A workman who quarrels with his tools is a bad workman. Amendments to the chapter on Fundamental Rights in the Constitution are an insult to the intelligence of those who framed the Constitution, besides being a demonstration of the incapacity of the Government to govern. Before going into this matter, let me make a Swatantra affirmation so that the ground may be cleared.
The Swatantra Party and the Swatantra movement have often been classified by foreign observers as ‘conservative’. Swatantra does want the State to conserve what is good in anything before proceeding to reform it. It can be called conservative for that reason. But the word ‘conservative’ has been put to such various uses that it has become quite a misleading appellation. The Swatantra Party wants the fundamental rights guaranteed in the Constitution of 1950 restored and preserved intact.
What Swatantra stands for, as its name implies, is the ‘restoration of the citizen’s freedom of action not inconsistent with the general welfare, and therefore it wants the removal of the barbed-wire entanglements known as the permit-licence-quota raj, which sits heavily over all national production and trade. This was conceived with the intention of preventing chaotic development and illegal exploitation; but in fact it has impeded development and actually promotes exploitation. What appears as progress has been achieved in spite of the incubus, and not on account of the regimentation. Swatantra wants this permit-licence-quota entanglement removed. It wants the constitutional guarantees of fundamental rights fully restored.
Swatantra wants less government and more freedom. At no time in the history of India did Government press so heavily on the minds of the people at all levels as now. And this pressure is an incubus, not a contributor of health or strength to the individuals who, after all, compose the nation, and whose health and strength make up the nation’s health and strength.
Protecting workers
Let it be clearly remembered that Swatantra wants everything to be done to give full security to tenants and every opportunity for the welfare of workers, rural and industrial. Swatantra wants urban and rural workers to be well protected against any tyranny on the part of those who furnish capital and manage production and distribution. It holds at the same time that sound management and capital are necessary both for the production of goods and for the welfare of all those engaged in that production.
Swatantra opposes State regimentation and State interventionism for any purposes other than such protection and such welfare as aforesaid; Swatantra is opposed to interventionism to prevent free competition, and is opposed to every policy that tends to frighten capital out of its function. We cannot produce without capital, and we should not levy taxes to obtain capital but furnish incentives for savings voluntarily to become capital. It is only this that distinguishes progress and prosperity under freedom from a mere appearance of prosperity.
Dresed-up statism
Swatantra wants the Congress to realize the complicated nature of our large country. Agricultural practices and the structure of the agricultural apparatus vary from region to region. Steam-roller ‘reforms’ designed by people ignorant of conditions and by persons scheming to develop popular prejudices and exploit ignorance for party purposes, have caused widespread uncertainty and damaged production. Swatantra wants land reforms to be based on informed leadership, to be executed without attempting to extinguish the fundamental freedoms guaranteed in the Constitution. Swatantra is opposed to statism dressed up in attractive garments.
The authors of the Constitution desired all the tenancy reforms and all the protection for workers that Congress policies now seek to achieve, but they were convinced that they could all be achieved without withdrawing any of the fundamental rights they wrote down as inviolable in Part III of the Constitution. The Directive Principles formulated in Part IV of the Constitution were framed for the purpose of achieving general welfare, without subtracting from the principles of the free way of life guaranteed in the earlier chapter, viz., Part III of the Constitution.
It was taken for granted that there was no contradiction between these two chapters of the Constitution and that the two parts can stand together, and the nation can march to progress without asking the people to accept the economy or the way of life of communist countries. It is an insult to the intelligence of the Fathers of the Constitution to presume that there is any contradiction between the principles underlying one part of it and those formulated in another.
Communist conception of progress
The Swatantra Party and Swatantra movement cannot be equated with the conservatives or the liberals or any other party in UK or US. It would be best to call it a ‘Constitutionalist Party’ if Swatantra is not enough of a name.
The ruling Congress Party’s conceptions are bodily lifted from communist conceptions of the short and coercive way to progress and prosperity. The original of this copy has failed, as we are able to see in the present plight of those countries which adopted the communist economy. The communist conception was based on coercion and does not provide an adequate substitute for the functions performed by competition and self-interest in the free way of life. Any system working against human nature is bound to fail, even if it began with a deceptive promise at the outset as a result of brutal compulsion.
Some human activities can be kept up at a good pitch through pure idealism—art or science, for example. But the hundreds of humble and difficult jobs like rice-growing or brick and mortar work, or fruit-gardening or weaving call for the satisfaction of the urge to earn and save and keep something for oneself; further, this must be adequate in relation to the work and drudgery involved. The desire to have property is rooted in human nature, and civilization itself is rooted in it.
In a free economy, zeal and enthusiasm are automatically guaranteed: whoever is not owner today hopes to become an owner tomorrow. In the socialist world, the only proprietor is the State; therefore, neglect and apathy become the national climate where coercion is evaded or removed. This cannot be counteracted by the wasteful proliferation and enlargement of the bureaucracy.
The Swatantra Party thus opposes the ruling Congress Party’s Statist policies based on a repudiation of the fundamental principles of the Constitution and the freedoms guaranteed therein. To those who are in the Swatantra movement and who feel abashed at the power which the ruling party has secured by being in office and acquiring control over the economy, I say, let us do what we should do and not be concerned about results; let us not yield to the temptation of non-doing and become apathetic.
Let us have faith in the national mantra, Satyameva Jayate, and carry on our work, not looking for results.
This essay is part of a series from the Indian Liberals archive, a project of the Centre for Civil Society. It is taken from the Delhi Letter section of the Indian Libertarian magazine, with the original title, ‘Workman Quarrels With His Tools’, published on 15 December 1963. The original version can be accessed here.