INTRODUCTION:

Gandhiji has been described as a man of the future generation. Development of modern India is possible, if his approach to Voluntary organization is attempted sincerely and honestly. Like earlier leaders of the reform movement, Gandhi identified himself as a Hindu and took much inspiration from Hindu teachings. He was also profoundly influenced by Christian and western secular thought and the teachings of other religious traditions.

Voluntary Organization:

The term ‘Voluntary action’ and ‘Voluntary Organization’ are closely interrelated. There is subtle difference between the two. Voluntary action is as old as the history of mankind. It refers mainly to informal action undertaken by individuals or groups to mitigate the sufferings of the people. On the other hand, Voluntary Organization Concept is comparatively of recent origin. Voluntary action is an action initiated on one’s own volition¹.

Its main objectives have been to promote welfare of the needy, neglected, destitute, handicapped, aged and infirm, providing jobs to the needy and conducting community service like roads, parks, etc.

Voluntary organizations set up by Mahatma Gandhi can make the picture more clear and comprehensive. The following two organizations are taken as a representative study of all voluntary agencies set up by Gandhi.

1. All India Spinners Association

2. All India Village Industries Association

All India Spinners Association:

Khadi (homespun cotton cloth) and charkha hand spinning), symbolized for Gandhi the village economy and its self sufficiency². What is needed is that each village be self sufficient for its basic needs. Gandhi’s propagation of charkha can be traced to his actual encounter with the situation of the poor. He discovered that there were numerous Harijan families that subsisted on spinning. Thus Khadi is the poor person’s staff of life. It helps the poorest, including the Harijans, who are the most helpless among the poorest. They are so because many occupations which are available to the others are not available to the Harijans.

Charkha for Gandhi is intimately connected to the village life. Ever since Gandhi entered Indian Public life in 1915, he had been pleading for a new deal for the village. Nobody knew better than Gandhi that the All India Spinners Association had only scratched the surface of the problem of rural poverty, but he began to think and plan for the revival of the village economy as a whole. His Harijan tour had revealed to him how with the decay of village industries. Harijans had sunk deeper and deeper into poverty, the reform of untouchability was thus linked with the economic amelioration of these unfortunate people. The revival of village industries thus acquired a new urgency³.

All India Spinners Association was established in 1925. It was specially a service organization with economic objectives like development of hand spinning and promotion of Khaddar. Though an integral part of Indian National Congress it was designed as a non-political body.al or group voluntary action.

The association consisted of member donors and associates. There were two classes of members A and B. The class A consisted of members above 18 years of age and basically wearing khadi who deposited 1000 yards of self-spun yarn well twisted and uniform regularly on monthly basis with the treasure or any agency duly appointed there by the council. The class B comprised persons above 18 years of age habitually wearing khadi who paid an annual subscription of 2000 yards of self-spun yarn well twisted and uniform.

All India Village Industries Association:

All India Village Industries Association was established in 1934 to revive and improve the Village industries with its headquarters at Wardha⁴. Though a creation of congress, this association too was non-political and autonomous. Its members were pledged to abstain from any campaign of civil-disobedience. The work of the association was to be run by a board of management. The work of board of management was to be done through honorary agents. The agents had to select their own area of operation and they were expected to confine themselves to, and to concentrate their attention on these areas only. Gandhi himself classified, There may thus be an agent even for one single village. The association may, therefore, have as many agents as there are villages in India. Therefore, no honest person however humble need be deterred from offering his or her services. The idea is decentralize the work as possible. At first instance the members of the board of management were nominated but later on it was an elected body⁵. Workers participated in these elections and hence contributed to the management of the association. The frequent consultations between the board of management and the workers gave ample opportunities to the works to exert their pressure from below and shape the policies and programmes of the Association.

The modern voluntary movement in India started with Mahatma Gandhi’s individual or group voluntary action. These focused on the alleviation of suffering and social, economic development of the poor and were mostly inspired by Gandhian ideology. Gandhi founded the following organizations: Harian Sevak Sangh (Association for the Service of untouchables), Gram Udyog Sang (Association for promotion of village Industries), Hindusthani Talimi sangh (Association for Education of Hindustani), Sarva Sava Sangh (Association for welfare of all).

Harijan Sevak Sangh:

The term “Harijan”, which means people who are dear to Hari, coined by Narasi Mehta was used by Gandhiji to connote the untouchables. It marked a great change in the nomenclature of untouchables who were referred to as “Adi Dravidas”, “Antyajas”, “Ati shudras”, “Avarnas”, “Bhanjis”, “Pariahs”, “Panchamas”, etc. Gandhiji made Harijan uplift an integral part of the struggle for swaraji⁶.

After the second Round Table conference, British Government agreed to give communal Award to the depressed classes on the request of B.R. Ambedkar. Gandhi opposed the government’s decision which he considered it would divide the Hindu Society and subsequently went on to the indefinite fast in Yerwada Jail⁷. He ended his fast after signed Poona Pact with Ambedkar on 25 September 1932. On 30^th September, Gandhi founded All India Anti Untouchability League, to remove untouchability in the society. Which later renamed as Harijan Sevak Sangh (Servants of Untouchables Society)⁸. At the time industrialist Ghanshyam Das Birla was its founding President with Amritlal Takkal as its Secretary⁹.

Harijan Sevak Sangh is a non-profit organization working for Harijan or Dalit people and upliftment of scheduled castes on India. It is headquartered at Kingsway camp in Delhi with branches in 26 States across India. It is an organization of Hindus and it is non-political in nature, separate from the Indian National congress.

Explaining the main objectives of the Harijan Sevak Sangh Gandhiji said: “I have described the Harijan Sevak Sangh as an organization of penitent sinners. Its object is to call upon the so called savarna Hindus to do expiation for having harboured untouchability”. In another place in 1934 Gandhiji said about the Harijan Sevak Sangh and its central board which control it: “The board has been formed to enable Savarna Hindus to do repentance and reparation to you. It is thus a board of debtors and you (Harijans) are the creators”.

The All India Harijan Sevak Sangh is unquestionably the oldest and the biggest voluntary organization which has rendered memorable service for the uplift of Harijans. The object of this organization is “eradication of untouchability in Hindu society with all its incidental evils and disabilities suffered by the so called untouchables in all walks of life and to secure for them absolute equality of status with the rest of the Hindus”.

Gandhi’s Gospel of Service:

Gandhi argued that India’s development was only possible through voluntary action. Like earlier leaders of the reform movement, Gandhi identified himself as a Hindu and took much inspiration from Hindu teachings. He was also profoundly influenced by Christian and western secular thought and the teachings of other religious traditions. For example, although Gandhi held the Bhagavad Gita to be the single greatest inspiration in his life, he identified the Sermon on the Mount as his first significant influence. In his formative years, he dreamed of synthesizing the teachings of the Gita, Budha, and Christ. Gandhi’s religious ideals combined with philosophies on economic development that were strongly influenced by Russian and western populist tradition. He believed that, in order to serve God, man must be devoted to the service of others and that human actions should thus contribute to both social and spiritual progress.

Gandhi drew strength and inspiration from the Bhagwas Gita. He says, “The Gita contains the gospel of work, the gospel of Bhaki or devotion, and the gospel of Gyan or knowledge. Life should be a harmonious whole of these three.

He is not saying anything new. This is stated by other Acharyas and scholars. But, Gandhiji’s originality lies in the great stress that he places on Karma-yoga.

He says: “The human body is meant for service, never for indulgence. Renunciation is life. Indulgence spells death”.

Service to humanity has been the ideal of all saints and prophets of peace and so for is Gandhiji. He, therefore, specifically states: “the gospel of service is the basis of all, and what can be more necessary for those who want to serve the country than that they begin with the chapter enunciating the Gospel of work:

Gandhiji states that renunciation of the fruits of one’s actions is the basic teachings of the Gita. Action is not to be avoided and cannot avoid. For a man who follows the teachings of the Gita, sanayas is not actual renunciation of all actions. It is renunciation of the fruits of action as Gandhiji states, and it is also renunciation of the mental attachment to fruits. The sanyas is a state of mind and the true sanyasi makes no difference between human beings. He spends his time for the betterment of all. Gandhiji is clear in saying that¹⁰.

The life of Gandhiji is the history of a man who became a greater and nobler day by day, ultimately to become an ideal man.

Swadeshi Movement:

Swadeshi Movement was a response to the 1905 decision made by the British to divide Bengal into eastern and western sections. It was marked not only be political protests promoting self-sufficiency and independence, but also by the proliferation of Voluntary Associations that focused on organizing efforts to promote “self-help in economic and social life”. This plan for self-help included the establishment of a number of district associations promoting local industry, Community assistance programs, and even co-operative banks. The objectives of the Swadeshi Movement were later championed by Mahatma Gandhi who ultimately proved to be the most influential figure in the development of voluntary associations in India¹¹.

Mahatma Gandhi had rightly said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world”. He also said, “The best way to find you is to lose yourself in the service of other”. Here, the idea of Volunteering is implemented. It is actually the connection between the individual self and the community as a whole an expression of doing something for the society, for the welfare of the society, imbibing the social values. In Indian culture and tradition, volunteering is a part of the ancestral history¹². It is said that to every action there is a reaction. In the same manner, our Karma is a storehouse of good and bad actions¹³.

Gandhi urged people to weave their own clothes, thus his critique of imperialistic consumption has a much more intimate ontological grounding in production, where the swadeshi and satyagrahi self produces his or her own cloth to begin with. For Gandhi, Swadeshi cannot be propagated by increasing the consumption of mill cloth in place of imported cloth: “he alone really encourages swadeshi who spins and weavers, if only to produce a yard of cloth and no more. If only people try any man or woman can learn spinning in no more than a day”¹⁴. For Gandhi, cloth woven at home is purer than that purchased from the market and weaving our own cloth not only saves us from “many an unnecessary need” but it makes our life “one song of joy and beauty”. Gandhi draws our attention to the beauty and purity involved in this process.

Post Independence Era:

In the post independent India, Voluntary Organizations started playing constructive and co-operative role in collaboration with the state machinery but the scenario has changed after sixties. The emergence of Mahatma Gandhi on the national scene gave momentum to the principle of voluntary work. He initiated a large number of constructive social welfare programmes were Charkha, Khadi, Gramodyog, Basic education, sanitation and eradication of untouchability¹⁵.

Gandhi’s movement was rooted in the ideal of social reconstruction, self-help and the upliftment of the poorest of the poor the untouchables through voluntary action. He reinforced the strength of voluntarism in the economic aspect of national life by decentralization of political authority to the gram panchayats (Village Councils) which were to be completely independent of provincial or central government.

After independence, Gandhi advised that the Indian National Congress should be disband as a political party and it should be transformed into a Lok Sevak Dal. This, of course, was not done. The followers of Gandhi and others who could not or did not wish to join the government, established a number of voluntary organizations and continued to work in the constructive work programmes, supported by funds from the government¹⁶. They, infact, worked closely with the government and organized handicrafts and village industries, rural development programmes, credit co-operatives, educational institutions and retained a degree of autonomy in their functioning. The Post-Independence era has witnessed a phenomenal increase in the number of voluntary agencies with the introduction of community Development programmes.

CONCLUSION:

In fact, his influence on the Voluntary action in India has been so significant after his death; India’s Association of Voluntary Agencies for Rural Development identified Gandhian ideology as the most prominent guiding philosophy of NGOs in India, alongside that of Christianity. Inspired by Gandhiji’s ideology, voluntary movement in India gained further momentum and a large number of organizations based on Gandhian constructive programmes emerged in the Indian voluntary sector like All India Spinners Association, All India Village Industrial Association etc were formed.

REFERENCES:

1. Janardan Pandey (ed.,). Gandhi and Voluntary organizations, MD Publications Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, 1998, p.29

2. Charles Andrews F. Mahatma Gandhi His Life & Ideas, JAICO publishing House, Mumbai, 2005, pp. 3-5

3. Madan G.R. Indian social problems social Disorganization and Reconstruction, Allied publishers private Limited, New Delhi, 2009, pp. 9-10

4. Joseph Lelyveld, Great Soul Mahatman Gandhi and his struggle with India, Affred A.Knopf, New York, 2011, p.261

5. op.cit., Janardan Pandey (ed.,) pp 169-170

6. Ratna Revankar G. The Indian constitution A case study of Backwardd classes, Fairleigh Dickinson University press, New Jersey, 1971, p.115

7. Srivastava B.N. Manual Scavenging in India A Disgrace to the country, concept publishing company, New Delhi, 1997, p.44

8. Raj Kumar (ed.,). History and culture series Essays on Dalits, Discovery Publishing House, New Delhi, 2003, p.60

9. Bindeshwar Pathak, Road to Freedom A sociological study on the abolition of Scavenging in India, Motilal Banarsidass publishers private Limited, Delhi, 1991, p.69

10. Gangrade K.D. Gandhian Approach to Development and social work, Concept publishing company, New Delhi, 2005, pp. 19-20

11. Femida Handy, Meenaz Kassam, Jillian Ingold and Bhagyashree Ranade, From SEVA to cyberspace: The many faces of volunteering in India, SAGE publications India Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, 2011, p.3

12. Shriman Narayan (ed.,). The selected works of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol.5, Navajivan publishing House, Ahmedabad, 1968, p. 406

13. www.mapsofindia.com

14. Ananta Kumar Giri, Knowledge and Human Liberation towards planetary Realizations, Anthem Press, New Delhi, 2014, pp. 209-210.

15. http://sol.du.ac.in/

16. David Hortn Smith, Robert A. Stebbins and Jurgen Grotz (ed.,) The palgrave Handbook of volunteering, Civic participations and nonprofit associations, Vol.1, Palgrave macmillan, London, 2016, p. 374

Received on 16.11.2018 Modified on 02.12.2018

Res. J. Humanities and Social Sciences. 2019; 10(1):11-14.

DOI: 10.5958/2321-5828.2019.00003.2