Trusteeship: articulating a business-society interface

The idea that the business community has a responsibility towards helping the rest of society is articulated differently in different phases of recent human history.

In India, one can trace instances of pro-people activities by the business guilds in the past.Footnote ⁶ During the nationalist phase, several business men supported the fight against the British government in India by releasing funds regularly. Mahatma Gandhi was the first nationalist leader who articulated this relationship in his concept of ‘Trusteeship’ which was based on ‘the appreciation’ of the nationalist cause by the business houses. Mainly philanthropists, these businessmen gave donations to community-oriented programmes, launched and conducted by the Nationalist Congress Party. Despite obvious tension between labour and capital, the Congress leadership, including Gandhi, seemed to have underplayed the contradiction by drawing on ‘national democracy’.Footnote ⁷ Although the consequence was adverse because Congress was not willing to champion the workers’ cause in mills and factories which were owned by Indian indigenous business houses, the symbiotic relationship between Congress and Indian business houses paid-off in the sense that both reaped the benefit. By supporting the industrialists and not the workers, Congress fulfilled its historical role of securing India's economic future after independence. Members of the Congress believed that the role of Indian business houses would be crucial in building independent India. The business communities also found a reliable ally in Gandhi and his Congress colleagues during colonial rule which, for obvious reasons, never encouraged indigenous businesses to flourish.

The idea of Trusteeship seemed to emerge out of Gandhi's concern for economic equality. He felt rather strongly that, to be meaningful, political freedom needed to be complemented by economic equality. It was easier said than done because ‘working for economic equality means abolishing the eternal conflict between capital and labour [which] means the levelling down of the few rich in whose hands is concentrated the bulk of the nation's wealth on the one hand, and the levelling up of the semi-starved naked millions on the other’.Footnote ⁸ He was aware that the task was difficult though he had doubts that without removing this gulf between the rich and the poor, the non-violent system of government would remain a distant goal. He also expressed concern because, unless the socio-economic differences between the wealthy and the poor were meaningfully addressed, it was likely to create a revolutionary situation. In his words, ‘a violent and bloody revolution is a certainty one day unless there is a voluntary abdication of riches and the power that riches give and share them for the common good’.Footnote ⁹

Gandhi's notion of Trusteeship seems to be theological. According to him, God is the owner and also the master of the whole material universe. Humans are merely ‘trustees’. They may earn by their labour what ‘they need for their sustenance [which means] that they enjoy [the fruit of labour] not as proprietors but as trustees’.Footnote ¹⁰ In pursuing this argument, Gandhi came closer to St Thomas Aquinas of the Western tradition who also felt that

Gandhi might have had access to the ideas of Aquinas, but it was John Ruskin who remained critical in his conceptualization of an equitable society. Although Gandhi was mesmerized by Ruskin's Unto this Last, a relatively unknown essay by him, A Joy for Ever, left an indelible imprint on the Mahatma. In his 1857 lecture which was later published with the title, A Joy for Ever, Ruskin, whilst seeking to lay down the ideal society for human beings, thus categorically stated that:

Like Ruskin, Gandhi also believed that ‘political economy consists simply in the production, preservation and distribution, at fittest time and place, of useful and pleasurable things’. According to him, a person, if he or she is allowed to do whatever he or she enjoys doing is likely to contribute to the well-being of the nation to which he or she belongs. Integral to his political economy is

The Gandhian political economy thus consists in the careful possession and just division of human possession. Whilst defending his stance Gandhi forcefully critiqued the prevalent notion of assessing the worth of human beings merely in terms of ‘the quantity of cash’; contrarily he argued that ‘in estimating the possessions of the wealthy, they rather calculate the value of their horses and fields by the number of guineas they could get for them, than the value of their guineas by the number of horses and fields they could buy with them’.Footnote ¹⁴ In Gandhi's perception which is akin to that of Ruskin, human beings and other objects—like cattle and also land—constitute the wealth and not ‘gold and silver’. In his words,

Hence, he was opposed to competition which, in the long run led the nation to ruin because ‘competition only enables the purchaser to obtain his labour unjustly cheap, with the result that the rich grow richer and the poor poorer’.Footnote ¹⁶ Since true economics was ‘economics of justice’, there was no room for competition. To teach the people ‘to get rich by hook and [by] crook is [therefore] to do them an immense disservice’.Footnote ¹⁷ Critiquing competition, Gandhi thus argued that true economics which was the economics of justice ‘empowered the last and the least of society, and helped create and develop in them the necessary capacity and moral dispositions’.Footnote ¹⁸ In completely discarding competition in favour of cooperation, Gandhi evidently ‘rejects the fundamental engine of capitalist society’.Footnote ¹⁹ This was an idea that ran through his 1909 Hind Swaraj in which he developed an alternative model by rejecting the market principle which drew on the critical importance of market in deciding the value and prices of products and services. Trusteeship was Gandhi's critique of the western model of unbridled capitalism that always privileged competition against cooperation. Yet he was not opposed to capitalism per se because (a) by accepting the wealthy as ‘trustees’, he had accepted private property as integral to his conceptualization and (b) by conceding that desire of protecting one's self-interest being perfectly congruent with one's concern for public well-being he also appreciated the fundamental principle of classical bourgeois political economy that John D. Ruskin skillfully developed by linking self-interest with the growth of capitalism.

Hence Gandhi's dialogue with Ruskin seems to be most critical in conceptualizing the notion of Trusteeship and its roots. Like Ruskin, Gandhi also argued that human beings were not merely body or money-making machine, and bodily comfort did not necessarily provide comfort for the soul. So, for Gandhi, human beings representing ‘soul-body composites’ are revelations of two important values of ‘self-interests’ and ‘social affections’. Whilst the former is critical for one's existence, the latter works as a filter to human activity drawing on ‘the concern for others’. A creative combination lays and also consolidates, as the Mahatma argues, the foundation of an economy ensuring human ‘capabilities’ and ‘freedom’.Footnote ²⁰ Trusteeship is thus an articulation of Gandhi's undiluted faith in human righteousness. In view of human greed, Trusteeship might have lost its credibility as an inspiring human ideal. Hence in a society that encouraged selfish human desires, the goal appears to be distant. To evolve Swaraj in its true manifestation, what was needed, Gandhi underlined, was to transform ‘the base metal of our present national character into gold [and] if every Indian sticks to [the] truth, Swaraj will come to us of its own accord’.Footnote ²¹ Trusteeship was therefore not ‘an other-worldly’ affair, but a human-driven endeavour that could easily be achieved if human beings remained true to their moral commitment to the society to which they belonged.

The concept of Trusteeship, as defined by Gandhi, is a testimony of Corporate Social Responsibility which meant an engagement of business in development. Trusteeship which Gandhi described as ‘India's gift to the world’Footnote ²² is revolutionary because it drew on the complete negation of values integral to capitalism, namely, private property and competition. Whilst articulating his view of Trusteeship, Gandhi thus argued,

Trusteeship is drawn on a foundational principle of the Indian religious text, Bhagvad Gita which suggests that ‘enjoy thy wealth by renouncing it’. Gandhi elaborated this by saying, ‘take what you require for your legitimate needs and use the remainder for society [and] if the moneyed classes do not even act on [this principle] in these times of stress’, Gandhi further stressed, ‘they will remain slaves of their riches and passions and consequently of those who overpower them’.Footnote ²⁴

Gandhi's primary aim was to achieve economic equality, which, according to him, was ‘the master key to nonviolent independence’ and Trusteeship was articulated accordingly. He was also aware, as mentioned above, that ‘working for economic equality means abolishing the eternal conflict between capital and labour [which meant] levelling down of the few rich in whose hands is concentrated the bulk of the nation's wealth, on the one hand, and the levelling up of the semi-naked millions, on the other’.Footnote ²⁵ Opposed to the socialist method of forcible dispossession, Gandhi endorsed the idea that the rich could keep their wealth provided they acted as trustees for the underprivileged. Gandhi mentioned, ‘I must know that all wealth does not belong to me; what belongs to me is the right to an honourable livelihood, no better than that enjoyed by millions of others. The rest of my wealth belongs to the community and must be used for the welfare of the community’.Footnote ²⁶ According to Gandhi, ‘at the root of this doctrine. . .must lie that of the trusteeship of the wealthy for the superfluous wealth possessed by them [and the rich men] may possess nothing beyond what is required for personal needs’.Footnote ²⁷ He further elaborated this by saying ‘whoever appropriates more than the minimum that is really not necessary for him is guilty of theft [since] God never creates more than what is strictly needed at the moment’.Footnote ²⁸ Trusteeship thus means ‘the levelling down of the few rich in whose hands is concentrated the bulk of nation's wealth on the one hand and the levelling up of the semi-naked millions on the other’.Footnote ²⁹ Gandhi further argued that a non-violent system of government remained a distant goal so long as ‘the gulf between the rich and the hungry millions persists’. He knew that violent methods of ‘dispossession’ were likely to alienate the rich. Hence he was careful in his response to Nehru who did not seem to appreciate Trusteeship as an economic design by saying that ‘we do not seek to coerce any; we seek to convert them. This method may appear to be long, perhaps too long, but I am convinced that it is the shortest’.Footnote ³⁰ This notion was, as Gunner Myrdal argues, ‘a practical compromise motivated by his rejection of violence and his realization that the rich would not willingly give up their possessions’.Footnote ³¹ Nonetheless, Gandhi was persuaded to believe that ‘a society or a nation constructed non-violently’ would inculcate values conducive to Trusteeship. Accordingly, ‘the rich man will be left in possession of his wealth, of which he will use what he reasonably requires for his personal needs and will act as a trustee for the remainder to be used for society’.Footnote ³² What is therefore most critical is ‘individual honesty’Footnote ³³; otherwise, Trusteeship was bound to collapse. Gandhi was aware that his doctrine of Trusteeship was ‘ridiculed’ by his colleagues since it derived its sustenance from high moral values which were hardly realizable in reality. As a pragmatic thinker, the Mahatma exhorted his Congress colleagues who were rich to set an example to fulfil his ideological dream by saying that

As is evident, Trusteeship is not merely a mental construct, but possibly an arrangement that fits into the class-compromise formula that Gandhi sincerely pursued to achieve political freedom. He was aware that it was difficult to persuade his wealthy nationalist colleagues to conform to his argument. Nonetheless, by defending Trusteeship as integral to economic equality, the Mahatma put forward a meaningful alternative that gained salience during the course of the freedom struggle. And Gandhi attained two significant goals: whereas on the one hand his exhortation that the rich would abdicate their wealth voluntarily to become trustees drew the underprivileged to his non-violent struggle, on the other hand, the rich never felt threatened because of Gandhi's commitment not to dispossess them of their wealth forcibly. It is therefore plausible to pursue the point that Gandhi's Trusteeship is premised on a form of ‘political realism’Footnote ³⁵ suggesting that this unique economic model was drawn not only on the strength of moral conviction but also by sharp political analysis and judgment. It was this underlying ‘realism’ that rendered Trusteeship as a meaningful device to evolve a symbiotic relationship between Indian business and the Congress which paid rich dividends to the nationalist movement.

Drawn on high moral values, Trusteeship is a three-dimensional concept: first, Trusteeship is a moral attack on those with disproportionate wealth which is possible only when one ‘thieves it from somebody else’; secondly, Gandhi held the view that with equal distribution of what Nature produces, there would be ‘no pauperism’ in this world; and thirdly, notwithstanding his strong views against those possessing more than what they required, Gandhi was opposed to ‘dispossessing’ them since it would be a departure from the creed of non-violence. The fundamental point that Gandhi made with regard to Trusteeship corresponds with his political strategy. Whilst pursuing the nationalist goal, the Mahatma sought to bring, as far as possible, the contradictory classes under his leadership by glossing over the obvious tension amongst them which was perhaps the best course of action during the freedom struggle. By articulating Trusteeship in such a fashion as not to create ‘discord’ amongst the participants in the nationalist movement for freedom, Gandhi provided a mechanism to draw both ‘dispossessed poor’ and those with disproportionate wealth. This is the kernel of Gandhian Trusteeship that cemented and also consolidated, at least during India's freedom struggle, a solid bond between nationalist businessmen and the Congress.

Despite being critical of the market-economy, Gandhi was never anti-business, presumably because of his uncritical faith in Trusteeship between industrialists and those who worked for them. Since competition led to violence, it had no place, as Gandhi strongly argued, in his ideal society. Given the critical role of competition in capitalism and industrialism, Gandhi never found them useful for human civilization. In his view, ‘industrialism is. . .going to be a curse for mankind. Industrialism depends on (one’s) capacity to exploit’.Footnote ³⁶ His abhorrence for the machine was based on ‘an objection to the craze for machinery’Footnote ³⁷ because, as Gandhi forcefully argued, it ‘helps a few to ride on the backs of millions [and] the impetus behind it all is not the philanthropy to save labour, but greed’.Footnote ³⁸ In appreciating the cottage industry of hand spinning, the Mahatma sought to provide an alternative to capitalism which led to human misery since it was absorbed by humanity. Hence, for him, ‘the change to industrialism is to court disaster’. As an alternative to industrialism, he projected the ‘ancient cottage industry of hand spinning (which) we must’, he argued, ‘restore this health giving industry (to) destroy industrialism as it is all evil’.Footnote ³⁹ Besides underlining the economic viability of cottage industries especially in a country like India, the Mahatma rejected capitalism as it debased human nature by artificially drawing boundaries between human beings. Exploitation of human beings by fellow human beings which capitalism encouraged made Gandhi a staunch critic of western capitalism that justified colonialism for an extension of its market.Footnote ⁴⁰ He thus devoted his energy to creating a society in which ‘the rich will spurn to enrich themselves at the expense of the poor and the poor will cease to envy the rich avoiding strife and bitterness for each other’.Footnote ⁴¹ The mechanism that he sought to evolve was to lay the foundation of ‘a new social order’ in which the wealthy ‘would be allowed to retain the stewardship of their possessions and to use their talent to increase the wealth, not for their own sake, but for the sake of the nation and, therefore, without exploitation’.Footnote ⁴² Alarmed by the rising tide of labour militancy during the nationalist struggle, Gandhi warned ‘the owners of wealth’ of the adverse consequences of class animosities. He thus exhorted that ‘the present owners of wealth. . .would have to make a choice between class war and voluntarily converting themselves into trustees of their wealth’ to permanently establish ‘an amicable bond’ between the producers and the owners of wealth.Footnote ⁴³

Trusteeship is an ethical principle seeking to redefine the relationship between the wealthy and the poor. Gandhi had no doubt that Trusteeship provided a meaningful device to bring about economic equality in society. In his perception, economic equality never meant that

Gandhi appears to have been persuaded by Marx's notion of economic equality that entails that everyone is entitled to have as much as he or she requires for ‘a quality survival’. The similarity ends here because whereas Marx recommended violent class struggle to get rid of economic inequality, the Mahatma sought to accomplish his task ‘through non-violence, by converting people to [his] point of view by harnessing the forces of love as against hatred’. He further suggested that it would be a mockery to talk about economic equality unless one was dispossessed of one's wealth to ‘reduce oneself to the level of the poorest of the poor’.Footnote ⁴⁵ As he argued, ‘I cannot hope to bring about economic equality of my conception, if I am the owner of fifty motor cars or even of ten bighas of land’.Footnote ⁴⁶ What is most critical in Gandhi's approach to economic equality is the idea of ‘entitlement’. One is entitled to keep as much wealth as one requires to satisfy one's needs. The other equally significant point that separates Gandhi from Marx was his emphatic opposition to class war as a device to bring about economic equality. True to its commitment to non-violence, Gandhi hardly wavered even when it was pointed out that he was always ‘soft’ to the wealthy because he depended on their financial support. Gandhi however retorted by saying, ‘although I make use of cars and other facilities offered to me by the rich,. . .[t]hey have no hold on me and I can shed them at a moment's notice, if the interests of the masses demand it’.Footnote ⁴⁷ Given the arguments that Gandhi offered to defend his stance, one is inclined to believe that the Mahatma, a true apostle of non-violence, put in place an alternative theoretical discourse by drawing on non-violence which was probably the most appropriate political means to sustain the multi-class anti-British political platform. In other words, Trusteeship that sought to bring about economic equality regardless of class, caste and creed was certainly complementary to Gandhi's political strategy bringing people together notwithstanding their contradictory socio-economic locations.

Sources of Trusteeship

There are four different sources from which Gandhi seemed to have derived his concept of Trusteeship. First, there is no doubt that it was rooted in the strong religious-social tradition of India.Footnote ⁴⁸ He based his doctrine on the first verse (sloka) of Isopanishad which insists that one should dedicate everything to God and then use only what is required for one's survival. One therefore does not have a right to anything beyond what is necessary for one's existence. What is most critical to this doctrine is the spirit of detachment and service. Unless these two virtues are inculcated, Trusteeship loses its significance. Gandhi drew on indigenous sources whilst formulating his notion of Trusteeship. Two fundamental concepts of Indian scripture, Bhagvad Gita, namely aparigraha (non-possession) and samabhavana (equality or oneness with all) remained critical in his formulation. Gandhi translated these two major values of Bhagvad Gita in Trusteeship. In his views, Trusteeship is also an exact articulation of ‘the English rule of equity’ that was deliberately distorted by the ruler in India to justify colonialism. He was not ‘a renouncer’ at all. As he stated, ‘I am entitled to wealth which gives me an honourable livelihood—the rest belongs to the community and must be used by the community’. Being critical of ‘individual property’, the Mahatma firmly believed that Trusteeship, by contributing to ‘corporate property’, was the answer to capitalism which, by injecting fierce competition, allowed ‘violence’ to strike roots in human society. Gandhi did not elaborate precisely what he meant by ‘corporate property’. Nonetheless, corporate property is critical to Gandhi's conceptualization of Trusteeship which primarily drew on the ‘voluntary’ surrender of a significant portion of private wealth to meaningfully establish trust between the rich and the poor.

Gandhi's idea of Trusteeship seems to have been rooted in the law of non-possession or aparigraha because he firmly believed that ‘the selfish grasping for possessions of any kind not only violates the deeper purposes of our human odyssey but eventually breeds possessiveness and greed, exploitation and revenge’.Footnote ⁴⁹ It was founded on ‘his religious faith that everything belonged to God and was from God’.Footnote ⁵⁰ There was nothing which exclusively belonged to an individual since ‘the bounties of the world were for His people’. When an individual had more than his respective share, he became, as the argument goes, a trustee of that portion of God's creation. Based on his absorption of the spirit of Isopanishad, Gandhi's trusteeship was a well-meaning effort to resolve all social and economic conflicts which grew out of inequalities and privileges of the prevalent social order. The idea was ‘to delegitimize the gross accumulation of wealth [because] trusteeship is a principle of economic conscience’.Footnote ⁵¹

Secondly, in formulating his idea of Trusteeship, Gandhi was heavily influenced by John Ruskin's Unto this last and other essays. The book seemed to cast ‘a magic spell’ on Gandhi who was ‘determined to change his life in accordance with the ideas’ of Ruskin. Gandhi felt that the book was remarkable because it highlighted those ‘moral’ principles which lost salience in the phase of industrialism. Gandhi summarized the teachings of the book in following terms:

What impressed the Mahatma was Ruskin's philosophical underpinning for ‘an enlarged entitlement’ for labour on the one hand and ‘limited entitlement’ for business, on the other. Unto this Last was an eye-opener for Gandhi and he believed that he ‘discovered some of [his] deepest convictions reflected in this great book of Ruskin [that] transformed [his] life’.Footnote ⁵³ He thus metaphorically stated that after he completed the book he ‘arose with [the] dawn [and was] ready to reduce these principles to practice’.Footnote ⁵⁴ Gandhi's fascination for Ruskin's ideas was evident by the fact that he immediately translated Unto This Last and Other Essays into Gujarati with the title Sarvadaya. According to Gandhi, Ruskin laid the foundation for Trusteeship by enumerating the following conditions which ‘a merchant’ should take as his duties:

1. (a) Ruskin saw self-interest-based economies as bringing ‘schism into the Policy of Angles and ruin into the Economy of Heaven’.

2. (b) ‘For as consumption is the end and aim of production, so life is the end and aim of consumption.

3. (c) An enlarged entitlement for labour on the one hand, with more limited entitlement for business.

4. (d) What was morally legitimate for business to claim, according to Ruskin, hovered precariously on survival entitlements only?

5. (e) A merchant should, in his call to duty, use his utmost energies not just to produce at the cheapest cost but to distribute at the cheapest price where the merchandise is most needed. In the course of doing this he should be prepared to meet ‘fearlessly any form of distress, poverty, or labour which may, through the maintenance of these points come upon him’.Footnote ⁵⁵

By insisting on a specific code of conduct for ‘the merchants’, Ruskin sought to articulate an undiluted liberal approach to business at the dawn of the industrial revolution in the west. His ‘Economy of Heaven’ was nothing but a powerful metaphor to draw-out an ideal economy for humanity where the marginalized could both participate and share the benefits of the burgeoning economy out of industrial revolution. In this sense, Ruskin was ‘a conscience keeper’ of a still-growing human civilization which confronted new issues of entitlement and property in a completely different socio-economic and political milieu. Gandhi had applied Ruskin's theory in two complementary ways: he, on the one hand, found in Ruskin powerful arguments to combat the form of industrialism that the colonial power had introduced in India disregarding entirely its obligations to the colonized; given the well-argued defence for humanity as a whole by Ruskin, Gandhi was, on the other hand, also inspired to set-out a specific code of conduct for Indian merchants who became close partners in his fight against colonialism. So, in view of the strong resonance of Ruskin's views in Trusteeship, one can safely conclude that Gandhi conceptualized Trusteeship by absorbing a persuasive liberal critique of industrial civilization (by Ruskin, amongst others) that raised its ugly face particularly in the wake of its expansion in various parts of the world markets.

Thirdly, Gandhi may have been influenced by Andrew Carnegie's The Gospel of Wealth Footnote ⁵⁶ which was regularly serialized in different publications in England, including, Fortnightly Review, Nineteenth Century, Saturday Review and Pall Mall Gazette during the years 1888 to 1891 when Gandhi was there pursuing his training as a lawyer. Seeking to offer an alternative to socialism within capitalism, Carnegie devised a scheme by urging the wealthy to adopt the principle of ‘Trusteeship’ which ‘is held to be the duty of the man of wealth’. He further insisted that

In order to serve the poor, Carnegie recommended that the surplus wealth should be spent on worthy causes, like building educational institutions, hospitals and churches, amongst other things. Supporting ‘unbridled capitalism’, Carnegie believed that one should grow one's capital to meaningfully combat poverty. According to him, capital is ‘the tool with which he (sic) works wonders; nor can he restrict his operation, for the cessation of growth and improvement in any industrial undertaking marks the beginning of decay’.Footnote ⁵⁸

Trusteeship is Gandhi's effort at ‘spiritualizing economics’ which is based on ‘trust’. For an inclusive society, the common man should trust his trustee and the latter plays the role of a custodian. The rich man should ‘outgrow his greed and sense of possession. . .and to come down to the level of those who earn their bread by labour’. Trusteeship thus means that ‘the rich man will be left in possession of his wealth which he will use what he reasonably requires for his personal needs and will act as a trustee for the remainder to be used for society’.Footnote ⁵⁹ On another occasion, he elaborated this concern by stating that:

Here Gandhi was no different to Carnegie, who also defended the role of the trustee as the custodian of wealth for ‘the impoverished’. Whilst Carnegie seemed to have appreciated the role of capital, Gandhi was ambiguous presumably because of the role of colonial capital in a colony which he himself witnessed both in South Africa and later in India. He was critical of the British colonial rule primarily because ‘the British failed ‘to be trustee’ and failed ‘to live in perfect peace with the whole of the inhabitants of India’.Footnote ⁶⁰ His basic concern was to reinforce ‘the Economy of Heaven, as Ruskin suggested. He thus argued,

Fourthly, Gandhi seemed to have derived his passion for Trusteeship from his study of English law which recognized the importance of ‘tutelage’ in the treating of colonial subjects. Edmund Burke was perhaps the first British ideologue who clearly formulated the idea of Trusteeship until the latter half of the eighteenth century in the context of the famous trial of Warren Hastings when he mentioned that ‘all political power which is set over men. . .ought to be some way or other exercised ultimately for their benefit’.Footnote ⁶² This was based on the assumption that ‘the presumed superiority of European virtue, and the superior practice and achievement [did not]. . .countenance the exploitation of the disadvantaged [but]. . .the excellence of European civilization imposed a heavy burden on the strong to act on behalf of the weak’.Footnote ⁶³ There is an implicit paternalistic assumption here: the colonized were incapable of governing themselves and their European masters were thus left with the task of determining what was best for the governed. Only then would these self-designed guardians approximate to the values which Edmund Burke sought to inculcate whilst defending colonial rule in India. In other words, Trusteeship was a moral design that consisted in promoting ‘the welfare of people who were incapable in choosing for themselves the ends for which they should strive’.Footnote ⁶⁴ Even before India was brought under the control of the Crown, ‘India was understood legally to be held in trust by the East India Company as an agent of the Crown’.Footnote ⁶⁵

Notwithstanding its clear paternalistic bias, Trusteeship thus sought to fulfil the so-called benevolent ends of colonial rule by insisting on its moral commitment to the colonized. So the relationship between the ruler and the rules was not exploitative, but one that accrued benefits to both. The first significant step that drew on this was the Charitable Endowment Act of 1890 which was a clear break with past endeavours of philanthropy as it institutionalized spending for ‘public wellbeing’. Rather than supporting religious teaching or worship, this Act clearly defined ‘charitable purposes’ by including ‘relief of the poor, education, medical relief, and the advancement of any other object of general public utility, but does not include a purpose which relates exclusively to sectional interests’.Footnote ⁶⁶ This was a unique step in a context when charity was meant entirely for private goals. Drawn on the ethics of utility, not only did the Charitable Act privileged ‘public’ over ‘private’, it also created an environment of philanthropy for public causes by adopting appropriate legislations in its support.Footnote ⁶⁷ It was therefore not surprising that Gandhi admitted that his study of English law enabled him to understand ‘philanthropy for public good’. ‘I understood Gita's teaching of non-possession’, Gandhi thus argued, ‘to mean that those who are wealthy should act like trustees who, though having control over great possessions, regard not an iota of them as their own’.Footnote ⁶⁸ Persuaded by the same logic, he further believed that ‘the British rulers will be. . .trustees and not tyrants and they will live in perfect peace and harmony with the inhabitants of India’.Footnote ⁶⁹ Gandhi thus re-conceptualized British colonialism in a different fashion by re-configuring the obvious end of alien rule which was a fiduciary trust between the ruler and its subjects. Key to what Gandhi articulated as Trusteeship was this idea in which the rich and wealthy were considered to be trustees of the poor. It is thus fair to argue that Gandhi's theory of Trusteeship ‘called upon benevolence to regulate capitalism's concentration of wealth, evoking disciplines of contract—that is legal obligations to beneficiaries—as the moral duty of capitalists’.Footnote ⁷⁰ Rather than adopting a radical socialist stance, Gandhi sought to evolve a mechanism whereby the indigenous capitalists were to be persuaded to voluntarily give up part of their wealth for public causes as their moral obligations.

Three points emerge out of the preceding discussion: (a) Gandhi's Trusteeship was based on a perfect marriage between ideas of Isopanishad with that of Ruskin and Carnegie; (b) it was also an outcome of his understanding of the British legal discourse which put in place the moral obligations of the privileged over the socio-economically peripheral sections; (c) by defending Trusteeship as morally apt, the Mahatma was also pursuing a clear political agenda in conformity with his multi-class campaign against the British, and Trusteeship was also therefore a model cementing a bond amongst the contradictory class forces. Besides his theoretical justification for Trusteeship, Gandhi listed ‘responsibilities’ for the mill-owners for the workers which are as follows:

1. 1. The hours of labour must leave the workmen some hours of leisure.

2. 2. The workmen must get facilities for their own education

3. 3. Provision should be made for an adequate supply of milk, clothing and necessary education for their children.

4. 4. There should be sanitary dwelling for the workmen.

5. 5. They should be in a position to save enough to sustain themselves during the old age.Footnote ⁷¹

The Articulation of Trusteeship

Although Trusteeship was a creative articulation of a relationship between the wealthy and the poor, Gandhi hardly put his views in a precise manner. He articulated his thought on the subject whilst responding to queries. On one occasion, he elaborated the theory of Trusteeship by stating that,

On the basis of these and other inputs, Gandhi's colleagues prepared six-point guidelines which Gandhi himself approved.Footnote ⁷³ Besides, drawing on what he had suggested, these guidelines sought to create a new social order by redefining the relationship between the haves and have-nots.

The guidelines are as follows:

1. 1. Trusteeship provides a means of transforming the present capitalist order of society into an egalitarian one. It gives no quarter to capitalism but gives the present owning class for reforming itself. It is based on the faith that human nature is never beyond redemption.

2. 2. It does not recognize any right of private ownership of property except insofar as it may be permitted by society for its own welfare.

3. 3. It does not exclude legislative regulation of ownership and use of wealth.

4. 4. Thus under the state-regulated Trusteeship, an individual will not be free to hold or use his wealth for selfish satisfaction or in disregard of the interests of society.

5. 5. Just as it is proposed to fix a decent minimum living wage, so a limit should be fixed for the maximum income that would be allowed to any person in society. The difference between such minimum and maximum incomes should be reasonable and equitable and variable from time to time, so much so that the tendency would be towards obliteration of the difference.

6. 6. Under the Gandhian economic order the charter of production will be determined by social necessity and not by personal whim or greed.

On the basis of this six-point agenda, one can safely pursue the argument that, philosophically, Trusteeship is ‘an economic conscience by which an individual when engaged in economic activity takes into account not only his own interests but also the interests of others’.Footnote ⁷⁴ Thus Trusteeship is ‘a theory of need-based production, equitable distribution and social justice’.Footnote ⁷⁵ A trustee is thus one ‘who self-consciously assumes responsibility for upholding, protecting and putting to good use whatever he possesses, acquires or earns [and] he has no heir, but the public’.Footnote ⁷⁶ Primarily a theoretical construct, based on high moral values, Trusteeship is an effort to redefine capitalism as a system of production within ‘the limits imposed upon its use for sustaining minimum living standards, the constraints it imposes by prohibiting its use for selfish satisfaction or in disregard of the social interests and the inclusion of legislative regulation for determining its ownership and use in the desired direction for non-exploitative purposes’.Footnote ⁷⁷

As is evident, the key to the Gandhian model is cooperation between factory owners and their workers. Whilst the owners have a right to profit the workers will have to work for them for their survival. So the relationship is mutually-benefitting. Nonetheless, Gandhi minced no words in establishing ‘the intellectual superiority’ of the capitalists over the workers. As he argued,

He was not in favour of increasing the wages of factory workers beyond what is absolutely necessary for their daily existence. Accusing workers of squandering money as a matter of habit, the Mahatma insisted that instead of giving ‘extra money’ which the worker had earned because of an increase in wages, the mill-owner should retain that amount for education and other welfare measures for the workers and their children. Gandhi felt that giving extra money to the workers meant ‘going into the frying pan out of the fire [because the workers] would use the increase in wages in the grog-shop or in gambling dens’.Footnote ⁷⁹ Here Gandhi's ideas resonate with those of Aristotle who defended a master's hegemony over his slaves in the Greek city state on the basis of a criterion of ‘intelligence’ which the latter miserably lacked. Although it was possible for Aristotle's slaves to become masters if they acquired the level of intelligence of their masters, Gandhi remained ambiguous as to whether the workers could be owners, except suggesting that ‘the capitalists are morally bound to’ protect the workers in the interest of sustained production.

Trusteeship is a meaningful statement on the ‘moral’ code of conduct for both the workers and the mill-owners. It is true that whilst developing this doctrine, Gandhi mediated between India's socio-religious tradition and western philosophical traditions, articulated by John Ruskin and Andrew Carnegie. The nationalist businessmen also provided useful inputs to Gandhi. In articulating his notion of Trusteeship, Gandhi was indebted to Jamnalal Bajaj and G. D. Birla, the two indigenous businessmen who stood by him. Jamnalal Bajaj, an Indian businessman not only financed various Gandhian projects, but also imbibed truly the spirit of Trusteeship by agreeing to abdicate his wealth for the poor. Gandhi who happened to be Bajaj's adopted father however encouraged him to earn more—but to do it ethically and to spend his wealth for the socio-economically underprivileged in India. By getting involved in Gandhi's constructive work, Bajaj actually translated Gandhi's dream and this is what connected him with the Mahatma who, in fact, proclaimed that ‘whenever I wrote of wealthy men becoming trustees of their wealth for the common good, I had always this merchant prince principally in mind’.Footnote ⁸⁰ Thus it is argued that ‘Gandhi may have been the greatest influence in Bajaj's life, but Jamnalal Bajaj, in turn, greatly influenced the Mahatma not only in where he lived, but also in the formation of his central philosophy of trusteeship’.Footnote ⁸¹ The other indigenous industrialist who helped Gandhi in translating the doctrine into practice was G. D. Birla who, like Bajaj, was both his patron and follower. As Gandhi confessed, in his letter to Birla,

Gandhi's nationalist political campaign would not have been possible without Birla's financial support. Barring a few occasions when Gandhi did not receive as much as he wanted, Birla always provided funds for ‘the nationalist works’ that the Mahatma undertook. He thus assured Gandhi that ‘whenever you find any particular kind of work impeded for lack of funds, you have only to write to me’.Footnote ⁸³ According to Birla, Gandhi was ‘an inveterate beggar for the causes he worked for’.Footnote ⁸⁴ As Birla was also committed to ‘the nationalist cause’, he hardly refused when Gandhi asked for money. Furthermore, Birla seemed persuaded by Gandhi's ‘sincerity and search for truth’ and also because ‘there was the belief that [Gandhi] must somehow be right in a sense that [he] could not grasp’.Footnote ⁸⁵ He thus candidly admitted that

Birla gained social and religious prestige by associating with the Congress movement and also its leader, Gandhi. Birla was perhaps one of those rare nationalist businessmen who faced ‘less’ trouble from the workers than his colleagues since the Congress leadership intervened as and when trouble brewed in Birla-factories.Footnote ⁸⁷ Nonetheless, what Gandhi appreciated was Birla's ‘unostentatious living and philanthropy’ which was a driving force behind his doctrine of Trusteeship. Birla was ‘a true trustee’, as Gandhi argued, given his financial support to the welfare activities. Rajendra Prasad, a nationalist and independent India's first President, put into words what Gandhi meant when he christened Birla as a trustee by saying that,

It is true that G. D. Birla had spent a considerable amount not only for financing the nationalist movement, but also for social welfare. He translated the doctrine of Trusteeship into action. Nonetheless, the Gandhi-Birla relationship provoked criticism from the contemporary media and also from his colleagues, especially B. R. Ambedkar. For instance, it was most puzzling that Gandhi never visited a single Birla factory despite requests by the workers drawing Gandhi's attention to the appalling working conditions in the factory. Gandhi was however persuaded to believe that the workers were lying when Birla stated so.Footnote ⁸⁹ But the most daunting critic was B. R. Ambedkar who never appreciated Gandhi's hobnob with Birla because of the obvious contradiction between selfish profit making which remained the primary motto for business and the nationalist cause. Birla was the gainer because Gandhi always acted as a shield which provoked Ambedkar to say that ‘if the Bania (G.D. Birla) is financing the Congress it is because he realized and Mr. Gandhi has taught him – that money invested in politics gives large dividends’.Footnote ⁹⁰

Trusteeship: a Utopia (?)

In the light of the growing importance of Corporate Social Responsibility, Trusteeship does not, at all, appear to be a Utopia at all. However in the context of colonialism, the idea which was based on a ‘change of heart’ was ridiculed as ‘impractical’. Even Gandhi was aware that, for many, ‘Trusteeship is a legal fiction’. He was however confident of its success for two reasons because (a) ‘it has the sanction of philosophy and religion behind it [and] that the possessors of wealth have not acted up to the theory does not prove its falsity, it proves the weakness of the wealthy’ and (b) absolute Trusteeship is an abstraction like Euclid's definition of a point and is equally attainable. But it we strive for it, we shall be able to go further in realizing [a] state of equality on earth than by any other method’. Hence he further argued,

Trusteeship is basically a mental construct, drawn on strong moral values. What Gandhi sought to establish was ‘economic equality’ which was the master key to non-violent independence. Economic equality, as he defined it, did not mean that everyone would literally have the same amount. It simply meant that everybody should have enough for his or her needs.Footnote ⁹² So, Gandhi's notion of economic equality approximates to the Marxist formulation of ‘to each according to his needs’. How to accomplish such a goal? Gandhi was opposed to ‘forcible snatching of property’ from the wealthy as he argued,

As is evident, Gandhi was not persuaded by the communist way of bringing about economic equality because it challenged the very foundation of ahimsa. It would be impossible for a better society to emerge by the use of violent means. He was also convinced that wealthy people had a role to play in social well-being and if they were forcibly deprived of their wealth, they would obviously abdicate that responsibility. Hence the best option was to resort to non-violence that, drawn on the force of love, remained, undoubtedly, an effective mechanism provided the wealthy abdicated their wealth voluntarily keeping in mind their social role for the poor. If the situation was otherwise, ‘a violent and bloody revolution is a certainty’.Footnote ⁹⁴ So what did Gandhi prescribe for reconciling conflicting class interests between the rich and the poor? For the Mahatma, the choice was very unambiguous:

In case the rich did not behave as ‘trustee’, Gandhi justified the application of violence to dispossess them of their property. He referred to two agencies which were capable of translating his Trusteeship idea into reality: first, the state by legal means was by far the most effective instrument to implement the pro-people welfare schemes by snatching the wealth of what they amassed as ‘disproportionate wealth’Footnote ⁹⁶; secondly, the role of public opinion was considered to be another powerful device to articulate trusteeship in its true sense ‘if the owning classes do not accept trusteeship voluntarily’.Footnote ⁹⁷ Although he was persuaded to accept the role of state in articulating ‘trusteeship’ in such a situation, Gandhi never appreciated state ownership as an economic model for mass well-being. He was in favour of private property and private ownership because state, to him, represented violence ‘in a concentrated and organized form’. Trusteeship can be translated in its true form as long as wealth belongs to the individual who can easily be persuaded because ‘the individual has a soul, but as the State is a soulless machine, it can never be weaned from [the] violence to which it owes its very existence’.Footnote ⁹⁸

There is no doubt that in Gandhi's world-view, non-violence remained the critical denominator for judging one's action. For transforming the prevalent social system based on class conflict and exploitation of the poor by the rich, he preferred non-violent means and cooperation. There was no need for a violent revolution because it could be started gradually, as he believed, by good-hearted individuals. In case those with wealth declined to follow the principles of Trusteeship, what would Gandhi recommend? He himself posed the question by saying, ‘if, however, in spite of the utmost effort, the rich do not become guardians of the poor in the true sense of the term and [the] latter are more and more crushed and die of hunger, what is to be done?’.Footnote ⁹⁹ The Mahatma recommended ‘non-violent, non-cooperation’. When his attention was drawn to the fact that despite being ‘trustees’, the mill-owners continued to act as ‘exploiters’ of the labourers suggesting that ‘the assumption of honesty that [his] theory of trusteeship finds it necessary to make, might not apply in practice’.Footnote ¹⁰⁰ The idea will remain ‘unrealized’ presumably because of a well-entrenched mind-set that seems to have governed the wealthy. The wealthy might insist that they should become ‘trustees’, but the fact that they chose to remain ‘owners’ suggests a clear continuity of their role as exploiters. Once Gandhi's attention was drawn to this possibility, he reacted instantly by categorically suggesting that ‘we shall then have to oppose and fight them’.Footnote ¹⁰¹ For Gandhi, Trusteeship was not a utopia, but a realizable goal, based on compassion and care for the poor which should come naturally because capitalists flourished not by dint of their hard work, but by the contribution of their toiling workers. Hence they should regard themselves as trustees for those ‘on whom [they] depend for the making, the retention of, and increase of [their] capital’.Footnote ¹⁰² To translate Trusteeship into reality, the Mahatma did not hesitate to deviate from his well-avowed path of non-violence, though he was favourably disposed towards ‘non-violent non-cooperation with the property owners by the masses of people’ given his uncritical faith in ahimsa. In circumstances when the rich declined to voluntarily give-up their possession, Gandhi approved the application of violence. ‘I would be very happy indeed’, argued Gandhi, ‘if the people concerned behaved as trustees; but if they fail, I believe we shall have to deprive them of their possessions through the State with the minimum exercise of violence’.Footnote ¹⁰³ In other words, he was persuaded to accept that he would condone direct dispossession of property by the state for the purpose of placing it under the control of a trustee if other means had failed.Footnote ¹⁰⁴ Reiterating that the application of force is justified, Gandhi, on another occasion, argued that ‘if the owning class does not accept trusteeship basis voluntarily, its conversion must come under the pressure of public opinion’.Footnote ¹⁰⁵ As this discussion demonstrates, Trusteeship, as Gandhi conceptualized, is two-dimensional: on the one hand, it was ‘a moral responsibility’ of those with wealth to take care of the underprivileged; it was also a moral responsibility on the part of the masses, and on the other hand, to ‘dispossess’ the wealthy of their wealth by force if persuasion did not work. As a true believer in praxis, not only did the Mahatma articulate the idea of Trusteeship, he also elaborated the mechanism, as shown above, of putting the idea into practice.

There is clearly tension in the notion of Trusteeship, if it is assessed within the wider perspective of Satyagraha. Workers’ rights were largely compromised and yet if the wealthy failed to become trustees, Gandhi endorsed mass movements and also punitive measures even to the extent of taking their property away. Satyagraha is an all-encompassing ‘ethical’ mechanism that drew on the Gandhian notion of equality and justice which may have a liberal tilt, but not exactly liberal in articulation. Whilst deliberating on the Gandhian non-violence, Ajay Skaria evolved a very useful typology of Satyagraha for distinguishing forms of non-violent action based on the structural relationship between political partners and their bête-noires. According to him, non-violent action is differently textured and practised against political superiors, equals, inferiors and the underprivileged. Against the oppressors or rulers, Gandhi justified confrontation, resistance and civil disobedience.Footnote ¹⁰⁶ As a political realist, the Mahatma always reconfigured the methods and strategies in accordance with his own judgment of what is most appropriate under specific circumstances. There was nothing which he took as ‘given’; instead he always designed the mode of political opposition on the basis of a contextual, consequentialist and moral-psychological analysis of the circumstances, of course, within the principal parameters of non-violent struggle. Here Gandhi's distinction between ‘destructive’ and ‘constructive’ SatyagrahaFootnote ¹⁰⁷ appears to be useful in grasping the complex interrelationship between Satyagraha and Trusteeship.

Destructive Satyagraha is about civil disobedience and non-cooperation with unjust laws or an unjust political authority which lacks legitimacy and is thus devoid of any moral claim to remain in its place. Such an authority needs to be resisted since it is morally wrong and politically vacuous. Contrarily, constructive non-violent action is guided less by urgency of resistance or non-cooperation with the political order than by the need to create a ‘political bond and forms of association and authority on a voluntary and non-coercive basis’.Footnote ¹⁰⁸ In constructive Satyagraha, non-violence is ‘not merely a negative recipe for resistance, but the grounds for generative political action’.Footnote ¹⁰⁹ Following the distinction, one is now in a position to argue that as far as Trusteeship was concerned, Gandhi kept his option open: in regard to recalcitrant industrialists, destructive Satyagraha was justified as perhaps most appropriate to put across the message of Trusteeship; for those appreciative of their moral obligation to the underprivileged, the principle of constructive Satyagraha remained effective. A realist who was sensitive to the context, Gandhi found this distinction analytically useful to set his course of action in a clear perspective. As was evident, Gandhi sanctioned sustained civil disobedience against Tata in 1928–1929 for not being receptive to the workers’ genuine socio-economic demands. With the intervention of the Congress leadership, the company accepted part of the demands leaving some of the long-standing issues at bay. For the Congress, it was acceptable and the movement was not allowed to proceed further since it was going to adversely affect Tatas who held India's economic future. This was evident when attempts to mobilize the Tata workers by the local leadership were vehemently opposed by Congress since it was contrary to the spirit of Trusteeship.Footnote ¹¹⁰ Conceptually, this is a significant point because Trusteeship was a typical Gandhian endeavour of seeking to ‘tie normativity more closely to empirical and historical contexts, to real constraints and real possibilities’.Footnote ¹¹¹ His claim that he was ‘a practical idealist’Footnote ¹¹² was evident because Trusteeship never threatened the rich, but provided them with an opportunity to fulfil their moral concern for the poor. The symbiotic bond that Gandhi sought to build between the wealthy and underprivileged became a possibility since it was based on ‘a realistic assessment’ of the circumstances in which it would be suicidal for Congress to completely alienate the former.Footnote ¹¹³ Such an argument challenges the classic understanding of Gandhi as ‘a moral idealist in the Kantian sense’;Footnote ¹¹⁴ this is also an effort that allows attempts at re-conceptualizing Gandhi in a more creative way by shifting attention away from the more traditional assumption of Gandhi's idealism. Trusteeship cannot be understood merely with reference to its ethical roots which traditional scholarship on Gandhi tends to highlight by underplaying the influence of the contexts; it has to be located in the overall structure of Gandhian politics that had its root in the contemporary socio-economic and political milieu. In this sense, Trusteeship also confirms how realistic Gandhi was in creating a political platform by which people with contradictory socio-economic interests coalesced under his stewardship. In fact the entire philosophy of non-violence, though drawn on morality and ethics, was also based on a clear (and realistic) reading of colonial circumstances which made non-violence far more effective than any other competing ideologies.Footnote ¹¹⁵ Reflective of Gandhi's realism, Trusteeship fulfilled a grand design of class-reconciliation which just fitted-in with the aim of the nationalist movement that the Mahatma guided till political freedom was attained.

Concluding Observations

The Gandhian Trusteeship that translated the concern of business houses for society into a reality was a context-driven response. The concern logically flowed from Gandhi's commitment to protect India's native industries. The workers’ experiences, however, demonstrated that national industries operated no differently from non-Indian industries when dealing with workers’ demands, or in their attitude towards trade unions. Thus the workers, as Amrita Bazar Patrika commented, ‘find nothing to discriminate between the Bombay mill-owners who are Indians and the proprietors of Ludlow Jute Mill at Changail, for instance, who are foreign’.Footnote ¹¹⁶ In his determination to draw the Indian mill-owners into the freedom struggle, Gandhi seemed to have eroded the possibility of a bond between the workers and the national movement. Since the nationalist movement was largely ‘political’ in character, the mill-owners did not generally feel threatened as long as Gandhian non-violence remained the leading ideology. That Gandhi had strongly felt that reconciliation of conflicting class interests was perhaps the most key to social equilibrium was also evident in the formation of Majoor Mahajan Sangh in 1920 which reflected his concern for the striking textile workers in Ahmedabad. The strike was withdrawn out of an agreement between the workers and the management which was heavily tilted in favour of the owners. By preaching an ideology of class harmony instead of class conflict, Gandhi agreed to sacrifice the workers’ genuine economic demands for the sake of protecting India's economic future in which the role of the Indian industrialists was most critical.Footnote ¹¹⁷ The purpose was to create circumstances for concerted action for the nationalist goal for political freedom which was likely to be weakened if parochial interests along the lines of class, caste and religion were privileged. Although Majoor Mahajan Sangh never became a workers’ flag bearer, presumably because of its clear bias for the industrialists, it nonetheless confirmed Gandhi's genuine faith in an ideology of class-reconciliation even at a cost to the workers.

The relationship between the Indian mill-owners and Congress-nationalists was not always friction-free, though the latter remained sensitive to their obligations towards the former presumably because of their ‘faith’ in the wealthy being the trustee of the nation. The relationship was complementary to each other: the nationalists had access to the resources of the mill-owners who, in turn, gained legitimacy by their association with the nationalist cause, which also included their regular contribution to ‘social causes’ by way of their involvement in developmental works in various localities. Although the mill-owners’ engagement in development reflected ‘responsible behaviour’, they were mainly ‘philanthropic’ in nature. For Trusteeship to succeed, Gandhi insisted on ‘a moral revolution’ which meant ‘a change of heart’. Critical of the ‘wholly unnecessary pomp and extravagance of the moneyed class and the squalid surroundings and the grinding pauperism of the [millions] in whose midst the former are living’, Gandhi thus argued that, ‘if only the capitalist class will read the signs of the times, revise their notions of [a] God-given right to all they possess, in an incredibly short-space of time the seven hundred thousand dung-heaps which today pass muster as villages, can be turned into abodes of peace, health and comfort’.Footnote ¹¹⁸ A large section of members within the Congress did not seem to be persuaded by Gandhi's argument in favour of ‘voluntary abdication’ of wealth. Even to the extent of ‘ridiculing’ Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru expressed his doubts by saying:

Whilste agreeing with Nehru, Gunnar Myrdal, for instance, argues that ‘the trusteeship idea is fundamentally a concept that fits into a paternalistic, feudal, pre-democratic society [because] it is so flexible that it can serve as a justification for inequality’.Footnote ¹²⁰ In the real world, such a revolution is unlikely to happen and the Trusteeship idea is, Myrdal further argues, nothing but ‘a vision of a society where the rich are charitable so that the poor can remain weak’.Footnote ¹²¹ Nonetheless, Trusteeship is a persuasive Gandhian theoretical construct seeking to build an egalitarian society through ‘distributional reforms or a reorientation of the thinking of the privileged few’.Footnote ¹²² Conceptually, this may seem contrary to classical liberalism because despite having accepted the individual as the focal point of his discourse, Gandhi always preferred ‘reconciliation’ of contradictory class interest as perhaps the best mode of social well-being. One may find the roots of this Gandhian conceptualization in Gandhi's avowed support for varnadharma segregating human beings in terms of birth which implies that there is a class of people who always remain superior for certain inexplicable but acceptable reasons. Whatever the validity of this argument, it is also evident that there is a clear tension in Gandhi's defence for Trusteeship which clearly demonstrates a creative articulation of classical liberalism. For Gandhi, liberalism remained a powerful instrument of political action for the freedom-loving people which clearly deviated from its classical form in the context of colonialism to justify ‘illiberal’ ways of governance in the colonies. Here, too, there is an apparent conceptual ‘disjuncture’ which is perhaps due to India's peculiar contextual texture and Gandhi's own understanding of the reality in the light of his engagement with racism in South Africa and colonialism in India respectively. Hence it is perfectly possible to argue that Gandhi, despite having appreciated the fundamental tenets of classical liberalism, redefined its contour presumably because of the prevalent socio-economic and political circumstances of his engagement with the reality. This is not deviation, but a creative articulation of a relationship involving people at various levels of specific socio-economic strata in India. In order to understand the distinctive Gandhian conceptual intervention one needs to be sensitive to the context, presumably because of its impact in the actual shaping of liberalism in colonized India. The Gandhian effort at class reconciliation cannot thus be comprehended within the conventional liberal problematic: in the colonial context, the relationship between the Indian business houses and the nationalist forces stood vitiated by the presence of a powerful third party, namely the colonial ruler. Trusteeship aimed at evolving a moral design that notionally brought the two contradictory classes together in colonized India which no doubt strengthens the multi-class nationalist political platform that the Mahatma so assiduously built in the course of his long engagement with the British Empire. He never vacillated insofar as his commitment to Trusteeship was concerned. Even in the face of fierce criticism from his most trusted lieutenant, Gandhi remained committed to his ideas by unambiguously stating that,

Trusteeship is thus a provocative theoretical construct seeking to redefine the relationship between the indigenous business houses and the nationalist movement. That Gandhi succeeded in persuading the business men to participate in the freedom struggle despite adverse consequences suggests the extent to which Trusteeship was an effective mechanism in political mobilization. In two specific ways, Trusteeship served a useful purpose: whereas it made the relationship between Indian business houses relatively friction-free, it also seemed to strengthen the bond as well. By being not so critical of the indigenous business houses, even when they undertook anti-labour policies, Gandhi's primary concern was not to protect the interests of a group of native capitalists but to ensure India's economic future. Hence he was reluctant to support the textile workers of Birla Mills when they sat on dharna for a wage-rise because he felt that ‘strike[s] in the cotton and textile industries are highly prejudicial to the economic interests of India and indirectly help the foreign manufacturers in enabling them to replace the quantity which India could not manufacture in consequence of such strikes’.Footnote ¹²⁴ Gandhi thus upheld ‘the national democratic’ argument in defending business interests at a particular juncture of India's political history that perhaps remained a significant influence in independent India. Although Jawaharlal Nehru preferred ‘state-directed planned development’ by agreeing not to disturb the indigenous business houses, he, at least in the initial years of his rule, appeared to have endorsed the spirit of Trusteeship. With regard to national industries, the concerns of Congress leaders, including Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhas Chandra Bose, amongst others, were not substantially different to those of Gandhi. By according priority to the struggle for Swaraj, Bose, like Nehru, emphasized cooperation between labour and capital in the Indian-owned industries.Footnote ¹²⁵ In a substantial way, national democracy and Trusteeship seem to have complemented each other: whilst the former had provided a solid defence to the radical Congressmen who did not find it ideologically incongruent to protect the socio-economic interests of the Indian business community, despite being anti-labour, the latter gave the Gandhians an appropriate mechanism by which to solicit their support for the nationalist cause by being lenient even when they were not exactly pro-labour.Footnote ¹²⁶ In this sense, Trusteeship set a powerful trend in India's development trajectory that was articulated differently in different phases of its history, though, in conceptual terms, it has elements of Corporate Social Responsibility because the principle that the wealthy have a social responsibility (whether institutionalized or not) remains as pivotal in Corporate Social Responsibility as it was true of Trusteeship.