FAILURE OF..............COMMUNISM 425
is vote, what is party. They find it something strange, something alien. It is, therefore, a great problem as to how to preserve this institution. We will have to educate public, we will have to tell them the benefits of Parliamentary Democracy and of Parliamentary System of Government.
We know what Bagehot means by Parliamentary Government. But today his definition is of no use, it is utterly inadequate. There are three main things inherent in the Parliamentary System of Government.
Parliamentary Government means negations of hereditary rule. No person can claim to be hereditary ruler. Whoever wants to rule must be elected by the people from time to time. He must obtain the approval of the people. Hereditary rule has no sanction in the Parliamentary System of Government.
Secondly, any law, any measure applicable to the public life of the people must be based on the advice of the people chosen by the people. No single individual can presume the authority that he knows everything, that he can make the laws and carry the Government. The laws are to be made by the representatives of the people in the Parliament. They are the people who can advise the men in whose name the law is proclaimed. That is the difference between the monarchical system of Government and the Democratic System of Government. In monarchy, the affairs of the people are carried on in the name of a monarch and under the authority of a monarch. In democracy, the affairs of the public are carried on in the name of the head of the State : but the laws and the executive measures are the authority on which the Government is carried on. The head of the State is the titular head ; he is merely a symbol. He is a consecrated ‘Murti.’ He can be worshipped but he is not allowed to carry out the Government of the Country. The Government of the country is carried out, though in his name, by the elected representatives of the people.
Thirdly and lastly, Parliamentary System of the Government means that at a stated period those who want to advise the head of the State must have the confidence of the people in themselves renewed. In Britain, formerly, the elections to the Parliament were every seven years. The Chartists agitated against this. They wanted