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Anarchism in India first emerged within the Indian independence movement, gaining particularly notoriety for its influence on Mohandas Gandhi's theory of Sarvodaya and his practice of nonviolent resistance. [1] Anarchism was also an influence on the revolutionary movement, inspiring the works of Har Dayal, M. P. T. Acharya and Bhagat Singh, among others. [2]
The foundations for anarchism in India were laid by a number of different religious traditions in the subcontinent. Buddhism and Jainism both taught of a prehistoric state of nature, in which people lived in harmony and their needs were satisfied by the land. [3] In Hindu cosmology, the Satya Yuga described a possible stateless society where people were governed only by the "universal natural law of dharma". [4] Whereas ancient Hindu thought described the king as a supreme authority, the Chanakya sutras held that "it is better to not to have a king then have one who is wanting in discipline". [5]
It was through these concepts that Indian anarchism developed out of "non-statism", which held it better to build an alternative society that would make the state redundant, rather than destroying the state outright (as in the Western conception of anti-statism). [6]
Swami Vivekananda derived a form of individualism from the Bhagavad Gita , arguing that "liberty is the first condition of growth". He saw individual freedom as something that leads directly to solidarity and social equality, as individual self-actualization would necessarily bring people together. He claimed his ultimate goal was "freedom from the slavery of matter and thought, mastery of external and internal nature." [7]
One disciple of Vivekananda was Sri Aurobindo, who applied his libertarian principles to the Indian independence movement, agitating for "non-violent direct action". Aurobindo's philosophy was concerned with reconciling individualism and collectivism, proposing a synthesis of individual enlightenment with community outreach. In The Ideal of Human Unity, Aurobindo advocated for the nation state to be replaced with a form of anarchy, based on voluntary associations between "free individuals" and the principle of "unity in diversity". [8]
Aurobindo's theory of nonviolent resistance was later developed upon by Mohandas Gandhi, who was himself inspired by the Russian anarcho-pacifist Leo Tolstoy to organize a mass civil disobedience movement against British rule in India. He viewed the state fundamentally as an expression of violence and feared the expansion of state power, as he believed it would stifle individuality. Gandhi declared his ideal society to be a form of self-governed stateless society, which he described as "enlightened anarchy". However, he would end up collaborating with the Indian National Congress and felt that the temporary existence of an Indian state would be necessary in a transition towards anarchy. [9]
The local conditions were pertinent to the development of the heavily anarchic Satyagraha movement in India. George Woodcock claimed Mohandas Gandhi self-identified as an anarchist. [10] Gandhi also considered Leo Tolstoy's book, The Kingdom of God is Within You , a book about practical anarchist organisation, as the text to have the most influence in his life. [11]
To Gandhi, the root of all social problems lay in violence and therefore in the state, which maintains a monopoly on violence, [12] holding that "the nearest approach to purest anarchy would be a democracy based on nonviolence." [13] He advocated for the implementation of Swaraj (self-governance) starting with individuals, before moving up through the village, region and finally the national level. [14] Swaraj was thus based in a form of individualist anarchism, rejecting majority rule, parliamentarism and political parties, while holding that individual morality should be the guiding force of the wider society and that any collective organization should be subordinate to the will of the individuals which make it up. [15]
In his essay "Reflections on Gandhi" (1949), George Orwell noted that anarchists and pacifists had claimed Gandhi as an adherent of their own traditions, but argued that in doing so they ignored "the other-worldly, anti-humanist tendency of his doctrines." Orwell argued that Gandhian thought required religious belief, and so could not be reconciled with anarchists' humanism. [16]
Before 1920, a partly anarchist inspired movement was represented by one of the most famous revolutionaries of the Indian independence movement, Bhagat Singh. Though a Marxist, Bhagat Singh was attracted to anarchism. [17] Western anarchism and communism had influence on him. He studied the writings of Mikhail Bakunin, Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky. [18] Singh wrote in an article: [17]
The ultimate goal of Anarchism is complete independence, according to which no one will be ... crazy for money ... There will be no chains on the body or control by the state. This means that they want to eliminate ... the state; private property.
Singh was involved in the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association and Naujawan Bharat Sabha (Translated to 'Youth Society of India'). [18] [19] By the mid-1920s Singh began arming of the general population and organised people's militias against the British. From May 1928 to September 1928, Singh published several articles on anarchism in Punjabi periodical "Kirti". [17]
Indian revolutionary and the founder of the Ghadar Party Lala Har Dayal was involved in the anarchist movement in United States. He moved to the United States in 1911, where he became involved in industrial unionism. In Oakland, he founded the Bakunin Institute of California which he described as "the first monastery of anarchism". The organisation aligned itself with the Regeneracion movement founded by the exiled Mexicans Ricardo and Enrique Flores Magón. Har Dayal understood the realisation of ancient Aryan culture as anarchism, which he also saw as the goal of Buddhism. The Ghadar Party attempted to overthrow the British in India by reconciling western concepts of social revolution - particularly those stemming from Mikhail Bakunin - with Buddhism. [20]
Australian Christian anarchist Dave Andrews lived in India between 1972 and 1984. In 1975, he and his wife founded and developed a residential community in India called Aashiana (out of which grew Sahara, Sharan and Sahasee – three well-known Christian community organisations working with slum dwellers, sex workers, drug addicts, and people with HIV/AIDS). When Indira Gandhi was assassinated in 1984, thousands of Sikhs were murdered by violent mobs. Andrews resisted this through non-violent methods of intervention. The Andrews couple were forced to flee India soon thereafter. [21] [22] [23]
...Gandhi [...] sometimes called himself an anarchist...
Look, we looked out the window and mobs of people were chasing down Sikhs because a Sikh had killed the Prime Minister, and people were in the backlash, slaughter the Sikhs. But I said, 'If it was your father, or your husband, or your son, wouldn't you want somebody to intervene?' And I can remember at the time Ange said, 'Yes, of course I would.' The framework for a global ethic is recognising we're all part of the same family, and realising that we've got that responsibility. Am I my brother's keeper? Yes, I am, because I'm part of the same family, and that was an impulse to respond, to intervene, and to save some people's lives. And that was I think highly significant.
There is one thing you need to know about Dave Andrews. He is dangerous. For example, after Indira Gandhi was shot, two or three thousand people were killed in twenty-four hours in the riots that followed. Mobs rampaged through streets looking for Sikhs to murder. Dave convinced Tony, a friend , that it was their job to go out and save these Sikhs. Finding a besieged house, they put themselves between an armed mob and a Sikh family and saved them from certain death. That's why Dave Andrews is dangerous. He is ordinary, yet believes ordinary people should take extraordinary risks to confront the cruelty in our world.
Graduated from Queensland, Australia, and went to India in 1972 with his wife Angie to set up a home for junkies, drop-outs and other disturbed people in Delhi. They subsequently founded a community for Indians, which they developed and ran until they were forced to leave India in 1984.
Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin was a Russian revolutionary anarchist. He is among the most influential figures of anarchism and a major figure in the revolutionary socialist, social anarchist, and collectivist anarchist traditions. Bakunin's prestige as a revolutionary also made him one of the most famous ideologues in Europe, gaining substantial influence among radicals throughout Russia and Europe.
The Indian Independence Movement was a series of historic events in South Asia with the ultimate aim of ending British colonial rule. It lasted until 1947, when the Indian Independence Act 1947 was passed.
Anarchism in the United Kingdom initially developed within the religious dissent movement that began after the Protestant Reformation. Anarchism was first seen among the radical republican elements of the English Civil War and following the Stuart Restoration grew within the fringes of radical Whiggery. The Whig politician Edmund Burke was the first to expound anarchist ideas, which developed as a tendency that influenced the political philosophy of William Godwin, who became the first modern proponent of anarchism with the release of his 1793 book Enquiry Concerning Political Justice.
According to different scholars, the history of anarchism either goes back to ancient and prehistoric ideologies and social structures, or begins in the 19th century as a formal movement. As scholars and anarchist philosophers have held a range of views on what anarchism means, it is difficult to outline its history unambiguously. Some feel anarchism is a distinct, well-defined movement stemming from 19th-century class conflict, while others identify anarchist traits long before the earliest civilisations existed.
Bhagat Singh was an Indian anti-colonial revolutionary, who participated in the mistaken murder of a junior British police officer in December 1928 in what was to be retaliation for the death of an Indian nationalist. He later took part in a largely symbolic bombing of the Central Legislative Assembly in Delhi and a hunger strike in jail, which—on the back of sympathetic coverage in Indian-owned newspapers—turned him into a household name in the Punjab region, and after his execution at age 23 into a martyr and folk hero in Northern India. Borrowing ideas from Bolshevism and anarchism, the charismatic Singh electrified a growing militancy in India in the 1930s, and prompted urgent introspection within the Indian National Congress's nonviolent but eventually successful campaign for India's independence.
The Ghadar Movement or Ghadar Party was an early 20th-century, international political movement founded by expatriate Indians to overthrow British rule in India.
Anarchism and nationalism both emerged in Europe following the French Revolution of 1789 and have a long and durable relationship going back at least to Mikhail Bakunin and his involvement with the pan-Slavic movement prior to his conversion to anarchism. There has been a long history of anarchist involvement with nationalism all over the world as well as with internationalism.
The Revolutionary movement for Indian Independence was part of the Indian independence movement comprising the actions of violent underground revolutionary factions. Groups believing in armed revolution against the ruling British fall into this category, as opposed to the generally peaceful civil disobedience movement spearheaded by Mahatma Gandhi.
Kartar Singh Sarabha was an Indian revolutionary. He was 15-years old when he became a member of the Ghadar Party; he then became a leading luminary member and started fighting for the independence movement. He was one of the most active members of the movement. In November 1915 at Central Jail, Lahore, he was executed for his role in the movement. He was 19 years old.
Geoffrey Nielsen Ostergaard was a British political scientist best known for his work on the connections between Gandhism and anarchism, on the British co-operative movement, and on syndicalism and workers' control. His books included The Gentle Anarchists: A Study of the Sarvodaya Movement for Non-Violent Revolution in India (1971), coauthored with Melville Currell, and Nonviolent Revolution in India (1985), both dealing with the Sarvodaya movement. He spent the majority of his academic career at the University of Birmingham.
The Ghadar Mutiny, also known as the Ghadar Conspiracy, was a plan to initiate a pan-India mutiny in the British Indian Army in February 1915 to end the British Raj in India. The plot originated at the onset of World War I, between the Ghadar Party in the United States, the Berlin Committee in Germany, the Indian revolutionary underground in British India and the German Foreign Office through the consulate in San Francisco. The incident derives its name from the North American Ghadar Party, whose members of the Punjabi community in Canada and the United States were among the most prominent participants in the plan. It was the most prominent amongst a number of plans of the much larger Hindu–German Mutiny, formulated between 1914 and 1917 to initiate a Pan-Indian rebellion against the British Raj during World War I. The mutiny was planned to start in the key state of Punjab, followed by mutinies in Bengal and rest of India. Indian units as far as Singapore were planned to participate in the rebellion. The plans were thwarted through a coordinated intelligence and police response. British intelligence infiltrated the Ghadarite movement in Canada and in India, and last-minute intelligence from a spy helped crush the planned uprising in Punjab before it started. Key figures were arrested, and mutinies in smaller units and garrisons within India were also crushed.
Baba Sohan Singh Bhakna was a Sikh revolutionary, the founding president of the Ghadar Party, and a leading member of the party involved in the Ghadar Conspiracy of 1915. Tried at the Lahore Conspiracy trial, Sohan Singh served sixteen years of a life sentence for his part in the conspiracy before he was released in 1930. He later worked closely with the Indian labour movement, devoting considerable time to the Kisan Sabha.
Vishnu Ganesh Pingle was an Indian revolutionary and a member of the Ghadar Party who was one of those executed in 1915 following the Lahore conspiracy trial for his role in the Ghadar conspiracy.
The first Christmas Day plot was a conspiracy made by the Indian revolutionary movement in 1909: during the year-ending holidays, the Governor of Bengal organised a ball at his residence in the presence of the Viceroy, the Commander-in-Chief and all the high-ranking officers and officials of the Capital (Calcutta). The 10th Jat Regiment was in charge of the security. followers of Jatindranath Mukherjee, its soldiers decided to blow up the ballroom and take advantage of destroying the colonial Government. In keeping with his predecessor Otto von Klemm, a friend of Lokmanya Tilak, on 6 February 1910, M. Arsenyev, the Russian Consul-General, wrote to St Petersburg that it had been intended to "arouse in the country a general perturbation of minds and, thereby, afford the revolutionaries an opportunity to take the power in their hands." According to R. C. Majumdar, "The police had suspected nothing and it is hard to say what the outcome would have been had the soldiers not been betrayed by one of their comrades who informed the authorities about the impending coup".
Anarchy is a form of society without rulers. As a type of stateless society, it is commonly contrasted with states, which are centralised polities that claim a monopoly on violence over a permanent territory. Beyond a lack of government, it can more precisely refer to societies that lack any form of authority or hierarchy. While viewed positively by anarchists, the primary advocates of anarchy, it is viewed negatively by advocates of statism, who see it in terms of social disorder.
Teja Singh Sutantar, also Swatantar, was a national revolutionary of India who fought for the independence of India from the British Empire and for the liberation of Punjab peasantry from the clutches of feudal lords. He was a member of the 5th Lok Sabha from Sangrur constituency as a CPI candidate. He also was Member of Punjab Legislative Assembly from 1937 to 1945 and member of Punjab Legislative Council from 1964 to 1969.
Prithvi Singh Azad (1892–1989) was an Indian independence activist, socialist revolutionary and one of the founder members of Ghadar Party. He suffered incarceration several times during the pre-independence period, including a term in the Cellular Jail. The Government of India awarded him the third highest civilian honour of the Padma Bhushan, in 1977, for his contributions to society.
Prior to the rise of anarchism as an anti-authoritarian political philosophy in the 19th century, both individuals and groups expressed some principles of anarchism in their lives and writings.
Anarchism in Bangladesh has its roots in the ideas of the Bengali Renaissance and began to take influence as part of the revolutionary movement for Indian independence in Bengal. After a series of defeats of the revolutionary movement and the rise of state socialist ideas within the Bengali left-wing, anarchism went into a period of remission. This lasted until the 1990s, when anarchism again began to reemerge after the fracturing of the Communist Party of Bangladesh, which led to the rise of anarcho-syndicalism among the Bangladeshi workers' movement.
