Freedom Through Disobedience

by Chitta Ranjan Das

We have had abundance of this law and order during the last few years of our National History. The last affront delivered to the nation, was the promulgation of an executive order under the authority of the Criminal Law Amendment Act making the legitimate work of Congress Volunteers illegal and criminal. This was supported by our Moderate friends on the ground that it is the duty of the law-abiding subject to support the maintenance of law and order. The doctrine, as I said before, has travelled all the way from the shores of England. But may I ask—is there one argument advanced to-day by the Bureaucracy and its friends which was not advanced with equal clearness by the Stuarts? When the Stuarts arrogated to themselves a discretionary power of committing to prison all persons who were on any account obnoxious to the Court, they made the excuse that the power was necessary for the safety of the nation. And the power was resisted in England, not because it was never exercised for the safety of the nation, but because the existence of the power was inconsistent with the existence, at the same time of individual liberty. When the Stuarts claimed the right to legislate by proclamation and by the wide exercise of suspending and dispensing powers they did so on the express ground that such legislation was necessary for public safety. That right was denied by the English nation, not because such legislation was not necessary for public safety but because such right could not co-exist with the fundamental right of the nation to legislate for itself. Is the power of the Governor-General to certify that the passage of a Bill is essential for safety or tranquility or interest of British India, any different from the power claimed by the Stuarts? There is indeed a striking resemblance between the power conferred on the Governor-General and the Governors of the provinces and the powers claimed by the Tudors and the Stuarts. When the Stuarts claimed the right to raise revenue on their own initiative, they disclaimed any intention to exercise such right except “when the good and safety of the kingdom in general is concerned and the whole kingdom is in danger.” That right was resisted in England, not because the revenues raised by them were not necessary for the good and safety of the kingdom, but because that right was inconsistent with the fundamental right of the people to pay such taxes only as were determined by the representatives of the people for the people. Is the power conferred on the Governor to certify that the expenditure provided for by a particular demand not assented to by the legislature is essential to the discharge of his responsibility for the subjects, any different from the power claimed by the Stuarts? It should be patent to everybody that we do not live under any history of England as proclaimed that it is idle to talk of the maintenance of law and order when large discretionary powers of constraint are vested in the executive. The manhood of England triumphantly resisted the pretensions of “Law and Order.” If there is manhood in India to-day, India will successfully resist the same pretensions, advanced by the Indian Bureaucracy.

I have quoted from English History at length, because the argument furnished by that history appeals to people who are frightened by popular movement into raising the cry of “law and order.” Follow the lines laid down in that History. For myself, I oppose the pretensions of “law and order” not on historical precedent, but on the ground that it is the inalienable right of every individual and of every nation to stand on truth and to offer a stubborn resistance to the promulgation of lawless laws. There was a law in the time of Christ which forbade the people from eating on the Sabbath, but allowed the priests to profane Sabbath. And how Christs dealt with the law is narrated in the New Testament.

“At that time Jesus went on the Sabbath day through the corn; and his disciples were an hungered, and began to pluck the ear of corn and to eat.

“But when the Pharisses saw it, they said unto him, Behold, thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the Sabbath day.

“But he said unto them, have we not read what David did, when he was an hungered and they that were with him;

“How he entered into the House of God and did eat the shew bread, which was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them which were with him, but only for the priests?

“Or have we not read in the law, how that on the Sabbath days the priests in the temple profaned the Sabbath and are blameless?”

The truth is that law and order is for man, and not man for law and order. The development of nationality is a sacred task and anything which impedes that task is an obstacle which the very force and power of nationality must overcome. If therefore you interpose a doctrine to impede the task why, the doctrine must go. If you have recourse to law and order to establish and defend the rule of law, then your law and order is entitled to claim the respect of all law-abiding citizens, but, as soon as you have recourse to it not to establish and defend the rule of law, but to destroy and attack it, there is no longer any obligation on us to respect it, for a Higher Law, the virtual law, the Law of God compels to offer our stubborn resistance to it. When I find something put forward in the sacred name of law and order that it is deliberately intended to hinder the growth, the development, and the self-realization of the nation, I have no hesitation whatever in proclaiming that such law and order is an outrage on man and an insult to God.

But though our Moderate friends are often deluded by the battle cry of law and order, I rejoice when I hear that cry. It means that the Bureaucracy is in danger and that the Bureaucracy has realised its danger. It is not without reason that the false issue is raised and the fact a false issue has been raised fills me with hope and courage. I ask my countrymen to be patient and to press the charge. Freedom has already advanced when the alarm of law and order is sounded; that is the history of Bureaucracies all over the world.

In the meantime it is our duty to keep our ideal steadfast. We must not forget that we are on the eve of great changes, that world forces are working all around us and that the battle of freedom has yet to be won.