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FROM RAJ TO SWARAJ Or. Ohlren.dro Nath Sers By the Same Author : Whither India ? The Problem of Minorities. Revolution by Consent ? The Paradox of Freedom. Bharater Naya Rastra. FROM RAJ TO SWARAJ By Dhirendranath Sen, M.A., Ph.D. LECTURER in Constitutional and Administrative Law. Public Administration and journalism, University College of Arts, Calcutta; EX-EDITOR, Hindusthan Standard and Advance; and lately, MEMBER, Editorial Board, Amritabazar Patrika. UNIVERSITY OF CALCUTTA 2005 First Published in June, 1954 by K. P. Mukherjee, Vidyodaya Library 8, Shyamacharan Dey Street, Calcutta-I 2. Price : Rs. 250/- only (Rupees Two hundred fifty only) © University of Calcutta Published by the Registrar, University of Calcuua, 87/1, College Street, Kolkata-700073 And Printed by Sri Pradip Kumar Ghosh Superintendent, Calcutta University Press 48, Hazra Road, Kolkata - 700 019 PREFACE It has been my experience during the last two decades or more as a University teacher no less than as a newspaper editor that far too often political theory and political practice are in conflict At any rate, one does not always conform to the other. This curious, if rather interesting and instructive, phenomenon is observed in this country and outside, in learned dissertations by scholars and thinkers and in the news and views of periodical journals. The result is that we have a double standard of values. We have, that is, practitioners of the cult of organised coercion, who solemnly talk about Christian forbearance and Gandhian ahimsa; petty tyrants clothed in brief little authority, who glibly preach democratic ideals; beneficiaries of monopoly capital and unearned profits, who loudly profess faith in social freedoms and Welfare States. Thus a sort of what I call double-entry book-keeping is encouraged and maintained in the body politic. They have, for instance, in Britain a Cabinet unknown to the law except for incidental statutory references since 193 7, but very much alive and kicking in Whitehall and Westminster; a gracious Protestant Christian Majesty, the doughty Defender of the Faith, who reigns and does not rule but presides over a secular Commonwealth and Empire; a free, popular press which, of course, is free in the exercise of private ownership but which nevertheless is not amenable to popular control. We in this country have managed to talk the Briton out of his meddling in our internal affairs while retaining the dubious technique of his partnership ledger-keeping. To replenish our national credit balance we have also drawn liberally upon the sacred political scripture. of the western democracies, ancient and modem, although we proclaim from the housetops our adherence to the ends and purposes of what Gandhiji was pleased to call Ram Rajya. In our romantic adventures we plan for plenty and progress while listening intently to the monotonous music of the spinning wheel. I need not multiply instances. The fact is that society is in conflict with itself, that our ( VIII ) dharma tends to create a gulf between precept and practice. The productive relations and the ideological superstructure based thereon stand in the way of the full and unfettered operation of the forces of production. All this explains why our life is much more vivid and responsive than our political or social literature, yes, much more vivid and responsive if only because amid hunger and squalor and misery it pursues its battle for light and liberation unceasingly. Wise men in the splendid isolation of the "ivory tower" remind us of ancient saws bereft of modern instances; weary men, on the contrary, by their toil and tears, give us modem instances and, in the process, expose the profound emptiness of the ancient saws. The former evolve theory for theory's sake, whereas the latter build it upon the hard, bitter and variegated experiences of life. The book presented in these pages is an attempt to focuss public attention not only on the ancient saws but also on their inconsistency with, if not repugnancy to, the grim, sombre realities. It is an attempt further to examine why those contradictions between life and literature occur and how theories come to be propounded without reference to the facts and circumstances of organised social life. I have ventured, in my own humble way, to offer criticisms on what are regarded as classical theories on the State, its origin, sovereignty, independence, federalism and Parliamentary government set against its Presidential counterpart The rule of law as interpreted by some well-known English authors and judges; the idea or concept of Fundamental Rights as incorporated in certain written constitutions; the role of the judiciary as an instrument of adjudication on disputes between the State and the individuals, between the individuals inter se or between the different organs of the State; the expanding invasion of the judicial forum by persons or bodies other than regular courts of law; the constitutional conventions as distinguished from the positive rules-these and similar other questions have been exhaustively dealt with against the background of new social phenomena and the crisis of our time. The book contains a comparative study of the political (IX) norms that have emerged from age to age and from country to country, and of the governmental structures which rest on those nonns in different countries, including India, Britain, the USA and the USSR. A critical historical perspective is maintained throughout. Naturally, the Indian political system is discussed in greater detail than any other system. I have tried, as far as possible, to discard the orthodox method of treatment adopted generally by the text-book writers, Indian and foreign, and the familiar patterns of social or political postulates. Abstruse metaphysical speculations, it has been shown, are no better than idealistic chatter devoid of material content, or else they are illusions created, nursed and fostered by minds that can hardly adjust them-selves to the fast moving scenes of the crowded but fascinating drama of life. In either case, these speculations are a kind of stately retreat from the shocks of the external world, a search for comfort and contentment in the invisible or the unknown. For a time, maybe short or long, these not only sustain the ruling power but serve to influence the psychology of the masses as well. But they are eventually exploded by the dynamics of history. The book offers a new approach to certain problems which have confronted mankind since the beginning of history and which, in their evergrowing ramifications and complexities, constitute today a challenge to civilisation otherwise described as the art of life. Civilisation is at once the product of the conflict of interests and classes and an urgent call for fresh endeavours in the harnessing of the inexhaustible resources of a bounteous nature to the wider and more intensive use of man. A thinker, as has been so aptly said by a distinguished Soviet writer, is not a "photographic plate" which records only the present To put it in a different way, he is not a photographer, who clicks his camera and imprints on the sensitised film the image of an American Senator engaged in anti-Communist witch-hunting; a devout Indian hermit in meditation on the imponderables of this mysterious universe; or a British statesman gallantly defending the pedlars of the dollar democracy. A real_ thinker does not merely contemplate passively the phenomena· that · meet his eyes and register ( X) mechanically anything that occurs. His is an active, creative and sympathetic attitude towards the world around him, to the inner essence of the phenomena, and to the aspirations and urges, the passions and impulses of the broad masses of humanity. Without truth, however, there can be no useful, far less, great literature, social, political or other. And truth is fidelity to life, to the life's experiences and struggles. Man reacts to his environment and is, to a large extent, fashioned by it physically, intellectually and emotionally. Nor is environment a static or constant quantity; it yields, in its tum, to man's warm and lively contact. It follows that it is far more difficult to write books of enduring value in a society in a continuous state of flux like that in our generation than in an atmosphere, say, of the leisurely gradeur which marked the nineteenth century western social order. Moreover it is a commonplace of recorded history that institutions, beliefs and theories tend to lag behind actual practice. That, however, is no reason why an alert and receptive mind should live in the past and enunciate theories which have no relation to social reality. The title of the book seems to require elucidation. It does not simply mean the hsitory of gradual evolution of British rule in this country culminating in the transfer of power in 1947 to the Indian National Congress and the All-India Muslim League in the two sectors of divided India, although there is reference to that history throughout the body of the text. It does not merely tell the story of the transition of the organised political power within a given territory from the hands of a hereditary monarch to a popularly elected Board replaceable by a democratic vote, although this aspect of social evolution is not ignored or disregarded. It seeks to convey a wider and more comprehensive idea of different patterns of political or social behaviour created or produced from epoch to epoch by the dynamics of the mode of production and of the theories that emerge therefran Theories are examined against the background of history. They are tested with reference to the social categories which are unfolded by what I call the dialectical imperative. Raj, I contend, does not necessarily (XI) mean the British monarchy or, for that matter, any monarchy at all. It includes a type of social organisation which has come to be known as State. Swaraj, again, is no synonym for political independence. It implies those phases of social evolution in which the people themselves come to shape, manage and control their own affirs, and may include communism. I do not pretend to claim that this book is an adequate work, but I should consider my labours amply rewarded if it would succeed in exciting in the minds of the public generally and of the student community in particular a critical but sympathetic interest in the problems I have commended to their earnest consideration. Among those to whom thanks are due for the assistance and help they have ungrudgingly given me in the preparation of this work mention must specially be made of Sri Basuda Chakravarti, M A.; Professor Sushi) K. Sen, M A., of City College; Sri Saroj K. Dutt, M.A.; Sri Monomohan Mukherjee, B.A.; Sri Narayan Ghosh, B.A.; and the conductors and workers of the Jnanodaya Press. Calcutta, Senate House, Dhirendranath Sen April 21, 1954