India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy

by Ramachandra Guha

the quality of men who are selected by these modern democratic methods of adult franchise gradually deteriorates because of lack of thinking and the noise of propaganda . . . He [the voter] reacts to sound and to the din, he reacts to repetition and he produces either a dictator or a dumb politician who is insensitive. Such a politician can stand all the din in the world and still remain standing on his two feet and, therefore, he gets selected in the end because the others have collapsed because of the din.

– in his refusal to mix matters of state with matters of faith. Days after the ceasefire, with patriotic feelings riding high, he spoke at a public meeting at the Ram Lila grounds in Delhi. Here he took issue with a BBC report that claimed that ‘since India’s Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri is a Hindu, he is ready for war with Pakistan’. Shastri said that while he was a Hindu, ‘Mir Mushtaq who is presiding over this meeting is a Muslim. Mr Frank Anthony who has addressed you is a Christian. There are also Sikhs and Parsis here. The unique thing about our country is that we have Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Parsis and people of all other religions. We have temples and mosques, gurdwaras and churches. But we do not bring this all into politics . . . This is the difference between India and Pakistan. Whereas Pakistan proclaims herself to be an Islamic State and uses religion as a political factor, we Indians have the freedom to follow whatever religion we may choose [and] worship in any way we please. So far as politics is concerned, each of us is as much an Indian as the other.’