I AM...................BUT........... 317
present, it does not. After all, the question is whether the New Government of India has done or will not do, the question to my mind which we all call National Government will do better. Let me humbly submit that it is a far more crucial question than the question which we are all thinking about. I am quite prepared to admit for the purpose of argument that the present Government of India may be taken as caretaker’s Government. We are all looking forward to a new Government and the quest of questions which worries me is, will this National Government do better? I also experss a certain degree of doubt. We are all saying that once we are given a power, adult suffrage, we will sweep all evils, make clearances, put everybody on the boulevards so that they can walk erect as human beings. I entertain grave doubts. I have studied sufficiently the history of European Government and I have been one of those who has been completely disillusioned of the allegation that has sometimes been made that all human evils will disappear once a parliamentary Government is established based upon adult suffrage. History gives no foundation and no support for a proposition of this kind. None whatever it seems to me that we are suffering from certain disillusionments or asking false questions ourselves. It is right to say that whether you have adult suffrage, or not, or a framework of a popular Government or a framework of any other Government, there is inherent in every society in every country, two classes— the Governing class and the subject class. Whether they come on the surface or whether they are hidden behind some kind of clouds, makes no matter. You give adult suffrage or any kind of power or election what happens is this. The Governing class is elected to govern, the subject class never gets a chance. Am I making a wide statement ? I do not think so. There is a foundation for what I say.
Let us examine the results of the elections in 1937, we had the widest of suffrage, the results of elections and true votes. What happened in the seven Congress provinces ? I do not wish to speak about it — what I said then came to be true and the truth was that in this country, no matter what you do, you have got the Brahmin community as the Governing community (laughter). That came to surface. Nothing else did. In the seven provinces, we had Brahmin Prime Ministers. Half the