The book is a unique study that extends theory into practice while also highlighting its faultlines. It offers hope through Gandhian swaraj, developed by Gandhi and J.C. Kumarappa, as well as innumerable activists and workers. The book passionately argues for nurturing development as swaraj, which becomes the backbone of an egalitarian social order.
Koulagi acknowledges the existence of heterodox paradigms. However, few of them approach the development issue as merely ‘a subjective phenomenon’. It restricts the diversity and associational links with innumerable communities. The Swaraj Development Paradigm (SDP) becomes significant in this context. It challenges capitalism (the author uses materialism per se) and the positivist development theory. SDP envisages prosperity as peace that establishes external harmonious relations and maintains internal tranquillity of the mind. It envisages a nonviolent social order in which both self-rule and the rule of others are vital.
Sumanas Koulagi, Development as Swaraj: Towards a Sustainable and Equitable Future,
Routledge (2024).
In SDP, morality and materiality dialectically lead to living conditions. There is a synthesis between idealism and materialism. Purpose, in pursuit of materialism, is an important aspect. Thus, this approach seeks to develop a paradigm embedded in three sets of questions: normative (what should be), interpretative (what is) and pragmatic (what can be). The historical question of ‘what was’ also embeds all three. This helps us avoid the end-of-history syndrome trap.
SDP is based on moral and political economy, which draws a theoretical foundation from John Ruskin (concerning Gandhi’s engagement) and Thorstein Veblen (concerning J.C. Kumarappa). Herein, there is an attempt to retrieve the lost linkages between moral philosophy (right or wrong) and political economy (power relations; material relations).
This trans-disciplinary approach includes in its ambit the concerns of pre-disciplinary (historical inspirations) and post-disciplinary (current intellectual implications).
The cosmology of the natural world is the foundation of SDP, which offers an empirical understanding of humans. It is essential to realise that ‘human existence’ cannot be perceived in an isolated manner. The role of the self in others, and others in self, is a critical and undeniable contribution.
Unlike using scala naturae (the great chain of being) as God as truth in the Western Discourse/Ontology, ‘truth as God’ is the cornerstone of the swaraj development vision – this helps to reject the teleological vision of reality. The notion of destiny loses its significance.
Since the self is constituted to obey others and vice versa, it becomes an obligation and mandatory pursuit towards others. In addition to rights, obligation appeared in a critical way in Gandhi’s work. It also dispels the postulation that obligations or duties are at the cost of rights. Since the constitutive elements of self and others are intertwined, obligation also performs the function of self by way of others. It also overcomes the limitation of the rights-based notion of sustainable development vision, in which rational individuals have no linkages with others. The morality of non-violence is a crucial component for individuals and the collective.
Concerning development and prosperity, unalienated life becomes a guarantee of lasting peace. Herein, liberty and equality are equally important. The idea is that each must enhance the value of the other dialectically, not epically. Self-rule and a nonviolent social order lead to peace.
Politics is a non-violent democracy based on the decentralisation of power. This form of democracy is not guided by the majority’s norms but by considering everybody. This constitutes the participatory community guiding and shaping the institutions critically. The idea of obligation is not the obliteration of rights but the obligation to others’ rights. There is a living union of people and government in a non-violent democracy. Satyagraha is crucial for the political decentralisation process. It allows the oppressed to not cooperate with the social order, which denies self-rule. Openness to dialogue and not perceiving opponents as enemies are crucial aspects of satyagraha.
People’s needs are crucial for the swaraj development vision. Self-sufficiency is necessary to make a higher form of life possible. The efficiency argument involves control and exploitation, causing competition, dominance, and violence. In contrast, the self-sufficiency model offers cooperation, self-rule, and peace. Creative and wholesome work does not bifurcate the artificial division of work and leisure. The latter is intertwined with the former. Ownership of means of production lies with the participatory community. Swadeshi is defined in terms of nearby production and consumption practices. Local consumption establishes a relationship with the producer, thus paving the way for need-based consumption.
In addition to the aforesaid theoretical postulations, Koulagi laboriously explicates the actual condition of the Khadi sector. A brief history of the Khadi industry informs about the significant signposts of the historicity of Khadi and its making in India. It also underlies self-sufficiency, labour dignity, no distinction between ethics and morality, and charkha as liberating people. The history of Khadi suggests an argument for the arrival of a nonviolent social order. However, several activities and institutionalised guidelines have converted Khadi into a bureaucratic department racing towards increased productivity.
Against such discussions, the book offers an interpretative analysis of the Khadi sector in Karnataka. When it comes to morality, in the cosmology of Khadi workers, the presence of god is significant, followed by hierarchy and caste. The concept of ‘other’, plays a crucial role in shaping the notion of the individual and the concept of good. Without others, an individual is not complete. The concept of good also includes abstaining from harming others. There is also an obligation towards others. Fear, not love, plays a crucial factor in the nonviolent relationships between the self and others in the cosmology of the Khadi community. In addition to male dominance in the community, the limited scope of morality based on caste is common. There is a small section of the Khadi community that holds a different perspective on caste. If caste is exclusion, dominance, and inequality, in the case of Dalit identity, it becomes a realm of stability, social identity, and network.
In the Khadi community, development is considered an accumulation for development and prosperity. Politics, or power distribution, is influenced by social positions like gender, age, education, financial status and social group. Men occupy managerial positions, and women are part of the most significant component of the workforce. Patriarchy, women’s risk, and gendered participation are all essential aspects of the Khadi community. Khadi also becomes the only option due to a lack of other livelihoods.
Interestingly, Khadi helps older people. Working in this sector also invites social costs or crises regarding finding life partners. In some cases, Khadi is an additional source of income. Hindus are the predominant workforce in Khadi, with social bases predominantly held by members of the OBC community, followed by those who belong to SC and ST communities.
Moreover, due to vertical decision-making from the top, Khadi institutions lack the autonomy to determine the nature of cotton and yarn production. The state controls everything from certification to the decision-making process, creating a parasitic relationship. There are five vertical layers between the Ministry of Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME), the Union government, and Khadi producers, who occupy the last rank in this hierarchy. Centralisation of power hinders independent Khadi institutions’ decision-making processes and leads to exploitation in the form of corruption. Excessive regulations cause inefficiency. There is a strong feeling of discontent about their wages among workers.
This framework causes a disconnect between change, consumption and disposal of Khadi. The exchange between producers and customers is impersonal. The process overlooks the concept of self-sufficiency.
What could be the next step for Khadi’s development? According to Kaulogi, the answer lies in swaraj development vision. The vision requires a change in morality. Religion could be creatively used, as Gandhi did, or as occurred in the Chipko Movement. A transactional analysis programme – a way of studying interaction among individuals – can be used to promote effective communication and interpersonal communication management. Nayi Talim can be placed in for holistic development. Alternative media can highlight people’s life stories.
There must also be a minimum living income. The state can lower the tax on the Khadi sector, followed by graduate withdrawals by the state in production and sales activities for five years. Establishing Khadi networks is necessary to guarantee basic wages and incentives, as well as to reduce institutional inequalities resulting from high and low pay. Self-respect is a critical component. The Khadi institutions need to integrate Khadi research and technology into their networks. Non-violent science can aid in the development of new plural knowledge. It advocates for a field-to-lab-to-field approach.
Khadi institutions require encouragement and promotion of self-help groups (SHGs). It is also critical to allow producers to self-consume Khadi in order to understand the importance of self-sufficiency.
In the end, Kaulagi narrates the success of ‘Janapada Khadi’, ‘an example of the Swaraj Development Paradigm’. Janapada Seva Trust is located in Melukote, in southern Karnataka. A slew of activities help members recognise the truth about life’s interconnectedness and link the individual’s good to the good of all. Environmental education becomes a necessary component. Workers, the coordinator, and the Janapada Trust share ownership equally. Wages are decided collectively to ensure there is not much of a gap between the lowest and the highest. In addition to the creation of self-help groups, working time is flexible.
This book is a timely intervention in the discourse of development and swaraj.In an era of de-hyphenated debates between morality and politics, morality and economics, and politics and economics, this book proposes development as swaraj, emphasising the intertwined relationship among these three domains. The resurrection of morality becomes crucial in neoliberalism when the self is just marching towards the aggrandization of the bigger self. The self leaves no room for others. The outcome of the centralisation of power is only centralisation by way of techno-local apparatus. Decentralisation necessitates the inclusion of people in the decision-making process in order to concretise development, as swaraj does. The accumulation-based economic model must be replaced by an economy based on self-sufficiency. The role of satyagraha becomes critical in resisting the encroachment of self-rule on both others and oneself.
By reversing the role of self beyond it and connecting to the other, making politics a decentralised space and economy as self-sufficiency, the book is recommended for reading to glimpse into the precariousness of contemporary life and hope for a march to the future by way of the present.
This book also reminds us that swaraj is not abstract nostalgia but contains profound transformative potential. The hope for perceived development as swaraj is a normative appeal and actual transformation in morality, politics and the economy. The empirical contains certain faultlines but invokes hope nevertheless. Koulagi brings much-needed unmediated realities to the fore while offering the framework for changing the realities mediated by swaraj.
Dhananjay Rai teaches at the department of Gandhian Thought and Peace Studies, Central University of Gujarat.
