Maia Ramnath - Decolonizing Anarchism.pdf - Libcom

190 I Ramnath
they should be carried out by the united strength of
the ordinary people of the village.
If! am under some other person's command,
where is my self-government ? ... It is one mark of
swaraj not to allow any outside power in the world
to exercise control over oneself. And the second
mark of swaraj is not to exercise power over any
other. These two things together make swaraj -no
submission and no exploitation. This cannot be
brought into being by government decree, but only
by a revolution in the people's ways of thought.41
"The fact is that people do not really need a government
at all. . .. The ultimate goal of sarvodaya is freedom
from government." Bhave then took care to distinguish
this from "absence of government;' meaning the absence of
any kind of order and structure, wherein "anti-social elements"
would have free rein. Rather, he said, the administrative
authority fo r a harmonious, stateless society "rests
in the villages."42
This must come about not through a period of totalitarianism,
as the Communists said; it should happen through
an ongoing process of decentralization until "in the final
stage there would be no coercion but a purely moral authority.
The establishment of such a self-directing society calls for
a network of self-sufficient units. Production, distribution,
defence, education-everything should be localized. The
centre should have the least possible authority."43
Still, the achievement of this form was dependent on
individual acts of enlightened paternalism without requiring