Thoughts of Mahatma Gandhi Part 1

There is no need to introduce Mahatma Gandhi, as he was such a brilliant sunshine

in the history of India that one can identify him from a small hint about him.
Born on 2nd October 1969 in Porbandar, Gujarat. He not only help India to win
freedom but he is also a philosopher in himself, who tried to guide us on many
issues.
His guiding lights in his life were many but some of the important ones are listed
below:-

§ 'The Kingdom of God is Within You' - by Leo Tolstoy

§ 'Unto this Last' - by Ruskin Bond (brought magical spell in Gandhi's life)
§ Gopal Krishna Gokhale (a moderate leader) - His 'Political Guru' from
whom he learnt value of life and ethics.
§ Gita, Upnishad, Bible, Buddha, Sukrat and Prophet Muhammad were also
guided him throughout his life.[post_ads]

Religious Basis of Politics

According to Gandhiji religion tames the savage nature of man. It not only binds a
man to god but also man to man. He argued that spiritualisation of politics helps in
genuine claims of the society and human kind.
Basically religious nature of politics according to him is the concept of spiritualised
and moralised form of politics or Karmyog.
When he talks about religion in politics, he is not emphasising on 'Theocracy',
instead it is aimed at progressive nature of politics which can help in attaining
justice and truth.
His thoughts on Religious Basis of Politics can be summarised from following quote:
I can say without the slightest hesitation and yet in all humility ,that who says that
religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion means? Politics
bereft of religion is a death trap because they kill the soul. - Mahatma Gandhi

Non Violence
According to Gandhi when a person claims to be non-violent, he is expected not to
be angry on those who hurt/injured him.
His philosophy of non-violence is not limited to only human being, but it extends to
all forms of life.
But he made it clear that non-violence does not mean cowardice, but putting one's
whole soul against the will of the tyrant.
Further he quoted that:-
A person who can express non-violence in life, excercises force greater than all the
forces of brutality. - Mahatma Gandhi
He was so committed to Non-violence that once he said:-
I would certainly retire from the political life if I find that India can not imbibe my
message of non-violence and that India wants a bloody revolution. I should have no
part in that movement because I do not believe in it's utility either for India or for the
world.
Satyagraha
According to Gandhi world is resting on the bedrock of Satya or truth. According to
Gandhi 'Satyagraha' is not a weapon of the weak, coward, unarmed or helpless. It is a
weapon of morally vigilant and active one.
According Simone Panter Brick(Gandhi's Biographer), Gandhi's Satyagraha rejects.
violent but not fighting. It is a war without violence. Satyagraha is not a resistance of
evil by evil. It is the resistance of evil by it's opposite i.e. 'good'. It is war between two
opposite forces instead of two like forces.
Gandhiji believed that evil can be fought only by good not evil as fire can be
extinguished only w by not by fire. Fighting evil by evil multiplies evil.
The famous quote of Gandhi regarding this is
An eye for an eye would certainly make the whole world blind. - Gandhi

Means and Ends

According to Gandhi Means and ends are independent from each other but both are
equally important. He believed that to achieve good end/goal the means must be
good otherwise goal can't be achieved or if the goal is achieved disvalue or loss in
addition must be realised .
He prophesied that if our means are good than end/goal will be reached surely,
whether sooner or later.
He said that end/goal is 'Satya' or Truth, while the means/way is 'non-violence'.
similarly as the seed is the way and tree as the end result.
He had not wanted to achieve political independence by way of violence. He said
that if India takes up arms, it might get independence rapidly but the prides of India
in his heart would have been fade down. A goal achieved by wrong means is not a
real goal, but proves before long to be an illusion.

Trusteeship
Concerning the ownership of property Gandhiji proposed his famous theory of
Trusteeship, an economic extension of his philosophical concept in which every man
is deemed to be the trustee of everything what he had including his powers,
capacities, energy and time.
According to him, industrialists who employ more than certain number of workers
should not deem his company as a property but it should be deemed as a Social
trust.
Industrialists should work along with his workers, to take no more than what he is
needed for a moderate life and ensure good wages, healthy working conditions and
welfare schemes to workers.
Both workers as well as industrialists should regard themselves as a trustee of
customers and ensure that shoddy products is not to be produced nor the exorbitant
prices is to be charged.
One part of the profit from business should be devoted to the welfare of society and
the remaining should be devoted to the development of the industry.
He further cleared that his theory of trusteeship should not be confused with the
'state socialism'. According to him 'state socialism' is bound to dictatorship.
For the development of economy, industries should be free from 'state socialism'.
Hence He proposed that in the trusteeship, industrialists are to be free to bequeath
his company to his son or anyone he likes. He said that trusteeship should be
enforced only through educated and organised public opinion or Satyagraha if all
these couldn't work, government can enforce trusteeship by a law.
The current concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) of PSUs and other big
companies is somewhat based on this principle of trusteeship.

Thoughts of Mahatma Gandhi Part 2

There is no need to introduce Mahatma Gandhi, as he is such a brilliant
sunshine in the history of India that one can identify him from a small hint
about him.
Born on 2nd October 1969 in Porbandar, Gujarat. He not only help India to
win freedom but he is also a philosopher in himself, who tried to guide us
on many issues.
His guiding lights in his life were many but some of the important ones
are listed below:-

§ 'The Kingdom of God is Within You' - by Leo Tolstoy

§ 'Unto this Last' - by Ruskin Bond (brought magical spell in
Gandhi's life)
§ Gopal Krishna Gokhale (a moderate leader) - His 'Political Guru'
from whom he learnt value of life and ethics.
§ Gita, Upnishad, Bible, Buddha, Sukrat and Prophet
Muhammad were also guided him throughout his life.
In this part we wil learn remaining topics on the thoughts of Mahatma
Gandhi.

Swaraj
For the first time he mentioned Swaraj in Indian Opinion on November 3, 1905 but
the first comprehensive view on 'Swaraj' was put forward by him in 'Hind Swaraj',
which remained throughout his life with slight modification in detail.
According to him people's Swaraj had four dimensions as called as 'Square of
Swaraj' as follows:-

I. Political
By political Swaraj he meant transfer of power from British imperial government to
Indian hands.
But he also stressed that mere transfer of power from British Yoke to Indian hands
will not be beneficial until, it also gain sovereignty based on 'Perfect democracy'.

II. Social
In social aspect of his Swaraj all social distinctions wither away and the justice
should be prompt, perfect, cheap and easily accessible to everyone.
He also stressed on the freedom of worship, speech and the press.
According to him every community would be on par with every other.

II. Economic
One of the primary focus of Gandhi's Swaraj was alleviation of the misery fo the
'Daridranaryan' or the extremely poor section of the society.
In Economic aspect of Swaraj he considered removing peoples out from all forms of
poverty, destitution, deprivation and exploitation.
Once in the 'Young India' he said that:-
The Swaraj of my dream is the poor man's Swaraj.

IV. Moral Facets

By this form of Swaraj he meant self restraint and self rule/discipline. According to
him realisation of Swaraj will not be completed until everyone performs his duties
and observe morality in his life with self discipline and without any pressure.
He also considered Swaraj as 'Ram Rajya' but in no way it meant 'Hindu doctrine' in
any form.
By Ram Rajya' I do not mean Hindu Rajya, By Ram Rajya I mean Divine Rajya or the
'Kingdom of God'. - Mahatma Gandhi

Sarvodaya
By the term Sarvodaya, Gandhiji meant welfare of all secured by conscious effort of
everyone of the community. This is the new social order developed by goodwill and
cooperation. By Sarvodaya society, he meant a society in which there is no
distinction between caste or creed, without any kind of exploitation and in which
there is full scope of development for all.
He also emphasised that in Sarvodaya society there must be no distinction between
'Intellectual work' and 'Labour intensive work' and everyone must treat each other
equal with full of opportunities for all without any favour.
This kind of Sarvodaya society (idealistic in nature) is possible only in state where
there is minimum governance or society free of any state or stateless society.
Gandhiji was a practical realist, he knows that such an ideal society is not possible
to be formed immediately, hence he proposed that till the society is not ready to
accept such an ideal society, we should incorporate some of the important ideals of
Sarvodaya in the existing society and continue with that.

On the eve of, 2nd Round-Table Conference (1931), while-going for it, Mahatma
Gandhi said that he would work of creating such an India, in which the poorest shall
feel that it was their country in whose making they had an effective voice, an India in
which all communities were living in perfect harmony. There should be no room in
such an India for the curse of untouchability or the curse of intoxicating drinks or
drugs; women would enjoy the same rights as men. All interests not in conflict with
the interest, of the dumb millions would be scrupulously respected, whether foreign
or indigenous.[post_ads_2]
Prohibition
Gandhiji was very critical of intoxicating drugs and drinks such as alcohol, opium,
ganja, toddy etc. He considered taking them as more worse than the practice of
thieving or prostitution.
He even said that if he became dictator of India for one hour, the first thing he would
do was the prohibition of all kinds of intoxicating drugs and drinks.
He considered that alcohol and intoxicants will never be good for healthy life as well
as these ruin the family life.
Gandhiji was very critical of Abkari Tax (Tax on alcohol) and considered it as sinful,
hideous and immoral source of revenue.
He also cleared that what is good for England is not necessarily good for India. He
also argued that it is possible to prohibit alcohol in India.
Following these thoughts of Gandhiji, the constitution makers put it in Directive
Principles of State Policy(DPSP), which lays responsibility on the state to ban the
manufacture, sale and consumption of intoxicating drugs and drinks, which are
injurious to health. (under Article 47)
He was very clear that drinking is deleterious for the development of the Indian
society.

Ideas on Socialism
Gandhiji was not a doctrinaire socialist advocating state ownership of the property.
He himself used to say that he was not a socialist in it's strict contemporary term but
that his type of Socialism is Village Socialism. He considered socialism in a different
way and proposed the Concept of 'Trusteeship', which is in between the socialism
and capitalism.
The Gandhian Socialism can be seen as the village socialism, in which is proposed
Panchayats and gave him full power of decision making for the development of the
Panchayats (not only in political term but economic term also).
He used to say that 'State Socialism' is bound to lead to dictatorship. This theory
was proved absolutely true in many cases across the world as well as in India
(when Indira Gandhi went very close to dictatorship by following 'State Socialism').

Despite Gandhiji's opposition and warnings, Indian Government's economic policy till
1991 remained almost socialistic in nature, which led to havoc in the Indian
economy. Even the so called socialist nations like China, absolved from socialistic
nature of economy and become pseudo capitalistic in nature, but India remained
sluggish in this approach, hence it lost the race.