Radical Indian: Why cannot I sanction the Government?

Swaraj (self-rule) is my birthright and I shall have it.

Many Indian freedom fighters were radical anarchists who believed that the state is a soulless machine that ruins the thin fragment of individual freedom. Bal Gangadhar Tilak joined Indian National Congress in 1890 and right from the start, he acted like an abolitionist who was ready to call for complete freedom at any cost. In 1897, Bal Gangadhar Tilak called for ‘Swaraj or self-governance and adopted the slogan “Swaraj (self-rule) is my birthright and I shall have it.¹ ”

Mahatma Gandhi was one of the most prominent pupils of Bal Gangadhar Tilak who encouraged the issue of Swaraj to higher level. Mahatma Gandhi called for a stateless society because he believed that the state is a soulless machine which, ultimately, does the greatest harm to mankind. Mahatma Gandhi accepted that the motive of a government is to serve the people; however, to make this tool effective, it will become necessary to abrogate individual rights of citizens and while doing so, the state will turn out to be the grand protector of common men which will demand a coercive and abject submission from them which will be no better than slavery or servitude. This is the reason why Mahatma Gandhi always remained a staunch anarchist. After gaining Independence, Mahatma Gandhi wanted to disband the Indian National Congress because he believed that Swaraj is self-governance and not the ‘good-governance.² ’

Mahatma Gandhi believed that a good government can never be the substitute for self-governance because no matter how good a government is, it is destined to get corrupt and coercive to rule over individual citizens in a violent manner. Mahatma Gandhi believed that self-governance, or individual sovereignty, or self-rule (Swaraj) should be the aim of every Indian. However, his idea of self-governance was disowned by the Congress which became the frontrunner in power-grabbing game of rule over Indians. Pundit Nehru, who was a socialist, refuted the voluntary movement of Swaraj and grabbed the ruling power. We can say that Nehru had good intentions to offer a good government to Indians; yet, behind those good intentions, the actuality was his greed for ruling power. The greed of power wasn’t only attracting Nehru towards the making of national government. Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, was also trying everything to gain the ruling power. This is the reason why he called for two-nation theory and partition on the name of religion despite of the fact that Mohammad Ali Jinnah was a staunch atheist³ . He knew that Pundit Nehru won’t give up his adamant greed to rule as the first prime minister of Indian national government, and hence, he chose to break the nation in two parts. Religion became a political tool right since then.

Why do I hate State?

Right since its formation, the Indian state has remained involved with oppression and exploitation of common citizens. We know how many innocent people lost their lives and property in 1947 as dire consequences of partition of India and it was all due to the greed of Nehru, Jinnah and other politicians to rule over people. Jinnah and Nehru both were strictly against the idea of Swaraj as proposed by Mahatma Gandhi. Jinnah claimed that Swaraj is a political anarchy, which it was, while he dreamed of a strict federal control over India. On the other hand; Nehru, being a socialist, was dreaming of a strong centralized government controlling India⁴ . It is difficult to suggest who actually caused the partition of India (Jinnah or Nehru); however, it is beyond any doubt that almost all politicians (except Mahatma Gandhi and other proponents of Swaraj or self-rule) failed to realize the pain and misery of people who were going to be displaced, oppressed, killed and lost as a consequence of the partition of India. Ultimately, Jinnah and Nehru had their ways. Indian government adopted the strongly centralized form while trying to offer ‘good-governance’ for Indians and completely gave up the idea of decentralization and Swaraj as proposed by Gandhi. Mahatma Gandhi was first called as the Rashtra Pita (Father of the Nation) by Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. However, the government of Independent India never officially recognized him as the father of nation.

The blood thirst of politicians didn’t stop at the partition of India and they struggled for their control over the Kashmir and Hyderabad. The issue of Kashmir is still unresolved till this date. The so-called ‘good-governance’ of India showed a lot of lows and the power-hungry politicians never adopted nor tried to implement the idea of Swaraj. Instead, the Congress under the leadership of Nehru kept trying to control over individual freedom in every possible way and they renounced the Right to Property as the fundamental right for Indian citizens. They attained Swaraj for themselves while the rest of the Indians were to be ruled.

The good-governance of India proved to be fruitful when Indira Gandhi introduced Emergency in 1975. She tried her best to control India as a dictator and establish her clan as the undisputed rulers of India and it is difficult to say that she failed in that. The state in itself is a soulless machine that ultimately turns into oppressive machinery against the very concept of Individual freedom and that is why I hate the government. I am an Anarcho-capitalist, a voluntaryist, a proponent of self-rule.

There are a number of economical reasons against the state, the government. However, I am no utilitarian and I don’t see things in the light of loss and profit. I hate state because its base is violence against individual. The monopoly of state over violence is evil and being an objectivist, I cannot sanction the evil. Non Aggression Principle is the root of my objection against the state.

The “sanction of the victim” is the willingness of the good to suffer at the hands of the evil, to accept the role of sacrificial victim for the “sin” of creating values.— Leonard Peikoff⁵

Do you hate the State?

You Don’t?

You don’t hate the fact that Indira Gandhi ordered murder of thousands of Sikhs in the Golden Temple (Operation Blue Star, 1984)⁶ ?

You don’t hate the fact that Rajeev Gandhi⁷ claimed that all the Sikh massacre was just a repulsive incident against the assassination of Indira Gandhi⁸ , Irrespective of the fact that Indira Gandhi was certainly the murderer of innocent women, kids and elderly men?

Irrespective of the fact that Indira Gandhi and Sanjay Gandhi were the person who forced vasectomy on people moving on road by kidnapping them?

You don’t hate the state irrespective of the fact that Rajeev Gandhi sanctioned all evils of his mother and brother and furthered more evil by announcing the IPKF Army to march in Sri Lanka and kill innocent Tamil people, rape their women and kill their children? It was the Indian Government and RAW that trained the Tamil militants.

You don’t hate the state irrespective of the fact that the government could have avoided the Babri Masjid issue and consequential riots had Rajeev Gandhi not forced to open the gates of Babri Masjid? Will you also ignore that those were politicians and the government who actually planned and executed the demolition of Babri Masjid?

You don’t hate the state irrespective of the fact that there were chances that Narendra Modi could have saved killing of those innocent Muslims who were killed in a similar repulsive action under which the Sikhs were killed?

You don’t hate the state irrespective of the fact that the Congress government might have saved innocent Muslims from being killed in Assam by providing proper protection?

You don’t hate the state irrespective of the fact that the Congress government of Maharashtra allowed the rampage in Maharashtra by those Muslim goons a few days ago which was another similar repulsive act to protest killing of Muslims in Assam?

You don’t hate the state irrespective of the fact that the state is robbing you, killing you and burdening your life under debt?

Since its inception, the government has oppressed, and victimized people at large. Government, howsoever small, is certainly against the individual liberty and non aggression principle.

The call is yours. Can you support an oppressor, a known criminal, mass murderer, which is certainly the state? If yes, why will you approve this evil, is this evil necessary? Is it necessary to victimize others and yourself?

1. Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Wikipedia [↩]
2. “At the individual level swaraj is vitally connected with the capacity for dispassionate self-assessment, ceaseless self-purification and growing swadeshi or self-reliance”. Politically swaraj is self-government and not good government (for Gandhi, good government is no substitute for self-government) and it means continuous effort to be independent of government control, whether it is foreign government or whether it is national. In the other words, it is sovereignty of the people based on pure moral authority. Economically, poorna swaraj means full economic freedom for the toiling millions. For Gandhi, swaraj of the people meant the sum total of the swaraj (self-rule) of individuals and so he clarified that for him swaraj meant freedom for the meanest of his countrymen. And in its fullest sense, swaraj is much more than freedom from all restraints, it is self-rule, self-restraint and could be equated with moksha or salvation.”, “On and By Gandhi [↩]
3. “Jinnah kept the ulema at a distance throughout his life, but was perfectly willing to use them to advance the cause of a separate homeland for South Asian Muslims., Times of India [↩]
4. Political independence was an essential precondition and the first step towards the realisation of the goal of swaraj, but it was only a first step. For political independence Gandhi worked with and through the Indian National Congress, but there existed serious philosophical and ideological differences between Gandhi and other prominent leaders of the Congress, particularly Nehru. The development model visualised by Gandhi and enunciated in the Hind Swaraj―known as Gandhi’s manifesto―and the strategy he evolved subsequently were totally unacceptable to Nehru and his Congress, Nehru dismissed Hind Swaraj as “completely unreal”, On and By Gandhi [↩]
5. Then I saw what was wrong with the world, I saw what destroyed men and nations, and where the battle for life had to be fought. I saw that the enemy was an inverted morality—and that my sanction was its only power. I saw that evil was impotent—that evil was the irrational, the blind, the anti-real—and that the only weapon of its triumph was the willingness of the good to serve it. Just as the parasites around me were proclaiming their helpless dependence on my mind and were expecting me voluntarily to accept a slavery they had no power to enforce, just as they were counting on my self-immolation to provide them with the means of their plan—so throughout the world and throughout men’s history, in every version and form, from the extortions of loafing relatives to the atrocities of collectivized countries, it is the good, the able, the men of reason, who act as their own destroyers, who transfuse to evil the blood of their virtue and let evil transmit to them the poison of destruction, thus gaining for evil the power of survival, and for their own values—the impotence of death. I saw that there comes a point, in the defeat of any man of virtue, when his own consent is needed for evil to win—and that no manner of injury done to him by others can succeed if he chooses to withhold his consent. I saw that I could put an end to your outrages by pronouncing a single word in my mind. I pronounced it. The word was “No.”, Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand [↩]
6. According to Joyce Pettigrew, in her 1995 book, The Sikhs of the Punjab: Unheard Voices of State and Guerrilla Violence: “The army went into the Darbar Sahib not to eliminate a political figure or a political movement but to suppress the culture of a people, to attack their heart, to strike a blow at their spirit and self-confidence”, Operation Blue Star [↩]
7. Rajiv, who was sworn in as the Prime Minister after his mother’s death, justified the riots with his statement, “when a big tree falls, the earth shakes”., 1984 Anti-Sikh Riots [↩]
8. On 31 October, Congress party officials provided assailants with voter lists, school registration forms, and ration lists. The lists were used to find the location of Sikh homes and business, an otherwise impossible task because they were located in unmarked and diverse neighbourhoods. On the night of 31 October, the night before the massacres began, assailants used the lists to mark the houses of Sikhs with letter “S”. In addition, because most of the mobs were illiterate, Congress Party officials provided help in reading the lists and leading the mobs to Sikh homes and businesses in the other neighbourhoods. By using the lists the mobs were able to pinpoint the locations of Sikhs they otherwise would have missed., 1984 Anti-Sikh Riots [↩]