The Rediff Special /Nani Palkhivala

'We suffer acutely from four plagues -- regionalism, communalism, casteism, and total absence of moral leadership'

In the fifty years of its Independence, India has never had to face a crisis of the magnitude and far-reaching effect comparable to what it is facing today. We are a low-arousal people, but we must awake from our apathy and realise that there is a grave threat to the unity and integrity of the country-even to the very survival of our democratic system. All recorded history has one clear lesson to teach -- freedom cannot last unless it is coupled with order.

Order can never exist without freedom, but freedom can never without order. That freedom and order may co-exist, it is essential that freedom should be exercised under authority and order should be enforced by authority. India is passing through a phase of disorder which makes you recall the pregnant words of Lord Wavell -- 'India can be governed firmly, or not at all'.

Democracy is of three types. Democracy, as India knew it in the first fourteen years of its independence. Guided democracy as Singapore has known it since its inception under Lee Kuan Yew. And misguided democracy, of which India is the prime example today. We suffer acutely from four plagues -- regionalism, communalism, casteism, and total absence of moral leadership. These four plagues devour amity and national solidarity. It is these four plagues which have made it possible for self-seeking politicians to convert our democracy into a misguided democracy. We find ourselves rudderless in the absence of moral leadership.

India produced Mahatma Gandhi, the greatest moral force of this century. But today the country is pathetically lacking even in mediocre leadership.

The Hindus, the Sikhs, and the Muslims have lost sight of the essentials of their respective religions, and are misled by bigots and fundamentalists whose activities represent the very antithesis of the true teaching of their religion.

Different segments of the Indian nation live in different centuries. It is the same nation but it lives in different eras. For instance, some five thousand people watched Roop Kanwar, a 19-year-old widow, perform sati in 1987, in the village of Daurala in Rajasthan. The villagers said that she sat calmly, holding her dead husband's head in her lap and chanting prayers, as flames consumed her. The police had charged Roop Kanwar's brother-in-law, Pushpendra Singh, with lighting the pyre, and her father-in-law, Sumer Singh, with forcing her to commit sati. The third defendant was another family member. But all the three accused were acquitted because the 37 witnesses who gave evidence turned hostile and did not say that Roop Kanwar had been compelled to commit sati. In Rajasthan, among many Rajputs, the warrior Hindu caste to which Roop Kanwar belonged, sati is still regarded as a holy rite.

Sixthly, corruption is gnawing at the very vitals of our democracy. The tone of public life has reached an all-time low. We have democracy without meritocracy. Ignorance, incompetence and dishonesty are no qualifications for high public office, either in the ministerial ranks or elsewhere.

Lastly, the government must make sure that the fruits of liberalisation reach the masses, and the rate of inflation must be brought down from seven per cent which is the prevailing rate today, specially in the prices of food articles of daily use which hit the masses the most. Those who live in India are extremely sceptical whether the rate of inflation is really as low as seven per cent or whether the figure merely shows Indian skill in jugglery.

Having placed both sides of the balance sheet before you, may I say a word about the future prospects of India in a world which is becoming globally competitive.

The vitality of India is remarkable. The country does not have a powerful economy, but has all the raw materials to build one. The Indian economy is like a sleeping giant who, if awakened, could make a powerful impact on the global economy. It would not be mere chauvinism to say that India is a giant with a bad cold, not a pygmy with cancer.

The heart of the nation is sound and the human raw material is excellent. To a western mind, India's inner strength and capacity for patient endurance are almost beyond belief. Hundreds of millions who have no standard of living still have a standard of life. Ambassador John Kenneth Galbraith remarked that while he had been poverty in many countries of the world, he found an uncommon attribute among the poor of India -- a richness in their poverty. They do not count their wealth in money alone. A nation's worth is not measured merely by its gross national product, any more than an individual's worth is measured by his bank account.

The people of India are able to take in their stride situations which would spark a revolution in other countries. The ancient Indian civilisation has survived and will survive when the raucous and fractious voices today are lost in the silence of the centuries.

One bizarre thought, unconnected with the Constitution of India and with our prevailing institutions, and I shall have done.

I wonder whether the majority of the people would approve of this year's Budget if it were put to vote on the basis of adult franchise.

The happiest time India has ever known was under rulers who were not elected by the people but were wise men who deserved to rule the country.

Edward Gibbon, the author of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire after surveying the history of human civilisation, came to the conclusion that the happiest time the world had ever known was the Age of the Antonines which lasted a little less than two centuries. That was the time when the Roman world was governed by a wise ruler who had been chosen by the last leader to rule the country. Unfortunately, the last Emperor Marcus Aurelius died without naming his successor, and the regime came to an end.

H L Mencken described American democracy as a 'boobocracy' of, by and for the 'vast herd of human blanks' who have neither the interest nor the capacity for intelligent self-government. But as you see how government after government in India succumbed to populism when what the country needed was strong leadership, you are tempted to tell yourself that even what is impolitic and impolite has to be said in a country whose national motto is 'Truth Shall Prevail.'

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