• Title : Development as Swaraj: Towards a Sustainable and Equitable Future
• Author : Sumanas Koulagi
• Year :  2023
• Pages : 160
• Price : Rs. 875
• Publisher : Routledge

By Ravi Joshi, Former Joint Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat

Human societies, inspired by the ideas of great philosophers, social and political reformers have often tried out different methods of organising societies with varying paradigms. In so doing, they questioned the organising principles of their society and tried to change its dominant norms and values.

Gandhiji, a philosopher and a political reformer combined, evolved his own manifesto to shape and guide the lives of his countrymen in 1909 in a small booklet called ‘Hind Swaraj.’ For him gaining political independence from the colonial Masters was only the first step towards Poorna Swaraj, which included first and foremost ‘self-rule’ over one’s own mind and body, control over one’s desires, greed, anger and other passions.

Gandhiji was greatly influenced by the book ‘Unto This Last’ by John Ruskin and ‘The Kingdom of God is Within You’ by Leo Tolstoy that in 1904, five years before he wrote ‘Hind Swaraj,’ he fundamentally changed his way of life and established what was to be his first Ashram, called the Phoenix Settlement, near Durban, capital of Natal Province in South Africa. This was in affirmation of the core principles that moved him: rejection of the modern civilisation as ‘a disease,’ ending the exploitative relationship between the Capitalist and worker, social equality of all and the supremacy of manual labour. 

Among the objectives of the settlers on Phoenix farm were: to order one’s life so as to earn a living through handicrafts and agriculture without the aid of machinery, to promote better understanding between peoples, to live a pure life and thereby set an example for others, to introduce vernacular education, to propagate the philosophy of ‘nature treatment’ in the medical field and to train people and start a journal for the advancement of those ideas. 

When we talk of Gandhiji, most young readers would say ‘the past is a foreign country and things are done differently there’ but one young Mysurean — Dr. Sumanas Koulagi — would respectfully and vehemently disagree.

He knows that Gandhiji was not merely an idealist, but an extremely pragmatic thinker who always practiced what he preached. To him, Ahimsa and Satyagraha were not only the means to the goal of Swarajya (self-rule) but also were inseparable and integral to achieving it. But can the ideas of Hind Swaraj, founded as they are on such lofty ideals, be ever implemented as an Economic Project in today’s world? Yes, says Dr. Sumanas who has studied the theoretical framework for such an economy provided by Joseph Cornelius Kumarappa, an Economist and a companion of Gandhiji.

His grandparents Surendra and Girija Koulagi, influenced by the aura and the ideas of Mahatma Gandhi, started such an experiment in the 1960s near Melukote in Mandya District. The experiment has percolated to Sumanas Koulagi through his father Narendra Koulagi. They were both present at a talk given by Sumanas Koulagi at the Mysore Open Forum on Mar.16, 2025, wherein he spoke about  his book ‘Development as Swaraj: Towards a Sustainable and Equitable Future’ which was his doctoral thesis at the Sussex University, London.

Today ‘Development’ is the key mantra of every State, it has become a ‘global faith’ and a central organising principle that defines global social order. Every State wants to showcase its GDP numbers as the sign of its prosperity and of its governance model. Dr. Sumanas notes that ‘the vision of sustainable development is shaped by liberal and utilitarian traditions based on abstract sovereign (autonomous) rational individuals having no connection with others. He contrasts this with the Gandhian notion that the existence of ‘self’ is a direct result of the contribution of others and that we cannot merely demand rights but have to fulfil our obligation to others. In other words, ‘obligation is the source of rights.’

The conflicting notion of ‘self’ and ‘society’ in the former state leads to self-centred individualism, a centralised state and economy that promotes inequality and violence both in nature (in the form of environmental crisis) and in society through exploitative and oppressive conditions that lead to civil war and revolutions.

As a counter to this, Dr. Sumanas posits a ‘Moral Political Economy’ as the alternative model based on Hind Swaraj. Quoting J.C. Kumarappa, he says that ‘all moral values can be categorised into ‘self-centric’ and ‘altruistic.’

A society based on ‘self-centric values degenerates because of clash of subjective interests; this results in violence and in turn to self-destruction. Whereas ‘altruistic’ values are ‘objective’ in nature and rooted in the absolute Truth of cosmic unity. Consequently, in the absence of a clash between subjective interests, society thrives.

The Swaraj Development Vision recommends the control of supply and demand by the State to ensure equilibrium in the production and consumption of goods. Production is expected to be regulated by ‘licensing’ and consumption by ‘rationing.’ Our economic policies were largely guided by this principle for the first five decades after independence till the economy was pushed to the brink of bankruptcy. Mercifully, the timely economic reforms of Liberalisation, Privatisation and Globalisation in 1991 by the government  of P.V. Narasimha Rao saved the country from sinking into bankruptcy.    

Undeterred by these winds of change sweeping the country, the Koulagi family continued their experiment in Janapada Khadi activity of Janapada Seva Trust in Melukote. It is an utterly novel way of about fifty families living and working in a moral, non-exploitative, non-violent, social and economic relationship that is non-hierarchical and almost egalitarian.

In short, this book and the experiment is an attempt by Dr. Sumanas and his family to provide a blue-print of the Swaraj Development Paradigm that could be adopted by individuals, communities and Nation-States to attain a non-violent global social order and in turn world peace.   

Postscript: It may be mentioned that though Gandhiji held on to the views expressed in ‘Hind Swaraj’ even in 1938, in actual fact he did compromise on some key issues like ‘machinery,’ ‘railways,’ ‘hospitals,’ etc. In January 1921, he wrote in ‘Young India’ that the Swaraj he had visualised in ‘Hind Swaraj’ he wrote in 1909 was not for 1921. Yet his prediction may prove prophetic in the contemporary global context when ‘climate change’ and ‘sustainable development’ are posing the biggest challenges for the future of humankind. An alternative development paradigm may still be the need of the hour. But is the experiment in Melukote an adequate and sufficient answer, is the question.