Gandhi´s outside critique of modernity is shaped by an idealized vision of the Indian village before the British conquest. As Bertel Ollman has shown that Marx’s concept of alienation cannot be understood just as a critique of capitalism, but must be understood in the light of an alternative not-alienated society imagined by Marx (4), I hope to show that Gandhi´s imaginary ideal Indian village gave meaning to his concept of dharma and to his critique of the fallen adharma social disorder he saw around him.

Gandhi´s ideal Indian village was not wholly imaginary. Even early in the nineteenth century one could say that “…the Village Communities are little republics, having nearly everything they want within themselves. They seem to last where nothing else lasts. Dynasty after dynasty tumbles down, revolution succeeds to revolution, Hindu, Pathan, Moghal, Mahratta, Sikh, English are masters in turn, but the Village Communities remain the same … The union of the Village Communities, each one forming a separated little State in itself, has, I conceive, contributed more than any other cause to the preservation of the people of India through all revolutions and changes they have suffered, and it is in a high degree conducive to their happiness, and to the enjoyment of a great portion of freedom and independence.” (5)

These words are not Gandhi´s. They are quoted from a minute dated November 7, 1830, written by a British colonial officer. Many other witnesses could be called to testify to the high degree of social integration and functional adjustment to the environment found in India before it was compelled to join what Immanuel Wallerstein has called the expanding European world-system.

 

The destruction of traditional ways of life by advancing modern commerce happened throughout the world. Marx cites the cheap goods produced by European factories as solvents dissolving the social fabric of traditional societies, but it was usually the case, as Marx also notes, that it was not just the charms of European commodities that inducted the natives into the European world-system, but also violence. Traditional peoples rarely joined the Europe-centered global system voluntarily. Whether it was the conscription of laborers for the tea plantations of Sri Lanka or the rubber plantations of the Congo, or imposing a monetary tax to compel Africans to work for wages in the mines, or using soldiers to prevent the pre-Colombian peoples from running way from the European missions and plantations in Spanish and Portuguese America, or the resettlement of Native North Americans on reservations, or compulsory “settlements” redefining land tenure in India to make it fit the categories of British law so land could be taxed, the plot of the story was the same: a conflict between people who preferred the way of life they were used to, and Europeans who forced them to comply with whatever their economic projects required.