In our public life today, we find that any group that feels
aggrieved and wants the government to remove the cause of its grievances,
resorts to destruction of public property as well as violence to public life by
attempting to paralyse it. The idea, that more such disruption and destruction
is wrought in support of an agitation, the more will be its efficacy to achieve
the desired ends has now become a dictum and a formula for agitators of all
categories.
Curiously enough, the above formula has never failed the agitators,
so far, during the last over twenty five years of our independence. In recent
history, the willful destruction of public property to ventilate one’s demands
and to pressurise the government into yielding to them, was resorted to by our
people, perhaps for the first time, during the Quit India Movement of 1942. But
as the country was then under foreign rule, that measure could be justified by
treating it as only a variant of what has been known as the ‘ scorched earth ’
policy of destroying one’s own national wealth, such as standing crops,
bridges, water-reservoirs and other means of sustenance and supply to deny
their use to the invading enemy forces. But its use as a political weapon by
various groups of people, to coerce one’s own government, as is widely
prevalent in India today, is totally un-understandable and extremely
unfortunate.
How to account for this suicidal technique presently adopted by
all political parties as well as other organised groups such as trade unions
and student’s fronts in the country ? The following may be the only two valid
reasons. Firstly, many people seem to be unaware of the amount of national
wealth we are losing by every such orgy of violence and disruption and of the
total damage caused to us on account of the destruction of our assets and
resources as well as of the dissipation of human energy and time leading to
inevitable loss of production, during-the last twenty five years. It will be
worthwhile for someone to calculate and work out statistical figures of the
total loss suffered by the country over the years and present them to our
people. This knowledge may perhaps open their eyes and may, eventually,
dissuade them from indulging in these orgies. Had our people not taken to this
path of self-liquidation, the resources saved thereby might well have been more
than enough to connect every village in the country with an all-weather road,
provide every dry field with irrigation water, furnish every needy place with
electric power and, perhaps as a result of all this, give every hand some
fruitful work to do.
The other reason for this state of affairs is that the spirit of
patriotism and the sense of national consciousness that were present in the
people during our freedom struggle against British rule have, since the advent
of freedom, undergone heavy corrosion, contrary to the natural expectation that
these higher sentiments would get more and more intensified. In this, the worst
affected is the educated class which provides leadership to activities in all
spheres of national life. No one can concede that even the educated are
ignorant of the heavy price the country has been paying on account of the
destruction of public property and the breakdown of public life that accompany
all violent agitations in which many of them not only merrily indulge but are
also seen to be in the forefront. The only conclusion one can draw from this is
that the national good has now ceased to be of the highest value in the minds
of at least those among the educated who follow that course. What we witness
today in our country is, indeed, the most unfortunate spectacle. On the one
hand, the vision of Mother India that remained enthroned in the hearts of her
children till recently as their supreme object of devotion is being slowly lost
sight of by them. On the other hand, a tendency to regard their own respective
group-interests, either regional, linguistic, economic or political as the
be-all and end-all of life has been fast growing. In short, the place of higher
values is being usurped by unworthy ones.
Some may argue that neither of the explanations given above is
correct. They may say that there is no justification for doubting the
patriotism of persons simply because they take to violence resulting in the
destruction of their own national wealth and that we need not form so poor an
opinion also about the illiterate sections of our countrymen that they are
unaware of the colossal loss that is being suffered by our country on that
account. Their own explanation may be simply this, that the people are
compelled to take to these methods only out of righteous indignation and after
having exhausted all peaceful means of getting justice and fair play from the
government.
The above explanation amounts to accepting the view that patriotic
behaviour is only a conditional obligation and can be waived if those
conditions are not fulfilled. In other words, it may mean that people are
expected to be patriotic, i.e. devoted to their country and to work for its
welfare, only if the government of the day gives good and just administration
and that the citizens are duty-bound to act patriotically only to the extent
that the above mentioned condition-precedent is fulfilled by the government.
But, is this the proper view? According
to our traditional way of thinking, to be patriotic is an ABSOLUTE DUTY on
the part of every national. It has no corresponding rights whatsoever, as any
of the ‘relative duties’ may have. To act patriotically, i.e. to act in the
interest of one’s nation and to refrain from any act that may be detrimental to
it, is a CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE. If
the people are dissatisfied with the performance of their government, they have
every right to oust that government, lock, stock and barrel. In fact,
patriotism demands of them that they remove from power a bad or a wicked
government. But, more than that, it demands that the means employed by the
people for such an overthrow of one’s own government, do not cripple the
country and defeat the very purpose they propose to serve.
Ma.Eknath Ranade
(This was published as the Editorial of January
’74 issue of Yuva Bharati)
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