The Modern Review/Volume 29/Number 6/Practical Swaraj
PRACTICAL SWARAJ
By W. W. Pearson
“The evolution of humanity beyond its present level depends absolutely on its power to unite and create true social organisms.”
“The beauty of great civilisations has been built up far more by the people working together than by any corporate action of the State.”
I.
It is now no longer necessary to discuss whether Swaraj is attainable or not in India. Our observation tells us that it is already in being. Wherever a man or a woman refuses to be enslaved, wherever inner freedom and self-mastery are highly valued, there we have true Swaraj. The people of India have at last realised that the old state of subjection was an intolerable form of slavery, and the desire for Swaraj can no longer be stifled either by a foreign bureaucracy which has lost its moral right to rule nor by those politicians who plead for caution and compromise.
It is, however, more than ever necessary to discover a practical policy which shall be an outward expression of that true independence which is a proof of character and is the outcome of self-respect and discipline.
The present flood of profound love and enthusiasm for the Motherland, which rejoices the heart of all true lovers of India, would be a dangerous symptom it it were not accompanied by wisdom of purpose and steadfast self-sacrifice. Nothing has encouraged me personally more than the action of the students in going out into the villages to work for the people and to serve the sick and uneducated. But enthusiasm alone is apt to wane, and in order that the noble work of these young men of Bengal may bear its fullest fruits it is necessary to find ways in which its effects may be made permanent.
Every contribution to this problem must be welcome, and it is for this reason that I am writing this account of a remarkable book which I feel has a message for India at the present time when her young men are seeking for ways of serving their country in the spirit of free self-surrender. The book is entitled “The National Being: Some thoughts on an Irish Polity.” The author, Mr George Russell, “A. E.”, is one of the noblest living Irishmen. He has done much to help Sir Horace Plunkett in the development of the Co-operative Movement in Agricultural districts of Ireland, and is one of those rare idealists who is at the same time a practical man.
There is such a close parallel between Ireland and India, not only in the fact of her political subjection, but also in the nature of her national problems, that the solution offered by “A. E.” in this book seems as if it were specially written for India. The problems of Ireland are largely agricultural, so are those of India. Her needs, as are those of India also, are the needs of the rural population and not those of the towns.
Early in this book the author deals with the danger among politicians of attempting to model their form of Self-government on lines borrowed from the “Mother of Parliaments”. “A. E.” points out that this danger should be strenuously avoided, for if there is anything in the theory of nationality then each country ought to apply to its national problems its own original principles, as they are from time to time discovered to be fundamental to the character of the nation in question. Further he argues that the parliamentary form of government has proved itself ineffective. There can be no doubt that India has its original contribution to make to the theory and practice of government, and that she has too long believed in government by parliament as truly democratic. She has discovered by bitter experience the hollow futility of Parliamentary rule, and it is time that she ceases to trust in a system which has, even in the country of its birth, proved itself bankrupt and self-condemned. For representative government has ceased to exist in England. G. K. Chesterton has said of it that,
“Parliament has abdicated in favour of the Cabinet, and the Cabinet has abdicated in favour of Mr David Lloyd George.”
This age is often spoken of as the age of Democracy, but as “A. E.” says,
“We have no more a real democracy in the world to-day. Democracy in politics has in no country led to Democracy in its economic life.”
In fact in countries, such as England and America, which boast of their democratic principles, the people are the slaves of an oligarchy. Capitalistic and industrial interests rule. The old Panchayat system of India was more truly democratic in practice than either the republican system of America or the parliamentary system of Great Britain. And it may well be that the new form of Government in India will revert to the Village Panchayat system while at the same time accepting some form of co-operation such as is outlined in “A. E.”-’s book, and which has been carried into effect by “A. E.” himself and by Sir Horace Plunkett.
But whatever form the new Government of India by Indians may take, it will be of far less importance than the positive work undertaken by the people who desire to serve her. An unbounded confidence in what its humanity can do is the necessary precursor of a nation’s greatness. The fact that thousands of students in Bengal, and other parts of India, have this unbounded confidence is the most hopeful sign of the present times. But this confidence must be expressed in co-operation. Non-co-operation with the present Government is undoubtedly necessary as a preliminary act for freeing ourselves from the fettering shackles of the past, but “to be positive is always better than to be negative” and co-operation between those who desire to serve India will do more for the attainment of Swaraj than any amount of negative action.
In a leading article in “The Servant” early in January these words occurred —
“We believe that the non-co-operation movement has now arrived at a point where the most pressing need is for a decentralized programme. The nation lives in the villages and not in the towns and cities, it is therefore among the villagers that the great work of national reconstruction must be begun.”
There is nothing negative about this, and this need has been recognised by many ever since the Swadeshi movement many years ago. But until now every effort to serve the village communities has been frustrated by the suspicions of the police and the activities of the C. I. D. We can now look forward to a time when such obstacles will have ceased to exist, but the obstacles will now be internal rather than external and possibly we shall find these even more difficult to overcome. Our efforts will have to be directed towards conquering our own weaknesses and sustaining our endeavour at the level of our first enthusiasm.
It is to the young men of Bengal that we look for the regeneration of the country. They have the moving force of youthful enthusiasm and faith in the infinite possibilities of their country. But there lies before us a long road of effort and endeavour in which feelings alone will not be sufficient to carry us over the rough and toilsome places. Will and thought must take the place of enthusiasm, and excited political controversies must give way to persistent and constant effort.
“A. E.” warns us of this danger when he writes as follows —
“What too many people in Ireland mistake for thoughts are feelings. It is enough to them to vent likes or dislikes, inherited prejudices or passions, and they think when they have expressed feeling they have given utterance to thought. The nature of our political controversies provoked passion, and passion has become dominant in our politics. Passion truly is a power in humanity, but it should never enter into national policy. It is a dangerous element in human life, though it is an essential part of our strangely compounded nature. But in national life it is the most dangerous of all guides. There are springs of power in ourselves which in passion we draw on and are amazed at their depth and intensity, yet we do not make these the master light of our being, but rather those divine laws which we have apprehended and brooded upon, and which shine with clear and steady light in our souls. Now the State is higher in the scale of being than the individual, and it should be dominated solely by moral and intellectual principles. These are not the outcome of passion or prejudice, but of arduous thought. National ideals must be built up with the same conscious deliberation of purpose as the architect of the Parthenon conceived its lofty harmony of shining marble lines, or as the architect of Rheims Cathedral designed its intricate magnificence and mystery.”
What then, according to “A. E.”, is the necessity laid upon all those who, whether in India or in Ireland, want to build up the new civilisation? It is to work so that “their external life correspond in some measure to their internal dream.”
With regard to Ireland he writes —
“We may say with certainty that the external circumstances of people are a measure of their inner life. Our mean and disordered little country towns in Ireland, with their drink-shops, their disregard for cleanliness or beauty, accord with the character of the civilians who inhabit them. Whenever we develop an intellectual life these things will be altered, but not in priority to the spiritual mood. House by house, village by village, the character of a civilization changes as the character of the individuals change. When we begin to build up a lofty world within the national soul, soon the country becomes beautiful and worthy of respect in its externals. That building up of the inner world we have neglected. Our excited political controversies, our placing at militarism, have tended to bring men’s thought from central depths to surfaces. Life is drawn to its frontiers away from its spiritual base, and behind the surfaces we have little to fall back on. Few of our notorieties could be trusted to think out any economic or social problem thoroughly and efficiently. They have been engaged in passionate attempts at the readjustment of the superficies of things. What we require more than men of action at present are scholars, economists, scientists, thinkers, educationalists, and litterateurs, who will populate the desert depths of national consciousness with real thought and turn the void into a fullness.”
Apply to India what “A. E.” says of Ireland and I think we shall see how timely his words are —
“Those who love India nobly desire for her the highest of human destinies. They would ransack the ages and accumulate wisdom to make Indian life seem as noble in men’s eyes as any the world has known. The better minds in every race, eliminating passion and prejudice by the exercise of the imaginative reason, have revealed to their countrymen ideals which they recognised were implicit in national character. It is such discoveries we have yet to make about ourselves to unite us to fulfil our destiny. We have to discover what is fundamental in Indian character, the affections, leanings, tendencies towards one or more of the eternal principles which have governed and inspired all great human effort, all great civilizations from the dawn of history. A nation is but a host of men united by some God-begotten mood, some hope of liberty or dream of power or beauty or justice or brotherhood, and until that master idea is manifested to us there is no shining star to guide the ship of our destinies.
We have to do for India — though we hope with less arrogance — what the long and illustrious line of German thinkers, scientists, poets, philosophers, and historians did for Germany, or what the poets and artists of Greece did for the Athenians and that is, to create national ideals which will dominate the policy of statesmen, the actions of citizens, the universities, the social organizations, the administration of State departments, and unite in one spirit urban and rural life.”
Now this means not only arduous thought but strenuous and consistent action. Many years ago when I was speaking to a group of students in Calcutta I quoted from a book about Ireland. It described how a young Irish patriot, who had looked forward to a political career in the cause of his country's freedom, was told by his priest to serve Ireland by living amongst her people and serving them as their comrade. It meant giving up the fame and popularity of a political career of great promise, but this youth chose a life of daily drudgery in an obscure village because he realised that in that way he was helping to free his countrymen from what was far more fatal than political subjection, namely subjection to ignorance, indolence, and vice. In every country the attainment of true Swaraj can only be achieved by means such as these, and “A. E.” shows us the way in which practical Swaraj is being attained in Ireland.
II
“We do right to expect great things from the State, but we ought to expect still greater things from ourselves.”
“The national idealism which will not go into the fields and deal with the fortunes of the working farmers is false idealism.”
Let us now turn to the methods proposed by “A. E.” for the development of this new civilisation. It is clear that the means are not political, but economic and educational.
The Irish Agricultural Organization Society is in Ireland the organ of effective action. It is described as “a swing back to Ireland’s traditional and natural communism in work.” This means that it is rooted in the best traditions of Ireland’s past. Instead of attempting to introduce a poor copy of an alien system the desire has been to apply to modern conditions the principles original and fundamental in the Irish nation.
Now just as in Ireland the main industry is agriculture so is it in India, and therefore the chief problem of India is the same as that of Ireland, namely, “how to enable the countryman, without journeying, to satisfy to the full his economic, social, intellectual and spiritual needs.”
The means, we have said, are twofold, first economic, secondly educational. Of these apparently the economic is the more urgent. In a recent conversation I had with Sir Horace Plunkett in America we discussed the work of the co-operative movement in Ireland. He stated that we have to recognise the need of persuading men of the economic benefits of co-operation before we can induce them to co-operate on other matters. Over and over again he has found that when men in a country district in Ireland have discovered the economic advantages of co-operation they have begun to co-operate for educational and social welfare. His invaluable experience has been that co-operation for selfish ends leads inevitably to co-operation for mutual advantage. Altruism follows when a firm basis of economic prosperity has been established, simply because the very act of co-operating for a common end unconsciously leads to a desire to combine for the benefit of all.
The considered opinion of a man of such long experience in co-operation as Sir Horace Plunkett is one that we would be wise not to neglect. It is therefore important for those who wish to serve India, and to develop amongst her people the spirit of co-operation, to study the best methods of introducing co-operation into her economic life.
The political motive must be replaced by the economic. When a whole people lives on the very verge of perpetual starvation it is useless to appeal to them on the plane of politics. However much they may believe that their miserable condition is due to a defective political system or an alien form of government, so long as they need food and are in a state of economic servitude no amount of political propaganda will be of any use in alleviating their condition. It is therefore more important to teach the village communities of India how to co-operate for their mutual benefit than it is to preach to them the duty of non co-operation with the present government. Establish in the villages strong and self-respecting communities founded upon a firm basis of mutual trust and economic prosperity, and inevitably Swaraj will follow. The mere departure of the British from India does not mean Swaraj though it is an essential preliminary, for with an alien government we have found that freedom of action is impossible. If the British were to leave India tomorrow Swaraj would not necessarily follow. Swaraj means more than a change of masters, it means that we learn to master ourselves, and that can only be achieved by a long process of self-discipline.
In Ireland this process of self-discipline has been going on in various districts of the country ever since the founding of the Irish Agricultural Organization Society thirty years ago. Although it may seem as if at present all the fruits of those years of labour are being destroyed by the armed and undisciplined forces of the Crown, it is not so in reality. For it is almost certain that the members of this Society, as a result of their training in co-operation, will prove to be the most efficient members of the new Irish Administration. British soldiers may destroy the Society’s creameries, but they cannot destroy the spirit of co-operation which has been developed during the years of the Society’s existence.
Outside this movement the Irish are unorganised and helpless. They are separated from each other and are weak because they cannot act together.
Before this Society was founded the Irish farmer produced, but for himself alone and not for the community in which he lived. This was false economy as it is also in India, for it meant that instead of combining with his neighbours for the purchase of his necessities and the sale of his produce he paid more for what he bought than he need have done because he bought in small quantities and had to pay carriage on small parcels, and got a lower price for his produce than he might have done if he had been organised with his neighbours. He never realised that if he combined with his neighbours he could purchase his seed, for example, at wholesale prices and have it brought in bulk from some wholesale market. Instead of buying his household necessities at a central Store he had to buy them at one of the host of small shops which existed in every district of Ireland and which, because they themselves had to buy in small quantities, charged more than the real value of the goods to the consumer. When he sold eggs, butter or bacon he had to sell them to a local dealer and he rarely knew where his produce went to, so that his horizon was limited to his own district and he knew little or nothing of such things as world markets. The acts of the Government which ruled over him did not interest him, for he did not realise the effect they had on his own life, on the price of his farm produce or of his daily necessities. His methods of agriculture differed little from the traditional methods which prevailed in the 18th century, and he was never told how, by combination with his neighbouring farmers, he could use improved machinery for his ploughing, sowing, and reaping.
But with the coming of the Agricultural Organization Society all this was changed. Those who came into the orbit of this Society’s activities learnt for the first time that isolated and individualistic agricultural production is wasteful and false economy. But further than this they came to learn that “The difficulty of moving the countryman, which has become traditional, is not due to the fact that he lives in the country, but to the fact that he lives in an unorganised society.”
Let “A. E.” describe the change which comes to the individual
“The co-operative movement connects with living links the home, the centre of Patrick’s being, to the nation, the circumference of his being. It connects him with the nation through membership of a national movement, not for the political purposes which call on him for a vote once every few years, but for economic purposes which affect him in the course of his daily occupations. This organisation of the most numerous section of the Irish democracy into co-operative associations, as it develops and embraces the majority, will tend to make the nation one and indivisible and conscious of its unity. The individual, however meagre his natural endowment of altruism, will be led to think of the community as himself, because his income, his social pleasures even, depend on the success of the local and national organizations with which he is connected.”
“We can imagine him as a member of a committee getting hints of a strange doctrine called science from his creamery manager. He hears about bacteria, and these dark invisibles replace, as the cause of bad butter-making, the wicked fairies of his childhood. Watching this manager of his society he learns a new respect for the man of special or expert knowledge. Discussing the business of his association with other members he becomes something of a practical economist. He knows now where his produce goes. He learns that he has to compete with Americans, Europeans, and Colonials—indeed with the farmers of the world, hitherto concealed from his view by a mountainous mass of middle-men. He begins to be interested in these countries and reads about them. He becomes a citizen of the world. His horizon is no longer bounded by the wave of blue hills beyond his village. The roar of the planet begins to sound in his ears. What is more important is that he is becoming a better citizen of his own country. He meets on his committee his religious and political opponents, not now discussing differences but identities of interest. He also meets the delegates from other societies in District conferences or general congresses, and local co-operation leads on to national co-operation. The best intellects, the best business men in the societies, meet in the big centres as directors of federations and wholesales, and they get an all-Ireland view of their industry. They see the parish from the point of view of the nation, and this vision does not desert them when they go back to the parish. They realize that their interests are bound up with national interests, and they discuss legislation and administration with practical knowledge. Eyes getting keener every year, minds getting more instructed, begin to concentrate on Irish public men. Presently Patrick will begin to seek for men of special knowledge and administrative ability to manage Irish affairs.”
Having described the change to the individual let us see what change comes to the community. He writes —
“More changes often take place within a dozen years after a co-operative society is first started than have taken place for a century previous. I am familiar with a district—in the northwest of Ireland. It was a most wretchedly poor district. The farmers were at the mercy of the traders and the agricultural middlemen. Then a dozen years ago a co-operative society was formed. I am sure that the oldest inhabitant would agree with me that more changes for the better for farmers have taken place since the co-operative society was started than he could remember in all his previous life. The farmers control their own buying and selling. Their organization markets for them the eggs and poultry. It procures seeds, fertilizers, and domestic requirements. It turns the members’ pigs into bacon. They have a village hall and a woman’s organization. They sell the products of the women’s industry. They have a co-operative band, social gatherings, and concerts. They have spread out into half-a-dozen parishes, going southward and westward with their propaganda, and in half-a-dozen years, in all that district, previously without organization, there will be well-organized farmers’ guilds, concentrating in themselves the trade of their district, and having funds, or profits, the joint property of the community, which can be drawn upon to finance their undertakings. I assert that there never can be any progress in rural districts or any real prosperity without such farmers’ organizations or guilds. Wherever rural prosperity is reported of any country, inquire into it, and it will be found that it depends on rural organization. Wherever there is rural decay, if it is inquired into, it will be found that there was a rural population but no rural community, no organization, no guild to promote common interests and unite the countrymen in defense of them.”
Wherever in Ireland a Co-operative Society has been started there we see that farmers are able to do things which as individuals they would have found it impossible to do. The Society is in the first place a better buyer than the individual. It can buy an expensive threshing machine and let its members have the use of it, thus saving enormous labour. The individual farmer would not be able to purchase such a machine even with the savings of years. It can also buy the seed required by its members at wholesale prices and also the fertilisers for their fields. The Society is also a better producer, for in the same way it can afford to buy expensive plants for making butter, etc., which would be entirely beyond the purse of the individual farmer. I believe that in a certain zemindary in Bengal the ryots have combined to put chase a rice-husking machine, and that they have already saved the original cost of the machine by the saving effected by husking their own rice in bulk. The co-operative idea is capable of infinite variation, the most attractive of its many-sided influence being that which affects the social life of the village communities, bringing brightness and interest into the lives of those whose lives have hitherto been notoriously dull and uninteresting. Let A. E. give in his own words his vision of the future possibilities of the co-operative movement in Ireland —
“The organized rural community of the future will generate its own electricity at its central buildings, and run not only its factories and other enterprises by this power, but will supply light to the houses of its members and also mechanical power to run machinery on the farm. One of our Irish societies already supplies electric light for the town it works in. In the organized rural community the eggs, milk, poultry, pigs, cattle, grain, and wheat produced on the farm and not consumed, or required for further agricultural production, will automatically be delivered to the co-operative business centre of the district, where the manager of the dairy will turn the milk into butter or cheese, and the skim milk will be returned to feed the community's pigs. The poultry and egg department will pack and dispatch the fowl and eggs to market. The mill will grind the corn and return it ground to the member. The community will hold in common all the best machinery too expensive for the members to buy individually. The agricultural laborers will gradually become skilled mechanics, able to direct threshers, binders, diggers, cultivators, and new implements we have no conception of now. They will be members of the society, sharing in its profits in proportion to their wages, even as the farmer will in proportion to his trade. The co-operative community will have its own carpenters, smiths, mechanics, employed in its workshop at repairs or in making those things which can profitably be made locally. One happy invention after another will come to lighten the labor of life. There will be, of course, a village hall with a library and gymnasium, where the boys and girls will be made straight, athletic, and graceful. In the evenings, when the work of the day is done, if we went into the village hall we would find a dance going on or perhaps a concert. There would be a committee-room where the council of the community would meet once a week. In years when the society was exceptionally prosperous, and earned larger profits than usual on its trade, we should expect to find discussions in which all the members would join as to the use to be made of these profits: whether they should be altogether divided or what portion of them should be devoted to some public purpose. We may be certain that there would be animated discussions, because a real solidarity of feeling would have arisen and a pride in the work of the community engendered, and they would like to be able to outdo the good work done by the neighboring communities.”
One might like to endow the village school with a chemical laboratory, another might want to decorate the village hall with reproductions of famous pictures, another might suggest removing all the hedges and planting the roadsides and lanes with gooseberry bushes, currant bushes, and fruit trees, as they do in some German communes today. The teaching in the village school would be altered to suit the new social order, and the children of the community would, we may be certain, be instructed in everything necessary for the intelligent conduct of the communal business. Intelligence would be organized as well as business. The women would have their own associations, to promote domestic economy, care of the sick and the children. They would have their own industries of embroidery, crochet, lace, dress-making, weaving, spinning, or whatever new industries the awakened intelligence of women may devise and lay hold of as the peculiar labor of their sex. The business of distribution of the produce and industries of the community would be carried on by great federations, which would attend to export and sale of the products of thousands of societies. Such communities would be real social organisms. The individual would be free to do as he willed, but he would find that communal activity would be infinitely more profitable than individual activity. We would then have a real democracy carrying on its own business, and bringing about reforms without pleading to, or begging of, the State, or intriguing with or imploring the aid of political middlemen to get this, that, or the other done for them. They would be self-respecting, because they would be self-helping above all things. The national councils and meetings of national federations would finally become the real Parliament of the nation, for wherever all the economic power is centered, there also is centered all the political power. And no politician would dare to interfere with the organized industry of a nation.”
As there is nothing to prevent such communities being formed in Ireland so there is nothing to prevent the formation of similar communities in India. We have here a practical policy of Swaraj which has been actually applied in Ireland and which could equally well be applied in India. There would no doubt be slight differences of detail in the co-operative organisations which would have to be started in rural districts of Bengal and other Provinces of India, but the main lines would be similar to those which have been successfully started in Ireland, in Germany and in Denmark. The rural community needs to be helped in its growth and the seed which must be planted is the seed of Co-operation. For whatever purpose a Co-operative Society may be started it has proved in Ireland to be an omniverous feeder. It exercises a magnetic influence on all agricultural activities. It will do the same in India. From the wide experience of men like “A. E.” and Sir Horace Plunkett it has been proved that the appeal has first to be made to the farmer and agriculturist on economic grounds, and it has to be proved that it is to his advantage financially to co-operate. The rest will follow. The idealist will come into his own when the economist has built the foundations. What ought now to be done in India is to start in every district where workers can be found, Co-operative Societies based on the natural desire of the people to buy cheaply what they need for the success of their farming and to sell their produce at the highest price possible. To do this workers must be trained and taught the elements at least of co-operation by those who have studied the subject either theoretically or practically. Would it not be possible for classes to be started in Calcutta and other great centres where students anxious to serve the rural population could study “Principles of Co-operation”? Where possible trained economists and those who have had some practical experience of the needs of the agricultural population should be employed to teach.
Already the seed of co-operation has been planted at Shantiniketan, Bolpur, for there is a co-operative store there, and an attempt is being made to extend the influence of the co-operative idea to the villages near by so that the agricultural population of the neighbourhood may learn by practical demonstration the economic advantages of co-operation.
Wherever such an experiment is started there would be an expression of practical Swaraj, for there we would have men trained in that spirit of independence which is the only real independence because it is the independence of the spirit.