5th March 2011
No property rights in India – its most potent indicator of lack of freedom
To Nehru, socialism was to be brought about by ‘the ending of private property, except in a restricted sense’.[i] The interpretation of this ‘restricted sense’ was left to his personal whims, making it difficult to pin down what he had in mind. Property rights are purely freedom-based; this is a capitalist concept. From John Kenneth Galbraith we know that Nehru’s views on property reflected the opinions of Harold Laski, a professor of political science at the London School of Economics. ‘The centre of Nehru’s thinking’, said Galbraith, ‘was Laski’, and ‘India the country most influenced by Laski’s ideas’.[ii] Maybe if we read Laski carefully we will understand what Nehru really meant by ‘restricted sense’. Laski said:
[…] the existing rights of property represent, after all, but a moment in historic time. They are not today what they were yesterday and tomorrow they will again be different. It cannot be affirmed that, whatever the changes in social institutions, the rights of property are to remain permanently inviolate. Property is a social fact, like any other, and it is the character of social facts to alter.[iii]
Thus, Laski clearly did not recognize freedom as the supreme good. Hobbesian in approach, to him the state was supreme, with our role being to serve it and to be regulated by it. According to Laski, ‘The state […] is the crowning-point of the modern social edifice, and it is in its supremacy over all other forms of social groupings that its special nature is to be found’.[iv] But in the dictionary of freedom, the state is nowhere in that league. It is a creature of our convenience operated by governments paid to do our bidding. The state exists merely for our convenience;for the specific purpose of protecting our freedoms and enforcing the accountability that accompanies freedom. If the state does not guarantee our freedoms and property rights, we have no allegiance to that state – we will make another one, or leave.
In that sense, John F Kennedy was wrong when he said, ‘ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country’.[v] In a free society, obligations lie with both parties. The state or country, represented by its government, must behave responsibly and defend our freedoms diligently in order to retain our allegiance and participation in dangerous enterprises like the defence of the land. A state loses legitimacy if it destroys the freedoms for which it was created. Laski’s arrogant state that believes it doesn’t have to protect our property rights and freedoms is destined to be a failed state. It will not only be defenceless against external aggression as its best people abandon that state, but even those that remain will rebel and destroy its foundations through corruption and anarchy.
Laski turned the primacy of freedom on its head, claiming that property was a mere cultural artefact. That is absurd, but such were the Muses of Nehru and the Indian socialists. Nehru’s younger fellow party-man, Siddhartha Shankar Ray (SSR), similarly argued that while life and liberty are innate natural rights, ownership of property is not. He said that since the right to property and freedom to contract did not pre-exist the Constitution these should be deemed to be of lesser import, presumably to be cast out from our Constitution with the flick of a socialist finger [vi]. Many of our judges also did not distinguish themselves as protectors of our freedom in those primitive times. Justice Hidayatullah of the Supreme Court lowered the stature of his office when he said that ‘it was a mistake’ to have property as a Fundamental Right.[vii] But this fact, that other political leaders in India also shared Laski’s views, does not diminish Nehru’s primary role in promoting these ideas in India.
Let us, even for the sake of argument, momentarily agree with SSR’s view that ‘modern’ freedoms and property rights did not pre-exist our Constitution. Was it then not obligatory on the leaders of independent India to ensure that these ‘new’ freedoms were introduced and ‘passed on’ to us? If some freedoms did not exist in a feudal, imperial India, how could that justify our not having them in independent India? Was the purpose of our struggle for independence merely to continue with the limited set of freedoms that the British had allowed us to enjoy? Was our independence merely an occasion to substitute arrogant and brown sarpanchs in place of imperial, white rulers? I must admit that at times I am unable to distinguish clearly between Nehru and his godchildren on the one hand, and the British rulers of India on the other. It is difficult at times to conclude who was worse for India in the end – having to work with totally corrupt Indian Ministers as one’s bosses at work, or having honest but arrogant imperial British rulers in their place.
Implementing his whimsical arguments about property rights, Nehru launched his assault by enacting land ceiling acts, called, euphemistically and misleadingly, ‘land reforms’. After Nehru’s passing away, Congress leaders strengthened this attack. The argument they made to support their attack was that ‘rights’ of the society were more important than our freedoms. Mohan Kumaramanglam said, ‘The clear object of this amendment [25th] is to subordinate the rights of individuals to the urgent needs of society’ (bold italics mine). This was in relation to the 25th amendment of the Constitution in 1971, which removed the concept of compensation upon acquisition of people’s lands,[viii] yet another destruction of property rights. But except in situations of war when the overall need of the society arguably predominates that of an individual, the freedom of individuals cannot be subordinated in a free country. This was not a war-related withdrawal of freedoms.
The socialist flood was now nearing its fullest season. All stops had been pulled out. There was the monopoly of loss making public sector businesses, there was the nationalization of privately operated businesses, there was land acquisition without market compensation and there were land ceiling laws. ‘In the months after the [25th] amendment […] coal, coking coal, and copper mines were nationalised, along with steel plants, textile mills, and shipping lines – totalling hundreds of nationalisations’.[ix]
This plunderous socialist rampage was fully supported by all political parties in India except the Swatantra. After Swatantra shut down in 1974, these principles continue to be supported today by all major parties in India; none of them has suggested returning our freedoms to us.The biggest blow to property rights was therefore not administered by Nehru or by his Congress party, but by a rag-tag bunch of socialist factions calling themselves the Janata Party, in 1978 (this included Bharatiya Jana Sangh, the predecessor of the current socialist group called BJP). While we remain indebted to this motley bunch for reversing some of the more blatant impositions against freedom by Indira Gandhi’s Emergency, they simply added one more nail to the coffin of freedom in India. By the time the Janata Party formed the government, only a sliver of property rights was still left in India.
Land reform legislation had already not only been enacted but had been placed under the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution, sheltering it from judicial review. However, the risk, no matter how remote, of a constitutional challenge to these laws prompted the Janata Party to abolish the right to property through the 44th Amendment of 1978. In particular, Article 19(1)(f), that had till then, even through Nehru’s time, guaranteed to the Indian citizens a right to acquire, hold and dispose of property, was repealed.
No sensible reason was offered. To assuage people’s fear, it was announced that property, ‘while ceasing to be a fundamental right, would, however, be given express recognition as a legal right, provision being made that no person shall be deprived of his property save in accordance with law’.[x] This is an extraordinarily weak protection. The law is a malleable thing in comparison to the Constitution. Citizens of a free country should not have to depend on the whim of their ruling governments for the defence of their freedoms, and thus of their property. Socialists have never understood why they can’t do such things when they still stick with the word ‘liberty’ in our Preamble.
This is an extract from my book, Breaking Free of Nehru.
[i] In Singh, V B, ed, Nehru on Socialism, Government of India, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Publications Division, Delhi, 1977, pp.56–7, cited in Roy, Subroto, Pricing, Planning and Politics, The Institute of Economic Affairs, London, 1984, p.35.
[ii] Cited in a review of Harold Laski: A Life on the Left by Isaac Kramnick and Barry Sheerman in Washington Monthly, November 1993, by Arthur M Schlesinger, Jr.
[iii] Laski, Harold J, (1960), A Grammar of Politics, cited in Austin, Granville, (1999), Working in a Democratic Constitution: A History of the Indian Experience, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 2003 paperback edition. Footnote at p.77.
[iv] Laski, Harold J, An Introduction to Politics, Unwin Brothers, London, 1931, p.15.
[v] In his 1961 inaugural address as President.
[vi] Ray’s views cited in Austin, Granville, op. cit., p. 244.
[vii] Ibid., p.205.
[viii] Ibid., p.254.
[ix] Ibid., p.253.
[x] [http://indiacode.nic.in/coiweb/amend/amend44.htm].
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Sanjeev….I chanced on your blog, looking up for liberals of India. It is disgusting what the state is doing to us India. Causing all the inflation and with no respect for individual freedom and rights, making poor people poorer and enriching the coffers of the politicions, bureacarats and big business all in the name of common good.
I never read about these ideas or even the existence of swatantra party during our school days. Keep up the excellent work.
Sanjeev….I chanced on your blog, looking up for liberals of India. It is disgusting what the state is doing to us India. Causing all the inflation and with no respect for individual freedom and rights, making poor people poorer and enriching the coffers of the politicions, bureacarats and big business all in the name of common good.
I never read about these ideas or even the existence of swatantra party during our school days. Keep up the excellent work.
Thanks, Narasing
I’d appreciate if you can get more directly involved and considering contesting elections – the first being to join FTI and agree on policies and strategy.
We need to wake up, actually. Sleeping for too long now.
Regards
Sanjeev
Thanks, Narasing
I’d appreciate if you can get more directly involved and considering contesting elections – the first being to join FTI and agree on policies and strategy.
We need to wake up, actually. Sleeping for too long now.
Regards
Sanjeev