Review of Social Economy

ISSN: 0034-6764 (Print) 1470-1162 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rrse20

The Socioeconomic Thoughts of Mahatma Gandhi:

As an Origin of Alternative Development

Kazuya Ishii

To cite this article: Kazuya Ishii (2001) The Socioeconomic Thoughts of Mahatma Gandhi:
As an Origin of Alternative Development, Review of Social Economy, 59:3, 297-312, DOI:
10.1080/00346760110053914

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00346760110053914

Published online: 05 Nov 2010.

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 REVIEW OF SOCIAL ECONOMY, VOL. LIX, NO. 3, SEPTEMBER 2001

The Socioeconomic Thoughts of Mahatma

Gandhi: As an Origin of Alternative
Development1
Kazuya Ishii
Kagawa University
ishii@jl.kagawa-u.ac.jp
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Abstract This paper tries to present the overall socioeconomic thoughts of

Mahatma Gandhi as an origin of alternative development. The Ž rst section of
the paper provides Gandhi’s criticism of modern civilization, that of economics
and that of Marxist socialism and communism. The second section analyzes his
ideas for a “post-modern” construction of India, where his views on Swadeshi
(self-reliance), his theory of trusteeship (theory of class and distribution) and his
images of an ideal village economy are examined. The paper, referring to the
works of E. F. Schumacher and the Other Economic Summit as well, concludes
that Gandhian style of development theories have persistently furnished a critique
of “modern” ways of thinking and presented alternative visions of socioeconomic
development.

INTRODUCTION
Mahatma Gandhi’s thoughts seem to be attracting more and more attention
nowadays, as the domination among nations and the destruction of the
environment are globally questioned. I have once tried to prove that his “theory
of trusteeship” was not such a concept supporting the existing regime, as often
negatively described, but one pursuing socioeconomic transformation in the
form of non-violence (Ishii 1994).
However, I was not able to cover in the above paper (Ishii 1994) the whole
picture of Gandhi’s socioeconomic thoughts—including his criticism of modern

1 This is a revision of my paper originally written in Japanese under the title of “Mahatoma
Gandi no shakaikeizai shiso: Orutanatibu kaihatsu shiso no ichi genryu toshite,” in Kaihatsuron no
furontia, edited by Yoshihiko Motoyama and published by Dobunkan, Tokyo, in 1995.

Review of Social Economy

ISSN 0034 6764 print/ISSN 1470–1162 online © 2001 The Association for Social Economics
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
DOI: 10.1080/00346760110053914
 REVIEW OF SOCIAL ECONOMY

civilization, economics and Marxism, and his ideas of swaraj and village
economy. The purpose of this paper is, therefore, to describe his thinking more
comprehensively by including these points. Fukazawa (1966) has already tried
to describe Gandhi’s overall economic thoughts. Schumacher was greatly
in uenced by Gandhi when he later established his philosophy of Small is
Beautiful (Schumacher 1973), and Sachs and Dube in the 1980s con-
sidered Gandhi as one of the philosophers of alternative development (Sachs
1980; Dube 1988). Nevertheless, there still is room, I believe, to re-examine
Gandhi’s writings as textbooks of development studies in greater detail, even
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though I may partly trace Fukazawa’s way of understanding Gandhi’s

philosophy.
Re-examination of Gandhi’s philosophy will show how Gandhi opposed
Western economics and Marxism in many ways and how he created a
foundation for the developmental thoughts and practices of Schumacher and his
followers called, “The Other Economic Summit.” In this paper, therefore, I
would like Ž rst to describe Gandhi’s criticism of modern civilization, that of
economics and that of Marxist socialism and communism. Then I would explain
what socioeconomic framework he thought India should pursue. Finally looking
at the socioeconomically sound village that he envisioned with his trusteeship
theory, I would like to make it clear that his philosophy was aiming at an
alternative development, which was totally different from the laissez-faire
economics or Marxism.

I. GANDHI’S CRITICISM OF MODERN CIVILIZATION

Criticism of Modern Civilization

Mahatma Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule was Ž rst written in 1909.
In the midst of that year he was leading the Satyagraha movement in South
Africa, demanding the government terminate its discriminatory policies against
Indian people there. In its Ž fth edition published in 1922, he said, “This booklet
is a severe condemnation of ‘modern civilization’ ” (Gandhi 1922: 6), implying
that the whole structure of his socioeconomic philosophy is based on a spirit
critical of modern civilization. “It is my deliberate opinion that India is being
ground down not under the English heel but under that of modern civilization”
(ibid.: 39).
Looking at capitalism developed in the Western world since the era of the
industrial revolution, Gandhi found materialism to be the main characteristic of
modern civilization, in which spirituality seemed to be undervalued. That is,
“The people of Europe to-day live in better-built houses than they did a hundred

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 THE SOCIOECONOMIC THOUGHTS OF MAHATMA GHANDI

years ago. This is considered an emblem of civilization” (Gandhi 1922: 31).

“Now they (men) are enslaved by temptation of money and of the luxuries that
money can buy” (ibid.: 33); and “This civilization takes note neither of morality
nor of religion” (ibid.: 34). In his speech at Muir Central College in 1916,
Gandhi extended this understanding and made clear the difference between
“economic progress” and “real progress” saying, “By economic progress, I take
it, we mean material advancement without limit, and by real progress we mean
moral progress. . . . I hold that economic progress in the sense I have put it is
antagonistic to real progress” (Gandhi 1957, Vol. 2: 3–9). At the root of this idea
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there is a strict Hindu ethic of asceticism called brahmacharya.2 Gandhi

believed, “Civilization, in the real sense of the term, consists not in the
multiplication, but in the deliberate and voluntary reduction of wants” (ibid.,
Vol. 1: 146).
This “material advancement without limit” was a product of “industrialism”
founded chie y upon “machinery” in the modern civilization. “At present the
machine is helping a small minority to live on the exploitation of the masses”
(Gandhi 1957, Vol. 2: 33), and the motive force of this minority is “not
humanity and love of their kind but greed and avarice” (ibid.). He noted that
machinery incapacitated and weakened people (ibid.: 46), and that “the latter
(working classes) become so specialized that they also become helpless” (ibid.:
41). “Machinery has begun to desolate Europe. Ruination is now knocking at the
English gates. Machinery is the chief symbol of modern civilization, it
represents a great sin” (ibid.: 34).
As a result of the industrialism, Gandhi thought, a series of imperialist
domination by the Western powers had destroyed the organic structure of non-
Western societies since the later half of the eighteenth century. “It is machinery
that has impoverished India. It is difŽ cult to measure the harm that Manchester

2 Gandhi’s concept of brahmacharya, meaning “chastity” or “asceticism” in English, is based

on the following verses in the second chapter of Bhagavadgita:
If one
Ponders on objects of the sense, there springs
Attraction; from attraction grows desire,
Desire  ames to Ž erce passion, passion breeds
Recklessness; then the memory-all betrayed-
Lets noble purpose go, and saps the mind,
Till purpose, mind, and man are all undone
(Gandhi 1968, Vol. 1: 99).
The examples of brahmacharya are, beside physical asceticism, fasting and simple meals only
consisting of fruits and vegetables. The aim of brahmacharya is to eradicate lusts from one’s mind
by means of excluding the objects of desire as much as possible. There stems Gandhi’s opposition
to materialist modern civilization and his ideal of nation building based on simple life in
villages.

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 REVIEW OF SOCIAL ECONOMY

has done to us. It is due to Manchester that Indian handicraft has all but
disappeared” (Gandhi 1922: 105).3 He furthermore disagreed with the idea of
industrializing India like the Western societies. He called attention to the
competition over natural resources and markets, or partition of colonies, that
occurred among industrialized nations, often developing to violent con icts and
world wars. “To make India like England and America is to Ž nd some other
races and places of the earth for exploitation. So far it appears that the western
nations have divided all the known races outside Europe for exploitation and
that there are no new worlds to discover” (Gandhi 1957, Vol. 2: 24).
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Criticism of Economics
Gandhi thus detested material development of society based on people’s
“greed”, which makes his view look radically different from those of Western
economists, afŽ rming the pursuit of self-interest. Let us look in this section at
how western economics looked to Gandhi’s eyes.
In Young India of 27 October 1921, to a question, “Is the economic law that
man must buy in the best and cheapest market wrong?” Gandhi answered, “It is
one of the most inhuman among the maxims laid down by modern economists”
(Gandhi 1957, Vol. 2: 85). In 1934 he also commented, “[In the economics of
khadi] human selŽ shness, Adam Smith’s pure economic motive, constitutes the
‘disturbing factor’ that has got to be overcome” (ibid.: 260). To Gandhi, self-
interest was immoral, in clear contrast to his brahmacharya. Therefore, the
Smithian-style idea of pre-established harmony—the idea that, if self-interest of
everybody is fully accomplished under the name of the laissez-faire, it will
beneŽ t society as a whole—would have been condemned by Gandhi: “I have
come to the conclusion that immorality is often taught in the name of morality”
(Gandhi 1922: 34).
Adam Smith imagined “a country which had acquired that full complement
of riches which the nature if its soil and climate, and its situation with respect to
other countries, allowed it to acquire” (Smith 1904, Vol. 1: 96) as the Ž nal stage
of economic development; that is, a country “which could, therefore, advance no
further, and which was not going backwards” (ibid.). In such a country “both the
wages of labour and the proŽ ts of stock would probably be very low” (ibid.).
David Ricardo also foresaw a stationary situation of economy resulting from
diminishing returns of land cultivation and increases in food prices. Ricardo

3 It is, however, noteworthy that Gandhi at the same time condemned those in India who gave
up swadeshi: “How can Manchester be blamed? We wore Manchester cloth, and that is why
Manchester wove it” (Gandhi 1922: 105).

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 THE SOCIOECONOMIC THOUGHTS OF MAHATMA GHANDI

advocated, as the means to avoid such situation, the policies of employing

machinery to enhance overall industrial productivity and importing cheap
agricultural products grown on fertile lands overseas. Especially the latter
policy, with the assistance of J. S. Mill’s and E. G. WakeŽ eld’s assertion of
capital exportation, led to the justiŽ cation of imperialism in the history of
classical economics.4
“Those who are intoxicated by modern civilization are not likely to write
against it” (Gandhi 1922: 31). “The economics that permits one country to prey
upon another is immoral” (Gandhi 1968, Vol. 6: 321). While mainstream
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economic theories in Britain were developed to justify imperialism, Gandhi’s

criticism of modern civilization and economics raised an objection to im-
perialism on behalf of those oppressed by it.

Criticism of Marxist Socialism and Communism

Gandhi’s view of civilization gave rise to his criticism of Marxist socialism and
communism. With regard to Bolshevism, he wrote in Young India in 1928 that
“it not only does not preclude the use of force but freely sanctions it for the
expropriation of private property and maintaining the collective State ownership
of the same” (Gandhi 1957, Vol. 1: 56). Moreover, “I have no hesitation in
saying that the Bolshevik regime in its present form cannot last for long. For it
is my Ž rm conviction that nothing enduring can be built on violence” (ibid.). In
1937 he also set forth, “I part company with it [communism] when force is
called to aid for achieving it [a classless society]. . . . I do not believe in
eradicating evil from the human breast at the point of the bayonet” (Gandhi
1947: 27). Gandhi, therefore, believed that India should not adopt Russian-type
communism forced on people by means of “violence”.
Jawaharlal Nehru, on the other hand, held a view of India’s nation building
largely different from that of Gandhi. While the latter, as indicated later,
attached importance to manual industries in villages like hand-spinning or hand-
weaving, the former advocated large-scale industrialization of India in a socialist
way. “He [Nehru] believes in industrialization; I have grave doubts about its
usefulness for India” (Gandhi 1957, Vol. 1: 48).
Nehru wrote to Gandhi in October 1945, that “A village, normally speaking,
is backward intellectually and culturally and no progress can be made from a
backward environment” (Gandhi 1968, Vol. 5: 122). It is exactly this view of

4 Jun Nishikawa explained that Ricardo’s views on strategies for avoiding a stationary economy
were later embodied in J. S. Mill’s and E. G. WakeŽ eld’s advocacy of imperialism (Nishikawa 1978,
Ch. 2).

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villages that led Nehru to assert large-scale socialist industrialization for India,
which is found similar to Karl Marx’s way of looking at Indian village
communities as “semi-barbarian, semi-civilized”. In his “The British Rule in
India,” Marx perceived the life of Indian people as “undigniŽ ed, stagnatory”
(Marx and Engels 1979: 132), stating that “English interference . . . dissolved
these small semi-barbarian, semi-civilized communities, by blowing up their
economical basis, and thus produced the greatest, and to speak the truth, social
revolution ever heard of in Asia” (ibid.: 131–132). At this point, he saw a form
of “progress” in the destruction of Indian village commune by British
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interference, while Gandhi made clear his point: “It is a charge against India that
it is not possible to induce them to adopt any changes. It is a charge really
against our merit” (Gandhi 1922: 63). He emphasized that “the condition of
India is unique. . . . We need not, therefore, refer to the history of other
countries” (ibid.: 70).
Gandhi aimed, in fact, to reconstruct the village commune like the one which
existed before the British destroyed its economic base. With respect to India,
Marx saw a degradation “in the fact that man, the sovereign of nature, fell down
on his knees in adoration of Kanuman, the monkey, and Sabbala, the cow”
(Marx and Engels 1979: 132), while Gandhi tried to revive indigenous identity
of Indian people by praising myths and religious books of Kanuman and
cherishing Sabbala as an animal close to the mankind (Sakamoto 1969: 154). It
is clear that Gandhi set a course of nation building in India in a direction largely
different from the social transformation that Nehru or Marx considered as
“progress.”5 Let us, therefore, look next at how Gandhi envisioned an alternative
form of development as a basis for building an independent India.

II. GANDHI’S IDEAS FOR A “POST-MODERN” SOCIOCECONOMIC

CONSTRUCTION OF INDIA
Gandhi believed that India’s socioeconomic construction toward swaraj, i.e.
political independence or self-government, depended on freeing itself from
modern civilization. “If British rule were replaced tomorrow by Indian rule
based on modern methods, India would be no better, except that she would be
able to retain some of the money that is drained away to England; but then India

5 According to Shriman Narayan, Nehru considered, in the Directive Principles of State Policy
of Constitution and the First Five-Year Plan, the Gandhian ideals of village industries and
panchayats as important, although he called for the establishment of heavy industries. Nehru did so
in order to establish a “Socialistic Pattern of Society” (Narayan 1960: 125–135). It is, nevertheless,
true that in his Autobiography Nehru remained skeptical of Gandhi’s way of nation building (Nehru
1962).

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 THE SOCIOECONOMIC THOUGHTS OF MAHATMA GHANDI

would only become a second or Ž fth nation of Europe or America” (Gandhi

1957, Vol. 1: 3–4). Gandhi’s socioeconomic construction was, needless to say,
swadeshi, or self-reliance, of which village manufacturing industries like
charkha and khadi have their major places. “When India becomes self-
supporting, self-reliant, and proof against temptations and exploitation, she will
cease to be the object of greedy attraction for any power in the West or the
East. . . . Her internal economy will be India’s strongest bulwark against
aggression” (ibid., Vol. 2: 46–47).6 In this section I would like Ž rst to explain
Gandhi’s philosophy and practices of swadeshi and theory of trusteeship, and
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then to describe the ideal village in his socioeconomic construction of post-

modern India.

Thoughts and Practices of Swadeshi

Gandhi advocated that, to reconstruct the internal economy as the “strongest
bulwark,” against economic drain by Britain, India should Ž rst cease to be
dependent upon foreign cloth. “India cannot be free so long as India voluntarily
encourages or tolerates the economic drain which has been going on for the past
century and a half. Boycott of foreign goods means no more and no less than
boycott of foreign cloth. Foreign cloth constitutes the largest drain voluntarily
permitted by us” (Gandhi 1957, Vol. 2: 73).
The boycott of foreign cloth was, indeed, resolved at a convention of Indian
National Congress, even before Gandhi came back home from South Africa to
take the leadership of independent movement in India in 1915. The Calcutta
session in 1906 produced resolutions: 1) swaraj, 2) boycott of British products
(mainly cotton products), 3) swadeshi (or use of Indian products) and 4) national
education (Nakamura 1957: 42). The resolutions demanded that the general
public promote development of indigenous industries even by sacriŽ cing
themselves to some extent, and eagerly and endlessly strive to stimulate
production of indigenous articles prior to imported products (ibid.). The
resolutions, however, were an expression of willingness of Indian national

6 Gandhi deŽ ned swadeshi in 1947 as the “spirit which dictated man to serve his next door
neighbour to the exclusion of any other” (Gandhi 1957, Vol. 2: 57). He did not, however, necessarily
advocate autarky, as is often misunderstood, as this deŽ nition is followed by the condition that “the
neighbour thus served had in his turn to serve his own neighbour ” (ibid.). Gandhi probably opposed
any kind of trade only based on the principle of comparative advantage, but obviously did not
exclude importing things that India could not produce: “I buy surgical instruments from England,
pins and pencils from Austria and watches from Switzerland. But I will not buy an inch of the Ž nest
cotton fabric from England or Japan or any other part of the world because it has injured and
increasingly injures the millions of the inhabitants of India” (Gandhi 1958–1994, Vol. 26: 279).

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capitalists, overwhelmed by foreign counterparts in the absence of protective

policy, to explore the domestic market for their own products. This merely
meant a replacement of foreign industrial products by those produced in Indian
cities; it did not mean, to a critic like Gandhi, that India would be free from
modern civilization.
In the Ž rst non-violent resistance movement led by Gandhi (from April 1919
to February 1922), on the other hand, revival and promotion of charkha and
khadi were thought to be the most important. They were about to be almost
driven away by the “machinery of Manchester,” disappearing in the midst of
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modern civilization. Gandhi wrote in his autobiography, “I am, therefore,

concentrating my attention on the production of Khadi. I swear by this form of
Swadeshi, because through it I can provide work to the semi-starved, semi-
employed women of India. My idea is to get these women to spin yarn, and to
clothe the people of India with Khadi woven out of it” (Gandhi 1968, Vol. 2:
740). According to Nakamura, Gandhi ascribed three important aims to his
khadi movement: economic, by aiding unemployed manual workers; moral, by
eradicating idleness through laboring; and political, at the Ž nal stages of
swadeshi, by preconditioning civil disobedience that would eventually bring
about the surrender of the Indian government (Nakamura 1957: 46).
How did the swadeshi movement develop after the Ž rst non-violent resistance
movement? Heiji Nakamura explains that at the Baiswada session in 1921 the
Congress resolved to distribute 2 million charkhas. Most of the 10 million
rupees gathered through the “Tilak Memorial Swaraj Fund” created by
resolution were used for hand-spinning and hand-weaving activities of the
National Congress. After the Ahmedabad session of the Congress held in late
1921, khadi clothes and their production processes were exhibited all the time.
The All India Khaddar Board and the All India Spinners’ Association were
respectively established in 1923 and in 1925. In the late 1920s khadi production
centres and sales depots were set up in such states as Andhra, Bihar, Bengal,
Bombay, Burma, Delhi, Gujarat, Karnatak, Kerala, Maharashtra, Punjab,
Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, United Provinces—the centres accounting for more than
110, and the depots for more than 150 as of 1927.7
Takashi Shinoda, on the other hand, has divided the periods of charkha
movement into three, i.e., the Ž rst period from 1921 to 1934, the second from
1934 to 1944, and the third from 1944 to 1948. He did so in order to prove the
economic effectiveness of the movement was fairly limited through the entire
periods. He asserts that the Ž rst and second periods of the movement were

7 For the growth of swadeshi movement, refer to Nakamura (1957: 47).

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 THE SOCIOECONOMIC THOUGHTS OF MAHATMA GHANDI

characterized by khadi “production for sales,” which contradicted its own

purpose of “production for self-consumption.” He also marks the limit of the
movement at the point where it could eventually not present any incentive more
effective than the principle of market mechanism as seen in the concept of
“Yarn Bank,” planned but not implemented in the third period. He shows, in
addition, that the percentage of khadi out of India’s total production of cotton
cloth in 1929–1930 was less than one percent. However, approximately 180,000
people, employed under Gandhi’s program, were reported to have received
wages amounting to nearly 10 percent of annual household expenditure on
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average. Although Shinoda Ž nds this number is small, it seems to me a certain

achievement of his program in the Ž rst period of the movement. Furthermore,
the number grew up to be 325,000 hand-spinners, 25,000 weavers and 5,000
others in 1941–1942, which, I believe, can be accepted as proof of its further
progress. 8
Either way, Gandhi’s thoughts and practices of swadeshi aimed, by reviving
charkha and khadi, to restore the identity of largely impoverished Indian
peasants within their own indigenous culture. This aim clearly differentiated
Gandhi from those in Congress who merely represented the interests of national
capitalists at the beginning of this century. Charkha, depicted at the center of the
 ag of the independence movement, was the symbol of “unity and non-
violence” of the Indian people that Gandhi thought as ideal, but it was also
another expression of his faith that “the real India is in villages” (Sakamoto
1969: 163). In the following sections, therefore, let us look at his theory of
trusteeship, which Ž nancially supported the charkha and khadi movement, and
the ideal image of villages that he tried to reconstruct.

The Theory of Trusteeship: Gandhi’s Theory of Class and Distribution

Gandhi’s theory of trusteeship is deŽ ned as the idea that wealthy people should
consider their property as something God trusted them to manage for the proŽ t
of society and should behave as “trustees” for the beneŽ t of the poor. Gandhi
counterproposed this theory to those of class struggle that communists and
socialists asserted in the late 1920s. Because Gandhi’s theory legitimated the
positions of capitalists and landlords in society, as long as they behaved as
“trustees,” it was severely condemned by the radicals. Nehru, for example,
deplored in his Autobiography that “he [Gandhi] blesses all the relics of the old
order which stand as obstacles in the way of advance—the feudal States, the big

8 For the limitations of khadi movement, refer to Shinoda (1981: 270–283).

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zamindaris and taluqadaris, the present capitalist system” (Nehru 1962: 528),
E. M. S. Namboodiripad’s Mahatma and the Ism was, it could be said, written
in order to prove the thesis that “Gandhiji was, above all, the astute political
leader of a class—the bourgeoisie, in whose class interests he always acted”
(Namboodiripad 1958: 63). The way of looking at Gandhi and his thoughts in
this way has been largely shared both in the former Soviet Union and
Japan. 9
Gandhi did not regard capitalists and landlords as his opponents when he
advocated the theory of trusteeship after the period of late 1920s. It surely may
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be questioned whether his theory was consistent with his position, as indicated
in Hind Swaraj in 1909, that the minority exploited the masses through
machinery with the motive of the former being greed or avarice. The theory of
trusteeship is the reason that he is generally considered as conservative, not
committed to changing the existing system. Masao Naito, referring to Gandhi’s
friendship with big capitalists, has characterized the theory of trusteeship as “at
best a typical theory of class conciliation” (Naito 1987: 36). According to Naito,
for example, G. D. Birla donated 42,600 rupees, during May 1924 and July
1926, for his Constructive Programme, which contained such programs as
promotion of charkha and khadi production and consumption, aid for Harijans
(Untouchables), education and so on (ibid: 112). Beginning in 1935 he also kept
sending 50,000 rupees every year for maintenance of Gandhi’s ashrams (ibid.).
Louis Fischer has stated that when he asked Gandhi, “What portion of the
Congress budget is covered by rich Indians?” he answered, “Practically all of it”
(Fischer 1995: 479). He also observes that “Most of the money for the
maintenance of Gandhi’s ashram and of Gandhi’s organizations for Harijan and
peasant uplift and the teaching of a national language came from G. D. Birla,
millionaire textile manufacturer at whose house in New Delhi the Mahatma
sometimes lived” (ibid.: 480).
However, if Gandhi’s theory of trusteeship is understood in the linkage with
his swadeshi movement, we can see that he was trying to transfer peacefully the
Ž nancial resources from the rich to the poor for the purpose of relief of the latter.
Because the “constructive program”, the pillar of the swadeshi movement, was
“designed to build up the nation from the very bottom upward” (Gandhi 1945:
5), the theory and the movement were interconnected, like the both wheels of a
vehicle, to relieve the poor. The theory aimed to eradicate “that unbridgeable
gulf that today exists between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots”’ (Gandhi

9 For example, A. M. D’iakov in the former Soviet Union, and Sakamoto Tokumatsu, Yoshiro
Royama and Masao Naito in Japan share this view. For details, refer to Ishii (1994: 73–76).

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1958–1994, Vol. 58: 219), through which Gandhi was willing to “end capitalism
almost, if not quite, as much as the most advanced socialist or even communist”
(ibid., Vol. 71: 28). Indeed, although he preferred the trusteeship theory, he
presented his view that the state would Ž nd it necessary to conŽ scate private
properties by force—as socialists had advocated—if capitalists did not fulŽ ll
their roles as trustees.10 The theory intended a socioeconomic reform to be
achieved in a fairly long period of time, and was not anything supportive for the
existing system. Rather, the theory was one of social reform, which not only
confronted the internal contradiction of Indian society but tried to tackle it
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boldly in the midst of independence movement.

Construction of Village Economy

Let us look Ž nally at the ideal image of a village in Gandhi’s perception.
Gandhi’s theory of trusteeship and the swadeshi movement were, eventually,
trying to achieve a society in which “instead of half a dozen cities of India and
Great Britain living on the exploitation and the ruin of the 700,000 villages of
India, the latter will be largely self-contained” (Gandhi 1945: 11). Although he
modiŽ ed khadi as “the sun of the whole industrial solar system” (Gandhi 1957,
Vol. 2: 173), he thought of other products, too, like cotton, sugar, rape and
wheat, to be produced under cooperative organizations (ibid.: 140–141). With
regard to land possession, he stated that “land and all property is his who will
work for it” (Gandhi 1947: 23), but he did not think in principle of any kind of
land reform like the ones implemented in China after the World War II. To
Gandhi, it was actually against the spirit of “non-violence” to conŽ scate lands
from landlords, so he persuaded them to behave as “trustees.”11
With regard to preventing exploitation of tenants by landlords, Gandhi stated
in 1944 that the “closest co-operation amongst the peasants is absolutely
necessary” (Gandhi 1947: 89). Through the entity called “panchayat,” he
envisioned tenant farmers organizing unions and striking as a form of non-
violent non-cooperation (Pyarelal 1956–1958, Vol. 2: 627).
Panchayat means not only a self-governing organization consisting of
democratically selected villagers in a narrow sense, but also the village itself in
a broader sense. On this point Gandhi thought of decentralization of power, such

10 Elsewhere I have explained that Gandhi was putting some compulsory aspects to his theory
of trusteeship after 1934 when he slightly conceded to the socialists with regard to social reforms
(Ishii 1994: 84–89).
11 Nevertheless, Gandhi warned zamindars that if they failed to fulŽ ll their duties, this principle
would not be applied, saying, “Now you should . . . act as their trustees; then alone can you survive”
(Gandhi 1958–1994, Vol. 87: 304).

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that every village is a fundamental unit of politics. “Independence must begin at

the bottom. Thus, every village will be a republic or Panchayat having full powers.
It follows, therefore, that every village has to be self-sustained and capable of
managing its affairs even to the extent of defending itself against the whole
world” (Gandhi 1968, Vol. 6: 451). “Panchayat Raj,” meant by Gandhi to be “true
democracy,” was not to be endowed from the state at the top downward to the
people, but to be gained by the people from the bottom.12 “Thus,” Gandhi wrote
“ultimately, it is the individual who is the unit” (Gandhi 1957, Vol. 1: 20).
In addition to the village as a political entity, Gandhi, considering its
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sanitation and coziness, described an ideal village as following:

An ideal Indian village will be so constructed as to lend itself to perfect sanitation.
It will have cottages with sufŽ cient light and ventilation, built of a material
obtainable within a radius of Ž ve miles of it. The cottages will have courtyards
enabling the householders to plant vegetables for domestic use and to house their
cattle. The village lanes and streets will be free of all avoidable dust. It will have
wells according to its needs and accessible to all. It will have houses of worship for
all, also a common meeting place, a village common for grazing its cattle, a co-
operative dairy, primary and secondary schools in which industrial education will
be the central factor, and it will have panchayats for settling disputes. It will
produce its own grains, vegetables and fruit, and its own khadi. This is roughly my
idea of a model village
(Tendulkar 1951–54, Vol. 4: 144).

Gandhi set as the Ž nal goal of the theory of trusteeship and swadeshi
movement to construct such cooperative villages “within the means of the
villagers including the zamindar or zamindars, without Government assistance”
(Tendulkar 1951–1954, Vol. 4: 144). He considered as ideal a simple society
staying in nature that is based on its people’s spirits of brahmacharya and
service, replacing a society supported by urban and large-scale industries driven
by material development and self-interest of its people. Gandhi’s idea stands in
a clear contrast to such images as Smith’s “country which had acquired that full
complement of riches” or Marx’s “man, the sovereign of nature.” In other
words, Gandhi sought the reconstruction of Indian economy on a basis wholly
different from what Smith and Marx considered to be social progress. In fact
Gandhi, by reconstructing the very village commune destroyed by the British
interference, was trying to “radically change much that goes under the name of
modern civilization” (Gandhi 1957, Vol. 2: 177). “Independent India can only
discharge her duty towards a groaning world by adopting a simple but ennobled

12 “Raj” means “rule” in English. Gandhi utilized a phrase of “panchayat raj” as the meaning
of “true democracy. ”

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life by developing her thousands of cottages and living at peace with the world”
(ibid.: 19).

III. CONCLUSION: GANDHI AND ALTERNATIVE DEVELOPMENT

THEORIES
According to Gillingham, Schumacher often said that Gandhi would be rated by
history as not only a great religious and political leader but a great development
economist (Gillingham 1980: 203). In fact Schumacher was one of the Ž rst devel-
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opment economists who understood Gandhi’s philosophy and practices. In his

Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if People Mattered, Schumacher
asserted that “it [the cultivation and expansion of needs] is also the antithesis of
freedom and peace” (Schumacher 1973: 29), and that “only by a reduction of
needs can one promote a genuine reduction in those tensions which are the ulti-
mate causes of strife and war” (ibid.). These ideas echo Gandhi’s reproof of greed.
Indeed, Schumacher quoted Gandhi’s words: “Earth provides enough to satisfy
every man’s need, but not for every man’s greed” (ibid.). Moreover, Schu-
macher’s argument on intermediate technology reminds us of Gandhi’s charkha
and khadi, when he asserts that “We need methods and equipment which are
cheap enough so that they are accessible to virtually everyone; suitable for small-
scale application; and compatible with man’s need for creativity” (ibid.: 29–30).
This again stems from Gandhi’s belief that “the poor of the world can not be
helped by mass production, only by production by the masses” (ibid.: 143). Tech-
nology should go back “to the actual size of man” (ibid.: 148); his thesis, “Man is
small, and, therefore, small is beautiful” (ibid.), comes exactly from this.
It is not my task here to describe all of Schumacher’s thoughts. Nevertheless,
it is revealing to see the great in uence that he received from Gandhi, when he
established his own economic philosophy. As S. C. Dube says, “We do not have
to read Schumacher, Illich et al., to gauge his [Gandhi’s] impact on alternative
ways of thinking” (Dube 1988: 41). Furthermore, Schumacher’s ideal of “small
economy” was later incorporated by The Other Economic Summit into their
concept of a steady-state economy (TOES 1986: 13). The theory and practice of
self reliance (ibid.: 97–109) also seem to me to have their origin in Gandhi’s
thoughts on swadeshi.13

13 According to Barbara Wood, Schumacher’s daughter, “While no system of economics

existed that was compatible with spirituality,” Schumacher considered Gandhi as “an economist
whose economics was based on such criteria” (Wood 1985: 247). “The best teacher he knew was
Gandhi” (ibid.: 292). He was further quoted as saying, “He (Gandhi) had laid the foundation for a
system of Economics that would be compatible with Hinduism and, I believe, with Buddhism too”
(ibid.: 247). Schumacher, therefore, seems to have tried to establish a system of economics
compatible with spirituality whose foundation was laid by Gandhi.

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The series of ideas stemming from Gandhi have provided theoretical grounds
for hundreds of thousands of grass-root developmental activities all over the
world. They are basically going to the opposite end of the spectrum from large-
scale industrialization, centralized development, global free trade and un-
regulated market mechanisms, based on the behavioral model of “economic
man.” That is why these are alternative development theories, different from any
of those stemming from laissez-faire economics or Marxism. The alternative
theories are qualitative and spiritual approaches to development which—to
borrow Amartya Sen’s concept—enable “deprived” people to take part in the
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process of social development in order to restore their “capability.”14

It can be questioned as to what extent Gandhian style of development could
actually be achieved in our modern global materialist societies. Nonetheless,
such examples as the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh and the sarvodaya
movement in Sri Lanka show that such a philosophy as is described in this paper
is not totally impracticable in constructing human communities.15 It is indeed
signiŽ cant that since Gandhi’s day, alternative theories and practices have
persistently furnished a critique of “modern” ways of thinking, such as laissez-
faire economics and Marxism, by detecting the contradictions in “modern”
societies and presenting “post-modern” visions of socio-economic development.

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