In Michael Moore’s movie Sicko there is an excellent quote from a British member of parliament, an old-school socialist who thinks that politics should be about bringing power to the people.
- I think there are two ways in which people are controlled: first of all frighten people, and secondly demoralize them. An educated, healthy and confident nation is harder to govern, and I think there’s an element in the thinking of some people: We don’t want people to be educated, healthy and confident because they would get out of control.
This remark could apply to a lot of things, from the way the Bush administration used 9/11 to frighten a nation into a tragic and misguided war, to the way the elites in some developing nations may actually want their people to remain ignorant and poor, because that way, they are “demoralized” and easier to control.
Contrast this with Gandhi’s idea of Swaraj, the cause to which he dedicated his life. Swaraj is often translated “independence” but it is better translated “self-rule” or “rule over oneself.” In other words, self-mastery is a condition of true independence. Swaraj is meant to be understood at both the national level (a nation ruling itself) and the individual level (an individual ruling herself, without a state).
- Swaraj is a kind of individualist anarchism. It warrants a stateless society as according to Gandhi the overall impact of the state on the people is harmful. He called the state a “soulless machine” which, ultimately, does the greatest harm to mankind. Adopting Swaraj means implementing a system whereby state machinery is virtually nil, and the real power directly resides in the hands of people. Gandhi said, “Power resides in the people, they can use it at any time.”
Gandhi himself defined it this way:
- Independence begins at the bottom…. A society must be built in which every village has to be self sustained and capable of managing its own affairs…. It will be a free and voluntary play of mutual forces… In this structure composed of innumerable villages, there will be ever widening, never ascending circles. Life will not be a pyramid with the apex sustained by the bottom, but it will be an oceanic circle whose center will be the individual.
In his Iron Law of Institutions, Jonathan Schwartz argues that the people who control an institution care more about preserving their place within that institution than whether the institution is doing the job it was designed to do. This explains why dictators hold onto power as their nation collapses around them, or why corrupt and incompetent politicians bring discredit to their own parties rather than allow better individuals to take their place.
Perhaps it also explains why in rich or poor nations alike, the rulers so often prefer to keep the people in a condition of demoralization and fear rather than allowing the state to do what it was supposedly designed to do, namely channel the citizens’ ambitions for a better life. What better antidote to this than Gandhi’s idea of Swaraj or self-rule, in which power emnates from the individual, and institutions are seen as a dehumanizing force to be avoided?
India failed to adopt most of Gandhi’s ideas when it won independence, so today it behaves like a typical state. However there is a Swaraj Foundation that is attempting to implement his ideas at a local level, and they have an interesting reading list (click “Learning Resources”). There are also a lot of parallels between the Sarwaj concept and the ideas of Ivan Illich, as found in his two classics of social empowerment, Deschooling Society and Tools for Conviviality.
