Rajiv Gandhi: We have distanced ourselves from the masses     

When I started my political work, it was only with the motive of being by the side of my mother. She bore with stoic fortitude the irreparable loss of a son who had been a tower of strength. She gave me no directions, no formula e, no prescriptions. She just said, “Understand the real India, its people, its problems.” So, I plunged into work. Millions of faces in varying moods of joy and sorrow, of eager expectation, of triumph and defeat filled my being, till they merged into the face of mother India, proud, defiant, confident but also full of sad perplexity. Always, the unspoken question haunting her face: Whither India?

I was exhilarated by what had been achieved in the short period since Independence. I was also saddened by what might have been but was not, because of weaknesses in government and in the party. I kept my counsel to my-self, as I was an apprentice in the great school of politics.

After two years of incessant travelling, meeting people, reading and reflection, I felt I could go to her with my perceptions. Listening to me, she thought I had gained some understanding of the complexities of our society. And then she began to unburden herself.

She spoke of India’s enduring strength and of her hopes for India, but also of her apprehensions and anxieties. She analysed with clinical precision how the entire system had been weakened from within, how the party had once again been infiltrated by vested interests who would not allow us to move, how patronage and graft had affected the national institutional framework, how nationalism and patriotism had ebbed, how the pettiness and selfishness of persons in political positions had ruptured social fabric. She was clear that if India had to keep her ‘tryst with destiny,’ so much had to change. And then, suddenly, she left us.

Democracy is our strength. In 1984, the people of India gave out party its largest ever majority. Their eloquent verdict strengthened then unity and integrity of India. A nation sorrowing over its beloved leader drew from its vast reserves of strength to protect the inheritance of its glorious freedom struggle.

We applied the lessons of the 1984 elections to the complex and difficult problems in Punjab and Assam. Our basic concern was to end any sense of alienation in the larger interests of national unity.

We carried forward the process to reach understanding and harmony, to dispel mistrust and suspicion, and to seek the people’s mandate for progress through brotherhood. We had no narrow partisan considerations in view. The situation demanded that we rise above mere expediency. The Congress, with its century-old tradition of nationalism, put India first.We have no illusions that all problems have been resolved. But the democratic way of nation building requires patience, perseverance and a spirit of conciliation.

We celebrate the unity of India. But is it not also a fact that most of us, in our daily lives, do not think of ourselves as Indians? We see ourselves as Hindus, Muslims or Christians, or Malyalees, Maharashtrians, Bengalis. Worse, we think of ourselves as Brahmins, Thakurs, Jats, Yadavas and so on and so forth. And we shed blood to uphold our narrow and selfish denominations.

We are imprisoned by the narrow, domestic walls of religion, language, caste, and region, blocking out the clear view of a resurgent nation.

Political parties, State Governments and social organisations promote policies, programmes and ideologies which divide brother from brother and sister from sister. Bonds of fraternity and solidarity yield to the onslaughts of meanness of mind and spirit. Is this the India for which Mahatma Gandhi and Indira Gandhi sacrificed their lives?

Turn to the great institutions of our country and you will see that too often, behind, their imposing facades, the spirit and substance lack vitality. The work they do sometimes seem strangely irrelevant to the primary concerns of the masses.

Attempts are made to taint the electoral process at its very source. Issues of crucial national importance are frequently subordinated to individual sectional and regional interests.

Our legislatures do not set standards for other groups to follow; they magnify manifold the conspicuous lack of a social ethic. A convenient conscience compels individuals to meander from ideology to ideology, seeking power, influence and riches. Political parties twist their tenets, enticed by opportunism. The best lack all conviction and the worst are full of passionate intensity.

Our economy owes much to the enterprise of our industrialists. But there are some reputed business and industrial establishments which shelter battalions of law-breakers and tax evaders. We have industrialists untouched by the thrusting spirit of the great risk-takers and innovators. The trader’s instinct for quick profits prevails. They flourish on sick industries.

The traders have a glorious heritage of nationalism and of socially relevant radicalism. Today, they are a mere shadow of their past. They now protect the few who have, oblivious of millions who have not. They feel little concern of the creation of national wealth, only for a larger and larger share in it.

Nothing is considered illegitimate if one marches under the right flag. Power without responsibility, rights without duties have come to be their prerogative.

Will productivity arise from such stony soil? Let us not forget that the poor and the unemployed have to sacrifice their development programmes to subsidise inefficient industry.

In the field of education, the nation has much to be proud of. Access to education has been widened immeasurably. Indian scholars are in the front rank of creative endeavour in the best institutions across the world. But the schools, the universities and the academies of the Republic, which should fill our minds with hope for tomorrow, cause us great concern.

Teachers seldom teach, and students seldom learn. Strikes, mass copying, agitations are more attractive alternatives. Where there should be experiment and innovation, there is obeisance to dead ritual and custom, smothering creativity and quest for knowledge and truth.

Where there should be independence and integrity, there is the heavy hand of politics, caste and corruption. Where there should be a new integration between modern science and our heritage, there is a dull repetition of lifeless formulate.

And what of the iron frame of the system, the administrative and the technical services, the police and the myriad functionaries of the State? They have done so much and can do so much more, but as the proverb says there can be no protection if the fence starts eating the crop.

We have Government servants who do not serve but oppress the poor and the helpless, police who do not uphold the law but shield the guilty, tax collectors who do not collect taxes but connive with those who cheat the State and whole legions whose only concern is their private welfare at the cost of society. They have no work, ethic, no feeling for the public cause, no involvement in the future of the nation, no comprehension of national goals, no commitment to the values of modern India. They have only a grasping, mercenary outlook, devoid of competence, integrity and commitment.

How have we come to this pass?

We have looked at others. Now let us look at ourselves. What has become of our great organisation? Instead of a party that fired the imagination of the masses throughout the length and breadth of India, we have shrunk, losing touch with the toiling millions.

It is not a question of victories and defeats in elections. For a democratic party, victories and defeats are part of its continuing political existence. But what matters is whether or not we work among the masses, whether or not we are in tune with their struggles, their hopes and aspirations.

We are a party of social transformation, but in our preoccupation with governance we are drifting away from the people. Thereby, we have weakened ourselves and fallen prey to the ills that the loss of invigorating mass contact brings.

Millions of ordinary Congress workers throughout the country are full of enthusiasm for the Congress policies and programmes. But they are handicapped, for on their backs ride the brokers of power and influence, who dispense patronage to convert a mass movement into a feudal oligarchy. They are self-perpetuating cliques who thrive by invoking the slogans of caste and religion and by enmeshing the living body of the Congress in their net of avarice.

For such persons, the masses do not count. Their life style, their thinking - of lack of it, their self-aggrandisement, their corrupt ways, their linkages with the vested interests in society, and their sanctimonious posturing are wholly incompatible with work among the people. They are reducing the Congress organisation to a shell from which the spirit of service and sacrifice has been emptied.

As we have distanced ourselves from the masses, basic issues of national unity and integrity, social change and economic development recede into the background. Instead, phoney issues, shrouded in medieval obscurantism, occupy the centre of the stage.

Our Congress workers, who faced the bullets of British imperialism, run for shelter at the slightest manifestation of caste and communal tension. Is this the path that Gandhiji, Panditji and Indiraji showed to a secular, democratic India?

We talk of the high principles and lofty ideals needed to build a strong and prosperous India. But we obey no discipline, no rule, follow no principle of public weal. Corruption is not only tolerated but even regarded as the hallmark of leadership. Flagrant contradiction between what we say and what we do has become our way of life. At every step, our aims and actions conflict. At every stage, our private self crushes our social commitment. Our ideology of nationalism, secularism, democracy and socialism is the only relevant ideology for our great country. But we are forgetting that we must take it to the masses, interpret its content in changing circumstances, and defend it against the attacks of our opponents.

Mahatma Gandhi visualised the Congress as a fighting machine. Time and again we have demonstrated our fighting qualities - in the great non-cooperation movements of the twenties and thirties, in the Quit India movement of 1942, in the fifties and sixties when we carried the message of socialism to every door, in 1969-71 when the vested interests had to be fought in Parliament, in the courts and in the streets and in 1977-79 when persecution and calumny were answered by thousands of brave satyagrahis throughout the country. This is our tradition.

We have to revive this tradition to fight for the poor and the oppressed. Only by doing so shall we gain the strength to create the India of our dreams.

The revitalisation of our organisation is a historical necessity. At this critical juncture, there is no other political party capable of defending the unity and integrity of the country. There is no other party capable of taking the country forward to progress and prosperity. All other parties are shot through with internal contradictions. The sorry, un-edifying spectacle of their total incapacity, corruption, nepotism, hypocrisy has disfigured our political landscape.

They have shown a cynical disregard for sensitive issues of national security. Some have not hesitated even to collude with anti-national elements. Their ideological roots are shallow, their political outlook circumscribed by region, caste and religion. Whatever they have come to power, they have retarded social and economic progress. They have no sense of history. Those who campaign for a weak Centre, campaign against the unity and integrity of India. Their slogans of welfare are spurious because true welfare comes from growth, which they have been busy destroying. It is the responsibility of the Congress to ensure that India is not left to the mercy of such forces.

The country needs a politics of service to the poor. The country needs a politics based on ideology and programmes. To bring this about, we must break the nexus between political parties and vested interests.

The power to shape their own lives must lie with the people, not with bureaucrats and experts. Experts must help the people. Vibrant village panchayats must discuss, deliberate and decide the choices to be made. This is a challenge to the Congress cadres.

Our lifestyles must change. Vulgar, conspicuous consumption must go. Simplicity, efficiency and commitment to national goals hold the key to self-reliance. The Congress Ministers, Members of Parliament, Members of State Assemblies, party functionaries and leaders at all levels must set the example. Millions of people will follow them. Austerity and swadeshi will galvanise the masses to grow more, to produce more and to serve more.

Above all, we need to create a mass movement for strengthening India’s unity and integrity, for deepening our Indianness. The Congress, which won freedom for India, the Congress, which has brought India to the threshold of greatness, is pre-eminently the party of India’s resurgent nationalism. Our nationalism is based on our rich diversity of cultures, languages and religions. The Congress represents the multi-faceted splendour of India.

Today, communal, casteist and regional forces, sustained by external elements, are undermining our unity.

Friends, a century of achievement ends. A century of endeavour beckons to us. Our resplendent civilisation, with unbroken continuity from the third millennium BC looks ahead to peaks of excellence in the third millennium AD.

It falls to us to work for India’s greatness. A great country is not one, which merely has a great past. Out of that past must arise, a glorious future.

To this cause, I pledge myself

Let us build an India:

• Proud of her Independence;
• Powerful in defence of her freedom;
• Strong, self-reliant in agriculture, industry and front-rank technology
• United by bonds transcending barriers of caste, creed and religion;
• Liberated from the bondage of poverty, and of social and economic inequality; An India
• Disciplined and efficient;
• Fortified by ethical and spiritual values;
• A fearless force for peace on earth;
• The School of the world, blending the inner repose of the spirit, with material progress;
• A new civilisation, with the strength of our heritage, the creativity of the spring time of youth and the unconquerable spirit of our people.

Great achievements demand great sacrifices. Sacrifices not only from our generation and generations gone by, but also from generations to come.

Civilisations are not built by just one or two generations. Civilisations are built by the ceaseless toil of a succession of generations. With softness and sloth, civilisations succumb. Let us beware of decadence.

We must commit ourselves to the demanding task of making India a mighty power in the world, with all the strength and the compassion of her great culture.

To this cause, I pledge myself.

JAI HIND.

Edited excerpts from Rajiv Gandhi’s speech at the special AICC session on December 28, 1985 in Bombay