Gandhi, Ambedkar and JP - Differing views on distribution of power

October 11 is the birthday of Jayaprakash Narayan, the socialist turned Gandhian, who fought the mighty state in the 1970s by giving leadership to the student movement in Bihar. JP, who had retired from active politics, came out to lead the students upon their request. He gave a call for ‘Total Revolution’.  The escalation of the unrest culminated in the declaration of internal Emergency on June 25, 1975.  JP was also a detainee under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA) along with opposition leaders and three lakh others. The leadership he gave to the Janata party and the rout faced by the Emergency regime is well-documented history.

Here, an attempt is made to briefly look at the views of  Gandhi, Ambedkar and JP on the distribution of state power. Their thoughts continue to contribute to the emergence of new strands in Indian politics.

The freedom movement had distinct phases. The Gandhian era, began in the 1920s and in this period, Congress became a mass movement, the linguistic basis of provinces was recognised and the spirit of the freedom movement went on to encompass social reform activities like swadeshi and eradication of untouchability. Passive resistance was the major contribution made by the Gandhian movement to modern politics.

The most important aspect of the Gandhian concept was its anti-centralist approach. It detested the pyramidal structure of governance based on a hierarchy between tiers of government. In the Gandhian view, the distribution of power among jurisdictions needs to be like concentric circles.  It is an extreme federal concept of division of powers among respective jurisdictions – the distribution being co-ordinate and not subordinate.

It is here that Ambedkar differed with Gandhi vehemently. Ambedkar did not believe in the village becoming the basic unit of administration. He viewed the village as a den of ignorance and a cruel site of oppression. Having seen and experienced the worst forms of caste-based discrimination, Ambedkar openly stated that he preferred a centralist state with individuals and not the village as the basic unit.  He made this clear in his R Kale Memorial Lecture, 1939, delivered at the Gokhale Institute, Pune.  The lecture titled ‘Freedom vs Federation’, was a critique of the Government of India Act, 1935.

Ambedkar had a major role in the drafting of our constitutional provisions There is a  strong tilt towards centralisation in many of them. Ambedkar, however, had the abiding belief that these provisions, including Article 356, would remain a dead letter. In the last day of the Constituent Assembly, he agreed with the speakers that men who run the affairs can make or mar the Constitution. But his differences with Gandhi on decentralisation of power were deep.

JP, who became a votary of Gandhian ideas and decentralisation of power in the post-independence period, wrote a thesis ‘A Plea for Reconstruction of Indian Polity’, 1959. In this, he advocated complete decentralisation of power to the village level and indirect election to the other tiers of the government. JP lived in to witness the complete centralisation of Indian polity in the first half of the 1970s and became the leader of the movement against it. It is an irony that the ardent believer in partyless democracy, had to fight for the survival of a multi-party system in the 1977 elections, held with the Emergency still in force.

Had Ambedkar lived on to see how centralisation in India took its toll on democratic rights and civil liberties, would he have changed his views on decentralisation? The question is hypothetical, But the weakening of centralisation also catalysed the political mobilisation of the oppressed sections and their voices being heard at different levels.

What made Ambedkar sceptical about the decentralisation of power to the village level? One of the main reasons was the extreme social inequality that was prevalent in the village society. Untouchability was in vogue. Settlements were based in caste; drawing water from the village ponds was restricted on the grounds of caste.

Economic disparities were also glaring as could be seen from the skewed land ownership. Most of the landowners were from the upper and at times from the middle castes. The oppressed sections owned no land. In such a situation of extreme levels of inequalities, will not decentralisation negate democracy itself?   This fear might have been uppermost in the mind of Ambedkar while arguing for a centralised set-up with the guarantee of individual rights.

Gandhi and JP, after his conversion to Gandhism, believed that change of minds and constructive work will make the rich trustees of society. This was the underlying idea behind the Bhoodan movement of Acharya Vinoba Bhave, in which JP participated actively. This was criticised by many as a daydream. The programme, of course, did not meet with much success. Partial efforts at decentralisation by the government also did not meet with the expected result.

Even after the 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments, there have been official reports that funds, functions and functionaries have been together transferred to the local governments only in very few States. If there is no centralised direction for policies for social justice, decentralisation can lead to the local hegemony of many varieties. It is this that  Ambedkar feared. In the Gandhian concept, resistance to injustice through non-violent means and carrying on constructive work could bring in the needed transformation. In today’s context, education, awareness, protective laws and judicial intervention can act as a check against oppressive acts. The spectre of elite capture need not haunt as it did in the late 1940s.

Given all these arguments, decentralisation can be defended in reasons of economic efficiency in the allocation of benefits in accordance with local tastes and preferences. Effective decentralisation is also a check against the emergence of authoritarian tendencies. In short, it deepens democracy through participation.

The fact remains that Gandhi, Ambedkar and JP had an inherent dislike for anything authoritarian, They accorded value to the ideal of individual freedom and civil liberties.

Today, the question of democratic decentralisation is highly relevant and the views of Gandhi, Ambedkar and JP need to be discussed with the importance they deserve.

(The writer is a former IRS officer and Honorary Fellow at Gulati Institute of Finance and Taxation (GIFT), Thiruvananthapuram.)