(via Sunny Narang)
Swarajya and Samrajya , Self-Rule and Total Sovereignty (Empire) can be seen as contradictory concepts . How can someone have an Empire and there be Self-Rule , isn't Swarajya a war against Samrajya of an occupier or a central authority ?
So when Marathas under Shivaji proclaim their aim to be the destruction of Mughal Samrajya , are they not replacing the Mughals with their own Samrajya , using the call of Swarajya ?
This contradiction has been there about the State and the People since always in Indic thought and practice . Gandhi dreamed of Interdependent Village Republics but the reality of History is about States and Empires .
Is there any solution to this ? Or is decentralisation always making the state weak ? Unable to protect itself from other States ?
In India it is the Jati-Vyavastha that has kept the communities self-reliant and productive regardless of the chaos of frequent invasions and wars among kingdoms . Every social and political leader in Indian history knows this in their bones except the modernists after the British arrived . The Jati-Vyavastha is the foundation of material-culture as well as culture itself .
Gandhi understood it well too. And he desired respect for all work , to give dignity to all kinds of effort. So he coined Gram Swaraj in association with Hind Swaraj .
We can only have Swarajya under a Samrajya of common belief system . The Samrajya need not be under an Emperor , but a common imagination.
That is the Republic .
The Samrajya can be Dharmic , or that has a higher vision of creating harmony among communities . It has to have a soul, it is not an equation.
And that soul needs to be across generations for the Samrajya to survive.
India is a Samrajya . But what is also essential for sustainability is respect for all the individuals and communities under the Samrajya , to be able to practice Swarajya. Self-Rule . In other terms Communitarian . And communities can be inherited or newly imagined . And no one community can rule over all others .
And if Metropolitan India , and governing through its 29 state capitals and 1 union capital tries to enforce rules that are against the nature of this des , its Sanatan or eternal nature , then many rebellions will take place .
Metropolitan India will be supported as long as it respects and safeguards the interest of the majority of Indian communities that are rural , or rural people staying and working in urban India .
Bharat versus India :
In the 70's Sharad Joshi , a Maharashtrian farmer -leader and Founder, Shetkari Sanghatana said "`India' is that notional entity, largely Anglicised and relatively better-off, that had obtained the succession of colonial exploitation from the British; while `Bharat' is largely rural, agricultural, poor and backward that was being subjected to colonial-like exploitation even after the end of the Raj.
Many have erroneously interpreted the expression to denote the urban-rural divide. That was far from my mind. In fact, I made it explicitly clear, even in those early stages, that the relatively opulent segment of the rural society that derived its incomes from non-agricultural activities under state-protection were a part of `India' while the slum dwellers and the footpath occupants of cities were, in fact, refugees from `Bharat' to `India' in search of livelihood."
We urban Indians should be ready for hundreds of non-cooperation movements , if we do not realise that even today almost 70% of Indians live in rural areas , and of the 30% who live in urban areas 17.4% of urban Indian households lived in a slum in 2011.
That means add rural immigrants at another 6% of Indian population to Bharat.
And more than 40% of urban Indian population live in small towns , with population less than 1 lac . These towns are actually market hubs for rural India , connected deeply to the Bharat economy .
Add another 10-12% for these small Bharat towns . These are 4500 towns . Only 500 odd are above 1 lac population. So 90% of Indian so-called urban areas are in Bharat actually .
Bharat then is 85-90% of the population of the country we in urban areas , call India .
Then the real nature of Bharat is Gram Samrajya , the Empire of the Village in lived cultures of production , community and world-view .
And this Gram Samrajya is going nowhere . Despite urban control over finance, policy and media .
It is the soul and soil of this land.
Hindavi Swarajya(हिन्दवी स्वराज) ("Indian self-rule" or "Hindu self-rule") is a term for sociopolitical movements seeking to remove foreign military and political influences from India. The term was first used in a 1645 CE letter by Shivaji, founder of the Maratha Empire.
Ramdas (Marathi language: Rāmdās) was a noted 17th-century saint and spiritual poet of Maharashtra. He is most remembered for his Advaita Vendatist text, the Dasbodh. Ramdas was a devotee of Hanuman and Rama.
According to Sikh tradition based on an old Punjabi manuscript Panjah Sakhian, Samarth Ramdas (1608-1681) met Guru Hargobind (1595-1644) at Srinagar in the Garhval hills. The meeting, corroborated in a Marathi source, Ramdas Swami`s Bakhar, by Hanumant Swami, written in 1793, probably took place in the early 1630s during Samarth Ramdas`s pilgrimage travels in the north and Guru Hargobind`s journey to Nanakmata in the east. It is said that as they came face to face with each other, Guru Hargobind had just returned from a hunting excursion. He was fully armed and rode a horse.
"I had heard that you occupied the Gaddi of Guru Nanak", said Swami Ramdas.
"Guru Nanak was a Tyagi sadhu - a saint who had renounced the world. You are wearing arms and keeping an army and horses. You allow yourself to be addressed as Sacha Patshah, the True King. What sort of a sadhu are you?" asked the Maratha saint.
Guru Hargobind replied, "Internally a hermit, and externally a prince. Arms mean protection to the poor and destruction of the tyrant. Baba Nanak had not renounced the world but had renounced Maya, i.e. self and ego:
"batan faquiri, zahir amiri, shastar garib ki rakhya, jarwan ki bhakhiya, Baba Nanak sansar nahi tyagya, Maya tyagi thi."
These words of Guru Hargobind found a ready response in the heart of Samartha Swami Ramdas who, as quoted in Pothi Panjak Sakhian, spontaneously said, "this appealeth to my mind - Yeh hamare man bhavti hai"
Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj (1630-1680), was a member of the Bhonsle Maratha clan. Shivaji carved out an enclave from the declining Adilshahi sultanate of Bijapur that formed the genesis of the Maratha Empire. In 1674, he was formally crowned as the Chhatrapati (Monarch) of his realm at Raigad. He revived ancient Hindu political traditions and court conventions and promoted the usage of Marathi and Sanskrit, rather than Persian, in court and administration.
Throughout his life he was deeply interested in religious teachings, and regularly sought the company of Hindu and Sufi saints.
He named the Ashta Pradhan (council of ministers) as per Sanskrit nomenclature with terms such as Nyayadhish, and Senapat, and commissioned the political treatise Rajyavyavahar Kosh. His Rajpurohit, Keshav Pandit, was himself a Sanskrit scholar and poet.
Shivaji's sentiments of inclusivity and tolerance of other religions can be seen in an admonishing letter to Aurangzeb, in which he wrote:
Verily, Islam and Hinduism are terms of contrast. They are used by the true Divine Painter for blending the colours and filling in the outlines. If it is a mosque, the call to prayer is chanted in remembrance of Him. If it is a temple, the bells are rung in yearning for Him alone.
Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902) considered Shivaji a hero and paid glowing tributes to his wisdom.When Lokmanya Tilak organised a festival to mark the birthday celebrations of Shivaji, Vivekananda agreed to preside over the festival in Bengal in 1901.
Swami Dayanand Saraswati (1824-1883) founder of the Arya Samaj and a Hindu reformer, defined ‘Swaraj’ as the ‘administration of self’ or ‘democracy’. He says when God has made us free to do any work as we want, then who are the British to make us slaves in our land?
In his view ‘Swaraj’ is the backbone of the freedom fighting. Dadabhai Navroji had admitted that he had learnt the word `Swaraj’ from the Satyarth Prakash of Swami Dayananda. Maharshi Dayanand Saraswati had preceded the emotion of ‘Swaraj’ and ‘Swadesi’. He was the first to give the call for Swarajya as "India for Indians" – in 1876, later taken up by Lokmanya Tilak.
The word Swadeshi derives from Sanskrit and is a sandhi or conjunction of two Sanskrit words. Swa means "self" or "own" and desh means country, so Swadesh would be "own country", and Swadeshi, the adjectival form, would mean "of one's own country".
Tilak (1856-1920) was one of the first and strongest advocates of "Swaraj" (self-rule) and a strong radical in Indian consciousness. He is known for his quote in Marathi, "स्वराज्य हा माझा जन्मसिद्ध हक्क आहे आणि तो मी मिळवणारच" ("Swarajya is my birthright and I shall have it!") in India.
Although the word "Swaraj" means self-rule, Gandhi (1869-1948) gave it the content of an integral revolution that encompasses all spheres of life: "At the individual level Swaraj is vitally connected with the capacity for dispassionate self-assessment, ceaseless self-purification and growing self-reliance."
Politically, swaraj is self-government and not good government (for Gandhi, good government is no substitute for self-government) and it means a continuous effort to be independent of government control, whether it is foreign government or whether it is national. In other words, it is sovereignty of the people based on pure moral authority. Economically, Swaraj means full economic freedom for the toiling millions. 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.
Gandhi explained his vision in 1946:
Independence begins at the bottom... A society must be built in which every village has to be self sustained and capable of managing its own affairs... It will be trained and prepared to perish in the attempt to defend itself against any onslaught from without... This does not exclude dependence on and willing help from neighbours or from the world. It will be a free and voluntary play of mutual forces... In this structure composed of innumerable villages, there will be ever widening, never ascending circles. Growth will not be a pyramid with the apex sustained by the bottom. But it will be an oceanic circle whose center will be the individual. Therefore the outermost circumference will not wield power to crush the inner circle but will give strength to all within and derive its own strength from it.
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