Gandhi's Economic Thought

Ajit K. Dasgupta

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 1996
• ISBN:
  9781134822959
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Betriebswirtschaft
• Subtopic: Business allgemein

Gandhi's economic theories were a part of his vision of self-government, which meant not just freedom from colonial rule but the achievement of self-reliance and self-respect by the villagers of India. Areas examined include: * consumption behaviour * industrialization, technology and the scale of production * trusteeship and industrial relations *

1
INTRODUCTION

That Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948) is one of the outstanding moral and political thinkers of our times is accepted world-wide. But was he an economist? Anjaria writes: ‘When the history of economic thought in India in recent times comes to be written Gandhi’s name will certainly occupy a place of honour in it.’¹ But he hastened to add: ‘It does not matter in this context whether we call Gandhi an economist or not; that is, partly at any rate, a question of definition of terms.’² A study of Gandhi’s economic ideas must in some way come to grips with this question.

Gandhi was much farther off the mainstream of economics than other Indian nationalist economists, such as Ranade, had been. Machinery is a ‘grand yet awful invention’,³ ‘the law of supply and demand is a devilish law’,⁴ ‘tractors and chemical fertilisers will spell ruin for India’.⁵ It is for opinions such as these that Gandhi as an economist is usually remembered. Even a sympathetic reader may find it difficult to take such statements seriously.

Some of the methodological issues that arise in an analysis of Gandhi’s economic ideas are discussed in this chapter, which is organised in four sections. The first section addresses the question of whether Gandhi’s economics is purely utopian. The second section examines the place of religion in Gandhi’s world view. The subsequent section considers Gandhi’s views on the inter-relationship of economics and ethics; and the nature of Gandhi’s ethical theory is discussed in the final section.

UTOPIA AND REALITY IN GANDHIAN ECONOMICS

A question that will occur to a careful reader of Gandhi’s economic writings is whether they describe simply a dream of Utopia or are meant to deal with problems of the real world.

In describing the content of his economic vision Gandhi draws an analogy with Euclid. ‘Euclid has defined a straight line as having no breadth, but no one has yet succeeded in drawing such a line and no one ever will.’⁶ But this is consistent with either interpretation. It could mean that, like the straight line ‘which cannot be drawn’, the Gandhian model relates to an ideal economic order where people could well be motivated quite differently from those in any society that we know of. However, it could also mean that ‘something like’ a straight line can be drawn, and in economics as in geometry the postulational method can help in achieving clarity in thought and in solving reallife problems, for ‘we must have a proper picture of what we want, before we can have something approaching it’.⁷ Both versions contain elements of truth. Gandhi was not an academic but the charismatic leader of the Indian national movement. He was inspired by a vision of swaraj (self-government) which, for him, meant not just freedom from colonial rule but the achievement of self-reliance, and self-respect, by the villagers who make up most of India’s population. His economics was a part of this vision.

Thus, Gandhi was trying to describe an economic ideal to strive for rather than simply an economic plan to implement. To that extent his economics was utopian. However, ‘utopian’ can also refer to something ‘impractical’ or even ‘impossible’. Gandhi’s economic thought was not ‘utopian’ in that sense. It was certainly meant to apply to an actual society, that of rural India in particular. It would still apply only to a few selected aspects of that society while neglecting others, but that is true of all economic models. The case for this ‘pragmatic’ view of Gandhian economics appears more plausible if we remember the context of his writings.

Most of them appeared in daily newspapers or weekly journals, Young India (in English), Navajivan (in Gujrati), and Harijan (in Hindi), and were addressed to a mass audience whose attention he tried to capture by making his points short and sharp. In this he succeeded, and as a journalist, especially during the 1920s and 1930s, he exercised considerable influence. Also, his writings were produced and published in the heat of political battle.

Yet another argument in favour of this interpretation is that Gandhi regarded his conclusions on economic policy as only provisional. Thus, in his preface to Hind Swaraj, he described the views expressed there as ‘mine, yet not mine’.⁸ They were his only in the sense that he hoped to act according to them. However, if his views proved to be wrong he would have no hesitation in rejecting them.⁹ Gandhi’s American biographer, Louis Fischer, notes this provisional aspect of Gandhi’s ideas: he was always thinking aloud: ‘He did not attempt to express his ideas in a finished form. You heard not only his words but also his thoughts. You could, therefore, follow him as he moved to a conclusion.’¹⁰ In the same spirit he came to admit that some of the things he had earlier condemned, e.g. railways, motor cars and machinery could in certain circumstances confer benefits too, and that they should not be prohibited altogether. Appropriate restrictions on their use could perhaps provide adequate safeguards against misuse.¹¹

Writings on Gandhian economics have usually focused attention on the specific policies that he proposed: opposition to modern manufacturing production based on the use of machinery, advocacy of village industries, in particular, the spinning wheel, and boycott of foreign goods. It is with policies such as these that Gandhi’s name is associated. On our argument proper understanding of his views requires a rather different emphasis. The structure of his arguments, the assumptions he made, and the principles of conduct to which he appealed, must be regarded as of central importance. It is these, I believe, that make his specific policy proposals comprehensible, not the other way round. I thus agree with Anjaria¹² that ‘Gandhism is not just a series of disjointed maxims of policy or a catalogue of urgent reforms and remedial measures’,¹³ and with Nanda that ‘What is called Gandhism is… only a distinctive attitude to society and politics rather than an ideology; a particular ethical standpoint rather than fixed formulae or a definitive system.’¹⁴ What, then, made his attitude distinctive?

GANDHI’S RELIGION

I shall examine first the common view that the distinctive element in Gandhi’s attitude to politics, economics and society came from his religious world outlook. Gandhi’s speeches and writings are indeed replete with a religious terminology which became a kind of ‘signature tune’ and has been called his saintly idiom. That idiom has received much attention. What has been missed is that expressions of dislike of organised religion and detestation of religious fundamentalism of all brands occur no less frequently in his published works. Gandhi was highly sceptical about the value of religious rites and ceremonies, with the sole exception of the public prayer meeting, which he turned into a means of educating the public on political economic and moral issues. The basic element of a religious outlook is concern with ‘the other world’. Gandhi did not share this concern. ‘You need not think of the world beyond. If you can do your duty here the “beyond” will take care of itself.’¹⁵

Also, he held religion to be an essentially personal matter, something ‘between oneself and one’s God’.¹⁶ He suggested that there might, in effect, be as many religions as there were persons, and was fond of pointing out that religious persecution was as ancient as religion itself.¹⁷ None of these attitudes is characteristic of a truly religious world outlook. As Morris-Jones has noted, Gandhi had ‘little intellectual interest in, or capacity for handling, religious or metaphysical ideas’.¹⁸

Nevertheless, there was a sense in which religion was important in shaping Gandhi’s ideas: religions provided some criteria of right and wrong and could help in framing rules of conduct in one’s daily life. But religion in this sense was indistinguishable from ethics. And indeed Gandhi did not distinguish between them. ‘For me morals, ethics and religion are convertible terms.’¹⁹ What their ‘convertibility’ implied comes out if we look at Gandhi’s attitude to individual religions.

Gandhi professed to be a devout Hindu and often chided his countrymen for failing to live up to the high moral norms of their own past. He was adamant, however, that the norms themselves could not be derived from tradition, custom or religious text. ‘It is good to swim in the waters of tradition but to sink in them was suicide.’²⁰ Likewise, Hinduism was hemmed in by many old customs, some of which were good but the rest were to be condemned. Gandhi’s condemnation extended not only to bad customs but even to religious texts. He insisted that his belief in Hindu scriptures did not require him to accept every word and every verse as divinely inspired and he declined to be bound by any interpretation, however learned, if it was ‘repugnant to reason or moral sense’.²¹

Even the Veda, regarded by Hindus as the holiest texts of all because they represented the word of God, were not exempt: ‘no matter what is credited with Vedic origin if it is repugnant to the moral sense it must be summarily rejected as contrary to the spirit of the Veda, and perhaps what is more as contrary to fundamental ethics’.²²

Because he found many such passages in the Hindu scriptures, he called for the scriptures to be revised. An authoritative body, he suggested, should be set up:

that would revise all that passes under the name of scriptures, expurgate all the texts that have no moral values or are contrary to the fundamentals of religion and morality, and present such an edition for the guidance of Hindus.²³

This suggestion did not meet with a favourable response! Gandhi had great respect, too, for religions other than his own and quoted from the Bible or the Koran to make a point, almost as frequently as he quoted from the Bhagavadgita, but they too were subject to the judgement of reason. ‘I reject any religious doctrine that does not appeal to reason and is in conflict with morality.’²⁴ Accordingly he insisted that even the teachings of the Holy Koran cannot be exempt from criticism. ‘After all we have no other guide but our reason to tell us what may be regarded as revealed and what may not be.’²⁵

The claims of divine revelation, therefore, remained subject to those of human reason. Thus for example for certain offences such as adultery, stoning to death was the prescribed punishment in Islamic law but Gandhi found it to be an inhuman practice, which ‘cannot be defended on the mere ground of its mention in the Koran’.²⁶

Gandhi often mentions his debt to the teachings of Jesus and in particular to the Sermon on the Mount. It was his teachings, however, that appealed. The orthodox Christian belief that Jesus was the only begotten son of God appeared to Gandhi to be a claim to monopoly which was contrary to reason. It was also irrelevant in considering the validity of Jesus’s teachings on how to lead a good life. For this reason Gandhi described himself as a rebel against orthodox Christianity and its interpretation of the life of Jesus.

Recounting the history of Christianity Gandhi also points out that Jesus was an Asiatic whose message was delivered through many media and ‘when it had the backing of a Roman emperor it became an imperialist faith as it remains to this day’.²⁷ The role of Christianity, and Christian missionaries, in the establishment and maintenance of European imperialism in Afro-Asian countries receives marked attention in Gandhi’s writings.

Gandhi had great respect, too, for the Jain and Buddhist faiths, mainly because they gave a central place to ahimsa and preached compassion not only for all humankind but for all living creatures; but he criticised the mechanical and negative way in which these doctrines were being applied by present-day Jains and Buddhists. On Jain practices in contemporary India, he comments: ‘Where the doctrine of compassion is followed in action, it seems to be limited to feeding ants and preventing people from catching fish.’²⁸

I conclude this part of my discussion by expressing agreement with Morris-Jones that Gandhi’s world outlook was not a religious one.

Religion is said to have played a great part in his life. Yet his attachment to religion is limited… it is his ethical emphasis and the lack of a developed doctrinal system which enabled Gandhi to remain throughout an eclectic in religion.²⁹

It is Gandhi’s ‘ethical emphasis’ and its relevance for his economic ideas that I shall discuss next.

ECONOMICS AND ETHICS

What really differentiates Gandhi’s approach to economic issues from the mainstream tradition is his extraordinary emphasis on the ethical aspect of economic behaviour. Indeed, he believed that economic and ethical considerations were inseparable. Replying to the poet Tagore who had reproached him for mixing these up, Gandhi wrote: ‘I must confess that I do not draw a sharp or any distinction between economics and ethics.’³⁰

They could, he said, be considered in isolation, as indeed they usually were, but for conclusions derived from economic analysis to be valid or relevant they should not. It is because standard economic analysis failed to take ethical considerations into account, suggested Gandhi, that economics itself had become largely irrelevant for either understanding behaviour or prescribing policy. For this reason he likens the economics that disregards moral and sentimental considerations to ‘wax works that being life-like still lack the life of the living flesh. At every crucial moment these new fangled economic laws have broken down in practice’.³¹

Because ethical considerations were closely bound up with economic ones, it was not legitimate to regard ethical influences simply as disturbing factors that ‘prevented economic laws from having free play’.³² It was not reasonable to abstract from them even as a first approximation. Nevertheless Gandhi never gave up a belief in the vital importance of economic considerations for the life of individuals and nations nor in the possibility that a less narrowly focused and more relevant economics could be developed.

Gandhi insisted that the relationship between economics and ethics works both ways. While economic concepts were laden with ethical implications, ethics too must descend from the clouds and become ‘good economies’. Ethics, Gandhi is saying, is not simply an exercise for philosophers, a convenient handle for sharpening their wits on the logic of extremes. It must be relevant to the ordinary business of life where one’s options are limited by resource constraints. Ethics by its very nature is an enterprise for the worldly, a guide to the perplexed; and its answers, to be credible, need to be economically viable. ‘No person in the world has found it possible to maintain something which is a source...