E-Book - Mahatma Gandhi

Gandhi's 'Theory of Trusteeship… 210and sanctified by voluntary recognition. All associations aretherefore nuclei or concentrations or manifestations of power.The responsibility to make use of this power in pursuit ofcommon objectives is vested in a person or group of personswho are accepted or chosen by consent. This responsibility, andthe power that underwrites the responsibility are entrusted tothose who are chosen to act on behalf of the group. Thisresponsibility and power are therefore entrusted to the'executive' (or the leader of the group) that is at once both therepository and the beneficiary of the power.All sources of power have then to be held in Trust.Power that has social sanction is power that has been entrusted.One who holds such power is therefore a trustee. He may beentrusted with power through a process of election, or throughsome other system. Whatever the process, he is a trustee. Theopportunity for abuse of trust may be minimised by theimposition of limitations and penalties including dispossession.He can be called to account. He may be removed if he misusesor betrays the trust. But power is vested in the hope and faiththat it will be used as a trust. An element of trusteeship istherefore inherent in the concept of recognition of power. It isonly in a society in which the obligations of accountability areatrophied or extinguished that there is no such assumption. Insuch societies power becomes naked power, power devoid ofsocial sanction.There are three ingredients in Gandhi's answer to theproblem of power: minimisation of concentration; spirit oftrusteeship; and the corrective of non-violent direct action.Applied to the phenomenon of power in the economic field,these elements will take the form of (a) (i) decentralisation ofthe ownership of the instruments of production, and thesystems of production and distribution, and (ii) therepudiationof the values of the acquisitive society; (b) the