Trusteeship

30-second summary

Part A box (each line 15 words or fewer)

1. The theory

"Supposing I have come by a fair amount of wealth, either by way of legacy, or by means of trade and industry, I must know that all that 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" (Harijan, 3 June 1939, p. 145). The labourer too owns something: "the power to work".

2. Mantra and root idea

"Earn your crores by all means. But understand that your wealth is not yours; it belongs to the people. Take what you require for your legitimate needs, and use the remainder for society" (Harijan, 1 February 1942, p. 20). He calls it the best mantram, "Enjoy thy wealth by renouncing it" (his rendering of Isha Upanishad, verse 1: "tena tyaktena bhuñjīthāḥ mā gṛdhaḥ kasya svid dhanam").

The root: God creates from day to day and does not store; so anyone who holds more than he needs is in effect a trustee for God's people (Harijan, 23 February 1947, p. 39).

Non-theft link: "whoever appropriates more than the minimum that is really necessary for him is guilty of theft" (Ashram Observances in Action, p. 58).

3. Why not simply take the wealth by force?

"75 per cent voluntarily given is better than 100 per cent surrendered at the point of bayonet" (Harijan, 1 June 1935, pp. 121-22; the talk with Pierre Ceresole).

"My theory of trusteeship is no make-shift, certainly no camouflage... No other theory is compatible with non-violence" (Harijan, 16 December 1939, p. 376).

If owners fail to behave as trustees, "we shall have to deprive them of their possessions through the State with the minimum exercise of violence" (The Modern Review, October 1935, p. 412). So the fallback is state action, with as little violence as possible.

4. Role of the state and the law

Owners would "retain the stewardship of their possessions" and "use their talent to increase the wealth, not for their own sakes, but for the sake of the nation". The State would "regulate the rate of commission" in line with the service rendered, and children would inherit stewardship "only if they proved their fitness for it" (Harijan, 31 March 1946, pp. 63-64).

The law "will not be imposed from above. It will have to come from below", beginning with Gram Panchayats (same passage).

But he also feared state power: "the violence of private ownership is less injurious than the violence of the State" (Modern Review, October 1935).

The "Practical Trusteeship Formula" (drafted by Kishorlal Mashruwala and Narahari Parikh, with changes by Gandhi, later published in Harijan, 25 October 1952): it recognises private property only so far as "permitted by society for its own welfare", does not exclude legislative regulation, proposes a limit on the maximum income, and says the character of production would be set by "social necessity and not by personal whim or greed".

5. Capital and labour: the line in the 2018 question

In Young India, 14 January 1932, p. 178 (date and page as cited in the Navajivan "Trusteeship" compilation; the passage is a question-and-answer reply), Gandhi says that Sir Daniel Hamilton, an economist and capitalist, held that it is wrong to think a piece of metal is capital; "it is labour that is capital, and that living capital is inexhaustible." Gandhi adds: "It is upon that law that we have been working in the Labour Union at Ahmedabad."

Gandhi's method: labour must be united and self-sacrificing; "capital is perfectly helpless without labour"; labour should say "No" when it means No, without retaliation; labour should not seek to seize capital and become capitalist "in the worst sense".

The 2018 question text is a composite. Its first sentence ("Labour is capital...") is Hamilton's idea quoted by Gandhi (above). Its second part follows Gandhi's words in Young India, 8 January 1925, p. 10: "I am for the establishment of right relations between capital and labour... I do not wish for the supremacy of the one over the other" (as given in the compilation Selections from Gandhi). The paper's "equitable" is its own word. In an answer, quote the 1925 line and the Hamilton line with their sources, and do not present the paper's sentence as one verbatim Gandhi quotation.

6. Is trusteeship possible? Criticism and reply

(our framing)

Criticism: it depends on goodwill, owners seldom volunteer, no legal teeth. Reply: Gandhi said whether many or only one lives up to it is "immaterial"; it is a matter of conviction, and law can follow (statutory trusteeship).

Criticism: "Why earn crores first?" Shankarrao Deo asked; Gandhi replied that riches can come by pure means (for example a diamond found by chance), and he stressed that the earning must be honest (Harijan, 22 February 1942).

Modern echo (secondary): the Companies Act, 2013, section 135, requires a company that meets any one of three limits in the preceding year (net worth Rs 500 crore or more, turnover Rs 1,000 crore or more, or net profit Rs 5 crore or more) to spend at least 2 per cent of its average net profit of the three preceding years on corporate social responsibility (per a legal summary of the Act). It is a legal form of the same idea, though it is not Gandhi's theory.

7. The administrator's application

(our application)

Trust of public office: public funds, land and powers are held in trust; you are a trustee of the people's resources.

No favour for gifts. A business donation or CSR offer must never buy leniency or a quicker approval.

Fair partner to both sides. In a labour dispute use conciliation and arbitration, as at Ahmedabad.

Use business willingness well. Invite CSR funds for public needs through transparent, audited channels.

Karachi Congress, 1931.

The Congress resolution (item 10, on expenditure and salaries) said that no servant of the State, other than specially employed experts and the like, shall be paid above a certain fixed figure, "which should not ordinarily exceed Rs. 500 per month" (source: constitutionofindia.net). It is an early public form of the same limit-on-excess idea.

Companies Act, 2013, section 135.

The modern legal echo, described above (secondary source).

Champaran, 1917.

The planters held land and power; the remedy came through inquiry and the Champaran Agrarian Act of 4 March 1918, not through expropriation (PIB feature, 7 April 2017).

Thinkers and quotes box

How the concept was asked before: once (2018, Part B), on capital and labour; so trusteeship is likely to be asked in another form (our view).

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