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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)

His most notable affirmations on governance are  :
   
“My notion of democracy is that under it the weakest have the same opportunity as the strongest”
 “Independent India as conceived by me will have all Indians belonging to different religions, living in perfect friendship. There need be no millionaires and no paupers”

“I look upon any increase of the power of the state with the greatest fear, because while apparently doing good by minimizing exploitation, it does the greatest harm to mankind by destroying individuality, which lies at the root of all progress. I know of many cases where men have adopted trusteeship, but none where the state has really lived for the poor.”

 “Whenever you are in doubt, try the following expedient. Recall the face of the poorest and the most helpless man whom you have seen and ask yourself whether the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him.  Will he be able to gain anything by it? Will it restore to him control over his own life and destiny?”

“Real Swaraj will come not by the acquisition of authority by a few, but by the acquisition of the capacity by all to resist authority when it is abused. In  other words, Swaraj is to be obtained by educating the masses to a sense of their capacity to regulate and control authority.” 
 
   Gandhi’s ideas on good governance, methodical approach, negotiations strategy and social responsibility are best seen in his 1917 Champaran ‘satyagraha’. This was undertaken on the pleading of an unknown, illiterate peasant.  He went via Muzzafarpur, met Prof. J.B. Kripalani of the Arts Collge there, and secured accurate information about indigo cultivation. He then went to Champaran, called on the British Landlords Association secretary and requested a call on Tirhut Divisional Commissioner, who rebuffed his request and ordered him to leave that area immediately. He defied the order. When summoned to appear at Motihari court, he telegraphed Rajendra Prasad to come there with some Indian lawyers. In court he pleaded guilty but refused to pay the bail. The magistrate had no option but to release him without bail. Gandhi then undertook a detailed enquiry into the peasants grievances. Almost ten thousand depositions were taken and relevant documents collected. He then called on and induced the Governor to set up an Enquiry Commission. The evidence he presented was so damaging the landlords agreed to negotiate. Gandhi demanded 50% of the unjustly exacted amounts but settled for 25%. His negotiation strategy, the prime objective of which always was “a mutually acceptable agreement and never the defeat, much less the humiliation of the opponent.” – secured an amicable settlement. Thereupon Gandhi did not leave Champaran but stayed on to organize education, health and sanitation facilities for the peasants. He requested Kasturba, his son Devdas and secretary Mahadev Desai to come there to assist in this task.  Originally planned as a seven day visit, his stay at Champaran lasted seven months. It shows that even in handling local issues he had the broader vision in mind viz India’s liberation not only from colonial but from all oppression. The Militant nationalists’ focus was only on the victimizers, Gandhi’s was also on their victims.

  Gandhi’s choice of the charka for confronting India’s widespread unemployment and “Corporate Lancashire” was as brilliant as it was simple.  His Autobiography reveals he had not seen one until he returned to India in 1915. “Eminent” economists thought this choice ridiculous. Yet the Charka generated rural employment, promoted discipline and dedication among satyagrahis, reduced use of imported textiles, undermined Britain’s economic interests in India. The Secretary of State for India revealed in the House of Commons that whereas the Great Depression caused a 25% drop in Britain’s textile exports to India, the additional 18% fall was due “directly to the boycott program carried on by the Indian National Congress.” 

   For Gandhi “Labour is far superior to capital. Without labour gold, silver and copper are a useless burden. It is labour which extracts precious ore from the bowels of the earth. Labour is priceless, not gold. I want a marriage between capital and labour. They can work wonders in cooperation.” The 1918 Ahmedabad Textile workers strike gave him an opportunity to prove this point. The workers had struck work for a 50% wage hike. The mill owner Ambalal Sarabhai and his sister Ansuya, the workers’ staunch supporter, were both close friends of his. He urged a 35% wage increase as against the 20% Ambalal had offered, and fasted until this was granted. The settlement led to the formation of Textile Labour Association, a federation of seven Ahmedabad textile unions, committed to Gandhi’s non violent, negotiated settlement approach. By 1939, the Association had over 25,000 members.
   
   Gandhi’s ideas of a village based democracy of “concentric circles”, and minimal state control of the economy were ignored by Independent India’s constitution makers and political leaders. They opted for Westminster style democracy and a soviet style planned economy. India has paid a heavy price on both counts. Gandhi’s indirect elections to the district, state and national “panchayats” would not have required the very expensive electioneering which has become the prime cause of corruption. Candidates for a parliamentary seat now spend nothing less than Rupees 1 crore each. Winners recoup their expenditures, by diverse means, while in office. Scandals in arms and coffin purchases, cattle fodder etc; MPs demanding payments for raising questions in parliament, releasing their constituency development funds and, most shockingly, for switching parties, are all stark evidence of this. Transparency International’s ‘Global Corruption Barometer’ placed India’s CPI (Corruption Perception Index) on its scale of 10 (very clean) to Zero (very corrupt) at the dismally low level of between 2 and 3!  On its 2008 corruption scale India is ranked 85th, a drop of 13 places from its 72nd position the previous year! 
  
   As for India’s state dominated economy in the initial phase, even ardent admirers of Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi now openly concede that this 1947 – 1991 period has been more baneful than beneficial. Enormous investments in agriculture, industry, education, health and housing notwithstanding, poverty, disease, unemployment, illiteracy, and lack of housing still afflicts a third of India’s population; the urban – rural divide has widened and over 10,000 farmers have committed suicide since 1998 when the seed market was opened up to multinationals.  Naxal activism in over 150 districts is sombre proof of the extent of economic and social distress, and anger, in the rural areas over uneconomic prices for their produce and acquisition of their lands for SEZs, expressways, industrial and tourism projects, etc. Since 1947 over 20 million people, about 40% of them tribals, have been displaced from their traditional lands. On Gandhiji’s birthday in 2007, 25,000 landless labourers and tribals marched from Gwalior to New Delhi, (reaching there on October 28 ) to non violently protest their displacement as a result of “development”. They demanded the setting up of a National Land Reforms Commission. There is no indication yet of it even being considered.
  
  The rejection of Gandhi’s Sarva Dharma Samabhav approach and active propagation of the “Hindu Rashtra” concept by ultra-rightist political and communal outfits, which achieved salience after the 1992 Babri Masjid destruction has greatly undermined inter-religious harmony, good governance and national security. The 2002 massacres in Gujarat, recent communal outrages in Orissa and Karnataka and endless bomb blasts in various parts of the country, are tragic proof of this. Those vociferously promoting “Hindu Rashtra” might like to recall Gandhi’s words written just five days before his assassination “ It would spell the ruin of both the Hindu religion and the majority community if the latter, in the intoxication of power, entertains the belief that it can crush the minority community and establish a purely Hindu Rashtra”.  Earlier (in 1931) he had written in Young India “It has been said that Swaraj will be the rule of the majority community i.e. the Hindus….If this were to be true, I for one would refuse to call it Swaraj and would fight it with all the strength at my command, For to me Hind Swaraj is the rule of all the people and the rule of justice…..By Ram Raj I do not mean Hindu Raj. I mean Divine Raj, the Kingdom of God”