By Om Prakash Dwivedi
Two days ahead of his assassination, Gandhi told his niece, Mridula Manu:
“If I were to die of a lingering disease, or even from a pimple, then you must shout from the housetops to the whole world that I was a false Mahatma…. If I die of illness, you should declare me a false or hypocritical Mahatma. And if an explosion took place, as it did last week, or somebody shot at me and I received his bullet on my bare chest, without a sigh and Rama’s name on my lips, only then you should say that I was a true Mahatma.”
And this is exactly what happened, turning the death into a triumph for Gandhi, and etching his name in the annals of history as a Mahatma. Gandhi never dies. He continues to be relevant for all time.
Democratic erosion has become the signature of our modern time, a time focused more on exclusion and banishment, rather than inclusion and embracement. Ruptures rather than apertures underpin our institution of democracy across the world. There is a continued encroachment of corporations, leading to militarisation of life, chemicalisation of climate, and artificialisation of intelligence. The coercive capacity and unchecked villainy of the powerful echelons have brought us to a point where borders – visible and invisible – are palpable in almost everything that concerns social postulations and the idea of a collective life.
The fact that this pro-militarisation of life has become a quotidian reality is a call that we need to rethink and revise our idea of democracy and collective self-determinism. One cannot deny that there is an acute devaluation of human life.
In fact, we have reached that stage of capital progress where humans are seen as resources. But then blaming the corporate-state nexus is tantamount to a retrograde condition. Apparently, the argument is that one cannot make them culpable just because they expropriate life and life forms all the time, in most places. The parasite of capitalism, which Mahatma Gandhi initially linked with the Western idea, has now become an uncontrollable global virus, eroding the backbone of humanity in the garb of progress. No wonder then that Gandhi suggested, “there is no end to the victims destroyed in the fire of civilisation. Its deadly effect is that people come under its scorching flames, believing it to be all good.”
The ongoing war on humanity and on this planet is no longer a Western project, but a drive that is fuelled and stoked by imperialism, which cannot be pinpointed to any single nation. The technologised desire of globalisation to homogenise life through consumption and expropriation needs to be seen as the corporatisation of humans, including the planet. To counter this narrative and practice, Mahatma Gandhi attains greater significance today. One need not agree with his views in entirety, but much of his work is a tenacious exercise in humanity.
As Faisal Devji avers, “If the memory of Mahatma Gandhi lives on today, then it is mainly thanks to his enemies, who seem unable to forget him.” Gandhi continues to be both a beacon and a provocation for social change and democratic reforms. Gandhi’s Constructive Programme: Its Meaning and Place is a brilliant example that reflects on these formulations. In 2023, Dhananjay Rai published an edited book, Poorna Swaraj: Constructive Programme: Its Meaning and Place (2023), which deals critically with this Constructive Programme, thus providing us with new apertures of humanity.
As Rai points out, “The text encapsulates thirty-one years of intensive churning and continuous evolution of ideas and inclusion of issues.” The genesis of the constructive programme can be found in the Champaran Satyagraha in 1917. The sociopolitical provenance of this constructive programme can be gauged from the fact that it was too pedantic, inclusive, progressive, and empowering in nature, featuring village education, sanitary principles, medical relief, women’s question, propagation of Rashtrabhasha, cultivating love of one’s own language, working for economic equality, and communal welfare.
Gandhi’s constructive programme aimed to do this by strengthening Hindu-Muslim unity, abolishing untouchability, promoting charkha (spinning wheel) and khaddar. Later, he also added literacy to this list. It needs to be added that the Hindu-Muslim unity can be understood as a metaphor for unity among all races, while untouchability points to the decimation of coercive, violent, and hegemonic forces that retain and even heighten class positions, while the charkha can be seen as the essentiality of supplementary means of empowerment and local production. That is why Gandhi sees the constructive programme as essential for the construction of the Poorna Swaraj.
Rai’s book teems with relevant information and clarity. This is a well-researched book, exhibiting an acute sense of observation and criticality. As Rai points out, the 1941 edition of the Constructive Programme expands its ambit by including ‘Kisans’, ‘Labour’, and ‘Students.’ When critiqued by Thakkar Baba for its omission of Adivasis from this programme, Gandhi was quick to respond: “the Adivasis are the original inhabitants whose material position is perhaps no better than that of Harijans and who have long been victims of neglect on the part of the so-called high classes. The Adivasis should have found a special place in the constructive programme. Non-mention was an oversight.” He expanded the thirteen items of the programme to include the Adivasis as well.
Such was the vision of the Mahatma that he kept on revising not just his ideas but also the constructive programme, by adding more items to the list. He suggested inclusion of Dhanush takli (bow-shaped spindle) in place of spinning wheel as a cost-effective venture. Rai must be commended for convincingly demonstrating a command over Gandhi’s works. He also refers to the 1945 edition of the programme that was so central to achieving complete independence. In fact, as Rai rightly suggests, “the constructive programme is the training in civil disobedience. By way of khadi, he proposes the idea of decentralisation.” (p. L) Gandhi also included the cow service (go seva) in the list.
Rai also highlights a major drawback of Gandhi’s constructive programme: its occasional paternalism, as seen in Gandhi’s suggestion that Hindus should “take one Harijan at least, either as member, or at least as domestic servant.” As the book forcefully argues, the aim of our parliament should be to become more inclusive, focusing on building from the base. Gandhi suggested, errors at the base can be quickly rectified. Rai reiterates that ours is a time when “political structure… becomes more significant than people’s aspirations” (p. LXXV). This is why, as Rai suggests, Gandhi’s constructive programmes become “an immanent text and extraparliamentary [in]… exploring this cogent possibility” (p. LXXVI). Rai categorises this programme as an ‘immanent text,’ arguing that it “urges us to perceive everything in life as political, including the defined spaces of politics” (p. LXXVI). He further notes that immanent texts address urgent issues, and are “nothing but philosophy simplified of major texts in everydayness.” Engaging with everydayness through an immanent text is a serious problem due to its cascading effect on the structure (p. LXXVII). Rai asserts the Constructive Programme should be read as “extraparliamentary” (p. LXXIX) and advocates making it available for the “everyday changing world.” It “catapults politics as participation over politics as mobilisation” (p. LXXXIII).
Gandhian ideas and values attain vitality and speak to all ages simply because they are laced with universal values. We have a new enemy of the new world order, but Gandhi’s constructive programme continues to be as important as it ever was. It is a beacon of creation and participation in the worldmaking process, which has gone into the pockets of powerful echelons. We need to engage with the afterlife of Gandhi to carve out a path for our Poorna Swaraj.
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