Gandhi and True Swaraj
What would Gandhi have to say about our dangerously unraveling world today? Here, a fictional conversation continues.
Reader: It is interesting you link self-restraint to the real strength of a civilization. The philosopher Will Durant drew one overarching conclusion at the end of his work on the rise and fall of the world’s great civilizations: A civilization rises when its people show the self-restraint of stoicism, and falls when they turn epicurean and indulge the self. It seems that modern civilization is now rapidly becoming epicurean, even in the developing world.
Editor: What I see around me today are the signs of a world civilization that is crashing, of humanity and other living beings collapsing. Scientists, philosophers and other concerned people are seeing the same signs. The situation is far direr than when I first talked of the fall of Western civilization 100 years ago. Then, I had still held out hope that other nations would not imitate Britain, and that the British would find a way to come to their senses. But that did not happen and the real meaning of swaraj has been lost even to Indians.
It’s been lost even to countries such as China. They have all forgotten their own traditions and become ensnared by the alluring vision of universal wealth and well-being that modernity promised them.
Reader: But what made you say over 100 years ago that Western civilization was not going to last long if it continued on this path?
Editor: By founding an entire system on the merits of self-interest, capitalism and modern civilization did not offer a counterbalance. Previous civilizations balanced self-interest through religion and other beliefs that made individuals think of the well-being of others. Unfortunately, capitalism took away this morality and replaced it with the magic of the market, which is about maximizing efficiency and not morals. Science and technology joined in this disdain for morals. The new heroes are the businessmen and entrepreneurs who have made a lot of money through their all-consuming efforts to enrich themselves.
These contradictions of capitalism are doing it in, where individuals acting out of self-interest are yet expected to create a system that works for all of society. For many centuries, capitalism was indeed very adaptive and innovative. But since the last 50 years, we are seeing the limits of this growth when things get taken too far.
Reader: You’re right. Presently, we seem to be operating at the outer edges where things are very uncertain and change is happening too fast. But what is different now?
Editor: We are now seeing the failure of three key assumptions of capitalism. First, capitalism assumed that in the long run, all of society would benefit from this foundation of self-interest. Now that we have data from several decades, we see that this is not true. Capitalism is leading to greater inequality, even in countries like the U.S. where it has had several centuries to mature. Second, capitalism assumed that there was an infinite reservoir of natural resources that capitalism could draw from. While I myself did not know about climate change, I have always been concerned about how modernity would eat into our natural resources.
The third assumption was that the outcomes of technology would be used for the benefit of mankind, hence it was good to push it to its limits. But if morality is not emphasized, then it is likely that extremists would use technology to promote violence. I wrote Hind Swaraj to point out the futility of violence to the Indian extremists who wanted independence from England. What I did not anticipate is the extent to which technology would become such a world-threatening force today, and how self-interest would enable it to become available to all kinds of extremists in the world.
By the way, there is another existential threat that was once unimaginable to me, that a day could come when machines may not just replace human labor but also human thinking. To create machines that can replace the labor and thought of human beings is to atrophy the entire human being. It is sad to think that humanity may not exist in the near future.
There is one other threat that is as painful to me as the thought of humanity becoming extinct. The growth of disunity and division, of hyper nationalism, religious violence and discrimination, and of the coercion of minorities by majorities, is the very opposite of swaraj.
Reader: I can see why you feel disillusioned about swaraj and humanity in general. But is there anything that gives you hope in the chaos of today’s world?
Editor: At times like these, when everything seems lost and swaraj seems impossible, I have always turned within for guidance. And I have always reconnected with a small, quiet voice within me, my “inner voice.” It is this inner voice that gives me hope. I am hoping that we will meet again at a later time, after I have sought guidance from within. Before I leave you, I will repeat: “Real swaraj is self-rule or self-control. The way to it is … soul-force.”