{"id":280,"date":"2013-07-13T01:27:04","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=280"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:27:04","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:04","slug":"143-ollgarchy-or-democracy-vol-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/01-bande-mataram-volume-01\/143-ollgarchy-or-democracy-vol-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","title":{"rendered":"-143_Ollgarchy or Democracy.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\nOligarchy or Democracy?<\/b><\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n                       
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>A<\/font><\/span>PART<\/font><\/b> from questions of aim and method, a fruitful source of discord between the two
\nparties has been the divergence of views with regard to the spirit of the
\nCongress, whether it is to be the Congress of the few or the Congress of the
\nmany. This divergence has been chiefly operative in bringing about struggles
\nover the election of the President and his method of conducting the proceedings,
\nover the selection of the Subjects Committee and the rights of the delegates to
\nexpress their opinion and use every means to make it operative. One side demands
\nimplicit obedience to the authority of the President and
\na
\nsmall circle of leaders, the other claims that the President is <\/span>only
\na servant of the Congress with a delegated and limited power, that the Congress
\nis supreme and no small circle of leaders has a right to dictate to it, and that
\nthe obscurest delegate is by his very position equal in rights and status to the
\nmost distinguished men in the country. One side tries to form a Subjects
\nCommittee of the leading men in each province, the other tries to enforce the
\nright of the delegates to make their own unhampered choice. One side wishes the
\nCongress to register obediently the resolutions framed for it by wiser heads,
\nthe other claims a sovereign dignity and activity for the whole body and the
\nutmost latitude of debate on all important questions. This difference of spirit
\nhas been the cause of even more discord and bitterness than the difference of
\naims and methods, and the most difficult and debatable points in the Congress
\nConstitution will be those into which this issue enters.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>In the early days of the world political development was the result of
\nthe needs of the civic organism; in modern times it is powerfully swayed by
\nideas, and often the idea creates the need. English education has brought in the
\nidea of democracy, of the sovereign right and power of the people, and a
\npredilection for the forms of a democratic assembly. When, therefore, the
\nCongress was instituted, the originators tried to cast it<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-785<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nin
\nthe democratic mould, to clothe it in democratic forms. But the idea by itself
\ncannot become operative, it must first create a corresponding need. The
\nCongress, therefore, while democratic in theory, was in reality a close
\noligarchy of the most primitive type. Claiming to realise in obedience to the
\nmost developed modern ideas the course of modern democratic development, it
\nreally followed in obedience to the actual political conditions of the country a
\ncourse of primitive development very like in its essential features to the
\nprimitive constitutions of early times when democracy was unconsciously
\nevolving. There was no electorate which could make the principle of election
\noperative, no political vitality or habit of political thought in the people to
\nput life into the forms of a democratic assembly, no battle of opinions which
\ncould hammer out the complete mould of a great deliberative assembly from the
\nrough and shapeless mass called the Congress.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>Nominally, the Congress was a sort of imitation Parliament and its
\ndelegates were supposed to be elected by the people and representatives of the
\npeople; in reality, there was no electorate to represent and the forms of
\nelection degenerated into a farce; five people often meeting to elect a hundred
\nout of whom those only attended the Congress session who had time and leisure.
\nIn effect, therefore, the Congress was not a modern Parliament but a popular
\nassembly like the old Aryan assemblies in which the whole body of the citizens
\ncould attend and all did attend who had the inclination and the leisure. But
\nwhile the old Aryan assembly was actually the mustering of the citizens, the
\nCongress was rather like those early federal assemblies held in a central place
\nin which as many as could attended from distant places and the bulk of the
\ngathering was made up of local citizens. The peculiarity of the Congress has
\nbeen the failure to provide against the preponderance of the local majority
\nexcept by the habit of aiming at unanimity in its resolutions. This flaw in the
\nfoundation has been largely responsible for the final tumbling to pieces of the
\nstructure. Nominally, again, the resolutions of the Congress were passed by the
\nvote of the assembled delegates, as in a democratic chamber; in reality, the
\ndelegates did not vote at all but, like the primitive assemblies, simply
\naccepted by acclamation<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-786<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nresolutions ready prepared for them by a few influential
\nmen sitting in secret council. Nominally, the President was elected by the
\nCongress and presided over the proceedings according to recognised rules of
\ndebate, but in reality he was chosen out of and by the small oligarchical circle
\nwhich ruled the Congress, effected their decisions and carried out their will.
\nHis authority over the proceedings was unfettered by any written rules; the
\ncustom and the precedents of the assembly were the sole guide and these were
\ninterpreted by him according to the convenience of the Congress oligarchs. Thus
\nthe pretence of a modern democratic assembly reduced itself in practice to the
\nreality of an oligarchy. A small circle meeting in secret called the Congress,
\ndecided its place of meeting, fixed its policy, framed its resolutions, selected
\nits officers, governed its proceedings and took the opinion of the assembly by
\nacclamation. The assembly listened to the speakers selected by the oligarchs and
\npassed by acclamation the resolutions they had framed. The President was simply
\na temporary chief of the oligarchs and not the real head of a democratic
\nassembly. In all these respects the Congress reproduced with extraordinary
\nfidelity the essential features of a primitive Greek ecclesia or the Roman
\ncomitia in the most oligarchical period.<\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>The first attempt to democratise the Congress was the creation of the
\nSubjects Committee, as a sort of temporary Senate or Council which should
\nprepare the business of the Congress. It was an unconscious reproduction of the
\nGreek boulē<\/font>
\nor preliminary Council which had similar functions; but it failed to democratise
\nthe Congress, it only widened the basis of the Congress oligarchy. It was
\nsupposed to be elected by the assembly but was really selected by the oligarchs
\nwhose nominations were accepted by the Congress. The Subjects Committee meetings
\nwere indeed the scene of frequent encounters between the oligarchs and the free
\nlances who represented a growing strain of popular discontent; but there was no
\npopular party which these men could set against the prestige of the old leaders,
\nand they themselves were usually young and ambitious men who soon passed into
\nthe charmed circle and became its chief supports. Those of a robuster type, a
\nTilak or a Bepin Pal, were held at arm’s length<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-787<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

and, having no organised following, were unable to
\nprevail.<\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>Another direction in which the incipient democratic tendency
\nsought to fulfil itself was in the demand for<\/span>
\na <\/span>fixed and
\nwritten <\/span>constitutution for the Congress.
\nUnwritten law administered by a coterie, class or caste, has always been a
\nstrength to oligarchy, and we find in early times that the first demand of an
\ninfant democracy is for the codification of law and a fixed and written
\nconstitution. We have ourselves experienced in the last two years what a
\npowerful weapon in the hands of the Congress oligarchy has been this absence of
\na written constitution, law and procedure for the Congress. The demand for a
\nwritten constitution early manifested itself and led for some time to an actual
\nsecession of a whole Province from the Congress, but the privilege of
\nadministering the body without fixed or written restrictions was too highly
\nvalued by the official clique to be lightly parted with, and by procrastination
\nand masterly inaction they succeeded in baffling the growing demand.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>To democratise the Congress was, in fact, impossible without a popular
\nawakening and widening of the political consciousness. Democracy is impossible
\nwithout a demos, a people politically awake and active, and it was only in the
\nupheaval of 1905 that the rudiments of such a demos began to form. The
\nNationalist Party which sprang out of that upheaval, showed its character by the
\ndemocratic nature of its demands and the increasing tendency to democracy in its
\nown composition. It demanded that the President should be elected according to
\npopular sentiment and not by a coterie, that the Subjects Committee should be
\nelected in due form and not nominated by a coterie, that the President and the
\nCongress official circles should act constitutionally and not at their caprice
\nor convenience, that the constitution should be reduced to writing, that the
\nfull assembly of delegates should be in fact as well as in theory the sovereign
\nbody and that the rights of discussion, amendment and rejection of resolutions
\nshould be allowed to be put in practice. In brief, they claimed that the
\ntheoretically democratic Congress should become democratic in effect and
\nreality. The keenness of the struggle not only in the Congress but outside it
\nhas been largely if not principally due to this onslaught on the charmed oligar-<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-788<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nchical
\ncircle and the determination of the latter to preserve their position at any
\ncost. At Midnapur, for instance, the struggle was over this issue, and not over
\nany serious difference of opinion. And though the issue at Surat was much larger
\nand complicated, it is significant that the battle was joined over a question of
\nconstitutional procedure, and it was on a claim of the official oligarchy to
\noverride the constitutional rights of a delegate that the Surat Congress broke
\nup in admired disorder. Oligarchy or democracy, authority or freedom are the
\nissue, and no settlement can work which does not decide the question whether the
\nCongress is to remain a mute assembly swayed by a handful of men or a democratic
\nbody of as modern a development as the political conditions of the country will
\nallow.<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nBande
\nMataram<\/i>,
\n<\/i> <\/font> March 25, 1908<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-<\/font>789<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oligarchy or Democracy?                           APART from questions of aim and method, a fruitful source of discord between the two parties has been the divergence…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","wpcat-8-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}