POLITICS FOR TRUTH
Mahatma Gandhi began his life with a determination to align
himself with TRUTH. His called his
autobiography “the story of my experiment with truth. He must have found this title very
fanciful.
His life was not an experiment with truth. He truly believed that his life should be
lived by the truth. He had determined to
search for the truth and live by the truth, the truth as opposed to falsehood.
He wanted to be truthful. He believed
that living by truth was the best form of life.
TRUTH AND POLITICS:
If we understand his determination of living by truth it was
not telling lies to his parents and his teachers and companions. He found it very difficult to tell lies to
others. He was willing to face the
consequences of telling the truth. He
would not tell lies to defend his mistakes or failures. He was keen to go to
England for studies. But that was
against the religious belief of his community.
He had to decide to practice vegetarianism in the midst of
non-vegetarian culture of England. He made a promise to his mother that he will
not smoke, drink and eat only vegetarian food.
His mother gave him a necklace to wear.
He continued to wear that long after his mother died, till it had
totally disintegrated.
He had to put up a brave face to not to get influenced by
others and stand alone and live by his convictions.
As he grew up his idea of truth began to assume a deeper
meaning. He was struggling against discrimination based on colour and origin of
birth. He faced discrimination in a very
hard way when he was pushed out of the first-class compartment of a train and
his luggage thrown out. He had bought a first-class
ticket and by virtue of that he had the right to travel in the first-class
compartment. But the society had another
concept of first class. It was not based
on the money you paid for the ticket of the first class but by the colour of
your skin. Here the rights have
different meaning. South Africa was
not the birth place of the white. They
captured, occupied South Africa and started running over the native Africans. Gandhi realized that truth is much more than not
telling lies or keeping to the promises he made to his mother. He understood Truth as Swaraj. This journey of Gandhi to Pretoria was his
first lesson in Swaraj.
All through his fight in India for Swaraj he was guided by the
Truth. Truth became experiment because
the truth began to have greater and deeper meaning in his life. He asserted
that if anyone says that truth has no relevance to politics then he does not
know what truth is and what politics is. The Truth has become political,
politics for truth.
“To see the universal and all-pervading Spirit of truth face
to face one must be able to love the meanest of creation as oneself. And a man who aspires after that cannot
afford to keep out of any file of life.
That is why my devotion to Truth has drawn me into the filed of
politics; and I can say without the slightest hesitation, and in all humility,
that those who say that religion has nothing to do with politics do not know
what religion means.”
Here Gandhi is very clear.
For him religion is not an institution or set of doctrines. His God is Truth and hence his religion is to
pursue the Truth and realise the truth in and through politics. To pursue the truth and pursue the truth
through politics is religion. His
politics has been to gain Swaraj, to establish swaraj in the society.
Gaining independence from the British was for Gandhi a political
struggle, struggle for Swaraj. And
Swaraj was the manifestation of the truth.
Swaraj for Gandhi was not only gaining freedom from British Raj but it was
also prosperity for the citizens of India. It is better quality of life for all. It
included communal harmony, availability of means to earn one’s livelihood,
being able to vote and bring that government which will ensure this to power.
Politics for truth means the political power that forms the government should
work for Swaraj.
“But I know that I have still before me a difficult path to
traverse. I must reduce myself to zero. One cannot involve in Politics for
truth unless one reduces oneself to zero. So long as a man does not of his free
will put himself last among his fellow creatures, there is no salvation for
him.”
Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated before he could be part of
the politics for Swaraj. In the night
between August 14 and 15, 1947 when Jawaharlal Nehru was making the famous
“While the whole world was sleeping …” speech, Gandhi was walking along the
alleys of then Calcutta with the plea to stop communal violence. For Gandhi there was nothing to celebrate
when the Indians were fighting among themselves on the lines of religion. There was no Swaraj. The Indians were ruled not by the Truth but
by the communal ideology. “To me, peace
between Hindus and Muslims is more important than the declaration of
independence”.
“I cannot rejoice on August 15, I do not want to deceive
you. But at the same time, I shall not
ask you not to rejoice. Unfortunately,
the kind of freedom we have got today contains also the seeds of future
conflict between India and Pakistan (in real sense between the Hindus and the
Muslims). How can we therefore light the
lamps?” (Mahatma Gandhi)
In every society, state has two main pillars. One political
system and the other economic system. These two systems have to work together
to ensure Swaraj for the people. In this
frame work there is no place for poverty, exploitation, illiteracy, disease,
discrimination, disharmony. Those who
own the productive assets are, according to Gandhi “trustees” on behalf of the
citizens. They are accountable to the citizens and their assets are meant to
provide for the needs of all, in this the first person should be the poorest of
all living down the street.
When politics is at the service of truth, Swaraj, then
governance will only be organized in such a way that those in the seat of
political power are servants of the citizens.
They have to work meet the needs of the people.
Our Pratham sevak came to power with the promise that he
would bring back all the black money for foreign countries back to India and
every citizen will get Rs. 1500,000 in their account.
He also introduced demonetization and made all the middle
class and lower middle class to stand in line before the ATMs. Over 100 people died in the line. His promise was to put an end to black money;
to put an end to terrorism.
After the said person
comes to power, he does not deposit that amount into the accounts of the people
but tells them that it was a “jumla”.
This is a classical case of politics serving the untruth. It is a denial of the real purpose of
politics. We have innumerable examples
of such jumlas. Indira Gandhi declared
the famous slagan of “Garibi Hatao”.
Another Jumla that was thrown was the famous
Politics and politicians have
changed from what they were during the time of Mahatma Gandhi.
Corruption at high laces is the
order of the day. Politicians and the
bureaucrats are known to be corrupt.
There is no question of who is corrupt and who is not corrupt but it is
a question of who is more corrupt. and who is who is most corrupt.
Once Mahatma Gandhi said I would
go to the length of giving the whole Congress a decent burial than put up with
the corruption that I see so rampant among the Indian officials under the
British Rule”
BJP party claims there is not
corruption in their party. There were no
incidences of corruption that could be pointed out. There was not a single incident of corruption
in the ten years rules of BJP. But then
there is a case of electoral bonds.
Business people can contribute to the political parties in the form of
electoral bonds. The donors’ name will
not be disclosed nor the amount will be declared. The bill of of corruption under the name “Electoral
bonds” has the approval of the parliament.
But it was passed as a finance bill.
This process itself is irregular.
Today, 90% of the funds under the electoral bonds have gone to the BJP. Handing over most of the ports, airports to
Adani is an act of corruption which has taken the wealth created from the tax
payer money and handing over to one or two persons.
“… the gap between the have and
have nots will continue to grow if the present trend is allowed to continue. This is because there is an exponential
aspect to wealth creation. Stated in global terms, wealth on a worldwide scale
will grow exponentially, if the governments avoid breaking the global wealth
machine.
“As a result, the entire economic
system becomes poorer with fewer jobs.
Moreover, schemes aimed at aggressive welfare intervention have
destroyed people’s dignity, robbing them of any sense of accomplishment.
“In the end, the political
tension created by vastly unequal income distribution will likely be difficult
to measure and predict, and even harder to control. Highly entrepreneurial economies create big
winner and losers”. (David Smick, The World is Curved)
Alex Tuscano
