ADDRESS BY SHRI K.R. NARAYANAN, VICE PRESIDENT OF INDIA, AT THE INAUGURATION OF THE INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP ON SOCIAL MOVEMENTS, STATE AND DEMOCRACY AT THE INDIAN STATISTICAL INSTITUTE

OCTOBER 10, 1992

Prof. M.G.K. Menon, Respected Shri P.N. Haksar, Prof.   Upendra Baxi, Dr. Prasad Rao, Dr. Lars Rudebeck, distinguished friends,
 
First of all, I must congratulate you for holding this very    important workshop on a very important and topical subject. I must also express my appreciation for the very active co-operation that is being maintained among the University of Delhi, the Indian Statistical Institute and the Uppasala University. Shri Haksar bemoaned the lack of attention to social science studies and researches. I hope this co-operation will to some extent fill that very sad gap in our intellectual pursuits.

The subject matter of the workshop, today, is social  movements, state and democracy. Prof. Lars Rudebeck has presented me with a beautiful volume on how democracy can make sense. I should, therefore, first of all, try to address myself to the question of democracy in our own country being one of the societies riddled with complexities and contradictions. Our experience may have some relevance to struggles of other people in the third world for establishing democracy in their own countries, though I must admit without hesitation, we have been benefited a great deal by the experience of countries, other countries in the third world.

To my mind, Indian democracy is not a mechanical  transplantation of a European variety. There are three major streams in it. The first one is the European liberal tradition, represented by the parliamentary system of democracy. The second stream is that of socialist ideas which again came from Europe. The third one is the indigenous stream springing from our experience of local democratic institutions like the Panchayat and even more importantly, in my opinion, by some of the Gandhian ideas and methods that have been introduced into it. What we have been trying, or may I put it differently, what has been evolving itself in India is an amalgamation of the three streams. I am not claiming that we have succeeded in amalgamating all the streams into an integrated system of democracy.

Various other factors, various hindrances and backward movements have affected this integration. But I think, in the long run, Indian democracy is proceeding willy nilly along the path of integrating these three great streams of historical thought and historical experiences. The Gandhian tradition, particularly, is important because in a society where we have problems which are not the parliamentary kind of problems, which are challenges thrown up by social and economic problems typically our own, we have to introduce some of these things. If European democracy was affected by the Christian thought to some extent, Indian democracy has been affected by a major renaissance movement as well as a movement for reformation that has been taking place in our society for nearly over a century and which has been capped by the nationalist movement.

The contribution of the Indian Nationalist Movement to democracy is one of very lasting influences because Indian Nationalist Movement had first of all fought for the kind of freedom the British had in their democratic system. It had fought for civil liberties and fundamental rights for the citizens. It has also fought for social justice and economic betterment of the ordinary people. Therefore, the soul of Indian nationalism was not only political but also socio-economic. I think that this is one of the reasons why democracy found itself relevant to our society.

Gandhiji added something more. Non-violence is a peaceful method in an intense form, may be with a philosophical, spiritual dimension to it but the core of it is a peaceful method. What is democracy but peaceful method? Gandhiji has added other techniques of action to it, like some of the satyagraha methods. All of them may not be consistent with the constitutional system produced by democracy but much of it is still relevant, like, shall I say, fasting for political purposes, dharna and boycott.

All these innumerable techniques of social action and political action which Gandhiji developed are still being used in Indian democracy almost everyday. I feel that but for the addition of the normal extra parliamentary methods of action, there would not have been sufficient vent in our society for protest and expression of grievances. The most important thing is that a society, if it must sustain democracy, it must have some vent for popular grievances, popular opinions and in a vast, immense, complex society like that of ours, sheer parliamentary system cannot provide it. That is why I feel that Gandhiji in his own way made a contribution to democracy in this country.

Now, I should like to come to, literally going by the title   of the subject, the concept of the state itself. I would not like to indulge in definitions. Dr. Karl Popper, one of my teachers, used to tell that definitions in social sciences are very inadequate and very often dangerous. He talked about ristotle's definition of "Man as a rational being". He said that "We know what a man is, we do not know what a rational being is, never met one". So the definitions do not always help.

There is an interpretation of the state as the manifestation of the divine, the march of God on earth. I do not have elaborate to this audience the political consequences of this concept of the state. I should like to refer to the Laskian interpretation of state as a functional mechanism which must have evolved no doubt, but nevertheless a functional mechanism for satisfying the demands and wants of the people. The rationale and the validity of the state lies in its capability to respond and to satisfy the wants and demands of the people.

Of course, there is the idea of the state as an ultimate coercive force. But Laski says that successfully to coerce it must be able successfully to persuade. Therefore, even the success of the coercion depends on the capacity for persuasion in a democratic society. We know that Gandhiji and Jawaharlal Nehru expounded many times, that violent methods do not bring about any lasting changes. Changes can be brought about only by education and by peaceful methods over a long period of time. Neither the human being nor society changes purely under the impact of violence. Modern examples are there. You find the totalitarian systems which impressed upon the people, powerful instruments of control, instruments of thought, suddenly breaking up and relapsing to their normal human condition. Therefore, I do not think there should be any doubt that what is considered to be a real change in human beings or in societies could be brought about except only by peaceful means.

                    Now, democracy itself has, I think, supreme methods of    exercising peaceful pressure and bringing about peaceful change in society. In this Seminar some of the papers which Shri Haksar has been good enough to send me I find that there is a great deal of discussion on separatists movements, fissiparous tendencies, horizontal as well as vertical in societies. Now, most of these movements have kept out as a result of a very paradoxical situation. Nation states have been consolidated. International co-operation and a degree of International uniformity in certain spheres of life have kept out. We talk of global society, one world.

These are very realistic developments in human affairs. But at the same time we find separatist movements, fissiparous movements, efforts on the part of people to go back to their narrow sectarian societies, emergence of ethnic nationalism, sub-nationalism and even below that tribal and other groupings which try to assert themselves. One has to ask what is behind this paradox of world unity on the one hand and disintegration of state and societies on the other. Several examples have been given. I think one of the major global reasons, to my mind, is that while certain global unity or unification has been brought about largely due to technological changes, people feel lost in this very abstract network of relationship.

They find alienation from the fresh and from the living facts of life. They are being pulled into an abstract, impersonal system of human relationship and they rebel against it and they want to find refuge in narrower society, in narrower allegiances and probably, this is probably one of the global reasons for this development. Of course within states there are other important reasons, reasons of frustration with inequality, frustration with failure of the state to give them the basic necessities of life, cultural reasons so that the culture of the smaller group is being destroyed under the impression of larger groups. So these various reasons also operate in the sense. But above all, I should like to say that most of these fissiparous separatist tendencies have been at least precipitated by political leadership, who out of their ambition to be leaders or bosses in certain sectors of life has spread these separatist, fissiparous movement in a very destructive way.

We have to put all this together but I suppose the basic reasons is the ongoing centralisation of power within states. Unless we can concurrently undertake another process of decentralisation of power in societies we will not be able to deal with this new explosive situations which have come about and this is, I think, being attempted. We all know that. But one important thing to remember is that in modern society we cannot dismantle the centre. Decentralisation has to be worked within this central fact of some central authority otherwise we might get, as the poet says, there will be chaos all around.

How to balance it is the real problem of our time and the problem of democracy. Well, while one talks about democracy, and the state itself, I think one has to understand that the concept of the state, even if it is a unified state, has to become more federal. Federal in the sense, that groups whether social groups or regional groups, associations like co-operatives, trade unions, and the innumerable voluntary associations should have active influence in any power structure in state. This is part of democracy. The existence and the power influence of voluntary associations is a test of the existence and the effectiveness of democracy itself. So we have to get this concept that power in democracy is essentially federal, whether it is in a formal constitutional federation or even in a unitary state. These are the great issues with which we have to grapple and I am happy that Delhi University, the Indian Statistical Institute, University of Uppsala are engaged in probing these issues.