Maia Ramnath - Decolonizing Anarchism.pdf - Libcom

166 I Ramnath
bad idea from the perspective of the spiritual evolution of
humankind.2
"What is the Nation?" he challenged.
It is the aspect of a whole people as an organized
power. This organization incessantly keeps up the
insistence of the population on becoming strong
and efficient. But this strenuous effort after strength
and efficiency drains man's energy from his higher
nature where he is self-sacrificing and creative .... He
feels relieved of the urging of his conscience when he
can transfer his responsibility to this machine .... By
this device the people which loves freedom perpetuates
slavery in a large portion of the world ... where
whole peoples are furiously organizing themselves
fo r gaining wealth and power.'
But through the very institution organized to procure
them, such wealth and power endangered even those on
the receiving side. Tagore compares the "government by the
Nation" to a pair of shot's encasing feet 'walking on a gravelly
terrain. If snugly fitting, as in modern times, perhaps no
gravel could get in, but it was "a closed up system, within
which our feet have only the slightest liberty to make their
own adjustments." Previously the feet might have encountered
more gravel, but had room "to adjust themselves to
the caprices of the inhospitable earth." The problem was
not the numerousness of the outside obstacles but
the comparative powerlessness of the individual to