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SATYAGRAHA & SARVODAYA AS KEYS TO GOOD GOVERNANCE & CORPORATE MANAGEMENT (Text of Ambassador (Retd) Alan Nazareth’s lecture at the ‘Gandhi, Governance and the Corporation’ Colloquium at IIMB on October 2nd, 2008)

  It is indeed an honour to speak at this very important colloquium on ‘Gandhi, Governance and the Corporation’ organized jointly by Indian Institute of Management Bangalore and Indian Institute for Advanced Study, Shimla. My congratulations to them for conceiving and organizing it. With the critical challenges of terrorism, food & energy crisis, global warming and a $ 3 trillion international financial meltdown confronting many governments and corporations today, the colloquium could not have been better timed.
    
  Satyagraha and Sarvodaya, like other Gandhian concepts of ‘Swaraj’, ‘Sarva Dharma Samabhav’, ‘Harijan’ and ‘Trusteeship’ are all rooted in Truth – the truth that we are all children of God, imbued with the Divine Spark and therefore required to be motivated by love rather than hate, by justice and non violence rather than the “might is right” approach; that all religions are branches of the same Divine Tree, that women have equal rights as man; that all rights emanate from duties, that the welfare of all should be sought and that all wealth, power and the environment must be handled as trustees of past, present and future generations. 
    
  For many intellectuals Truth is as indefinable as God. Gandhi had no difficulty with either. For him, as Truth is what IS and God is the only reality that eternally IS, “Truth is God”. He affirms “There is an indefinable mysterious power that pervades everything, a living power that is changeless, that holds all together, that creates, dissolves and recreates. That Power is God… He who denies the existence of that Force denies to himself the use of that inexhaustible Power and thus remains impotent……Satyagraha (holding firmly to Truth) is soul force pure and simple”.

  The fact that millions of Indians followed Gandhi’s lead and were willing to suffer and die in his Satyagraha battles, is proof that they accepted his definition of Truth even though few, in any, comprehended it.

  In history’s most blood stained century Gandhi showed that people could be empowered, imperial and corporate oppression challenged, freedom achieved and age old iniquities ended by firm adherence to Truth, Justice, Non Violence and focus on the most disadvantaged. His success in inspiring, mobilizing and leading millions of poverty stricken Indians in non violent battle against an immensely powerful empire, confronting it with the charka, and getting them to leave India as friends, is undoubtedly the greatest management achievement of the 20th century and perhaps of all time.

  Though ‘Satyagraha’ was Gandhi’s prime motto and strategy, it was Sarvodaya which was devised first. Having read and been greatly impacted by  Ruskin’s ’Unto this Last’ on a 1904 Johannesburg to Durban train journey, he translated it into Gujarati and titled it ‘Sarvodaya’, ( sarva + udaya : the all round uplift of everyone). This thereafter became the beacon of his economic and social programmes.

  ‘Satyagraha’ was fashioned soon after the historic September 11, 1906 meeting at Johannesberg’s Empire Theatre. He offered a prize for an appropriate name for the new non-violent struggle that had been agreed upon. A cousin, Maganlal Gandhi, suggested “Sadagraha” (firmness in a good cause). Gandhi, deeply committed to Truth (Satya) changed it to “Satyagraha”. He declared “Passive resistance has been regarded as a weapon of the weak. That is why the name Satyagraha was coined in South Africa to distinguish this movement from passive resistance….. Non- Violence is not a weapon of the weak. It is a weapon of the strongest and the bravest. In politics its use is based on the immutable maxim that government of the people is possible only so long as they consent either consciously or unconsciously to be governed”. Louis Fischer comments “For Gandhi, Satyagraha was “the vindication of Truth not by infliction of suffering on the opponent but on one’s self”…. The opponent must be “weaned from error by patience and sympathy”, weaned not crushed, converted not annihilated. You cannot inject new ideas into a man’s head by chopping it off; neither will you infuse a new spirit into his heart by piercing it with a dagger”.

  For Gandhi “A non-violent revolution is not a programme for seizure of power. It is a programme for transformation of relationships ending in a peaceful transfer of power.” Satyagraha’s basic  rules are :

1. Clearly identify the issue on which the struggle would be launched,
2. Highlight its “Truth” to the opponent and request negotiations,
3. Keep the opponent and newsmedia fully informed of the campaign’s objectives and plans
4. Instruct, inspire, train and lead the non-violent warriors,
5. Fund raise and economize maximally so as to sustain the campaign as long as necessary
6. Make suitable arrangements for the care of those who would be injured and the families of those who would be arrested.
7. When the opponent agrees to negotiate, formulate and conclude a mutually acceptable agreement and thereafter adhere to it faithfully.

  Gandhi’s completely open approach emanated from his deep faith in Satya and Ahimsa. For him, “Secrecy aims at building a wall of protection around you. Ahimsa disdains all such protection. It functions in the open in the face of odds, the heaviest conceivable…. People that have been crushed under the heel of unspeakable tyranny for centuries cannot be organized by other than open, truthful means.”

  His letter to Viceroy Lord Irwin before initiating his Salt Satyagraha is the best example of his “open” approach. After listing his people’s many travails he wrote : “If you cannot see your way to deal with these evils, and my letter makes no appeal to your heart, on the eleventh of this month, I shall proceed with such co-workers of the ashram as I can take, to disregard the provisions of the Salt Tax.…This letter is not in any way intended as a threat but is a simple and sacred duty, peremptory on a civil resister”

  Gandhi’s approach to governance, as also to economics, was primarily moral. He focused not on an individual’s likely behaviour but on how he ought to behave so as to benefit himself, his community, country and the world. He decried Western Civilization because its insatiable consumerism, mass production industries, armaments, wars and environmental destruction endangered all life on earth. When specifically asked what he thought of Western Civilization, he tritely replied “It would be a good idea ! ”

  Gandhi’s ideal human behaviour posited simple living. For him “Civilization in the real sense consists not in the multiplication but in the deliberate and voluntary reduction of selfish wants. This alone promotes real happiness and contentment and increases the capacity for service” He affirmed “I make bold to say that Europeans will have to remodel their outlook if they are not to perish under the weight of comforts to which they are becoming slaves”.

  Gandhi’s ideas on Governance, Swaraj, terrorism, and the Charka as antidote for India’s abysmal poverty, were first enunciated in his 1909 booklet ‘Hind Swaraj’, subtitled ‘Indian Home rule’. Antony Parel describes it as “ the seed from which the tree of Gandhian thought has grown to its full stature” and adds  “It has been compared to such diverse works as Rousseau’s Social Contract  and the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola”.
 
  Gandhi’s more fully developed ideas on governance are contained in his 1941 booklet : ‘Constructive Program :Its Meaning and place’. It envisaged a society where self employment, the cooperative approach, communal harmony, complete equality among men, women and all sections of society, full democratic participation from village to national level, minimal state intervention in the economy and adoption of the Trusteeship principle by rulers and the rich would gradually replace mass unemployment, poverty, illiteracy, ill health and urban dominance. His concept of ‘Swaraj’ had by now been enlarged to  ‘Poorna Swaraj’ - freedom not only from colonial oppression but all forms of oppression – against women, untouchables, peasants & bonded labourers - as also freedom from fear, untruth, injustice, anger, violence, and all vices with firmest “control over self”.  He affirmed “ He who fears, fails…….As human beings our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world – that is the myth of the atomic age – as in being able to remake ourselves”