Hi Dileep, Thanks for this elaboration. The question of Ghandi's ashram's as a form of anarchist practice is interesting....of course his village communes are not unique in history -- I think the villigization (ujaama) program, the Kibutz in Israel, the mirs in Russia for example are comparable and I would associate these more likely with agrarian socialism. Of course all forms of experiments with decentralization and direct democracy are close to anarchism but I could think of two criteria on which to be skeptical of considering Ghandi's ashram's anarchist. Firstly, I don't think Ghandi himself ever identified with anarchism.....the most straight-forward criteria for calling a social experiment anarchist is if the actors involved call it anarchist themselves. I suspect Ghandi would be abhored to be associated with anarchism. Secondly, though the idea of village communes has some relation to anarchism, we must look firstly at how they were envisioned to be internally organized and secondly at how they were embedded in larger systems. Anarchist communes for example would never allow for a political/managerial (Brahmin) class to have any more say in the organization of affairs than others....the caste system is totally incompatible with anarchism. Decision-making would have to be done entirely on the basis of direct democracy by all involved to be anarchist. Also, an emphasis on duty (towards a state or religion) is very unlike anarchism. So Ghandi intended these communities to be self-sufficient, but not, I think, politically autonomous, right? They in the end had to obey to a larger political whole (as you say--panchayats in the end are hierarchical). This again makes these village communes far from anarchist. So ok, there might be a vague resemblance of something anarchist in some of Ghandi's ideas but I guess it's better to study his ideas as an integrated whole, as I understand Nizam in fact emphasized. And in that light Ghandi's thought is difficult to relate to the anarchist tradition. Luisa
----- Original Message ---- From: Dileep Raj <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [email protected] Sent: Saturday, 4 October, 2008 8:38:38 Subject: [GreenYouth] Re: Readings of Gandhi Dear Luisa, Let me elaborate Nizar's argument on this point.( taking responsibility as a reporter, i have gone through the recorded tapes of the discussion and the following is an edited version of the transcript) Nizar pointed out the need to read Gandhi's position on Panchayatiraj and Sarvodaya together in order to see the contradictions involved therein. In a Young India article gandhi himself defined Satygraha as pure anarchy as society organises on the principle of satyagraha.There he denies state any soveriegnty. "Sarvodaya" is in fact the title of his translation of Ruskin's book.May be you are aware that Gandhi founded ashrams.his idea of ashrams was based on bread-labour, where people voluntarily produced cloth and food for themselves. Thus ashrams were self sufficient communities for him.His dream was a state where the whole society will organise like this. ( Ihope, defenitions of anarchy, philosophical as well as political will qualify Gandhi as an anarchist in this sense. would like to listen from you, if the case is otherwise) Nizar went on to the need of reading Gandhi's writinngs / actions on panchayatiraj in conjunction with this.panchayat is a state, though confined to small boundary.It is not stateless as there is decision making involved in it.If state is defined as the final umpiring while negotiating/resolving differences among people , panchayats are hierarchical. Panchayats are based on the principles of modern democracy. there are discussions , debates and umpiring/soveriegn decision making. Hope I have made Nizar's points more clear. On Fri, Oct 3, 2008 at 4:13 PM, Luisa Steur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: To argue that Ghandi was an anarchist is to empty anarchism of all meaning. It's all fine to dream of social organization without a state but since anarchism is almost per definition never in power, fighting the state is the foremost thing on any anarchist agenda, precisely because the state is (in the present) the dominant organizing principle in society that cannot simply be dreamed away. And anyhow, Ghandi's strict normativity and his frequent invocation and legitimation of authority make him everything but an anarchist. I've very often noticed that "anarchism" is used in India (and other places too) to describe anything dreamy, inconsistent or chaotic. It would be good if there was some more attention to the actually existing historical social-political doctrine of anarchism (many people don't even know it exists!). To quote George Woodcock in his excellent (Penguin pocket) study of anarchist (entitled Anarchism) "All anarchists deny authority; many of them fight against it. But by no means all who deny authority and fight against it can reasonably be called anarchists. Historically, anarchism is a docrine which poses a criticism of existing society; a view of a desirable future society; and a means of passing from one to the other. Mere unthinking revolt does not make an anarchist, nor does a philosophical or religious rejection of earthly power. Mystics and stoics seek not anarchy, but another kingdom. Anarchism, historically speaking, is concerned mainly with man [sic] in his relation to society. Its ultimate aim is always social change; its present attitutde is always one of social condemnation, even though it may proceed from an indivialists view of man's nature; its method is always that of social rebellion, violent or otherwise." I don't think Ghandi fits into any of this really. I must admit btw that in most analytical, historical writing on anarchism, such as also George Woodcock's book, there is something of a Eurocentric bias but there are books that overcome this, for example Benedict Anderson's great recent book (with Verso) "Under three flags: anarchism and the anti-colonial imagination", which writes precisely on transnational anarchism and anarchist thinkers in Cuba, the Phillipines, China and Japan. Anyway, if because there was no state in Ghandi's imagined desirable future we start counting him as an anarchist, we can just as well start calling him a fascist because of his call to the Indian officer to place discipline before all else....i.e., I think we should stay a bit closer to the analysis of actually existing historical movements of anarchism, fascism etc. when we use these words. L. -- Dileep R I thuravoor --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth?hl=en-GB -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
