One of the finest minds to have enriched our national life, K.R. Narayanan was a brilliant scholar and successful diplomat. He was at his dignified best equally in politics and in the various official assignments that came his way before he got elected Vice-President, and then President of India in 1997. His credentials and accomplishments speak eloquently of the man. At the same time, they hold out an assurance that there are immense possibilities of social transformation in India.
Presented in this book, with an appreciative foreword by Amartya Sen, is a collection of articles Narayanan wrote and speeches he delivered on a wide range of themes between 1954 and 2000.
The articles/speeches are grouped under four heads. The first, ‘India and the World', reflects by and large the Nehruvian paradigm, within which India crafted its foreign policy — be it the ideal of unity and equilibrium in Asia; non-alignment; Indo-Soviet friendship; the Cold War compulsions that informed the Indian relationship with the United States; and the mood of decolonisation that suffused its policy and posture in every area. Many of them are now dated, and understandably so.
There are intimations of the changing mood in India's response to the Chinese bomb. It is also the post-1962 mood. Narayanan's advocacy of India's own bomb (1966) is shown as compatible with its traditional policy of peace, coexistence and total disarmament. “It is only when we have the bomb that we can renounce it convincingly in the manner of Asoka, and make a dramatic impact on the world…”
The section on ‘The State of the Nation' carries certain strands of thought that bind the pieces together. For instance, India being seen as “a dome of many-coloured glass, iridescent and fragile in appearance, but elastic and unbreakable in substance”; its exasperating linguistic plurality but with functional bridges; its accommodative and assimilative genius and the need to foster the secular culture; and so on.
Narayanan was, however, acutely aware of what B.R. Ambedkar identified as the unresolved contradiction between the political equality consecrated in the Constitution and the social and economic equality, an objective that frustratingly remains still in the realm of hope and struggles. His anguish at the sight of multiple deprivations, including of learning, is as real as it is moving. He is both sorry and angry that Indian society has become insensitive to violence against women, dalits and adivasis — a mindset which, Ambedkar said, would make democracy “a palace built on a dung heap.”
On freedom
The third section deals with the more complex theme, ‘Nationalism, Democracy, Government.' In Narayanan's perception, freedom in modern society is a natural extension of the sphere of activity, experience, and enjoyment for mankind as a whole. Property, according to him, is the basis of human freedom, and lack or denial of it amounts to denial of freedom. That is why in India nationalism has not been just an instrument of political change, but a vehicle of social and economic revolution.
Narayanan considers Jawaharlal Nehru's ideas of socialism and planning as the finest expressions of Indian nationalism. He also credits Mahatma Gandhi with giving Indian democracy its moral and spiritual basis. In fact, his admiration for the Mahatma, Nehru and Ambedkar as the makers of modern India is genuine and unconcealed.
In the last segment — ‘Science, Technology and the Environment' — one finds Narayanan pitching for an effective intervention of science in policy-making to secure health for all, ensure comprehensive rural development, enable people to have low-cost housing, and to harness the forces of development without bruising and battering Nature.
He says: “Plato talked of philosopher-kings. The world of today needs philosopher scientists who possess the insight and imagination to understand the impact of science and technology on society, environment and the fate of the human race so that its blind advance is guided by social and world responsibility.”
The articles/speeches are products of different contexts. Constraints flowing from the official positions Narayanan held and the situations in which they were written/delivered could well have imposed on him a burden of un-freedom. But such inhibitive factors have been weighed down by his elegant prose and remarkable sensitivity, with wit and humour thrown in occasionally. Above all, as Amartya Sen says, “the book is a real triumph of sympathetic understanding and clear-headed analysis.”
IN THE NAME OF THE PEOPLE — Reflections on Democracy, Freedom and Development: K.R. Narayanan; Viking/ Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11, Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi-110017. Rs. 599.
