This article was published in Satya 2013, annual journal of Gandhi Study Circle, St. Stephen's College.
Was
Gandhi a Marxist? This question arises from the fact that both Gandhi and Marx
had similar views. Gandhi fought against caste, race and various other social
sufferings. He fought against economic exploitation and oppression of the poor
by the rich. Marx fought against political subjugation and oppressed humanity
in his own way. According to him, capitalism, where the workers are exploited
is an unstable system and leads to crises.
Their
views were similar but not identical. Gandhi’s approach was quite different
from that of Marx. Both of them believed that social conflicts existed because
of disparities between the rich and the poor. But, they differed on their views
on how the conflicts would be resolved. Marx believed in revolutionary means
while Gandhi believed in reformist means.
To
elaborate further, Marx’s Dialectical Materialism explains his views regarding
class struggles. According to Marx, it is the internal contradictions within
the system that brings about a change. The people who are being exploited will
organize themselves together and revolt. This revolution would abolish the
existing class structure. The English Revolution and The French Revolution are
the examples of how revolutions took place because of internal contradictions
and finally led to the emergence of a capitalist class.
“The history of all hitherto existing
society is the history of class struggles.” –
Karl Marx
Gandhi,
on the other hand, found class struggles to be quite superficial. His approach
to resolving conflicts was through non-violence and Satyagraha. However, there
is certain inconsistency in what he believed. On one hand he believed in
harmonious co-operation between the poor and the rich, labour and capital and
landlords and tenants. On the other hand, he also believed in struggling
against exploitation.
According
to Gandhi, the struggle against exploitation, unlike what Marx believed, will
not take place through bloody revolutions, but through non-cooperation. If the
workers can come together in the form of trade unions and refuse to co-operate
with the capitalists, then they will be able to control the supply of labour.
The capitalists will be forced to increase their wages. In Marxian terminology,
Reserve Army of Labour is the biggest hindrance to the increase in wages and
Gandhi believed that the only way to overcome this was non-cooperation.
"The idea of class war does not appeal to me. In
India a class war is not inevitable, but it is avoidable if we have understood
the message of nonviolence.” – Gandhi
What
makes me believe that Gandhism is irrelevant today is the fact that people have
become excessively self-centred and they are involved in an unending pursuit of
acquiring more and more at the cost of the others. Gandhi believed in the
mutual love between the labour and the capital. He wanted to convert the
capitalists – the exploiters, which he thought could be done only through
non-violence and Satyagraha. His theory of trusteeship was based on moral
transformation of the capitalists, but we know that in today’s world, people do
not give away their wealth (acquired through exploitation of labour and the
poor) listening to moral preaching.
What
Gandhi wanted to achieve was to educate and awaken the masses, make them
conscious of their exploitation, bring them together into a powerful
organization, so that they can struggle against the exploiters and fight for
their rights. Even though Satyagraha and the non-violent ways might be thought
of as moral preaching in the 21st century, but we shouldn’t forget
that it was this weapon which in part led to our Independence. Critics argue
that Gandhi’s approach was applicable only to a specific historical context.
True, but the need is not to side-line his ideas but to study them and revise
them according to the changing situations.
Marx
and Gandhi had very similar philosophies about what an ideal society should be.
Both of them focused on a society free from exploitation. But again, their
approaches to the achievement of this ideal state were different. Marx believed
in a classless, stateless communist society which is described in the Communist Manifesto. On the other hand
Gandhi believed in a non-violent, egalitarian and a democratic society where
everyone is treated equally, irrespective of caste, race, and sex and where
there is no discrimination based on income because the entire wealth belongs to
the society as a whole.
According
to Marx, we would reach communism because of the process of Dialectical
Materialism. The germs of a future society lie within the present society and
these opposites within the system contradict it and lead to revolution.
Feudalism gave way to capitalism, because the germs of capitalism (the
exploitation of the peasants and serfs by the lords) lay within the system
itself. Similarly, capitalism will give rise to socialism and finally communism
would emerge. It would be a society of dignity and freedom, a society with
human conditions rather than ‘animal’ conditions of existence.
Gandhi
asserted that one day moral transformation would take place which would lead
to, what he called, Ramrajya. He
explained the evolution through non-violence.
Violence and self-centredness are the qualities of a beast. Earlier we
were beasts, wandering and hunting animals. Realizing the need to curtail
violence, we took to agriculture. Hence Gandhi had faith that this streak of
progressing through non-violence would continue till the ideal state is
achieved. A man understands co-operation and is morally sound. This is what
Gandhi believed we are heading to – from beasts to a man.
In
today’s world, Marx seems to be winning the race because we foresee that
communism might follow capitalism and socialism. China already claims to be a
communist country. But, nowhere is Gandhi’s Ramrajya
to be seen. The reason, I believe, Gandhi’s approach is difficult is because it
is too ideal, it’s like bringing heaven on earth and converting the devils to
angels. Marx’s communism might emerge as a future society because it’s not all
that ideal and solves only those problems which can be tackled, given the
current stage of human development.
Though both Gandhism and Marxism are similar in spirit, they
are very different in practice and it becomes essential to re-read them and
make changes to them as the society progresses.
