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Whenever the members of the Congress Government and important Congressmen speak about the development of the country during their stewardship, and compare it with other economically ward peoples who, after World War II, have cast off the imperial yoke and have become free nations, they never seem to think about the conditions in India as compared to those in other countries. They forget that the Indian people took advantage of the institutions that were established in India by the British, copying those that existed in their own free country.

Take for instance the system of education that the British established here. Though it was designed to create a cheap Indian agency to staff the lower rungs of the administration, it made familiar to the educated Indians the history of the people鈥檚 struggle for freedom and democratic rights waged in England, Europe and America. They unified the country as it was done only at rare intervals of our history. It will be said that all that was done in other countries under imperial rule. It is my opinion that other imperial countries did not do as much as the British did for the indigenous population. Another factor was that, in India, people who took advantage of this education were the higher castes who had centuries-old traditions of learning in their families. They therefore, utilised the opportunities placed before them more effectively than the people elsewhere under imperial yoke.

Indian Civil Service that they organised for India was more learned and efficient than any established by them or other imperial powers elsewhere. The first few candidates from among those who appeared in the Civil Service examinations were reserved for service in India. The British also established the rule of law which broke down only in the case of political opponents, violent or non-violent. The higher courts that they set up were by and large impartial, and some of them even in political trials. The British law that was introduced in India was in accordance with the principles of jurisprudence. They also introduced some kind of local self-government and legislative assemblies in the Provinces and in the Centre. Though these legislators could not throw out the Government, yet they were free to speak out what they and the people felt, and criticise the actions of the Government. This gave some kind of training to educated Indians in running democratic institutions.

These are, in brief, some of the advantages with which we began our independence. Some of these were also available to other colonial countries, but the extent and the response of the native population were much smaller.

Further, on the initiative of one liberal British administrator was organised the Indian National Congress. It was a non-sectarian and non-communal body. It voiced the grievances of the people and devoted attention towards removing the poverty of the masses due to foreign domination and exploitation. The result was that our national struggle for independence began much earlier and with a leadership that was well-established and which knew the problems of the country and was in touch with the common people. Not to talk of Gandhiji鈥檚 unique leadership which may come once in centuries, even the second and third rank leaders were superior to those in other colonial countries.

Today the Congress leadership talks of democracy, socialism and secularism. But all these were present more or less from the very inception of the Congress. After Gandhiji鈥檚 leadership, they were stated in terms which those who run may read. If free India were not to be a democracy, from where could they find a King or an Emperor in India? In our country, princes were mere tools in the hands of the foreign Government. They were not free agents even in their States. How can the Congress make any of the hereditary princelings the ruler of India? There was no possibility of a dictator being appointed by a popular body like the Congress with almost universal franchise. Moreover, dictators are not appointed or elected. They impose themselves on the people when democracy fails or when the country is in utter chaos.

So far as socialism is concerned, though the Congress did not use the term for very good and valid reasons, it always stood for the poor and the underdog. The burden of our leaders鈥� exhortations to the people was that India had been bled white by the foreign rule and that justice must be done to the poverty-stricken masses of India.

The Karachi Resolution on economic progress had the concept of social justice as its base. Gandhiji鈥檚 emphasis was always upon ameliorating the conditions of the suffering masses of the country. He said he could not carry spirituality to them unless it was in the form of a 鈥榖owl of rice鈥�. At the Second Round Table Conference, he said that the only justification for the existence of the Congress was the service of the poor and that, in free India, all such Interests whether indigenous or foreign, must subside before the interest of the masses. Democratic socialism is inherent in these ideas. If the word 鈥榮ocialism鈥� was not used it was because, after Marx, it has been associated with violent revolution and class-war dictatorship, ideas which were abhorrent to the Congress from its very inception.

As for secularism, that too was inherent in the Congress ideology from the very beginning. It had members from all communities, the Muslim, the Christians, the Parsis, the Sikhs, the Jews and the Hindus. After Gandhiji鈥檚 advent in Indian politics, this aspect of the Congress policy was much more pronounced. He made every effort to migrate the opposition of the generality of the educated Muslims towards the Congress. His efforts and those of Rajenbabu, Jawaharlal and Maulana were all directed towards this end. Unfortunately both for India and Pakistan, these efforts did not succeed. But it is a fact that after the martyrdom of Gandhiji, if not a little before it, the Muslims had come to recognise in him their true friend. In his prayer meetings were chanted the prayers of every major religion with a special emphasis upon the One Universal God. Even today, in thousands of Hindu houses one would hear the chanting of 鈥業shwara Allah Tere Nam鈥�, and of 鈥淩am Rahim and Krishna Kareem鈥� being the same. Gandhiji had in his Ashram inmates belonging to various religions whom he never advised to adopt Hinduism. Rather, when Mirabehn misled, once desired to embrace Hinduism, she was told by Gandhiji that there was no need for such conversion if she remained a good Christian; that was enough for her salvation. His old companion from the Phoenix Settlement in South Africa, Imam Abdul Kadar Bawazir, lived with his family in the Sabarmati Ashram performing his 鈥淣amaz鈥� five times a day and also attending the prayer meetings. Another Muslim inmate of the Ashram, Amtulbehn, did the same.

However, Gandhiji鈥檚 secularism was not due to any indifference to spiritual values which he considered to be common to all the important religions of the world. As a matter of fact, his conception of spirituality was that whoever followed the Moral Law was religious, whether he believed in God or did not believe in His existence and was an atheist. He considered the Moral Law as God. He said the law and the law-maker are one. He also reversed the saying that 鈥楪od is Truth鈥� into 鈥楾ruth is God.鈥� Before Independence, these ideas were accepted not only by Congressmen and Congress leaders but, generally by the whole of India. One, therefore, fails to understand the present-day boast of Congressmen when they say that they stand by democracy, socialism and secularism as if these ideas were introduced by them after independence. Actually they are as old as the Congress.

Further, it is useless to compare India with other colonial countries in Asia and Africa. They had neither the institution that we had nor had they the leadership that was granted to us. If then the country finds itself in its present depressing plight, it is not due to the fact that these basic ideas were not accepted by the nation but because those in whom Providence has placed the destiny of the country did not know how to work them out effectively, after they were entrusted with the high and noble task of leading India on the path of progress.