Gandhi on Social Conflict

Author(s): A. K. Das Gupta

Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 3, No. 49 (Dec. 7, 1968), pp. 1876-1878
Published by: Economic and Political Weekly
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4359414
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 SPECIAL ARTICLES
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Gandhii on Social Conflict

A K Das Gupta

Gandhi was not a mere visionary. In fact, there are some unrecognised similarities between the social
philosophies of Gandhi and Marx.
Both recognised social conflict as a fact. But in addition to conflict between capitalist and labourer,
and landlord and cultivator, Gandhi recognised the conflict between village and city where the terms of trade
offered for food; and raw materials by the latter were exploitative.
Like Marx, Gandhi also recognised the need to invoke the stronger - not merely the higher -
forces in human nature for terminating exploitation. But while Marx talked of violent proletariat action
in the cities, Gandhi put forth the ideas of non-co-operation and passive resistance by the exploited against
the exploiters, and he believed that this would cultivate the idea of "trusteeship" among the owners of land
and capital.
Also, while - unlike Marx who would allow only the State to be owner of property - Gandhi
allowed for individual ownership insofar as the owner himself directly used the property or worked on it,
he also wanted anv major means of producing the implements for individual use to be State-owned.
AT least one biographer of Gandhi side India, Gandhi's name has been a subsistence wage to the labourers.
has compared him with Marx. "The sometimes invoked in the struggle of And it is the interest of urban society
only non-official figure", says Louis the weak against the strong. But these to offer as unfavourable terms as pos-
Fischer, "comparable to Gandhi in his activities are sporadic and have not yet sible in its trade with rural people.
effect on man's mind is Karl Marx."1 assumed much significance. Industrialisation proceeds, as Gandhi
The comparison is appropriate. But Yet I believe there are certain aspects recognises, on the basis of exploitation
it is doubtful if it could be sustained of Gandhi's social theory which come of labour on the one hand and agri-
in terms of Louis Fischer's assessment. very close to Marx's teaching. A culture on the other. It is low wage
It would indeed be wrong in any sub- comparison between Gandhi and Marx coupled with low terms of trade for
stantial sense to say that as yet Gandhi is appropriate, I believe, because both food and raw materials which provides
has had an "effect on man's mind" at ,;NMarx and Gandhi accept the existence the basis of modern industrialisation,
all comparable with Marx's influence. of social conflict as a fact, and both of which the capitalists are the bene-
About half the hunan society today bring a scientific attitude to bear on ficiaries.
is run along Marxian li. Elsewhere, their programme for resolving it. If Gandhi is against machinery, as
too, the conviction is, growing that a To ascribe a "scientific attitude" to it is employed in a modern economy, it
socialist form of society, such as Marx Gandhi may seem paradoxical to many. is because machines are the instruments
envisaged, where however the capital- For, to all appearances, Gandhi was through which capitalist exploitation
labour dichotomy is irrelevant, is not an intellectual, who would depend for takes place. He is not against the use
only conceivable but is also practicable. light on intuition or the "inner voice", of machinery as such. If the owner
Gandhi's teachings, on the other hand, as he would put it himself. Yet, uses a machine himself and does not
although known fairly widely in a essentially, Gandhi was a scientist. For have to employ hired labour, then the
rather vague way, cannot be said to does he not describe his whole life as machine ceases to be an instrument of
have produced any significant stir in an "experiment with truth"?2 If intui- exploitation. Gandhi gives his bless-
man's mind so as to form the basis of tion served him in his hour of diffi- ings to the use of such machines. "I
action. There was no doubt a good culty, it was intuition inspired by ob- am airning, not at eradication of all
deal of action along Gandhian lines in servation, experience and testing. And machinery, but limitation", he said.
India during the twenties and thirties these are the essentials of scientific And he makes an exception particularly
in the context of the freedom struggle. inquiry. of Singer sewing machine adding that
Yet, unless one loses historical propor- Gandhi saw conflict in society, and it is one of the few useful things ever
tion altogether, one has to recognise he pointed out three areas in which that invented.4
that it is not the Gandhian programme conflict is particularly conspicuous: (i) Now, how are these social conflicts
alone to which one should attribute conflict between labour and capital in to be resolved? There are two strands
Indian independence; alongside of it industry; (ii) conflict between tenant in Gandhi's teachings which must be
there was the terrorist movement. cul- and landlord in agriculture; and distinguished. One is his conception of
minating in Bose's Indian National this is where he goes a step beyond trusteeship and the other is passive
Army (INA) and the naval mutiny. Nor Marx - (iii) conflict between the village resistance. It is true that Gandhi does
could one say that the basic social and and the city.3 It is the interest of the not always isolate one from the other
economic framework of post-Indepen- landlord to appropriate as much of the - that he often takes passive resistance
dence India has had much to do with produce of land as he can, leaving the on the part of the exploited as a way
Gandhi's teachings. The Five Year actual tiller in poverty. It is the to the building up of the spirit of
Plans whatever their achievements interest of the capitalist to appropriate trusteeship. There are indeed passages
might have been - are not Gandhian as much share of the product of fac- in Gandhi's writings, which suggest that
plans In certain remote quarters out- tories as possible, leaving more or less the image of a good societv which he

1876

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 ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL WEEKLY December 7, 1968
has in mind is one in which there
would be not only no exploitation but
also no sense of conflict, where those
who used to be exploiters will be con-
verted to a new faith and would look
upon their property as a kind of trust.
However, for clarity of understanding,
it is very necessary that one should
distinguish this ideal of Gandhi from
the thleory of non-co-operation and pas-
sive resistance. The distinguishing fea-
ture of the latter is that it is built on
an awareness of the fact of conflict. It
is a realistic, hence scientific, assessment
oif the nature of social relationship.
And it is here that a comparison bet-
ween Gandhi and Marx is valid.
Unfortunately, in post-Independencc
India, those who have adopted the
Gandhian creed - the Sarvodaya
group of thinkers for example - are
bringing the trusteeship aspect of
Gandhi's teaching to the fore. Gandhi
is thus presented to the world as an
idealist and a visionary. For, who
would take seriously a system which
assumes that man in general could be
persuaded to surrender self-interest?
Success of a social policy depends, as
Alfred Marshall once put it, on "the
extent to which the strongest, and not
merely the highest, forces of human
nature can be brought under operation"..5 himself use. In agriculture this happens
It is the stronger force of human
nature - the will of the deprived to
fight exploitation - which Marx throws
up in his programme of action to
resolve class conflict. Passive resistance
of Gandhi has also its basis in the same
kind of philosophy. Recommending
non-co-operation and civil-disobedience
as the "right and infallible means" of
resolving social conflict, Gandhi says:
"the rich cannot accumulate wealth
without the co-operation of the poor
in society. If this knowledge were to
penetrate to and spread among the
poor, they would become strong and
would learn how to free them-
selves .
Gandhi's programme of Charkha is
essentially a symbol of self-sufficiency
- an instrument through which it is
possible for the weaker group to fight
exploitation from a position of strength.
The cultivators are asked not to pay
rent if the landlords do not behave
properly. The rural people in general
are asked to stop trading with the
urban industrialists unless the latter
improve the terms of trade. The same
injunction is given to the factory worker
in his dealings with the capitalist, and
above all to the country as a whole
in its dealings with the British Raj.
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Non-co-operation and passive resistance
are thus offered as a weapon to fight
explpitation, with the philosophy of
self-sufficiency as a base for making
the campaign effective.
In all this there is a clear affinity
between Gandhi's teaching and Marx's
teaching. Both start with an awareness
of the existence of social conflict. Both
use the same material, namely, the
exploited, for resisting exploitation.6 In
both, further, the urge is revolutic-nary.
The difference between the two - and
this, of course, is fundamental - lies
in the image of the ultimate society
that they have in view.
In Marx's scheme, large-scale pro-
duction remains. But, unlike under
capitalism, capital (which includes land)
is not in private hands; it belongs to
society. It is inherent, Marx argues,
in the progress of capitalist system, that
there is an emergence of a proletariat.
The transformation of the social
structure: from capitalism to socialism
is worked out through this proletariat
class rising in revolt and ultimately ex-
propriating the expropriator. Gandhi,
on the other hand, envisages a social
structure in which private property
persists, insofar as the property held
by a person is not more than he can
if the cultivators themselves are the
owners of land, so that the existing
tenant-landlord relationship is obliterat-
ed. In industry it can be realised through
an expansion of cottage industry where
the implements are such as can be used
by those who own them. The process
through which such transformation
takes place is also differently viewed
by Marx and Gandhi. While Marx
envisages a war between workers and
capitalists, Gandhi's process is non-
violent. Passive resistance to be
pursued by the worker is a kind of
struggle in very much the Marxian
sense; only it is not to have any violent
manifestation of the sort that Marx
would envisage.7
There is one difficulty, however.
What would happen to the production
of implements themselves'? Does the
Gandhian system eschew factory
operation altogether? Would not capital
goods for the production of capital
goods, however simple the latter may
be, require, often at any rate, a kind
of technology which would involve
large-scale operation and the use of
hired labour?
The answer that Gandhi gives to this
question will perhaps be startling to
many a Gandhian. Gandhi wants such
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ifidustries to be nationalised. Asked,
in the context of his approval of the
use of Singer sewing machine, what
he would say about the factory for
making these machines, Gandhi had no
hesitation to remark: "Yes, but I am
socialist enough to say that such
factories should be nationalised, or
State-controlled".8
Whatever one might say about the
efficacy of passive resistance: as a
weapon for a campaign against ex-
ploitation vis-a-vis war, and whate-ver
one might say about the economic
possibilities of the kind of society that
Gandhi would have - and here one
must consider the case in the light of
the situation in India where labour is
abundant - Gandhi does offer a con-
sistent philosophy and - what is more
important a realistic one, based on
the operation of the "strongest forces"
of human nature and not merely the
"highest forces". It is unfortunate that
it is not this, but the unrealistic
trusteeship aspect of Gandhi's teaching
that is in circulation in Inda today.
NOTES
1 Louis Fischer: "The Life of
Mahatma Gandhi", London, 1951,
p 397.
2 Gandhi's choice of the title for his
autobiography is surely not an
accident.
3 "The poor villagers are exploited
by the foreign government and also
by their own countrymen - city-
dwellers. They produce food and go
hungry. They produce milk and
their children have to go without
it."' N K Bose: "Selections from
Gandhi", p 79.
Marx, it should be remembered, was
preoccupied solely with the implica-
tions of the capital-labour conflict
and left the agriculturist more or
less alone. In the "Communist
Manifesto", rural life is in fact
ridiculed.
4 "Singer", Gandhi tells us, "saw his
wife labouring over the tedious pro-
cess of sewing and seaming with
her own hands, and simply out of
his love for her he devised the
sewing machine in order to save
her from unnecessary labour."
There is thus "a romance about
the device", he adds. See N K Bose:
"Selections from Gandhi", p 66.
5 Alfred Marshall: "Industry and
Trade", London, 1919; p 664.
6 It is here that the theory of passive
resistance has to be sharply distin-
guished from the theory of trustee-
ship. In the latter, Gandhi proposes
to use the exploiting party, not the
exploited, as the vehicle of resolv-
ing class conflict.
7 There is reservation even h1ere.
Gandhi did not rule out violence al-
1877
December 7, 1968 ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL WEEKLY

together. On being asked by Louis
Fischer what would be the posi-
tion of the peasantry in a free
India, Gandhi said that the peasants
would "seize land', that. "no cowi-
pensation would be paid to land-
lords, for compensation would be
financially impossible"', that there
migkt be violence in the process,
but that the landlords might "co-
operate by fleeing". See, Louis
Fischer: "A Week with Gandhi';
Dull, Sloan & Pearce, New York,
1942; pp 56 and 91.
8 op cit, p 67.

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