426 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
annual elections. The motive behind this agitation was very praiseworthy, indeed. It would have been best in the interests of the people if annual election were held, had it been possible, of course. But, Parliamentary elections are very costly affairs. So some sort of compromise was arrived at and five years period was supposed to be a responsible period at which the Legislators and the Ministers were to go back to the People and obtain the fresh renewal of their confidence.
This is also not enough. Parliamentary System of Government is much more than Government by discussion. There are two pillars on which the Parliamentary System of Government rests. These are the fulcrums on which the mechanism works. Those two pillars are ( i ) an opposition and ( ii ) free and fair elections.
For the last 20 or 30 years, we acclimatised to one single political party. We have nearly forgotten the necessity and importance of ‘opposition’ for the fair working of Parliamentary Democracy. We are continuously told that opposition is an evil. Here again we are forgetting what the past history has to teach us. You know that there were ‘Nibandhkaras’ to interpret the Vedas and Smrities. They used to begin their comments on ‘Slokas’ and ‘Sutras’ by stating firstly the ‘Purva Paksha’ the one side of the questions. They used to follow up by giving the ‘Uttar Paksha’- the other side. By this they wanted to show us that the question raised was not an easy question : it is a question where there is dispute, discussion and doubt. Then they used to give what they termed as ‘Adhikaran’ where they used to criticise both the ‘Pakshas’. Finally, they gave the ‘Siddhant’, their own decisions. Here from we can find that all our ancient teachers believed in two party system of Government.
One important thing in the Parliamentary Democracy is that people should know the other side, if there are two sides to a question. Hence, a functional opposition is required. Opposition is the key to a free political life. No democracy can do without it. Britain and Canada, the two exponents of Parliamentary Systems of Governments recognize this important fact and in both countries the leader of ‘opposition’ is paid salary by the Government. They regard the ‘opposition’ as an essential thing. People of these countries believe that the ‘opposition’ should be as much alive as the Government. The Government may suppress the facts, the Government may have only one-sided propaganda. The people have provision against this eventuality in these two countries.