( This article was written after the December 1971 war for Haldia Refinery News, our company's house journal. it is now being posted on my blog )
With the victory of Bangladesh, we in India, too have witnessed the dawn of a national resurgence. Political stability, the firm establishment of democracy and a balancing phenomenon after the turbulence of the past five years, have buoyed up our spirits. As a nation, we have now come to the doorstep of self-reliance. We have our own place - and a fairly important one in the region. More and better things are bound to follow.
Democracy does not merely mean free and fair elections. Democracy also means opportunity for each and everyone and a system of checks and balances that does not allow any single section of the people, a permanent dominance over others. In a nation, there are not merely regional or communal groups. There are others such as the peasantry, the working class, the white collar workers, the bureaucracy, the military, the press, the trading class, the industrialists, the politicians, the professionals such as doctors, lawyers etc,, the intelligencia such as the educationists, the the artists, the authors, the students and so on. Each of these groups has its own interests and its own lobby. A mature democracy is one in which all these groups are evenly balanced and tend to speak with one voice and act in concert , when the overall national interests are involved, however divided, they may be or may appear to be, otherwise.
Thanks to the far sighted leadership of the early years, we have today most of the ingredients of a stable and mature democratic nation. The early years saw first the politicians' dominance as opposed to that of the bureaucracy. the neglect of the military was corrected after the Chinese invasion. The exploitation of the peasants by the landlord class was sought to be corrected by the enaction of land reform laws and of the working class by the labour laws. The press became bolder, the intelligencia free to think, the artists free to create and the professionals free to practise.
It is in the nature of things that repressed sections of society, when given the opportunity, would act more strongly than is warranted, just as a loaded spring on release, jumps up. The past five years' turbulence was a fairly good symptom of this phenomenon. The very fact that such a turbulence could occur is a sign of freedom and democracy. It is however in achieving a balance after such a turbulence that a nation shows its mettle as a matured nation.
We are now in the process of acheving that balance. We have, however, a long way to go. We have to raise the standard of living of the people, a thing more easily said than done. Equitable distrubution of the nation's wealth is a must. But the wealth has to be created first. National wealth does not mean gold or silver or currency notes. It means more production of goods and services - food, clothing, housing, the necessities, the comforts and eventhe luxuries.
If we want to create national wealth, productivity is of the utmost importance, economical production, an imperative. Side by side equitable distribution of the wealth being created, must go on, for, without equitable distribution, creation of wealth itself is impeded beyond a certain stage. On the other hand, distribution before adequate creation of wealth also stops further generation of wealth.
Just as exploitation of the labour by the employers must be prevented, the exploitation of the rest of the nation by the labour must be resisted, Labour, partiocularly, the urban labour, forms only one section of the nation as a whole and a minority section at that. They are, in fact, much better placed as compared to the the vast number of peasants, not to speak of the landless agricultural workers. The nation can not be held to ransom by any of the sections that make it, labour included. Productivity must be increased and only the economic gains of incresed productivity shared. The effort in the days after independence was to rouse the depressed sections of the societyy towards their rights. Now that this has been done, it is time to make them aware of their responsibilities as well.
There is now more important than ever, the need to restore the confidence of the masses in the "establishment". There is at present, a crisis of confidence. By our words and deeds, we have to restore the confidence. For this, first of all, it is necessary to do what we actually say, we shall do and to promise only that , which we are capable of doing. This sounds very simple but for a people with a long tradition of hypocrisy, it is not so easy to acheve. We have, however, got to achieve it. Now or never.
Secondly, we have to get rid of the evils bureaucracy, bossism and subjectivity. The people have a feeling that when one approaches a bureaucrat, one has to keep on giving endless petitions, bend on one's knees as a supplicant and perhaps grease a few palms before one can obtain, even the smallest of one's rights as a taxpayer. Let us not get into the question of the extent to which, this feeling is correct. Let us not, however, deal with the public in a bureaucratic manner, in however small a sphere i n which we deal with the public. We should not forget that they are our paying customers.
Next comes bossism. This is an evil that is one of the worst characteristics of the of the bygone feudal and princely era. It unfortunately persists. A strong man builds up a coterie of people around himm, most of them, self-seekers or the timid who bask in the security afforded by the despotic boss. This coterie has only to sing the praises of the boss and attend his basic and even petty interestss. In return, they are allowed to serve their own interests. For the boss, there is no reason, no logic. His only reason is, "Because I say so". The I is always in the capital.
For a leader in any walk of life, power is essential if he is to carry out the aims for which he stands. With him, power is a means. With the typical 'boss' however, power is a nend. He takes pride in his 'decisiveness'. This decisiveness is however based on steamrollering of any oppositionto his views. Bossism is the very negation of democracy and it must be rooted out not only in politics in all walks of life. Let us not permit bossism any more anywhere.
Subjectivity is another evil of the emotionally immature people. They tend to judge everything by their own standards. They simply can not imagine that some people could be unlike themselves or that certain situations can be tackled in ways other than what they are used to. If we are to go ahead, objectivity as taught by the Gita, is a must.
In this phenomenon of national resurgence, we have a definite role to play. The elimonation of the evils mentioned above, in our own sphere and a responsible democratic behaviour would be our contribution to the national resurgence.
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