The Economic Philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi
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IV out and systematise it and a French to xvritp Tt • , and indiscreet presumptuous adventure to olun^r^ t ® the mistake W been ®“' to be ^ aXi no going back, partiv because nf r seemed and partly because of the subject lure of a ^ and the outcome of mylaLtls W the E^st and He'thata JEast is East and West is West and never tL “vat sha'llteet’ East represents spiritualism The and the West materialism a V • happy combination of both tvill alone lead the to biSns hSS permanent happiness and real progress. Today’s profress which IS nothing but advancement of material comforts at ?h?™se of real happiness’ is no progress at all. It is stained, as many wilF rSdily millions all over the worid. GandW calledrfn2 a halt to such a progress and indicated the path towards progress. ^ icmreal Gandhi, like Adam Smith, believed in homogeneity of class inte- rests. He even went a step further and said that there cannot be a clash between nations, if they stick to their just interests. He also believed that hie is one and it is to wrong break it, under the plea of speciali- sation, into water-tight compartments of economics, politics and religion, so he came forward with an integrated plan, socio-politico- economic to revitalise life as a whole. This modest work would not have been _ possible without the active help and guidance of my many well-wishers. The U.G.C. gave a grant of a thousand rupees and my own college provided me rest of the money for the purchase of books and journals. Thakur Navvab Singh Chauhan, M.P., Dr. Shiv Dayal of the Punjab Uni- versity, Mayor Nuruddin Ahmed ofDelhi, Late Bhartaran Kumarappa, Dr. V. K. R. V. Rao and my father assisted me in a number of ways. I am thankful to them all. I know not how to thank my dear wife, Kusum, who in spite of personal inconvenience and mental and monetary strains, cheer- fully encouraged me all the time in the pursuit of this never ending work with her commendable grasp of the Principles of Economics. She also helped me as much in collecting the material as in clearing some ticklish problems and revising the script several times. It is my great misfortune that she is no more to see this flower of her patience, sacri- fice and endeavour blooming. My thanks are also due to my friend and colleague, Prof. N. L. Sharma, who in spite of his other pre- occupations readily agreed to go through the manuscript and suggest improvements'. I have neither the words, nor inclination to thank both. In the end, I take pride in expressing my feelings of deep gratitude towards all those gentlemen, whose treatises and volumes I consulted from time to time and derived benefit from their labours. I have included the names of such gentlemen and their works in the attached Bibliography. S. S. Gupta THE ECONOMIC PHILOSOPHY OF MAHATMA GANDHI DR. SHANTI S. GUPTA M.A.. Ph. D., D. LIU. 201 In the Gandhian set-up, distribution rvill not be a great headache. When bulk of the ^vorkers is its own master, u-hen wants are minimum and when the size of the producing units is small, great disparities of incomes cannot simply exist and everyone will get sufficient to satisiy his needs. The troubles connected with labour-capital relations will also be non-existent in the Gandhian set-up because here neither the capital will have the power nor the will to exploit others and the labour will also be neither ignorant nor sveak to permit their exploitation. As such, need of labour legislation will not be felt in a Gandhian set-up and the role of trade unions will be entirely different from what it is today. Both labour and capital will live like blood relations and not enemies. Will it not be a better life? To sum up, we can safely say that the Gandhian way of life is superior to the other existing systems— Capitalism, as well as Communism. Not only is the Gandhian way of life superior but it is also practicable. The only thing needed is to give it a fair trial. Let us hope the day is not far off, wffien some wearied nation will catch up the idea and build a new model which trill emanate light and rays of hope for the bleeding humanity of today. PUBLISHERS ASHOK PUBLISHING HOUSE K-25, Navin Shahdara, Delhi-32 Price Rs. 30.00 © Copyright reserved with Publishers PRINTERS DELHI PRINTERS 21 Daryaganj, DeIhi-6 To my wife KUSUM who is no more FOREWORD It is with genuine pleasure that I respond to the request of my old student, Sri Shanti S. Gupta, to write a forc\vord to his brief but competent study of the economic ideas of Mahatma Gandhi. I have no hesitation in stating that he has made a valuable contribution to the understanding of Gandhian Economic Philosophy. Gandliian economic ideas have begun to have much greater influence on tlic thinking of policy makers in India than was the case during the life- time of the author. Hard facts of Indian economy such as dearth of capital, implication of foreign aid, dominance of unemployment in rural areas and consequent waste of labour power, the imperative need for economic improvement, the example of New China in the skilled use of labour power—these and other allied factors have created a powerful impression on the practical and hard-headed men who constitute the Planning Commission; and there is no doubt that some, if not all, of Gandhiji’s economic ideas are going to influence our official economic policy. Mr. Gupta’s study is, therefore, timely and will contribute to a better understanding of some of the economic ideas ^vhich have hitherto faced neglect at the hands of Indian intellectual on the alleged ground of their being unpractical in character. Dr. V. K. R.V. Rao PREFACE It has been the rare good luck of persons of my age-group that from our childhood we have seen Gandhi being at the helm of affairs, controlling and directing the destinies of millions of his countiATUcn, sometimes in politics, and sometimes in economics, but alwap, step by step, taking us nearer to the much coveted goal of human happiness. For anybody to come under the spell of the greatest man of the century was but natural, so I was no exception to it. It also started revering him and loving him. But this reverence and love ^\•as based, I must admit, not on a deep reading and understanding of his philosophy of life. It was due to Gandhi’s hypnotic personality. He tvas consi- dered a hero, a symbol of India’s freedom, a first rate humanist and, to crown it all, a saint. But then came the fateful 1947. The partition of the country followed by the unbounded flow of innocent blood left me, like my many countrymen, shocked, bewildered and frustrated. Since such bloodshed breeds anger, so I too was angr)’. I started asking to myself : Is Gandhi right? Are his teachings doing any good to us or like those of Buddha are they making us impotent and cowards? In that atmosphere of heat and hate a feeling grew within me that I must condemn Gandhi and all that for which he stood. But this condemnation, unlike that of my friends, I decided, should find a basis in scientific and logical reasoning and should issue from a study and analysis of Gandhian ideals. Consequently my reading of Gandhi started. I got a definite direction in 1950, soon after I entered the teaching profession, when I was called upon to supervise a thesis on “The Economic Ideas of Mahatma Gandhi” for the M.A. Degree. Since then my study of Gandhi has continued, sometimes with vigour and sometimes leisurely with the only exception of the three years when I was busy with my Ph.D. work. However, I must admit that the purpose for which these studies had started was thrown, I do not know when, in the wilderness and an inner conviction gretv within me that what the frail man of India was saying was neither disjointed, nor nonsense lacking in practicability, nor mere illogical thinking based on half-knowledge. It was a complete, well-knit and logical treatise, which due to shortage of time, and incapacity of the receivers, was given, bit by bit, through utterances and writings and demonstrated through actions. The present work is, therefore, nothing but a modest attempt at collecting, systematising and presenting Gandhi’s writings in a manner, which may look logical, coherent and a complete whole. With time and reading of Gandhi, a feeling took me over that Gandhi was a phenomenon in himself. It is impossible for a single individual to understand and interpret him fully. For this in the words of a great economist, “A Trimurti” is required : A German to collect all necessary and unnecessary data, an Englishman to sort it 111 CONTENTS Chapter Page I Why All’s Not Well with the World ... 1 II The Gandhian Approach ... 40 III Some Problems of Production 80 IV Some Allied Problems 102 V Money and Markets 139 VI On Distribution 147 VII Gandhi’s Socio-Political Set-up 152 VIII Gandhi’s Concept of Education 173 IX Conclusion ... 183 Appendix I Symbol of Small Scale Industries—Charkha 202 II Chart of Activities of Ahmcdabad Tc.xtilc Labour Union 208 III Non-violent Sanctions ... 213 Bibliography • • 217 Chapter I WHY ALL’S NOT WELL WITH THE WORLD A study of the History of Economic Thought clearly shows that since the very beginning man has been in search of ans\vcrs to two questions, viz., ‘what is wrong tvith our present world ?’ and ‘what should be done to improve matters?’ Take, for example, the fore- runners of economic science, the Mercantilists.