The time is ripe for Gandhi’s philosophical alternative to capitalism and communism

This is the second of a two-part essay on Mohandas Gandhi. Read the first part here.

Mohandas Gandhi lived in an era when the world witnessed a clash between two big ideas, both essentially western in their origin: capitalism and communism. Between the 17th and early 20th centuries, European powers – later joined by the United States – had become fabulously wealthy following a capitalist model of economic growth, spurred by technological advances by the industrial revolution. In the case of European powers, their capitalist path to prosperity was also paved by the colonial pillage of the nations they had subjugated.

Communism was born as a reaction to capitalist exploitation of the working class. Backed by the theory of Marxism, it seeks to overthrow the capitalist state, by violent means if necessary, and usher in revolutionary transformation of the economy from private enterprise into public ownership, promising a future of equality, abundance and justice.

India’s freedom movement could not have been immune to the influence of these two big ideas. In the political sphere, few leaders and organisations were votaries of capitalism. Communism also did not find many adherents outside the fold of those who either belonged to, or were sympathisers of the Communist Party of India. The Communist Party of India, formed in 1925, was inspired by the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917.

The chief reason that a large part of Indian society and polity remained uninfluenced by communism was the violence and brutal suppression of democratic rights and freedom in Russia under the leadership of authoritarian Joseph Stalin. Nevertheless, the ideas of equality, justice and a society free of exploitation – loosely described by the term “socialism” – found strong supporters in India, both in the political establishment and among the people at large.

Gandhi rejected both capitalism and communism, the former because it was exploitative and the latter because it was not averse to violence. The concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a minority capitalist class was abhorrent to him. Equally repugnant was the communist theory of class struggle, which regarded the interests of entrepreneurs and workers to be inherently and irreconcilably antagonistic.

However, as someone whose world-view harmoniously encompassed every aspect of human life, he could not have been indifferent to the need to provide his own economic concept as an alternative to capitalism and communism. His alternative was “sarvodaya”: the wellbeing and progress of one and all in society. This was the title of his 1908 essay based on John Ruskin’s book on political economy, Unto This Last. In his autobiography My Experiments With Truth, he describes the electrifying effect Ruskin’s book had on him during his 24-hour train journey in South Africa, when he could not sleep at all. “I determined to change my life in accordance with the ideals of the book,” he wrote.

The essence of sarvodaya lies in a principle similar to the one embedded in socialism: “The good of the individual is contained in the good of all”. Realisation of this ideal makes three demands on societies and individuals. First, a key requirement is the adoption, in all economic activities, of the virtue of cooperation in the place of an unhealthy class struggle and destructive capitalist competition. Those who acquire more wealth than they reasonably need have a moral and social responsibility to become “trustees” of the surplus wealth to be used for the wellbeing of the needy. This is the operative meaning of the Sanskrit maxim “sarvajan hitaaya, sarvajan sukhaaya”, wellbeing of all, and happiness of all.

Second, both societies and individuals should move away from an economy of acquisition to an economy of healthy fulfilment of the human needs of everyone without discrimination. As Gandhi famously said, Mother Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not for every man’s greed. Third, Gandhi attached the highest importance to the voluntary limiting of man’s material needs through self-control. “Our civilisation, our culture, our Swaraj depend not upon multiplying our wants – self-indulgence, but upon restricting our wants – self-denial. That you cannot serve both God and Mammon is an economic truth of the highest value”.

Trusteeship

It is necessary to emphasise here that Gandhi enlarged the meaning of two key principles of Hinduism through his economic philosophy: asteya (non-stealing) and aparigraha (non-greed). He held that if a man accumulates more than what he and his family reasonably require for the fulfilment of their needs, it amounts to greed and stealing from society. Out of this understanding arose his concept of trusteeship.

Gandhi’s belief in trusteeship came from a pearl of wisdom in the first verse of the Isha Upanishad, which states: “Everything animate or inanimate that is within the universe is controlled and owned by the lord. One should therefore accept only those things necessary for oneself, which are set aside as one’s quota, and must not accept other things, knowing well to whom they belong”.

He extolled this verse for conveying a message of universal brotherhood – not only brotherhood of all human beings, but of all living things. Indeed, this Upanishadic verse, which inspired him to formulate the idea of trusteeship, can be called the kernel of Gandhian socialism: “When an individual has more than his proportionate portion, he becomes a trustee of that portion for other creations of God”. We can see here how beautifully ancient Indian philosophy has linked the concepts of non-stealing, nonviolence, trusteeship and socialism (“each for all and all for each”). The same virtue of trusteeship – the ethical obligation to help others with what one possesses – is also postulated in all other religions in their own ways.

Trusteeship was Gandhi’s creative application of the spirituality and science of nonviolence in the economic sphere. “Economic equality,” he argued, “is the master key to nonviolent independence. Working for economic equality means abolishing the eternal conflict between capital and labour. It means the levelling down of the few rich in whose hands is concentrated the bulk of the nation’s wealth on the one hand, and the levelling up of the semi-starved naked millions on the other.”

Gandhi made a distinction between capitalism and the capitalist: “By the nonviolent method, we seek not to destroy the capitalist, we seek to destroy capitalism”. He invited the rich to become trustees by telling them that “it is possible to acquire riches without consciously doing wrong”. At the same time, he also emphasised that labour must be regarded as an equal partner of capital. “If capital is power, so is work. Either is dependent on the other. Immediately the worker realises his strength, he is in a position to become a co-sharer with the capitalist instead of remaining his slave”.

He put his enlightened views on trade union activities into practice when, in 1918, he organised the textile workers of Ahmedabad. He called trusteeship “a laboratory of human relations” and succeeded in winning the hearts of both workers and employers.

As seen in the first part of this essay, he extended the concept of trusteeship beyond economics to the realm of the environment. Human beings, he declared, “are the trustees of the lower animal kingdom”. Striking a note of warning, he wrote: “It is an arrogant assumption to say that human beings are lords and masters of the lower creatures. On the contrary, being endowed with greater things in life, they are the trustees of the lower animal kingdom”.

Gandhi and socialism

As mentioned earlier, the broad concept of “socialism” had influenced a large section of India’s political establishment and Indian people during the freedom struggle. The question naturally arises: where did Gandhi’s idea of trusteeship stand in relation to socialism? From his writings and actions, it is obvious that he was a socialist at heart, but he was against some of the policy demands of socialist leaders and organisations – such as their demand for the nationalisation of big businesses.

Gandhi was in favour of less state action and more societal action to promote trusteeship. He believed that societal action would promote behavioural transformation, strengthen the spirit of mutual cooperation and solidarity, and enrich the culture of fraternity.

Speaking at the Delhi Provincial Political Conference in July 1947, he said:

“It has become a fashion these days to call oneself a socialist. It is a mistaken notion that one can serve only if one carries a label of some ‘ism’. ... I have always considered myself a servant of the workers and peasants but I have never found it necessary to call myself a socialist. ... My socialism is of a different kind. ... If socialism means turning enemies into friends I should be considered a genuine socialist. ... I do not believe in the kind of socialism that the Socialist Party preaches. ... When I die you will all admit that Gandhi was a true socialist”.

Because of this ambiguity, he faced criticism from both communists as well as socialists – including Jawaharlal Nehru and others within the Congress. The criticism was on two counts. First, it was well known that Gandhi was on good terms with all the leading Indian business groups of his time – Tata, Birla, Bajaj and others. Many of them financially supported the Congress and also Gandhi’s Constructive Programme, which included the campaign against untouchability, the promotion of khadi and village industries, awareness about sanitation and cleanliness, establishment of a new type of value-based education, and “self-purification” and “self-reform” of those engaged in these activities.

Many critics saw no merit in these “non-political” activities and, instead, blamed him for his dependence on big business houses. Gandhi was unfazed by this criticism because he scrupulously tried to raise the bulk of funds through small donations from a large number of common people. Moreover, he regarded his Constructive Programme to be an inseparable part of his politics. Without social transformation and the self-cultivation of individuals, even political freedom for India would not have much meaning, he cautioned.

“I am not ashamed to own that many capitalists are friendly towards me and do not fear me,” he wrote in 1939: “They know that I desire to end capitalism almost, if not quite, as much as the most advanced socialist or communist. ... My theory of ‘trusteeship’ is no makeshift, certainly no camouflage. I am confident that it will survive all other theories.”

Gandhi’s confidence that his theory of trusteeship would “survive all other theories” stemmed from his belief that “it has the sanction of philosophy and religion behind it” and also because “no other theory is compatible with nonviolence”.

Second, his critics also argued that his appeal to businessmen to follow the concept of trusteeship fell mostly on deaf ears. To this, he retorted: “That possessors of wealth have not acted up to the theory does not prove its falsity; it proves the weakness of the wealthy… The question how many can be real trustees is beside the point. If the theory is true, it is immaterial whether many live up to it or only one man lives up to it. The question is of conviction. If you accept the principle of ahimsa, you have to strive to live up to it, no matter whether you succeed or fail. There is nothing in this theory which can be said to be beyond the grasp of intellect, though you may say it is difficult of practice”.

He used a scientific concept to drive home his point. “Absolute trusteeship is an abstraction like Euclid’s definition of a point, and is equally unattainable. But if we strive for it, we shall be able to go further in realising a state of equality on earth than by any other method”.

Inequality, ‘bloody revolution’

Despite his differences with socialists, Gandhi had warned, in the sternest possible language, about the serious consequences of the rich-poor divide in independent India. “A nonviolent system of government is clearly an impossibility, so long as the wide gulf between the rich and the hungry millions persists. The contrast between the palaces of New Delhi and the miserable hovels of the poor, labouring class nearby cannot last one day in a free India in which the poor will enjoy the same power as the richest in the land… A violent and bloody revolution is a certainty one day unless there is a voluntary abdication of riches and the power that riches give and sharing them for the common good”.

Has India heeded Gandhi’s warning? The answer is obvious. On one hand, India today has attained a level of material prosperity that was perhaps unthinkable during the freedom struggle. Even though our population has increased, a large section of it enjoys better living standards than in the past. This undeniable achievement is something we can be proud of. On the other hand, the wealth gap in today’s India, compared to what it was in the colonial era, has widened to an extent that was unimaginable in Gandhi’s time. Concomitantly, violence of various kinds due to economic inequality, social injustice and regional imbalance in development has also increased. “A bloody revolution” may not have happened, but that cannot make either our government or our society complacent. The numerous mass protests resulting in bloodshed in the nearly eight decades since independence have proved Gandhi right in his prognosis that inequity inevitably breeds violence.

Independent India never made a serious attempt – rather, it made no attempt at all – to constitutionally introduce trusteeship in economic planning and legislation. The business class and the political-bureaucratic leadership colluded in burying this key Gandhian concept. The blame rests not only with the Indian state but also Indian society, especially Hindu society.

Although Hinduism has inherited the timeless wisdom of the Vedas, Upanishads, epics and other scriptures, the elites – the economic, socio- political and religious leadership of Hindu society – have chosen not to be awakened and energised by this wisdom. They have also not heeded the exhortation by Vivekananda, the greatest Hindu monk of the modern era, who said: “I do not believe in a God or religion which cannot wipe the widow’s tears or bring a piece of bread to the orphan’s mouth.” Vivekananda had also angrily declared: “So long as the millions live in hunger and ignorance, I hold every man a traitor who, having been educated at their expense, pays not the least heed to them.”

This elite reluctance to follow the diktats of religion in economic life is evident from the slow pace of reforms in Hindu society, the disinclination of the rich to cast away the influence of Western consumerism, and their failure to practice “trusteeship”, a quintessentially Indian economic thought that Gandhi came up with and is rooted in Hinduism.

There is no point in simply diagnosing the problem and apportioning blame. It is far more important to strive to resurrect the philosophy of trusteeship in the conduct of individuals and institutions. Such efforts have a chance to succeed because of two helpful developments in the post-Gandhian history of India and the world.

First, communism has collapsed – and this is something Gandhi had foreseen as early as in the 1930s. Second, capitalism has not proved its success in fulfilling its own promises. Hence, this historical experience has placed the search for an alternative, nonviolent economic system on top of the agenda of the 21st century. A large part of the answer to this search can be found in the concept of trusteeship, whose validity is universal. Gandhi was, perhaps, far ahead of his time in advocating it. The time for trusteeship was perhaps not then. But it certainly is now.

The writer, who served as an aide to India’s former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, is the founder of the Forum for a New South Asia – Powered by India-Pakistan-China Cooperation. His X handle is @SudheenKulkarni and he welcomes comments at sudheenkulkarni@gmail.com.

October 2 is Gandhi Jayanti. This is the second of a two-part series on Mohandas Gandhi.