By Kandathil Sebastian:
30th January was the martyrdom day of Mahatma Gandhi. His idea of social change was based on two key principles – truth and non-violence. The principal methodology for implementing his vision was Satyagraha. Mahatma Gandhi’s first major political agitation in India was the Champaran Satyagraha, which was against forced labour as the poor tenant farmers of Bihar were forced to grow the indigo crop at the cost of food grains. Farmers were forced to plant indigo, they were poorly paid for their produce and were heavily taxed for failure to plant indigo.
Gandhi ji’s political activism began in South Africa when he sought to draw attention to the pitiable conditions of the indentured workers there. An indentured labourer is a worker, bound by a forced contract to work for a particular employer. This system made Indians work as agricultural labourers in British colonies. Gandhi fiercely fought against this, even after coming back to India from South Africa.
Gandhi always believed in the dignity of labour. He placed utmost importance to manual work. In his dream for ‘village Swaraj’, he visualised everyone, including the rich and the poor, actively engaging in manual labour. In such a scenario there was no place for exploitative capitalists who would prey on poor labourers to accumulate profits. To him, everyone in a village Swaraj should be rewarded according to their need; no one should be rewarded as per their greed!
He believed that ‘work context’ could be used for education. In fact, he did not believe in separating knowledge and work, and he even promoted a curriculum called ‘Nai Talim’ based on this pedagogical principle. He wanted every worker in the village to get educated and empowered to create a clean and safe community.
He believed that poverty is the worst form of violence. Violence used in any form was unacceptable to him. He wanted the rich to be ‘trustees’ of the wealth kept for everyone in the village Swaraj, including the poor. There is no place for bonded labour, which restricts basic dignity and freedom of individuals using violence.
Gandhi always fought for freedom of labourers. He could not find much value in large scale industrialisation through heavy machinery as it took away labour from the poor – which he thought was the sole asset of the poor. Despite the complexities and criticism intrinsic in the Gandhian vision for a new society, his broad approaches to creating social change based on his key principles of truth and non-violence deserve a re-look by the youth of India.
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