Gandhi and the state Term Paper – II Assessment Rajarajan

08-05-2020

Gandhi’s idea of the state is very well articulated through his work “Hind Swaraj”. In his
conception, a state is that which has a legitimate supreme coercive authority of the political
community1. His imagination of modern India began with his political philosophy called
“Swaraj” which means home-rule/self-rule, then reshaped it to “Purna Swaraj” which
translates to full sovereignty and finally ended up with “Surajya”, a good state. In order to
understand what kind of state Gandhi wanted, we will discuss in detail by analysing the
works of Anthony Parel’s “Gandhi and the state” which gives a brief account of the kind of
state Gandhi wanted and Benedict Anderson’s “Imagined Community” which talks about the
formation of how a nation is imagined. According to Anderson, a Nation is an imagined
political community and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign 2.Gandhi has
indeed imagined a state, an inclusive state, a legitimate coercive state but how does this
imagined community came to be? This paper is set out to argue two things in particular;
firstly, by understanding how did Gandhi yearned for an inclusive good state as opposed to
the nationalistic one. Secondly, does Gandhi’s imagined community is in line with
Anderson’s definition of the Nation?

Every state is comprised of the community people in it. For the British ruled India, the
people’s only imagination was an independent India i.e. to get a sovereign state of their own.
This phenomenon was put forth by Gandhi during his days of Freedom struggle. Gandhi’s
imagined India would defend and provide fundamental rights to its citizens. He sought the
state to be the protector of rights. He thought that Purna Swaraj would be attained only if the
citizens of the state can express their individual rights to freedom and material well-being.
The state should play the role of a protector as well as enforcer within the limits of natural
justice.3 To achieve this fundamental rights, Gandhi introduced his political and philosophical
tool, as a man of ahimsa, his conception of a coercive state is confounded. He did not mean to
say that he has envisaged an imperialistic state or a state of dictatorship. He clearly states that
a legitimate coercive state is necessary to fight against the historical injustices of Indian
society.This means that India should be free of all kinds of discrimination based on religion,

1
Anthony Parel, Gandhi and the state, (The Cambridge Campanion to Gandhi, 2011), p.154
2
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Community (2006), p.6
3
Parel, Gandhi and the state, p.163
gender, caste or tribe.In order to achieve a state without moral and economic disparity, he
suggests that a state can resort to intervene with the minimum exercise of violence.4

Gandhi exposed his idea of an inclusive state in Hind Swaraj as a response to the politics of
some Indians nationalists. They were on the idea that India could be a Hindu state with
Hindutva ideology. On the contrary, he opposed an exclusive state as one that does not
recognise India’s pluralistic political community. He imagined a powerful coercive state
inclusive of secularity and spirituality. An aggressive state was not one that Gandhi wanted
for the reasons that it can be oppressive and hegemonic in nature.

Gandhi held closely to the means and end theory. He claims in Hind Swaraj that “Your belief
that there is no connection between the means and the end is a great mistake”5. He rejects the
doctrine of reason of state – prajanoswartha– because in the name of national interest, a state
would impose political and religious ideologies upon its citizens. He believes that all means
should be proper however may be the ends. This consideration is taken into account because
if the state is going to be aggressive, it would have the tendencies to follow violence means
upon its citizens. In doing so, whatever maybe the end, according to Gandhi, it would be
violent to its community. Hence, it would be a threat to Swaraj and Surajya.

It is important to note that the British thought it was morally right to rule over India. They
brought “peace compelled by force”.6 However, Gandhi’s understanding about the Indian
civilisation and the western civilisation is quite different. He doesn’t want the modern India
to embrace the western intellectual traditions. He believes a state to be soulless if it does not
take into account the spiritual values of its citizens.

The western political doctrines are convinced that a body force alone is enough to build a
sovereign state. Gandhi brings in the idea of soul force into the Indian political system. He
can no longer accept that body force is the sole basis of the sovereign state. 7 Gandhi’s modern
state should be the embodiment of both soul and body force.

4
Gandhi M. K., Hind Swaraj, p.28
5
HS, p.79
6
James Fitzjames Stephen, ‘Foundations of the Government of India’, The Nineteenth Century, 1883, cited in
HS,p.xxxii.
7
Parel, Gandhi and the State, p.158
Gandhi’s philosophical framework which in turn derived from the philosophy of the
purusharthas i.e. the four great aims of life; was heavily incorporated in his imagined nation
state. With the help of this philosophical idea, Gandhi aimed to achieve two things for his
imagined state. First being religion helping to attain the spiritual liberation or Moksha and the
second being the state achieving a status of material-well-being or Artha. This led him to
promote that religion should not be the basis of the state but merely a factor to experience
individual liberation and communal harmony. India has multi-religious community. In his
opinion, if religious harmony cannot be attained, his political ideology such as Swaraj and
Surajya cannot be fulfilled. He considers that a religion based state would use its coercive
power to serve the interests of a particular religion which is precisely a state that M. A.
Jinnah and V. D. Savarkar wanted.

Gandhi proposed that the Indian nation should hold on to its religious pluralistic nature.
India cannot cease to be one nation because people belonging to different religions live in it.
The introduction of foreigners does not necessarily destroy that nation, they merge in it. A
country is one nation only when such a condition obtains in it. That country must have a
faculty of assimilation. India has ever been such a country. In reality, there are as many
religions as there are individuals, but those who are conscious of the spirit of nationality do
not interfere with one another’s religion. If they do, they are not fit to be considered a nation.
If the Hindus believe that India should be comprised of only the Hindus, they are living in a
dreamland. The Mohamedans also live in a dreamland if they believe that there should be
only Mohamedans. The Hindus, the Mohamedans, the Parsees and the Christians who have
made India their country are fellow country men, and they will have to live in unity if only for
their own interest.??? In no part of the world are one nationality and one religion
synonymous terms, nor has it ever been so in India.8

We can clearly understand why Gandhi wanted a neutral state. He wanted a secular state that
is inclusive of all religions. The state that Gandhi wanted would undoubtedly be secular.
Everyone living in it should be entitled to profess his religion without any hindrance, so long
as the citizens obey the common law of the land.9

8
HS, pp.50-I
9
Cited in Bharatan Kumarappa (ed.), M. K. Gandhi: Sarvodaya (Ahmedabad, India: Navajivan, 1948), p. 78.
Gandhi wanted his state to maintain order and security. This means that he doesn’t want a
completely independent state but a state with force; One that can defend itself. A national self
defence system is what Gandhi wanted by military means. He suggests bearing arms and
protecting the modern state that he has imagined from any external aggression. It is, therefore
our duty to join the army if we want to learn that art very quickly.10

This support to India’s right to self-defence by military means came in his speech at the
second Round table conference in London (1931).11 He profoundly believes that a Nation
which has no control over its defence forces and external policy will attract frequent foreign
invasion. At the time, India undergoing a colonial rule cannot afford to succumb to another
such situation. A state built without necessary policy to avoid this situation cannot be a
responsible state. His fundamental position on this regard was expressed in this conference.

I think that a nation that has no control over her own defence forces and over her external
policy is hardly a responsible nation. Defence, its Army, is to a nation the very essence of its
existence, and if a nation’s defence is controlled by an outside agency, no matter how
friendly it is, then that nation is certainly not responsibly governed . . . Hence I am here very
respectfully to claim complete control over the Army, over the Defence forces and over
External Affairs . . I would wait till eternity if I cannot get control over Defence. I refuse to
deceive myself that I am going to embark upon responsible government although I cannot
control my defence . . .12

The end to Gandhi’s political journey as we know it would be the modern Indian state
becoming Surajya i.e a good state. He has intricately explained the nature of a good state in
his work Constructive Programme (1941), which happened to be his last major political
theory tract13. In this work, he has exclaimed that the coercive state and the NGO’s of that
state are to work together to benefit a nonviolent social order. The surajya would be the
coercive state that worked in tandem with the non-coercive agencies of civil society i.e. Non-
Governmental Organisation.14

10
Parel, Gandhi and the state, p.165
11
Ibid., p.166
12
Ibid., p.166
13
Ibid., p.167
14
Ibid., p.166
The constructive programme identified several areas of improvement in the Indian society
where the NGOs and the state could work together. The key areas of constructive programme
includes fight against discrimination of all social injustices, decentralisation of political
power and NGOs being a voluntary sector for state development. Gandhi felt that while the
attainment of sovereign statehood was the end of the nationalist movement, it was only the
beginning of a new movement of national reconstruction.15 For this national reconstruction,
he relied on his Constructive Programme.

The imagined state of Gandhi occupied his entire political career. He took years to spread his
political philosophy across India. Gandhi’s press was only limited to Gujarati and English but
he was able to convince the oppressed Indian community with varied linguistic diversity. He
used press media to transform the then princely states into a phenomenon of Nation-ness 16.
Anderson in his book “Imagined Community” argues that print-languages or languages for
that matter laid the bases for the national consciousness. This argument holds true to the
Indian state because when Gandhi was proposing his political theory, India was divided into
several linguistic groups. Exchange of communication through print media and print
capitalism helped Gandhi’s imagined state to realise among varied ethnic groups. We can
thus summarise the conclusions drawn from the arguments by saying that Gandhi made use
of the convergence of capitalism and print technology on the varied diversity of human
language which created the possibility of a new form of imagined community 17among the
many Indians who followed Gandhi.

Bibliography
Anthony Parel, Gandhi and the state, (The Cambridge Campanion to Gandhi, 2011)
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Community (2006)
Gandhi M. K., Hind Swaraj, 1909

15
Ibid., p.168
16
Anderson, Imagined Community, p.3
17
Ibid., p.46