Independence Day of India: Unique Features

 

A question that comes to my mind every Independence day is the concept of a free India as a liberal society. The philosophy of a free and inclusive nation with universal rights and duties for its citizens is granted by the Constitution of India. While the day marks the end of rule by the British after about 90 years, the process of colonization predated 1858 by over 200 years. The template of the kind of freedom envisaged by our freedom fighters was an evolving process and culminated in different strands of thought. The most accepted one is the one propounded by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. While as an individual he became the tallest leader of the country, he charted a unique course for our freedom struggle. 

Before Gandhi arrived on the scene in 1915, the Indian National Congress was a elite lawyers club. While there were tall leaders like Dadahai Naoroji, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, M. G. Ranade, Surendra Nath Banerjee, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Lala Lajpat Rai, Annie Besant and Mohammed Ali Jinnah none barring Tilak had any mass following. 

Moderates were the one's who were very liberal about their objectives and methods. They criticized British rule by making demands through speeches, articles and petitions. Radicals were the ones who believed in the importance of self reliance and constructive work and not rely on the good intentions of the British Government and they believed that violence was justified to win freedom. The moderate group led by Gokhale  was confronted by the Tilak led radical group and they had endless debates and bitter battles. But the arrival of Gandhi changed everything. He was neither a moderate nor a radical but was in his own words a resistor. He believed in a bottom up approach and was in no hurry to get political freedom. Fresh from his exploits in South Africa, the Gandhi of 1915 had already expressed his opinion on British rule and modern civilization as represented by the rulers of India. On the advise of his political guru Gopal Gokhale he toured all over India in the third class railway compartment. He saw first hand the impoverishment of the people India and tried to internalize their suffering. This led him to the conclusion that Independence will be meaningless if it is not going to make a difference to these poor destitute masses. Slowly but steadily he was transformed from the shy diffident failed lawyer to a leader of the nation. 

In this context we need to analyze two words Satyagraha, Ahimsa first, followed by Swaraj. The logical derivation of this that it is inconceivable that a handful of British rulers can continue to rule a large country like India if if it's people refused to permit them to do so. Inspired by essay on Civil Disobedience by Henry Thoreau, Gandhi believed that laws propounded by a rulers which were discriminatory and unjust must not be obeyed. In such cases the individual oppressed must follow dictates of his conscience and offer passive resistance. The term passive seemed inappropriate as it seemed to suggest weakness. Here the method of Satyagraha was adopted on a mass scale. Satyagraha meant refusal to obey unjust laws and accepting the punishment or suffering without retaliation. Satya is truth and agraha is insistence, so the combination is insistence on truth at all times. The appeal to the heart of the oppressor was the ultimate aim of this action. Gandhi believed that retaliation and violence would not achieve a change of heart and result in one oppressor being relaced by another. This required far more courage and patience to achieve freedom. The philosophy of hate the sin and not the sinner and means adopted to achieve an end cannot be divorced from each other led to unique free India.  Free India became a leader of the commonwealth group of nations, where oppressor and oppressed remain friends.

This leads us to the final concept of Swaraj 

• Swaraj at the level of the individual it to first free oneself from the body, mind intellect apparatus which governs our Consciousness. It literally means ruler of the self to conquer the mind and rise above dualities of pleasure and pain, victory and defeat, loss or gain. It means to gain control over senses, emotions and thought. 
• This has to be coupled with social freedom for the lowest sections of society, for which social reform was essential. The aspect of social upliftment was evident where Gandhi saw the lower castes as Harijan or children of God. A free India cannot accept discriminatory practices and therefore affirmative action by the state must be part of Social Swaraj. 
• Along with this a constructive programme of economic interdependence based on a model of gram swaraj of decentralized Governance was floated. The concept of sustainability based on local consumption, and shunning of mass production in favor of production by masses. This is not impossible to achieve as shown in E.F. Schumacher book Small is Beautiful.
• Finally, political Swaraj based on freedom from British rule. 

The logic of all this in enunciated in Hind Swaraj which has relevance to this day. The modern civilization and its impact on individual, society country and our world was foreseen by Gandhi in his book in 1909, but not everything said in the book is entirely true. What is irrefutable is that India will lose it's soul if it does not recognize its plurality. Recognition of human rights, curtailment of materialism along with creating a welfare state for the poorest will lead to true swaraj or Independence.

 In this so called Amrit Kala we need to reflect on Independence day and live up to the ideals of Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of our Nation. 

Vispi Jokhi