Gandhi Concept of Development
GANDHI’S WAY Decentralization According to Gandhi, modern civilization was responsible for impoverishing the Indian villages, which occupied a pivotal position in the Indian situation. Gandhi has always been a critic of the centralization of economic and political power. Large scale production inevitably led to concentration of economic and political power. Labor and material, production and distribution became the monopoly of the few rich. Such a concentration of economic power resulted in corresponding centralization of political power.
Aldous Huxley, in his Science, Liberty and Peace, drew attention to this universal tendency of modern technology: "The centralizing of industrial capacity in big, mass-producing factories has resulted in the centralization of a large part of the population in cities and the reduction of ever-increasing numbers of individuals to complete dependence upon a few private capitalists and their managers, or upon the public capitalist, the state, represented by politicians and working through civil servants. So far as liberty is concerned, there is little to choose between the two types of bosses."14
One of the recurring themes in the writings and pronouncements of Gandhi is this centralizing tendency of technology: "I want the concentration of wealth, not in the hands of few but in the hands of all. Today machinery merely helps a few to ride on the backs of millions."15 Again he said, "What is industrialism but a control of the majority by the small minority?"16
The solution to the problem of centralization consists in decentralization of political and economic power. Small-scale, manageable techniques, capable of being handled by individual producers, the co-operatives in the villages or the region should be given priority and promoted on a mass scale for the benefit of the masses. Gandhi, though judged wrongly by many, was not advocating a return to medieval techniques. He vehemently opposed the indiscriminate
Aldous Huxley, in his Science, Liberty and Peace, drew attention to this universal tendency of modern technology: "The centralizing of industrial capacity in big, mass-producing factories has resulted in the centralization of a large part of the population in cities and the reduction of ever-increasing numbers of individuals to complete dependence upon a few private capitalists and their managers, or upon the public capitalist, the state, represented by politicians and working through civil servants. So far as liberty is concerned, there is little to choose between the two types of bosses."14
One of the recurring themes in the writings and pronouncements of Gandhi is this centralizing tendency of technology: "I want the concentration of wealth, not in the hands of few but in the hands of all. Today machinery merely helps a few to ride on the backs of millions."15 Again he said, "What is industrialism but a control of the majority by the small minority?"16
The solution to the problem of centralization consists in decentralization of political and economic power. Small-scale, manageable techniques, capable of being handled by individual producers, the co-operatives in the villages or the region should be given priority and promoted on a mass scale for the benefit of the masses. Gandhi, though judged wrongly by many, was not advocating a return to medieval techniques. He vehemently opposed the indiscriminate