SWARAJ

SWADESHI

SATYA

SATYAGRAHA

SARVODAYA

The only motive is to serve my country, to find

out the Truth, and to follow it. If, therefore my

views are proved to be wrong, I shall have no

hesitation in rejecting them.

If they are proved to be right, I would naturally

wish, for the sake of the Motherland, that

others should adopt them.

In ‘Hind Swaraj’ Gandhi combined rejection of

the liberative contribution of modernity with an

attempt to integrate these positive elements

with a liberating re-interpretation of tradition.

With his critique from within the tradition,

Gandhi becomes the great synthesiser of

contraries within and across traditions.

For Gandhi civilisation was by definition a moral

enterprise: "Civilisation is that mode of conduct

which points out to man the path of duty“

Unacceptable were the two points - ‘might is right’

and the ‘survival of the fittest’.

Also, colonial imperialism, industrial capitalism,

and rationalist materialism.

Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj presents us with an

idealised version of Indian culture that is

completely counterpunctal to the ‘Modern West’.

Here we pick out three seminal themes:

Swaraj (Self rule),

Swadeshi (Self governance) and

Satya (Truth).

Swaraj as ‘self rule’ and as ‘self-government’

The first as self-control, rule over oneself,

was the foundation for the second, self-

government. In this second sense, local self

~government was what Gandhi really had in

mind.

Gandhi very decidedly gives priority to self-rule

over self-government, and to both over political

independence, swatantrata.

Essential to both meanings swaraj, was a sense of

self-respect that is precisely Gandhi’s answer to

colonial rule.

For Gandhi freedom in its most fundamental sense

had to mean freedom for self-realisation. But it

had to be a freedom for all, for the toiling masses,

and the privileged classes, and most importantly

for the least and last Indian.

Clearly, the foundation of Swaraj in both its

senses had to be threefold: self-respect, self-

realisation and self-reliance.

This is what Gandhi tried to symbolise with the

charka and khadi, both much misunderstood

symbols today.

Manchester cloth Vs home spun khadi

For Gandhi real rights are legitimated by duties they

flow from, for both are founded on satya and dharma.

The modern theory of rights reverses this priority and

founds rights on the dignity and freedom of the

individual.

But comprehensive morality can never be adequately

articulated or correctly grasped in terms of rights alone.

It is this commitment of the individual to his

‘desh’ that was Gandhi’s Indian alternative to

western nationalism.

The village Gandhi idealised was not just a

geographic place, or a statistic, or a social

class.

It was an event, a dream, a happening, a

culture.

As he used "the term ‘village’ implied not an

entity, but a set of values"

SATYA: Truthfulness, honesty, transparency,

accountability, expanding conscience,

awareness and responsibility; justice with

compassion; taking responsibility for past

mistakes; pluralism;

understanding of the multiplicity of truth;

humility and respect for others’ truths; holding

on to relative truth but continuing quest for

further truth; attempting to arrive at a

consensus on key issues; quest for truth.

Gandhi called the Indian movement for

independence as Satyagraha, that is to say,

the Force which is born of Truth and Love or

non-violence.

Satyagraha was a combination of reason,

morality and politics

Sarvodaya is upliftment or welfare of all.

Gandhi first encountered this noble notion in the

book titled ‘Unto This Last’ by John Ruskin, in

1904.

The impact of this reading was powerful that it

proved to be a life changing experience for

Gandhi.

He was determined to change his life in

accordance with the ideals of the book.

Ruskin’s ideology was based on three fundamental

tenets;

• That the good of the individual is contained in the

good of all.

• That a lawyer’s work has the same value as the

barber's in as much as all have the same right of

earning their livelihood from their work.

• That a life of labor, i.e., the life of the tiller of the

soil and the handicraftsman is the life worth living

Sarvodaya was a social ideology in its fundamental

form. Emancipation of disparity between social

classes was its objective. and it could be best

implemented by political will and state machinery.

It would affect in letter and spirit the singular

objective of Sarvodaya; inclusive growth and

progress. For Gandhi and for India, this meant

grassroot level uplift which began from the villages

and from the most deprived classes.

Purity of means and ends; welfare of all and

welfare of last first.

Peaceful resolution of conflicts, constructive

work to build up a nonviolent world order,

Relief and rehabilitation work; removing

structural (indirect) violence.

Satyagraha was a combination of reason,

morality and politics.

Gandhi defined ‘passive resistance’ as he

called it then as "a method of securing rights by

personal suffering“.

It appealed to the opponent’s head, heart and

interests.

Gandhi was the first leader to bring non-violence to

centre stage in the struggle for freedom with the

British.

He was well aware that adopting "methods of

violence to drive out the English" would be a

"suicidal policy".

Hind Swaraj was precisely intended to stymie such

a soul-destroying venture.

Thus one remarkable re- interpretations of

Hinduism that Gandhi effected was that of the

Gita.

This text intended to persuade a reluctant

warrior on the legitimacy and even the

necessity of joining the battle.

Gandhi reworks its ‘nishkama karma’ to

become the basis of his ahimsa and

satyagraha!

An ecological understanding now requires a new

and deep realisation of our interdependence. We

have only one earth, we must learn to share and

care.

Thus, with regard to the economy and polity,

Gandhi would have the village as his world.

With regard to culture and religion, it was the

world that was his village! Surely, here we have a

viable example of thinking globally and acting

locally.

For Gandhi, "individuality" must be "oriented to

self-realisation through self-knowledge... in a

network of interdependence and harmony

informed by ahimsa“

Nor was this to be an interdependence of

dominant-subservient relationships so

prevalent in our local communities and global

societies.

His Swadeshi envisaged a more personalised

and communitarian society on a human scale.

Gandhi wanted education to help India move

away from the Western concept of progress,

towards a different form of development

more suited to its needs and more viable, for

the world as a whole. True education is that

which trains all the three abilities, spiritual,

intellectual, and economic, simultaneously.

It is not clear whether he was against the spirit of

modern science and technology, or whether his

opposition to Western-type modernity was

confined to the manner in which science and

technology had been used to exploit non-

European societies. Gandhi implied need for

ethical and sustainable science and technology.

Sathyagraha and Sarvodaya (uplift of all) are Gandhiji’s

most significant and revolutionary contributions to the

contemporary political thought. Gandhiji’s originality lay

in the way he fused truth and non-violence in both theory

and practice.

Leave alone the ‘hand-spinning austere living syndrome’

dubbed as Gandhism, the broad lessons Gandhi taught

boils down to heroic self reliance and fearlessness,

perched on truth, non-violence, voluntary cooperation

and an abiding concern for the poor masses.

Dignity of manual labor; Attention to Sanitation.

The good of the individual is contained in the good

of all.

Each can and should serve society by his own labor

and profession in the field of his choice.

There is no colonialism today, it is for us bear

responsibility for improving our village, city and

India.