(Gist)
No
one can hope to make any effective mark upon his time and bring the aid that is
worth bringing to great principles and struggling causes if he is not strong in
his love and his hatred. I hate injustice, tyranny, pompousness and humbug, and
my hatred embraces all those who are guilty of them. I want to tell my critics
that I regard my feelings of hatred as a real force. They are only the reflex
of the love I bear for the causes I believe
in and I am in no wise ashamed of it. For these reasons I tender no apology
for my criticism of Mr. Gandhi and Mr. Jinnah, the two men who have brought
India’s political progress to a standstill.
I
am no worshipper of idols. I believe in breaking them. I insist that if I hate
Mr. Gandhi and Mr. Jinnah—I dislike them, I do not hate them—it is because I
love India more. That is the true faith of a nationalist. I have hopes that my
countrymen, will some day learn that the country is greater than the men, that
the worship of Mr. Gandhi or Mr. Jinnah and service to India are two very
different things and may even be contradictory of each other.
Without
the combination of sincerity and intellect no man can be great. A great man
must be motivated by the dynamics of a social purpose and must act as the
scourge and the scavenger of society.
As
Abraham Lincoln said, “Politicians are a set of men who have interests aside
from the interests of
the
people and who, to say the most of them are taken as a mass, at least one long
step removed from honest men.
Excommunication
or the political prisoner
Social
reformer and the political patriot
It
is not Buddha who, as is often alleged, weakened Hindu society by his gospel of
non-violence. It is the Brahminic theory of Chaturvarnya that has been
responsible not only for the defeat but for the decay of Hindu society.
Rights
are protected not by law but by the social and moral conscience of society. If
social conscience is such that it is prepared to recognize the rights which law
chooses to enact, rights will be safe and
secure.
But if the fundamental rights are opposed by the community, no Law, no
Parliament, no Judiciary can guarantee them in the real sense of the word.
What
was the political philosophy of Ranade ? It may be summed up in three
propositions :
(1)
We must not set up as our ideal something which is purely imaginary. An ideal
must be such that it must carry the assurance that it is a practicable one.
(2)
In politics, sentiment and temperament of the people are more important than
intellect and theory. This is particularly so in the matter of framing a
Constitution. A constitution is as much a matter of taste as clothes are. Both
must fit, both must please.
(3)
In political negotiations the rule must be what is possible. That does not mean
that we should be ontent with what is offered. No. It means that you must not
refuse what is offered when you know that your
sanctions are inadequate to compel your opponent to concede more par
excellence.
Hero-worship
is certainly not dead in India. India is still the land of idolatry. There is idolatry
in religion, there is idolatry in politics. Heroes and hero-worship is a hard
if unfortunate, fact in India’s political life.
I
agree that hero-worship is demoralizing for the devotee and dangerous to the
country. I welcome the criticism in so far as it conveys a caution that you
must know that your man is really great before you start worshipping him. This
unfortunately is not an easy task. For in these days, with the Press in hand,
it is easy to manufacture great men. Carlyle used a happy phrase when he
described the great men of history as so many Bank Notes. Like Bank Notes they
represent gold. What we have to see is that they are not forged notes. I admit
that we ought to be more cautious in our worship of great men. For in this
country we have perhaps arrived at such a stage when alongside the notice
boards saying “beware of pickpockets” we need to have notice boards saying
“beware of great men”.
What
did Ranade want to convey by these statements ? As I understand them, I think,
Ranade wanted
to
convey two things. The first thing he wanted to convey was that the conquest of
India by Britain has given India the time, the opportunity and the necessary
shelter for rebuilding, renovating and repairing her economic and social
structure, to refit herself for bearing the strain of any foreign aggression
when she does become free. The second thing Ranade wanted to convey was that
going out of the British Empire by India before she had satisfied and
solidified herself into a single nation, unified in thought, in feeling,
and charged with a sense of a common destiny, was to invite chaos and
disruption in the name of independence.
The
real guarantee against despotism is to confront it with the possibility of its
dethronement, of its being laid low, of its being superseded by a rival party.
There
is in the first place what Bryce
calls the fatalism of the multitude, that tendency to acquiesce and submit due
to the sense of insignificance of individual effort, the sense of helplessness
arising from the belief that the affairs of men are swayed by large forces
whose movements cannot be turned by individual effort. In the
second place there is possibility of the tyranny of the majority which often
manifests in suppressing and subjecting to penalties and other social
disabilities persons who do not follow the majority, of which some of us have
good experience during the Congress regime. In the third place there is the
fear of the C.I.D. The Gestapo and all the other instrumentalities which are at
the disposal of the Government to shadow its critics and to silence them.
The
secret of freedom is courage, and courage is born in combination of individuals
into a party. A party is necessary to run Government. But two parties are
necessary to keep Government from being a despotism. A democratic Government
can remain democratic only if it is worked by two parties—a party in power and
a party in opposition.
If
the Liberals have faith in, and love and respect for Ranade their supreme duty
lies not merely in assembling together to sing his praises but in organising
themselves for spreading the Gospel of Ranade.
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