Preference For Dictatorship
Sir, —In India the Westernstyle Parliamentary rule has been grafted on to a culture to which it is alien and has resulted in a pseudodemocracy in a political vacuum. But the Gramdan movement with Gandhi’s disciple, Vinota Bhave, as its leader is trying with considerable success to build an alternative, non-violent society which discards centralisation of power and replaces it by a grass-root democracy based on the traditional nuclei of village self-government. Thanks to the efforts of a “peace army" (Shanti Sena) about 70 million people in 100,000 villages now live in such communes where they participate directly in decisions which affect their lives. Surely this kind of rule-by-each is the only meaningful alternative to impersonal ghost democracies and brutal dictatorships.—Yours, etc., ANITA LILBURN. September 2, 1970.
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Press, Volume CX, Issue 32392, 3 September 1970, Page 10
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130Preference For Dictatorship Press, Volume CX, Issue 32392, 3 September 1970, Page 10
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