INDIRA GANDHI’S VIEWPOINT ON DEMOCRACY
On this 103rd birth day (19th November
2020) of the former Prime Minister Mrs. Priyadarshini Indira Gandhi
(1917-1984), here is her viewpoint on democracy expressed in a speech dated 21st
May 1970.
“The concepts of democracy, of
socialism and of secularism are not yet clear in the minds of our people. We
see in growing number of people, and sometimes in young bright people, the
desire to take a shorter cut, try and
reach our goal more quickly, not realising that no matter what path we take,
what steps we take, they all require a price to pay. It is a question of
choosing how much or what type of a price we are willing to pay.
It was after considerable
deliberation that we chose the path of democracy --- not because it is the
quickest path, perhaps it is not, but because it is the path which helps the
people to grow to political maturity.
And we felt that that was most important for our people --- for them to
feel involved in what is happening in the country, to participate in the
development of the country. This can
only be done if they have certain choices open to them. And this is a system
which gives them that choice. But democracy, as all other systems, has its
dangers. And today we see that anger of the majority in some places trying to,
or wanting to, change certain minorities.
There can be no democracy if you are
looking backward. There can be no democracy if you have a communal outlook and
you have barriers between man and man, citizen and citizen. There can be no democracy if you do not have
socialism because democracy and inequality cannot coexist; democracy and
injustice cannot coexist. A society in which somebody is thinking of himself as
higher and somebody else as lower, is not true democracy. You can give it
anything, any name you like. But that is not the true meaning of democracy.
Democracy can work only if each
person becomes a soldier in making democracy real to the people. “
G.R.Kanwal 19.11.2020
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