INAUGURAL LECTURE BY SHRI K.R.  NARAYANAN, VICE PRESIDENT OF INDIA, AT THE CENTENARY OF THE LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS

NEW DELHI, NOVEMBER 3, 1995

Sir Nicholas Fenn, Mr.  Vijay Pandey, President of LSE Society, Dr. Meera Seth, Mr.  Collin Perchard, and distinguished members of LSE Society and friends of LSE,

I have chosen a subject for this Lecture without thinking too much about it in the beginning.  I recall that when I was long time ago, a Deputy Secretary in the External Affairs Ministry, I wrote something on democracy and went to my boss, asking him whether he would permit me to publish it.  He said very wisely and very rightly that I am a member of the Civil Service and as a civil servant it would not be proper for me to publish anything on political issues and if what I write would not touch political issues, it would be most uninteresting to the public.  Well, many years have passed.  I have gone through various transformations but today I feel that I have arrived at the beginning.  It is even more difficult today for me to speak on this subject frankly and openly.  So I would like to steer clear off controversies and I hope to say something at least partially interesting.          

The world has become almost totally democratic.  It is the triumph of democracy today.  A mood of democratic triumphalism prevails in the world. Long ago, Lord Bryce wrote that the trend towards democracy now widely visible, is a natural trend due to a general law of social progress.  This remains true but to say that we have arrived at the apex of democratic development and history has ended and to celebrate it with a sense of democratic triumphalism may be going a little too far.  I find Francis Fukiamma very convenient to start this lecture because his feverish presentation of amateurish theory make it very telling to say something about the subject. 

In propounding his theory of the end of history, he said that there is a total exclusion of viable systematic alternatives to Western liberalism today.  He claims that mankind is witnessing the end point of man's ideological evolution as the final form of Government.  I do not know, if mankind has reached a stage of politcal nirvana and there is no further scope for political experimentation, social experimentation for the creative exercise of human faculties to deal with problems that mankind will ever face in the future.  So I do not accept the end of history theory.  Mankind is evolving and it would try to produce new systems of society, new systems of Government, otherwise what will they do for the millions of years, I hope, ahead of us. 

But this theory of democratic triumphalism has associated with it other theories which are not so innocent.  There is the theory of clash of civilisations which Samuel Huntingdon has put forward very seriously.  There is the theory of right of intervention in countries put forward by political theorists and practitioners and there is another theory, not very old which has been put forward by a political theorist, which goes as follows, I should like to quote it.  He is visualising a two‑tier world.  In this two‑tier world he says, "We would then have a kind of two‑tier world with the top tier consisting of a global democratic organisation and an integrated world economy and the bottom tier occupied by a backward, failed or otherwise marginalised nations.  In many ways this world will be an ugly world to live in and the plight of the bottom tier would have ramifications that could not be wholly and neatly sealed off and kept beyond the confines of democratic countries. But he says this kind of world will pose problems, problems of access to raw‑materials, problems of terrorism or drug trafficking etc. 

But he asserts that none of these by itself would pose mortal threat to the democratic hegemony.  Here he has introduced a contradictory term 'democratic hegemony'. Then he visualised a pax democratica, a sustained peace of democratic hegemony.  This is not so new because I recall when I a student in LSE many people, informally, and some in writing were putting forward the theory that with the cold war on all that the world needed was a central core of countries committed to democracy and it does not matter what happens to the others.  If this core remains strong and economically viable the rest of the world could be managed.  It is the same theory in a new form which this theoretician has put forward.  There is a great deal of truth in this because the developing world or the third world is highly disorganised today.  It has very little unity, very little sense of purpose.  It is more dependant on the developed world that than at any time before.  So something of this democratic hegemony may be already existing in this world.  But combined within there is of course a tremendous effort by countries and world organisations to help the developing world and those who are the subject of this sort of hegemony.

In this theory of democracy, the anti‑colonial movement and the coming into being of so many nations is not taken as an integral development in the world system.  It is not considered as enlargement of freedom and democracy in the world but rather as a diversion, a nuisanse to those developed democratic countries.  The majority of the countries in the developing world are struggling for advancement, for economic development, for freedom and democracy in their own countries and in the international system but they are excluded more or less from the world order.  Not completely exluded, but their word, their voice is in many ways less powerfull than before. 

This is, I am afraid, a fact of history, of modern history.  For example, we in India, take pride in the fact that we are the largest democracy in the world.  This is announced not only by us but visiting delegations at diplomatic functions. But when you read the literature on democracy written by researchers, scholars and people like that who fashion the thinking of the people at large, you find that India figures very little in the democratic scenario in the world. Several studies have been made of world democracy recently.  Some of them are statistical studies.  The other day, the New York Times wrote an editorial entitled "The Shallow Democracy of India".  We are not offended by this.

There is much that is shallow and much that may be offensive in the actual functioning of our democratic system.  But to dismiss the Indian democracy system as shallow democracy is a continuation of the thought which is inherent in the concept of democratic hegemony.  The London Economist published a very serious article in which they went through the experience of various countries in democracy and also published a survey conducted paradoxically by an Indian, a World Bank Indian, in which the countries of the world are divided into countries which are free, which are partially free, which are not free at all.

It is interesting to note where India has been placed in this categorisation. India has been placed in the partially free category along with countries like Myanmar, while countries like South Korea, Mongolia, Eastern Europe, Russia have been placed in the category of free countries.  He had certain reasons, certain statistical observations to come to this conclusion.  But it is interesting that this is the real perception of political scientists about Indian democracy in which we delight so much in our own country.  Therefore, on this occasion, I should like to say something basic about our own democracy.  There are a hundred shortcomings, faults, serious distortions in our democratic system but its fundamentals are worth noting. 

Why did India became a democratic country, I should say at this stage, a political democracy after independence, while many of the countries emerging from same colonial experience did not or could not follow that path is worth examining.  The reason lies in the history of Indian National Congress.  You will find that right from the beginning what the Indian National Congress has been demanding are the same rights as that of the British in the home country.  There was almost a pathetic faith in the British system and the British rights of democracy which India has been demanding. 

During the long non‑violent period of the Gandhian movement for freedom, these ideas percoloated slowly but steadily into the minds of the people.  One important advantage from the democratic point of view of the choice of the non‑violent method of agitation was this long period that we got in disseminating certain, democratic, liberal and socialist ideas among our people and without any conscious indoctrination these ideas sunk into the sub‑conscious of the people.  Apart from that as Mahatma Gandhi once said about the parliamentary system, that we have to be grateful to the British for introducing the parliamentary system to India, but we must remember that the roots of the system were present in our Panchayat system. 

Even Dr.  B.R.  Ambedkar who had a glowing hatred for the narrowness of the Indian village.  he called it a den of superstition and that we should never consider the Indian village as a unit of our political system, even he had argued in the Constituent Assembly and quoted the Buddhist Sanghas on not only the parliamentary approach but developed various parliamentary procedures in transacting business like passing the resolutions, whips, all kinds of the paraphernalia which we observe in Parliament, much of it was existent in the governess of the Buddhist Sanghas and he observed that Buddha could not have invented these things. 

These must have been prevalent in some way or another in the society in which he lived.  So the introduction of British ideas of democracy and the marrying of it with traditional Indian experience and ideas explains why we were able to continue the democratic system in India after our independence.  Of course there was a small period of aberration but that aberration we did correct ourselves, almost the system corrected itself.  But the Indian aberration was nothing serious when compared to the European aberration.  From 1920 or 1922 to 1945, country after country, abandoned liberalism and democracy and went under dictatorship and it required a disastrous war to dislodge that dictatorship and return to democracy.  Even today we find the remnants of this cropping up its head in various forms in the advanced countries of the world and I do not think we can dismiss it very lightly though I do not exaggerate it.

Having talked about the Indian experience, I should like to say that as a matter of historical experience, the highest point of development that we attained under the British rule was in the 1935 Government of India Act.  It took us to some kind of a semi parliamentary system, some kind of colonial democracy and the electorate was 30 million in this vast country.  Mahatma Gandhi said at that time "though it was a small electorate it meant the withdrawal of the sword from governing India to some extent and therefore I welcome it as a major development".  Here I think, I should like to dwell upon the impact of the Gandhian methods and ideology on our democracy. 

Indian democracy if you take, there were four streams of thought which has flown into it.  First of all, there was the western liberal stream, then there was a social stream, then there was a traditional stream based on Panchayat etc., fourthly, there was a Gandhian stream of thought.  At one time, it appeared it in perspective and to some extent in a planned way what we are trying to achieve was a combination of all these four streams of democratic thought. Parliamentary democracy from the centre, from the states going down and the panchayat system from below rising up level after level and reaching and interlocking with the parliamentary system. 

This we thought at one time, was the pattern, we are developing.  Today having enacted the Panchayati Raj Act to some extent, this seems to be happening.  But how successfully, this combination will take place, it is yet difficult to say.  But the fact that thousands of people, I think it will come to a million people probably or more, have been elected at the lower lelvels, panchayat levels, block levels and the district levels, particularly 30 % women have been elected to these local bodies. 

Even if they are not properly functioning for some time, this right conferred upon these people is bound to have a major impact on the nature of Indian democracy.  Maybe of the women elected in the beginning, they may be the wives of the important people, daughters‑in‑laws etc., but in the next election and the election after that this is bound to change especially, if we are prepared to give some sustained training to these new entrants into Indian political system.  One can visualise some fundamental impact of this on our political system which would in a way regenerate the parliamentary system of democracy which is in a pitiable state today and it might introduce new life, a certain freshness, to the upper layers of the system also. 

Because unlike before, there would be inevitably a flow of leadership from the grass root levels to the higher levels and also considerable fresh blood is likely to come into it.  The consciousness of the average Indian, may be the illiterate Indian, about their political rights maybe unevenly expressed in different parts of India, but it is something to be believed.  As one who participated in three elections, I can say, I was surprised beyond measure about the awareness of the Indian voter, about their shrewdeness, about their common sense and ....so on....  I also heard from an MP from Lok Sabha. 

He once narrated that he got a telephone call from a lady somewhere in Punjab and she complained that somebody is dumping garbage in front of her house.  Will he have it removed?  He said this is a small affair.  Why don't you telephone the sanitary inspector and tell him to have it removed.  So pat came the reply, "Oh I thought it is a small thing so I should not go that high up". And the MP had to try and remove the garbage from the front of her house.  I think this is not an isolated example.  This kind of awareness is a common experience of people in politics.  Whether they respond to it properly or not is a different matter but this is adding up pressure from below which will bound to be irresistable.

I would like to point out one aspect from the Gandhian thought and methods on our democracy.  You read everyday though people fasting for something or the other.  Even inside Parliament and outside Parliament they sit and do dharna and all kinds of non‑violent strikes in universities, in government establishments and everywhere.  This is the introduction of a Gandhian technique which has been introduced.  Dr.  Ambedkar told us in the Constituent Assembly, we should discard these unconstitutional methods from now on.  But I think these unconstitutional methods have added a new dimension and certain new techniques to democratic functioning in India.  These fasts and dharnas are conducted by people very often who have the slightest sympathy with the Gandhian thought.  But still they somehow work. 

Because there are situations which could not corrected, which the authority is not willing to correct, respond to it and for which there is no violent solution and people resort to this non‑violent method, whether it is for environmental purposes, larger or smaller purposes, it is widely used in India.  I think this has become a relief mechanism on our body politics.  It has given us a new technique not in the traditional armoury of democratic behaviour, but peaceful, and this has avoided many conflict situations, violent situations and to that extent it has helped in fact in the functioning of Indian democracy.

I should like to say onething more about Gandhian contribution.  This is about his world impact.  I believe that Indian democracy has got a certain moral dimension because of Gandhian thought.  I should say something like what Christianity gave to European democracy.  The Gandhian thought had introduced a moral dimension, may be very vague, but still moral and effective to the functioning of Indian democracy.  Its impact on the rest of the world has not yet been recognised by people because non‑violence is a dangerous thing. People do not like it.  After all Gandhi did not get a Nobel Peace Prize. 

He would never get it because it is a dangerous method.  It cut at the root of the violent approach which is there in European democracy.  The ultimate coercive force of violence is enshrined in the European concept of democracy. But in the world well I can, we can talk about South Africa, may not be very fully accepted but the influence of Gandhi in South African struggle is distinctly present.  His influence in the evolution of American democracy to the present stage is a fact.  Its influence in Eastern Europe is a fact.  For example, I can quote what Vaclav Havel told after all the sensational developments in Eastern Europe.  He said that the rationale of and traditional non‑violence can be found in the history of democratic oppositions in East Central Europe throughout in 1980s.He said partly it was pragmatic because other side had all the power and therefore there was no way of doing violent opposition.  They had to adopt it. 

It was exactly the same to India when Gandhiji started the movement.  But it was also ethical.  has said  more or less the same thing about his solidarity movement.  About the democracy movement in China, it has been written about by Chinese scholars outside China saying that it was a kind of non‑violent civil disobedience movement.  Even in Burma, Aung San Suu Kyi's experience, the Nobel Prize citation says how she applied the method of non‑violent struggle to the struggle for democracy in Burma. 

So when you go around the world, you find the Gandhian method being increasingly used in different parts of the world. They have not been systematically used, they have not been theorised by political scientists.  But still it is there.  It is resorted to by people. In Thailand in 1992 there was non‑violent movement.  It was a short lived movement asking for more democratic and accountable government and this was a fasting by a leader which has led to the overthrow of the government there at that time. 

The same thing happened in 1994.  These are isolated experiences. But people all the world over are resorting to this method when they are not able to resort to violence successfully and when they have to resist the system existing there.  Well I am saying this because I would like to point out that with all the corruptions, all the distortions, with all the shortcomings of our democratic experience in India, there is a depth in it, which will make it survive, which has given it a new and distinctive character.  May be we have to bring so many things to rid the system of corruption, of new electoral methods and may be some amendments of the constitution. 

Anyting you can talk about are to my mind corrective methods corrective things we have to do to our democratic system but essentially this is a sound system with very deep roots which has taken lot from the West, a lot from socialist thought and lot from our own traditional experience.  Here I would like one more thing to say, I am here again, going back to Gandhi. Because Gandhi has provided something more to the parliamentary system.  He has said I would like quote him, "If the methods do not become industrious and wise, they will be so many pawns in the hands of thousand five hundred players.  He was talking to the elected Members of Parliament.  It is of little consequence whether they are congressmen or otherwise.  If the voters wake up only to register their vote every three years or more and then go to sleep their servants will become their masters." He has wanted the involvement and the participation of the people in the political and social process and this is what is very gradually, reluctantly but inevitably happening, the involvement and the participation of the people in the political and social progress.  Well it was not a merely Gandhian thing. 

I should say that today democracy is judged by its results.  Democracy and development, Democracy and growth is a subject must talked about.  Will democracy contribute to growth, economic development or will it slow it down?  Writers say that of 74 countries in the world which are democratic are all developed economies or have a higher income and 72 countries which are poor are all without democracy.  So there is a correlation which is established between economic development and democracy.  But in fact 1820 to 1920 has been described by Samuel Huntingdon as a first period of glorious democracy in Europe.  We might ask how much developed was Europe at that time.  In 1930_______ when wrote the famous 'Democracy in America" how developed was the United States.  What was the extent of urbanisation in United States which theorists says is an important element in democracy today.  Therefore, there is a connection, of course, there may be reasonable and vital connection but to say that this economic growth is the test of democracy, is I do not think, completely acceptable.

The Indian concept of democracy, I would like to sum up by reading something by Jawaharlal Nehru who has combined in his approach the Gandhian system and the modern way of thinking.  Rather a longish quotation but I might end by reading it.  "Democracy apart from its institutions, is a way of Government and life itself I firmly believe that it is a better way than a dictatorship or authoritarianism.  In the long run, dictatorship must, I think, rather stunt the growth of the country.  There are critical advantages which are obvious and the outward speed of progress appears to be fast.  But it is very doubtful if the essential equality which underlies human progress that is the creative spirit of man can develop adequately under an authoritian system.  To some extent of course such authoritian systems as a economic equality as their goal are initially liberating forces and release tremendous popular energy.  That is a great advantage.  But if dictatorship continues the creative spirit may gradually fade away. 

Democracy is supposed to nurture this creative spirit but if it cannot bring about a release from poverty of large masses of human beings then the creative spirit can function only in a few.  Poverty is after all more restrictive and limiting than anything else. (This is often forgotten that poverty is a restriction on freedom.) If poverty and low standards continue then democracy for all its fine institutions and ideas ceases to be a liberating force.  It must therefore aim continuously at the eradication of poverty and its companion unemployment.  In other words, political democracy is not enough. 

It must develop into economic democracy also.  The problem before India is to bring about development as rapidly as possible.  In the ultimate analysis the world will not be governed by theories but by actual results achieved.  If India succeeds in achieving these results under a system of political democracy that indeed would be a great victory, not only for India but for democracy." This is our attempt.  This is a way in which Indian democracy has been developing and this is a way it has come to a successful conclusion.

On LSE centenary occasion, I think it is appropriate to talk about democracy because LSE was founded a as a socialist institutions.  But socialism I think, is only an extension of democracy putting an additional content into it.  LSE has been one of the institutions which fashioned the modern concept of democracy and tried in its way to reconcile the old liberal ideas of democracy with the socialist ideas of economic democracy. 

Thank you.