Jayaprakash Narayan’s crusade was not confined to removing authoritarian rule. It was to awaken people’s power, Lokshakti in the good Gandhian tradition the spirit of the defiance against arbitrary rule and of rebellion against authroiratianism. Interestingly, the Basic Law of West Germany recognizes this as a constitutional right. Article 20(1) declares that “the Federal Republic of Germany is a democratic and social federal state proceeds to record that “all state authority emanates from the people” and that the legislature shall be bound by the constitution and the executive and the judiciary by law and justice. Having defined the fundamentals of the constitutional order, Article 20 guarantees this right in its last clause (3) All Germans shall have the right to resist any person or persons seeking to abolish that constitutional order, should no other remedy be possible.”
Ambedkar’s warning
Dr. Ambedkar was well aware of the possibility of such a state of things coming to pass in our country. If while moving for the consideration of the draft Constition he remined the Constituent Assembly of the “essentially undemocratic” Indian soil a year later at the end of the Assembly’s labors, on November 24, 1949, he recalled Mill’s admonition and said “in politics Bhakti or hero-worship is a sure road to degradation and to eventual dictatorship.
Nearly four decades, after the establishment of the Republic “hero worship” and servility towards the State are very much with us. This abasement and abdication of the citizen’s duty to resist abuse of power reminds one of the poet Qateel Shafai’s memorable lines.
Dunya men Qateel us se munaflq nahi koi. Jo zulm to sehta hal baghawat nahi karta.
(There is no greater hypocrite, Qateel, in the world than he who suffers oppression and does not rebel.)
Article extracted from this publication >> March 10, 1989
