Abhinandan Granth (English Article)

Chavan, above all, is aware that what we have is a commitment to democracy and an effort to build or promote it; we are a society in the pro­cess of democratisation; we recognize as such that a method of decision making which involves representation and majority rule has significance and we have embodied it in our Constitution ; and he knows that this method may be subjected to enormous pressures and be eventually given up unless the economic context in which it operates is radically. altered and improved. The require­ments of an economic-political resurgence of this kind naturally demand social stability. It is here as he has directly experienced, that the major problems and difficulties of the country arise. True, Indian society has been one of the most stable societies in the world but its stability is in no way adjusted to the democratic way of life. It is the stability of hierarchical caste-order but­tressed by religion and custom which seek to regulate to the minutest detail the conditions of individual and social existence. Everything that is done in the political or economic sphere with the object of promoting democracy therefore tends to disturb social stability. These conditions of social existence, which reflect the more funda­mental basis of public opinion cannot possibly be altered in a short while. What one often wit­nesses is therefore a throw-back by them on the political and economic plane corroding the functioning of democratic institutions. Democratic majorities become caste majorities. Economic improvement generates scramble between orga­nized groups for benefits. Functioning in such a set-up, political parties in their anxiety to mani­pulate the people and win the support of majority may find it necessary to adjust to this basic requirement and as a consequence may cease to educate and become willing instruments of a back­ward and authoritarian social and cultural struc­ture. What is crucial as a need of the community in the process of democratisation is the capacity to resist this throw-back and to re-orientate the social and cultural context in a manner conducive to the promotion of the democratic way of life. This cannot be achieved by mere calculations of numbers. It has necessarily to shift in the direc­tion of quality, in the direction of proper education.

The lack of basic homogeneity in the community is well-known. In fact the differences obtaining are far too many. They are not merely caste or communal differences ; there are also the reli­gious and the linguistic ones and a whole host of others too. Education thus faces a stupendous problem which it is bound to find extremely difficult to deal with. It further faces a very complex problem in so far as it has to make its products both critical and confident, possessed of the capacity to revolve the past and a faith in the future. In so far as the democratising effort in the economic field goes on under the direct aegis of the state, the latter occupies a key posi­tion in this picture. Never before the men at the helm of affairs in this country had an opportunity of shaping the lives of so many so significantly as they seem to have today. It is therefore very natural to expect that they possess the requisite sense of moral responsibility and the capacity and wisdom adequate to the task. It is in this setting that they have to be judged and their contribu­tions have to be evaluated. And the achievements of Chavan so far provide ample basis for hopes in this respect.

The major difficulty of Indian democracy, aris­ing from the ignorance and backwardness of the large masses of our people can just not be removed by mere extension of formal schooling or educa­tion. Even as a political problem, the problem of democracy can be solved only by taking it over to the moral plane, that is essneitally as a problem of education. A mere pathetic faith in economic improvement can be no solution. The crisis essen­tially is intellectual and moral. Nourished in his youthful days by ideas of freedom which eventual­ly flowered into a philosophy of cosmopolitan hu­manism and inspired by a leader whose unageing youth provides a perennial source of hope and ac­tion, Chavan seems to be well on his way to the solution of this crisis of leadership. Leader of a party, his influence transcends its limits; leader of a state, he has risen to a national stature. His suc­cess rouses greater hopes; his performance heightens the expectations. May we hope that he will continue to rouse ever greater hopes and ex­pectations in the future and to fulfil them through his actions and achievements.