conscientious leader's ideals and the demands of the people in any given situation. The leader dare not disregard completely the will of the majority; neither should he surrender his own convictions regarding truth. Inevitably, some kind of compromise or balance must be arrived at; it may be a good compromise ‘if it is always looking at that truth and trying to take you there'.1 Thus, one of Nehru's most frequently recurring emphases is that the democratic system of government is largely a question of conflict and balance. Democracy must be viewed as a composite theory containing a number of essential elements, some of which conflict with one another. In the normal course of the democratic process these conflicting elements are balanced peacefully. Sometimes the balance is more in favour of one element; under different circumstances the balance is shifted toward the other side. Thus, most of the problems of democracy have no permanent solutions. As the inherent conflicts assume different forms, new balances must be struck.

NEHRU AS A POLITICAL THINKER

As was pointed out in the Preface of this book, Nehru could in no sense be regarded primarily as a political philosopher. He is a political leader, a politician, who has read widely and thought deeply about the problems of democracy. His philosophical bent of mind has enabled him to interpret day-to-day problems with a certain theoretical perspective. His political theory is essentially eclectic, drawn from the diverse intellectual currents of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. A man of great sensitivity, Nehru has absorbed and combined in himself many of the dominant impulses and ideas of modern democratic thought.

While Nehru has devoted his life far more to the practice than to the theory of politics, he has made a significant contribution in the latter field as well as in the former. Nehru's distinctive contribution to political philosophy lies in his application of democratic ideas to Indian conditions. The political theories which were largely derived from the West had to be made meaningful in an entirely different cultural and political context. The basic conceptions had to be worked out in relation to problems which were considerably different from those of 1 India, Constituent Assembly Debates, 1949, Vol. II, Part II, pp. 1229–30.

Europe and America. The preceding chapters have shown, essentially, Nehru's attempts to make these political ideas relevant to the needs of the Indian scene.

Nehru found in Indian conditions certain factors which made impossible a blind copying of Western theories regarding fundamental rights. Thus the rights of personal liberty and freedom of the press could not be considered in a vacuum, nor in relation to conditions prevailing a hundred years ago in countries thousands of miles away. They had to be interpreted in terms of present-day conditions in India. It was necessary to take into account the facts of the partition of India, communist and communal violence and disturbances, an uneasy truce with Pakistan, the peculiar characteristics of the modern Indian press, and many others circumstances.

The socialist ideas embodied in Nehru's theory of economic democracy were developed in a Europe which had largely solved the problem of production through an expanding capitalism. Socialism addressed itself principally to the problem of distribution. Nehru sought to apply the basic principles of socialism to an underdeveloped country in which production was still the greatest economic problem. The shouting of doctrinaire slogans about nationalizing everything in sight solved no problems; the principles of democratic socialism would have to be adapted to Indian conditions.

Furthermore, the doctrines of socialism originated in an industrialized society, but had to be interpreted by Nehru in an agricultural country in which the demand for greater equality in land was the dominant factor in the thinking of the masses. Socialism had provided theories to show that value was created by society as a whole, but Nehru had to adapt these theories to the specific problems of legislation abolishing the big landed

estates.

The concept of the secular state was first developed in terms of 'separation of church and state'. The concept slowly evolved in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries out of definite historical situations. Nehru's theory of the secular state becomes a twentieth-century interpretation of the concept in terms of the Indian state and society. The theory of the secular state in India raises many problems unknown to Western political experience, such as separate electorates for the various religious

communities, communal personal laws, the caste system, agitation for laws banning cow slaughter, and so forth. Nehru's significant contribution, then, lies in this application and adaptation of democratic ideas to Indian politics.

Jawaharlal Nehru may justly be regarded as the foremost interpreter of liberal democracy that Asia has produced. Other Indian writers, such as Vivekanda, Tagore, and Aurobindo, gave relatively little attention to political subjects, and none of them grappled with the problems of democracy in independent India. Gandhi did not claim to believe in Western democracy, and was thus in no position to interpret it to India.

Elsewhere in Asia, Sun Yat-sen stands out as one who, struggling against enormous odds, attempted to apply democratic conceptions to the politics and government of his country. While the final evaluation of his work must rest with history, at present a totalitarian Communist regime in China defies the principles which Dr. Sun patiently expounded during his lifetime. Free India is committed to parliamentary democracy by an excellent Constitution, but written constitutions do not tell the whole story. The future of democracy in India may depend in large measure on the degree to which Jawaharlal Nehru succeeds in interpreting, applying, and adapting democratic ideas to the political life of this people!

To take the discussion one step further, what of India's position in Asia? Democratic India and totalitarian China confront the peoples of Southeast Asia with alternative systems of government and ways of life. The countries of this area are faced with grave dangers, and the picture is dark indeed in some places. As these lines are being written, President Sukarno has declared that Western-type parliamentary democracy simply does not work in Indonesia. India's continued progress under democracy may well become a decisive factor in this strategic area of the world. Nehru's role as interpreter of democracy to India thus has international overtones as India interprets democracy to Asia.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A. Books

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