a general sort of way. For
instance, none of them tells you how to handle an actor who has never faced
a camera before. You had to devise your own method. You had to find out
yourself how to catch the hushed stillness of dusk in a Bengali village, when
the wind drops and turns the ponds into sheets of glass, dappled by the
leaves of shaluk and shapla, and the smoke from ovens settles in wispy trails
over the landscape, and the plaintive blows on conchshells from homes far
and near are joined by the chorus of crickets, which rises as the light falls,
until all one sees are the stars in the sky, and the stars that blink and swirl in
the thickets.
We wanted to show fireflies in Aparajito. e books didn’t tell us that the
light they gave off was too weak to be photographed. Our own tests with
the camera proved that. So we had to invent a way of showing them. What
we did was photograph a group of bare-bodied assistants in black
loincloths, who hopped about in total darkness, holding in their hands tiny
electric bulbs which flashed on and off in a simulation of the dance of the
fireflies.
If film books didn’t help much, I was helped enormously by Bibhutibhusan.
He is one writer whose stories are a gold-mine of cinematic observation,
and it is fortunate that I developed a taste for him right at the start of my
career. Even in his lesser works—and there aren’t many that rise to the
heights of Pather Panchali.
A ’ d h Kh h d d f
Annapurna’s daughter Khenti has just got married, and it is now time for
the bride to depart. e palki is resting on the ground with the bride and
the groom in it. Annapurna, whose heart is torn by anguish, glances at the
palki and notices—I translate—‘that the end of Khenti’s modest red
balucbar has trailed out of the palki, and is nestling against a drooping
cluster of medi flowers by the bamboo fencing.’ In its context, this is a
heartrending detail, and a perfect film close-up of the kind described by
Eisenstein as pars pro toto, part standing for the whole.
Yet another quality which Bibhutibhusan had was a wonderful ear for
lifelike speech. A vital and unending pursuit for a filmmaker is the study of
speech patterns: speech as a reflection of class, and speech as revealing states
of mind. is is one area where Bengali cinema had been particularly weak.
e forties and fifties were the era of something called smart dialogue. One
often heard it said that ‘so-and-so is unsurpassed as a writer of smart
dialogue.’ e implication seemed to be that dialogue was something to be
admired for its own sake and not, as it should be, as a concomitant of the
characters who speak it. e epitome of this was, of course, Udayer Patbe,
where the hero’s speech gave the impression that he was born spouting
epigrams. e best film dialogue is where one doesn’t feel the presence of
the writer at all. I am talking here of the kind of film that tries to capture
the feel of reality. ere are also films which attempt a larger-than-life style,
or an oblique, fractured or expressionist style: I myself wrote dialogue with
end rhymes in Hirok Rajar Deshay, which was a fantasy. But the
overwhelming majority of narrative films belong in the tradition of realism,
where the dialogue sustains the feeling of lifelikeness that is conveyed
through the camera. is realism in films is not the naturalism of the
painter, who sets up his easel before his subject, and proceeds to record
faithfully what he sees. For a filmmaker, there is no ready-made reality
which he can straightaway capture on film. What surrounds him is only raw
material. He must at all times use this material selectively. Objects, locales,
people, speech, viewpoints—everything must be carefully chosen, to serve
the ends of his story. In other words, creating reality is part of the creative
process, where the imagination is aided by the eye and the ear.
e novelist has a similar task. In his supposed omniscience, he can describe
the innermost workings of his characters’ minds, while evoking the
surroundings in the minutest detail. e reader sees only what the author
chooses to describe. It may be just a factual description, or it may go beyond
h h h h dd h b I h
that, where the author adds his subjective comments to it. It is such
description and such comments—this combination of the concrete and the
abstract—that builds up the picture of reality in the reader’s mind.
A film, on the other hand, presents information in lumps, as it were. At any
given moment, the image on the screen may be filled with a plethora of
details, each carrying information. In other words, the language here is far
more diffused than the language of words, and it is the filmmaker’s job to
direct the attention of the audience to the dominant idea contained in the
image. If the idea is conveyed through dialogue, there is usually no
ambiguity. But when it is conveyed in non-verbal terms—through gestures,
objects, pure sounds, and so on—precise communication becomes difficult.
When a writer is at a loss for words, he can turn to his esaurus; but there
is no esaurus for the filmmaker. He can fall back on clichés, of course—
goodness knows how many films have used the snuffed-out candle to
suggest death—but the really effective language is both fresh and vivid at
the same time, and the search for it an inexhaustible one.
Since nine out of ten Bengali films are based on novels, and since both films
and novels use words and images, one would think that such novels would
substantially help in the creation of a film language. But here a problem
arises. I don’t know if it is a reflection of the Bengali temperament, but
many of our writers seem more inclined to use their minds, rather than
their eyes and ears. In other words, there is a marked tendency to avoid
concrete observation. Here is a small segment of Balzac’s description of
Madame Vauquer’s lodging-house in Old Goriot:
‘e indestructible furniture which every other house throws out, finds its
way to the lodging-house, for the same reason that the human wreckage of
civilization drifts to the hospitals for the incurable. In the room, you would
find a barometer with a monk, which appears when it is wet; execrable
engravings, bad enough to spoil your appetite, and all framed with
unvarnished black wood; a clock with a tortoise-shell case inlaid with
copper; a green stove; lamps coated with dust and oil; a long table covered
with oil cloth so greasy that a facetious boarder can write his name on it
with fingernails; broken-backed chairs; wretched little grass mats
unravelling endlessly, without ever coming completely to pieces; and finally,
miserable foot warmers, their orifices enlarged by decay, their hinges broken

d h d h d  f ll ld k d d h k
and their wood charred. e furniture is all old, cracked, decaying, shaky,
worm-eaten, decrepit, rickety, ramshackle and on its last legs.’
Here you have the art director’s job already done for him. is sort of vivid
observation—the kind that is a godsend to a filmmaker—is by no means
common in Bengali fiction. Bankim reveals this quality occasionally—there
is a minutely observed description of Nagendranath’s house in Bisha-
Briksha, and Debi Choudhurani’s houseboat is described in sumptuous
detail. Such descriptions occur in almost every page of Hutom, and in more
recent times, one finds it again and again in the writings of Kamal Kumar
Majumdar. But to come to a major novel I’m involved in at the moment, for
the second time—Rabindranath’s Ghare-Baire—such concreteness is
noticeably lacking.
For instance, there is no description of Nikhilesh’s house anywhere in the
book. Of the two rooms where most of the action takes place—Nikhilesh’s
bedroom in the inner part of the house and the drawing room in the outer
part—barely three or four details are mentioned by name. Sandip has
regular meetings with his boys, but we’re never told where they meet.
Occasionally, there is a description of what Bimala is wearing, but none of
the male characters’ dresses is ever described. In the present case, this lack
of visualization may be because the chronicler is not the author himself but
the three main characters, who by turns reveal their mind and motives, and
advance the story. Also, the clash of ideas and ideals which forms the
substance of the novel may account for the predominance of the abstract
over the concrete. However, the fact remains that the trait is a common one
in Bengali fiction, and leads one to conclude that the writers are either
incapable of or disinclined to visualize beyond a certain point. is itself
need not be held against a novel, but in a film writer, the tendency can only
lead to a film that shows a lot but tells very little. A film by its very nature
makes the characters and their surroundings concrete. e camera makes
them so. You see the characters, you see the setting in which the story
unfolds. But this concreteness is a sum of the elements that go to make a
character, a room, a background; and these can come alive only through a
deliberate and apt choice of such elements. In other words, what a film says
is intimately bound up with these elements, these visual details.
Our films have consistently neglected these details in their preoccupation
with content. Our critics too have shown a tendency to judge a film

d l h h h h Ih h
predominantly on what it says rather than how it says it. I have no wish to
belittle content, but we must remember that the lousiest of films have been
made on the loftiest of themes. at a director says all the right things is in
itself no guarantee of artistry. At best it is a reflection of his attitude, or his
ideology. If it is a true reflection—and often there is no way of telling—it
will mark him out as an honest man, but not necessarily as an artist. Unless
a film aims at deliberate obfuscation, or is unintelligible through sheer
clumsiness of execution, what it says is usually clear to all. But what it says
is only a partial index of a filmmaker’s personality, because it is the manner
of saying which indicates the artist. ere are filmmakers who are not overly
concerned with what they say as long as they can say it with style or finesse.
One would sooner describe them as craftsmen, because it is difficult to
think of an artist who is totally devoid of an attitude to life and society
which he reveals in his work. Usually the attitude is implicit in his choice of
material. But his success in portraying it in terms of the cinema is in direct
ratio to the purity, power, and freshness of his language.
I shall end this talk by describing a scene from one of my own films, which
attempts to use a language entirely free from literary and theatrical
influences. Except for one line of dialogue in its seven minutes, the scene
says what it has to say in terms that speak to the eye and the ear. e scene
will also introduce an important element I haven’t spoken of so far. is is
the recurring motif. Appearing at several points in a film, often in different
contexts, these motifs serve as unifying elements.
e seven minutes refer to the opening scene of Charulata. Once again I
assume many of you will have seen the film—if not in the cinema, at least
on television. is scene establishes visually the approximate period of the
story, the upper-class ambience in which the story unfolds, the central
character of Charu, and a crucial aspect of her relationship with her
husband. In other words, it sets the stage for the drama that follows. I
should point out that no such scene as this occurs in Nashta-nirh, the
Rabindranath story on which the film is based, and that there are elements
in it which have been invented for the purpose of the film. But this is
inevitable in any adaptation of a literary work for the screen. It is also
justifiable if what has been introduced serves to articulate the author’s
theme, and illuminates the characters conceived by him.

 fil h h l ‘B’ b b d d h dk h fb
e film opens with the letter ‘B’ being embroidered in a handkerchief by
Charu. is will prove to be a major motif in the film. We will learn later
that the handkerchief is meant for Charu’s husband Bhupati. It will trigger
off the conversation which will make Bhupati aware of Charu’s loneliness.
Towards the end of the film, after Bhupati’s traumatic discovery of Charu’s
feelings towards Amal, Bhupati will use the handkerchief to wipe his tears,
and will notice the embroidery before he decides to return to his wife.
As Charu finishes her needlework, we hear the grandfather clock on the
verandah strike four. e clock is heard chiming the hour at several points
in the film, and may be said to be the second motif.
But what is special about four o’clock? We learn in a few moments when
Charu puts down the embroidery, goes out of the bedroom and down the
verandah to the top of the backstairs, calls out to the servant and asks him
to take tea to the master in the office. We thus know that Bhupati’s place of
work is in the house itself.
Her duty done, Charu comes back to the bedroom. For a few moments she
is undecided what to do. is, of course, is an inevitable aspect of boredom.
One has time on one’s hands, but is frequently at a loss to know how to use
it. Charu briefly admires her handiwork, then picks up a book from the bed,
ruffles through the pages and puts it down.
She now comes out of the bedroom, and once again proceeds down the
verandah towards the outer apartments. Apart from the obvious fact of
Charu’s restlessness, these comings and goings in and out of rooms help to
establish the plan of the first floor of Bhupati’s house where most of the
action will take place. In a story like Charulata, the setting itself is a
character, and must be established as carefully in all its details as any human
participant in the story.
Charu now comes into the drawing-room and picks out from a bookcase a
novel by Bankimchandra. is is the third motif: Bankim will prove to be a
common link between Charu and Amal.
Charu has already reacted to a monkeyman’s drumming which is heard
from somewhere in the neighbourhood. Idly turning the pages of the novel,
she makes her way to her husband’s study which lies in the direction of the
sound of drumming. She goes to a window in the room, raises the shutters
and peers out—and there is the monkeyman in the house next door.

 Ch d Sh f h b k h
is gives Charu an idea. She scurries out of the room, comes back to the
bedroom and takes out a lorgnette from a drawer. is lorgnette is the
fourth motif, and will feature in a crucial later scene with Amal.
As she hurries back to her husband’s study swinging the lorgnette in her
hand, the camera follows the object through the verandah railings. Precisely,
the same viewpoint will recur in a very different context when a triumphant
Charu will make a headlong dash for Amal’s room, this time swinging in
her hand the magazine which has published her article.
e monkeyman is now brought up close as Charu observes him through
the lorgnette. But the man goes away, and Charu now turns to another
window. is one gives on the street. is time Charu has a glimpse of a
palki, which is followed by a fatman who carries a lot of sweetmeats
dangling at the end of a string. e man goes out of view, but Charu,
anxious to stay with this amusing character a little longer, rushes to the
drawing-room and follows him through three successive windows until the
man turns a corner and is finally lost to sight.
It was important to stress this playful aspect of Charu, because this is where
she is farthest from her staid husband and closest to the youthful, exuberant
Amal.
Charu has now reached a point where she is once again undecided what to
do. e first musical motif is introduced here: a line of melody which will be
associated with Charu, and which now unfolds as Charu makes her way
pensively to the piano. She lifts the lid and casually strikes a note. But she is
immediately distracted by the sound of booted footsteps from the verandah.
We now see Bhupati in his shirtsleeves, stomping busily down the verandah
towards the bedroom.
Charu comes out of the drawing-room and stands by the door, looking the
way her husband has gone, her chin resting on the hand holding the
lorgnette. She knows her husband will return, and sure enough he does, this
time with a fat book in his hand, his eyes glued to an open page.
He stops by Charu for a moment to turn a page, then walks on without
noticing her. Charu keeps looking at the receding figure. en, in a playful
gesture, she brings the lorgnette up to her eyes. For a brief moment Bhupati
is brought up close before he goes out of sight down the staircase.

Ch h l f h d k l k f f
Charu removes the lorgnette from her eyes and keeps looking for a few
more seconds towards the door through which her husband has just gone
out.
en her hand with the lorgnette flops down. We now know that Charu is
resigned to her state of loneliness. And this brings the scene to a close.
Lowering the voting age to eighteen (New Delhi,
December 1988)
RAJIV GANDHI (1944–1991)

e announcement contained in this speech was of obvious significance for

Indian democracy as the lowering of the voting age immediately increased
the size of the electorate. Rajiv Gandhi was young and his image had a
special appeal for youth. e change made a huge number of young people
participate in the democratic process. What was surprising is that despite
the enormity of the decision it did not stir up a controversy. Nor did it win
plaudits for Rajiv Gandhi.

Let me say at the outset that the legislation that this government has
brought, is a major legislation as it is aimed at strengthening the roots of
our democracy. Our Indian democracy is unique in many ways. It is a
unique experiment which is of global interest. It is the first time that a
diverse society, with diverse cultures, with ethnically different people,
speaking different languages, inhabiting different regions, professing
different religions, and having different castes, has been brought under one
democratic system. In a sense it is the microcosm of the world as also a
demonstration to the world that the democracy is possible amongst a
diverse society such as ours which can be a model for an international
democracy for people to live together on the globe.
During these forty years, the experiment of Indian democracy has been
extremely successful—perhaps, the most successful in any developing

dI ld l k h k d l h l fI d f
country—and I would like to thank and congratulate the people of India for
the success of this experiment.
During these forty years, we have learnt a number of things and some weak
areas in our system have become noticeable, and it is necessary to correct
these areas. is Bill, for the first time in forty years, addresses itself to
major issues relating to electoral reforms. is government started the
process of bringing about electoral reforms, by first bringing the Anti-
Defection Bill. We followed that by regulating donations from companies,
by altering the Companies Act. We followed that by bringing in a Bill to
prevent the misuse of religious institutions. is is the fourth step that we
are taking during this Parliament.
is bill addresses a number of areas. I won’t go into all the details. e law
minister and other members have covered those details. But these are some
areas that I would like to touch. One of the most significant areas that this
Bill goes into is to preserve secularism in our country.
It is important to spend a minute on why secularism is important. It is
important for us to understand what we mean by secularism, because there
are some amongst us who, under the label of secularism, want to destroy
religion. Our secularism is not anti-religion, nor is it for destroying religion.
We must be very clear about that. I would like to say categorically that
anybody who thinks that secularism means the destruction of religion or an
anti-religion act, is doing a disfavour to the word secularism, is doing a
disfavour to our nation; and some who believe in that, should revise their
thinking, because it is dangerous for our country.
Secularism is essential because, in a pluralistic society such as ours, it is
essential to separate politics and government from religion. If we do not do
so, we run the gravest risk of disintegrating the country and destroying our
nation. Perhaps the effect will be much beyond just the effect that it will
have on the nation. We will lose the nation; but the world will lose an
experiment in building one humanity. So, the repercussions are much
greater than even those affecting our nation.
e path that Gandhiji and Panditji have put us on to, and Indiraji took us
on, has much greater goals than just those limited by our boundaries; and
we must not limit our vision by our boundaries. Our vision must go beyond.
So, secularism is one key word, and it is essential that secularism is brought

f El d h l l h
in every area of our activities. Elections and the electoral process is one such
very important area.
We took the first step when we brought the Bill for preventing the misuse
of religious institutions. In this Bill, by requiring the political parties to
submit themselves to the Constitution of India, we are pushing them
further towards the secular goal. I feel here it is important for me to say that
when we push people towards secularism—and I am saying push people,
and not force people, because when we start forcing, then things snap;
people take hard decisions. We must coax them and bring them into the
mainstream, and that is what we are trying to do. We could have taken a
very hard stand. I have gone through the proceedings of the House. Some
members feel that much stronger action have been brought in. is was
considered by the cabinet.
We went into it in depth and, in balance, we felt that it was better to tread
softly along this path, because if we try to force, we may end up in a
situation where we will isolate a large section of our population and
deliberately cause fissiparous tendencies to develop. We have adopted the
way of pulling the people into the mainstream and convincing them that
this is the right way to go. We believe that by making political parties
submit themselves to the Constitution of India, we are only strengthening
our electoral process, our democracy and our nation. And any party that is
not willing to submit itself to the Constitution of India does not deserve to
be recognized as a political party…
An hon’ble member from the Opposition and an hon’ble member from our
side have recommended an amendment to bring in the full provision of the
Misuse of Religious Institutions Bill. We thought that it was already
included, but, perhaps, it was a little soft; it was covered, but not
completely. I have asked the law minister to bring in a government
amendment because there are some technical problems in the wording of
the two proposals. We will bring in a government amendment to cover this
area and I would like to thank both the members…
Another very important aspect of the bill is the protection that we have
sought for the weaker sections when they go to vote. As I said, our electoral
system, our democracy have functioned very well. But there are certain weak
areas; and one of the weak areas is that the feudal elements prevent the
weaker sections, the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, the minorities,
h f S h d f
the women, from going out to vote. Sometimes they are prevented from
leaving their homes; sometimes they are prevented from actually getting to
the booths by the feudal elements. is is, of course, one of the reasons. By
making booth capturing a cognizable offence and by making both capturing
a corrupt practice, we feel that the hands of the weaker sections will really
be strengthened. We have also listed a number of crimes which, if
committed, will debar people from contesting an election. We have
mentioned specifically those crimes which are antisocial and which are
demeaning of the dignity of a particular section of the people. It is, again,
the weaker sections against whom these crimes are committed and it is our
earnest endeavour to protect the weaker sections by bringing in these
provisions.
One major step that we are taking is reducing the voting age from twenty-
one to eighteen.
We have full faith in the youth of India. e youth of India have
demonstrated their wisdom, their maturity in panchayat elections, local
body elections, and we feel that they are now ready to participate fully in the
democratic process. is amendment will bring in almost fifty million
people into the electoral system.
ere has been another area where there have been some differences
between what some parties have felt and what we have felt; what we have
brought in and what has been the question of the multi-member election
commission. We have full faith in the election commissioner and we feel
that anybody who wants a multi-member election commission seems to
have some doubts about the election commissioner. We have no doubts
about the integrity and independence of the election commissioner and
going to a multi-member election commission, we feel, would have meant
that we doubted the integrity of the election commissioner in some way. We
have no doubt about the integrity…
Having said that, let me also say that there have been a number of occasions
when the decision of the election commissioner has been contentious. e
Opposition has not agreed with many decisions and has made issues. We
too have not liked many decisions and have made issues. But the fact is that
it has been fairly universal and we have found that the election
commissioner was tied down by the lack of powers he had. We could keep
complaining. But because the system was as it was, he was not able to do
h h d d S h h h h d f f
even what he wanted to do. So, we have thought that instead of going for a
multi-member commission, like has been suggested by certain parties, we
would instead strengthen the hands of the election commissioner because
we have full faith in him. is bill strengthens the hands of the election
commissioner and for the first time perhaps the election commissioner will
have the powers to deal with the task that has been given to him.
One more question had come up on identity cards. When we discussed this
in the cabinet, we very clearly gave our affirmation. In fact, we have cleared
identity cards. We will have multipurpose—whatever they are—identity
cards. ere are some problems on how it will be handled administratively;
what it will cost; how we will bear it and how we will deal with these two
areas. But we will start the process now. Because of the size of the country,
the size of the electorate and the other complications, we cannot say that we
will complete the whole process before the next elections or according to a
time schedule, but I am very keen that the process is put into motion
rapidly. In the initial stages we will have to learn in the process of putting
this through, but we would like to see that it gets through quickly. We will
overcome the difficulties and we will try and have identity cards as soon as
possible.
Amongst the many points that have been raised during this debate I would
like to refer to only two: the first is state funding. e problem is not
whether there is state funding or not. e problem as I understand it, is the
question of the money power in elections, let me say very clearly from
experience. I am very clear that our people are much too clever and much
too wise to be misled by money power. Never has money power been the
deciding factor in an election in this country. is is my feeling. If some
people feel that our electorate can be misled by money power, I think they
are totally wrong. It is only the politicians who sometimes feel that by
spending more money they can do something. But our electorate is much
too wise for that. state funding in no way changes the amount of money
that is being used. In fact, it will only increase the amount of money that is
out there for electoral use. It will not reduce the raising of money for
elections in any way. So, I do not see state funding tackling the issue of the
cost of elections in any way. If it did, we would have brought it here. But, I
do see a need for trying to reduce the cost of elections. If the hon’ble
members have a positive suggestion on that we will definitely consider it.
But nothing concrete has come to us on that issue yet. Let me once again
h I l d h b h l f
say that I am very clear in my mind that we cannot buy the electorate of
India. e electorate of India is much too independent and wise for that.
Sir, the second point that was raised—I think it does need addressing—is,
some members have felt that this Bill has not addressed the core issues and
has addressed only the peripheral issues. Well, I feel some of these members
are suffering from what could best be called peripheral myopia.
Let me say very clearly that this Bill is a major Bill. It is a major electoral
reform. I would go to the extent of calling it historical and revolutionary,
and significantly, we have brought it in the centenary year of Panditji. It will
strengthen the roots of our democracy and it re-establishes the faith of the
Congress in the youth of India and in the wisdom of the people of India…
Panchayati raj (New Delhi, October 1989)
RAJIV GANDHI (1944–1991)

By pursuing in earnest the project of institutionalizing village self-

governance through panchayats, Rajiv Gandhi was carrying forward an idea
that was close to Mahatma Gandhi’s heart. Even though Nehru and Indira
Gandhi had not been too keen on panchayats, the process had made
significant advances in West Bengal, Maharashtra, and Rajasthan. Rajiv
Gandhi, as Prime Minister, attempted to give a national dimension to the
process. e political calculation behind it was that it would enable
Congress governments at the centre to bypass hostile state governments and
give money directly to the people. is was one of Rajiv Gandhi’s most
important political contributions and the process continues albeit at a
slower pace than what he would have liked.

I have been following with the closest interest this important debate on the
Panchayati Raj and Nagarpalika Bills. ese constitutional amendments,
which I had the honour to introduce at the last session, are of truly historic
and revolutionary significance. It is, therefore, not surprising that the debate
should have been sometimes stormy, sometimes incisive, sometimes
reflective, but at all times lively. I wish to thank all members on both sides
of the House for the important contributions they have made to this debate
which is bound to adorn textbooks on constitutional history for many years
to come.
By and large, it appears to me there is general acceptance of the need for
maximum democracy and maximum devolution. What is disputed is
matters of constitutional jurisdiction, political propriety, electoral
dl l d l All d d l h h f
motivation, and legislative detail. Allow me, madam, to deal with each of
these apprehensions in turn.
It has now been well established in both Houses that there can be no doubt
about the Union Government’s competence to introduce these
constitutional amendments. We have displayed the utmost rectitude in not
impinging upon the essential constitutional relationship established
between the union and the states. Our basic aim is to secure constitutional
sanctity for democracy in the panchayats and nagarpalikas and devolution to
them of adequate power and finances to ensure the people’s participation in
the development process.
First, we have left entry five of the State List exactly as it is and where it is.
e competence of state legislatures to deal with all municipal legislation
relating to rural and urban local bodies has not been tampered with in any
way. Second, care has been taken to so draft the constitutional amendments
as to leave it entirely to state legislatures to draft the law on the subject, and
state governments to formulate and pass the necessary orders to realize the
objectives of these, constitutional amendments. e only point I would wish
to stress is that all municipal law has to conform to the provisions of the
constitution. ese two amendments, when passed, will set the
constitutional stage on the basis of which state legislatures will undertake
detailed legislation…
ird, it is erroneous and misleading to say, as some members opposite have
alleged, that what we have attempted to do is to draft a detailed municipal
legislation by the back door of detailed constitutional amendments. We
have restricted ourselves to essential features such as regularity in elections
and the forestalling of arbitrary and prolonged suspensions. We have been
asked why we have prescribed in such detail a common structure of
panchayats at village, intermediate and district levels, as also a common
structure of nagarpalikas for different sizes of population. e answer is
simple. A uniform structure means uniform pattern and degree of
democratic representation in the local bodies. Why would the pattern and
degree of democracy differ from one part of the country to the other? We
are, after all, one country. Another major objective we have in mind is to
reduce the vast gap that now separates the voter from his representative. In
a vast country like ours, there are at present not more than about 5,500
persons—5,000 in the state legislatures and around 500 in Parliament—to

d l ll l  b f k h
directly represent 800 million people. e number of voters seeking the
assistance of the elected representative is so large that there is no way the
representative can really give his personal attention to his electorate as a
whole. Also, it means the people have to approach their MLA, or even MP,
to get grassroot problems attended to. e Panchayati Raj and Nagarpalika
Bills will generate so many lakhs of elected grassroot representatives that the
distance between the voters and his representative would be drastically
reduced, the power brokers would be driven from their perches and
grassroot problems would receive grassroot attention. ere is no reason
why these benefits should not reach the people in a more or less uniform
manner throughout the country. at objective can only be secured by
uniformity in the structure of local bodies.
e third point is perhaps, of the greatest significance. We are determined
to ensure just representation for the weaker sections of society through
reservations in all our local bodies. e only way of ensuring uniformity in
reservations is by ensuring a uniform structure of local government. Let me
give you an example to illustrate the complications that would have arisen if
we had tried to secure a uniform system of reservations without having a
uniform structure of local government. At present in some states including
Congress-run Maharashtra and non-Congress-run West Bengal, the
panchayat samiti is a body directly elected by the people at large. In some
other states, however, the panchayat samiti is not a directly elected body but
a committee of the Chairman of village panchayats. In a directly elected
panchayat samiti it is entirely feasible to reserve seats for scheduled castes
and scheduled tribes in proportion to their population, as also to reserve
thirty percent of the seats for women. If, however, the panchayat samiti is
not a directly elected body but only a committee of the chairman of the
village panchayats how is one to secure proportionate representation for
scheduled castes and scheduled tribes or thirty percent reservation for
women? In prescribing a uniform structure of local government, for the
country as a whole, our aim is not to arbitrarily impose a uniform structure
on a diverse country. It is only to ensure that there is uniformity of
reservations throughout the country for the scheduled castes, the scheduled
tribes and women. We are second to none in recognizing the diversity of
our country. We are second to none in celebrating the variegated cultures of
our country. We are second to none in being the most passionate advocates
of our unity in diversity, in recognizing and affirming that, in a country like
I d h l h bl b l h d f
India, the only unity that is possible is by a large hearted acceptance of
diversity. Respect for diversity means recognizing that palm trees grow in
some parts of the country and the chinar grows in others. But what has this
to do with the oppression of harijans or adivasis or discrimination against
women? Surely, the ladies of Kerala deserve equal treatment in the
panchayats as the ladies of Kashmir, even as scheduled castes and scheduled
tribes everywhere are entitled to equal representation. Diversity means
respect for a Carnatic kriti in anjavur, a baul in Bengal, a dhrupad in
Gwalior and a manganiar lok geet in Rajasthan. But does this mean
reservations in Tamil Nadu should be different to reservations in Bengal?
Does this mean that the adivasis of Rajasthan should be treated differently
to the adivasis of Madhya Pradesh or that the scheduled castes in one part
of the country should get reservations in proportion to their population but
be denied the same privilege in other parts of the country? To do this would
be to make a farce of the noble precept of unity in diversity.
We celebrate the intellectual, spiritual, and cultural diversity of our country.
But, as I said a minute ago, we are one country. When it comes to
oppression and discrimination, the people of India are united in demanding
a uniform end to all oppression, all suppression, all social tyranny, all
obsolete social morals. I repeat, madam, that it is to secure a uniform system
of reservations that we were obliged to prescribe a uniform structure of local
government.
I now turn to questions of political propriety which appears to have agitated
the feelings of our friends opposite. We have been asked: how dare the
Prime Minister interact directly with district magistrates? I answer: What
call has the Prime Minister of a country like India to remain as Prime
Minister unless he feels at home in the humblest hut of the humblest,
remotest village of our vast and varied country? I toured hundreds of
villages. I spoke to countless people. ere, in their hearths and homes, I
experienced the cruelty of an unresponsive administration, the oppression of
an administration without a heart, the callous lack of compassion that most
of our people find at the hands of much of our administration. I then
looked at the administrators themselves—most of them dedicated young
men and women, of extraordinarily high intelligence, deeply concerned
about the people placed in their charge and yet, apparently incapable of
converting their enthusiasm and personal compassion into a responsive
administration. I sought an answer to this riddle, a solution to this
d  h I d d d h h d
conundrum. at is how I decided to pose the question to the district
magistrates themselves. How could this possibly be wrong?
In any case, there was nothing clandestine about my encounters with
district magistrates. e first one was held at Bhopal. I invited Chief
Minister Motilal Vora, to join us. He accepted and was with us in the
meeting. e second one was at Hyderabad.
I invited Chief Minister N.T. Rama Rao to accompany me to the
encounter. For reasons best known to him, he haughtily declined… I asked
him once again at Hyderabad airport. He once again refused to come with
me. How can the Opposition…now turn around and say I went behind the
backs of chief ministers to talk to district magistrates?
When it came to meetings with village pradhans and sarpanches, panchayat
samiti chairmen and presidents of zila parshads, we took care to seek the
cooperation of at least two Opposition-run state governments in holding
these sammelans (meetings). Chief Minister Jyoti Basu kindly agreed to
cooperate and we held a most informative and useful sammelan in Calcutta,
in full view, I might add, of the representatives of that state’s non-Congress
government. We were making arrangements with an Opposition-run
government for the south zone sammelan in Bangalore when that
government crumbled under the weight of its own inconsistencies. If the
Janata Dal failed to host the south zone sammelan that was not on account
of any failing on our part but only because of their own inability to hold out
until the panchayat representatives arrived.
We have consulted openly, frankly and freely with every echelon concerned:
beginning with the common folk of our villages to whom I spoke; then the
bureaucracy, including district magistrates, chief secretaries and secretaries
to the Government of India; and then the panchayat and local self-
government ministers and chief ministers of states. It was never we who
shied away from meeting them. Regrettably, however, some Opposition-run
state governments refused to send officials and even elected representatives
to these encounters and then, in a shameful act of abnegation of
governmental responsibility, failed to participate in the conference of chief
ministers which I called in early July.
We come to this House, madam, at the culmination of a process of open,
transparent consultation without precedent in the history of independent
India. e amendments we present are the distilled essence of the views of
h d f l d l l b d h d d f d
thousands of elected local body representatives, hundreds of district
magistrates, scores of senior government servants and dozens of ministers
and chief ministers. ere is no impropriety on our part. e only
impropriety has lain in the discourtesy with which a well-intentioned
invitation was turned down.
Madam, much play has been made by the Opposition of the proximity of
the forthcoming general elections to the important legislation which this
House will shortly be voting upon. I do not quite understand the point at
issue here. Is it not a fact that we were elected to govern and legislate for a
five-year period?…
Is it not a fact that we were elected to serve the people of their development
and progress for a five-year period? Should we stop governing and
legislating only because elections are in the offing? It is the people who have
given us this responsibility. It is to the people and the people alone—that
we are responsible…. We reject this artful misinterpretation of
parliamentary practice that would require us to desist from legislation
because of the proximity of the polls.
In any case, madam, it was at the very beginning of our present term of
office, in the first broadcast I made to the nation in January 1985 that I
outlined the plan we had in mind to make our administration responsive to
the people’s needs. I raised these issues in my speech at the Congress
centenary in Bombay in December 1985. In August 1986 this intention of
government was enshrined as the twentieth point of the 20-point
programme under the rubric ‘Responsive Administration’.
At that time, I must confess, we were in quest of managerial solutions to an
unresponsive administration. We were looking to a simplification of
procedures, grievance redressal machinery, single-window clearances,
computerization and courtesy as the answers to the problem. As we went
along, we discovered that a managerial solution would not do. What was
needed was a systematic solution.
e Panchayati Raj and Nagarpalika Bills constitute the most signifciant
systemic transformation in the governance of the Indian polity since the
Constitution entered into force just under forty years ago. We learnt that a
paternalistic administration cannot be a responsive administration. We
learnt that a grassroot administration without political authority was like a
meal without salt. We learnt that however well-intentioned our district
b h b h ff l d h h b
bureaucracy might be, without effective elected authority the gap between
the people and the bureaucracy could not be closed. We learnt that the
vacuum created by the absence of local level political authority had spawned
the power brokers who occupy the gap between the people and their
representatives in distant Vidhan Sabhas and the ever more remote
Parliament. We learnt that corruption could only be ended by giving power
to the panchayats and making panchayats responsible to the people. We
learnt that inefficiency could only be ended by entrusting the people at the
grassroot level with the responsibility for their own development. We learnt
that callousness could only be ended by empowering the people to send
their own representatives to institutions of local self-government, by
empowering the people to reject those who betray their mandate.
e Panchayati Raj and Nagarpalika Bills are not only instruments for
bringing democracy and devolution of every chaupal (square) and every
chabutra (pillar), to every angan (verandah) and every dalan, they are also a
charter for ending bureaucratic oppression, technocratic tyranny, crass
inefficiency, bribery, jobbery, nepotism, corruption and the million other
malfeasances that afflict the poor of our villages, towns and cities. e bills
are the warrant for ending the reign of the power brokers, of the
intermediaries whom Shakespeare called ‘the caterpillars of the
commonwealth’.
ese bills fill a yawning gap in the country’s polity. ey are the result of a
process that was started in the immediate aftermath of our great electoral
victory and has been carried forward in carefully considered stages till it has
ripened for consideration by our august houses of Parliament. ere is
nothing sudden or surprising about the timing of these Bills.
ere is another point I would wish to stress. Elections come and go. e
consequences of these constitutional amendments will far outlast the
outcome of the forthcoming general elections. ese amendments will
become a sacred obligation on the governments, whether at the centre or in
the states, whether run by the Congress or by any Opposition party. ere is
nothing gimmicky about our intentions. We are making democracy at the
grassroots a solemn and ineluctable constitutional obligation. Equally, we
are making the devolution of administrative and financial powers to the
local bodies an inescapable responsibility of all governments, now and in the
future, here at the centre and there in the states, a responsibility as much of

C f b h A l
Congress run governments as of governments run by others. An election
gimmick is a trick of the trade. A constitutional amendment is a solemn,
long-term pledge, ours is a pledge to the people. ose who thwart the
people do so at grave risk to themselves. When the voter stands in the
seclusion of the voting booth, his hand will go down on the hand which
clasps his as a friend.
With your permission madam, I would now like to deal with some of the
matters of detail touched upon by participants in this debate.
It has been alleged that Schedules eleven and twelve infringe in some
manner upon the legislative sovereignty of the state legislatures and the
freedom of action of state governments in regard to responsibilities assigned
to them by the constitution. e confusion appears to arise out of
confounding the legislative lists of schedule seven and the lists incorporated
in the proposed schedules eleven and twelve. e Union, State, and
Concurrent Lists detailed in schedule seven deal with the respective
legislative competence of the union, the states, and the union and the states
together. Schedules eleven and twelve on the other hand constitute an
illustrative list of subjects in respect to which development programmes
might be implemented by panchayats and nagarpalikas respectively. ese
are subjects regarding which understanding at the local level is likely to be
much more profound at that level than in some distant state capital and
where implementation by local elected bodies is likely to be much more
responsive to articulated public need than the cold administrations of
official agencies.
Schedules eleven and twelve do not confer any legislative competence upon
the local bodies. Nothing is taken away from the legislative competence of
state legislatures. All that is indicated by these schedules is the path along
which effective devolution might be pursued to render the panchayats and
nagarpalikas into vibrant, dynamic, meaningful institutions of local self-
government. It is explicitly stated in the constitutional amendments now
before the House that it would be for the state legislatures to lay down the
legislative parameters of devolution and for state governments to give
practical effect to these parameters. We recognize that the precise pattern of
devolution might vary from state to state. We leave it to the good sense of
our people to endorse or reject through their vote the degree and nature of
devolution conferred upon the panchayats and nagarpalikas by different

l l d  h l
state legislatures and state governments. ose state governments that live
up to the expectations of the people will receive the endorsement of the
people. ose who fail the people will receive the rejection they deserve.
Our sanction is the people’s vote. e only threat we hold out to state
governments is the threat of their being rejected at the polls by the people
whose constitutional rights they transgress, by the people who feel deprived
of the opportunities given to them by constitutional amendments.
Surprisingly, little has been said in this debate about the heart of the
amendments, which is the provisions of planning and implementation. It is
undeniable that our planning has become increasingly removed from the
perceptions and aspirations of our people at the grassroots. Such district
planning as is taking place is largely formalistic in nature, a putting together
by bureaucrats and technocrats of what they perceive to be in the interests
of the people. e people themselves are not consulted at all, or are
consulted but perfunctorily. rough these amendments, the primary
responsibility for planning would devolve upon the panchayats at every
level, and each tier of the nagarpalikas. Each local community, whether in a
small village covered by a village panchayat or in a village turning into a
town governed by a nagar panchayat, or in a town governed by the
municipal councillor in a city governed by a corporation would prepare its
own plan for its own development. I would particularly draw the attention
of the House to the wording of the relevant provision. It provides in effect
for any plan for economic development to incorporate its social justice
component. As it is, the provision for reservation ensures that the panchayat
and the nagarpalika undertaking the planning exercise will be adequately
weighed with the weaker sections of society. at in itself will contribute to
a heightened social consciousness in the preparation of plans. But these
constitutional provisions go even further. ey make the completion of any
plan prepared by a panchayat or a nagarpalika contingent upon the
incorporation in the plan of its social justice component. In other words,
whereas up till now, even in so progressive a state as Gujarat, which has
pioneered the social justice committees in panchayats, social justice has been
an adjunct to the planning process. ese constitutional amendments make
social justice an integral element of the planning process. Plans prepared by
panchayats, panchayat samitis and nagarpalikas will then be filtered
upwards to the zila parishads for harmonizing and consolidation by a
committee elected by the members of the zila parishads and the
lk  f d l b f
nagarpalikas. is committee for district planning incorporates members of
the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes in proportion to their population
in the district and reserves thirty percent of the seats for women. us the
very composition of the district planning committee is such as to ensure the
integration of social justice with economic planning in district plans. is
holds true equally of the elected body being established for metropolitan
planning. ese constitutional amendments presage an entirely new era in
planning not only in terms of detailed consultations at the grassroots but
also in terms of ensuring social justice as an integral component of the
development process. As regards implementation, there has been a half-
hearted attempt by some members of the Opposition to raise an alarm by
pointing to one lacuna or the other in the eleventh and the twelfth
schedule. ese digs would have a purpose if there had been any attempt to
make these schedules either comprehensive or obligatory. We have made it
amply clear that these two schedules are illustrative in nature aimed at
indicating practical ways in which the implementation of the programmes
and projects might be entrusted to elected local bodies, instead of being
carried out as at present by cold, remote official agencies. It is by being held
responsible for the implementation of programmes that local bodies will
become truly responsible to the people. It is when representativeness is
combined with responsibility that responsive administration follows.
Moreover, the location of the district planning committee in the zila
parishad and indeed its very creation provides the first ever platform of
rural-urban interaction of developmental issues. is in itself will contribute
to a higher awareness of various problems of social injustice and the
remedial measures required to rectify them. rough the proposed
metropolitan planning authority, India becomes one of the first developing
countries in the world to provide a platform for interaction between state
and central authorities and the elected representative of urban and adjacent
rural local bodies, thus integrating the demands of social justice with the
imperatives of economic growth. We have left it to state legislatures and
state governments to determine the precise contours of the responsibility
that will devolve on local bodies for the implementation of programmes.
Some states will go further than others. Some variations in the degree and
pattern of devolution would be justified and acceptable. But any state
government which transgresses the spirit of these amendments will have to
face the wrath of the people. We at the Centre have made a beginning in
h l lb d l h  J h
trusting the local bodies to implement their own programmes. e Jawahar
Rozgar Yojna and the Nehru Rozgar Yojna are the earnest of our
commitment of placing responsibility for development administration
squarely in the hands of the elected representatives of the people at the
grassroots. No longer will the people have to run from one bureaucratic
closed door to another, from one indifferent official to another. No longer
will they have to bribe and cajole their way to securing their legitimate
rights. We are bringing to an end the Kafkaesque nightmare through which
the people at the grassroots have lived. eir problems will now be solved at
their doorsteps. Answerability will be within the very villages where they
live. Accountability would be nailed to the panchayat ghar and the
nagarpalika. Truth will not be hidden in ever more voluminous files and
cupboards bursting at the seams but will be revealed on the floor of the
panchayat ghar and at the village hustings, on the floor of the town hall and
the hustings in every mohalla (area).
As regards the sound finances of the panchayats and nagar-palikas, we
propose entrusting this responsibility to the finance commissions envisaged
in the constitutional amendment. Here again, some of the comments made
by members opposite would appear to indicate that while they have
glimpsed some of the parallel features between the Finance Commission
established under Article 280 of the Constitution and the finance
commissions proposed in the present amendment, they have not
comprehended the essential differences between the two. Whereas the
Finance Commission established under Article 280 affects the actual
allocation of resources between the Centre and the states, the finance
commissions referred to in this amendment would limit themselves to the
principles on the basis of which allocation might be made between the
states and the local bodies. e actual allocations will be made by the state
governments in the light of state legislation on the subject and the
principles recommended by the finance commissions.
We at the Centre are undertaking an exercise to review nagarpalika and
panchayat finances with a view to seeing what steps might be taken to
augment the availability of financial resources for local self-government. We
would hope, the state governments, both those run by our party and those
run by the Opposition parties would undertake a similar exercise in self-
enlightenment.

 l d h ll d d
e constitutional amendment entrusts to the comptroller and auditor-
general the responsibility for causing the accounts of the local bodies to be
prepared and audited in such manner as he deems fit. Members opposite
appear to have jumped to the conclusion that this means dismantling the
existing state machinery for the examination and auditing of local bodies’
accounts. In our view, unless the CAG in his wisdom deems otherwise,
there would be no need to dismantle the existing state machinery, nor
undertake any substantial augmentation of the staff in the CAG’s office.
What the CAG is being asked, being mandated to do, is to examine
existing procedures in different states for the preparation and audit of local
bodies’ accounts and prescribe methods by which such accounts and
auditing might be made stricter and less prone to abuse. ere is no
question of requiring the CAG to himself take over the direct responsibility
for accounting and auditing. e state local fund auditing bodies would
continue to exercise their functions but under the overall guidance and
direction of the comptroller and auditor-general.
I now turn to the dust being raised by the Opposition over the role of the
Election Commission. Here again, it is a total misreading of the
constitutional amendment to suggest that the existing machinery for the
conduct of elections of local bodies would have to be dismantled. e
Election Commissioner will conduct the elections through the state
electoral officers and their staff. Also, as elections are going to be regular,
and arbitrarily prolonged suspensions are to be outlawed, it would be
essential to further strengthen the existing machinery. e important
change we are effecting is not in centralizing the conduct of elections but in
bringing the process of elections to the local bodies under the purview of
the Election Commission.
In recent months the burden of responsibility on the Election Commission
has been considerably increased. Legislative amendments undertaken in
respect of the Representation of the People Act and other legislations have
greatly added to the workload of the commission. e responsibilities
envisaged for them under the Panchayati Raj and the Nagarpalika Bills will
further increase the Chief Election Commissioner’s responsibilities.
Mr Chairman, Sir, we seek no confrontation on these Bills. In preparing
these Bills we have drawn upon the experience of all Congress states as
much as of non-Congress states. We have freely and repeatedly

k l d d d b O lk h W
acknowledged our debt to Opposition governments like those in West
Bengal and Andhra Pradesh and the earlier Janata government in
Karnataka who have made innovative contributions to the improvement of
Panchayati Raj in our country… Equally do we owe a debt of gratitude to
the pioneering Congress stalwarts in Gujarat and Maharashtra who have
the longest, unbroken and unblemished record of Panchayati Raj in the
country. ere are negative lessons, too, to be learnt, as we have freely and
fully admitted, from inadequate or insufficient Panchayati Raj and
Nagarpalika Administration in some non-Congress as well as in some
Congress states. ere is no partisan politics in this. Our only interest is the
national interest—the interest of development, the interest of the poor, the
interest of the weak. We admit also that the objectives we seek to achieve
are objectives, which at various times in the past have been espoused by
Opposition parties ranging all across the spectrum, from the Bharatiya
Janata Party and its forebears to the two Communist parties and their
forebears. We invite all the parties in the House to join hands with us in
passing these Bills.
e Bills are for the people. e Bills are for their welfare, their benefit. e
Bills are to give power in the hands of the people. e Bills are to end the
reign of power brokers. e Bills are to entrust responsibility to the
grassroots. e Bills are to give representative administration. e Bills are
to involve the people’s participation in planning and implementation in
development and social justice. e Bills are designed to entrench
democracy in the very foundations of our polity so that the superstructure of
democracy in state capitals, and the national capital might be stable, sound,
well-founded. e Bills represent the realization of Mahatma Gandhi’s
vision. e Bills represent the fulfilment of Pandit Jawaharlal’s dreams. e
Bills are the outgrowth of Indiraji’s endeavours. Sir, I invite the House to
pass these Bills unanimously. ose who support these Bills will earn the
people’s gratitude. ose who oppose these Bills will fail the people and live
to rue their lapse.
Mr Chairman, I commend to this House, the Constitution (Sixtyfourth
Amendment) Bill, 1989 and the Constitution (Sixty-fifth Amendment)
Bill, 1989.
ank you, Sir.
Present economic situation (New Delhi, December
1991)
MANMOHAN SINGH (1932–)

P.V. Narasimha Rao inherited an economy in a crisis when he became

Prime Minister in 1991 after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. India’s
foreign exchange reserves were down to two weeks of imports and there was
the imminent danger of defaulting on debt repayments. Rao appointed
Manmohan Singh, who had previously been Finance Secretary and
Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, as Finance Minister with the full
freedom to carry out structural reforms to liberalize the economy. Singh
began the process of dismantling the license-permit-quota raj and allowing
the Indian economy to be in tune with global economic trends. Here, as a
follow up to his first Budget inaugurating economic reforms he speaks of
the new economic regime and the need for economic reforms. ese
reforms paved the way for the economic growth India enjoys today.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I am very grateful to all the hon’ble members who have
taken part in this debate. I was particularly struck by the note on which Shri
Vajpayee ended his speech, that our country is faced with formidable
challenges.
Nobody has the monopoly of wisdom, of knowledge. We are faced with
unprecedented perils if I may say so; and the task is something which no
single individual, no single party can carry by itself. erefore, there is a
need, an urgent need to evolve a national consensus for dealing with these
formidable challenges that our country faces. It is in pursuit of this, that in
h fi k h h P
the very first week that our government came into power, the Prime
Minister took the initiative of inviting all the hon’ble leaders of Opposition
parties and I can say in all truth, that I presented to that august assembly as
truthful a picture as I could; short of telling that I was going to devaluate
the currency, I back all the facts of the economic life of the country as we
found on the day our government came into office before the House,
without saying who is responsible, without apportioning blame, we gave
them an account of the situation in which our country was. If that situation
was allowed to drift the way it was drifting, I can say in all truthfulness, you
would have seen in this country a total breakdown of the economic system.
It was not merely a foreign exchange crisis; it was a crisis of the total
economic system of our country, of a country’s treasury which was nearly
bankrupt, a country which was not able to import even the most essential
things of life, a country from which the non-resident Indians were taking
money out at the rate of nearly 350 million dollars a week and a country
which had reserves which were not equal to two weeks’ imports.
In that situation, if we had allowed the situation to develop, you would have
seen the magnitude of unemployment, the magnitude of the disruption of
industrial production as well as of agricultural production, that has never
been seen in this country. I do not, in any way, want to gloat over what has
happened to the Soviet Union or what has happened to the countries of
Eastern Europe. In many ways, it is my honest conviction that many of the
political turmoils which have developed in these countries are routed in the
malfunctioning of their economies. ese malfunctionings were put under
the carpet for some time. At one time, we had all thought that Yugoslavia
was a workers’ paradise; workers also rule Yugoslavia. According to all the
norms, it was a model economy that the civilized human beings ought to
emulate.
But, over a period of time, Yugoslavia developed a system where financial
discipline weakened, where wages rose much faster than productivity, where
the economy became totally isolated from the rest of the world; and then
the seed of decay was sown. at led to the ultimate disintegration of
Yugoslavia.
I submit to you that the economic history of its disintegration will be traced
back to economic mismanagement. I think the two oil price increases of the
1970s and the early 1980s saved the Soviet Union. But the problems which

kl d h b h h S U  bl
we are tackling today, have been there in the Soviet Union. eir inability to
tackle them accumulated into a massive political crisis which has ultimately
led to the disintegration of the old Soviet Union that we knew.
I do not want to gloat. But I want to submit to this House that if we do not
tackle the economic crisis effectively, I think, there is no iron law which says
that this blessed Republic of ours is immune from the normal economic
laws. ere is, therefore, a great danger. So, I submit in all humility, without
scoring debating points, that we do need a national consensus on all the
major issues that our country is confronted with.
I do not claim in my statement that we have found solutions to the
problems of the country. All that I said was that we have bought some time,
that we have restored a measure of international confidence. But let me tell
you that this can be destroyed overnight also. Tomorrow, for example, if you
do not control the budget deficit or if there is a lot of violence in the
country, whether over communal issues or other issues, if there is a lot of
industrial unrest, this confidence can disappear. History is full of cases. It
takes years to build confidence. It takes days to destroy it. So, we are in a
very fragile state of health of our country.
I do not want to create an illusion that we have found the solution to these
problems. We have begun the arduous journey. e first steps have been
taken—some success in achieving a semblance of stability. But a long
journey lies ahead to control fiscal deficit, to make our public sector much
more vibrant, much more competitive. Let me say that in terms of our
objectives, our commitment to growth with equity, our commitment to
adjustment with equity or what I described in my speech as adjustment to
the human phase, I think, is firm. at is irrevocable. at is the message
that is contained in the letter of intent that I sent to the IMF that we will
not do anything which would put disproportionate burden on those who are
not able to bear them. Whether it is the organized working class or the
unorganized working class, our government is fully committed to ensure
social justice to see that the costs of adjustment to a more dynamic economy
are not put on the weakest shoulders. at commitment is repeated in my
letter of intent to the IMF. Once again, I reiterate that commitment.
But let me say that you cannot achieve your objectives without hard sell. I
think Mr George Fernandes yesterday said, ‘Are you not worried about
agriculture? Are you not worried about food production? Are you not
d b l ’S h ’bl b d ‘A
worried about unemployment?’ Some hon’ble members said, ‘Are you not
worried about regional imbalances?’ We are very worried about these things.
But you cannot find solutions to these problems if you do not start by
correcting the fiscal and balance of payments mess that we were in in June
1991. It is only if you have a sound fiscal system, a central government,
which is strong enough to have surpluses, can come to the help of a state
like Bihar. I sympathize with the plight of Bihar. I think, Bihar certainly
deserves a lot more attention from the country than it has. But what can a
bankrupt treasury do for Bihar? erefore, we must set our fiscal system in
good shape so that the Central Government can go to the help of the
weaker states of our Union.
Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee mentioned the state of the public sector, the way
the public sector is managed, the way losses accumulate, the way corruption
takes place. Now, that is not a public sector with which we can achieve the
objectives that Mr Nirmal Kanti Chatterjee had in mind. at sort of public
sector, let me say in all sincerity, is a drag.
erefore, all of us have an obligation and we are committed to supporting
the public sector which is efficient. We must plug all sources of inefficiency.
But to have this mantra that regardless of efficiency and social cause every
public enterprise must be kept alive, I submit to you, is neither serving the
cause of the public sector, nor is it serving the cause of the workers
employed in those industries. Our government swears by working honestly
to improve the working of the public sector. We will, for this, seek the help
of the workers, the trade unions and all interested parties. But, I think you
cannot solve the problems of the public sector by asking people to go on
strike. I am not saying that by way of criticism. It is a right of trade unions
and workers in a free society to go on strike. But that one day strike that
took place, I tell you, has sent, I think, wrong signals all over the world that
this country does not appreciate the value of discipline. Maybe it was our
failure that we did not have time to develop an all-round consensus that
there was no need for strikes. But strikes, lockouts and other events like
communal violence are all barriers of progress and this country has to find
ways and means to deal with these problems.
Now, several hon’ble members raised points and one particular member said
that we are heading for a third devaluation. Now, interested parties and
those who do not want India’s balance of payment to be improved, have

b d f d h h b k h
been spreading rumours from day one that this is a bankrupt country, this is
only the beginning and you will see a lot more of devaluation and, therefore,
they have discouraged non-residents from sending money here, etc. Now, I
want to say and I have made it very clear in my letter of intent to the IMF
also that we are committed to maintaining the present nominal exchange
rate of the rupee, and that we have no intention to devalue further and I do
not think that there is any need to do so because the rupee is becoming
stronger and our foreign exchange reserves have improved. erefore, this is
a malicious propaganda that we are planning for another devaluation.
Now, several hon’ble members have expressed their concern about industrial
production. Let me say that I share that concern. But in a situation when
you have no foreign exchange, if you have to impose a savage import
compression of the type that we have had to impose, then what else could
you have expected? And I have been saying this from day one that I am
worried about the effects of import compression on industrial production in
our country. All I am saying is that we had not taken the measures that we
have now, that we are beginning the process of import liberalization
gradually and the process of credit liberalization. I expect the industrial
situation to improve. But this is a direct consequence of the tremendous
import squeeze which has to be imposed to deal with the foreign exchange
crisis that our country was facing.
In the same way, several hon’ble members have raised issues with regard to
price rise. I share my concern with them. In my statement, I have said that
we have not achieved the success that we would like to, on the price front. I
submit to you that considering the handicaps that we have had, the
handicaps of a large overhang of excess liquidity, considering that we have
to put a savage imports squeeze so that domestic supplies become
inadequate, considering the shortage of foreign exchange, we had to send
even essential commodities like wheat and rice outside the country so that
we could import fertilizer and diesel. Taking all these factors into account,
to expect that the price situation could be brought under control in a short
period of time, I am afraid, is unrealistic, as I was saying from day one.
And I can assure you that if we persist with the path that we have chosen, if
this hon’ble House supports us in correcting the fiscal imbalances about
which Nirmal babu spoke, and if we also persist with the path of supply
management, I am confident that the price situation will improve day by

d N h f h h d
day. Now that our foreign exchange position has improved, we can import
vegetable oils also. If we do all this, the situation will certainly improve…
Finally, Mr Deputy Speaker, I had promised to this House that I would
place this letter of intent before this august House to convince the hon’ble
members that what we have done in this letter of intent is no more than the
restatement of policies approved by this House.
erefore, all this propaganda inside the House and outside the House that
somehow we have sold this country’s national interests, is incorrect. I think
this letter of intent with its strong emphasis on growth and equity, strong
emphasis on poverty alleviation, strong emphasis on rural development and
strong emphasis on environmental protection, gives the lie to those who
perpetuate this propaganda that we are out to sell this country’s honour and
interests.
With these words, I would like to thank all the hon’ble members who
participated in this debate.
e future of Indo-US relations (Washington D.C.,
May 1994)
P.V. NARASIMHA RAO (1921–2004)

Narasimha Rao was a low-key but very cerebral Prime Minister. He had no
charisma and very little style but he turned around India’s policies and
standing in two important spheres. He inaugurated through his Finance
Minister, Manmohan Singh, the era of liberalization and economic reform,
and thus set India on the path of economic growth and development. He
also completely altered the direction of India’s foreign policy. During the
Cold War, India had followed a policy of non-alignment but on all crucial
matters had supported the Soviet Union. is had only increased India’s
distance from USA. e collapse of communism left India’s foreign policy
without any direction and adrift from the world’s only super power. Rao
single-handedly gave to India’s foreign policy a pro-US direction. In this
speech, Rao does this with amazing intellectual depth and deftness. He was
also the only Prime Minister after Nehru who wrote his own speeches.

It is with great pleasure and a deep sense of honour that I address you today.
Standing in this august hall, as two great Indian statesmen did before me, is
an inspiration to all, who hold democracy and freedom above all else. If, as
omas Carlyle once wrote, ‘the history of the world is but the biography of
great men,’ then much of the world’s recent history is owed to these
chambers.
e histories of our two nations have been intertwined by the words and
deeds of great men and women. Christopher Columbus set off to discover a
I d l d ld O f h d d
new route to India, only to discover a new world. Out of that unintended
discovery was born a great nation. Undaunted by, rather big difference, he
discovered in his destination, Columbus remarked, this time with perfect
accuracy, that the more you go East, the more you are assured to come upon
the West. us America has a special place in the Indian thinking, as a
continent found further east of the known East. is direction is significant
in its own way.
In his first inaugural address, omas Jefferson spoke of, ‘freedom of
religion, freedom of Press, and freedom of person under the protection of
habeas corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected.’ When India gained
independence, we accepted these fundamental freedoms, and looked to the
Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights while formulating the
Constitution of the world’s largest democracy. Now, both countries are
forever joined by the shared values of secularism, political pluralism and the
rule of law.
e spirit of America’s Declaration of Independence so moved Indian
spiritual leader, Swami Vivekananda, that on July 4, 1898, he wrote a poem
titled, ‘To the Fourth of July’:
‘Move on, O Lord, in the resistless path!
Till the high noon overspreads the world,
Till every land reflects y light,
Till men and women with uplifted head
Behold their shackles broken, and
Know in springtime joy, their life renewed.’
e author Henry David oreau was influenced by the early Indian
philosophy and thought, from which he drew his inspiration for the essay,
‘Duty of Civil Disobedience.’He wrote, ‘If the law is of such a nature that it
requires you to be an agent of injustice to another, then I say, break the law,
let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine.’
oreau’s essay influenced Mahatma Gandhi tremendously while he was in
South Africa, and in fact gave him the inspiration for the great non-violent
civil disobedience he was to practise in the subsequent years so effectively. I
am sure, his spirit showers his choicest blessings on free and democratic
South Africa today.
In turn, Gandhi inspired Dr Martin Luther King, who learned of Gandhi
that ‘non-violent resistance paralysed and confused the power structure
h h d d’ D K h ‘G dh b bl
against which it was directed.’ Dr King wrote that ‘Gandhi was probably
the first person in history to lift the love ethic of Jesus above mere
interaction between individuals, to a powerful and effective social force on a
large scale. It was in this Gandhian emphasis on love and non-violence that
I discovered the method of social reform that I had been seeking for so
many months.’
us the United States and India have learned a great deal from each other
throughout history. Distances did not matter. Indeed distances never
mattered in the transmission of ideas, because their medium is the mind.
ey travel at what is known as mana-vega in the Indian tradition, meaning
the speed of the mind, higher than anything anyone has ever imagined or
can ever imagine.
So ideas, and born of them ideals, have echoed back and forth between
India and America. Some perceived them, some experienced them, others
did not, as often happens. Swami Vivekananda, Gandhi, Rabindranath
Tagore, oreau, Emerson, Martin Luther King and many others, known
and unknown—all these names seemed to belong to one nation—of human
beings. Hundreds of American missionaries spread into the remotest tribal
areas of India, learned their complicated languages and numberless dialects
and served the people there with unparalleled devotion. I am personally
acquainted with some of their sons and daughters, and a few who were born
in my own district.
For over a century grew this great friendship, a relationship purely between
the peoples, with no trace of domination or selfish motive of any kind.
Americans rejoiced in India’s political freedom. India for ever acknowledges
the debt we owe to Franklin Delano Roosevelt for his role in pleading with
the British for India’s independence. Everything looked fine.
We had the unique opportunity of shaping the history of the postwar world
—a history which could have offered the peace dividend to all, East or
West, North or South, by enabling countries to attain their full potential by
giving their peoples the better life they deserved, but which they had been
deprived of for ages.
en came the Cold War…
at great opportunity seemed to be slipping through our fingers, even as
we tried to hold it in our hands. Today, we have to worry about the fingers.

I h ll k h C ld W N b h I d
I shall now skip the Cold War. Not being a historian, I am under no
obligation to recount it. Being transient, term-bound representatives of our
peoples, you and I have neither the time nor the need to review what we do
not wish to repeat. It is the future we have to think about, in fact worry
about. And, of course, the fingers.
e fingers are simply, democracy and development. From my own personal
experience, I have no doubt that this is an extremely difficult combination—
and equally essential, in India’s view.
India has undertaken the first steps to shaping of our history for the next
generation. After decades of centralized economic policies, India recently
embarked on a reform programme designed to modernize our economy,
liberalize trade and realize our economic potential. We welcomed private
investment and competition, and encouraged free market growth. As a
result, India is becoming globally competitive and the standard of living of
her citizens is gradually on the rise. e momentum of these reforms will
carry India into the next century as the single largest free market in the
world.
Perhaps, the most impressive part of India’s ambitious economic reform
programme is the smoothness with which the transition from a closed,
protected economy to an open, export-oriented economy has occurred. Far-
reaching changes have been undertaken in a short span of three years, at the
same time, devising prompt and effective steps to obviate severe social
consequences, which could have threatened future reforms. With these
steps, coupled with popular support and a broad consensus across India’s
diverse political spectrum, the reform process has now acquired a
momentum of its own.
e impact of the changes in India has had a profound effect on Indo-US
economic relations and has benefited both the countries. American firms
have been in the forefront of forging a new economic relationship. India’s
vast domestic market, huge educated, skilled and semi-skilled work force,
sound financial institutions and time-tested, and democratic system offer
tremendous investment opportunities for forward-looking companies.
In shaping our history for the next century, we must look ahead to greater
trade between nations. An unfortunate by-product of the past half century
was the introduction of weapons of mass destruction around the world. e
difficult and complex question of nuclear weapons’ proliferation can be
ff l dd d l h d h l b l h
effectively addressed only when we consider their global reach, requiring
similar global solutions.
Every nation, large or small, rich or poor, is sovereign and possesses an
inherent right and responsibility to its people to ensure their security. I
firmly believe that the way to ridding the world of weapons of mass
destruction lies in creating a world order based on the universal principles of
equality and non-discrimination as a means of enhancing security. e
answer that we as nations choose, will shape the destiny of the world in the
coming century.
Progress has been made in establishing an international consensus for
banning nuclear weapons testing and halting production of fissile materials
for nuclear weapons purposes. India and the US have worked closely
together in helping to forge this international consensus. To consolidate
these gains, further meaningful steps should be taken towards de-
nuclearization, which the international situation now allows.
And so much more remains to be done. A nuclear ‘no first use’ agreement,
indeed an agreement to outlaw the use of nuclear weapon is necessary in the
short-term by way of precaution, while serious multilateral negotiations are
launched for nuclear disarmament, the objective being a nuclear free world.
Mr President, the last five years have seen the world become more complex.
As old animosities are unleashed by the changes taking place around the
world, we hear demands for self-determination.
But such a cry when heard in firmly established secular and free,
democracies like India is totally irrelevant. Such a cry, indeed, was
attempted to be made in the United States in the year 1861 and President
Abraham Lincoln in his first inaugural address on 4 March 1861 had said:
‘I hold that, in contemplation of Universal Law and of the Constitution, the
Union of these states is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in
the fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe to assert that no
government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own
termination—physically speaking, we cannot separate. We cannot remove
our respective sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall
between them. A husband and wife may be divorced and go out of the
presence and beyond the reach of each other, but the different parts of our
country cannot do this. ey cannot but remain face to face and intercourse,
either amicable or hostile, must continue between them.’
I d d S C h d ‘Wh T b
Indeed, in 1968 your Supreme Court had to say, ‘When Texas became one
of the United States, she entered into an indissoluble relation—all the
obligations of perpetual union and all the guarantees of Republican
Government in the union, attached at once to the State—it was the
incorporation of a new member into the political body. And it was complete
and final…’
India accepts this statement as truly characteristic of a multicultural, multi-
ethnic and multi-religious republic like India or the US and as totally
unassailable.
It is the responsibility of nations to preserve the life and liberty of all their
citizens under the law, regardless of race, religion and ethnicity. We in
India, like you here in this great democracy, are determined in our assertion
that the rights of minority groups must be protected vigorously under the
rule of law. Our Constitution provides for this, our people demand this and
our heritage requires this.
e task that confronts democratic governments today is to maintain
protection of human rights in the face of the most dangerous threat to the
violation of human rights, namely the bullets of terrorists. India is
committed to protecting its citizens from terrorism and no government
worth its name can shirk this responsibility. We are taking scrupulous care
to protect the rights of individuals under due process of law and punish
human rights violations wherever they occur. In this difficult and delicate
task, we are doing all that is humanly possible.
As regards the United Nations, it has long been a strong defender of the
rights of all the world’s citizens. We must therefore promote, in all possible
ways, the original mandate of the United Nations—to provide ‘collective
security’ as a means of achieving peace.
e UN framework for pursuing global security through international
cooperation must be preserved, despite the problems and limitations that
exist. e international community needs to strengthen the UN and provide
more resources if we expect it to respond to today’s challenges.
It is our strong feeling too, that the UN’s decision-making bodies must
more accurately reflect the regional situation of states in the world today. In
order to chart a new course to navigate these troubled but exciting times, we
need to recognize the role which many nations can play in the pursuit of
peace.
I d US l h h h ld f b ld W h
Indo-US relations are on the threshold of a bold new era. We have seen
unprecedented cooperation in a number of areas. Most recently Indian
forces patrolled alongside US and UN forces in Somalia. We share common
interests in addressing global environmental crises, combating international
terrorism and stemming the tide of international narcotics trafficking. In
these areas, the US and India have worked closely together.
Yet there remain areas where further cooperation is warranted. Export
controls on technology, while once a useful means for controlling weapons
technology, now hinder developing countries in their efforts to improve the
lives of their people. Much of what is termed as dual technology, in fact, has
vital applications in a modern civilian society. Many special materials and
complicated computer processors found in missile control systems are also
found in hospital intensive care units and global telecommunication
systems.
In October 1949, India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had stated,
‘It was necessary, even desirable, and, perhaps, inevitable that India and the
United States should know each other more and cooperate with each other
more.’ is was in 1949. Later that year, Prime Minister Nehru predicted
that the next hundred years are going to be the century of America.
e Prime Minister was right. e twentieth century will be known as the
American century. roughout the last 100 years of American and Indian
history—through the peaks and valleys of Indo-US relations, Nehru’s words
have rung true and a bond has been forged, based on affinity and
understanding. e success of Indian-Americans in this country reflects the
understanding and mutual respect between the world’s two largest
democracies.
As India stands poised to contribute to global prosperity and peace in the
next century, we look forward to continuing our partnership with America
and with the American people.
India is one of the developing countries in which the process of
development is firmly established. We have realized that no quick fixes are
possible and that there is no substitute for hard work with full involvement
of the people. e results achieved in India are commended by some,
derided by others, on the basis of physical statistics. In all these appraisals,
however, one crucial element that has not figured as it should, is the fact
that India’s progress has been achieved in a democratic set-up. is
d I b l A d
dimension, I submit, is extremely important. As an experienced activist in
the Community Development process in India ever since it commenced in
the early fifties, I can vividly recall the hurdles that we encountered in the
path of development, for which many people blamed our democratic
process. Many scholars and experts, including some from this country, told
us that we were attempting the impossible, and that at any rate, we were
heading for nothing but failure and frustration by attempting development
under democratic conditions. It almost became a fashion to assert that
democracy was inimical to development and was not suited to developing
countries in their initial stages of development. It may also be recalled that
several countries had deviated from the democratic system in those years in
the name of ensuring development in the first instance, as they put it. ese
are all facts.
I am not merely recalling history. I would like to submit to this august
assembly that the agenda for democracy is by no means over, all over the
world. e principle of the system is perhaps universally accepted now, but
even this acceptance is not unqualified. In the ultimate analysis, the survival
and acceptance of any system would depend crucially on its capacity to
deliver the goods. is may not be so obvious in countries where democracy
has become a way of life and the political process has got rooted in the
principle for centuries, making it normal and unquestioned. But elsewhere,
the temptation to cut corners for immediate benefits and the tendency to
superficialize democracy while the real wielders of power only make it a
mask—these are phenomena that should make genuine votaries of the
system sit up and think.
I may be forgiven for striking this new, if discordant, note in the orchestra
of prevailing opinion. I submit, that the basic and most essential agenda of
the world hereafter, perhaps through the next century, is the consolidation
and concretization of democracy. On this single plank, directly or indirectly,
will depend the prospects of peace, disarmament and development—in one
word, the survival of humankind. I am not referring to the processes of
democracy but to its content which should, in essence, mean that the will of
the ordinary citizen, as it is and not as it is manipulated for a given
occasion, prevails. I do realize that this is a tall order; yet nothing less will
do, if the dangers to democracy are to be met effectively. e twenty-first
century must prove that development is best assured when democracy is
assured.
 f h h h h l k d h h
e crux of the matter is, how much is the real stake in democracy that has
been created for all people of the world, not just some? How effective is
democracy in solving the problems of the people where it has been newly
adopted? is is a crucial question for the system to take root in what may
be called somewhat alien soils.
In developing countries, government is a serious matter. A much larger
proportion of people are affected by changes in government there, than in
affluent countries. is can be easily seen. It accounts for the heavier
turnout of voters in developing countries when elections are held. By the
same token, one could imagine the frustration and consequent erosion of
faith in the system if the system fails to deliver. e success of democracy is,
therefore, a very important part of political stability everywhere. e
question therefore is: Since the bloc configuration, which did not, and
perhaps could not, put any great value on democracy then, is not such a
compelling necessity now, what can the established democracies do for the
success of their system in the world so that governments become
transparent and are run according to the common aspirations of the
common people everywhere? I have no ready-made answers, but I am sure
that the task is worth taking note of. And I beseech your attention, as a
tested and tempered person from the grassroots of a developing society
who, in the footsteps of great stalwarts, struggled for freedom, attained
freedom and has ever since been involved in consolidating that freedom—in
a vast and complex country where nothing has been easy through the long
centuries, where life has been a perpetual walk on a razor’s edge.
ere is another matter in which we come face to face with the need for
responsibility, in thought and in action. It is a similar sense that must
inform our tending of our planet’s resources. e pace of development often
prompts the appropriation—or misappropriation—of what is not ours, this
generation’s alone, legitimately. I recall the felicity with which I, in my
campaign to be a state legislator, promised roads to my constituents forty
years ago, we built the roads but lost the forests. at, perhaps, epitomizes
the dilemma of a development that must sustain itself and sustain the
heritage within which it is rooted. Today’s easy options could prove to be
tomorrow’s regrets; so it is in the quest of technologies that allow
development with responsibility that we have yet another critical area for
the partnership between India and America and our peoples.

M V P d h d b k h h
Mr Vice President, two years ago you authored a book which one critic,
very aptly, described as remarkable for a political figure, in that you wrote it
yourself. Going through it with an interest compelled as much by your style
as your subject, I came across an anecdote about Mahatma Gandhi that I
had not chanced upon earlier. It bears repetition, and I hope you will allow
me. Gandhiji, you write, was approached one day by a woman, concerned
that her son ate too much sugar. She requested him to counsel her son
about its harmful effects. e Mahatma promised to do so but asked her to
return after a fortnight. is she did and Gandhiji advised the boy as he had
promised. e mother was profuse in her gratitude but could not conceal
her puzzlement as to why Gandhiji had insisted on the interval of two
weeks. He was honest in his reply, and said, ‘I needed the two weeks to stop
eating sugar myself.’
We are now in the closing years of a century ravaged by war, made heroic by
the scientific, intellectual, and creative attainments of man, enfeebled by
want and deprivation and yet made strong by our collective cap a city to
identify solutions that had eluded us in the past. We recognize those
solutions, but like Gandhiji, we will have to take our two weeks to practise
them before we acquire the authority to prescribe them to others. at, in a
sense, is what responsibility is all about.
Lala Lajpat Rai, one of the great fighters for India’s freedom, had written of
the ‘numberless American men and women who stand for the freedom of
the world, who know no distinctions of colour, race or creed and who prefer
the religion of love, humanity and justice.’ e people of India count upon
those numberless women and men of this great country to work together
with them and their representatives to realize the vision that our shared
experience and practice of democracy have made possible and the
responsibilities of our times have rendered necessary.
Why Ayodhya is a setback1 (New Delhi, December
1992)
L.K. ADVANI (1927–)

On December 6, 1992, a mob claiming allegiance to various Hindu

fanatical organizations, including the Bharatiya Janata Party, razed the
sixteenth century Babri Masjid in Ayodhya to the ground. e Sangh
Parivar averred that the mosque had been built on the site of a temple that
marked the birth place of Rama. Advani was one of the leaders who had
campaigned for the Ram mandir. On December 6, he was actually present
in Ayodhya and saw the mosque being demolished. At one point he did try
to restrain the mob, but in vain. When the destruction had been carried out,
one of the chief functionaries of the Rashtriyaswayam Sevak Sangh, K.S.
Sudarshan, told Advani, ‘accept what has happened.’ Advani replied he
would ‘publicly express regret for it’. In this speech he came close to
expressing regret.

Last year, a Calcutta daily asked me to identify a day or moment in my life

which I regarded my happiest. I named October 30, 1990, and more
specifically, the moment I heard the BBC broadcast that kar sevaks had and
broken all barriers put up by the Mulayam Singh’s government, penetrated
into Ayodhya and performed kar seva.
Ironically, this year’s kar seva day at Ayodhya, December 6, turned out to be
one of the most depressing days in my life. Of course, most others there
were ecstatic with joy, a mood I just could not share. I have seldom felt as
dejected and downcast as I felt that day.
M d h dd f d h h h
My sadness, however, did not stem from any disenchantment with the
Ayodhya movement, or with the path the party had chosen for itself, or, as
the trite phrase goes, that we had been riding a tiger which we could not
dismount.
In fact, the post-demolition developments have fully vindicated our
misgivings about the opponents of this movement, and have reinforced our
resolve to pursue the path more vigorously.
ere were three very specific reasons for my distress.
Firstly, I felt sad that the December 6 happenings had impaired the
reputation of the BJP and the RSS as organizations capable of enforcing
discipline. True, a very large percentage of the over two lakhs assembled at
Ayodhya were not members either of the BJP or of the RSS. But that did
not absolve us of our responsibility.
Secondly, I felt sad that a meticulously drawn up plan of action whereunder
the UP Government was steadily marching forward towards discharging its
mandate regarding temple construction, without violating any law or
disregarding any court order, had gone awry.
e BJP’s action plan contemplated delinking the dispute about the
structure from commencing construction at the shilanyas site (within the
2.77-acres acquired land), negotiating about the structure while the
construction work proceeded apace, and, if negotiations failed, resorting to
legislation.
If state legislation was blocked by the Centre, we intended to seek a
national mandate. We were thus working towards achieving our objective
peacefully, and by the due process of law. Not only the BJP, but the RSS,
the VHP and the sants were all agreed on this approach.
If the exercise contemplated has now been short-circuited in a totally
unforeseen manner, the above organizations can certainly be blamed for not
being able to judge the impatience of the people participating in the
movement.
No one can deny the manner in which courts had been dragging their feet
on all issues relating to Ayodhya, and the obstructive and obtuse role of the
Centre had tried the patience of the people to the utmost limit.
e third and most important reason for my unhappiness that day was that,
in my perception, the day’s incidents would affect the BJP’s overall image
( l l ) d l d h ld ff
(not electoral purposes) adversely, and, to that extent, our cause would suffer
a temporary setback.
When I speak of a setback, I am not at all thinking in political terms. In
fact, politically, these events have boosted the BJP’s poll prospects no end.
e Congress, the JD, the Communists—all are frantically exerting
themselves to ensure no elections are held for at least a year.
After the three state assemblies controlled by the BJP were dissolved,
Congress spokesman V.N. Gadgil said elections would be held within six
months.
It did not take Arjun Singh even 24 hours to come forth with a
contradiction, saying polls in these three states would be held after one year!
In a recent article (Hindustan Times. December 17, 1992), former Statesman
editor S. Sahay has noted: ‘e feedback is there were elections to be held
today in UP, Congress candidates would find it difficult to retain their
deposits.’ Reports pouring in from other parts of the country are no
different.
Despite what our adversaries have been saying about us day in and day out,
we have never regarded Ayodhya as a ladder to power. rough this
movement, the BJP has only intensified its ongoing crusade against the
politics of vote-banks, and the politics of minorityism, which we believe is
gravely undermining the fabric of national unity.
e Ayodhya movement, according to the BJP, is not just for building a
temple. It is a mass movement—the biggest since independence—to
reaffirm the nation’s cultural identity.
is reaffirmation alone, we hold, can provide an enduring basis for national
unity, and besides, the dynamo for a resurgent, resolute and modern India.
It is slanderous to say the Ayodhya movement is an assault on secularism. It
is wrong to describe even the demolition of the Babri structure as negation
of secularism. e demolition is more related to lack of a firm commitment
in the general masses to the rule of law, and an exasperation with the
frustrating sluggishness of the judicial process.
I remember very well the Bhagalpur episode of some years back. e whole
country felt outraged that undertrial prisoners—they may have been
notorious dacoits—should be so cruelly blinded by policemen. But when I
visited Bhagalpur, I was surprised to find that among the people at large
h l l d l f h h l h dd M l f
there was little disapproval of what the police had done. Many lawyers of
Bhagalpur actually came out in defence of the police action!
e BJP is unequivocally committed to secularism. As conceived by our
Constitution makers, secularism meant sarva-pantha-sama-bhava, that is,
equal respect for all religions.
Secularism as embedded into the Indian Constitution has three important
ingredients, namely (i) rejection of theocracy; (ii) equality of all citizens,
irrespective of their faith; and (iii) full freedom of faith and worship.
We also believe India is secular because it is predominantly Hindu.
eocracy is alien to our history and tradition.
Indian nationalism is rooted, as was India’s freedom struggle against
colonialism, in a Hindu ethos. It was Gandhiji who projected Ramarajya as
the goal of the freedom movement. He was criticized by the Muslim
League as being an exponent of Hindu raj. e League did not relish the
chanting of Ram dhun, when at Gandhiji’s meetings or his insistence on
goraksha (cow-protection).
e League at one of its annual sessions passed a formal resolution
denouncing Vande Mataram as ‘idolatrous.’ All this never made leaders of
the freedom struggle apologetic about the fountainhead of their inspiration.
Unfortunately, for four decades now, in the name of secularism, politicians
have been wanting the nation to disown its essential personality. For the
Left-inclined, secularism had become a euphemism to cloak their intense
allergy to religion, and more particularly, to Hinduism.
It is this attitude which the BJP characterizes as pseudo-secularism. is
attitude is wrong and unscientific. Coupled with the weakness of political
parties for vote-banks, it becomes perverse and baneful.
In October, 1990, the day V.P. Singh stopped the rath yatra, and put me
and my colleagues in the yatra behind bars, A.B. Vajpayee called on the
President, and informed him the BJP had withdrawn support to the
National Front government. It was obvious to all that Mr Singh’s
government had been reduced to a hopeless minority. But he did not resign.
Instead, he convened a special session of Parliament to vote on confidence
motion tabled by him. He said he was doing so mainly to precipitate a
debate on secularism and communalism. We welcomed the debate, and

h ll dh fi h f ll fP l b k
challenged him not to confine it to the four walls of Parliament, but to take
it to the people.
V.P. Singh was defeated in Parliament that day. But he shied away from
accepting our challenge. Events nevertheless move inexorably towards the
trial of strength we had asked for.
Seven months later, people went to the polls to elect the country’s 10th Lok
Sabha. Unlike as in 1989, when we were part of an Opposition combine,
the BJP fought the election all on its own and emerged the principal
Opposition party in the Lok Sabha.
What has gratified us all along is not merely that our numerical strength in
Parliament and state legislatures has been growing at a rapid pace, but that
acceptance of our ideology in all sections of society and at all levels has been
growing simultaneously.
A silent minority has been building up even among the Muslims which
appreciates the BJP is not anti-Muslim as its enemies have been trying to
depict it, and more importantly, the BJP leadership means what it says, and
says what it means, and is not hypocritical like other political parties.
e BJP Government’s track record in the matter of preserving communal
peace in their respective states had added considerably to the BJP’s
credibility in this regard.
It is the process of widening acceptability of the BJP ideology within the
country, and also among people of Indian origin overseas, which has upset
our opponents the most. It is this process precisely, which may be somewhat
decelerated by the December 6 events. I have little doubt, however, that the
party can, with proper planning and effort, soon get over this phase.
It is sad that over 1,000 persons have lost their lives in the aftermath of
Ayodhya. It is certainly a matter of anguish. But when one compares this
time’s fallout with what has been happening in earlier years over incidents
which can be considered trifling, this time has been a contained one.
And, in most cases, the deaths that have occurred have been the
consequence not of any clash between communities but of security forces
trying to quell the violence and vandalism of frenzied mobs.
I wonder how many in Government, in politics, and in the media realize
that their stubborn insistence on calling this old structure (which was
abandoned by Muslims 56 years back and which for 43 years has been a de
f l ) ‘ ’h d b d b ld
facto temple) a ‘mosque’ has made no mean contribution towards building
up this frenzy. Even so, there is little doubt that the happenings of
December 6 have given our opponents a handle to malign the Ayodhya
movement as being fundamentalist and fanatic.
Amidst the hysterical breast-beating that has been going on for over a
fortnight now, there have been in the media’s voices of reason, a few
distinguished journalists who have tried to put the events in proper
perspective, and to emphasize that the happenings are unfortunate, but that
it is no occasion either for gloating or for self-condemnation.
In an excellent article written for the Free Press Journal (Bombay,
December 17, 1992), Mr M.V. Kamath, former editor of the Illustrated
Weekly of India, has written: ‘Let it be said even if it hurts many secularists:
in the last five years, several temples have been demolished in Kashmir
without our hearing one word of protest from them. ere has been no hue
and cry made about such wanton destruction… We are lectured to by Iran
and some other Muslim countries on our duties. Has Iran ever been ruled
by Hindu monarchs, and had its mosques pulled down to make place for
temples to Shiva or Vishnu?… We should not bear the burden of history.
But neither should we be constantly pilloried. ere has to be some way to
heal past wounds, but reviling the BJP or the VHP is not the best way. e
anger of the kar sevaks has to be understood in this context. ey have not
gone around demolishing every mosque in sight. It might even be said that
they were led down the garden path by Mr P.V. Narasimha Rao who kept
promising that a solution was near, even while he was trying to pass the
buck onto the judiciary’.
For four decades, pseudo-secularists have commanded an undisputed
supremacy in Indian politics. Jana Sangh’s and the Bhartiya Janata Party’s
was, at best, a feeble voice of dissent. Ayodhya has enabled our viewpoint to
become a formidable challenge.
Unable to meet this challenge at the ideological and political level through
discussion and debate, the Government has pulled out of its armoury all the
usual weapons used in such situations by repressive regimes like arrests, ban
on associations, and ban on meetings.
e demolition of the Babri structure is only an excuse to carry out what
they have been itching to do for quite some time. After all, all this talk
about the need to have BJP derecognized or deregistered has not started
M A S hh df ll d h El C
now. Mr Arjun Singh had formally petitioned the Election Commission in
this regard more than a year back. e Election Commission rejected his
plea. Ever since, the ruling party has been toying with the idea of amending
the Representation of the Peoples Act to achieve this objective.
Without naming either the BJP or the RSS, Mr Narasimha Rao himself, in
his presidential address to the Congress session at Tirupati, had endorsed
the idea. When I met him and registered my protest, he tried to backtrack,
and maintained that he had in mind only organizations like the Majlis (of
Owaisi).
Elementary political prudence should have restrained the Prime Minister
from taking the series of unwise steps he has taken after December 6—
banning the RSS and VHP, dismissing the BJP Government of Rajasthan,
Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, and promising to rebuild the
demolished ‘mosque’. But then, history keeps repeating itself in a quaint
fashion.
Left to himself, Mr V.P. Singh may not have obstructed the Rath Yatra of
1990. But the internal politics of Janata Dal forced his hand. To prove
himself a greater patron of the minorities than Mr Mulayam Singh, V.P.
asked Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav to take action before the Uttar Pradesh Chief
Minister did so. Mr Yadav did as he was told, and became instrumental for
terminating V.P.’s tenure.
is time around, Mr Arjun Singh has played a Mulayam Singh to Mr
Narasimha Rao. e denouement may well be the same.
In Parliament as well as outside, a prime target of attack for our critics has
been Mr Kalyan Singh. He is being accused of betrayal, of ‘deceit’, of
‘conspiracy’, and what not. e general refrain is that Kalyan Singh
promised to the courts, to the National Integration Council, to the Central
Government, that he would protect the structure; New Delhi trusted his
words, he has betrayed the trust.
None of these Kalyan baiters ever mention, there was an addendum that he
would not use force against the kar sevaks, because he would not like to see
any repetitions of the traumatic happenings which took place in 1990
during Mr Mulayam Singh’s tenure. is has been stated even in the
affidavit given to the Supreme Court by the UP Government.
On December 6, Mr Kalyan Singh stuck to his stand. When informed that
all efforts at persuading the kar sevaks to desist from demolishing the
h d f l d d h f h h d b
structure had failed, and that protection of the structure had become
impossible except by resort to firing, he resigned forthwith.
When political leaders have been driven into such difficult corners, they
have been generally inclined to issue oral orders. Bureaucrats have often had
to pay the price for such deviousness. In contrast, Mr Kalyan Singh acted in
an exemplary manner. He put down his orders about not using force in
writing so that the officers are not punished for what was entirely a political
decision.
I shudder to think what would have happened that day at Ayodhya if firing
had taken place. Jallianwala Bagh would have been reenacted many times
over. ere would have been a holocaust not only in Ayodhya but in the
whole country. us, Mr Kalyan Singh acted wisely in refusing to use force.
It is significant that the last phase of the demolition, the clearing of the
debts, installation of the Ram Lalla idols with due ceremony, and erection
of a temporary temple to house the idols—all happened after New Delhi
had taken over the state administration. Yet, wisely again, the Narasimha
Rao Government made no attempt to use force to prevent it all from
happening.
No doubt, it was Mr Kalyan Singh’s duty to protect the Babri structure. He
failed to do so; so he resigned. e protection of the country’s Prime
Minister is the responsibility of the Union Home Minister. e country
should not forget that Mr Rao was the Home Minister, when Mrs Gandhi
was brutally killed. It can be said that Mr Rao failed to protect her and that
he failed to protect more than 3,000 Sikhs who were killed in the wake of
Mrs Gandhi’s assassination.
Today, I am not arraigning Mr Rao for failing to resign on that score. I am
only trying to point out how outraged he would have felt if, say, in 1984 he
had been accused not just of a failure to protect, but of actual complicity in
the perpetration of those horrendous crimes!
Political observers who have been feeling baffled by the abrupt change of
mood of the BJP-RSS-VHP combine, from one of regret on December 6,
to one of ‘determined belligerence’ from December 8 onward, must
appreciate that it is a similar sense of outrage over all that the Government
and our other opponents have been saying and doing that fully accounts for
it.

L l b l d h l h h
Let it also be realized that once you start circulating conspiracy charges with
irresponsible levity, the distrust generated will ultimately boomerang, and
get back to its source. I was really amused to read a column by Tavleen
Singh in which she summed up the attitude of Congressmen towards Mr
Rao in these words: ‘ose who are still with him charge him only with
being indecisive and weak. ose who are against him are saying much
more. Even ministers are admitting, albeit privately, that the Prime
Minister had adequate information, before December 6, to be prepared for
what eventually happened. Some go so far as to charge him with collusion with
the BJP on the grounds that he is not interested in a Congress revival in North
India as this would make it harder for a Prime Minister from the South’ ( e
Observer, December 18).
Some of our critics have been comparing the demolition of the Babri
structure with the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. e comparison is
ludicrous. But from a purely personal angle, I can establish a nexus. I was
20-years-old at that time, and as RSS pracharrak in Rajasthan, Mahatmaji’s
murder also was followed by a ban on the RSS. I was among the tens of
thousands of RSS activists jailed at that time. I recall that the accusations
and calumny heaped on us then were far more vile and vicious than we are
having to face today. e trail of Godse and the Commission of Inquiry set
up later, nailed all the lies circulated, and completely exonerated the RSS
from the libelous charges hurled at it.
e RSS emerged from that first major crisis in its life purer and stronger. It
is not without significance that one of those who was spearheading the anti-
RSS campaign in 1948—Mr Jayaprakash Narayan—later became one of its
most ardent admirers and protagonists.
When the RSS was banned the second time in 1975, BJP and RSS became
comrades-in-arms waging an unrelenting battle for the defence of
democracy.
In one of his speeches in 1977, the Loknayak observed: ‘e RSS is a
revolutionary organization. No other organization in the country comes
anywhere near it. It alone has the capacity to transform society, and
casteism, and wipe the tears from the eyes of the poor. May God give you
strength and may you live up to such expectations.’
Self-preservation is a basic instinct of all living beings. Only a human being
can think of and commit suicide. ere is, however, a rodent found in
S d ll d h l h h h
Scandinavian countries, called the lemming, which in this context is
supposed to be unique among animals, and behaves unnaturally.
e Concise Oxford Dictionary describes the lemming as a ‘small Arctic
rodent of the genus Lemmus…which is reputed to rush headlong into the
sea and drown during migration.’ To me, it seems the Congress Party these
days is in the grip of a terrible lemming-complex!
Let the Congress do with itself what it wishes. For the BJP, the situation
poses a challenge which, if tackled wisely, with determination and a
readiness, if need be to wage a protracted struggle, can become a watershed
in the history of independent India.
Let us also realize that intolerance and fanaticism are traits which may
appear to give a cutting edge to a movement but which actually cause great
damage to the movement. ey have to be consciously eschewed. Once that
happens, even our Muslim brethren would appreciate that in India there
can be no firmer foundation for communal harmony than cultural
nationalism.
e present situation presents to the country a unique opportunity. Let us
grab it by the forelock. December 6 did not turn out to be as we expected,
we did not want it to happen that way. But then, as the famous essayist Sir
Arthur Helps has said: ‘Fortune does not stoop often to take any one up.
Favourable opportunities will not happen precisely in the way that you
imagined. Nothing does.’ Or, as Goswami Tulsidas has put it in a somewhat
different way: ‘Hoi hai soi jo Rama rachi rakha’!

1. is speech was originally published in e Indian Express.

e fatwa (Cambridge, February 1993)
SALMAN RUSHDIE (1947–)

In 1989 Rushdie was forced to go into hiding when Ayatollah Khomeini

proclaimed a fatwa against him because his novel, e Satanic Verses was
offensive to the Prophet Mohammad and Islam. is thoughtful, stirring
speech, about human rights and personal freedom, was given in King’s
College Chapel in Cambridge University on the fourth anniversary of the
fatwa. Rushdie continues to remain under the death threat.

To stand in this house is to be reminded of what is most beautiful about

religious faith: its ability to give solace and to inspire, its aspiration to these
great and lovely heights, in which strength and delicacy are so perfectly
conjoined. In addition, to be asked to speak here on this day, the fourth
anniversary of the notorious fatwa of the late Imam Khomeini, is a
particular honour. When I was an undergraduate at this college, between
1965 and 1968, the years of flower-power and student power, I would have
found the notion of delivering an address in King’s Chapel pretty far-out, as
we used to say; and yet, such are the journeys of one’s life that here I stand.
I am grateful to the Chapel and the college for extending this invitation,
which I take as a gesture of solidarity and support, support not merely for
one individual but, much more importantly, for the high moral principles of
human rights and human freedoms that the Khomeini edict seeks so
brutally to attack. For just as King’s Chapel may be taken as a symbol of
what is best about religion, so the fatwa has become a symbol of what is
worst.

I f l ll h b k h b hl
It feels all the more appropriate to be speaking here because it was while in
my final year of reading history at Cambridge that I came across the story of
the so-called satanic verses or temptation of the Prophet Muhammad, and
of his rejection of that temptation. at year, I had chosen as one of my
special subjects a paper on Muhammad, the rise of Islam, and the caliphate.
So few students chose this option that the lectures were cancelled. e
other students switched to different special subjects. However, I was anxious
to continue, and Arthur Hibbert, one of the King’s history dons, agreed to
supervise me. So as it happened I was, I think, the only student in
Cambridge who took the paper. e next year, I’m told, it was not offered
again. is is the kind of thing that almost leads one to believe in the
workings of a hidden hand.
e story of the ‘satanic verses’ can be found, among other places, in the
canonical writings of the classical writer al-Tabari. He tells us that on one
occasion the Prophet was given verses which seemed to accept the divinity
of the three most popular pagan goddesses of Mecca, thus compromising
Islam’s rigid monotheism. Later he rejected these verses as being a trick of
the devil saying that Satan had appeared to him in the guise of the
Archangel Gabriel and spoken ‘satanic verses.’
Historians have long speculated about this incident, wondering if perhaps
the nascent religion had been offered a sort of deal by the pagan authorities
of the city, which was flirted with and then refused. I felt the story
humanized the Prophet, and, therefore made him more accessible, more
easily comprehensible to a modern reader, for whom the presence of doubt
in a human mind, and human imperfections in a great man’s personality,
can only make that mind, that personality, more attractive. Indeed,
according to the traditions of the Prophet, even the Archangel Gabriel was
understanding about the incident, assuring him that such things had
befallen all the prophets, and that he need not worry about what had
happened. It seems that the Archangel Gabriel, and the God in whose
name he spoke, was rather more tolerant than some of those who presently
affect to speak in the name of God.
Khomeini’s fatwa itself may be seen as a set of modern satanic verses. In the
fatwa, once again, evil takes on the guise of virtue; and the faithful are
deceived.

I’ b h h f O l ll
It’s important to remember what the fatwa is. One cannot properly call it a
sentence, since it far exceeds its author’s jurisdiction; since it contravenes
fundamental principles of Islamic law; and since it was issued without the
faintest pretence of any legal process. (Even Stalin thought it necessary to
hold show trials)! It is, in fact, a straightforward terrorist threat, and in the
West it has already had very harmful effects. ere is much evidence that
writers and publishers have become nervous of publishing any material
about Islam except of the most reverential and anodyne sort. ere are
instances of contracts for books being canceled, of texts being rewritten.
Even so independent an artist as the filmmaker Spike Lee felt the need to
submit to Islamic authorities the script of his film about Malcolm X, who
was for a time a member of the Nation of Islam and performed the hajj or
pilgrimage to Mecca. And to this day, almost one year after the paperback
of e Satanic Verses was published (by a specially constituted consortium) in
the United States, and imported into Britain, no British publisher has had
the nerve to take on distribution of the softcover edition, even though it has
been in the bookstores for months without causing the tiniest frisson.
In the East, however, the fatwa’s implications are far more sinister. ‘You
must defend Rushdie,’ an Iranian writer told a British scholar recently. ‘In
defending Rushdie you are defending us.’ In January, in Turkey, an Iranian-
trained hit-squad assassinated the secular journalist Ugur Mumçu. Last
year, in Egypt, fundamentalist assassins killed Farag Fouda, one of the
country’s leading secular thinkers. Today, in Iran, many of the brave writers
and intellectuals who defended me are being threatened with death-squads.
Last summer, I was able to participate in a literary seminar staged in a
Cambridge college and attended by scholars and writers from all over the
world, including many Muslims. I was touched by the friendship and
enthusiasm with which the Muslim delegates greeted me. A distinguished
Saudi journalist took my arm and said, ‘I want to embrace you because you,
Mr Rushdie, are a free man.’ He was fully aware of the ironies of what he
was saying. He meant that freedom of speech, freedom of the imagination,
is that freedom which gives meaning to all the others. He could walk the
streets, get his work published, lead an ordinary life, and did not feel free,
because there was so much he could not say, so much he hardly dared to
think. I was protected by the Special Branch; he had to watch out for the
ought Police.

T d P f F d H ll d h k’ &
Today, as Professor Fred Halliday says in this week’s New Statesman &
Society, ‘the battle for freedom of expression, and for political and gender
rights, is being fought out not in the senior common rooms and dinner
tables of Europe, but in the Islamic world.’ In his essay, he gives some
instances of the way in which the case of e Satanic Verses is being used as a
symbol by the oppressed voices of the Muslim world. One of the many
Iranian exile radio stations, he tells us, has even named itself Voice of the
Satanic Verses.
e Satanic Verses is a committedly secular text that deals in part with the
material of religious faith. For the religious fundamentalist, especially, at
present, the Islamic fundamentalist, the adjective ‘secular’ is the dirtiest of
dirty words. But here’s a strange paradox: in my country of origin, India, it
was the secular ideal of Nehru and Gandhi that protected the nation’s large
Muslim minority, and it is the decay of that ideal that leads directly to the
bloody sectarian confrontations which the subcontinent is now witnessing,
confrontations that were long foretold and could have been avoided, had
not so many politicians chosen to fan the flames of religious hatred. Indian
Muslims have always known the importance of secularism; it is from that
experience that my own secularism springs. In the past four years, my
commitment to that ideal, and to the ancillary principles of pluralism,
skepticism, and tolerance, has been doubled and redoubled.
I have had to understand not just what I am fighting against—in this
situation, that’s not very hard—but also what I am fighting for, what is
worth fighting for with one’s life. Religious fanaticism’s scorn for secularism
and for unbelief led me to my answer. It is that values and morals are
independent of religious faith, that good and evil come before religion: that
—if I may be permitted to say this in the house of God—it is perfectly
possible, and for many of us even necessary, to construct our ideas of the
good without taking refuge in faith. at is where our freedom lies, and it is
that freedom, among many others, which the fatwa threatens, and which it
cannot be allowed to destroy.
Survival and Right to Information (Hyderabad,
December 1996)
ARUNA ROY (1946–)

On 29 December, 1991, newspapers in Hyderabad carried a report that two

unidentified Naxalites were killed in an encounter at Masjiguda, on the
outskirts of the city. According to the police they were killed in the early
hours of 28 December in an exchange of fire. By the next evening it became
clear that one of the killed was Gulam Rasool, a reporter working with
Udayam, the third largest circulating Telugu daily. e death of someone
the police described as a Naxalite in the hands of the police opened up for
the activist, Aruna Roy the complex questions of the relationship of the rule
of law and the democratic rights of individuals. In 1996 when the speech
was made it was often impossible to get information about those who had
died in the hands of the police and how they had died. e phrase
‘encounter killings’ was coined to cover a multitude of sins. Roy addresses
these issues and this speech marks the beginning of her journey to
campaign and establish the Right to Information Act.

When Gulam Rasool was killed, the police put out a bulletin commonplace
and everyday in Andhra Pradesh newspapers: ‘Naxalites killed in an
encounter with police.’1 What do we feel when we read such a news item?
Few of us take it at face value. Most of us know that ‘encounter’ is a
euphemism for murder, and ‘Naxalite’ a smokescreen for anyone who dares
to persistently question and probe vested interests. Despite this, most of us
are lulled into looking at the matter with a combination of fear and self-
Wh Sh k G h N l d h S fd
preservation. When Shankar Guha Niyogi was eliminated, when Safdar
Hashmi was murdered, many protested. But still the larger part of the
mainstream looked the other way. What is it that perverts every question of
human rights into a fear of anarchy? What translates it into abstract selfish
fears of: will the road be blocked? Will there be lawlessness? Can I catch my
train? How have we become so practised at turning a blind eye to loss of life
and fundamental violations of our ethics?
When poor people die on pavements, thousands of tribals are rendered
homeless, or when hunger, starvation and death affect large portions of
humanity, it becomes only an aggregate in the metropolitan dailies. An issue
to discuss over a rich breakfast or in well furnished office rooms. In our
more private moments, some of us may even ask ourselves where we went
wrong. Many of us have raised these questions. It is perhaps one of the
reasons why some of us are here today. But our questions have been
eschewed in the grand stampede for upward mobility. We want money, no
matter from where or how it comes. We want greater security, without a
thought for those who have none. And we want our own ‘development’,
regardless of its cost to others.
Our society also throws up conflicted role models. Feudal social relations
revive Sati and Hindutva. An apparently coveted civil service—every
parent’s dream for their children—turns upon its own people, infected by a
colonial mindset. Most often, by the time we realize the hollowness and
perversity of it all, we have been sucked into its mindless fabric.
Rationalization becomes second nature.
I passed the IAS exam in 1968 at the age of 22, and my future seemed
assured. My reasons for opting for the service were however fairly ordinary.
As a woman, I wanted to work and not get married and pass into the limbo
of passivity.
I was trained in Tamil Nadu, though I belonged to the Union Territories
Cadre. Since I was Tamil-speaking the government decided to send me
there. I had my first exposure to rural India. In every village we were met by
the village sarpanch and drank innumerable glasses of Horlicks, the drink
given to ‘officers’! We attracted a crowd wherever we went. I was convinced
that we were meeting the poor and that their voices were being heard.
During the district training I gradually discovered how little I actually knew
about rural realities. e real fears of responsibility for action and redressal
b h h l I d h l f b d
began to weigh heavily on me. I was drawn into the role of arbiter and
judge, but I was ill-equipped to guarantee justice. e level of information
rose steadily, along with the growing realization that my first two years as
SDM would be important years to do something that could make a
difference. I knew at the same time that the Tehsildar and the BDO,
middle-aged, experienced officials, could mislead me. Did I really have the
time to understand them and their motives?
One enters the IAS with the feeling that being a civil servant will provide
the opportunity for working effectively for social justice, within a strictly
legal framework. ough already corrupt, the institutional framework
offered at least a structure within which it was possible to try and make the
system function better. ere was scope also, it seemed, to fight the nexus of
patronage that exists within the government, or at least to make it deliver
some justice. ere also seemed to be space within the legal, institutional
framework to influence both policy and implementation. We were
encouraged to believe that the IAS is the chosen elite that is going to set the
country on its feet, and show up corruption and nepotism. But the district
training, quickly and effectively, ripped that illusion apart. e knots are
twisted and baffling. Unfamiliarity with the law makes it impossible to act
without local guidance, and the local officials know this. It takes the better
part of a posting to sit on the problem, and one is faced not only with the
paralysis of officialdom. e local power group has also learnt to influence
and manipulate the office. It is seldom that the really poor or oppressed
have access to the officer. ey are victims of the system and tradition,
where contact with officers has always been through brokers. To clear a
straight path is not easy.
To unravel the intricacies of local politics is even more difficult. Which
political leader pleads for whom and why? What are the relationships that
exist between the powerful and the dependent voters? What is the nature of
the specific divide between groups? ese are questions that need time and
humility to understand. If the first is in short supply because of the nature
of the posting, the latter is sure to be eradicated by the year in the Academy.
‘You are members of an elite service.’ ‘You are the ones who will direct
policy, give direction to the political masters.’ ‘You are the brains of the
country’ and other such arrogant maxims render learning difficult. Even if
there was humility, lack of familiarity often leads the junior, well meaning
IAS officer to trust the wrong person, and fall victim to misinformation.
B h bl f ’ k  IAS ffi
But the impossible position of accepting one’s mistake! e IAS officer can
do no wrong in the eyes of the public.
e civil service like the educational system is still controlled by a decadent
colonial spirit. e deep suspicions of the people, the need to separate the
officer from the community, the notion of privacy (including palatial
residential accommodation) are all colonial concepts. Such concepts have
bred and continue to breed separation and alienation as a matter of principle
and pride. e repeated fear of every sub-divisional officer is of the ‘mob’—a
description of a group of people who may go to meet the officer more than
ten in number. ere is a fear of facing the people alone. e police very
often have to stand around to give the officer any self-confidence. is is as
true if women go in large numbers to meet them, unarmed and harmless.
‘Please send in a delegation,’ is the oft-repeated command. It would be very
surprising to the members of the ‘mob’, if they could overhear post-lunch
conversations in the Delhi Administration wherein were related detailed
and repeated anecdotes of how these officers ordered firings and controlled
‘mobs’. e IAS presumption of valour shows itself in these anecdotes
where the vanquished are their own people asking for their rights,
protesting against injustice. I was filled on such occasions with great unease
and disquiet. How could such an inflexible position foster social justice and
change?
Even for a good bureaucrat the limitations are very often crippling. e
duration of the posting determines the nature of the work. But inevitably
the work done is reversed by the person who follows. ere is no change
guaranteed unless there is a strong political will that backs and supports the
policy and ensures continuity even with a change of officer.
But the feudal trappings remain unchanged, including the numbers of
hangers on who continue to applaud every act and utterance, like the
courtiers of old. ere is no system of genuine feedback and review. Any
real attempt at change would lead to a direct confrontation with politicians
and senior civil servants. It would most definitely mean a transfer. ose
officers at the sub-divisional level who have attempted genuine land reform,
have had to face tremendous odds. ere are innumerable examples. e
IAS only allows the odds of innovation in the softer areas of development—
literacy, family planning, women’s education, health and social welfare. In
other areas any attempt even to implement the law is viewed negatively and

h l h ll f  h l d
the consequences are writ large on the wall for everyone to see. is has led
in most cases to working within the narrow framework of conventionally
accepted positions. I did not see the point of continuing to work in a system
where I had only notional power and unmerited trappings. I could not really
even begin to talk about fairness in inter-relationships amongst the elite, let
alone genuine change. I took the decision to leave the IAS in 1975, but I
still had a number of unanswered questions. What brings about social
change? How does collective action come about? Why is the mainstream so
divorced from this other, greater reality?
e democratic political system, with a vote for every citizen, has got
embroiled in feudal caste relations. What appears before us now is an
Emperor who stands naked and a people who see him being stripped with
every fresh scam, but who are nevertheless reluctant to acknowledge his
nudity. If they should say so, they are not sure of what the consequences
may be. In self-protection they keep quiet, just as they did when Gulam
Rasool was taken away, when Shankar Guha Niyogi was shot, when Safdar
Hashmi was battered to death by political goons, when the poor are
plundered, raped, and looted without a murmur of protest.
Even where there is no reason to be afraid, tremendous apathy, a moral
paralysis and helplessness grips those who could do something. A feeling
that nothing can come out of anything, becomes a continual refrain. For
some, this refrain is a means of auto-suggestion to forestall the despair of
being unable to find answers. For many others it is a convenient position
from which to pursue their careers and self-interest without a sense of guilt.
Something has to be done to break this apathy, this overwhelming noisy
silence where Star TV cricket scores sponsored by Pepsi and McDowells
distracts us from the unease of our failing courage. Every now and then
when some solitary or collective voices protest, and are silenced, agony grips
us for a moment.
A state gets violent. Its henchmen cause death. Commissions of enquiry are
set up to preserve the illusion that the state still functions. But can the state
condemn itself? Can real justice be expected from a system that is
essentially unjust? Even greater cause for concern is that all this is done
evoking the Constitution, the laws of the land and democratic principles.
at is why it is important to learn why the second part of the T.L.N.
Reddy Commission report was not made public. It is important that we all
ll l d d bl h h
collectively demand state accountability, that we assert our right to question
and put to the test the democratic façade and platitudes. We have to
struggle to ensure our own rights on our own terms. e institutions set up
to rule can no longer pull the wool over the eyes of an innocent and trusting
electorate, as they did fifty years ago.
What is encouraging is that there are Gulam Rasools in this country: good
citizens who feel that someone must uncover the truth. ey are people who
realized that uncovering and peeling off the layers of deception is an
essential prerequisite to motivating change. ey do not espouse a cause,
but create circumstances whereby the people can judge. Some are
celebrated, and many remain unsung. It is in their memory today, that the
battle for information and transparency gains strength and hope.
ere has always been the strong individual who has fought battles on
behalf of society. ere have also been collective struggles against state
hypocrisy and its false assurances. I would like to spend some time today in
exploring with all of you the potential of using the people’s Right to
Information to initiate a shift from representative to participatory forms of
democracy. And to suggest that this seemingly academic issue is an intrinsic
part of struggles for livelihood and survival. Implicit in this is a basic faith
in the ability of people to decide what is best for themselves, and the
premise that uncompromising openness is vital to the health of a society.
e points I raise today are drawn from the lessons and questions thrown
up by a fledgling campaign on e Peoples’ Right to Information. Its efforts
to uncover the contradictions, and put before the people the dual and split-
personality of the state, has already caused great discomfort to ruling power
structures. More important however is the glimmer of hope breaking
through the despair and cynicism of those who have been even peripherally
involved. One of the most fundamental pillars of democratic functioning is
the recognition of an inalienable Right to the Freedom of Expression.
While the freedom of speech is its most obvious manifestation, it is
important to realize that the concept encompasses much more. An
exploration of the right to speak and express dissent will lead us to the
understanding that it must be accompanied by the explicit right to ask
questions and demand answers.
We are faced in this country by the firmly established culture of secrecy and
silence. Western patenting is a crude method of appropriating knowledge

h d h h fi l d l ld d
when compared with the mystification, seclusion, and exclusion moulded
into caste hierarchies in India. It has reached the point where it has become
self-defeating. Today, Indian systems of knowledge have become so
exclusive, that it has been lost to its own custodians. Also well developed is
a culture of silence. We are sullen, unhappy, comprehending, suffering; but
silent. at is our collective ethos, developed by others but shared today by
all. We are never encouraged to ask and we never demand an answer.
In this campaign the analysis and paradigm of struggle has been defined
organically and collectively by a group of ordinary people, many of whom
live from day to day, seeking for daily wage work. ese are people for
whom abstractions like ‘rights’ mean nothing and who can only define their
existence in the context of hunger or lack of it, illness or good health, work
and unemployment. ey have in this struggle defined their livelihood and
their right to live in terms of their organic relationship with the state, and
their birthright to hold it accountable. e relationship between a citizen
and the state does not end with IRDP lists and JRY programmes. e
people have a right to know, a right to question, and a collective
constitutional right to receive an answer.
ere are some very important factors that contributed to making the Right
to Information a people’s issue in Rajasthan. e first was the recognition of
the fact that there is much that the people already know. e oppressed
certainly know the reasons for their exploitation. It is a part of their daily
existence. e figures are the statistical story of their oppression, and the
mechanics provide irrefutable clues about the source of affluence of many
others. Unfortunately, the literate world is not interested in recognizing
such information. Does one need to wonder why? Who after all is
interested in the detailed examination of the story of their ill-gotten wealth?
e most convenient solution is to ignore and label irrelevant any such
information.
It is, therefore, of vital importance to provide recognition to such
information. To force reality upon a world practiced in self-deception. is
of course is easier said than done. It involves a process of gathering,
collating and collectively analysing the information so that the internal
contradictions and bare-faced lies of the rulers stand exposed. It requires
setting one set of facts against another, one set of statistics against another,
and contrasting one stated reality with another. is is not an academic

b l b h f d h h d l b l If
battle, but the foundation on which competing ideologies are built. If we
are to work towards the construction of a peoples’ ideology, this process is
imperative. e movement for the Right to Information was born from one
such collective understanding of ordinary people in Rajasthan. e simple
but straightforward demand of access to detailed records of development
works, including bills, vouchers, and muster-rolls has snowballed into a
statewide debate on transparency and accountability. How was this demand
formulated?
Some of the roots lie in a struggling group’s collective understanding of
relationships and power equations in a changing socio-political scenario.
Village people have known what their reality is. But for any kind of socio-
politico change, comprehension of their own reality has not been enough.
ey have had to comprehend the mechanics of power and the idiom of a
so-called democratic polity. Since authority is vested in structures that span
a large canvas, and their comprehension of their own small, specific reality
has been dismissed often as trivial or insignificant.
e government has thrived on a culture of secrecy and silence—an
inheritance from its colonial past. Occasionally, the pressures of democracy
have forced them to reveal information under duress. But this information
is so general, that no clarity or benefit may be derived from it. In focusing
on the muster-rolls, bills, and vouchers a nerve end has been exposed. A
beginning has been made to fight for the state’s accountability to its own
people. It has confronted them with fundamental questions of transparency
of functioning and democratic sharing of power and responsibility.
Enough has been said about people’s knowledge not to have to redefine it.
But it would be interesting to see it in the context of the present struggle.
Whenever working village women and men in Rajasthan have got together,
they have always brought with them a wealth of information about their
work and development. ere are detailed accounts of work sites: who
worked, how they were cheated, what materials arrived and to whom they
went (very often not to the work site). ese accounts are sometimes
coloured by biases, but always minute in detail and interrelated with many
other happenings. Evening chats in rural Rajasthan are dotted with
exchanges of this sort. Working people have also tried to use this method of
collecting information, mainly culled through the oral tradition, in their
interaction with modem structures like the panchayats. ey could never

d h b f
succeed, however, in substantiating non-payments of minimum wages or
vicious cheating by overseers, because officialdom was always ready to
counter with ‘but the papers do not say so.’ Semi-literate and literate
workers began noting down the information in their little diaries—one was
even flaunted in public view in Beawar as the equivalent in essence and
substance to the notorious Jain diaries of the Hawala scandal! Nevertheless
official documentary evidence always went contrary to what people knew
was right.
So a demand for transparency began. To ask was the first step. e visual
black humour of a ‘mate’ running away with a muster-roll under his arm
was matched only by stories of cows consuming muster rolls! Once the
importance of access to a muster-roll began to be defined in people’s minds,
the permutations of corruption which its exclusivity made possible also
became clearer. Muster-rolls filled but gone; major discrepancies between
kucha muster-rolls filled on site and official muster-rolls submitted for
payment; totally fraudulent muster rolls, filled only to make money. A
whole variety of methods were being employed to cause huge amounts of
money to vanish without a trace. Recent reports of the MP muster-roll
scam just go to prove what people have always known.
Once the muster roll was identified and highlighted as an important
primary document for defrauding people of wages, the demand to see bills
and vouchers was the logical second step. People observe and take note of
the incoming tractors filled with material, they count empty sacks, they
notice that money is paid and a transaction concluded. A village situation
does not actually allow for much secrecy. Moreover, it is even more difficult
to surreptitiously hide materials like cement, chuna, and stone slabs. People
even know where these materials go. But the government auditor comes and
goes, gives a clean chit and all seems to go well. With new buildings about
to crack and brand new check dams spouting fountains, indifference has
given way to indignation. e examination of accounts is now considered as
an important skill to learn. Even if they lack the opportunity to master
accountancy, people are extremely well-equipped to demystify accounting
technology. We have excellent systems by which illiterate women have
traditionally lent money, working out dues to the last paisa. What people
needed to know was the methods through which a fraud could be
committed by a group of people and supported through apparently legal
methods by others. e unnecessarily complicated rules and orders
l d f l d b d d b d
manipulated to facilitate corruption, need to be understood to be countered.
What lies within the four corners of an official order is not necessarily just.
e Right to Information issue has been talked over in seminar rooms and
policy papers for over a decade. It is now among one of the catchwords of
every national politician and political party. But what has brought the
MKSS struggle into prominence is that it has perhaps been the first
grassroots struggle to articulate the specific and primary demand for the
Right to Information. While the issue emerged from the struggle for
livelihood among the rural poor, their specific demands for information fell
within the obvious legitimacy of the citizen’s Right to Information. While
important people’s struggles like the Narmada Bachao Andolan and the
victims of the Bhopal Gas tragedy have also emphasized the right to access
specific kinds of information, in such cases this issue has been absorbed
within their wider demands. By highlighting the inalienable birthright of all
citizens to obtain information on all matters which affect their lives, the
MKSS campaign gave room to a wide spectrum of interest groups to see
themselves as a part of this struggle. In this case the specific demand for
photocopies of bills, vouchers and muster-rolls endowed the universal
importance of the issue with immediate life and meaning. Ultimately, the
difference between the issue of transparency and a people’s demand for the
right to information indicates the fundamental shift in who asks the
questions. Demanding information is much more than the framing of a
question. It is an attack on the culture of secrecy and on the vested interests
which lie hidden within the structures that control decision-making. People
in Rajasthan and soon after in other parts of the country began to see the
significance of the issue in their own lives and struggles. e political
machinery which has paid admirable lip service to the issue for years,
suddenly found itself ill-equipped to deny a simple, straightforward
demand, despite that demand’s implications for a radical shift in the sharing
and wielding of power.
A scam a day…
Each morning’s newspaper brings into our homes yet another story of a
nation taken for a ride. Hawala, urea, the stock market, uniforms,
medicines, land, shoe contracts, bureaucrats selling the country, politicians
selling themselves, investigating agencies selling time, and newspapers and
magazines selling like hot cakes because of all this. e middle class hates
paying bribes: bribes for a berth on a train, for clearing a building plan, for
b f l f h h ld ll f
getting a government job, a transfer, a place for their children in college, for
getting the phone repaired, the electricity meter fixed, the license renewed.
Yet what the middle class hates even more is fighting the battle against
corruption head-on. ere is a need for a Lochinvar—a Seshan, a Khairnar,
a Kiran Bedi, an Alphons, and an Anna Hazare. Now they have decked us
out with an entire band of knights in shining armour—the Supreme Court,
which has recently been celebrating its forthright activism in this never
ending proxy war. While each one of these heroes have played an
undoubtedly outstanding part in fighting lonely battles, are these the
solutions? ere is a certain degree of truth in the assertion that corruption
is an ever-lingering malaise. Anti-corruption campaigns are used from time
to time to alter the balance of power between competing equals. Many feel
that corruption is an entirely symptomatic and superficial political issue.
at the endemic causes of this debilitating illness are never examined is the
outcome of such constant skirmishing amidst the upper levels of the
corruption chain. After all, it is undoubtedly true that what one sees coming
out in the papers is only the tip of the iceberg. We are all convinced that
under any contract, through any patronage, within any sector lies a scam.
We have seen how investigating agencies, and audit bodies have failed in
their duties for years, even decades, so that each conspiracy has grown to
gigantic proportions. We are relieved that finally some big names have gone
to jail, that some others are spending a lot of time seeking bail. But none of
these running battles have or will change the way the country is run.
How then has the MKSS campaign differed? If it is only a campaign
against corruption, the scams brought to light by its activities have been
low-key affairs in relation to the national rip-offs. e people who have
been identified as thieves are mere pawns in a system where big fish
continue to call the shots. What then is the significance of the MKSS
experience?
e most outstanding factor in the campaign in rural Rajasthan is that it is
a people’s struggle. Corruption for the main movers in the struggle is only
an incidental though a primary issue. Corruption has been the external
manifestation of the denial of a right, an entitlement, a wage, a medicine, a
bag of urea, twenty kilos of ration rice, fifty-six grams of daal and eight
grams of oil. It is the denial of a right to question.

 f l R h f d d l
e information movement in central Rajasthan focused on development
works because of their importance to rural employment and wages. For the
poor in this area, these are their means of living and survival. People’s
support has been the most important evaluator of the importance of an
issue in any mass organization. As a result, mass organizations will always
take up issues that people consider important. However, all struggles have a
very important element of dialogue and communication. e oppressed will
have to seek allies in their battle for survival, by exposing the bankruptcy of
their oppressors’ position. e mere demand for the right kind of
information can undermine the confidence of far more powerful opponents.
But there will have to be a conscious collective effort to frame the right
questions. Even if answers are not provided, much is gained because it only
confirms for those silently watching, that there is indeed something to hide.
To explicitly refuse to provide information is also very difficult in today’s
circumstances. Institutions in democratic and liberalized India have played
great lip service to the jargon of transparency. By forcing action on such
pronouncements, the people have an opportunity to define the debate in
their terms, rather than be saddled with yet another manipulative definition.
Survival is just the act of existence, technically shorn of all additional needs.
Its limits are defined by the World Bank’s ‘safety nets’ designed to keep the
nose of a drowning population just above the water. When there was a
welfare state and there were avowals of 20 and 5 point programmes and
Garibi Hatao, the state still had a stated objective of fighting poverty, and
the responsibility to meet basic needs. Now we are told that the market will
do it all. With the almost unrestricted entry of multinationals and global
pressures, it is vitally important that the people on the margins seek answers
from the state as to the reasons why even the little they have is being
snatched away. e poor in India have never really been dependent on state
support. But when they are ousted from their own homes, driven off their
land, beaten to death, raped and rendered jobless, they must surely have a
right to ask questions which the state is duly bound to answer. Information
becomes tangible—a home, food, a well, a school, employment, fuel, and
fodder.
People need to know why their names are not on ration cards, and how
much sugar, kerosene, or grain is entered in the PDS register. ey need to
know what medicines are free, and how many doctors should come and

h A dl b f b d h h d
when. An endless number of questions must be answered, which do not
relate to defence or to the security of the state. is is people’s money raised
and spent in their name.
It is both tragic and ironic that fifty years after independence we should ask
not for information for better living, for better education but merely to
ensure our survival. At this level, there is much less room for theoretical
arguments and doublespeak. No matter how others may describe their
condition, those fighting a battle for survival speak a language that is shorn
of decoration. eir questions will be incisive, and their demands will
instinctively be pinpointed and direct. We need to search for and create
forums where such voices will be heard and others will be compelled to
listen. e large numbers of middle class fence sitters must realize that their
own future is precarious and tenuous. Because the entire edifice of
organized extortion is built upon grassroot structures of exploitation, and
questions asked at the bottom will threaten all the way to the top.
Technology and export mean ‘progress’. Repeatedly multinational
corporations with their Indian partners have entered areas deemed ripe for
‘development’ and ‘progress’. Multinational mining companies have found
bauxite in Koraput, Raigada, and surrounding areas in tribal Orissa. People
protest when they are ousted from their land and homes. But no one listens.
Answers are given only in the state’s repressive measures and grand statistics
of foreign investment.
In Alwar, Rajasthan arable fertile land is acquired for a ‘public purpose’
through forced sales and used to establish liquor distilleries. Official
statements issued from Jaipur blithely proclaim that large numbers of jobs
will be created, and that pollution has been eliminated by new and magical
technology. It requires only a public hearing in the village to expose the
utter falsity of these arguments.
In South Canara multinationals are coming in to set up joint ventures and
land reform laws considered sacrosanct are circumvented by creating a new
concept called ‘Zoning’. e government claims that land ceiling laws are
intact.
Human Rights Commissions are set up by the state, while fake encounters,
custodial deaths, and disappearances increase. Hunger, minimum wages,
and the right to food, shelter, and clothing are no longer classified as human
rights issues.
W d ll h l h  h
We need to call a halt to this misrepresentation. e truth must come out.
Access to information exposes the gap between the legal framework of a
state and its actual functioning. It lays bare the realpolitik of a class that
aggressively rules in the name of the Republic, the national anthem and the
National Flag, and which has put down dissent by simplistically branding it
as anti-national and anti-state. is access exposes the ruling class and lays
bare its loyalties. It allows us to chart the degrees to which we have been
pawned off and sold. But more critically by empowering citizens to be
watchdogs, it gives us a unique opportunity to curtail the arbitrary exercise
of power.
is has been a year of scams. At one end of the chain of profit the scams
concern big business and big pay-offs, but at the other end are the
commodities on which the poor subsist—fodder in Bihar, muster rolls in
MP, medicines and grain across the country. If the people in Bihar had been
able to check the register, the embezzlement would have been detected long
ago. Fodder is voluminous, tangible and plainly visible. Yet years of audit
and state vigilance managed to see this non-existent fodder.
Information has enabled an exposure of the contradiction between promise
and action. It has been a battle led by the poor (or an organization of the
poor) against exploitation by vested interests in government and outside,
who have used anti-poverty programmes to exploit them. It is immensely
significant because the entire edifice stands on this huge foundation of
institutionalized robbery. At this ‘grassroots’ level an exposure reveals that
for the people at the receiving end of such extraction, corruption and
exploitation mean the same thing.
is campaign has also demonstrated to the middle class that their security
is extremely fragile and that their own future is propped by a tottering
structure. It is this marriage of interests between the poor and the middle
class that contain the seeds of a people’s movement against something much
larger than corruption. e specifics will vary from area to area. But this
movement has found a tool which exposes the contradictions of an
economic order based on profit and money, which promises ‘sustainable
development’ for all. It strips the veneer from statistics, and presents
specifics. It allows those at the bottom to not merely demand that their
voice be heard but that their questions be answered. In some of their
questions are contained the ingredients of a debate on ethics and

f h h l d Af ll d h h
governance for which our entire people are ready. After all, despite the huge
increase in personal resources among the middle and upper income groups,
there is a degree of disquiet about how simplistically the whole development
blueprint has been packaged. ere is unhappiness with the obvious lack of
ethics in governance, and there is at least a nagging doubt that things are
not quite as they are made out to be. e questions being raised by the poor
are based on an indisputable reality—at gross variance with what has been
put on record. e Emperor is indeed wearing no clothes!
We are faced with an unholy nexus of contorted institutions in our polity
today. A colonial bureaucracy and a corrupt representative democracy
disguise their misdeeds behind a facade of democratic and constitutional
legitimacy. Feudal social relationships show their colours again and again
woven into our democratic polity. Caste and Hindutva re-emerge as
weapons to re-instate past glory. Relationships in political parties, between
the citizens and their representatives are coloured by the feudal hangover.
Arbiters of justice perpetuate the patriarchal treatment of women.
Reactionary opinion is reflected in various judicial pronouncements all over
the country—Bhanwri’s case in Rajasthan is symbolic. Miss World contests
are superimposed on the picture of traditional Indian womanhood
symbolized by Sati. e Shiv Sena hosts Michael Jackson, justifying his
artistic freedom, while M.F. Hussain is pilloried for the artistic liberty he
took while painting Saraswati—a cameo of how communalism in India
conveniently draws a meandering boundary of acceptable limits! We need to
slice through the confusion being created. e unemployed youth in
Maharastra need to think about how many jobs the proceeds of Michael
Jackson’s concert will create for them, and the responsibilities of the ruling
Shiv Sena in generating employment through policy decisions and financial
allocations. Citizens of Bangalore need to know exactly how much it cost
the administration to play surrogate hosts to the Miss World contest, and
how much Amitabh Bachchan paid. We have to ask the right questions so
that the focus on issues basic to people’s living intensifies.
Democracy and a real share of political power are far beyond the reach of
the common person. Elected representatives have amply demonstrated their
lack of concern for the people who have elected them to power. Ethics has
become divorced from governance, people from their representatives,
development from the well being of those for whom it is set in motion,
literacy from responsibility. Corruption has therefore become the
f f d ’ d h h l I h
manifestation of today’s governments and their hypocritical stances. In their
complacency, political parties have not stopped to look critically at
themselves or their actions. Civil servants have sold their souls to the devil
with Faustian sophistry. Voters have been beguiled by revival of caste
loyalties and the tainted promise of a taste of paradise. Global alternatives
have narrowed to a Hobson’s choice of free markets emblematized by
Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pepsi, Uncle Chips, Star TV and the horrifying
prospects of having all natural resources raped for the gods of profit.
Intellectuals have sunk ever deeper into their armchairs of bewilderment.
Representative democracy has become a farce. e representative represents
only himself. Votes are bought, the voters forgotten, issues lost. e
representative refuses to be answerable. e overlay of caste politics has
deepened the chasm. e process of election is reduced to a head count of
legislators required to cobble together a majority. Governance is somehow
keeping this flock together. Democracy has been reduced to this one vote.
Vying with each other for power sharing, opposing parties find it
convenient to keep away from people. eir ideologies, if any, have been
subsumed by the thirst for power and position. eoretically, their
functioning depends on power invested in them by popular mandate. ey
are answerable to the people. But this has never worried them, because they
let it be known that the well being of the people, and their vote, depends on
bureaucratic and political handouts. ey are the attenuated outcome of a
feudal behavioural pattern. ose who rule have lost all credibility, but a
decadent ruling class continues secure in its belief that no alternative exists.
In fifty years we have managed to shatter all our dreams.
ere are occasions when the collective perceptions of a struggling group
provide us with an opportunity to break through the fog of confusion and
listlessness. ere is no magic wand which can show the way, but there are
moments when even a single step forward breaks the spell of lethargy. e
information campaign has grown in both potential and magnitude to a
point where it can affect us all. It needs to be recognized and established as
an explicit fundamental right because it has shown that its application will
strengthen democratic functioning in a very basic manner.
At a time when representative democracy has failed to produce governance
either responsive or accountable to the people, it provides the much needed
first step towards participatory democracy. Unlike the concept of

h R h I f h I
transparency, the Right to Information requires an activist approach. It puts
the burden of framing questions and demanding answers on the people. By
establishing a Right, it creates a vested interest in extracting the truth. It
gives ordinary people an opportunity to puncture the bubble of lies and
fantasy by which they are surrounded. It allows them to place their
understanding on record, to point out the false premises that may exist in
the dominant framework. It curtails the excuses for inaction, and
encourages resistance. But most important of all, the Right to Information
forces an analytical debate based on facts. In this debate, those asking the
questions are going to be subjected to the same standards of ethical
behaviour as those they are asking questions of. But the contours of the
Right to Information campaign are yet to be defined. e struggle in
Rajasthan has shown us that it has the potential to pinpoint the extortion
and force some degree of accountability on the state and development
machinery. e fact that it concerned matters of livelihood, ensured that it
was used by the people. But the use of information in fighting other forms
of oppression and exploitation will have to be identified and developed.
ere are areas where understanding and using technical information will
not be as simple. It is a tool that we will have to learn how to use. e
challenge posed by the new power structures of multinational corporations,
their growing control over resources and every aspect of people’s lives will
have to be understood, before the Right to Information can be used to force
them to answer the uncomfortable questions raised. How, we must ask
ourselves, can we seek home truths from the mandarins of the World Bank,
who dictate terms to national governments? ese are the forces that
control people’s destinies today. eir policies in distant Washington affect
every aspect of remote village life. If the threads that connect cannot be
severed, then a method must be found, whereby the strings can be pulled
from both ends. ey too must be accountable.
Gulam Rasool was young. He wrote for a Telugu newspaper and remained
committed to his profession without forsaking his roots in rural Andhra.
He asked, he probed and he informed. We need more like him in this
country. Perhaps in the questions that have begun to be asked everywhere,
the numbers will increase and make it impossible for the state or mafia to
eliminate. In their rising questions, collective voice and struggle, Ghulam
Rasool continues to live.

A k l d A ll k h k d d l
Acknowledgement: As we all know, thinking is not dependent on literacy,
and our mental vocabulary is not restricted by the ability to read or write.
Collective thinking and writing gives us the space to acknowledge the
wisdom of the people, whose experience is the chronicle of the struggles we
describe. All writings—including articles, memorial lectures, convocation
addresses and speeches—accredited to individuals working in the MKSS
owe their ideas, ideology and theoretical assumptions to the MKSS
Collective.
KILLING FIELDS
On Sunday, 29 December, 1991, newspapers in Hyderabad carried a report
that two unidentified Naxalites were killed in an encounter at Masjiguda, on
the outskirts of the city. According to the police they were killed in the early
hours of 28 December in an exchange of fire. By the next evening it became
clear that one of the killed was Gulam Rasool, a reporter working with
Udayam—third largest circulating Telugu daily. e news left everyone in
shocked disbelief.
Gulam Rasool (30) was working as a city reporter of Udayam for the last six
months. He joined the profession in 1986 after completing his intermediate
(+2) and had earlier worked with Eenadu, Andhra Jyoti, and Andhra Patrika.
While working as a stringer, he did his BA through the AP Open
University. Rasool comes from a poor family of Sharajipeta, Alern,
Nalgonda. He was a first generation graduate, if not the first literate, in his
family. His own background has deeply influenced his interest within his
profession and he was known for his reports on poor people. Commitment
to the profession led him to make daring break-throughs in his reportage.
Among the more well-known of his stories were his interviews with Sardar,
a wanted underworld figure of Hyderabad, and with a dalam (armed squad)
leader the Naxalite movement. He also covered police harassment of
villagers in his area, misuse of TADA, and role of police in the land
grabbing and eviction of slum dwellers in NTR Nagar in the city. In the
latter story Mr K. Rajaiah, DSP of Saroornagar was named. In recent weeks
Rasool appears to have done an investigation into the role of police in land
grabbing activities in and around the twin cities of Hyderabad and
Secunderabad.
On 27 December, Rasool left Udayam office at around 5 p.m. and went to
the house of a friend, Vijayaprasada Rao (30). Rao was from the same
ll R l d l d d P bl
village as Rasool and was an unemployed post graduate in Public
Administration from Osmania University. He was an associate of National
Students Union of India (NSUI). Both of them went to Eenadu office and
left the place around 6.30 p.m. Attempts to trace their movements, in so far
as recorded evidence goes, dry up around his time. ere is one eye-witness
account that suggests that both were picked up by the police an hour later,
not very far from Rasool’s house near Amberpet. Seven hours later they
were taken to an abandoned shed in the open fields near Masjidguda, about
20 kms from the city. Both of them were shot there. Next morning police
announced that, acting on a tip-off they went to the village and found a
meeting of a Naxalite armed squad taking place. ey appealed to the
Naxalite to surrender Instead the Naxalites opened fire. In self defence
police opened fire. Two Naxalites died on the spot while others escaped.
e police hand-out also claimed that there was nothing on the bodies or in
the shed that could enable them to identify the dead. Subsequently their
bodies were taken to Gandhi Hospital, Secunderabad from where they were
removed on Sunday afternoon. e villagers say that they were not aware of
any meeting and that they had only heard a jeep and a van around 3 a.m.
and a little later sounds of gunshots. e village elders, who signed the
panchanama said that the police removed wallets from the bodies which
contained identity cards of the two young men. Following an uproar in the
Press, police claimed that they were able to identify one of the victims as
Gulam Rasool. According to them, Rasool was involved in extortion of
money on the behalf of Naxalites, was a member of an armed squad of
CPI(ML) (People’s War Group) and was involved in a murder case. An
alert journalist community in the city is now able to trace and name some of
the policemen involved in the arrest and killing of Rasool and Rao. ey
include Circle Inspectors, Rami Reddy (Saroornagar), Muralidhar
(Vanasthalipuram) and Laxmi Narayana (Ibrahimpatnam) and were led by
DSP, Mr K. Rajaiah.
e Andhra Pradesh Union of Working Journalists (APUWJ) took up the
matter at all levels. Successful bandh calls were given by the Union in a
number of places. e state government conceded the demand for judicial
enquiry but categorically rejected the demand for suspension of the police
officials involved. is has emboldened the policemen to threaten the
journalists. Many journalists in Hyderabad received telephone calls warning
them that they will be ‘bumped off ’ if they continue to write about police.
A h h d h h ll h d f APUWJ
Among those who received such phone calls were the president of APUWJ
and chief reporter of e Indian Express. e situation for reporters in rural
areas and district centres had become worse. It must be noted that almost
all Telugu dailies bring out separate district supplements everyday. To feed
the six page supplements, all newspapers have engaged stringers even in
remote mandal headquarters on a piece-rate basis. It is these rural
correspondents who have become particularly insecure after the murder of a
reporter based in a metropolis. In Karimnagar eight journalists have
received direct threat from the police. In Warangal, demonstrating
journalists were lathicharged by a contingent of Border Security Force
(BSF).
e murder of Gulam Rasool and Vijayprasada Rao in a fake encounter is
part of large scale killing of unarmed citizens in the name of ‘curbing
extremism’ in the state. As many as 106 people were killed in these
encounters in 1991 alone. According to the investigations of Andhra
Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee, not more than 10 of those killed were
members of armed squads. All the rest were unarmed citizens, like Rasool
and Rao. is spate of murders has gone up since December when
paramilitary forces joined various armed outfits of Andhra Pradesh police in
their attempt to crash the Naxalite movement. In the last fifty days about
sixty people were killed in ‘encounters’.
Likewise, whenever the government in power announced a resolve to
‘finish-off Naxalites within six months’ as Home Ministers have been
periodically declaring for the last 25 years, there was a noticeable snit in
such encounters. at explains the fluctuations in the rate of killings (see
back cover). In other words ‘encounters’ are not ‘excesses’ of the police, nor
are they chance happenings. ey are part of a deliberate political policy
and most of the victims of this lethal policy are tribals, agricultural
labourers, small farmers, miners, and casual workers. e various agencies of
the state police are thus given a free hand with cash benefits.
To these existing agencies, paramilitary forces of the Centre have been
added recently. Initially in 1990 the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF)
was inducted. Later, sometime in March 1991, the Indo Tibetan Border
Police (ITBP) was added. ITBP, unlike similar bodies, is not a legally
constituted force. It was formed, for administrative convenience, in 1954 for
check post protection along the Tibetan Border. In 1962 it was upgraded as

ll f f h b d fl h h P l ’ R bl f
a guerilla force after the border conflict with the People’s Republic of
China. is is perhaps the first time that the force in a major way is
engaged in activities that cannot exactly be described as guarding the 2,000
km long border with Tibet. In a belated move to bestow legality on this
paramilitary force, recently the Union Cabinet in its meeting on 2 January,
1992, decided to introduce a legislation bringing the force under the
purview of an Act of Parliament. ITBP was joined in December 1991 by a
number of companies of BSF. e deployment of ITBP and BSF in the
northwestern districts of Telangana region in interior Andhra Pradesh is
not without its ironies. e government and its media have been saying,
with some justification, that the porous borders have become the channel
for Pakistani trained militants to enter Kashmir valley. e army, means
essentially to guard and fight against external attack, is deeply embroiled in
a civilian conflict in the valley while the agencies meant to guard the borders
are sent to Telangana.
us presently ANS, STF, APSP, CRPF, ITBP, and BSF are engaged in
resolving the ‘Naxalite problem’ in Andhra Pradesh. For the last one month
village after village in Warangal and Karimnagar are being subjected to raids
by the combined forces of these agencies.
PUDR, New Delhi
On Founder’s Day (Dehra Dun, October 1992)
VIKRAM SETH (1952–)

Vikram Seth came back to Doon School in 1992 as the Chief Guest at the
Founder’s Day function. ere was an enormous amount of expectation
about what he would say and Seth, always original, did indeed surprise
everybody. He spoke wryly about his unhappiness and loneliness at Doon,
the dangers of boarding school life and warned students never to fall into
the trap of believing that their school years were the happiest of their lives.
Sitting in the audience, as someone who had not been to Doon School, I
was amused by the widely different responses that the speech produced.
Most of the ex-students of the school—many of whom had sons in the
school—were appalled by what Seth had to say. ey felt on Founder’s Day,
he was letting the school down. But the present students seemed to be
enjoying the speech. e writer’s honesty and humour struck a chord with
them as it no doubt will with many others. Everyone agreed, however, that
Doon School had never heard a speech like this one.

Headmaster, Members of the Board, ladies and gentlemen, and most of all,
boys—and girls too I should add, because the daughters of teachers and
staff are as much students here as the boys and in fact seem to win half the
art prizes, besides climbing peaks of over 20,000 feet. But for the rest of this
talk I shall say boys, and the girls will forgive me.
I have had a wonderful two days here, and indeed, a very varied two days.
From the athletics competition on the main field yesterday to an informal
tour of Jaipur House (my old house)—and that new house at the end of
Skinner’s field—now what on earth is its name? Ah yes, Oberoi, and a very
l k h h ll ll f
attractive looking house it is too; architecturally as well as in terms of its
intake, I am sure. From a spirited meeting of the Board of Governors to a
spirit-filled dinner for the Class of ’67—the Old Boys and masters at their
most reminiscent, the wives yawning indulgently; from seeing the excellent
work of the boys in the art exhibition and general exhibition this morning,
to the anticipation of seeing my own Beastly Tales adapted and performed
in half an hour (if I can keep my speech short)—it has been by turns
entertaining and affecting, fascinating and exhausting. I have greatly
enjoyed it and I would like to thank all of you.
So much of my life is tied up with Dehra Dun that being back here forces
me to think of when I first went toWelham at the age of six. I remember
being left by my mother in the care of strangers, reassuring strangers,
suspiciously reassuring—and feeling both indignant and disbelieving that
she could dream of going back to Patna without me. But she did go away,
and so did the mothers of all the other new boys, and we were all in shock
for several weeks. But the Welham authorities were obviously practised in
dealing with the trauma of separation. Just before dinner everyday, we new
boys would be led to a bench near the hospital, and there, overlooking the
playing field, we would sit. One boy would begin sobbing, and then
another, and then we would all join in, weeping in concert for half an hour
until we were quite hungry, and could be led gently away to be fed.
Since then, coming back to Dehra Dun has always made me nervous. But
there are two other reasons why, though I was conscious of the honour of
being invited, I was uneasy about accepting. e first is that I thoroughly
dislike public speaking. But your chairman, Mr Lovraj Kumar, is not only
an old friend, but also an extremely persuasive one, and he made it clear
that I was to say yes; he never said so in so many words, but I felt that it
would be both churlish and arrogant to refuse.
e second reason is more complicated, and I will try to explain it as well as
I can. A few years ago, after a gap of about sixteen years, I returned to
Doon. I had avoided returning for quite a while: certainly, I had made no
particular effort to come back. But the family was taking a few days off
together in Dehra Dun, and I decided that I would visit my old school
again. I walked around the campus: from the main building to the tennis
courts with their bel trees that bore those green elephantine apples which
made such lethal meteors; past the hospital, past a military airplane which I

dd ’ b f h ll l h h l
didn’t remember from my time here, past a small temple, the school
panchayat, several signs describing the bird life of the campus, the servants’
quarters, the backs of Hyderabad House and Kashmir House—at that time
Oberoi house did not exist; the new swimming pool, along Skinners’ Field;
past Jaipur house and the lichi trees which I remember having raided from
the balcony of my dorm, and then back across the main field to the main
building. It turned out to be a whole parikrama full of new sights and old
sights. And at the end of the circuit, the school bell was ringing, tolling
rather, in its old familiar way and I was brought back to my own school days
by the last few fading notes, and especially the lightness of the last couple of
notes which one could never be completely sure would be the very last.
ese last few strokes of the bell, I remember, used to cause me particular
anxiety when I was running a change-in-break and had almost reached the
sanctuary of the main building from the distant border settlement of Jaipur
House. It always seemed unjust to me that the Tata House boys could
virtually saunter through their changes-in-breaks, grinning away, while for
us they were like mini-marathons.
Well, this time I was sauntering along myself under a chir pine, though not
exactly grinning, and I remember thinking how beautiful the school was
after all, and rebuking myself for having avoided visiting it for so many
years, and not having kept up with it at all.
e fact of the matter is that I had been pretty unhappy during my school
days and that was why I hadn’t wanted to come back to visit. I did teach
here for one term a couple of years after I left, but this didn’t really change
my feelings about my school days. People are always surprised, sometimes
even shocked when I say this, and most of all ex-Doscos, but it is true. Part
of it was my own fault—or, perhaps, I shouldn’t say fault, but my own
character. My brother Shantum, who followed me five years later, had a
good time in school, and kept up with his school friends better than I did.
I, for my part, just wanted to forget all about school once I’d left; and since I
went to a school in England for a year after Doon, I did not even have to go
on to a college and bump into those who had been my contemporaries at
Doon—and this, for me, was an unmixed blessing.
Now it’s strange in a way to say that I was unhappy at Doon. After all, I did
well here academically, joined a number of societies, edited the Weekly, and
took part in debates and plays, many of them in the Rose Bowl itself. Since

d h h h I fi d I d
my reports were good, my parents thought that I was fine—and I said
nothing to the contrary. I was kept well occupied from morning to night.
And yet I had a terrible feeling of loneliness and isolation during my six
years here. Sometimes at lights out I wished I would never wake up to hear
the Chhota Hazri bell. For years after I left I thought of school as a kind of
jungle, and looked back on it with a shudder.
Now, part of all this was of course simply the general stress and strain of
adolescence, but part of it was also the ethos, the atmosphere of the place. It
was a place where sports were almost the only thing that mattered as far as
the boys were concerned. I was teased and bullied by my classmates and my
seniors because of my interest in studies and reading, because of my lack of
interest at that time in games, because of my unwillingness to join gangs
and groups, because of my height—as you can see from the adjustment of
the mikes—and most importantly of all because I would get so furious
when I was bullied. No doubt, if in my teens I had been more relaxed about
things, or if I had had more of a sense of humour, things wouldn’t have been
so bad. But I wasn’t, and I didn’t, and they were.
Given all this, I had serious doubts about whether I should in all conscience
stand on this stage and so ungratefully talk about my miserable time here.
After a bit of thought and some struggle I decided I should. For one thing,
I learned a lot at Doon, a very great deal indeed as I will mention later, and
I am very grateful for that. For another, I thought it would be interesting
for you (and by ‘you’ I mean particularly the boys) to hear someone who has
a somewhat different view of things from the usual ‘school days were the
best days of my life’ litany; it might give you heart when you’re feeling low
or perplexed. I looked down the list of new boys in an old Weekly recently,
and discovered that about half the new intake consisted of brothers or sons
of Old Boys; so I imagine that many of you know from experience the kind
of gung-ho Old Boy guff that I’m referring to.
One of the hardest and most harmful things about school—not just Doon
but any boarding school—is that boys are deprived of the love and day-to-
day company of their fathers and mothers for two-thirds of the year—and
possibly for longer, because when they do go back home for the holidays,
parents are often so unused to spending time with their children that they
don’t quite know what to do with them even when they share the same roof.
e boys, while growing up, hardly know what it is like to have a sister. e

l f h l k ff l lf f ff dffi l b I
result of this lack of family life, of affection, is very difficult to assess, but I
think it has a serious effect on the minds and hearts of the boys. It forces
them to be more independent of their parents, certainly; but it also makes
them more emotionally insecure, and as a result more eager, even desperate,
to conform to their peer group, to seek popularity among their companions,
and to appear as tough and cool as possible and as brutal as possible to those
who are outside the group or younger than themselves. is culminates after
a few years in the ridiculous concern for privileges and seniority, and
sometimes abuse of authority that one often finds among the captains and
prefects and monitors; they exercise authority in the way that one would
expect of an overgrown adolescent who has been pushed around without
recourse to justice for years on end and then suddenly finds that he has been
given the right to push other people around. All this was bad enough in my
time; from my conversations with other Old Boys, I understand that this
rampant bullying by seniors became even worse some years after that. What
it is now like, I have no idea. I met the prefects at lunch today and enjoyed
the meeting greatly. But then, I am just visiting, and it is impossible to
gauge the atmosphere in school in a couple of days.
e concern and care of teachers and housemasters is no real substitute for
the security that comes from the affection of one’s parents. When I was
looking down that list of new boys, I asked myself this question: if I ever get
married and have children, would I send them to Doon—or any other
boarding school for that matter? My answer was that I am not sure.
Now after all that I have said so far, you might think that my answer would
have been a resounding ‘No.’ But the fact of the matter is that there is
another side to things—and one which is just as important. I owe a great
deal to my years here, and it is necessary to acknowledge this. Two things
that Doon gave me—and I will mention just the two most valuable things
—were a sense of equality with boys from very different backgrounds (the
Headmaster has already touched upon this) and a wide range of interests
outside the purely academic. I’ll deal with the first, first.
e sense of equality was something that Doon never laid any oppressive
stress on, and it was all the more effective for that. It just happened. Boys
dressed in the same uniform regardless of their parents’ wealth. ey got the
same amount of pocket money. Caste did not matter, religion did not
matter, the part of the country you came from didn’t matter, the social

f f l I d bl fi f
status of your family was unimportant. It was a considerable sacrifice for my
parents to send me and my brother here, and it was even more difficult for
other parents—but it did not matter to us that the boy next to us might be
the son of a millionaire. Nor did it matter to him. Our friendships and
enmities had almost nothing to do with the world outside Chandbagh. is
was a wonderful lesson, and a rare one: one that could not have been taught
in a day school. For though in a day school we would have had the company
and affection and example of our parents, we would also have absorbed their
social prejudices, and after school hours we would have mixed largely with
children of the same social background, locality, and economic class.
I hope that this sense of equality still holds at Doon—though I am
informed, again through the Weekly, that the dress code has lately been
shaken to its foundations by the invasion of fancy sports shoes; the boys will
know what I am talking about. More seriously, I also understand that the
geographical mix of boys is much more restricted than it once was, which is
a pity. (Something, I understand, is being done about this). On the other
hand, there is a greater range in terms of family income because of the
larger number of scholarships and part scholarships that the Headmaster
has mentioned, and that is excellent news. In general, it is good to know
that differences in wealth continue to count for little here.
As for my second great debt to Doon—an all-round education, not
confined to one’s studies—one has only to look around the Rose Bowl to see
what I mean. is wonderful theatre was built many years ago by the boys
themselves under the guidance of a master. For me, it is a symbol of all that
is best about the school. e shape is inspired by the models of ancient
Greece, the plays acted here have ranged from the dance dramas of Tagore
and a play based on Nehru’s Discovery of India to the great plays of Western,
not just English literature: Twelfth Night and Becket and e Government
Inspector and even a lively dated musical version of e Frogs by
Aristophanes where (if I remember) Elvis competed with the Beatles and
Superman glided down a rope to where the Mushrooms are now standing.
e surroundings too are beautiful. e bamboo there burst into flower one
year before dying and later sprang up again. e skies provided us with
genuine thunder and lightning for the storm scene in Julius Caesar on the
night of the performance. ere were quite a few birds and snakes in that
khud over there. But this natural beauty can be found all over the school: it
was, after all, the old Forest Research Institute. Living for years in these
d b d l f h h
surroundings, bred in me an unconscious love of nature which was
reinforced by mid-term expeditions to the hills and rivers around, and
which has never deserted me even amid the polluted drabness of large cities.
I needn’t list the other areas outside the classroom where the school allows
one to expand one’s interests: debates, art, Indian and Western music, chess,
photography, woodwork, special groups and societies for those interested in
science or mathematics, sports of all kinds from cross-country running to
cricket, and social work in the community—including, most particularly,
helping out in times of crisis such as the recent earthquakes. So many
schools in these academically competitive times have narrowed their focus
to grades and exams, and college admission requirements. Doon has not.
Nor was this breadth of interest merely a question of the facilities available
here. What was crucial was that certain teachers—I won’t say very many,
but certainly a few—themselves embodied this wider vision of a full life. I
was very lucky indeed to have, both as housemaster and as teacher, a man
whose active interests ranged from mountaineering to Mozart, from the
poetry of Ghalib and Tennyson—perhaps I should say Tannyson—to the
social habits of what he chose to call ‘that delightful bird the rad-vanted
bulbul.’ In fact, if one wanted to avoid a scheduled test on sheep-farming on
the Canterbury plains or some other unexciting but exacting topic, the most
promising technique was to look out of the first floor window of his
classroom in an abstracted way, raise one’s hand, and say, ‘Sir, please sir,
what is that bird, sir, the one that just made the sound gu-turr, gu-turr?’
While perfectly aware of our tactics, Guru was entirely unable to resist
telling us about the bird, and its call, and its habitat, and its mating season,
and its Latin name and the average length of its beak; and twenty minutes
later, we boys, wiser but unconscious of being wiser, would be smiling to
ourselves, secure in the knowledge that we had flown safely over the
Canterbury plains without being forced to crash-land.
People sometimes ask me whether in addition to these two great gifts,
Doon didn’t teach me lessons of leadership and character building and
independence of mind. My answer, in a word, is ‘No.’ I don’t think I have
leadership qualities anyway, and I certainly don’t think that the system of
authority that I talked about earlier leads to great qualities of leadership. As
for character building, I suppose it could be said that there is a sort of
make-or-break aspect to boarding schools. You learn to cope or else you

ll I fi ll l d h l d b l h
collapse. I finally learned to cope with my solitude; but any real strength or
warmth of character came to me later and in surroundings where I could
choose my company and was more at ease with myself. As for independence
of mind, I don’t think Doon helped me. As I explained, the ethos was one
of conformity, of fear of public opinion, of hostility to anyone who was
eccentric or odd in any way. I very much hope that this has changed or is
changing.
It is difficult even at the age of forty to think for oneself, to take an
independent stance, to speak one’s mind, to accept that one might make
oneself unpopular by doing so, in short to trust in oneself. At fifteen it
requires great courage, and I just did not have it. I lay low and muttered
resentfully and thought that perhaps there was something wrong with me
that I didn’t fit in. I hope that you boys have an easier time of it. Remember,
there is such a thing as Life After School. I hope that later you will treat
your school days in perspective, and not get obsessed by them one way or
another. ere is nothing sadder than someone who has done nothing solid
or independent in life clinging to his old school tie for a sense of his own
worth—or, more absurdly still, for his sense of superiority over others. On
the other hand, it would be a pity if you allowed a few unhappy or traumatic
incidents of your school years (which now form such a large proportion of
your life) to haunt you down the decades. If they do haunt you, so, I hope,
will the redeeming beauty of the finest of our assembly prayers, one of
which we heard earlier this evening. e only way you can come to balance
the good with the bad is through the habit of independent thought.
Both now and later, and whether or not your environment encourages you
to do so, try to think things out independently. Just because someone in
authority says something does not mean you should believe it. ink it out.
ink it through. Don’t take important matters on trust. Obviously one
does not have the time to think out everything, but important matters one
just has to think out by oneself. Examine public opinion, especially that part
of public opinion that you have almost made your own. Ask yourself when
necessary what it is that you want to do in life—perhaps for yourself,
perhaps for the world around you. If there is something deep within you,
whether personal or professional, that pulls you one way, and you have
discussed the matter with yourself and come to a clear conclusion, don’t let
the wish to be thought of as a good chap force you in the opposite direction.
You may not be successful or popular in the eyes of the world—or you may
b f l l d ll b ll h l d lf h
be successful only incidentally—but you will have lived your own life, the
only one that is to a fair extent in your control, the only one that you have.
It passes far too quickly, and soon it is over. I myself can hardly believe that
I have reached the conventional halfway mark.
And whatever you choose to do, don’t give up too easily. Accept that
acceptance will be slow in coming, if indeed it comes at all. e Headmaster
has said very generous things about my work, and I am delighted that my
Beasts, despite their strange ways, have been so well received here. People
tell me that I am a successful author, and I suppose in a sense it’s true.
What people notice, however, is the successes; how many failures and near-
failures I have had, no one knows. But in life and in work, one must take
failure as not just acceptable but inevitable. As a writer you may wrestle for
weeks with a single page of a novel, or a single stanza of a poem, and it may
still not come out right. Or you may send out a manuscript that you have
sweated over for years to one publisher after another, and be turned down
again and again. e rejections come, and they hurt, but what is more
important than any of the rejections is the one acceptance that may possibly
arrive. I am sure that in other fields, whether scientific or academic or
industrial or political, the same is true. In love, too, it doesn’t matter how
many times you are rejected; it’s that one acceptance by someone you love
that matters.
I admit that that is not a very romantic or indeed poetical thought to end
with; but I am off duty as a poet today. Anyway, I reckon that you will find
my Beasts more entertaining, and certainly more poetical, than me. And in
addition they have the advantage of succinctness in speech; they are
confined to their rhyming couplets, their rhyming iambic tetrameter
couplets—and their author can (and does) cut them off when they’ve been
talking too long.
To their relief and perhaps to yours, I shall end here. I do wish you all the
very best.
Doon School Founder’s Day address (Dehra Dun,
October 2007)
MANI SHANKAR AIYAR (1941–)

When this book was first published, Mani Shankar Aiyar, speaking at a
function organized around this book, expressed his regret that none of his
speeches had been included in the volume. His speech at the Doon School’s
Founder’s Day had just missed being included since it was delivered after
the work on the book had been completed. It is now included especially as
it is a kind of riposte to Vikram Seth’s speech delivered on a similar
occasion. Mani Shankar Aiyar’s speech reflects the joys of his school days in
contrast to the pain that Seth tried to record.

Governor Dhruv Sawhney,

Members of the Board of Governors,
Headmaster Kanti Bajpai,
My young friends and spiritual successors at the school,
My fellow classmates,
Parents, ladies and gentlemen,
To be a Doon School boy is privilege enough, but to be invited to deliver
the Founder’s Day Address—and that too on the Golden Jubilee of one’s
Class, is surely indulgence in extremis. My grateful thanks to the Governor
and the Board, and to the Headmaster for this rare honour.
A few years ago, a Doon School Old Boy, much more distinguished than I
can ever hope to be, stood at this podium and explained why he had had
h bl h l I h k ll f ld d h fi
such a miserable time at school. I think all of us would concede that five
years here is not:
‘Roses, roses all the way/With myrtle mixed in my path like mad.’
(I owe that quote to a poem taught me here by a great and unforgettable
teacher, Mr S.P. Sahi). For one thing, adolescence is a terribly difficult time
and to have to cope with it without the reassurance of a familiar home and
friendly parents is challenge enough. Add the army of tyrannical school
captains, house captains, prefects and monitors, in descending order of
tyranny, and one begins to sympathize with those burdened by cowering
loneliness. With that, mix the agony of those like me who were hopeless at
sports, in a stifling atmosphere where brawn was certainly celebrated over
brain, and the poison of remembrance starts rising in one’s throat. And
overlaying it all, the oppressive absence of girls just when all kinds of
unknown hormones have started sloshing around one’s system—and one
knows why any true recollection of one’s days at Doon cannot be those of
Elysium remembered.
en ask oneself how it is that if there was so much unhappiness,
oppression, injustice and deprivation through those critical formative years,
what is it that brings back so many of us to this Golden Jubilee celebration
of our Class of ‘57? Why do we talk so fondly of the years we spent in these
sylvan surroundings—so ‘pleasing to the eye and soothing to the mind’ as I
remember Dr Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan, later President of India, saying
when he was Chief Guest at our Founder’s Day 19541 and I a wide-eyed 13
year old ‘C’ former? What makes us feel so special?
I, of course, came a cropper for feeling special when I went to a supervision
(which is what they archly call a tutorial at Cambridge) wearing my Old
Boy’s blazer. My crusty supervisor took one look at my badge and sourly
asked, ‘What is that?’
‘e lamp of knowledge,’ I proudly replied.
‘A pity,’ he retorted, ‘they didn’t light it while you were at school!’
I still think I had the better of the exchange; for, after all, I was a Doon
School boy—and he a mere Cambridge don!
To return to my initial question: what is it that makes so many of us—I
would say almost all of us—agree that we had a rotten time here, which has
left us with so many fond memories and such sweet nostalgia that we have
d l h h d’ d h h f h f h dd
returned a la recherche d’un temps perdu—which, for those of you who did
not attend Mrs Sahi’s French classes, means ‘In search of a time gone by’?
I daresay there are as many individual reasons for this as there are Old Boys.
But distilling the essence, I would hazard the suggestion that three or four
causes are common to all of us.
First, the teachers. True, there were some bad `uns. I remember one
particularly aggravated Hindi teacher screaming at a Hindi-hopeless Tamil
classmate of mine: ‘Murugappan, I do not want to hit you. I want to kill
you. Blood! Blood! Blood!’ (All, incidentally, in impeccable English)! But
apart from the occasional ink-pot, thrown but missed to the vast
amusement of the rest of us who were not the target, there were
compensations in going up to another Hindi teacher who had spent his
holidays in the Gir Forest to ask what he had seen. ‘Loins,’ he would reply
and every one of us followed up with, ‘And how big, Sir, were the loins?’
and got the innocent reply, ‘Very, very big loins.’ He never quite understood
why all of us wanted to know!
But, all in all, it was, in a word, the most outstanding assemblage of
teachers ever gathered together in one place. It is, therefore, no accident
that my class immediately and unanimously decided that our first Golden
Jubilee contribution should be towards commissioning a Doon School Old
Girl, the sculptor Latika Katt (daughter of our Biology teacher, Mr B.S.
Sharma, who never quite understood our obsessive interest in the properties
of Vitamin E—and if you don’t know what those are, you are no Doon
School boy!) to do a bust of Holdy, pipe in mouth, to adorn the new
pavilion that is coming up on the edges of this Main Field. Nor any
accident that our second contribution is to honour the greatest Headmaster
of our generation, John Martyn, in whose memory a school for the less
privileged is being run on the lines of our own alma mater. Nor, indeed, any
happenstance that our third contribution is to the Shivalik Fund for
scholarships for the children of Doon School Masters and, unlike us the
lucky ones, kids born with a plastic spoon or no spoon at all in their
mouths.
is is the occasion for us to pay tribute to all those Great Teachers of our
Time who are no more with us—Messers. Jack Gibson; Sudhir Khastagir;
old Gombar (despite some curious goings-on) and Webb, the New
Zealander who taught us English for a while; the ambidextrous S.K. Roy;
KB S h VN K d O P M lh K d N Gh h
K.B. Sinha, V.N. Kapur, and O.P. Malhotra; Kunzru and Nair; Ghushti
and Gupta of the chemistry class; Viji Hensman; Shirodkar and Deshpande
at the Music School; Joshi at Kashmir House; Kishore Lal of the carpentry
shop and Mumtaz, I think his name was, the bookbinder; Sister Gibbs at
the hospital; Mela Ram, the photographer (‘Ishmile Pliss!’); Darshan Singh
in the boxing ring—and those I have already mentioned. As also those
other Great Teachers of our Time who are happily still with us—the
‘paanwala gang’, chaired by Dr S.D. Singh for the largest number of paans
consumed in a single lifetime; the Hindi litterateur who has made possible a
career for me in our gravely Rashtrabhasa-tilted politics—Dr H.D. Bhatt
‘Sailesh’ (some whose short stories I translated as a schoolboy into English
and who, in turn, translated my melodramatic adolescent outpourings into
Hindi); Rathin Mitra at the Art School, and many, many others; above all,
the immortal Gurdial Singh whom I had the honour, as the country’s most
unlikely and undeserving Sports Minister ever, to select this year for the
Tenzing Norgay Award for lifetime achievement. For Indian
mountaineering was born in e Doon School and made possible only
because of the tremendous imagination, leadership and grit of the Great
Guru.
When I contrast this Galaxy of Greats with schools that I know where the
Principal comes drunk to assembly, the Headmaster turns out to be a serial
molester, and the Housemaster a thief, one knows that what makes the
Doon School the Doon School is, first and almost last, its Masters and
Staff. ank you all for the great start in life you gave all of us.
e other great institution that has a left the mark of a lifetime on each one
of us and rough hewn the destinies which we have been later left to hone
for ourselves is morning Assembly. If secularism is the hallmark of a Doon
School education its origins lie in the eclectic collection of non-
denominational prayers and songs with which we started every working day,
the thanks we were taught to give:
For hills to climb and hard work to do
For all skill of hand and eye
For music that lifts our hearts to heaven
And for the hand-grasp of a friend
Remember? And can you hear over the waves of time the deep and
sonorous baritone of Headmaster John Arthur King Martyn subtly imbuing
h ll h f h b d h b h d d h
us with all that is of the best and the brightest in our tradition and the
heritage of humankind? More, I think, than anything we were taught from
text-books, it was the profound and eclectic lessons learned through our
pores, as it were, in assembly that have lasted longest with us, permeating
our thoughts and action with those instinctive values which make us the
good and responsible citizens we have, by and large, turned out to be.
ird, I believe, is the lessons we were taught in the dignity of labour. We
all came from extraordinarily privileged families. Few of us were required to
look after even ourselves at home. It was an era of servants by the dozen
and pampering for the asking.
e school could easily have degenerated into a haven for neofeudals, as so
many sister institutions in India and Pakistan had indeed become. I think it
was making our own beds, polishing our own shoes, compulsory labour
—‘quota work’ as we then called it—and Tunwala that saved our souls. at
—and fending for ourselves in the midst of mindless bullying, petty tyranny
and the proud man’s contumely—that gave us the inner strength to face the
world outside. It is a tough world outside—and the fact that it was even
tougher at school made for a successful launch. I wish there were gentler
ways of doing it but I wouldn’t know of any.
Fourth, a sense of community—a sense of community that is both exclusive
and inclusive. e exclusion is the sense of superiority over all those who
fall outside the walls of Chandbagh. It gives us Doscos our well-deserved
notoriety for snobbery and conceit. It also gives us our inestimable self-
confidence, the belief, not unjustified, that the world is ours for the taking.
(When I went up to St. Stephen’s, some guy said he couldn’t stand Doscos.
When I asked why, he said, ‘You chaps walk around this place as if you own
it.’ I replied, ‘We don’t. Neither do you. So, why don’t you walk around as if
you own it?!)’ e inclusivity comes from there being perfect equality of
treatment and opportunity within these sacred walls. For there were among
us, and I daresay still are, ridiculously rich scions of princely families and
fattened calves of industrial magnates, children of the powerful, the famous
and the merely vainglorious. But because we all received the same pocket-
money and had to do for ourselves the same menial tasks and competed
with each other on a level playing-field with no favourites and no nepotism,
it bred in us, I think, a belief in equality and equity, of justice and fair-play,
the enduring conviction that:

‘I h l /B h l d h ’
‘It matters not who won or lost/But how you played the game.’
It also inured most of us from the temptations of corruption. If success has
come to so many Doon School boys—and I think we can claim over the last
72 years to have produced more men (and a few women) of distinction in a
wider variety of fields of human endeavour per capita than any other school
in the country, I think that has a great deal to do with the rigours of our
adolescence and the timeless and universal value system pumped into our
blood stream by the best masters the country and our generation had to
offer.
Can any one of us forget Holdy’s injunction to cultivate the ‘bold,
inquisitive Greek spirit’ or his astonishment at finding our class, one month
before our Senior Cambridge exams, failing to react to his remark,
‘Let the punishment fit the crime/e punishment fit the crime.’
On learning that none of us had heard the verse, he put aside all our books
and over the next three days sang for us in his cracked voice the whole of
Gilbert and Sullivan’s opera, e Mikado! Or Sahi reading out from some
poor unfortunate’s Sunday essay on ‘Water’: ‘Human beings need water to
live. So do animals. Without water, we would all die’—and more in the
same vein, then throwing the note book back at the author crying, ‘Hai
paani! Hai paani!’
I have but one recommendation to make as the school veers towards its
Platinum Jubilee. When I was here, girls were a rumour. e cruellest irony
was that Welham Girls started up only in my last term—and I had to wait
till the 4x400 girls relay on this Main Field to discover what made them so
deliciously different from us. When I eventually founded my family, I had
three girls—all of whom went to a co-educational school, inferior in every
respect to e Doon School except in that they learned about the opposite
sex when they needed to. Our deprivation distorted all of us. I am glad none
of my daughters is slated to marry a Doon School boy. For all the Doscos
wives here would agree that we are totally mixed up inside! So my final plea
to you is: make the school co-educational. I think this complex of
Hyderabad and Kashmir House would make for a perfect girls’ hostel—
besides the incidental advantage of reducing the number of H-House and
K-House boys! (My T-House fellow, the Headmaster, would agree that this
would considerably raise the tone of the school! (boos and applause!) When
my eldest was born, I wrote to Headmaster Marytn and asked him whether
I h D b db h h h d h f
I might expect Doon to become co-ed by the time she reached the age of
eleven. He replied to say he hoped it would. Now, three long decades later,
the school still remains a unisexual Victorian relic. I hope the Board of
Governors will summon up the courage to make the Great Change by the
Platinum Jubilee! I urge them to do so.
I emerged from school a red-hot Marxist (—like Mukul Chhatwal in
yesterday’s Hindi play). Others had a more intelligent reaction. I have since
moderated my views (again like Mukul Chhatwal in yesterday’s play). So, I
am sure, have my classmates. But on one point we are all agreed: it was
great to have been here, a miracle to have survived, and a trauma we recall
with affection and gratitude.
‘Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive
And to be young was very Heaven!’
ank you, School. And thank you to all who made this possible.
Jai Hind!

1. Governor Dhruv Sawhney subsequently told me it was 1955. Grateful

thanks for the correction.
Our culture, their culture (Calcutta, December 1995)
AMARTYA SEN (1932–)

Amartya Sen gave the Satyajit Ray Lecture in 1995, a few years before he
won the Nobel Prize. Sen is a legendary speaker and there was no standing
place in the hall and screens were put up outside for people who couldn’t get
a seat. It was perhaps the first time that he was presenting in India, his
views on some aspects of Indian history and on the Indo-European
encounter. Many of his thoughts on this subject have become better known
through his book e Argumentative Indian.

I feel very deeply honoured to have this opportunity of giving this year’s
Satyajit Ray Memorial Lecture. My admiration for him and for his work is
altogether boundless. For many of us he has changed the way we think
about the world in which we live. Aside from enjoying the narrative,
imagery, music and vision, we are invariably moved to address deep and
difficult questions to which we are led by him. To see a Ray movie, is to get
immersed in reflection for days afterwards, and to remember the issues (as
well as the moments of beauty and sensitivity) for the rest of one’s life.
Satyajitda presented in his films and writings a remarkably insightful
understanding of the relation between different cultures, and much of this
talk will be devoted to investigating and building on what I interpret this
position to be. Ray’s insights remain, I would argue, centrally relevant to the
major cultural debates in the contemporary world—not least in India.
What, then, are these insights? I guess I can give away the main theme of
my lecture at the very beginning, since this is not a detective story. In Ray’s

fil d h ( l d h b k d
films and in his writings (including his books Our Films, eir Films, and
My Years with Apu: A Memoir) we see explorations of at least three distinct
general themes on cultures and their interrelations: (i) the importance of
‘distinctions’ between different local cultures and their respective
individualities, (ii) the necessity to understand the deeply ‘heterogenous’
character of each local culture (even that of an alleged community, not to
mention a region or a country) and (iii) the great need for intercultural
‘communication’ while recognizing the barriers that make this a hard task.
e deepest respect for distinctiveness is combined, in Satyajitda’s vision,
with recognition of internal diversity as well as appreciation of genuine
communication. While impetuous cosmopolitans have something to learn
from Ray’s focus on distinctiveness, the growing army of communitarians
and cultural chauvinists—increasingly more fashionable in India as well as
elsewhere—must take note of the persistence of heterogeneity at the most
local level, and the creative role of intercultural communication and
learning.
In emphasizing the need to respect the individuality of each culture, Ray
saw no reason for closing the doors to the outside world. Indeed, not
closing the doors of communication with—and learning from—each other
were extremely important for Satyajitda. In this respect his attitude
contrasts sharply with the increasing tendency to see Indian culture (or
cultures) in highly conservative terms—wanting it to be preserved from the
‘pollution’ of Western ideas and thought. He was always willing to enjoy
and learn from ideas, art forms, and lifestyles from anywhere—within India
or abroad.
Also, Ray was able to see heterogeneity within allegedly local communities,
and this insight contrasts sharply with the tendency of many
communitarians—religious and otherwise—who are willing to break up the
nation into some communities and then stop dead exactly there: ‘thus far
and no further’. Ray’s eagerness to seek the larger unit—ultimately talking
to the whole world—combined well with his enthusiasm for understanding
the smallest of the small—ultimately even the vibrant individuality of each
person. It is this vision from which, I would argue, we have so much to
learn—right now.
ere can be little doubt about the importance that Ray attached to the
distinctiveness of different cultures. He also discussed the problems these
d h bl f l l
divisions create in the possibility of communication across cultural
boundaries. In his book, Our Films, eir Films, he noted the important fact
that films acquire ‘colour from all manner of indigenous factors such as
habits of speech and behaviour, deep-seated social practices, past traditions,
present influences and so on’.
He went on to ask: ‘How much of this can a foreigner—with no more than
a cursory knowledge of the factors involved—feel and respond to?’ He
noted that ‘there are certain basic similarities in human behaviour all over
the world’ (such as ‘expressions of joy and sorrow, love and hate, anger,
surprise and fear’), but ‘even they can exhibit minute local variations which
can only puzzle and perturb—and consequently warp the judgment of—the
uninitiated foreigner’.
e presence of such cultural divides raises many interesting concerns. e
possibility of communication is only one of them. ere is the more basic
issue of the individuality of each culture, and questions about whether and
how this individuality can be respected and valued even though the world
grows steadily smaller and more uniform. We live at a time at which more
things are increasingly common, and the possibility that something
extremely important is being lost in this process of integration, has aroused
understandable concern.
e individuality of cultures is a big subject now, and the tendency towards
homogenization of cultures, particularly in some uniform Western mode, or
in the deceptive form of modernity’, has been strongly challenged.
Questions of this kind have been taken up in different forms in recent
cultural studies, especially in Western intellectual circles (from Paris to San
Francisco), not far from the ‘main sources’ of the threats of Westernized
modernity (there is perhaps some irony here).
But the prevalence and influence of these questions can be seen plentifully
in contemporary India as well. Often the form it takes is that of ‘anti-
modernism’, rejecting what is seen as the tyranny of ‘modern’ society
(particularly, a ‘Western’ form of modernization). Sometimes the defiance
of Western cultural modes is expressed through enunciations of the unique
importance of Indian culture and the traditions of its communities.
At the broader level of ‘Asia’ rather than India, the separateness of ‘Asian
values’ and their distinction from Western norms have often been asserted,
particularly in east Asia—from Singapore to China and Japan. e invoking
f A l h d h d b l l
of Asian values has sometimes occurred in rather dubious political
circumstances. For example, it has been used to justify authoritarianism
(and harsh penalties for alleged transgressions) in some east Asian
countries.
In the Vienna conference, the foreign minister of Singapore argued, citing
differences between Asian and European traditions, that ‘universal
recognition of the ideal of human rights can be harmful if universalism is
used to deny or mask the reality of “diversity”.’ e championing of ‘Asian
values’ has typically come from governmental spokesmen rather than from
individuals opposed to the established regimes. Still, the general issue is
important enough to deserve our attention and scrutiny. In examining the
implications of cultural diversity, I must, inter alia, take up this question.
Even though he emphasized the difficulties of inter-cultural
communication, Ray did not, in fact, take cross-cultural comprehension to
be impossible. He saw the difficulties as challenges to be encountered,
rather than as strict boundaries that could not be breached. His was not a
thesis of basic ‘incommunicability’ across cultural boundaries—merely one
of the need to recognize the difficulties that may arise. On the larger subject
of preserving traditions against foreign influence, Ray was not a cultural
conservative. He did not give systematic priority to conserving inherited
practices. Indeed, I find no evidence in his work and writings that the fear
of being too influenced by outsiders disturbed his inner equilibrium as a
decisively ‘Indian’ filmmaker and creative artist. He wanted to take full note
of the importance of one’s cultural background without denying what there
is to learn from elsewhere. ere is, I think, much wisdom in this ‘critical
openness’, including the valuing of a dynamic, adaptable world, rather than
one that is constantly ‘policing’ external influences and fearing ‘invasion’ of
ideas from elsewhere.
e difficulties of understanding each other across the boundaries of culture
are undoubtedly great. is applies to the cinema, but also to other art
forms as well, including literature. For example, the inability of most
foreigners—sometimes even other Indians—to see the astonishing beauty of
Rabindranath Tagore’s poetry (a failure that we Bengalis find so
exasperating) is a good illustration of just such a problem. Indeed, the
thought that these non-appreciating foreigners are being wilfully contrary

d bd ( h h b bl h b f
and obdurate (rather than being unable to appreciate across the barrier of
languages and translations) is a suspicion that seems to be frequently aired.
In some ways, the problem is perhaps less extreme in films, insofar as the
cinema is less dependent on language, since people can be informed even by
gestures and actions. But our day to day experiences generate certain
patterns of reaction and non-reaction that can be mystifying for foreign
viewers who have not had those experiences. e gestures—and ‘non’-
gestures—that are quite standard within the country (and understandable as
‘perfectly ordinary’) may appear altogether remarkable when seen by others.
Also, words have a function that goes well beyond the information they
directly convey; much is communicated by the sound of the language and
special choice of words to convey a sense, or to create a particular effect. As
Ray has noted, ‘in a sound film, words are expected to perform not only a
narrative but a plastic function’, and ‘much will be missed unless one knows
the language, and knows it well’.
Indeed, even the narrative may get inescapably transformed because of
language barriers—the difficulty of conveying the nuances through
translations (not to mention gestures or body movements). I was reminded
of Ray’s remark the other day, when I saw Teen Kanya again, in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, where they are currently having a festival of Satyajit Ray’s
films. When Paglee—in the sparkling form of Aparna Sen (then Dasgupta)
—decides to write, at last, a letter to her spurned husband, she conveys her
new sense of adult intimacy by addressing him in the familiar form ‘tumi’
(as he had requested), rather than the formal ‘apni’. is could not, of
course, be caught in the English subtitle. So the translation had to show her
as signing the letter as ‘your wife’ (to convey something similar in adult
intimacy). But the Bengali form in which she signs as ‘Paglee’ but addresses
him as ‘tumi’ is infinitely more subtle.
Such difficulties and barriers cannot be escaped. Ray did not want to aim
his movies at a foreign audience, and the Ray fan abroad who rushes to see
his films knows that she is, in a sense, eavesdropping. I believe this
relationship of the creator and the eavesdropper is by now very well
established among the millions of Ray fans across the world. ere is no
expectation that his films are anything other than that of an Indian—and a
Bengali—director made for a local audience, and the attempt to see what is
going on is a decision to engage in a self consciously ‘receptive’ activity.
I h R h h d d h d h ‘ ’ d h
In this sense, Ray has triumphed and triumphed in his ‘own terms’ and this
vindication, despite all the barriers, tells us something about possible
communicability across cultural boundaries. It may be hard, but it can be
done, and the eagerness with which viewers with much experience of the
finest Western cinema flock to see Ray’s films (despite the occasional
obscurities of a presentation tailored to an entirely different audience)
indicates what is possible when there is a willingness to go beyond the
bounds of one’s own culture.
Satyajit Ray makes an important distinction on what is or is not sensible in
trying to speak across a cultural divide, especially between the West and
India. In 1958 (two years after Pather Panchali won the special award in
Cannes, and one year after the Grand Prix at Venice for Aparajito), he wrote
the following:
‘ere is no reason why we should not cash in on the foreigners’ curiosity
about the Orient. But this must not mean pandering to their love of the
false-exotic. A great many notions about our country and our people have to
be dispelled, even though it may be easier and—from a film point of view—
more paying to sustain the existing myths than to demolish them’
(‘Problems of a Bengali Film Maker,’ 1958, included in Our Films, eir
Films, 1993).
Ray was not, of course, unique in following this approach. ere have been
several other great directors from this country, who have essentially
followed the same route as Ray. As an old resident of Calcutta, I am of
course proud of the fact that some particularly distinguished ones have
come—like Ray—from this very city (I think of course of Mrinal Sen, and
also Ritwik Ghatak, Aparna Sen, and others).
But what Ray calls pandering to the ‘love of the false-exotic’ has clearly
tempted many other directors. Many of them have achieved great success
abroad, often in West Asia and Africa, and Mumbai has been a big
influence on the cinematographic world in many countries. It is not obvious
whether the imaginary scenes of archaic splendour shown in such
‘entertainment movies’ should be seen as misdescriptions of India in which
they are allegedly set, or as excellent portrayal of some non-existent
‘neverneverland’ (not to be confused with any real country).
As Ray notes in another context, quite a few of these traditional Indian
films, which attract large audiences, ‘do away wholly with [the] bothersome
f l d fi ’ d‘ h
aspect of social identification’ and ‘present a synthetic, non-existent society,
and one can speak of credibility only within the norms of this make believe
world’ (‘Our Films, eir Films’). Ray suggests that this feature ‘accounts
for their countrywide acceptance’.
is is so, but this make belief feature also contributes greatly to the appeal
of these films to some foreign audiences, which is ready to go on seeing
lavish entertainment placed in an imagined land. is is, of course, a story
of success in an easily understandable sense, since acceptance abroad brings
with it both reputation and revenue (and in contemporary India, when the
supreme value seems to be ‘export promotion’, who can doubt the quality of
this achievement?).
In fact, the exploitation of the biases and vulnerabilities of the foreign
audience need not be concerned specifically with ‘the love of the false-
exotic’. Exploitation can take other forms—not necessarily false, nor
especially exotic. ere is, for example, nothing false about Indian poverty,
nor about the fact—remarkable to others—that we have learned to live
normal lives taking no notice of the misery and poverty around us. e
graphic portrayal of extreme misery and people’s heartlessness towards the
downtrodden can itself be exploitatively utilized, especially when
supplemented by a goodly supply of vicious villains.
At quite a sophisticated level, such exploitation can be seen even in that
wonderfully successful film by Meera Nair, Salaam Bombay. at film has
received much acclaim, mostly with justice, since it is very powerfully
constructed and deeply moving. And yet it mercilessly exploits not only the
viewer’s raw sympathy, but also his interest in identifying ‘the villain of the
piece’ who could be blamed for all this.
Since Salaam Bombay is full of villains and also of people totally lacking in
sympathy and any sense of justice, the causes of the misery and suffering
portrayed in the film begin to look easily understandable even to distant
foreigners. (is feature of reliance on villains is relatively less present in
Meera Nair’s next film, Mississippi Masala, which raises some interesting
and deep issues about identity and intermixing, in this case, involving ex-
Ugandans of Indian origin encountering African Americans in the United
States).
e underlying philosophy takes them straight to the rhetorical question:
given the lack of humanity of people around the victims, what else can you
 l f d () h k l d
expect? e exploitative form draws at once (i) on the knowledge—common
in the West—that India has much poverty and suffering, and (ii) on the
comfort—for which there is some demand—of seeing the faces of the
‘baddies’ who are causing all this trouble (as in, say, American gangster
movies). At a more mundane level, e City of Joy does the same with
Calcutta, with clearly identified villains who have to be confronted.
In contrast, even when Ray’s films deal with problems that are just as
intense (such as the coming of the Bengal famine in Ashani Sanket), the
comfort of the ready explanation through the prominent presence of
marauding villains is sharply avoided. Indeed, villains are remarkably rare—
almost absent—in Satyajit Ray’s films. When terrible things happen, there
may be no one clearly responsible for the evil happening. Even when
someone ‘is’ clearly responsible, as Dayamoyee’s father in law most
definitely is for her predicament, and ultimately death, in the film Devi, he
too is a victim and by no means devoid of humane features.
If Salaam Bombay and e City of Joy are, ultimately, in the ‘cops and
robbers’ tradition (except that there are no ‘good cops’ in ‘Salaam Bombay’),
the Ray films which portray tragedies and sufferings have neither cops nor
robbers. One result of this abstinence is that Ray manages to convey
something of the complexity of social situations that make such tragedies
hard to avoid, rather than seeking easy explanations in the greed, cupidity
and cruelty of some very ‘bad’ people. In eschewing easy communicability of
films in which nasty people cause nasty events, Ray provides visions that are
both complex and valuable.
While Satyajit Ray insists on retaining the real cultural features of the
society that he portrays, his view of India—indeed even of Bengal—is full
of recognition of a complex reality, with immense heterogeneity at every
level. It is not the picture of a stylized East meeting a formulaic West,
which has been the stock in trade of so many recent cultural writings critical
of Westernization and modernity. Indeed, Ray points out that the people
who ‘inhabit’ his films, are both complicated and extremely heterogeneous:
‘Take a single province: Bengal. Or, better still, take the city of Calcutta
where I live and work. Accents here vary between one neighbourhood and
another. Every educated Bengali peppers his native speech with a sprinkling
of English words and phrases. Dress is not standardized. Although women
generally prefer the sari, men wear clothes which reflect the style of the
h h f h d f h l “E ” 
thirteenth century or conform to the directives of the latest “Esquire”. e
contrast between the rich and the poor is proverbial. Teenagers do the twist
and drink Coke, while the devout Brahmin takes a dip in the Ganges and
chants his “mantras” to the rising sun’ (Our Films, eir Films).
One important thing to note immediately here is that the native culture
which Ray emphasizes is not some pure vision of a tradition bound society,
but the heterogenous lives and commitments of contemporary India. e
one who does the ‘twist’ is as much there as is the one who chants his
‘mantras’ after dipping in the Ganges.
e recognition of this heterogeneity makes it immediately clear why
Satyajit Ray’s focus on local culture cannot be readily seen as an ‘anti-
modern’ move. ‘Our culture’ can draw on ‘their culture’ as well, as can ‘their
culture’ draw on ‘ours’. e acknowledgement of and emphasis on the
culture of the people who inhabit Ray’s films is in no way a denial of the
legitimacy of seeking interest in things originating elsewhere. Indeed, Ray
recollects with evident joy the time when Calcutta was full of Western—
including American—troops in the winter of 1942.
‘Calcutta now being a base of operations of the war, Chowringhee was
choc-a-bloc with GIs. e pavement book stalls displayed wafer-thin
editions of “Life” and “Time”, and the jam-packed cinema showed the very
latest films from Hollywood. While I sat at my office desk…, my mind
buzzed with the thoughts of the films I had been seeing. I never ceased to
regret that while I had stood in the scorching summer sun in the wilds of
Santiniketan sketching “simul” and “palash” in full bloom, “Citizen Kane”
had come and gone, playing for just three days in the newest and biggest
cinema in Calcutta.’ (Our Films, eir Films, p.s.).
is was the continuation of an interest in things from elsewhere that had
begun a lot earlier, but which in wartime Calcutta found much greater real
opportunity than ever before.
Ray’s interest in Western classical music goes back to his youth, but his
interest in films preceded this commitment to music.
‘I became a film fan while still at school. I avidly read “Picturegoer” and
“Photoplay”, neglected my studies and gorged myself on Hollywood gossip
purveyed by Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons. Deanna Durbin became a
favourite not only because of her looks and her obvious gifts as an actress,
but because of her lovely soprano voice. Also firm favourites were Fred
A dG R ll f h fil I l
Astaire and Ginger Rogers, all of whose films I saw several times just to
learn the Irving Berlin and Jerome Kern tunes by heart’ (My Years with Apu:
A Memoir).
Ray’s willingness to enjoy and learn from things happening elsewhere—
within India or abroad—is plentifully clear in how he chose to live and what
he chose to do. When Ray describes what he learned as a student at
Santiniketan, the elements from home and abroad are well mixed together:
on the one hand, things about India’s ‘artistic and musical heritage’ (he got
involved in Indian classical music, aside from being trained to paint in
traditional Indian ways), ‘and’ on the other, ‘fareastern calligraphy’ (and
particularly the use of ‘minimum brush strokes applied with maximum
discipline’).
When his teacher, Professor Nandalal Bose, a great artist and the leading
light of the Bengal school, taught Ray how to draw a tree (‘Not from the
top downwards. A tree grows up, not down. e strokes must be from the
base upwards…’), Bose was being at once critical of some Western
conventions, while introducing Ray to the styles and traditions in two other
countries abroad, China and Japan.
Ray does not hesitate to indicate how strongly his Pather Panchali—the
profound movie that immediately made him a frontranking filmmaker in
the world—was directly influenced by Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle ieves. He
notes that not only had he seen Bicycle ieves within three days of arriving
in London, but also the following: ‘I knew immediately that if I ever made
“Pather Panchali”—and the idea had been at the back of my mind for some
time—I would make it in the same way, using natural locations and
unknown actors’ (Our Films, eir Films).
Despite this influence, Pather Panchali is a quintessentially Indian film, both
in subject matter and in the style of presentation, and yet a major
inspiration for the exact organization for the film came directly from an
Italian film. e Italian influence did not make Pather Panchali anything
other than an Indian film—it simply helped it to become a ‘great Indian
film’.
e growing tendency that we increasingly find in contemporary India to
champion the need for an indigenous culture that has ‘resisted’ external
influences and borrowings lacks credibility as well as cogency. It has become
quite common to cite the foreign origin of an idea or a tradition as an
d h h b l k d h
argument against its use, and this has been linked up with an anti-
modernist priority.
But Indian culture, as it has evolved, has always been prepared to absorb
material and ideas from elsewhere. Satyajit Ray’s heterodoxy is not, in any
sense, out of line with our tradition.
Even in matters of day to day living, the fact that the chilli, a basic
ingredient of traditional Indian cooking, was brought to India by the
Portuguese from the ‘new world’, does not make current Indian cooking,
which does not repudiate the chilli, any less Indian, chilli has now become
an ‘Indian’ spice.
Cultural influences are, of course, a two-way process, and India has
borrowed from abroad, just as we have also given the world outside the
benefits of our cooking tradition. For example, while tandoori came from
West Asia to India, it is from India that tandoori has become a staple
British diet. It may be a bit premature to use an expression I heard in
London last summer: ‘It is as English as daffodils or chicken tikka masala.’
But with the acceptance and common use of that cooking form (if that
continues to grow as it has been doing at rates no one could have predicted),
there would be nothing startling to use an expression of this kind at an
appropriate time in the future.
e mixture of traditions that underlie the major intellectual developments
in the world militates strongly against taking a ‘national’ (or a ‘regional’ or a
‘local community based’) view of these developments. e role of mixed
heritage in a subject like mathematics is, of course, well known. e
interlinkage between Indian, Arabic and European mathematics has been
particularly significant in the development of what is now called Western
mathematics. e connections are beautifully illustrated by the origin of the
term ‘sine’ common in Western trigonometry. at modern term—sine—
came to India straight through the British, and yet its genesis there is a
remarkable Indian component. Aryabhata had discussed the concept of
‘sine’ in the fifth century, and he called it ‘jya ardha’ (half chord). From
there the term moved on in an interesting migratory way, as Howard Eves
describes:
‘Aryabhata called it “ardhya jya” (half chord) and “jya ardha” (chord half ),
and then abbreviated the term by simply using “jya” (chord). From “jya” the
Arabs phonetically derived “jiba”, which, following Arabic practice of
l “ b” N “ b” d f h l
omitting vowels, was written as “jb”. Now “jiba”, aside from its technical
significance, is a meaningless word in Arabic. Later writers who came across
“jb” as an abbreviation for the meaningless word “jiba” substituted “jaib”
instead, which contains the same letters, and is a good Arabic word
meaning “cove” or “bay”. Still later, Gherardo of Cremona (ca. 1150), when
he made his translations from the Arabic, replaced the Arabic “jaib” by its
Latin equivalent, “sinus” (meaning a cove or a bay), from whence came our
present word sine’ (Howard Eves, An Introduction to the History of
Mathematics, New York: Saunders College Publishing House, 6th edition,
1990).
Given the cultural and intellectual interconnections, the question what is
‘Western’ and what is ‘Eastern’ (or ‘Indian’) is often hard to decide, and the
issue can be discussed only in more dialectical terms. e diagnosis of a
thought as ‘purely Western’ or ‘purely Indian’ can be very illusory. e origin
of ideas is not the kind of thing to which ‘purity’ happens easily.
is issue has some practical importance right now given the political
developments of the last decade, including the increase in the strength of
political parties focussing on Indian—and particularly Hindu—heritage.
ere is an important aspect of anti-modernism, which tends to question—
explicitly or by implication—the emphasis to be placed on what is called
‘Western science’. If and when the challenges from traditional conservatism
grow, this can become quite a threat to scientific education in India,
affecting what young Indians are encouraged to learn and how much
emphasis is put on science in the general curriculum. is approach is,
however, based on a deluded reading of cultural differences.
First, so called ‘Western science’ is not the special possession of Europe and
America. Certainly, since the Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution and
the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century, most of the scientific progress
has actually occurred in the West. But these scientific developments drew
substantially on earlier work in mathematics and science done by the Arabs,
the Chinese, the Indians, and others. e term ‘Western science’ is
misleading in this respect, and quite misguided in its tendency to establish a
distance between non-Western people and the pursuit of mathematics and
science.
Second, irrespective of the location of the discoveries and inventions, the
methods of reasoning used in science and mathematics give them some
d d fl l h d l lh  f
independence of local geography and cultural history. ere are, of course,
important issues of local knowledge and of the varying perspectives
regarding what is or is not important, but there is still much that is shared
in methods of argument, demonstration, and the scrutiny of evidence. e
term ‘Western science’ is misleading in this respect also.
ird, our decisions about the kind of future we have, need not be parasitic
on the type of past we have experienced. Even if there were no Asian or
Indian component in the evolution of contemporary mathematics and
science (this is not the case, but even if it had been true), its importance in
contemporary India need not be any less for that reason. Rabindranath
Tagore expresses the tyranny of being bound to the past in his amusing yet
profoundly serious story of Kartar Bhoot (e Ghost of the Leader).
ere is a similar issue, to which I referred earlier, on the role of ‘modernity’
in contemporary India. e contemporary attacks on modernity (especially
on a ‘modernity’ that is seen as coming to India from the West) draws
greatly on the literature on ‘postmodernism’ and other related approaches,
which have been quite influential in Western literary and cultural circles
(and later on in India too). ere is perhaps something of interest in this
dual role of the West (the colonial metropolis supplying ideas and
ammunition to post-colonial intellectuals to attack the influence of the
colonial metropolis), but of course there is no contradiction there. What it
does suggest, however, is that mere identification of Western connections of
an idea could not be enough to damn it.
e ‘critics’ of ‘modernism’ often share with the self conscious ‘advocates’ of
‘modernism’ the belief that being ‘modern’ is a well-defined concept—the
only dividing point being whether you are ‘in favour’ of modernism, or
‘against’ it. But in the light of what I have already tried to say, that type of
identification is not at all easy, given the historical roots—often very long
roots—of recent thoughts and intellectual development, and given the
mixture of origins in the genesis of ideas and techniques that are typically
taken to characterize modernism.
e point to make here is not that modern things are good, or that there are
no reasons to doubt the wisdom of many developments that are justified in
the name of a needed modernity. ere are good grounds to reject both
claims. e real issue is that there is no escape from the necessity to
scrutinize and assess ideas, norms, and proposals no matter whether they
d d F l f h d d
are seen as promodern or anti-modern. For example, if we have to decide
what policies to support in education, health care or social security, the
modernity or non-modernity of any proposal would be neither here nor
there. e relevant question is how these policies would affect the lives of
people, and that inquiry is not the same as the investigation of the
modernity or non-modernity of the policies in question.
Similarly, if faced with communal tensions in contemporary India, we
suggest that there is much to be gained from reading the tolerant poems of
Kabir, or studying the political priorities of Akbar, in contrast with, say, the
intolerant approach of an Aurangzeb, that discrimination has to be done in
terms of the ‘worth’ of their respective positions, and not on the basis of
some claim that Kabir or Akbar was ‘more modern’ or ‘less modern’ than
Aurangzeb. Modernity is not only a befuddling notion, it is also basically
irrelevant as a pointer of merit or not demerit in assessing contemporary
priorities.
What about the specialness of ‘Asian values’ on which so much is now being
said by the authorities in a number of east Asian countries? ese
arguments, used in Singapore, Malaysia, and even China, appeal to the
differences between ‘Asian’ and ‘Western’ values to dispute the importance
of human rights and press freedoms in Asian countries. e resistance to
Western hegemony—a perfectly respectable cause in itself—takes the form,
under this interpretation, of justifying suppression of journalistic freedoms
and the violations of elementary political and civil rights on grounds of
alleged unimportance of these freedoms in the hierarchy of what are
claimed to be ‘Asian values’.
ere are two basic problems with this mode of reasoning. First, even if it
were shown that freedoms of this kind have had less importance in the
Asian thoughts and traditions than in the West, that would still be an
unconvincing way of justifying the violation of these freedoms in Asia. To
see the conflict over human rights as a battle between Western liberalism,
on one side, and Asian reluctance on the other, is to cast the debate in a
form that distracts attention from the central question: what would make
sense in contemporary Asia? e history of ideas—in Asia and in the West
—is not decisive in settling this issue. To cast the debate in terms of a
historical confrontation between the West and Asia is to mis specify the
primary battleground: what makes sense for Asians ‘here and now’?

S d b l h h ll h h b
Second, it is by no means clear that historically there has been
systematically greater importance attached to freedom and tolerance in the
West than in Asia. Certainly, individual liberty, in its contemporary form, is
a relatively new notion both in Asia and in the West, and while the West
did get to these ideas rather earlier (through developments such as the
Renaissance, the European Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, and
so on), the divergence is relatively recent. In answer to the question, ‘at what
date, in what circumstances, the notion of individual liberty…first became
explicit in the West’, Isaiah Berlin has noted: ‘I have found no convincing
evidence of any clear formulation of it in the ancient world.’ (‘Four Essays
on Liberty’, Oxford, 1969).
In the reading of the Western tradition that sees it as the natural habitat of
individual freedom and political democracy, there is a substantial tendency
to extrapolate ‘backwards’ from the present. Values that European
Enlightenment and other relatively recent developments have made
common and widespread can scarcely be seen as part of the long run
Western heritage—experienced in the West over millennia. ere have, of
course, been championing of freedom and tolerance in specific contexts in
the Western classical tradition, but much the same can be said of many
parts of the Asian tradition as well—not least in this country, with the
articulations associated for example with Ashoka’s inscriptions, Shudraka’s
drama, Akbar’s pronouncements, or Kabir’s poetry—to name just a few
examples.
It is true that the tolerance has not been advocated ‘by’ all, nor ‘for’
everyone in the Asian traditions, but again much the same can be said about
Western traditions as well. ere is little evidence that Plato or St
Augustine were more tolerant and less authoritarian than Confucius. While
Aristotle certainly did write on the importance of freedom, women and
slaves were excluded from the domain of this concern. e claim that the
basic ideas underlying freedom and tolerance have been central to Western
culture and are somehow alien to Asia is, I believe, entirely rejectable.
e allegedly sharp contrast between Western and Asian traditions on the
subject of freedom and tolerance is based on very poor historiography. e
authoritarian argument based on the special nature of Asian values is
particularly dubious. is supplements the more basic argument presented
earlier that even if it had been the case that Asian values are indeed more

h h ld h b d h l
authoritarian that would not have been ground enough to reject tolerance
and liberties in ‘contemporary’ Asia.
e discussion on Asian values draws attention to an important issue
underlying attempts at generalizations about cultural contrasts between the
West and the East, or between Europe and India, and so on. ere are
many differences between Europe and India, but there are sharp differences
within India itself. And there are also great differences between different
parts of the Indian intellectual and historical traditions. One of the things
that goes deeply wrong with grand contrasts between ‘our culture’ and ‘their
culture’ is the tremendous variety ‘within’ each of these cultures. My old
teacher Joan Robinson used to say: ‘Whatever you can rightly say about
India, the opposite is also true.’ It is not that cultural differences are of no
importance, but the contrasts do not come in the tailor-made form of some
immense contrast between, say, the West and India, with relative
homogeneity inside each.
e problem is, of course, even larger when there are attempts at
generalization about ‘Asian’ values. Asia is where about 60 percent of the
world’s entire population live. ere are no quintessential values that apply
to this immensely large and heterogeneous population, which separate them
out as a group from people in the rest of the world. ose who have written
on the importance of cultural divisions have been right to point to them,
and yet the attempt to see these divisions in the over aggregated form of
East-West contrasts hides more than it reveals.
e contrasts between Asia and Europe do not work, nor the alleged
dichotomies that appeal to Indian specialness. Indeed, generalizations even
about an individual religious community within India (such as the Hindus
or the Muslims) or about a language group (such as the Bengalis or Biharis
or Tamils) can be very deeply misleading. Depending on the context, there
may be more significant similarity between groups of people in different
parts of the country who come from the same class, have the same political
convictions, or pursue the same profession or work, and that similarity can
hold across national boundaries as well. People can be classified in terms of
many different criteria, and the recent tendency to emphasize some
contrasts (say, of religion or community), while overlooking others, has
ignored important distinctions even as it has capitalized on others.

T l d h dffi l f l l
To conclude, the difficulties of communication across cultures are real, as
are the normative issues raised by the importance of cultural differences. But
these recognitions do not lead us to accept the standard distinctions
between ‘our culture’ and ‘their culture’. Nor do they give us reason to
overlook the demands of practical reason and of political and social
relevance in contemporary India, in favour of faithfulness to some alleged
historical contrasts. I have tried to show that the contrasts are often not
quite as they are depicted, and the lessons to be drawn are hardly the ones
that the vigorous champions of ‘our culture’ claim them to be.
ere is much to be learned in all this from Satyajit Ray’s appreciation of
cultural divides along with his pursuit of communication and assimilation
across these divides. He never fashioned his creation to cater to what the
West may expect from India, but nor did he refuse to enjoy and learn from
what other cultures offer. And when it came to the recognition of cultural
diversity ‘within’ India, Ray’s delicate portrayal of the variety of people that
make us what we are cannot be outmatched. While reflecting on what to
focus on in his films, he put the problem beautifully:
‘What should you put in your films? What can you leave out? Would you
leave the city behind and go to the village where cows graze in the endless
fields and the shepherd plays the flute? You can make a film here that would
be pure and fresh and have the delicate rhythm of a boatman’s song. Or
would you rather go back in time—way back to the epics, where the gods
and the demons took sides in the great battle where brother killed brother
and Lord Krishna revivified a desolate prince with the words of the “Gita”?
One could do exciting things here, using the great mimetic tradition of the
Kathakali, as the Japanese use their Noh and Kabuki.
Or would you rather stay where you are, right in the present, in the heart of
this monstrous, teeming, bewildering city, and try to orchestrate its dizzying
contrasts of sight and sound and milieu?’
ese differences—the ‘dizzying contrasts’—are very different from what
can be found in the laboured generalizations about ‘our culture’, and the
vigorous pleas, increasingly vocal, to keep ‘our culture’, ‘our modernity’
distinctly unique and immune from the influence of ‘their culture’. In our
heterogeneity and in our openness lies our pride, not our disgrace. Satyajit
Ray taught us this, and that lesson is of profound importance for India. It is
also of importance for Asia and indeed the world.
Renunciation (New Delhi, May 2004)
SONIA GANDHI (1945–)

In the elections to the Lok Sabha in 2004, Sonia Gandhi, as the President
of the Congress, had led the campaign. e results, which put the Congress
in a position to form the government, surprised most people including
Sonia Gandhi herself. She was unanimously elected leader of the Congress
Parliamentary Party and the prime ministership was for her asking.
Stunning everyone, she announced in this speech, that she would not be
Prime Minister. Her use of the phrase ‘inner voice’ was deliberate and
telling. It was previously used by Mahatma Gandhi to describe decisions
that he made for deeply personal, even non-negotiable, reasons. Sonia
Gandhi, her admirers said, had cast herself as a renunciant. Cynics said, she
had taken power without responsibility.

Friends, throughout these past six years that I have been in politics, one
thing has been clear to me. And that is, as I have often stated, that the post
of Prime Minister is not my aim.
I was always certain that if ever I found myself in the position that I am in
today, I would follow my own inner voice. Today, that voice tells me I must
humbly decline this post.
You have unanimously elected me your leader. In doing so, you have reposed
your faith in me. It is this faith that has placed me under tremendous
pressure to reconsider my decision. Yet, I must abide by the principles,
which have guided me all along.
Power in itself has never attracted me, nor has position been my goal.
M h l b d f d h l f d f d
My aim has always been to defend the secular foundation of our nation and
the poor of our country—the creed sacred to Indiraji and Rajivji.
We have moved forward a significant step towards this goal. We have
waged a successful battle. But we have not won the war. at is a long and
arduous struggle, and I will continue it with full determination.
But I appeal to you to understand the force of my conviction. I request you
to accept my decision and to recognize that I will not reverse it.
Our foremost responsibility at this critical time is to provide India with a
secular government that is strong and stable.
Friends, you have given me your generous support; you have struggled
against all odds with me. As one of you and as President of the Congress
party, I pledge myself to work with you and for the country. My resolve will
in fact be all the more firm, to fight for our principles, for our vision, and
for our ideals.
On Jinnah (Karachi, June 2005)
L.K. ADVANI (1927–)

One of the first places L.K. Advani visited when he went to Karachi was
Jinnah’s tomb. ere he recalled Jinnah’s opening speech to the Pakistan
Constituent Assembly in August 1947 and the secular vision it had upheld.
He said that his attention had been drawn to Jinnah’s speech by Swami
Ranganathananda, the head of Ramkrishna Mission. e speech proved to
be infamous. Advani’s praise of Jinnah’s speech won for him the ire of the
Sangh Parivar which had always held Jinnah to be guilty of partitioning
India. ere was also the view that Advani was trying to position himself as
a secularist who could be the leader of all Indians and not just of Hindus.

It is always a matter of pleasure when one goes abroad and gets an

opportunity to interact with the intellectual elite of that country. But when
the country one is visiting is Pakistan, and when the interaction with
intellectuals is happening in a city which is one’s birthplace, how can that
experience be described? ‘Pleasure’? ‘Great pleasure’? ‘Delight’?
I find these words trite on this occasion. e truth is that, I have no words
to adequately capture the feelings that have welled up in me at this meeting
in Karachi, which I have been able to visit only for the second time since I
left it nearly six decades ago.
Karachi has changed beyond recognition, not only since I left in 1947, but
also since I last came here in 1978. e city has of course become
immensely more populous—its population in 1947 was a mere 4 lakh;

d I ld l B K h h l b
today, I am told, it is nearly 1.4 crore. But Karachi has also become more
developed and prosperous.
I compliment the people of Karachi for this achievement and hope that not
only Karachi but the whole of Pakistan continues to travel rapidly on the
path to prosperity and all-round development.
Friends, barring the dinner engagement later in the evening, this function
happens to mark the conclusion of my weeklong visit to Pakistan. My visit
had three parts. e first part, comprising two days in Islamabad, was
largely political. e second leg, which meant two days in Lahore, was part
political and part religious-cultural, since it included visits to the ancient
Katas Raj temples and to the Nankana Sahib Gurdwara.
But the last part in Karachi, again of two days, is purely sentimental. Before
leaving for Pakistan, I had stated that the primary aim of my visit was to
contribute, in my own humble way, to the ongoing peace process between
India and Pakistan through my meetings with the leadership of Pakistan
and also with representatives of various political parties and civil society
organizations in this country. But I had added that the visit is also a kind of
‘return-to-the-roots’ for me and members of my family, who are coming to
Pakistan for the first time.
My visit to the school where I studied, to the house where I lived (although
it does not now stand in its original shape), to the Sindh Assembly building
where I met legislators belonging to the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), the
reception and cultural programme organized by the Hindu Panchayat, and
the lunch reception hosted by the Chief Minister of Sindh—all these will
remain indelible memories in me.
I have many deeply engraved memories of the first twenty years of my life
that I lived in Karachi. I shall recall here only one of them, because the
person with which that memory is associated, and the philosophy that I
learnt from him in Karachi, have a reverential place in my life.
In the last three to four years of my life in Karachi, I came in contact with
Swami Ranganathananda, who was the head of the Ramakrishna Math
here for six years from 1942 until it was closed down in 1948. I used to go
to listen to his discourses on the Bhagwad Gita. In later years, I maintained
regular contact with this great disciple of Swami Vivekananda, who went on
to become the head of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission in India.

S R h d d A l h h  l I
Swami Ranganathananda passed away in April this month. e last time I
met him was in Calcutta last year. He was 96 but still very agile in mind and
radiant in spirit. Our talk, among other things, turned to his years and my
years in Karachi. He asked me, ‘Have you read Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s
speech in Pakistan’s Constituent Assembly on August 11, 1947? It is a
classic exposition of a secular state, one which guarantees every citizen’s
freedom to practice his or her religion but the state shall not discriminate
between one citizen and another on the basis of religion.’
He asked me to send him the full text of the speech, which I did.
e reason for my recounting Jinnah’s historic speech in the Constituent
Assembly is two-fold. Firstly, as I said, it is associated with my last
conversation with the Swamiji, who was one of the towering spiritual
personalities in India. e second reason is that its remembrance was
triggered by my visit to the ancient Katas Raj temples in Chakwal district
four days ago. e Government of Pakistan was kind enough to invite me
to lay the foundation stone for a project to restore these temples, which are
now in ruins but whose legend is rooted in the epic story of the
Mahabharata.
I feel it appropriate to read out the relevant portion from Jinnah’s speech.
‘Now, if we want to make this great State of Pakistan happy and prosperous
we should wholly and solely concentrate on the well-being of the people,
and specially of the masses and the poor. If you will work in cooperation,
forgetting the past, burying the hatchet, you are bound to succeed. If you
change your past and work in a spirit that everyone of you, no matter to
what community he belongs, no matter what relations he had with you in
the past, no matter what is his colour, caste or creed, is first, second and last
a citizen of this state with equal rights, privileges and obligations, there will
be no end to the progress you will make.
I cannot overemphasize it too much. We shall begin to work in that spirit
and in course of time all these angularities of the majority and minority
communities, the Hindu community and Muslim community… will vanish.
Indeed, if you ask me, this has been the biggest hindrance in the way of
India to attain its freedom and independence and but for this we would
have been free people long ago.
erefore, we must learn a lesson from this. You are free, you are free to go
to your temples. You are free to go to your mosques or to any other places of
h h S fP k Y b l l
worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or
creed; that has nothing to do with the business of the state… You will find
that in course of time Hindus will cease to be Hindus and Muslims would
cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal
faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the state.’
What has been stated in this speech—namely, equality of all citizens in the
eyes of the state and freedom of faith for all citizens—is what we in India
call a secular or a non-theocratic State. ere is no place for bigotry, hatred,
intolerance and discrimination in the name of religion in such a state. And
there can certainly be no place, much less state protection, for religious
extremism and terrorism in such a state.
I believe that this is the ideal that India, Pakistan as well as Bangladesh—
the three present-day sovereign and separate constituents of the undivided
India of the past, sharing a common civilizational heritage—should follow.
I hope that this ideal is implemented in its letter and spirit. e restoration
of the Katas Raj temples is a good beginning.
Esteemed friends from Karachi, people often ask me: ‘Does this mean that
you want to undo the Partition?’
My answer is: ‘e Partition cannot be undone, because, as I said in Lahore
at the SAFMA function, the creation of India and Pakistan as two separate
and sovereign nations is an unalterable reality of history. However, some of
the follies of Partition can be undone, and they must be undone.’
I dream of the day when divided hearts can be united; when divided
families can be reunited; when pilgrims from one country—Hindus,
Muslims, Sikhs—can freely go to holy sites located in the other country;
and when people can travel and trade freely, while continuing to remain
proud and loyal citizens of their respective countries.
Friends, at the end of my visit, if someone were to ask me to sum up the
situation about Indo-Pak relations at present, I would, on the basis of what
I have observed and experienced here since my arrival in Pakistan on the
evening of May 30, say unequivocally that ‘Fiza zerooi badli hui hai, bahut
badli hui hai,’ (e atmosphere has definitely changed, it has changed a lot).
Yes, it’s true that there is tranquility on the border, which is no mean
achievement in itself. True, there are greater people-to-people contacts,

h h fi f d I l h h
which too is a significant step forward. It is also true that the awaam
(people) of both India and Pakistan have taken over the peace process.
But the peace and tranquility that exists is still tentative. It is also relative, in
the sense that terrorist acts in Jammu and Kashmir have not come to an
end. Only last month there was a terrorist strike in Srinagar aimed at
innocent school children.
How do we convert this tentative peace into permanent peace? How do we
remove all the irrational abnormalities in our bilateral relations to place
Indo-Pak ties on a completely normal footing based on the principle of
mutual benefit?
I am posing these questions because these need to be discussed in-depth
and with an open mind in both our countries. As I have reiterated on
several occasions during my visit, I would like to emphasize that we need to
seize this historic moment, which is pregnant with hope. We must convert
this hope into confidence and resolve that we shall certainly find solutions
to all the issues that have estranged our two brother-nations.
ere should also be no going back on the realization that dialogue is the
only way to resolve every single issue, including the issue of Jammu and
Kashmir, between India and Pakistan. Peace cannot be achieved through
recourse to non-peaceful means. is must be clearly understood.
ere is a phrase in English that has always intrigued me—Waging Peace.
Normally, one comes across the phrase—Waging War. I have often
wondered why the word ‘wage’ is used in the context of peace. It is probably
because, if the resolve to win is the aim in any war, the same resolve to win
has to be the aim of making peace.
However, there is a crucial difference. In war, strategists look for a quick
victory. ey have an impatience to achieve their goal. In waging peace, you
cannot do that. We need patience. We need to realize that it takes time to
minimize differences and to find a mutually acceptable solution, especially
to longstanding problems.
It takes time—and I would urge all those who sincerely desire peace
between India and Pakistan to realize this important truth—because not
only the painful manner in which the
Partition happened in 1947 but also subsequent hostilities have hardened
feelings and rigidified mindsets in both India and Pakistan.

Af ll h P l d l d d l b l
After all, the Partition resulted not only in unprecedented violence but also
in the largest cross-migration in the history of mankind. In history,
including in the history of undivided India, kingdoms and dynasties have
come and gone. Power has changed hands either peacefully or violently. But
in recent centuries these developments did not destabilize the society very
much.
In contrast, when the British left in 1947, not only was there a change of
power, but there was also human displacement on a massive scale. is has
left behind a trail of tragedy. e wars that followed, the long period of
terrorist violence and other events have contributed to the hardening of
positions in certain sections of society both in India and Pakistan.
is is the reason why even well-intentioned moves for peace and
normalization are often viewed with suspicion and met with disapproval on
both sides.
I therefore strongly submit to one and all involved in the Indo-Pak peace
process—to those in governments as well as to those in civil society
organizations—that we should give due weightage to these critical
viewpoints. Nothing can be achieved by either dismissing or disparaging
these critical viewpoints.
is is because, firstly, those who view the peace process with suspicion
both here and in India are not insubstantial in number. Secondly, in our
endeavour to establish lasting peace between India and Pakistan, it is
axiomatic that we should strive to carry with us all sections of society and
public opinion in our two countries.
I shall make one last point before concluding. For us to move towards peace
and normalcy, it is necessary to move the dialogue process forward on all
issues. is is the reason why we both have called it the Composite
Dialogue process. I was happy to know that many people in Pakistan also
believe that we should move in tandem on all issues. As I said in Lahore, it
is not in the interest of the peace process to let slower progress on some
issues become a hurdle in achieving faster progress on others.
Here I shall just flag off a few issues that show how the relations between
India and Pakistan suffer from avoidable abnormality. For instance, since
coming here I have not been able to watch any of the Indian news channels
to see what is happening in India and also, secondarily, to know how my
visit to Pakistan is covered. It is ironical that in Pakistan one can see
A CNN B h BBC Ch CCTV b I d
American CNN, British BBC, Chinese CCTV but not Indian news
channels.
e abnormality is also evident in other spheres. India and Pakistan have an
official trade of about $250 million, which is meager by any standards in
today’s age of globalization. But the unofficial trade is at least four to five
times larger. Isn’t it ironical that we buy and sell our products of mutual
demand by routing them through Dubai and Singapore, and thereby
enriching those countries, but have not been able to regularize this trade
right across our borders, thereby creating more employment and business
opportunities for our own people?
Take another example. Pakistan’s economy, like the economies of any
country today, has a lot of need for Information Technology solutions. And
I am told that, in addition to this being met by your local IT industry, you
buy costly IT solutions from several western countries. But right across the
border we in India have a flourishing IT industry, which is ready to
cooperate with Pakistan and offer cheaper solutions. Ironically, the IT
solutions that western companies sell around the world are produced in
Bangalore, Hyderabad, Gurgaon, and Pune.
I am making this point because Karachi is the commercial capital of
Pakistan. And I may add that, historically Sindh was the incubator for
global trade. In ancient times our forefathers from Sindh ventured forth to
far off lands, in the same way as in modern times Sindhi businessmen have
so successfully demonstrated their acumen in Hongkong, Singapore,
London, and New York.
In the era of globalization, trade and business are not only about money and
profit. ey also bring another kind of profit—a stronger stake in peaceful,
stable, and cooperative relations between two countries.
It is heartening to know that soon we’ll have a broad gauge rail link
between Munabao and Khokrapar. I suggested to President Musharraf that
we should also reopen the sea link between Karachi and Mumbai via
Gujarat. He accepted the suggestion. e issue of reopening of our
consulate offices in Karachi and Mumbai is also on the cards.
All these are good signs. But much more can be done. And it should be our
mutual resolve to do all the desirable things, and do them quickly.
With these words, I conclude my remarks. I sincerely thank the Karachi
Council on Foreign Relations, Economic Affairs and Law for providing this
f h
opportunity of interaction with you.
ank you.
In Lahore (Lahore, February 1999)
ATAL BIHARI VAJPAYEE (1924–)
In the summer of 1998, both India and Pakistan tested their nuclear bombs.
ere was the fear that the Kashmir dispute could escalate and produce a
situation where both countries might use their nuclear weapons. e
pressure on both governments to resolve problems through dialogue was
high. As a special gesture, Vajpayee travelled by the first bus from Delhi to
Lahore. is bus had been started as a first step to bring about normalcy
between the two countries. His speech moved all who heard it though the
talks were fruitless. Sadly, this speech loses much of its poetry in
translation.

Mr Prime Minister, friends, sisters and brothers,

As we break bread together, a new century and a new millennium knocks
on our doors. Fifty years of our independence have gone by. On one side
there is pride and on the other, regret. Pride because both the countries
have been successful in retaining their independence; but regret because
even after fifty years we have not liberated ourselves from the curse of
poverty and unemployment.
I am grateful to you, Mr Prime Minister, for hosting this banquet in such a
historic location. It was in this magnificent fort that Shah Jahan was born;
it is here that Akbar lived for over a decade.
My delegation and I are overwhelmed by the warmth of your welcome, and
the gracious hospitality extended to us. Mr Prime Minister, you have
upheld the nobility of this fort and the tradition of the historic city of

L h O h I d d f h l f h l h
Lahore. On this occasion, I am reminded of the lines of the eleventh
century poet Mas’ud bin S’ad bin Salman.
‘Shud dar gham Lohur rawanam Yarab!
Yarab! Ki dar arzu-e anam Yarab!’
(My soul goes out in longing for Lohur, 0 God! How I long for it)
Excellency, this is the first visit by an Indian Prime Minister to Pakistan in
ten years. I am delighted to be here. When I inspected the guard of honour
and saw the beautiful panorama of the setting sun, I was overwhelmed by
mixed feelings. It gave me joy that I was returning here after twenty-one
years with the message of friendship. My regret is that we have spent so
much time in mutual bitterness. It is unworthy of two nations the size of
India and Pakistan to have wasted so much time in mutual ill-will.
Earlier when I came to Pakistan, I was alone. is time we have
representatives from every section of Indian society.
e bus service between Lahore and Delhi is not a means only to ease travel
from one country to another. e running of the bus between the two
countries symbolizes the desire of the people to improve relations and come
together. Indeed, if this was only a bus made of metal, it would not have
caused such excitement and expectations, not only in our two nations but all
over the world.
It is our duty, Mr Prime Minister, to pursue the desires and wishes of our
peoples; to develop trust, confidence, amity, and to create a solid structure
for co-operation.
We have been encouraged that our interaction in recent months has
focussed on issues which directly benefit the lives of our peoples. Our two
countries have engaged within the composite dialogue process to work out
mechanisms to ensure that humanitarian concerns are addressed quickly;
that possibilities of economic and commercial co-operation such as sale of
power are identified and pursued; that confidence-building measures are
discussed and agreed upon. But this marks only a beginning. We will,
together, give directions to our officials to accelerate what we have jointly
set in motion.
We have also discussed those areas of relationship on which we do not see
eye to eye. at is only inevitable. As we seek to resolve issues, we have to

b h h h h h b l d h h d ll
be conscious that there is nothing which cannot be solved through goodwill
and direct dialogue. at is the only path.
I am convinced that there is nothing in our bilateral relations that can ever
be resolved through violence. e solution of complex outstanding issues
can only be sought in an atmosphere free from prejudice and by adopting
the path of balance, moderation and realism. To those that preach, practice
or foment violence, I have only one message: understand the simple truth of
the path of peace and amity. at is why, as part of the composite dialogue
process, we welcome sustained discussions on all outstanding issues,
including Jammu and Kashmir. As we approach a new millennium, the
future beckons us. It calls upon us, indeed demands of us, to think of the
welfare of our children and their children, and of the generations that are
yet to come.
I have brought but one message from India. ere can be no greater legacy
that we can leave behind than to do away with mistrust, to abjure and
eliminate conflict, to erect an edifice of durable peace, amity, harmony, and
co-operation. I am confident that through our combined efforts we will
succeed in doing so, no matter how hard we have to work in achieving it.
Permit me to extend to you, Mr Prime Minister and to Begum Sahiba a
most cordial invitation to visit India. Let me assure you that you will find in
India a very warm welcome. We look forward to receiving both of you soon
in India.
I express my best wishes for your progress and prosperity, for the
establishment of durable peace and co-operation between India and
Pakistan.
e viable university (February 2010)
ANDRÉ BÉTEILLE (1934–)

As one of India’s leading social anthropologists and sociologists and as a

dedicated teacher, the subject of higher education in India has always been
very close to André Béteille’s heart. He had observed at very close quarters
the working of Delhi University and had seen how the nature and the
priorities of the universities in India were changing. Was the university as it
had been since the middle of the nineteenth century in India at all viable in
an altered environment? In this convocation address to one of India’s new
universities, the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences,
André Béteille turned to this and related questions. is address has now
been included in Professor Béteille’s latest book Universities at the
Crossroads.

Are there any basic conditions that have to be met if the university is to be
viable as an institution for the pursuit of science and scholarship? is is a
difficult and contentious subject on which those who occupy positions of
authority and dignity rarely speak on ceremonial occasions such as a
university convocation. Since I occupy no such position, I shall take the
liberty of addressing this question plainly and candidly.
Universities had been in existence for almost a hundred years when the
country became independent in 1947. e first among them were set up
under colonial rule to serve a specific set of objectives. In the early decades
of their existence their main objectives were the regulation of syllabuses, the
conduct of examinations and the award of degrees. Teaching was done in
the colleges and some research was done in institutions such as the Asiatic
S d h A f h C l fS  l
Society and the Association for the Cultivation of Science. ere were also
various Surveys, such as the Geological Survey, the Archaeological Survey
and the Botanical Survey which undertook research of a certain kind.
Having become established, the universities, or at least some among them,
began to aim higher. Some of the Indian vice-chancellors were outstanding
personalities who did not share the sceptical attitude of their British
counterparts towards the prospects of the Indian university as a centre of
learning. Sir Ashutosh Mukherji initiated the process of building post-
graduate departments in the arts and the sciences in the University of
Calcutta in the early decades of the twentieth century. ese departments
sought to embody the unity of teaching and research, and brought together
scholars and scientists of the highest rank. e work they did in the
university achieved great renown, and they set an example for academics
throughout the country.
But it has to be remembered that these centres of excellence in science and
scholarship were few and far between, and they were small in size. eir
material resources were limited, but they were insulated from social and
political pressures to provide open access to all. ey were selective in their
admissions and appointments, and they expanded slowly and in response to
the growth of science and scholarship throughout the world.
Outside a few islands of excellence, the production of graduates remained
the main preoccupation for those responsible for the support and
maintenance of the universities from their inception till the time of
independence. From the middle of the nineteenth century onwards, the
universities played an important part in the growth and expansion of a new
middle class by providing the education and the certification necessary for
securing employment as clerks, teachers, doctors, lawyers, administrators,
managers, and so on. ‘Advancement of learning’ may have been the motto
of the University of Calcutta from the start, but those who knocked at its
portals in increasing numbers did so less from the thirst for disinterested
knowledge than from the prospects for middle class employment opened up
by a university degree. e new middle class needed the universities because
without them entry into that class and advancement within it would be
impossible.
***

M f h h l h df h d fl f l
Many of those who genuinely hoped for the advancement of learning felt
that the independence of India would provide a new departure in the life of
the university which could be made into a real home for science and
scholarship. ere were good reasons behind the hope for a new beginning.
e colonial administration was at best half-hearted in its support for the
universities it had created and maintained. It did not support them for
being repositories of the values for which the universities stood in Europe
and America, but for the more limited purpose of producing the manpower
necessary for running the imperial system.
At first things seemed to augur well for a new beginning for the universities
in independent India. Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister, placed a
high value on science and scholarship, and took a personal interest in their
advancement. He himself had never studied in an Indian university, but his
experience of Cambridge, one of the great universities of the world, had
given him a sense of the part the university could play in the life of a nation.
In a convocation address to the University of Allahabad in the very first year
of independence, Nehru had emphasized the values which the universities,
as centres of science and scholarship, embodied. He had said, ‘A university
stands for humanism, for tolerance, for progress, for the adventure of ideas
and the search for truth. It stands for the onward march of the human race
towards ever higher objectives. If the universities discharge their duties
adequately, then it is well with the nation and the people’. He also struck a
note of warning, for he went on to say, ‘But if the temple of learning itself
becomes a home of narrow bigotry and petty objectives, how then will the
nation prosper or a people grow in stature’? (Nehru 1958: 333).
Nehru obviously had forebodings about the disruptive role that factionalism
and the divisions of caste and community could play in the universities, and
he did not hesitate to speak his mind on the subject. At a convocation of
the Aligarh Muslim University held barely a month after the Allahabad
convocation, he said, ‘I do not like this university being called the Muslim
University just as I do not like the Benares University to be called the
Hindu University’ (ibid.: 338). Which leader of this great nation can speak
like that today?
Despite their forebodings, Nehru and his colleagues sought to move
forward with the creation of more and better institutions for the nurturance
of science and scholarship. e new government wasted no time in setting
U Ed C d D S R dh k h
up a University Education Commission under Dr S. Radhakrishnan in
1948. Radhakrishnan had been a Professor of Philosophy at the University
of Calcutta in its best years, and later became the Spalding Professor at
Oxford. Like Nehru, he wanted the university to be an open and secular
institution and he warned against the imposition of any social and political
agenda on the university that might jeopardize its academic standards. He
was against the rationing of seats among castes and communities, and said,
‘Education should not be used for creating or deepening the very
inequalities it is designed to prevent’ (Government of India 1950: 52).
ere was a genuine desire in the wake of independence to create a
university that would be different from one that was primarily an institution
for the production of graduates and with examination and the award of
degrees as its primary concerns. Many of the leaders in the fields of science
and scholarship had been exposed to the best universities in the West and
been inspired by their achievements. e type of university that served as
the inspiration for many has been called the ‘Humboldtian university’ (Shils
1997: 234–49) after Wilhelm von Humboldt who created its prototype in
the University of Berlin in 1810. Humboldt’s university first established its
presence in Europe, and especially Germany, and then extended its
influence into the United States. It had its greatest influence from the
middle of the nineteenth to the middle of the twentieth century when the
era of the mass university began.
is type of university which prevailed at Berlin, Jena, Heidelberg,
Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard, Princeton, Chicago, and elsewhere was a
small and compact community of scientists and scholars. It was an open and
secular institution, or at least became increasingly open and secular with the
passage from the nineteenth to the twentieth century. It sought to embody
the unity of teaching and research, and to cover within its scope all principal
disciplines from physics to philosophy. It also sought to embody the
principle of self-governance and to insulate itself from interference by
church and state. It was very different in character and composition from
the mass universities that gained increasing ground after World War II and
decolonization (Shils op cit: 3–128).
***
Some have begun to wonder if the Humboldtian university can survive even
in the United States where it had attained its greatest success by the middle
f h h (Sh l 7) Wh I ld l k d h
of the twentieth century (Shils 1997). What I would like to discuss here is
the prospect of that kind of university in India in the twenty-first century.
e problems that face the Indian university today are many and diverse,
and yet there are those who speak and write about them as if they believe
that we might, by some feat of ingenuity, be able to create here the kind of
university that enjoyed such great success in the western countries for more
than a hundred years (Béteille 2009). Our own older universities, the ones
that were set up before independence—Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, Delhi,
Agra, Mysore, and so on—have expanded enormously in size. Many of the
new ones are also very large. Today, they count their members not in the
thousands but in the hundreds of thousands.
e Humboldtian university, designed to be a community of scholars and
scientists committed to the unity of teaching and research, was very small in
size. Right until World War II such universities as Cambridge, Oxford,
Harvard, Princeton and Chicago had a membership of only a few thousand.
Even today, when the size of such a university approaches 20,000, its
reflective members begin to worry if it is not becoming a ‘mass university’.
As a sociologist, I am only too well aware that a radical change in the size of
an institution leads inevitably to changes in its form and functioning. In
what follows I will speak mainly of the older type of universities which seek
to cover all branches of knowledge as against some of the newer ones with a
more specific focus, as on law, agriculture, or education. Personally
speaking, when I think of the Indian university, my mind turns inevitably to
the University of Calcutta where I was a student or the University of Delhi
where I have taught for many years.
As I have pointed out, the typical Indian university has expanded
enormously in size and scale of operation in the last half century. It is
difficult to see how the all-purpose university, with its mandate to cover
every subject, can be restrained in its drive for expansion. At the same time,
the more it expands, the further it departs from the ideal of the university as
a community of scholars and scientists.
In the nineteenth century it did not appear unrealistic for the university to
seek to accommodate all the principle disciplines even when each of them
remained relatively small in size. e number of disciplines considered
suitable for adoption by the university was itself small. is has changed
drastically in course of time. Well into the twentieth century, the

d h hl l d b d
universities remained highly selective in adopting new subjects and courses
of study. Some instruction, mainly of a technical nature, was provided
outside the university, and some research too was done outside it. It was
through a strict definition of what constituted an academic discipline that
the universities were able to remain small and yet sustain the belief that they
were responsible for the cultivation of all significant branches of learning.
e last two hundred years have witnessed an enormous growth in
systematic knowledge. e universities have contributed substantially to this
growth, but it will be a mistake to believe that they alone have contributed
to it. In the nineteenth century many of the pioneers of what were to be
adopted later by the universities as branches of social science worked outside
them. David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, Walter Bagehot, Herbert Spencer,
and E.B. Tylor all worked outside the universities to lay the foundations of
what are now taught as academic subjects in the universities. It is true that
Karl Marx had a first-rate education in the best universities, but he did all
his creative work outside them.
e expansion of knowledge has been accompanied by differentiation and
specialization. e universities played a major part in this. ey defined the
boundaries of disciplines, and served to separate one discipline from
another by organizing them into departments and faculties. But they were
not alone in doing so. e emerging professional associations also
contributed to the differentiation and specialization of disciplines.
Before academic specialization had attained its present scale, it was possible
for scholars, whether within or outside the universities, to interact fruitfully
and meaningfully across a variety of fields. e same scholar published
treatises on what would now be regarded as quite different academic
disciplines. Herbert Spencer, the most renowned British sociologist in the
nineteenth century published books on a great variety of subjects. He began
with Principles of Statics, and subsequently published Principles of Biology,
Principles of Psychology, and, then, Principles of Sociology. He did not hold
any university position but worked for some time as sub-editor for e
Economist of which Walter Bagehot, the author of a renowned work on the
English constitution, was the editor.
ings began to change as the division of labour between disciplines
became more and more elaborate in the twentieth century. e universities
themselves played an important part in this by organizing and reorganizing
d l d f l h l d M h f h
disciplines into, departments, faculties, schools, and centres. Much of the
impulse for the creation and adoption of new disciplines came from
ambitious and energetic deans and heads who sought to expand and
consolidate their own spheres of influence. Today the disciplines and fields
of study and research recognized by the universities and accommodated in
them number in the scores. At least in India, the resolve to promote inter-
disciplinary study and research has had little effect in creating active lines of
communication among the increasing number of disciplines and branches of
study. e idea that the multi-purpose university covering all branches of
study from physics to philosophy via computer science, gender studies and
peace studies can function as a single community of scholars and scientists
has become increasingly remote from the reality.
ere are other reasons why the universities have expanded their scale of
operation. In India the most important among these is the urge to make
them socially more inclusive through the accommodation of all classes and
communities, and all sections of society. e socially-inclusive university is
an idea of the twentieth century, and more particularly of the second half of
it. It was only after World War II and decolonization that the universities
came under increasing pressure to become socially more inclusive and began
to expand their scale of operation in response to that pressure (Béteille
2009).
***
e universities have expanded their size and scale of operation, and they
have acquired many new functions in the course of their expansion. It is in
this context that we must ask whether each single university can adequately
perform all the tasks of teaching, research and examination in the entire
range of recognized disciplines that it is expected to perform. My view is
that the university of the twenty-first century must limit its scale of
operation, and, hence, its ambition to be a ‘universal’ site for the creation
and transmission of systematic knowledge.
I have heard many high-minded scholars and scientists, including some of
my own colleagues, say that our universities have sunk to the status of
factories for the production of BAs, MAs, and PhDs without any serious
concern for standards of teaching and research. But our first universities
were set up in 1857 not for undertaking teaching and research but for
conducting examinations and awarding degrees. Hence, if that is now the
f f d f h
major concern of so many of our universities, it is not a deviation from the
original purpose of the Indian university, but a return to it.
e university cannot disown its responsibility to produce graduates, but it
must at least try to ensure that it is not overwhelmed by that one single
responsibility. Producing employable graduates is an important
responsibility of the university, but it is not its sole responsibility and not, in
every case, even its main responsibility.
ere are many reasons why the pressure on the universities to produce
more graduates will not decrease in the foreseeable future, but increase.
India has an expanding middle class whose expansion will not brook any
restraint. As the ranks of the salaried middle class expand, the need for
more graduates will also expand. e universities at Calcutta, Bombay, and
Madras, unlike those at Cambridge, Oxford, and Paris, were set up to
nurture the growth of an educated middle class, and it is difficult to see how
they can renege on this responsibility when that class is acquiring increasing
importance not only politically and culturally but also demographically.
University degrees cannot eliminate social inequality, but they are an
important aid to individual mobility. What social and political
commentators usually mean when they say that they want inequality to be
ended is that they want the obstacles to individual mobility to be removed
or relaxed. e universities may not have brought inequality to an end, but
they have acted as important catalysts for individual mobility. is may not
be the same thing as the advancement of science and scholarship, but it is
nevertheless an important social function in a democracy. Nobody can deny
that the universities have contributed something to individual mobility, first
by enabling individuals to move into the middle class as clerks and other
lower-grade non-manual employees, and then by enabling their offspring to
move upward in that class as lawyers, doctors and civil servants. Many feel,
however, that they have not contributed enough to this process and should
be required to contribute more. How much more they can contribute to
individual mobility and through what procedures is not a subject that I can
discuss on this occasion. But one thing should be clear: we cannot force the
pace of individual mobility through university education too far or for too
long without compromising the academic standards of the university.
In a country that is as large and as diverse as ours we must look at the
university system as a whole. In our circumstances today it is not necessary
f h d d k ll h h
for each and every university to undertake all the major activities that must
come under the care of the university system of a nation. Not all universities
can be expected to give the same attention to undergraduate and post-
graduate teaching, or to teaching and research. But whatever it might do,
no university in the twenty-first century can be exempted from the
responsibility of conducting examinations and awarding degrees. At the
same time, that responsibility will remain a serious, not to say an
unbearable, burden if each university has to conduct examinations for
hundreds of thousands of students every year.
e universities of the twenty-first century cannot be set up with the same
objectives with which our first universities were set up in 1857; nor, when
set up, should they be encouraged to follow the same trajectories that the
earlier ones did. We have accepted the principle that a university today does
not have to be universal in its coverage of disciplines in order to engage in
the combined pursuit of teaching and research at the highest level of
excellence.
If the new universities seek to be all-encompassing like the old ones, they
are not likely to meet with much success in the twenty-first century.
Universities, like many other public institutions in India, have a natural
tendency to expand. Many of them have in the recent past been willing to
undertake whatever was required of them, provided funds were made
available. Universities can be effective as centres of advanced study and
research only if they exercise restraint in what they undertake to do. ey
must not expand recklessly even if this means a limitation on the funds they
are able to secure and on the powers that their vice-chancellors can exercise.
An institution will scarcely deserve to be called a university if it undertakes
only teaching and no research, or only research and no teaching. And it will
not deserve that name if it is devoted exclusively to only one single
discipline. ere is no reason to move from an extremely wide to an unduly
narrow band of subjects. e viable university that I have in mind will have
a cluster of disciplines with, perhaps, a core and a periphery. Not all
universities need to have the same core or the same periphery.
e kind of university that had its greatest success in the second and third
quarters of the twentieth century had at its core the arts and sciences,
comprising disciplines such as philosophy, history, languages, mathematics,
physics, and chemistry with professional subjects such as law and medicine
h h (P d Pl 7 ) H d d
at the periphery (Parsons and Platt 1973). Harvard is an outstanding
example. at kind of university will and should continue to exist in the
future. But there will be other types as well, with science and technology, or
economics and management, or law, or education at the core. e cluster
has to be carefully selected and organized; it cannot be some ad hoc
arrangement put together from existing institutions that are themselves
declining or moribund. Again, such an institution can prosper in the future
only if its reckless expansion is prevented.

REFERENCES
Béteille, André, 2009, Universities in the Twenty-first Century, New Delhi:
National University of Educational Planning and Administration (ird
Foundation Day Lecture).
Government of India, 1950, e Report of the University Education
Commission, 1948–49, New Delhi: Ministry of Education.
Nehru, Jawaharlal, 1958, Speeches: 1946–49, New Delhi: Government of
India, vol. 1.
Parsons, Talcott and Gerald M. Platt, 1973, e American University,
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Shils, Edward, 1997, e Calling of Education, Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Rekindling a spark of enthusiasm (Bombay, October
1982)
J.R.D. TATA (1904–1993)

In October 1932, twenty-eight year old J.R.D Tata had flown solo from
Karachi to Bombay on a single-engined plane carrying air mail. e flight
heralded the birth of his company Tata Airlines which would go on to
become Air India. J.R.D. repeated the flight in October 1962 and again
thirty years later, on the flight’s golden jubilee. He was, then, two years
short of eighty. ere was a crowd to receive him when his Leopard Moth
landed in Juhu airport at the end of the last trip and he made this delightful
speech—extempore—to the gathering. It has—like all his speeches—great
style and the stamp of his remarkable personality.

It has been said at times that there are moments in life when one feels that
if there was a nice big hole in front of one, one would gladly plunge into it.
is is one such moment, as I have never been so embarrassed in my life as
I have been this evening listening to the speeches about me.
His Excellency the Governor has been good enough to say that I am a
modest man. I have usually felt that I had plenty to be modest about. And
even today, in flying to Karachi and bringing back a perfectly safe aeroplane
—an old lady, it is true, but one who gets on very well with her old pilot—I
did not feel that I was doing anything that required great skill, courage or
competence. I did not have to cross high mountains, or to battle with
snowstorms or fog. On both these occasions, as also fifty years ago, the
flight was a relatively simple one of merely staying the air and navigating
h bl  dff h Ff
with reasonable accuracy. ere was, it is true, one difference this time. Fifty
years ago, the only means I had to navigate was to look at the map, and at
the ground passing below me, follow a compass and hope that I was going
to end up where I intended to. Today, there was a radio to help me. I do feel
with no sense of undue modesty that the compliments and congratulations
showered on me are greatly in excess of my performance. But I won’t say
that I didn’t enjoy hearing them, however undeserving of them I may feel
and I am terribly grateful for them.
Right from childhood, I have been mad about flying and anxiously waited
for the day when I would fly myself. I read about every well-known pilot
from the beginnings of aviation and was enthralled by their feats.
Lindbergh’s flight in 1927, in thirty-three hours across the Atlantic in a
single-engined plane that was at least six years older than this one, was the
kind of achievement that would merit all that has been said today.
I am a little disappointed that I have not been asked, ‘Why the hell did you
do it, if it was so simple?’ In fact, I was asked that in 1962 when I did the
same thing. At that time I felt—as I feel even more so today—that the birth
of civil aviation and commercial aviation in India, and the growth of air
transport over a period of thirty years deserved some kind of celebration. I
did not think then that twenty years later, at an age approaching seventy-
nine, there would either be an aeroplane for me to fly or that I would be fit
to fly. So that was the reason then and so was it today.
I felt that I should do something myself to celebrate and commemorate the
occasion (Golden Jubilee) and the only thing I was fit for was to fly an
aeroplane.
I had also two other reasons. One was that I wanted to dedicate a gesture to
those, at first in handfuls, then in hundreds and finally in thousands, the
men and women who, over a period of forty-six years had helped me to
build up Air-India and Indian air transport. I wanted to express in some
way my gratitude and pay tribute to them and I did not know of any other
way of dramatizing the event than by the personal gesture of this flight.
And so to them and to Air-India who sponsored the flight and got the
plane repaired, renewed, refurbished, and made flyable, I express today my
very deep gratitude for the enthusiasm, for the toil and the sweat they
contributed to our joint endeavour and for sharing with me the joys as well
as the heartbreaks of the past fifty years.
 h h hI h k d l bl
e other reason which I think motivated me was to relive a memorable
occasion of the past, something one often wants to do—for instance, one’s
engagement or marriage. Some people do it by marrying more than once.
But nowadays with taxes as they are, very few people can afford more than
one wife. In any case, my wife might have taken a dismal view of any such
thought on my part.
I also had another reason. As I got older, I felt distressed that in recent
times there was a growing sense of disenchantment in our land, that the
hopes, the aspirations, the enthusiasm, the zest, the joy with which freedom
was received in our country some thirty-five years ago, and even before that,
the achievements that we participated in, including the creation of Air-
India had faded, that there was a loss of morale, a loss of belief in ourselves.
When you talk to young people today, their main worry is to get a job. I
don’t blame them. It is a real worry. But also, there seems no longer to be
the feeling that we can do things as well or better than others or even things
that others haven’t done. So I thought that, perhaps, this flight would
rekindle a spark of enthusiasm, a desire to do something for the country and
for its good name, and that it would show that even in these days, when
aviation is no longer an adventure but only big business, the times for
pioneering are not gone. ere are many other things that can be done and
many things that the young of this country can do and must steel
themselves to doing, however difficult, however discouraging at times the
environment, the conditions may be.
And so, in a small way, this flight of mine today was intended to inspire a
little hope and enthusiasm in the younger people of our country. I want
them to feel, those who are today at a stage of their life I was at in 1932
(fifty years ago), that when they are seventy-eight—and I hope they all will
live at least to seventy-eight—they will feel like I do, that despite all the
difficulties, all the frustrations, there is a joy in having done something as
well as you could and better than others thought you could. I thank you all
for your presence.
 Sources

Every effort has been made to get permissions for all the speeches. In some
cases we have been unable to find the right person to get the clearance
from. Please do be in touch with us if you hold the estate to any of the
speeches included in this book.
Grateful thanks are due to the following to print copyright material:
 1. Amartya Sen
 2. André Béteille
 3. Aruna Roy
 4. Atal Bihari Vajpayee
 5. Bose Institute
 6. L.K. Advani
 7. Mani Shankar Aiyar
 8. Manmohan Singh
 9. Muhammad Ali Jinnah: courtesy of Ministry of Information and
Broadcasting, Islamabad
10. Narasimha Rao: courtesy P.V. Ranga Rao
11. Rabindranath Tagore: Rabindra-Bhavan, Visva Bharati
12. Salman Rushdie:© 2002, Salman Rushdie, all rights reserved
13. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan©: Estate of late Dr Sarvepalli
 Radhakrishnan
14. Shyamaprosad Mookerjea, Selected Speeches in the Bengal Legislative
Assembly, 1937–47 (edited by R. Bhadhuri, 2002) Shyamaprosad
Mookerjea, e Kashmir Issue, Speeches, Correspondence and Reports
(edited by R. Bhadhuri, 2003) Shyamaprosad Mookerjea: courtesy
Ashutosh Memorial Institute for using speeches from its publications:
15. Somnath Chatterjee
16. Sonia Gandhi
17. Subhas Chandra Bose©: Netaji Research Bureau, Kolkata
18. Vikram Seth
 Acknowledgements

e idea of this book was conceived during a lunch conversation in which

Martand (Mapu) Singh, Malavika Singh, Shobita Punja, Chiki Sarkar, and
I were present. I then thought that it was one of those fleeting and brilliant
ideas that crop up when the food and the company are good. Chiki Sarkar
took it beyond the lunch table and insisted that the book should be done
and that this was the right time to do it. e project seemed too tempting
to resist so I allowed temptation to walk right in. is is Chiki’s book. It
would not have been possible without her prodding and her innumerable
creative suggestions. e credit is all hers. e errors that remain are
products of either my ignorance or my indifference.
A book of this kind is impossible without the help of libraries and
librarians. I would like to thank Sakti Roy of the ABP Library: he never
turns down a genuine request and is ceaseless in his quest. e staff of the
library of the India International Centre was always co-operative. My
colleague Jayanta Ghoshal helped in locating some speeches. I remain
grateful.
My dear friend Ravi Vyas has over the years taught me more about books
and editing than he would ever care to admit. It is my privilege that he
edited this book with his characteristic care and compassion for the written
word. Aveek Sen and Bhaswati Chakravorty read and commented on a
draft of the introduction, as did the anonymous reader who always reads
whatever I write with a red pen in her hand. To such friends I do not say
thank you but I promise to impose on them again.
 A note on the editor

Rudrangshu Mukherjee is a historian and journalist. Currently running the

editorial pages of e Telegraph, he has held various academic posts and
taught, among others, at Calcutta, Princeton, and Manchester universities.
He is the author of four books on the revolt of 1857: Awadh in Revolt,
1857–58: A Study of Popular Resistance; Spectre of Violence: e Kanpur
Massacres in the Revolt of 1857; Mangal Pandey: Brave Martyr or Accidental
Hero; Dateline 1857: Revolt against the Raj. He is co-author of India: en
and Now and of New Delhi: e Making of a Capital and is the editor of e
Penguin Gandhi Reader; Indian Persuasions: Essays from Seminar and co-
editor of Remember Childhood: Essays in Honour of Andre Beteille.
Rudrangshu Mukherjee lives in Calcutta.