The India Post, Chandigarh, 6th Feburary, 2009 :Professor Harbans Mukhia, a renowned historian, formerly Professor of Medieval History and Rector, Jawaharlal Nehru University , New Delhi delivered Professor Hari Ram Gupta Memorial Lecture organized by the Department of History in the ICSSR Seminar Complex at P..U. Campus here today.
Prof. Mukhia brought out that genesis of liberal democracy is rooted in Western polities and has a rather brief history. In envisioning the individual’s freedom from ‘extraneous controls’ like those of the family, community, the church etc. as its inalienable premise, it posits itself in opposition to its own regional past and the histories of the rest of the world. But, even as its self-image as the rational negation of the ‘dark ages’ of religion and superstition places it at the outer edge of history, it still imbibes a great deal from theology: the notion of a unified human history and that of democracy’s as ultimate universal triumph can be traced back to medieval Christian theology, which was the first to postulate a universal history and the universal triumph of Christianity. It thus shares much with what it derides.
An inseparable accompaniment of liberal democracy is the concept of the free market economy, which is supposed to ensure equality of opportunity to individuals. History belies this supposition and the market has been the chief agency of differentiation within societies and between them. Nor has the state refrained from decisive intervention, often accompanied by arms, in clearing blockages for market operations. The current worldwide economic meltdown and the State’s intervention everywhere is the most recent of such interventions.
There is besides a tension between liberal democracy’s universalist ambitions and the intervention of the most advanced liberal democratic states such as the US and the UK to protect their own regional economic interests and support autocratic, even theocratic, regimes around the world. It points to a flaw in the very conceptualization of universally valid liberal democracy.
The insistence on a uniform image of liberal democracy, realized almost exclusively through elections in a multi-party milieu as the basis of establishing and asserting equality, puts it in opposition to the plurality of historical experiences around the world. These assertions of equality were either mediated through religions, such as Buddhism, Christianity, Islam and Sikhism, or secular forms such as Marxian socialism. They were premised upon the subordination of the individual ego to restraints of the Sangha, the Church, the community or the Party. They also demonstrate the search for equality as a humane quest even by those placed at society’s highest echelons. Gautam Buddha is a prime example.
The most articulate challenge liberal democracy has so far faced is from Marxian socialism. The disastrous experiments made by the erstwhile socialist regimes in creating an alternative economic and social regime need not blind us to the theoretical value of the Marxist alternative to private acquisition as the sole driving force of economic production and social organization. It is important to learn to cherish failures as much as successes.
The lecture was presided over by Dr. Bhupinder Singh Brar, Professor of Political Science and Dean of University Instructions..
The Chairperson of the Department, Dr. Veena Sachdeva, introduced the speakers and spoke on the life and works of Professor Hari Ram Gupta (1902-1992) in whose memory the Panjab University has instituted these annual lectures since 1995.