FOREWORD - M. K. Gandhi

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FOREWORDM. J. Lunine*India’s epochal experiment in reconciling individualfreedom with social justice and in treasuring diversity forthe sake of unity is history’s most significant andportentous application and demonstration of humancompassion, intelligence, imagination, faith, sacrifice, andservice.Appropriately enough, India has been at the centerof the ancient, continuing world conversation that iscivilization: the conversation about what is desirable andwhat is possible for human beings and our socialstructures.Countless conversations have characterized—sometimes paralyzed, sometimes catalyzed—India’sleading role in examining and testing the essential ideasand values with which humankind has been struggling.Two ostensibly unconnected conversations thathave taken place in India within the past two years reflectand project vastly divergent perspectives, premises, andpolicies that concern the condition and direction of India—and therefore the humanly conditioned fate ofhumanity and global society.The Hind Swaraj Centenary SeminarThere was no more appropriate place in the worldfor the first Conversation, the Hind Swaraj Centenary

Seminar [HSCS], than the Institute of Gandhian Studies atWardha in the heart of India. Meeting November 20-22,2009, in commemoration of the 100 th anniversary of thepublication of Gandhi’s most significant and consequentialwork, the HSCS was jointly organized by the Institute ofGandhian Studies; the Gandhi Peace Foundation, NewDelhi; and the Association- Gandhi International, France,in collaboration with individuals, organizations,movements in India and throughout the world. TheSeminar’s objectives were:(1) to understand theemerging global scenario in the light of Hind Swaraj, (2) tocritically evaluate Gandhi’s criticism of modern civilizationand its institutions; (3) to assess the significance of analternative society and world order depicted in HindSwaraj; (4) to draw action plans on various fronts in thelight of the discussions in the Seminar.This book is intended to share and shine that lightonto an ever-wider arena. It presents ideas, visions, andproposals of the intellectually engaged and tirelesslyactive workers for Hind Swaraj and “Global Swaraj” whomet at Wardha. I add “Global Swaraj,” because I believethe India of 1909, as diagnosed and evaluated by Gandhiin Hind Swaraj, was a prophetic and paradigmaticmicrocosm of our world in the 21st Century.Gandhi’s message in Hind Swaraj was twofold.First, in keeping with his life-long commitment to nursingand healing, Gandhi diagnosed the spreading malignancybrought on by a privileged, Western-Occidented elite

being blinded to the deleterious impact of unbridledIndustrialization – Urbanization – Materialism – Militarism– Environmental Degradation – Cultural Desecration –Individual and National Moral Corruption. Surely, Gandhitoday would point out that the pathology in 1909 Indiahas spread throughout the globe and now is a metaphorfor the struggles within nations between the rich andpowerful and the poor, illiterate, undernourished anddiseased and between the world’s rich nations and poornations. About Gandhi’s diagnosis there is no dispute.However, the second part of Gandhi’s 1909 message, hisproposed cure for the “disease of modern civilization,”Purna Swaraj [Village Swaraj], continues to provokedisagreement and, indeed, controversy.The Wall Street Journal’s Virtual ConversationThe other, ostensibly unconnected, compellingConversation of the past two years was suggestedreportorially in a front-page article by Paul Beckett in theMarch 30, 2011 issue of the Wall Street Journal (aconservative publication not often consideredappreciative of Gandhi’s theory and practice ofNonviolence and Social Justice).Quoting leaders of some of India’s major privateenterprises and interests, and citing statistics pointing tothe growing gap between especially the elite and themiddle class, on the one hand, and the vast majority ofthe poor, on the other [re income, caloric intake, healthand medical services, quantity and quality of education,

employment and employability, housing, electricity,sanitation, potable water], the article headlines “Doubtsgather over Rising Giant’s Course.” It notes a recenttelevision appearance of Azim Premji, chairman ofsoftware-services giant Wipro Ltd., during which hedescribes the situation as a “national calamity.” “Evensome of India’s richest people have begun to complainthat things are seriously amiss,” Mr. Beckett reports. “Noone is disputing that the boom has created huge wealthfor the business elite and much better lives for hundredsof millions of people. But the benefits of growth stillhaven’t spread widely among India’s 1.2 billion residents.And a string of corrupting scandals has exposed anembarrassing lack of effective governance.”Ravi Venkatesan, ex-chairman of Microsoft’s Indiaarm, is quoted as saying that his nation is at a crossroads.“We could end up with a rather unstable society, asaspirations are increasing and those left behind are nolonger content to live out their lives. You already seeanger and expressions of it,” he says. “I strongly have asense we’re at a tipping point. There is incredibleopportunity but also dark forces. What we do as an eliteand as a country in the next couple of years will be verydecisive.” Mr.Venkatesan then asks a provocativelymultivalent question, “What has globalization andindustrialization done for India? About 400 million peoplehave seen the benefits and 800 million haven’t.”

Perhaps a January, 2011 Open Letter, cited in thearticle, to “Our leaders” from Mr. Premji and 13 otherbusiness leaders, retired Supreme Court justices, andformer governors of India’s central bank epitomizes themurky admixture of pragmatism and humanism troublingPrivileged India: “It is widely acknowledged that thebenefits of growth are not reaching the poor andmarginalized sections adequately due to impediments toeconomic development,” they wrote.The Wall Street Journal article broadcasts theanxious voice of an India Power Elite. The hopeful task ofthe Hind Swaraj Centenary Seminar was to reach andteach the hearts, heads, and hands of ordinary people inIndia and throughout our City-dominated Global Village.While today’s India is best seen through the propheticand prescient prism of Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj, the historicconversation between Gandhi and Nehru in the form ofan exchange of letters in October, 1945, is thefoundational conversation that dramatizes and definesfundamental but not irreconcilable differences betweenGandhi’s vision of Hind Swaraj and Nehru’s plans for aModern India—and fundamental but not irreconcilabledifferences between the WSJ’s virtual Conversation andthe HS Centenary Seminar.An Historic Exchange of Letters between Gandhi andNehru“The first thing I want to write about,” beganGandhi in his letter of 5 Oct. 1945, “is the difference of

outlook between us. If the difference is fundamental thenI feel the public should also be made aware of it. I amconvinced that if India is to attain true freedom andthrough India the world also, then sooner or later the factmust be recognized that people will have to live invillages, not towns, in huts, not in palaces. . We canrealize truth and non-violence only in the simplicity ofvillage life and this simplicity can best be found in theCharkha and all that the Charkha connotes.”However, in the next paragraph, Gandhi states,“You must not imagine that I am envisaging our village lifeas it is today. The village of my dreams . will containintelligent human beings. They will not live in dirt anddarkness as animals. There will be neither plague, norcholera nor smallpox, no one will be idle, no one willwallow in luxury. Everyone will have to contribute hisquota of manual labor. I do not want to draw a large scalepicture in detail. It is possible to envisage railways, postand telegraph offices etc. For me it is material to obtainthe real article [my emphasis] and the rest will fit into thepicture afterwards. If I let go the real thing [myemphasis], all else goes.”Nehru’s reply of October 9, 1945 is often taken asbeing oppositional instead of dialectical. Nehru wrote: “Ido not understand why a village should necessarilyembody truth and non-violence. A village, normallyspeaking, is backward intellectually and culturally and noprogress can be made from a backward environment.

Narrow-minded people are much more likely to beuntruthful and violent.“Then again we have to put down certainobjectives like sufficiency of food, clothing, housing,education, sanitation, etc. which should be the minimumrequirements for the country and for everyone. It is withthese objectives in view that we must find out specificallyhow to attain them speedily.” Nehru then points to thenecessity of “modern means of transport as well as othermodern developments ” He sees the inevitability of “ameasure of heavy industry,” and raises the question, “How far will that fit in with a purely village society?” Heanswers his own question: “Personally I hope that heavyor light industries should all be decentralized as far aspossible and this is feasible now because of thedevelopment of electric power.” Then he says – withpremature dichotomous finality:“If two types ofeconomy exist in the country there should be eitherconflict between the two or one will overwhelm theother.”Nehru comes close to grasping Gandhi’s real articleand real thing when he agrees that, “Many of the presentcities have developed evils which are deplorable.” But heforecloses his [our] options when he concludes that,“Probably we have to discourage this overgrowth and atthe same time encourage the village to approximate morethe culture of the town.”

Nehru concludes his ambivalent letter with a cleareyed view of the changes in the world since 1909: “Theworld has changed since then, possibly in a wrongdirection. In any event any consideration of thesequestions must keep present facts, forces and the humanmaterial we have today in view, otherwise it will bedivorced from reality. You are right in saying that theworld, or a large part of it, appears to be bent oncommitting suicide.That may be an inevitabledevelopment of an evil seed in civilization that has grown.I think it is so. How to get rid of this evil, and yet how tokeep the good in the present as in the past is ourproblem. Obviously there is good too in the present.” 1I believe that (1) Nehru did not fully appreciate theinclusivity and flexibility of Gandhi’s vision and itspotential implementation; and (2) Nehru’s essentialhumanistic values but ambiguous ideas and binary way ofthinking have been blurred by too much political andindustrial pollution over the past half century.There are two statements by Nehru in the abovequotations that I wish to focus on: (1) When Nehrustates, with the sterile logic of the excluded middle, “Iftwo types of economy exist in the country there should beeither conflict between the two or one will overwhelm1 Quotes are from Gandhi-Nehru Exchange of Letters in: Anthony J.Parel, ed.,Gandhi—Hind Swaraj and Other Writings (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp 149—56, passim.

the other,” he forecasts a dreary and devastating futurefor India and the World. Isn’t he painting a picture ofeither continuous, mutually-deleterious conflict betweenthe Cities and the Villages [between the Rich Nations andthe Poor Nations] or the domination [the colonizationglobalization] of the Villages [the Poor Nations] by theCities [the Rich Nations]? (2) When he asserts, “Probablywe have to discourage the overgrowth [“of the presentcities”] and at the same time encourage the villages toapproximate more the culture of the town,” Nehrureflects an urban-cultural bias and, tragically, projects animplicit blueprint for the developmental policies andpriorities of the past 64 years.An Included Middle PathBut, of course, there is an Included Middle Path.And that Middle Path is a two-way road. I believe thatthere must be a functional correlation between RuralVillage [Poor Nations] Development and Urban [RichNations] Development. I think, on both ethical andpragmatic grounds, there must be a complementarity andinterdependence of what Nehru called the “two types ofeconomy.” I believe there are some hopeful signs that theGovernment of India is seriously addressing the urgencyof redressing the perennial imbalance of human andmaterial resources between the rural sector and theurban sector.I was heartened to read the statement of the Hon.Minister of Human Resource Development, Shri Arjun

Singh, in his Inaugural Address at the March, 2008National Seminar: “Gandhiji regarded his scheme ofeducation as spearheading the silent social revolution andexpected it to provide a healthy relationship between thecity and the village ”I would also call to your attention the NationalSeminar Valedictory Speech by Smt. D. Purandeshwari,Hon. Minister of State, HRD:“ there should be aparadigm shift in attaining higher quality of life and inbridging, rather quickly, the urban and rural divide.”Shortly before we won Independence Gandhi wrote inHarijan (1946): ‘the blood of the villages is the cementwith which the edifice of the cities is built. I want theblood that is today inflating the arteries of the cities torun once again in the blood vessels of the villages.”I have taken the liberty – or maybe fulfilled myduty – of extending Gandhi’s metaphor. I would proposethat in teaching Gandhi’s Truth to Urban India, VillageIndia can help unplug the clogged moral arteries of India’sexploding and explosive cities.A Forward LookEconomic development without heart is neitherjust nor practical. Moral development without coming toterms with the necessity of fulfilling human needs andpossibilities is neither practical nor just.

I look forward from this Foreword to the nextConversation at the Institute of Gandhian Studies atWardha in the heart of India. It should bring together thesignatories of the Wall Street Journal-cited Open Letterand the participants in the Hind Swaraj CentenarySeminar. The simple purpose of this next Conversationwill be to break the ice [glacial?] heretofore separatingthe two sets of human beings, so that all parties maymove from polarization to communication to cooperationto collaboration.This book you are about to read, this Conversationyou are about to join, is a sure step toward serving thatpurpose.* Professor Emeritus and Lecturer Humanities and GlobalPeace Studies, California State University, San Francisco;Visiting Scholar in Ethics and Social Theory, TheGraduate Theological Union Berkeley, California

PREFACEHind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule is one of the mostthought provoking works of Gandhi which he wrote originally inGujarati on the deck of a ship in November 1909, while returningfrom London to Cape Town in South Africa. Though Gandhiwrote this book keeping in mind the Indians, the views presentedin this work are not confined to India alone. The values presentedin this booklet are eternal and transcend geographical boundaries.In fact, this book constitutes the foundation of Gandhi’sphilosophy and presents a vision of an alternative way of lifebased on human values, ethics and spirituality. This book is asevere condemnation of modern civilization and also the dangersinherent in the institutions associated with it. The drastic changesthat have taken place in the society during the last few decadesshow that the fears that were anticipated and depicted by Gandhiin the Hind Swaraj have come true. The contemporary relevanceof thoughts expressed in the book has increased greatly in thecontext of humanity facing the evils of mechanisation,globalization, uncontrolled growth of capitalism, weapons ofmass destruction, consumerism, materialistic development,corruption, the growing menace of terrorism, environmentaldegradation and so on. It was in this context that on the occasionof the completion of the centenary year of Hind Swaraj, theInstitute of Gandhian Studies in collaboration with Gandhi PeaceFoundation, New Delhi and Gandhi International, Franceorganized the Hind Swaraj Centenary Seminar inSevagram/Wardha from 20-22 November 2009. The majorobjective of the Seminar was to discuss and evaluate Hind SwarajPerspectives and its relevance in the 21st Century. This volume isa collection of selected papers presented at the Hind SwarajCentenary Seminar.The first article by Chandrasekhar Dharmadhikari introducesGandhi’s Hind Swaraj and its significance in the context ofcontemporary challenges. Hind Swaraj shows the direction inwhich humanity should move forward to achieve the goal ofSwaraj. It helps us in getting out of present human predicament.The author concludes by stating that the ideal of swaraj Gandhi1

placed in Hind Swaraj will promote the culture of peace and nonviolence in the world.Renu Bhal’s article examines text and context of Hind Swaraj .She argues that Hind Swaraj can rightly be regarded as a classic.It was written in response to violent, militant revolutionarymethods adopted by a group of Indian nationalists. Gandhi wasapprehensive that emerging new leaders of the anti-imperialistmovement would legitimize the use of violence. The Britishcolonial government had treated rigid Shastric injunctions andtraditions of Indians, at par with British law, and judged them ongrounds of rationality. The British also used the “civilization”debate, to legitimize their rule in India. It was in this context thatGandhi resolved to reconstruct the rich cultural heritage andtraditions of India in Hind Swaraj.Ramdas Bhatkal in his paper on Reinterpreting Hind Swarajobserves that Gandhi emphasized self-control as the mostimportant aspect of Swaraj and insisted on the need for selfcontrol in all aspects of life. The current scene not just in Indiabut the world over, is full of instances that vitiate the quality ofself-control that Gandhi advocated.Sathish K. Jain argues that a significant part of Hind Swaraj,containing definitive and foundational formulations of Gandhi’sthinking on questions of civilizational import, pertains toinstitutions and technology. The views regarding institutions andtechnology emanate from a unitary idea or insight; and thereforeare organically linked with each other. It is also contended in thepaper that the Gandhian position on technology has largely beenmisunderstood. The main reason behind Gandhi’s rejection ofmodern civilization in its entirety, inclusive of institutions andtechnology was based on his deep conviction that such acivilization was not conducive to uphold higher ethical principlesand he even doubted whether such a civilization was sustainablein the long-run.Anand Gokani’s article examines Hind Swaraj with specialreference to the Medical care. The need of the hour is toextrapolate the Hind Swaraj perspectives of medical care into themodern medical scenario. This would require the re-structuringthe entire medical system in our country and re-evaluation of theundue emphasis placed on the study of allopathic medicine.Emphasis should be placed on prevention of disease. Finally, the2

medical care should be available to every member of thecommunity at a reasonable price.In his short essay Violence, Civilization, Language, Sin – In WhatOrder Would You Put Them? Louis Campana draws ourattention to newer and more subtle forms of colonization today,particularly intellectual colonization. Shaking off this intellectualcolonization is a colossal task, and essentially a spiritual labour.Antonino Drago’s article examines Gandhi’s reform in threefields’ viz. religious tradition, ethics and politics. It aims atcreating a new civilization by improving upon ancient Indiancivilization. He says that Gandhi illustrated his political reform inthe booklet Hind Swaraj. However, his opposition to Westerncivilization was more in ethical than in political terms. Fifty yearslater, Gandhi's only Western disciple, Lanza

The Hind Swaraj Centenary Seminar . than the Institute of Gandhian Studies at Wardha in the heart of India. Meeting November 20-22, 2009, in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the publication of Gandhi’s most significant and consequential . Gandhi’s vision

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