Some people tried to see democracy in a particular sense, whether they are allowed to speak what they want, whether they are allowed to function as they want. I think, the phrase in Hindi is Manmani. This is a very expressive and a very eloquent phrase that I have found in Hindi. If manmani means democracy, well, I must say, the time had come to say, stop it. Somebody had to say it, somebody required the courage to say it. Fortunately, in the person of Prime Minister, we found the great leader in India who could say that. So, it is not merely a question of what happened in Gujarat. But what happened in Gujarat is certainly, an illustration of it....
An Hon. Member : Stone-throwing.
Shri Y. B. Chavan : Apart from stone-throwing, the violence as such is bad enough, and I am sure that Mr. Prasanabhai Mehta will not justify violence. Now, may I ask him another question? Even for right or wrong, can an elected representative of the people be forced to resign? Can you gherao a Member somewhere outside the house and ask him to resign? Will it be justifiable? If that happens, that is the end of democracy. What was happening was an organised attempt by very eminent people, because they were accepted as eminent people by some people, they had their own place in the political life of our country.
Shri P. M. Mehta : The point which I made was this : the movement was financed and encouraged by the Centre.
Shri Y. B. Chavan : You have made your point. Now, let me make my point. I am taking this only as an illustration. An organised effort was being made in the country to create a political vacuum. What was happening in Gujarat ! It was not happening merely in Gujarat. It was intended to be spread throughout India; it was supposed to be done in Bihar; it was expected that the same thing could travel from Ahmedabad to Bombay - a shorter distance. But Bombay proved to be little stronger for them. I must congratulate those people. The idea was not merely to confine themselves to State Legislatures, but if they could - and they wanted to - they had plans to ultimately reach the major, important sovereign body, this august House. If a vacuum had been created in India, can anybody with his hand on his heart say that there would have been democracy in this country? And this, only because some people wanted it to happen that way !
What I was trying to draw attention of the House was that the major responsibility, the major commitment, was to achieve the socio-economic transformation. We must realise this. It is not merely that we are in the times of Emergency. Certainly, there are some good results which have come out of this; there is more discipline, there is more production, there is more orderliness. These are important things as they are, but I would say that these are elementary things. They have to be there, because without these things no democracy can ever succeed. We were thinking of democratic planning, and we have made an attempt at it; we have partly succeeded. What are the resources when we are planning. There are some tangible resources and there are some intangible resources. Money, men, electricity and water are tangible resources and they are to be made use of. But the intangible resource are equally important, and they are the unity of the people to make use of these resources in a planned manner and the determination to go in a particular way with a particular speed, , with the determination to achieve those targets. I think, because of this game of obstacles, these intangible resources, which are more vital than the tangible resources, were becoming scarce in our country. Discipline, and as a result of which I was very pleased to listen for the first time, the Steel Minister getting up and saying that the targets that we have fixed for this year have been completely fulfilled. It was a moment of joy, a moment of pride and I hope we get opportunities to say that for every achievement in every field, in the economic as well as the political field.
