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Nehru, freedom was meaningful mainly if it paved the way for
economic growth. He said so publicly again and again. Similarly, for
him, democracy was meaningful if it facilitated movement towards
economic and social equality. His was a commitment not so much to
liberal democracy which prizes liberty more than equality as to
democratic socialism which reverses the order of priorities. Nehru
did not play havoc with the Constitution in his search for
socialism. He was too imbued with the spirit of liberalism to do
that. It could not occur to him that non-democratic means would be
justified in the pursuit of socialism. But by emphasizing equality
and, in the process, undermining the concept of the liberty of the
individual, he created an atmosphere in which it became possible for
his successors, Indira Gandhi foremost among them, to play with the
Constitution and the constitutional arrangement. The emergency would
have been inconceivable if demagogues, sired by Nehru, however
unwittingly, had not prepared the ground.
This, however, takes us too far
afield. I am here interested in establishing that socialism, however
vaguely defined and implemented, was the linchpin of the Nehru
system and that the system cannot possible survive the disappearance
of this linchpin. The linchpin has clearly disappeared. The collapse
of the Soviet system and state and the opening of the Chinese
economy to multinationals would by themselves have settled the
issue. As it happens, the threat of bankruptcy as a result of the
mismanagement of the economy since the very start of planning in the
early fifties and more particularly in recent years has forced the
Government of India to make a volte-face. It has abandoned all the
dogmas and shibboleths of the Nehru-Indira Gandhi era. And the irony
of it is that a Congress (I) government is presiding over this great
reversal.
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