Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted
digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about
JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms
Indian Political Science Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
The Indian Journal of Political Science
This content downloaded from 117.239.21.82 on Tue, 20 Sep 2016 05:58:15 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Indian Journal of Political Science
of all. Again from his conception of truth followed his theory of satyagraha
to apply it to all spheres of life and studying its possibilities. The non-
This content downloaded from 117.239.21.82 on Tue, 20 Sep 2016 05:58:15 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Indian Journal of Political Science 516
means and the end. If the means are tainted with viol
non-physical, the resulting state will be neither n
democratic, for the strong will seize power and exploit th
stood for the stateless society. State implies force and vio
conceive of the state without the element of force, as an e
The use of force as the sanction behind the laws of the state,
This content downloaded from 117.239.21.82 on Tue, 20 Sep 2016 05:58:15 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Problem of Sovereignty in Gandhian Thought 517
The faith of liberalism in individual liberty, whether on utilitarian
T.H. Green gives explicit recognition to what is implicit in J.S. Mill when
he says: Will, not force, is the basis of the state'.
follows from his metaphysics. But if force does not play any part in the
ideal, it does not follow that it can be eliminated from the actual conditions
(violence) that the very existence of society involves."2 As far as the state
Thus Gandhi did not have fixed idea of the state, but a progressive
one. He believes 'in the possibility of the development of human personality
This content downloaded from 117.239.21.82 on Tue, 20 Sep 2016 05:58:15 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Indian Journal of Political Science 518
ineluctable, is worked with a will, man and his environment in this life
that his conception of freedom signified 'the freedom of man in all his
majesty'.4 To him freedom is a process of growth in quest of coherent
moral purpose and actions.
This content downloaded from 117.239.21.82 on Tue, 20 Sep 2016 05:58:15 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Problem of Sovereignty in Gandhian Thought 519
social cohesiveness can attain the benefit of Swaraj.' Hence it is essential
to combine the quest for political individuality with the voluntary
acceptance of social and political discipline which is the basis of social
solidarity and cohesiveness. Gandhi's scheme of Freedom as elucidated
in the Hind Swaraj can be thus represented:
the acceptance of a system of altruistic aims and goals and moral values
and without the effective ordering of life and its conduct by them, a man's
progress.
This content downloaded from 117.239.21.82 on Tue, 20 Sep 2016 05:58:15 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Indian Journal of Political Science 520
likelihood of its misuse. Above all, is his fear that centralization would
curb the individual initiative- and individuality, for Gandhi, lies at the
root of all progress. It is only through individual initiative and freedom
that moral values can be realised and, consequently, the ideal of self-
realization achieved.
This content downloaded from 117.239.21.82 on Tue, 20 Sep 2016 05:58:15 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Problem of Sovereignty in Gandhian Thought 521
observe the indigenous institutions and the village 'panchyats' Hold me.
India is really a republican country, and it is because it is that, that it has
survived every shock hitherto delivered'6. The ideal society of Gandhi's
conception will consist of more or less self-sufficing autonomous village
communities. This 'Panchayat Raj' is in accord with the ancient traditions
of India.
societal change from its course, and (4) a keen moral satisfactions in the
loyalty that attaches the members of a society to their stations in its various
This content downloaded from 117.239.21.82 on Tue, 20 Sep 2016 05:58:15 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Indian Journal of Political Science 522
pure, but the state has corrupted it. When the state has be
Anarchists are, broadly of two types: those that place the individual
or philosophical anarchists and those that stress collective life more then
the individual, the Communist-anarchists. Individualistic anarchism
flourished chiefly in Germany. The best known representative was Max
Stirner. He set up as an ideal, the complete freedom of the human spirit.
The theory or individualistic anarchism was also put forward in America
by Josiah Warren and Bejamin Tucker.
This content downloaded from 117.239.21.82 on Tue, 20 Sep 2016 05:58:15 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Problem of Sovereignty in Gandhian Thought 523
biological principle of mutual aid would hold society together. In France,
Elisee, Reclus and Jean Grave reproduced Kropotkin's ideas of Proudjion
and Bakunin. A mingling of anarchism and Christian socialism appeared
in the work of Count Leo Tolstoy. His ideal was informal co-operation in
place of an organized society. Unlike Bakunin who glorified in violence
as method of attaining his end, and Kropotkin who accepted its probable
necessity, Tolstoy condemned its practice in forcible terms. Tolstoy's
message is, therefore, one for the individual soul.
Gandhi asserted that 'a society organized and run on the basis of
complete non-violence would be the purest anarchy.1 When asked by
Mahadev Deasi, if he considered this a realizable ideal, he replied: 'yes'. It
is realizable to the extent non-violence is realizable. The state is perfect
and non- violent where people are governed the least. The nearest approach
This content downloaded from 117.239.21.82 on Tue, 20 Sep 2016 05:58:15 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Indian Journal of Political Science 524
bottom upwards' and the village unit would constitute the '
our planning.' The departure from the anarchist tradition is m
This content downloaded from 117.239.21.82 on Tue, 20 Sep 2016 05:58:15 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Problem of Sovereignty in Gandhian Thought 525
The Political ideal of 'Sarvodaya' is mildly anarchist. It regards the
The Sarvodaya thinkers are critical of the state for three reasons:
and humanity; secondly, its ultimate sanction lies in its coercive power
and this militias against the very principle of non-violence' and lastly, it
maintains a big administrative apparatus and army at the expense of the
toilers and producers and thus serves as an agency for exploitation of the
people. 14 In short, the state does not stand the test of truth and non-violence.
free social order in which the people are developed and enlightened enough
to keep themselves on the right path. In this order the government would
not be totally absent but would continue to exist like the alarm chain of a
be the best which governs least, and yet he held that 'there are certain
things which cannot be done without political power', even though there
are 'numerous other things which do not at all depend upon political power:
A nation is truly democratic, he said, when it 'runs its affairs smoothly and
the abolition of the state all at once. Its authority is only to be achieved
through the development of Jana Sakti or the non-violent power of the
This content downloaded from 117.239.21.82 on Tue, 20 Sep 2016 05:58:15 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Indian Journal of Political Science 526
that it has no independent strength of its own. Likewise, the state power
can be effective only if it is based on the people's initiative or loka-sakti," 1 9
power has to be created by suffering and satyagraha. The more the civil
power, the less the state power. And the less the state power, the happier
the people and the better that state. Thus there will the sovereignty of pure
moral authority.
as welfarists (not to speak of the fascists) are all statists. They all hope to bring
about their won variety of the millennium by first mastering and then adding
This content downloaded from 117.239.21.82 on Tue, 20 Sep 2016 05:58:15 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Problem of Sovereignty in Gandhian Thought 527
of political power. The socialist state threatens to add to that the monopoly
This content downloaded from 117.239.21.82 on Tue, 20 Sep 2016 05:58:15 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Indian Journal of Political Science 528
the sense that is was struggle for power for any particular party
was not a party leader fighting and manouvering for power for
This content downloaded from 117.239.21.82 on Tue, 20 Sep 2016 05:58:15 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Problem of Sovereignty in Gandhian Thought 529
Had it been so, it could never have occured to him to ask the Congress to
quit the field of power politics. He was a national leader fighting for the
freedom of this country; nay, he was a would leader of humanity working
to free his fellowmen was a peoples movement par excellence. It was not
Such was the politics Gandhi taught us. But what followed after
swaraj and Gandhi's departure warped our course and politics became
associated with devotion to party and adoration of power.
accept that democracy is the best form of polity so far conceived by human
ingenuity, but they assert that the existing democracies are defective.
REFERENCES :
6. Speeches, p. 276.
8. Ibid, p. 172.
This content downloaded from 117.239.21.82 on Tue, 20 Sep 2016 05:58:15 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Indian Journal of Political Science 530
18. Vinobha, from Bhudan to Grandan, S.P. Tanjove, 1957, Ch. IV,
pp. 20-28.
This content downloaded from 117.239.21.82 on Tue, 20 Sep 2016 05:58:15 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms