Generations to come, it may be, will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth.

Albert Einstein1

 

Like a colossus he stands astride half a century of India’s history, a colossus not of the body but of the mind and earth.

Jawaharlal Nehru2

 

This chapter is a study of Mahatma Gandhi’s search for the conquest of power as given in Hind Swaraj. It is a conquest greater than the conquest of Mount Everest. It is an ongoing process where each individual and each nation shall look within to find the real source of power. In this study, we shall explore in detail how Gandhi, through his life experiments, showed us the way to make power not the master but the servant. In the zenith of our technological and scientific achievements, we need wisdom to comprehend the mystery of power. As Charles E. Merriam says, in the "new world into which we are madly rushing, no single factor in life will be more important than the composition and incidence of political power, and no task more urgent than the understanding and utilization of a force whose mastery may mean light or darkness for individuals and for civilization."3 We have the option to choose life or death, peace or strife.

"The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience, ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living."4 Let Mahatma Gandhi speak to us and help us to look within and regenerate our soul-force.

Power has motivated people to do good and to do harm. Power has intoxicated people to indulge in manipulative politics and to work for selfish motives. "Some have deified and worshipped power. Others have defied it, or torn it from the lexicon of life."5 Thomas Hobbes considered desire for power as the well-spring of human behavior. In his own words: "I put for general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power that ceaseth only in death."6 And yet those who have tamed power, succeeded in making it a means to an end.

What is the source of power? "There is an elusiveness about power that endows it with an almost ghostly quality. . . . We `know’ what it is, yet we encounter endless difficulties in trying to define it. We can `tell’ whether one person or group is more powerful than another, yet we cannot measure power."7 Max Weber defines power as "the chance of a man or of a number of men to realize their own will in a communal action even against the resistance of others who are participating in the action."8 

Power does not lie in the guns, or the ships, or the walls of stone, or the lines of steel. Important as they are, the real political power lies in a definite common pattern of impulse. If the soldiers choose to disobey or even shoot their officers, if the guns are turned against the government, if the citizenry connives at disobedience of the law, makes of it even a virtue, then authority is impotent and may drag its bearer down to doom.9 

 

The book soon attracted the attention of the European friends of Gandhi, one of whom, Mr. Kallenbach, wanted it to be translated into English. However, the proscription of the book ‘hastened’ its publication in 1910. Gandhi characterized it as a whole theory of life and defended it till death. T.K. Mahadevan, in his "Preface" to Dvija: A Prophet Unheard, said that one should read Hind Swaraj if one loves the human family and this earth which is our home. We must read it if we wish to do our little bit to halt our mad race towards self-extinction.10

Cult of Violence. The immediate context of writing the booklet, Hind Swaraj,11 was Gandhi’s encounter with the Indian anarchists in England and their cult of violence. Gandhi himself said that he wrote it "in answer to the Indian school of violence and its prototype in South Africa. Their bravery impressed me, but I felt that their zeal was misguided. I feel that violence was no remedy for India’s ills, and that her civilization required the use of a different and higher weapon for self-protection."12 Gandhi felt that violence was the inevitable result of the values that underlie modern civilization. As long as modern civilization continues to shape human destiny, violence will be the natural consequence.

Cult of Materialism. For Gandhi, the propelling force of modern civilization is the greed for wealth and worldly pleasures. This craving for material aggrandizement makes one think only of amassing wealth and selfish pleasure. Rousseau was of the opinion that the human being finds his or her profit in the misfortune of his or her neighbors. Modern civilization, in Gandhi’s opinion, places the pursuit of self-interest at the center of our existence. This results in unhealthy competition, exploitation and alienation. We not only fail to seek the things that are above, but also ignore ethics and morality. Violence becomes the dominant factor to achieve one’s own selfish end. Hence, Gandhi says that modern civilization advocates the maxims "might is right" and "survival of the fittest."13 

Aldous Huxley, in his Science, Liberty and Peace, drew attention to this universal tendency of modern technology: "The centralizing of industrial capacity in big, mass-producing factories has resulted in the centralization of a large part of the population in cities and the reduction of ever-increasing numbers of individuals to complete dependence upon a few private capitalists and their managers, or upon the public capitalist, the state, represented by politicians and working through civil servants. So far as liberty is concerned, there is little to choose between the two types of bosses."14 

One of the recurring themes in the writings and pronouncements of Gandhi is this centralizing tendency of technology: "I want the concentration of wealth, not in the hands of few but in the hands of all. Today machinery merely helps a few to ride on the backs of millions."15 Again he said, "What is industrialism but a control of the majority by the small minority?"16 

Agriculture in this set-up will go hand in hand with industry. Such products of the village, as they enter into the daily consumption of the villagers or as they are needed for their cottage crafts, will be processed in the village itself; the surplus alone being sent out to the cities in exchange for services and goods on a fair and equitable basis. Cities will serve as emporia for village products instead of the villages being used as a dumping ground for the manufactured goods of the cities. Machines will not be abolished. On the contrary, the people will have many more of them. But these machines will be simple machines which the people can themselves operate and own individually or collectively.17 

 

My idea of village Swaraj is that it is a complete republic, independent of its neighbors for its own vital wants, and yet interdependent for many others which dependence is a necessity. Thus, every village’s first concern will be to grow its own food and cotton for its cloth. It should have a reserve for its cattle. Then, if there is more land available, it will grow useful money crops, thus excluding ganja, tobacco, opium and the like.18

 

In this structure composed of innumerable villages, there will be ever-widening but never-ascending circles. Life will not be a pyramid with the apex sustained by the bottom. But it will be an oceanic circle whose center will be the individual always ready to perish for the village, the latter ready to perish for the circle of villages, till at last the whole becomes one life composed of individuals, never aggressive but ever humble, sharing the majesty of the oceanic circle of which they are integral units. Therefore, the outmost circumference will not wield power to crush the inner circle, but will give strength to all within and derive its own strength from it.19

 

He believed that all power resided in the people and that it should also originate from the people. The dynamo of power in a country like India should be the village. The village was to be a knot in a system of oceanic circles in which the remotest circle derived its strength from the center, i.e., the individual. This would mean that sovereignty was not to remain concentrated at any one level. It was to be diffused among units rising horizontally till they reached the national level. In terms of political science, the residuary power remained with the village and the center was there to co-ordinate the work. Gandhi believed in Thoreau’s saying, "that government is the best which governs the least."20 

The message of the spinning-wheel is to "replace the spirit of exploitation by the spirit of service. The dominant note in the West is the note of exploitation. I have no desire that our country should copy that spirit or that note."21 

Gandhi again maintains: "I do feel that it [Charkha] has a message for the U.S.A. and the whole world. But it cannot be until India has demonstrated to the world that it has made the spinning-wheel its own, which it has not done today. The fault is not of the wheel. I have not the slightest doubt that the saving of India and of the world lies in the wheel. If India becomes the slave of the machine, then, I say, heaven save the world."22 

Hence, the message of the spinning-wheel is "much wider than its circumference. Its message is one of simplicity, service of mankind, living so as not to hurt others, creating an indissoluble bond between the rich and the poor, capital and labor, the prince and the peasant. That larger message is naturally for all."23 

Gandhi felt convinced that "the revival of hand-spinning and hand-weaving would make the largest contribution to the economic and the moral regeneration of India. The millions must have a simple industry to supplement agriculture. Spinning was the cottage industry years ago, and if the millions are to be saved from starvation, they must be enabled to introduce spinning in their homes, and every village must repossess its own weaver."24 He wanted to make the spinning-wheel the center of all handicrafts. The spinning-wheel was a symbol of hope to the masses. The masses lost their freedom, such as it was, with the loss of the charkha. The charkha supplemented the agriculture of the villagers and gave it dignity. It was the friend and solace of the widow. It kept the villagers from idleness. For the charkha included all the anterior and posterior industries B ginning, carding, wrapping, sizing, dyeing and weaving. These in their turn kept the village carpenter and blacksmith busy.

Gandhi bought useful and thought provoking literature from every part of the world. One could buy surgical instruments from England, pins and pencils from Austria and watches from Switzerland. But one should not buy an inch of the finest cotton fabric from England or Japan or any other part of the world, because it could be easily made in India and to buy it from elsewhere would hurt the sentiments of those who work for their livelihood. Hence, Gandhi held it to be sinful for anyone to refuse to buy the cloth spun and woven by the needy millions of India’s paupers and to buy foreign cloth, although it may be superior in quality to the Indian hand-spun. "My Swadeshi, therefore, chiefly centers round the hand Khaddar and extends to everything that can be and is produced in India."25 

Gandhi wanted to popularize the use of soul-force, which is but another name for the force of love, in place of brute-force. "Having flung aside the sword, there is nothing except the cup of love which I can offer to those who oppose me. It is by offering that cup that I expect to draw them close to me. I cannot think of permanent enmity between man and man, and believing as I do in the theory of rebirth, I live in the hope that, if not in this birth, in some other birth, I shall be able to hug all humanity in friendly embrace."26 

Chapter 17, the most important chapter in the whole book of Hind Swaraj starts with the question whether there is any historical evidence of "any nation having risen through soul-force."27 According to Gandhi, Tulsidas is a better guide here than are the Indian princes. Tulsidas and such other Acharyas taught that daya (compassion) is the true ultimate basis of Dharma (duty) and, therefore, also of the Dharma that should govern the Praja (the ordinary people). However widespread the use of brute-force may have been in history, it is no reason to doubt the validity of the counter thesis.

If the story of the universe had commenced with wars, not a man would have been found alive today. . . . Therefore, the greatest and the most unimpeachable evidence of the success of this force is to be found in the fact that, in spite of the wars of the world, it still lives on. . . . Hundreds of nations live in peace. . . . History is really a record of every interruption of the even working of the force of love or the soul.28

 

One has to understand the true meaning of Swaraj. In the first place, Swaraj is a mental condition of: (i) inner liberation from the temptations of greed and power offered by modern civilization, (ii) freedom from hatred towards the national ‘enemy,’ the British, and (iii) active love for the Indian Praja, a love that can conquer the temptations of greed and power. Secondly, Swaraj is an external condition of: (i) political independence from alien domination, and (ii) life-long dedication to the task of improving the material conditions of poverty and caste oppression of the Indian Praja. In concrete terms, Swaraj requires one to take a stand on brute-force and soul-force. "If there be only one such Indian," Gandhi affirms, "the English will have to listen to him."29 

In the introduction to the English translation on 20 March 1910, Gandhi wrote that the British Government in India constitutes a struggle between modern civilization and the self-contained villages which are the kingdom of God.30 In the same year he wrote to Gokhale that the ideas contained in this book "have been matured in the course of the struggle."31 Writing to Maganlal, Gandhi said, "My present state of mind is such that even if the whole world is against what I have written, I would not be depressed."32 In answer to the criticism of his views on modern civilization, Gandhi categorically stated that he was totally convinced of the irreparable harm done by the so-called modern civilization, making it devoid of ethical and spiritual values. In 1914, he wrote that his convictions had grown stronger. Further, "The key to an understanding of Hind Swaraj lies in the idea that worldly pursuits should give way to ethical living."33 Writing to Maganlal in 1919, Gandhi said; "Besides, the more experience I gain, the more I realize that machinery will keep us in personal slavery and I find what I said about it in Hind Swaraj is literally true."34 

But I must warn the reader against thinking that I am today aiming at the Swaraj described therein. I know that India is not ripe for it. It may seem an impertinence to say so. But such is the conviction. I am individually working for the self-rule pictured therein. But today my corporate activity is undoubtedly devoted to the attainment of parliamentary Swaraj in accordance with the wishes of the people of India. I am not aiming at destroying railways or hospitals, though I would certainly welcome their natural destruction. Neither railways nor hospitals are a test of a high and pure civilization. At best they are a necessary evil. Neither adds one inch to the moral stature of a nation. Nor am I aiming at a permanent destruction of law courts, much as I regard it as a consummation devoutly to be wished. Still less am I trying to destroy all machinery, all mills. It requires a higher simplicity and renunciation than the people are today prepared for.35

 

In 1929, he wrote to Satish Chandra Dasgupta, "There is not one word in Hind Swaraj that cannot be substantiated. If I have to rewrite it today, I may change the language, but never the thought."36 In 1939, giving a message to The Aryan Path, on the eve of the publication of its special number devoted to Hind Swaraj, Gandhi categorically stated: "I may change the language here and there, if I had to rewrite the booklet. But after the stormy thirty years through which I have passed, I have seen nothing to alter the views expounded therein."37 In October 1939, Gandhi told the members of the Executive of Gandhi Seva Sangh: "I would ask you to read Hind Swaraj with my eyes and see therein the chapter on how to make India non-violent. You cannot build non-violence on factory civilization, but it can be built on self-contained villages."38 

I fully stand by the kind of governance I have described in Hind Swaraj. My experience has confirmed the truth of what I wrote in 1909. It is better that I redraw the picture today in my own language. . . . What is worth knowing is only what I have to say today. I believe that if India, and through India the world, is to achieve freedom, then sooner or later we shall have to go and live in the village B in huts, not in palaces. Millions of people can never live in cities and palaces, in comfort and peace. . . . We can have the vision of that truth and non-violence only in the simplicity of the villages. That simplicity resides in the spinning wheel. . . . The sum and substance of what I want to say is that the individual person should have control over the things that are necessary for the sustenance.39 

 

My ideal village still exists only in my imagination. After all every human being lives in the world of his own imagination. In this village of my dreams, the villager will not be dull . . . he will be all awareness. He will not live like an animal in filth and darkness. Men and women will live in freedom, prepared to face the whole world. There will be no plague, no cholera and no small-pox. Nobody will be allowed to be idle or to wallow in luxury. Everyone will have to do body labor. Granting all this, I can still envisage a number of things that will have to be organized on a large scale. Perhaps there will even be railways and also post and telegraph offices. I do not know what things there will be or will not be. Nor am I bothered about it. If I can make sure of the essential things, other things will follow in due course. But if I give up the essential things, I give up everything.40 

 

Speaking of Hind Swaraj, Professor Frederick Soddy, a well known chemist and economist, felt that "any one who wishes to change the world would do well to study it."41 John Middleton Murry, a Christian and socialist, did not agree with all that Gandhi wrote in Hind Swaraj. But he came to the conclusion that "the ultimate social goal of the spiritual leader in the modern world should be not to withdraw backwards to the pre-machine community, but to advance forward to the creation of a society capable of using machines without incurring material and spiritual self-devastation."42 He claimed the book as one of the "spiritual classics of the world" and "the greatest that has been written in modern times."43 Gandhi was not against science and technology but against losing mastery over them. Machinery was welcome only if it did not lead to concentrate wealth in a few hands. Gandhi’s preoccupation was to provide common persons with the best possible tools to enable them to work with the maximum efficiency and thereby improve their material well-being.