Politics deprives man of his activity. It appears paradoxical to say so because commonly it is observed that politics becomes possible only when men become active. However, it is an illusion. Political activity is in fact not human, it is asuri. Politics is just a means, and that too an evil one, for man to give shape to his base desires of ruling over others and enjoying the fruits of their labour. The abstract and generalised form of politics has a value-free basis and its structure and content bear no relation with morality. It was this politics which was challenged by Gandhi during the Independence struggle, and the expectation arose that the people of India may regain their lost activity. But ironically political independence became that very occasion which brought to an end the great non-political active stream of Indian public life so assiduously built by the Mahatma. Politics, then on, began to be all pervasive. This illusory and asuri form of human activity became its own rationale for existence. Public life began to ‘respect’ only political standards. This rule and its opposition both tended to have a common basis so illusory and a real polarisation appears to have begun. A fundamental challenge to politics has risen again. Way is being paved for new meanings of ‘governance’ and ‘public life’.
The last decade, namely the Eighties, has witnessed great changes in politics. Radical politics in vogue in the name of communism and socialism has run its course, and there is no political party now which may even talk of revolution or radical change. Some splinter socialist and communist groups remain, but it is doubtful whether they will ever become relevant again. This vacuum in politics appears quite persistent with no signs of it being filled. Also it does not merely appear to be a crisis or decadence of this or that ‘ism’, but perhaps characterises the radical inadequacy of that political philosophy of the West which gave birth to principles of ‘democracy’ and ‘socialism’. This political philosophy is not able anymore to give shape to any idea of radical politics. Now the clashes between the government and opposition do not take the shape of political polarisation, they only activate the diplomatic ring. All this seems to indicate that politics in India is facing a very serious crisis. The very relationship between politics, governance and wellbeing of the people seems to be perverted. So those interested in the wellbeing of the people, and in public life in general have no alternative but to examine afresh issues related to politics. Such examination is expected to be all the more rewarding if attempt is made to keep clear of the Enlightenment theory.
Politics and Human Activity
A man can be said to be active when he is the master of both his activity and the fruits of his activity. From the very beginning man has been a social being. Processes of change in his relations with other men and with nature constitute his life-process. It is in the context of these relations that he enters into a relation with himself and develops a self-image. So active men are those who find themselves in a position to influence the constant change in these relations, develop new conceptions accordingly and give them the desired shape. Societies in which this happens are active societies.
Active men, who shape their own life-processess, are the ones who develop the guiding principles and ideals of those processes. They are the creators of philosophy, art, science, religion etc. They are the progenitors of politics and swadeshniti. History of man, therefore, is the history of human activity, the great variety of forms it takes, the peaks and troughs through which it passes.
But of cardinal importance is the fact that this activity of man is of two types: one, asuri and the other, human. Asuri activity is amoral, it is value-neutral. Philosophies, arts and sciences which are products of such activity are amoral too. It is not that men of asuri activity have got nothing to do with morality, also not that there is no place for morality in their lives, but just that in the foundations of their activity morality has no place. Such people do not hesitate in exploiting others and devastating nature, in the course of organising their own lives and goals. They have no standards in their life which may stop them from such activity because their science, arts and philosophies, are amoral, without a moral consequence. Modern society of the West is such a society where for over five hundred years now the philosophies, arts and the sciences have been in the process of getting rid of the value dimension. And during this period, exploitation of other societies and civilisations by the West has constantly been on the increase. Politics is the concentrated expression of this asuri activity. Alongwith it is also the most important means of the development and . spread of this activity. In India, asuri activity made its appearance through politics and till date politics remains the most important vehicle of its spread.
Human activity has its basis in morality. Man, who is the master of such activity sets only such aims for himself which can be achieved without destroying nature and without taking recourse to unjust methods and exploitation. Societies pervaded with such activity are based on cooperation and mutual understanding. Such societies give birth to philosophies which are sources of strength and inspiration for men and which develop conceptual foundations for moral rigor in society. These philosophies, other than being an inspiration for human action, bring those standards into existence which control and limit the asuri tendency in men.
Human activity is the source of sciences which are not neutral towards moral questions. Such sciences do not provide the basis or means of exploitation of man or nature. These sciences produce such an understanding of man’s activity and nature’s behavior that is possible to fulfil everyone’s just needs. (It is only a value-neutral science which provides the where withal to fulfil greed and oppressive demands). Such activity is not limited to only a few in society but has a great spread. And this spread too acts as a constraint on asuri tendencies, other than being the medium of a great variety of cultural expressions and value-intensive art. This activity of man has the other name of truth. It is this activity that gives birth to ever new forms of truth.
Swadeshniti is the chief instrument which gives concrete shape to this human activity while in turn deriving its own genesis from it. So, Swadeshniti is related to human activity in the same way as politics is to asuri activity.
Swadeshniti : Concept and Reality
The Eighties have witnessed a new challenge to politics in India. This process has been given a robust beginning by the peasant movement. A movement which was already in existence in Tamilnadu and Punjab assumed a nationwide spread when peasants of Maharashtra and Karnataka took to the path of struggle in 1979. Since then Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat have seen major peasant uprisings. All these peasant organisations, barring perhaps Maharashtra, called themselves non-political. In fact the whole movement calls itself non-political. But the meaning of non-political is not clear because different organisations have tended to do different things under such a banner. For example the organizations of Tamilnadu and Karnataka have eventually ended up building political parties and different state organisations have adopted different approaches on the questions of relation with political parties and participation in elections. The leadership also doesn’t very often distinguish between non-party and non-political. But what is important to note is that this concept of non-political has been a pronounced and effectively used concept in almost all the states in the initial phases of organisation and mobilisation. It has been extensively debated in the movement, and has even been the cause of dissentions and splits.
My contention is that appearance of this concept of non-political in the public arena has set the stage for the rise of a new philosophy, ideology. Although it is true that after a non-political beginning a number of peasant organisations turned political in a few years time, new organisations kept coming into existence which kept this concept alive. Now even if all peasant organisations turn political the idea of non-political can no more be withdrawn. A new ideology has been born. It is the starting point for building a swadeshi philosophy in this area of human endeavour. This concept of non-political is based on total opposition to politics and has in it a message of a new view point for organisation and change of society.
The philosophy related to this subject discusses two types of societies : one, political society and the other, non-political society. Political society is one in which there is a central authority which makes codes of conduct in society and which is also responsible for enforcing them. This authority has the sanction for use of force in well-defined cases for such enforcement. Societies which do not have a such a central authority are called non-political societies. Societies of the Western world today are definitely political societies. Perhaps with equal certainty we can say that ancient Indian society was a non-political society. The pre-modern society also appears to be non-political in the above sense. In the history of this land one sees time and again rise of central powers, but none of them seems to have developed into a law and order state; on the contrary their powers in both the areas of revenue and law and order were negligible compared to such powers enjoyed by any modern state. Those societies ordinarily had a number of self-governing local formations which could not have given any central authority the privilege to make the rules of conduct for everybody, leave alone the sanction to enforce any such rules by the use of force.
Through its concept of the non-political, the peasant movement expresses its preference for this second type of society and at the same time represents, within the Indian society, the non-political society and the elements favorable for its governance as such. In other words this non-politicality is not only the peasant’s wish but it is also an expression of his mental and material self. It is this representative and expressive character put together which make this concept real and therefore the emergence of a new swadeshi ideology a real possibility.
This principle of non-politicality born in the wake of the peasant movement is a particular expression of swadeshniti. Swadeshniti may be said to provide the principle of organisation and governance of non-political societies. It is an integral part of the swadeshi philosophy which is the ideology of liberation of the people who are victims of Western imperialism. It is a mode of realising the robbed activity of these people. Principles of democracy and socialism are political principles of political societies, whereas swaraj as explained by Gandhi is an idea applicable to non-political societies. Swadeshniti of the peasant movement is in continuity with Gandhi.
The peasant movement has popularised the Bharat-India terminology. The expression is due to Sharad Joshi according to whom it is expressive of the basic economic condition, in the sense that Bharat is the supplier of raw-materials to India. But those who are receiving these ideas do not limit their significance only to economics. The idea that this nation is fundamentally divided into two parts is fairly popular now. This division into paschimikrt and swadeshi samaj has bearing in every field, economic, political, social, cultural, philosophical, etc. Paschimikrt samaj consists of classes which have come into existence after the advent of the British.
Swadeshi samaj includes classes and people who were already there when the British came and who have, by their life and industry, paid the price of development of the last two hundred years. Peasants are the chief component of this swadeshi samaj and peasant movement is the vanguard activity of the movement for liberation of this swadeshi samaj. It is in this sense that peasant movement is in continuity with the movement led by Gandhiji. This swadeshi samaj is a non-political society and swadeshiniti is the name of its principle of governance and change in society.
In the ideology of the swadeshi samaj there is no place for centralised political power. Therefore no such power can derive sustenance from the active support of the swadeshi samaj, nor does it consider the laws and regulations made by such powers worthy of being obeyed or conformed to. So the use of force too, for enforcement of laws accepted and respected, by the Paschimikrt samaj, is not considered justiceable by the swadeshi samaj. It stands in radical opposition to such force, not just because it has been used to splinter it and make it political but also because such force has no place in its way of thinking. That is, this force which is in the basis of politics has no place in swadeshniti which conceives of force in moral terms, say in the form of satyagraha, and this satyagraha often takes the form of non-cooperation in the struggle against politics.
The movement in Uttar Pradesh, under the leadership of Choudhary Mahendra Singh Tikait, has drawn attention towards certain aspects of Swadeshniti. But before we discuss them, a brief look at the historical context may prove useful.
Historical Context
In this country the political society was established by the British, When they came to India, there was no central political power of this kind here. Indian society, then was organised primarily based on the self-governing establishments of village, sect and caste etc. Exploitation and hierarchy were not central to the caste organisation and most of the revenue was both collected and disbursed at the local Ievel. Children of all castes received formal education on a wide scale. Girls too were educated. People generally ate and lived better than in England and there was less disparity. Kings came from all castes who spent relatively austere lives and mixed with the general people quite freely. When there occurred conflict between the scriptural authority and popular custom, it was the custom which was given priority. This was the swadeshi samaj which was so thoroughly disoriented and disorganised by the British. It is not that swadeshniti was completely free from fraud, but only that it was not founded on falsehood and dishonesty. This is the reason why swadeshi samaj could never comprehend that politics imported by the British, whose foundations were in falsehood, fraud and dishonesty. So in the clash between swadeshiti and politics, the latter won again and again, ultimately scoring its final victory over the traditional swadeshniti in the War of 1857, as a result of which swadeshi samaj lost its organised identity.
After 1857, the modern state was formally established in India : new laws were made, a new penal code and codes of behavior came into existence. The development of the British industry, means of transport, system of education and justice, police, army, bureaucracy and government services gave birth to new classes which bore allegiance to the new state. This is the paschmikrt samaj with whom the political society began to take shape. Since then all politics has been the politics of the paschimikrit samaj. Nationalism, democracy, socialism, communism are the covers under which this politics has grown. From the very beginning till today swadeshi samaj has been the victirn of this politics.
Disarmed and defenceless swadeshi samaj was turned into an amorphous mass. It is not that it did not try to stand up in the decades following 1860, but such events are not recorded in history, for all history is the history of politics. Swadeshniti could not have any public expression because all that was public was under the dictates of the political society. In fact this process privatized the human activity of the swadeshi samaj. Its science, technique, dharma, architecture, values, standards, philosophy, nothing had a place in the public realm. It could start growing out of this situation with the emergence of Gandhi.
Gandhi gave this swadeshi samaj an identity. He led it on to the path of struggle for it to regain its lost activity and a respectable place in society. According to the change in times Gandhi gave shape to a new swadeshniti and presented it as an alternative to politics. The concepts of truth, non-violence, love, swaraj, and satyagraha do not belong to the realm of politics, nor do they cater to the needs of political society. Gandhi erected a movement informed by such concepts which led to organised identity of the non-political society and paved the way for its liberation. After the establishment of political society in the country this was the first attempt to give a public shape and place to swadeshniti.
Political independence opened new avenues of progress for the paschimikrt samaj. But the main hurdles in this progress after the Western model were the unity of the Swadeshi samaj, its organised identity and its leadership based on Swadeshniti. These were removed systematically after Independence. Just as before, now too, the emotions, feelings, sensitivity and consciousness of the Swadeshi samaj had no place in politics. The government of Independent India and the Opposition of all kinds, both derived their inspiration from Western history and support from the Western theories in the democratic game they started to play. Now Truth, non-violence, swaraj, satyagraha, and panchayat etc. once again had no place in public life and concepts like democracy, class-struggle, socialism and secularism started to dominate the means of expression.
Even the well-wishers of swadeshi samaj could not see the fundamental division between politics and swadeshniti, and kept themselves busy in trying to find in and through politics only the path of emancipation of the swadeshi samaj. Men like Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia, a supporter of peasant revolution and Choudhary Charan Singh, the representative of peasantry in the government, opposed the industrial policy revolution of 1956 and gave political shape to anti-congressism in 1967. In the leadership of Sri Jayaprakash Narayan, the Bihar movement of 1974 did bring forth the idea of partylessness but it could not recognise the fundamental category of non-politicality. It was as a result of these challenges that the Congress finally fell from the citadel of power in Delhi in 1977. But whereas these events can be seen as preliminary steps of the swadeshi samaj towards regaining its lost unity and identity, at the same time, the events of 1977-79, viz. the Janata rule from Delhi made it clear that it is impossible to protect the interests of the swadeshi samaj through politics.
This is the historical context of the non-politicality of the peasant movement and the present context of the development of swadeshniti. Through this new principle of society the peasant movement has put forward its message for the possible path of emancipation of the swadeshi samaj. This swadeshi samaj is not a figment of anybody’s imagination, it is a society of those people who are today engaged in a life and death struggle and whose organised identity can be seen as being in continuity with the pre-British times. These are peasants, tribals and women, inhabitants of economically backward areas and people of towns like Varanasi. All these may exhibit a wish and a tendency to lead a modern life, for anyway the spontaneous aspirations of the people are generally guided by the dominant classes in any society, but in their modes of thought there is no place for a force (and violence) - based central political authority. On the contrary they often derive inspiration and direction from local faculties based on swadharma and maintain moral standards in most aspects of their life-processes. Swadeshniti is the name of the system which makes it possible for this swadeshi samaj to live well and in its own way and which has the capacity for constant struggle against politics.
The struggle between swadeshniti ad politics is entering a new stage today. This phase may even be decisive. It is no mean struggle. On one side are truth, love, ahimsa, etc. Whereas the other side is dominated by untruth, hatred and violence. This is devasura sangram of today. This is the contemporary Mahabharat.
Panchayat
God knows for how long the people of this country had been actualising their activity through the panchayat, which was at the centre of the social and governmental organization. Important social and economic activities like distribution of justice etc. were performed by the panchayats. These panchayats were the units of local self- government which functioned on consensus and commanded the right of decision-making on almost all important aspects of human life. The British destroyed this panchayat. The leaders of Independent India went further and tried to erect such a system in the name of panchayat which may even erase the memories of a great tradition. The traditional panchayat was the basis of and a concrete expression of swadeshniti. But infatuation with it is of no use, it cannot be recreated any more. When that society has been totally destroyed how can only a part of it be recreated? It is not possible.
However, the memories of traditional panchayat may be useful in developing the concept of swadeshniti today. The identification of its spiritual and material lifeline may render valuable help in developing a new concept of panchayat which is in tune with the times.
Social organisation of traditional India was based on the units of village, caste and sect. There were panchayats of village, caste and sect. These three social organisations are related to three fundamental departments of human life. These are the places of dwelling, occupation and thought. Those who lived in a place constituted the village, those engaged in similar occupations made up caste and those who thought similarly belonged to a sect. So organisations of those who live together, those who do the same work and those who share a belief system are the basic social and governmental organisations of swaraj. This is also the starting point to think about the possible panchayat of today.
As it has already been said, the Indian society today is fundamentally divided into paschimikrt and swadeshi samaj. The paschimikrt samaj is political and is made up of classes brought into being by the British. It has no experience of the panchayat system. Classes constituting it have given birth to political organisations. Union and party are the proto-types of such organisations. Capitalist, bureaucrat, lawyer, doctor, teacher, government employee, industrial worker all have their unions which promote and protect the sectional interests of the respective groupings, through collective bargain and political intervention. The leadership of all the political parties belongs to these classes. These are the classes which support central political authority and rend justiciable the use of force by it. The unions are in fact organisations of those whose work is similar; so they are overtime transformable into such panchayats if a panchayat system is implemented in the leadership of the swadeshi samaj.
Swadeshi samaj is non-political. It has a long experience of the panchayat. In remote places one may still find some remnants of the old panchayat among tribals and peasants. It is this swadeshi samaj which has to give shape to the new panchayat. Today its movement, the pesasant movement, is wavering between the panchayat and the union. It will have to give up the union. Union is a non-moral, value-independent organisation, it cannot prepare the grounds for realisation of human activity. It is the panchayat which needs to be given a contemporary meaning. Let us, therefore, discuss briefly in today’s context the meaning of panchayat of those who live together, of those who share a belief system and also, perhaps, ritual.
The traditional Indian village has been destroyed. What we hear from our great grand fathers does not create the image of the traditional village, but of a village whose economic and swadeshniti basis has already been broken. Our great grandfathers tell us the story of that village which is labouring to stay alive a hundred years after the panchayat system was destroyed, whose industrial, agricultural, economic and financial arrangements were broken as long ago. If we take such village to be the traditional Indian village, we shall fail to work out effective ideas for regeneration and reconstruction. Today village is not the primary unit of people who know each other closely and are related among themselves through social and economic interaction. To present the village as such a unit today is in the interest of politics and central political authority. No swadeshnatic organisation can. be built on the unreal basis of today’s village - so also the village is no more that spatial unit on which panchayat could be erected. So the search in this area ought to be of such spatial configuration which could provide the effective basis for a panchayat. This could be on an average an area with about ten thousand inhabitants, it could be the command area of a rural market or this expanse may include areas from which people join in a social function like a marriage etc. Obviously none of this singly could give the real basis but these and similar considerations may be of the type which must go into the identification of the critical spatial unit. Also because of the size and diversity of the nation, this critical spatial unit is likely to differ considerably in size and other matters in different parts. However we may try to identify some basic elements of the criteria to be deployed for the identification of such a unit.
Place-bound panchayat should include people who come to know one another in course of their daily activity and are related with one another through similar interests and economic and social interaction. In the basis of such a panchayat the moral aspect shall have a firm place. Today we must find the largest possible area which fulfils these conditions. If a smaller area is taken, for example, the present village, then this form of swadeshniti (panchayat) shall not be able to stand up against politics and if the area is too large, which can happen if the district is so selected, then its activities shall fail to have a moral reference, they will not embody the values of the people and the panchayat shall cease to. be an instance of swadeshniti, it will become political. In the end we only note this that to erect such panchayats is the task of a movement of the swadeshi samaj and the time available is not unlimited.
Although people of the swadeshi samaj are engaged in all kinds of occupations now, in the main three occupations can be identified to which the bulk belongs. These are agriculture, forest and domestic work. The three main constituents of the swadeshi samaj are related with these three types of work. These are peasants, tribals and women. This is also the context in which we can discuss the panchayat based on occupation.
Modernisation of technique, market, means of transport and financial resources has radically altered the nature of agriculture. The desire to re-establish old forms of agriculture is reactionary and the wish to see in agriculture the only basis of life is utopian. As it is such reactionary and utopian thoughts are prevalent only among those whose means of livelihood are not dependent on agriculture. The peasant movement of today has expressed no such inclinations, its object is to regain a respectful place for the peasant in the realities of today. This is why loans, electricity rates and prices have emerged as the chief questions. The campaigns against corruption do underline the moral silverline. These questions are not permanent, they are the results of the present arrangement of things and may change with the times. But these questions tell us something about the central concerns of the peasant life today. One way to solve these problems is to build unions and intervene politically. These methods may yield some immediate results, although that too is doubtful, but the way to permanent or longstanding solutions of these problems is the way of the peasant panchayat which is based on an equitous combination of the economic and moral facets of life. This panchayat ought to be conceived of as the chief governing body of all that relates to agriculture; solution of problems is only a small part of this.
A large part of the population of the country is made up of tribals who are still far away from politics and cities. In the last two hundred years they have fought several great battles against external intervention in their mode of life. But slowly they have lost all control over the forests, the chief sources of their livelihood. Largescale deforestation has devastated their inhabitants. Broadly speaking only two ways are open for them now. The first is to continue in the process of gradual civilization in the wake of the constant spread of politics in accordance with the needs of the paschimikrt samaj and as a result be transformed into a totally baseless manual labour or be exterminated. The second involves rise of movements which are in search of new forms of governance of their lives. From this point of view the demand for a separate Jharkhand state is a right demand. They alone can determine the new forms of their panchayat. This is so especially because their ways of thinking and living, dharma, philosophy, everything is totally different. Most public activists do not realise the seriousness of this and labour under the air of showing them the path. This is the political outlook. Swadeshniti sees them as free and capable of determining their styles of life and of inventing new social forms to give shape to their activity. Others cannot do it anyway.
The third major constituent of the swadeshi samaj is the woman. She is everywhere, her interests are tied with those of the peasants and tribals and because of their main role in domestic affairs women in general have common sets of interests as a social segment. With the development of political societies ever new forms of her exploitation have come into being. It is because of this that women’s movement is a reality now. This movement too can give shape to such organisations which are like unions and work through political intervention. It has also happened. But the experience in the Western world shows that participation in public affairs of the political society does not lead to women’s emancipation; on the contrary new forms of exploitation are born. The way to emancipation does not lie in changing the content of her work but in changing society such that her work assumes public status. This is the path of her liberation from the suppression and alienation she suffers in domestic life too today. The basis of women’s panchayat should be in their present work. Modern society has turned reproduction of life, upbringing of children ad domestic work in general into a totally private affair. The chief task of the women’s panchayat shall to be lift it to a public status. In this process the very concept of ‘public’ will have to be changed, its value-neutral form will have to be changed. It is an epoch making exercise and women are more than capable of doing this.
One of the major defects of the political society is that in such a society different points of view have no scope for development. The realm of thought constitutes an important aspect of human activity, a major stream in man’s life in general. But for today’s central authority no thoughts have any value. The development of science has brought into existence a concept of objective knowledge before which all forms of human thinking fade into irrelevance. Even dharma, perhaps the most widespread way of thinking in our society, is attempted to be converted into a private entity by the political society. To privatise an ideology means destroying the motive force in it. In such a situation groups and collectivities which are based on common system of belief assume special significance. The panchayats of such sects are those forms of human organisation which keep open the great variety of dimensions along which human thought progresses. So it is a very important task of swadeshniti to bring into existence panchayats of various sects or social streams based on thought and give such panchayats their proper place in public life. Not that such organisations are not in existence today. Hindus, sikhs, Muslims, Christians, followers of Kabir, Ramkrishna and Gandhi and people of many other sects are organised based on their common sets of beliefs and rituals. But politics is constantly attempting to limit them, tame them and often even destroy them. Politics is afraid of the powerful public status of such organisations, so the dominant theories of the political society propound the principle of privatisation of religion. But swadeshniti works for the progress of such panchayats, it respects them, and assigns them their due place among those social forms and institutions which are the means of realisation and concrete expression of human activity.
To Sum Up
In this article an attempt has been made to draw a concise picture of the embryo of a new ideology of social emancipation. This is the non-political ideology taking shape in the robust context of the present peasant movement. Named swadeshniti, its basis and sustenance are identified in human (as opposed to asuri) activity. The movement of the non-political society existing today in the form of swadeshi samaj alone can give shape to those units (panchayats) of self-governance which are capable of waging struggle against politics. The war of 1857 was the last struggle between traditional swadeshniti and politics, in which the latter emerged victorious. Gandhi developed the swadeshniti of the modern times and placed it in struggle against politics. The peasant movement is the next stage of this struggle. So we have entered now a new period characterised by the challenge to politics which is based on further development of swadeshniti.
Sunil Sahasrabudhey
Gandhian Institute of Studies
Varanasi
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