Dangers of Democracy- Mahatma Gandhi

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar, Professor, Editor and Linguist

Gandhi International Study and Research Institute, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

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Dangers of Democracy- Mahatma Gandhi

 

Democracy is a great institution and therefore it is liable to be greatly abused. The remedy therefore is not avoidance of democracy but reduction of possibility of abuse to a minimum. The Congress has become a vast democratic body. It reached a high water-mark during the past twelve months. Without being technically on the register millions took possession of it and added lustre to it. But goondaism also entered the Congress to a much larger extent than hitherto. It was inevitable. The ordinary rules prescribed for the selection of volunteers were practically set aside during the last stage of the struggle. The result has been that in some places goondaism has made itself felt. Some Congressmen have even been threatened with disaster if they will not give the money demanded of them. Of course, professional goondas may also take advantage of the atmosphere and ply their trade. The wonder is that the cases I have in mind are so very few compared to what they might have been, regard being had to the great mass awakening.

My conviction is that this happy state is due to the Congress creed of non-violence, even though we have but crudely followed it. But there has been sufficient expression of goondaism to warn us to take time by the forelock and adopt preventive and precautionary measures. The measures that suggest themselves to me are naturally and certainly a scientific and more intelligent and disciplined application of non-violence. In the first place if we had a firmer faith in nonviolence than we have shown, not one man or woman who did not strictly conform to the rules regarding the admission of volunteers would have been taken. It would be no answer to say that in that case there would have been no volunteers during the final stage and therefore there would have been a perfect failure. My experience teaches me to the contrary. It is possible to fight a non-violent battle even with one satyagrahi. But it, i.e., a non-violent battle, cannot be fought with a million non-satyagrahis. And I would welcome even an utter failure with non-violence unimpaired rather than depart from it by a hair’s breadth to achieve a doubtful success. Without adopting a non-compromising attitude so far as non-violence is concerned, I can see nothing but disaster in the end. For, at the critical moment we may be found wanting, weighed in the scales of non-violence, and may be found hopelessly unprepared to meet the forces of disorder that might suddenly be arrayed against us. But having made the mistake of indiscriminate recruiting how we to repair the mischief in a non-violent way are?

Non-violence means courage of the highest order and therefore readiness to suffer. There should therefore be no yielding to bullying, bluff or worse, even though it may mean the loss of a few precious lives. Writers of threatening letters should be made to realize that their threats will not be listened to. But at the same time their disease must be diagnosed and properly treated. Even the goondas are part of us and therefore they must be handled gently and sympathetically. People generally do not take to goondaism for the love of it. It is a symptom of a deeper seated disease in the body politic. The same law should govern our relations with internal goondaism that we apply in our relations with the goondaism in the system of government. And if we have felt that we have the ability to deal with that highly organized goodaism in a non-violent manner, how much more should we feel the ability to deal with internal goondaism by the same method? It follows that we may not seek police assistance to deal with the disease although it is open, during the Truce, to any Congressman to seek it precisely in the same manner as any other citizen. The way I have suggested is the way of reform, conversion, love. Seeking police assistance is the way of punishment, fear, want of affection if not actual disaffection. The two methods therefore cannot run together. The way of reform appears at some stage or other to be difficult but it is in reality the easiest.  

 

Reference:

 

Young India, 7-5-1931