ADDRESS BY SHRI K.R. NARAYANAN, VICE PRESIDENT OF INDIA, AT THE CONVENTION ON LIBERAL VALUES AT FEDERATION HOUSE, FICCI AUDITORIUM

NEW DELHI, SATURDAY, JANUARY 6, 1996

I am happy that Shri Soli Sorabjee and Shri D.N. Patodia along with the Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung of Germany have organized in India a national Convention on Liberal Values.  I must particularly compliment Shri Sorabjee, an ardent advocate of liberal values and human rights, for having taken the initiative to convene this Convention.

Liberalism, as we know it to-day, is the product of Western civilization.  But liberal values have an ancient origin.  The West traces them to ancient Greece.  We in India could trace them to farther into the past, at least the core liberal concept of the individual human being, his dignity and even his divinity, to the time of the Vedas and Upanishads.  It is in tune with this age-old thinking that the Indian Constitution accepted the individual as the unit of our polity.  But neither our ancient thinking nor our modern democratic theory, considered the individual as standing in utter isolation, but as a part of society, of humanity and the environment.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in one of his reflective essays entitled "The Basic Approach" summed up the Indian position as follows:  "We talk of the good of society.  Is this something apart from and transcending the good of the individuals composing it?  If the individual is ignored and sacrificed for what is considered the good of society, is that the right objective to have?  It is agreed that the individual should not be sacrificed and indeed that real social progress will come only when opportunity is given to the individual to develop, provided the individual is not a selected group but comprises the whole community.  The touch stone, therefore, should be how far any political or social theory enables the individual to rise above his petty self and thus think in terms of the good of all.  The law of life should not be competition or acquisitiveness but co-operation, the good of each contributing to the good of all".  He then pointed out that "this argument leads to the Vedantic conception that everything, whether sensitient or insensitient, finds a place in the organic whole", and "everything has a spark of what might be called the divine impulse or basic energy or the life force which pervades the Universe".  In this statement has been summed up the main constituents of a philosophy of life comprising the rights of the human being embracing civil and political rights, and social, economic and environmental rights, and reaching out to the spiritual and metaphysical dimensions of life.

From the beginning, mankind was instinct with instant needs and cravings as well as immortal longings.  Man's ceaseless struggle to satisfy his hunger and physical cravings and protect himself from the inclemencies of nature led to the exploitation of nature and the building up of material civilizations.  His urge for self-expression and his aesthetic and creative sense led him to build up a world of  imagination and artifacts, of music, dance, language, literature and philosophy, and of inventions and innumerable contraptions giving rise to almost what can be called a second nature.  And his increasing interaction with other human beings gave rise to group life, to nations, associations of nations, and now an interdependent, if not a one world, in which civil and political aspects of human existence have emerged as inescapable phenomena of modern life.  Thus it would be seen that in the evolution of human civilization, economic, cultural, social, civil and political aspects have come together to produce what are now called human rights.  At the heart of the human rights lie rights and values associated with the individual human being, which in modern parlance or rather Western parlance, are called liberal values, but which are inherent in every civilization of the world.

Prof. Harold Laski wrote of the rise of European liberalism that the nineteenth century was the epoch of liberal triumph.  Of this liberal triumph he wrote:  "It was the prophet of industrialism . . .   It was the exponent of free trade, and it created a world market which has broken down the isolation even of the most distant peoples . . . .  It was the advocate of religious toleration . . . .  It insisted that the statehood should be in general co-terminus with the boundaries of states . . .   It established universal suffrage and parliamentarism almost as principles of natural law . . .   There is a sense, indeed, in which American civilization of the last hundred years may not illegitimately be regarded as the fulfilment of the liberal ideal.  America, and the awakening of the ancient East, are nothing so much as a tribute to its world-wide empire."

This glorious tribute by Prof. Laski to nineteenth century European liberalism was hedged in by certain reservations to which I shall refer a little later.  About "the awakening of the ancient East", while liberalism did play a historical role as regards the core concepts of freedom and dignity of the nation and the individual is concerned, the role of its world-wide empire was one of suppressing, arresting and distorting developments in Asia and Africa.   India was one of the few countries which imbibed the liberal tradition in any deep sense and succeeded in developing it in accordance with its own genius however imperfectly, and in spite of considerable obstacles both internal and external.  That was partly because of the existence in the Indian tradition of some of the basic and core liberal values, and the avidity with which the new Indian middle class absorbed liberal values from the West and made them their own.  In the prolonged and the non-violent struggle for Indian independence what the Indian National Congress was asking for were the same rights and freedoms for Indians as enjoyed by the British people themselves.  Liberal ideas thus sank into the minds of the leadership of the movement and to the middle-class who transmitted them to the masses involved in the non-violent struggle.  Political and civil rights thus became the central concepts in India's Constitution with the rule of law and an independent judiciary occupying an important and impregnable position in our polity.  The fact that this political democracy was combined with ideas of social justice emanating from Socialist thought and with Gandhian ideas reflecting the quintessence of indigenous traditions, did not detract from its validity but only strengthened its base and made it pertinent to the particular problems the nation had to grapple with.

The principal attack on the liberal idea of the 19th century which came from Socialism and prevailed until the collapse of the Soviet Union, was that while it secured for the middle class and owners of property their full share of privilege, it left the working-class more or less in their chains.  However, the wide-spread adoption of Keynesianism and the concept of the positive welfare State, and President Roosevelt's New Deal in the United States, transformed the 19th century capitalist liberalism to the new social liberalism of the middle and the late 20th century.  Economic and social rights were thus elevated to the level of civil and political rights -- "life, liberty and security of the person" of the American Declaration of Rights.   Indeed President Roosevelt described the economic and social rights guaranteed in the New Deal as the Second Bill of Rights.  This is indeed a tribute to the flexibility and the responsiveness of the liberal ideology to changing times and the challenges of the new problems that have arisen in society almost world-wide.  In contrast the communist system remained inflexible and impervious to the economic, technological and political changes that had taken place in the world, and it had no way of accommodating these changes except through a collapse of the system.  However, conceptually, a certain mutual accommodation between the two systems was taking place at the bottom of things.  Jawaharlal Nehru was perceptive enough to sense it as early as the middle 1950's when he observed that:- "Capitalism is changing;  Socialism is changing;  and democratic Socialism is arising".  It is this that is perhaps taking shape, through the bewildering developments that are taking place in the former Socialist countries as well as in the capitalist countries of the world to-day.

There are, however, a core group of rights which are universal and stand unchallenged irrespective of the stage of development or the cultural and religious background of countries.  Genocide, racial discrimination, crimes against humanity, trade in slaves, torture of prisoners, arbitrary killings of people, arbitrary imprisonment, etc. are violations of human rights which are not justifiable on any grounds.  But to these basic and universal rights have been added social, economic and environmental rights.  The evolution of international opinion and law has been in that direction.  Since the Declaration of Human Rights emphasized human and social rights as necessary for a stable international order, the idea that everyone has the right to social security, to work and employment has got wider currency.    Right to work is enshrined in many modern constitutions of countries. 

The Directive Principles of the Indian Constitution is an example of social and economic rights obtaining constitutional sanction.  As Russell W. Davenport has pointed out in respect of "the right to life" in the American Constitution:  "The threat to life may be a question merely of violence, but in modern industrialized society it goes far beyond this.  The threat has become economic, . . . . when a worker loses his job he cannot eat - that is he cannot live. . . .  therefore, an economic right must be established". *   The Declaration of Human Rights (July 21, 1986) of the Foreign Ministers of the twelve EEC countries stated:  "The Twelve deplore the fact that countless people around the world suffer hunger, disease and lack of opportunity, thus being denied the enjoyment of the most basic economic, social, cultural rights as well as civil and political rights, which is of paramount importance for the full realization of human dignity and for the attainment of the legitimate aspirations of every individual."   The Vienna Declaration adopted by the World Conference on Human Rights in 1993 also affirmed that "extreme poverty and social exclusion constitute a violation of human dignity".  With a view to safeguarding human rights the Declaration further stated that "there must be a concerted effort to ensure recognition of economic, social and cultural rights at the national, regional and international levels."

Though the importance of the social and economic rights has been amply acknowledged by liberal thought, they have not yet assumed the status of law internationally, nor have they secured the same status as classical liberal values.  This is inspite of the striking fact that millions of people still live below the level of poverty in the world.  In the present age of liberalization of national and world economies it is inescapable that the question of eradication of poverty be dealt with at the national level and on a global scale.  It is known to-day that eighty per cent of the resources of the world are consumed by twenty per cent of the people.  This scale of economic deprivation and economic inequality is unacceptable in theory and untenable in practice.  In this context it is indispensable for liberal values to accommodate in an integral manner the social and economic rights for which the majority of mankind is clamouring.   At the same time I should assert that it is not valid reason for developing countries to ignore the fundamental civil and political rights.  These set of liberal rights have the quality of energising nations and peoples and contributing dynamically to economic development and social transformation.  I believe that a minimum of the core liberal values can be practised at every stage of economic development and in every society, may be, with variations and adjustments dictated by local conditions.

 We are to-day in the age of economic liberalization.  India has embarked upon a liberalization process in full earnest.  But India is a country of over 900 million people with immense diversities and problems.  We have to catch up with modern industrialisation and the scientific-technological revolution, and change and develop an age-old society with peaceful means under a democratic system.  We have to observe the democratic norms and procedures.  We have to respond at every stage to the clamouring demands of our people.  We have to satisfy their basic social and economic needs -- indeed we are engaged in a massive process of economic development in the full-tide of democracy and the movement for human rights.  In addition we have to respond to the insistent and inescapable demands of the environment.  The developed and powerful nations of  to-day were fortunate, or shall I say unfortunate, to have had the opportunity of industrialising and developing themselves without the constraints of democracy, human rights and the need to pay heed to the protection of the environment.  On all these aspects to-day they are in a position to preach to us.  For after all what matters is the present.  But nevertheless I cannot resist quoting an Indian saying viz. the cat after eating a thousand rats is going on a long pilgrimage!  Still I admit that a pilgrimage is a pilgrimage, and it has its uses and must be respected.

To return to the question of economic liberalization, while it has released the suppressed energies of the Indian economy, it is still necessary, inevitably necessary, to build a safety net for millions of workers and poor people so that the process spells not ruination or an intolerable lowering of living standards for them but a progressive advancement.  Globalisation is taking place at a fast pace, but globalisation should not mean only the opening up of our vast markets but also adequate inflow of capital, investments and technologies.  There is a growing tendency in many industrialised countries to strengthen their tariff and non-tariff barriers, particularly against imports from developing countries;  there has been steady decline in international prices of commodities exported by the developing world, and a tendency to link issues such as labour standards, social conditions and environment to the great disadvantage of developing countries.  And we know that free trade in many important respects is not free, but managed trade.

It was in this context Johan Galtung has stated that:  "The right to development would also place certain demands on the developmental context.  Production and distribution to satisfy the needs are necessary but not sufficient.  Respect for nature, structure and culture are also matters of deep significance." **  In an imaginary debate among the Blue, Red, Green and Coloured representing respectively classical liberalism, socio-economic rights, the environmental movement, and the small cultural groups, Galtung advances the idea of "a rainbow of rights" to get the true measure of liberal values.  In this imaginary dialogue the argument put forward by the Coloured is significant:  "We are all humans", asserts the Coloured, "we are all inspired by the values of our civilizations.  But we all see human rights also in terms of our cultures, not for that reason neglecting Western contributions."   He adds,  "All I say is that the political agenda in general, and the human rights agenda in particular, is not exhausted because the West has no more ideas.  There could be other ideas elsewhere."
 ***

In one respect -- though not in other  respects -- the history of India demonstrates that there are other ideas, intangible and inexplicable may be in modern terms, in our ancient society.  From time immemorial India has welcomed and co-existed harmoniously with a variety of faiths, religions, languages and races.  Jews, Christians, Zorastrians, Buddhists, Jains, Muslims, Sikhs lived together by and large amicably in our country.  In spite of the partition of India that is still the major fact of life in India.  There have been, no doubt, communal conflicts, some of which major, but most of which occasional and minor.  There have never been prolonged and bitter religious and ideological wars as in Europe and the West, like the Crusades, the Thirty Years or the Cold War, not to speak of Bosnia.  This quality of tolerance is a liberal value;  a human right of the highest order.  Perhaps this tolerance is at the root of all other values and rights, upon which it is possible to build  a solid edifice of liberal values, and social, economic and environmental rights.

Finally, life is the basis of all rights, life of the race, the species and of nature which sustains everything.   In this context it would be evading the major issue if in discussing values and rights we ignore the possibility that life on earth could be exterminated by the nuclear weapons in the arsenals of the powers.  I have read reports of the case before the International Court of Justice at The Hague on the advisory opinion of the Court as to whether the use or the threat of the use of nuclear weapons is permitted under international law.  The arguments advanced in this case on behalf of some of the major nuclear powers is devastatingly interesting.  It is argued that there is nothing in international law that prohibits the threat or the use of nuclear weapons in all circumstances, meaning there may be circumstances in which it is justifiable to use them.  From the narrowly technical view point of international law this may or may not be right -- the Court has not passed an opinion on it.  But from the point of view of liberal values and human rights, expounded with such tremendous sound and fury by the advanced nations, these arguments seem to be jarring, to put it very mildly.  And it is also being argued before the International Court that the use of nuclear weapons need not pose any threat to the environment and that it would not be genocide to kill masses of people by an atomic bomb, as genocide is defined as violent acts "with the intent to destory, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group".  Evidently the destruction of the human race is not to be considered genocide !!   While discussing liberal values and human rights I hope this over-riding aspect of the question would also be considered by this Convention.  May I conclude by wishing this most important Convention all success.

Thank you.