RANADE, GANDHI AND JINNAH 237
Government run by a single party is to let democracy become a mere form for despotism to play its part from behind it. How under one party Government the tyranny of the majority ceases to be an empty phrase and becomes a menacing fact has been our experience, in India, under the Congress Regime. Were we not told by Mr. Rajgopalachariar that the separation of the Executive and the Judiciary which was necessary under the British is no longer necessary ? Does it not show the Despot’s taste for blood ? Despotism does not cease to be despotism because it is elective. Nor does despotism become agreeable because the Despots belong to our own kindred. To make it subject to election is no guarantee against despotism. The real guarantee against despotism is to confront it with the possibility of its dethronement, of its being laid low, of its being superseded by a rival party. Every Government is liable to error of judgment, great many liable to bad administration and not a few to corruption, injustice and acts of oppression and bad faith. No Government ought to be free from criticism. But who can criticize a Government ? Left to individuals it can never be done. Sir Toby has left behind advice as to how one should deal with one’s enemy. He said : “soon, so soon as ever thou seest him, draw, and as thou drawest, swear horrible” But this is not possible for an individual who wants to stand up against a Government. There are various things against individuals successfully playing that part. There is in the first place what Bryce calls the fatalism of the multitude, that tendency to acquiesce and submit due to the sense of insignificance of individual effort, the sense of helplessness arising from the belief that the affairs of men are swayed by large forces whose movements cannot be turned by individual effort. In the second place there is possibility of the tyranny of the majority which often manifests in suppressing and subjecting to penalties and other social disabilities persons who do not follow the majority, of which some of us have good experience during the Congress regime. In the third place there is the fear of the C.I.D. The Gestapo and all the other instrumentalities which are at the disposal of the Government to shadow its critics and to silence them.
The secret of freedom is courage, and courage is born in combination of individuals into a party. A party is necessary to run Government. But two parties are necessary to keep Government from being a despotism. A democratic Government can remain democratic only if it is worked by two parties—a party in power and a party in opposition. As Jennings puts it :
“If there is no opposition there is no democracy. ‘His Majesty’s Opposition’ is no idle phrase. His Majesty needs an opposition as well as a Government.”
In the light of these considerations who could deny that the collapse of the Liberal Party in India is not a major disaster ? Without the resusciation of the Liberal Party or the formation of another party the fight for freedom